The Scotsman back issues from May 2002:
Cruelty plea review
May 01, 2002 ... HIGH Court judges are to decide whether a pensioner who hasadmitted five counts of child cruelty should be allowed to withdrawher pleas. Mary Drummond, 73, claimed she was unaware she had accepted herguilt. Greenock Sheriff Court had been told how care worker ...
Now that's scary
May 01, 2002; ... Well, that was weird. I've just seen the movie About A Boy and Imust admit I don't know how they got me onto the big screen withoutme noticing. I mean, you'd think I would have spotted the small, balding butfamous writer Nick Hornby if he'd been hanging around my flat, ...
Asylum seeker jailed for attack on prostitute 'who deserved to die'
May 01, 2002; ... AN ASYLUM seeker who carried out a racially aggravated attack on awoman in Glasgow was jailed for 30 months yesterday. Agrane Hocine, 29, tied a cable round his victim's neck and saidthat all western women were "sluts and deserved to die". The High Court in Edinburgh heard ...
Leslie Forsyth: regeneration expert
May 01, 2002 ... THE Pool chief executive, Leslie Forsyth, is a specialist in urbanregeneration. Immediately prior to his appointment with The Pool, he spent twoyears with the City of Edinburgh Council as its Craigmillarregeneration manager. He began his career as organising secretary of ...
Highland walk promises tourism revival
May 01, 2002; ... SCOTLAND'S newest longdistance walk was officially launchedyesterday with hopes of it prompting a small tourism boom for theHighlands. The Duke of York performed the opening ceremony at InvernessCastle, beneath the statue of Flora Macdonald, the Jacobite heroinewho helped ...
Artificial Intelligence The Faroese go to the polls
May 01, 2002; ... IT WAS the scene of one of Scottish football's most embarrassingmoments. Forced to a 1-1 draw against a nation that's entirepopulation would leave empty seats at Hampden Park, Craig Brown'sfinest buckled in the face of an island people previously famed forlittle more than puffin pie ....
Markets weather US woes
May 01, 2002 ... ASIAN stocks largely weathered Wall Street's longest losing streaksince September 2000 yesterday, and Korea's Hynix Semiconductorstunned markets by rejecting a US$3 billion sale to rival MicronTechnology. TOKYO: Japan's benchmark 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 48.85to ...
Moves on aircraft carrier deal bring shipyard revival closer
May 01, 2002; ... A RENAISSANCE in the Clyde shipbuilding industry came a stepcloser yesterday after BAE Systems reinforced its bid for a lucrativeGBP 3 billion contract for the construction of two giant warships.The UK's biggest aerospace and defence company yesterday signed along-term lease agreement ...
BAT's sales volume up in smoke
May 01, 2002; ... BRITISH American Tobacco yesterday reported a slump in salesvolumes as the tough economic climate saw smokers switch to cheapercigarettes. Although BAT's core brands - Lucky Strike, Dunhill, Kent and PallMall - saw overall growth of 3 per cent in the first quarter, totalgroup ...
McCartney given family's blessing for new marriage
May 01, 2002; ... SIR Paul McCartney is to marry at the home of John Eastman, thebrother of the singer's late wife, Linda, it was reported yesterday. The wedding between the former Beatle and Heather Mills, a modeland disabled rights campaigner, is expected to take place in EastHampton, New York, ...
Labour's desire to be cool met with contempt from celebrities
May 01, 2002; ... THE celebrity friends wooed by New Labour in the run-up to TonyBlair's 1997 election victory were among the first supporters to turnon the new Prime Minister. The optimism of Cool Britannia was quicklyreplaced by the rancour of the Luvvies Labour Lost. Mr Blair had been in Downing ...
WILL GORDON BROWN EVER BE PM?
May 01, 2002; ... FEW relationships in British politics have been the subject ofsuch intrigue and speculation as that between Tony Blair and GordonBrown. Such is the importance of this double act that it is impossible tomark Mr Blair's five years as Prime Minister without paying ...
A rose-red tint sits well on Britain's cheek
May 01, 2002; ... OPINION THROUGHOUT the opposition years of the 1980s and early 1990s,Labour's problem was not that people did not support its socialobjectives but that they thought the party could not be trustedeconomically. Labour could win hearts but not heads. One of Labour's ...
PERSONAL STYLE GLOBAL STATESMAN
May 01, 2002 ... IN FIVE years, Tony Blair has grown from being a beginner on theworld stage to one of its most experienced statesmen. His resolve in foreign affairs contrasts with the ditheringexhibited when deciding the general election date and handling thefuel crisis. Since 11 ...
Scots manufacturing ahead
May 01, 2002; ... SCOTTISH manufacturing order books stacked up at their fastestrate for a 18 months in April, lifting hopes that the sector is setfor steady growth in the second quarter. The latest monthly Bank of Scotland report on the health ofproducers north of the Border said new business ...
BP confident despite seeing 57 per cent profit slump
May 01, 2002; ... OIL giant BP saw its shares rise 3.5 per cent yesterday on abetter-than-expected 57 per cent fall in profits. BP, Europe's biggest company by market capitalisation, reportedfirst quarter replacement cost net income before exceptional itemsand goodwill amortisation of US$1.6 ...
Fishing boat rescue hero is first winner of new bravery award
May 01, 2002; ... A COASTGUARD rescue helicopter crewman, hailed a hero after hisdaring rescue of a young fisherman, was named yesterday the firstwinner of a prestigious bravery award. The award was dedicated to the memory of a colleague and friendwho was killed saving the lives of ten seamen from ...
Channel 4 plunges into red with 20.6m pound loss
May 01, 2002; ... CHANNEL 4 has crashed into the red for the first time in 10 yearsas the effects of plummeting TV advertising took its toll on thebroadcaster's revenues. Corporate belt-tightening amid difficult economic conditions lastyear caused income from adverts and sponsorship to slump 5 per ...
Dundee has most illegitimate children, says UK survey
May 01, 2002; ... MORE than half of all babies born in Dundee are conceived out ofwedlock, almost 20 per cent more than the UK average, officialfigures revealed yesterday. According to the Office of National Statistics, 57.8 per cent ofbabies in the city are illegitimate, as are more than 50 per ...
City on the verge of revitalisation
May 01, 2002; ... GLASGOW must capitalise on its current economic success if thecity is to shift away from years of industrial decline, according tothe key players who will help forge its future. David Ross, the president of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce,insisted that negative attitudes toward ...
Clipper
May 01, 2002 ... VCs tighten the purse-strings SHELL-SHOCKED venture capitalists became even more stingy withtheir money in the first quarter, curtailing their investments tostart-ups to the lowest level since 1998. Venture capitalists invested US$5.1 during the three months ending31 March, ...
Business Comment Takeover puts FIS in big league
May 01, 2002 ... EDINBURGH-BASED Friends Ivory & Sime (FIS) broke into the bigleague of fund management firms yesterday with its announcement thatit is to purchase Royal & Sun Alliance's UK asset management arm forGBP 240 million. With the acquisition, FIS climbs up from its current position ...
Surgery could fail both Siamese twins
May 01, 2002; ... DOCTORS who delivered conjoined twins said yesterday the babies'shared heart may not be strong enough to support either of them. Natasha and Courtney Smith were born joined at the chest on Mondaywith their parents already aware that one of them would eventuallyhave to be ...
Greenback edges higher
May 01, 2002 ... INVESTORS dismissed weaker US consumer confidence andmanufacturing data kept the dollar up from multi-month lows againstthe euro and yen, while focusing on Friday's April employment report. US consumer confidence fell in April from seven-month highs, butthe drop to 108.8 from an ...
Headless torso in river
May 01, 2002 ... DETECTIVES who worked on the "limbs-in-the-loch" case have beenconsulted by colleagues investigating the discovery of a man'sdecapitated torso on the banks of the Clyde. Strathclyde Police have launched an inquiry after two dog walkersfound the body at Old Kirkpatrick, in West ...
Dylan, the Welsh prince of Bel Air
May 01, 2002; ... He is the true Prince of Bel Air. A young master with a pounds 1.1million charitable foundation at his disposal. A sprawling seven-bedroom home in Hollywood, a penthouse apartment in New York andholiday homes in Bermuda and Majorca. His every need is catered forby a servant paid to ...
April house price boom the fastest rate on record
May 01, 2002; ... BOOMING house prices showed no signs of a let up in April as theyroared ahead at the fastest rate on record. The latest snapshot from Nationwide said the value of an averageresidential property in Britain jumped 3.4 per cent last month. The report added that over the past 12 ...
Teachers failing on sex message
May 01, 2002; ... TEACHERS south of the Border are not doing enough to counter thefalse message from girls' magazines that all teenagers are havingsex, an education watchdog said yesterday. And schools also could do more to challenge prejudice againsthomosexuals, Ofsted said. The ...
Exam-free school teaches about life
May 01, 2002; ... COMMUNAL living and morning sing-songs are not normally associatedwith mainstream education, but at hundreds of schools acrossScandinavia this is what makes learning exciting. Called the folkehjskoler, or "people's high school", this exam-free adult learning institution - ...
Hugh Reilly Column
May 01, 2002 ... ACCORDING to the executive's National Debate On Educationdocument, we educate children to help them lead happy lives, todevelop their ambitions and instil citizenship. Using these criteria,schools are failing their pupils because happy, ambitious and civicduty-conscious teenagers are ...
Freedom the key to successful schools
May 01, 2002; ... SCOTTISH education still has a high reputation, particularly inEngland. All my friends with school-age children regarded relocationfrom south London to south Morningside as a smart move. "Of course,the secondary schools there are excellent, aren't they?" was theuniversal chorus ....
My Schooldays:Brian Patten
May 01, 2002; ... WHERE did you go to school? It was a school called Sefton Park secondary modern in Liverpool.I also went to Lawrence Road primary. Did you like it? Not particularly, no. There seemed to be far better things to doout in the wild. I was not really very good at much ...
Biomass gets 66m pound boost
May 01, 2002; ... AFTER much prompting, government finally gave the fledgling UKbiomass business, including willow coppice and bio-fuel crops, a GBP66 million boost yesterday. Of this, GBP 30 million will come from the Department of Trade andIndustry and at least GBP 36 million from the New ...
Euro 2008 boost as new Dundee stadium is given the green light
May 01, 2002; ... THE Scottish-Irish bid for the Euro 2008 championships received asignificant boost yesterday when Dundee City Council approved plansfor a major new stadium on the outskirts of the city. The planning committee granted outline planning permission for a30,000-seater stadium at Caird ...
Telecoms take bourses into red
May 01, 2002 ... EUROPEAN benchmark stock indices ended higher for the first timein seven days as BP's results boosted oil shares and investorsbreathed a sigh of relief over US consumer confidence data. But there was no let up for battered TMT (technology, media andtelecom) shares as France ...
Everton spoil Falkirk party
May 01, 2002; ... Falkirk 0 Everton 3 Campbell (15), Blomqvist (30), Pembridge (39) IT was a gala occasion at Brockville last night when Falkirk andEverton contested - if that is the right word - the Alex ScottMemorial trophy. Former Rangers, Falkirk, Everton and Scotland winger Scott ...
Survival plan launched to save UK pig industry
May 01, 2002; ... A LAST-DITCH effort to stem the near terminal decline of the GBP 5billion British pig meat industry was launched in London yesterday. In line with the Curry Commission report on the future of food andfarming, the key element of this survival plan is to build closerlinks throughout ...
Fears of potato glut as planting goes too well
May 01, 2002; ... SCOTLAND'S potato growers are worried by reports of excellentpotato planting conditions in England and northern Europe whichsuggest that, even before planting is completed, a potential glut atharvest time is looming. With outlets for the large carry-over of old crop potato ...
Government agency facing rebellion in the countryside
May 01, 2002; ... Scottish Natural Heritage is under fire once more forauthoritarian rural management policies SCOTTISH Natural Heritage came under the parliamentary committeehammer for the second successive week yesterday. Last week it was criticised by several people giving evidence tothe ...
Appeal Court restores 16-year ban on black militant leader
May 01, 2002; ... LOUIS Farrakhan, the controversial US black leader, was toldyesterday that he was still unwelcome in Britain, after a High Courtruling in his favour was overturned by the Court of Appeal. The leader of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, whose publishedaims include "the ...
Farrakhan ban upheld
May 01, 2002 ... LOUIS Farrakhan, the controversial US black leader, was toldyesterday that he was still unwelcome in Britain after a High Courtruling in his favour was overturned by the Court of Appeal. The leader of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, whose publishedaims include "the regeneration ...
Fettes pupil shoots classmate with airgun
May 01, 2002; ... A PUPIL at Fettes College, the Prime Minister's former school, hasbeen shot in the chest by a fellow student, it emerged last night. The 17-year-old who fired the airgun has been suspended from theEdinburgh boarding school after the incident, the latest in a stringof embarrassing ...
Flamboyant but flawed
May 01, 2002; ... DONALD Findlay may be one of Scotland's most brilliant legalminds, but throughout his career he has never been far fromcontroversy. A Rangers fanatic and self-styled renaissance man, Findlay hasachieved many things but will remain notorious for one drunkenevening in 1999 when he ...
FIS doubles funds with GBP 240 million R&SA deal
May 01, 2002; ... FRIENDS Ivory & Sime won promotion to the major league of fundmanagers yesterday after it clinched the pounds240 millionacquisition of Royal & Sun Alliance's UK asset management arm. The deal, signed late on Monday night, doubles the Edinburghfirm's funds under management to more ...
RS&A benefits
May 01, 2002 ... ROYAL & Sun Alliance's GBP 240 million deal with FIS puts theinsurer closer to raising the GBP 800 million extra it pledged itwould have by year end to offset its high costs. RS&A, suffering heavy losses from ...
Bags of style
May 01, 2002; ... KATE Winslet likes to show off her pregnancy on hers, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson panders to her ego with a full length portrait, and PierceBrosnan's wife Keely, likes to show of her husband's smiling Irisheyes. This summer the hot bag on the beach won't be the plastic oneyou got free with ...
In & Out
May 01, 2002 ... WHAT'S HOT: M&S HOW times change. Twelve months ago the headlines were about howMarks had lost its spark, and writers pondered the likelihood of thedeath of a national institution. Now it seems that M&S can do nowrong. From signing up David Beckham to help design clothing ...
Administrators pull the plug on ITV Digital
May 01, 2002; ... ITV Digital bowed to the inevitable last night, pulling the plugon its pay-TV channels and putting more than 1,500 jobs at risk,after its administrators revealed they had failed to find a buyer forthe cash-strapped pay-TV company. Deloitte & Touche said it hadreceived insufficient ...
A degree in fine whine
May 01, 2002; ... After half an hour or so of conversation, Howard Jacobson hasrevealed a shortlist of his dislikes. He has no time for youthculture, clubs, or conceptual art. He doesn't care for pretty, youngfemale novelists, or for many other contemporary writers for thatmatter; he doesn't "do" Irish ...
New Labour and the myth of its own omnipotence
May 01, 2002; ... NO FANFARES for Tony Blair's fifth birthday as Prime Minister. Nojollies, no candles on the cake. Not with a week when May Day and theEnglish local elections fall so close together, risking the painfulcontrast between the turnout of voters tomorrow and the turnout ofprotesters today ....
Flying a kite for Swedish lovebirds
May 01, 2002; ... SVEN and Ulrika's long-standing romance is out in the open and isbeing studied closely, but it certainly hasn't discouraged them. Inthe past ten years they have produced 25 offspring and another fourare due this year. The lovebirds are the longest surviving pair of red kites ...
Review Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
May 01, 2002; ... King's Theatre, Edinburgh IN his book of last thoughts on theatre, the late John McGrathsuggests Tom Stoppard is successful only because of his "speciousability to mildly stir the intellect of the middle classes". It's ajudgment Stoppard has never quite managed to shake off during ...
Leader Blair five years on: the plus and minus marks
May 01, 2002 ... TODAY marks five years in office for Tony Blair and New Labour.That matches the length of time it took Churchill's victoriouswartime administration to defeat Hitler. Or the time it took Attleeto construct the post-war welfare state or Edward Heath to takeBritain into Europe. What, then, ...
Leader An alternative to MMR
May 01, 2002 ... THE MMR Expert Group established by the Scottish Executive eightmonths ago has reported back. Not unexpectedly, it has endorsed theexisting view of both the parliament's health committee and of theMedical Research Council that the combined vaccine against measles,mumps and rubella is ...
Gaddafi's 2.4bn pounds for Lockerbie families
May 01, 2002; ... COLONEL Muammar al-Gaddafi is prepared to offer a "substantial"amount of compensation to the families of Lockerbie bombing victimswithin a month, despite his previous refusal to admit liability forthe attack. The Libyan leader is willing to pay as much as GBP 2.4 billion tothe ...
Edinburgh firms dip into Pool's training scheme
May 01, 2002; ... MANY professionals escaping gridlocked London for the gentlerurban landscape of Edinburgh have a nasty surprise when they come tobuy a property in Scotland's capital. Those expecting to trade in their executive shoebox in Kensingtonfor a palatial pad in Edinburgh and still make a ...
Pick of the day
May 01, 2002; ... JIMI Goodwin, lead singer with Manchester three-piece Doves, isnot a man for raking over the past. Although proud of his band'swidely acclaimed debut album Lost Souls, he never listens to it thesedays; and with recently released new album The Last Broadcast, hewants to move on. "Making ...
Going out,staying in
May 01, 2002 ... ROCK & POP Mary Gauthier VISUAL ARTS DO Hill: The Birth of thePhotographic Portrait CLASSICAL MUSIC Academy Now! Festival Victorian Bar, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, tonight ANOTHER taster gig for Glasgow's annual Big Big Country festival,which kicks off in earnest next week ....
Don't hold out for any Fringe benefits
May 01, 2002; ... THE sets are made of paper, the costumes from string and thechances are you'll be performing in someone's garage. Just how hardcan it be to put on a show at the Edinburgh Fringe? Let's start at the beginning. You have to pay GBP 12 to registeryour company, which takes about two ...
Mind your language
May 01, 2002; ... If you're going to talk about snow, an Inuit language is the bestone to do it in. For sand, choose the language of a tribe of desertnomads. And, for a down-to-earth, no-holds-barred discussion aboutsex, speak in Scots. Real, urban, contemporary Scots, what TomLeonard might have called ...
No further forward in quest for answers
May 01, 2002; ... AFTER two months of delay, and amid numerous reports ofinfighting, a group of medical experts appointed to examine thesafety of the controversial MMR vaccine finally delivered theirverdict yesterday. But moments after the panel's chairman announced that its"unanimous decision" ...
FOR SAFER FOR ALL
May 01, 2002 ... NORMA McGarry believes the MMR jab should be compulsory for allchildren. She became infected with German measles (rubella) when she waspregnant with her son, Nicholas. The condition has left him partiallysighted and profoundly deaf, with feeding and behavioural problems ....
AGAINST KNOW THE FACTS
May 01, 2002 ... TRACY Steele has triplet sons. Just days after they received theMMR jab, they all ran a high temperature and were in pain anddistressed. They soon recovered but their mother began to notice adeterioration in each boy. Ms Steele, 34, from Glasgow, said: "Stuart, Glen and Bobby ...
Executive group gives backing to MMR jab
May 01, 2002; ... A LONG-awaited official report claims the controversial MMRvaccine is the safest way to immunise children and concludes parentsshould not be offered single jabs as an alternative. The Scottish Executive's expert group was set up last year in abid to allay fears that the triple ...
Reviews Loyal family singalong Blood Brothers Misery
May 01, 2002; ... King's Theatre, Glasgow THE musical is indeed a magical thing. It can fit decades offamily history, gargantuan emotions and, in the case of WillyRussell's Blood Brothers, every social problem in the book, into acouple of easily digestible hours of below-par acting with some ...