The bundling-up of the former and future German parliament – the largest and probably the last of Christo’s wrapped buildings -

The bundling-up of the former and future German parliament – the largest and probably the last of Christo’s wrapped buildings – brought traffic to a standstill.Berliners shook their heads with resignation. “If it’s like this at the weekend,” said one driver, “just wait and see what it will be like when people get back to work tomorrow.”Streets around the Reichstag have been closed to traffic and stalls set up to sell T-shirts, books and posters of the Bulgarian-American artist who became famous for tying objects up with string. Christo is paying for his latest project, due to cost pounds 5m, from the sale of his sketches and designs over the past 20 years.Typical of the enthusiasts outside the Reichstag was Andreas Kiso from Dortmund who saw the Christo action as a dividing line between Germany’s past and future “It’s good that he’s doing it. The Reichstag has a mixed history and this puts it into the past.

When everything is unwrapped, the building will have a new character.” Jochen Bremer, 38, a stonemason, said: “It seems a nice idea. And if he wants to pay for it, why not?”More than 100,000 square metres of drapes will cover the outside walls and the inner courtyard. The building will remain covered for a fortnight, after which the rebuilding of the Reichstag to designs by Sir Norman Foster will begin. The parliament is expected to move in shortly after the next elections in 1998. The German government’s move from Bonn to Berlin should be complete by 2000.For Christo, the wrapping of the Reichstag is the fulfilment of a 24- year dream But his chances of success once seemed slim.

There were worries about Cold-War complications and fears that the wrapping would seem disrespectful. Three times he was given a categoric no.When it came before the German parliament last year, Christo at last got his way, although Chancellor Helmut Kohl and most of the cabinet voted against the project.. MICHAEL SHERIDAN

Halifax, Nova Scotia
The Group of Seven summit was hijacked by the Bosnia crisis and preoccupied by economic issues. But when President Boris Yeltsin of Russia arrived to join the political discussions, making up the so-called “P8″, the leaders managed to agree a declaration which will set the tone for a wide range of international negotiations over the year ahead.Two new summits were agreed – the “Jobs Summit” sought by President Jacques Chirac and scheduled for the first half of 1996 in France; and a summit in Moscow next year on the practices of civil nuclear safety.The “P8″ also pronounced in favour of reforms of the United Nations and a fairer method of assessing payments by member countries. At present, the United States is expected to pay a disproportionate amount. Although, as the Prime Minister John Major observed, this was “emphatically not something the G7 could or should impose on the United Nations”, there is no doubt that the general assent of Russia and the combined influence of the G7 – the US, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy – is bound to carry new weight in a campaign for a revitalised UN.All the leaders expressed the desire for an improved “early warning system” to alert the UN to impending crises and, with one eye on the debacles in Bosnia and Somalia, they said peace-keeping forces should only be dispatched under “realistic mandates” and with better planning and support.In spite of the furore caused by France’s decision to relaunch a finite programme of nuclear tests, all eight pledged themselves to work for a complete and verifiable test-ban treaty and for a cut-off in the production of fissile material.