PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Attempted mugging Polly Peck, a company capitalised at £2 billion, went into administration. Asil Nadir condemned the tactics of the Serious Fraud Office and denied any illegal deal- ings. Derek Hatton, former deputy leader of Liverpool council, was questioned, but released without charge, by police about alleged city council corruption over plan- ning permission and contract work. Wim- pey, the construction company, was also under investigation. The Government issued a White Paper with proposals for the creation of a child support agency to track down absent fathers and make them pay for their children. The Government announced it is to give magistrates powers to deduct fines from Social Security pay- ments. Four students from Staffordshire Polytechnic were detained under the Pre- vention of Terrorism Act. The National Audit Office said that one in seven claims for income support and one in five claims for family credit were being miscalculated by the Department of Social Security, leading to a loss of over £100 million. The CBI called for a further cut in interest rates and reported that the economy had plunged into a serious recession. Britain and France were linked under the Channel by a narrow probe joining the two tunnels.
Five people were charged with the illegal importation of 18 kilogrammes of cocaine, worth £3 million, seized at Heathrow airport. Farmers held a mass demonstra- tion in London to call attention to the recession in agriculture. The Consumers Association began a campaign to help passengers sue British Rail for poor ser- vice. The Home Office said it will give local councils wider powers to make own- ers clear up after their dogs. The Govern- ment defeated by only three votes a registration scheme for dogs. A beagle pack intruded on to the Prince of Wales's estate at Highgrove, in Gloucestershire, frightening police officers and cows.
AN ATTEMPT by the Soviet Union to persuade Iraq to withdraw peacefully from Kuwait failed. Anti-war sentiment began to strengthen in the United States, and one third of the Democrats in the House of Representatives told President Bush they were strongly opposed to offensive military action. The United Nations Security Coun- cil passed a resolution declaring that atroci- ties committed by Iraqi troops in Kuwait are punishable as war crimes. Jewish em- ployers sacked Palestinian workers in the aftermath of revenge attacks on Jews by
Arabs. The US budget, a compromise collection of tax increases and spending cuts, was finally agreed between President Bush and Congress. European leaders, with the exception of Mrs Thatcher, set a 1994 deadline for the creation of an EEC central bank with powers over domestic monetary policy. The British Prime Minis- ter denounced the plan as 'cloud-cuckoo land'. The Labour government in New Zealand was swept from office and re- placed by the National Party, which won 68 out of 97 seats. Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, did badly in provincial assembly elections, failing to win a majority even in her home province. Security forces sealed off an area of 100 miles around Ayodhya in north India to keep out Hindu fundamentalists who wish to build a Hindu temple in the place of a mosque there. The Indian prime minister, V.P. Singh, offered to resign. Angola prepared to abandon Marxism and adopt democracy. Burmese military rulers jailed all but four of the leaders of the National League for Democracy which won a land- slide victory in the last general election- The Pope crushed rumours that the Roman Catholic Church is about to revise its policy
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