PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Are you, or were you ever, a member of the Conservative Party?'
The House of Commons voted by 322 to 271 to oblige members to declare how much they earn from work outside the House that has a bearing on Parliament. This came as something of a rebuff to Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, who, though having in general terms commend- ed the conclusions of the Nolan inquiry into MPs' conduct, had opposed this particular measure. Britain sought the extradition of two Irish Republicans who had escaped from Brixton prison in 1991: Nessan Quinlivan and Pearse McCauley; they were released from jail in Ireland on Monday. The conviction for trying to sell arms to Iraq of four businessmen working for a company called Ordtec, was quashed because of government action that with- held official papers at their trial. British Airways made record half-yearly profits of £430 million. Seeboard, the seventh elec- tricity distributor to receive a takeover bid since July, welcomed a bid from the Texan company, Central and South West. A chocolate company projected a huge advertisement onto the dome of St Paul's, with the permission of the cathedral. The Church of England dropped plans to deprive parish clergy of their freeholds, which guarantee lifetime tenure of their livings. A woman had an abortion after being told that her healthy unborn child had Down's syndrome; but the results of her tests had been mixed up with another woman's. The impression of two master keys was found in some pie-dough at Parkhurst prison. Devon and Cornwall police introduced £20 instant penalties for nocturnal cyclists without lights. The Gov- ernment is to restrict sales of some sham- poos against head lice after a study sug- gested a possible link with cancer. Paul Eddington, the actor, died, aged 68. Lord Bottomley, the Labour politician enno- bled by Mrs Thatcher in 1984, died, aged 88. Pat Barker won the Booker prize with her novel The Ghost Road; Salman Rushdie did not win.
YITZHAK RABIN, the Prime Minister of Israel, was shot dead, aged 73. He had been addressing a peace rally in Tel Aviv. The man who confessed to doing it, Yigal Amir, aged 25, said, 'I did not want the peace process, because there is no such thing.' Dozens of heads of state and government attended his funeral, including President Bill Clinton of the United States; two former US presidents were there too, and from Britain came the Prince of Wales, Mr John Major, the Prime, Minister, Mr Tony Blair, the Leader of the Opposition, and Mr Paddy Ashdown, another politician. Hundreds of Israeli troops then swooped on extremist Jewish groups. Mr Giulio Andreotti, who hag been Prime Minister of Italy seven times, was charged with involvement in the murder in 1979 of a journalist working for a scandal sheet. The French govern- ment suddenly resigned, but President Jacques Chirac asked M. Alain Juppe, the Prime Minister, to form a new administration. Mr Lech Walesa and Mr Alexander Kwasniecki came out of the Polish presidential elections neck and neck; there will be a run-off in a week's time. Mr Eduard Shevardnadze easily won the presidential elections in Georgia; 54 parties vied for seats in its Parliament. Russia is to build a nuclear power station in southern Iran. Thousands of live bombs and bullets were showered over an Argentine town when an arms factory exploded; 10,000 people fled. There was a bad typhoon in the Philippines. The graves of children whose organs had been sold were found outside Livingstone in Zambia. A Picasso sold for $20 million. French explorers found an unrecorded kind of pony in Tibet. CSH
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