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'He was one of the regulars. We didn't suspect him. But he was the killer' Tracey Russell has several reasons to consider herself lucky, but one stands out. Around December 14 2006, after the bodies of five of her fellow sex workers had been found but before anyone had been arrested, she agreed to have sex with their killer. Tracey and her best friend Annette Nicholls had agreed, after the first women went missing, only to go with regulars, but Steve Wright was someone they both knew well; Tracey had had sex with him several times in the three years he had been using Ipswich prostitutes - not a matter of weeks, as he testified in court. On that occasion, however, she did not. Having gone back to his flat at 79 London Road and agreed the fee, she had prepared to have sex on his bed, but they were disturbed by a bang on the door or from a car outside, and he told her to get out. Tracey, who is 31, spoke to the Guardian in December under a pseudonym, but as the end of the trial approached she agreed to speak more openly about Annette and the four other women, all of whom she knew, and about the man who killed them. The women knew Wright as just another punter, she said. "Annette went with him a couple of times, I knew that, I did, and I know a few of the other girls did. "We were worried, but when you are on drugs, you think if you can open a car door ... you would know that it was the murderer. Me and Annette said don't get in cars with anyone we don't know, just get in cars with regulars, and that's what we did. But it was a regular that ended up being the [killer]. "He was always a late person to come out, he would drive round a couple of times, then choose the girl he wanted. We used to call them 'window-lickers' if they went around a lot. He was one of them. We didn't suspect him." Annette, she says, had worked only infrequently until a few months before her death, when her heroin and crack addiction became more desperate. "She just got more depressed and the crack got hold of her." Their life, she said, was "horrible". "You learn to blank it out over the years, and because you are on drugs, [you] just think of something else. I know that sounds odd, but you do. 'Cos you get used to it, and it's over within seconds. Hopefully." Shortly after Annette was confirmed dead, and with the help of a methadone prescription, Tracey stopped selling sex and using heroin, after six years on the game.She is not alone. Of the 30 sex workers who were known to be working the Ipswich beat before the murders - some regulars, some working more erratically - only two are still working. Of the rest, 16 are in daily contact with drugs workers, seven needing less immediate support. For the past 14 months the quiet success of those working to help women off the streets of Ipswich has continued. Brian Tobin, director of Iceni, the small drugs charity that has spearheaded the effort, working with all the sex workers in Ipswich, describes the set of circumstances in the town as "pretty unique", acknowledging that the killings themselves - one sixth of the town's prostitutes were murdered - were critical in persuading the women and the relevant agencies to work together. "We have to recognise that prior to the murders there were scant resources put into this area. I have worked in drugs for 16 years and I think [sex workers] are the most difficult and damaged clientele I have ever worked with. That needs resources." All the same, the women have been helped into new circumstances with a relatively small amount of money - less than £30,000 in grants and donations, which the centre has used to meet their daily bills. The support of Suffolk police in arresting kerb crawlers and supporting the women, and of Ipswich borough council in part-funding a sex liaison officer has also been key. "It ain't rocket science," says Tobin. "We phone them every day. If a woman goes missing for 24 hours we keep on the case until we find them. I think for the first time in their lives someone genuinely cares for them, because they certainly don't." He sees no reason why Ipswich's success couldn't be replicated elsewhere, though resources, and intense effort, are critical. "Our hardest part is yet to come. Now we have got to sustain this. We are now getting to the root of the problem, which was hidden by drugs." For Tracey, clean for a year, the conclusion of the trial is a relief. "Because I was on drugs at the time, you don't feel a lot, but now that I'm off the drugs and I'm on the methadone, everything's coming at once. It's a bit hard to ... you know. It's all been quick, what's happened. So I haven't really had time to grieve over her. It's hard." As for escaping Wright, she says: "I feel like my life's been saved in a way, because it could have been me that's dead now. It makes me feel a bit of relief, but guilty, because I got away. I feel a little bit guilty because Annette's dead, and I got away." Send fewer to jail, Straw urges courts Jack Straw, the justice secretary, last night made an urgent appeal to magistrates to send fewer people to jail as the prison population in England and Wales soared past 82,000 to an all-time high. The official prison population reached 82,006 yesterday - just 21 places short of the system's official capacity - fuelled by a jump of 2,300 in prisoner numbers since the new year. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Straw said the numbers were already outstripping official forecasts that were only published in December, and added that he could not rule out a further extension to the early release scheme that has seen thousands released 18 days before the end of their sentence. "We are now running higher than forecast. The projected population at the end of March was due to be 81,731. We are not at the end of March and we are already 300 above it. The population dipped over Christmas but it has risen more than 2,000 since then," he said he figures show that there were 81,680 locked up in prisons in England and Wales on Wednesday night, an all-time high, with a further 282 "locked out" in police cells and 44 held overnight in court cells. Straw announced yesterday that the 11,000 foreign national prisoners held in English jails will be able to be sent home nine months rather than four and a half months before the end of their sentence but the measure will not take effect until it gets parliamentary approval, which will take several weeks. He said the rise in prisoners was being driven by two factors: an increase in adult men being jailed for short sentences by the magistrates courts, and a rise in the number of ex-prisoners being recalled for breaching the terms of their release. He appealed to the 30,000 magistrates to use non-custodial penalties instead of sending them to prison for an ineffective jail term of less than 12 months. "We have 350 magistrates courts in England and Wales. If each one ends up sentencing one more extra prisoner a week to jail then we have got the increase we face. There are effective alternatives in terms of non-custodial penalties which actually have a better record in terms of preventing reoffending than short prison sentences. The probation service has become more effective," Straw said. he justice secretary said the drive inside prisons to convert every cell space into living accommodation had led to some being packed three to a cell designed for one. He also voiced his concern about the regular use of court cells to hold prisoners overnight, a practice sharply criticised by the chief inspector of prisons. traw said the prospects for using more police cells to hold prisoners were limited. There is an agreement with the police that 400 are made available each night under Operation Safeguard. But he made clear that the kind of spare cells in old bridewells that meant 3,000 prisoners a night could be held in them in the 1980s no longer existed. He said the official prison figures, which show there are only 21 spaces left, is not the whole story. "It is not quite 21 spaces. We have got the police and court cells and there is an 'operating margin' of 2,000 places." But most of these "extra places" are unsuitable for adult male prisoners: for example, they are in women's prisons or juvenile establishments. Straw also revealed that a decision had been taken not to overcrowd existing prisons even further by turning gyms into American-style dormitories holding 100 inmates. "The experience in England and Wales where dormitories have been used, except in specific establishments, has been quite severe control problems." Parliament clears way for Rock nationalisation Plans to nationalise the Northern Rock were passed by parliament last night, after opposition parties abandoned efforts to make the troubled bank subject to freedom of information laws. The three-day parliamentary skirmish ended after the Lords had defeated the government three times on the legislation, including an amendment forcing it to answer requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and another requiring a fresh audit of the bank's accounts. Lord Strathclyde, leaders of the Conservatives in the Lords, complained that the biggest nationalisation in the nation's history was being forced through parliament in just a week. Peers did wring a concession from the government, that the bank's day-to-day affairs would be subject to scrutiny by the Office of Fair Trading to ensure it did not gain an unfair competitive advantage from its rescue at taxpayers' expense. In a noisy late night session, the Treasury secretary, Yvette Cooper, said that it would be commercially impracticable to allow greater accountability, and accused opposition MPs of playing games. The Commons overturned calls for an independent audit by 277 votes to 167, and a demand for the bank to be brought under the Freedom of Information Act by 268 to 171. In its chief
concession to the anger in the Lords, and the fear that the newly nationalised bank might try to use its taxpayer-backed security to regain profitability and distort the market, ministers agreed that the OFT would report annually on Northern Rock. Ministers also promised that the Rock would behave prudently in offering new mortgages, and not return to the aggressive sales strategy that led to downfall last summer. These relatively minor concessions followed private discussions over 48 hours between opposition peers, the Treasury, and Ron Sandler, the bank's new chief executive. In a day-long debate, Liberal Democrat and Conservative peers united to defeat the government three times. Many peers, including former chancellor Lord Lawson, had expressed dismay at the lack of clear information about the state of Northern Rock's mortgage book, and its contractual obligations to its offshore trust vehicle Granite, which may control £40bn of its better secured mortgages. Peers voted 164-133 for the bank to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and 154-142 to require a Bank of England-led audit of the Rock's mortgage book. By 158 votes to 137, they decided the OFT should have oversight of the bank's competitive practices. The votes reflected a view among many peers, including Liberal Democrat supporters of nationalisation, that the government was taking on huge financial responsibilities with undue haste and without sufficient disclosure of the true state of Northern Rock.Peers repeatedly but unsuccessfully pressed to see the proposed business plan or the report on the state of the business made by Goldman Sachs, the government adviser. Ahead of the bill returning to the Commons, Treasury sources said the government flatly opposed freedom of information rules being imposed, saying no other bank was subject to such constraints. The Treasury also rejected the idea of a fresh audit, arguing Northern Rock was already under duty in common with other companies to conduct an annual audit. It said it was a matter for Northern Rock to decide if it wished to change its auditors. The Liberal Democrats claimed that regulators, such as the FSA and the bank's previous auditors had failed to spot "the can of worms" in the Rock's accounts. Ministers said however they were happy to see some oversight by the OFT because the watchdog has a duty to oversee competitive practice throughout Britain.And finally ... how the march of a lone cockroach put 30 people out of work For the viewers of Turkmenistan's popular nightly news programme, Vatan, it was another routine bulletin. But as the newsreader began the 9pm broadcast, viewers across the central Asian country spotted something unusual crawling across the studio table: a large brown cockroach. The cockroach managed to complete a whole lap of the desk, apparently undetected, before disappearing. The programme, complete with cockroach, was repeated at 11pm that night. It was only at 9am the following day that horrified officials from Turkmenistan's ministry of culture discovered the cockroach's guest appearance. And that, perhaps, should have been the end of the matter, the mildly entertaining footage being consigned to the occasional airing by the Turkmenistan equivalent of Denis Norden on a telly bloopers show. But the consequences of this particular cockroach's impromptu five minutes of fame were immediate and severe. The country's president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, took news of the insect so badly that he responded by firing no fewer than 30 workers from the main state TV channel, the news website Kronika Turkmenistan reported yesterday. Before the cockroach debacle, Berdymukhamedov had instructed Turkmenistan's minister of culture, Gulmurat Muradov, to revamp the country's Soviet-era TV channel. However, a new ministerial supervisory committee founded to carry out this task only worked 9am to 6pm - allowing the cockroach to make its audacious run undetected. Berdymukhamedov became leader of the oil-rich former Soviet republic in December 2006, following the sudden death of Turkmenistan's longstanding and flamboyantly authoritarian ruler Saparmurat Niyazov, who also had run-ins with state TV executives. Several executives were sacked after drunken technicians failed to screen the new year's address to the nation by Niyazov. They eventually managed to get the bulletin on air at 3am. Those sacked in the cockroach debacle included journalists, directors, camera operators, and technical staff, the website reported. Yesterday nobody from the Turkmen embassy in Moscow was available for comment. Berdymukhamedov has been credited with improving relations with the west, and embarking at home on a series of mild liberal reforms. He has announced the opening of internet cafes in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital, and reintroduced foreign languages to the school curriculum. Last March the president restored pensions to more than 100,000 elderly citizens and in January he reversed another of his predecessor's more bizarre bans - on opera and ballet performances. "Our flourishing nation should not stand separate from the world," Berdymukhamedov told state-run television. He added: "It absolutely should have a worthy operatic theatre and a worthy state theatre." The first opera would be performed in six or seven months, he suggested. Berdymukhamedov has moved to end Turkmenistan's isolation from the rest of the world in other ways too. He has overseen attempts to attract larger numbers of foreign tourists to Turkmenistan, including the building of a multibillion pound tourist resort on the Caspian Sea. The president has also dropped in on Washington. Berdymukhamedov's apparent dislike of cockroaches may have something to do with his previous career as a dentist. He graduated from Turkmenistan's state medical institute in 1979, completing a PhD in medical sciences in Moscow, and working as a dentist from 1980 to 1995. In December 1997 he was appointed minister for health. Most read Roach notes · 4,500 cockroach species have been classified, but there are thought to be at least twice as many species yet to be discovered around the world · Despite the belief cockroaches would be the only survivors of nuclear war, being 15 times more resistant to radiation than humans, other insects such as fruit flies can survive even higher doses · A cockroach will live after decapitation for several weeks before starving to death; the severed head survives several hours · The world's largest species is the wingless Australian rhinoceros (Macropanesthia rhinoceros), weighing up to 33.5 gms and up to 90 mm in length Report on exams reveals the 'dumbed down' subjects Media studies is frequently derided as the soft option for students seeking an easy route to university, while some institutions fear that recent additions to secondary school curriculums such as psychology are driving out more traditional subjects.A report published by the government's exams watchdog today attempts to settle the row over qualifications by conceding that not all A-levels and GCSEs are equal. It finds that the A-level scripts of media students were "less impressive" than in English literature and raises concerns that media students are allowed to take prepared work into exams. Chemistry emerges as the "hardest" of the science subjects and sociologists are being awarded marks for "common sense" rather than skills and aptitude, according to the report from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The study was commissioned last year to answer criticisms of so-called "soft" A-levels which research has suggested are increasingly being adopted in the state sector at the expense of traditional subjects. Top universities have drawn up lists of subjects they consider not academically rigorous enough. Cambridge University says its applicants must do at least two "traditional" subjects to have a chance of a place and has published lists of A-levels which provide "less effective" preparation for a degree. They include media, sport and business studies. While the QCA says all exams are "broadly comparable" in difficulty, its 50-page report highlights some revealing differences between subjects. Media study students at the bottom and top of the grade range were "considered to be less impressive than the English candidates". History is harder than geography at GCSE and AS level. At GCSE it is "significantly" more difficult, according to the panel convened by the QCA, which contrasted the short answers sought by questions in geography papers with the essay-style responses demanded of history students. Psychology is no "soft option", though, and is as hard as biology, the report concludes. "Given that the initial impetus for the work was the suggestion that students were turning away from science to psychology because it was perceived to be the soft option, the study suggests that this perception has little basis in fact." At its best sociology is as hard as biology, but students can pick up too many marks using "common sense" rather than specific knowledge. Panel members with in-depth knowledge of each subject were asked to compare the course specifications and students' work for the report, Inter-Subject Comparability Studies. But critics said the four initial studies, comparing geography with history, the sciences with psychology and sociology, and media with history and English, was misleading. Embarrassed Miliband admits two US rendition flights refuelled on British soil British government officials expressed embarrassment and anger at Washington last night after they were forced to admit that US rendition flights carrying terror suspects for secret interrogation had twice landed on British soil. In an apology to the Commons, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, told MPs that contrary to "earlier explicit assurances" two flights landed at
Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large air base, in 2002. He said the flights had been mistakenly overlooked in previous US internal inquiries carried out at the UK's behest. A senior American official said the renditions had come to light only when CIA flight crews were interviewed directly. John Bellinger, chief legal adviser in the US state department, said CIA officials were now "as confident as they can be" that no other detainees had been flown through Britain on secret rendition flights over the past six years of America's "war on terror". The government's deep unease over an issue which has strained relations between the two close allies was made clear by Miliband's disclosure that he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged. Bellinger said the Bush administration would look at the list "and see how we can appropriately respond". In his statement, Miliband said the two flights had refuelled at Diego Garcia. Each one had a single detainee on board who did not leave the aircraft. British and US officials all refused to give details about the two detainees in question other than that one was in Guantánamo Bay and the other had been released. Mike Hayden, the CIA director, said neither of the two men "was ever part of the CIA's high-value terrorist interrogation programme" - a reference to "waterboarding" and other techniques considered to amount to torture, and thus be illegal, by Britain but not by the US. However, both Miliband and Bellinger left unanswered the question of what happened to the detainees immediately before and after they were transported through Diego Garcia. Miliband told the Commons that despite repeated requests to the US by the British government, prompted by repeated allegations by MPs and journalists, only now had US records revealed the existence of the flights. Bellinger, who was in the Commons yesterday to hear the foreign secretary's statement, said the Bush administration had not informed Britain at the time because it was not legally obliged to. He promised there would no future rendition flights without UK approval, and said there were no such requests pending. Gordon Brown, who was in Brussels yesterday, said: "It is unfortunate that this was not known ... but it's important [to ensure] this will not happen again." Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the all-party committee on rendition, said: "This statement [by Miliband] will leave the British public unwilling to trust other assurances we have received from the US. We should bear in mind that these extraordinary renditions are probably illegal and certainly unethical." Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, to whom Miliband apologised for having been misled, said the situation was a gross embarrassment for the government and "a breaching of our moral obligations and possibly of our legal responsibilities". The government had "no effective control" over what happened at the Diego Garcia site. Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, the legal action charity, said: "Since January 2003, the British government has stated again and again that Diego Garcia was never used by the CIA for its torture flights." The human rights group Liberty called for an inquiry into what it called "UK complicity". Shami Chakrabarti, its director, said: "It is far too easy for our government to blame the Americans for lack of information, particularly as Liberty has been asking the Foreign Office to investigate US torture flights for more than two years." Extraordinary admissions For more than two years, the Guardian and MPs from all political parties have made detailed allegations about Britain's complicity in CIA rendition (sometimes called "extraordinary rendition") flights - the practice whereby terror suspects are transported to secret locations where they risk being tortured. MPs, MEPs and the Council of Europe all set up special committees to investigate. Britain's parliamentary intelligence and security committee questioned ministers and officials in private about the allegations. Evidence emerged that other European countries were cooperating with the secret CIA flights and that some CIA aircraft had landed at Diego Garcia. But the government insisted there was no truth in the allegations. Ministers, including Tony Blair and Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, said they had been assured by the US that no CIA flight containing detainees had landed on British territory. Officials insisted that Britain would not co-operate in a practice which could leave it open to the charge it was conniving in torture. Straw said his officials had discovered that the Clinton administration had asked for permission for the CIA to render prisoners through the UK and it had been granted after it gave assurances about the detainees' treatment. But until yesterday, that was the only admission. MPs and human rights groups made clear last night that they believed David Miliband's statement that there was still only a "limit" to what he could say meant that important questions remain unanswered. Hairspray and Equus sweep theatre awards They could not contrast more: the happy exuberance of youth and family in Hairspray and their tortured unhappiness in Equus. But theatregoers loved them both and they are today named as the big winners in the only major theatre awards decided on by the public. The eight-year-old whatsonstage.com awards are followed in two weeks by the prestigious Olivier awards, but they can claim to be the people's choice. More than 25,000 people voted online in the last two months, more than twice as many as last year. Hairspray, the musical of John Waters's film which transferred from Broadway last year, won seven awards, including best new musical and best director. The performers also managed a clean sweep in the musical section: the best actor prize for Michael Ball; best actress gong for Leanne Jones; best supporting actress for Tracie Bennett; and Ben James-Ellis (fourth in BBC1 talent show Any Dream Will Do) won best supporting actor for his role as Link Larkin. Although the cast is British, Hairspray is an American production little changed from its New York version. Its director, Jack O'Brien, said: "For those of us who regularly watch tons of American awards falling into British hands, well, we're ecstatic about this wonderful reciprocation." In the play categories, Equus won three awards, including best newcomer for Daniel Radcliffe. Two of the most venerated names in theatre won in the best actor and best actress in a play categories: Sir Ian McKellen for King Lear and Dame Maggie Smith for The Lady from Dubuque. It was a good year for the Old Vic. It staged Samuel Adamson's version of the Almodóvar film All About My Mother, which won best new play and best supporting actress for Dame Diana Rigg, and also hosted the all-male productions of Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew, which won best ensemble performance. They were directed by Edward Hall, whose father, Peter, won best regional production for Pygmalion and heads to the Old Vic in May. West London's new writing powerhouse, the Bush theatre, which has had to fight against Arts Council cuts, saw success with a best new comedy award for Elling. Other winners included Lee Evans, best supporting actor in a play for The Dumb Waiter; Fiona Shaw, best solo performance for Happy Days; and Kerry Ellis for best takeover in a role for Wicked. There was a tie for best off-West End production between the Landor's I Love You Because and the Young Vic's staging of the South African A Christmas Carol/The Magic Flute. The awards will be presented at the Lyric theatre in London on Sunday. A secret life in the red light district ... then came the urge to kill Steve Wright lived in a world that centred around his local pub and golf club, where regulars knew him as a quiet, unassuming guy who dressed well, a "good bloke, someone you could talk to". But in truth, no one really knew him at all. Certainly not the 49-year-old's partner of six years, Pamela Wright, 61. She had no idea that, after dropping her at the IT call centre where she worked the night shift, the shy man she lived with would trawl Ipswich's red light district for prostitutes to take back to their flat for sex, let alone that his desires were to turn more sinister. Nor did the police. In December 2006, when the naked bodies of missing young women began appearing at remote spots around the Suffolk town, detectives did not have Wright's name on their radar. He had no relevant previous convictions to alert them to the possibility that he might be the serial killer they sought. It was only when samples of DNA found on three of the women matched his - his DNA was placed on the database after a conviction for the theft of cash from a pub till five years ago - that they first heard of him. According to one police source, he "came out of nowhere". right has been found guilty of the most prolific serial killing of women since the Yorkshire Ripper, after a six-week campaign of murder. But after a massive investigation involving almost 40 forces, the police are no closer to knowing what drove him to kill. Apart from the DNA samples, fibres found from his clothing, car and home were discovered on the naked bodies of all five women, who all worked as prostitutes. Wright, who admitted having sex with four out of the five, had no explanation for why blood from some of the women was found on the outside of his reflective jacket and in his car. He insisted it was an unfortunate coincidence that all five were later killed in the same order in which he picked them up. But a jury at Ipswich crown court yesterday found him guilty of murdering all five women, by smothering them or compressing their necks, before dumping their bodies. As Wright faces five life sentences,
however, questions remain. It is not known where or how Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Paula Clennell, 24, met their deaths - or why. In the witness box for three days Wright gave a controlled performance, only occasionally raising his voice, to deny he had anything to do with the murders. His elaborate attempts to account for forensic evidence - the discovery of his DNA inside a glove led him to say he found the fluid on condoms repulsive and always used gloves to remove them - were dismissed as a "nonsense' by the prosecution. A frequenter of massage parlours for 25 years, Wright told the court he only turned to street prostitutes in October after he moved into a flat in the red light district, having realised he could buy sex for as little as £20 if he haggled over the price. The women on the streets knew him as a regular, however, and said he had been visiting for years. He was "blinkered" by his desire for sex, he said, and picked them up in his car yards from his own house, despite the risk of detection by his partner. In a rare insight into what lay hidden behind his quiet persona, Wright has described himself as a "placid person" who tends to bury anger "deep inside". He admitted, in a letter to his father while remanded in prison, that this was an unhealthy trait, but one that had stemmed from seeing enough "anger and violence in my childhood to last anyone a lifetime". Born in April 1958, in Erphingham, Norfolk, Wright was the second of four children of his RAF policeman father, Conrad, and mother Patricia, a veterinary nurse. His upbringing was unsettled as the family moved from place to place following his father's postings. They lived abroad, in Malta and Singapore. But he would also stay with grandparents in Friston, Suffolk. His parents' rocky marriage ended in a bitter split in the 1960s when Wright was a child. Both remarried and his father and his new wife, Valerie, went on to have two more children, Keith and Natalie. Conrad Wright, 72, told the Guardian that his ex-wife had abandoned them, leaving his son always searching for a mother figure. But Patricia Wright, who now lives in California, said in another media interview that she was forced to leave because the marriage had grown violent. She said Steve was afraid of his father and she had wanted to take the children, but she was prevented from doing so. Whatever the truth, Wright and his siblings, David, Jeanette and Tina, never got on with their father's new wife, which led to further family rifts. He grew up into a shy man who had difficulty with relationships and holding down a job, and often got into debt. He left school at 16 with no qualifications and, after a job as a waiter in a hotel, joined the merchant navy as a chef on the Felixstowe ferries. His first marriage to Angela O'Donovan, in 1978 in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, produced a son, Michael, but ended after eight years. As an adult, he was to repeat the unsettled pattern of his childhood: variously employed as a dock worker, lorry driver, barman, pub landlord, forklift truck driver and steward on the QE2 for six years. While on shore leave abroad, he first began using prostitutes. He also met Diane Cassell, an onboard window dresser, who became his second wife in 1987. They left the ship to run a pub together, the Ferry Boat Inn in the red light district of Norwich, but the marriage was a disaster, according to his former wife, and they split up within a year. In September 1988 his tenancy of the pub also came to an end, and he moved to the White Horse pub in Chislehurst, Kent. There Wright struck up a relationship with Sarah Whiteley, a barmaid. They moved to Plumstead, south-east London, to run the Rose and Crown pub in 1990 and had a daughter together in 1992. But that relationship, too, foundered and they split up before the baby's first birthday after Wright lost his pub apparently through gambling and drinking. While in London, he began to visit massage parlours for sex, a habit he retained when he eventually moved back to Suffolk. By the mid-1990s, Wright's constant gambling had taken its toll and, unable to see a way out of his debts, he tried to kill himself by gassing himself in his car, though he was found before he could succeed. His step-brother, Keith, said the incident had a profound effect on Wright and he retreated into himself even more. Two further suicide attempts followed. He was later declared bankrupt after running up £30,000 in unsecured loans. His second suicide attempt came in 2000, after he returned from a 10-week trip to Thailand, where he got further into debt. He had sold everything, including his car and furniture, to fund the trip during which he visited Thai prostitutes. His life in tatters, Wright moved in with his father and stepmother in Felixstowe for a while. He met Pamela, his current partner, and they moved in together in 2001. He was a member of the Brigands (the Brook Residents International Golf and Notable Delinquents Society) club, based at the hotel, where he worked for a few months as a publican and also of the Seckford golf club, near Woodbridge, where he was remembered as a smart dresser who always played in black. That year, he signed on for driving and labouring jobs with Gateway Recruitment Agency, first based in Levington, Suffolk, and then in Nacton, close to where Alderton's body was found. Wright said he stopped going to massage parlours when he met Pamela and described their relationship as "pretty good", but six months after they moved to Bell Close in Ipswich, in 2004, he had begun again. He would visit Oasis and Cleopatra's, where Gemma Adams and Tania Nicol had both worked, on a Saturday or "when I got the urge", he said. By October 2006, his urges had grown more violent and sex was no longer enough. Motive still unknown as serial killer faces rest of life in prison Steve Wright, a 49-year-old forklift truck driver, is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison after being found guilty of killing five women who worked as prostitutes in what the prosecution called a six-week "campaign of murder". A jury at Ipswich crown court yesterday took fewer than six hours to find Wright responsible for the murders, which terrified the Suffolk town and led to one of the country's biggest police investigations. There were gasps and loud sobs from the murdered victims' families as the verdicts were read out. Wright, biting his lip, then slumped forward, resting his head on his knees as he stared at his shoes. He was handed a glass of water by a court official, before being led from the court. Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, were all drug addicts who were working as prostitutes when they were picked up and murdered by Wright, a regular customer who lived in the red light district and whom several of them knew well. Their naked bodies were found dumped around the town, two in a stream, the other three in woods, over a 10-day period in December 2006. Wright will be sentenced to five life sentences today. Mr Justice Gross said he was considering ruling that he should never be released; he will serve no less than 30 years. Speaking in court after the verdict, Wright's QC Timothy Langdale said: "It may be that there are indications that the defendant was doing very little to conceal anything. It's almost as if everything was being made more and more obvious to those who investigated these crimes." Speaking after the verdicts, the families of two of the murdered women, Tania Nicol and Paula Clennell, called for the death penalty to be reintroduced. In a statement, the Nicol family said: "While five young lives have been cruelly ended, the person responsible will be kept warm, nourished and protected. In no way has justice be done. These crimes deserve the ultimate punishment." Robert Sadd, crown advocate for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Suffolk, said the conviction had been "based on science". Wright was identified because his DNA had been added to the national database following an earlier conviction for theft. His profile was stored in 2003 after he was convicted of stealing £40 while working as a hotel barman. New techniques allowing microscopic fibres to be identified also proved critical; a single black nylon fibre from the footwell of Wright's car was found in the hair of Tania Nicol, despite the fact that her body had lain in water for five weeks before it was discovered. Detective chief superintendent Stewart Gull, who led the investigation, said outside the court: "These appalling crimes left a community, a county and a nation in a state of profound shock." Wright's DNA was found on three of the women's bodies, while microscopic fibres from his clothing, car and home were discovered on all five. Blood belonging to two of the women was found on his reflective jacket, along with specks of blood in his car. CCTV and number-plate recognition technology had also placed his car in the red light district at the time several of the women disappeared. The court heard that he had picked up the women while they worked in the streets around his home, before killing them while they were incapacitated by heavy doses of drugs. Wright had argued that he had had sex with the women but had not killed them, and that it was merely coincidental that forensic evidence linked him to all five. Though the jury's verdicts were decisive, prosecutors admitted yesterday they remained puzzled as to the motive behind the killings. Wright's only previous conviction is for minor theft and CPS sources said yesterday that they were not aware of any evidence linking him to unsolved cases. "No doubt our police colleagues will be looking at whether this fits with anything else, but we are not aware of any other link at this stage,"
a source said. A number of "cold cases", including several unsolved prostitute murders, have been examined by forces across Britain since Wright's arrest. Yesterday the father of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, confirmed to the Guardian that he had been contacted by Metropolitan police officers investigating possible connections between Wright and his daughter, who disappeared in 1986. It is known that Wright and Lamplugh were acquaintances when they worked on the QE2 in the early 1980s. Cleveland police have not ruled out a link between Wright and the murder of Vicky Glass, a heroin addict who vanished from Middlesbrough in September 2000. Her naked body was later found in a stream on the north Yorkshire moors. FAQ ProstitutionIs prostitution legal in Britain? Strictly speaking, prostitution has always been legal in the UK, in the sense that it is not illegal to pay for sex, or to receive money for it. But many of the activities that it involves - including soliciting, kerb-crawling, pimping, and keeping a brothel - are all against the law. In practice, much depends on interpretation and enforcement. Campaigners argue that Asbos, for example, are frequently used against sex workers, outside of prostitution legislation. What is the government's position? It's under review. The Home Office has introduced a number of changes to the law, including a statutory redefinition of the term "common prostitute" and a new penalty compelling those convicted under prostitution laws to attend counselling sessions. A new network of police tactical advisers and an action plan on ending trafficking have also been launched. What are the arguments in favour of legalisation? Campaigners say that where women are able to work without fear of prosecution they are much safer. They argue that even the Swedish model - where sex workers are decriminalised but those buying sex are criminalised - drives the women underground. What are the arguments against legislation? Moral and/or feminist arguments aside, some argue that even where the sex industry is legal, there will always be women who are so desperate they fall outside it. They point out that several of the women who died in Ipswich had to leave more organised brothels because of their drug use and chaotic lifestyles. What is the situation now in Ipswich? In response to the murders, Suffolk police, action groups and local authorities put in place a strategy last spring effectively to end street prostitution in the town. Thanks to aggressive policing - at least 120 men have been arrested - and highly dedicated support, more than 20 women have been helped out of prostitution. But some argue that the situation for the very few who are still working - police say there are only two - is such that they are at risk of themselves being criminalised. What other issues need to be tackled? According to one study, 87% of street sex workers use heroin. Brian Tobin, director of the Iceni project which has helped most of Ipswich's sex workers off the streets, argues that "with street prostitution, as with burglaries, gun crime, shop-lifting, all that underpins them is drug use. Unless we effectively manage drug use in this country, everything else is fire-fighting." The Conservative party chairman, Caroline Spelman MP, who has visited the project, told the Guardian that the party's policy was "committed to massive investment in drug rehabilitation" as part of its strategy for tackling prostitution. Case brings contrasting calls for change in 'inadequate' law Campaigners with widely diverging beliefs last night called on the government to re-examine the law on prostitution following the murder convictions of Steve Wright. Both those calling for the liberalisation of prostitution laws and those advocating increased sanctions argued that the laws as they stand are inadequate, but they suggested very different solutions. The present position in British law is complicated: though strictly speaking it is not illegal to buy or sell sex, soliciting and kerb-crawling are both against the law. Niki Adams, a spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, said the Ipswich verdicts emphasised the need for the government to follow the example of New Zealand, where the laws against prostitution were repealed in 2003. "The impact that people have found there ... is that it's improved the health and safety of women in the industry, which we consider the absolute priority in policy-making in this area," she said. Mark Wakeling, director of the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution, said that there was no "human right" for men to buy sex, and advocated instead the adoption of a model derived from Sweden, where buying sex became a criminal offence in 1999. "Prostitution brings out the worst in men," he said. "The sad thing is that there are attacks and violence, even murders, against these women ... regularly. It's only when five are murdered in one place that all of a sudden it starts to provoke debate." The government has been conducting a review into the laws for the past four years. In January 2006, it published a consultation document that advocated steering a middle ground between the two opposing camps, arguing for a more liberal view of small brothels combined with increased restraints on kerb-crawling. Last month the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker announced a fresh six-month review, visiting Sweden to examine its policy. The position of the government, which at one point appeared to favour a more liberal regime, is thought to be hardening in favour of the Swedish approach. "We are clear that street-based prostitution and all forms of commercial sexual exploitation must be challenged," a Home Office spokesman said yesterday. "They are not inevitable; they are not here to stay." He said that since the launch of the strategy the government had delivered a number of measures including a fresh definition of soliciting, a renewed focus on tackling demand, and increased investment in personal safety training for sex workers. Bugging of MP on prison visit did not break the rules, inquiry finds Police officers knew they were covertly bugging conversations between a terror suspect and his MP, but were not breaking any rules when they did so, an official report said yesterday. An inquiry into allegations that Scotland Yard bugged discussions in prison between Sadiq Khan and his constituent Babar Ahmad found that five officers knew one person they were recording was an MP. But senior officers never realised, despite authorising the operation. The report, by the chief surveillance commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose, was ordered by the government just over a fortnight ago after the allegations surfaced in the media. Ahmad was held in Woodhill prison, near Milton Keynes, after the US requested his extradition for alleged terrorist offences. The original police decision in August 2004 to bug his non-legal visits was approved by Sir Christopher's own office, the report reveals. It found conversations between the two were monitored twice by Scotland Yard after Khan had been elected as MP for Tooting in south London, from where Ahmad's family come. The two men are also childhood friends. Officers recorded conversations on May 21 2005 and then in June 2006. Khan applied to see Ahmad not as an MP, but as a friend, the report says. The report says the recording was not covered by the Wilson doctrine, which forbids the security services bugging MPs. Rose reaches this conclusion by deciding that only bugging requiring the approval of the home secretary is covered by the doctrine, while the recording in Khan's case only needed to be authorised by a senior police officer. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced a further review of the law and guidelines covering bugging and said a ban should be placed on bugging discussions between MPs and their constituents. Khan, now a government whip in the justice ministry, has been guarded in expressing his anger. But the Rose report reveals the MP's fury. In a written statement to the inquiry he said he would be "surprised" if the authorisation process by senior officers "did not reveal his occupation" and also said he believed his visits were "covered by legal privilege and/or the Wilson doctrine". The report reproduces Khan's view that "it beggars belief that [the police and prison authorities] did not know who I was". Rose did not speak to the former police officer at the centre of the allegations, Mark Kearney, saying it would not have furthered his inquiries. He found that two detective constables who applied for the bugging authorisations and three junior officers who carried out the surveillance "knew that Mr Khan was a member of parliament but ... had no reason to regard this as significant". In this case, the bugging of Ahmad was approved by Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, who resigned in December 2007 as Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism. Rose finds that on May 11 2005, Hayman approved the bugging of 18 approved visitors to Ahmad, including Sadiq Khan. He reviewed the authorisation later with the operation designed to gather any names of terrorists Ahmad might know. Rose says Hayman and the others who authorised the bugging were unaware that the Khan listed as an approved visitor to Ahmad was an MP until December 2007, when the media started making inquiries. Khan had a long history of battling with Scotland Yard. A former human rights lawyer, he represented police officers who had sued Scotland Yard after being targeted by its anti-corruption command when it was headed by Hayman. Khan says that during both bugged meetings, he and Ahmad discussed a civil case for assault the terror suspect was bringing against the Met. Rose does not say what happened to the recordings. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "The Rose report leaves fundamental questions
unanswered. First, the review was set up precisely to test allegations made by a whistleblower currently standing trial. But it failed to interview him, leaving unresolved two conflicting accounts of events. "Second, the report found 'no useful purpose' in explaining the series of police authorisations. But that would have shed light on the otherwise inexplicable situation whereby junior officers knew Sadiq Khan was an MP, but their senior officers authorising the bugging did not." In a statement, Khan said: "I am very pleased that the home secretary and Sir Christopher's report have reiterated that constituents must be allowed confidentiality with their MP. This applies even when he or she is in prison."Second-class chaos Chaos all around! Everywhere you looked at Westminster something else was going wrong. It's like The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The more the government tries to mop up, the worse the flood gets. We're told Gordon Brown is getting three hours' sleep a night. Three whole hours? Where does he find the time? In the Lords they were debating the bill to nationalise Northern Rock. Except it's not just to nationalise that one bank - it leaves powers to nationalise every bank. They could take over Barclays tomorrow if they wanted. Obviously they won't. So why, their lordships wanted to know, was it in the bill? The peers hate this legislation (though not enough for the Lib Dems to vote against it). Why are the powers left open for 12 months? What do they know that we don't know? asked Lord Forsyth. Lord Bilimoria said the £25bn the government was giving to Northern Rock was more than any government in the world had given to prop up any institution, anywhere, ever. So we still lead the world in something! In the Commons the home secretary spoke about the report into the bugging of MP Sadiq Khan. This goes against the Wilson doctrine, by which MPs must not be bugged by security services. Except it turns out the policemen involved didn't know Mr Khan was an MP. And if they had, it wouldn't have made any difference! We can all be bugged, anytime they want to bug us. Then the foreign secretary revealed we had - if unwittingly - allowed CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights to refuel on UK territory. The Americans blamed their failure to report the fact we were a way-station for torture victims on an "administrative oversight". This is galling. For years now we have believed Britain leads the world in administrative oversights. Now, once again, we are in charge of a second-class operation, like the Baftas and the Brits. So thank heavens for Boris Johnson, who made a luncheon speech to journalists. It was about buses. If he is elected mayor of London he will bring back buses with an open platform at the back. He will ban bendy buses. Guards with pistols will maintain security on buses. (I have slightly exaggerated his last point, but it catches his general drift.) He did for once offer a positive policy. "I want London to be safe for Jacqui Smith ... I want the most dangerous thing in Peckham to be the kebab itself!" As our country spirals gently downwards, how good it is that we still have a politician with an inspiring aim.MP's bill aims to ease plight of 1.4m agency workers For three and a half years, Rebecca Ames helped British Telecom customers to connect up to broadband services. She sat alongside BT staff doing the same job but received, she claims, barely half their pay. Ames was an agency worker; her sickness and holiday benefits were less generous than those of directly employed colleagues. Requests for a permanent position were refused, she believes, because as a mother of three she was on child-friendly hours. Ames, 34, was one of an estimated 1.4 million workers in the United Kingdom on agency contracts. Their terms and conditions could be transformed if a backbench protest by Labour MPs succeeds today in forcing a private member's bill through to committee stage. "About 60% of the people in the office in Truro were on agency work," said Ames, who has left BT, unable to cope on such low wages, even with a working partner. "Most of the people were doing the same job. "For a 30-hour week I was receiving around £10,000 a year. BT staff on the same hours were paid £18,000. As agency workers we didn't get annual pay rises. You don't expect to be treated like that in a blue chip company in 2008." A spokesman for BT said: "Agency workers are a valuable and important resource. They help with the peaks and troughs of varying workloads that the business has to react to." Ames's tale is far from unique. Resentment at how far and fast casualisation has spread through the labour market has infuriated trade unions and backbench Labour MPs. They are flexing their political muscles in what may become the largest backbench protest of Gordon Brown's premiership. Many fear that if the inequality in wages between permanent and temporary staff is not addressed it could also poison race relations in Britain's workplaces. A significant proportion of those employed through agencies are from abroad, often eastern Europe. Their lower wages, it is alleged, undermine the salaries and conditions of permanent British employees and generate frustrations that play into the hands of the British National party. The government, which has not yet openly opposed the bill sponsored by Andrew Miller MP, is going ahead with a new commission under George Bain, the former head of the Low Pay Commission, to investigate the problem. However, this is viewed with suspicion by trade unionists and Labour backbenchers. A similar private member's bill failed to gain government backing last summer. Campaigners point out that the government promised to support a draft EU directive on agency workers as long ago as 2004 in the so-called Warwick agreement. When the directive came up for discussion in Brussels last autumn, the government failed to support it. Trade unionists claim it was sabotaged by British influence. Martin Smith, the national organiser for the GMB, said agency work was "almost endemic". As well as receiving lower wages, those employed through agencies are often denied company sick pay and have worse overtime rates and fewer holiday benefits. Miller's bill would outlaw such discrimination. Miller, MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, said: "Years ago we accepted the principle of equality between men and women. I can't see the difference between those who are permanently employed and those working on a temporary basis. "This is not a revolt of the usual suspects. It's the whole parliamentary Labour party saying to the government there's a major problem here. We have to be very careful with the potential damage that cheapskate employers are causing to race relations." Asked whether the government would support Miller's bill, a spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: "The government will make its position clear on the day. We are committed to protecting the rights of vulnerable workers. Many people work in agencies by choice and this can also be an important route back into work. "It is vital that the EU's agency workers directive, while offering protection to agency workers, does not damage the flexibility of our labour market." Brown goes to Brussels to repair bridges and launch charm offensive Gordon Brown yesterday embarked on a European charm offensive when he paid his first visit to Brussels as prime minister and declared that Britain and the EU were inseparable. "The EU is essential to the success of Britain and a Britain fully engaged in Europe is essential to the success of the EU," the prime minister said after talks with José Manuel Barroso, the commission president. "I have no doubt that in this time of global uncertainty we should not be ever throwing into question, as some would, the stability of Britain's relationships with the EU." Barroso warmly welcomed Brown to Brussels, though there is some irritation in private that it took the prime minister nearly eight months to make the visit to the European commission which is traditional for all new EU leaders. The first months of the Brown premiership were spent defending "red lines" in the recently sealed Lisbon treaty overhauling the way the EU is run. Brown offended other European leaders in December by showing up late for the treaty signing ceremony in Lisbon. He then invited Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany to Downing Street for talks on the financial markets crisis, infuriating leaders of smaller European countries. He sought to make amends by later including Romano Prodi of Italy and Barroso on the guest list. "You can't do Europe just by calling Berlin and Paris all the time," one official said. Against this background, meticulous plans were made by the commission and Downing Street for yesterday's meetings, which covered Brown's pet subjects of economic reform and climate change. Brown began the day by meeting Peter Mandelson, Britain's European commissioner, who has had a tense relationship with him since they fell out when Tony Blair became Labour leader in 1994. In their first face-to-face meeting since Brown became prime minister, the two had what was described as a "friendly" discussion about the world trade talks, Britain's place in Europe and domestic British politics. Mandelson told Brown he should engage wholeheartedly with the EU and take note of the way Sarkozy's energetic approach has made him a dominant figure. Berlin and Brussels are keen for Brown to become a counterbalance to Sarkozy, who is viewed as mercurial, opportunistic and unreliable, while also more protectionist and less liberal on economics. Brown attempted to show that Britain is shaping the debate when he set out "four major goals" for the EU. The goals, which will be fleshed out at next month's annual spring EU economic summit,
are building global prosperity, creating an environmentally sustainable world, leading on stability and reconstruction around the world, and leading the fight against poverty. Brown said the EU could focus on these goals because it had resolved its institutional changes for the next decade. European diplomats and commission officials say Brown has an ideal opportunity to shape this agenda. "The March summit is a natural playground for Brown," one official said. Officials in Brussels hope yesterday's visit marks the beginning of a better relationship. But many in Brussels are not yet convinced that Brown is grasping the opportunity as fully as he might.1,400 Defra jobs go as Benn reworks budget to cut deficit Spending cuts on recycling, canals, wildlife conservation and forestry were announced yesterday by Hilary Benn, the environment secretary. But more cash from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is to be given to flood defences, low-carbon energy projects, waste and incineration, farm subsidies and fighting animal diseases. The move is part of a recasting of the department's £3.94bn budget following a ministerial crisis meeting at the beginning of the month after officials realised that the department was facing a £1bn overspend in the next three years. It will mean the end of much ministry support for business, cuts in consultant contracts, closure of offices and voluntary redundancy for 1,400 of Defra's staff. The Waste and Resources Action Programme, which promotes recycling, sees a 30% funding cut, from £59m to £43.2m, while British Waterways has its funding cut from £48.5m to £34.1m. Natural England, which looks after conservation and wildlife, faces a £5m reduction to £176m. Kew Gardens and Encams, which runs the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, have had their budgets frozen. The Environment Agency gets an extra £49m to spend on flood protection next year and another £4m on environmental protection. But it will have to save money on protecting fisheries and take on new responsibilities. Fishing licences are expected to go up to cover the cost. The department has set aside at least £33m in a contingency budget to handle future animal health crises, following the foot and mouth and bluetongue outbreaks. Obesity rates start badly and get worse at primary school Nearly one in four children starting primary school are either overweight or obese, according to government figures which also show that by the time they leave aged 11 the proportion has risen to one in three. The scale of the epidemic is made clear by yesterday's release of the latest results of the National Child Measurement Programme, which showed that 22.9% of four and five-year-olds are either overweight or obese, indicating that there is a serious problem before children even reach school. By year 6, it has got worse, with 31.6% of children overweight or obese. In both age groups, boys are more likely than girls to be overweight. The programme was launched in 2005 with the aim of weighing and measuring every child on arrival in the reception year and again in year 6, the last year of primary school. Up to now, 80% of children have been weighed and measured. From the statistics, their body mass index can be calculated and compared with the ideal for their age and gender. Childhood obesity is more prevalent in London than anywhere else in England and Wales, with 11.3% of four- and five-year-olds and a huge 20.8% of 10- and 11-year-olds having a severe weight problem. The south-east coast has the fewest overweight pupils - 14.9% in the reception class. The south-west has the fewest overweight children in year 6, at 14.9%. Stuart Barber, head of policy and public affairs for the British Heart Foundation, found the figures troubling. "These distressing figures confirm that a new generation of children are paying the price for decades of inaction. But it's not too late to reverse the trend." He urged the government to ban all junk food advertising before 9pm. "Young children are particularly susceptible to junk food advertising, which continually urges them to put their hearts and long-term health at risk." The Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, said it was a stark wake-up call to see that more than a quarter of children were overweight before they even started secondary school. "Worryingly, the scale of the problem may be worse than these figures suggest as the fear of being bullied as 'fat' may mean that some of the heaviest children could be in the 20% of children who weren't weighed," he said. "It's clear that not enough is being done at the most critical age. Action needs to be taken before children even start school, yet information about healthy living is not getting through to new parents as health visitor numbers decline and school nurses are overstretched." The public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, said it was encouraging that the measurement programme had reached so many children. "Knowing how many children are overweight or obese and spotting trends is key to ensuring that families, communities, public services, industry and government take the right action in tackling obesity," she said. The government had recently published a £372m obesity strategy. "We're not going to stem the tide overnight but through measures such as providing the right information and support to parents to ensure a healthy diet and regular exercise for children, and increasing participation in sport and healthy eating, we hope to support families to lead healthier lives," she said. Body mass index Body mass index (BMI) is a tool that can be used to tell how healthy a person's weight is. This chart plots BMI against a child's age Working out your child's BMI 1. Weight in kg, example 30kg 2. Divided by height in metres, example 1.3m 3. Divided by height in metres again Example 30/1.3 = 23.08/1.3 = 17.75 Missing girl 'seen near her home' Hopes were raised yesterday that the missing schoolgirl Shannon Matthews may have survived one of the coldest nights of the year away from home, after a man told police that he was sure he had seen her yesterday morning. Detectives said that the report from a street close to the nine-year-old's home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, was "significant". The man did not know Shannon but recognised photographs. Scores of neighbours joined more than 250 police officers searching for the girl yesterday. Police confirmed that friends of the family had said that Shannon, who lives with her mother and several half-sisters and half-brothers, had told schoolfriends that she was thinking of running away from home. Her 11-year-old half-brother Tony has run away twice. Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan, of West Yorkshire police, said that a team of 60 detectives was checking out half a dozen possible sightings of Shannon since she left her primary school on Tuesday afternoon after a swimming lesson. Ministers order review of biofuels A review of the environmental and economic damage caused by growing biofuels was ordered by the government yesterday. Ministers say a number of studies have emerged recently which question the environmental benefits of biofuels, and the government wants to check that UK and European biofuel targets will not cause more problems than they solve. However, ministers intend to press ahead with a plan to force oil suppliers to have biofuels constitute 2.5% of transport fuel from April, rising to 5% by 2010. Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, said: "The UK government takes this issue very seriously. We are not prepared to go beyond current UK target levels for biofuels until we are satisfied it can be done sustainably. The review will ensure that the full economic and environmental impacts of biofuel production are taken into account in the formation of UK policy beyond 2010." The study will be carried out by the new Renewable Fuels Agency, which will report in early summer. Environment campaigners welcomed the move, but said no biofuels should be used in the UK until the review was completed. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "The scientific evidence is mounting: biofuels are often more damaging to the climate than the fossil fuels they are designed to replace. The government needs to introduce a moratorium on the UK's biofuel targets until this review has been published." Dr Sue Armstrong Brown, the head of countryside conservation at the RSPB, said: "This review is a welcome small step forward, but one that sidesteps the inadequacy of government policy on biofuels. The renewable fuel obligation could still mean forecourts selling biofuels, whose production comes at the expense of wildlife. It could still leave motorists buying biofuel that has contributed to climate change because emissions from biofuel production could be higher." Strike threat by BA pilots to Easter travellers The Easter travel plans of more than 100,000 British Airways passengers face severe disruption unless peace talks avert strike action by pilots. BA and the pilots' union, Balpa, have agreed to take their dispute to a mediator after 3,000 BA pilots voted for a walkout yesterday. Balpa did not set strike dates but industrial action could take place from early next month if talks break down, threatening the busy Easter period and overshadowing preparations for the launch of Heathrow Terminal 5. Strike action would ground around 100,000 BA passengers a day just as the airline is attempting to improve the tarnished reputation of its Heathrow base by moving to Terminal 5 next month. The dispute centres on the launch of the subsidiary airline OpenSkies, which Balpa fears will be used as a vehicle to undermine pay and conditions for all BA pilots. OpenSkies will operate flights between continental Europe and the US, but Balpa fears its lower pay scales will be retained if staff transfer to BA's mainline
operations. BA has agreed verbally not to apply the conditions in its main business, but Balpa is demanding written assurances. BA says its CityFlyer service, which operates from City airport in London, operates under similar principles with no objections from Balpa members. However, 86% voted for a strike on a 90% turnout. The union said the vote was a "line in the sand" after foreign carriers such as American Airlines used subsidiaries to impose new pay and conditions on staff. Senior figures on both sides talked up the chances of an agreement to head off the first BA pilots' strike since 1979, but some BA flight crew are pessimistic, after the airline refused to make concessions during months of talks. Jim McAuslan, Balpa's general secretary, offered some hope to BA customers in a joint statement with the airline: "We have no quarrel with the travelling public and have always maintained that these issues could be resolved through negotiation rather than confrontation." Willie Walsh, the BA chief executive, said he was confident that a settlement would be reached. He added: "We are proud of the professionalism and high reputation of our pilots and have never sought conflict with them." BA pilots are also mulling over whether to avoid striking over Easter if talks break down, in order to retain public support. Walsh will be hoping for a swift and successful conclusion to talks after the cabin crew dispute last year, which cost BA an estimated £80m. BA is banking on a successful opening of Terminal 5 because it coincides with the liberalisation of the transatlantic flight market, which is expected to slash fares between London and the US while presenting BA with its biggest competitive threat since the launch of Virgin Atlantic more than two decades ago. Gascoigne sectioned after hotel incident The footballer Paul Gascoigne has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act after an incident at a hotel which was said to have left guests feeling threatened. Police detained the former England midfielder at Gateshead's Hilton hotel without incident on Wednesday night, but had previously spoken to him in the small hours of the morning at the Malmaison in Newcastle after the fire alarm was set off and he had a "confrontation" with the night porter. The 40-year-old, whose clubs included Newcastle, Tottenham, Lazio and Rangers, has a history of emotional instability and erratic behaviour which saw him treated a number of times for drink and mental health problems. He had been staying at the Malmaison for two weeks. Its spokesman, Nigel Massey, said: "He had been an absolutely perfect guest; the staff loved him. On Wednesday morning the fire alarm went off at about 3am. Guests were aroused and the night porter came up and there was a bit of a confrontation. There was a bit of grabbing and a bit of verbal, but I'm told the porter is fine." He said Gascoigne calmed down and left the hotel with his sister, Anna-Marie. Another spokesperson said Gascoigne was a "potential menace" to other guests, who felt threatened by his behaviour. A Hilton spokeswoman said the footballer checked in early on Wednesday morning and the hotel was later called by the police. "Once the police arrived, he was escorted peacefully away," she said. A spokesman for Northumbria police said: "Police were called to Malmaison at 4.24am on Wednesday February 20 after reports that a guest was behaving in a disorderly manner towards other guests." Family and friends, including his sister, would not comment. Gascoigne endeared himself to the nation and spawned Gazzamania when he burst into tears after receiving a yellow card in England's semi-final against West Germany in the 1990 World Cup, and was once regarded as one of the world's best footballers. He made 57 appearances for England, scoring 10 goals, but his playing career was hurt by personal problems, many linked to his heavy drinking. His alcohol problems and bouts of depression are well-documented, as are his acknowledged beating of his ex-wife, Sheryl, and run-ins with the police. His final appearances on the pitch were with a Chinese second division side, Gansu Tianma, and a brief spell with Boston United. His last direct involvement in football was as manager of the minor league club Kettering Town, where his 39-day reign in 2005 ended in acrimony, with chairman Imraan Ladak claiming he was "under the influence of alcohol before, during and after several first-team games and training sessions". There have been fears for his long-term health in recent years. He was hospitalised with pneumonia in 2005, and last year had emergency surgery for a perforated stomach ulcer. Goddess gowns wow Milan Twice a year at Milan fashion week, Italian designers agree a spin on how to look molto sexy, as they say here. Molto sexy but eccentric; molto sexy hippy; molto sexy and futuristic - the possibilities are endless. Or so we thought. This week, sex appeal has been in thin supply. Gucci revealed loose, floor-length dresses; Cavalli gave us prim ballerina shapes. And yesterday Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the king and king of molto sexy, unveiled a collection of flat caps, calf-length corduroy dresses, lace-up brogues and, for evening, tweed ball gowns and flat shoes. Their inspiration, they said, was "the return of warm, comfortable clothing". Think David Bowie at a shooting weekend in Scotland, with a dash of Arctic Monkeys as country squires at the Brits, and you get the idea. Androgynous skinny tailoring in salt and pepper tweed replaced Dolce & Gabbana's trademark corseted curves, layered with lambskin gilets and tartan shirts and worn with glitter brogues. But Dolce & Gabbana are adept at spinning desirable accessories out of the most unlikely themes. Saddle bags in sumptuous leather, stack-heeled boots in suede and crocodile, and 50 new silk scarf prints should keep the tills ringing. It was left to Donatella Versace to keep the sequinned flag of glamour flying, and this she did in fine style. After a series of chic day outfits in keeping with the demure mood of the week, she unleashed a knock 'em dead finale of goddess gowns, sure to have knocking on her door actresses still searching for this Sunday's Oscar outfit. BMA calls for drink tax rise to counter misuse Doctors yesterday urged the government to raise taxes on alcohol and introduce tough new laws to control marketing and ban irresponsible promotions in bars and off-licences. A report from the British Medical Association called for taxes to be raised in line with alcohol content, pushing up the price of stronger drink, a new lower permitted alcohol limit for drivers, and bans on TV advertising before 9pm. Irresponsible promotional tactics such as happy hours and two-for-one offers must be outlawed, it said. Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of ethics and science, criticised the government for a cosy relationship with the drinks industry which had led to voluntary codes which did not work. "Recent governments have worked too closely with the alcohol industry and have pursued policies of deregulation and liberalisation regarding alcohol control," she said. "The alcohol industry are very effective lobbyists and we see that around the world. We need to learn the lessons we took a long time to learn from tobacco, but learn them more quickly." The BMA report, Alcohol Misuse: Tackling the UK Epidemic, warns that the government's emphasis on partnership with the industry has at its heart a fundamental conflict of interest. "The alcohol industry clearly has a vested interest in the development of control policies," it says. "It is essential that the UK government moves away from partnership with the alcohol industry and looks at effective alternatives to self-regulation that will ensure there is a transparent policy development process that is based on reducing the harm related to alcohol misuse." The number of alcohol-related deaths in the UK more than doubled from 4,144 in 1991 to 8,386 in 2005, says the report. The rate of liver cirrhosis in England approximately trebled between 1970 and 1998. An estimated 70% of all admissions to hospital accident and emergency departments at peak times are alcohol-related. Admissions of over-16s related to alcohol nearly doubled from 89,280 in 1995-96 to 187,640 in 2005-06. The number of children admitted over the same period rose from 3,870 to 5,280. Alcohol, sold at discount prices in supermarkets, has become far more affordable, says the report. Young people and less affluent people would be particularly affected by tax rises, the report says. "It is essential that there is an increase in the level of excise paid on alcohol in the UK and this should be relative to the number of units of alcohol." Local authorities should cut the number of licences to sell alcohol that they hand out, particularly in areas where there is street violence. Licensing hours should be reduced both for pubs and clubs and for shops. A statutory code should be introduced to prevent marketing to people under 18, including cinema and TV adverts, and alcohol industry sponsorship of sports, music or other events aimed at young people. The report came as Tesco acknowledged the limitations of voluntary agreements, calling on the government to ban price-slashing on alcoholic drinks in supermarkets. Competition law prevented the supermarkets from getting together to stop the discounts, it claimed. The public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, said she welcomed Tesco's concern but said it was "vital that we understand which supermarket practices really impact on harmful drinking and which are simply helping hard-pressed family budgets" - a question which would be tackled by a review of pricing and promotion which will report in the summer. "Tackling the culture of harmful and binge drinking is a priority for government and we are working with the
alcohol industry and other stakeholders to implement a strategy to tackle it," she added. The Wine and Spirit Trade Association rejected the BMA calls for higher taxes. "It does seem odd to acknowledge that the vast majority of us drink responsibly yet call for tax increases which would punish all of us for the sins of a few. It would be unfair and ineffective. What we need is a comprehensive approach that addresses the social factors that contribute to alcohol misuse," said Jeremy Beadles, the chief executive. Single women's overtime burden Single women in their 30s are bearing the brunt of Britain's long hours culture and are much more likely to put in unpaid overtime than men or working mothers, findings by the TUC show. Nearly 40% clock up additional hours, compared with 26% of single men of the same age. But the findings, published to mark the TUC's annual Work Your Proper Hours Day, show that once women have children, the proportion in all age groups working unpaid overtime drops. The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: "Most people think long hours working is mainly a problem for men. But when you look at who is most likely to put in those extra unpaid hours at work the picture changes completely. "Women who want to get on at work need to put in longer hours than anyone else, but as soon as they have children they no longer have that option. It is hardly surprising that the senior levels of most organisations are male and that the gender pay gap stubbornly persists." Women's campaigners also raised concerns that pressure to work longer hours militates against mothers and in effect forces women to choose between family and career. Kat Banyard, of the Fawcett Society, said: "There is a significant gap between the amount of unpaid overtime worked by mothers and women with no children. Women are being presented with impossible choices between caring for a family or maximising career opportunities in a workplace that measures performance by the number of hours put in." The TUC claimed that the total value of unpaid work reached a record high of nearly £25bn in 2007, with nearly 5 million employees working overtime for free. While men are less likely than single women to work unpaid overtime, the TUC research shows, those who do put in more hours. Fathers who do so work an average of 8.3 hours unpaid each week, compared with 7.4 hours for single men, 6.9 hours for single women and 5.7 hours for women with children. New therapy helps boost immune system of HIV patients Doctors have boosted the immune systems of long-term HIV patients with a new therapy designed to protect them from common but potentially lethal infections. The treatment doubled the number of immune cells HIV patients had circulating in their blood, suggesting it was rebuilding their ailing immune systems. Infection with HIV wipes out immune cells and ultimately leads to the collapse of the entire immune system, leaving patients vulnerable to even minor infections. In the developing world, a major cause of death among HIV sufferers is tuberculosis and pneumonia because their immune systems are too weak to fight the infections. Doctors at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, and the University of California, San Francisco, injected HIV patients with a growth hormone and found it kick-started the thymus, a gland which often shuts down after HIV infection. The thymus plays a crucial role in the body's defences by producing T cells, the workhorses of the immune system. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, is the first to show how a drug therapy can reactivate the thymus and immune system. Laura Napolitano, who led the study, enrolled 22 HIV patients who had received standard HIV therapy for an average of three years. The patients were split into two groups, one being given regular injections of growth hormone, while the others continued therapy as before. At the end of the first year, the groups were swapped. Blood samples and medical scans were used to check how well the patients responded throughout the treatment. The team found that when patients were given growth hormone, their thymus increased in size and produced twice as many fresh T cells. The increase persisted for at least one year after the injections were stopped. Napolitano said the findings were proof of principle that the therapy could reverse damage caused by HIV, "an important step to determine whether immune therapies might someday benefit patients who need more T cells". Though the trial was successful, the researchers said it was too early to consider growth hormone as a general treatment. The hormone is known to have side-effects, including a higher risk of diabetes, bone pain, swelling of the arms and legs, abnormal bone growth and carpal tunnel syndrome. According to the World Health Organisation, 13 million people living with HIV are at risk of developing TB because their immune systems are unable to fight it. In some regions of Africa, up to 80% of adult TB patients are also infected with HIV. Frances Gotch, an HIV specialist at Chelsea and Westminster hospital in London, said hormone therapy might help some patients, but added that treatment must first focus on reducing the amount of virus circulating in their blood. Promising' tests on FBI software to put faces on skulls The FBI has developed sophisticated new software for reconstructing a person's face from their skull. The software is designed to help police identify partially decomposed or burned bodies. At present, reconstructing a face from a skull takes a specialist artist up to two weeks and can cost up to $2,000 (£1,020). "Often described as a blending of art and science, these methods require a skilled artist and are labour-intensive and therefore expensive," wrote Diana Moyers, of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting in Washington. "Traditional methods do not effectively address decomposing remains or situations with a large number of remains, such as mass disasters and genocides." The FBI's ReFace (Reality Enhancement Facial Approximation by Computational Estimation) system uses a library of CT scans of living individuals' faces to make facial reconstructions. It was developed for the FBI by General Electric Global Research and is undergoing validation and testing at the FBI's counterterrorism and forensic science research unit in Quantico, Virginia. Moyers was brought in by the FBI to find out how accurate the software is. "We knew that it makes faces, but do they look like the person?" she said. Moyers gave the system 10 skulls of six women and four men from her university's forensic skeletal collection. She then asked 103 volunteers to match the facial reconstructions from the software to actual photographs of the people. For all but one of the skulls the volunteers did better than chance in their guesses. The system looked promising as a replacement for the laborious process of artistic reconstruction. Her colleague Dr Murray Marks, also at the University of Tennessee, tested how good a prototype face recognition system - which is used for matching images of people on CCTV to photographs - was at doing essentially the same task as the human volunteers. Again, the face recognition software performed better than chance. An estimated 40,000 sets of unidentified human remains are held by medical examiners, coroners and forensic anthropologists in the US, according to Marks. "Clearly there is an urgent need to be able to systematically and correctly process large numbers of victims in a cost-efficient and expeditious manner," he wrote. The thing you can't fake is that he has a moral authority ... he brings a sense of gravity, detail and intelligence' It is fitting, for a man often called an actor's actor, that just out of Rada Tom Wilkinson auditioned with Hamlet's advice to the players monologue, in which the prince sets out his stall on acting and his injunction to "o'erstep not the modesty of nature". The man listening to it remembers being blown away. "It was the best audition I had ever seen," said Sir Richard Eyre. "It was startlingly real and authoritative." The audition was easily good enough for Eyre to give Wilkinson his first job as part of the ensemble at Nottingham Playhouse in 1973, where Eyre led a remarkable period of new writing - including David Hare and Howard Brenton's Brassneck and Trevor Griffiths's Comedians - and it was the start of a remarkable career in which Wilkinson has proved himself to his peers, if not necessarily to the public at large. Most film fans would recognise Wilkinson, even if not all could not put a name to him. They would know him from his breakthrough movie, The Full Monty, in 1997 and they might remember him being nominated for an Oscar seven years ago. On Sunday he is a contender again, nominated in the best supporting actor category for his role as the deranged, guilt-ridden lawyer in Michael Clayton. In Hollywood and British film circles everyone knows Wilkinson's name. "When other actors know he's involved in a project they are always interested," said his agent of 25 years, Lou Coulson. "I just think he's one of the best, I just do. Even after 25 years I stand back and look at what he does and I'm always amazed. His performances are never the same, he will always bring something new to a part, he has an intangible instinct for it and will always bring something exciting." According to Eyre, "he is very, very detailed. He is very intelligent, he cares about the world. The thing you can't fake is that he has a moral authority, which is why he's very good at playing particular parts. He brings a sense of gravity and detail and intelligence." Wilkinson is also respected by his peers because he just gets on with his job, turning in some
stunningly good performances with the minimum of fuss. He learns the script, perfects the accent, acts, finishes the job, does publicity if asked and moves on. He never works in August because that is his family's holiday time. He is not an actor who immerses himself, Daniel Day Lewis-style, in seemingly endless research. The publicity for his last Oscar-nominated film, In The Bedroom, said he spent time on a Maine lobster boat to prepare for his role. In interviews Wilkinson was exasperated. He had just spent half a day on the boat because he had to handle a live lobster. "I don't do much research. If you have to do it, if you're playing someone who makes pizza dough, you have to learn how to do that. But I've never played anyone who makes pizza dough," he said. Wilkinson was born in Leeds into a farming family, and was a student at Kent University before going to Rada and embarking on a busy stage and TV career. In the mid-1990s he decided that he wanted to concentrate on film - a decision in part based on money. In one interview he recalls earning £250 a week doing King Lear at the Royal Court. "I was broke, and in a position I'd never been in before - phoning people up to ask: 'Have you got anything for me, anything?' I knew lots of actors who were making movies, and I thought: 'I'll have a piece of that, please'." Since The Full Monty there have been more than 30 movies, covering the whole gamut - the money-earning villain roles in Rush Hour and Batman Begins, the historical parts in Shakespeare in Love and The Patriot, and the smaller-scale, such as Todd Field's In the Bedroom and his Golden Globe winning role in the TV movie Normal, in which he plays a midwestern US factory worker who announces he wants a sex change. Wilkinson is also someone known as being funny and easy to get along with. Sue Birtwistle, the film and TV producer (Cranford), remembers directing him in a stage version of Paddington Bear where he played the bear's elevenses friend Mr Gruber. After that they had the idea of writing a children's play together. "The only time we could do it was in these little two-hour windows at about 5pm. We used to go and have poached egg on toast and we came up with this play about a kung fu hero who had a one-man band as a sidekick. It was pretty bizarre. We just kept saying anything is possible. It was such fun I used to look forward to those two hours. I look back and I always see Tom giggling." Birtwistle also agreed with the actor's actor tag. He is enormously respected but why is he not more of a household name? "I'm not sure that if you could wave a wand and make him into a major star, whatever that means, that he would thank you for it. I don't think he has the appetite for the trappings of major stardom," said Eyre. According to Coulson, "he has managed to keep a balance of a really interesting career with a low profile. He is ambitious but it's not an ugly ambition. It's not an ambition for fame, which is what's so prevalent at the moment: he wants to be in line for the good scripts." If he wins the Oscar at the weekend - up against the formidable competition of Javier Bardem, Casey Affleck, Hal Holbrook and Philip Seymour Hoffman - even better scripts will surely come his way. The CV Born February 5 1948, Leeds Married In 1998 to actress Diana Hardcastle; two daughters Education Kent University; Rada Career Theatre and small TV roles until the 1990s, when he made an impact in the BBC's Martin Chuzzlewit before The Full Monty in 1997 Awards 2002 Independent Spirit Awards, best male lead for In the Bedroom; 1998 Baftas, best performance by an actor in a supporting role for The Full Monty Latinos in spotlight as Obama sets sights on capturing Texas Derek Valadéz should not be here. Standing in the early afternoon sun, bobbing his head to the funky Obama soundtrack as he waits for the candidate to make his first major campaign stop in Texas, Valadéz arrived at Guadalupe Plaza at 10am to find a queue of people disappearing up the street. Valadéz is a member of what until now has been a rare, almost mythical breed: the Latino Obama supporter. But that was then. With the fabled momentum of the weeks since Super Tuesday, which has seen the candidate rack up 11 successive victories - including, yesterday, the Democrats Abroad global primary - even Latinos have started to move to Obama. "He's such a smart guy," says Valadéz. "Young people like him because he's young and fresh and he's offering a choice." Valadéz is a student, and his refrain is a familiar one. But what is less familiar is the voice of the man standing next to him, his grandfather, Frank Valadéz. "We've been following him since he gave that speech at the convention in 2004," says the elder Valadéz. "We're moderates: we want a balanced budget, the middle class to be protected, money for education, but we've been waiting and waiting for someone to come along and get things done." The Valadéz family and the thousands of Obama supporters around them have set up an intriguing battle for the heart of Texas. South Texas, if one believes the doomsayers gathering around Hillary Clinton's tilt at the White House, is her Alamo, her last chance to salvage what had seemed a certainty just months, even weeks before. One recent Texas poll showed that Clinton's 20-point lead of a month ago had shrunk to a statistically meaningless 2%. In November she held a 40% lead. If she is going to take the state the received wisdom is that her saviours - now that women, the less well-off, the white working class and just about every other demographic group has slipped away - are the Latinos. Down by the border, in the Clinton heartland of the Rio Grande Valley, the fight is on. "Battle for the Latino vote in Texas", reads the headline in the free weekly Rumbo del Valley. "The Latino vote will be decisive," was El Periódico's take on the same story on Wednesday, while La Frontera chose "They're fighting in the valley". "There is fluidity in the Latino vote," says University of Texas San Antonio political scientist Richard Gambitta. "It is not locked in. Obama carried the Latino vote in Maryland and probably Illinois. In California he split the undecided Latino vote. There's a suggestion that the same may be happening here." As Obama has built momentum, so he has been able to reduce Clinton's initial advantage of name recognition and the legacy of her husband's presidency. Obama's son-of-an-immigrant story and tale of getting through education with the help of a scholarship resonate with Latinos. But there is more. "Rhetoric, for example, has an impact," says Gambitta. "To fix healthcare, he says 'we have to fix it', it's always we, us, whereas with Clinton it's 'I, I, I'." Obama has adapted his message to the audience. Before his rally in San Antonio he took part in a meeting with victims of the mortgage crisis. During his rally the biggest cheer of the day came not for the cute line about President Bush - "I love Texas but I want y'all to take him back" - but for a section about teachers' pay and standardised testing. He even mentioned property tax a couple of times, which seems obscure until you understand that this skewed means of funding education is a critical issue to Latino voters. And on the buzz issue of immigration reform, Obama arguably has a stronger record than Clinton. He argues in favour of driver's licences for the undocumented, reasoning that it makes them less likely to flee the scene of an accident, and says that it is time to stop treating immigration as a political football and time to find solutions. Then there is the question of tone. The day after the Obama campaign Clinton returns to the border town of Hidalgo, where she and Bill worked as voter registration activists during George McGovern's ill-fated 1972 presidential campaign against Richard Nixon. While the Obama rally had opened with a first-time activist standing alongside her nonagenarian mother to introduce the candidate, Clinton's had an all-singing, all-dancing variety show. A high school mariachi band performed for the crowd, a folk dance group twirled and spun. T-shirts bearing the candidate's name were tossed into the crowd. Introducing the candidate were congressional heavyweights, the established statesmen of south Texan politics, their hair varying shades of grey. The introduction for Clinton was made by a pillar of local Democratic politics, Henry Cisneros, a former mayor of San Antonio and member of Bill Clinton's cabinet. He did a rabble-rousing job, but his voice echoed around the two-thirds full Dodge Arena, and the banks of children bussed in for the event seemed indifferent to his exhortations. Three times during her 25-minute speech she mentioned her work in the state 36 years ago, while Cisneros reminded the crowd that the Clintons have stayed in touch with the area. In 1998, he told them, Bill Clinton was the first serving president to visit the valley in over 40 years. But that was all a very long time ago. "I was in junior high at the time," says Eddie Lucio III, a bright star of Texan politics, who was elected as a state representative in 2006. "There are some of us in the Latino community who have had a history with the Clintons. For me it was a clean slate this election cycle. It's not Bill [running for president], it's Hillary, and I took my time." After weighing up the options Lucio III has become the only legislator in the Rio Grande Valley to endorse Obama. Lucio's career follows that of his father, Eddie Lucio Jr, a veteran state senator. But in the current election the paths of father and son have diverged: Eddie, the father, supports Clinton. "We reared our son to be an independent thinker," says Lucio Jr. "For years we have been able to talk to Hillary Clinton, she's had a presence here and with all due respect, we have yet to see Barack Obama. It's a matter
of loyalty, of who we know." But his son, and a growing number of Latino voters, don't appear to see it that way. "Obama is a once in a lifetime figure, a uniter of men who realises he has to reach across the isle," Lucio III said. But whoever wins, the elder Lucio sees this year's primary as proof that the time has finally come for the Latino vote, following the promise of the 2005 immigration rights marches and the letdown of the 2006 midterm elections. "The Hispanic community, hopefully, is coming into a realisation that we do have the numbers and the power," says Lucio Jr. "Power is not a bad thing; the worst thing is if you ignore it. We're going to see a major turnaround. Senator Clinton, if she is able to win Texas and Ohio, will go on to win Pennsylvania. But Texas is a must." How Texas votes If this truly is Hillary Clinton's Alamo, then to survive she has to win at least two-thirds of the Latino vote in Texas, probably more. But even so, the process is stacked against her. While most states allocate delegates to the Democratic convention in August proportionally based on the popular vote, and some hold caucuses, where supporters must openly declare their support for a candidate, Texas does both. The Lone Star state selects its 228 Democratic delegates using a two-thirds, one-third combination of voting and caucus. Those who have voted - and voting started on Tuesday - using a ballot can return when the polls close on March 4 to caucus, traditionally one of the Obama campaign's strengths. For this reason the Clinton campaign has been handing out flyers at its Texas rallies telling supporters: "Don't forget to vote twice." Additionally, delegates are apportioned according to turnout in the two previous elections, votes in which African-American and urban turnout was significantly higher than that in Latino areas. Thus, a congressional district in a Latino border area which had a low turnout in 2004 and 2006 might offer just three delegates, while an urban, heavily African-American district such as Houston could offer as many as eight delegates. Even should she win the popular vote in Texas, Clinton faces a tough, possibly insurmountable task. McCain denies having affair with lobbyist John McCain, struggling to consolidate his support in the conservative wing of the Republican party, was yesterday forced to deny a report of an affair with a lobbyist for the telecoms industry. A subdued McCain was flanked by his wife, Cindy, to tell a press conference in Toledo, Ohio, there was no basis to a story in the New York Times of a relationship eight years ago with Vicki Iseman. "It's not true," he said. The newspaper had reported that aides to McCain confronted Iseman in 1999 and told her to stay away from McCain because they were concerned the connection could hurt his political career. Yesterday's appearance was a decidedly muted response from McCain, hours after his aides had dismissed the story as "gutter politics" and a "smear campaign". Although he has a reputation on Capitol Hill as a man with an explosive temper, he spoke quietly and repeatedly emphasised his "disappointment" with the Times. His wife maintained the measured tone, stepping up only briefly to the microphone to say: "My children and I not only trust my husband but, more importantly, know that he would never do anything to disappoint our family and, more importantly, disappoint America." As McCain himself acknowledged yesterday, the allegations come at a delicate time. After hauling his campaign back from the brink of collapse last summer, he is virtually assured of winning the Republican nomination against Mike Huckabee. However, despite his lead in the delegate race, McCain has yet to win the trust of his party's conservative wing. In addition to allegations of an affair, the suggestion of close links to a lobbyist has the potential to damage McCain. The Vietnam war hero has built his candidacy around his reputation as a crusader against Washington's monied interests; he calls his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express. In 2000 he put his opposition to corporate interests at the centre of his failed campaign for the nomination against George Bush. The Times had been pursuing the story for months, and by the time it published yesterday other news organisations had their own versions. The newspaper said McCain had complained about its investigation in a telephone call with its executive editor, Bill Keller, in which the senator denied any affair with Iseman. At the time of the alleged affair McCain chaired the Senate's commerce committee. Iseman was working for a small media chain seeking support from Congress for its purchase of a Pittsburgh TV station. McCain wrote two letters urging the regulatory authority to issue a decision. But he insisted yesterday he was not an advocate on behalf of Iseman's client, but merely pressed for a speedy decision. The newspaper said she was a frequent visitor to his Senate office, and that he had flown with her on a corporate jet belonging to her client, Paxson communications. It quoted a former McCain strategist, John Weaver, as saying in an email he had arranged a meeting between an aide and Iseman at Washington's Union station to ask her to stay away from the campaign. "Our political messaging during that time period centred around taking on the special interests and placing the nation's interests before either personal or special interest," the newspaper quoted Weaver saying. "Ms Iseman's involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort." McCain denied any knowledge of such concern among his aides yesterday, or of any such meeting with Iseman. He insisted that he was not unduly influenced by any of his contacts with lobbyists in Washington. However, some commentators suggested yesterday that the attack might actually bolster McCain's credentials among conservatives, who view the Times with suspicion as a liberal newspaper. Indeed later in the day, the McCain campaign launched a fundraising appeal. "The New York Times ... has shown once again that it cannot exercise good journalistic judgment when it comes to dealing with a conservative Republican," McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, wrote in an email to supporters. "We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against The New York Times by making an immediate contribution today." Keller said in a written statement yesterday: "We think the story speaks for itself. On the timing, our policy is we publish stories when they are ready." The newspaper also revived memories of a 1989 scandal involving the collapse of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which cost taxpayers $3.4bn. Five senators, including McCain, were subsequently reprimanded for acting on behalf of the bank's chief, Charles Keating, who was jailed. Second US serviceman held over alleged sex attack in Japan A US army serviceman is under investigation for alleged sexual assault in Japan, adding to a string of recent accusations fuelling anger against American troops. In the latest case an unidentified army serviceman is accused of attacking a Philippine woman at a hotel on the southern island of Okinawa, where a US marine was arrested last week on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl. The fresh allegation risked triggering further sentiment against the heavy US military presence, and came a day after American forces imposed tight restrictions on troops to cut down on crime. A report by Kyodo News agency said military authorities had taken the serviceman into custody after the alleged assault was reported on Monday, but military officials refused to confirm that. "They are investigating charges of that," said Master Sergeant Terence Peck, of US Forces Japan. The army released a statement pledging full cooperation with Japanese authorities, but gave no information about the investigation. "We take this allegation very seriously, and the army does not tolerate sexual assault," said the statement. The woman, also unidentified, was taken to a hospital after meeting a serviceman in a hotel, said Takashi Ariyoshi, of the Japanese foreign ministry. On Wednesday the US military imposed restrictions on US troops, limiting 45,000 military personnel, civilian employees and their families to bases, workplaces or off-base homes indefinitely. The restrictions went beyond a midnight curfew already in place for enlisted marines on Okinawa, where most of the 50,000 US troops are based. The move was part of a campaign by the US to soothe rising anger over the alleged crimes that threatened to erupt into protests against the American presence. Christopher Hill, the US envoy to talks on North Korean denuclearisation, expressed regret over the allegations during a stopover in Tokyo. "I think we can all have great confidence that, together with the Japanese authorities and the authorities in Okinawa, that they can find ... a better situation in the future," he said. The furore began with the arrest last week of Staff Sergeant Tyrone Luther Hadnott, 38, in the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl. Police said Hadnott had admitted that he forced the girl down and kissed her, but said he did not rape her. The tensions have been compounded by allegations of drunken driving, trespassing and counterfeiting. Japanese leaders have accused the US military of lax discipline. Zimbabwe inflation passes 100,000%, officials say The official rate of annual inflation in Zimbabwe has rocketed past the 100,000% barrier, by far the highest in the world, the state central statistical office said yesterday. Second-placed Iraq has inflation of 60%, according to international estimates. In a brief statement, the statistics office said inflation rose to 100,580% in January, up from 66,212% in December. The new official figure was still well below the rate calculated
by independent analysts. They estimate the real inflation is closer to 150,000%, citing supermarket receipts showing that the price of chicken rose more than 236,000% to 15m Zimbabwe dollars a kilogram between January 2007 and January 2008. Slower increases in prices of sugar, tea and other basics bring down the average to around 150,000%. Zimbabwe, a former regional breadbasket, is facing acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline and most basic goods in an economic meltdown blamed on disruptions in the agriculture-based economy after the seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000, accompanied by political violence and turmoil. Economic hardship is a key issue in national elections scheduled for March 29 in which President Robert Mugabe, who turns 84 on Friday, is facing the biggest challenge to his hold on power since he led the nation to independence in 1980. Inflation, food shortages and the crumbling of power, water, sanitation, roads, phones and communications and other utilities have fuelled deep divisions in the ruling Zanu-PF party. In early October the state central statistical office gave official inflation at just below 8,000%. It then suspended its monthly updates because there was not enough in the shortage-stricken shops to calculate a regular basket of goods. November's already dizzying rate of 24,470% was announced in January and earlier this month the official rate for December was given as 66,212%, a dramatic escalation in the space of a month. The National Incomes and Prices Commission, the government's price control body, this month allowed sharp increases in the prices of the corn meal staple, sugar, bread and other basics in a bid to restore viable operations by producers and return the goods to empty shelves. But the new prices were still roughly half the price demanded on the black market and were unlikely to guarantee regular supplies to food stores. Executives at a milling company producing corn meal said the price increase allowed by the government was already overtaken by soaring production costs and gasoline prices and the National Bakers Association said bread shortages were set to worsen unless the price of a loaf was nearly doubled to more than 5m Zimbabwe dollars for a regular loaf. Gross domestic product in Zimbabwe fell from about $200 in 1996 to about $9 a head last year. US rushes to get slice of $45bn Indian arms pie The US secretary of defence, Robert Gates, arrives in the Indian capital, New Delhi, next week to promote a $10bn jet fighter contract, underlining the country's emergence as one of the world's biggest military markets. To update its Soviet-era arsenal India says it will need to spend $45bn in the next five years, and it has been courted by western states that are barred by arms embargoes from selling to China, the other expanding Asian military power. US officials admit in private that arms sales to India also cement strategic ties as a hedge against Beijing's growing clout in Asia. Gates's visit, due next Tuesday, comes just before a March deadline for bids on the contract for 126 new fighters. K Subramanyam, a defence analyst, said: "With the Americans you purchase not just weapons but a security relationship. The Saudis build it into their calculations. No surprise if we do too." The US will be competing with Russian and European rivals to sell the Indian air force a new "strike capability". The Eurofighter Typhoon, which has been developed by Britain, Italy, Spain and Germany, is also being considered by Delhi. However the rising defence budget, which dwarves spending on education and health, has met mounting domestic criticism. Praful Bidwai, a prominent columnist, said defence accounted for almost 19% of government spending. "We spend 1% on public health and education is 5% or 6% of the outlays." "[India is] a poor country and we are spending like crazy on guns. A government report last year found that 77% of Indians live on less than 20 rupees [25p] per day." India's modernised military has seen it acquire a "power projection" far beyond its shores. It boasts the capability to shoot down incoming missiles and says it can launch missiles from air, land and sea. There is little doubt about its ambitions. In the summer of 2006, as Israeli air strikes shook Lebanon, four warships from the navy arrived off the Lebanese coast to rescue 2,000 South Asian nationals. Indian air force pilots have repeatedly defeated their American counterparts in mock dogfights. War games last year off the country's south-western coast, with the US, Australia, Japan, and Singapore, triggered a formal protest from Beijing. The arms deals and new strategic relationship with the US have mollified Washington, which had been angered by the Indian government's failure to push ahead with a nuclear deal that President George Bush had called "historic". Under the accord India could import nuclear fuel and reactors despite having tested nuclear weapons but not signed the non-proliferation treaty. However, the deal has been kept on ice after opposition from the government's communist allies. Opposition to unite against Musharraf Pakistan's two largest opposition parties pledged to form a coalition government last night, stepping up pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to resign. After meeting in Islamabad for the first time since Monday's general election, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif said they would come together in the national and provincial assemblies. They did not say when the government would be formed or who would be prime minister, indicating further talks. "We intend to stay together, to be together in parliament," said Zardari, whose Pakistan People's Party (PPP) won most seats in Monday's election. Sharif, whose party came second, again urged Musharraf to step down. "The nation has given its verdict ... the sooner he accepts it, the better," he said. In an apparent compromise, Sharif softened his position on the issue of the reinstatement of judges sacked by Musharraf: "In principle there is no disagreement on the restoration of the judiciary. We will work out the modalities in parliament." Sharif avoided mentioning the former chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest and whose fate has become a sensitive point in negotiations. The show of unity is part of a complicated power game to determine the shape of the next government. Their main obstacle is Musharraf. The US is striving to keep Musharraf in power. The State Department has publicly urged the opposition to work with the retired general. Serb rioters invade US embassy Furious Serbs protesting at western support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence set fire to the American embassy in Belgrade last night, as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators converged on the Serbian capital. The attack on the embassy came after hundreds of protesters, watched passively by police, peeled away from the main rally to invade the building in the center of the capital, using sticks and metal bars. Witnesses described how the doors to the unprotected embassy - closed after being attacked earlier this week - were knocked in and used to start a fire in an office while demonstrators cheered. Firefighters swiftly put out the flames. A charred body was later found in the embassy. "It was found at the part of the building set on fire by the protesters," an embassy spokeswoman, Rian Harris, said. She said all embassy employees were accounted for. Belgrade's Pink TV said the body appeared to be that of a rioter. The British embassy also came under attack last night. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said damage to the building was "limited" and staff were safe. In a statement, he said: "While the Kosovo issue raises strong feelings in Serbia, no cause can justify such displays of violence. We have made clear to the Serbian government that we expect them to fully uphold their obligations to protect our embassy and other diplomatic premises." The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Washington would be asking the security council to unequivocally condemn attacks on embassies. "I'm outraged by the mob attack," he said. Groups of protesters also broke into a McDonald's restaurant and other western-owned businesses in Belgrade. Police last night also were guarding the independent B-92 television station - viewed by nationalists as pro-western - as youths started gathering nearby. The rally was the largest since demonstrators filled the streets in 1999 to protest at Nato bombing and stormed the parliament building in October 2000 to oust the nationalist autocrat Slobodan Milosevic. Papers and chairs were thrown out of the embassy's windows, while one protester climbed up to the first floor of the building, ripped the US flag off its pole and briefly put up a Serbian flag in its place. The attack on the building and the neighboring Croatian embassy followed claims by European defence chiefs meeting in Slovenia that security in the Balkans was "under control". The rally came after the government ordered Serbian schools closed for the day and the state rail company made free trains available to bring protesters to the capital. Organizers say the rally was intended to demonstrate Serbia's commitment to holding on to the former province of two million people, where ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs by nine to one. In the south, protesting Serbs also attempted to attack a third border crossing into Kosovo - at Merdare, 30 miles north of Pristina - after destroying two other border crossings earlier this week and driving off UN personnel and Kosovan police. Several hundred Serbian army reservists, many wearing military fatigues, used rocks and sticks to pelt lines of white helmeted ethnic Albanian riot police who were blocking the border and preventing the Serb demonstrators
from surging into Kosovo. There is peace. We have a new airport. People are satisfied' It was once the most destroyed city in Europe, until last year bearing a striking resemblance to Stalingrad. But, almost nine years after Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to recapture the separatist republic of Chechnya at any cost, its capital Grozny has been transformed. The bullet-ridden houses have disappeared. There is a new airport, with daily flights to Moscow. There is a rebuilt university, where students learn journalism and dentistry; a modern high school; a hospital. The Kremlin insists that the conflict in Chechnya, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, is definitively over. But it is also clear that the rapid reconstruction of war-ravaged Chechnya has come at a price. In return for peace Chechnya has been transformed into a totalitarian fiefdom with a flourishing personality cult that might make North Koreans blush. Grozny's streets are lined with ubiquitous portraits of one man - Chechnya's bearded 31-year-old president Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov's distinctive features can be seen at bus stops, along boulevards, and at the airport, where a giant poster shows him holding a bunch of pink flowers. Nightly local TV bulletins heap praise on the youthful pro-Moscow leader. Last December 99% of Chechens apparently voted for Putin and his United Russia party in State Duma elections - a miraculous result that prompted widespread derision but which Putin last week described in his annual Kremlin press conference as "perfectly objective". Officially the turnout in Chechnya was 99.6%. Local election officials have promised to deliver a similar thumping landslide for Putin's anointed successor, Dmitry Medvedev when Russians go to the polls next Sunday in the country's presidential election.