PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, gave his 'full support' to Mr William Waldegrave, who is the Minister for Agri- culture, when the British Broadcasting Cor- poration broadcast bits of a report by Sir Richard Scott which has not yet been pub- lished. The report was into the sale of arms to Iraq before Britain waged war on it; the leaked draft suggested that Mr Waldegrave had signed letters that were 'untrue' and 'apt to mislead' when he was a minister in the Foreign Office. Mr Major himself and Lady Thatcher, a former Prime Minister, were also criticised in other bits of the draft. Mr Nicholas Scott, a Member of Par- liament for Chelsea who sits in the Conser- vative interest, was invited by his enemies to end his career in the Commons after he was said to have wandered away from an accident in which his motor-car banged into a little boy's pushchair; he said he would stand for Parliament again. Lord Owen told the House of Lords that he was resigning as the European Community's so-called peace envoy in the former Yugoslavia. Anglian Water offered a £6 rebate to its customers; last month North West Water gave back £6.50. Dilys Powell, the film critic, died, aged 93. A Church of England committee advised against saying that couples in con- cubinage are 'living in sin'. Hundreds of boxes of fake Tetley teabags were discov- ered in Strathclyde. Southend pier caught fire. Ten cows died when lightning struck power lines in Bingham, Nottinghamshire.
BOSNIAN SERBS released 121 hostages (including 11 Welshmen) belonging to the United Nations force; they then released another 108 (including 17 Welshmen), leav- ing in captivity 152 (including 5 Welsh- men). Events in the former Yugoslavia became complicated beyond explanation. The great powers (probably excluding Rus- sia) seemed to set their hopes for some rea- son on President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia recognising Bosnia. General Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Bosnian Serbs, suddenly turned against overtures from the great powers and refused to say what had happened to the American pilot of an F16 aeroplane shot down over his ter- ritory. The United States offered equip- ment and air-cover, but no ground troops, to a new force to be set up principally by Britain (which is sending 6,000 extra troops) and France, under undefined terms. There is a possibility that the extra troops will merely cover the retreat of the remaining UN forces which have not yet been taken hostage. Croatia assured the UN that its assaults on ICnin in the Krajina area dominated by Serbs was not part of a policy of reconquest. President Milosevic made sure that an even more extreme Ser- bian nationalist, Mr Vojislav Seselj, was locked up after his parliamentary immunity was withdrawn. Elsewhere, two or three dozen were killed in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, in fighting between the Tutsi- controlled army and Hutu militiamen. Lots of people who favour a democratic system were arrested in Nigeria. Lots of people who favour a democratic system were arrested in China. There were floods in southern China. About 4,000 Vietnamese boat-people in Malaysia broke out from their camp and blocked a road in protest at plans to send them back to Vietnam. Den- mark was condemned for fuelling a power station with fish. The launch of a United States shuttle into orbit about the Earth was delayed when it was found that wood- peckers had made 135 holes in its insulating coat; the woodpeckers were not driven away by the planting of plastic owls. In Honduras 16 people died when lightning struck a football crowd.
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