PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Golden oldie The nation celebrated the Queen's Golden Jubilee. There was a small fire at Buckingham Palace but this hardly compared to the loud pop concert held in the palace grounds, followed by a great fireworks display and the lighting of beacons. The next day the Queen in the Gold State Coach went in procession to St Paul's, carnival dancers and gospel singers filled the Mall, and on her return crowds sang 'Land of Hope and Glory' as the Queen thrice appeared on the balcony of the palace, around which there were said to be a million gathered. Thousands held street parties in their own towns. In the reshuffle celebrating the departure of Mr Stephen Byers as Secretary of State for Transport, Mr Alistair Darling was given his post. He soon remarked on the foolishness of suggestions made by Lord Birt, an adviser to the Prime Minister, in favour of toll motorways in paralld with free ones; 'Britain isn't big enough for us to be pouring more and more concrete over its green and pleasant land,' he said. Mr Paul Boateng became Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and it was noted that he was the first black man in the Cabinet. Local government and regional policy was transferred to a new department of the Deputy Prime Minister under Mr John Prescott. Mr David Lammy, aged 29, was appointed a health minister; Mr David Miliband, aged 36, was appointed an education minister. Mr David
Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said that he would put provisions into nationality legislation before Parliament in order to send 30,000 asylum-seekers straight back to France; this did not convince the French. The England football team drew one-all against Sweden in its first match of the World Cup, followed by a game against Argentina. Five were shot in four nights of rioting in north and east Belfast; on one night, 13 rounds were fired at security forces, who returned six rounds. Belfast set about electing Mr Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein councillor, as its lord mayor. Mr Ken Livingstone, aged 57, the mayor of London, is to have a baby with his girlfriend. The Millennium Dome was given away by the government to the Anschutz corporation, an American enterprise that plans to turn it into a 20,000-seat entertainment arena. Mr Bobby Waugh, a farmer at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, was convicted of failing to notify the authorities that his pigs had foot-and-mouth disease at the beginning of last year's epidemic. The BBC found a way of remotely triggering digital video recorders to tape the first episode of a new comedy by Caroline Aherne.
INDIA and Pakistan, which both hold nuclear arms, stood on the brink of war over Kashmir. Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the American secretary of state, visited Pakistan in an attempt to avert disaster. Mr Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, visited New Delhi, and British nationals were advised to leave the subcontinent. A dozen British special forces troopers set about a search for Mullah Mohammed Omar in central Afghanistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Jihad group set off a car bomb at Megiddo in Israel next to a crowded bus, killing 17 people. Intruders shot dead a white farmer in Zimbabwe, the twelfth to die since government-backed seizures of land began more than two years ago. Hansie Cronje, the South African cricketer disgraced over a bribery scandal, was killed in an air crash, aged 32. Of the 8,633 candidates for the French parliamentary elections, 115 were found to be facing criminal investigation. The Bosnian Red Cross asked Mrs Liljana Zelen Karadzic, the wife of Mr Radovan Karadzic, who is wanted for war crimes, to step down as its head; she accused it of political bias. The Swiss voted by 72 per cent in a referendum to allow abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The United States and Mexico fell out over water from the Rio Grande, on both sides of which farms are suffering from drought. Gondoliers blocked the Grand Canal in Venice in protest against illegal immigration. A tall Abyssinian obelisk that stands in Rome was struck by lightning, which broke off chunks from the top.
CSH
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