T he government pushed ahead with the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security
Bill, which does away with habeas corpus for detained foreigners suspected of terrorism and allows different government departments to send round confidential information about people. Mrs Cherie Blair said that in Afghanistan under the Taleban, if you wear nail polish you can have your nails torn'. Police found a 600lb car bomb when they stopped a Vauxhall Astra at Killylea near Armagh There was a flurry of press stories about rivally between Mr Blair and Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, the Financial Times said, 'shouted and swore' after a meeting with Mr Blair. Mr Frank Field said Mr Brown should be sacked; Mr Blair further provoked Mr Brown by making a pro-euro speech to a Social Democrat rally at Nuremberg. On the euro,' he said, if the economic tests are met, whose assessment will be complete within two years of the start of the Parliament, we are committed to holding a referendum and joining the single currency. And we believe that its success is critical to us all.' The European Court of Justice found unlawful the practice of buying Levi jeans cheap outside Europe and selling them at prices lower than the makers' recommended price. After the High Court found that cloning was not after all regulated by existing laws, the government
said it would rush legislation through on the matter within days. Consignia, as the Post Office now calls itself, plans to abolish second deliveries and to charge extra to customers who want post delivered before 9.30 a.m. The General Medical Council found there was no case to answer by a doctor who had been accused by Worcestershire Health Authority of serious misconduct for giving single injections instead of a joint one for measles, mumps and rubella. The Prince of Wales wore an eye-patch after getting sawdust in his eye while sawing a tree at home in Gloucestershire. A tongue-piercer was fined by a Scottish sheriff for being drunk while practising at a rock festival.
THE Northern Alliance and other Afghan notables agreed to attend talks in Berlin arranged by the United Nations special envoy, Mr Francesc Vendrell, to seek a new government of Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghan and foreign Taleban soldiers in the northern city of Kunduz were surrounded by Northern Alliance troops. Northern Alliance said that it did not want more foreign soldiers in the country after a hundred British members of the Special Boat Section had secured Bagram airport. A cinema in Kabul showed the first film since the takeover by the Taleban, a tale of mujahedin resistance to Russian occupation, watched by 600 men; women were not admitted. Mrs Laura Bush said that in Afghanistan 'the Taleban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish'. Her husband George, the President of the United States, entertained 53 Muslim ambassadors to a Ramadan iftar or breakfast. An unopened letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, postmarked on 9 October in Trenton, New Jersey, was found to have shed 23.000 anthrax spores into a plastic evidence bag. General Colin Powell, the American secretary of state, said that Palestinian children should not be shot and that Israeli settlement on Palestinian territory was an obstacle to stability. In Barcelona, Mr Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, held talks with his Spanish counterpart, Mr Josep Pique; the sovereignty of Gibraltar was on the agenda. The Democratic League of Kosovo won the largest share of votes in elections, allowing its leader, Mr Ibraham Rugova, to become President. The Socialist candidate and former communist, Mr Georgi Parvanov, was elected President of Bulgaria, whose Prime Minister is the former king, Simeon Saxe-Coburgotski. Followers of a deposed Anglican bishop, Peter el-Berish, unfrocked for seducing two Nuba women, attempted to storm Khartoum episcopal cathedral during a Sunday service held by the Rt Revd Bulus Idris Tia, whom he had wrongly accused of being a sorcerer.
Previous page
