UR TV CAST

Agreement came in 1988 after the end of a bush war waged since 1966.Yemen 1990Yemen merged with Democratic Yemen in 1990 to form one state.. The president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was re-elected yesterday in the first vote since the end of the nation’s devastating civil war. Paolo Banguray, the rebel-allied candidate who stood instead of their jailed founder, Foday Sankoh, said: “We have lost, and we accept the people’s verdict.”People of the bullet-pocked capital, Freetown, took to the streets singing, dancing and waving the palm-frond symbols of Mr Kabbah’s supporters.The National Election Commission said Mr Kabbah won with 70.6 per cent of the vote – well above the 55 per cent he needed to avoid a run-off.Dr Kabbah, 70, was credited by Sierra Leone’s people with resisting the rebels during the insurgents’ 10-year terror campaign. The war, launched to win control of the government and of diamond fields, killed tens of thousands of civilians and left countless others injured.Dr Kabbah’s party also did unexpectedly well in parliament, winning 83 of the 112 seats.(AP).

Cenes Pharmaceuticals, the biotech company forced to mothball all its research activities after running out of money, has attracted the interest of several potential buyers. It has slashed costs by cutting its board members to five, suspending research and closing its US operations.The group is now focused solely on selling four small painkilling products and developing a new form of morphine in a joint venture funded by Elan of Ireland.Insiders said the approaches had come from private companies interested in acquiring the portfolio of marketed products, and from those seeking an interest in the morphine project, M6G. Analysts believe that sales of M6G could top £200m in the forms currently under development.Elan itself has been tipped as a bidder in the past, although this is seen as unlikely now it has issued two profits warnings and come under fire for the way it accounts for its joint ventures. The Irish company already owns 10 per cent of CeNeS.The UK group spent much of last year in takeover talks with Bioglan Pharma, but the offer collapsed when Bioglan began to unravel in the summer, before eventually going into liquidation.CeNeS made a record loss of £69m in 2001 but now says it is self-sufficient into 2003.The company, founded and chaired by the biotech entrepreneur Alan Goodman, is trying to sell off some of its mothballed assets and prospective drugs. Last week, it revealed promising data on one product for pain caused by a malfunctioning central nervous system, and said it may have a product that could be used to treat schizophrenia.. Manufacturers do not expect sterling to fall against the euro and are seeking innovative ways to boost profits in the face of a strong pound, a survey today has found. The most recent trade data showed a marked collapse in sales to nations using the euro over the last six months.But it went on: “Few of the companies that we interviewed are planning for a rebound in the euro’s value.

They have therefore focused on other ways of improving competitiveness.”These included boosting investment in order to secure efficiency gains and cost cutting. Official figures last week showed that 170,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost over the last 12 months.The survey also found little inclination to move their factories abroad despite the huge publicity generated by similar decisions taken by Dyson, the consumer products maker, and Raleigh, the bicycle company.”We were struck by how few companies had moved production abroad as a short-term response to cost pressures,” it said.Cost issues were important for industries with a large labour but it said cost was not the “whole story”. Tariff barriers, transport costs and proximity to key markets were also factors.The overall message of the report was an appeal to the Government for “concrete support” in form of less bureaucracy and more help for exporters.This included: speeding up export licensing as current delays can mean lost business; more cash to allow Trade Partners UK and improve services such as exhibitions and trade missions; more focus on cultivating emerging economies such as China and Brazil.Stephen Radley, EEF chief economist, said: “While companies are fighting hard to hang on to current markets and develop new ones, concrete support from Government can make the difference between winning and losing business.”. Marconi, the troubled British telecoms equipment maker, is on the verge of announcing the appointment of insolvency experts John Talbot and Chris Hughes to organise its reconstruction.

The bankers, who are owed £1.5bn by the struggling company, favoured bringing in David James, the company rescue specialist who sorted out the some of the problems of the Millennium Dome and has worked on Railtrack’s finances.But Marconi’s management and bondholders favoured hiring insolvency experts who might also be more willing to listen to the board’s wishes than Mr James. The appointment will come as early as this week.Mr James has not ruled out taking on an advisory role at Marconi, and is understood to want the option of succeeding Derek Bonham as chairman.Marconi is saddled with net debt of £3bn and last week announced a massive £5.7bn loss in the year to March, while in the same period sales in core operations fell by one third.The company said it is considering a debt for equity swap, which would involve shareholders seeing the value of their stakes virtually wiped out.Marconi shelved its plan to publish its business strategy until it has reached an agreement with bondholders and shareholders. An agreement is expected in weeks.Meanwhile, Marconi’s banks have discovered that their status as creditors is no higher than that of bondholders because their loans were made to the plc rather than Marconi’s operating companies.The development has infuriated the banks, which had thought they would be able to walk away with most of Marconi’s remaining £1.4bn of cash as a repayment of their debts.Sources dismissed reports saying banks were demanding that Marconi hand over the bulk of its cash or risk bankruptcy. Banks could not do this because they do not rank above bondholders.. Lloyd’s of London is struggling to raise money in the City to back one of its key strategies to revive the historic insurance market after the devastating effect of 11 September. Lloyd’s aims to set up an electronic platform which would allow underwriters to do a lot of work to policy documents online, making the process quicker and allowing people in other countries to participate in the Lloyd’s market more easily.But critics believe the cost of the project is far too high, especially in a year when individuals and companies involved in Lloyd’s have had to pay out their largest ever claim from the US terrorist attacks.One person close to the situation said: “It is obscene to be spending that much on a dot project now.