Q ueen Elizabeth the Queen Mother died at Royal Lodge, Windsor,
while asleep, at 3.15 p.m. on 30 March, aged 101; the Queen was at her side. The Queen Mother, who was born on 4 August 1900, is to be buried in the same vault as her husband George VI at St George's Chapel, Windsor, after a funeral in Westminster Abbey on 9 April; the opportunity will be taken to bury the container of the ashes of Princess Margaret in the same vault. The Queen Mother's body was to lie in state for three days in Westminster Hall. A 41-gun salute was sounded. Parliament was recalled for a day. The BBC had told its announcers not to wear black ties when they read the news of the death. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, prepared to fly off for talks about the crisis in the Middle East with President George Bush of the United States, to return in time for the funeral. Republican terrorists were implicated in the theft of Special Branch documents from Castlereagh police station in Belfast. The army moved to prohibit soldiers under 18 from fighting abroad, in order to comply with a United Nations protocol. Yarl's Wood detention centre, where a riot by asylum-seekers caused £38 million of damage, closed because no insurance could be secured for it. A parliamentary group called Labour Against the Euro, co-ordinated by Ian Davidson, the Labour
MP for Glasgow Pollock, said it had attracted the support of 30 Labour MPs and peers, including Lord Healey, the former chancellor. Delegates at the National Union of Teachers conference heckled Miss Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, when she told them not to go on strike. Barry Took, the comedy scriptwriter, died, aged 73. Oxford won the 148th Boat Race. Tony McCoy rode his 270th winner of the season, beating the record set by Sir Gordon Richards in 1947. A string of 100 vehicles crashing in fog on the M40 in Oxfordshire killed two and left 20,000 vehicles trapped in a nine-mile traffic jam. Rabbits were accused of spreading to cattle bacteria that could cause Crohn's disease in human beings.
WITH repeated Palestinian suicide bombings killing civilians every few days, Israel launched military action against Palestinian positions. It mobilised 20,000 reservists; 'The state of Israel is in a war against terrorism,' said its Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon. With the help of tank fire it surrounded and occupied the headquarters in Ramallah of President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, and after Easter sent tanks into Bethlehem. A UN resolution backed by the United States called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israel from areas of Palestini
an self-rule. Crude oil futures rose about $27 in response to uncertainty in the Middle East. Ms Peta Thornycroft, the 57-year-old Daily Telegraph correspondent in Zimbabwe, was held in prison for four days on incoherent charges. In Ukrainian parliamentary elections, a pro-reform coalition led by the former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, failed to defeat supporters of the government of President Leonid Kuchma, which has been marred by scandals; a coalition looked likely. Tens of thousands marched in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, in an attempt to bring down the Communist government of President Vladimir Voronin. In Kazakhstan, Mr Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, a leader of the opposition Democratic Choice party, which criticises the authoritarianism of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, took refuge in the French embassy in Almaty. Berbers protested in Algeria against being treated badly in general. The Pope had trouble with his arthritic knee but still managed to spend six hours celebrating Masses for Easter. Billy Wilder, the director of Sunset Boulevard, The Front Page and other films, died, aged 95. Six drowned in heavy rain on Tenerife. An earthquake in Taipei sent two cranes plunging from the 60th floor of a building intended to be 1,674ft tall if completed.
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