Fifty years ago, Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki expedition appeared to prove that ancient humans could have sailed west from South American to colonise the Pacific islands. But DNA evidence now shows that his theory was wrong. Charles Arthur, Science Editor, on the molecules that have upset a great adventure.

That huge paperback in almost every 1970s student bedroom (which disintegrated the moment you lent it to someone) is probably still the popular image of a Tolkien book. The seemingly endless volumes of The History of Middle-Earth by Tolkien's son Christopher reinforce the idea: Tolkien's books are big.

UK police are being sent to tackle a crime wave on remote Pitcairn Island, reports Tim Minogue

Simon Calder with an ocean-to-ocean tour of places that take their names from the Christian calendar. It's heavenly ...

Christies International, the auctioneer and art specialist, expects to start selling several big single-owner collections after a lean year for large sales in 1996. Lord Hindlip (pictured above left), the company's chairman, who yesterday announced a 57 per cent surge to pounds 33.9m in taxable profits and a 70 per cent boost to 4.75p in the dividend payout for last year, said the outlook for first-half sales was encouraging.

An American salvage team has recovered one of the two black boxes from the wreck of an Aeroperu airliner that crashed more than two weeks ago into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru. Searchers also spotted the bodies of seven of the jet's 70 occupants, and they will be recovered when ocean conditions permit, Aeroperu said.

Telephone sex is the new 'foolproof' moneyspinner for small countries. The only loser is the unwitting domestic user

Key diplomatic posts will be advertised by Labour if it wins the general election in the hope of attracting leading businessmen to become ambassadors.

Britain joins South China Sea exercises

CHARLES ARTHUR

Shares in Burmah Castrol rose 28p to 1064p, continuing their recent strong run, as the lubricants and chemicals business announced full-year results for its 51 per cent owned Indian subsidiary. Castrol India, the third largest of Burmah's Castrol companies in profit terms after the US and Germany, saw operating profits rise from pounds 21.8m to pounds 24.4m.

Rarotonga, one of the Cook Islands, is tiny, its lagoon sharkless and its forests virgin - a perfect Polynesian paradise. But what will be the long-term effects of France's nuclear tests in the area? Peter Walker reports

WHEN Jacques Chirac the French President, ordered the storming of the two Greenpeace protest vessels in the South Pacific on Friday he may have done more for the independence movement in French Polynesia than he ever intended.

The actor Marlon Brando was in mourning last night after his 25-year- old daughter Cheyenne, who had long suffered from bouts of depression, committed suicide by hanging herself on the South Pacific island of Tahiti.