While there were only seven fatal accidents on scheduled passenger flights in 1994, there were two each involving Chinese carriers or those from former Soviet Union countries, which over the past few years have proved relatively dangerous. Two crashes involved American US Air, which is partly owned by British Airways The seventh accident involved a Turkish aircraft.. The Government made conciliatory noises towards both Unionists and Sinn Fein yesterday, John Major offering reassurances to the former in London while his officials met Sinn Fein in Belfast. Mr Major was at pains to signal to Unionists that the forthcoming framework document, which the British and Irish governments hope to produce next month, will contain nothing to alarm them. He firmly ruled out any question of British-Irish joint authority over Northern Ireland.
In Belfast, meanwhile, a possible confrontation on the issue of paramilitary arms was averted when Martin McGuinness led a Sinn Fein delegation to the third session of talks with senior government officials.In recent weeks ministers have been increasing the pressure on republicans on the arms issue, giving the impression that its resolution might be elevated to a pre-condition before the peace process could move on.In a statement at yesterday’s meeting, Mr McGuinness asked: “Is it the British government’s position that we cannot move to inclusive peace talks and that consequently the peace process is at an end?”In the event the Government response was that it was confident that they could make progress across a broad agenda. The Government’s opening statement added: “We accept that in practice there is a link between the decommissioning of arms and the political process.”Officials said the Government believed that substantial progress would be necessary before Sinn Fein could be included in dialogue about political arrangements in Northern Ireland.

Mr McGuinness’s interpretation of this as an indication that the decommissioning of weapons was not a precondition for involvement in all-party talks was later confirmed by the Northern Ireland political affairs minister, Michael Ancram. He added, however, that other parties would not attend talks unless progress had been made on the guns issue.As the two sides in Belfast agreed to meet in a fortnight’s time, Mr Major went out of his way to reassure Unionists that their widely expressed fears on the constitutional joint framework document nearing completion in Dublin and London were groundless.Mr Major told a press conference in London that there would be no “joint authority” in the recommendations on cross border bodies covering topics such as economic trade, and possibly security policy, and he repeated that the document would in any case bea basis of consultation with all the constitutional parties.He added: “It goes to a referendum of all the people of Northern Ireland so the fear that there is some sort of deal in which joint authority is in some curious fashion going to be enforced over the people of Northern Ireland against their will is not going to happen and cannot happen.”Mr Major said this meant that the people of Northern Ireland would have a “triple lock” on their future, though he warned that a full conclusion to the peace process would not necessarily be speedy and quoted WB Yeats to say: “Peace come dropping slow.”. Women who want to have their babies at home are being blackmailed into hospital births by GPs who do not want the responsibility, according to a report published today. Increasingly, women are reporting that they have been struck off their GP’s register if they persist with plans to have their babies at home.
The National Childbirth Trust, the mother and baby support group, says that in only 17 out of 144 areas surveyed did GPs offer home birth with community midwives.

“It is clear that some GPs are still threatening women,” Mary Newburn, head of policy and research said.The survey of members in NCT branches in Britain shows that in the majority of places – 95 areas – few GPs offered to care for women planning a home birth Most sought to dissuade them One mother was told she was risking her baby’s life. Another was told a home birth would strain resources and other women would suffer.Another woman reported: “My GP said I had to consider the rights of the unborn child, that I was putting myself and my baby at risk. The last woman who had a baby at home – 30 years ago – had bled to death and that was probably going to happen to me.”Dr John Noakes, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners’ task force on maternity care, said: “We do not defend taking women off lists It takes a long time to change attitudes. For years, policy has been to encourage hospital births.”The college will produce a report on home births by the summer and has arranged a joint conference with the Royal College of Midwives in April.Dear Mothers-to-be, page 17. Breast cancer screening is to be improved after research has shown that early cancers have been missed, the Department of Health disclosed yesterday, writes Celia Hall. The department made the announcement before publication of results of a trial involving 100,000 women who have taken part in the national breast cancer screening programme since 1988.
Details of the research have not been made available but concerns were raised when it became clear that several women screened for the second time had signs of cancer which may have been missed at their first screening because only one X-ray view was taken of each breast.In future, all women in the programme will have two X-rays taken of each breast at their first screening.