PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Palestinian pirates captured the Achille Lauro, an Italian liner bound from Alexan- dra to Port Said, taking hostage the 454 people aboard and threatening to blow up the ship unless the Israelis released 50 Palestinian prisoners. The Israelis re- mained silent. Seven Israeli civilians were killed by a crazed Egyptian border guard while they were on holiday in Sinai. The Syrian army occupied part of the Lebanese city of Tripoli after agreeing a truce with the Sunni militias it had been besieging there for the past three weeks. There was no news from Beirut of the fate of three Russian diplomats recently taken hostage, but two British women were released. Mr Gorbachev proposed direct talks with Bri- tain and France about their nuclear forces. President Mitterrand immediately rejected the idea, while the Foreign Office tempo- rised. In Mexico, rescuers struggled to reach Luis, a nine-year-old boy trapped alive for over a fortnight in the ruins of a house destroyed by the earthquake, but in the end abandoned hope of rescuing him. Two Scottish engineers were sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment each in Nigeria, for allegedly stealing an aeroplane. A bit of a Belgian aeroplane fell on London, nearly killing some market traders. In Portugal's latest general election, the Socialist Party lost half its seats. 'An uncertain epoch now dawns for Socialists,' reported the Times's correspondent. Rock Hudson died of Aids. It was discovered that a message he had sent to a Hollywood dinner to raise funds to fight the disease had not been composed by him. Swedish priests began a work to rule.
A POLICEMAN was killed in a riot in Tottenham, north London, a kitchen knife embedded to the hilt in his neck. The Labour leader of Haringey council, a black called Mr Bernie Grant, commented: `Maybe it was a policeman who stabbed another policeman.' Twenty civilians and 223 police were injured. Firearms were used by the rioters, perhaps for the first time in modern Britain. There was some evidence that revolutionaries had been encouraging young blacks to attack the police. The Labour Conference ended, Mr Kinnock's standing enhanced in the coun- try by his attacks on members of his own party. The monthly unemployment figure rose by 105,000 to 3,345,198, or 13.9 per cent of the workforce. Mr Jeffrey Archer, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, attacked 'many of the young unem- ployed who are quite unwilling to put in a day's work'. Mr Tebbit, chairman of the Conservative Party, contradicted Mr Archer's remark that the Conservatives could only win the next general election if unemployment were then falling. The Cabinet backed a plan for tax cuts of £3,500 billion in next year's Budget, and again set up the 'Star Chamber' Cabinet committee to arbitrate between the Treas- ury and spending departments. The Con- servative Conference opened in Blackpool. The Mirror started to publish extracts from a book by Sara Keays, former mistress to a former Cabinet minister, Mr Cecil Parkin- son. Yet more talks were held to try to settle the eight-month-long teachers' dis- pute. Mr Harry Cowans, Labour MP for Tyne Bridge, Newcastle, died aged 52. The British driver Nigel Mansell won the Euro- pean Grand Prix at Brand's Hatch; the Frenchman Alain Prost won the world drivers' championship. Ian Botham re- signed as captain of Somerset. AJSG
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