PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`You've been washing again, you naughty boy!' In the political slack season there were persistent rumours of diplomatic contacts between Britain and the new Argentine government of Senor Carlos Menem with a view to normalising diplomatic relations. The new Foreign Secretary, Mr John Ma- jor, was said to be planning a trip to Hong Kong before the end of the year to give the colony new reassurances about its future under Chinese rule. The pound streng- thened on the foreign exchanges after news that the yearly rate of increase in retail sales was at its lowest level for seven years — evidence that the Government's anti- inflation measures were having an effect. Dockers in Liverpool, the last holdout of the dock strike, finally joined their col- leagues at other ports and voted to return to work. Lord Hanson's £3.5 billion bid for Consolidated Gold Fields succeeded as 57 per cent of ConsGold shareholders accepted his offer of £15.30 a share. Mr Peter Wright, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, offered to resign after an in- quiry into the Hillsborough disaster of last April blamed the police for poor crowd control. A member of the Organisation of the Strugglers of Islam who had been planning to blow up Mr Salman Rushdie instead blew up himself and part of a London hotel. An Oxford to Paddington train on Sunday night was derailed by
vandals, who had placed an obstruction on the line. British Rail offered a reward of £10,000 for the apprehension of the cul- prits. DeFreitas and Butcher, the two black members of the party of 16 rebel cricketers, pulled out of the South African tour after receiving threatening letters. The British men's athletics team won the European cup in Gateshead, beating the Russians and the East Germans for the first time. The women's team came third behind the Russians and the East Ger- mans. The Queen Mother celebrated her 89th birthday.
AS THE Americans made belligerent ges- tures in the aftermath of the murder by Lebanese extremists of Colonel William Higgins, Mr Rafsanjani, the new President of Iran, offered his co-operation to the United States in resolving the continuing hostage crisis. Such moderation was promptly denounced by the Iranian In- terior Minister, Mr Mohtashemi, as dis- loyal to the anti-American spirit of the late leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. A proposal to swap the Hizbollah leader held by the Israelis, Sheikh Obeid, for the American hostage next on the death list, Mr Joseph Cicippio, was rejected by Israel, who will only negotiate for their prisoners of war held in Lebanon. Japan chose a new prime
minister, Mr Toshiki Kaifu, for the first time without the agreement of the upper house of Parliament, of which the ruling LDP lost control in last month's electicins. In the Soviet Union, Mr Gorbachev attack- ed the 'left radicals' in the Soviet Parlia- ment, headed by Mr Boris Yeltsin — not least for calling themselves left radicals'. In Poland, a potential split in the fragile new government over the choice of a prime minister uncongenial to Solidarity was averted, partly because of fears of a Russian intervention. Cuba, which has recently cracked down both on bureaucra- tic corruption and on human rights cam- paigners, banned two Russian periodicals which it accused of promoting bourgeois democracy. There was a massive sewage, discharge and an outbreak of typhoid in the Catalonian resort of Salou, though the two were claimed not to be connected. In New Zealand, the Deputy Prime Minister. Mr Geoffrey Palmer, became Prime Minis- ter in succession to David Lange, who retired to the back benches. Colonel Gad- dafi of Libya staked out a claim as a literary scholar when he announced that Britain's national bard was in fact an Arab. Sheikh Speare. A Japanese professor has calculated the value of pi to 536,870,000 decimal places, a new record. The silly
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