PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Baby Milk Production UK Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, visited Bosnia. He sent three ministers to Europe to frustrate European Community business in revenge for the ban on the export of British beef: Mr Roger Freeman, the Minister for Deregulation; Lady Chalk- er, the Minister for Overseas Development; and Mr Philip Oppenheim, the Trade Min- ister. Mr George Walden, the Conservative Member for Buckingham, said that because of the beef debacle he might resign the Whip, which would eliminate the Govern- ment's overall majority. Mrs Gillian Shep- hard, the Secretary of State for Education, attacked the choice of Beethoven's setting of Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' as the BBC's theme for the Euro '96 football competi- tion because it was written by a German. A Cathay-Pacific flight, on which the England Euro '96 `squad' had travelled, was said to have suffered £5,000 worth of damage. Britain and Ireland agreed to exclude from the `all-party talks' on 10 June Sinn Fein, the political face of the Irish Republican Army. Sinn Fein's president, Mr Gerry Adams, said: `I am asking John Major to respect the rights of those people who vote for Sinn Fein.' The Government proposed setting up a criminal records agency from which, for a fee, job applicants might obtain a certificate verifying that they had not recently been convicted. Sir Thomas Bing- ham was named the new Lord Chief Justice in succession to Lord Taylor, who has retired on health grounds; his parting mes- sage had been a condemnation of plans by Mr Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, to impose mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes. There was a new health scare when it was said that commercial baby-milk contains chemicals which have caused sterility in experiments on rodents. A spokeswoman for the National Child- birth Trust said: `It is like a time-bomb tick- ing away and the Government is not doing anything about it.' Scottish Power put in a bid for Southern Water; so did Southern Electric. A woman swam from a sinking fishing vessel for four hours to reach the Ayrshire coast; four drowned. Lord Mar- gadale, former chairman of the 1922 Com- mittee and owner of Islay, died, aged 89.
THREE FORMER business associates of President Bill Clinton of the United States were found guilty on charges involving a £2 million fraud. Mr Clinton had been a key defence witness in the trial, which derived from the affairs of the Whitewater invest- ment company; one of those found guilty is Mr Clinton's successor as Governor of Arkansas. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, resigned as Prime Minister of India after 13 days in office; President Shankar Dayal Sharma invited Mr H.D. Deve Gowda, the leader of the centrist United Front coali- tion, to form a new administration. In Burma more than 5,000 supporters gath- ered outside the house of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democra- cy, despite winning elections in 1990, has been prevented by military rulers from forming a government; more than 250 NLD supporters were imprisoned when the party held a three-day congress. Former commu- nist and other opposition parties in Albania withdrew from elections in protest against widespread irregularities, and the Demo- cratic Party claimed victory. The Democrat- ic Rally coalition retained power in Greek- Cypriot elections, beating communist rivals by one seat. Chechen leaders flew to Moscow and signed a ceasefire with Presi- dent Boris Yeltsin, who faces elections this month. Islamic extremists in Algeria killed seven Roman Catholic monks they had abducted. Hundreds of Kurdish villages in Turkey were destroyed. Ethiopia accused Sudan of abducting some of its people. The United Nations said that famine in North Korea was imminent. More than 100 drowned after two ferries collided in Bangladesh. Chinese oceanologists forecast flooding in coming decades in the Pearl river delta, where many millions live. CSH
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