We shall remain in our positions.''"The attacks will most likely continue, but so will the political initiative," said Momcilo Krajisnik, the speaker of the Bosnian Serb "parliament''.Information about the Nato attacks - which involved more than 60 jets and the heavy guns of the British, French and Dutch Rapid Reaction Force - was sparse, with most phone lines to the region cut. The Serbian Information Minister, Ratomir Vico, said the Bosnian Serb leadership had agreed to form a joint peace team with Belgrade.President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia held a long meeting in Belgrade with Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy pushing a new peace plan, prompting speculation about a possible breakthrough in negotiations.Nato's Secretary-General, Willy Claes warned the Bosnian Serbs that the air strikes would continue today and later in the week until they moved their heavy weapons out of range of Sarajevo. However, other signs suggested last night that the Bosnian Serbs were in turmoil and utterly stunned by the scale of Nato's response to the shelling of a Sarajevo market on Monday that killed 37 people.The Serbian authorities in Belgrade, who have been trying to push their Serb brethren in Bosnia into a settlement, said that from now on they would represent the Bosnian Serbs in peace negotiations. Seven European Union personnel - including three Spaniards, one Irishman and a Dutchman - were reported killed in Bosnian Serb territory in unexplained circumstances.The Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, boasted that a total Serb victory was in sight, and condemned the Nato strikes as "a precedent that could jeopardise world peace and trigger the third world war". Nato aircraft flew more than 200 sorties in an operation that represented not only a turning point in the 40-month Bosnian war but the most sustained military action in the Western alliance's history.The Bosnian Serbs reacted with customary defiance, their guns firing at United Nations bases and shooting down a French Mirage jet.

EMMA DALY Belgrade After three years of vain appeals and toothless threats to the Serb rebels in Bosnia, the Western world made good on its many words of warning yesterday, unleashing a relentless series of air raids and artillery barrages intended to punish the shelling of Sarajevo. The US television broadcaster CBS is also subject to a $5.4bn (pounds 3.5bn) bid from the American conglomerate Westinghouse. If agreed, the Turner-Time marriage would create a media colossus even larger in revenue terms than the proposed Disney-ABC combination.Ted Turner, husband of actress Jane Fonda, will become an even bigger Hollywood force through a new job as head of Warner's entertainment unit.But Wall Street sources said the deal could cause friction with Microsoft's Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch, who were both in talks with Mr Turner.Making a colossus, page 16News Analysis, page 13. The Time- Turner link comes a month after the entertainment industry was jolted by Disney's $19bn (pounds 12.3bn) bid for the ABC television network. DAVID USBORNE in New York The world's largest entertainment company was being stitched together last night as Ted Turner, a pioneer of cable broadcasting in the US and creator of the global CNN news network, confirmed talks on a possible $8bn (pounds 5.2bn) merger of his Turner Broadcasting with the much larger Time Warner, maker of the hit film Batman.It is the third multi-billion dollar media deal this month. No doubt the director general of fair trading will soon be exercising his new powers under the UTCC regulations to consider bringing court proceedings against them to obtain an injunction restraining the use of such unfair terms.The author is lecturer in law at Birmingham University.. As any student of contract law knows, a person cannot be bound to terms which he or she has no reasonable opportunity of discovering.But possible confrontation between water companies and consumers would be easily averted if water companies began to take into account their new legal obligations acquired this year.

Under the UTCC regulations, such a term is unfair and therefore not binding on any consumers concerned.And Ofwat may like to know that my own water supplier, Severn Trent, has been unable to supply me with a copy of the terms and conditions of supply according to which we are supposed to be contracted to each other. enabling the seller or supplier to alter the terms of the contract unilaterally without a valid reason which is specified in the contract".Failure to pay bills on time would presumably constitute a valid reason, but otherwise it appears that water metering can now be introduced into domestic households only with the agreement of the consumer concerned.Finally, any customers ordered by a water company to repair a leak on their own property at their own expense while their supplier continues to permit a large percentage of water to leak from its own pipes may wish to return to a consideration of paragraph 1(o).Since both consumer and supplier are under a contractual obligation to maintain their pipes in a reasonable state of repair and to attend to any leaks with reasonable efficiency and dispatch, it is difficult to see how a water company could insist on a domestic consumer repairing every known leak while it allows 20 per cent or more of its supplies to be wasted.A clearer instance of a contract term "obliging the consumer to fulfil all his obligations where the .. supplier does not perform his" is difficult to imagine. This considers terms to be unfair if they "have the object or effect of ... To demand that a consumer should have a meter installed where he or she has no history of failing to pay bills would probably also fall foul of paragraph 1(k) in that it would change a characteristic of the service to be provided.But even if 1(k) were deemed inapplicable, paragraph 1(j) certainly would apply.

enabling the seller or supplier to alter unilaterally without a valid reason any characteristics of the product or service to be provided" may be regarded as unfair and therefore not binding on the consumer.Where water supplied is of poor quality, compensation will therefore once again be payable, even if no proof of actual harm or damage can be proven.Moreover, water companies that wish to insist on consumers having their supplies metered should also think again. There it states that "terms which have the object of effect of ... Thus those concerned about water quality may be able to make use of paragraph 1(k) of the indicative list in Schedule 3. This is because the UTCC regulations apply only to private consumers, so that water companies' business customers cannot claim enjoyment of the same rights as domestic households.However, for private customers experiencing other difficulties with their water company, the UTCC regulations may continue to prove helpful in a variety of circumstances. Nevertheless, where consumers are faced with such a ban (or with something even less palatable, such as the use of standpipes) there is little doubt that the UTCC regulations have the effect of entitling them to a reasonable sum of money in compensation.Careful readers will have noted that I have referred throughout to the specific legal position of domestic consumers rather than that of water customers in general. Any attempt by water companies to prevent domestic consumers from claiming compensation on the grounds of the wording of the codes of practice is therefore likely to come unstuck once again.Water companies are therefore caught by the UTCC regulations whichever way they turn, though it should be stressed that the validity of hosepipe bans and any criminal prosecutions brought for alleged contravention of such bans remains unaffected. in the event of total or inadequate performance by the seller or supplier".