Scandal and tension run through the week’s headlines. Margaret Thatcher warns the West against the “seductive” Soviet “bear”, striking a cautious note as relations with Moscow begin to thaw. In the Middle East, Iranian leaders demand that novelist Salman Rushdie seek pardon in the fallout from the fatwa against him, while fresh IRA attacks raise fears of a return to violence in Northern Ireland. Environmental catastrophe also dominates, as Chevron (which acquired Texaco) faces accusations of a toxic dumping disaster in Ecuador, dubbed “Amazon’s Chernobyl”, and scientists in the mid-2000s present compelling evidence linking global warming to human activity. Meanwhile, in the world of sport, a very public scandal sees Tiger Woods “humbled” before the world’s press. Explore these stories and more through the historic front pages of The Independent.
