Portrait of the week
The miners' delegate conference re- jected with contumely the draft settle- ment of the strike worked out by the TUC and Mr Walker, but the strike nevertheless appeared to be cracking. On Monday 3,800 miners returned to work, and by Wednes- day half of all NUM members were at work. Three IRA men, one of them the junior snooker champion of Ulster, were shot dead in an army ambush in Strabane. Rifles and grenade launchers were found by their bodies. Local residents appeared outraged by the possibility that the terror- ists had been given insufficent chance to surrender. John Hume MP was driven to a secret rendezvous with three members of the IRA Army Council, whom he hoped to persuade of the folly of violence, but his efforts came to nothing when he refused to allow the meeting to be videotaped. The IRA and the INLA each killed a civilian in Londonderry. Teachers started a program- me of selective strikes. They want more money. The IBA banned a Channel 4 programme about MI5. Mrs Thatcher re- turned from America, where she had addressed both Houses of Congress. She was said to have urged on President Reagan the necessity of restraining the dollar, and of testing, rather than de- ploying, the 'Star Wars' system. No sooner had the Prime Minister returned than the dollar rose smartly (the pound reached $1.03), the President saying he would do nothing to restrain it. Then European central banks intervened, and the dollar shot down again.
The trial commenced in Oslo of Mr Arne Treholt, Social Democrat and successful diplomat, who is accused of spying very usefully for the Russians and Iraqis. Not the least curious aspect of the case was the report that this Norwegian had been blackmailed after taking part in an orgy. President Chernenko seemed to recover sufficiently to vote for himself. Elections in Pakistan appeared to go well for General Zia, who had jailed every opposition leader of note. The sale of condoms was legalised in Southern Ire- land. The Israelis and their allies revenged themselves on Shi'ite villages in Southern Lebanon: three people were killed. Unrest continued in South Africa. Sir lain Mon- crieffe died, as did Clarence Nash, who had been for many years the voice of Donald Duck. The death was announced in Bournemouth of Mr Christopher Egner. He had Aids, and had before his death given blood which was traced to 41 reci- pients, one a baby. The hooded rapist known as the Fox was sentenced to six life sentences. A Belgian grandfather, Joseph Deraymaeker, was so upset that his son was getting a divorce that he shot dead his daughter-in-law and her mother, then re- turned home and murdered his wife, son, and two grandchildren, before jumping into a well, where he drowned. Five different terrorist groups claimed responsi- bility for a bomb which exploded outside the Paris branch of Marks and Spencer, and killed a security guard. Mr James Meredith, whose enrolment as the first black student of the University of Missis- sippi in 1962 had required the assistance of 30,000 Federal troops, described the in- tegration of education as 'the biggest con job ever. . . a plot by white liberals to gain black political power for themselves' and said it had ruined black education by cutting the parents out of it. Mrs Geraldine Ferraro was paid half a million dollars for making a Pepsi Cola commercial. Mr David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand, arrived on a visit to Britain ACB
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