PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The moral high ground: The Three Wise Men The Catholic bishops of England and Wales circulated a pre-election booklet called The Common Good, which Labour supporters claimed recommended the social policies of Mr Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party. Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, was quoted in a book called Belief in Politics as saying, 'I don't pretend to understand all the complex parts of Christian theology, but I simply accept it.' Both Mr Major and Mr Blair supported a campaign 'dedicated to healing our frac- tured society and banishing violence' sug- gested by Mrs Frances Lawrence, the widow of a murdered headmaster; she called for three Es in schools: 'effort, earnestness and excellence'. A court refused to allow a woman to use her dead husband's sperm for artificial insemination because he had not granted permission in writing. Protesters against open-cast mining dug a 10ft square hole in the front garden of Mr Michael Heseltine, the First Secre- tary of State. Mr Alan Clark announced that a fresco over a mantelpiece at Salt- wood castle, where he lives, is a Giorgione, worth millions of pounds. Selfridges with- drew toy guns from display. Vosper Thornycroft, the shipbuilders, unveiled plans for a Stealth corvette which confuses enemy radar by concealing itself with a spray of water. Charles Tennant, the heir to the barony of Glenconner, died, aged 39. The Stone of Scone is to be put on public show at Edinburgh Castle. The Duke of Edinburgh had a small benign growth removed from the right side of his nose. The name of Diana, Princess of Wales, was dropped from prayers before the day's busi- ness in the House of Commons.
PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin of Russia, who is to have an operation on his heart next month, sacked his security adviser, General Alexander Lebed, on television and later appointed Mr Ivan Rybkin to replace him. More than 300,000 people marched through Brussels protesting against the way the Belgian government has handled the prosecution of those responsible for the paedophiliac murder of children. In Japan the Liberal Democrats, led by Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, the Prime Minister, got enough votes in the elections to form a coalition government. In Lithuania, the Conservative Party, led by Vytautas Landsbergis, unseat- ed the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party, which is made up of former commu- nists. More than 200,000 Hutu refugees were caught in fighting on the border with Zaire. Opponents of the Taliban Islamic army attacked Kabul with rockets; the Tal- iban negotiated a ceasefire with the forces of General Rashid Dostum, the former commander of government forces, and General Ahmad Shah Massoud. At least 26 died in their cells when fire broke out in a jail in Caracas. Patriarch Filaret of Belarus blamed satanists for setting fire to a church in Zaslavl near Minsk and writing 'Death to Christians' on its walls. President Jacques Chirac of France lost his temper with Israeli security guards keeping Palestinians away from him during a walk through Jerusalem. `What do you want?' he said. 'Me to go back to my plane and go to France?' The Pope appointed two assistant bishops to the bishop of Hong Kong. China and Colombia signed an agreement to jointly produce motorcycles in Colombia. Hundreds of Guajajara Indians took 20 people hostage in an attempt to persuade the authorities to pave the road that passes through their reservation in the state of Maranhao, more than 1,000 miles north of Sao Paulo' in Brazil. At the Phuket Vegetarian Festival in Thailand devotees at a Chinese temple pierced various parts of their bodies with objects that included an anchor, a bath tap
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