Reuters Life!

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Think your children are costing you a lot? You're right, with an Australian study finding that the average child now costs $1 million (US$917,000) to raise, taking into account toys, holidays and other activities.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters Life!) - In hit TV crime drama show "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation," and its two spin-offs, the criminologists use the latest technology to solve grisly murders and other crimes.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Britons think France is the least hospitable country in which to go on holiday, according to a new online survey of 1,412 Britons.

ROME, Nov 27 (Life!) - One of Italy's greatest chefs has caused controversy in the culinary world by becoming the second of the nation's top cooks to give back his Michelin stars.

LONDON (Reuters) - British singer Robbie Williams "proposed" to his actress girlfriend, Ayda Field, live on Australian radio on Friday, but his spokesman then said it was a joke.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - French film director Luc Besson, known worldwide for blockbusters like "The Big Blue" and "The Fifth Element," says his movies face the toughest criticism at home where they are seen as not quite "French enough."

LONDON (Reuters) - Auction houses are banking on a recovery at next week's series of big Russian art sales in London, at which they expect to show that the market dominated by new money is through the worst of the recession.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Bidders for a naval logbook detailing the first contact with a surviving mutineer from the HMS Bounty on his Pitcairn Island hideaway, drove the price up to 40 times its estimated value at an auction this week.

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - Bangkok's Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Singapore Airlines were named the best in their sector in an annual Asian business travel survey that also revealed people had become more resigned to no-frills flights.

ISTANBUL (Reuters Life!) - An evening gown slit discreetly from the neck to the navel worn by Turkey's former first lady Mevhibe Inonu is on show in an Istanbul exhibition, tracing how her style helped define the image of the young Turkish Republic.

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - Going on holiday is back on the cards again despite the recession, with a global survey showing one in five people plan to travel overseas, even if it's largely within their region.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Forget about designer brands and quirky gadgets: low-priced fashions and green products scored big in Japan in 2009, an advertising agency survey found, as consumers pinch pennies and take advantage of government stimulus subsidies.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Hotels that combine service, technology and comfort have topped a list of the world's best business hotels with the winners offering their guests those added extras that can make all the difference to a trip.

BRUSSELS (Reuters Life!) - Got 48 hours to explore the capital of Europe, with its unique combination of looks, architecture, culture, food and language?

PRAGUE (Reuters Life!) - Glitzy new shops, fast food restaurants and trendy bars have replaced Prague's former monochrome socialist-era landscape but a museum dedicated to the country's communist past offers glimpses of the uglier times.

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - It is often said that God works in mysterious ways, and travel guide Lonely Planet has come up with a list of the holiest places in the world where the faithful believe the handiwork of the divine is evident.

POTSDAM, Germany (Reuters Life!) - Kate Winslet returned to the German film studio where she made the Oscar-winning film "The Reader" on Thursday evening to accept the 2009 Bambi Award for best international actress.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean court handed down the country's first conviction under a hate crimes law on Friday when it fined a man who racially abused an Indian professor on a commuter bus.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss authorities will not release Roman Polanski into house arrest at his luxury Alpine chalet until Monday at the earliest as bail conditions still have to be met.

LONDON (Reuters) - Singer Bob Dylan reminisces about Christmas past, turkey dinners and his favorite holiday songs in a rare interview in a magazine for homeless people.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire," directed by Lee Daniels, is generating a large amount of Oscar buzz this season and getting a push from executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Jesus Christ may have visited an English town now renowned for a raucous modern-day music festival to meet ancient druids, a new film argues.

PARIS (Reuters Life!) - The Pompidou Center in Paris has been closed since Monday because of a strike by workers angered by proposed job cuts at one of the most visited attractions in France, an official said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - The largest haul of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, unearthed by a metal-detector enthusiast in a farmer's field, has been valued at 3.28 million pounds ($5.5 million) by a committee of experts.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Move aside Barbie, drop that Wii. The hottest toy this Christmas is an interactive hamster that drives a car and squeaks happily when petted on the nose -- and doesn't break the bank for parents.

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - Want to be sexy? Don't eat meat -- that's the message behind a campaign to promote vegetarianism in China, where meat consumption is booming on the back of rapid economic growth.

AYUTHAYA, Thailand (Reuters Life!) - Thai police promised to get tough with criminals who steal historic artifacts for the international market after a spate of thefts from the old capital of Ayuthaya outraged the public in the Buddhist country.

KARACHI (Reuters Life!) - Sky-rocketing prices and security concerns are keeping butchers' knives sheathed in Pakistan ahead of the Muslim feast of sacrifice this year, with people buying less livestock for ritual slaughter.