US first lady Hillary Clinton arrived in Cairo with her daughter, Chelsea, yesterday on the first leg of a tour billed as a bridge-building mission between the United States and the Islamic world.
"I am here on behalf of my husband and of the American people to strengthen the bonds of friendship and partnership between our two countries, deepen our dialogue and to see first-hand how Egyptians are moving towards the future while preserving their extraordinary culture and heritage," Mrs Clinton said in an official statement.
Reclusive US writer J.D. Salinger, who last published a book in the 1960s, is still writing in his New Hampshire hideaway, but stashes the texts in a safe, a British press report said yesterday.
The 80-year-old author of The Catcher in the Rye (1951), and Franny and Zooey (1961) last published a series of short stories in the mid-1960s. At least three people claimed to have seen "a huge bank safe" in which he keeps his manuscripts. One neighbour added: "He told me there were about 15 or 16 books finished but that he didn't know if they would be published."
Jiang Zemin led a small armada of gondolas and boats down Venice's Canal Grande yesterday, as the Chinese President began his 10-day trip to Europe with a day of sightseeing.
Chinese flags fluttered on the bows of the accompanying flotilla while the 72-year-old leader was given a tour of the island city, where he arrived on Saturday to start a visit to Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
The man who created Mandrake the Magician and the Phantom has died aged 87. Lee Falk first came up with the idea of a magician-crime-fighter in 1924, when he was still an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. Later he approached the powerful King Features Syndicate in New York, the start of a 60-year career.
Falk died of congestive heart failure and is survived by his wife, stage director Elizabeth Moxley, one son and two daughters from a previous marriage.