PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Babies for sale.
Lady Thatcher voted against her party Whip for the first time in 34 years in Parlia- ment in a Lords vote on a referendum on the Maastricht Bill. The Government won a Commons vote on the imposition of VAT on domestic fuel by eight votes. Michael Sams, a murderer convicted last week, con- fessed from prison to the murder of Julie Dart, a teenager from Leeds. The Parlia- mentary Ecclesiastical Committee declared `expedient' legislation to allow women to be ordained priests in the Church of England. A vicar threatened to leave the Church if his wife is ordained a priest. Mr Mark Tully, a BBC correspondent in India for 20 years, said in a speech that the corporation (under Mr John Birt) was ruled by fear and sycophancy. Mr Birt replied that before his time the BBC had an 'unwieldy, almost Soviet-style command economy'. The EEC declared that some years ago the waters lapping on the beaches of Blackpool and Southport were not as clean as it would have liked; but Formby's were deemed suf- ficiently pure. There was widespread out- rage when a youth was cleared by an Old Bailey judge of murder and manslaughter, although the court heard that he had stabbed a man who caught him slashing car tyres and after killing him shouted, 'I've done him, I've done him,' and kicked the body. The Sun newspaper cut its price from 25p to 20p for the time being; the Daily Mirror cut its price to 10p for one day. A play based on Don Quixote was claimed by a handwriting expert as a lost work, called Cardenio, by Shakespeare in his own manuscript. Ruth, Lady Fermoy, a Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen Mother, died, aged 84. Raine Countess Spencer, aged 63, married 'Count' Jean-Francois Pineton de Chambrun, aged 57, to general merriment. Subsequently the 'Count' wrote to the Times, giving details of a private con- versation between the Princess of Wales and Countess Spencer, which, he claimed, proved that the Princess loved her step- mother. A nurse, sacked after her employer said she put a dead mouse in his sandwich, lost her claim of unfair dismissal.
THE collective presidency of Bosnia (minus President Alia Izetbegovic) agreed to the carve-up of their country into three parts. Lord Owen and Mr Thorvald Stoltenberg told the Security Council of the United Nations that their forces would have to be withdrawn from Bosnia if things got worse. Fighting did continue in Bosnia. Twelve people queueing for water in Sarajevo were killed by a shell. Hundreds of Muslims were evicted at gunpoint from their homes in Mostar, according to reports reaching the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mr Vuk Draskovic, the Serb opposition leader, was released from prison. Iraq refused to allow UN inspectors to look at or seal some of its missile sites. As a result an attack from the United States was expected. Meanwhile, the Unit- ed States blasted a building in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, with anti-tank missiles and machine-guns, close to a meeting of supporters of General Mohammed Farah Aidid, the powerful faction leader. A mob supporting the General killed four Western journalists. Hundreds of members of the Hindu nationalist Bharatariya Janata Party were arrested in Bombay in an attempt to pre-empt anti-government demonstrations. General Ibrahim Babangida of Nigeria promised that there would be new presi- dential elections there, but the presumed winner of the latest, annulled elections refused to take part in an interim govern- ment. An earthquake in Japan killed more than 70. Floods in the American Mid-West left 30,000 homeless. A cloth found near the Tigris in Turkey was reckoned to be 9,000 years old; it may be linen. CSH
Previous page
