Mr Paisley, who has made gains at the expense of the more moderate Ulster Unionists led by David Trimble, last week indicated his opposition to a deal.. The Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters was to advise ministers on the effects of low-level radiation.He said two members of the committee had warned that the cancer risk of radiation could be 300 times higher than previously believed - findings he said the Government had tried to stop being published.With a preface by Mr Meacher, the two committee members published their own unofficial minority report yesterday.Their findings suggest that around nuclear power stations such as Sellafield there are clusters of childhood leukaemia and that the risk of cancer from low-level radiation is far greater than estimated by the Government. They say that the model used to estimate cancer risks, which was based on radiation doses absorbed by victims of the Hiroshima bomb in 1945, is outdated and underestimates the harm to the human body."Nuclear pollution is the cause of the rise of childhood leukaemia," said Dr Chris Busby, scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, who was a member of the committee until it refused to publish his opinions."There was also a sharp increase in leukaemia in children who were in the womb at the time of Chernobyl. We are talking about children in Scotland, Wales, Greece, Bulgaria and Germany so this is no coincidence. The risk of childhood leukaemia from internal radiation could be hundreds or even thousands of times greater than present risk factors predict."The minority report, co-written by Richard Bramhall, of the Low Level Radiation campaign, also won the support of the committee's secretary, Dr Paul Dorfman, who has investigated leukaemia clusters around nuclear plants. Dr Dorfman said yesterday that the committee's decision to in effect block two of the expert views had severe implications for public trust.Mr Meacher, who was sacked last year by Tony Blair, said that the main committee report would "not accommodate a full and fair representation of all views".

He said: "This is an attempt to suppress information that is politically and economically undesirable and what we are talking about is not just very powerful vested interests but the health of thousands and possibly millions of our people."The main report, which will be published next month after three years of deliberation, is expected to conclude that the cancer risk from exposure to radiation could be 10 times higher than previously thought.One member of the committee said Mr Meacher should have waited to read the conclusions of the main report before endorsing a minority view.Pete Roche, a nuclear consultant to Greenpeace, said: "Mr Meacher has only listened to the views of two members of the committee ... When he reads our final report he will find that it contains valuable new insights about the risks of radiation from internal radionuclides and does give a fair representation of all views.". Lord Butler renewed his attack on the Government's handling of the run-up to war in Iraq yesterday, as he warned that claims about Saddam's biological and chemical weapons had "come home to roost". the Government's dossier in September 2002 does not make clear that the intelligence underlying those conclusions was very thin even though the JIC assessments had been quite clear about that."How grave a fault that was in the context of the lead up to war is a matter on which people will and should reach their own conclusions. But we regard it as a serious weakness, a weakness which subsequently came home to roost as the conclusion about deployable stocks of chemical and biological weapons have turned out to be wrong."He said the assertion that Saddam was linked to the spread of international terrorism was "one not really supported by the intelligence"..Mr Blair admitted: "I have no doubt when you look back over this you can always see things that could have been done better or mistakes that were made."But what we have now got is a situation where, once a lot of these groups could see that what we intended to do was to stabilise the country and hand the power to the Iraqis .. they set about trying to stop us.". The Conservatives today announced plans to abolish university tuition fees but charge students a higher rate of interest on loans.

Mr Collins said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "We would remove the very large public subsidy which at the moment goes towards reducing the rate of interest that students pay. Under our plans they leave with about £10,000 worth of debt."A graduate on average earnings under Labour's plans takes 14 years to repay, and the interest and principal they have to repay is a little over £24,000. Under his plans only the wealthy should apply to universities."Tory policies will see poorer students being priced out of universities by huge hikes in the cost of student loans."By introducing commercial interest rates poor students will end up with astronomic levels of debt and many will be put off going to university altogether.". The McLibel Two were back in court again yesterday.

It was phase four of their 10-year battle with the fast-food giant McDonald's, which they see as the apotheosis of the evils of global capitalism The McLibel Two were back in court again yesterday. The corporation mounted a legal defence, estimated to have cost $10m. But the McLibel Two, representing themselves without legal aid, called more than 70 scientists, researchers and former McDonald's employees to back their claim that the burger chain was to blame for everything from epidemics of heart disease and strokes to the destruction of the rainforest.The judge ruled that McDonald's "pretended to a positive nutritional benefit which their food did not match"; "exploit children" with their advertising; are "culpably responsible for animal cruelty"; and "pay low wages, helping to depress wages in the catering trade".In phase two, a 1999 appeal, damages were reduced from £60,000 to £40,000. In phase three, the Metropolitan Police agreed to pay £10,000 because officers had revealed the couple's home addresses to a private investigator working for McDonald's.Yesterday, in Strasbourg, came phase four - Steel and Morris v the UK.