PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
n Belfast a mob murdered two off-duty Royal Signals soldiers when their car was caught up in the IRA funeral of a man killed by a generade thrown three days earlier at the funeral of the IRA members shot in Gibraltar. The event prompted a review of the policy of low-key policing on such occasions. Following last week's con- tradictory statements by Mrs Thatcher and Mr Nigel Lawson over government ex- change rate policy, Lord Young made remarks appearing to support a more freely floating pound than the Chancellor- thought advisable. He apologised to Mr Lawson for appearing to interfere. Mr John Biffen, till recently a senior Cabinet minister, declared his intention of voting against the Budget proposals reducing basic-rate tax by 2p. Ford dropped plans for an electronic components plant in Dundee (where unemployment is 15 per cent) after 11 unions, chiefly the transport workers under Ron Todd, refused to with- draw opposition to a single-union agree- ment negotiated by the engineering union. Mr Kinnock, himself a TGWU member, declined to intervene although challenged in Parliament to do so. The electricians' union signed a single-union, no-strike agreement with a Welsh solar-panel manu- facturer. Unemployment fell to just over 2.5 million at a faster rate over the last year than in any other industrialised nation. A poll put David Owen's SDP fractionally ahead of the Social and Liberal Democrats in support among middle-ground voters. The British Government admitted that curbs on upland sheep sales from over 700 farms affected by last year's fall-out from Chernobyl might last for years. The North- South divide appeared chimerical when a quality-of-life survey showed the North of England coming top in terms of how much an average salary for a given part of Britain could buy there. Swiss experts said Prince Charles's ski-ing party almost certainly caused the avalanche in which Major Hugh Lindsay died.
THE Moscow-backed Afghan regime announced national elections for April. The Mujahedin denounced them as gim- mickry. Pakistani and Saudi nationals fighting alongside Afghan co-religionist guerrillas overran government troops near the Soviet garrison town of Khost in eastern Afghanistan. In the Iraq-Iran war Iraq dropped cyanide gas on a Kurdish town in its own north-eastern territory after the town had fallen to Iranian invad- ers. Up to 3,000 people died, many of them civilians. America sent over 3,000 troops to Honduras, though they were forbidden any combat role, after some 1,500 Sandinista troops from Nicaragua trespassed on Hon- duran territory while fighting Contra re- bels. The first direct Contra-Sandinista talks inside Nicaragua took place. In America Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North was indicted on criminal charges over the Iran-Contra affair. The US presidential race saw Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts come first in the Kansas Democratic caucus. A boom in memorabi- lia of bygone presidential elections was reported, with John Kennedy campaign buttons fetching the equivalent of £65 each. Moscow was said to be seeking listings for several Soviet companies on the Helsinki bourse. M. Mitterrand announced he would stand for another term as presi- dent. Alan Fisher, head of NUPE during the 1978-79 strike when, as under a mediaevel interdict, corpses lay unburied and rats infested streets clogged with rub- bish, died aged 65. Percy Thrower died aged 75. CGM
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