PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The Maastricht Bill received the royal assent. The Government sought to avert defeat on a motion to include the Social Chapter in the treaty by claiming that the Chapter would be bad for industry. They also claimed that the treaty would be rati- fied whatever happened. 'It's a socialists' charter and we want nothing of it,' said Mr John Major, the Prime Minister. Lord Rees-Mogg gained leave from the High Court to challenge the legality of the means of ratifying the Maastricht Bill; his case will be heard next week, but an appeal is expected. Mr Winston Churchill, in a speech to the association of Jewish Ex-Ser- vicemen, renewed his calls for a curtailment of immigration. An Englishman who stored 381bs of Semtex explosives in Goodmayes High Street in Essex was sentenced to 22 years in jail; it was part of a plot to blow up the Prime Minister. Mr Major successfully secured the release of two girls convicted of smuggling heroin in Bangkok; they received a royal pardon from King of Thailand. Twenty thousand policemen demonstrated against the Sheehy report which seeks to end policemen's 'jobs for life'. British forces in Hong Kong are to be cut from 8,500 to 3,000 in two years. Chieftain tanks, on sale as part of defence cut-backs, went for as little as £3,000 each. A 58-year-old woman became pregnant with twins after a doctor in Italy implanted her with someone else's ova. Police seeking the killer of five homosexuals in London arrested a man near Southend. Mrs Stella Rimington, the head of MI5 met the press. Cardinal Gor- don Joseph Gray, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh for 34 years, died aged 82. Roger Woddis the satirical versifi- er died, aged 76.
PRESIDENT Alia Izetbegovic of Bosnia made a broadcast to his people acknowl- edging the need to accede to Serbo-Croat plans for carving up the country on ethnic lines. He later appealed for urgent help from the United Nations as Serb forces attacked Sarajevo. United Nations troops found two dead babies among other hor- rors in a hospital 25 miles from Sarajevo which had been abandoned by Bosnian Croat forces. The strategically important Maslenica bridge in Croatia was reopened despite Serb opposition, with the proposal that it be put under UN protection. Gener- al Bruno Loi, an Italian, was threatened with expulsion from Somalia, where he was serving with the UN, for insubordination; his government, the former colonial power in Somalia, is reluctant to pursue the UN/ US policy of pursuing General Aidid, the powerful faction leader. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Kiichi Miyazawa, refused to resign even though his party has lost its overall majority. President Clinton of the United States sacked the director of the FBI, Mr William Sessions, for 'serious deficiencies in judgment'. Mr Clinton also proposed that homosexuals should be able to serve in the armed forces as long as they performed no unnatural acts either on duty or on leave. The President had flown back from holiday in Hawaii when flood waters in the Mississippi near St Louis reached 47 feet above the mean, leaving thousands of acres under water. In India 419,900 acres were flooded and 425 people were drowned. A bull in Italy trod on his own pizzle and had to be destroyed. Twelve tons of lead have been put into the belfry at Pisa to stop it leaning; 88 tons more will be added in the next year.
CSH
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