World briefs

After enraging the French President and his bride by using them in an advertisement, budget airline Ryanair is promoting its flights in the Italian press as a way of escaping piles of trash that are choking the city of Naples. Above a photograph of piles of rubbish sacks - an image which has come to symbolise Naples in recent months where the waste disposal system has ground to a halt - the advert reads: "Pay the taxes! Not for waste (disposal) but to escape."

Playing on public outrage at the waste emergency and the fact that locals continue to pay a refuse tax even when their streets are shoulder-high in rotting garbage, the airline offers 250,000 free flights where the customer only pays airport taxes.

But the city of Naples is not amused. "The only rubbish to be escaped from is Ryanair's advertising," said Marco di Lello, head of tourism at the regional government of Campania of which Naples is the capital.

Putin stars in tale of romance

A young KGB spy falls in love with an air hostess called Lyudmila and then conquers the Kremlin. Sounds familiar? The plot of Russia's latest film bears a remarkable resemblance to the life of President Vladimir Putin.

The film, Kiss Me Off The Record, breaks a taboo which has kept Mr Putin's love life firmly under wraps.

The official release is set for Valentine's Day, two weeks before Russians vote for a successor to Mr Putin, who is stepping down after eight years in office. Backers hope to outdo recent Hollywood hit Pirates of the Caribbean in Russian DVD sales.

Returns after five years 'dead'

A Hungarian man who was reported dead by his wife in 2001 has been detained in the Czech Republic and is suspected of fraud, Hungarian police said. In a case reminiscent of the British canoeist who "returned from the dead" five years after he went missing, the man's wife said he had drowned while windsurfing on holiday in Greece. His body was never found and a Hungarian court declared him legally dead in 2003.

The man had taken out several life insurance policies in 2000, worth more than 200 million forints (€775,000), and he also bought travel insurance before going to Greece, Hungarian police said in a statement.

His wife is being questioned by police as an accomplice. She is also suspected of polyandry after she remarried in 2005 even though she knew her husband was still alive, police said. She had been unable to cash in the insurance policies, they added.

Forced to resign in 'libel' case

A Communist Party chief in northeastern China has been ordered to resign for sending local police nearly 1,000 kilometres to subpoena a Beijing reporter over a story he said libelled him, state media said yesterday.

Under Chinese law, libel is a civil offence, not a crime, outside the realm of police unless it "seriously jeopardises social order or national interests".

Previous reports said Zhu Wenna, a reporter for Faren magazine, published a story on January 1 alleging illegal dealings and heavy-handed measures against a critic by Zhang Zhiguo, Party boss of Xifeng county in the province of Liaoning.

Mr Zhang had ordered the jailing of a woman for libel for sending a satirical text message alleging corruption after her gas station was demolished, with meagre compensation, to make way for a market, according to Mr Zhu's report.

Lights out an hour early

Beijing, in solidarity with millions of people facing the Lunar New Year without power, will turn off thousands of "holiday lights" lining the capital's main streets each night an hour earlier than usual.

Along with lifting a ban on residents letting off firecrackers, Beijing has celebrated the week-long new year holiday in recent years by festooning city streets, buildings and trees with thousands of fairy lights.

The capital, unaffected by the coldest weather to hit parts of southern and central China in 100 years, would reduce its nightly holiday illuminations from six hours to five, yesterday's Beijing Times said, citing the city's Municipal Administration Commission.

Changing Alcatraz to peace centre

San Francisco voters were deciding yesterday whether to remove the famous Alcatraz Prison visited by thousands of tourists a day and instead create a "global peace centre".

The proposition sharing the presidential primary ballot comes from the director of the California-based Global Peace Foundation who gives his name as Da Vid. He says transforming Alcatraz will "liberate energies, raising the whole consciousness of the Bay Area.."

Supporters would like to raze the prison and build a medicine wheel, a labyrinth and a conference centre for non-violent conflict resolution. Volunteers collected 10,350 voter signatures last year to put it on the local ballot.