T he 12.45 train from King's Cross to King's Lynn crashed
at the station at Potters Bar, Hertfordshire (five miles from Hatfield, where four died in a crash 18 months ago), killing seven and injuring dozens. Two nuts on points were found to have become detached, and it emerged that they had been found loose nine days before. A report to Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, from his polling consultancy GGC/NOP, founded by Mr Philip Gould and Mr Stanley Greenberg, advised him that it might be possible to secure a Yes vote in a referendum on entering the eurozone: 'We still trail significantly in the euro referendum but now seem in reach for the first time.' The government announced the building of three centres to hold 750 asylum-seekers each at Throckmorton, Worcestershire; Bicester, Oxfordshire; and West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire. The future of the Lords was turned over by Lord Irvine of Lairg, the Lord Chancellor (who favours a mainly appointed house) and Mr Robin Cook. the Leader of the House of Commons (who favours a mainly elected house), to a joint committee of Lords and MPs, a move which is expected to delay any change. Government figures for the unemployed rose by 5,400 over the previous month to 953,000 in April; the International Labour Organisation total (including those not eligible for benefit) showed a fall of 19,000, from
January to March, to 1,540,000. A study by Newcastle University found that although standards in government tests for 11-yearolds had been met by 74 per cent in 2001 compared with 48 per cent in 1995, their reading ability had not really improved, since they had merely been coached for the test. John Murray, the publishers founded in 1768, was sold to Hodder Headline, part of the WH Smith group. Mr Richard Desmond, owner of Best of Mega Boobs, Skinny and Wri :4:6 and the Daily Express, was found to have donated £100,000 to the Labour party; Mr Blair said he did not see 'anything improper' in the gift. The Appeal Court ruled that DNA evidence showed that James Hanratty had indeed committed the A6 murder, for which he was hanged in 1962. Patrick Fyffe, the actor who played Dame Hilda Bracket in the duo Hinge and Bracket, died, aged 60. The Queen visited Omagh. The 'loyalist' paramilitary leader Johnny Adair was freed from jail. The University of Hull acquired Philip Larkin's lawnmower for its archives.
THE siege by Israel of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where more than 100 Palestinians had taken refuge for 38 days, came to an end with the freeing of 94 civilians and police, the dispatch of 26 militants to the Gaza Strip, and the deporting of 13 'senior terrorists' to Cyprus as a staging post for their
exile in European countries. The church was cleaned and reconsecrated. United States special forces killed five gunmen and captured another 32 after coming under fire in southern Afghanistan. British forces ended Operation Snipe in eastern Afghanistan without encountering the enemy, but succeeded in destroying 'a vast arsenal of weaponry'; a warlord in alliance with the Afghan government then said that it was his weaponry, not al-Qa'eda's. The United States and Russia agreed to sign a treaty to cut their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds. The Pentagon said it had managed to train bees to sniff out explosives. The roof of a hangar 260ft high collapsed, killing eight workers at Baikonur, the space centre leased by Russia from the Kazakh government. Wild fires destroyed 100,000 acres of Siberian brush. Robert Hanssen, the FBI officer who spied for Moscow for 25 years, was jailed for life; he was spared the death penalty and his wife was allowed a pension in return for his plea of guilty. Mr Jimmy Carter, the former president of the United States, visited Cuba and was met by President Fidel Castro wearing a dark suit. Joseph Bonanno, the New York Mafia boss, died, aged 97. Religious police in Saudi Arabia are to patrol coffee houses, where water pipes are known to be smoked, lest youths under 18 come to moral harm.
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