PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
There's nothing I can do for you. I suggest you fly to Bosnia and we'll try to get John Major interested in you.
Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, proposed a revival of his idea of the hard ecu. The Department of Transport suggest- ed that drivers who had taken tests within two years might have to retake them if they committed an offence that earned an endorsement. The British Rail passengers' watchdog said the railway could 'begin to break down' for lack of investment. There were further post-mortem examinations of Mrs Joy Gardner, who died after being arrested by police who were attempting to enforce her deportation as an illegal immi- grant; it became clear that the police had used an adhesive gag as well as straps and handcuffs. Mr Bernie Grant, the black MP, claimed that one of the new post mortems showed death through asphyxiation. Mr Ted Dexter resigned as chairman of the England selectors only hours before Eng- land lost the fifth Test against Australia, its ninth defeat in ten matches. The FT-SE share index rose to its highest yet. The Queen Mother celebrated her 93rd birth- day and Buckingham Palace was opened to tourists; it sold £110,000 of souvenirs in three days. Mr Dave Lee Travis, the disc jockey, who is 47, announced on air his res- ignation from the BBC after 26 years. A woman on the Irish-speaking island of Let- termore won £3 million in the national lot- tery by employing the dates of feasts of the Virgin Mary. A different woman saved a dolphin from drowning when it became stuck on mudflats near Christchurch in Dorset.
NATO agreed to air strikes against Serb forces in Bosnia on occasions when the Sec- retary General of the United Nations, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, gives his permis- sion. Bosnian Serbs had undertaken to withdraw from two mountains overlooking Sarajevo. They later said that the undertak- ing meant that UN troops would defend the positions, one of which is the main cor- ridor for Bosnian Muslim arms reaching the besieged city. They soon returned to their positions. In response, President Alia Izetbegovic of Bosnia refused to attend the Geneva peace talks. A five-year-old girl was airlifted from Sarajevo to London for surgery to her terrible injuries; she had been featured on television reports, unlike hundreds of others. The Israeli Attorney General called on the Supreme Court to free John Demjanjnk, who had been cleared of being the concentration camp guard, 'Ivan the Terrible'. Dr Boutros Ghali also called for 200 UN observers to act as monitors in the ceasefire between Abkhazian separatists and the government
of Georgia. A CIA agent, in Georgia to advise President Shevardnadze on ways to avoid assassination, was shot dead. UN observers flew to Liberia to oversee a ceasefire in the civil war that has cost 150,000 lives. Seven Somalis were killed when US forces returned fire in Mogadishu; four Americans had earlier been killed. The Pope, on his 60th foreign tour, flew to Jamaica and thence to Mexico and Denver, where he was to meet Presi- dent Clinton for the first time. President Clinton got his budget proposals through Congress by the narrowest of votes. The dollar reached a new low against the yen. The first non-Liberal Democrat cabinet in 40 years was formed in Japan; Socialists and women have entered it. Storms and mudslides killed scores in Japan and in Venezuela. The 5,000 inhabitants of Nauru in the Pacific are to receive £50 million compensation from Australia for damage to four-fifths of the island in 50 years of phosphate mining. The third Chinese air- liner in four months was hijacked and flown to Taiwan. Two 78-year-old grandmothers were arrested for prostitution by Taiwanese police. A sky-diver whose parachute failed to open survived when he fell 3,000 feet into a duckpond at Napier, New Zealand.
CSH
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