F ifty-eight per cent of voters believe an attack on Saddam
Hussein is not justified under present circumstances, according to an Internet poll by YouGov for the Daily Telegraph. Focus groups organised by Mr Philip Gould, a Labour party pollster, found that President George Bush of the United States was even less popular than the Conservative party; but Downing Street said that Mr Tony Blair. the Prime Minister, was not 'wobbling' in his support for American action against Iraq. Mr Blair and his family were found to have moved from one holiday château to another, the Château Lagrezette in the Lot region, as guests of M. AlainDominique Perrin, the chief executive of Richemont, which owns a 21 per cent stake in British American Tobacco. Mr Sulayman Zain-ul-abidin, a chef at the Royal College of Obstetricians, born in London as Francis Etam and a convert to Islam in 1979, was cleared at the Old Bailey of charges under the Terrorism Act of 2000. the first person to be tried under the Act since the atrocities of 11 September 2001. Mr Gurbux Singh resigned as the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality after being fined £500 for threatening behaviour to a policeman at Lord's cricket ground where he had been enjoying a drink at a Test match. Deputy commissioner Ian Blair of the Metropolitan Police said that police officers who object to
the little cross on the crown on the badge on their caps or helmets will be allowed to wear one with modified insignia: the change follows a complaint by Mr M'hammed Azzaoui who resigned as a trainee traffic warden because of the cross. Mr Michael Meacher, the Environment Minister, was allowed by the government to go to the Earth Summit at Johannesburg at the end of August; the previous idea was for only four ministers and 70 civil servants to attend. Underlying inflation rose from an annual rate of 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent. A pilot scheme in 14 areas by Consignia (which has promised to change its name to Royal Mail by the end of the year) to see if people would pay between £5 and £14 to receive post before 9 a.m. found that only one customer took up the offer. There was more rainy weather, with flooding. A New Caledonian crow called Betty was observed in experiments at Oxford University to fashion a hook by bending a wire to retrieve a little bucket of meat from a narrow jar.
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe told white farmers on 2,900 farms that they must stop farming and give up their land. Some of the land is going to cronies of Mr Mugabe and figures in the Zanu-PF party. With drought affecting southern Africa, starvation was reported in parts of Angola. Distribution of food in Zimbabwe depended on Zanu-PF officials, who were accused of withholding supplies from political opponents. Mr Richard Perle, head of the Pentagon's defence policy board, said that he thought President Bush 'would act alone if necessary' against Iraq. Mr Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi information minister, told the Arabic satellite television al-Jazeera that the work of United Nations weapons inspectors in the country has been achieved'. Three Islamist terrorists threw hand grenades at staff of the Christian Hospital at Taxila, 16 miles west of Islamabad, as they were leaving the chapel in the morning, killing three Christians and wounding 23. Mr Alvaro Uribe, the new President of Colombia, imposed a limited state of emergency after more than 100 people were killed by guerrillas within a week of his coming to power; a mortar attack on the presidential palace in Bogota killed 21 and wounded 70. North and South Korea resumed talks in Seoul after a nine-month suspension of contacts. Charlton Heston, the 78-year-old film actor, issued a video explaining that he is showing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Floods affected Prague, Dresden. Salzburg and Vienna. The Pope flew to Poland for a four-day visit to Krakow and the nearby scenes of his childhood.
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