An Italian man was given a suspended jail sentence for staring too intensely at a woman sitting in front of him on a train. A judge sentenced the man in his 30s, whose name was not revealed, to 10 days in prison and a €40 fine after a 55-year old woman filed a complaint for sexual harrassment.

His lawyer said yesterday he would appeal the sentence.

The two met on two separate occasions in 2005 on a commuter train going from Lecco, a town in northern Italy, to Milan. The first time, the man sat next to the woman but she felt he had moved too close for comfort.

The next day, the man sat in front of the same woman and according to her complaint, stared at her for the whole journey. The two did not speak.

Thief crawls through post flap

A thief broke into the headquarters of Austria's ruling political party by wriggling through a post flap in the front door, a party official said yesterday.

The burglar squeezed through the 35x35cm hole early on Thursday and stole laptops, mobile phones, notebooks and cash before crawling out, Catherina Straub, speaking for the Social Democrats, said.

"It is such a tiny door for post and newspapers, he must have obviously been extremely small," she said, adding that the culprit had not been caught.

Sleeps it off with knife in back

A Russian electrician slept off a night's drinking with a long knife stuck in his back and didn't notice until his wife spotted it in the kitchen the next day, Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda paper reported.

Yury Lyalin, 53, was rushed to hospital in the northern city of Vologda, but the 15-centimetre knife had not damaged any vital organs.

His wife saw the handle of the knife sticking out as her husband bent down to get some breakfast from the fridge, the newspaper reported.

Although Mr Lyalin played down the injury, local prosecutors are not treating the incident as a joke and are initiating a case against Mr Lyalin's drinking partner. He could face eight years in jail, the paper reported.

Fuss over Merkel's gown

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to brush aside an international stir over the plunging neckline on a dress she wore to the opera in Norway last week in her first public comments on the furore.

Ms Merkel had swapped her usual loose-fitting suits and neck-high tops for an eye-catching black evening gown when she attended the inauguration of Norway's new national opera house in Oslo on Saturday.

Pictures of Ms Merkel and her ample cleavage as she sat next to Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg made front page news in Germany and across Europe.

Ms Merkel tried to play down the fuss in a television interview late on Thursday. "It's simply due to the fact that in Germany a woman is chancellor," Ms Merkel told ZDF TV when asked about the all the attention surrounding her low-cut, tight-fitting dress.

"In any event, there certainly wouldn't be a discussion like this with a man (as chancellor)," she added with a smile - this time clad in a loose-fitting black top and baggy red suit.

Jailed for kicking man to death

A man and two teenagers were jailed for a total of 59 years for kicking to death a father-of-three after he disturbed them from burgling his house.

Mark Witherall, 47, was found outside his Whitstable home in Kent with serious injuries in January last year and died in hospital after 41 days on a life support machine.

Mark Elliot, 21, Curtis Delima, 19, and Gerry Cusden, 16, all from Whitstable, had denied murdering Mr Witherall but were found guilty by a jury last month after a nine-week trial at Maidstone Crown Court.

Mr Elliot was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment, Mr Delima to 20 years and Mr Cusden to 16 years.

Runaway defendant turns up

An absconded defendant who was convicted in his absence of raising money for terrorist purposes in London handed himself in to police yesterday.

Shah Jalal Hussain had jumped bail on April 8 while the jury at Kingston Crown Court was considering its verdict. He was one of six British Muslim men tried for inciting acts of terrorism or raising money for terrorist purposes.

Among them was Omar Brooks, also known as Abu Izzadeen, a man who leapt to public attention in 2006 when he heckled then Home Secretary John Reid in front of television cameras.