PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Absent friends.
Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that a referen- dum about the European Commission might be held one day: 'I have indicated that the circumstances might be appropri- ate to have a referendum, and, if they are, we will.' He also said, on his return from a European Community summit in Essen: `Some of my fellow heads of government could hardly make their way to their parlia- ments with a guide dog.' Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, put up excise duties to compensate for a rise in Value Added Tax that had been denied him by the defeat of a Government Bill on the subject: cigarettes went up an extra 6p (10 at the Budget), beer by 1p a pint, wine by 5p a bottle and spirits by 26p a bottle; champagne, port and sherry remain unaffected. The Spectator revealed that Richard Gott, the Guardian's literary edi- tor, had been a KGB agent of influence, and taken cash from the former Soviet secret police. Headline inflation rose from 2.4 per cent to 2.6. Unemployment fell by 43,000. The Conservatives lost the seat of Dudley West in a by-election. Mr Tony Benn was expelled from the Commons
privileges committee for publishing reports of its private proceedings. Three intruders, including the research assistant of a Con- servative MP, wandered into the office of Mr Tony Blair, the Leader of the Opposi- tion. Counter staff in some post offices went on strike for a day; Post Office profits rose to a record £198 million for the six months to September. An Asian family from Blackburn won more than £17.8 mil- lion in the National Lottery. British equities fell to their lowest level since July; the FT- SE index fell to less than 3,000. The Duchess of York announced that she had had Aids tests both before and after her marriage. Lord Joseph, the Conservative theorist, died, aged 76.
PRESIDENT YELTSIN of Russia sent 40,000 troops into Chechnya, a self-pro- claimed independent nation under the rule of General Dzhokhar Dudayev. Bosnian Serb forces said that they would not allow convoys of aid to Muslim enclaves to be accompanied by United Nations armed vehicles. Five Bangladeshis were injured in an attack by Serbs near Bihac. United
States soldiers arrested more than 400 Cubans in a refugee camp in Panama after 1,000 had broken out of it in protest against the slowness of their resettlement. More than 100 boat people were released from 3 detention camp in Hong Kong after both Vietnam and China refused to admit theta. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the for- mer dictator of Ethiopia, and 60 of his com- munist regime were put on trial in their absence in Addis Ababa on charges includ- ing genocide. Mr Jacques Delors, the retir- ing socialist President of the European Commission, said that he would not be standing for the presidency of France; this leaves the competition to two right-wingers,' Mr Jacques Chirac, the Mayor of Paris, and Mr Edouard Balladur, the Prime Minister: Chile was invited to join the North Ameri- can Free Trade Agreement, to which the United States, Canada and Mexico belong. Mr Fernando Collor de Mello, the forme/. President of Brazil, was acquitted of charges of corruptions. Antoine Ping.' d former Prime Minister of France, died aged 102. More than 300 children died M
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