Flar Earth: Future imperfect

IN ICELAND they are poring over the prognostications of a sage known as 'Volva'. She predicts that Maria Shriver, a k a JFK's niece and Mrs Arnold Schwarzenegger, will mediate talks between the US and Cuba, and that the North Sea will be declared unfit for fishing and waste disposal there will be banned.

Last year she foretold that hardliners would make trouble for Boris Yeltsin but that he would survive as Russian President, and that the Prince and Princess of Wales would drop out of the spotlight - after repairing their marriage. Oh well, can't be right all the time.