PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`There must be some mistake, officer, you've got the right man!'
Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, attempted to placate opponents of Euro- pean integration by suggesting that he would block any big constitutional changes at the intergovernmental conference in 1996. Mr Tony Blair, the leader of the Opposition, ran into trouble with his plans for reforming Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution, which advocates com- mon ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange; 32 Labour mem- bers of the European Parliament put an advertisement on the front page of the left- wing Guardian newspaper opposing him. A thousand police a night guarded calves from the wrath of animal rights campaign- ers at Shoreham harbour from which they (the calves) are exported to be reared in lit- tle crates in the dark to make veal. Mr William Waldegrave, the Agriculture Min- ister, admitted some of his farm's calves sent to market probably ended up in Hol- land, but then so did the Queen's and those of practically every other dairy farmer. Three prisoners who had escaped from Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight were recap- tured near the jail after their attempts to steal a light aircraft failed. Three other prisoners escaped from Littlehey in Cam- bridgeshire. The Marquess of Bath lost a Titian worth £5 million to burglars at his house in Wiltshire. Mr Auberon Waugh lost paintings and jeweller)/ worth £25,000 to burglars at his house in Somerset. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and his mother, Princess Alice, are to move out of their Country house, Barnwell Manor, because they can no longer afford its upkeep. Peter Cook, the comedian, died, aged 57. An Indian lion called Arfur, which had mauled two madmen who had climbed into his den at London Zoo, was killed when he fell sick; he will be stuffed and put on show.
RUSSIAN troops captured, street by street, areas of Grozny, the capital of the seces- sionist region of Chechnya; President Boris Yeltsin of Russia, who was under pressure from all sides at home and abroad, called a 48-hour ceasefire. A motion was defeated in the Russian parliament which had sought to end the violence. The Mexican stock market fell by nearly 7 per cent in one day, its sharpest fall for five years; the same thin&happened the next day. The peso has lost nearly a third of its value in one month. Share prices in Argentina and Brazil fell by 10 per cent and in Chile by 5 per cent. The Spanish peseta felt the effects of political scandal; Mr .Felipe Gonzalez, the Prime Minister, denied that the government had been involved pith death squads which had killed more than 20 members of the Basque terrorist organisation, Euzkadi ta Askata- suna. The Spanish interior minister sued a policeman for libel over the matter. Mr Sil- vio Berlusconi, who has resigned as Prime Minister of Italy and has been seeking an early election, met President Oscar Scal- faro, who has been in favour of a new coali- tion being formed. British Telecom is seek- ing new markets in Germany through an alliance with the utilities group VIAG. Joe Slovo, the South African Communist Party leader and guerrilla organiser, died, aged 68. The Pope left for a ten-day tour of south-east Asia and Australia. French police put 1,000 stolen violins on show in an attempt to find their owners. A parasitic worm from New Zealand that sucks dry earthworms was reported to be spreading
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