PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Acourt ruled that Britain was detaining nine suspected foreign terrorists illegally because, under the Human Rights Act, internment should not apply only to foreigners and not to British nationals. Two former nursery nurses were each awarded E200,000 damages because an inquiry by a Newcastle upon Tyne panel falsely accused them of sexually abusing children. The High Court rejected an application by Westminster Council for a judicial review of the plan by Mr Ken Livingstone to charge cars £5 for entering central London. Families of the 29 people killed in the Omagh bombing in 1998 served writs for damages on five men suspected of being behind the atrocity. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, answering questions from the press on the eve of the long summer Commons recess, declined to give an undertaking that Parliament would be given a vote before any military action was taken against Iraq. The Blairs are to take part of their holiday at the Château du Moulin in Le Vernet near Toulouse. In late August Mr Blair, Mrs Margaret Beckett, Mr Michael Meacher and Miss Clare Short, with 70 officials, will attend the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that talks with Spain would continue, whatever the outcome of a referendum arranged by Gibraltar on whether Spain should share sovereignty over it with Britain. The Commonwealth Games were held in Manchester. The FT-SE index of shares rallied after falling below 4000 at the end of one day's trading. The government said that it would subsidise organic farmers by up to £150 an acre with money from the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. Mr Michael Boyd took over as artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Mr Alan Duncan, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, announced that he was homosexual. In Liverpool, a robber was convicted after DNA in his dandruff matched that found at off-licences he had raided. Mr George Best. the former football player renowned for his drinking, had a liver transplant. Mr Jeremy Vine, aged 37, is to replace Sir Jimmy Young, who does not give his age in Who's Who but is probably 80, as a presenter on Radio Two from January.
PRESIDENT Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda signed a peace accord by which Rwanda would withdraw 30,000 troops in return for Congo repatriating 12,000 Hutu militia believed to have taken part in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994; more than two million are thought to have died during the war in Congo, which has involved armies from six African countries. In central Zimbabwe, where famine is spreading, supporters
of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were turned away from grain stores controlled by government supporters. The Pope told 800,000 people at World Youth Day in Toronto that they should not let a few bad priests affect their faith; he then flew to Mexico to canonise a 16th-century visionary called Juan Diego at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The four Islamist militants charged with killing 17 Christians at Bahawalpur in Pakistan last year were shot dead during what was said to be an escape attempt while they were being moved by road. Nine miners trapped by floodwater in a coalmine at Oueereek. Pennsylvania, were rescued through a 240ft borehole after 77 hours in the dark and cold. The Dow Jones share index rallied after falling to 8125 at the end of one day's trading as inquiries began into the book-keeping of the media group AOL Time Warner. Mr Thomas Middelhoff suddenly relinquished his position as chief executive of 13ertelsmann, the privately owned German media group; he had sought a stock-market listing for the group. The European Commission invoked the 'excessive deficits procedure' under Article 104 against Portugal to force it to take austerity measures to bring its budget deficit within 3 per cent of gross domestic product, after it was discovered to be 4.1 per cent.
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