PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`Paper Sir?'
An Oxford postgraduate, `Mr X', failed to obtain an injunction to stop his former girlfriend, 'Miss S', an undergradu- ate who was 18 to 21 weeks pregnant by him, from having an abortion. He took his case at record speed through the Court of Appeal to the Law Lords, but they re- jected his claim that the child was 'capable of being born alive'. A vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Marcus Fox, attempted to put down three Commons motions, signed by over 100 Tory backben- chers, stating at length the reasons why Mr Kinnock was unfit to be Leader of the Opposition, among them his 'inability to exercise self-control', but the Speaker in- tervened and instead the Conservative and Labour Chief Whips issued a statement that they would try to prevent 'personal abuse' of MPs. It was announced that control of Leyland Trucks will pass to Daf of Holland, the British Government writ- ing off £750 million in accumulated losses. The Baxter family of Fochabers, Gram- pian, owners of a jam- and soup-making firm, rejected the 129th takeover bid in the past 40 years. Mr Gordon Baxter said: `Five managing directors of Heinz have come up here to see us over the years with seduction on their minds.' The last vessel to be built on Teesside, the North Islands, left Smith's Dock bound for Havana. The company which built it is closing. It was reported that a Dorset man has set up in business as a cow chiropodist. Lord Napier and Ettrick was cleared by magistrates of having a dangerous mascot on his car.
IN THE Republic of Ireland, Mr Charles Haughey's party, Fianna Fail, won the largest number of seats in the general election, but not enough to escape reliance on the votes of four independents when it forms a government. The Unionist candi- date, Stan Gebler Davies, failed to win Cork South West. The American press continued its assault on President Reagan and his administration. The White House chief of staff, Donald Regan, was said to have 'the confidence of the President until he's told otherwise'. John Koehler, recent- ly appointed as director of communications at the White House, confirmed that he once belonged to the Jungvolk, an orga- nisation which he described as 'the boy scouts run by the Nazi party'. The Home Office said six alleged Nazi war criminals were living in Britain. Syria sent a substan- tial armed force into west Beirut. Brigadier Ghazi Kenaan, Syria's chief of intelligence in the Lebanon, said that 'there will be no more suffering'. Syrian troops shot 20 militiamen of the pro-Iranian Hizbollah. French police arrested four of the leading members of Action Directe, a terrorist organisation whose threats to jurors in a trial last December led the government to introduce non-jury trial for terrorist cases. On the next day the first such case opened in Paris, when Georges Ibrahim Abdullah, a Lebanese terrorist leader, went on trial accused of complicity in the murder of an American and an Israeli diplomat. In New York, Andy Warhol died of a heart attack. He is best remembered for his large paintings of tins of soup. The leader of the African state Burkina Fasco, Captain Tho- mas Sankara, appeared before a govern- ment anti-corruption commission which he had set up: he described himself as 'the poorest president in the world'. Among his possessions were an old car, three guitars and a broken freezer.
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