PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`Comrades.'
In a serious embarrassment to the Gov- ernment's programme, Mr John Wake- ham, the energy secretary, said that the privatisation of nuclear power would be abandoned; plans for three new pres- surised water reactor plants were frozen. Mr Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain had made a significant shift in its policy towards Cambodia adding that we do not support the Khmer Rouge in any way'. A car bomb intended to take the life of a senior army officer was found and defused in Kensington before it had a chance to explode. It was announced that the 1991 national census will, for the first time, ask about the racial origins of respon- dents. Two subsidiaries of the National Westminster Bank, the stockbrokers Phil- lips and Drew Securities and 11 city execu- tives involved in the 1987 Blue Arrow rights issue were arrested and charged with alleged fraudulent conspiracy. The propos- al to ordain women in the (.,hurch of England completed its passage through the General Synod after a debate that showed deep divisions remain; the measure now passes to diocesan synods for approval. Army ambulances joined police and other agencies in running London's emergency
services. Four Conservative associations in Ulster, which intend to put up candidates at the next general election, won recogni- tion from the central powers of the party. A dental survey showed that 56 per cent of under-fives have no fillings.
IN A decision that took the world by surprise Herr Egon Krenz opened the Berlin Wall and other border points be- tween East and West Germany. Around two million of his countrymen took the opportunity to visit the West in the course of a weekend but most of them then went home — much as the East German leader had been hoping. Chancellor Kohl inter- rupted his visit to Poland to tell East and West Berliners that 'we belong together'. Herr Hans Modrow, a reformer, was elected Prime Minister of East Germany with only one vote against; East German citizens kept up their pressure by con- tinuing the programme of mammoth de- monstrations in Leipzig. Fundamental questions about the future of Nato and the European Community were raised by these developments; President Mitterrand called leaders of the EC to Paris for an emergen- cy summit meeting. A draft law which would lift most Soviet travel restrictions passed its first legislative hurdle in Mos- cow; Tass reported that up to half a million people might take advantage of it were it to be passed. Bulgaria's president Todor Zhivkov, Europe's longest serving leader, resigned after 35 years in power; Bulgarian communist authorities agreed to review a ban on the opposition 'protest group', Eco-glasnost. About 250 people were re- ported to have been killed in the renewed fighting in El Salvador. Mr Deng Xiaop- ing, China's senior leader, resigned from his last official post, as chairman of the Central Military Commission; this was not, however, taken to mean that he proposed any immediate decline in his influence. The black Democrat candidate Mr David N. Dinkins won the election for Mayor of New York. In Jordan's first general elec- tion in 22 years, Muslim fundamentalists took 26 out of the 80 seats. The Spanish Socialist Party lost its majority after a ruling overturned one of the results in the recent election. In Namibia, results of the election were disappointing for Swapo. Dolores Gomez Ibarruri, 'La Pasionara' of the Spanish Civil War, died aged 93.
MStJT
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