PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Advantage Blair Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, rejected criticisms by 'a few grumpy people' of an agreement by heads of state and gov- ernment from European Community coun- tries at a meeting in Florence to remove a ban on the export of British cattle at some future date in return for a British undertak- ing to kill more cows than it had planned. But delegates from other EC countries said that the British agreement was 'the smallest fig-leaf we have ever seen'. Later during the summit, Britain demurred from participat- ing in a pan-European police force. Mr Major later made a speech saying it would be unwise to change the British Constitu- tion. Mr John Prescott, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, broke his foot while running for an aeroplane from Strasbourg to Florence. Mr Peter Lilley, the Secretary of State for Social Security, said that new laws would be brought in to fill the gap made by an Appeal Court ruling that to deprive asylum-seekers from abroad of benefit payments was unlawful. Postmen went on strike. The Prince of Wales visited Northern Ireland. A White Paper proposed ways of setting up grammar schools in large towns even where local authorities opposed them; state schools would be able to select 20 per cent of pupils and grant-maintained
schools 50 per cent. A five-year-old girl was stung by more than 100 bees near Tewkes- bury, but was discharged next morning from hospital.
A LORRY-BOMB at a United States base in Saudi Arabia killed 23 Americans and injured more than 300 people in all. An Arab summit in Cairo, which included the leaders of Syria, Jordan and Libya, called upon the new government of Israel not to go back on agreements to grant self-rule to Palestinians. Mr Warren Christopher, the American Secretary of State, visited Israel to talk with the Prime Minister, Mr Binyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli interior minister said he would give the go-ahead for the building of a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, on land claimed by Pales- tinians. The United States threatened to use its Security Council veto to prevent a second term of office for Mr Boutros Boutros Ghali as secretary-general of the United Nations. During a visit to Germany, the Pope beatified two priests who had spo- ken out against Nazi injustice. China can- celled a visit next month by the German foreign minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, after the German parliament called upon China to respect human rights in Tibet. President
Jiang Zemin of China visited Spain. Euzka- di to Askatasuna, the Basque terrorists, proclaimed a week's ceasefire and called on Spain's conservative government to join talks about independence for the Basque provinces. A car bomb in Blida, a town near Algiers, killed four people. Four men, including one described as the 'director of engineering' of the Irish Republican Army, were charged with possessing Semtex-filled mortar bombs after a raid on a farm in Ire- land. Mr Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, the political face of the IRA, said that the Irish government seemed to be closing the door on him. Sri Lanka said it would rebuild the public library in Jaffna, which in 1981 was destroyed with most of its 95,000 books during civil war. The Caribbean island of Nevis, with a popula- tion of 9,000, threatened to secede from the neighbouring island of St Christopher, commonly called St Kitt's. Andreas Papan- dreou, the Socialist who was thrice prime minister of Greece, died, aged 77. Two cos- monauts will have to spend the summer in orbit because Russia cannot afford a rocket to fetch them down until the autumn. Ital- ian scientists set off a series of explosions around Mount Vesuvius to see if it will
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