Everyday, extremists are being "manufactured" in Egypt's torture cells. The destruction of homes, burning of crops and beating of women by the security forces have already alienated most of the countryside in upper Egypt. Journalists and writers are ...

Terry O'Leary, chief executive of the British Epilepsy Association, said: "If this survey gets patients back to their doctors and specialists asking for their treatment to be reviewed it will have achieved its purpose."

The future for all of us is bleak unless governments are prepared to commit wholeheartedly to Europe. Sectarian myopia isn't only the preserve of the parties in Northern Ireland. Yours faithfully, David Sellicks Tonbridge, Kent 1 February

2. Make it easy for the police, traffic wardens and the public to spot an unlicensed truck by printing the licence in colour (as for cars), but with a square shape (unlike cars). Without meaningful enforcement and meaningful penalties, too many irres...

To put this problem in perspective, out of every 10,000 women screened, approximately 60 cancers will be detected earlier at screening and eight will be "missed" because subtle radiological features were overlooked. Yours sincerely, C.B.J. Woodman Di...

Yours faithfully, Randhir Singh Bains Gants Hill, Essex 2 February

The present problem the youth of today face is that we have no one to turn to in Parliament who is prepared to listen to what we have to say, and fight for what we want. Mr Hughes is quick to claim that his party is "responding to issues that particu...

But, on the other hand ... yes. There is a situation developing which is unstable enough to offer Tony Blair rich opportunities and may radically change the politics of the year ahead. Before explaining why, though, let us deal with the unlikeliness ...

Well, this sounds very much like what happened to the director-general, who got his own spit blown back in his face. He was certainly only hinting when he spoke of "overbearing interviewers who sneer disdainfully at their interviewees" and reminded u...

At a number of locations around the country, protesters are throwing themselves in front of lorries. If there is a shadow of doubt as to whether it is completely safe to proceed, the driver should simply stop. One could also argue that it is unreason...

1. It was John Major on his first day (27 October 1989, in Northampton) as Chancellor, not Norman Lamont, who said that, if it is not hurting, it is working, 2. The economy is not growing at 4 per cent a year, but at an annual rate of 3.1 per cent in...

We are afraid to discuss these things with our fellow Protestants, never mind anyone else. The same old tired names and choices appear on the ballot papers each election. The newspapers interview the citizens of the Shankill Road to gauge opinion, no...

Nobody else is doing much apologising these days. Politicians would rather not. The captains of industry are utterly impenitent (there was one last week who made a remark of unexampled stupidity about junior hospital doctors; he was given repeated op...

No one in the West can be sure of the precise interplay. Doubtless though, the worsening in relations between Washington and Peking is linked to the process of replacing Deng Xiaoping. Even if the 90-year-old Deng is still alive, he no longer control...

Federalism is not another word for centralisation, nor does it mean decentralisation; it is both, but both in the right place. Federalism is not a system of imposed uniformity, nor is it just an alliance of common interests; it offers, rather, as muc...

Is this another NHS crisis? If we were less fascinated by navel-gazing at our supposed decline, we might alternatively take it as evidence that some things, at least, are right with the place. It is interesting, to say the least, that German hospital...

In brief, the facts appear to be: first, yesterday's interest rate was the third in five months; second, the recovery is past its peak, according to the Governor of the Bank of England; and finally, the growth in the economy has largely been export-l...

It's not as if there is anything interesting about Simpson to the average non-American. Simpson may have been a star in America but nobody in Britain (outside a few late-night American football fans) displayed the slightest interest in OJ Simpson bef...

Public participation in the construction projects for regional development is a noble endeavour in Myanmar [Burma]. It is true that to implement major projects, financial resources of the state, technical skills and machinery, coupled with mass parti...