An Italian right-wing party is offering €1,500 to parents who name their babies after wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele, saying their names are under threat.
The MSI-Fiamma Tricolore party, the descendant of Mussolini's fascist party, said the initiative in the poor, southern region of Basilicata was meant to keep alive names "at risk of extinction" and pay tribute to the movement's roots.
"Benito and Rachele are nice names and I hope our original initiative will get people going," party official Vincenzo Mancusi told Reuters.
The bonus - intended to pay for baby clothes and food - applies to babies born in 2009 in five villages where the birth rate is especially low, Mancusi said.
German man with gun under pillow
A German man who slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow has lost his gun licence after a court ruled it to be irresponsible behaviour.
The 56-year-old was stripped of his licence for failing to store the weapon properly, Braunschweig administrative court judge Torsten Baumgarten said yesterday. The gun was only discovered by chance during a police inspection.
"His home was being checked because he had threatened to throw a hand grenade if the city council approved plans to build a high-voltage power line in his neighbourhood," Judge Baumgarten said. "The decision to take his licence was made independently."
Judge Baumgarten said the ruling, which sets a legal precedent in Germany, in effect outlaws sleeping on top of a firearm - because the owner of the gun is not in control of the weapon and is therefore putting himself and others at risk.
Sikorsky's body exhumed for DNA tests
Poland exhumed the remains of wartime Prime Minister and military leader General Wladyslaw Sikorski yesterday for DNA and other tests in an attempt to settle the mystery surrounding his death in 1943.
General Sikorski died in a plane crash in Gibraltar after visiting Polish forces fighting with the British against Nazi Germany in the Middle East. Many Poles remain convinced that he was the victim of an assassination.
"This exhumation may bring a breakthrough in the investigation of General Sikorski's death," said Andrzej Drogon of the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) unit in Katowice.
The IPN, which holds Poland's communist-era files, is in charge of the investigation. General Sikorski's remains will be reburied in the royal crypt at Wawel Castle in Krakow, Poland's ancient capital, today.
Serial killer caught in the act
South African police caught a serial killer trying to behead one of his victims in his front yard using a pick and hammer. "It was very gruesome," Sapa news agency quoted Police Superintendent Mzukisi Fatyela as saying.
Police found four headless bodies in a shallow grave in the killer's house. Their heads were in plastic bags nearby. All were regular customers of the 37-year-old killer. "We believe that the four went to buy liquor from the man, either together or one at a time, and were then attacked," Mr Fatyela said. "He probably beat them up before decapitating them."
Police shot the man in the leg after he charged them with the weapon outside his mud-built home in Engcobo in the Eastern Cape.
Police were contacted after members of the community watched the killer fatally stab a 23-year-old to death on Monday, Sapa said. The man is expected to appear in a magistrate's court today, said Sapa.
GPS guides tourists into trouble in Rio
Three Norwegian tourists came under fire and one was shot after the satellite navigation system in their car guided them straight into one of Rio de Janeiro's most dangerous slums.
The three men cut short their vacation in Brazil and headed home yesterday after Trygve Killingtveit, 24, was shot in the shoulder by suspected drug traffickers from one of the gangs that control hundreds of shantytowns in Rio.
The tourists were returning from the beach resort of Buzios about three hours north of Rio on Saturday when they got lost, Brazil's Globo TV and several newspapers reported.
They reportedly told police their Global Positioning System (GPS) recommended they turn off a main highway as the quickest route back to the airport to drop off the rental car. But the suggested route took them deep into the Mare slum complex, where their rented car quickly came under fire.
Russians cutting back on vodka
The global financial crisis has grown so bad that Russians are cutting back on vodka.
Stockpiles of Russia's national drink were six times higher at the start of the month than the same time a year ago because factories are producing vodka faster than they can sell it, an alcohol industry lobby and research group said yesterday.
"People are having to save money, including on drinks, and this is connected to the impact of the financial crisis on people's disposable incomes," Pavel Shapkin, president of the National Alcohol Association (NAA), said.
Research by his organisation showed deaths from alcohol poisonings in September increased to 1,458 - the result, it said, of some Russians turning to dangerous vodka substitutes as they try to find a cheaper way of becoming intoxicated.