PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
John Prescott addresses his captive audience on the car radio Mr John Prescott, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, presented a White Paper with a job-lot of measures to penalise motorists and to encourage cyclists and pedestrians; these included taxing company parking places, tolls on cars entering urban areas and some unexplained way of providing safer footpaths from home to school. Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, flew to Sun Valley, Idaho, to tell a meeting of the employees of Mr Rupert Murdoch that he would not 'rule out mone- tary union in principle'. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew to Edinburgh, to warn the Scots against 'reckless separatism'. Dr Mo Mowlam flew to Washington to talk about Northern Ireland. Miss Gail Rebuck, the wife of Mr Philip Gould, the Prime Minister's opinion pollster, failed to become vice-chairman of the BBC; the post went to Lady Yo, the head of English Nature, who was ennobled this year. Betty Marsden, a mainstay of the Kenneth Home wireless programmes, died, aged 79. Michael Deni- son, the actor and husband of Dulcie Gray, died, aged 82. The Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops met and was bombarded by homosexual demonstrators. The house of Lords revolted over reducing the age of consent for homosexual acts to 16. Oxford University is to offer postgraduate degrees in medicine and computing on the Internet. Justin Rose, a 17-year-old amateur golfer, came third in the Open at Royal Birkdale and immediately went professional. Giant wasps from France moved westward over England, encouraged by warm weather.
A HUGE TSUNAMI devastated the low- lying north coast of Papua New Guinea, killing perhaps 3,000 and leaving about 6,000 homeless. About 1,000 people have died this summer in floods in China. Presi- dent Bill Clinton ordered the purchase of 80 million bushels of United States wheat for distribution to needy countries; it will also have the effect of raising domestic wheat prices by about 13 cents a bushel, just before the congressional elections this autumn. The United States Chief Justice ruled that Mr Clinton's bodyguards were obliged to give evidence in the investigation by Mr Kenneth Starr, the Special Prosecu- tor, of allegations of Mr Clinton's having lied about a sexual encounter with Miss Monica Lewinsky. Mrs Paula Jones, who unsuccessfully sued Mr Clinton for sexual harassment, underwent a $9,000 nose job at a clinic in Park Avenue, New York. Mr Clinton said that he was going to visit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in September on the way back from visiting President Boris Yeltsin of Russia. Mr Yeltsin decided after all to witness the reburial in St Petersburg of the remains of Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and three of their children, murdered by revolu- tionaries in 1918; he acknowledged the heinousness of their murder. Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, who was dismissed as prime minister by Mr Yeltsin in March, predicted that he himself would be the next President of Russia. General Abdulsalam Abubakar, the military ruler of Nigeria, promised a return to civilian rule next May; the date had previously been October. Mr Nelson Mandela, the President of South Africa, celebrated his 80th birthday by marrying, as his third wife, Mrs Graca Machel, 52, the widow of Samora Machel, the former presi- dent of Mozambique. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany called for greater inter- national action to curb child pornography on the Internet. Plagues of locusts and caterpillars chewed their way through 3,344 square miles of pasture land on the Tibetan plateau, threatening livestock fanners' livelihoods.
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