PEKING (Reuter) - China hit out at Britain yesterday over plans to widen democracy in Hong Kong, ringing out a year of ugly bickering and portending more tension as the colony's 1997 return to Chinese rule draws near. It appears in The Best of Children's Poetry, edited by Jennifer Curry, a selection from the Cadbury's Books of Children's Poetry 1983 to 1991 (Red Fox, pounds 2.99). 'The real point about that date is that it sees the beginning of the decline of the smokestack industries.'Facts: Population: 42,769,000.Unemployment: 11.2%.Government: Conservative.Infant mortality: 76 per 1,000 births.Life expectancy: 56 (m), 60 (f).Illegitimacy: 41.6 per 1,000 births.Marriages: 282,408.Divorces: 2,667.Indictable crimes 145,575.MLR: 4%.1903Abraham Thomas Ball, aged 24, is living in Walsall and performing in nationwide variety shows, including high-wire acts, with his first wife Kitty.Women form Social and Political Union to demand vote The Workers' Educational Association is formed Britain and France establish Entente Cordiale. Although Sir David Calcutt appeared unmoved by this disclosure, it did serve to place the Royal Family on the margins of the argument. But the episode has caused a shudder among sellers at auction.

'Democracy is young and fragile - without a minimum of assistance from abroad it might self-destruct,' he said.(Photograph omitted). Responsibility for introducing this system fell to Georges Pompidou who, as the chef de cabinet to Charles de Gaulle when the constitution was drawn up in 1958, advised against the purely proportional vote that De Gaulle at first favoured. Inside, as smoke from a central fire wafts up past you and you become aware of the early tools and skins on the floor, the atmosphere is spellbinding. Judicial sources in Milan named the two managers as the group tax director, Salvatore Sciascia, and his assistant, Gianmarco Rizzi. It just hadn't seemed like it at the time.As regards what children read, I tend to think reading is an end in itself.

'I expect it to be a high-tempo match which the fitter side will win,' Bohinen said. The first goal came when Neil Thompson swung a corner in from the right, Wark retreated unmarked to the back of the box and headed forwards allowing Ian Marshall to thump the ball home. To suggest, as this did in its final frames, that people are reduced to zombies by a television screen, might be thought injudicious (though it damn near worked for me on this occasion) 'Let them eat McDonalds,' sang the advertisers. He remains inexperienced, however, and a series of disruptions, including a break for cramp in Wells' right hand, may have disrupted his concentration as he managed just two runs in his last hour at the crease, spending 45 minutes on 49.'He has matured a lot in the last few weeks,' Wells said. Funds moved out of marks as well as francs, on the belief that the Bundesbank might come to the rescue of the French by cutting rates. Mr Riina - ebullient, very sharp, uncannily well-informed and not a bit like the humble, subdued peasant he looked like after his arrest in January - is suspected of using the presence of television cameras at his trial to send covert messages, terrorise enemies and reassert himself as the Mafia's leader.

Normally the water is clear all the way down; but in those days, on the lower reaches, the torrent took on the colour (and almost the consistency) of melted milk chocolate, a saturated solution of earth washed off the fields.At one low point it burst its banks and cut across the corner of a meadow, dragging out tons of soil and sand.Yet the higher one climbed, the purer the stream became, for more and more of it derived from the springs that well up out of the subterranean strata.The source itself - the highest spring of all - was bubbling up furiously, but it was still crystal clear, demonstrating the efficiency with which nature cleans and filters if left to its own devices.The sight of all that good water going to waste, at the rate of millions of gallons a day down one little river alone, set me thinking about the inadequacies of our present storage and conservation systems. One lunchtime this week Charlie Lavender and true blue William Sparrow were leaning over their pints of bitter and considering Him 'I've been here 15 years,' said Charlie Lavender 'I've never seen Him.''This landlord's been here 18 months He hasn't seen Him,' said William Sparrow. Bollinger has bought into Petaluma in Australia.Deutz has lent its savoir-faire to Montana in New Zealand, Roederer to Tasmania's Heemskerk and Piper Heidsieck to a sparkling wine venture in the Sahyadri mountains of western Maharashtra in India. Washing up was a seriously skilled business requiring a careful balance of water and washing-up liquid, to avert a tirade about the selfishness of the youth of today.In an area where central heating is only for those who crazy-pave their terrace, keeping warm was a major problem. Officers were politely told to concern themselves with policing.At 60, Mr Critchlow's role is now a smaller one The 1988 raid and its repercussions finally wearied him. Australia v South Africa: 9.00 I Baker- Finch v D Frost; 9.10 R Davis v J Bland; 9.20 G Norman v E Els. It might even become possible to sell monetary union as no more than an essential, practical condition for an effective single market, which is what it is.