Portrait of the week
The trend of falling interest rates in America, confirmed by the influential economist Mr Henry Kaufman, prompted the biggest one-day rise in share prices ever recorded on Wall Street. On the London stock market gilt-edged securities reached their highest levels since October 1977; equities rallied less dramatically. Mr Kauf- man's forecast was based on the expecta- tion not of an economic recovery but of a continuing recession. The Confederation of British Industry, endorsing this gloomy view, was criticised by the Government. President Reagan's massive tax increase, approved narrowly by Congress and the Senate, helped the stock markets but not the long-term prospects. The British Steel Corporation announced the loss of another 1,675 jobs; British Leyland decided to lay off 7,500 assembly workers for three weeks (instead of the usual one) due to lack of de- mand, forcing Dunlop and Automotive Products also to cut production. Unemployment figures reached a new total of 3,292,702. The annual report of the In- ternational Monetary Fund noted that Bri- tain was having more success than any other country in controlling inflation. The Prime Minister returned from holiday for an operation to remove varicose veins.
The exodus from Beirut of members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation proceeded under the supervision of paratroops of the French Foreign Legion and, later, of 800 US Marines who made it clear they would leave at once if attacked. The only candidate in the Lebanese presidential election, Bashir Gemayel, duly won, raising fears that the Christian Phalangists would now turn on Lebanese Muslims and Palestinian civilians. While fighting continued between Israeli, Syrian and PLO forces in east Lebanon, Mr Begin spoke of the beginning of 'a historic period of peace'. The UN Relief and Works Agen- cy for Palestinian refugees said that 32 years' work in Lebanon had been wiped out by the war.
Thousands of policemen rioted in Bom- bay after their union had been banned for demanding a 40 per cent wage increase. Five were killed, shot by the army, in two days of violence and looting, in which striking textile workers and commuters also took part. In Bihar hundreds of journalists were beaten up by police during a demonstration against a Bill to introduce restrictive press laws. In Paris, a terrorist organisation, Ac- tion Directe, bombed the offices of the weekly magazine, Minute, recently convict- ed of anti-semitic libel. Last month the same group claimed responsibility for several at- tacks on Jewish property. The Corsican Na- tional Liberation Front exploded scores of
earlier this month. A report in Texas that General William Westmoreland, formerly supreme commander in Vietnam, had been abducted by an Unidentified Flying Object was found to be false after a four-hour police search.
Replays of the battle for the Falkland Islands continued. Argentinian intelli- gence was said to have predicted the British landing at San Carlos before the task force left Ascension Island, but General Menendez's reasons for ignoring this warning were not clear. A row between the Royal Navy and Welsh Guards had allegedly delayed the landing at Bluff Cove, leading to the loss of 55 British lives. Members of the 3rd Parachute Regiment claimed that American mercenaries had fought with Argentinian forces on the islands. One of the heroes of the war, Captain Nicholas Barker, returned to Chatham with his ship, the patrol vessel HMS Endurance, after ten months at sea. The Secretary of Defence, Mr Nott, prepared to try and answer charges at the Committee of Inquiry that it was his deci- sion, taken last autumn and later reversed, to scrap the Endurance which was the primary cause of the invasion by Argentina. Britain refused to reopen negotiations on sovereignty, but a decision to lift sanctions aghinst Argentina was expected.
Three members of the British Antarctic Survey Expedition were lost, presumed dead, off Petermann Island. The closure was announced of important railway ser- vices in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. The Law Commission drafted a Bill giving to each spouse a half share in the matrimonial home, in the absence of agree- ment to the contrary. The Bishop of Win- chester said that infidelity in marriage was a forgivable sin, and his son admitted to hav- ing had an affair before he was divorced. Protests by various bodies failed to stop Lady Cromwell having three horses shot following the death of her husband, the Government broker, who fell from one of them. King Sobhuza II of Swaziland, known also as The Lion and The Milky Way, died after a 61-year reign. SPC
`Will you stop saying that what goes up must come down?'
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