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The Independent (London, England)
The Independent is a Monday to Sunday newspaper, owned and published by Independent Print Ltd and headquartered in London, England. It was first published in 1986 in reaction to the conservative views held by the London Times and the London Telegraph. It has a liberal slant. The Independent's audience is London based, with 54 percent of its readership living in London and its surroundings. Other notable qualities of its readership are: the average reader is 43 years old; 59 percent are employed; 62 percent are married; 48 percent have a college degree or higher; and 73 percent own their own homes. Regions covered include: London and South East, South West, Midlands, North and North East, North West, Scotland, and Wales. The Independent is the youngest of Britain's daily newspapers and is notable for challenging London's more established and conservative daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. In 2010, Simon Kelner, Editor-in-Chief of The Independent, and Johann Hari, a regular columnist in the paper, each received a Comment Award, similar to the U.S. Pultizer Prize. Oliver Wright is Whitehall editor; Oly Duff is home news editor, and Katherine Butler is comment editor.
Articles from December 11, 1998
After 36 Years, Hanratty Is Set to Be Cleared
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JAMES HANRATTY, hanged more than 36 years ago for murder and rape, is likely to be cleared after what is believed to be a serious miscarriage of justice.Hanratty, 25, was executed for the so-called "A6 murder" in one of the most infamous crimes this...
All Our Tomorrows There Are 11 Million Pensioners in Britain. Soon, There Will Be 12 Million. for Each of Us, the Realisation of Ageing Is a Shock. and as a Society, We Can Be Judged by the Way We Treat Our Oldest Members. So How Do We Measure Up?
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Have you seen the new Ford TV advertisement? The car is a cool, gunmetal grey Ford Cougar and the driver is wearing a cool, charcoal grey suit. It takes you a moment to register that it's the American actor Dennis Hopper, playing himself, smiling sharkily....
Anniversaries
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Births: Pope Leo X, 1475; Carl Friedrich Zelter, conductor and composer, 1758; Sir David Brewster, physicist, and inventor of the kaleidoscope, 1781; Louis-Hector Berlioz, composer, 1803; Louis- Charles Alfred de Musset, playwright and poet, 1810; Heinrich...
Arafat's Peace Move for Clinton
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YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader, convened senior officials and legislators yesterday to drop clauses from the Palestinian charter which call for the elimination of Israel, in the run-up to President Bill Clinton's visit to Gaza.The Palestinians...
Architecture: The Pod's Passe and the Soap-Dish Is a Dud Norman Foster and Will Alsop Created Exciting Government Buildings in Europe. So Why Doesn't New Labour Want a Monument to London's New Mayor, Asks Janet Street-Porter
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ONCE AGAIN Tony Blair's Government has proved that although they might be great at buzz words and big ideas, they are not prepared to put their money where their mouth is.Government after government in this country has failed to understand one basic...
Architecture: Will the Earth Move Anyone? the Earth Centre Was Supposed to Be a Millennium Landmark, an Ecological Glass House to Bring the Rainforest to Doncaster. but the Party Spirit May Not Survive Electric Rickshaws, Airline Loos, and Lessons in Sustainable Development
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All over Britain, lottery-funded tourist centres and modest museums in the middle of business parks herald the dawning of the New Millennium.But from Earth in Edinburgh, to the Eden Project in Cornwall, from the Deep marine complex in Kingston-upon-Hull...
Arts: America - at Any Price His Humour May on Occasion Be Tasteless, but 10 Years after Holidays in Hell, It's Still What PJ O'Rourke Does Best
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INTERVIEWERS EXPECT a rootin', tootin', baccy-chewin' brawler when they meet Patrick James O'Rourke. Hunter S Thompson with a better haircut, perhaps. When, as in my case too, a polite, smart, middle- aged American author offers them tea (and nothing...
A Terrifying Lack of Ambition the New `Psycho' Is like Your Old Granny Given a Nightmare Facelift and Stuffed into a Miniskirt
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BENJAMIN, THOU shouldst be living at this hour... I don't think Walter Benjamin altogether had this in mind when he called his famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". But works of art produced, as far as one can see, by...
Aviation Notes: Another Lockerbie Could Happen Today
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AS THE 10th anniversary of the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie approaches, media attention has been concentrated on the prospect of the two Libyan suspects indicted for their alleged role in the bombing being brought to trial in Holland.But we should...
BBC Slated as Control Freaks
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THE FORMER BBC presenter Chris Dunkley turned on corporation executives yesterday, accusing them of behaving like control freaks by trying to silence dissenting voices.Mr Dunkley, who fronted Radio 4's Feedback show for 13 years, walked out on the final...
BBC Slated as Control Freaks
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THE FORMER BBC presenter Chris Dunkley turned on corporation executives yesterday, accusing them of behaving like control freaks by trying to silence dissenting voices.Mr Dunkley, who fronted Radio 4's Feedback show for 13 years, walked out on the final...
Books for Christmas: Football - Shindler's Treatise for Addicted and Afflicted
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WHAT TRAUMA can turn a nice Jewish boy, grammar school and Cambridge- educated, writer and producer of award-winning screenplays, loving husband and doting father, into a "furniture- kicking, door-slamming, growling bear" on Saturday nights? The answer,...
Boxing: The Expert Touch of Boxing's `Diplomat' Ken Jones Looks at the Colourful Life of a Resilient Fighter Who Could Talk as Fast as He Punched
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WHEN ARCHIE MOORE arrived here in May 1956 to defend the undisputed light-heavyweight championship against Yolande Pompey bets were foolishly struck on the basis of his corpulence.Getting together with Moore at his training quarters in Windsor, boxing...
BT Phone Booths Link to Internet
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TELEPHONE BOOTHS from which you can surf the Web will appear on Britain's high streets from next March, in what British Telecom describes as an attempt to encourage an "online society".The company is to set up 2,500 multimedia phone booths, equipped...
Civil War Rips Apart le Pen's Party
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JEAN-MARIE Le Pen's National Front imploded yesterday. The most successful far-right party in Western Europe, a baleful force on the French and European political landscape for 14 years, ceased to exist as a unified movement.Amid vicious recrimination,...
Classical: Farewell to That Sinking Feeling the Titanic Soundtrack Is the Year's Best-Selling `Classical' CD. but Don't Jump for the Lifeboat Just Yet: Here Are Our Critics' Top Discs of 1998
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AS IF the fact that this year's best-selling "classical" release was James Horner's soundtrack to Titanic weren't bad enough, along comes news that they've pulled the plug on Collins Classics. One of the few labels committed to recording new British...
Classical: On the Air
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AT PRESENT, Radio 3 music documentaries seem to fall into three categories; programmes about music, programmes around music, and programmes produced by Antony Pitts. Admittedly, the "around" category still appears in the ascendant in the wake of Nicholas...
Classical: Sight Readings: Katin Takes Care of Business A Maestro Mourns the Power of Money, While Rimsky-Korsakov Offers Some Consolation
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ON 13 DECEMBER, 1948, an 18-year-old boy gave a Wigmore recital which The Daily Telegraph hailed with decorous rapture: "Everything he did had a certain distinction. His Scarlatti was unhurried, discreet, and intimate, and in Mozart and Beethoven his...
Compass Serves Up 16% Profit Surge
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COMPASS, the contract catering group, continued its impressive run yesterday with a 16 per cent increase in full-year profits to pounds 159m and bullish predictions that it is well placed to withstand a downturn.Reporting strong growth in like-for-like...
Cost of Home Loans Tumbles
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MORTGAGE LENDERS raced to distribute the proceeds of the Bank of England's rate cut yesterday, promising to slash repayments for the average borrower by pounds 18 a month.With most lenders, the average borrower with a pounds 60,000 repayment mortgage...
Cricket: Headley Given Tudor's Place
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ALEX TUDOR was dropped and Peter Such called up as the England selectors sprang two surprises yesterday when they named their team for the third Test match, which was due to start here today.Tudor, the young Surrey fast bowler, was left out despite his...
Cricket: Saqlain's Salvo Puts Pakistan in Control Zimbabwe 183 V Pakistan
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THE OFF-SPINNER Saqlain Mushtaq took five wickets and pace bowler Waqar Younis added four as Pakistan dismissed Zimbabwe for 183 runs on the opening day of the second Test in Lahore yesterday. Bad light prevented Pakistan starting their reply as play...
Cricket: Symcox Saves the Day for South Africa South Africa 223 for 8 V West Indies
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PAT SYMCOX, the oldest as well as the most talkative, combative and underestimated of contemporary Test cricketers, once more engineered a crucial late-order South African revival on the opening day of the second Test here yesterday.Aged 38 and with...
Cricket: Taylor Tries to Bring Calm to the Storm
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AFTER THE scandal and the guilt comes the coping, and Australia turned to its most eminent lay therapist to try and soothe the nation's fevered brow. Mark Taylor may have no other credentials than being captain of his country, but he cuts a mightily...
Cricket: Waugh and Warne Stand Firm
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AUSTRALIA WERE preparing yesterday for the third Test match, which was due to start today in Adelaide, but the focus of cricket attention in the country remained on Shane Warne and Mark Waugh and their actions four years ago in Sri Lanka.It was revealed...
Design: Design News
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FOR THOSE in search of one-off presents - for themselves, for example - Contemporary Crafts' seasonal show may well be the answer. Thirty designers and craftspeople have contributed objects of delight, from steel- mesh pod and leaf mobiles by Amanda...
Design: She Trips the Light Fantastic
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REVOLVING MIRROR-tiled glitter globes, which have been reflecting romantic darts of light in ballrooms since the 1920s, have suddenly got bigger and funkier. Kay Spinks makes them up to seven feet high, in complex, geometric shapes that turn the dark...
Design: Toys R So Us, Darling Even If Designer Toys Fail to Impress the Children, They'll Look Great in Your Poggenpohl Kitchen
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There is something faintly tragic about censoring toys on aesthetic grounds. I'll never forget the look on my daughter's face when I tried to exchange "Baby", a doll with chartreuse hair and stupendous breasts won in an Italian tombola, for something...
DNA Test Rules out Caroline Suspect
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THE HUNT for the killer of Caroline Dickinson, the schoolgirl who was murdered in France more than two years ago, has suffered yet another setback after a DNA test cleared a suspect yesterday.The latest development adds to the growing number of false...
Drugs in Sport: Independent Survey - Athletes in Fear of the EPO Era Doping Experts Berate Lack of Funding to Find Reliable Testing Method F or New Generation of Performance-Enhancers
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A SIGNIFICANT number of elite British athletes are concerned that there is widespread use within their sport of erythropoietin, or EPO, the banned blood booster which was at the heart of the controversy which all but wrecked this year's Tour de France...
Drugs in Sport: Independent Survey - Problem Is Here to Stay Says Baulch One of Britain's Leading Runners Says Cheats Are Ruining His Sport
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JAMIE BAULCH, one of Britain's leading 400m runners, has accused some of the world's top track athletes of using illegal drugs. While not willing to name anyone involved or talk about the specific substances being abused, the Welshman said: "It's a real...
Drugs in Sport: Independent Survey - Racing's Weighty Problem Fades Jockeys Who Regularly Take Diuretics Are Thin on the Ground Today. by Greg Wood
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THE FACT that 35 per cent of the jockeys who responded to The Independent's survey admitted to having used diuretics did not surprise Dr Michael Turner, the Jockey Club's chief medical advisor. Turner himself received a similar response to a survey of...
Eco-Warriors Dig in to Defy Bailiffs
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BAILIFFS continued their efforts yesterday to dislodge protesters from a network of tunnels under the proposed route of the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, just as the Government confirmed start dates for several new road-building projects.Environmental...
End in Sight for Slam-Door Rail Carriages
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ABOUT 2,000 train carriages of the type involved in the Clapham crash, in which 35 people died, will have to be replaced or severely modified by 2003, it was announced yesterday.The recommendation from the Health and Safety Executive, which will order...
European Times: Babelsberg - Darkness Closes on German Tinseltown
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MEDIEVAL GUARDS waving swords patrol the entrance to the restaurant in the bowels of Europe's greatest dream factory. Upon admission, the patrons of the Prince Ironheart are given paper aprons for the gargantuan feast that lies ahead: cured ham, pig...
Europe: Cunningham Hits at Press Eurosceptics
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THE CLEAREST signal so far of Tony Blair's growing frustration with the Eurosceptic press in Britain emerged yesterday in an attack by Jack Cunningham on the "Europhobic prejudice" of the media.Appointed Minister for the Cabinet Office - and dubbed Mr...
First Night: Nativity Play from a Sort-Of Dad's Angle Jesus My Boy Apollo Theatre London
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CALL ME an old softy, corrupted by the Christmas spirit, but I didn't loathe every single second of Jesus, My Boy - a solo vehicle for Tom Conti, in which, with a grizzled beard, leather carpenter's apron and a lot of Semitic shrugging, he plays Jesus'...
Football: Arsenal's Next Generation Gun for Permanent Places There Is Good News on the Horizon for the English Double-Winners as They Go about Reshaping Their Season. by Kieran Daley
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TONY ADAMS, who aggravated a back injury in a Champions' League game last month, has had surgery and faces a long lay-off. The England international defender, currently resting in Florida, said in a prepared acceptance speech for a television award that...
Football: Bruce Is a No-Go Area, United Told
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SHEFFIELD UNITED have said they will resist any approach from Manchester United for their manager Steve Bruce,who has been linked with a return to Old Trafford to take over as Alex Ferguson's No 2 following Brian Kidd's move to Blackburn Rovers."There...
Football: English Clubs Still Playing Catch-Up Alex Ferguson Must Think about Buying If Manchester United Are to Make Their Presence Felt in Europe. by Glenn Moore
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THE FATUOUS suggestion that the Premiership is "the best league in the world" took its annual dent this week. December is culling season in European football's club competitions and, once again, when the quarter- finalists were counted it did not take...
Football: Helmer the Next Target for Liverpool
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GERARD HOULLIER, Liverpool's manager, is having talks with Bayern Munich's veteran centre-half, Thomas Helmer, with a view to bringing the player to Merseyside on a free transfer. Helmer is looking for around pounds 1m a year, and the salary and the...
Football: Non-League Notebook - Morris's Minor Miracle
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AFTER 11 weeks at the top of the Football Conference, Cheltenham were replaced last weekend by Kettering Town, who claimed a two- point lead in the league by virtue of a 2-0 win at Hayes.The Northamptonshire side were, according to Ladbrokes, 20-1 outsiders...
Freud's Pounds 2.8m Portrait Breaks European Record
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A PORTRAIT by Britain's foremost figurative artist, Lucian Freud, has become the most expensive contemporary painting sold in Europe.The painting, which shows a woman lying on the familiar brown sofa that features in so much of his work, sold at Sotheby's...
Friday Book: It Ain't Necessarily So Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton by Diane Wood Middlebrook, Virago, Pounds 20
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IN 1989, the publication of my book on historical cases of women who cross-dressed as men coincided with the death of the American jazz musician Billy Tipton. I was often asked to comment on how Tipton "got away with" duping fellow musicians, his four...
Friday Law Report: Non-Disclosure Caused No Prejudice 11 December 1998 Parker V the Law Society Court of Appeal (Lord Woolf, Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Hutchison and Lord Justice Tuckey) 4 December 1998
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THERE WAS no danger of prejudice to appellants by the practice of non-disclosure of bench memoranda prepared for members of the Court of Appeal.The Court of Appeal allowed in part the appellant's appeal against a decision by the Solicitors' Disciplinary...
Germany Ups the Stakes in Rebate Row
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TONY BLAIR softened his language over Britain's pounds 2 billion annual budget rebate yesterday as Gerhard Schroder, the German Chancellor, raised the stakes in the battle over the funding of the EU.On the eve of a summit of the EU leaders in Vienna,...
Golf: Internationals Show United Front America Take on Golfers Drawn from Seven Countries in an Event That Is Gaining Credence
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FOR A team defined more by where they are not from - America and Europe - than where their origins actually are, the Internationals at the Presidents Cup present a united front. "The one thing we have in common," said Frank Nobilo, "is that we come from...
Guru Warns UK Is Trailing in Innovation
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ONE OF THE world's leading business gurus warned yesterday that the UK needs a huge transfusion of funds into higher education and research and development, far tougher competition rules and a big reduction in tax if it is to have any hope of closing...
Harvey Nicks' Devotees Not Feeling So Fab
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HARVEY NICHOLS, the upmarket department store group, revealed yesterday that even the well-heeled clientele that frequent its Knightsbridge store are feeling the pinch of the economic slowdown.Reporting flat profits of pounds 6.1m for the six months...
Has Zeneca Chosen Wisely? News Analysis: The Merger with Astra Is a Perfect Fit, the Companies Say. but Critics of the Deal Still See the Swedish Group as a One-Drug Wonder
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FOR ASTRA and Zeneca, yesterday was the start of the rest of their lives. After a frantic day of analysts' meetings and press briefings, the Swedish and UK pharmaceutical groups began the long, hard slog to get their pounds 48bn merger approved by the...
Health: 'Two-Tier' Gibe over Anti-Smoking Drive
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THE GOVERNMENT'S strategy to stop teenage smoking will introduce "means-testing" to the health service, the Tories claimed yesterday as Frank Dobson unveiled measures to help people to "kick the deadly habit".Alan Duncan, the Tory health spokesman, said...
Hunger Striker Is Sent Back to Prison
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ANIMAL RIGHTS hunger striker Barry Horne was last night moved back to prison after the hospital where he was being treated said his condition was not as bad as supporters had claimed.Horne, serving 18 years for fire-bombing, today enters his 66th day...
Independent Pursuits: Bridge
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NOT MANY bridge articles deal with the common enough problem of minimising a certain loss, but this deal - from some 40 years ago - comes to mind.West opened One Spade, East responded Two Clubs and (as South) I joined in with Two Hearts. West doubled...
Independent Pursuits: Chess
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WITH JUST over a week to go in the Onyx Grand Prix, there's still time for the three leaders, Mark Hebden on 190.6/200, Keith Arkell, 190.2, and Jim Plaskett, 189.3, to take part in some final skirmishes before Ragnarok at Islington next weekend. Rumour...
Industry Hails Cut, but Wants More Next Year
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THERE WAS a muted reaction in the financial markets - but a welcome from business and unions - for the half-point interest-rate cut to 6.25 per cent announced by the Monetary Policy Committee yesterday. The focus moved immediately on to the outlook for...
Investment: Stagecoach Finds Value in Diversity Mix of Trains, Planes and Buses Helps Transport Group in Tough Times
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STAGECOACH demonstrated the importance of diversity in the face of adversity yesterday. Its shares went into reverse despite a healthy increase in profits - at the top end of forecasts - as analysts focused on the shadow cast by the impending economic...
Is There Really a Way of Avoiding Bracknell?
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AS CHRISTMAS comes ever nearer, like an express train heading towards an unmanned crossing, I sense a feeling of panic in the air, a lack of ideas for presents, which can best be expressed in the question: "Isn't there some new book out which would make...
Labour Policy on Arms Sales 'Fails Ethical Test'
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ARMS MANUFACTURERS are more likely to have their export licence applications approved by the Labour Government than under its predecessor, new figures have revealed.The disclosure casts doubt on how much has changed under Labour's "more ethical" foreign...
Last Time Round, Peace Seemed a Hopeless Cause
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YESTERDAY'S ceremony did not mark the first time that the Nobel peace prize has been awarded to those who have tried to end the violence in Ulster.Twenty-one years ago, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, co- founders of Peace People, received the Nobel...
Leading Article: An Age-Old Issue That All of Us Must Confront
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WE ARE all getting older, so The Independent's Christmas appeal on behalf of old people is not asking for charity towards some tribe of unfortunates who find themselves in our midst, but for a better understanding of our collective self-interest.We do...
Letter: Animal Wrongs
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Sir: I support the right of the animal rights activists to make the moral decision that animal research is wrong ("Animals have no rights, but we still have duties towards them", 9 December). However, they are not forced to do animal research, although...
Letter: Drugs in Sport
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Sir: I am a powerlifter, of international standard, and although I have never taken a performance-enhancing drug, I can fully understand why athletes resort to such measures ("Fears over sport's new `legal steroid' ", 8 December). Being a top-level...
Making Up for Lost Time Bill Clinton Will Emerge from the Monica Affair with an Even Greater Sense of Purpose
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"THE FIRST time I looked in his eyes, I saw something I didn't expect to see." So said Monica Lewinsky of the prelude to her first "inappropriate" encounter with the President of the United States. Well, I too have looked into Mr Clinton's eyes, in so...
Mandelson to Spend on Hi-Tech Industries the Trade Secretary Is Set to Reveal His 'Manifesto' as Harvard Professor Tells Ministers to Close Productivity Gap
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PETER MANDELSON, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, will next week unveil a major overhaul of his department's pounds 1bn-a- year budget designed to focus more resources on innovation and knowledge-based industries.The DTI also intends to launch...
Market Report: Blue Chips Unmoved by Base Rate Cut Fails To
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ENTHUSIASM evaporated as the stock market decided it was better to travel than arrive. A base rate cut of half a percentage point, which met most expectations, was quickly absorbed and with questions being asked about the merits of the pounds 48bn Zeneca/Astra...
Memo to Mr Blair: Europe Could Turn You into the New John Major the Early Major Days Are the Most Forgotten in Recent Politics, a Heady Time with Record-Breaking Poll Ratings
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THE GREAT Tony Blair European balancing act moves to Vienna. There he is, displaying an easy rapport with his fellow EU leaders, showing a new "engagement" with Europe. There he is again, battling for Britain over its rebate. How long can he be a good...
Ministers in Pounds 100m `War' on Smoking
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MORE THAN pounds 100m will be spent in the next three years in a "war" against tobacco involving a two-pronged drive to help more smokers quit and ensure fewer Britons take up the habit, Frank Dobson, the Secretary of State for Health, announced yesterday.The...
Monitor: All the News of the World - Verdicts on Jack Straw's Decision to Allow the Pinochet Extradition Process to Continue
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DIFFICULT TO find a more appropriate commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights than the British Home Secretary's decision to allow his country's courts to process Spain's request for the extradition of Pinochet. The Pinochet...
Music: Mistletoe and Whine Let Celebrated Singer-Songwriter John Shuttleworth Be Your Guide to the Special World of the Christmas Number One. You'll Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. with James McNair
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When Christmas single time rolls around, 'tis the season for dubious piety, cloying sentimentality and sheer frivolity. As songwriters endeavour to weave words such as "Santa", "Christmas tree" and "lonely" into new concept titles, the record-buying...
Noddy Goes to Hollywood in Just Eight Weeks He's Topped the American Television Ratings, Even Beating Sesame Street. How Did Such a Frightfully British Export Became the Coolest Dude in Toytown, USA?
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The rehabilitation of Noddy, that winsome little fellow with the annoying bell on his hat, is complete. No longer need we hide our copies of Well Done, Noddy and his other assorted adventures authored by our very own, and briefly discredited, Enid Blyton....
Obituary: Archie Moore
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ARCHIE MOORE fought as he lived, with method, determination and skill, but at his own pace, as if he had his own time-frame, as if fights were not confined to the then championship distance of 15 rounds and life itself had no specific beginning and end....
Obituary: Kathleen Pickard Smith
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UNTIL HER very last years, Kathleen Pickard Smith worked in her garden every day. It was full of rare and unusual plants, often British natives that even experienced gardeners could not recognise.In the 1950s she wrote a book about the making of the...
Obituary: Peg Leg Bates
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CLAYTON "PEG LEG" Bates was a one-legged tap dancer who became an unlikely but highly popular star of vaudeville shows and night- clubs, stage musicals, and film and television productions in a career that stretched from the 1920s to the late 1980s....
Obituary: Valentin Berezhkov
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VALENTIN BEREZHKOV was a Russian diplomat who translated for Joseph Stalin and other Soviet officials during crucial Second World War conferences. Once freed from the constraints of Soviet historiography, he earned a good living recounting his experiences...
Oftel in Move to Force BT to Open Lines
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OFTEL, the telecoms watchdog, yesterday launched a consultation which could force British Telecom to open up its local telephone network to rival operators for the first time.The inquiry, which will last until the end of March, is designed to make sure...
Outlook: Britain's Uncompetitive Interest Rates
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MEMBERS OF the Monetary Policy Committee must have appreciated by now that nobody is ever going to thank them for what they do. They have responded rapidly to the global slowdown by cutting rates 1.25 points in three months - a distance that took a year...
Outlook: Royal Doulton
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BRITAIN'S TEXTILE industry has already all but gone down the Swannee due a combination of the strong pound, cheap imports and the well publicised problems of Marks & Spencer. Now our fine china industry has developed some yawning fault lines too.As corporate...
Outlook: Royal Dutch/Shell
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WONDERFUL THING, consensus management. Everyone agrees, so everyone's happy. Better still, claim exponents, it makes executives less worried about doing "the wrong thing", so far from leading to corporate paralysis, it ought to generate quite adventurous...
Pandora
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THE ENTERPRISE Forum, an organisation designed to get the Conservatives back in touch with business, was launched at Westminster's Atrium restaurant on Wednesday night. Pandora had the privilege of watching history repeat itself. For this was the Tory...
Patten May See Stalker Report
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THE FORMER Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten indicated last night that he has been given clearance to examine highly sensitive documents concerning the RUC, including the unpublished Stalker Report into the so-called "shoot to kill" incidents in which...
People and Business: When Euro-Talk Means Everyone Misses the Point
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GIAMPERIO GRANDI, the debonair head of International Personal Financial Services at American Express, exuded Latin charm yesterday when he unveiled a bold new initiative. The card giant is launching a pan-European investment fund, sold by Europeans,...
Podium: A New Declaration of Human Rights from a Speech by the Independent Labour MEP to the New European Left Forum in Athens
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EXACTLY 50 years ago, on 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Most of the Articles agreed in 1948 bear the stamp of the horrendous experience of the Second World War, where...
Pop: Giant Friendly Mice on Stage and Screen Save Your Prayers till the Decade after. Then Visit Duran Duran's Hometown to Watch Them Prance around a Large White Blob
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DURAN DURAN had a problem with their balls. After a deafening tectonic rumble, accompanied by luminous shafts piercing a starry black cloth, the drapery fell to reveal an oddly themed stage set, with a giant clam shell for the drummer and two enormous...
Pop: I'm Sure I Saw Them on A Poster. A Regular Round-Up of Bands You Won't Have Seen on `Top of the Pops': Creeper Lagoon Barfly, Camden, London U One Lady Owner Water Rats Theatre King's Cross, London U Witchman Astoria, London
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THESE DAYS, indie bands have to work hard to look the part. Some look as if they have steadfastly starved themselves in order to achieve that sunken-chested, I-was-bullied-at-school look, while others might have hunted far and wide for the ugliest in...
President Caught Red-Faced on Jones Case Tape
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WITH AUDIO and video clips, high rhetoric and low cunning, lawyers for and against the impeachment of the President argued their case yesterday at the start of the House Judiciary Committee's formal debate on impeachment.Among the evidence was a new...
President Should Be Tried, Say Charges
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WITH AUDIO and video clips, high rhetoric and low cunning, lawyers for and against the impeachment of the President argued their case yesterday at the start of the House judiciary committee's formal debate on impeachment.As the proceedings opened, the...
Protest of Despair in Russia's Arctic
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THE COMPLAINT by Valentina Velichko is no routine industrial gripe. It is not as if she has not been paid for a mere six months - common enough across Russia - or even a full year. No, the last time she received hard cash for her labours as a crane operator...
Race Relations `Damaged by Outcry over Asylum Seekers'
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PUBLIC HYSTERIA over a perceived threat to Britain from the recent influx of asylum seekers could cause lasting damage to race relations, charities said last night.The warnings came as a hotel where a group of asylum seekers was housed confirmed yesterday...
Racing: McCoy's Gentle Touch Rewarded
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CONTRARY TO his own expectations, Tony McCoy was yesterday able gently to extract the best out of the reluctant hurdler Bamapour, the Martin Pipe-trained horse responsible for the champion jockey's 14- day suspension for misuse of the whip.Punters, who...
Royal Doulton Wields the Jobs Axe
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AS ROYAL Doulton closes its main factories early for Christmas today, hundreds of its workers will be leaving for the last time. They have been told not to come back in the new year - the first victims of just over 1,000 jobs scrapped by Britain's second...
Rugby League: Unsettled Broadbent Finds Home at Halifax
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A DAY of wheeling and dealing has left three clubs believing that they will be better equipped for Super League next season.Halifax captured the biggest name by signing the Great Britain prop, Paul Broadbent, from Sheffield Eagles. Broadbent, the Sheffield...
Science: Aliens beneath the Ice? Is There Life on Mars? Who Cares - Underwater Europa Is the Top Space Destination
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Of the myriad varied worlds in our solar system, there is for many planetary scientists one place they really want to go - only one mission they would like, in their heart of hearts, to work on.It is not to red Mars, to shepherd rovers across its rock-strewn...
Science: The Truth About. the Missing Link
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ONE OF the greatest myths of human evolution is that there is a "missing link" that will provide palaeontologists with the final piece in the historical jigsaw of Man. The fact is that there are hundreds or thousands of missing links in the complex,...
Science Update
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A URINE test developed in Ireland could soon identify people who have been unknowingly dosed with the "date rape" drug Rohypnol, a powerful sedative that can also cause amnesia for up to 24 hours. New Scientist reports that the test can work up to a...
Snooker: Hendry's Threat to Retire
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STEPHEN HENDRY, the six-time world champion, revealed yesterday that he is on the brink of quitting the game.After being knocked out of the German Masters in Vingen, Hendry said: "If I carry on like this I'm seriously thinking of chucking it in at the...
Suspended GP `Unable to Take Blood Pressure'
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A TRAINEE GP who could not even measure blood pressure correctly has become the first doctor to be suspended under new rules to weed out incompetent practitioners.Doctor Arefaine Haile was suspended from practice for two months by the General Medical...
Television Review: Body Story
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I'M A FAN of Body Story (C4); I love it with a passion. The only thing on television which makes me laugh more is Frasier. Body Story, however, is a documentary. Over the past few weeks this overly imaginative docu-drama hybrid has been breezing through...
Theatre: Rib-Tickling Trouble at Mill Hindle Wakes Royal Exchange Manchester
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AS THEY were saying before they were so rudely interrupted... Helena Kaut-Howson's production of Hindle Wakes was running at the Royal Exchange Theatre when the IRA blasted the centre of Manchester apart in 1996. So it is a fine symbolic gesture of defiance...
The Boss Regains Control of His Work
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THE VENUE was packed and the crowd waited with bated breath but, when "The Boss" made his entrance, there was only a rustle of papers and a ripple of whispers.Instead of the rock stadiums he is used to, a besuited Bruce Springsteen was appearing in the...
`The Challenge Is to Grasp and Shape History as We Bury Our Past Grievances'
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JOHN HUME and David Trimble, visionary Irish nationalist and pragmatic Ulster Unionist, stood together yesterday on an Oslo stage to receive the world's supreme international honour, as joint recipients of the Nobel peace prize.The two men, so far apart...
