LONDON: Lawyers acting for The Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund - set up to carry forward causes she promoted while alive - are attempting to establish her face as a trademark, The Daily Mail newspaper said on Tuesday. If successful, the application to register 26 pictures of the late Princess with the British patent office would generate tens of millions of pounds for the fund, it said. Trustees of the fund are also applying to register the name Diana, Princess of Wales, as a trademark, according to the report. Books, films, videos, clothes and other memorabilia would all be subject to a licensing fee if Diana's picture becomes a trademark in order to maximise revenue for the fund.

Wall `blunder'

BEIJING: Chinese authorities have ordered repairs to parts of the Great Wall, torn down to make way for a road and a vegetable warehouse, and sacked a relics official, the official China Daily said on Tuesday. The destruction of portions of the Great Wall, which has withstood centuries of Barbarian attacks, sparked strong criticism from the central government, causing local officials to scramble to remedy the damage. The Great Wall ``blunder'' has already claimed one casualty, Li Jingzhai, head of the Cultural Relics Protection Office in Xuanhua town near Beijing, who approved the destruction of 123 meters (406 feet) of the wall for a vegetable company to extend its warehouse.

Murder in school

PADUCAH: A high school student who had been only in minor trouble before, opened fire on fellow students gathered for a prayer service on Monday, killing three and wounding four others, police and officials said. Police charged a 14-year-old boy, identified by witnesses and broadcast reports in Paducah as the son of a local lawyer, with two murders initially.

Principal Bill Bond said the boy pulled out a 0.22 caliber handgun and fired nearly a dozen shots just as a daily prayer circle was disbanding in a hallway and classes were about to resume for a week. The boy who surrendered calmly to the principal said he was sorry but offered no explanation for his behaviour.

Juvenile dispute

MOUNT CLEMENS: Stepping into a hair-pulling, name-calling dispute that went from the schoolhouse to the courthouse, a judge ordered two 10-year-old girls to play nice or risk going to jail. ``If one of you looks cross-eyed to the other, you're going to come back here,'' judge Michael Schwartz warned fifth-grade classmates Kytan Schultz and Cassandra Reibel on Monday in an after-school hearing. The girls only nodded during the stern lecture and stuck close to their parents as they left court. The fact that the case was in court at all caused a furore in this suburb. A prosecutor called it an abuse of the court system, and educators say it could subvert their efforts to teach children how to get along.

Killer tattoos

MEXICO CITY: A Mexican professional killer who died last week as he tried to carry out what turned out to be his final contract had an unusual way of keeping track of the number of his victims - for each kill he had himself tattooed, a published news report said on Monday.

An examination of hitman David Barron Corona found 14 death's-head tattoos on his body, the El Universal newspaper said. Barron Corona also had the letter CH, for Caballero Honorable (honourable knight), tattooed on his body. He was gunned down last Thursday during an assassination attempt on the Chief editor of the Zeta newspaper.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.