General Powell flanked by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan and the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Spain which holds

General Powell, flanked by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Spain, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said: “We committed ourselves to the promotion of serious and accelerated negotiations toward a settlement.”We discussed how best to begin to prepare for an international conference meeting this summer.”The move capped a hectic day of diplomacy here, including an EU-US summit at the White House, after which President Bush cited “good progress” in reducing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and in nudging the sides back towards talking to each other. The United States announced plans yesterday for a Middle East conference to advance peace efforts after positive developments, including the lifting of restrictions on Yasser Arafat and the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank.Speaking after a meeting of the “Quartet” group of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, indicated that the meeting would be held this summer. The president is gratified by the range of opportunities that have been presented to him.”The Los Angeles Times, which first carried the reports, was a little hesitant on the topic. While it quoted one source as saying Mr Clinton had ambitions to become “the next Oprah Winfrey”, it cited many more – including the president of CBS and, indirectly, Mr Clinton himself – who said the speculation was no more than idle rumour.One has to wonder what kind of show, if any, Mr Clinton has in mind.

Does he really want to compromise his political legacy with Oprah-style investigations into the fallibility of human nature (including his own)?This is not the first time there has been talk of Mr Clinton going to Hollywood. Towards the end of his presidency there were rumours he would join his buddies Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen None of it came to pass.. But Mrs Payne said: “President Clinton did not demand a talk show He went to listen. Apparently, there are some things the former president cannot have too much of, because he is now reported to be interested in hosting his own television talk show.
A Clinton spokeswoman, Julia Payne, said yesterday he had met various people over the past year to consider potential projects, and on Wednesday saw NBC executives to discuss his own daytime show. One might have thought Bill Clinton had seen enough of himself on television after the Monica Lewinsky saga.

Leo Gillen expanded his first round 5,438 by 1,354 to total 6,792 (47.9%).H’Angus’s pitch-side persona has courted controversy which has resulted in him being ejected from two away grounds – once for allegedly simulating sex with a female steward at Scunthorpe in November 2000, the second for acting improperly with an inflatable doll at Blackpool 12 months ago. The H’Angus character was a popular take on a derogatory nickname for the town, the Monkey Hangers, earned, as legend would have it, after the town’s mayor and constable found a monkey on the beach during the Napoleonic Wars and hanged it, believing the animal to be a French spy.. The monkey was just for publicity.”I am Stuart Drummond, I am the Mayor of Hartlepool, not the monkey.”One of the first people to congratulate the new mayor was Mr Mandelson, who gave him a solid handshake and said he believed him to be “very committed”.”I will operate with you in every way I can,” he told Mr Drummond.Mr Mandelson told reporters that the man in the monkey suit was no monkey in real life: “His campaign was not about monkeys, it was about real people, their aspirations, their hopes and their fears, particularly young people of this town.”In the second round of preference voting, Mr Drummond extended his original 5,696 votes by a further 1,699 to total 7,395 (52.1%). Stuart Drummond, known as H’Angus the Monkey in his role as mascot for Hartlepool United Football Club, left the Labour candidate trailing in second place.
He now takes up the £53,000-a-year post.A key part of his manifesto was to provide free bananas for schoolchildren.Mr Drummond left his monkey outfit at home and donned an executive-style suit for his acceptance speech early today, watched by the local MP, Peter Mandelson, one of the prime movers behind the campaign to get an elected mayor for Hartlepool.Having proved himself king of the political jungle, Mr Drummond said: “Forget about the monkey The monkey was there only for promotion purposes. A “monkey” was elected Mayor of Hartlepool. A central database is to be brought in in September to pool the numbers. However, the companies also called on the Government to make it an offence to change the IMEI number and the Government appears to have agreed to their demands.In January, Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, said courts should send mobile phone muggers to prison for up to five years as he urged manufacturers to make their products less attractive to criminals..

A British Crime Survey also showed an increase in mobile phone theft of 16 per cent in the two years from 1998.There have been a series of violent attacks reported in the capital to steal mobile phones. In one case, a 12-year-old girl was stabbed in the back by muggers who then stole her handset.In February, five network operators agreed to exchange lists of the handset identity numbers after pressure from the Home Office and police to do more to try to cut crime. More than 700,000 sets were stolen last year, according to Home Office figures and Scotland Yard said that more than one-third of robberies involved mobile phones. The stolen and reprogrammed phones are then being sold again at markets and in pubs for as little as £10.The introduction of a short Bill follows a series of figures showing that mobile phone robberies were largely responsible for the increase in street crime. Mobile phones thieves face five years in jail under the latest government plans being published today to try to curb the sharp rise in street crime. They are doing less well under Iain Duncan Smith than they did under William Hague in May 2000.”Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said: “This has all the makings of another good night for the Liberal Democrats.”We are continuing to make advances against both Labour and the Conservatives in many areas.