PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'What do you mean oi needs "permission for change of use"?'
Mr William Hague, the leader of the opposition, said that 'bogus' asylum-seekers in London were costing taxpayers £180 mil- lion a year, the cost of 5,000 new Metropolitan Police officers. Mr David Irv- ing lost his libel case against Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the author of a book called Denying the Holocaust; Mr Justice Gray ruled that Mr Irving is 'an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right- wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism'. Mr Charles Wardle, the Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle, announced he would not stand again for the constituency after a hoo-ha about his accepting a £120,000-a-year directorship from Mr Mohamed Al Fayed, the man who runs Harrods. Mr Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, promised measures to prevent concerted overcharg- ing by motor-car suppliers after a report by the Competition Commission found that private customers were being overcharged by about £1 billion a year. An independent financial group estimated that taxpayers who were sent self-assessment forms last year had been made to pay more than £1 billion more than their dues, through errors and penalties. Mr Eddie George, the governor of the Bank of England, said he was relieved that Britain had not joined the euro system at its launch, since she would have been 'the elephant in the rowing boat'. Bids in the national auction for mobile-telephone concessions reached £16 billion after six weeks of bidding. A prop- erty developer proposed building a 1,200-ft office block at the southern end of London Bridge. Police warned City companies about sabotage by anarchists before the anti-capitalist riots planned for 1 May. RJB Mining asked for a government grant of £73 million to prevent two coalmines being closed. Andre Deutsch, the publisher, died, aged 82. Mr Bernie Grant, the Guyanese- born Labour MP for Tottenham, died, aged 56. Peter Jones, the comedy actor and panellist for 30 years on the wireless game Just a Minute, died, aged 79. The Queen conferred the George Cross on the Royal 'Ulster Constabulary. The Queen Mother was given citizenship of Volgograd.
THE violent eviction of white farmers in Zimbabwe by mobs of supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party continued; President Robert Mugabe had more sharp words for British interference in the matter while vic- tims gave harrowing accounts of their beat- ings and humiliations. Mr Chenjerai Hun- zvi, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Nation- al Liberation War Veterans Association, said that white farmers had 'declared war on us by trying to mobilise racist and impe- rialist forces against our country'. European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxem- bourg decided to ask Mr Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, to stop the war against Chechnya. Mr Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, is to meet Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Britain, in Lon- don on 17 April. President Alberto Fuji- mori of Peru almost clinched a third term in office after the first round of voting in presidential elections. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) won a third term in office after being one percentage point ahead in parliamentary elections in Greece. Deutsche Bank's planned merger with Dresdner Bank collapsed. A boat car- rying perhaps 220 illegal immigrants from the Middle East to Christmas Island, an Australian territory, sank without trace after leaving Java; 2,200 people illegally bound for Australia in boats were detected in the second half of 1999, compared to 200 in the whole of 1998. The United Cricket Board of South Africa sacked Hansie Cron- je after he admitted misleading it over irregular payments in India last month. Captain Roman Karpoukhine, a former Russian MiG-23 fighter pilot took to the bullring in Barcelona to fight under the name of Finito.
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