Offbeat - AFP

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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) - 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.

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.

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.

ROME (AFP) - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi gave a speech to 100 young Italian women recruited by a model agency and urged them to convert to Islam, newspapers reported on Monday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian couple were caught drink driving three times in just three hours -- each time a little further along the same street, police said.

BERLIN (AFP) - Fourteen people rescued by the fire brigade after being left dangling upside down from a fairground ride in Germany for nearly an hour have been slapped with a hefty bill, a spokesman said Monday.

BEIJING (AFP) - US President Barack Obama's first visit to China will undoubtedly be marked by difficult talks on trade and climate change, but another thorny issue has emerged: how to write "Obama" in Mandarin.

TOKYO (AFP) - US President Barack Obama charmed his Tokyo audience on Saturday with references to green tea ice cream, Japanese traditional hospitality and, of course, the small town that bears his name.