Tears as shooting victims buried

TWO more girls and a teacher, victims of the horrific school shooting at Jonesboro, Arkansas, in the United States, were buried at the weekend.
The town said goodbye to Stephanie Johnson, Britthney Varner and teacher Shannon Wright, with songs.
The songs included Elton John's tribute to the late Diana Princess of Wales, Candle in the Wind, and with prayers that something good would come out of the tragedy.
Mourners wept for the victims of last Tuesday's shootings at Westside Middle School.
Ministers said their short lives would not be forgotten.
The Reverend Alvin Swan said to Stephanie Johnson's mother, Tina McIntyre: ''The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
"God gave you Stephanie.
"You had 12 wonderful years.''
Stephanie's was the first of three funerals at the weekend for victims of the rampage that left four young girls and a teacher dead. Ten others were hospitalised for their wounds, and another person was slightly injured.
Two boys, Drew Golden (11) and Mitchell Johnson (13) are being held on five counts each of murder and 10 counts of battery.
Police say the two, dressed in camouflage gear and armed with rifles and handguns, ambushed classmates and staff members who had left the school after one of the boys triggered a fire alarm.
A funeral for Britthney Varner (11) was held in a rural cemetery near Jonesboro.
English teacher Shannon Wright was buried in Bono, just a few miles from Jonesboro, a southern city with a 50,000 population.
Britthney was ''always bubbly'' said the Reverend William Holt, her minister at Revival Tabernacle Church in Bono.
''I don't care how low you were, give her two minutes of time and she would have you lifted back up.'' With his voice breaking he said: ''I will miss those hugs.
"I will miss that little sweet voice telling me she loved me.
"Those kids at school will miss that little precious girl,'' he said. At the funeral for Mrs Wright, who leaves behind a two-year-old son, ministers encouraged her fellow teachers to take a rose, a symbol of life, back to Westside Middle School.
Referring to the fact that Mrs Wright died trying to shield a child, Minister Gary Cremeens quoted from the gospel of John. ''Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend."
The minister added: ''There is a community and a nation, I believe, who are grateful for what she has done. She gave her life doing something positive for our children.'' Two other victims, Eleven-year-old Natalie Brooks and 12-year-old Paige Ann Herring, each remembered for smiles and upbeat attitudes, were laid to rest in separate services Friday.

Happiness the theme as Cook sets marriage date

by Sian Clare
and Joe Quinn
BRITISH Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said last night he hoped to make his partner Gaynor Regan ''as happy as she makes me'', after announcing they will marry on April 19.
The pair will marry at Chevening House, Kent, his official residence, in a civil ceremony attended by family and close friends.
His divorce from his former wife, Dr Margaret Cook, after 28 years of marriage, was completed two weeks ago. Mr Cook, (52), and Ms Regan, (41), are hoping their marriage will put an end to the months of press speculation about their relationship.
Last night Mr Cook said: ''I am delighted that we are getting married at Chevening. It has given us rare intervals of privacy and we think it right our wedding should be where we have had our most peaceful times.
''The last couple of months have been difficult but our love is deeper because of the experiences we have been through together.
''I hope our marriage will show that the true story of my private life is that it's a very content and fulfilled life with the woman I want to make as happy as she makes me.''
The couple are planning a larger reception in London in the weeks after the wedding ceremony to celebrate their marriage, and it is possible that Mr Blair – whose Middle East trip clashes with the wedding – will attend.
Meanwhile the announcement came as no surprise to former wife Dr Cook.
She said from her home in Corstorphine, Edinburgh, which she was given as part of the divorce settlement: ''I was told from all sorts of sources, it wasn't difficult to know.
''He's divorced, he's a free man, he can do what he wishes.
''It was expected that he would remarry quickly. He made that quite clear in his announcement in January.''
David Mathieson, a spokesman for Mr Cook, said: ''The wedding will be a happy ending to the difficult time Robin and Gaynor have been through.
''Chevening has given them a haven from the pressures of public life and they both want to get married where they have had their most peaceful hours together.
''They are deeply committed to each other and are both very excited at the wedding plans.''

Tory chief considers major constitutional change

TORY leader William Hague said, yesterday, his party was considering major constitutional change, including more powers for Parliament and devolution for England.
Mr Hague vowed the Conservatives would ''rebalance'' Britain's constitution to counter Tony Blair's ''downgrading'' of the Commons and the new, devolved assemblies for Scotland and Wales.
He was speaking after rank and file Conservatives voted by an overwhelming majority to back his ''Fresh Future'' relaunch of the party at a special conference in Harrogate.
Outlining current Tory thinking on the issue, Mr Hague told GMTV the Conservatives would ''have to become a party which actually advocates constitutional change.'' He protested that New Labour had weakened Parliament through what he claimed were Mr Blair's infrequent visits to the House and the leaking of ministerial announcements.
He said: ''They often prefer to make announcements on morning radio programmes rather than announce it through Parliament. It's bad for representative democracy and it's bad for accountability.''
He went on: ''They (the Government) don't want to be held to account. They prefer other ways, including conducting opinion polls, having focus groups ... but that is not the same. They should have to answer to the elected representatives of the people and it is a very bad development for this country that the government are downgrading Parliament in this way.''
He said: ''We have to upgrade Parliament, to strengthen it, to improve its powers to hold the Government to account and that will be another area of constitutional reform for a future government.''
On devolution, he suggested the Conservatives might solve the West Lothian Question — the constitutional conundrum under which Scottish MPs may vote on English affairs but not vice versa — by creating an English parliament.
He said: ''I am not going to commit now, years before a general election, to specific constitutional change, but we will have to rebalance the constitution. Mr Blair looks as if he is going to leave unfinished business.
''We now have an indefensible situation where Scottish members can vote on everything that is going on and English members cannot vote on what is going on in Scotland. ''Now I say we will have to respond to that, which means we will have to become a party which actually advocates constitutional change and we will have to advocate reducing the voting rights of Scottish MPs, or reducing their numbers, or setting up an English parliament — one possible response.''
The Tory leader also said he was willing to consider seriously reform of the House of Lords.
But he accused the Government of ''fiddling about'' with its plans for the second chamber, adding ''so Conservatives are going to have to develop a plan and a response to that.''
He concluded: ''So yes, we value our traditions and we value the fact the House of Lords has worked extremely well within the British Parliament but we are prepared to look at ideas for the future."

Abused woman's appeal against life sentence to anger UK Asians

IT HAS taken five years in Holloway prison and a lot of support to convince Pakistani mother-of-three Zoora Shah to take the stand when her appeal against a life sentence for murder opens in London tomorrow. For the first time, the Royal Courts of Justice will hear about the 20 years of sexual degradation and violence which drove her to poison former partner Mohamed Azam.
And thanks to the Southall Black Sisters, she will have the courage to tell them. The London-based women's rights organisation has spearheaded the campaign for an appeal and persuaded Zoora to speak openly about the circumstances which will certainly incur the wrath of Britain's Asian community.
Zoora, an illiterate woman from rural Pakistan, was befriended by Azam in the early 1980s. She and her three young children had been abandoned by the violent husband of an arranged marriage and were living in squalor.
Azam, a convicted drug dealer, offered her a home in exchange for sex. When he was eventually convicted and imprisoned, he sent fellow inmates to Zoora who used her as a prostitute, the Black Sisters explain.
"I was used as a bed by all the men in the community," Zoora eventually admitted to an interpreter in prison. "I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I was going to kill myself. Then I looked at the photo of my children and I thought I could not leave them."
She gave Azam a dose of arsenic because she was told it would render him impotent. She got respite from what she describes as his constant sexual demands for a month, but he was so furious at his inability to perform that he kicked her viciously and damaged her kidneys.
When she suspected that he had sexual designs on her children, she administered a second dose, in some sweets, which would kill him. Now, Zoora is appealing to have her murder conviction commuted to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility and/or provocation in a case which the Southall Black Sisters hope will encourage other Asian women to speak out against violence.
But their fight is one which takes place against a background of vilification from their own communities. They were condemned by fundamentalists when they took a stand against the fatwa on writer Salman Rushdie in 1989 and again in 1992 when they successfully campaigned for the release of Kiranjit Ahluwaha, a woman who killed her violent husband.
"The fundamentalists call us home-wreckers, anti-Asian and even lesbians because we fight against violence against women in Britain's Asian and African-Caribbean communities," says staff member Hannana Siddiqui at the organisation's modest office in South London where a staff of four deal with up to 1,000 cases a year.
"Hopefully, the appeal will be successful and encourage other women who are trapped and invisible to seek help," Ms Siddiqui says.
When the case opens in London tomorrow, one of the people on the picket line will be Zoora's eldest daughter: "It is hard to accept that people see her as a cold-blooded killer. We know her as a kind-hearted, very caring person who helped others. I just hope the appeal court will see that."

Major work at Saddam palace

WEAPONS inspectors from the United Nations saw a lot of construction work at one of Saddam Hussein's palaces which they visited in the north of Iraq, a diplomat said yesterday.
Some of the new buildings inspected on Saturday at the palace in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, are completed and ''probably ready to receive people,'' Portuguese diplomat Antonio Monteiro told reporters.
The inspectors are now in Mosul, the site of another presidential complex, he said.
Tikrit is 180 miles northwest of Baghdad and Mosul is 240 miles north of the capital.
The Tikrit inspection lasted the whole day, and included an aerial survey by helicopter.
Monteiro, who is Portugal's ambassador to the United Nations and chairman of the UN sanctions committee on Iraq, said he participated in the helicopter survey.
''Everything went smoothly," he said.
He did not give any other details of the inspection, aimed at searching the palace compounds for information related to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as well as long-range missiles.
Monteiro did not say whether he considered the construction work at the Tikrit compound to be of any significance to the arms inspectors. The United States has repeatedly accused Saddam of using the country's resources to build palaces rather than assist the sanctions-hit population.

Algerian militants kill 52 in attack

AT least 52 people, including 32 young children aged less than two, were killed by axe-wielding assailants in south Algeria, it was reported yesterday.
As violence continued to rage across the North African nation, two independent newspapers reported that security forces had killed 71 Islamic militants in the space of 48 hours in east and south Algiers.
The 52 people were killed in Had Sahary Youb, near Djelfa, some 156 miles south of Algiers. The attack was believed to have happened early on Friday.
Witnesses said about 15 men carrying axes and knives carried out the massacre before fleeing with three kidnapped young women.
An estimated 75,000 people have died in Algeria since the military-backed government cancelled 1992 elections which the Islamic Salvation Front was tipped to win.
The newspaper Liberte reported that six Islamic militants, considered dangerous by authorities, were killed in east Algeria in an army sweep.
In the Ouarsenis mountains, south west of the capital, security forces killed another 65 militants, the newspaper La Tribune reported. The newspaper said the army had also encircled another 80 militants and was waiting to move in. There was no official confirmation of either sweep.
On Saturday, the opposition party Front for Socialist Forces urged the government to end a six-year state of emergency and restore the civil rights of Algerians.
The emergency measures give police greater power to detain suspects and ban rallies unless they are approved by the government.
Authorities said yesterday that parliament would debate the proposal later this year, but observers said an immediate lifting of the state of emergency was unlikely.

Yates in bid to topple star's suicide verdict

GRIEVING Paula Yates said yesterday she was seeking legal advice in a bid to overturn a coroner's verdict of suicide on her rock star lover Michael Hutchence.
Miss Yates (37), said she refused to accept the INXS singer committed suicide and said Hutchence thought it was the most cowardly act in the world.
''In no way do I accept the coroner's verdict of suicide,'' she told Australia's Channel 9 network's 60 Minutes programme.
''I will be making it abundantly clear that because of information that I and only I could know about Michael ... I cannot accept the verdict. And I won't have my child grow up thinking that her father left her, not knowing the way he loved her.''
New South Wales Coroner Derek Hand found in February that the 37 year-old Hutchence committed suicide while in a state of depression, partly over his partner's child custody dispute with Bob Geldof, her former husband.
Miss Yates said the pair endured a year of fertility tests before having the child and added that they were planning to marry as soon as the custody dispute was settled.
Commenting on claims that she was involved in a battle for Hutchence's estate, she said: ''Tiger and I have 60%, that was his will. I have no fight with anyone, I don't need to fight about anything. I need to get through the next hour, that's what worries me. I wouldn't dream of fighting.''
Reeling from the divorce settlement and custody battle over the three daughters she had with Mr Geldof, Miss Yates said she almost died from an overdose of pills and alcohol last year.

Hand which people favour is determined long before birth

PEOPLE are programmed to be right or left-handed in the womb, as early as 10 weeks from the start of pregnancy, new research showed, yesterday.
The research suggests that the hand which individuals favour is determined a long time before birth and is not the product of external influences after a baby is born.
Scans of 87 foetuses revealed that as soon as it was possible to observe the limb buds moving, most showed a strong preference for right-handed movement. Glenda McCarthy and Professor Peter Hepper from the foetal behaviour research centre at Queen's University, Belfast, found that 85·5% of foetuses showed right-handed characteristics at 10 weeks.
This is similar to the proportion of the adult population that is right-handed. Approximately 90% of people are right-handed and 10% left handed.
Left or right hand use is an expression of the way one side of the brain assumes dominance in certain areas. In right-handed people, for instance, language is centred on the left side of the brain, while in left-handed people it is spread more evenly across both hemispheres.
Presenting their findings at the British Psychological Society annual conference in Brighton, the researchers said it was clear that lateralisation — the determination of which hand people use — could not be the product of environmental or postnatal factors. ''Instead, lateralisation may have a genetic basis or may be influenced in the early embryonic period.''