PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
At the first signs of an attack, wrap up warm and stay inside Intensive-care beds became unavailable as an influenza outbreak swept the land. The government suddenly started saying that twice as many people had flu than statistics had indicated because the flu-ridden were not bothering GPs but telephoning NHS Direct, an advice line. It appeared that Mr Geoffrey Robinson had not yet stepped down as non-executive chairman of TransTec when Ford submitted a claim for £11 million against it, although colleagues said that he had been unaware of it. Mr Jonathan Aitken was released from prison with an electronic tag after serving seven months of an 18-month sentence for perjury. Mrs Cherie Blair paid a £10 penalty fare after telling a ticket collector that she had been unable to use her credit card at Black- friars to pay for a ticket to Luton, where she was sitting as a judge in a criminal court. Britain told Libya of its 'deep concern' when 32 crates at Gatwick airport marked as motor-car parts and bound for Tripoli were found to contain Scud-missile parts. Mr Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, said that the English, compared with other British peo- ple, were 'potentially very aggressive, very violent'. A commander in the Ulster Volun- teer Force was shot dead in Portadown, County Armagh, probably by members of the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force. The Vat- ican sent a strong letter to the Scottish chair- man of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy criticising as 'inade- quate' its translations of liturgical texts. Lord Lloyd-Webber bought the Stoll Moss group, which owns 10 West End theatres. The Dis- tressed Gentlefolk's Aid Association is changing its name to the Elizabeth Finn Trust on the assumption that it will make its purpose clearer. Patrick O'Brian, the novel- ist of the early 19th-century navy with a strangely secretive life, died, aged 85.
RUSSIAN forces lost increasing numbers in fighting in Grozny and surrounding towns in Chechnya; Russia has officially admitted more than 500 killed. America Online (AOL), an Internet service provider founded in 1985, took over Time Warner, the entertainment group, in a merger in one way worth £220 billion, big- ger than any before. Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, said that the Pope might want to resign if he were too weak. Britain asked Iran to give justice to 13 Ira- nian Jews who have been held for nine months without trial on suspicion of spy- ing for Israel. French lorry drivers block- aded border crossings in protest against plans by the socialist government to reduce their working week. A burning lorry once more closed the tunnel in the Austrian Alps where a fire killed 12 last May. The 14-year-old Karmapa Lama, the 17th in a line dating from the 13th century, escaped from Chinese control in Tibet by walking over the Himalayas to Dharam- sala in India. An old artillery shell in a junk shop exploded in a market at Bhatin- da, 100 miles south of Amritsar, killing five. A woman is suing a supermarket in Dongguang, southern China, where four of her fingers were cut off after she was accused of shoplifting; she had picked up three of them and taken them to a hospi- tal, which sewed them back on. Crown Prince Frederik, the heir to the throne of Denmark, began a four-month expedition by dog-sled through more than 2,000 miles of the northern edge of Greenland. A 54- year-old grandmother from Sunnyside, Washington State, gave birth to triplets apparently conceived naturally. The last known specimen of a sub-species of Pyre- neean goat, the bucardo or Capra pyre- naica pyrenaica, was found dead, crushed by a fallen tree in Ordesa national park.
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