PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
See what you can do if you by In the referendum in Northern Ireland on the Stormont agreement, 676,966, or 71.12 per cent of a turnout of nearly 81 per cent of electors, voted Yes; 274,879 No. At the same time in the Republic of Ireland, 94 per cent of a 58 per cent turnout approved the agreement and a change in the Irish constitution to rescind a claim to the territory of the whole island of Ireland. Elections to a 108-member Northern Ire- land Assembly, with membership guaran- teed to sectarian groups, including Sinn Fein, will be held on 25 June. The Social Democratic and Labour party rejected sug- gestions of an electoral pact with Sinn Fein. Mr Pat Doherty, the vice-president of Sinn Fein, said: 'Decommissioning [arms] is a dead-end issue.' Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, annoyed Mr Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, by demanding spending cuts on embassies abroad, some of which might be sold. Emperor Akihito of Japan made an official visit to Britain; former prisoners of war of the Japanese turned their backs in protest as the Emperor rode along the Mall with the Queen in a closed carriage (in case of rain) before being invested with the Order of the Garter. At a banquet at Buckingham Palace, the Emperor said: 'The Empress and I can never forget the many kinds of suffering so many people have undergone because of that war. At the thought of the scars they bear, our hearts are filled with deep sorrow and pain.' In 1997 5,325 women giving Irish addresses had abortions in Britain, an increase of 9 per cent over the previous year. The pound, which has fallen by more than 7 per cent of its value against the German mark since March, continued to be sold by foreign investors who wanted to protect assets denominated in European currency units. The German media group Axel Springer considered tak- ing over the Mirror Group. The Gap is to sell clothes through the Internet. The Verve performed before an outdoor audi- ence of 33,000 at Wigan.
THE NEW President of Indonesia, Mr Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, who replaced General Suharto after riots, assured his Cabinet that he would like to hold elections within a year; some political prisoners were also released. In the Hong Kong elections, 15 of the 20 seats open to popular suffrage were won by the Democrats, led by Mr Martin Lee, and their allies, in a turnout of 53.3 per cent, which is high by local stan- dards; the other 40 seats were chosen by representatives of professions and by a committee. European Union foreign minis- ters agreed a code of conduct for the sale of arms; diplomats claimed that, to accommo- date the French, the guidelines had been watered down by Mr Robin Cook, the For- eign Secretary of Britain, which holds the EU rotating presidency at the moment. The Danes voted in a referendum on the Euro- pean Union treaty amended at Amsterdam; in 1992 they voted against the Maastricht treaty. In the Hungarian elections the Young Democrats-Civic party beat the Socialists, who have ruled since 1994. The Japanese state-owned postal savings system headed into the red because of a fall 111, long-term interest rates. Volkswagen said that if it succeeded in buying Rolls-RoYee Motor Cars it would quintuple production to 10,000 cars a year. Lady Cox, after visit- ing southern Sudan, accused the Sudanese government of deliberate genocide against the Dinka people. Pope John Paul went to see the Shroud of Turin on show in the cathedral. Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli, the Archbishop of Florence, hinted that the Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola, executed in 1498, might be considered for the process of beatification. CSI-1
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