An 8 per cent increase in sales translated into a 21 per cent jump in operating profits from pounds

An 8 per cent increase in sales translated into a 21 per cent jump in operating profits from pounds 8.9m to pounds 10.7m.(Photograph omitted). The UK underwriting loss was reduced from pounds 180m to pounds 125m thanks to improvements on personal lines business. But there is no corresponding precision about the powers of the EC's political institutions to determine economic policy. He challenged Mr Heseltine to prove the 'irrefutable' case he had been making against the miners. 'The notion that we have been cavalier is very far from the truth.' His report into the health service in London, published on Friday, recommends the closure or merger of at least 10 hospitals, including St Bartholomew's, one of the world's oldest and most distinguished, and a transfer of resources to primary and community health services.'We reached these decisions only after returning to them numerous times,' Sir Bernard said. THE DISCOUNT 'perfume war' intensified yesterday when Littlewoods announced it was cutting the price of branded fragrances in its 120 shops.

MISYS, the computer services group, continued its strong recovery with an 88 per cent jump in pre-tax profits from pounds 3.6m to pounds 6.8m. She bowed her head and fought back the tears, repeating 'I just I just .' before falling silent and being helped away. Inside football, though, the words people use when they talk about Tony Adams are 'character', 'strength' and 'leadership'. The session ended 5-3 in the Thai's favour.Parrott opened the day with a break of 43 but was eclipsed in the first frame by Wattana's two visits to the table which yielded 60 points It set a precedent. They have not found that it has deepened them spiritually; on the contrary, in a significant number of cases the teaching has worked against the perceived stability and mood of the marriage, and has been abandoned for that reason.The crisis of authority sparked off in 1968 therefore continues. Yet if the gift for friendship is one of the most precious gifts of all, then Jimmy Stern was more blessed than as if he had written 15 books instead of five..

This is the most unnecessary arts politics muddle in years, and musicians will go on telling tales of Hoffmann, whatever the outcome.I hope your deliberations have included precedents for what makes a great orchestra. 'The houses knocked down were mostly artisan terraces - no grand buildings were touched.'It is now extraordinary to think, however, that as little as 30 or 40 years ago the city's fathers were happy to demolish rows of intricate and intimate Georgian houses to make way for immense and ugly council flats.Despite the work of the demolishers, Bath remains the most complete Georgian city in Britain. Research to be published in the scientific journal Nature claims that any monster is unlikely to weigh more than 300kg (about 660lb) because there is insufficient fish population to support a larger predator; and that a sturgeon is the most probable explanation. So why, if M&S and the pension industry have seen the value of index funds, hasn't the small investor?The answer is partly that tracking the index is seen as boring For many the lure of a unit trust is the upside. When, I asked him, was he going to tell his soldiers that they might have to fight a war against the Iraqis for oil? 'This is not about oil - it's about rape,' he boomed back at me. InSkinParams = new Array(); InSkinParams['srv_SectionID'] = '124015'; InSkinParams['srv_Keywords'] = 'home'; InSkinParams['srv_Categories'] = ''; InSkinParams['srv_UseSAS'] = 'false'; InSkinParams['sas_PauseAdTag'] = ''; InSkinParams['plr_InSkinID'] = 'myPageSkin'; InSkinParams['plr_ContentID'] = 'myContent1'; InSkinParams['plr_ContentW'] = '975'; InSkinParams['plr_FrameTop'] = '90'; InSkinParams['plr_FrameSide'] = '130'; InSkinParams['plr_FrameBottom'] = '90'; InSkinParams['plr_TotalW'] = '900'; InSkinParams['plr_TotalH'] = '600'; InSkinParams['plr_ContentType'] = 'PAGE'; InSkinParams['plr_HideElementsByID'] = ''; InSkinParams['plr_HideElementsByClass'] = ''; InSkinParams['plr_ExpandableDetached'] = 'true'; InSkinParams['plr_NoSkinInSkinResize'] = 'true'; InSkinParams['plr_AssumeSkin'] = 'false'; function addEvent( obj, type, fn ) { var obj = ( obj.constructor === String ) ? document.getElementById( obj ) : obj; if ( obj.attachEvent ) { obj[ 'e' + type + fn ] = fn; obj[ type + fn ] = function(){ obj[ 'e' + type + fn ]( window.event ) }; obj.attachEvent( 'on' + type, obj[ type + fn ] ); } else obj.addEventListener( type, fn, false ); } if ((navigator.platform.indexOf("Mac") == -1) && (navigator.platform.indexOf("Linux") == -1)) { addEvent(window, 'load', function() { var adjustment = 0; InSkinParams['plr_ContentH'] = jQuery('#InSkinPageContainer_' + InSkinParams['plr_InSkinID']).height() + adjustment; if (screen.width >= 1235) { InSkinLoad.init(InSkinParams); } }); }.

Partners get blase about spending partnership money because it doesn't feel like theirs.'For the present, he plans to acquire more good-quality work. THE ATTEMPT by white right- wingers to keep blacks out of their town, by erecting barricades and watch-towers around the perimeter, collapsed last night, nipping in the bud a move which could have sparked similar defiance in many small white towns throughout South Africa. -----------------------------------------------------------------(Photograph omitted). REVELATIONS that South Africa sold Saddam Hussein billions of dollars worth of arms in the 1980s have raised the possibility that the Iraqi leader used the weapons to attack a key ally of the then white minority government, Israel, in the Gulf war. Moreover, it was the aggressive and suspicious behaviour of the migrants themselves that turned mere braves into hostiles. They said that four more had come through by this time and they were being presented at the rate of roughly one a day.'Mrs Balloo later wrote to Access explaining that Castle View had broken a verbal contract about how the payments would be taken. LISBON (Reuter) - Angola has approved constitutional changes that abolish the death penalty, safeguard senior posts in its new army and remove more remnants of the state's former Marxist creed, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported from the capital, Luanda, yesterday.

But this is much too large a question to raise in a letter, and the discussion of which I must leave to a forthcoming book.The adoption of the measures outlined above is in no way incompatible with our rejoining a suitable ERM-type of European monetary institution. 'If we play to our potential then we can get a result,' he said, 'but we will need a little bit of luck.'. If local authorities are willing to support local groups, fine; such support should not, however, be a necessary feature of the organisation.The organisation should be entrusted with offering impartial information and advice to parent governors. Now the ruling National Defence and Security Council went into an emergency meeting, even though a military decree had said no court could halt the transition. Yet, in each case, those ministers should have resigned long before: Mr Mellor when his free holidays in Spain were revealed and Norman Lamont when Britain was forced to leave the exchange rate mechanism.Mr Major defended the indefensible for too long. The area of heavy rainfall that is normally found over Indonesia moves eastwards to the central Pacific.