PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
By the millennium, we will be able to make one hundred clones of this perfect specimen of the human race every day' Participants in the multi-party talks on Northern Ireland were told that they had better reach some conclusion before 9 April. A report on electoral fraud in North- ern Ireland made recommendations of ways to avoid personation and multiple vot- ing, but there will be no time to implement these before any referendum called for by the multi-party talks. Mr Rupert Murdoch decided not to go ahead with a bid for an Italian company called Mediaset after he was told by Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Min- ister, that, judging by a telephone conversa- tion with Mr Romano Prodi, the Prime Minister of Italy, an Italian bid would be preferred. Mr Blair also told the nation he was spending millions of pounds in a bid to kill the 'millennium bug' that will make many computers useless in 2000. And Mr Blair put a stop to some of the wheezes proposed by Mrs Ann Taylor, Leader of the House, such as turning the Commons Chamber into a horseshoe of seats, and dropping the pomp from the State Opening of Parliament. Mr Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, is to marry Gaynor Regan, his assistant, at Chevening, his official country house, on 19 April. BMW is to take over Rolls-Royce Motor Cars from Vickers, with a bid of more than £300 million, outma- noeuvring a rival attempt by Volkswagen. Diageo sold Dewar's Scotch and Bombay gin to Bacardi for £1.15 billion, in fulfil- ment of conditions for its formation from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metro- politan. An unofficial strike by more than 1,000 postmen was settled after disrupting deliveries in London and Liverpool for a week. The singer Gary Glitter was charged over 50 indecent computer images of chil- dren alleged to have been in his possession. The interior designer David Hicks died, aged 69. A supporter of Fulham was killed after an away game against Gillingham, Kent.
A REPORT by the Bundesbank concluded that neither Germany nor France was in a suitable state to proceed with economic and monetary union; only Britain and Den- mark''(which have deferred joining in) and Ireland, Finland and Luxembourg were unreservedly qualified to meet the criteria. President Bill Clinton of the United States posed for photographers with President Nelson Mandela of South Africa in the lat- ter's former cell at Robben Island; Mr Clin- ton later listened to a sermon on adultery at the Regina Mundi Roman Catholic church in Soweto, and then received Com- munion. Left-wing prisoners in seven Turk- ish jails took 50 warders hostage. The owner of a pizza restaurant in Stockholm spent four months unable to sample his wares because a dentist held his false teeth in lieu of payment; but, after newspaper reports, the dentist relented. Estonia moved to sell off 49 per cent of its state- owned telephone network. Voters in Nizh- ny Novgorod, Russia's third city, elected as mayor a nightclub owner sentenced in 1982 to eight years in jail for fraud and selling pornographic videos. Mr Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian entity, visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam and said: 'This story is not to be repeated for their children or the next generation.' Three staff at Dubai Islamic Bank, the world's largest Islamic bank, were accused of embezzling up to 200 million dirhams (1100 million), throwing the bank into financial turmoil. Saudi Arabian authorities erected 10,830 tents fitted with 42,000 water-sprinklers seven miles from Mecca in preparation for the haj, in an attempt to avert a fire of the kind that killed 343 peo- ple last year. 4bout 30,000 spectators in a Kabul sports stadium watched two murder- ers have their throats cut by relations of their victims. Knives went on sale in France bearing the official logo of the World Cup competition to be held there; the Federa- tion Internationale de Football Association promised to take action. CSH
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