PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'We can't keep on meeting like this.' Lord Young, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said that he would not refer the hostile takeover bid by the Swiss company Nestle for the York chocolate firm Rowntree to the Monopolies Commis- sion, despite the calling of the Council of the North, reconvened after last sitting 347 years ago. As Suchard, another Swiss company, made an even better bid than Nestle, workers at Rowntree queued up to sell their shares. Rolls-Royce achieved its biggest engine order for almost 20 years when American Airlines bought £1bn worth of RB2-11 engines. The High Court ordered three newspapers and two televi- sion stations to hand over pictures of violent clashes outside News Internation- al's Wapping headquarters to the police. The Independent Television's 27-hour con- tinuous fund-raising 'Telethon' raised over £21m for charity. Mr Arthur Scargill, the NUM's President, lost his 'automatic' seat on the TUC General Council as his union membership has fallen below the 100,000 threshold. The TUC moved towards its biggest split in a 120-year history as the electricians' union, the EEPTU, prepared to leave the movement. The last remaining operative Gloster Meteor crashed at an air
display. killing its pilot. A Decimus Burton mansion in Regent's Park was put up for sale with a price of £30 million. The Post Office plans to increase the cost of posting a letter by one penny in September. Undignified scenes and cries of 'priests of Baal' from evangelical Christians greeted the annual pilgrimage at the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk: two police anti-riot vans were deployed. The Church of England has decided to drop the anony- mous 'Preface' from future editions of Crockford's.
IN Moscow for the superpower summit President Reagan clashed publicly over human rights issues with Mikhail Gor- bachev. The US Senate ratified the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Trea- ty two days before the start of the summit. Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev walked round the Assumption Cathedral holding hands. Syrian troops entered the southern suburbs of Beirut to enforce an agreement to end three weeks of fighting between rival Moslem Shi'ite militias. In the US, Governor Michael Dukakis had an early lead in an opinion poll taken for the Presidential election in November: it
showed him 13 per cent ahead. of Vice- President Bush. The latter is said to be puzzled by the President's priorities in relation to his campaign, leading one Washington wit to ask: 'Do we have a Vice-President with unrequited loyalty?' Pakistan's president, Zia-ul-Haq, ousted his prime minister, Mr Junejo, and announced the dissolution of provincial governments and assemblies throughout the country and promised elections. Sir Geoffrey Howe visited a camp for Viet- namese refugees in Hong Kong where more than 5,000 have so far arrived this year and spoke out against the government in Hanoi. Dr Mohammad Hassan Sharq was named as Afghanistan's new prime minister: he is not a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party. General Noriega, the military dictator of Panama, apparently broke a deal with the United States by refusing to resign at the end of negotiations with the Americans.— to the great embarrassment of the State Depart- ment. The Governor-General of New Zea- land resigned as patron of the Auckland SPCA after taking part. in the ritual clubbing to death of two pigs in Vanuatu.
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