CHINA'S state media celebrated Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping's 92nd birthday yesterday with praise, poetry and propaganda, but the ageing patriarch remained as reclusive as ever.
State newspapers made no direct mention of the passing of the latest milestone in Deng's political life, but articles heralded the start of his 93rd year.
"Deng Xiaoping is both the architect of our nation's modernisation and reform and also a veritable great strategist," said the Liberation Army Day, the mouthpiece of Deng's military power base.
A mystery that has dogged the dynasty of Nationalist leader Chiang Kaishek for eight decades was resolved yesterday when the man officially described as Chiang's second son admitted he had been born to other parents.
In excerpts published from a forthcoming autography, Gen Chiang Wei kuo disclosed he was not the son of Chiang Kaishek, but of the generalissimo's closest friend.
He was born in 1916 in Tokyo, from an affair between Tai Chuan hsien and a Japanese woman, according to excerpts published by the United Daily News. The hat worn by Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven will be among items at an auction in Paris of the late actors effects.
Tunics and capes he wore as the King of Siam in The King and I will also be on offer next month when the contents of his Normandy mansion, the Manoir de Criqueboeuf, go on sale.
Other items include a gold cigarette case given to him, by Marlene Dietrich, and drawings by Jean Cocteau.
Wedding plans for the world's most tattooed, pierced dyed, cross dressing basketball star have collapsed.
Chicago Bulls' forward Dennis Rodman, despite his predictions, did not get married at New York's Rockefeller Centre on Wednesday. Instead he appeared in a floor length white wedding dress, attracted a screaming throng of fans and signed copies of his book Bad As I Wanna Be at a store on Filth Avenue.
Rodman had told talk show host David Letterman on Tuesday night that he planned to wed stripper Stacy Yarborough. But next day, Yarborough was nowhere to be found.
Sir Anthony Hopkins had a hospital check up after being submerged in a freezing mountain lake in Canada for scenes in his latest film.
Sir Anthony (58), who is playing the billionaire husband of supermodel Elle Macpherson in the film Bookworm, was feared to have suffered hypothermia after the gruelling scenes shot in freezing water.