Offbeat - AFP

LONDON (AFP) - A hotel chain offered Tuesday to take some of the stress out of Christmas this year with a special room rate in Britain for mother-in-laws.

ZAGREB (AFP) - The Croatian first division match between Sibenik and Medjimurje Cakovec will be remembered for a cat which earned the visiting team's goalkeeper a yellow card, press reports said on Monday.

MANILA (AFP) - Bizarre candidates such as the "Ultimate Messiah" and a man who crows like a chicken are seeking their moments of fame by making unlikely bids for president in next year's Philippine elections.

MELBOURNE (AFP) - A rogue kangaroo tried to drown a dog and then viciously attacked its owner when he launched a rescue bid, paramedics said on Monday.

HONG KONG (AFP) - An increasing number of mainland Chinese migrants to Hong Kong are changing the spelling of their surnames to avoid discrimination in the former British colony, a report said Monday.

BERLIN (AFP) - The manager of a bank branch in Germany who secretly transferred money from rich clients to heavily indebted customers was sentenced to a 22-month suspended jail term on Monday, a court spokesman said.

LONDON (AFP) - A first edition of Charles Darwin's seminal "On the Origin of Species" will be sold this week after it was found in a family's toilet in southern Britain, an auction house said Sunday.

BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese legislator fed up with lavish banquets and official wining and dining has proposed making the "squandering of public funds" a crime, according to state press.

MADRID (AFP) - Cash-strapped Spaniards are pulling their hair out over the economic crisis -- literally.

PARIS (AFP) - Dozens of shoe addicts have taken part in the National Stiletto Championship on an indoor track in the old stock exchange building in central Paris.

PARIS (AFP) - A humble if eye-pleasing umbrella stand once owned by Yves Saint Laurent fetched an amazing 90,000 euros (134,000 dollars) Friday at the close of a sale of the last belongings of the late couturier and his partner Pierre Berge.

KATHMANDU (AFP) - Nepal's former king has been given his first passport aged 63, a year-and-a-half after stepping down from the throne, the government said Friday.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Suspect your significant other might be cheating on you? In Mexico, numerous laboratories are now offering a way to find out for sure -- DNA tests.

CHISINAU (AFP) - Moldovan soldiers have been issued with an extra ration of onions and garlic to ward off swine flu, according to the defence ministry's chief doctor.

HAKONE, Japan (AFP) - Japan's craze for Beaujolais nouveau has beaten the global recession, with tourists taking a dip Thursday in a hot mountain spring coloured red with the fruity wine.

SEOUL (AFP) - State media in communist North Korea, which is grappling with severe food shortages and a crumbling economy, has taken time out to urge its people to keep their hair tidy.

PARIS (AFP) - The only rule is to be perched on heels at least eight centimetres (three inches) high -- the prize is boxes and boxes of shoes.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A worker at a South African jewellery retailer was arrested this week for trying to smuggle gold from his workplace by stuffing it into a cooked chicken, according to local media.

BERLIN (AFP) - After a life of crime stretching back 53 years, a 70-year-old German woman was finally behind bars on Wednesday after pickpocketing a woman 10 years her senior at the bus stop, police said.

MELBOURNE (AFP) - An 81-year-old Australian man who became lost on an early morning drive to the shops and ended up almost 600 kilometres (370 miles) away told police he failed to stop because he "liked to drive".

BERLIN (AFP) - A German orchestra announced plans on Tuesday to play a concert in a brothel in a novel effort to bring classical music "out of the concert hall and to where people are."

HONG KONG (AFP) - Nicknamed "spiders" for their gravity-defying skills in web-like constructions, Hong Kong's bamboo scaffolders have risen above predictions that their trade would disappear.

ROME (AFP) - Flamboyant Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has hired 200 young Italian women for another evening of political and religious discussion on the margins of the UN food summit, reports said Tuesday.

HELSINKI (AFP) - Santa promised children on Tuesday he would travel around the world to bring them Christmas presents despite the global swine flu pandemic.

MUMBAI (AFP) - An Indian woman successfully divorced her husband after he refused to allow her to watch television soap operas, a report said Tuesday.

HONG KONG (AFP) - Nicknamed "spiders" for their gravity-defying skills in web-like constructions, Hong Kong's bamboo scaffolders have risen above predictions that their trade would disappear.

HELSINKI (AFP) - Santa promised children on Tuesday he would travel around the world to bring them Christmas presents despite the global swine flu pandemic.

SYDNEY (AFP) - A 12-year-old Aboriginal boy appeared in a Western Australian court on Monday charged with receiving a stolen chocolate frog worth about 70 cents (65 US cents), reports said.