He has undertaken a stream of disposals which can only distort the year's figures, due tomorrow. It is now below 100p and last week an institution was prepared to dump shares at 94p.Pressure is mounting on Ulsterman Liam Strong, the chief executive drafted in from British Airways, to deliver the goods. NatWest Securities is looking for a repeat of February's 0.6 per cent increase. The CBI's industrial trends survey and the response to the Government's pounds 3bn gilts auction will also be important indicators this week.With the emphasis on retailing for the second week running it is appropriate that Sears, the conglomerate created by the legendary Sir Charles Clore and taken apart by his successors, should feature in the results parade.Sears is one share missing the market party Before the 1987 crash it touched 175p. It is hoped they will confirm the upward trend signalled by the Confederation of British Industry, which gave retail shares such an uplift last week.

A few takeover bids - Ladbroke, Lucas Industries, London Electric and Thorn EMI? - would provide further inspiration; so would firm developments in the NP/Southern and BT/Cable & Wireless adventures.Retail sales for March will be assiduously studied. The gap which opened between the FT-SE 100 index and the Dow Jones Average mystified many stock market players. For a time the Dow seemed capable of producing record-breaking performances with infinite ease while Footsie, until last week, dillied and dallied. But perhaps too much attention, is paid to Footsie; after all, the supporting index, which covers the 250 shares that come after the 100 blue chips, has been hitting new peaks with monotonous regularity.It could be argued that supporting shares are less worried by political uncertainty and experienced the so-called feel-good factor before their more illustrious colleagues. Are they, then, with their broad spread of interests, a far better reflection of the stock market than blue chips? Even if they are there is no likelihood of Footsie, with its huge capitalisation, being replaced by the second-liners index.Observers will continue to use it to plot the market although there must be a strong case for more attention being paid to the little used FT-SE 350 index, embracing the two main indices. It stretched to new highs before Footsie's belated response last week.A week, as Harold Wilson so famously pointed out, is a long time in politics - it is also a long time in many other areas, including the market.A week ago, although the bulls were gathering, there seemed little to suggest blue chips would pick up and suddenly stride to new highs.Although the political outlook remained hazy, encouraging economic data and a rush of takeover speculation drove shares forward.The astonishing descent on National Power, which had not been seen as a takeover play, was the big influence; the shares of Britain's largest generator jumped by 100p to 592p over the week with one investor prepared to pay 620p.The arrival of Southern Co, the US predator, underlined the feeling that a rush of corporate action was due before the market got around to worrying about the election and what the Labour Party's real attitude would be towards the City and the bid industry.The Conservatives' dismal showing in the Staffordshire South by-election must, the market reasoned, sharpen the desire of any predator to get a deal done and dusted before any chance of New, or even old, Labour interference.The past week has strengthened the bulls' claim that Footsie at 4,000 points is not far away. After limping along for more than two months blue chips have suddenly displayed the type of enthusiasm that sent New York rocketing to new highs. The commission has powers to grant indemnity to wrongdoers as an inducement for them to come forward.

Many former security officers have said they plan to take up the offer.But two former security officials have brought legal action to try to block the testimony of one woman who intends to accuse them of complicity in the poisoning of her activist son.. You're not going to get respect for the rule of law back until you start applying the law."Alex Boraine, the commission's deputy chairman, acknowledged that its team of 60 investigators faced a tough task in cracking many apartheid crimes and urged perpetrators of abuses to tell their stories. Paul Peirera, of the South African Institute of Race Relations, called the hearings - in which some victims named their alleged torturers and the supposed killers of their loved ones - a "farce". He said evidence of crimes should go to the courts, adding: "If this thing's about searching for truth, then it should use ways that have evolved over centuries for getting to the truth.