--Portrait of the Week— SINGAPORE became a self-governing State within
the Commonwealth. The Times told the top people that the Foreign Secretary was on the way out, and the Prime Minister told the Foreign Secretary that he wasn't. Geneva found little else to talk about. Two monkeys returned from space and held a prAs conference. Talks between printers, master printers, and printing-ink people got nowhere and neither, for twenty-four hours, did the Mdtro trains in Paris, where there was also a dispute about pay and hours.
THE FOUR FOREIGN MINISTERS in Geneva got no nearer an agreement in private than they had done in public. King Baudouin of the Belgians returned from the United States to a rousing welcome from the Bruxellois, and the news that he still had a Political crisis to look forward to. The Left-wing, anti-colonialist People's Action Party romped to victory in Singapore's general election, but refused to form a government until eight of its members were released from detention. Once that was done, Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister,
and the Governor, Sir William Goode, became Yang Di-pertuan Ncgara. Not only the Soviet Union but also Albania made friendly gestures towards Yugoslavia. It was announced that Maria Julia had fired at Lord Lloyd : the one turned out to be an Icelandic gunboat, the other a British trawler.
THE LAST BRITISH OFFICERS and men left the former RAF base at Habbaniyah in Iraq, whose Government renounced United States military aid, too, because acceptance conflicted with its Policy of 'positive neutrality.' The same Govern- ment granted political asylum to the Syrian Army's former Chief of Staff, sacked by President
Nasser for being a fellow-traveller. The Egyptians took Israeli potash from a Danish ship that was sailing through the Suez Canal to Indian ports.
Two FEMALE MONKEYS with the unfeminine names of Able and Baker became the first living creatures known to have voyaged into space and returned alive when the nose-cone of a Jupiter missile was recovered from the Atlantic after reaching a height of 300 miles, and a speed of 10.000 m.p.h. Both returned very cross, and Able died later when an instrument was removed from under her skin. Dr. Charity Waymouth. a British woman scientist Working in the United States, was credited by the American Cancer Society with discovering a basic secret of 'the chemistry of life' which would be of great, value in cancer studies.
BLACKPOOL MAGISTRATES DISMISSED the second of two summonses brought by members of the league of Empire Loyalists against a Tory agent and an attendant at the Winter Gardens: the Loyalists said that they hadn't the money to pay the costs. The Bournemouth East and Christ- church Conservative Association adopted Mr. John Howard Curdle, a company director, as its prospective parliamentary candidate. The Minister of Works said that he might, after all, let the Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields exhibit a crib at Christmas in Trafalgar Square: he had no Personal objections; it had only been 'a question of whether a crib was likely to cause offence to any religious body.' Liberace arrived to play the piano before the Queen Mother and to sue the Daily Mirror and its columnist Cassandra.
THE BRITISH TRADE FAIR opened in Lisbon. Bail was fixed at £220.000 when directors of a stamp auction firm were remanded in Dublin. The total hire-purchase debt outstanding in Britain went LIP by. a record £28 million in April, it was announced, to reach a total of £700 million. Parthia won the Derby and £36,078, and the British Gov- ernment spared £200,000 for the world's refugees.
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