PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Alittle boy was killed by an IRA bomb in a shopping street in Warrington; a 12- year-old boy was wounded badly in the head and several others horribly injured. The Irish Republic sent a representative to the funeral. Four sixth-formers drowned in a canoeing accident off Dorset. The Gov- ernment announced the route of the Chan- nel rail link a week after it had been fully leaked. Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Home Sec- retary, proposed extending café licences to public houses so that children could mingle with adult drinkers. A father who beat two of his children with a strap was cleared of assault. A 13-year-old boy raped a schoolmistress in Southwark who kept him in detention. Mrs Sigrid Griffiths, the for- mer wife of Sir Eldon Griffiths, won £21,000 damages from her solictors for their mismanagement of her divorce; it emerged that she was receiving five pence a year in maintenance. Fishermen blockaded Teesport in protest against falling prices which they attributed to Russian imports. Mrs Charlotte Hughes, Britain's oldest woman, died, aged 115; she had breakfast- ed in brandy and bacon and eggs on her last birthday. England lost to Ireland 17-3 at rugby. Fide, the world chess federation, expelled Nigel Short and Gary Kasparov when they took bids for their new Profes- sional Chess Association to hold their world championship match in London.
PRESIDENT Yeltsin went on with his plan to rule by decree and hold a referendum on who rules Russia, despite a court ruling that his initial announcement of the plan on television was unlawful. The Russian Par- liament voted to convene the Congress of People's Deputies, which has the power to impeach Mr Yeltsin on a two-thirds majori- ty. The G-7 nations did not leap to bring forward consideration of financial aid for Russia, but Western words of support for Mr Yeltsin succeeded in annoying his opo- nents. The Chinese press said that Mr Chris Patten, the Governor of Hong Kong, was little better than a 'petty thief; this was apparently meant to be a hint that talks with Britain over the future of the colony might be resumed if he went. The Socialists in France were trounced in the elections; the first rounds indicated that the alliance between the moderate-right Rassemble- ment pour la Republique (led by M. Jacques Chirac) and the Union pour la Democratie (led by M. Valery Giscard d'Estaing) might gain 80 per cent of seats in the second round of voting this Sunday. M. Francois Mitterrand, the Socialist Presi- dent, went into hiding. Some women and children were evacuated when a relief con- voy reached the besieged Bosnian town of Srebrenica where General Philippe Moril- lon, the United Nations commander, was holding out. Helicopters later evacuated more wounded. North Korea claimed that 1.5 million people had volunteered to join the army to help in its proposed war with South Korea and the United States. An Arab stabbed five Israelis in east Jerusalem; Israeli settlers shot a captured Palestinian eight times near Hebron. Mr Ezer Weizman was elected President. The opposition Likud party voted in a new lead- er. Mike Tyson, the imprisoned boxer, was reported to have learned to read and have embarked last July on War and Peace. Helen Hayes the American actress died,
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