PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Star quality.
The Irish Government released the murderer of Lord Mountbatten and other convicted members of the Irish Republi- can Army for Christmas. The Queen told the nation: 'I never thought it would be possible in my lifetime to join with the Patriarch of Moscow and his congregation in a service in that wonderful cathedral in the heart of the Kremlin.' Queen's Univer- sity, Belfast, is to drop the National Anthem at degree ceremonies. The five crew of a cargo aeroplane carrying live calves from Algeria to Holland died when they crashed near Coventry, narrowly missing many houses. Police were called after midnight to the Huddersfield house of a man known as 'Cowboy Bob'; when at 4 a.m. he came out at their invitation, with his replica revolver, police shot him dead; his disabled wife was then coaxed out: she was not shot at. Passengers who had spent thousands of pounds on a voyage from England to the United States on the QE2 complained when there was no room for them on board because refitting had not been completed; those who sailed com- plained even more. The four defendants in the original . Guinness trial were given leave to appeal against their conviction; they include Mr Ernest Saunders. Maurice Saatchi was forced to resign as chairman of the advertising agency that he founded. John Osborne, the playwright and Angry Young Man, died, aged 65. Lord Pitt, the second black peer to be created, died, aged 81. Peter Hebblethwaite, the Vati- can-watcher, died, aged 64. Peter May, the England batsman, died, aged 64. England lost the second Test against. Australia. Children at Blackpool Tower Circus saw an acrobat fall to his death. Two burglars in Southend were stuck in a lift with the safe with which they had over-loaded it.
RUSSIA REPEATEDLY bombed Grozny, the capital of the secessionist region of Chechnya; many civilians were reported killed. Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs signed an interim peace treaty after being visited by Mr Jimmy Carter, a former American president; General Sir Michael Rose, the United Nations commander, tried to persuade the armies around Bihac to do the same. Four Islamic extremist hijackers killed three passengers on a flight from Algiers to Paris but were themselves killed by French soldiers at Marseilles. Four Catholic priests in Algeria were murdered, and France advised its citizens to leave the country. An Islamic extremist injured 1, ,-; people in Jerusalem and killed himself with a bomb on Christmas day. An Ankara court sentenced 86 Islamic extremists to prison for up to 15 years for involvement in a campaign of arson that killed 37 sect!' lar poets. Of 115 journalists killed this year, 48 died in Rwanda and 19 in Algeria' The pilot of a United States helicopte', that was brought down over North Korea' was killed and his co-pilot held captive' Washington police shot dead a man wa,r mg a knife outside the grounds of tae White House. Mr Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the Forza Italia Party, resigned aS Prime Minister of Italy after aevell months. Opposition members resigned en masse from parliament in an attempt. t bring down the government. Zapatista rebels circumvented Mexican army Wek ades to renew the insurgency they began nif the state of Chiapas at the beginning. cid the year; the peso was devalued by a till ci the Mexican stock market fell sharplY ane Popocatepetl erupted. Spaniards vier, allowed to fish in seas around Ireland. _ sperm-bank for yaks is to be opened in
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