PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
A good spanking.
Some low newspapers published a pur- ported telephone conversation between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles. Prince Charles was subsequently said to be prepared to embrace a celibate life. The Queen, Prince Charles and other less notable people staying at Sandringham fell victim to an outbreak of gastroenteritis. Mr Norman Lamont, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, escaped censure by a Commons Committee investigating an anonymous donation to him from a Conservative Party fund of £18,000 to help evict a prostitute, known as Miss Whiplash, from his proper- ty. Police appealed for information from contacts of another prostitute also known as Miss Whiplash who had gone missing near Beachy Head. The annual rate of inflation fell to 2.6 per cent. Mr David Sainsbury, the chief executive of J. Sains- bury, gave £200 million worth of shares to a charity of his, named the Gatsby Charitable Trust after Scott Fitzgerald's novel. The aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal sailed for the Adriatic to support British troops escorting UN convoys in Bosnia. The 85,000 tons of oil spilt off Shetland surpris- ingly disappeared. Three Shetland ducks, cleaned at a cost of £360 each, were returned to the wild. Shell put 9p on a gal- lon of petrol, a move followed by Texaco. Some bishops broke into spontaneous song
when their House in the Church of England Synod worked out a plan designed to stot• schism in the face of the ordination of women to the priesthood. A few hundred marched in London against the Maastricht Treaty. Steve Cauthen, the American jock- ey, lost his £500,000-a-year job riding for Sheikh Mohammed. Betting shops will be able to open up to 10 p.m. between April and August, the Home Office announced. There were floods in Scotland.
FORCES opposed to Iraq made several air raids on the country, under the terms of former United Nations resolutions. Mainly American aircraft first hit air defences in the flight-exclusion zone in the south of Iraq, then a factory near Baghdad thought to be used to help production of nuclear weapons. Quite a few targets were missed but then destroyed on a return run. Cruise missiles were used. In the Baghdad raid a hotel was hit by one missile, with the loss of two lives. Kuwait called for allied troops to defend its borders, which appeal was sup- ported by Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, the secretary general of the United Nations. Russia called for the Iraqi situation to be considered by the UN Security Council. Iraq offered a ceasefire which seemed to please the United Nations since it involved a promise to stop shooting down its air- craft. Several Arab countries used the opportunity to raise the question of Israeli treatment of Palestinians and the position of Muslims in Bosnia. The 400 Palestinians trapped in no-man's land between Israel and Lebanon took down their tents and marched towards Israeli lines in a gesture of protest. The Israeli parliament repealed a law forbidding any contact with the Pales- tine Liberation Organisation. The self- styled Bosnian Parliament debated whether to accept Lord Owen's 10-point peace Pi; as fighting continued. Unita rebels claimer' a successful assault on Soyo, the site of afl important Angolan oil terminal. The Pope is to visit Benin, Uganda and Sudan next, month. Elections in Haiti were discounten because of vote-rigging. Some American astronauts got into trouble for not closing the lavatory lid. Mr Bill Clinton was inali; gurated as 42nd President of the Unite,'" States after having sung We Are the Worla at the Lincoln Memorial in the company of, his daughter, Chelsea, Michael Jackson anu Diana Ross. About 8,000 bottles of whiskey and 1,500 cans of beer were crushed bY bulldozers in the Abu Dhabi desert in 3 move against illegal alcohol. Sammy Ca the song-writer who wrote Seems to Me 1 le Heard That Song Before and some 7,0uu others, died, aged 79.
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