PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK 'Well. . . actually, we can't
take you to our leader at the moment.'
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, visited Northern Ireland and announced that British officials would resume contact with Sinn Fein, but he added that he did not expect to see the province outside the United Kingdom during his lifetime. Apprentice Boys threw stones and bricks at police who prevented them from marching through the Catholic village of Dunloy in Co. Antrim. Mr Gerry Adams, who has been elected in the Sinn Fein interest to represent the seat of West Belfast but refuses to take the oath of allegiance, bought lunch at the Terrace cafeteria of the House of Commons; he had poached haddock, swede, Parmentier potatoes and some red wine. He was accompanied by Mr Martin McGuinness, who ate the same, but with peas, and drank Coca-Cola; the Speaker has ruled that they will be barred from such facilities after the end of the debate on the Queen's Speech. Mr Mohammed Sarwar, the Labour member for Glasgow Govan and Britain's first Mus- lim MP, said that newspaper allegations that he bribed a rival candidate in the elec- tion campaign were totally false; he said he had given £5,000 to one of his opponents to help him out of debt, after the election. Miss Ann Widdecombe, a former Home Office minister, continued her campaign against Mr Michael Howard, the former home secretary and a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative party, claiming in the House of Commons that he made statements to the House which were not sustainable about the dismissal of Mr Derek Lewis as director-general of prisons; Mr Howard said in reply, 'At no time did I cross the line between what I was entitled to do and what I wasn't.' Mr Gordon Brown announced a new watchdog for banking, pensions and insurance, including Lloyd's. The FTSE share index reached a new high of 4,723, then fell back. The gov- ernment said that its ban on cigarette advertising would include a prohibition of sponsorship for sporting events. David Coleman, aged 71, announced his retire- ment as the presenter of Question of Sport on television, after 18 years. Eric Cantona, the 30-year-old French player with Manch- ester United, announced his retirement from football.
MR MOBUTU was replaced as President of Zaire (to be renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo) by Mr Laurent ICabila, who had led a successful rebellion against him. At least 200 were killed in the capture of Kinshasa. Mr Mobutu fled in the first instance to Togo. Mr Asil Nadir, the for- mer head of the Polly Peck conglomerate, who is wanted by police, was said by his own newspaper to have flown from North Cyprus to Turkey. Turkish troops crossed into Iraq to attack bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), aided by forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Mongolians elected as president Mr N. Bagabandi of the Mongolian Peoples' Rev- olutionary party, their former communist ruler, who beat the current President, P. Ochirbat. The government and Muslim opposition in Tajikistan signed a peace treaty to end a four-year civil war. In Siberia 406,658 acres of forest have been destroyed by fire so far this spring. Mother Teresa of Calcutta visited the Pope in Rome, where he celebrated his 77th birth- day. Abdool Akoo, a lawyer sentenced in Pietermaritzburg to five years for fraud, was released after two weeks because his weight of 28 stone was giving rise to illness- es that prison authorities found too expen- sive to treat. A man drowned in a vat of coconut oil in a margarine factory in Kiev. A cull began of 1,200 wild horses said to be destroying rare plants on army land in the Kaimanawa ranges of the central North Island of New Zealand; they will be turned into dog food. CSH
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