The 60-year-old lecturer was closely involved in the peace talks and has been critical of both unionists and republicans. A health specialist who has in the past urged the Government to help families forced to leave Ireland because of the Troubles.CHALLENGE Possibly to rationalise the 26 local councils and revalue property for rating purposes.SEAN FARREN (SDLP)HIGHER EDUCATIONA fluent Irish-speaker and party stalwart. Future of 11-plus to be decided.SAM FOSTER (UUP)ENVIRONMENTA staunch defender of the RUC calling Chris Patten’s recent report “offensive”. A butcher’s assistant, 49, and former IRA member, often on the run in the 1970s.CHALLENGE Must decide whether to lose a further 500 school places, which will mean some closure of schools. A 49-year-old former office worker, who won’t sit in cabinet meetings with Sinn Fein.CHALLENGE Responsible for the provision and modernisation of public transport and the road and rail networks.MARTIN McGUINNESS (SF)EDUCATIONRegarded by some as embodiment of republican weapons and ballot-box strategy. Will look after legal services and law reform as well as rates collection.PETER ROBINSON (DUP)REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTDeputy party leader credited with secularising the party A caustic critic of the UUP and of nationalists.

A former Belfast lord mayor, Sir Reg, 51, has a sharp eye for detail.CHALLENGE Will formulate economic development policy. Responsible for tourism, which was restricted by the Troubles but could now blossom.MARK DURKAN (SDLP)FINANCE AND PERSONNELFull-time aide to John Hume and possible future leader. Popular party strategist and at 39 the youngest member of the SDLP’s front bench.CHALLENGE Responsible for much of the day-to-day administration. Won his first Commons seat in 1986.CHALLENGE To work well with David Trimble, a relationship that has been strained in the past.SIR REG EMPEY (UUP)ENTERPRISE/INVESTMENTA trusted lieutenant of Mr Trimble who has played a key negotiating role. Intelligent, articulate and with the instinct to drag his party into the 21st century.CHALLENGE To build a new tradition of democratic self-determination.SEAMUS MALLON (SDLP)DEPUTY FIRST MINISTERDeputy leader of the SDLP, he began his political career in the early 1960s when, as a primary school headmaster, he got involved in the civil rights movement. DAVID TRIMBLE (UUP)

FIRST MINISTER
Leader of the Ulster Unionists.

Shared the Nobel Peace Price with John Hume last year but leads a party riven with unease. Ms Williamson subsequently loses her case.11 October: Peter Mandelson replaces Dr Mowlam as Northern Ireland Secretary.16 November: Sinn Fein recognises need for decommissioning and devolution to be carried out simultaneously.17 November: The IRA issues a statement saying it will appoint a representative to the de Chastelain body.18 November: Mr Mitchell concludes his review, saying the formula now exists for a Northern Ireland executive to be set up.27 November: Ulster Unionist Council votes by 480-349 to accept Mitchell compromise.. The worst atrocity in 30 years of the Troubles claims 29 lives.October 16: SDLP leader John Hume and Mr Trimble are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.19992 July: Bruitish and Irish premiers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern set out plan for devolution including IRA to empty arms dumps by May 2000.15 July: Ulster Unionists boycott Stormont meeting intended to set up executive. Mr Mallon quits as Deputy First Minister.20 July: A review of the peace process headed by Senator George Mitchell is announced.26 August: Dr Mowlam says IRA cease-fire is intact.9 September: Unionists react angrily to Mr Patten’s plans for reforming RUC.20 September: Michelle Williamson, whose parents died in 1993 Shankill bomb, granted right to seek judicial review of Dr Mowlam’s decision. David Trimble elected First Minister with the SDLP’s Seamus Mallon made deputy.15 August: Splinter group the Real IRA explodes a car bomb in Omagh. In the Republic, 94.4 per cent back the agreement.27 June: New Northern Ireland executive is elected, with pro-agreement parties taking majority of the 100 seats. Key developments included:

1993
15 December: Prime Minister John Major and Irish Premier Albert Reynolds make the Downing Street Declaration, offering Sinn Fein the chance to join the political process.199431 August: IRA announces ceasefire.13 October: Combined Loyalist Military Command announces ceasefire.9 December: First meeting between British government officials and Sinn Fein.19957 March: Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew says condition for Sinn Fein joining talks include “decommissioning of some arms”.17 June: Sinn Fein pulls out of talks with the British government.28 November: London and Dublin launch Twin Track initiative, setting up parallel talks on the arms and political issues.US President Bill Clinton shakes hands with Gerry Adams in Belfast.19969 February: IRA ends cease-fire with Docklands bombing, killing two.15 June: Massive IRA bomb destroys Manchester city centre.19971 May: Sinn Fein scores best ever general election result with two MPs: Mr Adams and eventual peace talks negotiator Martin McGuinness.6 July: Drumcree Orange Order march forced down Garvaghy Road by RUC.19 July: IRA announces it will restore 1994 cease-fire.26 August: The Independent Commission on Decommissioning is headed by Canadian General John de Chastelain.29 August: Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam announces IRA ceasefire adequate for Sinn Fein to join talks.19989 January: Dr Mowlam holds talks with terrorist inmates in the Maze to persuade them to back peace process.20 February: Sinn Fein suspended from talks after assessment of RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan that IRA was involved in UDA man’s murder.10 April: Good Friday Agreement struck.27 April: Announcement that Chris Patten will chair independent commission to decide future of the RUC.23 May: Northern Ireland backs Good Friday Agreement, voting 71.12 per cent in favour.

He was widely trained in administrative and community therapy, child and adolescent psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. As a psychotherapist, he qualified with the Jungian Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) in 1954, and was profoundly influenced by meetings with Carl Jung.He was equally a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist, resisting on well- argued intellectual grounds (which might today be described as a “whole person approach” or “biopsychosocial theory”) the pressure to choose between these roles. Among formative influences he was proud to name Wordsworth, Coleridge, Jung, Rogers, Popper, Harry Stack Sullivan’s interpersonal psychiatry, Aubrey Lewis’s rigorously scientific psychiatry, his fellow-stammerer Nye Bevan, and the American learning theorists.
Hobson’s MD thesis (1951, receiving journal publication in 1953) was on prognostic factors in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In later years, colleagues who knew him as a psychotherapist were amazed to learn that this seminal ECT study was by the same Hobson. Much of his personal biography was directly reflected in his work, via anecdotes, identifications, and enthusiasms. He grew up in Rossendale, Lancashire, and was educated at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Manchester University Medical School.

In 1944/46 he served as surgeon lieutenant, RNVR, on the Arctic convoys. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, based in the London area, he gained qualifications and experience in both psychiatry and psychotherapy. ROBERT HOBSON was a creative and talented psychiatrist and psychotherapist whose work has had an enormous impact on clinical practice, training and research. He had a particular gift for bringing together diverse strands of his personal experience, wide reading, and a challenging professional life. He is survived by his daughters Josie, Elizabeth and Nikola, a son, Charles, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.Joseph FinklestoneDavid Francis Kessler, newspaper proprietor: born Pretoria 6 June 1906; OBE 1996; married (one son, three daughters); died Stoke Hammond, Buckinghamshire 24 November 1999.. He was deeply hurt when the library’s collection of German documents about Jewish life in pre-war Europe was moved from London to Tel Aviv University.David Kessler loved the countryside He immensely enjoyed walking.

Tall and upright, he was frequently described as the squire of the Buckinghamshire village of Stoke Hammond where he lived. His many-sided life was celebrated in a book of essays in his honour in 1998.His happy marriage to Matilda lasted 51 years She died in 1990. He served as chairman of the Falasha Welfare Association, was a founder member of the Minority Rights Group and was also chairman of the Wiener Library. His writing ability was also demonstrated in his 1996 essay “The Rothschilds and Disraeli in Buckinghamshire”. Although a progressive Liberal Jew, he felt that he must serve every section of the community, including the Orthodox.Passionately devoted to the cause of the Falasha black Jews, he wrote an outstanding book, The Falashas: the forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, published in 1982. Kessler made great personal sacrifices to ensure that the ownership of the paper could never fall into the hands of unsuitable persons.When he was appointed OBE in 1996, it was largely for his services not only to the paper but to the Anglo-Jewish community. Kessler did not intervene.The sharp controversy led to talk about a possible takeover of the paper by a person or a group more sympathetic to the Orthodox point of view.

He denies murdering Mrs Quinn and 14 other women patients, and forging a pounds 386,000 will in the name of one of them.Dr Shipman also told the court yesterday of how one of his alleged victims, 63-year-old Ivy Lomas, of Hyde, collapsed and died in his surgery despite efforts to revive her on 29 May 1997. But two minutes later there was no sign of life and she had died.”Dr Shipman said he had made the decision not to try to revive her because, in his experience, chances of full recovery were poor.It was the third day of giving evidence for Dr Shipman, ofMottram, Greater Manchester. I knelt down and there didn’t seem to be any obvious injury.”He added: “I made the decision that I would not attempt resuscitation I would review the situation in two minutes. He told Preston Crown Court that Mrs Quinn had telephoned his surgery complaining of weakness in her arm and leg.
When he arrived at her house he shouted his name but got no response, he said. “I moved into the kitchen and she was on the floor in front of the store.

Dr Shipman said he thought that 67-year-old Marie Quinn had had a stroke when he discovered her lying on the kitchen floor of her house in Hyde, Greater Manchester, on 24 November 1997. DR HAROLD Shipman yesterday told his trial of a decision not to resuscitate one of the 15 women he is accused of killing when he found that she had collapsed in her home. Breathing in very cold air can trigger a reaction leading to a heart attack but the air can be warmed by judicious use of coat collar and scarf.. In these northern countries there is less of a differential between summer and winter deaths.Dr Jill Pell and colleagues from the department of public health medicine at the Greater Glasgow Health Board, who report their findings in the journal Heart, say that the lack of sunshine in winter means cholesterol levels are higher and vitamin D levels are lower, which increase the blood’s tendency to clot.The best defence, particularly for the elderly who are most vulnerable, is better heating indoors and more protective clothes outdoors, especially for the face. There was no difference in the number of resuscitation attempts made during both seasons, but the winter victims were more likely to die before they got to hospital.Evidence from Scandinavia, where the winters are more severe but the population is better prepared with warmer houses and better outdoor clothing, suggests that it is not the cold itself but our inability to cope with it that accounts for Britain’s high death rate. The winter cold thickens the blood and increases strain on the heart.

Labour MP Claire Ward will call on the Government to clampdown on the products during a Commons adjournment debate. “We want to create a climate of `positive parenting’ where advice and support can be aired and shared and sources of help made available that are accessible, appropriate and effective,” she said.”It is a big challenge, but we are already working, with our partners, to provide the millennial family with the support is so clearly needs.”. Nearly seven out of ten believed that it was not intuitive but rather something that needed to be learnt. Marriage did not feature strongly as important for children with only one in five believing that parents being married was an important part of raising happy children.Although parenting classes are part of the new institute’s agenda, Ms MacLeod said she was sceptical about the “value” of them and wanted to get away from the idea that parenting had to be learnt from professionals. By being a strong and independent voice it will play a crucial role in creating a more family friendly Britain.”The institute will be run by Mary MacLeod, 51, who was formerly director of policy and planning at the counselling charity Childline.Ms MacLeod, who has two teenage children and has been married for 20 years, said last week that successful marriages were based on business partnerships rather than romance.The research of the views of more than 2,000 adults, 70 per cent of whom were parents, showed that half the population believes that Britain does not encourage good parenting skills and would like to see parenting taught at school. I very much welcome the launch of the institute and look forward to working with them in the future.

The independent organisation will receive more than pounds 2m from the Government over the next three years to fund research and publicise information about relationships and parenting. Part of its remit will be to identify what services should be made available to families and advise government on future policy.
Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, is expected to say at the launch: “The Government is strongly committed to supporting families and children. It was obvious that if money was passed over, it was being passed over in envelopes.”The case continues.. ONE IN three people thinks Britain is not child-friendly and one in three parents would not know where to go if they had family relationship problems, according to research to be released today at the launch of the National Family and Parenting Institute. Mr Preston said: “It was a failure of recollection.” When Mr Browne put it to him that Mr Fayed had not mentioned anything about envelopes, Mr Preston responded: “The cash had to be paid over in some form anyway, you don’t hand over large bundles of cash, the question of envelopes did not seem to me particularly germane at that point. Mr Browne said Mr Preston – contrary to his evidence now – had not told the inquiry that in 1993 Mr Fayed had already revealed to him that cash was being actually passed in brown envelopes. She continued: “One time he handed me the money and said `count out pounds 2,000, put it in an envelope and leave it downstairs for Mr Hamilton’.” On another occasion Mr Hamilton was paid pounds 3,000 just before he and his wife went on a free holiday at the Paris Ritz Hotel, owned by Mr Fayed: “It was clearly spending money for their trip in Paris,” she said.Under cross-examination by Desmond Browne QC, for Mr Hamilton, Ms Bozek repeatedly denied that she had put cash in envelopes for a woman called Francesca Pollard, who had been carrying out a vendetta against Mr Rowland and Michael Howard, the then Home Secretary, with the collusion of Mr Fayed.Mr Browne accused Ms Bozek of mixing up “a bit of a truth” about cash in envelopes for Ms Pollard, and “then lying” in alleging that it was being paid to Mr Hamilton.Earlier, Peter Preston, the former editor of The Guardian newspaper, was accused by Mr Browne of giving misleading evidence to the inquiry by the parliamentary commissioner, Sir Gordon Downey.

“Our current system is based on the presumption of innocence,” he said..”If the Crown Prosecution Service, with the resources available to it, can’t get it right the first time round, why should they have a second bite at the cherry.”The Bar Council described the proposals as “unusual” and said that serious thought should be given to the prosecution being permitted to challenge the judge’s decision on matters of evidence. Robert Sayer, president of the Law Society, said a new prosecution right of appeal offended the principal of “double jeopardy”, where a person could not be tried twice for the same offence. The Law Society said the proposal was a “matter of real concern”. The proposed change in the law would give the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) a new right of appeal when a judge has ruled against the prosecution on matters of evidence or procedure.
It was immediately attacked by solicitors, barristers and human rights groups.

HUNDREDS OF defendants who have been acquitted by a judge’s ruling rather than a jury’s verdict could face a retrial, under proposals outlined by the Government last night. Sheep have feelings, they don’t want to be chased, harassed and scared.”. The attacks have devastated my next year’s income but it’s more than that. He said: “The estate is our property and everything there is covered by diplomatic immunity according to the International Convention so yes the dogs have immunity.”Farmer Graham Browne said: “They have got diplomatic immunity, the police can’t kill these animals because they are part of the diplomatic estate. The pair of guard dogs belonging to the Russian Embassy’s dacha, or country retreat in Hawkhurst, Kent, are said to be behind a string of 200 attacks on local sheep which have so far left more than 50 ewes dead. When local farmers mounted guard on local flocks, they claimed they spotted and tracked the animals back to their lair – the Russian Embassy’s 30 acre estate.
But attempts by police, vets and farmers to apprehend the suspect animals have failed because Russian officials say the animals are on Russian soil and are therefore accorded diplomatic status.Embassy press officer Vladimir Andreyev insisted the Russians were “peaceful neighbours” and the dogs were “very nice”.

TWO ALSATIANS accused of savaging sheep in rural Kent have claimed diplomatic immunity to stave off farmers who want them destroyed. They were probably doing the same thing everywhere,” he said.The inquiry continues.. I can see that now but at the time I didn’t realise.”As his wife sat in the public gallery, Mr Dhasmana described a working pattern where he would leave the wards at 6.00pm, often returning late at night to check on his patients.”I didn’t feel at that time I was under any extra pressure than my colleagues elsewhere. Asked by Brian Langstaff QC, the inquiry counsel, if the pressures on him were great he answered: “Yes. We were moving but not at the same pace as the others,” he said.The inquiry heard Mr Dhasmana would often be seen in the intensive care unit at 1am, because of his heavy workload. There was a shortage of beds, operating time and space in the intensive care unit, and as a result Bristol carried out fewer complex operations than other specialist units “We were lagging behind in general terms. Unfortunately at that time there were no clear guidelines, every surgeon was doing the best available practice.”Mr Dhasmana, who was appointed a consultant on 1 January 1986, also told the inquiry of the primitive facilities at the infirmary compared to other hospitals where he had worked, including London’s Great Ormond Street and hospitals in Chicago and Alabama in the United States.

Mr Dhasmana had a good record on hole-in-the-heart operations, with a death rate better than the national average, but when he began trying the switch operations, he found his skills tested to the limit. He told the inquiry yesterday: “In any complex case, anywhere, there is always a possibility that a child could survive elsewhere. The public inquiry is examining almost 1,900 operations involving complex heart surgery carried out at the infirmary between 1984 and 1995.One of the complex operations, known as an “arterial switch”, involved switching the main arteries to the heart in babies born with them transposed in the wrong positions. His senior colleague, James Wisheart, the medical director, was also found guilty and struck off the medical register.The GMC case focused on 53 cases, in 29 of which the baby died or was brain damaged. He was later sacked by the infirmary but is appealing against his dismissal. Janardan Dhasmana, former paediatric cardiac surgeon at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, told the public inquiry into the disaster that there was a “surgical learning curve” which meant the death rate was likely to be higher than at units with more experience.
Giving evidence for the first time to the inquiry, he said: “I wish nobody had to operate on someone for the first time.

The scheme was taken over in that year by the London County Council and when, in 1965, the LCC became the Greater London Council, the new organisation took responsibility for the plaques. Ironically one of them, in Gerrard Street, Covent Garden, is almost certainly on the wrong building and honours the home of the next-door neighbour of the poet John Dryden. The other, in King Street, St James’s, marks the lodgings of the future French emperor Napoleon III, who stayed there in 1848 just before crossing the Channel to make his own contribution to the revolution of that year.
The Royal Society of Arts continued their scheme and, by 1901, there were 36 plaques in existence. This was put on Byron’s birthplace in Holles Street, Westminster The house has since been demolished The earliest two surviving plaques date from 1875.

However it was not until 1867 that the first plaque was put in place, under the auspices of the Royal Society of Arts. The Liberal MP William Ewart was the first man to propose a scheme for marking the London houses in which the famous had once lived and he did so in the middle of the last century. SOME OF the most distinctive features of the landscape of London’s streets are the blue plaques attached to the one-time homes of the famous The plaques have been around for well over a hundred years. Mutter, however, is akin to mute, and probably onomatopoeic.. Milton was fond of utter, but “utter darkness” is Shakespeare’s.

As far as we’re concerned they’re an addition to the family, and we treat them the same.When we’re too old to look after them, our other children will take them on We have money and the house left in a trust for them. They can stay here and live with either one of my children and their family, or a professional nurse or carer.The most enjoyable bit is the satisfaction you get. They’re washed and changed, and they then do what they like.We don’t distinguish between them and our own children at all. I stay upstairs out of the way unless she needs me, because she’s got it into a routine.The children start coming in about 3.30 There’s always food and drink on the side ready for them.

Mind you, they do that all the time.During the week gets them up, washed and dressed. After breakfast she walks Jason and Ruby to the day centre, and puts Steven and Maria on the bus. The week before we go on holiday, they’re all excited, laughing and smiling. He asked me to sit on the floor and play with some live centipedes with him That was it – I fell in love with him. We’ve never looked back.The children are part of our family and it’s like they’ve never not been here The enjoyment you get from them is unbelievable.

When we first saw Steven, he reminded me of the Milky Bar Kid – a little blond boy with glasses. Some of our friends thought we were mad in the beginning, but they admired what we were doing. A lot of them said they wouldn’t have the courage to do it themselves.When we first met Jason, we fell in love with him straight away It was the look on his face and the smiles he gave us It was nice to see him so happy when he came back with us. I was a lorry driver until I retired with arthritis about five years ago. You have some doubts in the back of your mind about whether or not it would work out, but you have to think positively. I wouldn’t swap them for the world.RonHaving seen what some people with learning difficulties can go through we wanted to give somebody a bit of “home love”. They get on well with each other, as well as with our other children who really love them I love them all the same It’s quite jolly at home Everyone is always laughing The best bit about looking after them is the fun The pleasure comes from seeing them so happy They keep you young.

Sen’s work has included a path-breaking account of the political economy of famine. He has also shown the centrality of empowering women, and of providing universal primary health care and education, in successful development programmes.
Not many takers on Wall Street for that agenda; but plenty elsewhere. While they have found ways to enrich the rich, Sen has looked for ways to empower the poor. In a world of simultaneous opulence and desperation, this is surely the central concern of any economics worth its name. Development as Freedom is a testament to Sen’s unwavering commitment to the task.
The book is made up of 12 essays; originally lectures given at the World Bank. While they priced the intangible and ephemeral, Sen has sought to value the human and the concrete. They nearly took most of the US financial sector with them
In 1998, the recipient was the Indian economist Amartya Sen, whose work is everything Merton and Scholes’s was not.

In 1997, the gong went to Robert Merton and Myron Scholes, who invented an indecipherable mathematical model for pricing trades in exotic financial instruments.
These business-school voodoo priests took themselves down to Wall Street, to put theory into practice. Their company, Long Term Capital Management (a joke, surely?), generated a bubble of ludicrous short-term hyper-profits, and promptly went under to the tune of at least $4bn. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen, (Oxford University Press, £17.99)

Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen, (Oxford University Press, £17.99)

The award of the 1997 and 1998 Nobel Prizes acutely illustrated the two faces of contemporary economics. Sir: I do hope that, when the Government has succeeded in outlawing fur farming, it will turn its attention to the banning of the barbaric practice of using the blood, bones and skin of hedgehogs to resurface Britain’s roads

JOHN COLDWELL
Ramsgate, Kent. But the personal trainer will calculate various statistics, such as weight and body fat on the computer, and send us a report.Interview by Jennifer RodgerFor information on Vodafone’s interactive e-mail, visit www.vodafone- retail.co.uk. On previous tours some of lads have had laptops for using the Net.

However, I have only really got into that this winter.A real cross section of the team use the Internet, some of them to write for the papers, and some of the senior people who have extra activities use the Internet to keep in contact with their businesses while they are away.We don’t use a lot of high technology in training. If a phone rings during any cricket activity there’s a pounds 20 fine.A lot of boys out here have DVD players, which seems to be the latest craze. All the boys are on the Internet, and frequently browsing.Using the Internet or our mobile phones can be quite time consuming and we try to keep it to a minimum. As a load of lads away together there is an element of always trying to out do each other And we all like gadgets.

“Will you confirm that about 350,000 parents with care whose non-resident parent is in paid work will have a lower maintenance assessment as a result of the new child support rates?” he asked.Angela Eagle, the Social Security minister, replied “I do wish you would stop trying to play one parent off against the other and talk about gainers and losers. “Until the new system is brought in and becomes operational we have to operate under the existing system.”Whilst we will do our best to ensure that it’s improved week by week, month by month, some of the problems that all of us are very familiar with will continue for some time until we can bring in the new system,” he said.David Willetts, the shadow Social Security Secretary, warned that 350,000 parents would be pounds 17 a week worse off as a result of the changes. He said ministers wanted to be satisfied that the CSA’s computer system and staff could cope with the change. But under the new legislation, a simplified system will be introduced and absent fathers will pay a flat rate of 15 per cent of their wages for a single child, 20 per cent for two and 25 per cent for three or more.Mr Darling, however, admitted that current delays and problems would continue “for some time”. “There are several sanctions we can impose if a parent can pay but won’t pay. For example, the CSA can attach that person’s wages so it can put that money into payment,” Mr Darling told MPs during question time.
Under the measures, absent fathers could also face criminal sanctions or fines of up to pounds 1,000 if they refuse to pay maintenance.Of the 900,000 parents on the CSA’s files, fewer than 400,000 pay full maintenance. The Social Security Secretary said that the Child Support Agency (CSA) would be given the power to contact employers or Inland Revenue in order to deduct outstanding paymentsfrom absent fathers’ incomes.

ABSENT FATHERS who miss a maintenance payment for their children will have their wages docked under radical legislation to be published this week, Alistair Darling confirmed yesterday. The ability to buy freely from suppliers in other countries will enable consumers to seek out the best deal, without leaving home.”But Tories oppose other provisions to introduce statutory backup for the voluntary, self-regulatory scheme of trust service providers which allows Internet users to verify who has sent an e-mail so they know confidential information such as credit card details will be secret.Mr Duncan said later he would offer his petition to the Guinness Book of Records because it was the world’s first to use the technology of electronic signature.. Patricia Hewitt, the e-commerce minister, said the European Union would adopt the electronic signatures directive today, to be added to the Bill later.”Price transparency will intensify competition across the EU,” she added. Alan Duncan, the shadow trade and industry minister, launched his attack in the Commons, hoping to achieve a world record by transmitting the first digitally-signed petition in protest against the Government’s approach.
During the Electronic Communication Bill’s second reading, he said: “We have called for a common-sense approach with a light, crisp Bill that makes provision for the legal recognition of electronic signatures, without hindering e-commerce with all sorts of cumbersome clauses.”Internet users would for the first time have a legally-binding “electronic signature”, aimed at boosting consumer confidence in electronic trade. THE TORIES intensified their attack on the Government’s failure to deliver on e-commerce yesterday, claiming its proposed legislation was “cumbersome and over-bureaucratic”.

It was 1985 before the government allowed single people and couples, rather than families, on to the waiting list for public housing (the waiting time is between 10 and 15 years) and when, in July 1992, Governor Chris Patten made one of the few official visits to the cagehomes, the cagemen prepared protest banners and a bottle of fleas as a “gift” for him. He, perhaps wisely, changed his route.Occasionally, they make the headlines for other reasons. He was shocked.”As Mr Go discovered, Hong Kong does not like to acknowledge the flaws in its dream. They said, `Why would anyone want to see a picture of me?’ “When the exhibition opened, he was taken aback by the level of public ignorance. “One man was showing his child one of the pictures and saying `Look, that’s how people used to live many years ago.’ I told him I had taken the picture last year. “One told me, `I feel like an animal in the zoo, observed from all sides.’ But they impressed me The women were shy when I asked to take their pictures. Last year, he and other photographers held an exhibition in Hong Kong’s Cultural Centre to highlight their plight.”Once I got to know them, I found that all the cagepeople I met lived in dignity and pride,” he says.

Acutely aware of the stigma of living in a cagehome, most have cut themselves off from their families. Apart from social workers from the Society for Community Organisations (Soco), visitors are generally not welcome.Simon Go Man Ching, a photographer, spent three years gaining the trust of the cagepeople, visiting them to record their lives. But residents complained that they made the poor ventilation even worse. More importantly, they severed human ties.The cagepeople have created fragile communities in many homes, with residents sharing food and fetching medicines for frailer inhabitants. Newer cages, typically measuring 5ft by 3ft by 3ft, were built with zinc or plywood to afford some privacy. New immigrants still trickle in, but the cages are mainly inhabited by long-term Hong Kong residents. They used to comprise rows of triple bunk beds but thefts led landlords to enclose the beds with wire and provide locks, thereby creating “cages”.

Most are single and receive less than $2,500 (£200) in income or benefits per month to live on, in a city where the monthly rental for a one-bedroom apartment starts at $11,000.Euphemistically known as “bed-space apartments”, cage-homes were created in the 1940s for immigrant workers arriving from China. I want to die.”Tang Han is one of up to 4,000 cagepeople living across the territory, many of whom have occupied their wire cages for 40 years They tend to be Hong Kong’s elderly, infirm or unemployed More than half are over 60. In the day, Mrs Tang sits on the staircase near the entrance to the building, returning to sleep in her cage at night.”I have worked hard all my life,” she says “I am old now and I have to live in a place like this I am not happy. Most suffer from respiratory problems caused by the poor ventilation. Tang Han’s mattress, with its wooden pillow, is riddled with bedbugs and “tanks” (fleas) and plagued by “bombers” (mosquitoes).