RIPON, Calif. – Six cheerleaders are fighting suspensions after they flashed football fans a message on their underpants. Vice Principal Ken Goeken ordered the girls to serve suspensions Tuesday and Wednesday for defying their coach and going ahead with a special cheer they choreographed for the last day of the football season.

At the end of the cheer, the girls bent over, lifted their skirts and showed the crowd the words “Indians No. 1″ on their bloomers.

The girls — who missed reading scenes from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and fear their grades will suffer — are asking to make up coursework and instead be banned from cheering at an upcoming basketball game.

BANGKOK (AFP) – A campaign is underway to chastise Myanmar’s military regime, not through dialogue or sanctions, but by flooding the country’s foreign embassies with women’s underwear, an activist said Thursday.

A pro-democracy group based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai is urging people all over the world to “post, deliver or fling” their undergarments to Myanmar’s international embassies.

“The Burma military regime is not only brutal but very superstitious. They believe that contact with a woman’s panties or sarong can rob them of their power,” the Lanna Action for Burma group said on its website.

The generals who rule Myanmar, previously known as Burma, provoked international outcry in September when they violently cracked down on peaceful protesters, killing at least 13 people.

Europe and the United States led the chorus of disapproval, announcing new sanctions against the regime.

Despite the outcry and a United Nations statement deploring the crackdown and urging dialogue, the junta has shown little sign of moving any closer towards democracy or freeing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Those behind the so-called “Panty Power” campaign hope that lingerie can succeed where international diplomacy has so far failed.

“We want to raise awareness first, and we want to target the Burmese government officials, letting them know we are against them abusing their power,” said Tomoko, an activist with Lanna Action for Burma.

Tomoko, who goes by one name only, said she had heard that Myanmar embassies in Thailand, Australia and the United States had been targeted by the Panty Power campaign, which began last week.

DENVER – A 34-year-old man was charged Monday with breaking into several homes in northwest Denver and stealing women’s undergarments and other personal items.

The Denver district attorney’s office said Carlos Vigil, 34, was charged with seven counts of second-degree burglary in three separate cases.

Police said Vigil, whom they called the “Panty Burglar,” entered houses through open windows and doggie doors. They said he took clothing and photographs.

Vigil was released from jail on $75,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court June 28 to be formally advised of the charges against him.

A man in Colorado Springs recently pleaded guilty to breaking into houses and stealing women’s undergarments. A man in Fort Collins faces charges in the theft of more than 1,300 women’s undergarments from apartment laundry rooms near the Colorado State University campus.

PULLMAN, Wash. – A man was charged with theft and burglary after police said they found 93 pounds of women’s panties, brassieres and other underwear at his home.

Investigators believe Garth M. Flaherty, 24, took as many as 1,500 undergarments from apartment complex laundry rooms before he was caught, police Cmdr. Chris Tennant said.

A man was seen taking underwear from two laundry rooms Saturday, a witness recorded his license number, and Flaherty was identified from photographs, Tennant said.

Police found enough underwear in his bedroom to fill five garbage bags, Tennant said.

“He said he had a problem,” Tennant said.

Flaherty has been jailed on 12 counts of second-degree burglary and one of first-degree theft.

Police had previously received 12 reports of underwear thefts in the northeast part of town, where Washington State University is located.

“We were kind of concerned about how to match up bras and panties with victims,” Tennant said. “Based on the unique descriptions from a couple of women, we can tie him to those thefts.”

The underwear will be held as evidence until the case is resolved, after which their disposition is uncertain, Tennant said.

“Would you really want them back?” he asked. “I would say not.”

SYDNEY (Reuters) – New Zealand opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who refused to perform with an Australian singer because his female fans threw underwear at him, on Wednesday won a lawsuit against her for pulling out of the concert.

The New Zealand soprano pulled out of a series of concerts with Australian rock singer John Farnham in 2005 after watching a DVD in which female fans threw underwear at him on stage.

The promoter of the concert sued Dame Kiri in the New South Wales Supreme Court, claiming A$2 million (US$1.6 million) in damages for breaching her contract.

During the case, Dame Kiri told the court that she was embarrassed by the underwear throwing and found it offensive that Farnham collected them as “some sort of trophy.”

She said it would be disrespectful to her if she performed.

Judge Patricia Bergin dismissed the case against Dame Kiri on Wednesday, ruling the promoter failed to establish its case, reported local media from the court in Sydney.

But the judge ruled that the company which employed the soprano should pay the concert promoter A$128,000 for costs.

KONIAKOW, Poland (AFP) – Faced with declining demand for their intricate doilies, the lacemakers of this Polish mountain community came up with a solution: sexy underwear.

The business-boosting idea has given a new lease of life to Koniakow’s 200-year-old cottage industry, but opponents say it is immoral and an insult to past customers such as the late Polish-born Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II.

“Traditional lacecraft was too expensive, so it wasn’t selling anymore. We weren’t making a living. A friend jokingly said: ‘Why don’t you start making g-strings!’

“I took his word for it, and made one for myself and then for my friends. They were a hit,” said Malgorzata Sanaszek.

Thirty-something Sanaszek was a pioneer four years ago, and now runs a specialized company selling lace underwear over the Internet.

Whether black, red or decked with flower motifs, and however little they leave to the imagination, the g-strings are made using handicraft techniques stretching back some two centuries in southern Poland.

But they have some advantages over traditional table ware.

“Making a g-string is even easier than making a tablecloth,” said Krystyna Kaisar, an experienced lacemaker in her 50s.

A tablecloth can take between a week and six months to produce, depending on its size and detail. A g-string — which sells for about 25 to 30 euros (32 to 38 dollars), takes about a day.

“It also brings in more money,” said Kaisar.

The underwear revolution has unsurprisingly ruffled feathers in Koniakow.

Poland is a deeply Catholic country, and mountain dwellers have a particular reputation for piety.

When Sanaszek first set up shop, elderly residents in particular complained that the lacemaking tradition was being “profaned”, she recalled.

“I stopped going to the village church on Sundays. And when I walked into a shop, there was a deadly silence,” she said.

Some lacemakers also had doubts.

“The priest told me that a woman came to confession and asked him if it was a sin to make g-strings,” said Anna Barska, a 47-year-old lacemaker.

Many purists still remain angry.

“Our lace is well known in Poland. We have made it for John Paul II, for the Queen of England, for church altars. It’s shameful and humiliating for Koniakow that this very same lace is being worn on people’s backsides,” said Mieczyslaw Kamieniarz, whose family has been making lace for five generations.

It’s not just the moral issue which rankles: Kamieniarz gets particularly annoyed when tourists come to his shop asking for g-strings or even lace hot pants.

But the dust has largely settled in Korniakow, with most residents coming round to the idea that underwear is a money-spinner for many families in an area where unemployment remains a major problem.

“Elderly people may still produce g-strings in secret, but it’s clear that it’s better to make them than to steal to eat,” said Barska.

Sanaszek’s company is now a flourishing operation employing around 60 lacemakers aged between 17 and 76.

Besides making and selling g-strings, she also offers dozens of other models, including bras.

Koniakow lace now sells worldwide.

“We have customers in Africa, Asia, and across Europe. And even in Canada and the United States,” she said.

Customers can also buy made-to-order lace thongs for men.

“Everything is guaranteed as 100 percent traditional Koniakow lace,” said Sanaszek.

FORT PAYNE, Ala. – A Geraldine man who allegedly stole a Fyffe woman’s undergarments has been charged with property theft. Joseph Edward Reaves, 44, was arrested after he turned himself in Wednesday morning and has been released from the DeKalb County Jail on $500 bond.

Investigator Rhonda Jackson said the woman had hung some of her undergarments outside to dry in mid-December when several items of clothing, including about four pairs of underwear and four bras, were stolen.

Jackson said Reaves has confessed to the crime, and admits he has a problem.

She said he went to an outlet store in Boaz and bought four bras and three or four pairs of underwear to replace the stolen items. He wrapped the new undergarments in Christmas wrapping, then left the package for the victim.

Jackson said Reaves has been arrested for the same type of offenses in the past.

She said Reaves, who has a fetish for women’s undergarments especially bras, was being very cooperative.

LONDON – The famously large underpants worn by film character Bridget Jones are to be auctioned off to raise cash for some of London’s most famous green spaces.

The large, white underwear was worn by Renee Zellweger in her role in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and prompted the comment, “Hello, mummy!” from Hugh Grant, who played her suitor, Daniel Cleaver.

The underwear, signed by Grant, will be auctioned off at a charity dinner next week for Britain’s Royal Parks Foundation, it was announced Friday.

Organizers hope the dinner will raise $185,000 for the Royal Parks, which provided the setting for scenes in the second film in the series, “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.” One scene in the movie took place in a fountain at Kensington Gardens; another was shot at Regent’s Park.

The Royal Parks are some of London’s most popular, and also include Hyde Park, St. James’s Park and Green Park.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Panty thief Sung Koo Kim may face about nine years in prison for stealing thousands of pairs of underwear from college dorm rooms, laundry rooms and campus-area apartments.

He was sentenced in Multnomah County on Wednesday to an extra 18 months in prison, for a total of more than 11 years. Under the plea agreement he signed, he could get out after about nine years, given time off for good behavior and credit for the time he’s spent in local jails since he was arrested in 2004.

Kim, 32, pleaded guilty to college-area burglaries and underwear thefts in Yamhill and Washington counties in 2003 and 2004.

He also has been sentenced to serve time in Yamhill County while undergoing mental health treatment, and he is expected to plead guilty to similar charges in Benton County, where prosecutors have agreed to ask that the sentence run at the same time as the Multnomah County sentence.

“I would just like to apologize to the victims for any inconvenience it may have caused them . . . or any anguish or suffering,” Kim said in the courtroom.

When investigators searched Kim’s Tigard bedroom, they found more than 3,400 pairs of underwear and other pieces of women’s clothing, along with dryer lint and human hair, marked with information as to where the clothing was taken, and stuffed into boxes, duffel bags and backpacks. His home computer contained more than 40,000 pornographic images, mostly depicting rape, torture and killings.

Prosecutors called Kim a danger to the public. His attorneys said psychiatrists who interviewed him indicated he was not violent but suffered from depression and an underwear fetish.