Secondly digital technology gives other broadcasters the means to charge people for watching television which means they can match

Secondly, digital technology gives other broadcasters the means to charge people for watching television, which means they can match the huge amounts BSkyB can offer for the television rights to Premier League games.The decision by the MMC and Mr Byers means that when the rights come up for renegotiation, Mr Murdoch will be competing on something resembling a level playing field That is good for English football. Just as important, it is good for a diverse, competitive and plural media in this country.. I WAS coming out of the Continental Hotel when the sound of the explosion rolled over the mountain "Boom boom Nato," shouted the taxi driver. The tremor had distracted him from the important question of what fare I should pay. With hundreds of journalists in town, the predatory instincts of Skopje's taxi-men are rampant. All journeys involve a protracted haggle, but my driver had been unnerved by what he imagined were the sounds of war across the border and he wanted to talk politics "Clinton bloody crazy Milosevic bloody crazy Everybody crazy," he said I had to agree.

After three days in Macedonia I feel I have entered a narrative of the most profound strangeness. It is three hours from England as the crow flies and, as I write, the same spring sunshine is bathing London and Skopje. But in 15 years of reporting from war zones I have never felt the same degree of strangeness, the feeling of a world turned upside down. You start out at the Swissair desk at Heathrow airport, and stand in line behind the people heading for skiing holidays in the Alps There are bright clothes and there is a lot of laughter There are many businessmen in the queue Serious men in fine suits travelling to Geneva and Zurich.

One of them is talking on a mobile phone and stops his conversation abruptly as my flak jacket and helmet roll topple from the trolley and clank on to the floor. But apart from this brief upset, it is a normal morning in Europe. In Zurich the sun is shining and the Swiss countryside is neat and pretty and safe. And then, more quickly than you can imagine, you are coming in to land at Skopje amid the rows of Nato transport planes. Just outside the window a US marines helicopter, door gunner scanning the ground, is taking off in the direction of the city.Officially this is a peaceful country that wants a closer relationship with the West, but from the very first conversations it is obvious that the Macedonians would like all of us - journalists, Nato soldiers, aid workers - to go home.

My first driver said he was only taking the fare because he needed the money badly "You come here and tell lies, nothing but lies That is what you people are paid to do You want to make us look like savages," he said And then he began to press me for my opinion. What did I think of Nato bombing Yugoslavia? And those Albanians, what did I think of them? I dissembled I fudged "Well of course, I have just arrived in the country It's so hard to make an instant impression," I replied The driver was having none of it "You watch TV, you read the newspapers. Of course you have an opinion," he barked.I told him that I came from a small country myself and always resented having strangers telling me what was wrong with the place. I could understand his anger at the media and Western politicians.