PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`Looks like more trouble for Mrs Thatcher.'
The Government's Bill to give British citizenship to 50,000 key people in Hong Kong and their dependants was carried by a majority of 97, though 44 Conservative MPs voted against it. Many Labour MPs abstained. Norman Tebbit described a 'cricket test' for the integration of immig- rants: would they cheer for their new country's side against their old? Nicholas Ridley, the Trade and Industry Secretary, said steel pipes seized by Customs officers were parts for the largest gun in the world, to be built by Iraq. The Commons voted to reduce from 28 to 24 weeks the legal time-limit for abortions; and an attempt to ban research on human embryos was de- feated by 171 votes. British researchers have found how to tell the sex of a test-tube baby before it is implanted in a womb. Baroness Warnock said this could be useful for hereditary peers. Baroness Michael de Stempel, her ex-husband and two of her children were sent to prison for their plot to steal more than £500,000 from Lady Illingworth, now dead, whose funeral bill remains unpaid. The Kray brothers, both murderers, were found to have been paid £225,000 by those who have made a
film about their crimes. Strangeways pris- on was finally stormed as a means to ending the three-week siege of prisoners holding out on the roof. At Pucklechurch remand centre near Bristol a copycat siege ended after 18 hours. An inquest into the football disaster at Hillsborough revealed that more than half of the 95 victims had been drinking before their deaths, and 15 were over the legal limit for driving. Charles Wilson, one of the Great Train robbers, met violent death in southern Spain. The Channel Tunnel project asked for £2 billion more from investors. The London Marathon was won by Allister Hutton, a Scot. The organisers ran out of medals as 26,000 others finished the race. Animal rights activists liberated 12,000 Norfolk snails. Holders of Barclaycards were faced with paying £8, because too many cardholders were behaving responsibly.
SOVIET oil supplies and most of its gas supplies to Lithuania were cut off, along with some food supplies, causing the clo- sure of the country's oil refinery. Lithuania's Prime Minister, Kazimiera Prunskiene, visited Norway, hoping oil companies there might help. The CIA reported that the Soviet economy was in trouble and that there was only a remote prospect of a modest recovery. Robert Polhill, an American Beirut hostage for three years, was freed by the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine. President Bush said he would still make no conces- sions. An attempted coup against Presi- dent Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria failed. At least ten died in Kathmandu during riots in which Nepal's Home Affairs Minis- ter was held prisoner for six hours by the mob, which also killed and mutilated four suspected agents provocateurs and left the bodies on public display. Australia suf- fered its worst floods for a century, in New South Wales and Queensland. More alleged components of an Iraqi super-gun were impounded in Greece and Turkey. War veterans met in Turkey to commemo- rate the anniversary of Gallipoli. Albania's leader, Ramiz Alia, announced his country is to seek diplomatic links with Moscow, Washington and the EEC after 40 years of isolation. A 100-year-old Greek farmer was gored to death by a billy-goat after he tried to stop it mating. SB
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