PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Family at war, 1989 Twelve years into its travels through the outer reaches of the solar system the American spacecraft Voyager 2 sent back spectacular photographs from Neptune and its largest moon, Triton. On the latter there was said to be 'abundant evidence of ice volcanism'. The US company McDon- nell Douglas successfully launched the first private rocket to place a satellite into space; it will, unfortunately, beam televi- sion to Britain. The Prince and Princess of Wales are to ahead with their visit to Hong Kong later in the year; in the Colony 250 riot police were deployed to regain control of a barren island where 4,500 refitgees are being held. More than 300 people were arrested during the annual Notting Hill Carnival which ended, as it so often does, in violence.. Britain's trade deficit for July was over £2 billion. It was announced that the Ulster Defence Regiment would be issued for the first time with plastic baton rounds. Police in The Irish Republic found a 1500 lb bomb less than two miles south of the border with Northern Ireland; a British soldier discovered an IRA explosive device under his car in Hanover. Opinion polls suggested that Labour's lead over the Tories had been cut to around five points. Mr David Steel, former leader of the former Liberal Party, described his former colleague, Dr David Owen, as a `no- hoper'. British Coal closed down Bet- teshanger, the last colliery in the Kent field. A government survey showed that 10 per cent of pate samples it tested were contaminated with listerial bacteria. Mr Myrddin Thomas was fined £50 for driving too slowly at 20 mph; he said 'I'm not a motorway maniac. Sometimes I drive as slowly as 10 mph.' Marianne Wiggins announced that she has been living apart from her husband, Mr Salman Rushdie, for the last month. Diana Vreeland, the fashion doyenne, R. D. Laing, the con- troversial phychiatrist, Irving Stone, the American writer and Feliks Toploski, the Polish-born British artist, died.
A 400-mile-long 'human chain', stretching north-to-south through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, marked the 50th anniversary of the Soviet-Nazi pact which deprived those states of their independ- ence. The Soviet Communist Party re- sponded with stern words against 'extrem- ism'. In the Moldavian republic 250,000 people joined a protest rally. The Hunga- rian prime minister paid an unexpected visit to Bonn for talks about the tens of thousands of East Germans now 'holi- daying' in Hungary and believed to be planning to cross the border into Austria. Fifteen years after he was banished from the Soviet Union the first chapter of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's • The Gulag Archipelago was published in the Russian literary magazine Arovy Mir. In Poland Mr Lech Walesa said that the new Solidarity prime minister, Mr Tadeusz MazOwiecki, must prove himself within a year. The United States announced that it was put- ting together a $65 million package fo helicopters, aircraft, boats and weapons to send to Colombia where drugs lords have declared 'total war' on the goveminent. Leaders of the Syrian-backed Muslim forces in Lebanon said that they were preparing . for a 'final battle' with his Christian enemies nif current . diplomatic peace initiatives fail. Riot police in Cape Town fired tear-gas at among, others, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. S9uth Africa's acting. President, Mr Frederik de Klerk, held friendly talks with President Kaunda in Zambia. In what was described as a `spectacular gesture' Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigned as president of one of the main political parties seeking a political solution for Cambodia at the current round of talks in Paris. The talks failed. Scientists in Toronto discovered and isolated the gene that causes cystic fibrosis. MStJT
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