PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK Exodus T he Liberal Democrats won by
4,550 votes the Eastbourne seat vacated by the murder of Ian Gow, who had a 16,923 majority. Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the victory showed his party was not a 'dead parrot'. Mrs Thatcher summoned her ministers to discuss a review of Government policy on freezing child benefit payments. Edward Heath, the former Prime Minister, met President Saddam Hussein in Iraq and negotiated the release of 38 hostages. Relatives were told not to send hostages in Iraq food parcels because it would break sanctions. A judge ordered a jury to return not guilty verdicts on P&O European Ferries, because there was insufficient evidence that they unlawfully killed 193 people who died when the Herald of Free Enterprise sank at Zeebrugge. The Gov- ernment said it wants pay increases in the public sector kept to 7 per cent. Eleven Conservative members voted against the Government in a debate approving the decision to join the ERM. Jaguar offered its staff a 12.5 per cent pay rise in return for changes in working practices. The Appeal Court decided that a severely handicapped five-month-old baby should not officiously be kept alive if it fell ill. Shares in Tottenham Hotspur football club were suspended by the Stock Exchange. Police in riot gear charged anti-poll tax protesters in Brixton, south London, and arrested 105, including several foreigners not eligi- ble to pay the tax. The Government was said to be discussing a secret deal to give compensation to haemophiliacs infected with the Aids virus. A former sergeant in the Parachute Regiment was jailed for 15 months for pushing a woman onto the tracks, thereby breaking her neck, because she was delaying his train by threatening to commit suicide. Octupuses distressed North Sea fishermen by climbing into lobster pots and eating the contents.
THE Iraqi parliament voted to approve the release of all 330 French captives, 14 Americans and some 700 Bulgarians. Iraq introduced petrol rationing because of sanctions. Some Iraqi troops moved north, away from the Saudi-Kuwait border. Au- stralian and American sailors boarded an Iraqi freighter carrying fish through the Gulf. An Arab stabbed three Jews to death in West Jerusalem and wounded a youth in revenge for 21 Arabs shot dead by security forces two weeks ago. Israeli security forces sealed the murderer's house, mak- ing 18 of his family homeless. President Gorbachev's economic plan, which attempts to control food and fuel prices but encourage free enterprise, was approved by the Soviet parliament. Moscow's lead- ership proposed rationing basic foods. Common Market farm ministers failed to agree on large cuts in subsidies after German opposition. South Africa's ruling National Party opened its membership to all races. The ANC announced that Nelson Mandela, its deputy president, is soon to meet Chief Buthelezi, the leader of the rival Inkatha party. The BMW car com- pany refused an ANC request for 16 free cars. The ruling coalition in Malaysia, the National Front, won the general elections. Benazir Bhutto, the ousted president of Pakistan, predicted a landslide victory in coming elections. Afghan troops defending Kabul defeated a new mujaheddin attack. Rebels gained ground in Rwanda and many accounts came to light of massacres by government troops. Leftist groups in Argentina threatened a general strike in protest against President Menem's free- market policies, and a retired Argentine colonel warned that morale in the army was low. Forest rangers in Oregon in the United States were forced to wear flak jackets as armour against armed wild mushroom poachers. SB
Previous page
