PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Members of the Tory party rolling the world's biggest joint for the Guinness Book of Records at Bournemouth some years ago The names of four people interviewed by police in connection with the bombing at Omagh were broadcast on Panorama, the BBC Television current affairs pro- gramme. Mr Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach of Ireland, visited Downing Street for pre- viously arranged talks with Mr Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister. Mr Blair visited Poland and called for the expanded Euro- pean Union to be 'a superpower but not a superstate': a 'Europe of free, indepen- dent, sovereign nations who choose to pool that sovereignty in pursuit of their own interests and the common good'. Eight members of the shadow Cabinet admitted to having smoked cannabis; no members of the Cabinet would admit as much. The government resolved to remove the regula- tory powers of the governors of the BBC after they assented to the sudden moving of the Nine o'Clock News to 10 p.m. Rail- track, instead of improving its service as required by the regulator, was responsible for 10 per cent more delays in the first half of the financial year; if the same perfor- mance continues until next March, it faces a fine of £70 million. Mr Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, appointed as com- missioner of transport for London, Mr Robert Kiley, who transformed the New York subways after a tussle with trade unions. Lazard's, a financial adviser to the government, recommended that the Mil- lennium Dome be demolished to maximise returns on its sale. Dame Helena Shovel- ton resigned as chairman of the National Lottery Commission after criticism of her handling of the next franchises for it. Mr Kevin Keegan resigned as the England football manager after the team lost to Germany in the last match to be held in the present stadium at Wembley. Mr Don- ald Dewar, aged 63, was struck down by a brain haemorrhage. Headline inflation rose from 3 to 3.3 per cent; the underlying rate from 1.9 to 2.2 per cent. Londoners were each found to collect 2.29 grams of dirt a day on their faces, a total of seven tons a day.
HUNDREDS of thousands of Serbs gath- ered in Belgrade and some stormed the parliament building, with the eventual acquiescence of the armed police, to ensure that the rule of President Slobodan Milosevic should end and that Mr Vojislav Kostunica, the man elected in his stead as President of Yugoslavia, should take over. Prominent among those who captured the building were supporters of Red Star Bel- grade football club. Mr Kostunica, a Serb nationalist, declined to hand Mr Milosevic over for trial by the United Nations war crimes tribunal; Mr Marko Milosevic, son of the former president, was refused entry when he tried to flee to China. Violence continued between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, with daily deaths; Joseph's tomb, a Jewish holy site, was ransacked. Mr Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister of Israel, extended a deadline after which he would break off peace talks. Mr Morgan Tsvangi- rai, the president of the opposition Move- ment for Democratic Change, returned to Zimbabwe after saying in South Africa: `We say to Robert Mugabe, if you don't want to go peacefully, we will remove you violently.' Rioting by pro-independence activists in West Papua, an Indonesian province, left 30 dead. A European Union directive banning advertisements for tobac- co (made under laws governing the single market) was overturned by the European Court of Justice. Eighty cardinals and 1,500 bishops from round the world joined the Pope in dedicating the world to the Virgin Mary, a statue of whom was brought for the occasion from Fatima in Portugal. Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, a former prime minister of Sri Lanka and the first woman prime minister in the world, died, aged 84. Primary schools in Singapore were closed in an attempt to stem an out- break of the highly contagious hand, foot and mouth disease.
CSH
Previous page
