News In Brief

The counting of votes cast in Ireland's general election finally ended - more than a week after the polls closed. Although most issues in the contest were resolved late last Sunday night, after a marathon count under the proportional representation polling system, the result was challenged in Dublin South-East. The final seat was decided by just 27 votes after 11 initial counts. The affair was transformed into a radio chat show controversy, with charges that the re-check was "perverting the course justice" angrily rejected by party officials. And at the end of it all, the original outcome, securing a Dail seat for the Green Party at the expense of the Progressive Democrats, was found to have been right all along.

The Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam has pledged "one last attempt" to include Sinn Fein in peace talks. But she also warned that unless there was a lasting commitment to a ceasefire then talks would go ahead without them. "If Sinn Fein are serious, I'm going to make one last attempt to get them into talks," she said.

The government is to hold a public inquiry into a proposal to burn the controversial fuel, Orimulsion, at a power station in west Wales. National Power want to use the bitumen-based fuel at the disused Pembroke power station, but there've been claims that it's linked to health problems.

A bizarre plan to make Europe's leaders cycle from the Amsterdam summit meetings to the hotel where they are to have their lunches has been scrapped, on health and safety grounds. The Dutch Government, which is hosting the event, has decided that while the environmental message would have been politically correct, a clutch of pedalling premiers would have been too easy a target for terrorists. Although no-one is prepared to say so publicly, there was also concern about the prospects of getting a certain substantial German Chancellor on to two wheels.

Jill Saward, the victim in what became known as the Ealing Vicarage Rape, has urged the Government to listen to MPs who want an overhaul of the rape laws. More than 64 MPs have now signed a Commons motion, tabled by Labour MP for Stourbridge Debra Shipley, calling for an end to the right of an accused rapist to cross-examine the victim, although his lawyer could still do so. The MPs also want a restriction on multiple cross-examination in cases where there is more than one defendant. In addition, they say, identity parades should be conducted behind mirror glass and British people raped by Britons abroad should be able to turn to the UK legal system for justice.