PIPPA FUNNELL and Supreme Rock held the lead when yesterday's first day of dressage was completed at the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials, having produced a beautifully fluent and accurate test to finish on 64 penalties. Under the previous formula, this would have meant a score in the upper thirties.

A diving trip to the Coral Sea - what could be more thrilling? But there was just one problem: first you had to travel 150 miles out into the open ocean to get there. Sue Ditchfield recalls the worst night of her life

WHAT IS happening to the Costa Rican cloud forests is a significant early warning: a very vulnerable ecosystem is starting to be seriously damaged by global warming, perhaps beyond repair.

While the guests at one Bahamian hideaway came for yoga classes, but got distracted by the scuba diving, says Rachel Henry

THE WORLD'S coral reefs, already damaged by record sea temperatures, are threatened by rising carbon dioxide levels, an international team of scientists has determined.

OFFICIAL NAME

ANTE-POST UPDATE

POLLY PHILLIPPS and the British Equestrian Federation have until 29 April to prepare their defence against the results of a urine sample from Phillipps' horse, Coral Cove, at last year's World Equestrian Games in Rome.

Press coverage of John Prescott's visit to the Maldives to inspect dying coral was a travesty, argues Roger Harrabin

JOHN PRESCOTT, the Deputy Prime Minister, acknowledged last night that he has had to take some flak from the media over a 10-day trip to India and the Maldives. But a tanned Mr Prescott, showing no signs of jet-lag, insisted he had been trying to get a serious message across.

THE CURRENT decimation of the coral reefs is being caused by a fungus, normally only found on land, which is being washed out to sea by soil erosion.

THE DESTRUCTION of the coral reefs is being caused by a fungus, normally only found on land, which is being washed out to sea by soil erosion.

THE TOTE, the state-run on-course bookmakers, should be sold for up to pounds 120m, an influential committee charged by the Home Secretary Jack Straw with reviewing the future of the organisation will recommend.

Sir: John Prescott's call for a UN body to "tackle the threats to oceans from global warming and pollution" is admirable ("Britain wants UN body to save reefs", 10 December). It is particularly admirable given that one of their first ports of call should be the UK.