PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Now showing Anarchists and opponents of globalisation demonstrated in London, breaking some shop windows but in the main remaining penned up by the police in Oxford Circus. After a white calf called Phoenix was shown on television, apparently the chance survivor of a slaughtered herd, Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, announced in time for the ten o'clock news a change in the policy of slaughtering all cattle on farms next to those with outbreaks of foot-and-mouth; Mr Nick Brown, the Agriculture Minister, was not told of the change until the next morning. After ten weeks of the epidemic there had been 1,515 outbreaks, with 2,338,800 livestock slaughtered. More than 16,000 sheep buried at two sites in Wales will have to be dug up again as their carcasses are leaking into draining water. A slaughterman suspected of contracting the disease was found not to have it after all. Much entertainment was given by the naming of the first batch of 15 'people's peers', as they had been described in advance by the Prime Minister's spokesman; six of them turned out to have knighthoods already, and one was Lady Howe, a seasoned appointee on worthy committees. The government announced again proposals to give each new baby £250 or so, a sum which might grow to £3,000 by the time the child reached 18, and might be used to pay for education or social benefits not by then available from the state, or perhaps for
a holiday. The government refused to fund the new national stadium at Wembley after the Football Association said it could not afford the estimated £660 million needed. Mr John Townend, a Tory MP who is not standing for re-election, embarrassed the party leader, Mr William Hague, by saying: 'Robin Cook said himself that there is no such race as the British. What is he saying; that we are a mongrel race?' The remuneration committee of Marks & Spencer, headed by Dame Stella Rimington, the former director general of MI5, agreed to the deferment of a £704,000 bonus for the company's boss, Mr Luc Vandevelde; M&S sacked 4,000 workers a month ago. Princess Margaret was found several weeks after her third stroke to have much-impaired vision. Monica Coghlark the prostitute who did not share a room with Lord Archer in the Albion Hotel, Victoria, in 1986, died, aged 50, when her car was hit by another in which an alleged armed robber was said to be making a getaway on a moorland road in West Yorkshire.
PRESIDENT George Bush of the United States announced that he was pressing ahead with his Missile Defence System regardless of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa suggested that three veterans of the African National Congress had been plotting to kill him; Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, Mr Tokyo Sexwale and Mr Mathews Phosa found that they were under investigation by the South African police. Mr Nelson Mandela went on a tour of Britain. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe said that he could not guarantee the safety of diplomatists or aid workers who had any political involvement, because Mr Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, the leader of the War Veterans Association, had made threatening statements about them. The parliament of Indonesia voted to censure President Aburrahman Wahid, a step towards his impeachment. Six Red Cross workers were found killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where armies from six countries are at war. Albanian-speaking guerrillas killed four Macedonian policemen and four soldiers in an ambush near the village of Vejce. Mr Dennis Tito, a 60-year-old Californian, became the first paying passenger into space after the Russians accepted a £14 million fare for him to travel in one of their rockets to the International Space Station orbiting the Earth. The Pope set off to visit Greece, Syria and Malta. The Prince of Wales visited Canada and joined in the dance of a Cree Indian. A nine-year-old boy was killed by a dingo on Fraser Island off Queensland. A 65year-old woman, the second such victim in a month, died after being stung by a swarm of bees at the village of Golden Grove near Georgetown, Guyana.
CSH
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