PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Who the right one to govern Cool Britannia? It your choice Athe Conservative party conference, Mr William Hague, the leader of the opposi- tion, said he would combat crime and other evils in inner cities. Miss Ann Widdecombe proposed a law against people having traces of drugs in their blood. Mr Michael Portillo, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, said the Tories would have to stick to Labour spending plans at first, but that tax penalties on private health insurance would then be removed in order to increase total spending on health care; in a speech given without notes he said, with regard to Europe, 'Antes de que to cases, aura lo que hates.' The Human Rights Act incorporated into the law of England and Wales the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights signed in Rome 50 years ago, and the protocols updat- ing it. Mr David Trimble, who faces trouble from the Ulster Unionist party, which he leads, attacked the 'cravenness' of the gov- ernment in granting concessions to the Irish Republican Army despite its refusal to decommission arms. The last prisoners were transferred from the Maze prison, protesting that they might be in danger in any other jail where political prisoners are not recognised. Reginald Kray, the gangster, murderer and twin of the late Ronald, died, aged 66. Sir Fred Pontin, whose holiday camps attracted a million guests a year, died, aged 93. Mr James Dyson won a High Court action against Hoover, which was found to have copied his centrifugal vacuum cleaner. The trade union Unison took action against the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which prohibits its workers from smoking in coun- cil offices or anywhere near a public entrance. British athletes won 11 gold, ten silver and seven bronze medals in the Olympics, the best tally since 1920. A Glaswegian PE teacher needed surgery for frostbite after using a packet of frozen chips to soothe her swollen foot. The Post Office decided to carry pictures of acrobats at the Millennium Dome on a second-class stamp instead of a first-class one as planned. A for- mer taxi-driver in Budapest, Mr Huba Campbell, was claimed as the rightful 11th Earl Breadalbane.
FIGHTING broke out between Palestinians and Israeli forces after a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site also sacred to Muslims, by Mr Ariel Sharon, the leader of the hardline Likud party. In five days more than 50 Palestinians were killed, including four aged under 16; violence spread beyond east Jerusalem and the West Bank into Arab villages in Israel proper, and Israel deployed tanks. The United States secretary of state Madeleine Albright met Mr Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister of Israel, and President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian entity in Paris. President Vladimir Putin of Russia sent diplomatists to Yugoslavia to ask President Slobodan Milosevic if he will recognise his electoral defeat by the opposi- tion leader Mr Vojislav Kostunica; the opposition called a general strike and boy- cotted a second round of voting which the Yugoslav government had arranged on the grounds that Mr Kostunica had failed to secure 50 per cent of the vote. Mr Suharto, who ruled Indonesia for 32 years until 1998, was declared by doctors to be too sick to stand trial for corruption. The Pope canon- ised 120 people martyred in China, many during the Boxer rebellion; China denounced them as 'evil-doing sinners'. An association of Hungarian prostitutes calling itself Siva, the Hungarian version of Shiva, decided to seek a new name after com- plaints from Hindus. Floods drowned hun- dreds and affected more than six million in south-east Asia, particularly in the Mekong delta in Vietnam and Cambodia. Spanish police arrested a record 415 illegal immi- grants trying to cross the Straits of Gibraltar in one day, bringing the total for the year to more than 10,000, twice the figure for the whole of last year. At a bullfight at Las Ven- tas, Madrid, seven bulls refused to fight in one afternoon, and the angry crowd threw cushions.
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