PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The government was defeated in the Lords by 270 votes to 228 over its attempt to repeal Section 28 of the Local Govern- ment Act, which prohibits local authorities from promoting homosexuality in schools in England and Wales; the government sulkily admitted it would not try to push the measure through in this parliamentary ses- sion. A man in Manchester found his house surrounded by a mob chanting 'Pae- dophile!' when he was mistaken for one of the convicted paedophiles whose pho- tographs and addresses were carried in the News of the World despite police advice that this would be counterproductive. Most of the murderers in the Maze prison were let out, under the Good Friday Agreement. Ms Christine Gwyther was sacked as the Agri- culture Secretary of the Welsh Assembly by Mr Rhodri Morgan, its First Secretary, on the eve of the Royal Welsh Show; Welsh sheep farmers had complained that, since she was a vegetarian, it was like having an atheist selling Bibles. Mr John Prescott, the deputy prime minister and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, announced a ten-year plan for transport, which involved extra spending on railways to make travel by motor car less attractive, and extra spending on bypasses to make travel by motor car more attrac- tive. The government explained how much better the National Health Service would be now that it was going to spend extra money on it. Dentists are to be prohibited from 2002 from administering general anaesthetic in most of their surgeries. The British Medical Association condemned the prescription of drugs after consultations made merely on the Internet. The ITC told ITV to put the 11 o'clock news on earlier, because it had lost a million viewers since it was moved from 10 o'clock. The Equitable Life ended its commitment to mutual own- ership by putting itself up for sale as a con- sequence of a verdict by the Lords which found unlawful its refusal to honour under- takings in its policies. Very small cracks were found in the wings of all seven of British Airways' Concordes. Tiger Woods set a record of 19 under par at St Andrews in winning all four major golf champi- onships at the age of 24. Fire raged at the Thorpe Park funfair. A boy fell to his death from a ride at Blackpool pleasure beach.
HEADS of government of the G8 group of industrialised countries (the USA, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia) met in Japan to discuss the intolerable burden of debt on poorer coun- tries; it was said that Japan had spent the improbable sum of £500 million to make the meeting comfortable. President Vladimir Putin of Russia made himself popular at the summit, and even his pro- posal that G8 leaders should exchange email addresses was listened to politely. President William Clinton of the USA, while in Japan, had one eye on the talks at Camp David between Mr Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Mr Yasser Arafat, the President of the Palestinian entity; the talks failed. An Air France Con- corde crashed on take-off in Paris killing all 109 on board and four on the ground. Crown Prince Hamzeh ibn Hussein of Jor- dan made a parachute jump from a trans- port plane which then crashed, killing the remaining 14 soldiers on board. In Indone- sia the Islamic guerrillas Ahlussunnah Wal- jamaah threatened to send 1,300 more men to the Molucca islands where 4,000 have been killed in 18 months of Muslim— Christian bloodshed; the Indonesian mili- tary had intended to deport another 1,900 guerrillas from the islands. Mr George W. Bush chose Mr Dick Cheney as his run- ning-mate for the American presidency. Turkey is to sell tankers of water to Israel. Central Park in New York City was closed after mosquitoes were found there which carried the much feared West Nile virus that killed seven and infected 62 others in the city last year.
CSH
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