PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Gun-boat diplomacy The two men appointed to inspect the contents of IRA arms dumps, Mr Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland, and Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, a former high offi- cial of the African National Congress, met Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and then flew to Belfast for a meeting with General John de Chastelain, the head of the Interna- tional Independent Commission on Decom- missioning. In a parallel attempt to resur- rect the Northern Ireland Assembly, Union- ists were promised by Mr Peter Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, that the name Royal Ulster Constabulary would be preserved in some way; nor would the Irish tricolour be flown over govern- ment buildings. General Sir Charles Guthrie, the chief of the defence staff, visit- ed Sierra Leone, where British troops were assisting the country's armed forces in resisting rebels loyal to Mr Foday Sankoh who were threatening to overrun Freetown. Within days the government of Sierra Leone announced that Mr Sankoh had been captured. Conservative politicians blamed the British government for letting Mr Sankoh retain control of the diamond-pro- ducing region of the country under the peace agreement signed at Lome last year. Mr Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, said: 'There is no question of the UK taking over the UN mission or of being drawn into the civil war.' Mr Mandelson said in a speech: 'As long as we are outside
the euro, there is little we can do to protect industry against destabilising swings in the value of sterling.' Mr Blair said in his own speech to the Confederation of British Industry: 'We cannot try artificially to deval- ue the currency.' The headline rate of infla- tion rose to 3 per cent; the underlying rate, which does not include mortgage repay- ments, fell to 1.9 per cent. Mr William Hague, the leader of the opposition, said it would be a good idea to abolish the right in Britain not to suffer double jeopardy (some- thing guaranteed in Magna Carta). Corpo- rate customers are to be charged £500 a head for seats at the pageant on 19 July at Horse Guards Parade to mark the Queen Mother's 100th birthday; a rich man, offended by the news, offered to cover the costs of the pageant. In any case the BBC said it would not carry live coverage of the event. The BBC appointed Mr Andrew Marr as its political editor to succeed Mr Robin Oakley, who is being made to retire a year early, before the next election, aged 59.
ZIMBABWE is to hold elections on 24 and 25 June for 120 seats out of 150 in parlia- ment, the others being filled by nominees of the President, Mr Robert Mugabe; a com- mission on land redistribution is to sit to decide which white-owned farms are to be confiscated without compensation. Sri Lankan aircraft attacked Tamil Tiger rebels who were advancing on the outskirts of
Jaffna. Three Palestinians were killed in con- tinuing clashes with Israeli troops in towns on the West Bank. A rebel Shia group said It had fired eight rockets that exploded in the suburbs of Baghdad, killing a little girl and wounding three. A rebel group called Maia- hedeen Khalq based in Iraq attacked the Iranian city of Kermanshah, leaving some injured. A fireworks factory at Enschede, Holland, caught fire and exploded with great force, killing 20 and injuring 500. A five- storey building in Cairo collapsed killing at least 10. Seven Nigerians were beheaded for a bank robbery in the Red Sea port of Jed: dah, Saudi Arabia; the right hands and left feet of three other Nigerians were cut off over the same incident. Keizo Obuchi, Prime Minister of Japan from July 1998' died, aged 62, having failed to recover coil' sciousness after a stroke on 2 April. The Pope revealed during his visit to Fatima in Portugal (to beatify Jacinth. and Francisco Marto, who said they had seen the Virgin Mary in 1917) that the so-called Third Secret of Fatima had seemed to prophesY, the attempt on his life in 1981. The Unite
e
States Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a bold half-percentage point. A strike by security-van drivers led to French cash-dis- pensing machines running out of notes. Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian, throne, declared his love for a 26-year-olu
Previous page
