— Portrait of the Week— MONDAY WAS MALAYSIA DAY: U Thant
announced that the UN survey confirmed that the peoples of North Borneo and Sarawak were in favour, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and Tunku Abdul Rahman wept at the celebrations, Sir Gerald Templer was created a Knight of the Garter and amid a flurry of stones and oaths Major Roderick Walker
played the bagpipes outside the British Embassy in Jakarta. 938 windows of the Embassy were broken, the Ambassador's car was set on fire. Two days later a mob stormed the Embassy and burned it down. British business interests in Indonesia are feared lost.
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IN SOUTH AFRICA Mr. Eric Louw coontinued to qualify his earlier threats against Britain, but the Minister of Justice, Mr. Vorster, thought that remarks made by the former British Ambassador, Sir John Maud, about microphones under South African tables, were unworthy and unfair. The present British Ambassador, however, thought that now was the time for increased British invest- ment. All aircraft flying to the British Protector- ates will soon have to land in the Republic both before and after. At the UN Britain vetoed the demand that she should prevent the Southern Rhodesian armed forces from being handed over to Southern Rhodesia. Dr. Carlos Sora-Roderiguez of Venezuela was elected President of the eighteenth annual session of the General Assembly which President Kennedy will address next Friday. In Nigeria Chief Awolowo was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for treasonable felony and will appeal, and the self-styled home of the true Britain, Southern Rhodesia, is to introduce deci- mal currency as soon as possible.
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IN BIRMINGHAM • (ALABAMA) four negroes were killed when a bomb exploded in a negro church. In Birmingham (Britain) the Labour-controlled City Council is to abolish subsidised rents for municipal houses and the Conservatives feel obliged to oppose it. President Kennedy is launch- ing an export drive, France a stabilisation plan and in the citrus war American pressure on Britain to lift import restrictions continues. In Algeria Mr. Ben Bella was formally elected President of the Democratic Republic with 100 per cent of the valid votes, though only 99 per cent if the spoiled votes were counted; martial law was lifted in South Vietnam and a petition weighing three tons was wheeled by the Communists to the Indian Parliament.
MR. .10 GRIMOND made a fighting speech on the last day of the Liberal Party Assembly in which he spoke of Britain as a twentieth-century Ruritania; Mr. Wilson attacked the Prime Minister's hedon- ism and Lord Denning presented his 50,000-word report. Mr. Macmillan called a meeting of the Cabinet and Mr. Wilson apparently read it in 115 minutes, which could be a record. The commer- cial television companies are to pay substantially highei rents; Civil Defence is trying again with a publicity campaign, the British armed forces are down to 151,041 men on regular engagements and the new Minister of War, Mr. Godber, said he was unhappy. The Foreign Office and the De- fence Ministry remain divided about the plan for a NATO mixed manned force but the early warn- ing system at Fylingdales has been completed at last.
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THE QUEEN is to have another baby. The price of electricity may rise again and Merseyside house- wives are being advised to cook their Christmas dinner overnight. Mr. John Calder and Miss Anna Kesselaar were charged in connection with the Edinburgh Festival nude display, swine fever is spreading in Derbyshire and myxomatosis is suspected in Cornwall, but anyone living in the STD area of London can now dial 021 V1C 5754 and hear a short prayer.
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