PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`No, hang on! It's Gore! I mean Bush! Daffy Duck . . . ?' The government committed itself to providing at any time 12,500 troops, 72 combat aircraft and 18 warships to a pro- posed European Union force. Lady Thatcher said: 'I prefer Nato.' The public sector was found to be £11 billion in credit in the seven months up to October, giving Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, scope to make tax cuts in next spring's Budget. The Disqualifications Bill, introduced by the government to allow members of the Irish Dail to sit in the Par- liament at Westminster and the Northern Ireland Assembly, was defeated in the Lords by 165 to 152. Thirty-seven Labour MPs rebelled in a Commons vote over leg- islation to privatise air-traffic control. Mr Dennis Canavan, the MP for Falkirk West, decided not to rejoin the Labour party but to give up his seat and force a by-election. Mr Gerald Corbett resigned as the chief executive of Railtrack, from which he had offered his resignation just before under- taking the current programme of track clo- sures and speed limits which have made much rail travel impossible; he is to receive a pay-off of more than his annual salary of £375,000. About 128,000 pensioners have been underpaid by £340 a year through the failures of a National Insurance computer system. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommended that the anti-flu drug zanamivir, known as Relenza, should be prescribed through the National Health Service to people at risk, such as those over 65; the advice reverses last year's. A government auction of radio spectra, intended, like the auction of mobile- telephone frequencies, to raise hundreds of millions, flopped with a taking of only £38 million, with many licences remaining unsold. Mr Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, cancelled a New Year's Eve fire- work display, complaining of London Underground's refusal to run services; Mr Bob Geldof, who was to have organised the event, said he was 'unspeakably cross'. Miss Nicole Appleton, a singer with All Saints, is to bear a child by Mr Liam Gal- lagher, a singer with Oasis. Russ Conway, the nine-fingered pianist who sold 30 mil- lion copies of such records as `Pixilated Penguin', died, aged 75. The statue of Sir Walter Ralegh in Whitehall, which is out of scale with the big statues next to it, is to be moved to Greenwich.
ISRAELI helicopter gunships fired dozens of rockets at the Gaza Strip and blocked the main road in the territory, where a mil- lion Palestinians live; the action was in retaliation for a Palestinian bombing of a school bus, killing two Israelis and wound- ing children. Egypt withdrew its ambas- sador from Israel. President William Clin- ton of the United States visited Hanoi, where he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds: 'America is coming to see Vietnam as your people have asked us to for years,' he said in a speech, 'as a country and not a war.' Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Britain, visited President Vladimir Putin of Russia; the two went to a beer hall for a meal and called each other Tony and Volodya. President Alberto Fujimori of Peru resigned. A Briton working in Saudi Arabia died when his motor-car blew up in Riyadh. The Duke of York visited Saudi Arabia and Oman. A rocket grenade launched by Euzkadi to Azkatasuna, the Basque nationalist terrorists, against a Civil Guard barracks in Irun, fell among 30 children in a school playground, but did not explode; but ETA did succeed in shooting a former health minister in the head — the 21st person to be murdered in ten months. Rajkumar, the very popular Indian film actor, was released after 108 days' captivity by Veerapan, the outlaw wanted for the murder of 120 people and the killing of 2,000 elephants. Miss Cather- ine Zeta Jones, aged 31, married Mr Michael Douglas, aged 56, at the Plaza Hotel, New York. A bow-head whale was found to be 210 years aid. CSH
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