"In the Chechen crisis, the Russian authorities have shown their inability to see the immediate consequences even one or two moves ahead," it said.The most derisive image appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda, which merged a picture of Mr Yeltsin toasting the nation on new year's eve with a photograph of dead Russian soldiers. If he had intended to boost the spirits of the Russian public or merely to obscure the truth in a cloud of disinformation, th en he finished up by making Mr Yeltsin's handling of the conflict look even more discredited than before.The liberal newspaper Izvestia, once pro-Yeltsin, compared the president's team to mediocre chess players. Confirmation that clashes were continuing in the city was provided by independent witnesses.No explanation was offered for the miserable inaccuracy of Mr Yegorov's prediction of a peaceful collapse of Chechen resistance. It said Russian troops had killed almost 100 Chechen fighters as the Chechens made three attempts to break out of an encircled area near Grozny's railway station.A later statement said interior ministry forces had used helicopter gunships against Chechen fighters, who retreated into remote areas outside the capital. While Mr Yeltsin's spokesman, Vyacheslav Kostikov, observed plaintively that the president was "upset" at the hostile reaction to his military crackdown in Chechnya, Mr Yeltsin himself was nowhere to be seen, wrapped in an invisibility that increasingly seems his preferred style of governance. The latest confusion began on Wednesday evening when Nikolai Yegorov, the Deputy Prime Minister responsible for co- ordinating Chechen policy, predicted confidently that Grozny, Chechnya's capital, would fall without a fight to Russian troops by some time yesterday.Other official information bulletins announced that a pro-Moscow Chechen administration would take over in Grozny, replacing the secessionist leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev.It was a different story early yesterday afternoon, when the joint defence ministry and interior ministry command in Chechnya issued a statement that described one of the most violent incidents of the 25-day-old war. President Boris Yeltsin's administration plumbed new depths of disarray yesterday as senior Russian officials contradicted each other on policy over Chechnya and the Moscow press heaped more contempt on the Kremlin.

"As regards lies, we have surpassed the Communists and even Goebbels," he said.Moscow newspapers continued to deride Mr Yeltsin, and even Sergei Shakhrai, the man entrusted with the task of presenting the Kremlin's case to the public, called the war a failure.The International Committee of the Red Cross, citing local authorities in Chechnya, said 1,700 people had been wounded since the crackdown started on 11 December.The dead are thought to number hundreds, while 130,000 people have fled Chechnya.. Heaping humiliation upon humiliation, Russia'shuman rights commissioner, Sergei Kovalyov, said that no official Russian statements could be trusted. The interior ministry confirmed that it had used helicopter gunships to attack Chechen forces outside Grozny.The credibility of Mr Yeltsin's Chechnya policy was left in shreds by the fighting, the failure to take Grozny and the criticism of Russia by anti-Dudayev Chechens previously thought to be Moscow loyalists. However, the armed forces denied attacking Grozny from the air and said the only planes in action had been operating outside the capital against "Dudayev strongholds, troops and armour". "We demand that the facts of air strikes and bombardment be investigated and that measures be taken to punish those responsible," said a statement signed by Salambek Khadzhiyev, the man picked by Moscow to replace the rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.Russian MPs said Russian bombs had fallen on Grozny's Zavod district, a site for oil storage tanks. One of his senior advisers on the crisis, Nikolai Yegorov, predicted that Grozny would fall without a fight by yesterday and a new pro-Moscow Chechen government would be installed. Not only did clashes continue near Grozny's railway station and in other parts of Chechnya, but the Chechen government-in-waiting sent Russian policy into turmoil by denouncing air strikes on Chechen civilians. President Boris Yeltsin, reacting to heavy domestic and foreign criticism of his military crackdown in Chechnya, ordered a halt to the bombing of Grozny on Wednesday night.

There were also conflicting reports of a Russian air strike o n the Chechen presidential palace. Russia's prediction that it would capture Grozny without force was exposed as nonsense yesterday as Chechen warriors fought prolonged battles to keep their capital out of Russian hands. ``And even if there were, you had lots of easier ways to do it than poison pills."How's that, Jim? Far simpler, he points out, would be to turn the crank for the cabin vent, suck out the capsule pressure and boil your blood All would be over in a few seconds.Maryann Bird. Jim Lovell, one of the Apollo 13 crew in 1970, addresses the sensitive question in a new book, Lost Moon."Poison pills! Forget about it! There just weren't any situations in which you'd ever really consider making, well, an early exit,'' he writes.

Showing the screen legend in a slinky gold dress and dangling earrings, the stamp is the first of a series of Hollywood greats. Postal authorities say the image captures "the explosive combination of talent and vulnerable beauty that continues to enrapture America and the world".Are you one of the millions who wondered if US astronauts carry suicide pills on trips into space? Wonder no more. Mr Hawke and his wife of 38 years, Hazel Hawke, announced their separation last November.Gentlemen philatelists who prefer blondes on their stamps should look forward to the new Marilyn Monroe design unveiled by the US postal service yesterday at the Planet Hollywood restaurant in New York. Ms D'Alpuget's book, published in 1982, portrayed Mr Hawke as a boozer and a womaniser - two things he tearfully acknowledged to the Australian people in 1989. He had no comment.The couple have long been rumoured to have a close relationship. "I think 1995 will be a very good year," the author and essayist was quoted as saying.