News in Brief

The Government is introducing new controls on sales of painkilling tablets in an attempt to curb the number of overdoses and suicides. From next year, packets of paracetamol and aspirin sold at supermarkets and general stores will contain no more than 16 tablets or capsules.

The German government has unfrozen more than $500,000 in aid for the Croat-controlled region of Jajce in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying there has been progress in the planned return to the area of hundreds of Bosnian Muslim refugees. The aid was frozen three weeks ago after Bosnian Croat crowds chased returning Muslim refugees away and set fire to their homes. The German foreign minister, Klaus Kinkel, said the freeze had been effective, as now more refugees had returned to their former homes than expected.

Tommy Graham - the suspended Labour MP for Renfrewshire West - has broken his silence: to appeal to the media to leave him alone. In comments passed on by his solicitor, Mr Graham denied that he was planning to stage a "tell-all" news conference, and said he was considering legal action against some newspapers over "derogatory comments which were completely unfounded". Mr Graham has not been seen in public since the suicide of fellow Labour MP Gordon McMaster. He was suspended last week along with two other local party figures.

Conservative employment spokesman David Willetts has become an adviser to an international management consultancy. The former Paymaster General is joining Monitor Company, which specialises in helping organisations to become more competitive. The company said Mr Willetts has had considerable influence on strategic policy-making in the Conservative party over the past 10 years.

Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Chris Smith has hinted that he is examining the issue of 'unbundling' sports coverage deals. There has been much controversy over BSkyB buy-ups of events like golf's Ryder Cup, world boxing championships and England's Test Matches abroad that have deprived non-cable and satellite homes of even the highlights of those sports. But Mr Smith has said "unbundled" deals, which would make recorded highlights available to terrestrial channels, were important to preserve national audiences for sport.

A hoax letter bomb sent to the home of a leading Ulster politician has been blamed on the IRA. Army experts were called to examine the parcel delivered to the east Belfast home of Peter Robinson, deputy leader of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, before declaring it a hoax. Mr Robinson and his wife Iris are on holiday in the USA but his son discovered the package, which was said to be elaborate and containing a timer device.

The Government has declined to comment on allegations that MI5 tapped the telephone of Peter Mandelson, the Minister without Portfolio, in the late 1970s. According to the Mail on Sunday the Security Service bugged Mr Mandelson for up to three years and his file remained open for years afterwards. The newspaper claims that MI5 was concerned the young Mr Mandelson might be a Soviet agent.

A woman has been appointed vice president of Iran. It is the first time a woman has been given such a prominent position since the Islamic revolution of 1979. The Iranian president, Mohammed Khatami, announced that Massoumeh Ebtekar, 36, would take on the job of Vice President for Environmental Affairs. Throughout his election campaign Mohammed Khatami promised women a future in which they would be allowed to play a greater part and he won their devoted support.