PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, made a mysterious remark in the wake of the disastrous Conservative Party perfor- mance in the local elections: 'We will do precisely what the British nation has done all through its history when it has its back to the wall — turn round and fight.' The Tories won control of only 8 councils being contested, leaving them with 13 in all; Labour won 155; the Liberal Democrats 45, with 138 others under no overall control or falling to other parties. Of the 11,700 seats being contested, 2,056 went to the Tories, 5,615 to Labour. The nation then set about marking the 50th anniversary of VE-Day: the weather was sunny; the Queen, Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were cheered on the balcony of Buckingham Palace; there were songs by Vera Lynn; boys at Ampleforth College, seeing only a European flag flying, climbed up the school's tower to display 20 Union Jacks and the Stars and Stripes. Mr Major then flew off to Russia, where he attended a march-past by veterans in Red Square; but he refused to go to a rally later in the day where modern Russian armaments were the showpiece, in acknowledgement of Russia's continuing efforts to kill people in Chechnya. Mr Michael Ancram, a North- ern Ireland minister, met Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein for talks at Stor- mont. Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that he would not be putting up interest rates for the time being. Will Carling was sacked as the England Rugby captain for calling the Rugby Foot- ball Union '57 old farts'; three days later he was reinstated. Off-course betting shops opened on a Sunday for the first time. Mrs Michael Heath was delivered of a baby girl, Daisy Alice.
MR JACQUES CHIRAC, the Mayor of Paris and the candidate of the Rassemble- ment pour la Republique, won the French presidential elections. Croat forces cap- tured a Serb enclave in Western Slavonia, taking hundreds of prisoners and driving away thousands of civilian refugees. Bosni- an Serb forces shelled Sarajevo, killing 11, and Bihac; they also deliberately set fire to a Catholic church and monastery near Banja Luka. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Dr Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), signed a peace treaty designed to end a civil war that has killed more than half a million. Only four candidates were killed during local elections in the Philippines. The Spaniards continued to prosecute a fish war, this time against Morocco. The Japanese said they had averted a new gas attack on the Tokyo underground with the discovery of a container of cyanide capable of killing thousands. The United States pre- pared to take punitive trade measures against Japan after talks on motor-car exports broke down. The Dow Jones Indus- trial Average reached a new high at 4,383.87. Senator Bob Dole introduced leg- islation to oblige the United States to trans- fer its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Senator Newt Gingrich said that $3,000 million of aid to Mexico authorised by President Bill Clinton had been made illegally; Mr Clinton said this was nonsense. Mr Clinton said that he wanted to deport illegal immigrants at a faster rate than was currently being done; there are 100,000 awaiting a decision. America initiated its new policy of sending Cuban refugees picked up at sea straight back to Cuba. Troops isolated the city of Kikwit (popula- tion 600,000) in Zaire where 100 people are suspected to have died from the ebola virus, which dissolves vital organs. Hail- stones the size of tennis balls fell on Dallas
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