PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The Rumanians really seem to be putting on the pressure.'
The Government confirmed that it would give no assistance to a joint public and private sector venture to establish a high-speed rail link between the Channel Tunnel and London. The chairman of British Rail was one of the few still to believe that a new railway line along the route would be operating by the year 2000. The Director of Public Prosecutions de- clared the convictions of the Maguire family in 1976, for running an IRA bomb factory, to be unsound, and the Home Secretary said the case would be referred to the Court of Appeal. The Government agreed to provide temporary accommoda- tion for young homeless people in London; and to commit L5 million in support of the British film industry. The Ministry of Defence announced the cancellation of an order for 33 Tornado aircraft, and dis- closed that the defence budget would have to be cut by £600 million this year. In a woman's magazine article, Mrs Thatcher described Mrs Edwina Currie, best known for her injudicious remarks about sal- monella in eggs and her misunderstanding of recent elections in Rumania, as `very, very, very good'. The High Court decided that the Environment Secretary was enti- tled to `cap' poll tax levels, in order to restrict local authority spending. The infla- tion rate rose to 9.7 per cent last month, the highest figure for more than eight years. Lord Young, formerly Trade and Industry Secretary, was appointed chair- man of Cable and Wireless, privatised by the Government in 1981, at a salary reported to be £400,000 a year. In her birthday honours list, the Queen knighted the novelist Kingsley Amis, the New Zea- land cricketer Richard Hadlee, the enter- tainer and charity worker Jimmy Savile, the actor Peter Ustinov, and the doctor Burton Burton-Bradley for his services in Papua New Guinea. Lord O'Neill of the Maine, formerly Prime Minister of North- ern Ireland, died at 75, and Dame Eva Turner at 98. A four-year old girl died of tuberculosis in a children's cancer ward in Liverpool. The National Rivers Authority warned people against swimming in the Serpentine in London because toxic blue algae had been identified in the lake. An increase was announced for the autumn in the cost of a first-class postage stamp to 22 pence, which some remembered as being almost 4s.6d.
IN RUMANIA 7,000 miners were drafted into Bucharest to break up student demon- strations, referred to as a `fascist rebellion' by President Iliescu, whose inauguration was boycotted by the United States. Elec- tions in Bulgaria were won by ex- Communists who had formed the Bulga- rian Socialist Party and were hoping for a coalition with opposition parties to tackle urgent economic reforms. The Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria won a majority of seats from the ruling National Libera- tion Front in local elections. A two-year- old Cypriot girl suffering from leukaemia was returned to hospital in Cyprus after her Jehovah's Witness parents had denied her the chance of a life-saving blood transfusion by removing her from a Lon- don hospital. Nelson Mandela, continuing his world fund-raising tour, arrived in New York from Canada. Belgian and Dutch police succeeded in capturing a cell of four IRA suspects after a three-day chase along the border between the two countries. The ending of border controls between the Benelux countries, Germany and France was agreed. At least 100 policemen were reported killed by Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka. A former Labour Party candidate was among English soccer hooligans arrested before a World Cup match in Sardinia. Donald Trump celebrated his 44th birthday in New York amid rumours of his imminent bankruptcy, while his wife Ivana attended Royal Ascot. Ivan Lendl was seeded number one for Wimbledon after beating Boris Becker in the final of the Stella Artois tournament. SC
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