T he Conservative leader, William Hague, said he would let the
Americans place radar for its anti-ballistic missile system in Britain. The government, which has yet to make up its mind on the issue, accused him of 'blundering about, regardless of the sensitivities', meaning it was afraid of upsetting other European governments. A leaked document revealed that the army was aware of a cancer risk from the dust of depleted uranium shells, contradicting government assurances that it posed no threat to soldiers. The Prime Minister said that the government would move to ensure that hunting with dogs will be banned, reversing what he had previously insisted was a neutral stance. Marie Therese Kouao and her lover Carl Manning were jailed for life for the murder of Kouao's eight-year-old great niece, Anna Climbie, who had been tortured and allowed to die from hypothermia and the effects of 128 separate injuries. Eight police officers were disciplined and one social worker suspended after the defence counsel for Manning commented: 'If you saw a child in need in Haringey, it would have been better to call the RAC than the social services.' The house of a hunt supporter in Surrey and a chip shop in North Wales were bombed by animalrights extremists. Scientists concluding a 14year study in Finland said that the MMR vaccine, given to young children to inoculate them against measles, mumps and German measles, does not cause bowel disorders or autism, as many parents have feared. The chief executive of Bedford Hospital resigned after the institution was found to be storing dead bodies on the floor of its chapel of rest. A man who goes everywhere naked was acquitted of causing a public nuisance. A greengrocer was put on trial in Sunderland for selling bananas by the pound. Princess Margaret was admitted to hospital. The actor Michael Williams died, aged 65, and the artist Sarah Raphael died, aged 41. Auberon Waugh, the journalist, died, aged 61.
AS George W. Bush prepared for his inauguration as US President, outgoing President Bill Clinton accused the Republicans of manipulating the vote-count in Florida which decided Mr Bush's election; Clinton later said he had been 'joking'. An earthquake in El Salvador killed an estimated 1,400 people, many of them submerged beneath a landslide. Biljana Plasvic, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian civil war, was put on trial in Paris. Nine United Nations officials were killed when their helicopter crashed while assessing relief work in Mongolia. The European Commission proposed to ban cod fishing for part of the year over large parts of the North Sea in order to conserve stocks. Swiss accident investigators said that a plane crash which killed ten people was probably caused by a passenger's mobile phone interfering with navigation equipment. The world's first cloned calf was born in Iowa but died of dysentery two days later. Nasa scientists claimed they had witnessed two blobs of gas being sucked into a black hole. A Muslim mob set light to buildings in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri in retaliation against local 'sinners' whom they accused of causing a lunar eclipse. President Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo was rumoured to have been killed in an attack in Kinshasa. Nine Japanese men were ordered to pay £270,000 damages to the family of a classmate who committed suicide after being bullied seven years ago. Millions of naked Hindus assembled for the festival of Kumbh Mela and began plunging into the Ganges to cleanse themselves of sin. Indian eunuchs were moved to form a political party to represent their interests. A Welsh couple bought a pair of six-month-old twins on the Internet for £8,200, then were pursued across America by another couple who thought they had already purchased the children for half the price. The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, giving evidence in the trial of a former anarchist comrade accused of Idling three people in a bomb attack, said he couldn't remember whether the two had been at meetings where terrorist tactics were discussed. Jailed terrorist 'Carlos the Jackal' begged to differ, claiming that Herr Fischer had lived in a building where bomb-making equipment was stored.
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