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Our world this week
Updated: 19-Jul-2002
After Britain said on Friday that it would share sovereignty over Gibraltar with Spain, Europe minister Peter Hain admitted there was no prospect of a deal this summer. New talks would not begin until the autumn. He also said there were two “really serious sticking points” which could sink the whole proposed agreement. A sovereignty deal could not be a stepping stone to Spain eventually taking complete control of Gibraltar and Britain’s military base there must stay. The announcement that Britain would share control of the Rock with Spain was met with immediate rejection by Gibraltar’s leaders after Jack Straw said that 12 months of talks had produced “broad agreement”. Spain, meanwhile, maintains it will never give up its claim to ownership of Gibraltar. It postponed talks due to have been held on Friday following a cabinet reshuffle in which foreign minister Josep Pique was replaced by Ana Palacio. Mr Hain said: “We will meet the new Spanish foreign minister in the autumn some time and we will see whether we can overcome these sticking points or not.”
Post mortems revealed that four children found dead in a burnt-out car on an industrial estate in West Ham, London, were alive when the fire started. They died from severe burns and smoke inhalation. Their 38-year-old father, Claude Mubiangagh, was also found dead in the Nissan Primera. He is believed to have set light to the car to kill himself and his children, aged from three to 12. He had split up from his wife several months earlier. Police were studying an apparent suicide note in which Mubiangagh told his wife he was giving her freedom but wanted to take his children with him.
In the wake of US President George W. Bush threatening to use “all tools” to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, an ex-Iraqi intelligence boss has warned America not to mount a large scale military attack on the country, saying that a swift coup is the best and only way to bring down Saddam. “Considering wrong options such as an internal revolt or a comprehensive war of liberation is not acceptable at present,” Wafiq al-Samarrai told a Kuwait newspaper. News of his comments came shortly after a meeting of Iraqi defector officers in London where they discussed efforts to topple Saddam and establish civilian rule. Samarrai went on: “The United States should know Saddam will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction on American military groupings and thus diplomacy is the only choice for the United States. If that fails, then another option is an intelligence operation that targets the head of the regime only.” Prince Hassan, uncle to King Abdullah of Jordan, whose country has denied that it may be used to launch a US attack on Iraq, was a guest at the London meeting.
Leaked reports of a public inquiry report due to be published today (Friday), suggest Britain’s ‘Doctor Death’ will be confirmed as the country’s biggest ever mass murderer. Harold Shipman killed at least 166 of his patients – and perhaps as many as 209, according to reports in the London Sunday Times. Since his conviction in January 2000 of killing 15 of his patients with heroin injections, fears have been mounting that he killed hundreds of his patients during his 25 years as a doctor in West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The judge heading the inquiry, Dame Janet Smith, is expected to give individual verdicts in the cases of 429 of Shipman’s patients. Most of them were middle-aged and old women, who died in suspicious circumstances between 1974 and 1998. According to the newspaper, she will rule unlawful killing in 166 of the cases regarded as “highly suspicious”. She is also likely to decide that a further 43 patients died in “suspicious” circumstances. Shipman was sentenced to life imprisonment for each of the original 15 murders. Home secretary David Blunkett has said he will have to spend the rest of his days in prison. Last year’s government report which followed Shipman’s conviction said it was “horrific and inexplicable” that the scale of his killings remained undetected for so long.
A man was arrested after pulling a .22 rifle on French President Jacques Chirac as he toured around the Arc de Triomphe in an open car during Bastille Day celebrations in Paris. The man had been carrying the rifle in a guitar case. He was wrestled to the ground by police. The President was unhurt. Eye-witnesses said the man, who was behind barriers on the route of the parade took the rifle out of the guitar case just after Mr Chirac had passed by. People in the crowd shouted to police who overpowered him and led him away. He was being held at a local police station pending investigations - but police would not say whether the gun contained bullets.
What is being described as “the most significant cancer cluster so far discovered near a British nuclear plant” has been revealed in a British government study into Burnham-on-Sea which is five miles downwind from the Hinckley Point nuclear power plant. Cancer rates in the Somerset town are up to six times higher than average, according to government radiation adviser Dr Chris Busby. While British Nuclear Fuels, which is decommissioning one of the reactors at the Hinkley site, dismissed Dr Busby’s findings, saying that his previous work had been “heavily criticised” by health experts, residents of Burnham have called for am official inquiry into the statistics. Dr Busby believes dangerous material from Hinkley Point is contaminating tidal sediment around the power station. He says that when the mudflats off Burnham are exposed at low water, radioactive particles are carried away on the wind and inhaled by residents.
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