Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday awarded medals to three men who planted a Russian flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole last year, staking a symbolic claim to the resource-rich region. In the Kremlin ceremony recognising artists, scientists, military veterans, officers and soldiers, Mr Putin congratulated Artur Chilingarov, Anatoly Sagalivech and Evgeniy Chernyaev with medals designating the men "Heroes of Russia".
"Today we won't back away from the Arctic, and we will be hard to stop," said Mr Chilingarov, who presented Mr Putin with a copy of the flag the expedition members planted on the seabed.
Global warming is melting the Arctic ice cap and governments now believe that it is only a matter of time before they will be able to start exploiting previously inaccessible energy supplies locked inside the seabed whose ownership is disputed.
Internet song to save bacon
In what they say is a last-ditch attempt to save Britain's pork industry, dozens of pig farmers gathered in London yesterday aiming for an internet hit with their song Stand By Your Ham.
The song - which reworks Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man with a porcine theme - is intended to alert the public to a sector that farmers say is being pushed to extinction by greedy supermarket chains and rising feed prices.
"Stand by your ham," runs the chorus. "Sausages, pork and bacon/Help us stay in business/Because our pigs are worth it/Stand by your ham."
With little singing experience but fuelled by enthusiasm and bacon sandwiches, the 20 to 30 farmers hope to rely on affection for traditional British pork products from pies to sausages. It will be available for download from the weekend from the website www.pigsareworthit.com.
White flag on Parliament brawls
Parliamentary punch-ups in Taiwan have led to a loss of face, the island's ruling political party has conceded. Warring factions of Parliament have put Taiwan on the global news map, with brawls at times involving up to 50 people jumping onto tables and hurling shoes, microphones and punches, causing minor injuries.
But the Democratic Progressive Party, blamed for starting many of the fights when the opposition Nationalist Party (KMT) majority would not budge on an issue, is calling a ceasefire for its legislative contingent, the party whip said this week. "The brawls are worse and worse for Taiwan's image," Ker Chien-ming said ahead of a legislative session that opens next week. "We will avoid conflicts."
When contentious bills come up for discussion this year, legislators will be pressured to consult in private to head off any fights, said media-conscious parliament speaker and KMT legislator Wang Jin-Pyng, who was blocked from his podium during brawls last year.
Self-healing rubber band
Anyone who has heard the snap of a rubber band breaking knows it's time to reach for a replacement. But a group of French scientists have made a self-healing rubber band material that can reclaim its stretchy usefulness by simply pressing the broken edges back together for a few minutes.
The material, described this week in the journal Nature, can be broken and repaired over and over again. It is made from simple ingredients - fatty acids like those found in vegetable oils, and urea, a waste compound in urine that can be made synthetically.
The material would be an asset to industry and might even help shed light on the physics of elasticity, wrote Philippe Cordier and colleagues at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution in Paris.
Driver parks at police station
Police in the western Canadian town of Wetaskiwin didn't have to do much work when they arrested a drunk driver this week - he had parked his car next to their offices and wandered inside.
Police discovered the man as they drove by early in the morning to respond to an unrelated call. Although the police office was locked, the lobby was open.
"There was a vehicle parked about three metres outside our front door. The gentleman had walked into the front lobby and he was displaying many indications of being intoxicated," Constable Mark Scheck said.
Takes $2 million after bank error
A New York man who discovered that millions of dollars had mysteriously appeared in his bank account, and withdrew more than $2 million, has been arrested on charges of grand larceny, prosecutors said yesterday.
Benjamin Lovell, 48, is pleading innocent to charges that he withdrew money from a Commerce Bank account that had been opened by someone with the same name, prosecutors said.
The account belonged to Woodlawn Trustees Inc, a Delaware property management company, and was listed under the name of its finance director, who is also named Benjamin Lovell, court papers said.
Mr Lovell had just $800 in his own Commerce Bank account when he went to make a deposit, but a teller, mistaking the Woodlawn account for Lovell's personal account, told him that his account contained more than $5 million, prosecutors said.