PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Virginia Bottomley released back into the community Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, indicated that he had no intention of extending the remit of the Nolan Commit- tee on standards in public life to cover the funding of political parties. Lord Nolan and his pals had already made a great number of proposals about how ministers should be employed after relinquishing their crown offices; they also counselled seven social virtues for all in public life: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership. Sir Jerry Wiggin, the Conservative MP for Weston-Super-Mare, was accused of having tabled an amendment under the name of a fellow Tory MP in a committee on which they both sat; it was withdrawn without being considered. The Government announced plans to limit many fares after the railways are privatised. Delegates at the Royal College of Nurses's congress voted by 488 to 3 in favour of allowing strike action in future. A poll by the Police Feder- ation found that of 74,000 officers who responded, 79 per cent opposed their rou- tine arming. A jury hearing a manslaughter trial was told that an illegal immigrant, Joy Gardner, died after 13 feet of sticky tape were wrapped around her head by police. `Factory gate' inflation reached a 16-month high of 4 per cent. Miss Jemima Goldsmith, a daughter of Sir James Goldsmith, mar- ried Mr Imran Khan, the retired Pakistan cricketer, in Paris; she has converted to Islam. Blackburn Rovers won the Football Association Carling Premiership; in 1914 they had won the more soberly titled Foot- ball League, of which they were a founder in 1888. Eric Porter, the actor, died, aged 67.
THE EBOLA virus, which dissolves inter- nal organs, claimed about 80 deaths in Kik- wit, a large town in Zaire; the World Health Organisation expected many more fatalities. Japanese police arrested Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which has been blamed for a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo underground, which killed 12 and injured 5,000; he was caught at the sect's headquarters near Mount Fuji and was charged with murder, together with 13 of his followers. Mr Mickey Kantor, the United States trade representative, out- lined punitive tariffs against Japanese exports of motor-cars, which account for half of the American $66 billion trade deficit with Japan; 100 per cent tariffs would be put on 13 makes of car. Noddy is to be screened in Japan for the first time this summer. Wars continued in Chechnya, where Russian forces intensified their assaults despite criticism from the United States, and Bosnia, where Croat forces tac- tically withdrew from a supposedly United Nations-controlled buffer zone to avoid international censure. Mr Boutros Boutros- Ghali, the secretary-general of the UN, said he would like its forces in the former Yugoslavia to be reduced. Indian troops destroyed hundreds of houses and a Mus- lim shrine in Charar-i-Sharief, in Kashmir, which annoyed Pakistan. President Carlos Menem was re-elected in Argentina with an increased majority; he declared he would continue a policy of limiting inflation and added that he wanted to take over the Falk- land Islands by negotiation. President Fidel Ramos of the Philippines countered sug- gestions from China that there should be bilateral exploitation of the disputed Sprat- ly Islands by saying that the claims of Viet- nam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei should also be considered. More than 100 died when a Philippines ferry carrying a cargo of copra caught fire. Bernard Tapie, the bankrupt French businessman, was jailed for a year for taking part in the rigging of games when he was chairman of Olympique de Marseilles football team. Spain said it would inspect Moroccan fish more strin- gently on health grounds; Spanish fisher- men said they would chase Cornish mack- erel fishermen from the Bay of Biscay when the season started. Millions of dead sar- dines were washed up on a 20-mile stretch of the Australian coast near Sydney. CSH
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