World Notes BRITAIN

Only a few days earlier, the governor of Manchester's Strangeways Prison had pronounced it "the fastest-improving establishment in the country." Not for long. As if to mock that boast, most of the prison's 1,648 inmates went on a rampage last week to protest against overcrowding and outdated facilities. At least two died and scores were injured in the red brick relic, which was built in 1868 to incarcerate 970 men.

, Rioting started at a Sunday-morning service when one man charged down the aisle, hit the chaplain in the face, grabbed his microphone and started yelling obscenities into it. As the revolt spread, inmates brutalized other prisoners and smashed and set fire to the facility. Some climbed on roofs and threw tiles at riot police who gathered below. Strangeways governor Brendan O'Friel described the outburst as "an explosion of evil . . . possibly the worst incident in the history of the prison service."