The organiser of rock concerts by such superstars as Tina Turner and Michael Jackson has been jailed by a German court for 3 1/2 years for fraud. Marcel Avram (59) was found guilty on 12 counts of fraudulent dealings, involving several million German marks.
Avram, who was born in Romania, had organised the German legs of concert tours by Prince, Tina Turner and Michael Jackson, who visited the promoter in prison in May.
Mass murderer Rosemary West has written a thank-you letter to villagers who tend the grave of the teenage daughter she killed. She says she is touched by their compassion for the churchyard resting place of Heather West (16).
But the Gloucester housewife, who is serving life imprisonment for 10 murders, continues to protest her innocence over Heather's death.
Heather was the last of the victims of Rosemary West and her self-confessed killer husband, Frederick.
Heather's remains are buried at St Michael's Church, in the Wye valley at Tintern, the village whose abbey was immortalised by William Wordsworth.
President Boris Yeltsin said yesterday he had recovered completely from a chill which forced his admission to a Moscow clinic, vowing to return to the Kremlin today in defiance of his doctors' advice.
"I've got over my illness," he said before a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin at the Barvikha clinic west of Moscow, where he was admitted on December 10th with a chill and an acute chest infection.
The Kremlin confirmed that Yeltsin would return to work today, saying the president "has said he will work tomorrow, so that's how it will be," although officials said they did not know when the Russian leader would take his Christmas and New Year holiday.