11.   The Conservative junior minister was unavailable for comment last night but issued a statement through his secretary claiming the investigation has been dropped.

12.   A third became a junior minister in charge of tourism.

13.   He also sent a junior minister to pay a call on Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Jerusalem.

14.   He served as a junior Home Office minister, and was considered a candidate to become foreign secretary, according to The Times of London.

15.   Ludger Vollmar, a Green Party member who was particularly adamant about the issue, is now a junior minister under Fischer.

16.   Prime Minister Lionel Jospin asked Jean-Jack Queyranne, a junior minister for overseas territories, to replace Chevenement while he recuperated.

17.   Raffarin added a number of junior ministers to his government, including the former European Parliament speaker, Nicole Fontaine, who became minister delegate for industry.

18.   The point, he said, was more to spare the junior ministers, industrialists and newspaper columnists who come as official guests.

19.   These include Leif Pagrotsky, who was a junior minister at the finance department under Persson.