PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Resident Reagan announced unex- pectedly that he was to meet Mr Gor- bachev in Reykjavik for a preparatory summit to pave the way for the Soviet leader's visit to the United States later this year. The two leaders are to discuss bilater- al relations, human rights, and arms con- trol. The meeting was made possible by the almost simultaneous release of the Amer- ican journalist Nicholas Daniloff, and ex- pulsion from New York of the Russian UN employee Gennady Zakharov, whom the Americans accused of spying. Mr Reagan denied this was a spy swap. Immediately after Mr Daniloff left Moscow, the Soviet authorities released two prominent dissi- dent Jews. The House of Representatives voted by a large majority to override President Reagan's veto on full sanctions against South Africa. Inside South Africa President Botha failed to call the election which had been widely predicted, and instead announced his resignation as leader of the National Party in the Cape province, which was widely seen as a first step towards his retirement as State President. A British solicitor wanted in connection with the murder of his pregnant mistress and her daughter climbed 200 feet up a tower of Amiens cathedral, and remained there for six hours before police persuaded him to come down. The Guardian's Middle Eastern correspondent David Hirst was kidnapped in Beirut but managed to strug- gle free; a French television cameraman was not so lucky and was seized in west Beirut by the Shi'ite Muslim Amal militia. The Soviet newsagency Tass reported that a parrot which lives near Minsk can recite Shakespeare's eighth sonnet in English.
THE Labour Party's efforts to present a united front at its annual conference in Blackpool suffered two setbacks. Mr David Blunkett, a member of the National Executive Committee, urged Labour's sha- dow Chancellor of the Exchequer to be more honest about his plans to fight poverty and admit that the standard rate of taxation would be increased if Labour were to win the next election. Mr Hattersley responded by saying: 'He is not going to be Chancellor. I am.' Mr Denis Healey added to the confusion by remarking on a televi- sion programme that it was 'not inconceiv- able' that the Nato alliance could persuade
a Labour government not to close all American bases. This contradicted Mr Kinnock's view, which he had expressed the day before, that Britain would definite- ly withdraw from the protection of the American nuclear umbrella after closing down American nuclear bases. On the same programme, Mr Caspar Weinberger made clear how seriously America would view Labour's policy. Mr Eric Heifer and Mrs Margaret Beckett, both left-wingers, were voted off the party's National Execu- tive Committee. Three senior executives, including Mr Harold Musgrove, the chair- man of Austin Rover, left the Rover Group at extremely short notice after it was revealed that the company had lost over £200 million in the first six months of 1986. The share issue of the TSB was seven times oversubscribed, and the bank announced that two million of the five million applicants for shares would receive none. British Rail dropped its advertising slogan 'We're getting there,' after numer- ous passengers complained that they were not. Lloyd Honeyghan of Bermondsey won the world welterweight boxing title.
SJ RR
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