PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
A return to decent schooling, high moral values, that is what we want Labour said, through Mr Robin Cook, the shadow Foreign Secretary, that it might not let Britain join a single European cur- rency in 1999; Mr Cook blamed the Con- servative Government for not getting the nation ready for early membership. Mr Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party, was criticised by Cardinal Thomas Win- ning, the Archbishop of Glasgow, for fail- ing to denounce the evil of abortion. Labour tried to get up a national petition to have 'combat knives' banned; Mr Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, replied that he could not think of a definition that dis- tinguished kitchen knives from combat knives. Mr Howard had earlier announced plans to make reoffending violent or sex criminals serve mandatory life sentences; this annoyed many judges. He also came up with a plan to abolish parole, a change which it was said would require the building of 12 new prisons at the cost of £3 billion. Teachers at more than one school threat- ened to go on strike because of the ungovernable children they were expected to teach. The School Curriculum Assess- ment Authority published a code of moral guidance for schools, which was criticised before it even came out for making no posi- tive mention of marriage. Mrs Gillian Shephard, the Education Secretary, said she was personally in favour of caning, but she was immediately slapped down by the Prime Minister. Sainsbury's is to offer banking services at its shops; its half-yearly profits fell 14 per cent to £387 million More than two million savers and borrow- ers with the Alliance & Leicester will each be given 250 shares worth about £1,000 when it is floated on the stock market next year. Britain's biggest holiday airline, Bri- tannia, is to drop the word 'royal' from its in-flight service because it 'no longer has positive associations'. The Church of Eng- land Synod adopted a logo of a cross inside a squiggle to establish 'a common visual identity'. Dr George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said on the wireless that there was nothing wrong in giving children a gentle slap 'as long as it is done with love'. Jack Tinker, the theatre critic, died, aged 58. It was windy and 40,000 people were left without electricity. Two lorries contain- ing 1,000 vacuum cleaners were stolen in Ossett, West Yorkshire.
HUNDREDS of thousands of refugees on the border between Zaire and Rwanda were caught up in fighting between Zairean Tutsis and the Zairean army and between Hutu refugees and Tutsis. Many faced star- vation and there was evidence of mas- sacres. The United Nations pulled out of Bukavu, the regional capital of eastern Zaire, in the face of drunken soldiery. The UN appealed for aid to Iraq where thou- sands of children are dying because of shortages, unemployment and inflation. Forces opposing the Taliban Islamic army bombarded Kabul with rockets. Police pre- vented thousands of Islamic demonstrators from entering Islamabad to call for the res- ignation of the Pakistani Prime Minister, Miss Benazir Bhutto. A Vatican official vis- iting Cuba criticised the United States blockade against the island. The European Union pressed on with retaliatory action against the United States' Helms-Burton Act which penalises companies using for- mer US property in Cuba. Yemeni tribes- men recaptured a French diplomat whom they had just released from a week's captiv- ity. Two officials belonging to the Tamil Tigers terrorist organisation were shot dead in Paris. Just as the whole of Europe was persuaded to change from summer time to winter time on the same day, France announced that it would in future not change to summer time at all. A 12- storey block of 40 flats in Cairo collapsed burying more than 100 people. Spanish undertakers blocked central Madrid with more than 2,000 hearses in a protest against unfair competition from state- owned funeral operators; shepherds mounted a protest of their own there, with sheep. King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambo- dia changed his mind about setting most prisoners in the country free to mark his 74th birthday. Seven men in Bangalore were charged with making a million and a half free telephone calls illegally. CSH
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