Princess Diana's former butler has lost his job at the fund set up after her death to handle memorial donations. The Diana Memorial Fund said yesterday that Paul Burrell, who the princess called "her rock", had been told that his job as co-ordinator of fund-raising was redundant.
Burrell was reported to be saddened at the decision. He is said to have fallen victim to a dispute about whether the trust should raise more money, or just distribute what it had already collected.
The Spice Girls have topped the Christmas singles chart for the third year running, with Goodbye beating hot competition from Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls - a spin off from Channel 4 cartoon South Park.
A bust of Josef Stalin was unveiled in a Russian school, to applause from local Communists, and protests from teachers opposed to honouring the memory of a man responsible for the deaths of millions. The bust, in Chelyabinsk in the Urals, is the first memorial to Stalin since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal has been awarded the European "Pro Humanitate" prize for a life dedicated to the pursuit of former Nazis, which has led to many being brought to trial.
Nobel prize winner Professor Sir Alan Hodgkin, one of Britain's most distinguished biologists, has died aged 84.
Master of the bull ring, friend of Orson Welles and inspiration for Ernest Hemingway, Antonio Ordonez was hailed yesterday as the greatest matador of all time, at a funeral mass in the Andalusian city of Seville.