PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
John Bull Jr
Westland and IBM were awarded a £15 billion contract to build the Merlin helicopter for the Navy instead of an all-British consortium. Polls put the Con- servative Party two points ahead of Labour to win the next General Election. Norman Willis, general secretary of the TUC, urged union leaders not to harm Labour's elec- toral prospects by shouting loudly for more power at their congress. Leyla Gordievsky was given permission to leave the Soviet Union to join her husband, a KGB defec- tor, in Britain. The IRA admitted it had planted incendiary devices found in various English shops, inside a seat on a London tube, and at a pub. An application was made to ban Sir Edward du Cann, former chairman of the Conservative Party, from holding company directorships. An inquiry began in Liverpool into allegations that some staff at Ashworth Hospital, a top security hospital where Ian Brady is held, have physically and sexually assaulted in- mates. David Owen decided he would not stand again for the House of Commons since he did not wish to look like a fading pop star. Police were called for three nights to rioting on a Cardiff council estate after a shop illegally tried to sell bread and milk. Petrol bombs were thrown at police in confrontations with youths on a south Oxford council estate. Head teachers of 1,500 state secondary schools claimed that they were short of teachers, and over 2,000 said they were short of books, equipment or space. A report showed that London Underground had still only complied with eight out of 26 recommendations to im- prove safety which were made at a 1989 inquiry after the King's Cross fire in which 31 people died. It was revealed that a prisoner's night in police cells costs more than a room at the Ritz.
PRESIDENT Gorbachev said defence spending in the Soviet Union would be slashed, and announced major changes in top level staffing of the defence forces. He said he would not resign from the lead- ership of the Soviet Union as it would be immoral. The Congress of People's De- puties was told to abolish itself. The Soviet parliament formally suspended the Com- munist Party. Six leaders of the failed coup were charged with treason. Talks con- tinued on the details of the independent status of the Baltic states, which were formally recognised by America and 30 other countries. Azerbaijan became the ninth republic to declare independence. The Soviet Union warned that it would soon suffer severe fuel shortages unless the West helped. Saddam Hussein's army was reported to be attacking Shi'ite Iraqis in the south. Yet another ceasefire, linked to an EEC peace plan, was signed in Yugosla- via, though fighting continued between Serbs and Croats. Seven Palestinians died on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Prime Minister, John Major, the first Western leader to 'visit China since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, sur- prised his hosts by asking them to improve their human rights record and by taking a walkabout in the Forbidden City. Four former East German border guards went on trial for killing a man who tried to defect in 1989. The ANC asked President de Klerk for the release of three right-wing hunger strikers so that they can give evidence on state involvement in their terrorism. Chile sent three warships to protect Easter Island after French postal authorities inadvertently included it on a stamp featuring French Polynesia. Frank ' Capra, the Sicilian-born film director died,
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