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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, made a joint statement on Libya with President Barack Obama of the United States and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, saying that ‘so long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations’. British and French military officers were being sent to Libya to train opposition forces. The frigate Cumberland, which had evacuated hundreds of people from Libya, arrived at Devonport to be decommissioned. The Ministry of Defence posted on the internet secret information about Britain’s nuclear submarines, by not properly blanking out sections of the documents. The Commons Education Committee recommended that Ofsted should be split into two inspectorates, for education and children’s care. Among the 36,500 runners in the London Marathon, Jon Morgan, aged 43, finished as the fastest cartoon character, dressed as Fred Flintstone, in 2:46.59.
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, appeared on a platform with the Lib Dem MP Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, arguing in favour of the alternative vote. Mr Cable said that a speech on immigration by David Cameron had ‘risked inflaming extremism’. Mr Cameron had said that recent numbers of unintegrated immigrants had ‘created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods’. He said that ‘migrants are filling gaps in the labour market left wide open by a welfare system that for years has paid British people not to work’. Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, floated the idea once again of changing the law on royal succession to overturn male primogeniture. Catherine Middleton was granted a coat of arms: Per pale Azure and Gules a Chevron Or cotised Argent between three Acorns slipped and leaved Or.
Glencore, the Swiss-based commodities company, was floated on the London Stock Exchange and declared that it controlled 60 per cent of the world’s third-party zinc market and 50 per cent of the copper. Seven miles of the M1 were closed for three days after a fire, apparently started deliberately, in a scrapyard at Mill Hill under a bridge carrying the motorway. Wakefield and District Housing said that an electrician had breached its policy by putting a palm cross on the dashboard of his van.
Abroad
Misrata, in western Libya, continued be shelled by forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi. Some 300 civilians had been killed and 1,000 wounded since February, Britain’s Department for International Development said. Britain paid for the evacuation of thousands of foreign workers from Misrata in ships chartered by the International Organisation for Migration. Street protests continued in Syria despite a broadcast by President Bashar al-Assad predicting the lifting of the state of emergency that has been in force for 48 years. A crowd of thousands occupying Clock Square in the Syrian city of Homs was dispersed by night with teargas and gunfire. The last Maharajah of Jaipur died, aged 79.
France blocked trains from Italy full of migrants and activists after Italy granted six-month resident permits to thousands of North Africans. In Finnish elections the anti-immigration True Finns party, which opposes bailing out EU countries, won 39 of the 200 seats. The Hungarian parliament voted in a new constitution that limited government debt and stated the Christian roots of the country. The Tokyo Electric Power Co said it would cool reactors at the ruined Fukushima nuclear power station in nine months. An international meeting failed to raise funds to replace the crumbling sarcophagus at the Chernobyl reactor. Standard and Poor’s downgraded the US economic outlook from stable to negative. Some 240 tornados ripped through six US states in three days.
The victory of President Goodluck Jonathan in the Nigerian presidential election was met by riots in the north. An Egyptian court ordered the dissolution of the National Democratic Party formerly led by President Hosni Mubarak, now detained and sick in hospital. President Raul Castro of Cuba, aged 79, said that houses might in future be bought and sold. Burkina Faso saw a mutiny by the army. In Uganda, police dispersed crowds protesting at the arrest of the opposition leader, Kizza Besigye. The Mexican navy captured Omar Martin Estrada, known as El Kilo, accused of leading the Zetas drug cartel responsible for the death of 145 whose bodies were found in mass graves at Tamaulipas this month. Sir Richard Branson said he would breed Madagascan ring-tailed and red-ruffed lemurs on his Caribbean island of Mosquito. CSH
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