BRUSSELS (AFP) – A Belgian holidaymaker who snapped French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his new girlfriend Carla Bruni in swimsuits is donating the fruits of his scoop to a children’s charity, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Emile Lannoy, 56, spotted Sarkozy and Bruni, who reportedly plan to marry, at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh late last month.

Lannoy told the Dutch-language daily Het Laatste Nieuws how he “suddenly saw Sarkozy arrive in black swimming shorts and Carla Bruni in a bikini, walking on the beach.”

“I lost no time in taking a picture. They didn’t take offence and even walked a little way with us,” added Lannoy, who runs a hotel in Courtrai, western Belgium.

The paper published one photo, showing the French leader and the former supermodel walking hand-in-hand, on Saturday before selling the image to French and Dutch newspapers.

So far the picture has earned 11,700 euros (17,200 dollars) and negotiations are underway with publications in Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain, said the paper, which published a second similar Lannoy picture on Tuesday.

Lannoy said he had decided to hand over the photo’s copyright to the Flemish Kindergeluk (Happy Childhood) association, which helps disadvantaged children.

The picture royalties collected so far will allow 300 such children to go on holiday, according to an official at the association.

Sarkozy on Tuesday described his romance with Bruni as “serious” and suggested the pair will marry.

“There is a strong chance that you will learn about it once it’s already been done,” Sarkozy, 52, told a press conference in Paris when asked about reports that a wedding is planned next month.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Decades after some women cast aside their bras as an act of feminist radicalism, a group of Swedish women have launched a campaign to go topless in local swimming pools.

The Bara Brost (Bare Breast) campaign began two months ago in the south of the country, one of the campaigners, Astrid Hellroth, told AFP.

Already about 50 women supported the campaign, she said, and a vanguard of 15 women had started direct action, swimming topless in local pools.

“Our aim is to start a debate about the unwritten social and cultural rules that sexualize and discriminate against the female body,” said Hellroth, a 21-year-old student.

They also had a blog, she added: barabrost.blogg.se. Their site links to a Canadian sister organisation, the Topfree Equal Rights Association.

“It’s important that women have the same rights as men,” said another campaigner, 22-year-old Ragnhild Karlsson.

“When you say we are more attractive topless, we say men should not be able to abuse women because they are topless.”

The new campaign has been closely followed by the Swedish sex education journal, Ottar.

It recorded the launch of the campaign in September in Uppsala, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital Stockholm, when two young women left their bikini tops in the dressing room.

When the lifeguard at the leisure centre challenged them, they refused to cover up and were told to leave the premises.

“Swimming pools generally require men to wear swimming trunks, and women to wear either bikinis or one piece swimsuits,” Inger Grotteblad, a spokesman for the Uppsala leisure centre told the online newspaper The Local.

“There are three reasons for this. First, there is a security aspect, then there is a hygiene issue and finally there is what we call ‘prevailing manners and customs’.”

In October, the campaign switched to a swimming pool in the southern town of Malmo, The Local reported. But here again, health and safety prevailed.

Another attempt in the southern town of Lund also failed.

This month the local ombudsman will decide whether or not to mediate in the matter.

MUMBAI (Reuters) – A prize-winning bikini competition contestant who claimed to represent Pakistan, sparking some outrage in the Muslim country, says she wanted to project the nation as a modern one.

Officials in Pakistan, which does not hold beauty pageants, said Thursday they were investigating how Texas-based Mariyah Moten, 22, entered a “Miss Bikini” pageant in China last month as a Pakistani contestant.

Pakistan-born Moten, who holds an American passport, won a “Best in Media” title for being the most photographed and interviewed contestant, media reports said.

“I have broken all the barriers, and in the coming years there will be other Pakistani contestants who will carry this title,” Moten, described by Pakistani media as the country’s first bikini queen, told the Times of India newspaper.

“My intention was to project Pakistan in a very modern way.”

Moten was born and brought up in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Her family moved to the United States eight years ago and she is now based in Houston.

Pakistani authorities said they might take up the issue with China, and might also withdraw from Moten privileges offered to people of Pakistani descent such as visa-free travel to Pakistan.

Moten, who said she might consider a career in the Pakistani film industry, was undeterred by the criticism.

“The hardliners are basically people who impose their thoughts on others, and we are not affected by people like them.

“It is actually very amusing how they are always so ready to react,” the daily quoted her as saying.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As the bikini turns 60, it’s entering the electronic age with a new model featuring a built-in alarm to warn wearers to get out of the sun — and ease concerns that the scanty swimsuits damage health.

The American Cancer Society advises that the best way to lower the risk of skin cancer, the most common form of the disease in humans, is to avoid too much exposure to the sun and other sources of ultraviolet light.

So the Canadian company Solestrom has come up with a new bikini that goes on sale next month with a UV meter built into its belt and an alarm that beeps to tell wearers when to head to the shade.

“There’s so much concern about sun exposure and skin cancer that we saw the demand and designed something to be safe for the wearer,” Solestrom spokeswoman Emily Garassa said.

Garassa said the meter on the $190 bikini displays a level of UV intensity on a scale from 0 to 20. A person’s sensitivity to UV depends mainly on skin type, but generally three to five would be considered moderate strength, 8-10 very high and anything above 11 extreme.

Garassa said the company was already seeing high demand from Australia and South Africa, which have the world’s highest skin cancer rates. The United States has about 1 million new skin cancer cases each year.

Despite increasing awareness of the sun’s dangers, sales remain strong for the bikini, which celebrated its 60th anniversary this month.

A new survey by U.S.-based market research company NPD Group found the number of the suits sold in the United States rose 18.8 percent to 33.6 million in the year ended in April 2006, with sales worth a total of $811 million.

The two-piece suit was officially named the bikini in July 1946 by French automotive engineer Louis Reard who persuaded nude dancer Micheline Bernardini to appear in his design at a Paris beauty contest.

Reard named the design after Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, where the United States tested an atomic bomb, because he thought the excitement over it would be like an explosion.

LOS ANGELES – Several city officials on Tuesday sharply criticized a planned bikini contest to raise money for spaying pets, saying the “Hooters for Neuters” event was degrading to women.

Hosted by the Hooters restaurant chain, the July 13 fundraiser will donate money to the spay and neuter programs at Los Angeles Animal Services.

“Are we going backward here?” said City Controller Laura Chick. “We are a city with all kinds of progressive programs that empower women and end discrimination in the workplace, and now we’re being connected with a Hooters bikini contest. It isn’t right.”

Councilwoman Jan Perry said the department’s attempt to be creative in telling pet owners to sterilize their animals “crosses the line.”

“I was surprised and amazed with the photograph on the flier, and I don’t think it projects a good image for the city of Los Angeles,” Perry said.

Animal Services Director Ed Boks apologized for making people upset, but said the “Charity Benefit Bikini Contest” would go on as scheduled.

“These people have gone out of their way in helping us, and I would hate to deny these businesses from helping to save the lives of animals in our shelters,” Boks said.

Boks promised a more rigorous vetting process for future fundraisers.

The fundraiser is not city-sponsored, but a promoting flier is posted on the Animal Services Web site.

The original flier showed a bikini-clad woman, but the latest version shows a dog wearing a T-shirt that says “Hooters for Neuters.”

Boks said that the owners of Hooters approached him about the fundraiser a month ago. He said the ads were made without consulting the department.

“When somebody steps up and says they want to help your agency raise money, your inclination is to say `Yes,’” Boks said. “But, we probably won’t be involved in any future bikini contests.”

STUART, Fla. – A Martin County sheriff’s review board found just cause in the firing of a former deputy who was relieved of duty for using his patrol car’s dashboard-mounted camera to film bikini-clad girls at the beach.

Jack Munsey was fired Jan. 30 after an internal investigation found his behavior was not criminal but violated department policies. Munsey had sought reinstatement.

The panel took just four minutes Wednesday to determine his firing was justified.

The daylong hearing included testimony about two previous investigations involving Munsey, including one in 1997 when he used a department computer to view pornography on the Internet while on duty. He was suspended for a week. In 2004, he was suspended after he totaled a patrol car while speeding on his way to work.

Munsey’s attorney Larry Fagan called the videotaping a brief lapse in judgment that should not warrant termination.

“This is something that will follow him forever,” Fagan told the panel.

Munsey declined to comment after the hearing.

Sheriff Robert Crowder said Munsey likely will not lose his law enforcement certification that could get him a job elsewhere.

“He’s not a bad guy, but I think his judgment perhaps was flawed and maybe he’s learned from this, and maybe he’d be able to work somewhere where this wouldn’t be held over his head,” Crowder said.

REXBURG, Idaho – Law enforcement agencies depend on citizens in the community to be their eyes and ears. But officials in this southeastern Idaho town aren’t sure how to respond to reports of skimpy bikinis, lost TV remotes, menacing squirrels, and a report of a neighbor’s shrub trespassing.

“You try to help, you don’t want to seem uncaring,” said Randy Lewis, a captain with the Rexburg Police Department.

Those kinds of calls come in daily to the police, including one where Lewis ended up using a lasso to capture a hissing badger running loose in an apartment.

“What a mistake,” he said. “It about drug me off.”

Even though many calls don’t fall within what police normally do, officers still respond to complaints of loitering ducks and children who won’t mind their parents.

Lewis said the Rexburg police probably get more of those types of calls than larger departments.

“We don’t have a high frequency of serious crimes, though we do have murders, rapes, child molestations and bank robberies,” Lewis said. “Thank goodness they don’t happen every day.”

Rexburg Police Lt. Ron Larson said he thinks many of the calls are caused by residents not knowing the difference between civil and criminal offenses.

“It might not have anything to do with the police, but they don’t know who else to call,” he told the Post Register.

Most of the unusual calls come during the summer, he said, and already the department has fielded calls about mean notes taped to trash bins and reports of residents receiving offers of being hypnotized over the phone.

Lewis said the hypnotist calls could be coming from students at Brigham Young University-Idaho as part of their homework.

But a university official said he is not aware of any class requiring that type of assignment.

Meanwhile, Rexburg police will continue to take the calls in stride.

“We don’t want to discourage anyone from calling in,” Lewis said.

VIENNA (Reuters) – A bikini-clad beauty queen protesting plans for a pulp mill in Uruguay pushed into a photo shoot of European and Latin American leaders at a summit on Friday and Venezuela’s president said he blew her a kiss.

Evangelina Carrozo, Greenpeace activist and carnival queen from the Argentine town of Gualeguaychu, evaded security as she stripped to a tasselled bikini and thigh-high leather boots carrying a sign protesting plans for the pulp mill.

“She was very pretty and I blew her a kiss,” said Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who spoke to reporters in Vienna after security ejected Carrozo from the room where the joint summit photo was taken.

“It was one of the best things that have happened at this summit,” said Chavez, a left-winger who has become an icon of the anti-globalisation movement but has been criticised by other Latin American leaders in Vienna for his confrontational style.

Argentina has called for Uruguay to drop plans for the $1.7 billion pulp project along the Uruguay river that borders both countries, saying it will cause pollution.

The mills are being built by Finland’s Metsa-Botnia and Spain’s Ence.

Chavez said: “I didn’t see anything about pulp, I was just looking at her.”