UN chief in late Iraq peace bid: The week that was January 10 to 16 1991

IN a last-ditch effort to prevent war in Iraq, United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar left on a diplomatic mission to Baghdad this week in 1991.
Then United Nations Secretery General Javier Perez de Cuellar, left, shakes hands with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Iraq, in this Sept. 14, 1987 file photo.  (AP Photo/File)Then United Nations Secretery General Javier Perez de Cuellar, left, shakes hands with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Iraq, in this Sept. 14, 1987 file photo.  (AP Photo/File)
Then United Nations Secretery General Javier Perez de Cuellar, left, shakes hands with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Iraq, in this Sept. 14, 1987 file photo. (AP Photo/File)

He was expected to propose the sending of a UN peacekeeping force to Kuwait to oversee the peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was already under UN orders to pull troops out of Kuwait within five days, and a Security Council resolution had already authorised the use of force if he failed to comply.

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Talks in Geneva between Iraq’s foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, and US Secretary of State James Baker had broken down after six hours, with Mr Baker saying he had heard nothing from the Iraqis that suggested they would meet the deadline.

As Mr Perez de Cuellar set off for Baghdad an official statement from the Iraqi government said its army was longing for a showdown.

Meanwhile, UK foreign secretary Douglas Hurd said the time for diplomacy was past. He said: “If Saddam Hussein does stay in Kuwait then he will be attacked... It’s not going to be altered one way or another by little bits and pieces of gestures.”

On the domestic front, doctors were warned that over-use of a group of drugs routinely prescribed for huge numbers of asthma sufferers could worsen the condition and even cause death.

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But some GPs, lulled by 20 years of familiarity with the drugs and upbeat propaganda for modern versions, continued to treat them as a harmless cure-all.

The drugs in question, known as beta-agonists – usually given via inhaler – allowed normal living and participation in sport for children, so many experts were anxious not to frighten people off them.

But leading asthma specialist Dr Graham Compton wrote in The Lancet calling for an immediate end to the regular prescription of beta-agonists. Dr Compton, who claimed to have the support of 90 per cent of colleagues in the British Thoracic Society, was responding to a damning report on a beta-agonist called fenotorol, from New Zealand, where an increasing death toll among asthmatics had caused great concern.

But defenders of beta-agonists pointed out that poor social conditions in Maori society could be a factor in the death rate.

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Education secretary Kenneth Clarke admitted that reading standards in some schools were deplorable and announced measures for improvement.

His comments followed the release of two Government-commissioned reports into the reading standards of seven-year-olds, which showed that teaching of reading was unsatisfactory in n one-in-five schools.

Labour education spokesman Jack Straw said the findings were a serious indictment of the government’s record. The action package included inspectors monitoring standards more closely, and the circulating of findings on best practice in teaching to all schools.

Swiss food giant Nestlé announced it was to pump a further £50m into its York-based subsidiary Rowntree Mackintosh. A new Kit-Kat factory and a chocolate-making plant we’re to be built, in the biggest investment in the 100-year history of Rowntree. The previous year £40m had been invested.

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Graham Stow, joint managing director of booming Leeds-based supermarket chain Asda, said this week that that although operating profits had risen by 25 percent to £107m, the company had neglected customers in its own backyard.

This was about to be addressed with the opening of state-of-the-art stores in Killingbeck and at Pudsey’s new Owlcotes Centre.

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