Two British Jaguar strike aircraft and two reconnaissance aircraft plus a Tristar tanker took part in the

Two British Jaguar strike aircraft and two reconnaissance aircraft, plus a Tristar tanker, took part in the mission.Bosnian Serbs, Serbs from Krajina and breakaway Bosnian Muslims under the rebel leader Fikret Abdic are all converging in a three-pronged offensive on the isolated Bosnian government enclave which is a UN “safe area”.Mr Akashi said: “I hope that today’s Nato air attack will deter any further attack on the Bihac safe area and its surroundings, or on Unprofor personnel within Bihac We’re in a very sensitive and delicate situation. Nato sources said they had aimed to cut the runway and taxi-ways and not to attack the 20 or so Serb aircraft at the airfield.Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Defence, told the Commons the UN Special Representative, Yasushi Akashi, had requested the strike.Later, Nato said 50 aircraft had been involved – 30 in the attack itself and 20 in support. The strike by 30 aircraft from the US, Britain, France and the Netherlands was the first against Serbs in Croatia and dwarfed earlier attacks against the Bosnian Serbs. Reconnaissance flights before dark last night showed the single runway cut in five places.
On Saturday, after Serb jets from Udbina bombed the Muslim-controlled Bihac enclave for the second consecutive day, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorising Nato to strike the airport in the Serb-held Krajina enclave.Although four nations were involved in yesterday’s raid, the British and French dropped all the bombs. Jack Cunningham, shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, said Labour would table proposals to give Ofgas power to curb executive pay during the passage of the Gas Bill, which breaks up the British Gas monopoly.The row over the pay rises came as senior Tories struggled to limit the damage inflicted by the leak of what Central Office continued to insist was a “draft” of Mr Maples’ report, which admitted that many disaffected Tory voters believe “the rich are getting richer on the backs of the rest”.Tory unrest, page 2Anger at gas pay, page 3View from City Road, page 17Leading article, page 21Andrew Marr, page 23(Photograph omitted). The Prime Minister has urged people to be moderate and reasonable in these increases and this has been openly flouted – I regret it deeply.”It also fuelled protests about the profits of privatised companies, after price rises of 2.9 per cent last week led to Labour demands for the regulator, Ofgas, to act. Mr Heseltine initially appeared to defend the increases, saying: “We turned a soggy, overmanned inefficient nationalised industry into a world-class company.”Later, Mr Heseltine sought to smooth the differences.

He told MPs: “The Prime Minister has explained the Government’s view on this matter many times. The Government believe it is necessary to exercise restraint. Restraint will be exercised by the market or by shareholders but where there are increases in remuneration above the level of inflation, they have to be paid forby productivity, by risingprofitability.”Jeremy Hanley, the Conservative Party chairman, admitted on Channel 4 News that the pay rises were “insensitive”, saying: “I have no doubt there will be much criticism not only from the grassroots but also from Parliament about that decision.”One Tory backbencher, Sir Andrew Bowden, told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: “It is way, way over the top. “It was very dull,” said one British official in a rare moment of frankness.

It cannot be said that the event itself lacked entertainment, however. In an urgent effort to dispel confusion over the Government’s response, Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, said the market or the shareholders could exercise restraint over the pay rises for board members and the chief executive, whose pay will go up from pounds 270,000 to pounds 475,00 a year.
The prospect of shareholders stepping in to stop the pay rises was treated with scorn by Opposition leaders and trade union officials, who denounced the increases as “obscene”.The rises compounded the Government’s deep discomfort over the leaking of a report to the Prime Minister written by John Maples, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.He warned not only of the unpopularity of privatisation – setting out ways of recovering the position, including using Tory “yobbos” to attack Tony Blair – but declared: “Excessive executive pay packages, especially in the privatised utilities, cause real offence.” Moving on to territory already occupied by Labour, Mr Maples also called for increased taxation of executive share option schemes.The pay rises flew in the face of the call for pay restraint last week by John Major. The Government was last night fighting to maintain the credibility of its privatisation policy in the face of a fresh outcry over a pounds 205,000 pay increase for Cedric Brown, the chief executive of British Gas. She worked in a kidney unit at the Gloucestershire Royal, and had no duties in intensive care at Nottingham City hospital.“It is a very, very serious inquiry,” Det Supt Coles said. “The focus has been, and remains, Bassetlaw.”Police angrily deny suggestions that the investigation has floundered, although nobody has been arrested or interviewed under caution.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had been closely involved since the outset of the inquiry, Det Supt Coles said.

She previously worked at Gloucestershire Royal hospital, Gloucester; Nottingham City; Southmead, Bristol; John Radcliffe, Oxford; St George’s, south London; Central Middlesex, north-west London; and Northern General, Sheffield.Hospital authorities last night opened telephone lines offering confidential advice to any patients or relatives of patients concerned.“If we are looking at a case which involves a patient, that patient or their family will know,” Detective Superintendent Peter Coles, leading the investigation, said yesterday.The police were called in by management at Bassetlaw hospital in February, and have committed 21 officers to full time inquiries, plus civilian support staff to store data on computer files.Det Supt Coles said the number of “incidents” involving alleged tampering with vital equipment on the Bassetlaw ward had risen to 30.Initial inquiries by the police had indicated that breathing apparatus and pumps delivering medication intravenously to five patients may have been tampered with on 16 occasions between November 1993 and January. The nurse has been suspended on full pay from Bassetlaw general hospital, Nottinghamshire, since January. Police have so far conducted 1,870 interviews and taken 975 statements.
There was no reply yesterday at the nurse’s home in Worksop, close to the hospital where she was appointed in 1992. they do provide us with essential facts on which we can build.”David Blunkett, the shadow Education Secretary, repeated his promise of tables that would compare schools’ results with their intake. He added: “But where we shall do much more than this government is by acting to help those schools which are falling behind.”The third set of government league tables show that the top school at A-level is King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and the top state school is King Edward V1 Grammar School, Chelmsford.

The top comprehensive at A-level is Bramhall High School, Stockport; the top comprehensives at GCSE are Bexley Grammar School in Kent and the Liverpool Blue Coat School which both got 97 per cent grades A-C.For the first time the the tables separate authorised and unauthorised absence. The truancy rate has fallen slightly with the average percentage of half days missed without permission down to 0.9 per cent from last year’s 1 per cent.The school with the highest unauthorised absentee rate is Whalley Range High School (Upper) in Manchester.Full league tables, Section Two. Detectives investigating two deaths in a Nottinghamshire intensive care ward yesterday named seven further hospitals which employed a female nurse who is at the centre of the inquiry. THERE ARE two inflatable bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale on either side of the stage. People sit, tackily candle-lit, at plastic patio tables and chairs The compere does not know when to stop This is the reality of college comedy in this country.