But his appearance was a public relations triumph compared with his performance in December when as the army was

But his appearance was a public relations triumph compared with his performance in December when, as the army was entering Chechnya, he used a nose operation as an excuse to stay out of the public eye and issued only curt statements.The Kremlin leader, who may stand for re-election next year despite poor health, came as near as he could to apologising for his military adventure in the Caucasus.”It is bitter to realise that the price which had to be paid for the implementation [of decrees ordering the intervention] was very high,” he said.”I bow my head before the memory of those who sacrificed their lives, defending the basic values without which the existence of any state is unthinkable.”Sending troops to Chechnya had been unavoidable, as all other means of ending the rebellion had been exhausted. At three, he was only sleeping two and a half hours a day, the rest of the time he was wrecking the place. He says he will have to rewrite it substantially, so much has changed, and much of it under his influence. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the World Development Movement, Stonewall and Amnesty International are among those bringing their campaigns to the courtroom.Cases come before the courts not only on matters of principle: the judges are willing now to make decisions that have huge financial implications, telling the state how to spend its money. Sir Ivan was shocked when he attended a speech of Lord Woolf’s last year publicly attacking Michael Howard’s 27 proposals for toughening up the law.

In particular, he attacks Lord Woolf, the father of judicial review, champion of its development. It was the judges who struck out the Foreign Secretary’s decision to give aid to the Pergau Dam. Where will it end?Yours faithfully,Kevin HollandReader’s DigestLondon, W131 July. He was very dyslexic and backward in his speech too, but his grasp of basic Anglo-Saxon was unbelievable!”He started the medicine when he was six and now you can see there was a good, bright kid locked up inside. The girls in the stories didn’t seem like us because what was written wasn’t true. The famous photograph, where they turned a peck on the cheek into a lingering kiss, is just one example of how we were demonised in the eyes of the public and the jury.Press reporting of a trial is fine, but not press comment on the evidence. Indeed, a hint of what the BBC felt was the true purpose of its nightly read-in came in Richard Nelson’s play Advice to Eastern Europe, broadcast in 1990.

In creating this precedent, it could affect the existing right to life of many disabled people, including the elderly, who cannot speak for themselves. Mr Bland was unconscious, unaware of his surroundings, in what is known as a persistent vegetative state. He is not lying unconscious in a cot, with endless tubes connecting his body to a variety of life-support machines. Now aged 22 months, he is blind and deaf, cannot talk and has no control over his limbs He cries inconsolably. It is said that he cannot be cuddled properly because touching sends him into painful muscular spasms He has fits and is fed through a hole in his stomach. As someone who heard Ernest Mandel speak on a number of occasions, I am surprised at Ken Coates’s obituary of him [28 July], writes Keith Flett.