PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB negoti- ated to buy Manchester United for £575 million rising to £624 million within a cou- ple of days; Mr Peter Mandelson, the Sec- retary of State for Trade and Industry, said he would take note of whatever the Office of Fair Trading told him. Mr William Hague, the Conservative leader, announced a snap ballot of party members over his policy on the single European currency, the result of which will be announced in time for the Conservative party conference. The Conservative whip was suspended from the Earl of Hardwicke after a Sunday newspa- per said its reporter had discussed with him in the House of Lords how to get hold of cocaine. The think-tank Demos, the head of which is on secondment to the Downing Street policy unit, recommended that the monarchy be modernised by, for example, severing its links with the Church of Eng- land and allowing each new monarch to be subjected to a referendum between acces- sion and coronation; the government immediately said it did not agree. The Real IRA, which murdered 29 people with a bomb at Omagh, said it would now observe a ceasefire; its members had shortly before been visited by members of the Irish Republican Army who threatened to kill them if they did not disband. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, shook hands with Mr Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn Fein, the political face of the IRA, and called him 'Gerry'. Mr David Trimble, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, met Mr Adams, but said it would be 'inappropriate' to shake his hand. Fujitsu, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, is closing its microchip factory at Newton Aycliffe, Co. Durham, with the loss of 570 jobs; the plant happens to be in the constituency. of Mr Blair. Professor Geoffrey Almond, the chairman of the sheep subcommittee of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Com- mittee, said: 'I think there is a distinct possi- bility that BSE is out there in the sheep pop- ulation.' But Lord Sainsbury, the Minister for Science, said it would not stop him eat- ing lamb: 'I had a French mother,' he said, 'and was taught that food comes first and health comes second.' Joe McCarthy, a sur- vivor of the Dambusters raid, died, aged 79. Three people were found axed to death in a house in Slough after the neighbours com- plained of a smell.
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton of the United States much cheered the people of North- ern Ireland by a visit with his wife, Hillary. But he was criticised during his absence by Senator Joseph Lieberman, a political ally for 28 years, who accused him of 'decep- tion' about his sexual behaviour with Miss Monica Lewinslcy; Mr Clinton then said for the first time that he was 'sorry'. The Com- munist-dominated Russian Duma again rejected President Boris Yeltsin's nominee for prime minister, Mr Viktor Cher- nomyrdin. Mr Jean-Paul Akayesu, the for- mer prime minister of Rwanda, was sen- tenced by a United Nations international tribunal to life imprisonment on charges of genocide for his part in the deaths of half a million or so Tutsis in his country in 1994. A Swiss aeroplane crashed into the sea off Nova Scotia, killing 229. In Malaysia, host to the Commonwealth Games, the former deputy prime minister and fmance minister, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, sacked a week earlier amid allegations of sexual misconduct, criti- cised Mr Mahathir Mohamad, the Prime Minister. In Indonesia hundreds of stu- dents tore down the gates of Parliament and threw plastic bottles at police in a demonstration against President B.J. Habl- bie; on the same day thousands of people rampaged through the town of Kebumen central Java, burning and looting Chinese owned shops. President Habibie plans to visit Mr Mahathir next month. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia embarked on a tour of Britain, France and the United States. Akira Kurosawa, the director of The Seven Samurai, died, aged 88. The Ganges rose to its highest level ever.
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