PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Monkey on his hack MPs voted by a majority of 101 for the Prime Minister to seek closer union with the EEC at its summit in Maastricht. The pound fell to its lowest level against the deutschmark since joining the ERM. Mar- garet Thatcher condemned John Major's refusal to hold a referendum on a single currency as 'arrogant and wrong', and slat- ed Western governments for failing to recognise and sell arms to Croatia against communist Serbia. Sir Norman Fowler said if she went on like this she could lose the Conservatives the election. Bailiffs were instructed by Hammersmith and Fulham council to recover costs from Carol Thatch- er, after she was summoned for non-pay- ment of her poll tax. A poll revealed that Britons were the most nationalistic of ten European countries, with 68 per cent saying they would fight for their country as opposed to 25 per cent of Italians. Winston Silcott was cleared of the murder of PC Keith Blakelock in 1985. Ian Richter, a prisoner in Iraq, was released after the British Government agreed to release £70 million of frozen Iraqi assets. Dr Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, said The Satanic Verses contained an outrageous slur on the Prophet. Salman Rushdie objected. The
recovery of Terry Waite from the effects of captivity was said to be being delayed by accusations that he had worked for the CIA. A Loyalist prisoner was killed in an explosion in Crumlin Road jail, Belfast. Guinness paid £100 million to Argyll to avoid a court battle over their contested bid for Distillers in 1986. Freddie Mercury, the pop singer, announced that he had Aids just before dying of the disease. The Com- munist Party of Great Britain abandoned its name and became a creative Marxist, feminist, anti-racist, ecologist, progressive party instead. A 23-year-old nurse was charged with murdering four children in a hospital in Lincoln. A publican's three dogs killed his nine-year-old son as he tried to climb in over a wall. A man accused of murdering his Filipino wife denied feeding her innards to their cat.
THE SERBIAN-dominated 'Yugoslavian' army advanced on Osijek. Serbian refugees were moved into Croatian homes in parts of Croatia occupied by the army. Serbs and Croats signed the 14th ceasefire agreement of their war. Thousands more refugees fled to Hungary. 'Iraq claimed that its babies were dying, denied food and drugs because
Western powers refused to release its over- seas assets, but rejected a UN resolution allowing it to sell almost £1 billion of oil to buy drugs and food under UN-controlled terms. Hostility increased between Azerbai- jan and Armenia, threatening violence and damaging President Gorbachev's efforts to forge a new union of Soviet states. Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali was chosen to be next Secretary-General of the United Nations. The United States invited Arabs and Israelis to resume peace talks, this time in Washington. A Pentagon spokesman said there were fears that Soviet military units, some unfed for weeks, might rebel and take control of nuclear weapons. Japan and the United States agreed to co-operate to stop North Korea developing nuclear weapons. President Havel asked demon- strators in Prague to back his demand for greater presidential powers. Libya refused to extradite two men accused by Britain and America of the Lockerbie bombing. The search for oil off the Falkland Islands began. Danish scientists published strong evidence that climatic changes, elsewhere described as the greenhouse effect, are pro- duced by changes in the sun's radiation, SB nc't by man's carelessness.
Previous page
