PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK `I'll fight anyone in the bar!'
Mr Nicholas Ridley, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, resigned from office after an interview published in The Spectator revealed that he felt plans for a European Monetary System were a German racket to take over the whole of Europe, and that you might as well give sovereignty to Adolf Hitler as to the European Commissioners. Peter Lilley, previously Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was appointed in his place. A leaked document revealed that Mrs Thatcher and advisers had considered a list of German character defects at a meeting on the effects of unity, before concluding that England should be nice to the Ger- mans. The Government was advised, by its own appointed reviewer of the law, to drop its powers to intern terrorist suspects with- out trial under the Northern Ireland Emergency Provision Act. The convictions of the Maguire family in 1976 for running an IRA bomb factory were referred to the Court of Appeal by the Home Secretary, after a report found 111 their convictions were unsound. Daphne Parish, a nurse who had befriended the executed journal- ist Farzad Bazoft, was released from prison in Iraq after an intervention by President
Kaunda of Zambia. A woman died in a fire in the top four floors of a 16-storey block of flats in Smethwick, West Midlands. Fi- gures revealed that spending on retail goods had dropped dramatically in June. A study on cot deaths of babies suggested that some duvets might be a contributory factor. A mother and son who run a Scottish health farm won £90,000 libel damages against Tatter magazine after it had described the woman as 'the interna- tional boot', which she said meant she was an ugly woman of loose morals.
PRESIDENT Gorbachev agreed that a united Germany could be a member of Nato. The last obstacle to German Unifica- tion was cleared when West Germany promised to sign a treaty confirming Po- land's western border, immediately after the two Germanys unite. Soviet troops stationed in East Germany would be with- drawn in three or four years. His candidate won the crucial post of deputy leader of the Soviet Communist Party over a hardliner. The Ukraine declared its intention to become a sovereign state within the Soviet Union. Riots in Kenya resulted in 20 deaths after pro-democracy demonstra- tions. Nelson Mandela, deputy leader of the African National Congress, on a visit to Kenya, told the West to stay out of African politics. Refugees from Albania arrived in Italy: of the 4,000, 3,000 are to live in Germany. In Albania, President Ramiz Alia increased wages by over 10 per cent and said that transition to a Western-style economy would begin next year. Tamil Tigers were said to have hacked and burned to death 168 Muslims returning to villages in eastern Sri Lanka. Czechoslova- kia began to evacuate dependants of diplo- mats in Cuba, after being criticised by President Castro for harbouring dissidents in its embassy. Nicu Ceausescu, son of the dictator, went on trial in Rumania for genocide, but was complimented by wit- nesses for his culture. An earthquake in the Philippines may have claimed up to a thousand lives. Mohawk Indians defied police near Montreal, in Canada, after attempts to tear down barricades which the Indians set up to prevent the expansion of a golf course onto their land. Glynn Wolfe, an 81-year-old Baptist minister, announced his intention to marry his 28th wife, a 15-year-old Filipino.
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