PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach of Ireland, said that the ceasefire by the Irish Republican Army was permanent; Mr John Major, the British Prime Minister, was not so sure. He agreed to talk to the Revd Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionists. Mr Major said to him, 'Get out of this room and never come back until you are prepared to say I speak the truth and do not tell lies,' according to Mr Paisley. Mr Reynolds agreed to talk to Mr Gerald Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, in an attempt to establish a so-called Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. Sir Patrick May- hew, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said that Mr Adams could not be compared to Mr Nelson Mandela, the Pres- ident of South Africa, and he seemed to mean the remark depreciatorily. The Ulster Volunteer Force killed a Catholic man and set off a car bomb outside the Sinn Fein press office in Belfast. Mr Al Gore, the American Vice-president, flew to Ireland in a gesture of support for Mr Reynolds. Mr Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party was urged to give his support to the striking signalmen at the Trades Union Congress; he didn't. The signalmen struck for another day, in the 13th week of their dispute. A French company, CNM, withdrew its offer for Swan Hunter, the Tyneside shipbuilder, which is to close with the loss of 650 jobs. British apple growers are to be offered £1,842 an acre to destroy their orchards. Lord Bonham-Carter, the Liberal politican, died, aged 72. Billy Wright, a great player for Wolverhampton Wanderers, died, aged 70. A 21-year-old economics student was fined £200 with £100 costs for causing dis- comfort to a fellow passenger on a train from Leeds to York by playing an album by The Beautiful South called Miaow only too audibly on his earphones. In London, the World Chess Champion, Garri Kasparov, was defeated in a two-game match by a £90 chess computer program called Chess Genius.
THE EUROPEAN Community put a com- promise resolution to the United Nations population conference in Cairo, making it clear that abortion should not be used as a means of family planning; this had been a bone of contention for the Vatican and some Muslim countries. The Pope post- poned his trip to Sarajevo because the safe- ty of crowds greeting him could not be guaranteed. Bosnian Serbs drove hundreds of Muslims and Croats from their homes in Bijeljina in north-east Bosnia. A million Azeris were said to have lost their homes in continuing conflict with Armenia. King Sihanouk of Cambodia wrote from Peking, where he is staying, to Prince Ranarit, his son and one of the country's two Prime Ministers, suggesting that the Khmer Rouge be legalised once again. General Sani Abacha, the de facto head of state in Nigeria, said that he wanted the country to move in an orderly fashion to civilian rule, but he did not say when. The United States ran into heavy weather during talks with Cuba which were intended to deal with the thousands of refugees attempting to reach Florida in small craft; the Cayman Islands, which has a population of 29,000, sent back 400 to Cuba, saying it couldn't afford to look after them. Ten thousand are to be shipped to a camp in the mosquito-infested region of the Panama canal; more than 20,000 are being held at the American base at Guantamamo Bay in Cuba. Talks in Ghana continued in an attempt to stop the five-year civil war in Liberia. A member of the Parliament of New South Wales, who had criticised Asian gangsters for attacking other Asians in his constituency, was mur- dered. The Brazilian share market fell 10 per cent in one day when the finance minis- ter resigned after admitting that he had fal- sified inflation figures. The German state lottery offered a record prize worth more than £18 million. There was a $1 million raid on Tiffany's jewellery shop in New York.
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