A British explorer has kayaked to within 1,000 kilometres of the North Pole to highlight a rapid shrinking of Arctic ice and put pressure on governments to do more to fight global warming.
Lewis Gordon Pugh, 38, planted flags of 192 nations on a barrier of sea ice where it eventually blocked his route north on Friday after a week-long, 135-kilometres paddle north from the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitzbergen.
"He kayaked in freezing winds, horizontal snow showers, strong sea currents and with the constant threat of polar bears and walrus," a statement from his team said. In normal years, there would be no open water north of Spitzbergen. "The disappearance of this sea ice is happening considerably faster than scientific models predicted a year ago," Mr Pugh said in a statement after the trip. He was accompanied by a team aboard a ship where he slept.
Last September, summer sea ice around the North Pole shrank to its smallest since satellite measurements began in the 1970s, extending a trend widely blamed on global warming. The ice area is now close to matching last year's record.
Mr Pugh's kayak trip ended at 81 degrees north, about 1,000 kilometres from the Pole.
Dancing horses get first female riders
Two women have made history at Vienna's Spanish Riding School by becoming the first female riders to pass the entrance exam in 436 years.
An 18-year-old Briton and a 21-year-old Austrian must now pass a one-month trial to train at the school, set up in 1572. The school will not name the pair until they pass the trial.
If they pass, the new recruits will train for five years before they can take to the saddle in public on the white Lipizzaner dancing horses which are trained to perform tricky moves such as springing from their hind legs.
"There has never been a ban for women," Erwin Klissenbauer, the school's manager, said over the weekend. The school has, however, had a masculine image because of its military background, he said.
Greek postmen win oddest book title
A book entitled Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers benefited from a late surge in public support to win the title of oddest book title of the past 30 years, The Bookseller magazine said.
The book - a comprehensive record of Greek postal routes by Derek Willan - grabbed 13 per cent of the 1,000 international public votes cast to choose the oddest title from the winners of the annual competition that began in 1978.
It beat People Who Don't Know They're Dead and How To Avoid Huge Ships into second and third places with 11 and 10 per cent respectively.
The prize was dreamed up initially at the 1978 Frankfurt Book Fair as a way of avoiding boredom.
Suspect held 12 years after murder
German police said they have arrested a man suspected of murdering a teenager 12 years ago and dumping her body parts in a forest and lake. A week after the disappearance of 18-year-old Jasmin Stieler in October 1996, her torso was found in a forest near a disco in Braunschweig where she had planned to spend the evening. Her legs were later discovered in a lake in Hanover and her head a year later in the same area. Her hands are still missing.
"The investigation has been sluggish but a suspect was detained on Thursday," Braunschweig police spokesman Thomas Geese said over the weekend. Police said the man, 41-year-old Heiko K., was arrested after soil samples which could be traced to the forest where Ms Stieler's torso was found were detected on a spade he owned.
EU gambles on next US President
Europeans do not get to vote in the November US presidential election, but many wish they did, and their foreign ministers decided that they would at least take a gamble behind closed doors.
During informal talks in Avignon, France, on the future of transatlantic relations, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked his EU counterparts to bet on who would win the November 4 election.
"He circulated a piece of paper... I gave my answer. I think everybody did, didn't they?" French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said at a news conference on Saturday. He declined to disclose the result. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, ever the diplomat, said he had declined to enter a bet, prompting Mr Kouchner to exclaim: "Coward!"