The food company Nestle recently suffered a spate of supermarket poisonings, and rocks were hurled at Mercedes cars The threat to trains, though, is by far the most serious. From yesterday, border troops with long-range sensors have been travelling in the cabin, looking for dangers ahead.Military satellites 500 miles above are taking photographs of the main lines and border troop helicopters with night vision scopes are also being used.Deutsche Bahn was criticised for not informing the public and the railway union about the dangers until late last week. Police have no idea who is behind the group, or even if the various attacks were carried out by the same people.At the start of the holiday rush, the authorities are taking no chances. Luftwaffe Tornadoes, fitted out with night vision scopes, were called in yesterday to guard the high-speed rail lines, especially the stretch between Hanover and Berlin. Since the opening of this section in September, it has been impeded with concrete blocks and other obstacles 10 times The trains travel on it at up to 125mph. The previous day a freight train carrying paper went off the tracks.

The bolts fixing the rails to the concrete sleepers had been loosened.Earlier in the week, a passenger train collided with trees that had been put across the tracks in northern Germany.
A group calling itself “Friends of the Railways” has sent four letters in the past month to the operating company Deutsche Bahn, demanding 10m marks (pounds 3.6m). On Saturday, a train narrowly escaped derailment in Berlin after it went over concrete blocks placed on the tracks. In contrast to most of the rest of the former Soviet Union, Stalin is still widel revered in his native Georgia.. TORNADO AIRCRAFT, military satellites and armoured helicopters were being used to patrol 25,000 miles of Germany’s railways yesterday in an effort to thwart extortionists who have caused three train accidents, including a derailment, in the past few days. About 1,000 people carried portraits down Stalin Avenue to Gori’s huge bronze Stalin monument, one of the last still standing in such a public place. y

Residents of Gori, the town in Georgia where late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was born, celebrated the 119th anniversar of his birth esterda. The city centre is currently the scene of frenetic building and refurbishment, some, but by no means all, spawned by the MCI sports stadium, which opened a year ago.Decaying sites, which were used as car parks, are being vacated by the day as builders move in with earth-moving equipment and huge cranes to start the construction of office blocks and hotels.The boom is even helping suburbs inside the District border, where property values, which had been falling for almost a decade, are increasing, empty areas of land are sprouting new developments and smaller, older houses are being razed by their owners to make way for new homes..

Mr Barry, who was re-elected in 1994 after resigning because of a drugs conviction two years before, had exacerbated the city’s division, attracting – until they too started to find the mismanagement intolerable – the devoted support of the District’s black majority and the fierce resentment of whites.To the general amazement of residents, the improvement in the city’s finances has been accompanied by belated manifestations of the economic boom that has benefited many other parts of the United States. Mr Williams, an adopted child who was brought up in Los Angeles, has been Washington’s chief accountant for the past two years and is credited with turning around the city’s finances to the point where it will be in the black this year.The fact that Mr Williams received well over 50 per cent of the vote made him the first mayor of this racially divided city to have a mandate from black and white voters alike. According to Alice Rivlin, its chairman, the board’s new role will be to “oversee Williams and try to keep him on track”.Mr Williams said that he believed the changes would result in a cleaner, safer city within six months.The decision to return the bulk of power to the mayor is a direct response to two developments: the reluctant acceptance of the present mayor, the controversial Marion Barry, that he should heed “friendly” advice not to seek re-election, and the voters’ choice of Anthony Williams to succeed him. The DC police, which has one of the lowest clear-up rates for murders in the whole of the United States, will be under the direct authority of the mayor.The Control Board will remain in place for the time being, but will shift its attention from actual management of services to overseeing the city’s finances. In August 1997 it lost most of its administrative authority as well, after management and city services had continued to decline.From next month, most city agencies, including those responsible for public works, social services, rubbish collection and health clinics for the poor, will report to the mayor, via the city manager, Camille Barnett.Ms Barnett, a formidably energetic Texan, took over as city manager last year, but answered to the Control Board She will now answer to the mayor.

In a symbolic gesture, the announcement of a return to what is known locally as “home rule” came not from the federally appointed Control Board, which is currently responsible for running the city, but from the office of the mayor-elect, which is preparing the transition.
The city council was stripped of most of its financial authority in 1995 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. From 2 January, when the new mayor, Anthony Williams, takes office, the elected council will take back responsibility for running the city. THERE WAS much seasonal rejoicing in Washington yesterday at the announcement that after three years of outside management, the capital of the United States, otherwise known as the District of Columbia, would be permitted to govern itself again. At any point they could stop the trial.Senators, however, are less inclined to follow the party whip, and this is a process through uncharted waters.. Even the fieriest recruit from the House, after a few attempts to liven things up, soon hears the tut- tutting of his peers and acquires the proper decorum.The Senate, moreover, could never pass anything as contentious as an article of impeachment as narrowly as the 221 to 212 vote that “indicted” Mr Clinton for obstruction of justice.