PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Fiat justitici, ruat caelum Lord Justice Taylor presented his re- port on the standards of safety at football grounds, a study commissioned in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster last April. The Government agreed to implement most of his recommendations, which will mean the abandonment of the proposed identity- card scheme for supporters and the eli- mination of all terraces at league grounds by the year 2000. The deaths of 50 people were attributed to severe storm-force winds that reached their peak in southern England in the middle of the afternoon of 25 January. There was also much flooding, with the county cricket ground at Worces- ter submerged beneath four foot of water. Alexandra Griffiths, the baby who was snatched from her parents in St Thomas's Hospital, London, was found in good health in a rented cottage at Burford, Oxfordshire, where she was being kept by a woman posing as her mother. In a lively week for Sunday newspapers, the Indepen- dent on Sunday was launched, bringing to five the publications now competing in the 'quality' sector. Mr Andrew Neil, editor of the Sunday Times, won £1,000 libel dam- ages over an article by Mr Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph, which, it was claimed, suggested wrongly that Mr Neil knew that Pamella Bordes was a prostitute during his four-month affair with her. The Sunday Times, a co-plaintiff with Mr Neil, was awarded 60p by the jury. Mr Neil called it 'a victory for the new Britain against the old Britain'. Mr Worsthorne said that £1,000 'would not even buy a man a weekend with Pamella Bordes'. A Welsh weightlifter was disqual- ified from the Commonwealth Games for taking drugs. Anthony Beaumont Dark, the Conservative MP, was attacked by a Rottweiler.
THE Soviet navy opened fire on merchant vessels that were blockading the Caspian Sea port and Azerbaijan capital Baku. By the end of the week the Soviet forces appeared to have put down Azerbaijani insurrection for the time being. As Presi- dent Bush's budget for 1991 was announced, the US Defence Department disclosed that it is to withdraw thousands of troops from 12 military bases in Europe, three of which, including Greenham Com- mon, are in Britain. In Bucharest 40,000 demonstrators attempted to storm the gov- ernment building, home of the Rumanian National Salvation Front which the Liber- als, Social Democrats and Peasants' Party see as becoming increasingly despotic. Supporters of the Front duly mustered a mob of many thousands, which set upon the demonstrators, armed with sticks and chains. The Communist Party of Poland voted to dissolve itself and to reform as 'the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland'. All assets were immediately trans- ferred to the new party. The interim East German government announced that free elections are to be brought forward two months to March. Mr Hans Modrow, the Prime Minister of East Germany, flew to Moscow for talks with Mr Gorbachev. A Boeing 707 crashed on Long Island while trying to make an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport, New York, killing 67 people. Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan Prime Minister, gave birth to a girl. Ava Gardner, the actress, died aged 67; Lewis Mumford, the urban planner, died at 94. Mr Gabriel Monjane, who claimd to be the tallest man in the world, at 8'3/4", died after losing his balance. RJC.
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