People

Lennon Files
A US judge ordered the FBI to release documents relating to links between the slain former Beatle John Lennon and Left-wing political groups. Acting on a petition filed by author Jon Weiner, who is working on a book about Lennon, the federal judge ordered the FBI to release three letters believed to have been sent to the agency by the British intelligence service MI5. The contents of the letters could convince Washington to release 10 classified files on Lennon some two decades after the Government first began compiling information on the musician. The US Government had cited national security concerns in arguing that the documents should remain classified, but the judge ruled in favor of Weiner. “We don’t think the national security is really at stake here. We think this is a 30-year old, trivial information about the activities of a dead rock star,” Weiner said. An attorney for the US government said he would likely file an appeal.

A French Trial
Former Socialist foreign minister Roland Dumas and his one-time mistress Christian Deviers-Jancours, indicted on corruption charges, are to go on trial, judicial sources said. Dumas, now 77, is accused of using his influence as foreign minister in 1989 to have Deviers-Jancours hired as a lobbyist by oil-giant Elf-Aquitaine, and of benefiting from some 66 million francs ($10 million) in commissions she was paid by the firm. The decision to send the pair to trial before a Paris court was made by investigating magistrates Eva Joly and Laurence Vichnievsky, the sources said.

In a tell-all book entitled Putain de la Republique (Whore of the Republic), Deviers-Joncour said she was generously paid by the then State-owned conglomerate to try to influence Dumas over the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in face of strong opposition by China. The frigate sale was initially opposed by Dumas and then President Francois Mitterrand, but eventually was approved by the French government. Dumas has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

An Asian In Canada
British Columbia’s governing New Democratic Party picks a new leader this weekend and the winner — widely anticipated to be current Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh — will automatically become the province’s premier. Dosanjh would be the first Asian immigrant ever to become premier of a Canadian province. Thanks to a squeaky clean image as attorney general and the support of British Columbia’s politically savvy Sikh community, Dosanjh is expected to win Sunday’s ballot against three other candidates. One of those candidates is Education Minister Gordon Wilson, who once led the rival Liberal Party, before defecting to form his own short-lived Progressive Democratic Alliance before swit-ching yet again to join the New Democrats. Dosanjh’s main opponent, however, is another immigrant Corkie Evans, the California-born prov-incial agricultural minister.