What was Mary like and why did she do it? She was alarmed by the visit of the angel to tell her what would happen.

Like the early Chinese painters, Heaton Cooper sees landscape painting as a means of interpreting the divine spirit. 'I don't monkey around with the mountains,' he told a recent television interviewer.

These days I often find myself in Shahibag, which now houses the papers, personal effects and photos of Vallabhbhai Patel, whose biography I am writing. Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru together administered India between Independence in 1947 and December 1950, when Patel died. Nehru was Prime Minister and Patel was styled Deputy Prime Minister, but they shared power equally and jointly.

When I visit our son Dickie, he doesn't say, `Hello, Mother, I'm glad to see you. I wondered if you might come today.' Sometimes I wonder if he thinks these words, even if he is not able to express them.

The office is that of a typical academic at a `red brick' university, sparsely furnished, shelves with files and books.

Dang Thi Hai spent five months in prison under the Vietnamese - and eight years seeking permission to leave her country. But her most difficult months came after she arrived in Britain, her country of asylum. `You struggle to get out of what seems to be a difficult situation. You want freedom. Then you get it - and you have to find something new to live for.

The city of Richmond, Virginia, is the former capital of the Southern Confederacy.

'We bring you greetings from His Majesty the King of Bhutan.' The message was delivered by one of eight young Bhutanese professionals attending a conference organized at Asia Plateau, the Moral Re-Armament conference complex in western India.

Professor Rieben, who is Director of the Centre for European Research in Lausanne, writes that after visiting Caux, `I could not forget what Europe owed to the dialogue and cooperation which developed during the decisive post-war years between Frank Buchman on the one hand and Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman on the other.'