PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The Irish Republican Army blew up a number 171 bus on the corner of the Strand and Wellington Street in London. One man died and eight people were injured. The dead man was an IRA bomber presumed to be transporting the bomb to its intended target. A gun was found at the scene. Another IRA bomb in a telephone box in Charing Cross Road was made safe by police. A reward of £1 million was offered for information leading to the conviction of the IRA men who bombed South Quay ear- lier this month. Mr Gerry Adams, the presi- dent of Sinn Fein, the political face of the IRA, commented: 'The peace process is over.' The Scott inquiry into the sale of arms to Iraq found, among other things, that Mr William Waldegrave, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when he was a Foreign Office Minister misled MPs in 27 letters he sent telling them that there had been no change in Government policy; that he had no 'duplicitous intent' and had not intended to mislead Parliament; and that Sir Nicholas Lyell, the Attorney-General, was personally at fault in his advice to min- isters about Public Interest Immunity cer- tificates. Neither minister resigned. The 1,800-page report gives at best a picture of Government inconsistency in its policy on arms sales. The Government came up with the idea of giving mad people undergoing `care in the community' a charter of their own. An oil tanker ran aground near Mil- ford Haven; it later broke free from tugs and ran aground again; thousands of tons of oil leaked out. Spurn Point on the east coast became an island when the sea breached it. Water authorities said that a dry winter could lead to shortages next summer. It snowed in many parts.
MR PAT BUCHANAN won the first Republican primary in New Hampshire, beating Mr Bob Dole by a narrow margin. The leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia held talks in Rome. Serbs evacuated areas of Sarajevo designated for Muslims, taking their dead with them. Croats and Bosnian Muslims showed signs of resisting interna- tional efforts to make them live together in the city of Mostar. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops said they had found a Bosnian-run terrorist training camp in cen- tral Bosnia. Bosnian Serbs refused to send a general to Nato-mediated peace talks with Croat and Bosnian Government mili- tary leaders. Russian forces bombarded the village of Novogroznensky in Chechnya where 1,000 Chechen rebels were said to have been putting up resistance. United States military sources said that China would not invade Taiwan because it lacked amphibious landing-craft. Japan declared a 200-mile zone around its coast as it contin- ued a dispute with Korea over some little islands it calls Takeshima and Korea calls Tok-do. The United States said it was keeping Syria on a list of countries sponsor- ing terrorism. US nationals were warned against visiting villages outside Manama, the capital of Bahrain, where anti-govern- ment demonstrations have been going on. Two car bombs in Algiers killed 12. Islamic parties agreed to form a coalition to rule Turkey. Half a million people in Madrid demonstrated against Euzkadi ta Askata- suna, the Basque separatist terrorists. Spain and Belgium had an argument about the extradition of Basque terrorists. Thirteen people died of Ebola fever in Gabon after eating a chimpanzee. Garry Kasparov beat a powerful computer in a chess match, with three wins, two draws and one loss. Ukraine ran short of power because of cold weather and a miners' strike; Hong Kong celebrated its coldest Chinese New Year since 1950, though temperatures only fell to 45F.
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