2 NOVEMBER 1991, Page 4

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

When shall we tell them the recession is over, Norman?'

Britain secured a new clause in the treaty on European Monetary Union which will allow EEC members to opt out of using a Euro-currency. The Govern- ment opposed an EEC proposal to stop Sunday working and to bring in a 48-hour working week. The Director General of Fair Trading said banks had treated small businesses in a high-handed way. Business confidence was found.to have improved by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors. A male doctor was awarded £150,000 by a jury who found that an accusation of sexual harassment, made by a female GP, was slanderous. Mr Major announced that a minister would be made responsible in every Government department to promote women's interests. British Telecom gave a £64,000, 16.5 per cent, pay increase to its chairman, lain Vallance. The Daily Mirror sacked Nicholas Davies, its foreign editor, for denying he had been to Ohio in 1985, after a rival paper printed a picture of him there. Police in Belfast questioned five Loyalists over recent murders of Catholic taxi drivers. The value of drugs seized at London airports in the last six months was found to have risen by 25 per cent, suggesting a new sales drive into Britain. The I-figh Court refused to rule, as asked by the Bishop of Oxford, that the Church Commissioners could use the Church of England's money to charitable ends with- out seeking the best return. British Aeros- pace's £432 million rights issue crashed with a less than 10 per cent take up. A British company applied for a patent on a chemical found in men's armpits which persuades debtors to pay their bills. Eng- land beat Scotland 9-6 to reach the Rugby World Cup Final, where they will play Australia.

THE mediaeval city of Dubrovnik was threatened by the advance of Serbian- dominated Yugoslav troops. Croatian forces regained land near Zagreb. Foreign nationals were warned to leave Zaire, as protests against the rule of President Mobutu grew. France and Belgium cut off aid to his government. Two Israeli settlers were shot dead and five wounded in an ambush in the West Bank on the eve of the Madrid Middle East peace conference. President Yeltsin said he would take on day to day responsibility for running Rus- sia's economy and would remove all prio controls before the year's end. He sagl central control of the military had to be kept. Kiichi Miyazawa was elected leader of the Japanese Liberal Democratic parrY; he will become Prime Minister of Japan early in November. Only 40 per cent of Polish voters exercised their democratic rights in elections, and no party had a dear majority, suggesting disillusion and a fear of progress. Scores of drug traffickers were sentenced to death at public rallies in south west China. Britain agreed with Vietnam a scheme to repatriate 50,000 unwilling 'boat people' in camps in Hong Kong. Zambia prepared for its first multi-party elections since 1972. Senor Perez de Cuellar claimed that the United Nations was heading for insolvency because nations are late wall their dues. Almost a third of Australians polled on the day of a demonstration against anti-Semitism admitted they 415- liked Jews. The government of the Phrlir pines prepared to give back to Imelda Marcos thousands of shoes and an aban-