PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Dr David Owen resigned as leader of the SDP after 57 per cent of party members voted in favour of a merger with the Liberals. Dr Owen said he would work for the continuation of a 'fourth' party, which would 'finally give up the endless pretence that there are no differences between the Liberals and the SDP'. Simon Hayward, a 32-year-old captain in the Life Guards was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by a Swedish court after being found guilty of drug smuggling. Captain Hayward denied knowing that 110Ib of cannabis had been concealed in his brother's car which he drove from Ibiza to a remote village in Sweden last March. His mother and his girl friend, Miss Sandra Agar, said they would appeal, taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. Stock market prices were steadied by better trade figures after a one per cent rise in the base lending rate had triggered a record five per cent fall in the value of quoted securities. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to a record level for the 49th time this year. An inquiry opened into the abnormal number of child abuse cases admitted to Middlesborough general hos- pital in the first half of this year. The fifth Test Match at the Oval was drawn after Pakistan scored 708 runs, the fourth high- est total in history, in the first innings. Pakistan took the series 1-0. A crowd of 61,000 watched the Football League launch its centenary season with a 3-0 victory over the Rest of the World at Wembley stadium. On the next day a capacity crowd of 73,000 came to the same venue for an exhibition American football match between the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Broncos. Two detectives flew to Lundy in the Bristol Channel after its first crime in 10 years, when a camera, climbing equipment and a barrel of Lundy beer were stolen. The crime remains un- solved. Mr Tom McClean set a new record by rowing the Atlantic in 56 days.
IT IS now 59 days since Charles Glass, a regular contributor to the Spectator, was seized by gunmen in Beirut. The British Government changed its mind and agreed to send four Royal Navy minehunters to the Gulf area, after a Panamanian- registered supertanker, the Texaco Carib- bean, was holed by a mine in the previously `safe' Sea of Oman. The move was wel- comed by the US and condemned by Labour spokesmen. Iraqi planes bombed land-based oil installations in Iran, ending an unofficial one-month truce in the air war. An American fighter fired missiles at, but failed to hit, an Iranian plane that flew close to a reflagged tanker convoy in the Gulf. The presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica signed a peace pact in Guatemala City calling for ceasefires in Nicaragua and El Salvador and an end to outside assistance for the region's rebel forces. President Reagan welcomed the pact but said the interests of the Nicaraguan Contras would have to be protected. South Africa's pro- duction of coal and gold was threatened when black mineworkers started a well- supported strike for a 30 per cent pay rise that would bring them to parity with white mineworkers. On the first day 44 of the country's 99 mines were closed. In Rhodes tourists fled from forest fires and Mrs Holly Huddleston was imprisoned for sell- ing salads without cucumber and tomatoes. The new US Commerce Secretary is a retired steel executive, Mr Coy William Verity Jr. Lynne Cox became the first person known to have swum the Bering
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