Reports of death exaggerated

Shock was followed by confusion in the Commons yesterday when MPs were told that Boris Yeltsin was dead and, eight minutes later, that he was alive. Responding to false report from a Tory backbencher, Tony Newton, Leader of Commons, said the news would be "greeted with sadness and a degree of shock in the House". But minutes later another member, having checked the facts, pronounced the president alive.

Inside Parliament, page 10