It’s the tale of two contrasting conglomerates this week. In a veritable deluge of results – more than 100 companies have so far signalled their intention to report – the most eagerly examined will be half-year figures from BTR with those from Williams Holdings not so far behind

Once congloms were the darlings of the City. Using highly rated shares seemed a cheap way to buy a company. Six months ago Boris Yeltsin promised the Norwegian government that Russia would drop its complaints against Bellona.But Mr Nikitin remains locked up in an FSB jail, and there is every sign that Russia will handle the case in its own way – which means he will be tried without a jury behind closed doors. Amnesty International has declared Mr Nikitin a “prisoner of conscience”.The Russians “are involved in scare tactics”, said Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch in Helsinki. And, she points out, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the new incarnation of the KGB, is acting illegally: a Russian law on state secrets, passed in 1993, bans the classifying of information about the environment.So far, all protests have fallen on deaf ears. It was also taken up by environmental and human rights organisations.

It revealed, among other horrors, that 52 decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines were still waiting to have radioactive waste removed from their reactors; large quantities of solid waste were being kept outside special storage facilities, because these were full, and liquid waste was being kept in tanks which were in poor condition. But the point of publishing his account – which was timed for the start of a G7 summit in Moscow – was also to show that he had acquired his information from publicly available sources, and not from classified files.The arrest of Mr Nikitin, 44, prompted rumblings from the Council of Europe, which less than a month earlier agreed to admit Russia as a member, despite its poor human rights record. Friends say that there are signs his health is beginning to fail.Mr Nikitin’s alleged crime is to have supplied information to the environmental group, Bellona, in Oslo about the dangers presented by Russia’s Northern Fleet based at Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula, near the Norwegian border.As a Russian naval sea captain, who became a Defence Ministry inspector overseeing radiation hazards, Mr Nikitin knew a lot about the subject.Just over two months after his arrest, Bellona published a detailed report concentrating on the findings of Mr Nikitin, who had become one of their researchers. Ever since, he has been trying to survive in a cell of six square metres, and fighting battles for his right, first to have his own lawyer (he won), and then to get bail (he lost). The charge was “betraying the Motherland” – and he turned out to be the defendant. They have been openly watching me, my friends and my family, ever since .. they arrested him.”
That was seven months ago.

Early on a dark, cold morning, three agents from the security services arrived at their apartment in St Petersburg and took Alexander Nikitin away, telling him that they wanted him to act as a witness in a case. “I would like to believe that our country is not entirely run by the security services,” she said wearily, “but my experience is that they seem to have penetrated every structure, every organisation. As the President revealed the truth to the world, her husband was sitting in a security- service prison – the victim of a nation’s powerful desire to keep its secrets. Moscow – Boris Yeltsin may have convinced many Russians that he genuinely wants a more open society when he admitted to having heart disease, but his words will not cut much ice with Tatyana Chernova. While cynics suggested that the real reason was the centre-right’s fear of being routed by the Socialists, another reason was also cited: the prospect that a close race between left and right in 1998 could leave a “hung” parliament in which the National Front held the balance of power.. The plan came to light when the Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, confirmed a report that he was considering the reintroduction of some element of proportional representation in time for the 1998 elections, to “give a voice” to France’s minority parties. The National Front could gain several seats in the French parliament if an electoral reform goes ahead which would make it easier for the centre-right to stay in government after 1998.

Since then the 80,000 native Hawaiians, in a population of 1.2 million, have remained relatively impoverished.A divided grass roots movement, seeking recompense and renewed awareness of Hawaiian culture, has been growing since the 1970s.. At the time of the invasion – an act that, even then, provoked an official apology from the US President, Grover Cleveland – roughly 2 million acres of native land were seized from native Hawaiians. The prospect of the extreme-right gaining ground has set the political dovecote aflutter, and worried MPs who are recalculating their likely majorities. And along with their land, the economic base, their culture, and their dignity We must make amends to native Hawaiians.

Justice demands it.”How the Americans moved inIn 1893, marines stormed into Honolulu and overthrew the last Hawaiian monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani. The islands became a US territory, then in 1959 a fully-fledged state. “I want to have social security when I’m old.”For certain, the search for sovereignty, in whatever form, will be a long one. But a Yes result today will launch a process to give back to indigenous Hawaiians at least something of what they lost.”We must all remember that this beautiful place we call home was once their kingdom,” said Ben Cayetano, the state Governor, recently “Few dispute that their land was stolen. “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” said Butch Soares, a hula dance instructor on the island of Kauai. We need to buy time to help all Hawaiians properly understand what they are voting on.”Some natives argue for the status quo in part out of fear of losing federal benefits if sovereignty is pursued. While he admits that the treatment of natives may have improved, he remains angry at how it used to be.”My grandfather and father were tormented.