PROFILE INSIDE ARTS SPORT 2-page sports There is My farewell Dame Kiri nothing like a MOMENTS OF calendar . to Channel 4 CA TASTROPHE Te Kanawa dame of the yearJ JEREMY ISAACS 6 PORTRAIT OF 1987 INTERVIEW 15 26, 27 I I BARRY HUMPHRIES 5 & A BRIEFLY SUMMIT MOVE Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze latest information, supplied to them Yemeni Embassy in London last they will be moved to a luxurious agreed to meetings with THE TWO British women sold by EILEEN MacDONALD week as brides in the Yemen Arab by The Observer , and was arranging , but was treated as a tourist house in Taiz with their husbands Us Secretary of State to interview the husbands with the HI¦Hiam ^2IIIIIQ9L i ^ H ^ i ^ B '^^ i u^^— ^ ~~~ rather than as a relative wishing to until ' all the paperwork is done.' George Shultz in Republic will not be allowed ' visit the country. On Christmas Day, The Observer home unless they are accompa- women when they arrived in the ports, which are awaiting their visit scared they are not touching us, preparation for a new city. to the British Embassy. Zana reassured her yesterday in a ' They told me to come back on informed the Foreign Office of the summit between Mikhail nied by their husbands. The young children of the When the sisters arrived in Taiz, telephone call . Tuesday with $500, three passport latest development in the women's Gorbachov and President Nadia and Zana-, Muhsen, who women — Nadia's daughter, 21- North Yemen's second city, they The official has also told Miss Ali, photographs and a return air situation. Reagan. (Battle to beat the were taken from\ their remote month-old Tina, her son Haney, were taken to the home of the who was not married to the sisters' ticket,' she said . ' When I visited We also gave the Foreign Office clock, pace 8.) mountain villages last week after four, and Zana's son, 20-month-old Yemeni Government official who father, Muthana Muhsen, that it them before I was treated as their and the British Embassy in Sana'a The Observer revealed their story, Mohammed—were left behind in had collected them. They found could take up to four weeks before mother.' the telephone number of the house MARKET BLASTS have had to accept pub\icly the men the mountain villages of Hockail that their husbands, whom they had the women can come home. The sisters have also had a where the women are staying. Three car bombs killed they were married to seven years and Ashube when their mothers not seen for- two years, had been Miss Ali, 44, said yesterday : ' He lengthy telephone call from their The Geneva-based charity, one person and injured 35 ago. , I were collected last week. recalled from Saudi Arabia, where says that everything must quieten father on Christmas Day. He Defence of Children International, in crowded markets in A Yemeni Government official Zana told The Observer yester- they had been working. down in the Press and the visas begged them not to come home has told Miss Ali it is considering Pakistan 's capital with whom they are staging in the day : ' We wanted to bring them . On Christmas Day they were granted to the husbands before the soon . Zana told her mother yester- whether any criminal charges can be Islamabad. No one city of Taiz has told them he will be but the man said, no, they provided with a flat near the girls and their children come home. day : ' He said, don't leave until all brought against the women's with us, father. Miss Ali said : ' Their claimed responsibility, but providing them with visa applica- would be collected later. official's home, where they are now ' I am so scared that it could all go the fuss has died down because Pakistan has blamed tion forms requesting that their living with their husbands. Their wrong. The girls are so far away, there would be a lot of reporters at lawyer, Geraldine Van Beurin, 'My mother-in-law is looking thinks it may be possible to ask the Afghanistan for previous husbands be allowed into Britain. after them, but the official says that mother, Miriam Ali, is desperate and living with this official. I just the airport and he would be ' lest the girls should become hope they tell him the things he ashamed. He said he would be so police to interview him about what explosions. The Foreign Office said yester- he is going to collect them today. he has done.' day that the British Embassy in the The three children have been pregnant and be forced to stay. wants to hear.' ashamed that he would kill himself .' BODY FOUND Miriam Ali : ' Still worried '. capital, Sana'a, had been told of the entered on to the women's pass- ' Don't worry, Mum, they are so Miss Ali applied for a visa at the The sisters have been told that H Dream of Freedom, page 7 Police were questioning a man after the dismembered body of Anthony Brown, 30, was found at a derelict farm NO HOSPITAL BED FOR HEARTBREAK MATTHEW near Scarcroft, Leeds. RANK OUTSIDER French horse Nupsala, a 25-1 outsider, won the £50,000 King George VI Rank Chase at Kempton (Report, page 31.) RELICS CHARGE John Braddock, 41, was remanded in custody until Tuesday accused of damaging two valuable dfe reliquaries—containers for mn^^ nsi *. religious relics—in an incident at ¦Westminster Cathedral. DOUBLE DEATH Police believe that a man strangled his wife on by ARTHUR KENT Christmas Day then hanged himself at their UP TO 250 Soviet para- their way through,' he said . home in Bridgnorth, troopers have been killed in ' Clearly they've resolved to Shropshire. Afghanistan in the past reach Khost and to hold it at ail costs .' BABY BOOM three weeks in the Red s attempt to relieve the wife of Britain s test-tube baby Army' Chris Gregory, pioneers Mr Patrick the besieged garrison at the British camerman Andy Steptoe and Professor Khost. Casualties among Skrzypkowiak, missing and Robert Edwards yesterday the Government forces are presumed dead in Afghanis- announced the birth of even higher in what has tan, said from Pakistan that their clinic's one become one of the bloodiest she was ' angered and irr- thousandth baby. battles of the war. itated ' by what she The fighting comes on the describes as Pakistan inep- COLLECTION eighth anniversary of the titude in the investigation of Eighty-seven people have Soviet invasion on Christ- the case. been charged after an mas Day, 1979. Evidence suggests that undercover police Skrzypkowiak, aged 36, was operation against thefts The Russians' determina- tion to press ahead in the The battle for Khost killed by members of an from delivery vehicles in Afghan resistance group, London in the run-up to face of such high losses This is ambush country, Hizbe Islami, which has 's is the hospital tha t figured Christmas. against the Mujahideen THIS is Matt hew Collier, a little boy needs open heart sur gery, but on walked . The hospital says it cann ot Children and the Mujahideen enjoy been accused by foreign aid in the controvers y over David guerrillas has surprised with a hole in his heart who was too Chris tinas Eve he was told for the operate because a shortage of WIN £25,000 the advantage of high workers of blocking free fifth time there was no bed available specialist nurses has halved the Barber , the baby boy who died three Western defence analysts. weak to open his Christmas presents , heart operation The Observer by in table The sacrifices made to reach ground, particularly at the transit of overland trails to in Birmingham Children 's Hospital. number of intensive care beds weeks ago after his Life Investor of the Year mouths of 12 side-valleys the north. writes Paul Routledge. Matthew is four and a half, but available to 12, only six of which are had been repeatedly postponed. Khost will almost certainly for heart patients . Birmi ngham Photograph by John Reardon . competition, with pri: e prove to be a fraction of which overlook the wind- Since 14 December, police Doctors agree he desperately weights only 261b and has never money of £25,000, is what it will take to hold the ing, heavily-mined road . in the North West Frontier launched tiexi Sunday . Soviet and Afghan com- city of Mardan have been i Details , page 29. 1 garrison. For all the men and mando units have been forced questioning four Hizbe THE WEATHER armour thrown into what into a treacherous series of members in connection with Mild ; some rain, with the analysts say is the leap-frog landings by heli- Skrzypkowiak, who disap- brighter intervals. biggest Soviet-Afghan off- copter at night to avoid anti- peared on I October while aircraft fire . Each landing has travelling through Hizbe Ex-MI6 men (Details, page 2.) ensive in two years, the Mujahideen have held the pushed the advance a few territory. assault column 's advance to hundred metres further tow- ¦ A demonstration in Mos- a crawl . ards Khost. cow yesterday by a group Helicopter-borne Soviet Held up by this bottleneck calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troups from Afgha- cleared to commandos breached the is a 10,000-man force pass at Sato Kandau last backed by the latest in nistan was broken up by week. They overran Muja- Soviet artillery, ' a vast police and security men, a hideen positions and swathe of troops and group spokesman said.