PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mrs Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the 'York- shire Ripper', was awarded £600,000 libel damages by a High Court jury against the satirical magazine Private Eye; Mr Peter Cook, the magazine's majority shareholder announced that he was 'under the moon' at the news. Senior Tory ranks closed against Mr Edward Heath as he attacked the Prime Minister by saying that 'the concept of national sovereignty is a doctrine of a period which has passed'. A demonstration of some 15-20,000 Muslims marched through London to protest against Mr Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses; scuffles broke out between the more militant elements of the crowd (some of whom carried banners saying 'Burn Rushdie') and the police. The Lord Chan- cellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, resigned from the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland after its synod confirmed his suspension for attending a Roman Catholic requiem Mass. As Duchess of Normandy, the Queen visited the Channel Islands where, in accordance with ancient tradi- tion, she was presented with two dead mallard ducks. A BBC television interview with Mr Neil Kinnock was halted when the leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposi- tion apparently lost his temper and used bad language.
THE 40th-anniversary Nato summit meet- ing in Brussels ended with a compromise agreement over short-range nuclear mis- siles: the United States will enter into negotiations over their reduction once substantial cuts in conventional forces, proposed by President Bush, have begun (according to the West Germans), or, have been completed (according to Mrs Thatch- er). As part of this plan 10 per cent of American forces in Western Europe will be withdrawn. The new Congress of People's Deputies met in Moscow and elected Mikhail Gorbachev President; amid dramatic scenes Mr Boris Yeltsin first failed to gain and then achieved a seat in the Supreme Soviet. It was reported from Peking that the hard-liners — Mssrs Li and Deng — had won the political battle within the Communist Party leadership. Troops were being urged to enforce martial law; the numbers of student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square dropped considerably and arrests were reported. Violent food riots took place in Argentina after emergency measures were announced to curb inflation running now at around 100 per cent per month. Mr Charles HaugheY called a general election in the Republic of Ireland. French authorities arrested Paul Touvier, the `I-Ingman of Lyons', for war-time 'crimes against humanity' at a schismatic Roman Catholic priory in Nice where he had been in hiding: The Russians dropped their seven-day deadline for im- posing a quota on the staff employed by British concerns in the Soviet Union. Four Britons were expelled from Czechoslova- kia a day after four Czechs were ordered out of Britain for spying. The British Government apologised to Spanish author- ities after a drunken and rowdy group Of RAF grOund crew ran amok in an hotel in Spain. England won the one-day interna- tional cricket series against the Australian touring side; Mr Nick Faldo won the PGA golf tournament at Wentworth; Arsenal won the football League championship. MStJT
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