PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`We seem to be hitting some turbulence, don't panic!' Miss Emma Nicholson, the Conserva- tive Member for Devon West and Torridge, suddenly joined the Liberal Democrat Party, citing among her reasons a supposed shift to the Right in Tory policy, her own support for European integration and her opposition to the shackling of women in Holloway prison directly after they had given birth. She announced her decision to stand for the European Parliament. Her defection will bring the Government major- ity to a notional one, assuming it loses two forthcoming by-elections. Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, said he would not 'cut and run', but that he would 'go through hell and high water'. The Unionists at first said they would continue to give it their support but then the Ulster Unionists called for talks with Sinn Fein to be broken off after a man was shot by the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the fifth in a month. Mr Major said that 'the Princess of Wales must have a role in public life'. Among the New Year honours were peerages for Mr Dick Taveme, the former defector from the Labour Party Sir David Gillmore, to be the British ambassador in Paris; Companion- ships of Honour for Sir David Attenbor- ough, Sir Richard Doll, Mr Douglas Hurd and Archbishop Derek Worlock of Liver- pool; knighthoods for Mr Cameron Mack- intosh and Mr Jocelyn Stevens; Stella Rim- ington, head of MI5, was made a Dame. Mr Salman Rushdie won the Whitebread Novel Prize. Hundreds of thousands were left without water after a thaw revealed burst mains. Coaches were banned from the outside lane of three-lane motorways. Mohammed overtook John in popularity as a name for boys.
AMERICAN troops began to stream into Bosnia over a 600-yard pontoon bridge from Croatia, to set up the headquarters in Tuzla. Perhaps 16 Bosnians were said to have been abducted as they made their way through Serb-held parts of Sarajevo for which the Bosnian government blamed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces for letting happen. Italy took over the pres- idency of the European Community for six months while being in the depths of its own political crisis. Turkey and the EC joined a customs union. President Bill Clinton of the United States began the year badly by continuing in deadlock with Congress over the budget, leaving thousands of officials without pay. Crime fell sharply in New York, with only just over 1,500 murders last year. King Fand of Saudi Arabia asked his younger brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, who has had a stroke, to take power indefi- nitely. President Yeltsin, who has had a heart attack, reappeared in public. Mr Andreas Papandreou, the Prime Minister of Greece, is able to breathe on his own again after weeks on a respirator. Seven well-known Bulgarian radio journalists were sacked for not toeing the government line. Two million children in North Korea were threatened with starvation because of poor harvests and administrative inepti- tude. Fire killed 19 workers in the dormito- ry of a Taiwanese-owned factory in the spe- cial economic zone of southern China. Trade between China and Taiwan, which it does not recognise, has risen by 15 per cent in the last year. More than 6,000 chicks were roasted in a fire at a chicken farm in western Japan. Two drunken men were killed by a tiger in its den in a Calcutta zoo, setting off a stampede of spectators that left 200 injured.
CSH
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