The thuds of party music and splash-happy water fights marked the start of celebrations leading up to the Buddhist New Year in Myanmar on Friday, a time of high spirits and revelry.

Indian police say a 16-day-old baby boy believed to have been snatched by a monkey has been found drowned in a well.

A French vegan activist was set to appear in court on Thursday for allegedly condoning terrorism after writing on social media that a butcher killed in an Islamist attack deserved his fate, a legal source told AFP.

The unusual case, being prosecuted under France's tough anti-terror security laws, was to be heard in the town of Saint-Gaudens in southwest France.

Barely clothed or naked and perched suggestively on a bed or chair, the plastic dolls on offer in the most controversial "brothel" in Paris have led to accusations that they could encourage rape.

Since February, four silicone figures have been on offer at hourly rates of 89 euros (110 dollars) in a discreet apartment in the south of the city, far from the historic red-light district around the Pigalle area in the north. 

A pregnant passenger on the Paris metro has been hit with a 60-euro fine for walking the wrong way, sparking outrage on social media. 

A court has upheld the right of Austrians to give the leader of the country's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) the finger, officials confirmed on Thursday.

A South African court has fined a self-styled prophet who sprayed his followers in the face with insecticide as a supposed cure for illness.

Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday requested a prison sentence of up to 10 years for an Istanbul taxi driver who needlessly took a passenger from one side of the Bosphorus to the other, causing the tourist to miss a flight.

A Cambridge University graduate who admitted 137 criminal offenses involving online abuse, including encouraging the rape of a four-year-old boy, was sentenced on Monday to 32 years in prison.

U.S. and Thai marines slurped snake blood and ate scorpions in a jungle survival program on Monday as part of the two nations' annual Cobra Gold war games.