Sonny dies in skiing accident

by Jackie Burdon
TRIBUTES poured in last night to pop star turned politician Sonny Bono, best known as half of the Sixties hitmaking duo Sonny and Cher.
Bono, who gave up his entertainment career for politics, died when he skied into a tree. He was 62.
Congressman Bono, an avid skier, had been reported missing two hours before his body was found on Monday evening at Heavenly Ski Resort on the Nevada-California border.
His death came less than a week after Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a similar accident in Aspen, Colorado.
Bono had just started to ski down an intermediate slope, Upper Orion, when he hit the tree, resort officials said. Bono — who had skied at the huge resort for more than 20 years — was alone at the time of the accident.
''This is a terrible shock,'' Newt Gingrich, the speaker of the House of Representatives, told CNN.
''He had really begun to develop — just a wonderful public service career as somebody who really brought a unique sense of talents and understanding from his celebrity days.
''I think the entire house of the Republican conference will be in mourning today,'' Gingrich said. ''We all will feel that we've lost a very, very dear friend.''
Superstar Cher was yesterday flying from Britain to Los Angeles after hearing that her ex-husband and pop partner Sonny Bono had been killed.
The singer pulled out the opening of the Harrods January sale, where she was to have been the star celebrity at the Knightsbridge store today.
Instead she was catching the first available flight to California to be with the couple's daughter Chastity, 29.
Cher looked tearful as she awaited her flight at Heathrow Airport.
The pair's biggest hit was I Got You Babe, in 1965.
A Bono spokesman, Frank Cullen Junior, said the California congressman was at the resort with his wife, Mary Whitaker, and their two children, 6-year-old Chianna and 9-year-old Chesare.
''They were enjoying a family vacation,'' Cullen said yesterday. ''He was a very proficient skier. He skied frequently with his family and, yes, he was an athletic guy — he skied and played tennis.'' He had skied on ahead of other family members when the accident happened, Cullen said.
He had skied into a wooded area just off the main trail. Such ''tree skiing'' is popular with expert skiers who like the fresh powder available off the beaten path. The area of moderately dense trees is not officially out of bounds but is more hazardous. The weather was perfect for skiing.
His wife reported him missing about the time the resort closed at 4:30 P.M., Wagnon said. Bono died on the Nevada side of the mountain and an autopsy was to be conducted in Reno.
He appeared to have died of head and neck injuries and there was no immediate evidence of drugs or alcohol, police said.
Two years ago, Bono received a deep gash on his chin after he and another skier collided at the Big Bear Lake area east of Los Angeles.
Bono, who ended up then with 11 stitches, joked at the time: ''I hit somebody or they hit me, so it was their fault,'' Bono joked at the time.

West voices concern at Ramadan atrocities

SPURRED into verbal action by their voters' horror at the latest massacres in Algeria, Western governments are belatedly voicing concern to the Algerian authorities.
However, analysts question whether the words will be followed by effective political action or economic pressure to help end the bloodletting in the oil and gas-producing North African state. Critics say the international community has remained silent while more than 65,000 people were killed in civil strife triggered when the army intervened six years ago to prevent Islamic fundamentalists winning a general election.
"Western powers, particularly the French — Algeria's former colonial masters — were so relieved to see the army prevent an Islamist takeover that they turned a blind eye to the killing," a Western diplomat said.
"Now even the French are a bit more willing to see the European Union get more involved in political moves to try to stop the violence," he said. This is despite the fact that France fears any move which could prompt spread violence to its own shores.
The EU, in a statement issued by Britain, said on Monday it was "deeply concerned that the scale of violence in Algeria had increased dramatically since the beginning of (the Moslem fasting month of) Ramadan". However, it stopped short of suggesting any action beyond (
exploring with the Algerian government and non-government organisations ways of helping the victims.
The US went further calling on the government to allow an international investigation "to get to the bottom of some of these issues to determine the extent of the massacres — perhaps begin to pin more clearly the blame for them".
That is precisely what the government of President Liamine Zeroual, a former top general, wants to avoid, at least partly because such a probe would be bound to question the apparent inaction of the security forces in some killings on their doorstep.
The government has sought to "privatise" the battle against the guerrillas by handing out arms to self-defence militias, a move which many say has worsened the violence.
"We would like to see the (Algerian) government do more to protect its civilians while respecting the rule of law," US State Department spokesman, James Rubin, said.
He was speaking before the independent newspaper, La Tribune, reported fresh massacres in which several hundred civilians were reported to have been burned alive and 117 had their throats cut.
Algeria watchers say the latest massacres appear to be the work of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a radical group which has stepped up attacks since the largest guerrilla movement, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), declared a ceasefire on October 1.
The bloodshed gives a hollow ring to Zeroual's claims to have ended the country's crisis by completing a new constitutional structure, dominated by the party created by his supporters last year.

Hundreds burnt alive in Algerian massacre

SEVERAL hundred civilians were burnt alive and 117 had their throats cut in two further attacks in western Algeria, the Algerian newspaper La Tribune reported yesterday. It blamed Moslem rebels for the slaughter.
There were no survivors in Had Chekala village, in the western Relizane province, which was razed on Sunday night, the newspaper said, without giving a figure of deaths.
La Tribune said the other massacre, in which it said at least 117 people died, took place on Saturday night at Remka, also in Relizane, about 150 miles west of the capital, Algiers.
There was no confirmation of either incident. No one was available for comment at the Interior Ministry, while overseas pressure mounted for more action to end killings.
The Foreign Ministry yesterday summoned the US ambassador, Cameron Hume, to protest against a call for Algeria to allow an international investigation into massacres, the official Algerian news agency APS said.
The US call was one of several statements of concern by Western governments and international bodies over the loss of more than 1,000 lives in the first six days of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, according to Algeria press reports.
On Saturday, Liberte newspaper said 412 people had been killed in Relizane province in one night last week. The government, which blamed Moslem guerrillas, put the Relizane toll at 78 dead and 73 wounded.
That killing started a mass exodus from the area.
"People were packing up their belongings and leaving their villages for greater safety in towns," said an Algerian resident who was in the area on Sunday.
French radio yesterday reported a mass exodus from the mountains in western Algeria.
Algerian newspapers said on Monday that government troops, backed by paramilitary forces, were hunting those responsible for the violence.
US State Department spokesman James Rubin said on Monday that Algeria should allow international investigators to look into the massacres.
A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Irish president Mary Robinson, said in Geneva yesterday that she wanted UN envoys to probe massacres in Algeria "as soon as possible".
France on Monday backed a German call for the European Union to mount a diplomatic effort to help end the killings. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said yesterday that Britain, as current EU president, would put the matter on the agenda of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting on January 26.
The Algerian Foreign Ministry replied to France in a statement on Monday: "The French authorities have no right to remind the Algerian government of its duties and it is out of place that they (are) ... suggesting solutions while Algeria is carrying out its own approach to end the crisis."
France said it had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of its former colony.
The death appears to confirm the fear of most Algerians that Ramadan has become the month of carnage.
Up to 600 civilians have perished in each of the six Ramadan months since Algeria plunged into violence in early 1992, when authorities cancelled a general election in which radical Islamists had taken a commanding lead.
More than 65,000 people have been killed in the past six years.
No one has claimed responsibility for the recent massacres and no sources were available about the identity of the attackers.
Diplomats and commentators say massacres of civilians appear aimed at spreading fear, or at showing that the state cannot control large parts of the North African country of 29 million people, and to ensure censorship cannot be effective because of the sheer numbers of dead.
Other killings have been attributed to rivalry between the Armed Islamic Group and the Islamic Salvation Army, with families of group members being targeted for revenge.

Di's driver tipped off photographers at Ritz

HENRI PAUL, driver of the car in which Princess Diana was killed, tipped off waiting photographers that she was about to leave the Ritz Hotel, sources close to the investigation revealed.
The allegation was made in a report given last month to investigating magistrate Herve Stephan, who is leading the probe into the causes of the August 31crash, which also killed Diana's companion Dodi Fayed and Paul himself, the sources said.
According to the report, Paul emerged from the hotel shortly before driving off with Diana and Dodi to tell the photographers they would be leaving in about 10 minutes.
Diana and Dodi had been dining at the hotel and were headed for an apartment Fayed owned in western Paris.
Photographers who told police about Paul's tip-off were backed up by employees of the Ritz. The account is significant because it appears to support the photographers' accounts that their relations were relaxed rather than tense with the members of Diana's party, and that they were merely doing their jobs when they followed the car.
Lawyers for the Fayed family argued photographers caused the crash by forcing the driver to take risks in order to escape their pursuit.
With the fact-finding phase of the probe virtually at an end, investigators say they believe that speed and drink were to blame.
The investigators found that Paul was driving very fast and had a criminal level of alcohol in his blood.

Defiant Hague vows he will not be blackmailed by EMU supporters

by Phil Murphy
and Sarah Schaefer
TORY leader William Hague, vowed today that he would not be ''blackmailed'' by Conservative colleagues over the single currency.
He insisted he would stand up to the likes of former Cabinet Ministers Lord Howe and Chris Patten, even if it meant some members quit the party.
Mr Hague, during a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in, was commenting after Monday's letter to The Independent signed by Lord Howe, Mr Patten, European Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan and other senior Tories.
It warned that they would back the Prime Minister and urged the Tory leader to change policy and help prepare for early entry to the single currency.
But Mr Hague said: ''I am going to stand up to anybody, in pursuit of what I believe in, of what I think is right for this country.
''And it's much better to have these arguments now than to have them at the time of a general election which is what happened last year. Let's have it out now. Let's have these arguments now and I will put this all to a vote of the entire membership of the Conservative Party.
''That will make the final decision on our policy and, if the party supports me on this policy – and there is every indication that it will do – then other people will have to like it or lump it.''
Asked about the risk of a split with the pro-European wing peeling off, Mr Hague said: ''I think they want to stay within the Conservative Party and I certainly want them to stay in the Conservative Party but I'm not going to be blackmailed by anybody."

Clintons can't really disapprove of holiday snaps

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary were treated like royalty on their recent four-day visit to St Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and they didn't like it. Well, that is the message from the White House anyway.
Clinton was not only photographed splashing in the water with the family dog, Buddy, but also dancing with Hillary on the private beach. Of course, the President has posed for pictures with his dogs and danced publicly with Hillary, so he was probably not all that upset.
Americans tend to be quite sceptical about the marriages of their Presidents ever since the rumours were confirmed about John F Kennedy's philandering, or the disclosure that Franklin D Roosevelt's marriage had really been over for more than a decade before he became President. It was just a political arrangement in the White House.
There have been rumours throughout the current presidency were that Bill and Hillary Clinton were hardly on civil speaking terms. Hence it should not be surprising that Clinton was happy with the photograph, or that television managed to get a video clip of the whole thing.
"Actually I liked it quite a lot," the President told the press with a laugh and a broad smile that certainly belied his supposed annoyance.
"It's a very nice picture, but it's a private moment," his Press Secretary Mike McCurry insisted. "We generally assume that the press does not invade privacy." He added that the White House was considering what action to take in response to the coverage. One official even suggested that it might eliminate the press pool that ordinarily covers the President on vacation. Helen Thomas, the UPI's veteran White House Correspondent dismissed the protests contemptuously.
"No President deserves privacy," she said. "If he wants privacy he shouldn't be President."

Proposed EU law will lead to trade in body parts

by Gráinne Cunningham
BODYSNATCHING, already at the centre of controversy in the United States, will become prevalent here and across Europe if proposed EU legislation is adopted, Green MEP Nuala Ahern warned yesterday.
Ms Ahern called for a code of ethics to be set up in Ireland to stop the trade in body parts, which may result with the introduction of an EU Directive on the patenting of bio-technology.
The directive, which is due for its second reading before the European Parliament next month, would allow blood, tissue or body parts to be patented and sold without the patient's knowledge or consent, Ms Ahern claimed.
In the US, doctors and other medical personnel are free to use parts of the human body for their bio-engineering experiments, such as growing other body organs. One US national, John Moore, took a case against his doctor after he discovered part of his body had been patented. He lost the case, as the court found the doctor was legally entitled to patent his patient's body-tissue.
Ms Ahern insisted that it was not necessary to patent the genetic structures of human beings.
"The Greens have strongly resisted this type of legislation, which privatises nature, exploits the human body and concentrates the building blocks of life in the hands of the wealthy few," she said.
If the EU directive is adopted, the Greens plan to campaign against it at national level.
The Greens also say the directive would raise the cost of certain treatments. "Doctors must be free to treat patients without having to pay a licence fee or royalties," Ms Ahern said.