It was while scanning the internet that Dr Clive Gillis and his wife Nina discovered their dream home

It was while scanning the internet that Dr Clive Gillis and his wife Nina discovered their dream home.
The former farmhouse may have been covered in ivy, the floors and ceilings had long collapsed, and dead pigeons were strewn on the floor, but they loved it.The front of the four-bedroom house overlooked a medieval village in the heart of Umbria, in central Italy, while at the rear, vineyards stretched into the distance.After spending £70,000 over the next two years turning the ruin into a home, the couple were preparing to leave their home in Weston-super-Mare and retire to Italy.But last June their peace, and world, was shattered when a team of Italian drugs officers raided the house and arrested them. This inquiry was widely interpreted by the French press as an attempt to divert attention from a separate, criminal investigation.Bertrand Delanoe, the Socialist Mayor of Paris, said he expected the UMP to pay compensation The RPR, the party funded illegally when M Chirac was Mayor of Paris, has ceased to exist but M Delanoe said he would seek compensation from its successor.. Chirac saluted his friend’s “exceptional quality, competence, humanity and honesty”.Judges and left-wing politicians said this amounted to a declaration by the head of state – supposedly the guardian of the legal system – that politicians, and especially M. Chirac’s allies, were not subject to ordinary processes of the law.Jupp?58, Mayor of Bordeaux and president of M.

Chirac’s centre-right party, the UMP, has been under pressure from M. Chirac and other friends on the centre-right to retract his threat to quit politics. He is appealing against his conviction and is expected to announce tonight whether he will remain mayor and party chairman while awaiting the outcome.President Chirac has ordered an inquiry, under the authority of the Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, into allegations that the judges who tried Jupp?ere bugged, burgled and harassed. Chirac, was convicted on Friday of diverting Paris taxpayers’ money to bankroll party jobs in the late 1980s and 1990s.M. Chirac followed other politicians on the centre-right by, in effect, publicly challenging the court’s right to declare the former prime minister a criminal and ban him from public office for a decade M.

The city of Paris announced yesterday that it would seek millions of euros in damages from President Jacques Chirac’s political party for money embezzled in the so-called “Jupp?te” scandal.
Alain Jupp?the former prime minister and a close ally of M. The V&A is seeking funds for the refurbishment of the Medieval and Renaissance galleries, after the recent refurbishment of the British galleries, which cost £30m.. “This gift will allow us toand use our collections to inspire future generations and spread a deeper understanding of Islamic culture.”Talks began with Mohammed Jameel, Mr Jameel’s son and the president and chief executive of the ALJ Group in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, two years ago. “Our family has a keen interest in world cultures and promoting understanding between them, and a commitment to increasing understanding of the Islamic world,” he said yesterday. Among the most famous pieces are the 16th-century Ardabil Carpet from Iran and an 11th-century rock crystal ewer from Egypt.The Middle Eastern treasures were bought for the museum in the mid-19th century with government funds and are said to have inspired generations of British designers.The donation will also fund a touring exhibition before the new museum gallery is opened in 2006.

The V&A’s Islamic collection of more than 10,000 objects from the Middle East includes ceramics, textiles, carpets, metalwork, glass and woodwork. Two years ago the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Shia Muslim sect, shifted his attempts to establish the biggest gallery of Islamic art in the English-speaking world to Canada when he failed to get the building he wanted in London.Mark Jones, the director of the V&A, said the gift from the ALJ Group would allow the museum to showcase Islamic culture.”When it was created half a century ago, our present gallery was the most advanced display of Islamic art in the world and ever since it has been instrumental in fostering appreciation of Islamic art,” he said. The group includes Hartwell, the property and car sales company.The donation will be welcomed by scholars after other attempts to showcase Islamic art in Britain foundered. An exhibition of Islamic treasures due to open at Somerset House in London last year was postponed because of security concerns and the failure to raise sufficient sponsorship. A Saudi Arabian company has given the Victoria and Albert Museum £5.4m for a new gallery of Islamic art from the Middle East.
It will be named The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art, in memory of Abdul Latif Jameel, who founded the group that bears his name nearly 60 years ago.