While Russia's two-legged population feels the financial pinch, designer lines from sportswear to mink coats, evening gowns to bootees are being snapped up... for the nation's dogs.

The Russian winter is cold but the jewel-encrusted, over-the-top creations on offer today, together with perfumes, facial masks and Swarkovski-studded leads, go way beyond the imaginings of, the 19th century writer Anton Chekhov, who touched on the phenomenon of women and their dogs in Lady with Lapdog. Designers like Svetlana Abramova, who has her own brand, Very Stylish Dog (www.styledog.ru), have unlocked the commercial potential of the instinct to pamper one's pooch.

Ms Abramova last year created a range of matching woman and dog outfits for American firm Diamond Dogs, due to go on display in London and later in Los Angeles while the luxury London department store Harrods has ordered a new autumn collection.

Her dog garments "are cut with respect for the rules of human haute couture," said Ms Abramova, reassuringly, adding, "We use only natural materials - jersey, cashmere and silk - because some dogs are allergic to synthetic materials". (AFP)

Too young to marry?

Saudi Arabia is looking into introducing a minimum age for marriage, a justice ministry official was quoted as saying yesterday, after a court upheld the marriage of an eight-year-old girl to a man 50 years her senior.

Al-Madina newspaper quoted Mohamed al-Babtain, the director of marriage officials, as saying the ministry had started "looking into the legal age of marriage". Saudi Arabia has no legal age limit for marriage.

The newspaper also quoted prominent cleric Sheikh Mohsen al-Obaikan as saying that girls below the age of 18 should not be allowed to marry.

A court in the town of Unaiza upheld for the second time last week the marriage of the girl to a man who is about 50 years her senior, on condition he does not have sex with her until she reaches puberty. (Reuters)

Fujimori Daughter leads election race

Peruvian lawmaker Keiko Fujimori, whose father Alberto Fujimori was convicted this month of human rights abuses, is leading the race for her country's 2011 presidential election, a poll showed yesterday.

Keiko, who supports free markets, would get 25 per cent of the vote if the election were held today, while Lima Mayor Luis Castaneda would get 19 per cent and leftist Ollanta Humala, who spooked financial markets when he nearly won the 2006 election, would nab 17 per cent, according to pollster Ipsos Apoyo.

Keiko's father was sentenced to 25 years in prison this month for ordering two massacres while he was president in the 1990s and Peru was battling a leftist insurgency known as the Shining Path. (Reuters)

Is it Cleopatra's tomb?

High on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, buried deep under the crumbling limestone of a temple to the goddess Isis, archaeologists believe the body of Queen Cleopatra may lie.

The tomb of the Egyptian queen has never been found but archaeologists are discovering more evidence that Cleopatra's priests carried her body to the temple after her suicide, where it could lie with her lover Marc Antony.

Archaeologists from Egypt and the Dominican Republic plan to start digging in search of Cleopatra's tomb as early as this year after researchers found by radar what may be three chambers as deep as 20 metres under the rock. Digging, however, may have to be postponed until the fall for security reasons, as the temple overlooks a Mediterranean summer home of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (Reuters)

Native traditions vs climate change

Alaskan Inuits, Australian aborigines and Pygmies from Cameroon have a message for a warming world: native traditions can be a potent weapon against climate change.

At a summit starting today in Anchorage, Alaska, indigenous people from 80 nations are gathering to hone this message.

"We don't want to be seen just as the powerless victims of climate change," said Patricia Cochran, an Inupiat native of Nome, Alaska, who is chairing the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change.

"Our conference is really stirred by our wanting to become leaders... on climate change because we have the ability to bring information from our communities to the rest of the world," Ms Cochran said. For instance Inuit people in Alaska are reverting to traditional dogsleds instead of modern snow machines as the icy region warms. (Reuters)

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