MONICA LEWINSKY, the former White House trainee who may or may not have had an affair with President Bill Clinton and been prevailed upon to lie about it, is suing her one-time colleague and confidante, Linda Tripp, for violating her privacy, according to her lawyer, William Ginsburg. At the end of Ramadan, the President sent a message to the Islamic countries and American Muslims, and Hillary Clinton hosted a party for Muslim women.It is in foreign priorities where the demographic shift may be felt most keenly. Already, the coolness between Israel’s present government and Washington has clipped US wings in the Middle East. It has also provoked divisions among American Jews about how Washington should proceed .But while policy differences and declining numbers may weaken the celebrated “Jewish lobby”, there is as yet no Islamic lobby to challenge for more influence.

And Washington, still caught in the thicket of past hostilities with Iraq, Iran and Libya, is finding it hard to contemplate a change of direction. “The US is arguably the best place on earth to be Muslim,” the report says. “Multicultural democracy, with its guarantees of religious freedom and speech, makes life easier for Muslims than in many Islamic states in the Middle East.”It says Muslims are emerging in the professions and as a cohesive voting bloc. US Muslims, it concludes, may become a force to be reckoned with.The demographic trend has not gone unnoticed by the White House.

The growing influence of US Muslims is reported in this week’s Newsweek magazine, which stresses the vitality of what it calls the “new Islam” – an Americanised blend of the strands of Islam which has little truck with restrictions on women. But what is incontestable, is that in purely numerical terms the position of Jews and Muslims is being reversed.The increase in Muslim numbers reflects partly immigration from the Indian subcontinent and north Africa in the Sixties and Seventies, but also the accelerating rate of conversion by American blacks. Converts are estimated to account for half the present number of Muslims and the number of converts is increasing fast.If it were just a matter of numbers, the effect of this shift might be limited. The prominence of American Jews has long enabled them to punch above their weight in politics and business But the Muslims are catching up. They give similar figures for their current numbers – about 6 million each.

The US Census Bureau does not record statistics by religion or culture. There were no reports of people living or working nearby suffering any ill effects.ICI pleaded guilty to causing pollution and not keeping its equipment in good operating condition, and was ordered to pay pounds 51,200 compensation and costs. Judge David Hale said adequate risk assessments had not been carried out and there had not been proper monitoring of chloroform flow in the pipeline which would have alerted ICI to the problem.A company spokesman said: ”We’re sorry it happened and we’re taking all steps to make sure nothing like this happens again. A private company built the stadium in 300 working days (at a cost of pounds 750,000) for the Empire Exhibition in 1924, and it is still run by Wembley Stadium Ltd, a subsiduary company of Wembley plc.Wembley have a contract with England, who first played there in 1924, that lasts until 2002. As Joao Havelange, president of Fifa, the game’s world governing body, said on Monday: “Wembley is a monument”.Yet, curiously, although English football may see it as its spiritual home, Wembley has never belonged to the nation. The neatest solution would be King’s Cross, relatively close and with excellent transport links But again, traffic problems could thwart it The siege of the chauffeurs is set to continue.. Ah, Wembley.

There is not a football crowd that has not sung wistfully of going there. The name conjures the World Cup win of 1966, 39 steps to exultation or despair and, when the romantic trimmings have been stripped away, a stadium that is ill-equipped for the 21st century. Outdated and uncomfortable compared to modern grounds in Britain and abroad, it has needed a facelift for decades, something that will be addressed if the plans to renovate Wembley to become the national stadium are fulfilled. It was due to close next summer for the pounds 240m facelift and re-open, completely modernised, in 2002.
Even in its is current state, however, it is undeniably the mecca of football in this country, and its heritage is the envy of the world. There is barely a foreign player who has not yearned to play there.