PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Child abuse Sixteen people were killed in Hunger- ford by Michael Ryan, a crazed gunman, who later shot himself dead when sur- rounded by police. Fourteen other people were wounded. Ryan had been legally in possession of five guns. Some MPs deman- ded tighter curbs on the sale of weapons to the public in future. Senior managers of the BBC and IBA are to meet to discuss the current levels of violence shown on television. A number of programmes have already been shelved. In the run-up to the party political conference season, man- oeuvring for position within the SDP in- creased. Mr William Rodgers warned Dr David Owen not to run an 'anti-merger rump'; Mrs Shirley Williams attacked Dr Owen as being `undemocratic'; Mr David Steel said that he would try to dissuade Dr Owen from consigning himself to 'the political wilderness'. Dr Owen himself kept very quiet. Mr Robert Maclellan MP emerged as the man most likely to succeed him as SDP leader. Mr Arthur Scargill won his first success in a ballot for disruption since he took office as his union's president six years ago. Over three-quarters of the NUM voted to support the call for 'various forms of action' against British Coal's proposed new disciplinary code. On the London Stock Exchange a wave of selling, wiping £13bn off shares in two hours, followed the release of government figures showing a credit surge in the British economy. British holiday-makers were subjected to severe delays when Spanish air traffic controllers went on strike. Mr Bryan Gould, Labour's trade spokesman, said that socialism and 'champagne tastes' were not incompatible.
RUDOLF Hess, Hitler's former deputy, who committed suicide in Spandau jail, was buried secretly by his family in order to avoid demonstrations expected from neo- Nazis. In the Gulf, the US navy fired across the bows of two small ships of `unknown nationality', but believed to be Iranian, after they had ignored warnings to stay clear of a convoy of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers — the first such incident in the present crisis. Black coalminers in South Africa continued with their national strike, although stories began to emerge that numbers of them were going back to work. An American marine sergeant was jailed for 30 years after being found guilty of trading secrets for sex when he worked at US embassies in Moscow and Vienna. Russian scientists announced that they had synthesised the 110th element in the periodic table. Work has begun on looking for the 111th element. Demitrios I, holder of the ancient Patriarchate of Constantino- ple, began a visit to the Russian Orthodox Churches in the Soviet Union, the first that an Ecumenical Patriarch has made to that country in almost 400 years. The Soviet Union is reported to be prepared to let Mother Teresa of Calcutta send nuns into the country to help with charity work. American sales of Spycatcher have made its author, Mr Peter Wright, a dollar millionaire on paper. Douglas Byng, the revue artiste and Sheila van Damm, former proprietrix of the Windmill Theatre, died.
MStJT
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