OAU tries to settle Zanzibar poll crisis

Tomorrow's vote could be a chance to rewrite history, reports David Orr

PAUL TAYLOR

THE BOOK OF COLOUR by Julia Blackburn, Cape pounds 9.99

The clothes line

John Lyttle, a fan, remembers the day he met the late Dilys Powell (above), the doyenne of critics

The South African vice-president FW de Klerk and Gareth Evans, the Australian Foreign Minister, yesterday proposed a new Indian Ocean Trade Pact to promote links with countries round the ocean rim, including India, Indonesia, Singapore and Malays ia as well as Australia and South Africa. The suggestion will be discussed at a conference in Perth hosted by the Australian government in June.

Police in Australia are waiting today to interview a British yachtsman who buried his wife at sea after a holiday adventure turned into a disaster on the Indian Ocean.

John Crossley Swallow, oceanographer: born New Mill, Yorkshire 11 October 1923; physical oceanographer, Institute of Oceanographic Sciences 1954-83; FRS 1968; Rossby Fellow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute 1973-74; married 1958 Mary Morgan (on e stepdaughter deceased); died Gunnislake, Cornwall 3 December 1994.

One of the world's rarest falcons, rescued from near-extinction by a wildlife charity, ate one of the world's rarest pigeons. The Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, founded by the zoologist and author Gerald Durrell, said the Mauritius kestrel swooped on the Mauritius pink pigeon chick on the Ile Aux Aigrettes, off the coast of Mauritius.

Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor and Lou Reed lead an eight-hour gig on Saturday, and tickets are still available at pounds 35 each. The catch is that you have to go to Egypt for the Red Sea Peace Concert at Taba, on the Egyptian-Israeli border. To get there, Twickers World (081-892 7606) offers package holidays, such as seven days self-catering for pounds 179, leaving Gatwick on Friday. The company will also sell you concert tickets.

KUONI (0306 740500) is offering 14-night half-board packages to the Maldives from pounds 669 in its new Limited Editions programme. A 14- night beach holiday in Sri Lanka is pounds 489 during April. Seven-night packages to Luxor in Egypt cost from pounds 299, flying from Manchester.

Nine armed Somalis were killed and five wounded yesterday by Indian troops serving with the UN during an attack on a supply convoy en route for the town of Baidoa, AFP reports from Mogadishu. A spokesman for the UN aid effort, said the Somalis fired on a convoy of 16 Irish trucks.

FLEMINGS hopes to raise more than pounds 100m with the launch of the first UK-listed investment trust to invest primarily in India.