Participants in Russia's protest movement against Vladimir Putin on Friday expressed fury at a film aired on a federal channel, claiming it used false evidence and smeared demonstrators.

The film, called "Anatomy of a Protest" aired late Thursday on the NTV channel, one of Russia's popular networks broadcast nationwide, claiming the opposition gave people money and biscuits to attend rallies and waged wars on the Internet.

Marco Muller, who is winding up his mandate as head of the Venice Film Festival, has been named artistic director of Rome's international film festival, the Cinema Foundation said Friday in a statement.

"I couldn't be happier, I'm returning to my city after 22 years to work on an exciting project," said Muller, who was born in Rome. "Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work."

Indian and African leaders on Sunday agreed to sharply increase bilateral trade to $90 billion by 2015 as the two sides discussed potential deals.

The South Asian country is aiming to boost its trade and diplomatic ties with Africa where China has already made major inroads by striking multiple deals, building infrastructure projects and offering soft loans.

England's laws restricting shopping hours on a Sunday to six hours will be relaxed during the London 2012 Games, finance minister George Osborne said.

The suspension would run in England and Wales for eight Sundays covering the Olympics (July 27 to August 12) and the Paralympics (August 29 to September 9).

Egyptian Bedouin in the Sinai kidnapped two Brazilian women tourists on Sunday in the third such abduction in the peninsula this year, security officials said.

The tourists were returning from a visit to the historic monastery of St Catherine in southern Sinai when the tribesmen seized them and an Egyptian tour guide, the officials said.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Sunday measures taken to fight financial woes in Europe and the U.S. were starting to pay off, in a cautiously upbeat assessment of the global economy.

But Lagarde -- in Beijing for a two-day trip to attend a high profile forum on China's development and hold meetings with her economic counterparts -- also warned that "major" vulnerabilities still remained.

Australian comedian Barry Humphries said Sunday he would retire iconic character Dame Edna Everage, a gaudy lilac-haired parody of suburbia, because he felt a "bit senior" and was ready to move on.

Everage, along with the lecherous and boorish Sir Les Patterson, are Humphries' best-known characters, but the veteran comedian, 78, said his current tour would be their last stage outing.

Hong Kong director Ann Hui will be honored for her life's work at the Asian Film Awards on Monday, in recognition of classics such as "Song of the Exile".

Hui, the first female director to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, is widely regarded as a pioneer of the southern city's New Wave of the 1970s and 1980s.

Ailing President Hugo Chavez, just back from cancer surgery in Cuba, said Saturday he would start radiation treatments "in the coming days," amid rising drama over his health as he seeks reelection late his year.

"Now I have to start radiation in the coming days to attack any new threat. This cancer is not going to be the end of Chavez," the leftist president told supporters at Miraflores Palace, without saying if he would be treated in Venezuela or Cuba, his main regional ally.

New York became the Big Green Apple on Saturday as more than two million people crammed into Manhattan for the annual Saint Patrick's Day parade.

Streets along the length of Fifth Avenue were a sea of green shirts, hats, necklaces, fake green beards and innumerable shamrock leaf-themed trinkets. Marchers ranging from Irish folk dancers to massed ranks of police in blue inched their way through the city to the rhythms of drums and bagpipes.