PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'I'm not sayin' you didn't buy it here, I'm sayin' just show me the guarantee.'
AGreek cruise liner carrying 400 British school children sank off Piraeus in Greece following a collision with an Italian cargo ship. One schoolgirl and one teacher are missing; all the other British were saved. The captain of the Italian freighter was charged with manslaughter. A 13-year- old was found guilty of murdering a two year old child. Mr Douglas Hurd imposed a ban on television and radio interviews with Sinn Fein members and IRA spokes- men as well as a curb in Northern Ireland on the right not to be challenged in court if accused remain silent. These curbs were generally condemned by the Opposition and by Irish groups in the United States but welcomed by President Botha in South Africa. Mrs Thatcher said she expected to lead the Conservatives into the next gener- al election. Lord Young announced that 'the Government has no legal liability' for losses sustained by the 18,000 small inves- tors in the £190 million Barlow Clowes crash. Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the Lord Chancellor, announced a Green Paper to be issued in the New Year planning the most fundamental reform of the legal profession this century. Child Benefit will be frozen at its present level of £7.25 per child per week for the second successive year. A bid of £2.9 billion for Consolidated Gold Fields made by the Luxembourg- based South African-controlled Minorco was referred by Lord Young to the Mono- ploies and Mergers Commission. Mr Peter Carey was awarded the 1988 Booker Prize for his novel Oscar and Lucinda. Mr Peter Langan the flamboyant restaurateur was seriously ill after fire broke out at his country home. Bristol put up its Christmas lights the day British Summer Time ended.
THE West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, met Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow for a fence-mending summit. Mr Kohl called for a united Germany; Mr Gor- bachev thought it would be dangerous to change the status quo. The Heysel Stadium trial came to a halt for the second time in four days and was described as 'deteriorat- ing into a shambles' when defence lawyers walked out. Victims and relatives wept as they watched a video of the crushed bodies of the 39 people who died. A New York jury indicted Mr Ferdinand Marcos, the former president of the Philippines and Mr Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi financier, on charges of using hundreds of millions of dollars of embezzled government funds to buy buildings, jewels and works of art in America. Mr Reagan was 'sad' at the need for indictment of his old friend. The first Mass for 38 years was celebrated before the Catholic Cathedral of Vilnius in Lithuania when it was given back to the Church. Since 1950 the cathddral had been used as an art gallery. Hurricane Joan gathered speeds of 135 mph and struck central America, killing 100 people. Hun- dreds of ferry passengers are missing after Typhoon Ruby struck the Philippines. Paris suffered a 24-hour strike by a number of public sector services in a campaign for pay increases to keep pace with inflation. A march of thousands through the centre of Paris brought back echoes of the con- flicts of 1968. And, in the week when three grey whales trapped by ice in Alaska have been struggling to survive while rescuers tried to cut a route for them back to the open sea, it emerged that Japan is once again trying to launch its whaling fleet. KLE
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