PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Tony Blair at the helm of the new privatised control tower at Milbank Mr Frank Dobson, the choice of the national Labour leadership, beat Mr Ken Livingstone in the polls to decide who would stand as the Labour candidate for Mayor of London, by 51.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent of the electoral college; the college was much weighted, though, in favour of parliamentary party votes, and the world waited to see if Mr Livingstone would stand as an independent. The government was defeated in the Lords over its refusal to allow a free mail-shot to candidates for Mayor of London. An 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old man, both Protestants, were found stabbed to death in a country lane at Tandragee, Co. Armagh. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate said that there were 'systematic management failures' at British Nuclear Fuels's Sellafield plant, where batches of mixed oxide fuel for export to Japan were accompanied by falsified quality documents. The Department of Health is to prohibit the posthumous dona- tion of organs with conditions attached, fol- lowing an incident in which a dead man's organs were left to whites only. Ford axed the night shift at its Dagenham plant because of lack of demand for Fiestas. Norwich Union and CGU agreed to merge to form the largest insurance provider in Britain and a pension provider second only to Pruden- tial; 4,000 jobs will go. Unilever is to reor- ganise, with the loss of 25,000 worldwide. Tesco was angry with Barclays for proposing a £1 fee for customers of other banks using its cash machines in Tesco supermarkets. The chairman and the chief executive of Sotheby's resigned suddenly amid investi- gations of alleged commission fixing through an agreement between Sotheby's and Christie's. A cook at Sandringham was sacked after it was alleged that she had said she would have the opportunity to place poi- son in the Queen's food. The government is to raise television licence fees by £3 to £104 to help the BBC pay for digital technology. Lord Annan, the academic and chairman of many an inquiry, died, aged 83. David Beck- ham was dropped from a Manchester Unit- ed game after a difference with the club manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
REFORMIST supporters of President Mohammad Kahtami won the general elec- tion in Iran. Mr George W. Bush restored his fortunes in the race for nomination as Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States by convincingly beating Mr John McCain in the South Carolina pri- mary; but Mr Bush then lost Michigan and Arizona to him. British and French troops prevented a march by 20,000 Albanian Kosovars from storming the bridge at Kosovska Mitrovica that separated them from 9,000 Serbs who live in the north of the divided town; 90,000 Albanians live in the town south of the bridge. In Nigeria, armed Muslim and Christian youths seized parts of the northern city of Kaduna and dozens died in clashes over the proposed introduction to the northern state of Islamic Sheria law; both the Catholic cathedral and the central mosque were burnt down. Mr Vladimir Putin, the acting President of Russia, said that operations in Chechnya meant that 'the army has regained trust in itself and society believes in and trusts its army'. But Mr Chris Patten, the external affairs commissioner of the European Union, said he found 'disturbing' reports of human rights abuses in northern Chechnya, where local people have been held in camps. The Communists took the lead in parlia- mentary elections in Kyrgyzstan. Ukraine allowed its currency, the hryvna, to float after years of trying to keep its value within an overvalued trading band against the dol- lar. A bomb planted by left-wing terrorists killed 22 policemen in Madhya Pradesh, India. Indian farmers complained that Pak- istan was sending packs of wild boar across the border to ravage their crops. Jellied pork tongue was blamed for an outbreak of listeria that has killed seven in the past 12 weeks in France. A school in Bun i Ram, north-east Thailand, has bred 10,000 frogs to make grilled frog, frog soup and frog curry to sup- plement poor children's school meals. CSH
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