29 JUNE 2002, Page 6

M r Tony Blair. the Prime Minister, said, 'It is for

the Palestinians to elect their own leaders,' Earlier he had told Parliament that Britain had failed at the European Union summit at Seville to carry a proposal to link the grant of aid for outside countries to their success in preventing illegal immigration to the ELJ. The form of a new European arrest warrant was agreed by Mr David Blunkett. the Horne Secretary, allowing extradition for some crimes that are not against the law in Britain: it will require parliamentary approval as part of an Extradition Bill, but will not be subject to amendment. Miss Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, said of comprehensive schools, 'There are some I would not touch with a bargepole.' Dr Liam Fox, the opposition health spokesman, announced that 'the Conservative party is making mental health a central part of its health policy agenda'. A group led by Mr Francis Maude and Mr Archie Norman, calling itself Cchange and devoted to reforming the Conservative party, met for the first time, in private. Shares fell in response to an accounting scandal in the American telecommunications company WorldCom. An asteroid the size of a football pitch missed the Earth by only 75,000 miles. England was knocked out of the World Cup by Brazil. The name of the

Most Revd Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Wales, was said to be one of the two put forward by the Crown Appointments Commission to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The 17th Duke of Norfolk died, aged 86. The Queen, by reigning for 50 years and 149 days, overtook Edward III (1327-77). The remains of four mammoths and Neanderthal stone tools were found at a site in Norfolk. Calder Hall, the oldest nuclear power station in the world, opened in 1956, is to be closed down next March.

PRESIDENT George Bush of the United States announced his ideas for the establishment of a provisional Palestinian state. He insisted that the Palestinians first 'elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror.; Israel should 'withdraw fully to positions they held prior to 28 September, 2000', hut only 'as we make progress toward security'. Earlier, Israel had reoccupied West Bank towns, surrounded the headquarters in Ramallah of President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority and killed six Hamas militants by helicopter rocket fire. The effects of hunger grew in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe; Zimbabwe ordered 3,000 white farmers to cease farming so that their land could be taken over. Mr Edmund Stoiber, the conservative candidate for the German chan cellorship, said it would be a 'noble gesture' if Poland, which is applying to join the European Union, allowed Germans the right to a home on territory that is now Polish from which their families were expelled after the second world war. The European Union summit in Seville drew up plans to establish a force of border police to prevent illegal immigration; the police would be free to act in any EU country. In the French town of Gap a woman was given a suspended sentence for insulting police 702 times in 45 days by calling them homosexual. Spain passed a law banning parties linked to terrorism, including Batasuna, the political wing of Eta, the Basque nationalist terrorists, A summit of the Group of Eight nations was held at Kananaskis, Alberta, chosen for its isolation to deter anti-capitalist protesters. Forest fires destroyed scores of houses in Arizona. Thousands were left homeless by an earthquake that killed more than 200 people in an area 150 miles west of Tehran, More than 100 were killed and hundreds injured when a passenger train ran backwards downhill and hit a freight train near Dodorna in Tanzania. Lowe's servaline genet, a 3ft mammal first described in 1932, was rediscovered and photographed in Tanzania,

CSH