PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`Evening all!'
Commonwealth leaders meeting in the Bahamas agreed, with difficulty, a set of measures designed to force the South African government to end apartheid, but could not agree on the significance of the measures. Mrs Thatcher said approvingly that they were 'tiny little measures', but other Commonwealth leaders hope that tougher sanctions will follow in six months' time, if South Africa has not by then made 'adequate progress'. Blacks rampaged through central Johannesburg after a memorial service for Benjamin Moloise, a black poet convicted of killing a security policeman and put to death in Pretoria. Police shot dead a number of rioters: the most publicised incident took place in Athlone, a suburb of Cape Town, where policemen hid in crates on the back of an unmarked lorry and then opened fire with shotguns on a crowd throwing stones, killing three people, including a nine-year- old boy. The pop singer Bob Geldof returned from a tour of drought-stricken countries south of the Sahara. He denied reports that he is suffering from 'compas- sion fatigue' and said the situation in Africa remained totally depressing. In Italy, Signor Bettino Craxi's coalition fell after the Republicans, angry that Moham- med Abbas had been allowed to fly to Yugoslavia, resigned from the govern- ment. President Cossiga asked Signor Craxi to form a new government. At a `water on Mars workshop' south of San Francisco, American scientists said there was far more water on Mars than had previously been believed. Antifreeze was found in several Austrian cheeses.
THE Law Lords ruled by three to two in favour of allowing doctors to prescribe the contraceptive pill to girls under the age of 16 without obtaining the consent of the girls' parents. Mrs Victoria Gillick, who had brought the case and has five daugh- ters, declared: 'We now have contracep- tion on demand. We have a male charter to abuse and harm the young female popula- tion.' The High Court ruled that Liverpool council had acted illegally in sending re- dundancy notices to 5,000 teachers. After a meeting with national union leaders, the council said it was withdrawing the redund- ancy notices sent to all its 31,000 staff, but produced no other way of avoiding bank- ruptcy. Sir Kenneth Newman received a hostile reception when he addressed the London branch of the Police Federation: many of his officers were angry at tactics used during the Tottenham riot, when one policeman was killed. Details of the new riot equipment being considered by the Metropolitan Police, including radios in helmets, protective boots, long batons, and breastplates for women officers, were announced in the House of Commons, after the Home Secretary had said: 'There must be no "no-go" areas in any of our cities.' A freelance photographer injured in the Brixton riots suffered a relapse and died. Miners in Nottinghamshire voted by 17,750 to 6,792 to leave the NUM and set up the new 'Union of Democratic Mine- workers', as did miners in South Der- byshire, but by a majority of only 26. Thirteen people were killed on the M6 In Britain's worst motoring accident. AJSG
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