GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

As Jordan's King Hussein mounts a last-ditch effort for peace, he is sporting a silvery new beard. Some of the King's subjects believe he is trying to appear more pious as the gulf conflict heats up. Just after Hussein grew the beard, he appointed members of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood to his Cabinet, thereby including that group in the government for the first time. Others see the beard's purpose differently, concluding that months of fruitless diplomacy have caused the King's stress-induced skin rash to act up again.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart