Thabo Mbeki the international secretary of the African National Congress was yesterday holding talks here about plans

Thabo Mbeki, the international secretary of the African National Congress, was yesterday holding talks here about plans to send Commonwealth observers to monitor voting. Over two-thirds of cases thrown out by the Crown Prosecution Service were dropped because of lack of evidence. Mrs Mills, addressing Victim Support's annual meeting in London, was giving her first major speech after she came under fire from both the police and barristers concerned that the numbers of discontinued cases had risen to about 20 per cent a year. Meet with an accident in those hills, and it could be a long time before help came along. I was rather pallid and two-and-a-half stones heavier, but I had made it Now I felt able to piece family life back together. In a letter in today's Financial Times he said there would be 'no contracts in exchange for British press freedom to tell lies' and as far as his country was concerned, the 'die is cast'. Great Britain will continue to play France once a season, but additional matches for both England and Wales next season will help both British teams in their preparation for the Centenary World Cup, in which they will compete as separate entities.

Dave Whelan, who played at full-back for Blackburn Rovers in the 1960 FA Cup Final before making a fortune in business, has come out with his first public statement of intent, saying that he wants to plough pounds 7m into Wigan.Dorahy has been highly critical of a faction within the club that wants to see Whelan, a former club sponsor and president, take over and which has, he says, made his job considerably more difficult that it would have been.Speculation is rife, both in Britain and Australia, about Dorahy's future, but he said: 'I find it amazing that a coach who has got the team to the Regal Trophy final, to Wembley and, after Friday, into the driving seat in the First Division should find himself under this political pressure.'. At the Versailles assize court where Touvier, 79, is being tried for crimes against humanity - the first Frenchman to come to trial on this charge - the prosecutor today sums up and will almost certainly ask for the maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Even if the figures of hundreds of thousands killed are exaggerated, the death toll is still way above the results of 'ethnic cleansing' in Gorazde.The first response of the Western countries was to evacuate their own people. 'Business managers also benefit from strong back-up from local chambers of commerce and trade associations, giving a better general financial understanding than one sees in Britain.'Long-term financing implies a closer link between lenders and borrowers, part of what the Germans call relationship banking. He said, 'Don't bring that up'.'Sir Patrick Mayhew, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said he would still seek to persuade Mr Paisley to join the cross-party talks between the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP and the Alliance Party.However, Sir Patrick did not conceal the exasperation in Downing Street at Mr Paisley's attitude, and accused the DUP leader of shifting his ground over the reason for rejecting the talks.'Originally, we understood it was because articles two and three remained in the Irish constitution; then it was because John Hume (SDLP leader) had been talking to Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein president), that made it impossible for Mr Paisley to talk to him; now it is the Downing Street Declaration. THE TREASURY last night ordered an inquiry into the leaking of a letter revealing Michael Portillo, the Cabinet right-winger, sharply criticising Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, for failing to propose radical cuts in state aid for industry. Stephen Dorrell, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: 'If the Nationwide says that it needs to reduce its savers' rate without reducing its mortgage rate in order to avoid an increase then that must mean it is under cost pressure and needs to widen its spread.'That's an internal reason within their organisation which I don't have a view about.'Markets fall, page 17View from City Road, page 18.

The statement was issued at a time of increased international concern over a Khmer Rouge refusal to go along with a United Nations-supervised peace plan for Cambodia and speculation that they may be following a secret agenda to regain total power. As Mr Lamont himself said a year after entry: 'That is its real significance. It would be unwise of the selectors to persevere with the three who played against Canada. Some vegetarian sausages contain 30 per cent fat, more than many meat sausages.The death toll from paracetamol overdoses - higher than any other drug at more than 200 a year - could be avoided if manufacturers built in an antidote, Which? says. And they are men who let down the social workers and clients regularly: instead of vigorous defences or counter attacks in, for example, child abuse scandals, they murmur instantly forgettable platitudes.

The teams, the fans, the flawless verdant pitch, were drenched, and every tackle saw players aquaplaning across the turf, spumes of water flying either side of them.Despite this the game was fast, fluent and skilful, a delight to watch. (First Edition) THREE hundred people packed a church yesterday for the funerals of two of the British victims of the Waco siege in Texas seven months ago. Stephen Henry, 26, and his brother Phillip, 22, died with their mother and three sisters as fire consumed the Branch Davidian sect's headquarters at the end of a 51-day siege in April.The men's father, Sam Henry - the last surviving member of the family - told the congregation: 'I put the blame for the death of my family on the Devil Satan is the author of destruction. The Russian trimmed 11-hundredths of a second off the mark set by the Brazilian Gustavo Borges on 2 July last year. Norwich Union, which insures about a million cars, pulled out in July.

Perhaps it's a trite observation, but if a man said about women what she says about men, he'd have the United Dykes of England on to him. 3pm: D Roe (Eng) v D Harold (Eng); J White (Eng) v B Snaddon (Sco). His Bruckner is no mere Alpine travelogue, but a real-life confrontation with God and mountains; his Dvorak has an urgent message to impart (no one makes the Seventh Symphony sound more potentially inflammable); his Smetana eschews comfortable nationalism for a dark and dangerous hinterland; his Janacek has its roots in earth and instinct; and his Schumann coaxes secrets that others barely sense. And yet there is no distinctive Kubelik 'sound', no aural dress sense to facilitate a cult following. 'SORRY I'm late,' says Ron Cook's pocket-sized Odysseus as he scrambles in to join the other Greeks for Achille's funeral, near the start of Derek Walcott's splendid new re-telling of The Odyssey at The Other Place. Robert Maxwell took it to an extreme, threatening and intimidating several firms into withdrawing critical comments.