Poverty levels at breaking point whilst the PM spends thousands on wine bill

This week in 1994 new research found poverty in some parts of Britain’s most deprived areas was found to be more acute than ever before. Infant mortality rates in many parts of the country was found to be actually increasing as were unemployment rates and the incidence of homelessness. The depressing statistics came from the independent Policy Studies Institute which published Urban Trends 2, an in depth study of the 1981 to 1991 decade in Britain’s 36 most deprived urban areas.

In other political news this week and Prime Minister, John Major was under much scrutiny after being stood accused of “an obscene sense of priorities” over a wine bill of more than £110,000 for official entertaining, run up by the Government in the past year.

In other news and the IRA admitted that its members murdered a postal worker during a robbery in the border town of Newry, Co Down, 10 days prior. The organisation blamed a “fault” in its chain of command and apologised for the attack. Frank Kerr was gunned down when armed, masked raiders burst into the sorting office in Newry and escaped with more than £130,000 in cash. It was the first killing by the IRA since it started its ceasefire on 01 September.

Also this week and NATO’s biggest ever military operation, involving 50 war planes pounding a Serb-held airfield in Croatia, has been condemned by the Yugoslav government, which said the attack could escalate the crisis in the region. The four hour assault on Udbina airfield was conducted by British, US, French and Dutch war planes in response to recent attacks launched from the airfield by the Serbs on the Muslim-held Bihac enclave of north west Bosnia.

And in India and at least 111 people, mostly women and children, were killed in a stampede that followed a police baton charge on tribal protesters in the western Indian city of Nagpur. Some 500 people were injured in the tragedy in the city 375 miles south of the Indian capital, New Delhi,