PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'Don't panic' British special forces supported the American forces active in Afghanistan. Mr Paul Marsden, a Labour MP, said that he had been bullied by Miss Hilary Armstrong, the chief whip, because he wanted to secure a Commons vote about the war. Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said that there would be a law passed to impose retrospectively sentences of seven years on hoaxers who claimed to have sent anthrax through the post. He also said that cannabis would next year be demoted from a Class B drug to Class C, making its possession no longer an arrestable offence. After talks with Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness, the Provisional Irish Republican Army said that it would decommission some arms; this was to be confirmed by General John de Chastelain, the head of the independent body on decommissioning. The move was choreographed to allow the re-election of Mr David Trimble, who had resigned as first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the removal of army observation posts in southern Armagh. There had earlier been weekend rioting in north Belfast, and two little Catholic girls were injured by a pipe bomb thrown over a row of houses. RollsRoyce is to cut 5,000 jobs, 3,800 in Britain, because of uncertain aero-engine orders. The Institute of Animal Health, which undertook research to discover if sheep's
brains had developed spongiform encephalopathy, found after four years' work that they had been supplied with cows' brain tissue instead by mistake; Mrs Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, declined to apologise: 'This research was not conducted by my Department,' she said, 'I am blowed if we should take the blame.' The number of young cod in the North Sea was found to have dwindled further. Heavy rain brought serious flooding to many parts of south-eastern England. Sir John Plumb, the historian, died, aged 90. A keeper at London Zoo was trodden to death by an elephant.
AMERICAN aeroplanes bombarded Taleban troop positions as well as strategic targets; parachuted Rangers attacked on the ground. General Colin Powell, the American secretary of state, said he was very interested in seeing the Afghan Northern Alliance take the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. President George Bush told the Central Intelligence Agency that they could kill Mr Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader. An American admiral apologised to a homosexual pressure group after a bomb destined for Afghanistan on an aircraft-carrier had been chalked with: 'High Jack This, Fags'. Only 40 of 400 mainly Afghan and Iraqi refugees on an overcrowded boat survived its sinking; people-smug
glers had promised to land them in Australia. Two postal workers in Washington DC developed pulmonary anthrax after two others died, and thousands more were tested for the disease; six people had already developed the less serious cutaneous form of the disease. Offices attached to the Senate and the House of Representatives were closed while precautions were taken. Israeli tanks moved into six towns in the West Bank, including Bethlehem; Palestinian gunmen fired at them in the streets. Since September 2000, 704 Palestinians and 186 Israelis have been killed. President Bush visited President Zhiang Zemin of China in Shanghai, and they were joined by President Vladimir Putin of Russia during the meeting of the 20 leaders of the Asian—Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec). President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia had his entire government salary stolen each month from his bank account but did not notice for more than a year. Heads of government of European Union countries met in Ghent, in Belgium, where several of them found it hard to remain civil. The excommunist party of Democratic Socialism gained 22 per cent of the vote in Berlin elections; the Social Democrats won the biggest share with 29 per cent. A German who camped next to the volcano Stromboli had her head crushed by a piece of flying lava.
CSH
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