Bank of Scotland yesterday urged National Westminster Bank to come off the fence now the final offers for the English clearer were on the table, arguing that shareholders will be £4bn poorer if a split vote allowed NatWest off the hook. Peter Burt, the Bank of Scotland chief executive said: "NatWest seems determined to reject each and every offer made.... He is understood to have been discharged from hospital.Four other men from Mr Carne's group were also treated at the hospital for injuries from the fight that took place outside the Scubar, a popular haunt for foreign travellers close to Sydney's Central Station.Sydney Police said the attackers, who have not been caught, spoke with Yorkshire accents.. Bank of Scotland yesterday urged National Westminster Bank to come off the fence now the final offers for the English clearer were on the table, arguing that shareholders will be £4bn poorer if a split vote allowed NatWest off the hook. The victim was shoved into the wall head first and then had it stamped on several times by his attacker."There were two gangs of British travellers and an argument started after remarks about the victim's girlfriend He has had to undergo major surgery to repair his face.

He was in a bad way."Mr Carne was operated on at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney to insert a number of metal plates into shattered bones in his face. A British backpacker was tonight recovering from surgery to rebuild his face after an attack by fellow British travellers outside a bar in Australia. A British backpacker was tonight recovering from surgery to rebuild his face after an attack by fellow British travellers outside a bar in Australia. The 29-year-old man, named by police as Paul Carne, suffered multiple facial fractures as his head was smashed into a concrete wall during the assault close to a popular backpackers' hostel in Sydney.Detectives said the attack, which happened at about 4.30pm on Sunday, UK time, was provoked by comments about Mr Carne's girlfriend from a gang of three other Britons.Mr Carne, who was with a separate group of British travellers, was cornered by his attacker before having his head smacked into the wall and then stamped on repeatedly.A spokesman for Sydney State Police said: "It was a very vicious attack. British arms dealer, Peter Bleach, who was convicted of illegally delivering weapons to an Indian state has been jailed for life. Bleach (pictured left), from North Yorkshire, who was convicted last week, has been in jail in India since he was arrested four years ago along with five Latvians, who have also been jailed for life.Bleach was caught air-dropping arms over a remote district of West Bengal in December 1995 - but has always claimed he carried out the delivery with the blessing of the Ministry of Defence, which had alerted Indian authorities to the impending airdrop.The weapons included AK47 Kalashnikov rifle rocket launchers, anti-tank grenades and ammunition.A judge in Calcutta last week found Bleach guilty of conspiracy to commit offences against the state of India.However, he was cleared of waging or attempting to wage war against the Government of India - an offence which carries the death penalty.Bleach and the Latvian crewmen who parachuted crates of weapons into eastern India five years ago said they would appeal against their convictions to a higher court."I am very disappointed, but not surprised," said Bleach outside the court.. A single hive with its bees and full combs of honey can easily be worth a thousand dollars.. British arms dealer, Peter Bleach, who was convicted of illegally delivering weapons to an Indian state has been jailed for life.

"But Israeli agricultural workers are paying the highest price for peace."According to Feldman, 2,600 hives were stolen in 1999. Angry as the buzzing hives they carried in protest, dozens of Israeli beekeepers lined a road with burning tyres today to demonstrate against the thefts of thousands of their beehives. Wearing protective work suits and net masks, the beekeepers demanded that Israel and the Palestinian Authority stop what they said was the theft of their beehives by Palestinians in the West Bank.The demonstrators at Jalameh Checkpoint near the West Bank town of Jenin had planned to release the bees they brought with him as a protest, but police stopped them.The beekeepers suspect Palestinians are entering Israel by night from the West Bank and making off with the hives, since most of the thefts have taken place in areas near the border between Israel and the West Bank."I have nothing against the Palestinians," beekeeper Roni Feldman said. Angry as the buzzing hives they carried in protest, dozens of Israeli beekeepers lined a road with burning tyres today to demonstrate against the thefts of thousands of their beehives. She said the grandmothers seemed fearful - apparently of their own government.The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has ruled Elian should be returned to his father, but the Miami relatives are trying to block that action in federal court U.S District Judge William Hoeveler will hear arguments Feb 22 on whether their lawsuit should be dismissed.. His mother and 10 other people died when the boat carrying them from Cuba to the United States sank.The grandmothers complained that the child - who lived most of his life in their homes - seemed quiet and withdrawn when he was brought to meet them on Jan 26 at the home of O'Laughlin."He looked frightened His face was sad. He was not the boy we knew," Quintana said.They said that the boy's second cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, of Miami, apparently remained with O'Laughlin and another nun in a room next door and could listen though an open entryway, despite an agreement that members of the Miami family would not be at the meeting.In a column published Tuesday in the New York Times, O'Laughlin said she now favours keeping Elian in the United States with his second cousin partly because the boy "has transferred his maternal love to her" following the loss of his mother.

so many lies."The boy has been at the centre of an international custody battle pitting his father and grandparents against the great-uncle's family almost since he was rescued from an innertube off the Florida coast on Nov 25. They also angrily denied claims they were manipulated by the Cuban government. "We are not hostages. We are acting freely," paternal grandmother Mariela Quintana said during a 90-minute broadcast Tuesday on Cuban state television.Their comments came in response to those of Jeanne O'Laughlin, a nun of the Dominican order who hosted their meeting last week with the child they hope to bring home to Cuba.In an NBC television interview shown in part during the Cuban broadcast, O'Laughlin suggested that the two women were under pressure from the Cuban government in the struggle to wrest the 6-year-old from his great-uncle's family in Miami."She is the one who is not free," said maternal grandmother Raquel Rodriguez, who wept while recalling the meeting with Elian "She is a lying person It's a lie ... "If you bought a chocolate bar and it had a winning ticket in it, you got a foldable picnic chair.

But, in a way, they protected me." How? "By loving me and giving me the sense that I existed."She was a wild adolescent, fleeing to Spain at one point before being brought back to attend a secretarial college. [She has a son by Jean-Michel, called David, and a son from a previous marriage, Barnaby.] I loved my husbands. She had a sister, Sarah, who died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage when she was 24 and Charlotte was 21. He's going to go bonkers enough about my pension plan as it is.We arrive at the Passport Office It's a ghastly, depressing place. "Remember how, in 1978, I tried it while almost keeping awake?" "Quite," he says. The grandmothers of shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez have complained that their visit with the boy was continually interrupted and cut short. They also angrily denied claims they were manipulated by the Cuban government.