Portrait of the Week— THE SOVIET UNION exploded the biggest
bomb yet, in spite of a telephone call from an Essex pub- lican who asked the Kremlin interpreter to tell Comrade Khrushchev that if he let the bomb off he would be a proper Charlie. The British Govern- ment said that it was ready to supply milk specially made safe for infants if fall-out proved to be dangerous. So far, said the Ministry of Health, it wasn't. The Government also said that it now felt itself free to consider resuming British tests. Mr. Nehru said that India could produce a nuclear weapon of her own in about a couple of Years' time but wasn't going to, and that he thought the Chinese would be exploding one in between two and four years. The United States bred 350 million minute metal needles into outer space to form a band from which radio signals could be bounced. Scientists in other countries were cross about it, apparently because this was regarded as scientifically unsporting.
THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY CONFERENCE just kept rolling along, with calls to expel Molotov, Kaganovitch and Malenkov from the Party; a speech from the head of the propaganda depart- ment helpfully distinguishing for the puzzled be- tween 'the authority of a leader' (as it might be Mr. Khrushchev) and 'the cult of personality' (as it might be the late Mr. Stalin's); a Soviet con- demnation of the Albanian Communist leader- Ship, and a Chinese condemnation of the Soviet Condemnation. The Albanian Communist Party said that it 'will not bow or fall on its knees before the slanderous attacks, blackmail and bullying of Nikita Khrushchev and his followers,' but did not specify how many divisions Albania had, or When it was going to test its nuclear weapons.
THE CUNARD COMPANY decided not to build a new Queen' liner, not even with other people's money. The National Union of Teachers. supported the acceptance 'by its Burnham Committee represent- atives of the Government's pay offer, but not Without the General Secretary being shouted at to resign. The Government refused to honour the Chill Service arbitration tribunal's award of a pay rise for GPO workers, and chemists complained that the Ministry of Health's revision of its rates of payment was 'dictation not negotiation.'
* THE •- NOBEL PEACE PRIZE for 1961 was awarded Posthumously to Mr. Hammarskjold, and for 1960 to ex-Chief Albert Luthuli, former president of the outlawed African National Congress be- cause, in the words of his Swedish supporters, in spite of the merciless South African race laws, Luthuli has always urged that violence should not he used.' It was announced that Mr. Geoffrey de leltas, a Labour MP, would be the next British gls Commissioner in Ghana—a job that used to be called United Kingdom High Commissioner. The British Government decided to grant self- government to Malta, and it only remained to be seen whether the Maltese would agree to do any self-governing.
* ltiE LONDON MOTOR SHOW resulted in American Orders to the tune of some £40 million and, as Usual, in London's own motors being brought virtually to a standstill. A number of Rhodesians (white) took to swimming in the Zambesi river, Where a warning notice states that 'bathing is suicidal because of the crocodiles,' rather than swim in a municipal pool newly opened to brown and black Rhodesians. A Los Angeles lady was granted a divorce because of the behaviour of her husband on motor-car trips: he was a back-seat violin-player. A British Railways dining-car atten- dant, charged with having, while in an inebriated Condition, thrown soup and drinks over passen- gers, was admonished : waste not, want not.
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