SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean men in rural areas are having a tough time wooing local women with prospects of spending a lifetime with them on the farm and are increasingly turning to brokers to find foreign brides.

In 2005, more than one in three men in rural areas married a women from overseas, mostly from China or Vietnam, figures released this week by South Korea’s National Statistical Office (NSO) showed.

“The rates of international marriages have increased because the values of Koreans have become more liberal,” said Park Kyung-ae, an official with the NSO.

Several rural counties have launched programmes to provide financial support for South Korean men to help them pay for mail-order brides.

They have also set up programmes to help foreign spouses adjust to a new life in the country.

One of the biggest growth trends in almost completely homogeneous South Korea last year was finding a foreign spouse, with 14 percent of all weddings in 2005 being international marriages, the statistics office said.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A Muslim couple in India has been told by local Islamic leaders they must separate after the husband “divorced” his wife in his sleep, the Press Trust of India reported.

Sohela Ansari told friends that her husband Aftab had uttered the word “talaq,” or divorce, three times in his sleep, according to the report published in newspapers Monday.

When local Islamic leaders got to hear, they said Aftab’s words constituted a divorce under an Islamic procedure known as “triple talaq.” The couple, married for 11 years with three children, were told they had to split.

The religious leaders ruled that if the couple wanted to remarry they would have to wait at least 100 days. Sohela would also have to spend a night with another man and be divorced by him in turn.

The couple, who live in the eastern state of West Bengal, have refused to obey the order and the issue has been referred to a local family counseling center.

India’s minority Muslim population is governed by Islamic personal laws on issues such as marriage, divorce and property inheritance.

“This is a totally unnecessary controversy and the local ‘community leaders’ or whosoever has said it are totally ignorant of Islamic law,” said Zafarul-Islam Khan, an Islamic scholar and editor of The Milli Gazette, a popular Muslim newspaper.

“The law clearly says any action under compulsion or in a state of intoxication has no effect. The case of someone uttering something while asleep falls under this category and will have no impact whatsoever,” Khan told Reuters.

LONDON (Reuters) – Smog is not just bad for the lungs. It can hit a man’s sperm count too, a Californian study revealed on Wednesday.

The University of Southern California looked at the sperm counts of 48 men who donated at least 10 times in two years to a Los Angeles sperm bank.

Using air pollution measurements from the area where each man lived, Rebecca Sokol’s team estimated how much pollutant they were exposed to in the days leading up to each donation.

The team, from the University’s Keck School of Medicine, found that ozone formed in smoggy air was the only pollutant that appeared to be linked to decreased sperm production. Carbon monoxide seemed to have no effect.

Ozone cannot reach the testicles directly but Sokol, whose findings were published in The New Scientist magazine, said it may cause an inflammatory response or produce toxic substances in the blood that damage sperm.

LONDON (Reuters) – Up to a third of telephone users in Britain make calls in the nude, with men more prone to do it without clothes than women, a survey revealed on Thursday.

Research commissioned by the Post Office, which offers a fledgling home phone service, revealed that 40 percent of men admitted to nattering naked compared with 27 percent of women. The results were based on a survey of 1,500 telephone users.

The research also showed that people were so busy that one in 10 people admitted to wandering off and leaving the caller talking to themselves.

CHELSEA, Mich. – A man has been sentenced to six months’ probation for shooting at his neighbor’s radio-controlled model airplanes with a shotgun.

David Nuttle, 41, of Washtenaw County’s Webster Township, pleaded guilty to one count of malicious destruction of property worth less than $200, a misdemeanor.

Judge Richard Conlin of 14-A District Court in Chelsea sentenced him Thursday to six months of probation and 50 hours of community service. Conlin also gave him a 20-day suspended jail sentence, deferred as long as Nuttle complies with the conditions of his probation, which includes no alcohol or drugs and no contact with the planes’ owner.

Nuttle also must pay $154 restitution and $550 in fines and court fees.

Nuttle used a .410-gauge shotgun to shoot at the planes. He said his shots hit only one plane, causing two tiny holes in it. The plane he is paying for crashed when the child who was operating it lost control of it after being frightened by the shots, Nuttle said.

Nuttle told the judge he regretted his actions.

“I felt I was defending my family and my property from these airplanes, and I called police several times,” he said. “But I made a bad decision that day and I realize that.”

Nuttle told The Ann Arbor News after the hearing that the planes have been a nuisance to his family, scaring his children, spooking his chickens and causing his goats to faint from exhaustion.

LONDON (Reuters) – Doctors called on Friday for more research into a very rare, poorly understood syndrome that is the opposite of the most common sexual complaint in women.

Instead of failing to get aroused, women suffering from persistent sexual arousal syndrome (PSAS) experience constant, unprovoked feelings of excitement.

“Persistent sexual arousal syndrome occurs when a woman becomes involuntarily aroused for extended periods of time in the absence of sexual desire,” said Dr David Goldmeier, of St Mary’s Hospital in London.

But rather than being a pleasant sensation, Goldmeier, who described PSAS in a report in the International Journal of STD & AIDS, said it is embarrassing and very distressing for women.

Some sufferers have reported being suicidal, he added.

In the majority of cases the cause is unknown but a number of women report symptoms after they stop taking antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Because so few cases have been studied, little is known about the prevalence of the problem or the best treatments for a condition that was first diagnosed in 2001.

“It deserves continued research, not only because it is a distressing and perplexing condition, but also because … treatment may lead to greater understanding of other aspects of female sexual response,” said Goldmeier and Dr Sandra Leiblum of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The International Journal of STD & AIDS is published by the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Concerned about politicising her favourite charity, singer-actress Jessica Simpson on Wednesday turned down a invitation to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush, a snub that left Republicans dismayed.

The apparent final word that Simpson would be a no-show at a major Republican fund-raiser with Bush and congressional leaders on Thursday night came after a day of conflicting reports from her camp and organisers of the event.

The blond star of the film “The Dukes of Hazzard” still plans to visit Washington on Thursday to lobby members of Congress on behalf of Operation Smile, a non-profit venture offering free plastic surgery for disadvantaged children overseas with facial deformities.

People close to Simpson said she declined a request to appear that same evening at the gala fund-raiser of the National Republican Congressional Committee — even after she was offered some private face time with Bush — because Operation Smile is a non-partisan group.

“It just feels wrong,” one Simpson insider told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that the actress keeps her political views private. “She would love to meet the president and talk about Operation Smile … but she can’t do it at a fund-raiser for the Republican Party.”

NRCC spokesman Carl Forti said he was surprised at Simpson’s position.

“It’s never been a problem for Bono,” he said, referring to the U2 rock star who has met regularly with political leaders of all stripes to promote various causes, including Third World debt relief. “I find it hard to believe she would pass up an opportunity to lobby the president on behalf of Operation Smile.”

Although Simpson’s publicists insisted she never had planned to attend the fund-raiser, Forti said the actress initially accepted the NRCC invitation when it was extended on Tuesday night, only to change her mind the next evening.

Forti said the Republican group had even arranged for Simpson to dine at one of the head tables with U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. The NRCC hopes the $2,500 (1,433 pounds) -per-plate dinner event will raise $7.5 million for Republican candidates in the congressional midterm elections in November.

Simpson, 25, a Texas native who started out singing in her church choir, became a star on the Christian music circuit as a teenager and crossed over to the pop mainstream with her major-label debut album “Sweet Kisses” in 1999.

She became an overnight MTV sensation in 2003 as co-star of a reality show chronicling her first year of wedlock with fellow pop vocalist Nick Lachey, but she filed for divorce in December after three stormy years of marriage. Simpson is currently featured wearing cowboy boots and hot pants in a TV pizza ad.

SYDNEY, Australia – Australian strippers have won the right to take time off after taking their clothes off.

The country’s Industrial Relations Commission on Friday approved new workplace rules for members of the strippers’ union, the Striptease Artists Australia.

“We’ve got rights to have public holiday pay now, which we’ve never had in our career before,” said a union spokeswoman called Mystical Melody. “We’ve got rosters and set hours. We can’t work more than 10 hours a shift.”

The award also entitles unionized strippers to overtime, rest periods, meal breaks and maternity leave, she added.

“The majority of workers in the industry are women,” Melody said, “so it’s probably a really great thing for them to be able to feel confident of having a job after they’ve had their babies.”

Industrial relations commissioner Bill Mansfield said the award set out minimum working conditions but did not set out pay rates.

It was not immediately clear how many members the union has. Its members are believed to work mainly in strip bars and as erotic dancers.

In the past, other strippers have criticized the union, saying its demands for better pay and conditions could lead to job losses.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Police in eastern China can tap the country’s first human body odour bank to help their dogs get a nose for criminals, Xinhua news agency said.

The facility in the city of Nanjing has a collection of 500 different smells, meant for comparison with samples taken from crime scenes. They are kept on ice — at minus 18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees F).

“This way the scent sample can maintain its freshness for at least three years,” bank founder Song Zhenhua was quoted as saying in the overnight report.

Only odours that elicit identical reactions from at least three trained crime dogs will pass muster for a place in the bank’s vaults, Xinhua said.

Xinhua did not explain how the smells would be captured or stored. In other countries that use olfactory forensic evidence, odours are taken from clothing or collected using gauze pads and airtight plastic containers.

TORONTO (Reuters) – When it comes to sex and romance, aging Canadian baby boomers spend a lot more time watching television or surfing the net, according to a new study.

The survey by pollsters Ipsos Reid, commissioned by Pfizer Inc., the maker of Viagra, found that Canadians between the ages of 40 and 64 spend an average of 15 minutes a day on sex and romance, but can spend as much as five hours a day watching TV or surfing the Internet.

“Later in life, you have a different perspective of what sex is all about,” John Wright, an Ipsos Reid spokesman, said on Thursday.

Of 2,500 people surveyed, more than half said they were often too tired to have sex, while 42 percent said they were too stressed out and 40 percent said they did not have time.

Around half of the respondents said when they do have sex it is intimate and tender.

Wright said another yet-to-be released study found that 37 percent of Canadians over 55 prefer a good night of sex to a good night of sleep, indicating that sex is still important to that age group.

“I think the last two decades have opened up sexuality as far as (older) couples engaging in a variety of sexual activities,” he said. “There’s been much more openness about this… sex shops abound.”

Linda Proulx, owner of Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Love Nest boutiques, said the boomers’ preference for watching TV is not such a bad thing. She said many of her customers are baby boomers and senior citizens who have taken a cue from television and decided to rejuvenate their sex life.

“People are spending time watching TV, but it is bringing them into our stores,” she said, noting that more television shows have sexual themes. “They’re buying the products to maybe help them engage in a more intimate or longer sex act because of something they’ve seen on TV.”

The Ipsos Reid survey found that even though boomers are having less sex, only 28 percent say it is less enjoyable now than it was in their 20s, and more than 80 percent say sex makes them feel loved and appreciated.

PALM BAY, Fla. – A 23-year-old man was arrested after he tried to buy condoms and cologne with a fake $100 bill, authorities said.

Christopher Leigh Smith was charged with attempting to use a counterfeit bill to purchase the items at a Walgreens Drug Store, Florida Today reported Thursday.

The clerk suspected the bill was fake and stalled Smith until police arrived, a spokeswoman for the Palm Bay Police Department said. “He told them that he knew it was fake and that he had gotten it from an unknown man,” said spokeswoman Yvonne Martinez.

Police found no evidence that Smith had produced the bill himself, she said.

Smith is being held Brevard County Jail on a $1,000 bond. The case has also been referred to the U.S. Secret Service, which routinely handles cases involving counterfeit bills.

WARSAW (AFP) – The Polish edition of Playboy offered to come to the aid of a 19-year-old Polish girl who has been expelled from her high school after she posed nude for the men’s magazine.

Sylwia Preiss “appeared on the cover of our March edition, which went on sale last Friday. Soon afterwards, she sent me a text message to say she’d been kicked out of school”, three months before she was due to sit her exams, the publisher of Playboy Poland, Marcin Meller, told AFP.

“If Sylwia decides to enroll in a private school, we’ll pick up all the tuition costs,” he added Thursday.

The young model was quoted in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza as saying her school principal had told her she had behaved “immorally and unethically” in posing for Playboy. Poland is overwhelmingly Catholic.

Meller said the expulsion surprised him, as “Sylwia is an adult.”

“I don’t know if the school principal is just hard-headed or if he was trying to be more Catholic than the pope,” he added.

LISBON (AFP) – After launching black toilet paper last year, one of Europe’s biggest producers of household paper products has introduced a new red version for those wanting to inject more passion into their bathrooms.

Portugal’s Renova introduced its new line of red toilet paper — along with black paper handkerchiefs — at upscale stores in Austria, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands last month and it plans to make the items available in other markets, including the US, over the coming months.

“It is a red that makes a huge impact, like a Ferrari,” Renova international brand manager Jose Manuel Pinheiro told AFP.

A company statement said the new shade of toilet paper would “target the most hip points in town,” adding that red “is the colour of our hearts, of passion, lust, fury, laughter, anger, love, fire.”

The prime targets of the black paper handkerchiefs are “pop stars, fashion models, football players, film producers or Hollywood actors,” it added.

The company decided to launch the two new products because the black toilet paper it put on the market in 2005 posted strong sales, Pinheiro said.

“We are trying to create a niche market for value-added household products in nations with a high purchasing power,” he said.

World-famous department store Harrods put the black handkerchiefs and toilet paper on sale along with gourmet food and drinks at a new “luxury convenience” store it opened earlier this month opposite its main store in London.

Renova charges 2.50 euros (2.98 US dollars) per roll of the coloured toilet paper and six euros for six packages of the black handkerchiefs when the items are ordered through its Internet site.

The company, based in Torres Novas located some 120 kilometres ( 75 miles) northeast of Lisbon, posted sales of nearly 120 million euros last year, about half of it outside of Portugal.

It has introduced novelty household products in the past, including toilet paper with moisturising lotion and multi-coloured paper towels.

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Denmark’s national symbol, the Little Mermaid sculpture perched on a rock overlooking the Copenhagen port, was splattered with green paint by vandals and adorned with a dildo.

“We are taking this very seriously because one cannot accept vandalism, not on the Little Mermaid or any other public statue,” deputy police commissioner Peter Steffensen told AFP.

Investigators have “no leads on the perpetrators of the act … which took place early Wednesday,” he said.

The attackers scrawled “8 marts” across the rock on which the Little Mermaid sits, marking the date in Danish of International Women’s Day which was celebrated around the world on Wednesday.

“But we are not sure that it was women who committed this act,” Steffensen said.

On Thursday, the statue was cleaned up and the sex toy removed.

The Little Mermaid, one of Denmark’s biggest tourist attractions, is based on the character created by Hans Christian Andersen in an 1837 fairytale.

Sculptor Edward Eriksen was commissioned by Danish brewer Carl Jacobsen to create a statue of the Little Mermaid to sit on a granite stone at Langelinie Pier, wistfully looking for her prince.

The sculpture, which stands 125 centimetres high and weighs 175 kilograms, has watched over the Copenhagen port since 1913.

Wednesday’s incident was just the latest of a slew of mishaps that have befallen her.

In the past 40 years, she has been decapitated twice, most recently in January 1998 after a 1990 attempt failed. She has had a bra and knickers painted on her, has been entirely covered in paint on more than one occasion, and has had her right arm cut off.

In September 2003, attackers tossed the bronze artwork in the water, where police later recovered it, and in December 2004 she was draped in a burka and a sash reading “Turkey in the EU?” by opponents of the Muslim country’s entry into the block.

ATASCADERO, Calif. – A retired salesman alleged a stripper and her friend beat and robbed him in his home. John Skinner, 54, said he was on his way to Bible study on Jan. 23 when exotic dancer Maureen Murphy, 25, knocked on his door and offered him a free strip-o-gram.

Murphy said a friend had already paid for the show, police said.

When Skinner agreed to let her perform, knife wielding Richard Adam, 23, allegedly forced his way inside and told Skinner he owed Murphy, owner of Bikini Assassins, and another woman money for earlier services.

Skinner said he owed Talbert money for sex one time but not for a previous time when he said she fell asleep before they could have sex.

Adam allegedly tied up Skinner and hit him in the face. Investigators said Murphy went upstairs to find valuables and returned with thong underwear and medication for erectile dysfunction.

The pair allegedly tried to take Skinner’s car, but it was out of gas.

Prosecutors charged three people in the case.

Adam was charged with robbery, burglary and inflicting great bodily injury. Exotic dancer Leslie Talbert, 20, was charged with two counts of burglary and Murphy, 25, was charged with robbery, burglary, false imprisonment and battery. A preliminary hearing will be held March 23.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) – Prostitutes in the Brazilian city of Salvador are starting up their own radio station.

The Association of Prostitutes of Bahia state has won government permission for the project, enabling FM station Radio Zona to start broadcasting in the second half of the year, project coordinator Sandro Correia said on Thursday.

“We are not going to apologize for prostitution but we are going to struggle for the dignity of the profession,” Correia told Reuters.

The aim was not to attract women to the business. The station will feature programs about the trade but will also discuss issues such as human rights, social questions, and sexual abuse, Correia said.

“The idea is that we have diverse programs that look at health issues, AIDS prevention, and racism, for example,” he said.

Working girls and media professionals such as Correia will staff the station and will give prostitutes training in an alternative job. Funding will come from association funds, advertising and sponsorship.

Prostitution is widespread in Brazil, especially in Bahia state and other parts of the impoverished northeast.

International rights organizations have criticized the country as a destination for sex tourism and child prostitution.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – It may not be what Sharon Stone wants to discuss, but the actress is happy to confirm that, yes, she does indeed get naked in her next movie, the sequel to the 1992 hit “Basic Instinct.”

In Israel to promote International Women’s Day, Stone was badgered not about the fairer sex, but instead about her role as a sexed-up serial killer in “Basic Instinct 2″ Wednesday.

“People are just sitting there going, like, ‘I don’t care what she’s saying. I don’t care what she’s saying. I just want to know is she getting naked? Is she getting naked in that movie? Is she naked? Nude? Nude? Naked? Do I see her boobies?’” the actress, now 48, told reporters, laughingly.

“So let’s just get through to that. Yes! And now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s just go to the next question, because nobody cares about anything else, really,” she said.

“Basic Instinct 2″ opens March 31 in the United States.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico is deploying an army of inflatable sex dolls dressed as office executives in a head-turning publicity campaign against workplace harassment of women in the famously macho country.

Timed to coincide with International Women’s Day on Wednesday, the advertisements show sex dolls with staring eyes and gaping red mouths dressed in suits and sitting at computers.

“No woman should be treated like an object. Sexual harassment is degrading and it’s a crime,” says a voice-over at the end of a television ad, which shows a man walking past one of the dolls and casually stroking her shoulder.

Machismo runs deep in Mexico, where it is common for men to have mistresses. Some even set them up in a second home.

Women generally earn less than male colleagues and have fewer opportunities for promotion. Inappropriate behaviour towards women in work situations is also not unusual.

Mexico’s national institute for women said the ads — which will run on television, radio, print media and billboards from mid-March — were aimed at stirring up controversy and symbolised the use of women as sexual objects.

Mexican law is often not on the side of women.

The age of consent varies from state to state, but can be as young as 12. And with abortion frowned upon by the Catholic majority, numerous rape victims are pressured by courts and medical workers into having children they do not want.

Surveys show countless women are beaten at home.

The anti-harassment campaign comes on the heels of a campaign to combat violence against women, which showed prominent women photographed with bruised and cut faces.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has headed a series of campaigns against sexism and other discrimination in his five years in office.

However, he caused a stir earlier this year when he made a joking reference to women as “washing machines with two legs.”

COSHOCTON, Ohio – Authorities arrested a man accused of making thousands of harassing and obscene calls to random cell phone numbers in at least eight counties.

James R. Hood, 43, was charged with one count of compelling prostitution, or offering money for sex. He posted bond and was released from the Coshocton County jail, the sheriff’s office said Wednesday.

Hood was arrested earlier this week following a joint investigation by sheriff’s deputies in Coshocton and Licking counties. Hood lives in the Licking County town of Granville, about 25 miles east of Columbus.

Hood’s phone records show he made 2,623 calls in 20 days, “all basically obscene in nature,” Coshocton County deputy Brent McKee said.

The calls were made between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said.

Hood will either have a preliminary hearing this month or the case will be presented to a grand jury, Coshocton County Prosecutor Robert Batchelor said.

A stipulation of Hood’s bond was that he can’t use a telephone, cell phone or the Internet, McKee said.

LONDON – Bars and nightclubs in London and other British cities have begun using vending machines that sell sex toys such as mini vibrators.

The pink Tabooboo machines had previously been used in public toilets in Britain, under the assumption that such settings gave buyers some privacy.

But Geoff Todd, manager of the Alphabet Bar in London’s West End area, said the Tabooboo machine it installed in the middle of the bar is used daily.

“Some people use it just because it’s in the bar. Some make a special journey, maybe because they are to embarrassed to go into a sex shop,” Todd was quoted as saying by Monday’s The Guardian newspaper. “Some buy the toys because they are a novelty, some do it for a laugh, some buy them as presents. It’s been a great success.”

In addition to bars and nightclubs in London, Manchester and Newcastle, the vending machines also have begun to show up in hairdressing salons, health clubs and retail stores, Tabooboo managing director Alan Lucas said.

He said the company also has exported about 20 of the machines to Italy and about 10 to the United States.

“The younger generation isn’t phased by sex toys. They don’t believe they equal pornography. Vending machines allow them to buy such products anonymously without going to a seedy sex shops to do so,” Lucas said.

The 11 different sex toys carried by the Tabooboo vending machines sell for an average 5 pounds (euro7.30, US$8.80) each, Lucas said.

PITTSBURGH – A man and woman were cited Friday in connection with a bizarre incident that resulted in a fake penis being microwaved at a convenience store last week.

Leslye Creighton, 41, of Wilkinsburg, and Vincent Bostic, 31, of Pittsburgh, were both cited for criminal mischief and disorderly conduct in the Feb. 23 incident at the Get Go! gasoline and convenience store in McKeesport, about 10 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Each charge carries a possible sentence of up to 90 days in jail and up to a $300 fine.

Bostic had filled a fake penis with his urine that Creighton, a friend, planned to use to pass a drug test she was taking to get a job, Police Chief Joseph Pero said.

Creighton asked a store clerk to microwave the device so the urine inside would be body-temperature and fool those giving the drug test, Pero said.

Police still aren’t sure why or how Creighton chose to use a device that mimics the male sex organ to pass her drug test.

Creighton didn’t immediately return a call to her home on Friday.

Defense attorney William Difenderfer didn’t dispute the police account, but said there’s no proof his clients had any criminal intent to damage the microwave — the basis for the criminal mischief charge.

“I certainly understand the ramifications and I’m certainly not saying it wasn’t a stupid thing to do,” Difenderfer said. “But there’s a lot of bizarre stuff that we don’t always have a remedy for in the crimes code.”

Difenderfer said his clients want to settle the case, in part, by reimbursing the store for a new microwave oven.

Pero said the store got rid of the old oven because it couldn’t be used for food once bodily fluids were cooked inside it.

Neither Difenderfer nor Pero know what kind of job the woman applied for, or whether she was hired.

HARTFORD, Conn. – Residents of one Hartford neighborhood hope Beethoven and Mozart will help drive drug dealers and prostitutes out of a local park.

Activists propose playing recordings of classical music in Barnard Park in hopes of annoying petty criminals so much that they’ll leave. They also hope the music will make the park more pleasant for other people once it is cleaned up.

Resident Carol Coburn said she came up with the idea after reading about similar efforts in West Palm Beach, Fla., where she said crime decreased as much as 40 percent in parks where classical music was played. Cities in Canada and Australia have reported success with similar efforts.

But to University of California-Los Angeles musicologist Robert Fink, the plan makes Hartford’s crime-fighting efforts look desperate.

“Beethoven is not going to save you,” he said. It’s ironic that “some of the greatest composers in history are now being viewed as some kind of bug spray or disinfectant.”

The plan still needs city approval and funding.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Thousands of Australians crammed Sydney’s tiny gay quarter to applaud half-naked cowboys, gay rugby players and other scantily-dressed marchers in the city’s annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade on Saturday.

Armed with picnic baskets, blankets and beer, onlookers lined the parade’s 1.6 km (1 mile) route cheering the 6,000 participants and 120 colourful floats, many loosely adopting the theme of this year’s Oscar-hopeful blockbuster “Brokeback Mountain”, Ang Lee’s saga of gay cowboys.

The cowboys competed with themes including bare-chested men hula-hula dancing in Hawaiian grass skirts and a lesbian motorcycle club for applause from the crowd — many had been waiting hours to secure the best positions along the route.

“I didn’t want to miss any of this,” said 17-year-old Jennifer Mackay from outer Sydney, who arrived with three friends 10 hours before the start.

The parade began in 1978 to protest a ban on homosexuality in Australia, but has become more hedonistic over the years.

“It’s like Christmas for the gay and lesbian community,” said the parade’s creative director, Graeme Browning.

Homosexuality was decriminalised in Australia in 1984.

One boisterous group of marchers promoted “bisexuality and paganism”, while another implored onlookers to take pride in their leather.

A float titled “Friends of Dick Cheney” featured a nod to the U.S. Vice President who has stood by his lesbian daughter and is at odds with President George W. Bush about the need for a U.S. constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages.

Revellers traditionally carry on long into the night after the parade with police warning against public drunkenness and buying drugs from illegal street peddlers.

Parade organisers estimated the size of the crowd at around 450,000.

YAOUNDE (Reuters) – A Cameroon court jailed a newspaper publisher for four months on Friday for defaming a government minister named in a list of 50 presumed homosexuals in the central African country where homosexuality is a crime.

The court also ordered Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga, publisher of L’Anecdote newspaper, to pay symbolic compensation of 1 CFA franc (0.1 pence) to Gregoire Owona, minister-delegate at the presidency in charge of parliamentary affairs.

Belinga must also pay a 1 million CFA franc (1,044 pounds) penalty to the state and arrange for the judgement to be published via 15 local and international newspapers, radio and television stations.

Owona sued Belinga last month after L’Anecdote published his name in the controversial list in January, when some Cameroonian tabloid newspapers launched a crusade against what their editors said was “deviant behaviour”.

As in many African countries, homosexuality is a crime in Cameroon. It is punishable by between six months and five years in prison, and a fine ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 CFA francs (21-210 pounds).

For every day that passes without the publication of the judgement, Belinga must pay 300,000 CFA francs to the aggrieved minister.

Before passing judgement in the two-week trial, Judge Alexandre Amougou Anaba said Belinga had failed to produce any evidence to support his allegation that Owona was gay.

The judge said that homosexuality was illegal in Cameroon and widely condemned by society.

Owona’s lawyers said their client denied ever indulging in homosexual practices. The publication of his name in the list had seriously damaged his reputation and exposed his family to ridicule, they said.

L’Anecdote was one of three newspapers in Cameroon which published lists and photos of allegedly gay politicians, businessmen and musicians. Street vendors were forced to sell photocopies of the weekly papers, which sold out within hours.

“Men making love to other men … is filthy. It may be normal in the West, but in Africa and Cameroon in particular, it is unthinkable,” Belinga told Reuters in early February.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Three German police officers face disciplinary action after lifting their kilts at a fancy dress party while wearing nothing underneath, police said on Thursday

“The three were drunk, wore kilts and then started a squabble with some colleagues,” said Berlin police spokesman Klaus Schubert. “One thing led to another and they started lifting their kilts over and over again to show their all — back and front. Some decent people thought this wasn’t decent and complained to the police.”

The three have been transferred to other police stations and face disciplinary action for wrongdoing out of duty hours.

Germany’s carnival season ended on Wednesday after several days of raucous partying and drinking across the nation.

TOKYO (Reuters) – As Japanese waistlines expand, so is the market for girdles — for men.

A new line of male underwear that flattens the stomach and lifts the hips proved so popular when introduced on a trial basis last month that some stores quickly sold out.

“Men are getting so much more fashion conscious these days that they’re starting to pay attention to the lines of their body and their silhouette, just like women,” said a spokeswoman at Triumph International Japan, a leading underwear firm.

Triumph marketed two different types of “long girdle” — one from the navel to the knees, and the other a “hip hugger” version to be worn with low-waisted pants.

Both sold so well that it plans to raise production and develop new variations, including a version for summer wear.

Other firms intend to launch similar products, according to business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun. One even plans to start selling underwear that lifts and shapes the upper body as well.

One factor behind the boom, which has made the girdles popular not only among middle-aged men but also those in their 20s and 30s, is likely to be a growing weight problem among once slim Japanese.

According to a Health Ministry report issued last month, some 29 percent of men aged 20-60 are overweight compared with 24 percent in 2000.

The Triumph spokeswoman, however, said most of the demand is due to new styles in pants that are cut to emphasise the hips. “It’s really more about style,” she said. “After all, there aren’t that many men in their 20s and 30s whose figures are giving way.”