Last night the employers' initial offer of 2

Last night the employers' initial offer of 2.25 per cent was raised to 3 per cent and the unions settled.Although alarm at the depth of the recession has been growing among Bundesbank central council members, hardliners have been resisting pressure for a key interest rate cut until there are clear signs of improvement on the inflation front. But there is also the question of his own style and language.He will never be a golden orator, and can do little to change that. Civic life has been rudely awakened by the influx of new foreign influences, such as two branches of Benetton and a chic cafe - in the unlikely surroundings of the British Council offices.You stoop through an archway into a medieval courtyard, leading to a chamber where hi-tech blends seamlessly with middle Europe. But in what looks like the star piece of the evening, the Concertino for Oboe and String Quartet, op42, the freedom, ingeniousness and vitality in the way lines and colours clashed and danced about one another was as unconventional as it was uplifting.

fxg3+ can be met by either Nd7+ or Kg2. At this stage, there is a strong temptation to curse one's luck and take the knight back; after all, White's king cannot escape the discovered check It is very easy to play 1. This is made by treating the cloth with a solution that burns away the pile, leaving a fine trail of transparent gauze behind. They now expect it to go on falling, but there will be a worrying few months when it rises again. NATIONWIDE, Britain's second biggest building society, is thought to be the favoured target of BAT Industries, the pounds 13.5bn international tobacco group, as part of its plan to become a big force in personal financial services.

Instead, it introduces 12 very different young architectural practices, with 12 very different ideas about the way we might come to terms with city living.Taken together, their work suggests no emerging movement or consensus; what it does demonstrate clearly, however, is that there is a seam of imaginative and highly responsible talent waiting to be mined by intelligent clients. Batten, denied a clear run at Gunnell in Lausanne a fortnight ago when she was hit by a cushion from the crowd, won in 53.72, the fastest time in the world this year.The world and Olympic record champion and world record holder was not at her best and her run was littered with errors. Boris Yeltsin is the first democratically elected head of state in seven centuries of Russian history. (Dudley doubts the French lineage and the V&A is inclined to agree with him.)Rather than recreate the original's Gothic figures or linenfold panels through carving, Dudley uses a computer to transfer the carvings into a series of rhythmic lines which the scenery painters enlarge by hand.Computer technology allows him to take risks 'The computer has made me more bold. The development of 160 town houses and flats that will occupy the northern portion of the site, is another indication of the improving fortunes of the housing market in the south of England, where house builders are bidding up the price of land in anticipation of rising house prices. The rest of the site will remain mothballed until tenant demand - which remains weak despite the strength of the property investment market - recovers sufficiently to make a combined retail and office scheme viable.Spitalfields Holdings, a company jointly owned by two construction companies, Costain and Balfour Beatty, and LET, the property developer, is choosing a joint venture partner from a short list of three housebuilders.Once the partner is chosen work is expected to be started immediately on the scheme, which is planned to challenge the Barbican's monopoly on prestigious City of London housing.Despite the fact that Spitalfields is not expected to assume any of the project risk, merely supplying the land, the proposed scheme is likely to put the spotlight on the carrying value of the site in its shareholders' balance sheets. During one of the many telephone conversations with his public relations consultant last week he is reported to have said: 'This is already seeming like hard work.' But then it seems that retirement was proving to be pretty hard work, too.