Portrait of the week
Tie South African airforce responded to the bombing of its headquarters in Pretoria, in which 17 (including eight blacks) were killed and over 200 injured, by attacking buildings used by the African Na- tional Congress on the outskirts of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. General Malan, South Africa's defence minister, said that five out of six targets had been destroyed, but according to Mozambique radio the six people killed were not guer- rillas, but children and workers at a jam factory. In Malawi, the disclosure of the deaths .of two government ministers 'in a car crash' coincided with a brief visit by Prince Philip, travelling through Africa to join the Queen for a state visit to Sweden. In southern Sudan, an army mutiny was put down with the loss of about 80 lives, leading to fears of civil war. Moscow Radio began broadcasting news critical of Russia's oc- cupation of Afghanistan; the newsreader was said to have made an error but there was speculation that Russia might wish to withdraw its forces from the country. In a village outside Jerusalem, two nuns were found stabbed to death in a Russian Or- thodox convent: a KGB connection was hinted at, and the Soviet news agency, Tass, said they had been murdered as part of a Zionist campaign. The Lebanese govern- ment indicated that it would offer generous terms to persuade Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. In Washington, President Reagan threatened to use his veto against the Senate's budget plan to raise taxes and cut the Administration's propos- ed level of defence spending. Later, the House of Representatives approved the spending of $625 million on the MX missile.
AMORI opinion poll gave the Conser- vatives an 18 per cent lead over Labour, suggesting for the first time that they might receive more than 50 per cent of the vote in the general election. Mr Pym, Foreign Secretary, said he would not welcome a landslide victory for his party, but Mrs Thatcher told him not to be so cautious and, by inference, so unhelpful. A Conservative advertisement designed to win support from black voters in several marginal constituencies did not appear to impress the 'ethnic' community: the Carib- bean Times refused to publish it, and Mr Foot called it degrading. One poll suggested that the SDP might win no seats at all, but Mr Jenkins continued to insist that support for his party was about to take off. Another poll showed that, were David Steel to replace Roy Jenkins as leader, the Alliance would get more votes than Labour. In the trading of insults between the parties Mr Healey and Mr Hattersley succeeded in be- ing the most abusive, also the most evasive in their attitude to Labour's commitment to unilateral disarmament. Mr Healey said later that he and Mr Foot were 'in total agreement' on defence policy, though it was still far from clear whether a Labour government would scrap Polaris. Mr Foot forecast that continuing mass unemploy- ment under a Conservative government would lead to 'more Toxteths' and a revival of fascism. The press were accused by Mr Tebbit of encouraging theft by publishing information contained in Cabinet commit- tee papers. The annual rate of inflation for April was announced at 4 per cent, the lowest for 15 years. Mr Shore, shadow Chancellor, replied that prices had risen by an average of 54 per cent in the past four years.
At Albany prison, Isle of Wight, rioting resulted in damage and destruction which a television reporter compared to what he had witnessed in Beirut last sum- mer. Ten prisoners took to the roof of the jail: three later came down, but the others, four of them IRA terrorists, remained there for four days. In the High Court, British Airways and British Caledonian failed to put a stop to an anti-trust action in the U. S by Laker Airways against the two British and four other airlines. A planned new air service from London to New York by an American airline called People Express (09 for a one-way ticket) was held up by the Department of Trade, in the hope that the US Justice Department would drop the anti-trust action. Trafalgar House made. a £290 million takeover bid for the P&O shIP: ping line. A Canadian Starfighter crashed at an air display in Frankfurt, killing .11ve, spectators; six men of the RAF were killed in a coach crash in the Black Forest, neW tt! Offenburg; and a Spanish lorry loaded with Offenburg; cause the deaths of eight pedPI.e when it exploded in a tunnel betweenGen°4 and Savona. Milan was blessed with the first papal visit for 565 years, and Kennet
'Excuse me, I've got a frog in my throat.'
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