PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Oh! Oh! What a horrible war!'
Ai emergency Cabinet meeting decid- ed to send 6,000 more British troops to the former Yugoslavia. This followed the tak- ing hostage of 33 members of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in the enclave of Gorazde, among nearly 400 United Nations troops similarly treated. The Commons was called back early from its Whitsun recess. In the Perth and Kinross by-election the Conser- vative candidate came in third place, losing the seat to a Scottish Nationalist, who was followed by the Labour candidate. Glaxo Wellcome, the world's biggest pharmaceu- tical company, said it would stop making an annual donation to the Conservative Party. A jury of seven women and five men began to hear the trial of Kevin Maxwell, Ian Maxwell, Robert Bunn and Larry Trachten- berg, on charges of fraud. The High Court found against the Enlightened Tobacco Company, which makes Death cigarettes; it had wanted to act as an agent to import lawfully cheap cigarettes from Luxembourg for clients in Britain who wanted to avoid higher excise duties. An arson attack destroyed 38 milk tankers and caused £2
million-worth of damage at two Milk Mar- que depots in Cheshire. Six teenagers died in one car when it hit a tree in an Eltham street. Jean Muir, the dress designer, died, aged 66. The Earl of Clancarty, who had written about aliens tunnelling into the cen- tre of the earth, died, aged 83. A man sur- vived after falling 245 ft from the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
THE CONTACT Group (the United States, Russia, Britain, Germany and France) agreed to strengthen United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia, despite threats by France to withdraw. The Bosnian Serbs under Mr Radovan Karadzic declared that United Nations resolutions would not be heeded. This all followed the killing of 71 people, all younger than 38, by Bosnian Serb bombardment of the suppos- edly safe area of Tuzla; it was in reply to the bombing of Bosnian Serb military posi- tions by North Atlantic Treaty Organisa- tion aircraft, authorised by UN resolutions. Mr Alija Izetbegovic, the President of
Bosnia, said he was concerned about what extra British forces wanted to do in his country. There was fighting around Saraje- vo, involving heavy artillery and tanks, but this time there was no UN intervention. An earthquake killed perhaps 2,000 people in the town of Neftegorsk on Sakhalin island off the east coast of Russia. Russia offered to participate in the Partnership for Peace organisation to which more than 20 Nato and former Warsaw Pact countries belong. The first elections in Belarus since it left the Soviet Union failed to elect a parlia- ment because turnout was too low. Local elections in Spain brought gains for the moderately right-wing Partido Popular and losses for the ruling socialists. In China, 55 prisoners who had taken part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement smuggled out a letter calling on the government to release them; it was signed by the man jailed for life for throwing an egg at the huge portrait of Mao in Tiananmen Square. China tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile. The Pope published an encyclical on Christian
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