Its spokeswoman, Laura De Vere, said: "All our pilots, no matter what their sex, are equally competent and display the same high level of skill that the job demands.". Of the 138 general aviation accidents causing death in the United Kingdom in the past 10 years, just two involved women pilots. But the CAA warns that the research, which was done on an informal basis, could not be regarded as definitive as women are a statistically small sample at just 6 per cent of pilots.British Airways, which led the field in training female pilots and employs 40 women out of its total of 3,000 pilots, will not be changing recruitment policies to take on more women in the light of the research. A CAA survey found that male pilots are more than four times as likely to be involved in fatal accidents than their female counterparts. Figures released by the authority's General Aviation Safety Department show that fewer than 1 per cent of cases investigated in the past five years involved female pilots. Women pilots are safer than their male colleagues, according to a Civil Aviation Authority report. This could potentially be very bad news for children."Shadow education secretary David Blunkett said he would be following up the "potentially- serious implications" in Parliament this week.A DFEE spokesman said yesterday: "This is all part of deregulation whereby local authorities and school governing bodies are able to manage school premises as they see fit.".

The Government knows it and they are removing one constraint on it happening."Peter Downes, president of the Secondary Heads Association, said he too found the announcement "sinister"."Removing these regulations means the Department for Education and Employment could require schools to take in more and more children, cramming them into the space available, and not provide any more capital resources for schools to provide more buildings. Other regulations control space in specialist areas like laboratories.On Friday, as the Prime Minister, John Major, trumpeted the Government's plans to boost sport in schools, Mr Squire announced that the regulatory burden on schools would be "substantially reduced"."We propose to consult on a revised set of school premises regulations which will dispense with the statutory area standards for teaching accommodation and recreation area," he said.But education leaders believe the move will lead to bigger classes from September, as the education spending squeeze begins to bite.A survey last week by school governors warned that more than a third of primary schools would have classes of more than 30 children at the start of the new term.And local authority leaders warned yesterday that de-regulation could mean a return to the cheaply-built schools of the 1960s, many of which now require extensive repairs.Graham Lane, education chairman of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, yesterday said the announcement was "alarming" and that the AMA would be seeking clarification from ministers."The fact that it was made while Mr Major was running around kicking a football and distracting attention shows it is not insignificant," he said."The inevitable conclusion must be that this decision has been taken in the knowledge that class sizes are rising. The move was announced on Friday in a Parliamentary written reply by the schools minister, Robin Squire, and is the culmination of a review of school premises regulations begun in 1990. These determine the amount local authorities can borrow to spend on school buildings. Local authority and teachers' leaders are warning that plans to abolish minimum space regulations in schools may lead to "cheaply-built" buildings and overcrowded classrooms.

Three weeks later 200,000 people died when the Allies dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The sombre atmosphere of the die-in - in the shape of a CND symbol - was enhanced by the tolling of bells 50 times at nearby St Martin-in- the-Fields.Spurred into action by the French government's decision to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific, CND campaigners from all over the country filled the square.Speakers included two survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Masao Morihara and Reiko Yamada, CND vice-president Bruce Kent and MP Lynne Jones.. The demonstration, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in London's Trafalgar Square, was timed to mark exactly 50 years after the first atomic explosion in the New Mexico desert at 1.29 pm, July 16, 1945. Hundreds of people staged a mock "die-in" yesterday in remembrance of the tens of thousands who died in the first nuclear explosions 50 years ago. Similarly, capital funds for leisure and recreation in England and Wales have been cut by the government from pounds 481m in 1989- 90 to pounds 271m in 1993-94.n Winners and Losers: The impact of the National Lottery, York Publishing Services, 64 Hallfield Road, Layerthorp, York YO3 7XQ, price pounds 8.50.. Capital funding for sport from local authorities has sunk from pounds 300m in 1989-90 to pounds 125m in 1992-93, according to Sports Council figures. Just one of the 91 grants made by the time the report was finished went to an area ranked among the poorest tenth in England.

It was for pounds 390,000 to the Northumberland Lawn Tennis Association for indoor tennis courts in Newcastle.The poorest areas are "at a permanent disadvantage" by the requirement to put up partnership funding in order to win grants, says the study. "This can sometimes come close to saying that further help can only be given to those already blessed with substantial resources."The report, Winners and Losers: The impact of the National Lottery, also warns that apart from the charity sector, the areas chosen by the government for lottery support are enjoyed most by the richest."The decision to fund activities like art, sport and heritage was taken for good reasons, but these tend to be the interests and activities of the relatively comfortable rather than, say, health or education which concern everyone," it observes.The statement is borne out by analysis by the British Market Research Bureau which showed that the highest socio-economic groups play more sport and visit more beauty spots and stately homes than the lowest groups.The Rowntree report also reveals that the "good causes" are not necessarily gaining new money from the lottery. In May the Sports Council warned: "Projects in the inner cities, especially in London, are not coming forward."Analysis by the Rowntree Foundation, an independent body which funds research into housing, social care and social policy, shows that the poorest areas have so far won the least money for sport. Describing the running of the lottery as "money for old rope", he said it should go to a non-profit making organisation when Camelot's seven-year contract expires.The Rowntree report says that despite the Prime Minister's commitment, the distributing bodies - which have an income of around pounds 300m each a year - are in danger of allowing the lottery to become yet another example of the British tradition of milking the poor to pay for the hobbies of the rich.It claims the commitment by the funding bodies to "wider access" centre on an emphasis on removing physical barriers for disabled people rather than economic ones faced by the poor.One problem is poor areas are submitting too few applications. Shadow heritage spokesman, Chris Smith, told Granada's World in Action being broadcast tonight that the money being made by Camelot's directors was "astonishing". The study claims John Major's pledge last September that the lottery revenue should lead to "a higher quality of life for millions of people, irrespective of income" was not being fulfilled. "The activities and pursuits being funded are not the ones that, at present, attract as high a proportion of poor people as those who are better off," it says.The Labour Party has pledged to give more lottery money to good causes, cutting the profits of the operators, Camelot. The ball, sold by a retired Aberdeen academic, was bought by a London dealer on behalf of the Valderrama golf club in southern Spain..