PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK A horse called Party Politics won the
Grand National, but strenuous political campaigning by all three main parties in the race towards the general election failed to produce a clear favourite. A hung parlia- ment began to seem increasingly probable. Saudi Arabia unloaded hundreds of mil- lions of sterling, causing more tremors in an already nervous market. A Sinn Fein canvasser was shot dead by loyalist terror- ists in Londonderry. A small bomb, thought to be planted by the IRA, exploded in Soho in central London, hurting no one. The Sun Alliance insurance group warned that the cost of car insurance was likely to rise by 30 per cent due to crime and that home insur- ance would also rise sharply because of bur- glary and subsidence. A judge jailed 12 young men for cheering from the public gallery of his court when their friend was cleared of a wounding charge. A 67-year- old woman who killed her husband was freed by the Court of Appeal after they cut her sentence from life for murder to six years for manslaughter through provoca- tion. Alex Gair, aged six, saved the lives of his younger brother and sisters by running through smoke to telephone for help and then leading his sisters to safety. Asthma among children was found to have doubled
in 25 years, probably due to the encourage- ment of dust mites through central heating and double glazing. Top secret military papers in an explosive briefcase were found washed up on a beach near Newport, Dyfed. Police hunted an animal thought to be a black leopard in Derbyshire after an elderly woman described how it climbed through her cat flap and crouched on her wardrobe, then bit her twice as she tried to make it leave.
CIVIL WAR engulfed Bosnia-Hercegov- ina, killing and wounding hundreds in artillery and air attacks and clashes between the Serbian, Croatian and Muslim populations. Peace campaigners were fired on by troops in Sarajevo: some were feared dead. Mobs in Tripoli burned down the Venezuelan embassy and attacked the Rus- sian mission after those missions had backed UN sanctions against Libya. The UN Security Council condemned Libya and the EEC agreed to implement UN sanc- tions against the country. Russians began to leave the Muslim countries of the old Sovi- et empire in their thousands. President Yeltsin said he would not cede any of his emergency powers to parliament, despite a growing atmosphere of opposition to his reforms. In the Italian general election, the Christian Democrats suffered dramatic losses, and regional parties of the Right made gains, as they also did in German state elections in Baden-Wurtemberg and Schleswig-Holstein. Pierre Beregovoy, the new Prime Minister of France, announced his Cabinet. More than 20 Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire during con- frontations in the Gaza Strip. China's National People's Congress approved the building of the Yangtze dam, displacing one million people. John Gotti, boss of New York's largest Mafia group, the Gam- binos, was found guilty of murder, racke- teering and tax evasion and sentenced to life without parole. Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC, was urged by his colleagues to announce an official separation from his wife Winnie in order to limit any damage her actions might cause the party. At least 36 died in black political violence in South Africa. David Levy decided to stay on as Foreign Minister of Israel. A meeting of two penitent brotherhoods to discuss Holy Week processions in Lorca, south-east Spain ended with a brawl in which five pen- itents were injured. Isaac Asimcv, the sci- ence fiction writer, died in New York, aged
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