A drunk electrician started a fire at a world-famous Moscow art museum after he fell asleep while smoking a cigarette, a police source told RIA news agency yesterday.

The blaze at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery started in an engineering building next to the main gallery on Saturday and damaged technical equipment but not any of the museum's valuable art works.

A police source told RIA that a 49-year-old workman had caused the fire, but a spokesman for the Moscow museum said it was too early to say what started the blaze.

"According to preliminary reports, the man fell asleep with a lit cigarette when he was drunk," RIA quoted the source as saying.

The gallery houses some of the best-known Russian art, from 9th century Orthodox icons to 19th century impressionism and portraits of famous Russian writers.

MP burnt by 70-year-old

A Singaporean member of Parliament was attacked and set on fire yesterday by a 70-year-old man who was angry at not being given a Chinese New Year gift.

Seng Han Thong was taken to hospital with between 10 and 15 per cent burns after the assault during a ceremony to present Chinese New Year gifts at a community club.

The chairman of a nearby Chinese temple Aw Swee Seng, who organised the event, also suffered burns in the attack in the Southeast Asian city-state.

"A man ran in, lit a bottle of kerosene and threw it at Mr Seng. Half of Mr Seng's hair was burnt... his back suffered burns as well," a witness was quoted as saying.

"The man who threw the bottle tried to escape, but some people caught him."

Temple officials said the man was disgruntled at not being selected to receive the hong bao, a red envelope with money traditionally given at Chinese New Year, which contained S$200 (€100).

Wrongly jailed men declared innocent

Two men in Central China who were wrongly jailed for robbing a post office have been declared innocent after a 13-year effort to clear their names, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday.

Postal worker Zou Shujun and his friend, Yuan Haiqiang, were convicted of robbing a village post office in Henan Province of 8,200 yuan (€891).

The real robbers were discovered after Mr Zou and Mr Yuan had each served jail terms of more than five years but local courts refused to reverse the guilty ruling on the pair.

In repeated petitions to the courts and media, Mr Zou and Mr Yuan said they were beaten up and forced into confessing to a crime they never committed.

China instituted a review of death penalty cases more than a year ago, after a well-publicised incident in which a man jailed for murdering his wife was released after she turned up alive and unharmed many years later.

Inmate tears out and eats eye

A death row inmate in Texas tore out his eyeball with his fingers and ate it, leaving him blind after he gouged out his other eye several years ago, the state's department of criminal justice said on Friday.

"We don't know how it happened," said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the department. "There are no indications that he used anything other than his hands."

Andre Thomas, 25, was now in a secure psychiatric facility after he pulled out his left eye last month at the death row unit in Livingston in Texas.

Mr Thomas was condemned for killing his wife, son and infant stepdaughter in 2004. Local media reports said he had ripped out the hearts of his victims.

Mr Thomas was on death row since March 2005 but did not have an execution date.

Tycoon gets kidney from hanged man

An ailing Singapore tycoon jailed briefly last year for trying to buy a kidney has received one in a transplant from a hanged murderer, the Straits Times newspaper has reported.

The newspaper said Tang Wee Sung, of the landmark C.K. Tang department store on the city state's swish Orchard Road, was given a kidney donated by gangster Tan Jor Chin, who was hanged at Changi Prison last Friday.

Mr Tan, 42, known as "One-Eyed Dragon" because he was blind in his right eye, was found guilty in 2007 of shooting a business associate. The newspaper quoted Tan's mistress as saying the gangster had wanted to donate his organs after his death.

Mr Tang, 56, suffers from several ailments including asthma, diabetes and heart problems and had triple bypass surgery last year.

Senile lobster to regain his freedom

A lobster thought to be about 140 years old will be returned to the ocean after briefly becoming the mascot for a New York City restaurant. The nine-kilo lobster was caught off the coast of Canada about two weeks ago and bought for $100 by City Crab and Seafood to become its mascot, said manager Keith Valenti.

He said a lobster's age can be worked out from how much it weighs, with each pound counting for seven to 10 years. Mr Valenti said it was not uncommon for lobsters to live for more than 100 years but it was rare for them to be caught because they were generally too big for the baskets.