He now has authority to order missile attacks that would cripple Serb air defences and the first phase of a comprehensive air campaign.By yesterday, the alliance had virtually completed its preparations as a force of 430 aircraft, 260 of them American, took up position at air bases in Italy and Britain and aboard the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, stationed in the Mediterranean. Serb compliance would be overseen by an international unarmed monitoring force, around 3,000 strong, disconnected from Nato and overseen by the OSCE, a 52-nation organisation that includes Russia and much of the former Soviet bloc.Nato's activation order is seen as a critical step because the alliance is, for the first time, authorising military attacks on a sovereign country without an explicit UN mandate. It would give the province temporary autonomy, oblige President Milosevic to withdraw his forces to pre-March levels when the latest Kosovo offensive began, and guarantee unfettered access by aid agencies. In return Mr Holbrooke asked for the agreement on the order to strengthen his leverage on President Milosevic.According to diplomatic sources, the deal emerging in Belgrade would stop well short of the independence being sought by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders. Mr Holbrooke said that the negotiations reminded him of the run-up to Nato's intervention in Bosnia three years ago, but said that the difference this time was that "bombs are not falling".The Nato order was approved after Mr Holbrooke interrupted his talks in Belgrade to return to Brussels to brief Nato about the emerging peace deal. He refused to be drawn on the detail of negotiations and dismissed suggestions of "doing a deal" with President Milosevic, stressing the situation remained "extremely serious."He nevertheless signalled that preparations for an international monitoring mission, possibly with Russian participation, to verify Serb compliance with the conditions attached to a political settlement, were under way. As Nato approved the order, reports from Washington, quoting US officials, suggested that Serbia had already agreed to withdraw some forces from Kosovo and allow in international observers.Earlier, Mr Holbrooke emerged from a meeting with Nato ambassadors in Brussels confirming that he was returning to Belgrade this morning for a final diplomatic push.

Although the order allows military force, all the signs were that a diplomatic breakthrough which would avert actual strikes was within the grasp of negotiators. NATO LAST night gave Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic a four- day deadline to agree terms for ending the crisis in Kosovo. The American special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, returns to Belgrade this morning to resume last-ditch talks with President Milosevic, armed with the vital Nato "activation order" authorising military force. But the order, agreed by Nato ambassadors in Brussels in the early hours of this morning, postpones its execution by 96 hours - allowing time for the deal under discussion between Mr Holbrooke and President Milosevic to be sealed. The thought that it leaves me with, however, is that bidding a three-card suit can sometimes upset your opponents' calculations in a quite unexpected fashion.North-South game; dealer WestNorth4A 9 8 6 5!J 9 8#Q 1028 4 2West East410 43 2!A K 4 2 !Q 6 5#9 8 6 5 3 #A J 4 22Q 10 6 2K J 9 5South4K Q J 7 4!10 7 3#K 72A 7 3. As you can see, the duplicated distribution of the North-South cards led to an easy penalty of 500 points to the British and a useful gain.I suppose that the supporters of the Law will claim this as a triumph after all, for East-West can indeed make game with 10 tricks in hearts - a game, however, that they were never likely to bid. After three passed South opened One Spade (as it turned out, he would have done better to throw the hand in!) and West, Irving Gordon of Great Britain, doubled. North raised conservatively to Two Spades and now Boris Schapiro (the 89-year-old member of the partnership that later went on to win the Senior Pairs title) imaginatively bid Three Hearts with the East cards! This was a suit in which he could be reasonably confident that his partner held at least four-card support, although a responsible double would also have proved effective. South and West passed and now North, who, playing five-card majors, knew that his side held at least 10 spades, felt that it was safe to contest with Three Spades - after all, it sounded as though his partner held two hearts at most It was not safe, as Boris proved by doubling.

THE LAW of Total Tricks, the arithmetic of which I have never quite mastered, suffered a nasty setback on this deal from the Senior Teams World Championship in Lille. The g pawn is prevented from moving in view of 2 Qxa1 mate, which leaves:a) one pretty if somewhat unthematic variation: 1.. g3 2 Ng6+ hxg6 3 Qh3#; and three thematic:b) 1.. Bb2, 1.. h6 or 1.. h5 2 Qb1!c) 1.. Bc3 or 1.. Bd4 2 Qd3!d) 1.. Be5 or 1... Bf6 2 Qf5!jspeelman compuserve . The chairman of the Texas Board of Education has proposed spending billions of dollars to replace outdated textbooks with e-books.