BANGKOK is this week host not only to Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh but also to three British women who are currently languishing in the city's notorious prison.
Sandra Gregory, Patricia Hussain and Adeola Soyege are British nationals convicted in Thailand of drugs related offences and serving long terms of imprisonment.
Prisoners Abroad, the British pressure group which campaigns to repatriate Britons serving sentences in foreign jails, has written to the queen asking her to raise Gregory's case with Thailand's King Bhumibol in the hope of securing a royal pardon.
President Fidel Ramos publicly apologised yesterday for erroneously saying that former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand was dead.
"Okay, I made a mistake and I apologise to everybody and I will apologise personally by way of a letter to Madame Mitterrand," he told reporters on southern Camiguin island.
"I'm sorry about it. We'll try to make amends to Madame Mitterrand and the people of France and the government of France.
In a gaffe that titillated Manila's press, Ramos referred on Saturday to the very much alive widow of late French president Francois Mitterrand as already dead.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl has stormed on to Germany's bestseller lists with unification memoirs entitled I Wanted German Unity.
The book, penned by two tabloid journalists on the basis of interviews with Kohl, leapt into seventh place on the list of bestselling non fiction books in today's news weekly, Der Spiegel.