PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Stephen Milligan, the Conservative member for Eastleigh, was found dead at home, apparently wearing some lady's underclothing, a noose of flex and a plastic bag; he had a piece of orange in his mouth. He was 45 and unmarried. Mr Bryan Gould, who fought John Smith for leader- ship of the Labour Party is leaving Parlia- ment in order to return to academe in his native New Zealand. A musical about Robert Maxwell, the criminal newspaper owner, was kept off the stage by an injunc- tion granted lest it prejudice the trial of his sons. Interest rates were cut by a quarter of a percentage point, to 5.25 per cent. Lady Thatcher criticised Mr Bill Clinton, the American President, for continuing to sup- port the sanctions preventing Bosnians to buy arms to defend themselves and for let- ting in Mr Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein. Mr John Major, the Prime Min- ister, is to go to a rugby match on 19 Febru- ary with Mr Albert Reynolds, the Irish Prime Minister; they also plan to discuss the failure of Sinn Fein to respond to the Anglo-lrish joint declaration. Amnesty accused the Government of failing to corn- front claims that soldiers had shot terrorist suspects rather than arrest them. Mr John Gummer, the Environment Secretary, pro- posed a ban on the building of supermar- kets on green-field sites, to keep town cen- tres from desertion. Lancashire County Council and Greenpeace were granted a legal review of the decision to start up the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant. Mr Angus Diggle, aged 37, a solicitor impris- oned after being found guilty of attempted rape, was given leave to appeal against his conviction. Dr Stefan Buczacki took fellow panellists of Gardeners' Question Time to Classic FM. Norman Del Mar, the conduc- tor, died, aged 74. Anona Winn, a star of Twenty Questions on the wireless, died, aged 90.
A 120MM MORTAR shell killed 66 people in a crowded market in Sarajevo and wounded 200 others; some were flown out to German hospitals. Several other people had been killed in bombardments in the days before. Mr Boutros Boutros Ghali, the Secretary General of the United Nations, asked Nato to sanction aerial offensives against Serb forces, which had been shelling Sarajevo and other civilian targets. President Clinton came out in favour of war from the air. The United States increased interest rates for the first time in five years; immediately share prices fell on Wall Street and then in Asian markets and
in London. Japan cut personal taxes by about a quarter; Brazil put up taxes on rich people in an attempt to reduce inflation of 40 per cent a month. Zaire faces expulsion from the International Monetary Fund because of its financial misbehaviour. Presi- dent Mitterrand of France was among political leaders at the funeral of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, who had died aged ninety-something; it took place in a basilica claimed to be bigger than St Peter's that he had built in his home village. A man of Croatian origin ran towards the Prince of Wales in New Zealand squirting an air-freshener and shouting, 'Remove the smell of royalty.' The Prince later osculated a dummy in a first-aid demonstration. Islamic extremists in Egypt gave a 'final warning' for foreign- ers to leave. Four Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah, the Islamic activist party, in southern Lebanon; Israeli talks with the Palestine Liberation Organisation stagnated. Colonel Mengistu, the Marxist former dictator of Ethiopia, angered authorities in Zimbabwe, where he is exiled, by making political statements, in contravention of his terms of residence. Joseph Cotten, the film actor who appeared in Citizen Kane and The Third
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