It is on the border of New Hampshire’s northern hill country which is still struggling. On the computer monitors beamed to the overspill crowd, His jerky, robotic manner was accentuated. A long, dry lecture he delivered on deficits in answer to one question lost even this educated audience early. The Old Gore is never far away.Manchester, a former mill town in transition thanks to the extension of the new technology corridor in the north-east, is undergoing a fragile recovery. After losing 10,000 jobs before 1993, he said, the state has now created 16,000 and has the most hi-tech jobs per capita in the country.Casually dressed in his New-Man style, hair slicked back, PalmPilot hitched to belt, Mr Gore spoke without notes, gesturing expansively, for 20 minutes before taking questions on topics as diverse as school safety and foreign trade. It was a classic New Gore performance – effective, but not elegant. Visiting Silknet, a computer software company in Manchester, an hour’s drive from Portsmouth, Mr Gore luxuriated in the success of the new, hi-tech economy.

The company, occupying a refurbished textile mill in the heart of the town, is, he told assembled workers, “a symbol of how New Hampshire has come back”. New Hampshire, renowned for its independent-mindedness, is seen as a state that Mr Bradley must win to keep his presidential ambitions alive.Mr Gore’s whole effort here is designed to show New Hampshire just what it risks losing if it succumbs to its independent instincts. It is allowing him to turn Mr Bradley’s question to Iowa’s hard-pressed family farmers: “Are you better off now than you were seven years ago?” back against him and draw loud roars of “yes” from supporters.The latest opinion polls show the gap has narrowed between the candidates, with Mr Bradley now only eight points behind the Vice-President following a strong showing by the former basketball star in a debate on Wednesday. To drive home this message, he was joined in Portsmouth yesterday by Robert Rubin, the former treasury secretary, whose dapper figure – sharp Wall Street suits and brisk financier’s manner – symbolises the economic upturn.The economy, which Mr Clinton summarised in his address as enjoying “the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years,” is Mr Gore’s trump card in southern New Hampshire.

He had led the applause and heard tributes for himself, no fewer than six times. Out and about in the thriving port city of Portsmouth, his theme, as it has been throughout the past week in southern New Hampshire, was the original slogan of his mentor, Bill Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Chisel-featured and solemn, looking every inch the president-in-waiting, Mr Gore had been on camera behind President Clinton throughout the State of the Union address on Thursday. In December Mr Yeltsin was able to retire more gracefully than seemed possible six months before and Mr Putin became acting president.Mr Kagarlitsky now alleges that the GRU itself was behind the bombing. He says it used Shirvani Basayev to carry it out “because he was more easily managed” than his brother. It also appears that he himself and his men did not know exactly why they had been recruited by the GRU for a special mission.. Vice-president Al Gore was back on the campaign trail yesterday, running flat-out to see off the challenge of his rival, the former senator Bill Bradley, in the New Hampshire primary election next Tuesday.

Out and about in the thriving port city of Portsmouth, his theme, as it has been throughout the past week in southern New Hampshire, was the original slogan of his mentor, Bill Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Vice-president Al Gore was back on the campaign trail yesterday, running flat-out to see off the challenge of his rival, the former senator Bill Bradley, in the New Hampshire primary election next Tuesday. An unknown figure when appointed, with just 2 per cent support in the polls, he was soon the leading candidate to win the presidency. On 8 and 13 September explosives demolished two working-class apartment blocks in south Moscow leaving 228 men, women and children dead. Three days later a truck exploded in Volgodonsk.It was the wave of anger and hatred among Russians against Chechens, universally blamed for the attacks, that gave Mr Putin the backing he needed to invade Chechnya. Russia did not want to act overtly against Georgia but covertly supported a battalion of volunteers led by Mr Basayev.It is now alleged that the cooperation between the GRU and Shirvani Basayev went further.

The invasion of Dagestan might be resented in Russia, but it was insufficient to mobilise Russian public opinion. This only occurred when four massive bombs exploded in Russia in September. The first, at a military housing complex at Buinaksk in Dagestan, blew up on 4 September killing 83 people The next two were targeted at ordinary Russian civilians. In 1992-93 he is widely believed to have received assistance from the GRU when he and his brother Shirvani fought in Abkhazia, a breakaway part of Georgia. Mr Basayev’s forces were beaten off but, according to the Russian magazine Profile, were virtually escorted back to the Chechen border by two Russian helicopters.Cooperation between Mr Basayev and the Russian army is not so surprising as it sounds. Mr Basayev’s political fortunes had ebbed in Chechnya and might be restored by a small war The Kremlin was also in need of an outside enemy.