PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Gridlocked British lorry drivers and farmers, in imitation of French action, blockaded oil refineries and drove slowly on motorways to jam traffic, in response to the rising price of petroleum and the high level of tax on it. As petrol ran out, Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said: 'We cannot and will not alter government policy on petrol through blockades and pickets.' Headline inflation fell from 3.3 to 3 per cent, largely because of reductions in prices of petrol and pota- toes from July to August. Nomura with- drew its offer to buy the Millennium Dome because of 'substantial uncertainty' about the ability of its current owner, the New Millennium Experience Company, to `transfer the Dome assets on a timely basis'. Mr David James, the new executive chair- man of NMEC, remarked that it had not been 'a wise decision' to build it in the first place, and that it was 'a hell of a place to get to'. The London Stock Exchange called off a planned merger with the Frankfurt stock exchange. Seven hostages held 40 miles from Freetown by the West Side Boys militia were rescued in a dawn operation by helicopter-borne men of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment aided by the SAS; in a gunfight of an hour and a half, one Briton and 25 enemy (including three women) were killed, and the militia leader Foday KaHay and 15 others were taken prisoner. Mr Jack Straw, the Home Secre- tary, toured India as the government devel- oped its plans to import foreign workers, especially those skilled in information tech- nology. Mr Straw's brother William was placed on the Sex Offenders' register after being convicted of indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl, for which he was fined £750. Desmond Wilcox, the television exec- utive and husband of Esther Rantzen, died, aged 69. Bruce Gyngell, the television exec- utive, died, aged 71. Sir Julian Critchley, the Tory MP, died, aged 69. A woman who picked up a bunch of bananas in Big- gleswade was stung by scorpion.
THE Organisation of Petroleum Export- ing Countries agreed to increase produc- tion by 80,000 barrels a day, an increase of 3 per cent, as oil prices rose, to the alarm of consumer nations. French protesters against high petroleum prices called off action after the government promised a reduction of 35 centimes a litre on diesel. Norwegian oil companies are to spend £1.5 billion on oil exploration deep under the sea off Angola. The euro fell below 86 United States cents and the pound to $1.40. The Palestinian Central Council said that a declaration of independence planned for this month would now not be made until at least November. Russia announced it would cut its armed forces of 1.2 million by 350,000 within four years. More than 150 world leaders attended the three-day United Nations Millennium summit in New York. As he stood on the steps of Mount Olivet Baptist Church, Harlem, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was handed a writ accusing him of orchestrating political terror; it was served under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. President Lansana Conte of Guinea accused the 300,000 Sierra Leonean and 125,000 Liberian refugees in the country of harbouring anti-Guinean dissidents; thousands of refugees were arrested. The United Nations pulled out of West Timor, leaving 120,000 refugees prey to hostile militiamen who had killed three UN work- ers the week before. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which has 35,000 troops in Kosovo, will send 2,000 more (from Britain, France,. Italy and Greece) to keep order during municipal elections at the end of October. C&A in Germany was shocked to find it was selling chil- dren's T-shirts with an Internet address printed on the front that turned out to be that of a homosexual pornography site.
CSH
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