The previous year she had appeared in her first film Jean Negulesco's Phone Call From a Stranger as a wife who hears from a

The previous year she had appeared in her first film, Jean Negulesco's Phone Call From a Stranger, as a wife who hears from a plane crash survivor that her husband has been killed.It was several years before her next film, and Straight later claimed that her appearance in The Crucible, with its allegorical attack on the anti-Communist witch-hunts, had resulted in her being on an unofficial blacklist in force at the time. She returned to the screen with good roles in Patterns (1957), based on Rod Serling's television play, and The Nun's Story (1959), in which she was Mother Christophe. She had another stage triumph when she starred in Ph?e (1966).Despite her distinguished career in the theatre, she was relatively unknown to movie audiences when she won the supporting actress Oscar for Sidney Lumet's Network (1976). It had taken her just three days to film her three scenes as a wife struggling to keep her sanity while her husband (William Holden) has an affair with a younger woman (Faye Dunaway), but her key scene proved a classic. Variety said, "One quiet moment in the film ­ but a dramatic sequence of the type that can endure for years as a terrific playlet exercise between thesps ­ has Holden discussing his infatuation with Dunaway to long-time wife Straight.

Her range of responses, complementing his, constitutes one of those outstanding film memories for a lifetime."Most of Straight's subsequent films, including Bloodline (1979), Endless Love (1981) and Power (1986), were unworthy of her, but she had a fine role as the paranormal investigator in Tobe Hooper's 1982 hit The Poltergeist. Her last screen role was as Goldie Hawn's mother in Deceived (1991).Her television appearances started in the exciting days of live transmissions in the early Fifties. She was a regular on Beacon Hill (1975 ­ the American version of Upstairs Downstairs) and Wonder Woman (1979 ­ as Queen Mother to Lynda Carter's title character), and in 1988 played in three episodes of St Elsewhere.By Tom Vallance. At the time of writing, it was still unclear how the horrific story of the slave ship roaming the west African coast, with its cargo of up to 200 children, will end.

There have been suggestions that the captain of the Nigerian-registered Etireno has already dumped his human cargo at sea; perhaps more plausibly, others think, the boat may already have unloaded its captives at a small Nigerian port. The government of Benin has begged for international help, including satellites and fast naval boats, to track down the decrepit Etireno and its crew. At the time of writing, it was still unclear how the horrific story of the slave ship roaming the west African coast, with its cargo of up to 200 children, will end. There have been suggestions that the captain of the Nigerian-registered Etireno has already dumped his human cargo at sea; perhaps more plausibly, others think, the boat may already have unloaded its captives at a small Nigerian port. The government of Benin has begged for international help, including satellites and fast naval boats, to track down the decrepit Etireno and its crew.Certainly, the international community should do all it can to help find the traffickers and the businessmen who profit from this trade. If the British navy can help, so much the better ­ though the Government said yesterday that the nearest ship is a full two days' sailing from the area where the Etireno is reckoned to be. There were reports yesterday that the boat had been sighted off the coast of Equatorial Guinea.Above all, however, a wider problem must be confronted.

Historically, the colonial powers were deeply implicated in slavery, especially from west Africa. Locally, the problem has seen a disturbing resurgence in recent years. Sometimes, desperately poor parents themselves receive money from slave traders. More often, traders rely on the gullibility of the parents, who are led to believe that their children are being offered opportunities elsewhere.In parts of west Africa, it has long been common for children to leave their villages to receive an apprenticeship (and be paid a wage), before returning home That system can have advantages for all concerned. The growth of child slavery plays disturbingly, however, on the trust in that existing system.Officials of Unicef, the United Nations' children's fund, say that the problem of child-trafficking is now "very common" in the region; many child slaves work in cocoa plantations. Western businesses can play their part in stamping this practice out. As with concerns about the use by Gap or Nike of Third World labour, it should be possible to ensure that chocolate is not the product, at one remove, of slavery.

Above all, slave traders must feel under threat, instead of feeling able to do business brazenly. Despite calls for tough action from organisations like Anti-Slavery International, the rest of the world has too often turned a blind eye. If anything good comes out of this terrible episode, it will be a change, finally, in that attitude.. It is an extraordinary and eloquent commentary on the current state of the Conservative Party that its chairman, Michael Ancram, has felt it necessary to write to every prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate to remind them that they should "avoid using language which is likely to generate racial or religious hatred" and that the "Conservative Party is utterly opposed to racial discrimination".