Here in Britain, a former deputy chairman of the opposition Conservative Party, Lord Archer, has been expelled from the party for five years for misleading his former colleagues.

The Conservatives' ethics committee took the action after hearing that he had given false assurances about his past to the party chairman.

Lord Archer , better known as the novelist, Jeffrey Archer, resigned as the party's candidate to be mayor of London last year after admitting that he had asked a friend to lie for him in court in 1987, when he was suing a newspaper for alleging that he'd slept with a prostitute. A BBC correspondent says Lord Archer's supporters are likely to be relieved that he has not been permanently expelled.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service