• Australia concerned about violence after Timor polling

  The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, yesterday told top Indonesian officials of his concerns about violence erupting in East Timor during the limbo period after a ballot on its future. p
  

• Bush pulled strings to dodge Vietnam, says new biography

  With George W. Bush looking an increasingly likely Republican presidential candidate, the Texas governor's record during the Vietnam War yesterday came under renewed scrutiny with fresh allegations that family connections prevented his being sent into combat. p
  

• Barak `committed' to Wye deal if changes rejected

  The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, yesterday insisted he was ready to implement the Wye River peace accord with the Palestinians whether they reject his proposals to change it or not. p
  

• Other recent mass killings in US

  July 12, 1999: p
  

• 300,000 South Africans go on strike

  Some 300,000 South African public servants - mainly teachers and health workers - yesterday embarked on a two-day national strike after pay talks with the government broke down, union leaders said. p
  

• Reshuffle sees 13 new faces in Blair's Cabinet

  Mr Tony Blair completed his long-awaited Cabinet reshuffle last night, amid sustained and bitter criticism from the Conservatives that he had sacked the infantry instead of the officers. p
  

• Tony Banks

  The outgoing minister for sport was as well known for his cheerful insults, one-liners and absence of ministerial pomposity as for his work. p
  

• Baroness Scotland

  Dominican-born Baroness Scot land was the first black female QC in Britain 1991. Already, aged 44, she has had a distinguished legal career. p
  

• Minister goes to pave way for Chirac, Jospin to visit Algeria

  A few weeks ago it was unthinkable that the French President and Prime Minister would visit Algeria, where more than 100,000 people have been killed in a civil war between the military and Islamic fundamentalists since 1992. p
  

• Kate Hoey

  Britain's new sports minister is a woman of strong opinions who was born in Northern Ireland 53 years ago. She was educated at Belfast Royal Academy, Ulster College of Physical Education and the City of London College. Ms Hoey won the 1989 by-election for Vauxhall. In the House she has defended foxhunting, voted against a total ban on handguns and counts John Major and Lord Cranborne among her friends. p
  

• Chris Mullin

  Known in Ireland as the campaigning journalist-turned-politician who worked to secure justice for the Birmingham Six and to highlight many other miscarriage of justice scandals, he became an MP in 1987. p
  

• Albanian Kosovars warned by US on ethnic violence

  The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, warned Kosovar Albanians in Pristina yesterday that the international community will turn its back on them if ethnic violence continues to rage in their province. p
  

• Clinton to pay for contempt

  Little Rock - President Clinton was ordered yesterday to pay almost $90,000 (£66,000) for contempt of court in connection with a now-settled sexual harassment case against him. US District Judge Susan Wright ordered Mr Clinton to pay $89,483 to cover legal and other plaintiffs' fees in the case and $1,202 to the court for the judge's own travel expenses. Judge Wright found Mr Clinton in contempt of court in April for giving misleading statements about his affair with Ms Monica Lewinsky in the civil lawsuit filed by Ms Paula Jones. p
  

• 37 people die in Iranian flood

  Tehran - Iranian officials yesterday revised the death toll to 37 with 14 still missing and more than 100 injured after floods in northern Iran along the Caspian Sea earlier this week, the official IRNA news agency said. p
  

• Key to cancer found - `Nature'

  Paris - A team of US scientists in a "landmark" discovery has for the first time broken down the four stages in the transformation of a normal cell to a cancerous cell, the scientific magazine Nature said yesterday. p
  

• Transsexuals win NHS right

  London - Transsexuals yesterday won the right to have sex change operations on the NHS after a landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal recognised the condition as a legitimate illness. p
  

• US troops leave Panama

  Panama City - After 96 years one of the Western Hemisphere's oldest unions will end unofficially today when the last major wave of US soldiers pulls out of Panama. p
  

• Third victim identified

  Boenigen - Police said yesterday they had identified a third victim of the Swiss canyoning accident that left 19 dead, two missing and six injured. p
  

• Air rage penalty extended

  London - Disruptive plane passengers could face up to two years in jail under new regulations announced yesterday by the British government. p
  

• Travolta shoots scientology film

  Montreal - The actor John Travolta is in Quebec filming Battlefield Earth, based on a book by the Church of Scientology founder, Mr Ron Hubbard. p
  

Most popular stories