PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Tricky Dicky Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, made a strange telephone call to President Clinton telling him that 'he was thinking of him'. The Ulster Freedom Fighters admit- ted they had been murdering Catholics this year, but said they would stop again; within hours another Catholic was shot dead, the ninth person to be murdered in this way in a month. The Ulster Democratic party, which has links with Protestant terrorists, withdrew before they were expelled from multi-party talks which resumed at Lancast- er House in London. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board reached a settlement with sacked dockers who had been picket- ing for three years. A judge ruled that min- ers may sue for emphysema or bronchitis if they can show it was caused by working conditions; tens of thousands may now be awarded damages totalling more than a bil- lion pounds. Mr Martin Bell, the Indepen- dent MP for Tatton, discovered that a £9,000 bill for legal services incurred just before his election had been paid by Labour and the Liberal Democrats; 'I hon- estly thought it was free,' he said. 'I did. I really did.' The former secretary of Mr Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, claimed she was sacked so his mistress could have her job; Mr Cook denied this but said he had considered giving his mis- tress the job, only to think better of it. Mr Alan Clark succeeded in a suit against the Evening Standard prohibiting it passing off as his work a diary written in parody of it. The Queen Mother broke her left hip in a fall and had the joint replaced in an imme- diate operation. The Prince of Wales broke a rib hunting. The signature of Diana, Princess of Wales, done in purple, is to be used as a logo endorsing goods approved by the trustees of the fund that hopes to con- tribute to charity by selling T-shirts and mugs bearing her image. The non-League Stevenage Borough drew at home against Newcastle, 1-1. Victor Pasmore the painter died, aged 89. The 12-year-old boy given the day off school to attend the birth of his son commented: 'I'm glad it was a little boy because that's what I wanted. I didn't want it to be a girl, because girls are annoying.'
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton of the United States confronted allegations that he had been widely guilty of sexual impropriety and had resorted to encouraging dishonesty to conceal it. Of one accuser he said: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.' The United States announced that it was within its rights to bomb Iraq for its repeated obstruction of United Nations weapons inspectors. During his visit to Cuba, the Pope denounced abor- tion and repression, but also the blockade of the country by the United States. The Japanese economics minister resigned in the middle of a bribery scandal. Mr P.W. Botha, the former president of South Africa, told a court that he was not there to apologise for apartheid, which be called 'good neighbourliness'; he was defending his refusal to heed three subpoenas to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Thailand began to deport more than a million immigrant workers. Another 100 or so villagers were murdered in Algeria, bringing the total to about 1,850 since the beginning of Ramadan on 30 December. Hong Kong, having slaughtered 1.4 million chickens lest they spread avine influenza, decided to import live fowls from China again; Macau slaughtered 75,000 chickens because the disease has discour- aged customers. Near Cisnadie in northern Romania a 17-year-old girl walking to her grandmother's home was killed by four dogs. A smuggler was arrested trying to take 68 skulls to Nepal to be tooled with sil- ver for sale to tourists.
CSH
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