M r Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a
pre-election Budget. He extended the band for the lowest tax-rate of 10p in the pound and stressed other measures that would return some of the surplus revenue he had already built up through higher taxes. Mr William Hague, the leader of the opposition, said in a speech to a Conservative spring rally that another Labour government and joining the euro zone would make Britain a 'foreign land'. By the time the number of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth had risen to 80, including a farm in the middle of Dartmoor, more than 60,000 livestock had been slaughtered. Provisions were made for some unaffected cattle to be taken to slaughter for meat. An old taxi, sold at a second-hand yard earlier in the day, blew up with 201b of high explosives inside, next to the BBC news centre at White City, London, injuring an Underground railway employee; it was thought to be the work of the Real IRA. Nine Romanian gypsies, including a three-year-old girl, were found at Waterloo station to have stowed away for the journey from Paris in freezing conditions in a compartment under a Eurostar train carriage that had travelled at speeds reaching 186mph. The number of people on NHS hospital waiting lists rose by 4,500 to 1,039,000 in January; the number waiting for more than a year fell by 1,310 to 47,100. John Diamond, the journalist, died,
aged 47. Six days after many thousands were left without electricity by heavy snows, 1,000 on the Scottish borders were still without power, while temperatures in Scotland fell to minus 22°C.
FRANCE reacted strongly to foot-andmouth, and while no outbreaks had been found on French territory, they set about slaughtering 30,000 sheep just in case. The European Union ordered all livestock markets to close for two weeks. Hours after Hamas, the Islamic extremists, announced the dispatch of suicide bombers against Israel, a Palestinian blew up himself and three elderly Israelis in the town of Netanya. Gloria Olds, the mother of a fanner in Zimbabwe murdered last April by an armed mob, was herself killed on her neighbouring farm. Zimbabwe's Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay agreed to step down. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe visited Brussels and then met President Jacques Chirac of France in Paris. In Brussels Mr Peter Tatchell was hit by Zimbabwean security guards and fell dazed in the gutter when he tried to 'arrest' Mr Mugabe. The Swiss voted overwhelmingly in a referendum against starting negotiations on joining the European Union. Macedonia closed its border with Kosovo after Albanian guerrillas killed three Macedonian soldiers. An envoy from Unesco failed to persuade Afghanistan's Taleban rulers to stop the demolition of preIslamic statues of the Buddha; the bestknown stands 160 feet high and was carved in the fifth century or before. Mr Richard Cheney, the American vice-president, went to hospital again for a small operation on his heart. American scientists suggested that watching television causes Alzheimer's disease. A 15-year-old opened fire at a school in San Diego, California, killing two and wounding 13. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a tunnel was dug in the 1970s by American intelligence agents underneath the Soviet embassy in Washington, but its existence was betrayed by Robert Hanssen, the FBI spy accused last month of giving secrets to Russia. China announced a 17 per cent increase in its defence spending and warned America to 'rein in its wild horse on the brink of the precipice'. A bridge over the Douro at Castel° de Paiva in Portugal fell down as a bus was crossing it, killing more than 70. As two million pilgrims on the haj to Mecca ritually stoned the devil, a crush in the crowd killed 35. Schools in New England closed as two feet of snow fell in two days. Mr Lars Back, the gender equality expert in the Swedish Cabinet, was reported to have harassed airline hostesses and vomited in the lap of his boss, Miss Margareta Winberg, the equality minister, on a flight to New York.
CSH
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