A rare German stamp depicting Audrey Hepburn with a cigarette holder, an image from the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, has been sold for €53,500 by a Berlin auction house.

Germany had planned to issue 14 million copies of the stamp in 2001. Instead, it had to destroy them because the family of the Hollywood actress did not approve of her image being used on the stamp. Just a handful survived.

The Berlin auction house Schlegel, which specialises in stamps, said it believed up to 30 of the Hepburn stamps existed.

The starting bid for the stamp, which went to an anonymous collector, was €30,000. The Belgian-born film star and fashion icon died of cancer in Switzerland in 1993.

Serbian priest beats drug addicts

The Serbian Orthodox Church has dismissed a priest running a treatment centre for drug addicts after videos showed patients being kicked and punched.

Bishop Artemije, in charge of the Rasko-Prizrenska diocese, said he ordered an inquiry into the activities of priest Branislav Peranovic at the Crna Reka centre, southwest of Belgrade.

"We will shut down the facility if the reports about beatings and violence persist," Bishop Artemije said. The bishop said he decided against closing it "after numerous pleadings by the patients and their parents".

Last week, the Holy Synod, the Church's top body, asked Mgr Artemije to shut down the centre that houses about 200 patients. Two separate videos showed one of the centre's employees and the priest Peranovic repeatedly beating patients with a shovel, and kicking and hitting them inside a room decorated with icons.

Peranovic told B92 TV the beatings were a "hard and unwanted, but necessary part of treatment". He said that on admission, patients and their parents had to sign a written consent approving the use of violence "for therapeutic purposes".

Police hunt cat serial killer

Police are searching for a person who has mutilated more than 20 cats in two of Miami's southern suburbs in the past month.

Frightened pet owners in Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay have been told to take their own cats indoors especially at night, which is when the killer strikes.

"Someone is mutilating these cats. They are having their innards removed and sometimes their pelts are removed," Miami-Dade Police Officer Rebeca Perez said.

The killer dumps the carcasses, sometimes on the owner's property, sometimes nearby.

Dee Chess, founder of a local animal rescue centre said, "People who do these kinds of things usually graduate to do other things. They go after children".

Police said they would not speculate on a motive for the killings. The Humane Society and Crime stoppers have offered a reward of up to $3,500 for information leading to the killer's capture.

Russian police find feral girl

Russian police have taken into care a five-year-old girl who has been shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs for her entire life, police said yesterday.

The girl, who lived in Chita, could not speak Russian and acted like a dog when police took her into care.

"For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," a police statement said, adding, "The unwashed girl was dressed in filthy clothes, had the clear attributes of an animal and jumped at people".

The flat had no heat, water or sewage system.

A police spokesman said the girl is being monitored by psychologists in an orphanage. Her mother was being questioned but her father has not been found yet. She appears to be about two-years-old, though her real age is five, refuses to eat with a spoon and has taken on many of the gestures of the animals with which she lived, police said.

"When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks," the police said.

White tiger kills zoo keeper

A rare white tiger mauled and killed a New Zealand zoo keeper yesterday.

The attack occurred when two keepers went inside to clean the tiger's cage at the Zion Wildlife Gardens in the city of Whangarei, north of Auckland.

The NZ Press Association reported the tiger had grabbed one of the keepers and would not let go despite the efforts of other staff. The attack was said to have been witnessed by a group of tourists. The wildlife park was closed and the tiger killed.

A white tiger at the same park was reported to have been involved in an attack on another keeper earlier this year. The keeper had to have surgery to the knee.

The zoo houses 42 rare lions and tigers.

Sentenced for insulting minorities

A Turkish court yesterday sentenced a man to five months in prison for "insulting a section of society" after he put up a banner saying Jews and Armenians were not allowed to enter his business.

The ruling, which followed a complaint by a local human rights group, marks a change of public attitude towards minorities in EU-aspirant Turkey.

Human rights groups and the EU have long accused Turkey of discrimination against its minorities.

Turkey, which historically has poor relations with Armenia, said in April it was close to establishing diplomatic relations after it closed its border with Armenia in 1993. Turkey and Armenia trace their own dispute back to the World War I killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has criticised state policies that led to the expulsion of tens of thousands of Christian ethnic Greeks in the 20th century as "fascist." His comments, the first of its kind by a prime minister, infuriated nationalists and other elements of Turkey's conservative establishment.