The two Balfour Beatty managers, civil engineer Nicholas Jeffries, 53, and regional director Anthony Walker, 46, face similar charges.Railtrack is charged that it "failed to conduct its undertaking .. to ensure .. that persons who travel by train ... were not thereby exposed to risks to their health and safety". Balfour Beatty faces a similar charge and also a charge of corporate manslaughter.. Tahrir - "independence" - is a word which a lot of people voted for on Sunday; not for "democracy" as the Western media would have it, but for freedom; freedom to speak, freedom to vote, freedom from the Americans. They were in Baghdad, too, yesterday, driving their Humvees through Karada, circling the city in their Apaches and their little bee-like Sioux spotter helicopters.For days we will have to wait for the election results.

All charges are denied.The three Railtrack managers are: Alistair Cook, 50, asset manager of the London North East Zone; Sean Fugill, 50, area manager, London North East Zone; and track engineer Keith Lea, 53. The Prime Minister dismissed the concerns of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and personally recommended the outgoing Metropolitan Police chief to the Queen for ennoblement. The commission said it did not object to Sir John becoming an independent peer but added that his direct nomination raised questions about the Prime Minister's use of powers of patronage. TONY BLAIR was embroiled in a new patronage row yesterday over his decision to overrule a parliamentary watchdog and directly nominate Sir John Stevens for the House of Lords. In a warning directed at Alan Milburn, who has supplanted him as the party's chief election strategist, the Chancellor said he would ensure that Labour maintained its fiscal discipline over the next few years. Allies of Mr Brown fear that Tony Blair and Mr Milburn will press for a new wave of public service reforms in the manifesto which are not properly costed or thought out.Addressing a Treasury conference on volunteering, Mr Brown insisted: "In the coming few years our public spending discipline will not waver We will meet and continue to meet our fiscal rules. The EU's executive Commission said Zagreb seemed to lack the will to catch Gotovina, who they believe is hiding in Croatia or the Croat area of Bosnia - within the reach of the government.Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said: "If there is no progress on the Croatian side we are prepared to postpone talks.".

Strugar will remain in custody before being transferred to another country to serve his sentence, pending the outcome of the appeal.wThe European Union yesterday threatened to postpone membership talks with Croatia, due to begin next month, saying the former Yugoslav republic was not doing enough to hand over a fugitive war crimes suspect to the court in the Hague.EU leaders are starting entry negotiations with the Balkan nation on 17 March if its government cooperates fully with the UN war crimes investigators by helping to bring ex-General Ante Gotovina before the tribunal. Your criminal liability arises because you failed to take adequate measures to stop the shelling of the old town and because you failed to ensure that those responsible for the attack were disciplined."Judge Parker said the court took into account Strugar's deteriorating health, age and other personal matters in deciding his sentence His lawyers said they would appeal. "He did not do so.""You were not the immediate commander of those responsible That was Admiral Jokic. Jokic, 70, was last March sentenced to seven years in prison.But Strugar, as Jokic's superior, "should have seen the urgent need to determine if the Yugoslav People's Army artillery was in fact shelling the town without justification, and if so, assure the attack on the Old Town was stopped," the judge said. Pavle Strugar, 71, was found guilty of violating laws and customs of war, for not doing enough to deter the attack on civilians and for not punishing the officers responsible. A YUGOSLAV general who failed to prevent his forces from killing civilians during the bombing of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik in 1991 was sentenced to eight years in prison by the UN war crimes tribunal yesterday.