But a spokesman said: "We wanted a massive mobilisation of shareholders and we have achieved that. Eurotunnel's chairman Jacques Gounon looked to be heading for victory last night in his attempt to see off a challenge to his leadership of the embattled Channel Tunnel operator. The company said that shareholders owning 40 per cent of its stock had cast their votes by proxy before tomorrow's crucial annual general meeting near Calais, at which the former Eurotunnel chief executive Jean-Louis Raymond and the rebel shareholder Nicholas Miguet will attempt to unseat M Gounon.The large turn-out is expected to favour M. Mr Bowdler said that apart from recruitment advertising, all the other main categories of spending were in line with the company's second-half performance last year.. "The board therefore expects a satisfactory outcome for the year, despite a cautious outlook for advertising," the company's statement said.A similar pattern in the company's advertising performance could be seen in 2001, the previous general election year, said Mr Bowdler.Publishers of regional newspapers have provided a bright spot in the industry at a time when national titles have been hit by tough advertising conditions and pressure on circulation Local advertising has generally held up well.

The fall was mainly due to lower recruitment advertising.Johnston said it was maintaining good control of its costs and that the increase in newsprint prices had been mitigated. Tim Bowdler, Johnston's chief executive, said: "This is certainly not a profits warning but we are taking a cautious view of the market."The statement said that after advertising had grown 2.6 per cent in the first two months of the year the trading environment had become more difficult, with growth to the end of April falling to 1.4 per cent."May suffered the traditional adverse impact of the general election and was down by 4.7 per cent," the company said. Johnston Press, the regional newspaper publisher, has been hit by a weakening in recruitment advertising, a sign that employers are becoming less confident about their prospects.

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The company's shares ended down 2 per cent yesterday after it issued a pre-close trading statement before its interim results for the six months to the end of June. But producers offered scant hope of pushing prices back below the $50 a barrel mark they would prefer in order to sustain the world economic growth that fuels oil demand.Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi said: "We've assessed the market and concluded that there is plentiful supply and the problem is with refining.". Oil prices hit their highest level for two months yesterday as traders ignored an increase in supply by Opec to focus on an unexpectedly large drop in US stocks. They said the hostage takers were 22 to 25 years old, and were from the southeastern province of Kandal.Denis Richer, a Frenchman who said he teaches at another school in the booming tourist town, said he saw one of the attackers laying wounded on the ground after police ended the siege.A Western resident in Siem Reap, who demanded anonymity, said she was told by a teacher at the school that the children, most of them aged 2 to 6, came from Cambodia, Italy, Indonesia, South Korea, United States, Japan, Ireland, Singapore, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Switzerland.. The town has many establishments serving the international tourist trade, and children from at least 15 nations attend the school.The identity of the attackers was not clear, even after the standoff ended.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said they appeared to be security guards at the school, but police later said teachers did not recognize them.The men originally took about 70 people but later released 30 of them, Khieu Kanharith said.They "were armed with shotguns" and had demanded money, six AK-47 assault rifles, six shotguns, B-40 grenade launchers, hand grenades and a car, said Deputy Military Police Commander Prak Chanthoeum, who said three teachers were among those seized.He later said US$30,000 (§24,900) and a van were given to the gunmen, but they still refused to free the hostages and continued to demand guns and grenades.Police initially said there were six attackers, but later put the number at four and said all had been arrested. This March, another court in the province overturned convictions of five men, and reduced the death sentence of the sixth to life.Thirteen of the accused were later rearrested, only to be freed last week, although officials say the men had not been freed because their lawyers didn't complete the paperwork.Ms Mai had been planning to travel to America at the invitation of a human rights group.. Masked gunmen seized dozens of children at an international school in northwestern Cambodia today, killing a three-year-old Canadian boy and threatening to shoot the others one-by-one before police freed the remaining hostages, police and government officials said. The rape was ordered by a council of villagers in Meerwala in eastern Punjab to punish her family for her brother's alleged affair with a woman.In August that year, six of the suspects in her case were sentenced to death and the other eight acquitted. But he did not elaborate on why she she had been on the list.Ms Mai welcomed the decision and said she received the news from Mr Aziz by telephone. "The Prime Minister has assured me of his full support," she said.Ms Mai, 36, defied the shame that often surrounds rape victims in Pakistan by going public over her assault in June 2002.The case attracted international attention. The government has not said why she appeared on the list in the first place.In the the National Assembly, lower house of parliament, yesterday, the Interior Minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, told law-makers that the government had removed Ms Mai's name from the ECL, and that "she is freed to go anywhere".