PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Jan Palach, a Czech student, burned himself to death in Wenceslas Square, Prague, in protest against the Russian occupation. Tension rose as another volunteer attempted self-immolation, and there were threats of more to follow. Mr Nixon was inaugurated as President of the United States. He suggested that world peace would be his main preoccupation. A mile away, ten thousand Yippies and members of the New Left held a rival ceremony, inaugurating a pig as their president-pig Pigasus. Agreement was finally reached on the shape of the table for Vietnam peace talks in Paris. Faces were saved by the provision of two small secretarial tables in addition.
Russia successfully created the first orbiting station in space by joining two satellites together. They were then separated, and all concerned in the matter returned safely to earth. In Tokyo, 120 students were taken to hospital after a brief but fierce fight between moderate-left wing sym- pathisers and Maoists. More than 100 homo- sexuals demonstrated outside the Dutch Parlia- ment building in the Hague, urging that the age of consent for homosexual liaisons be reduced to sixteen, the age for heterosexuals. All Red Cross relief flights from Fernando Po to Biafra were suspended on the insistence of the newly-formed government of Equatorial Guinea. Flights from Sao Tome, by the World Council of Churches and Caritas, continued without inter- ruption as usual.
Mr William Craig, Ulster's sacked Minister of the Interior, announced his intention to campaign against Captain O'Neill. The World Health Organisation firmly rejected any idea of the legalisation of cannabis, or pot. Victor Yates, Labour MP for the Ladywood division of Birmingham, died at sixty-eight. The Liberals were second-runners there in 1966. Three Labour MPS heavily disguised in country clothes, were spotted immediately at a hart-coursing event near Liverpool.
Mr Pierre Trudeau was bitterly attacked in the Canadian Parliament for his eqmportment during the Commonwealth conference. Mr Wilson said that the Commonwealth had emerged a great deal stronger from the confer- ence, and that there was nothing like the Com- monwealth for this kind of get-together; he was praised for his chairmanship of it. Mrs Mary Wilson, the Prime Minister's wife, recorded a programme for Bac radio, to be broadcast on Desert Island Discs in March. Police searched for a man whom they believe to have attacked ten young children in North West London since August, concentrating on Hampstead, where the last attack occurred.
Widespread pilfering was reported from the `Queen Elizabeth 2,' pride of Britain's techno- logy and purposive economic planning. The ship remained crippled at Southampton while en- gineers inspected her innards on the Clyde. Con- ducted tours of the liner at 2s 6d, with special teas, were organised while she waits for her en- gines. The Vicar of Seasalter, Kent, offered two sofas in his sitting room for university students who wished to pet. 'They need not talk about the church if they don't wish to,' he said.
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