By November fighting had broken out in Puntland.Jessica Yudilevich, head of advocacy at the Refugee Council, called for Britain to follow Canada’s example and appoint an independent body to assess the safety of countries for asylum cases. “Our view is these countries are far too unstable to be making any radical changes to our policy.”. The two-year-old son of the Middlesbrough footballer Colin Cooper choked to death on a toy hours after his father celebrated his team’s FA Cup victory over Manchester United. All efforts to revive him failed and he died soon afterwards in Harrogate District Hospital. Mr Cooper, 34, a defender, and his wife, Julie, have three older daughters.Steve McClaren, Middlesbrough’s manager, told Mr Cooper’s team-mates of the tragedy when they reported for training yesterday morning. As a mark of respect, the session was cancelled.Keith Lamb, the club’s chief executive, expressed his sympathy for the family. He said: “Everyone at the football club is in deep shock at this tragic news.

Our thoughts are with Colin, Julie and their family at this most difficult of times.”North Yorkshire Police confirmed that Finlay had been brought to hospital on Saturday night. A spokesman said: “Despite efforts by the family and emergency staff, including ambulance and hospital personnel, they were unable to save him and he was pronounced dead at 6.50pm by doctors at the hospital.”North Yorkshire Police are not treating the death as suspicious at this time, but we are investigating on behalf of the North Yorkshire coroner to whom the case has been referred.”The spokesman said that Finlay’s parents, who live in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, were “deeply distressed and upset” by the tragedy and asked for the media to respect their wish for privacy.. Storm force winds wreaked havoc across parts of Britain today causing death on the roads, crippling transport services and leaving thousands without power. A spokesman for the company said: “This decision is in the interests of safety and we will reassess the situation as it develops.”A train with about 120 people on board was struck by a falling tree in Perthshire, Scotland. But Mr Kitt, who was prominently involved in the changeover, also conceded that it had uncovered the degree to which prices were steeper in Ireland than in other parts of the European Union, and announced a study of the costings.”The floodlights are now sharply focused on prices throughout the length and breadth of the eurozone and any retailer who thinks he or she can exploit the consumer will have nowhere to hide,” he said. “The consumer cannot lose if we progress the issue in this unified manner.”.

Despite mounting pressure on President George Bush’s administration to explain the full extent of its dealings with Enron, the bankrupt Texas energy company, Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, insisted yesterday he had no intention of disclosing the full list of industry lobbyists he consulted while drawing up a controversial national energy plan last year. Its extensive political contacts, notably with Bush administration officials, have grown into a scandal.The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has threatened to take the White House to court in the next few days to force the release of Mr Cheney’s contact list, and its efforts are being cheered by several Democratic congressmen determined to cause maximum embarrassment.Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, has identified 17 points in the energy plan that would have specifically benefited Enron and has applied continual pressure on the White House to explain itself.Mr Cheney, speaking on morning television shows, insisted full disclosure was out of the question. Revealing details of closed-door meetings, he said, “would make it virtually impossible for me to have confidential conversations with anybody”. The poll also found the country was following the scandal closely, with 75 per cent of respondents saying they were pay attention to it – a number that has risen in the past two weeks.Several dozen administration officials are former Enron consultants or significant former stock-holders. The President had close dealings with the company for at least a decade, and was on first-name terms with the now ousted company chairman, Kenneth Lay.The scandal also appears to be doing particular damage to the Republican Party, with 45 per cent of respondents in the poll saying – correctly – that Enron gave more campaign money to Mr Bush’s party than to the Democrats.In recent days, the White House has sought to distance itself from the debacle. President Bush said last week he was outraged by Enron’s conduct. The administration, meanwhile, has been conducting a hasty review of its $70m (£50m) contracts with Enron and Arthur Andersen, its scandal-tainted auditor.In his interviews, Mr Cheney said there was no evidence of wrongdoing by any government official and the scandal lay in the behaviour of corporate executives, not politicians.