M r Tony Blair, on a visit to Bristol by train
(which was only 11 minutes late), said that economic stability was a great consideration, and someone threw tomatoes at him, one of which spattered his coat. Mr Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, backed union action in opposition to a private-public partnership for the Underground, on a principle of safety: 'If the trade unionists take the decision for industrial action, I will join them on the picket lines,' he said. The Northern Ireland Sentence Review Commission overturned an earlier decision to release from jail Johnny Adair, of the Ulster Freedom Fighters. Dr Harold Shipman, who is serving a jail sentence for killing 25 women patients, was said by a Department of Health report to have killed perhaps 300 more patients. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who murdered two-year-old James Bulger eight years ago when they were ten, benefited from a judgment in the High Court prohibiting newspapers in England and Wales from giving their identities or whereabouts after their release. The defendant in a murder trial at the Old Bailey jumped from the dock at Judge Ann Goddard, punching her and cutting her brow. Customs officers impounded £40,000 that Sir Michael
Stoute, the racehorse trainer, was taking to his home in Barbados; the action was taken under the Drugs Trafficking Act, even though it was acknowledged that there was no evidence of a drug connection. The Ministry of Defence is to screen servicemen for leukaemia after a scare about the carcinogenic effects of depleted uranium shells used in the former Yugoslavia and the Gulf. Mr Greg Dyke, the director-general of the BBC, said that it was 'hideously white'. The Post Office changed its name to Consignia; 'The new name describes the full scope of what the Post Office does,' said Mr John Roberts, its chief executive. The Prince of Wales broke part of his shoulder bone in a fall while hunting. The moon was eclipsed for three hours.
PRESIDENT William Clinton of the United States failed to secure agreement in peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. Hundreds of Turkish troops pushed 100 miles into a Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq as part of a large offensive against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' party, which is at war with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Mr Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party won an election landslide to make him Prime Minister, provided that a constitutional election commission does not disqualify him for failing to declare huge financial assets. After 19 years President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana peacefully handed over power to the electorally victorious opposition. President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast said that he had defeated a coup. Lafarge, the French builders' group, made a £4.5 billion takeover bid for Blue Circle, the cement company. De Beers, the diamond group, negotiated the possibility of selling its brand name to a luxury goods company. Australian immigration officials told more than 100 athletes from the Olympic and Paralympic Games, including eight Britons, who had overstayed their visas to go home. The first few million of 70 million expected pilgrims began to bathe in the Ganges at Allahabad as part of the 42day Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela. Thieves stole the hair of Jimmy Zambo, the Hungarian pop star known as 'The King', who had fatally shot himself by accident; the hair had been removed for a brain operation that failed. Venice was flooded for 16 days in a row. Temperatures in central Siberia fell to minus 57C, the lowest for a century.
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