BEIJING (AFP) – The wife of a top sports anchor on Chinese state television has created a buzz in the blogosphere by crashing an Olympic media event — to publicly accuse her husband of adultery.

A video clip of Zhang Bin’s wife Hu Ziwei commandeering a microphone at a China Central Television (CCTV) presentation of its coverage plans was easily one of the most viewed items on Chinese video site tudou.com on Monday.

Friday’s event in Beijing was in order to rebrand CCTV’s sports channel as “The Olympic Channel” for the August 2008 Olympic Games hosted by the Chinese capital, but it quickly turned embarrassing for the state broadcaster.

“Today is a special day for The Olympic Channel, and a special day for Mr. Zhang Bin, and for me too,” said Hu, herself a presenter on another network.

“Because just two hours ago, I found out that besides me, Mr. Zhang Bin has been maintaining an improper relationship with another woman.”

Zhang could only stand by stone-faced as Hu went into details, fending off attempts to remove her from the podium.

Gossip about the private lives of television personalities is a hot topic among Chinese, and the incident touched off a flurry of blog entries.

China has been keen to project a flawless image for the Olympics, and the embarrassing clip was quickly removed from top internet video sharing web sites.

ROME (AFP) – Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in a giant New Year’s kiss in front of Saint Mark’s Basilica in the romantic Italian city of Venice, the authorities said Friday.

“New Year 2008 in Venice will become the New Year of love,” the Venice municipality said on its website.

Willing kissers are expected to gather from around 10 pm (2100 GMT) Monday in Saint Mark’s Square where they will kiss at midnight “to begin the New Year with a gesture of love, peace, brotherhood, and passion,” according to the website.

Some 60,000 people are expected to join in the “Love 2008″ event, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency.

MANILA (AFP) – Customs officials in the Philippines have seized inflatable sex dolls meant to be used for an international campaign against animal cruelty, an animal rights group said Thursday.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had planned to use the sex toys as props in its Asian campaign against alleged abuses of chickens by a major US fast food chain.

The dolls were to have gone on a tour of red light districts in the Philippines, Thailand and Japan where they would be displayed with a banner reading “KFC Blows,” PETA said.

The dolls however were confiscated by customs officials here when they arrived in the Philippines through a US-based parcel service, it said.

Philippine representatives of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) as well as customs officials were not immediately available to comment.

Citing its own “undercover operations,” PETA said suppliers for KFC often abused chickens, including allegedly scalding them to death and cutting off their beaks while they are still conscious.

The US firm has dismissed the allegations in the past.

WASHINGTON – Dietary supplements marketed to provide male sexual enhancement contain undeclared erectile dysfunction drugs putting users at risk, the Food and Drug Administration warned Friday.

The agency advised consumers to stay away from Shangai Chaojimengnan supplements sold under the names Super Shangai, Strong Testis, Shangai Ultra, Shangai Ultra X, Lady Shangai and Shangai Regular. The Chinese-made supplements are packaged and distributed by Shangai Distributor Inc. of Puerto Rico.

Product testing indicates that some of these so-called supplements contain Viagra’s active ingredient, sildenafil, or a compound with a chemical structure that mimics sildenafil.

These chemicals could interact with nitrates in drugs taken for disorders commonly associated with erectile dysfunction, including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease. The result could dangerously lower a user’s blood pressure, according to the FDA.

The agency also warned that the safety and purity of these illegal ingredients is unknown.

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. – A woman stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife following an argument that began when she accused him of opening a Christmas present early, authorities said Friday.

Misty Johnson, 34, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery, a felony, and misdemeanor domestic battery. Her husband, Shawn Fay Johnson, 34, was treated at a hospital for a wound to the chest, police said.

Misty Johnson made an initial court appearance Thursday in which she requested a court-appointed attorney, authorities said. She was released after posting bail, which was set at $7,500.

There was no telephone listing for her in Rock Springs.

Authorities said Shawn Johnson called 911 just before 1 a.m. Wednesday to report that his wife had stabbed him. He told police that his wife started arguing with him over his opening a Christmas present, according to court records.

As the argument escalated, Misty Johnson accused her husband of having an affair, authorities said. Police found a marriage license in the couple’s apartment stating they were married in late September.

Police Detective David Thompson said he didn’t know what the present was, or if it was intended for the husband.

WATERFORD, Wis. – Some people get surprise birthday parties. Ilda Ruth Southey gets surprise weddings.

Twice in her life Southey was surprised with a wedding ceremony on Christmas Eve, both times to Francis Southey.

Her future husband planned their original wedding for Christmas Eve 1942 while he was stationed in Sherman, Texas, awaiting orders to ship off to Europe during World War II.

“I didn’t know I was getting married, I just went to spend Christmas with him and I got down there, he had the wedding all arranged,” said Ruth Southey, 85, who lives at the Waterford Senior Living facility.

On Monday, staff at the senior facility arranged the same surprise for their 65th anniversary. The couple renewed their vows in front of three generations of teary-eyed family and friends.

At the ceremony, Francis Southey, 90, reminisced about how the first wedding almost didn’t happen.

“She said that she wasn’t going to marry me,” he said. “She said she didn’t wanted to get married. She wanted a wedding, a big wedding, but I didn’t have any money.”

To Ruth Southey, her 65th anniversary is a milestone she always sensed would come.

“As my mother always said, when you are married, you are married for life and that’s what we did,” Ruth said. “It’s just life, that’s what it is. Just life.”

LOS ANGELES – Some gifts from Kris Kringle are better kept wrapped.

A man in a Santa hat was arrested Sunday night for investigation of drunken driving after he was spotted outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood wearing a wig, a red lace camisole and a purple G-string, police said.

“We are pretty sure this is not the Santa Claus,” Deputy Chief Ken Garner said.

The suspect was booked into jail after his blood-alcohol level measured just above the state’s legal limit of .08, police said. He was later released on $5,000 bail.

The man, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 280 pounds, also wore black leg warmers and black shoes. His car was towed to an impound yard, police said.

PHOENIX, Arizona (AFP) – A doctor at a prestigious Arizona clinic who took a photograph of a patient’s tattooed penis during surgery is “no longer practicing medicine” at the center, it was confirmed Friday.

Mayo Clinic spokeswoman Lynn Closway would not reveal whether surgeon Adam Hansen had been fired or resigned following the revelations which rocked the Nobel Prize-winning medical center this week.

“I am not allowed to speak off of that statement,” clinic spokeswoman Lynn Closway said. “Play it as you see it.”

Hansen, chief of general surgery at the clinic in Scottsdale, had admitted taking the patient’s photo after noticing it was emblazoned with the words “Hot Rod,” local media have reported.

The patient at the center of the controversy is a strip-club owner who had been undergoing a gall bladder operation. The incident came to light after a member of the clinic’s surgical staff contacted a local newspaper on Monday.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to explain in a year-end interview why he’d met the Dalai Lama in his Ottawa office, it was clear he wanted to show respect for the exiled Tibetan leader.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite come out that way.

“I met the Dalai Lama in my office but I meet everyone in my office. I don’t know why I would sneak off to a hotel room just to meet the Dalai Lama. You know, he’s not a call girl,” Harper told OMNI television.

He quickly added: “As I say, he’s a respected international spiritual leader.”

China condemns the Dalai Lama as a separatist and presses world leaders to shun him. German Chancellor Angela Merkel met him in September, but only in private, and last month the Vatican called off a meeting with the Pope set for December 13.

Harper is a strong critic of China’s human rights record and what he calls the “undemocratic regime” in Beijing.

China condemned Harper for “disgusting conduct” in late October after he met the Dalai Lama in his parliamentary office with television cameras and photographers present.

The Dalai Lama — who fled his predominantly Buddhist homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against Communist rule — was granted honorary Canadian citizenship in June.

Harper’s chief spokeswoman did not respond to a query as to whether the prime minister regretted his choice of words in the interview, which took place on Tuesday but was embargoed until Thursday.

LONDON – Syphilis is back: The sexually transmitted disease long associated with 19th Century bohemian life is making an alarming resurgence in Europe.

“Syphilis used to be a very rare disease,” said Dr. Marita van de Laar, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. “I’m not sure we can say that anymore.”

Most cases of syphilis are in men, and experts point to more risky sex among gay men as the chief cause for the resurgence. But more cases are being seen among heterosexuals, both men and women, too.

Syphilis was the sexual scourge of the 19th Century, and is believed to have killed artists like poet Charles Baudelaire, composer Robert Schumann, and painter Paul Gauguin. But the widespread use of penicillin in the 1950s all but wiped it out in the Western world.

In the last decade, however, syphilis has unexpectedly returned, driven by risky sexual behavior and outbreaks in major cities across Europe, including London, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin.

• In Britain, syphilis cases have leapt more than tenfold for men and women in the past decade to 3,702 in 2006, according to the Health Protection Agency. Among men in England, the syphilis rate jumped from one per 100,000 in 1997 to nine per 100,000 last year.

• In Germany, the rate among men was fewer than two per 100,000 in 1991; by 2003, it was six per 100,000.

• In France, there were 428 cases in 2003 — almost 16 times the number just three years earlier.

• In the Netherlands, cases doubled from 2000 to 2004. In Amsterdam, up to 31 men per 100,000 were infected, while the rate was much lower in other regions.

Similar trends have been seen in the United States.

In 2000, syphilis infection rates were so low that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention embarked on a plan to eliminate the disease. But about 9,800 cases were reported in 2006.

In Europe, Van de Laar said syphilis’ reappearance was so surprising that many doctors initially had trouble diagnosing it.

Though these days it mainly affects urban gay men, experts worry that the disease could also rebound in the general population if stronger efforts to fight it are not taken soon.

In 2005, British authorities reported that syphilis was spreading across the entire country, and that more heterosexual men and women were being infected.

“These increases may lead to increases in diagnoses of congenital syphilis over the coming years,” said Kate Swan, a spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency.

Pregnant women with syphilis can pass it on to their babies. Nearly half of all babies infected with syphilis while they are in the womb die shortly before or after birth.

Syphilis is a bacterial disease causing symptoms that include ulcers, sores and rashes. In extreme cases, it can result in dementia or fatally damage the heart, respiratory and central nervous systems. Syphilis is treatable with antibiotics if caught early.

Once there are more than just a few isolated cases, containing the disease is difficult.

Advances made in treating AIDS may have inadvertently boosted syphilis’ spread.

“The evidence points to an increase in unsafe sexual behavior since anti-retrovirals for AIDS came along in 1996,” said van de Laar.

After decades of being instructed to use condoms and to limit the number of sexual partners, some people are probably suffering from “safe sex fatigue,” van de Laar said. The Internet has also allowed people to find sexual partners more easily than before, and some experts link the rise of dating Web sites to the jump in syphilis cases.

For some men, the Internet connections can be especially dangerous.

“Networks of HIV-positive men to find other positive men have sprung up on the Internet,” said Jonathan Elford, an AIDS epidemiologist at London’s City University.

Some men who have the AIDS virus are seeking condom-free sex with other men who are also HIV-infected. However, they aren’t protected against syphilis and other sexually spread diseases. Among gay men who have syphilis in Britain, nearly half have HIV, Elford said.

Amid this resurgence, some officials are now attacking the epidemic online.

Every day, health workers at the Terrence Higgins Trust, Europe’s largest AIDS charity, log into chatrooms on a popular British gay dating Web site to spread safe sex messages and answer questions.

“We know that men are arranging hook-ups for sex online,” said Mark Thompson, the charity’s deputy head of health promotion. “So we decided to tap into cyberspace to try reaching them before unsafe sex might happen.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. regulators on Tuesday finalized a rule requiring makers of certain contraceptive gels, foams, films and inserts to carry a warning that the products do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will require the warning on over-the-counter products containing nonoxynol 9, used in many stand-alone spermicides.

“FDA is issuing this final rule to correct the misconceptions that the chemical N9 in these widely available stand-alone contraceptive products protects against sexually transmitted diseases,” Janet Woodcock, FDA’s deputy commissioner for scientific and medical programs, said in a statement.

The FDA proposed the warning in 2003, after results from a large study in Africa and Thailand found women using a contraceptive gel were not protected against HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and were at a higher risk of HIV than those on a placebo.

The new FDA warning states that because the products can irritate the vagina and rectum, they may boost the risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS. A skin irritation may boost the chance of infection as the virus has more ways to invade the body.

NEW YORK – A Manhattan doorman has been suspended for having bad breath. Jonah Seeman, who has been ushering tenants into a four-building complex on East 89th Street for 40 years, was told not to come to work Friday because of halitosis.

Seeman said he has stopped eating garlic, uses mouthwash and takes breath mints on the job.

The Brooklyn resident, who supports his 81-year-old mother, has been suspended twice before for bad breath — one day in May and then again in July.

Apartment dwellers at the Gracie Gardens complex expressed surprise over Seeman’s suspension and came to his defense.

“His job, which he does well, is opening the door — not to be opening his mouth,” said Adam Reingold.

Officials with Cooper Square Realty, the management company that oversees the property, did not return calls seeking comment. But the company sent the doorman a letter dated Nov. 21, stating: “We can no longer tolerate the fact that you have severe breath odor while on duty.”

The union that represents Seeman, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, has filed a grievance in the case.

RALEIGH, N.C. – A man accused of stealing a car in front of a police officer and television cameras in North Carolina has been arrested in Virginia. Raleigh Police Department spokesman Jim Sughrue said Tuesday that 38-year-old Anthony Wayne Williams was arrested overnight in New Kent County, Virginia.

Television footage from Durham’s WTVD-TV shows a man getting into a 2004 Honda Accord on Monday while the female owner talked with a police officer nearby. The officer ran to the car when it started to move, slapped the hood and told the man to stop. But he drove away.

The car was recovered during Williams’ arrest.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who start having sex at a younger or older than average age appear to be at greater risk of developing sexual health problems later in life, a new study suggests.

The findings, according to researchers, cast some doubts on the benefits of abstinence-only sexual education that has been introduced in U.S. public schools.

Using data from a 1996 cross-sectional survey of more than 8,000 U.S. adults, the researchers found that those who started having sex at a relatively young age were more likely to have certain risk factors for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) — including a high number of sexual partners and a history of having sex under the influence of alcohol.

On the other hand, both “early” and “late” starters were at increased risk of problems in sexual function. This was true primarily of men, whose problems included difficulty maintaining an erection and reaching orgasm.

The findings are published in the American Journal of Public Health.

It’s not clear from the survey why both early and late starters tend to have more sexual dysfunction, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Theo G.M. Sandfort of Columbia University in New York City.

But the findings, they write, “only partially support” abstinence-only sex education — which encourages teenagers to save sex for marriage.

“Although our findings support an association between early initiation and long-term (STD) risk, they also suggest a more complicated picture of sexual functioning,” Sandfort and his colleagues write.

Delaying sexual activity may “create health risks by impeding development of the emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal skills that are crucial to satisfactory sexual functioning and general well-being,” they add.

On average, respondents said they had sex for the first time around the ages of 17 or 18. Those who had their first sexual encounter at average age of 14 were considered “early starters” and those who started at age 22 or older were considered “later starters.”

It’s not possible to determine cause-and-effect from the survey data, according to the researchers. For example, young men with sexual problems may start having intercourse at a later age, contributing to the link between later sexual “debut” and higher odds of sexual dysfunction.

However, Sandfort’s team adds, the findings lend credence to other studies suggesting that abstinence-only education may actually increase the risk of certain health problems.

“Sexual education that is more supportive and acknowledges the diverse needs of young people might prevent the negative outcomes observed here,” the researchers write.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US company is poised to launch the world’s first safe sex passport, aimed at giving users of dating and social networking websites extra “information protection,” the man behind the idea said Wednesday.

“Some years ago I met an individual who had intercourse with someone they met online, who didn’t disclose that they had an STD” or sexually transmitted disease, Gonzalo Paternoster of Florida-based SSP BioAnalytics said ahead of the launch of the Safe Sex Passport on December 1, World AIDS Day.

“The idea popped into my head that people know but don’t tell the truth, and we needed an independent way to verify someone’s health status,” he told AFP.

The Safe Sex Passport will be available — at a cost — to anyone over the age of 18 who goes online and orders the credit-card-size article.

“As soon as you order your card, you are referred to an affiliated laboratory where you can get tested for five major STDs,” Paternoster said.

Card holders are tested for HIV, genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis

“When you go to the test facility, you will have to show your official ID to make sure you are the person who owns the safe sex passport.

“The test results are tied to the card. So let’s say now you meet someone: they can call a phone number and get the test results and test date for you, plus identification information so that they know for sure that you are really the person who was tested,” he said.

“In the old days, you had to take someone’s word for it when they said they had been tested and were in the clear. Now you can ask for proof.”

Subscribers will also be provided with virtual health certificates, which can be posted on their online dating or MySpace profile page.

Nearly 15,000 people and several dating websites have already expressed an interest in the safe sex passports and online health certificates, Paternoster said.

The biggest age group showing an interest in acquiring the card are aged between 27 and 47, he said.

“A lot of them are divorced or have broken up after a long-term relationship, and now they’re back in the dating world and they’re terrified.”

BEIJING (AFP) – China’s first televised AIDS campaign featuring condoms was launched on Thursday with top music and film stars championing the values of safe sex, organisers said.

The campaign, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme and AIDS advocacy group the Chang Ai Media Project, will feature singer Peng Liyuan, the wife of a leading Chinese politician, and Hong Kong star Jackie Chan.

“This is basically the first public campaign that has been allowed to feature condoms and link the transmission of AIDS to active sexual contact in the visual media,” Chang Ai Media project spokeswoman Alison Spector said.

Previously, Chinese state television refused to air AIDS awareness announcements featuring condoms, she said, apparently due to fears that it could lead to greater promiscuity.

Besides airing on national broadcaster China Central Television and provincial stations, the ads will also run on video screens in airplanes, train and bus stations, office buildings and shopping centres and on the Internet, she said.

China is estimated to have about 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases, with tens of thousands of new infections each year, according to government figures released last week.

An increasing number of infections are due to heterosexual contact and not drug use, which was formerly the main channel of the disease.

Peng is the wife of Xi Jinping, who was promoted in October to the elite nine-member Communist Party Standing Committee Politburo and is widely seen as the top candidate to replace President Hu Jintao in 2012.

Although Peng is a household name in China, her husband remains relatively unknown in the nation where politics is secretly guarded by the ruling Communist Party.

LOS ANGELES, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Porn star Mary Carey, who shot to fame by running for California governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger, unveiled plans on Tuesday to auction off her autographed, recently removed breast implants for charity.

Carey said the size 36-D implants were taken out two weeks ago and replaced with larger 36-DDDs and while under anesthesia she realized they could be used to raise money for breast cancer research.

“The doctors asked me what I wanted to do with them and I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to keep them and try to sell them. Because my grandmother had breast cancer,” Carey told Reuters in an interview.

The 27-year-old star of such adult films as “Boobsville Sorority Girls” and “Big Breasted Beauties” will be seen in the upcoming VH1 reality show “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” and said that during taping she kicked addictions to the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and alcohol.

“Now that I’m sober I wanted a new physical state to go along with my new mental state,” Carey said. “I thought the auction would be a great way to spread some holiday cheer and make sure someone out there would have a Mary Mary Christmas.”

The autographed implants have been placed on eBay and Carey, whose real name is Mary Cook, said she planned to donate some 90 percent of the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

She intends to use the rest of the money on medical bills for her mother, who suffered major injuries after jumping off a four-story building in 2006.

“I’m actually overall very anti-plastic surgery,” Carey said. “I watched my mom go through 11 surgeries (for her injuries) and it’s like, for me to voluntarily put myself through that, the only right thing to do is make money and donate it to charity.”

Carey gained international fame in 2003 with her quixotic gubernatorial campaign against eventual winner Schwarzenegger. She abandoned a second run for governor against Schwarzenegger to be with her ailing mother and said it was then that she turned to Xanax, taking three times the prescribed dose.

ATHENS (Reuters) – A Greek Orthodox nunnery was turned into a marijuana plantation by two men posing as gardeners for elderly nuns, police said on Tuesday.

Acting on a tip-off, officers raided the nunnery in the village of Filiro, near the northern port city of Thessaloniki, and found more than 30 large cannabis plants in the enclosed garden.

“Two unknown men had told the two elderly nuns in the nunnery they would like to help them with the garden and then proceeded to plant the cannabis,” a police official told Reuters.

“The nuns did not know what they were and assumed they were large decorative plants,” he said.

Police did not arrest the nuns and have launched a hunt for the culprits.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A South African municipality is not amused after a 2008 calendar came out under its name featuring a scantily clad buxom blonde instead of community development photos, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

“This is not our calendar. Our calendar has pictures around the theme of community development,” said Brian Zuma, marketing manager of the Msunduzi municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

“Whoever printed this calendar is trying to spoil the name of the municipality in the form of a joke. Pity they had to spend so much money on printing and distribution to harm the municipality,” he told the Natal Witness.

City manager Rob Haswell called an emergency meeting with senior council staff to get to the bottom of the matter.

“We are investigating who ordered and paid for this calendar and saw fit to put the municipality’s name on it. If it was meant to be a joke, it is a sick joke and we will deal severely with the author of this distasteful and defamatory calendar.”

BANGKOK (AFP) – Parliamentary candidates in Thailand’s upcoming election are trying to buy the votes of elderly men by passing out free Viagra, a local government official said Friday.

Thais head to the polls on December 23 for the first time since the military toppled the elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup last year.

Residents in Prathumthani, on the northern outskirts of Bangkok, reported some of the candidates were passing out doses of the anti-impotence drug in exchange for promised votes, said Sayan Nopkham, a local government official.

“The villagers told me they have been given one or two pills of Viagra by candidates. Then they come to me to ask for more pills, or sometimes coffee, in exchange for voting for my brother, who is also running for a seat,” he told AFP.

Thailand has a long history of vote-buying, but laws banning it have recently been toughened.

Anyone found guilty of buying votes could face up to 10 years in prison while voters who accept money face up to five years in jail.

Charungwit Phumma, an investigator with the Election Commission, said he had received no formal complaints about a Viagra-for-votes scheme.

“It’s a funny claim,” he said.

Charungwit said the most common complaints filed with his office were voters being paid to join a political party or being promised cash for going to the ballot box.

MADISON, Wis. – A man accused of stealing several blow-up dolls from an adult novelty store says the burglary was a “drunken, stupid thing.”

A criminal complaint filed in Dane County says Jose Sandoval, 26, of DeForest, smashed through the front door at Naughty Novelties in Burke last month and stole a talking love doll with a $270 price tag, along with other dolls and items.

Video surveillance tape gave investigators a look at the car outside the novelty shop, which they pulled over about ten days later.

The complaint says Sandoval denied committing the burglary, then began to cry and led detectives to an abandoned semi behind a motel where the stolen items were recovered.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – While Swedes have a reputation of being reserved, a new study shows they’ll hug just about anyone except their boss. Nine out of 10 Swedes embrace somebody at least once a week, with women aged 30-44 being the most active huggers, according to the study presented Thursday by the Swedish Red Cross.

About 70 percent of the 1,036 people interviewed between Nov. 5-8 said they had hugged their partner or spouse that week, while 59 percent said they had hugged a friend or acquaintance.

One-quarter had hugged a work colleague of the same sex, while 14 percent had embraced a co-worker of the opposite gender.

Only 4 percent hugged their boss.

The study by the Synovate polling institute also found that there is a certain etiquette to Swedish hugging traditions.

More than 80 percent said it was appropriate to hug a person in mourning, while 55 percent said they would hug a stranger who had just found their wallet.

Sixty percent said hugging a vague acquaintance at a party was not OK.