And while insisting that Britain wanted progress in securing reform of fisheries quota-hopping Mr Cook conspicuously refrained from repeating

And while insisting that Britain wanted progress in securing reform of fisheries quota-hopping Mr Cook conspicuously refrained from repeating the Conservative administration's explicit threat to sabotage the IGC if it did not get full agreement on the issue next month.Mr Cook repeatedly drew a distinction between the new government's stance of "constructive engagement" with that of the previous one which had staged a confrontation which had been going "nowhere in Europe except towards the exit door".Mr Cook was accorded a warm welcome in both capitals after declaring "we are committed to making Britain a leading player in Europe and that is why it is right that I should begin by visiting the other two big players in Europe. We want to make sure that from now on there are three players in Europe, not just two."While emphasising the importance of Bonn's relationship with the new government, Mr Kinkel sounded a slightly more cautious note last night, saying it would not be right to talk of a "triangular relationship" between London, Paris and Bonn. But the Paris end of the Franco-German axis welcomed the idea of involving London in a "triangle".. A top United States official may have supplied Israel with highly sensitive information that the State Department wanted kept secret, according to a report in yesterday's Washington Post, which said the FBI had launched an investigation to discover the official's identity. The inquiry is said to have been opened in January after US security officials intercepted a telephone conversation between an Israeli official in Tel Aviv and a senior Israeli agent in the US.

The conversation referred to a third man by what appeared to be his codename, "Mega". According to the intercept, the Israeli official wanted Mega to supply a copy of a top-secret letter, sent by the then US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, to Yasser Arafat, setting out US guarantees to the Palestinian leader on the eve of the Israeli withdrawal from Hebron. The request appeared to reflect Israel's suspicion that the US was dealing on Hebron behind its back Mary Dejevsky - Washington. The world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, gave another unconvincing performance against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, when he drew the third game from a clearly superior position. Scores therefore remain level at one win each with one draw at the halfway stage of the match. The result of the third game, however, was considerably overshadowed by what happened in the aftermath of Deep Blue's victory in game two.

When that game ended, there was general agreement that Kasparov had been convincingly outplayed. But after feverish argument among the grandmasters at the match in New York, the inescapable conclusion was that Kasparov's resignation had been premature. For he had overlooked a resource that would have enabled him to salvage a draw. To add to the indignity, one of the computer's programmers appeared on stage at the Equitable Center to announce that Deep Blue itself had confirmed that Kasparov could have saved the game. Kasparov was quoted as saying: "It played so brilliantly I didn't think to check it."The theme of man's intimidation by machine continued in the third game. By an unusual choice of opening moves, Kasparov got the machine out of its vast library of analysis.

Left to its own resources, Deep Blue left itself with a passive position. Kasparov sacrificed a pawn to obtain what looked like a complete grip, but seemed to lose confidence. Rather than continue his attack, he exchanged his best-placed piece to regain his pawn, leaving himself with insufficient advantage to have any serious chance of a win. When Kasparov offered a draw, Deep Blue's team accepted with alacrity.Before this match, Kasparov was known as a man of supreme self-confidence who never overlooked tactical resources.