But after attending the weekly classes, which can last for 12 months, 91 per cent of participants said they had benefited from the experience.. Two teenage girls were shot dead during a party at a Birmingham hairdressing salon today. They were alerted after a “considerable” number of shots were heard at the premises.Officers who arrived at the scene before paramedics tried in vain to revive the girls. The two other teenagers taken to an undisclosed hospital are not thought to have suffered life-threatening injuries.A car riddled with bullet holes was later recovered nearby and is being forensically examined, while the road around the murder scene was sealed off and officers conducted house to house inquiries.The police spokeswoman said: “It appears that the girls had been attending a private party at a hairdresser’s on Birchfield Road during the night.”This was attended by a number of young people. It is not yet clear what led up to the shooting and we do not know who is responsible for the crime.”Chief Superintendent Dave Shaw added: “Everybody, including officers with many years’ experience, is appalled at what has taken place that has led to the deaths of two young girls.”Mr Shaw appealed for the local community, which he described as “close-knit”, to help police in their search for those responsible for the shooting.Witnesses have been asked to call 0845 113 5000.. Detectives hunting the killer of two women whose body parts were dumped in bins believe he may have claimed more victims. Police have launched a nationwide search for Mr Hardy, who has a history of psychiatric problems.Earlier today they arrested a man who was spotted in the street by an off–duty police officer in Greenwich, London.He was taken to Greenwich police station but it soon emerged that it was a case of mistaken identity and the man had nothing to do with the case.The body parts discovered so far belong to two women, one thought to be in her 30s and the other in her late teens or early 20s, who are believed to have been killed within the last week.Detectives are now checking all recent missing persons reports amid fears that there could be other victims.They are particularly concerned about the fate of a woman who was seen Christmas shopping with Mr Hardy and has now been reported missing.
They said he wore a big black raincoat.Last January, the body of prostitute Rose White, aged 38, was discovered in his flat but a police investigation ended after a post–mortem examination found she had died of a heart attack.. Germans, already among the world’s most eager recyclers, greeted the introduction yesterday of a new deposit on drink cans and bottles with a mixture of approval, grumbling – and surprise. Despite a bitter spat between retailers and the government, not everyone was aware of the levy.”What? There’s a deposit on this?” asked Sabine Eichelaub, as she downed a can of bitter lemon soda at Frankfurt’s main train station.”Oh, then I guess I lost 25 cents,” she shrugged, after realising she no longer had the receipt, to get her deposit back.The new law covers cans for beer, mineral water and soft drinks that environmentalists say are often tossed away.Wine bottles and drink cartons continue to be exempted from the charge. But drinks makers, bottlers and store owners launched a barrage of court cases over the past year trying to stop the legislation.Their effort failed last week when Germany’s supreme court threw out a complaint by retailers that the deposit laws violated their right to run stores (AP). The euro has failed to gain a foothold in the high street, a year after ministers confidently said that British retailers were “rushing to use” the single currency. I want the 13 million continental Europeans who come to shop and visit each year to know they can just bring their money over with them.”But despite preparations to accept the single currency in British stores, major retail chains said yesterday that little trade had materialised.A spokeswoman for Habitat said: “The amount we actually bank is so small it’s insignificant.” Marks & Spencer said trade in euros had been “light”.A survey by the Bank of England last year found trade in euros was rare.. Except for parts of Snowdonia, where youngsters released thousands of balloons, the start of Britain’s fateful journey into Europe on New Year’s Day 1973 seems to have passed largely unnoticed.
But even the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, a Europhile Conservative, seemed more nervous than euphoric. He said: “Of course, whenever there is change, people have fears, and it may be particularly characteristic of the British that they are conservative by nature, which has stood us very well in many difficult times, and so they fear change particularly.”Thirty years later, Britain is economically entwined with the European Union and linked physically to France via the Channel Tunnel. In all sorts of ways the UK is more open to continental influence – from our drinking habits to our working practices, which have been moulded by Europe’s social and environmental standards.But events to mark the 30th anniversary may make those of 1973 look like a day of unalloyed national celebration. So has our membership failed to deliver even the relatively little that was expected? And why have its acknowledged benefits not led to popularity?By 1973, when Britain finally managed to join the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the EU, it had been trying to do so for more than a decade.
When continental states had made the first moves towards integration in the 1950s the UK had stayed aloof, allowing the original six – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg – to go ahead without Britain.But, by the 1960s, this was seen as an economic and political mistake, prompting a protracted effort to overcome French opposition. In 1963 the French President, General Charles de Gaulle, famously vetoed Britain’s bid, and only when the wartime leader of the Free French bowed out was Britain’s path to membership clear. Even then things were hardly certain, and it was Mr Heath’s unexpected 1970 election victory that proved decisive: the Tory leader hit it off with the centre-right French President, Georges Pompidou, and at last an entente cordiale broke out.Talks started in July 1970, and by May 1971 it was clear they were going to succeed. In the glittering splendour of the Salon des F?s at the Elys?Palace in Paris M. Pompidou declared it would be “unreasonable now to believe that an agreement is not possible”.The priority of the day was to resolve political obstacles, rather than to look into the future. According to Sir Roy Denman, a member of the British negotiating team who later became a senior European Commission official, the strategic objectives of membership were rarely discussed, even at the highest level. “You don’t talk, when you are in a negotiating team, about what will happen in the future,” said Sir Roy.
