World Briefs

Anyone wanting to get away from the financial crisis might apply for a two-and-a-half-year job on the only continent without a bank - Antarctica.

Most scientists and other staff visit Antarctica in the summer but the British Antarctic Survey is among few employers on the icy continent to offer a handful of two-and-a-half-year stints.

"The economy elsewhere is going downhill... it's a good time to get away from it all," said Terri Souster, 24, a South African marine assistant who arrived at the British Rothera base late last year and works as a diver. She is due to leave the Antarctic Peninsula in 2011.

Many long-stayers say they love working in Antarctica, with wildlife such as penguins and whales, and ever-changing views over a bay filled with icebergs. But they have to cope with separation from family and friends over two dark, cold winters.

"It is daunting," said John Withers, commander of Rothera who spent the 2003-04 winters at the base. He originally signed up for 18 months but liked it so much he extended his stay.

Two arrested with €1.1 billion in fakes

Austrian police have arrested two German men found with fake dollar notes and financial certificates worth €1.1 billion and tried to use some of them at a bank in west Austria.

The men, who the police believe may have worked for a Dutch currency trader, tried to get credit of over €100 million at the bank in Kleinwalsertal by offering $200 million in fake notes and certificates as a guarantee, police said.

The men were caught on Wednesday when the bank spotted the fake dollar notes. Police later found that the men, aged 45 and 51, were in possession of around €1.1 billion in fake notes and certificates.

Police spokesman Michael Schwaerzler said one of the men was taken to hospital over the border in Germany after he suffered heart problems during the arrest. He is now in the hands of German authorities. The other man is in prison in Austria.

Cash demand hits record low

Cash demand from South Koreans ahead of next week's Lunar New Year holidays plunged to a record low as the economic slump forced consumers to tighten their purse strings, central bank data showed yesterday.

Net cash demand for the 10 work days ahead of the January 26-27 holidays amounted to an estimated €1,81 billion, the smallest amount on record, the Bank of Korea data showed.

Every year, millions of South Koreans living away from their hometowns brace bumper-to-bumper traffic jams and often freezing weather to reunite with their relatives to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Cash is handed out to children for New Year gifts.

The Italian Job ending solved

It's one of the greatest cliff-hangers in movie history that has puzzled film fans for decades - how to solve the conundrum at the end of the classic British film The Italian Job.

In the 1969 movie's famous final scene, the gang of robbers find themselves trapped at one end of a bus teetering precariously over the side of a cliff while their stolen gold bullion is at the other end.

"Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea," says Charlie Croker, the gang's leader played by actor Michael Caine. Now, the winner of a competition run by Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) might have solved the riddle of getting the gang and the gold out safely.

John Godwin came up with a three-pronged strategy to redistribute the weight-balance in the bus by knocking out the windows and draining the fuel tanks.

This would allow one of the gang to get out and load rocks on the bus, making the bus safe and allowing the gold to be rescued from the bus.

The RSC said it had picked out Godwin's theory from about 2,000 entries it had received.

Numbers look good for Obama

An Indonesian numerologist has predicted good fortune for 44th US President Barack Obama despite 44 being an unlucky number associated with death in Chinese culture, a report said Thursday.

In Mandarin the words for four and death are the same but numbers expert Udin, said it was auspicious to be the 44th President.

"Talking about his position as the 44th American President, it is actually a good number according to Chinese numerology because four plus four equals eight, and eight is a lucky number," he was quoted as saying. Four in China is like 13 in Western countries.