PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`Oh, it's you, Gordon. For a moment you gave me quite a start.'
Shares slumped and the pound strength- ened as Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made unclear statements that could be interpreted as ruling out Britain's entry into European Monetary Union in 1999; rumour was also fed by Mr Charles Whelan, Mr Brown's special advis- er or spin doctor, at the Red Lion public house in Parliament Street. 'If we do not join in 1999, then we will need a period of stability, without continual speculation,' Mr Brown said innocently; there were five eco- nomic tests that Britain must apply when considering membership: jobs, investment, the impact on financial services, the flexi- bility of the member economies and the convergence of their business cycles. Mr Brown also had the task of starting up the new Stock Exchange computer; while he stood in front of a display board it turned red as dealers hurriedly sold billions of pounds of shares. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, presented delegates to the Com- monwealth conference in Edinburgh with a video called Britain: The Young Country in an attempt to `rebrand the nation. A new picture of the Queen's head is to appear on stamps. Elton John's recording of the re- written version of 'Candle In The Wind' used at Diana, Princess of Wales's funeral, has sold 31.8 million, more than Bing Cros- by's 'White Christmas'. Westminster Abbey is to place ten statues of '20th-century saints' above the West door, including Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximilian Kolbe and Oscar Romero. The prison population reached 63,000, an increase of 50 per cent in five years. Ken- neth Wood, the inventor of the Kenwood food mixers, died, aged 81. Hundreds of Gypsies from the Czech Republic and Slo- vakia began arriving at Dover and other Channel ports to claim political asylum, after having seen a Czech television pro- gramme on British housing and benefits given to refugees.
THE UNITED States Justice Department sought to fine Microsoft, the computer company, $1 million a day for allegedly vio- lating monopoly laws. France is to begin in the spring to mint more than seven billion euro coins to replace francs in 2002. Gen- eral Denis Sassou-Nguesso, a former dicta- tor of the Republic of Congo, retook con- trol of the country after his Cobra militia captured the capital, Brazzaville. A refugee from Burma said that the government there was using forced labour to build a marine national park for tourists on Lampi Island in the Andaman Sea. Algeria allowed Western journalists to visit the sites of massacres it blamed on Islamic extremists; some of the journalists implicat- ed the government in some of the murders. Hong Kong banned the film Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt, lest it annoy China. Saudi Arabia banned foreign com- panies from exploring for natural gas reserves for the foreseeable future. Ecuador, the world's biggest exporter of bananas, demanded that the European Union should comply with a ruling by the World Trade Organisation to reform its banana import regime. Mr Craig Brown, an English ex-Guardsman, set a new record by crossing Australia (about 2,700 miles) on foot in 77 days. In Singapore 5,000 people in one week telephoned a Clean Public Toilets hotline to name 'model' lavatories as part of a government drive. The British Foreign Office announced a package of British television programmes, including Only Fools and Horses, to be broadcast in Bosnia instead of propaganda by Dr Radovan Karadjic. CSFI
Previous page
