A larger-than-life advertising banner featuring German supermodel Claudia Schiffer was draped over Berlin's landmark Memorial Church yesterday in a controversial move to fund repairs. An American cosmetics company sponsored the renovation of the church's 53 metre- (174 ft)high bell tower with $130,000 in exchange for the right to hang the giant banners featuring the blond beauty and other models on the tower's scaffolding. Critics called the banners "tasteless" and "sacrilegious" but Lutheran Church Bishop Wolf- gang Huber told a newspaper that the congregation needed the extra funds and did not plan to use the church tower as ad space on a regular basis.
The Memorial Church was damaged by Allied bombing during the second World War. The city chose to preserve the church in its damaged state as a warning of the perils of war.
Illustrator Quentin Blake, famous for his work on the works of the late Roald Dahl among others, was yesterday honoured as Britain's first children's laureate in a ceremony at the Royal National Theatre in London. The partnership of Dahl's scintillating tales and Blake's artwork made novels such as Matilda and The BFG instant classics. Dahl died in 1990.
Sir Paul McCartney yesterday joined calls to MPs to close down Britain's fur-farming industry.
Top mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington and environmental campaigner David Bellamy back the ex-Beatle in an open letter to Westminster's House magazine supporting Maria Eagle MP's Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill when it reaches its crucial report stage on Friday.
Glittering with diamonds, Imelda Marcos entered the Philippine presidential palace for the first time in 13 years, riding a bullet-proof limousine into the place where she and her late husband-dictator had ruled for two decades.
And for almost three hours, the flamboyant former first lady looked as if she had never been away.
"I am back . . . and how providential. It's Mother's Day, a day of love," Marcos told reporters before walking up a stage to receive a trophy for being an "ideal mother".
Turning 70 in July, Marcos's widow was among 30 Filipinas named for the award by a Manila civic group. One of the awardees was a modest 81-year-old dressmaker with 10 children. Organisers said Marcos was chosen for the award for helping her children become successful in their careers and for her projects for the poor during her years in power.
It was the first time Marcos had been to the 19th century palace since the enraged poor of Manila drove the family into exile in Hawaii in a 1986 "people power" revolt that ended Ferdinand Marcos's exceptionally corrupt dictatorship.
A passionate Italian husband took out a full-page advertisement in his local paper to publicly thank his wife for a year of wedded bliss.
"I want to thank you for these 12 marvellous months, full of moments of love, which have made me feel like the happiest man in the universe," declared the romantic Venetian, who signed himself only as Giuseppe.
Jurgen Fuchs, a writer and leading figure in the East German pro-democracy movement, died on Sunday of leukaemia, a former dissidents' association said . He was 48.
Fuchs became a vocal critic of East Germany's communist regime in the 1970s.