TW
0

by MONITOR
AT the Labour Party Conference an 82-year-old delegate was ejected by stewards for shouting “nonsense” when Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke about Iraq. The key phrase in the Prime Minister's speech was thought to be: “The challenge we face is not in our values. It is how we put them into practice in a world fast-forwarding to the future at unprecedented speed.” Delegates left the Conference no wiser about when Mr Blair would hand–over to Mr Gordon Brown who in his speech spoke about an upbringing that had taught him “not just to do my best and work hard but to treat everyone equally, to respect others, to tell the truth, to take responsibility”. He also promised that he would in the next year “visit every region and nation in our country”. The electoral college of the Conservative Party failed by a small margin to endorse the changes in the election of a new leader proposed by its current (resigned) leader, Mr Michael Howard; MPs will again have to propose two candidates for a final decision by the party membership. Campaigning by contenders began in earnest with Mr David Davis and Mr Kenneth Clarke thought to be the favourites. In the United States, Private Lynndie England was convicted on six of seven counts of mistreating Iraq prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that more pictures of ill-treatment of Iraq prisoners should be released by the Pentagon despite its efforts to keep them under cover. In Iraq, violence continued with an almost daily count of civilians killed by insurgent suicide bombers. Several senior members of the Bush administration gave speeches and interviews designed to counter reports of an imminent civil war in Iraq and to boost the President's ratings, falling as a result of Iraq and the mishandling of the Katrina hurricane. In Israel, the prime minister, Mr Ariel Sharon narrowly defeated the attempt of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu to replace him as leader of the Likud party following the withdrawal from the Gaza settlements. In Poland, the Law and Justice party won the general election and formed a government with the Civic Platform party; both consider themselves to be heirs to Solidarity.