PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
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Only sporadic violence followed the banning by police of a march by Apprentice Boys on the walls of Londonderry; the Orangemen marched elsewhere and Nationalists held their own march, under the temporarily irenic sway of Sinn Fein. At Bellaghy, Co. Londonderry, villagers allowed the Royal Black Preceptory to march through, after blocking their path for two days. The Conservative Party put up posters showing Mr Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party, with demonic eyes; underneath is a caption: 'Clare Short says dark forces behind Tony Blair manipulate policy in a sinister way.' The satanic conno- tations were criticised by the Bishop of Oxford. Miss Short, the shadow Cabinet spokesman on overseas development, had earlier attacked Mr Tony Blair's leadership in the New Statesman; this she had done indirectly by praising his late predecessor, John Smith, and by talking of the malign influence of advisers who 'live in the dark'. A paper by a prospective Labour candidate published by the Fabian Society, which is affiliated to the Party, proposed that an end be put to the remaining political powers of the Queen and to her role as head of the Commonwealth. A woman who had received fertility therapy and found herself pregnant naturally with eight babies decid- ed she did not want any of them aborted; through the mediation of Mr Max Clifford, a publicity agent, she sold her story to the News of the World, which promised her a large payment if all eight were born. A woman was killed and 60 people injured in a crash between a commuter train and another which was empty, just outside Wat- ford. Sir Anthony Parsons, the ambassador in Iran when the Shah fell and at the UN in the Falklands war, died, aged 73. Bruce Rioch, the manager of Arsenal, was sacked a few days before the season began. Under- ground drivers stopped striking but post- men continued. Four inches of rain led to floods in Folkestone.
CHECHEN rebels pushed Russian forces out of Grozny and inflicted heavy casual- ties; many civilians also died in the fighting. President Boris Yeltsin was inaugurated as Russia's first elected head of state; he appointed General Alexander Lebed as his representative in Grozny. Mr Bill Clinton, the President of the United States, became very excited by claims that a meteorite found in the Antarctic came from Mars and showed traces of primitive life; he promised that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would exert 'its full intellec- tual power end technological prowess' in a
search for life on Mars, the discovery of which would 'surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe'. Mr Bob Dole, aged 73, the Republican chal- lenger for the presidency, chose Mr Jack Kemp, aged 61, who is famed for his former skill as a football quarterback, as his run- ning-mate and candidate for the vice-presi- dency. In Iraq about 100 officers were exe- cuted after a supposed coup attempt. Turkey signed a deal worth £13 billion to buy natural gas from Iran. Hundreds of Greek Cypriot motorcyclists attempted a mass incursion into territory held by Tur- key; one man was beaten to death by Turk- ish counter-demonstrators. Eritrean troops occupied another island claimed by Aden. The Peruvian justice minister said that 400 people had been unjustly imprisoned with- out trial on charges of terrorism. Antonio de Spinola, who was at the bead of the 1974 revolution in Portugal, died, aged 86. A flash flood and mud-slide at a camping site at Biescas in the Spanish Pyrenees killed at least 83. A new bridge over the Seine in Paris was opened just upstream from Notre Dame. Dozens of French Catholics renounced their baptism in a campaign led by communists protesting against a visit by the Pope next month to mark the 1,600th
anniversary of St Martin. CSH
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