PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`I'm afraid, owing to a technical error in the warrant, there's not much we can do.'
The announcement of Prince Andrew's engagement to Miss Sarah Ferguson was reported to be genuinely popular at Buck- ingham Palace, and to be unconnected with an incident in which Prince Charles broke his finger two days later planting a tree. The finger needed hospital attention. The proposed marriage, which will take place on 23 July, interrupted a stream of reports in the popular press depicting an epidemic in Britain of rape and sexual offences against children. Statistics show- ing a 90 per cent increase in child abuse over the year were released with the reservation that there may now be a greater willingness to report cases. The recent Anglo-Irish Agreement, intended in part to contain terrorism, did not enable Scotland Yard to extradite Evelyn Glenholmes from Dublin to face bombing charges in London. Twice in the same day, the Irish courts — the second time after she had been released, run away and been recaptured — refused extradition on a legal technicality. Nine fresh warrants were sent from London, where the Home Secretary admitted to the Commons that there had been incompetence in a depart- ment other than his own, and the Irish police resumed their pursuit of Miss Glenholmes. A bomb planted by Islamic fundamentalists off the Champs Elysees killed two people and injured 28, almost at the very moment of the appointment as French Prime Minister of M. Jacques Chirac, a Gaullist and former Prime Minis- ter under President Giscard d'Estaing. Michele Sindona, 'God's banker', starting a life sentence in a Milan prison for arranging the murder of the liquidator of his Italian banks, died after drinking coffee laced with cyanide.
THE United States sank one Libyan patrol boat, badly damaged another and knocked out a missile battery on shore during naval exercises off the Libyan coast, after Amer- ican planes had been attacked. Libya claimed to have shot down three American fighters. The White House flatly denied this. There was then a second skirmish. A few days earlier, the United States had set off an underground nuclear explosion in the Nevada desert, dismissing Russian protests on the grounds that Moscow wanted a moratorium only because its own test programme had been completed. The House of Representatives rebuffed Presi- dent Reagan's personal campaign to give $100 million to the Contra rebels in Nicar- agua, although the vote could be reversed when it goes before the Senate. Offered a new home in Panama for $125,000 pet week, meals extra, former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and an e°- tourage of 40, including his wife Imelda; were about to board a plane in Hawal1 when Panama changed its mind. The Ind'' an Guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, flY04 about in a private jet in search of a have° having been barred from the US, Greece and Britain, is thought to have landed at, last in Uruguay. Union Carbide offered £232 million to the victims of the 19e Bhopal gas leak, the worst industrial disas- ter in history. Indians assembled for a° annual parade of religious nudists in Ban,' alore attacked and stripped police W°: wanted to stop the parade, causing the officers and two policewomen to withdraw naked. General Motors walked out 0 negotiations to buy Land Rover and Le land Trucks. The London Appeal Coinprevented the Greater London Coin6 from making a farewell present of million to favoured causes before its abob tion along with six other metropohi.a° councils. Eros was restored to PiceadillY Circus after an 18-month absence for re;
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