A Scottish family have become embroiled in an intellectual property dispute with the estate of the author C.S. Lewis after buying a Narnia internet domain name for their 10-year-old son as a birthday present.
Richard and Gillian Saville-Smith, who live in Edinburgh, paid £70 pounds (€91) to purchase the domain name Narnia.mobi from the internet registration company Fasthosts in 2006 so their son could have it as an e-mail address.
They were asked to return the domain name to the C.S. Lewis company, owner of the author's estate, but refused. The family then received a 128-page legal complaint filed with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Switzerland.
"We'd been saving it as a surprise for our little boy's birthday, to coincide with the release of the Narnia film," said Mrs Saville-Smith, referring to the British release of Walt Disney Co's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
"Our whole family are great admirers of C.S. Lewis and he must be turning in his grave about all this," added Mrs Saville-Smith, who is an award-winning Scottish poet.
Hitler's gift to Nepal king
A car given by Adolf Hitler to a Nepali king is likely to be displayed in a palace museum after the Himalayan nation abolished the 239-year-old monarchy and King Gyanendra quit the palace.
Officials said a 1939 Mercedes Benz presented by the Nazi leader to King Tribhuvan, Gyanendra's grandfather, is now rusting at Nepal's main Narayanhiti palace grounds. It has lain there for more than three years after an engineering college in Kathmandu, which was using it to train mechanics, said it did not have enough money and spare parts to restore the antique car.
The car was manually carried by scores of labourers for several days from Nepal's southern plains to Kathmandu in 1940, when the mountainous country had no roads. King Tribhuvan used the car when the Kathmandu valley had no other motor transport.
Berlusconi backs McCain
Silvio Berlusconi, 71, is backing John McCain, also 71, to be the next US President because if Mr McCain wins, the Italian Prime Minister won't feel so old.
"I can't avoid expressing my very personal preference for the Republican candidate because, if he wins, I would no longer be the oldest," Mr Berlusconi said in response to a question at a news conference with US President George W. Bush last Thursday.
"I was born on September 29, 1936 and he was born on August 29, so he is a month older than me," Mr Berlusconi said.
Mr Berlusconi, who is known to have had a hair transplant and a nip and tuck, looks much younger than his 71 years. The colour of his hair these days is dark chocolate brown as opposed to Mr McCain's, which is snow white.
Japanese prefecture eyes smoking ban
A region near Tokyo has proposed what would be Japan's first ban on smoking in all public areas, including bars, but the proposal faces opposition from restaurant and café associations worried about losing customers.
Kanagawa prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, plans to pass a regulation by the end of this year that would make all public places smoke-free as part of efforts to fight cancer, which is the leading cause of death in the region.
"More and more countries are banning smoking in bars and recreational facilities," Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa told association leaders. "Once smoking is banned, there are cases of an increase in new customers, such as families."
Representatives of the restaurant and café associations said at the meeting that smaller cafés and bars would be hit hard if smoking was banned on their premises, participants said.
But others, such as a union of Japanese restaurants, welcomed the plan, saying food would taste and smell better without cigarette smoke in the air.
Singing Speaker gees up Russia
The speaker of Russia's Parliament performed his own rock song at a concert in Austria last Friday to spur his country into the next round of the Euro 2008 tournament.
Boris Gryzlov, a 57-year-old former Interior Minister and amateur songwriter, was shown on Russian TV belting out the song's chorus, Russia Forward! in front of an audience of flag-waving fans in the Austrian city of Salzburg.
The Russian side, coached by Dutchman Guus Hiddink, were beaten 4-1 by Spain in their opening match and but went on to beat holders Greece 1-0 on Saturday in a game they had to win to stand a chance of reaching the quarter-finals.
Body parts ring leader apologises
A New Jersey dentist behind a scheme to steal body parts from corpses, including that of British journalist Alistair Cooke, faced relatives of the dead in court last week and apologised for the anguish he caused. Michael Mastromarino, 44, in March admitted to leading a $4.6 million (€2.99 million) operation that stole body parts from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The ring dismembered more than 1,000 cadavers in unsanitary conditions, and sold parts to doctors who transplanted them into patients.
Mr Mastromarino pleaded guilty to body stealing, reckless endangerment and enterprise corruption. He faces 18 to 54 years in prison and is due to be sentenced on June 27.
"I am truly sorry for the pain that I have caused," Mr Mastromarino said, turning to face five people who were in court to deliver statements.
"May God have mercy on my soul."