PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'I'm looking for ten volunteers.'
Alaw to give police new powers to search suspected pedestrians in the street was rushed through Parliament at the insti- gation of Mr Michael Howard, the Home Secretary. They were intended to give pro- tection against an attack by the Irish Republican Army on the 80th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin. Thirty Labour MPs rebelled against their Party whip on the vote. Mr John Major, the Prime Minister, returned in a good mood from a meeting in Turin of ministers from the European Community. He had agreed to slaughter four million cows over the next six years, for fear of infecting anyone who might eat them; the EC for its part had agreed not to cover all the costs and recom- mended the continuance of a ban on the export of British beef. The World Council of Hindus proposed to the British Govern- ment that the millions of cows might more cheaply be ferried to India where they could live out their natural lives. P&O Fer- ries complained to the EC after Britanny Ferries won state aid from France. Water companies are to be encouraged to com- pete. British Telecom and Cable & Wire- less planned to merge. Northern Rock building society wants to become a bank; the chief executive of the Woolwich Build- ing Society left his job after only three months. The National Express bus company won a battle to run British Rail's most lucrative line, the Gatwick Express. The Government mothballed a cross- London rail link. Seventh Day Adventists in Britain were threatened by a split between black and white members. A comet was vis- ible in north-western skies on clear nights.
INVESTIGATORS from the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague flew to Bosnia to dig up corpses to look for evi- dence of war atrocities. A customs union was announced within the Muslim-Croat federation. President Boris Yeltsin of Rus- sia declared a ceasefire in Chechnya, but Russian troops continued to bombard vil- lages and Chechen rebels attacked them. Thousands again marched through Minsk to protest at a newly signed treaty between Belarus and Russia. Twenty Muslim sepa- ratists were killed when Indian troops stormed a shrine in Kasmir. A delegation from the EC went to Iran and asked its gov- ernment not to sponsor international ter- rorism, and not to spoil plans for peace in the Middle East. Israel said it would hold a referendum on the future of peace agreements with the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The PLO called for a rais- ing of the Israeli 'blockade' of its autonomous areas; Japan gave monetary aid to the areas. Some thousands of boat people in Hong Kong were allowed to live in more open camps and work. Taiwan announced military exercises off the coast of China; the United States expressed dis- approval. Ecuador called for help after a small earthquake in an inaccessible Andean region. The Prime Minister of Peru resigned unexpectedly. In Timbuktu a bonfire was made out of weapons after a ceasefire between the mainly black Malian army and Tuareg rebels. Five thousand Irish cows were stranded in fer- ries off the coast of Egypt for fear of their bringing in bovine spongiform encephalopathy. King Hassan of Morocco called upon his people not to sacrifice a sheep on the Islamic feast of Eid, because that would need four million of the ani- mals, and there were only three million left after last year's drought. CSH
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