Victory in the Gulf, high-velocity "goofy golf" and a weird way with words - those are the prevailing memories of the Bush years. Complete with lop-sided grin and that trademark fractured syntax, the reply came instantly: ``Any better and it would be a frame- up.'' Few presidents have vanished so quickly from the collective consciousness of their countrymen as this patrician New England Yankee cum ersatz Texan. But George Bush, has just been getting on with an uncommonly fortunate life How were things, an interviewer asked recently. What do you do after holding the most powerful job in the world? Richard Nixon began a long and painful search for rehabilitation Jimmy Carter has been peace-making. The fingerprints were found on the van used in the abduction, and police suspect that Mr Matsumoto's fingertips were sliced off to prevent identification He is also thought to have undergone a facelift.. Ten scraps of skin and bone were found in a cottage in central Japan, apparently belonging to Takeshi Matsumoto, a cult member suspected of kidnapping a Tokyo man. His arrest had been expected soon.Investigators searching for another Aum leader announced a grisly discovery over the weekend.

Hideo Murai, 36, the cult's so-called science and technology minister, was knifed in the arm and torso by Hiroyuki Jo, a 29-year-old right- wing activist said to be of Korean extraction, who was arrested immediately by police watching the building. As the cult's chief scientist, Mr Murai, an astrophysicist, was suspected of manufacturing the sarin nerve gas that killed 12 people and injured 5,500 others on 20 March. A top member of Aum Shinri Kyo, the religious group suspected of the gas attack on the Tokyo subway, died last night after being stabbed outside the cult's headquarters in central Tokyo in front of a large crowd of reporters and cameramen staking out the building. Voters are being warned that a DAP victory could mean "disruption", and the party is being accused of threatening race riots if it loses.The DAP says the government cannot afford to cut off Penang, but the deputy leader, Karpal Singh, admits: "The National Front's scare tactics have had an effect on Malay voters." The Penang electorate, however, is Malaysia's most sophisticated, so it is the only corner of the country in which the election is producing anything like genuine political debate.. Mr Lim, a veteran trade unionist, has switched constituencies to take on Mr Koh in what will be the most closely watched result tomorrow night.The frequent appearances of Dr Mahathir and Mr Anwar in Penang emphasise the political damage that would be suffered by the loss of the richest state, where more computer semiconductors and disk drives are produced than anywhere else in the world. The party is going all-out to wrest the state assembly from the National Front, the collection of ethnic parties that controls all Malaysia's states bar one, and is expected to regain a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. It has no access to the government-dominated press and television, and is banned from holding large-scale rallies.Five years ago it was allowed to use public halls - now it has to hold meetings outdoors.

At the start of the campaign, the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, gave an open-air dinner for 50,000 "friends" on the Esplanade in Penang. The DAP was refused permission to hold a similar gathering, and the party leader, Lim Kit Siang, is being investigated for addressing an unauthorised rally there.Penang, Malaysia's most cosmopolitan state and the only one in which Chinese voters predominate, is the DAP's main stronghold. A brilliant performance, it was witnessed by no more than 300 people, tourists included. A couple of miles away, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), which cannot afford much in the way of campaign literature, let alone soft drinks, managed to lure at least three times that number to a ceramah (political rally) in pitch darkness, thunder and rain.The problem for the DAP is that such meetings are virtually the only means it has of getting across its message.

Mr Koh is universally acknowledged as a nice guy but something of a wimp; Mr Anwar's answer was to quote T S Eliot and the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tze in praise of humility. One said he found abandoned children hiding in the bushes, crying.. Holidaymakers staying in the high-rise beach hotels of Batu Ferringhee, Malaysia's main tourist destination, yesterday found themselves caught up in the most intensely fought battle of the country's election campaign. Curious visitors in shorts and sandals were among the crowd opposite the Holiday Inn, watching the Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, demonstrate why he is rated one of Malaysia's finest political orators. In a mixture of English, Malay and Chinese, punctuated by the hiss of free soft drinks being opened, Mr Anwar urged his listeners to vote for "order and stability" in the shape of Penang's Chief Minister, Koh Tsu Koon, who stood beside him in a silk batik shirt.

"If you could hobble you had to go."Aid workers said the back roads of the region were full of wounded, terrified refugees. "They marched all the people who could walk out of the MSF hospital," one UN medical assistant said. In Paris, the Rwandan Prime Minister, Faustin Twagiramungu, described the army's actions as a "legitimate response". He claimed anti- government Hutu militiamen inside Kibeho started the shooting.The UN Force Commander, Major-General Guy Tousignant, also paid a visit but said he had not talked to the RPA about the tragedy. "I have not discussed what has happened, I have talked about what will happen to end this regrettable incident," Gen Tousignant, a Canadian, said.