PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The recent stock market crash seemed to have little effect on the now traditional Christmas orgy of spending. About £18 billion changed hands in the shops during the pre-holiday period; a third of a million people flew out of the country on package holidays; and post-Christmas sales set new records — the centre of Birmingham had to be closed to traffic due to the huge number of 'bargain-hunters'. It was one of the warmest winter holidays on record with insufficient snow for ski-ing; jellyfish were reported off the North Wales coast. Mr Anthony Cavendish, a former MI6 officer, said that he had published his memoirs, called Inside Intelligence, in the form of a Christmas card — despite the threat of an injunction from the Government — `to clear the name of Sir Maurice Oldfield'. The Bishop of Ripon announced that he had barred active homosexuals from join- ing his clergy and intends to discipline those already in his diocese. A strong attack on Mr Neil Kinnock's leadership of the Labour Party, accusing him of 'lethar- gy', was made by Mr David Warburton, a senior trades union official. In her Christ- mas address the Queen paid special tribute to Mr Gordon Wilson, the father of the young nurse murdered by the IRA at Enniskillen, for 'the depth of his forgive- ness'. For the sixth successive year a Gallup poll on prospects for the New Year showed that 'optimists' in Britain still outnumber 'pessimists', although the num- ber of `optimists' is distinctly lower than at this time last year. Henry Cotton, three times British Open golf champion, and the former judge, Sir Melford Stevenson, who once referred to the racing community as 'a bunch of crooks', died.
THE Israeli army arrested more than 1,000 Palestinians in an attempt to end the violence in the West Bank and Gaza strip. Israeli authorities made it clear that they would continue to use `lethal force' against Palestinian rioters. More than 20 have so far been killed. In Afghanistan the Soviet Union undertook its biggest military op- eration for two years in order to try to relieve the long-isolated garrison town of Khost. Following an Iraqi attack on Larak Island, an important Iranian oil terminal, Iran struck at an unescorted oil tanker near the Straits of Hormuz. King Fand of Saudi Arabia hinted that Gulf states might be forced to seek foreign protection, possibly from the United States, if Iran continued to attack their shipping and countries. Reports from Iran indicated that the use of chemical weapons was being considered in the expected winter ground offensive against Iraq. In South Africa in the black townships of Pietermaritzburg at least 22 people were reported killed over Christ- mas. The violence is believed to be largely between supporters of the ANC and those of the Zulu Chief Buthelezi. The Tokyo Stock Exchange, which traded over the Christmas holidays, slumped. The Amer- ican dollar reached yet another record low against the yen. Following the death of the Indian cinema `megastar' and Chief Minis- ter of the State of Tamil Nadu, Mr M.G. Ramachandran, on Christmas Eve, there were four days of hysterical grief and mob violence with three people committing suicide. In Sri Lanka about 25 people were killed by Sri Lankan police in Batticaloa in what is believed to have been a 'revenge massacre' after three of their men were ambushed by Tamil Tigers.
MStJT
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