PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, insisted that he would not decide a policy on Britain joining a single European cur- rency until after the election. In the mean- time the Conservative Party lost its theoret- ical majority in the Commons when Sir John Gorst withdrew his support because a hospital accident department in his con- stituency had been closed. Mr Major then broadcast to the nation from his conserva- tory in Huntingdonshire Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was earlier spotted by a Labour MP in an expensive restaurant run by Nico Ladenis giving an off-the-record briefing to two BBC correspondents suggesting that he had threatened to resign unless Mr Major refrained from coming out against joining a single currency. Mr Gordon Brown, the shadow Chancellor, said that Labour was embracing a 'wait and see' policy on mone- tary union too. Mr Major then flew to Dublin for talks with other European heads of government about economic and mone- tary union. Mr John Bruton, the Irish Taoiseach, had earlier flown to London for talks with Mr Major about Northern Ire- land. Worshippers were enabled to enter a Catholic church in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, by 300 riot police who held back picketers protesting against the banning of an Orange march; three Catholic schools in the area were set on fire. The National Audit Commission reported that £4 million worth of British ammunition had gone missing in Bosnia. Two and a half tons of cannabis were seized on a ship off west Wales. A DIY kit for converting soft drinks into drinks with 5 per cent alcohol went on sale; it can legally be bought by children. Sir John Gielgud was appointed a member of the Order of Merit. The number of old people to die of Eschetichia coli food poi- soning in Lanarkshire rose to ten. A hun- dred native crayfish were being bred in a tank in Hampshire to replace thousands in the river Itchen killed by a fungal disease, Aphanomyces astaci, spread by American crayfish.
MR YEVGENY Primakov, the foreign minister of Russia, had talks with the secre- tary-general of Nato, Mr Javier Solana, on the expansion of the military affiance. The United Nations Security Council pondered a list of African candidates to replace Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN secretary- general. China named Mr Tung Chee-hwa as the first chief executive to rule Hong Kong from next July. Thousands continued to protest against President Slobodan Milo- sevic's annulment of local election results in Serbia even though a high court ruling had supported him. Thousands gathered in the centre of Almaty, the capital of Kaza- khstan, to call for the resignation of Presi- dent Nursultan Nazarbayev and protest against unpaid salaries and pensions. Greek farmers blockaded roads and railways in protest at a reduction in subsidies imposed to help the country meet criteria for Euro- pean monetary union. Public sector work- ers in Spain struck for higher pay. President Jerry Rawlings, who seized power in Ghana in 1979, was re-elected for a further four years. More than 30 died in violence between Xhosa and Sotho-speaking work- ers at the Wildebeestfontein South plat- inum mine 100 miles north-west of Johan- nesburg. Mutinous soldiers in the Central African Republic agreed to a ceasefire. Bahrain and Qatar were at loggerheads in a border dispute; a government-controlled newspaper in Bahrain called Sheik Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr Al Thani, the foreign minister of Qatar, 'the blabbermouth and trickster of Qatar', Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the co-Prime Minister of Cam- bodia, said he would spend a period as a Buddhist monk to calm political tensions. The Taliban Islamic army in Afghanistan banned the use of brown paper bags lest they be made with recycled paper that had borne words from the Koran. Israel pro- posed building 100 houses for Jews in East Jerusalem, a plan condemned by Palestini- an and Israeli human rights groups. The mayor of Bethlehem said the town was too boor to pay for suitable Christmas celebra- tions this year. Thousands of reindeer starved to death in eastern Russia.
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