Norman Green suffered four broken ribs in the accident in Leicester city center, central England, and was unable to work for 14 weeks.

The 51-year-old pub landlord wrote to the bus company, First Leicester, outlining his claim for damages. But then he received a bill for $845 for a broken light and windshield on the vehicle.

First Leicester said it was suspending the action until Green's finances picked up. Insurance manager Tony Lambell said: ``This accident happened because Mr. Green was not looking where he was going.''

The five were part of a group of about 20 men from an organisation called The Right To be Naked, a police spokesman told Reuters.

Four were later released. The fifth man, who had climbed naked onto a statue of Queen Victoria outside the palace, was still being held, the spokesman said.

"There were about 20 men undressing in groups of five in a kind of shift system,'' he said.

A palace spokeswoman said she did not know whether Queen Elizabeth was in residence at the time of the demonstration.

"There are just working rooms on the front bit of the palace so I would doubt that anyone saw anything even if they were there,'' the spokeswoman said.

The former member of the Mongrel Mob, whose name is being suppressed by the High Court, has lodged a suit in the court in Auckland seeking NZ$220,000 ($116,000), The New Zealand Herald reported.

The man, in his mid-30s, claims he was given a promise of a substantial payment for providing information about drug and gun crimes that was not fulfilled.

As no fixed amount was agreed with police, the man has asked the court to determine a reasonable figure based on his claim for a mix of general, contractual and punitive damages.

Lawyer Paul Dale said his client was promised enough money to set himself up in life again.

"What he received was in fact only about NZ$6,000 and he was left high and dry and has since had to leave the country because of fear of retribution.''

The Mongrel Mob is one of a number of organised gang networks active in New Zealand's major population centres. It shares a reputation for extortion, violence and armed drug dealing with other gangs.

The largest of the four amorphous characters on the British-made children's television show has been "outed'' by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Against the backdrop of cries of "sexual McCarthyism'' over the exposure and pursuit of Clinton, members of Congress and others for inappropriate amorous exploits, Falwell decided to expose Tinky Winky in the current issue of his monthly magazine ''National Liberty Journal.''

"The character, whose voice is obviously that of a boy, has been found carrying a red purse in many episodes and has become a favorite character among gay groups worldwide,'' it said.

Further evidence cited included the fact that the androgynous Tinky Winky is purple -- the gay pride color, and the antenna on his head is shaped like a triangle -- the gay pride symbol.

"These subtle depictions are no doubt intentional, and parents are warned to be alert to these elements of the series,'' the magazine said.

Falwell did not address the sexual proclivities of La La, Po and Dipsy who are equally shapeless yellow, red and green characters with squiggly antennae and television screens in their tummies.

They live in a kind of high-tech igloo with a bug-eyed vacuum cleaner, surrounded by grass, rabbits and flowers. At the end of each show, a periscope rises from the ground and summons them to "Teletubby bye-bye.''

The show premiered in England in 1997 and came to the United States last year where it has been a hit for PBS. Teletubbies interactive dolls are set to go on the market next month.

Falwell's magazine said Tinky Winky's sexuality had been the subject of debate for some time, pointing to the annual "What's In and What's Out'' list in the Washington Post.

The magazine said that this year, Tinky Winky's photograph appeared opposite that of actress Ellen DeGeneres, implying that DeGeneres, star of the television sit-com "Ellen,'' was "out'' as the chief national gay symbol, while Tinky Winky was the trendy "in'' celebrity.

The unnamed businessman was returning from the pager shop when the accident happened, the Fakty daily reported. ''With no more than 100 meters to go to the office, the 50 pagers on the back seat suddenly burst out screeching. The businessman's fright was such that he simply let go of the steering wheel and the car ploughed into a lamp post.''

After he had assessed the damage to the car, the businessman turned his attention to the message on the 50 pagers. It read: ''Congratulations on a successful purchase!''

LONDON (Reuters) - The British stiff upper lip never trembled, diplomatic sang froid was frostily maintained.

For British embassy staff in Beijing played bridge and sipped fine wine as Red Guards stormed the ornate residence at the height of the Cultural Revolution in 1967, government records revealed Friday.

Charge d'affaires Donald Hopson recounted in official papers that have just been released how the staff refused to be rattled, embarking on a surreal evening of entertainment while 20,000 angry demonstrators massed outside. ''After dinner of tinned sausage and claret, I went to the first floor to play bridge while those of the staff who were not at work watched Peter Sellers in a film entitled, not inappropriately, 'The Wrong Arm of the Law','' Hopson said.

"At 10:30 p.m. I had just bid three no-trumps when I heard a roar from the crowd outside. The masses had risen to their feet and were surging like an angry sea against the small cordon of soldiers who linked arms three deep before the gates,'' he said.

But decorum was maintained amid the mayhem. "I only had time to throw on my jacket before the mob poured through and over the gate like monkeys,'' the charge d'affaires wrote in his official dispatch home afterwards.

The 18 men and five women in the embassy "were hauled by our hair, half-strangled with our ties, kicked and beaten on the head with bamboo poles,'' he said.

"The girls were not spared the lewd attentions of the mob...So much for the morals of the Red Guards.''

The mob's anger erupted after the Chinese government had summoned Hopson to demand the release of Chinese journalists imprisoned in Hong Kong and to lift bans on three Communist newspapers in the former British colony.

The staff managed eventually to escape to the safety of other friendly embassy compounds with Hopson concluding: "So ended our Armageddon.''

But there was one crumb of diplomatic comfort for the unflappable Hopson: "The office is a total loss. My house was sacked and its contents, including my clothes, destroyed. The signed photograph of the Queen survived, though slightly singed.''

It was the year of Viagra and "virgin sex'' on the "net'' and the year when the United States found itself seriously debating whether oral sex is really sex. The fate of a president hung in the balance.

It was also the year in which a Tampa, Florida, man decided he wasn't going to sit there and take it after getting slammed in the head by the large naked breasts of an enthusiastic dancer in a strip club.

Likening the experience to being hit with cement blocks, Paul Shimkonis demanded $15,000. The case wound up on a TV court show which found for the stripper despite Shimkonis's claim that "I haven't been right since.''

Meanwhile, some gas stations in China found a fresh way to take service to new heights. A Chinese oil publication said about 1,000 stations in the region of Ningxia have been luring motorists by offering prostitutes along with oil and gas.

"The term no honey, no money has changed into no petrol, no honey,'' said the oil industry publication China OGP, a slogan that is not quite as catchy as the famed sign atop a New York restaurant-petrol station complex: "Eat here, Get Gas.''

Doctors at Rome's Umberto Hospital, Italy's largest, say they want permission to perform penis transplants. But there was a small problem -- there are no guarantees transplanted penises would be able to achieve erections. "We are ready, we are waiting for the OK,'' said plastic surgeon Niccolo Scuderi.

Italy also came up with an important ruling in the battle between the sexes: the country's highest court said a wife can't cheat on her husband just because he is a workaholic.

A woman in the city of Ancona said she started an affair because her husband was always at work and her mother-in-law was hard to take. The court ruled she was at fault for the breakdown of her marriage.

No one knows what happened in the marriage of Cayetano and Margarita Sanchez in the Mexican town of Huatusco but when he didn't speak to her for eight days, she thought he was angry.

It turned out he was dead, the Mexican news agency Notimex said. Mrs Sanchez reportedly told police she tried to talk to her husband but he did not respond. Later, when his body started to decompose, she knew it was not a snit-fit.

The Internet produced some odd stories during the year, including a claim by "two virgins'' that they had chosen the net to record "their first time.'' The story, taking advantage of the publicity accorded a woman who gave actually birth on the net, turned out to be a hoax by a producer who said he wanted to promote safe sex. The virgins turned out to be actors looking for their first big show business break.

Viagra turned out to be a drug that causes problems even as it effects miracle cures. In Mineola, New York, a woman alleged that her lover dumped her after taking the impotency drug. Roberta Burke, 63, sued for $2 million in a palimony suit, saying that wealthy retired construction executive Frank ''Sonny'' Bernardo, 70, left her after having sexual intercourse for the first time in four years thanks to Viagra .

Burke said Bernardo, impotent since 1994, told her: "It's time...to be a stud again.''

The British author Sebastian Faulks won the "Bad Sex'' prize of 1998, an award given to the author who writes the most laughable description of sex. His contribution: "Meanwhile her ears were filled with the sound of a soft but frantic gasping and it was some time before she identified it as her own.'' The character to whom this is happening, and for whom the earth was moving, then says : "This is so wonderful I feel I might disintegrate. I might break into a million fragments.''

The English National Ballet urged its dancers to have sex before a performance so that their version of "Romeo and Juliet'' could show some passion. Some of the dancers agreed that it was a jolly good idea, although if they read Sebastian Faulks they would know the dangers they could face.

Not all the odd stories of 1998 involved sex. There was, for example, the tale of the exploding sofa.

An Albanian couple's dream of owning a used sofa went up in smoke when a grenade hidden it its frame exploded when unloaded, injuring 10 people. The grenade was thought to be one of thousands of weapons stolen from army depots in riots.

Then there was the tale of 77-year-old James Currens, from Pinellas County, Florida, who woke up in the pond behind his house staring into the faces of several alligators. Currens said he must have been sleepwalking when he stumbled down an embankment and into the water. He was rescued by police.

A St Petersburg, Florida, man was not so lucky in his encounter with the law. Charles Peterson, 39, made the mistake of spitting in the street. A quick-witted policeman spotted the spittle, blotted it up and ran a DNA test on it which led to Peterson's arrest for a murder, two rapes and 15 robberies. He was not arrested for spitting in the street because he did it from his motorcycle which is not against the law.

Speaking of motorcycles, a Danish man bade his late 86-year-old father farewell by taking his corpse for a motorbike ride. Flemming Pedersen, 37, took the corpse to his father's favorite haunts and talked to him about it. He said he felt very good afterwards. His father had no comment.

A retired Austrian truck driver surfaced in 1998 to say that despite all the pressure on him over the years he never thought of changing the name his parents gave him -- Adolf Hittler. But people call him up during the night and say "Heil Hitler'' and his son adopted his wife's surname.

The year also had a towering love story -- that of a young woman for a tall tree. Environmentalist Julia Hill celebrated her first anniversary of being perched in a California redwood tree to call attention to the destruction of remaining groves of what may be the most majestic trees on Earth. Hill, 24, has been living in the 210-foot-high (64 meters) tree she calls "Luna'' since December 10, 1997, to save it from the chain saws of a timber company. She said she will not descend until she has done everything she can to save "Luna.''

And, if it wasn't so serious, the story of President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky might rank as the oddest story of the year: a Democratic president gets caught lying about an affair and the first person to lose his job is the head of the Republicans in the House of Representatives.

But the tale has long ago gone from the category of odd to that of high drama, and who knows, maybe tragedy in 1999. Stay tuned.

Dutch Queen Beatrix and Belgium's King Albert attended celebrations in Leiden's Pieterskerk church to mark the completion of the Dictionary of the Dutch Language.

Its 45,000 pages, documenting words dating back to 1500, took 147 years to complete, its compilers said, adding that it was intended as a model for all modern Dutch dictionaries.

There's just one snag. Stopping at 1976, the dictionary is already out of date as it excludes such contemporary buzzwords as "internet'' or "yuppie.''

Even if an update is in the works, past performance suggests today's readers are unlikely to be around for a second edition.

From the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS, May 24, 1994

MOSCOW -- Doctors are blaming a rare electrical imbalance in the brain for the bizarre death of a chess player whose head literally exploded in the middle of a championship game!

No one else was hurt in the fatal explosion but four players and three officials at the Moscow Candidate Masters' Chess Championships were sprayed with blood and brain matter when Nikolai Titov's head suddenly blew apart. Experts say he suffered from a condition called Hyper-Cerebral Electrosis or HCE.

"He was deep in concentration with his eyes focused on the board," says Titov's opponent, Vladimir Dobrynin. "All of a sudden his hands flew to his temples and he screamed in pain. Everyone looked up from their games, startled by the noise. Then, as if someone had put a bomb in his cranium, his head popped like a firecracker."

Incredibly, Titiov's is not the first case in which a person's head has spontaneously exploded. Five people are known to have died of HCE in the last 25 years. The most recent death occurred just three years ago in 1991, when European psychic Barbara Nicole's skull burst. Miss Nicole's story was reported by newspapers worldwide, including WWN. "HCE is an extremely rare physical imbalance," said Dr. Anatoly Martinenko, famed neurologist and expert on the human brain who did the autopsy on the brilliant chess expert. "It is a condition in which the circuits of the brain become overloaded by the body's own electricity. The explosions happen during periods of intense mental activity when lots of current is surging through the brain. Victims are highly intelligent people with great powers of concentration. Both Miss Nicole and Mr. Titov were intense people who tended to keep those cerebral circuits overloaded. In a way it could be said they were literally too smart for their own good."

Although Dr. Martinenko says there are probably many undiagnosed cases, he hastens to add that very few people will die from HCE. "Most people who have it will never know. At this point, medical science still doesn't know much about HCE. And since fatalities are so rare it will probably be years before research money becomes available."

In the meantime, the doctor urges people to take it easy and not think too hard for long periods of time. "Take frequent relaxation breaks when you're doing things that take lots of mental focus," he recommends.

Although HCE is very rare, it can kill. Dr. Martinenko says knowing you have the condition can greatly improve your odds of surviving it. A "yes" answer to any three of the following seven questions could mean that you have HCE:

Does your head sometimes ache when you think too hard? (Head pain can indicate overloaded brain circuits.)

Do you ever hear a faint ringing or humming sound in your ears? (It could be the sound of electricity in the skull cavity.)

Do you sometimes find yourself unable to get a thought out of your head? (This is a possible sign of too much electrical activity in the cerebral cortex.)

Do you spend more than five hours a day reading, balancing your checkbook, or other thoughtful activity? (A common symptom of HCE is a tendency to over-use the brain.)

When you get angry or frustrated do you feel pressure in your temples? (Friends of people who died of HCE say the victims often complained of head pressure in times of strong emotion.)

Do you ever overeat on ice cream, doughnuts and other sweets? (A craving for sugar is typical of people with too much electrical pressure in the cranium.)

Do you tend to analyze yourself too much? (HCE sufferers are often introspective, "over-thinking" their lives.)

By Mark Egan

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In a bizarre election Sherman Block secured one third of votes for the office of Los Angeles County sheriff even though he died last week.

Block, who served as sheriff for the past 17 years and was aiming for his fifth term, was left on the ballot as his dying wish. His death at age 74 from a brain hemorrhage last Thursday meant there was not enough time for a replacement to be placed on the ballot.

Block even managed to cast a vote for himself before his death, using an absentee ballot.

Had Block won the race for the office, the most lucrative public office in America with a salary of $234,000 compared to $200,000 for the president, an interim replacement would have been chosen by the county's board of supervisors instead of the electorate.

But early returns revealed that Lee Baca, a 32-year veteran of the sheriff's department, beat Block by a two to one margin. He becomes the first Mexican American to hold the post in a police department that has been accused in recent years of being hostile to racial minorities.

Baca's supporters criticized the posthumous Block campaign as a "macabre spectacle'' designed to rob the electorate of the chance to choose a successor to Block.

Baca had made Block's poor health a campaign issue and one Block spokesman said after the sheriff's death, "I guess health is no longer an issue.''

Block, a Republican, was a well-known figure in Los Angeles and won fame as a policeman in 1962 for arresting comedian Lenny Bruce on obscenity charges. Because his tape of Bruce's monologue failed, he recreated Bruce's comments in court and won praise for his delivery of the jokes. The comedian, however, was acquitted.

Block supporters urged voters to turn out in force on Tuesday to reelect the deceased incumbent.

After his funeral at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday former Los Angeles Police Chief Darryl Gates told supporters a vote for Block would stop Baca from taking up the post.

Had Block won, the board of supervisors could have appointed their chosen successor for two years, with a special election being held after that.

Baca temporarily halted his campaign efforts following Block's death but was forced to defend himself when the campaign took a mud-slinging tone after Block's supporters claimed he had assaulted a female colleague.

Baca campaigned for a more sensitive police force.

Block had survived two bouts with cancer and suffered from kidney failure that required him to undergo dialysis three times a week. As late as last week he insisted he was fit enough for another term in office.

The Daily Nation newspaper reported that the government formed the committee on October 19 and ordered a final report on the consequences of the millennium bug in 18 months time.

"This fixed the deadline at April 2000, four months after the bug will have taken effect,'' the paper said.

The year 2000 millennium bug is a phenomenon that could trigger a major failure in computer networks around the world after midnight on December 31, 1999.

It comes about because early programmers allocated just two digits for years while writing computer code, meaning systems around the world will believe they are actually operating in the year zero, and could shut down believing it to be a fault.

"Lightning killed at a stroke 11 young people aged between 20 and 35 years during a football match,'' said a report in the daily L'Avenir.

Thirty other people had received burns at the weekend match, said the report which was sourced to the Congo Press Agency. It said: "The athletes from (the home team) Basanga curiously came out of this catastrophe unscathed.''

The two teams in the match, in eastern Kasai province, were drawing 1-1 when the lightning struck, the paper said. "The exact nature of the lightning has divided the population in this region known for its use of fetishes in football,'' it added.

There was no official confirmation of the report as a rebel war affects much of the east of the country.

When the fracas was over, 88-year-old Edna Gilliam was in the hospital with a broken hip. Gloria Owens, 67, was awaiting news of possible criminal charges. And Owens' 98-year-old mother was a potential witness in the bizarre battle over parking at the California hospital.

"It is somewhat bizarre for ladies at this age to be involved in physical confrontation,'' Sgt. Anton Morec of the Santa Clara police department said Tuesday. "Obviously there were some emotional hot buttons pushed.''

Police said the dispute erupted Monday after Gilliam pulled into a parking space for the handicapped at the Kaiser Hospital that Owens, who was bringing her mother for a medical appointment, had been waiting for. When Owens went to Gilliam's car and knocked on the window, she was ignored -- because Gilliam is hard of hearing.

As Gilliam left her car and began walking to the hospital, Owens approached from behind, tugged at her purse, grabbed her sweater and eventually spun her around. In the altercation that ensued, Gilliam was knocked to the pavement, fracturing her right hip.

Morec said the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office was reviewing the case for possible criminal charges, while Gilliam remained under observation after undergoing surgery on her hip.

"You will see incidences of road rage on the news, but rarely does it involve women, and particularly women at this age,'' Morec said. "But we've all experienced waiting for a parking space and have somebody else slip in. Obviously there was some passion and emotion in this particular case.''

The 7th Lord Newborough, a war hero with a colourful past, left his son specific instructions about his offbeat farewell.

His heir duly obliged on the family's Denbighshire estate, firing his ashes in a steel canister. The cannon burst briefly into flames, rolled down a hill but safely propelled the ashes into the copse.

"I think my father would have allowed himself a wry smile,'' the 8th Lord Newborough told the Daily Telegraph newspaper after the parting shot.

The man pitched a Molotov cocktail -- a bottle filled with gasoline stuffed with a rag -- on the roof of Joseph Carnesi's house Sunday morning, but his car burst into flames as he drove away, police said.

"His vehicle was ignited by fire and it stopped when it ran into a tree,'' St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Doniel said. ''An off-duty firefighter pulled him from the vehicle.''

Eldon Green, 53, died of his burns at Tampa General Hospital late Sunday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Doniel said it was unknown how the fire in the car started. The fire at Carnesi's house was quickly doused.

Police said there had been animosity between the two men for months, allegedly over a relationship between Carnesi, 29, and a female relative of Green.

The St. Petersburg Times reported that court records showed Carnesi was accused in June of sexually assaulting Green's relative, but the case was reduced to a misdemeanour battery and Carnesi pleaded no contest.

Carnesi told the Times he had dated a relative of Green but allegations of sexual assault were unfounded. "I didn't do anything to the girl,'' he told the newspaper.

"It was mating season and she took a fond liking to him,'' Diane Roberts, director of the Mobile, Alabama, Animal Rescue Foundation, told Reuters. "He had to ward her off with a boat paddle. She was absolutely intent that this was her mate.''

The giant bird showed up at the home of Ed and Ann Stuardi last month, drinking from a bird bath and eating berries in their yard. They fed it dog food.

Last week the emu began following Ed Stuardi around. Then it became aggressive, chasing their cats. Stuardi tried to frighten the bird away by shooting his gun into the air. The emu just stood there, looking at him forlornly.

By Monday, it was making noises deep in its throat, a mating call Stuardi failed to recognise as the bird approached him. Shorter than the bird, he held it off with a boat paddle.

Monday night and Tuesday, the Stuardis cowered inside their home. Ann Stuardi called the sheriff to beg for help but was told deputies didn't have the equipment to catch the bird. That's when Animal Rescue Foundation got involved.

"She pursued him. They had been feeding her, and when mating season hit, he almost got it. She had her heart set on this man,'' said Roberts.

"I've never seen an emu hold hostages,'' she said. "He wasn't aware what the bird wanted, or why she was stalking him. I've never seen one stalk a human with procreation in mind.''

Animal Rescue had been looking for the bird since Aug. 22, when it heard that a man had moved away from the area, abandoning three emus. The other two birds still have not been found.

It took several hours for the rescue team to persuade the bird to get into a horse trailer so it could be taken to a farm that cares for injured wildlife. Roberts said the emu's only injury was a broken heart, and it was released into an area with other emus, including several males.

"Hopefully she will meet another fellow and forget all about Mr. Stuardi. After all, he is a married man,'' Roberts said.

A mystery plunge in the value of French 10-year bond futures on July 23 was triggered by a bank trader at Salomon Brothers in London who accidentally and repeatedly hit the "Instant Sell'' button, investigators said Thursday.

A wave of 145 separate sell orders sent the price diving on electronic screens.

"The disputed trades arose as a result of the prolonged, unintentional and inadvertent operation of the 'Instant Sell' key,'' said an investigation by computer software firm Cap Gemini and security group Kroll Associates.

Salomon Brothers declined to comment on any losses.

Police said the robber, disguised in a yellow chicken outfit and wielding a baseball bat, failed to steal any money from the post office in Kalmar, southern Sweden. However, the attacker smashed windows and seriously upset a female cashier.

"She's now psychologically disturbed by the event and undergoing treatment,'' a Kalmar police spokesman told Reuters.

The farmers targeted an undetermined number of parliamentarians across areas of rural France.

They also splashed red paint over their walls to signify a red card in football which the farmers said indicated the politicians had committed serious errors and would be thrown out of the game.

French farmers' unions said they wanted parliament to vote in a new law to help their members.

Cayetano Sanchez, 83, died in bed more than a week ago, but his wife slept next to him every night for eight days before she realized it, the Mexican government news agency Notimex reported on Tuesday, citing police sources.

State Judicial Police in the town of Huatusco, in the gulf coastal state of Veracruz, reported finding Sanchez's partially decomposed body with the bed covers up to his neck, Notimex said.

"The wife told authorities her husband did not speak to her for eight days even though she tried to speak to him without realizing he was dead,'' Notimex said.

A preliminary investigation suggested Sanchez may have died of alcohol poisoning, Notimex said.

Margarita Sanchez was to be examined by mental health specialists.

But a retired Austrian truck driver was quoted in a German newspaper on Sunday as saying he never changed his name out of respect for his mother and father.

"I often thought my life would have been a lot easier if I had had another name,'' 60-year-old Adolf Hittler told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"No one ever believed that my name is Adolf Hittler. I get anonymous calls in the middle of the night from people who say 'Heil Hitler' or 'We have someone here for the gas chamber','' he said. "But I never changed it because I am proud of my parents.''

Hittler was attending a conference "for people with infamous names'' in Braunau, an Austrian town just across border from Germany and the birthplace of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

He said the name once cost him a construction job at a dam project in Austria. An engineer asked the workers what their names were.

"The first in line answered 'Tony Sailer', the same as the famous skier,'' Hittler said. "The next answered 'Andreas Hofer', the same name as the Austrian freedom fighter. The engineer was growing annoyed because he thought they were pulling his leg.

"And when he got to me I tried to warn him about my name, but when I said 'I'm Adolf Hittler' he threw us all out.''

Hittler said his son had adopted his wife's surname.

"I accepted that but it still hurt me a little bit,'' Hittler said.

The knickers, with semi-rigid shells inserted into them to protect the wearer's hips, were sent to the Queen Mother by Auckland University's Injury Prevention Centre, New Zealand's GP Magazine reported.

The 98-year-old Queen Mother has had both her hip joints replaced, the first in a routine operation in 1995 and the second in emergency surgery after she broke it in a fall in January while inspecting race horses.

Meg Butler, from the Injury Prevention Centre, said the knickers had been returned with a note signed by a lady-in-waiting.

"These I have handed to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and I am to say that Her Majesty was very touched by your kind thought of her,'' the note read.

"However, the Queen Mother does not feel able to accept a gift of such a personal nature from you and I return it herewith together with Her Majesty's thanks for taking the trouble to send it.''

More than 200 pairs of the reinforced knickers are being used in medical trials in New Zealand and have so far proved highly successful, Butler said.

Some of the more than 1,000 filling stations in the region of Ningxia have been luring motorists with the services of a prostitute along with petrol and diesel oil, an industry publication said.

"Sometimes there is no clear dividing line whether the customers come for gas or sex, but the sex service is based on the condition that you have to buy petrol first,'' said China OGP, which is published by the official Xinhua news agency.

"The term no money, no honey has changed into no petrol, no honey,'' it said.

Other "corruptive tricks'' used by gas stations to entice customers include the offering of gold necklaces, television sets and mobile phones for filling up, the newsletter said without elaborating.

Amateur film-maker and photographer Nunzio Licuzzo, 31, included the woman's phone number on the posters he put up in the town of Modica in the southern Sicilian province of Ragusa and invited the public to call her.

Emboldened, he later added her address to some of the posters. He was arrested on charges of abuse, duress and intent to cause damage.

Now, local fire officials believe the bizarre blazes could actually be part of a fire that has smoldered beneath the prairie's surface for at least 140 years -- before Canada became a nation.

The mystery began in early August, when Darcy Bell, a farmer near Delburne, Alberta, 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Calgary, watched from his backyard patio as a small fire erupted across the Red Deer River during a light rain, then went out.

Bell said he first thought little of it, believing it may have been caused by an oil industry crew working in the area.

But a few weeks later, he and his wife Valerie saw another blaze roar up the riverbank, seemingly out of nowhere, and into a farmer's field, where it began to burn out of control with flames leaping up to nine meters (30 feet) into the sky.

"We didn't know why it happened but it got serious really quick,'' he said.

Officials now blame the strange fires on a coal seam that runs throughout the region near the river. With little air reaching the coal, it may have smoldered for decades, they said.

"It's very possible that this fire has been working in the ground for all these years and just pops out now and then and causes a problem,'' said Delburne fire chief David Grant.

Grant pointed out that 19th century explorer Capt. John Palliser, who led an expedition to determine if Britain's holdings in the region were suitable for settlement, wrote of the fire phenomenon on the bank of the Red Deer River in 1858, nine years before Canada's Confederation.

"We remain at this encampment today to visit the coal beds that were reported to have been on fire,'' Palliser wrote in his accounts. "It was found to be as the Indians had asserted, and far along the banks of the Red Deer River where the coal appeared, the spontaneous fire was in activity. The Indians say that as long as they can remember this has been the case.''

Even today, the ground around where the most recent fires erupted is hot to the touch. So hot, in fact, that water poured on to it quickly emits steam and snow melts quickly in the winter.

"It doesn't look like it's burning at all, but if you walk up there, your feet get hot and if you touch the ground you actually burn your hand,'' Grant said.

He said fire officials were concerned that the burning coal could cause sinkholes in the ground, posing the danger that someone walking by could fall in and get burned.

A Spanish neurologist, proposing a novel genesis for one of the most feared ghouls in Western culture, says the tale of the blood-sucking predator may have originated with a major rabies epidemic in Europe in the 1700s.

"Sometimes things that are apparently bizarre and senseless can have a logical explanation,'' said Dr. Juan Gomez-Alonso of Xeral Hospital in Vigo, Spain. His rabid vampire thesis appears in the issue of the journal Neurology released Monday.

Gomez-Alonso said he had always assumed vampires were fictional creatures from Europe's superstitious past.

"Then one day I saw a classic Dracula film,'' he said. "I watched the film more as a doctor than as a spectator, and I became so impressed by some obvious similarities between vampires and what happens in rabies, such as aggressiveness and hypersexuality.''

Gomez-Alonso said he began his research by looking into statistics on rabies symptoms, and found that 25 percent of rabid men "have a tendency to bite others.''

He then went to the history books and found that early tales of vampirism frequently coincided with reports of rabies outbreaks in and around the Balkans, stretching back to a particularly devastating epidemic of rabies in dogs, wolves and other animals in Hungary from 1721-28.

Ticking down the characteristics most frequently associated with vampires, Gomez-Alonso said he believed he could explain almost all of them as symptoms of rabies.

The vampire's famous aversion to garlic and to mirrors could be ascribed to hypersensitivity, which comes with rabies infection, according to his theory.

"Men with rabies ... react to stimuli such as water, light, odors or mirrors with spasms of the facial and vocal muscles that can cause hoarse sounds, bared teeth and frothing at the mouth of bloody fluid,'' he said.

In the past, he contended, "a man was not considered rabid if he was able to stand the sight of his own image in a mirror.''

The vampire's voracious sexual appetite and nocturnal habits -- depicted in movies and on television as the suave Count Dracula appearing on a moonlit balcony -- could be attributed to the effect of rabies on the parts of the brain that help regulate sleep cycles and sexual behavior.

"Hypersexuality may be a striking manifestation of rabies,'' Gomez-Alonso wrote in his article, adding that "the literature reports cases of rabid patients who practiced intercourse up to 30 times in a day.''

The common association of vampires with animals such as wolves and bats could be explained by the fact that those creatures are susceptible to, and often the source of rabies infection, and can exhibit the same snarling, bloody-mouthed visage as an infected human.

"It would be imaginable that men and beasts with identical ferocious and bizarre behavior might have been seen as similar malign beings,'' Gomez-Alonso said.

He said even the vampire's fatal kiss, the bite itself, could be traced to rabies.

"Man has a tendency to bite, both in fighting and in sexual activities,'' Gomez-Alonso says. "The intensification of such tendency by rabies increases the risk of transmission, as the virus is in saliva and other body secretions.''

As the presiding deputy speaker finally managed to close the session after heated exchanges, including accusations of lying, African National Congress member Johnny De Lange threw a punch at the National Party's Emanuel Schoeman.

Fellow members from both parties immediately stepped into the fray.

Although some seemed to be participating in it, others appeared to be trying to keep the situation from getting worse.

Security guards then rushed into the chamber as voices rose and tempers flared, with only three more sitting days before a month's recess and a flood of legislation to push through before the 1999 general election.

In a scene reminiscent of schooldays, House Speaker Frene Ginwala later insisted that the names of all participants in the punch-up be taken and should present themselves in her chambers first thing on Friday morning.

It was the first time that South Africa's divided past -- President Nelson Mandela's government is trying hard to mend -- left the streets for the corridors of powers.

Seth and Sam Brown found a bank deposit bag containing $23,399 and dozens of checks inside a mall bathroom in the southwest Texas city of El Paso.

"It was exciting. There was a lot of money but we knew we couldn't keep it,'' said 5-year-old Sam.

The brothers told their parents about the find and handed it to police, who then traced the checks to a local construction contractor.

"He was very happy that they were honest kids,'' police spokeswoman Linda Olivera said.

The boys received a reward for their honesty, but declined to say how big.

Emilio Dominguez, 23, told immigration officers he had come to Miami to look for work after hiding Sunday in the rear wheel well of an Iberia Airlines of Spain DC-9, according to Helena Tashman, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"He's in good shape. He was somewhat cold and disoriented,'' Tashman said.

Iberia Flight 6130 landed at Miami International Airport in mid-afternoon Monday after a flight from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, that lasted just over two hours, airport officials said.

Airline officials said the rear wheel well of the jet where Dominguez said he had hidden was "somewhat pressurized.'' Tashman said the partial pressurization might have combated frigid temperatures and helped the stowaway survive.

Tashman added that Dominguez would soon be given the standard treatment reserved for stowaways: being returned via the same airline.

In June 1993, a 13-year-old stowaway survived a flight from Colombia to Miami in a DC-8 with no apparent ill effects. Although he said he had been in the forward wheel well, it was later suggested that he had actually been in a cargo compartment and had entered the well after the plane landed.

In May 1996, the body of a man fell onto the driveway of a suburban Miami home near the airport. Authorities speculated that the man had died in the wheel well of a plane after flying at 30,000 feet for several hours and his body had tumbled out when the landing gear was lowered.

In the provincial capital San Luis Potosi, home-made potato chips sold outside a downtown school came with small packets of white powder wrapped in plastic.

It appeared to be salt, but after a few complaints Health Ministry officials analysed the substance and found it to be cocaine, the Televisa network reported in its nightly newscast.

So far no arrests have been made, but local education officials have taken to searching the backpacks of students as they enter school grounds, Televisa said.

John Thomason, 72, spend three days waiting for his family to return to their hotel after the trio left for a sightseeing tour Monday morning. He called police and reported them missing when they failed to return that evening.

Detectives treated the group as "endangered'' because Thomason told police his wife, Rose Thomason, 69, is a diabetic who suffers from manic depression.

John Thomason described their son, Gary, 42, as "slow'', telling detectives he cannot read or write well and has difficulty following directions. The granddaughter, Marlene, is 8.

The three had not made reservations for the sightseeing tour and it was full by the time they got to it so they decided to take a tour of Miami in their car, Broward County Sheriff's spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said.

Authorities spent three days searching for the trio in four south Florida counties, extending the search to the Florida Keys because John Thomason told police his wife had talked about swimming with the dolphins, officials said.

Ultimately Rose Thomason hired a taxi driver to lead them back to their hotel, where they arrived Thursday evening.

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