US Blues man B. B. King will be among the performers at a Vatican Christmas concert. King said he would donate his guitar Lucille to Pope John Paul after the concert today. Other performers on the programme are Chaka Khan, the Portuguese group Madredeus and France's Mireille Mathieu. The concert will raise money towards the construction of new churches.
Bob Geldof, who helped to raise millions of pounds for Ethiopian famine victims in 1984 with the song Do They Know It's Christmas?, has found more than £500,000 to help victims of floods in Somalia. He went to the board of trustees of Band Aid, the group which raised the money for Ethiopia, and found funds remaining from concert ticket sales.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said yesterday he had become the proud grandfather of triplets. Tung's eldest daughter Li-jun gave birth to the two boys and a girl at the Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. He said the births were a "so wonderful Christmas present".
Santa is surely a registered Democrat, given his reputation as a public benefactor, according to a US opinion poll, but the Grinch who stole Christmas, the fictional spoilsport invented by author Dr Seuss, is a Republican. However, in the poll by Fox News, 23 per cent were not sure which party Santa belonged to - suggesting those voters may not believe in him at all.
A senator with poor attendance in Canada's unelected upper house of parliament has been stripped of his office space, secretary and most travel privileges until he begins showing up for work.
Local media reported Andrew Thompson (73) had attended only 14 Senate meetings in the past eight years. Thompson, who receives a C$64,000 (£31,000) a year funded by Canadian taxpayers, lives year-round in Mexico. He has said he is ill and cannot bear the Canadian winter.