PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`It's true that the 8.15 from Epsom to Victoria was late, but I swear it won't happen again.'
An independent inquiry into the clo- sure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International was announced. It emerged that an employee had warned the Govern- ment over a year ago that there was corruption in the bank, and around £70 million belonging to 35 councils was lost in the bank's closure. The number out of work rose to 2.3 million, the highest for two years. ITN made 79 employees redun- dant. Five battalions were saved from proposed defence cuts. Mr John Major launched a Citizen's Charter, measures hoped to improve the quality of public services and help win the next election without costing more money. There was a trade surplus of £23 million and higher spending in shops in June. An armed robber who tried to hold up a gunsmith's shop in Colchester, Essex, was shot dead by a shop assistant. The water supply of 500,000 people in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire was contaminated after a failure in the treatment process. A rapist of an 11- and a 15-year-old escaped from Broadmoor and was recaptured near Bar- wick House, Somerset, his old borstal. The number of patients on NHS waiting lists for more than a year fell by 43 per cent over 15 months. A survey showed that in the first three months of the year a third of the crimes in Avon and Somerset appeared to have been committed by those already on bail for other offences. Four people were killed when two trains collided near Glas- gow. Ian Baker-Finch of Australia won the Open golf championship. A 23-year-old journalist from the Isle of Wight changed his name to Gavin West Ham United Football Club The Boleyn Ground Upton Park E13 I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles Rolling Stones Mick and Keith God Bless The Old Midnight Ramblers Foster.
YUGOSLAVIA agreed to withdraw Federal troops from Slovenia, a de facto recognition of its sovereignty, but the position of Croatia, where fighting and killing continued, was not clear. President Gorbachev returned to the Soviet Union, carrying only promises of technical help from the West's G7 summit. Mr Boris Yeltsin struck a blow against communism in a decree that political activity will be prohibited in all state institutions and workplaces in the Russian Federation. Party and KGB members put pressure on Mr Gorbachev to nullify the decree. The United States increased pressure on Israel to attend a peace conference on the Middle East. Mr James Baker, the US Secretary of State met the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Yitzhak Shamir, in Jerusalem. Mr Adriaan Vlok, South Africa's law and order minis- ter admitted that police covertly funded Inkatha rallies in the last two years. Furth- er suggestions were made that active units in the army and police may have been siding with the Zulus against the ANC. About 200 Tamil rebels were thought to have been killed by Sri Lankan troops repulsing an attack on an army camp at Elephant Pass in the north of the country. An Israeli judge concluded, after an in- quiry, that police bungling caused rioting in October at the Temple Mount, when 17 Arabs were killed. Scientists reported that the Sahara is shrinking, despite earlier theories that it was spreading. Storms and floods hit the north of China. Around 20 more died in the Bangladesh floods. The United States said that Burma was poison- ing South-East Asia with drugs. Nine skeletons, believed to be the last remains of the murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his family, were found buried in woods near
Previous page
