PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'Let me know how you get on.'
The IRA began a bombing campaign to disrupt the operation of democracy in Britain. A bomb at London Bridge railway station in the rush hour injured 29 people. Another exploded outside the offices of the Crown Prosecution Service and another was spotted by a traveller on railway tracks in Tottenham, apparently intended to dis- rupt fans travelling to a football match between Tottenham Hotspur and Notting- ham Forest. Northern Irish politicians agreed to resume talks before the election. The Government's bill to privatise the inspection of schools was defeated in the Lords. The Liberal Democrats moved for- ward in polls to 20 per cent support. Trade figures showed the worst monthly deficit for a year. Mr David Hunt, Welsh Secre- tary, announced that he proposed to bring back seven traditional Welsh counties, including Anglesey and Pembrokeshire. The Government unveiled a plan to save red squirrels and dormice. Police killed a gunman who had wounded a police consta- ble and taken hostage a driving instructor. British MPs seethed over the suggestion by Paul Keating, the Australian Prime Minis- ter, that Britain had deserted Australia dur- ing the second world war. The conviction of a young woman for murdering her baby was quashed by the Appeal Court after she had spent four years in prison. Christine Dry-
land, wife of a major in the British army, was ordered to spend a year as a psychiatric in-patient after her plea of guilty to manslaughter, through diminished respon- sibility, of her husband's German lover was accepted by a court-martial. The Ingst bridge, renamed the Angst bridge, was wheeled off the M4 for demolition, in an operation which went wrong, shutting the motorway for 70 hours. An ex-KGB agent said that Soviet intelligence tried to recruit Harold Wilson in the 1960s, but failed. The Prince of Wales defended soft French cheeses. Ruth Pitter, the poet, died, aged 94.
IRAQ refused to allow a UN team to destroy Iraqi ballistic-missile plants. The allies said military action could not be ruled out if Saddam Hussein continued his stance. In Albania anarchy ruled, with riot- ing and looting; the Prime Minister was reduced to appealing to the army in the hope that it could restore public order. A ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan collapsed within hours of being arranged, and Armenian troops were found to have massacred Azerbaijani refugees, including women and children, in numbers up to 200, scalping some. Armenia was formally admitted to the United Nations. The UN peace plan for Yugoslavia was in jeopardy
again after the people of Bosnia-Herzegov- ina voted for independence and Serb mili- tants responded by sealing off its capital. President Gaddafi of Libya said he thought his contact with the IRA had been a mis- take, as Britain and the United States pre- pared to lobby for a UN air and arms embargo against him over his refusal to hand over the two people suspected of the Lockerbie bombing. China passed a law laying claim to islands near Taiwan in the East China Sea, thought to be rich in oil and gas, which the Japanese say they own. Polls in the United States showed that sup- port for President Bush was steadily declin- ing. MEPs held an emergency session of the Strasbourg Assembly's legal affairs committee to discuss their astonishment that the Maastricht summit had allowed Ireland to restrict the right of Irish women to travel abroad for abortions. The EEC found, after a European Court of Justice ruling, that all its previous decisions may be invalid because they have not been person- ally signed by the president, a situation described by an EEC spokesperson as 'an incredible mess'. Salvatore Gravano, alias 'Sammy the Bull', broke the rule of omerta by giving evidence against Mafia boss John Gotti in a New York court. Elizabeth Tay- lor celebrated her 60th birthday with Mick-
ey Mouse and her latest husband. SB
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