PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
General Augusto Pinochet, the former ruler of Chile, was put under arrest at the London Clinic, where he had gone for an operation on his spine, because Spain had issued a warrant for his extradition on charges connected with the-deaths of Span- ish citizens under his regime; Chile protest- ed at the arrest because the General had entered Britain on a diplomatic passport. The Nobel prize for peace was awarded to Mr John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party, and Mr David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist party. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, held talks in London with Mr Trimble, the designated First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Mr Martin McGuin- ness, of Sinn Fein, the political face of the Irish Republican Army; the setting-up of a ministerial executive in Northern Ireland has been delayed by the refusal of the IRA to begin disarming and by Mr Trimble's refusal to co-operate with an executive including Sinn Fein ministers before the start of the decommissioning of arms. The government sought targets, but not quotas, for people from ethnic minorities to be recruited to the police. The project of a cable-car across the Thames to the Millen- nium Dome was scrapped. Workers at Rover's Longbridge plant were told their 18,000 jobs were at risk if they did not increase productivity; Rover is owned by BMW. Charles Saatchi is to sell 130 of his modern works of art to raise money for arts bursaries. Joan Hickson, who played the detective Miss Marple on television, died, aged 92. A presenter of Blue Peter, the BBC children's programme that celebrated its 40th birthday this month, was sacked after admitting to having taken cocaine. A vagrant killed in a hit-and-run accident near Cheltenham was identified as a talent- ed research chemist who disappeared 11 years ago after the death of his mother. A woman who bit into a Topic bar found the head and shoulders of a mouse with fur still intact.
PRESIDENT Carlos Menem of Argentina is to place a wreath at a memorial to those who died during the Falldands war during his visit to Britain from next Tuesday. The Pope on the 20th anniversary of his election published his 13th encyclical, Fides et Ratio, an appeal for the re-establishment of the link between philosophy and theology. President Bill Clinton of the United States presided over peace talks between Mr Ben- jamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Mr Yasser Arafat, the President of the Palestinian entity; they were later joined by King Hussein of Jordan, who is suffering from cancer. A man threw two hand grenades into the bus station at Beer- sheba, Israel, injuring more than 60 people. Thousands of rioters rampaged through Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, after the shooting to death of Maulana Mohammed Abdullah, the leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba ('Guardians of the Friends of the Prophet'), Sunni extremists who revile Shi'ites (15 per cent of the population of Pakistan) as non-Muslims. Five hundred people were burnt alive while trying to scoop up spilt fuel from a leaking pipeline near Warn, southern Nigeria. Sleet put out four fifths of the million acres of forest ablaze in the Khabarovsk region of far-east- ern Russia; four million acres had already been destroyed. In a referendum in Kyr- gyzstan, 90 per cent of those who voted supported an amendment of the constitu- tion proposed by President Askar Akayev to allow the private ownership of land. The American boxer Mike Tyson had his boxing licence renewed after undergoing psycho- logical tests; he had been banned last year after biting the ear of an opponent, Evan der Holyfield. A British tourist died when she was struck by lightning on the Great Wall of China. Another 80 children were taken to hospital after eating poisoned bis- cuits at schools in al-Saf, near Cairo; 1,400 had fallen sick the week before.
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