PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
An IRA bomb killed ten, including two children, and injured 57 others in Belfast. It was set off in the Shankill Road between busy shops and a meeting room used by Loyalist extremists. One IRA terrorist was killed in the blast, another badly injured. In revenge, the illegal Ulster Freedom Fight- ers shot dead two men and injured five oth- ers at a council works depot in a Catholic area; two other Catholics were also shot dead. A soldier was arrested after national- ist mourners were fired upon outside the house of the dead bomber. Diners in a restaurant escaped death when a UFF automatic weapon jammed. Mr Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, was banned from entering mainland Britain by the Home Secretary; he had been invited to speak to a meeting at Westminster organ- ised by Mr Tony Benn. The decision had been made before the Belfast bomb and a peculiarly ill-timed peace overture from Mr Adams. A police constable was shot in Clapham by laughing black men thought to be involved in drug dealing. Fourteen Tory backbenchers wrote to the Prime Minister, saying they would vote against the Govern- ment if it insisted on substantial defence cuts. The stock market hit a high after Ger- many led interest-rate cuts in Europe. The Church Society, an evangelical organisa- only asked for your ID card!'
tion, took the General Synod of the Church of England to court over its resolution to ordain women. Roddy Doyle won £20,000 from the Booker prize for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha; he is thought to be the first winner to wear an ear-stud. Jo Gri- mond, the leader of the Liberal Party from 1956-67, died, aged 80. Vincent Price, the film actor, died, aged 82, and Innes Ireland, the racing driver, died, aged 62. The Duke of Edinburgh was said to have asked a jour- nalist at a party held by the World Wide Fund for Nature if she was wearing mink knickers.
THERE WAS deadlock in Haiti as the effective government stalled UN demands to allow the return of President Jean- Bertrand Aristide. In the meantime a leaked CIA report suggested that President Aristide had been treated for psychotic dis- orders. Mr Boutros Boutros Ghali, the sec- retary-general of the United nations, made an undercover visit to Somalia despite warnings from President Clinton of the United States that it would increase ten- sion. Lord Owen proposed new peace talks on the former Yugoslavia, to be held in London under UN auspices. At the same time UN aid workers found that the Mus- lim enclave of Maglaj in northern Bosnia had been reduced to rubble by Serb bom- bardment, leaving 30,000 sheltering in cel- lars. The UN suspended most relief con- voys after a Danish soldier was killed. Mr Fikret Abdic, controller of the Muslim enclave of Bihac, made an independent peace deal with the Serbs. Sarajevo was bombarded again. There was a coup in Burundi; the minority Tutsi-dominated army killed President Ndadaye who belongs to the majority Hutu tribe, hundreds of thousands of whose members fled the country as buildings and farmland were set on fire. The Liberals won a landslide victo- ry in the Canadian general election, as the Prime Minister, Mrs Kim Campbell, lost her seat. A 19th person committed suicide in the presence of Mr Jack Kevorkian, the American inventor of a suicide machine. Air France staff continued a violent strike for more than a week, despite the resigna- tion of its chairman, M. Bernard Attah. The car maker, Seat, facing $700 million losses, is to halt production in Barcelona. M. Michel Rocard, the new Socialist first secretary in France, called for a four-day week. Volkswagen in Germany announced plans to impose a four-day week to save wage costs. The Thai chief of police was dismissed for repeating rude remarks about
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