As President Hu Jintao arrives in Britain on a controversial state visit, these are the true costs of the economic success story of our age

Novelist Elisa Segrave's mother is now in the latter stages of Alzheimer's disease. But her life has one final tragedy in store...

THE GOVERNMENT may be forced to make further concessions over its cuts in benefits for the disabled before Parliament approves the Welfare Reform Bill.

THE GOVERNMENT may be forced to make further concessions on benefit cuts for the disabled before Parliament approves the Welfare Reform Bill.

ALMOST 300 members of the Charity Finance Directors' Group met in London last week to discuss the Government's proposals on the future of taxation for the voluntary sector, outlined in the Consultation Document with the Budget.

A PROPOSAL that girls as young as 10 could in the future be implanted with long-acting hormonal contraceptives provoked a dispute yesterday over the best way to tackle Britain's high teenage birth rate.

CENTENARY OF JORGE LUIS BORGES BRITISH LIBRARY LONDON

Sir: The Home Secretary has created a rod for his own back by not accepting the Schengen agreement, so that it is still possible for asylum seekers coming overland from Eastern Europe to pass the "international frontier" on the British coast, and be able to claim asylum ("Romanians' bid for freedom ends in jail", 8 December).

IT CERTAINLY sounds like a fisherman's tale - put the live salmon you have caught back in our river, and we will give you a smoked one.

MINISTERS yesterday sought to head off protests over a rise in NHS waiting lists, to a record high of 1.29 million, by pledging that in future no patients would be left waiting for more than 18 months for any operation.

EVERYONE assumes that a keen angler yearns to own his own tackle shop. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's true that owning an angling shop means you get the chance to try out the latest tackle. But there isn't much else in its favour.

fishing lines

It was our first Christmas together, and I wanted to buy my new wife something really special as a present. But nothing seemed quite right. Then, one evening, Riva was driving across the Fens when she ran over an owl.

It is no longer the Ridings. It is the Ridings School, and it isworking hard to rebuild its reputation.