PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Near misses The Labour-dominated Commons select committee on transport lambasted the min- istry run by Mr John Prescott. His achieve- ments were 'largely confined to the publica- tion of documents and policy statements', the committee said; Mr Prescott said: 'I feel like a fox.' Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Conser- vative former chancellor, said he would back Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister and lead- er of the Labour party, in his endorsement of the Britain in Europe campaign. The Gov- ernment's Annual Report, 1998-99, went on sale, even in some branches of Tesco, at £2.99. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, presented it to the people at the Homerton Hospital, Hackney, where Mrs Miriam Lewis, aged 82, complained of long waits in the National Health sector, including those for chiropodists. 'It might not sound.impor- tant to you,' she said, tut it's very important for some people.' Mr Blair replied: 'Well, that's me told — and exactly as it should be.' Dr Mo Mowlam disappeared on holiday, upset by stories planted by sources inside the government which predicted she would be removed from her post as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Lord Melchett, a for- mer Labour minister and the executive director of Greenpeace, who was to have flown off to Tanzania on holiday, was instead remanded in custody when 28 were charged with theft and criminal damage after the destruction of a field of genetically modified maize being monitored by scien- tists. Air traffic control is to be privatised with 49 per cent being sold off; the Labour party had opposed any such action when it was in opposition. The Conservative candi- date won a by-election at Eddisbury, with a majority of 1,606, compared with a majority of 1,185 at the general election. Barclays appointed Mr Matthew Barrett, of the Bank of Montreal, as its new chief executive; he is expected to be paid £2.5 million for his first year. Barclays' last chief executive, Mr Michael O'Neill, had resigned on his first day on health grounds. Mr Ian Byatt, the director general of water services, called for an average reduction in water prices of 14 per cent (about £40) over the next five years.
THIRTEEN Serbian men and a boy were murdered while they were harvesting at Gracko, ten miles south of Pristina in Koso- vo. Of 160,000 Serbs living in Kosovo, about 100,000 are thought to have fled for their lives. The United States promised $500 mil- lion of aid for reconstruction in Kosovo; countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have refused such aid to Serbia while President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power. Mr Vuk Draskovic, a nationalist Serbian opposition leader, addressed a rally of 25,000 in the city of Nis. Mr Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister of Israel, met Mr Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian entity at the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip for peace talks. Government troops shelled Ugandan-backed Congolese rebels led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose 10,000 troops continued to advance on Kinshasa, intent on overthrowing President Laurent Kabila despite a peace agreement signed on 10 July. In Switzerland 18 died when a flood over- whelmed them as they pursued the pastime of 'canyoning' in a narrow ravine. Two men and a woman appeared in court in Florida charged with sending by post to addresses in the Republic of Ireland packages of guns and ammunition destined for Northern Ireland. Chinese police arrested 5,000 members of the millions-strong Falun Gong sect, which has now been declared an 'anti-government political force'. Russia, which has more than a million prisoners, announced plans to release 300,000 over the next 18 months. A man from Cheshire was among 95 arrested by Spanish police who said they had uncov- ered an operation smuggling 54 tons of mari- juana from Morocco. King Hassan of Moroc- co, who had reigned for 38 years, died, aged 70; President Bill Clinton of the United States and the Prince of Wales were among those at his funeral. Dou Dou, the world's oldest panda, died, aged 37, in Wuhan zoo. CSH
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