An acute butter shortage in Norway, one of the world's richest countries, has left people worrying how to bake their Christmas goodies with store shelves emptied and prices through the roof.

The shortfall, expected to last into January, amounts to between 500 and 1,000 tons, said Tine, Norway's main dairy company, while online sellers have offered 500-gramme packs for up to 350 euros ($465).

A French gambling addict is suing the government for 100,000 euros ($133,000) because it failed to prevent him from accessing online poker sites, his lawyer said on Monday.

The 37-year-old from the city of Reims registered with the interior ministry last year to be voluntarily banned from casinos and online gambling sites, but was still able to access them, lawyer Emmanuel Ludot told Agence France Presse.

A shopper has broken the record for duty-free purchases at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport by splurging nearly 50,000 euros ($66,000) on six bottles of exclusive wine, the airport said on Monday.

The shopper, who was identified only as "an Asian", bought a bottle of Romanee Conti 1995, a Chateau Margaux 2003, two bottles of Chateau Lafitte 1982 and two bottles of Petrus 1980, worth a total of 49,905 euros, Paris airports operator Aeroports de Paris said in a statement.

Police in Tokyo have arrested a man accused of trying to sell a stuffed giant panda -- an endangered species -- to Chinese tourists for three million yen ($40,000), police and reports said Monday.

Shang Erqiang, a 40-year-old Tokyo restaurant operator originally from China, was arrested last week, a police official told Agence Franse Presse.

South Korea said Monday it would display Christmas lights near the tense border with communist North Korea despite Pyongyang's threats to retaliate against what it calls psychological warfare.

The defense ministry will allow Seoul church groups to string up the lights on three tree-shaped steel towers atop military-controlled hills near the border, a ministry spokesman told Agence France Presse.

An Australian man was lucky to be alive Monday after a shark rammed his surfboard and bit off a huge chunk.

The impact threw Stephen King, 51, into the air but he managed to make it to shore with only minor puncture wounds to his leg.

A local chieftain has fined Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai two cows and two sheep for flouting a cultural law and marrying during the month of November, a local daily reported.

Local media had announced that Tsvangirai, 59, married Harare businesswoman Locadia Tembo, whose sister is a lawmaker for President Robert Mugabe's party, at a traditional ceremony on November 21.

A 15-year-old Austrian girl robbed her grandparents' house not once but twice, spending the 20,000 euros ($26,800) proceeds in just two weeks partying with her friends, police said Sunday.

The girl first broke into the house in Bad Vigaun near Salzburg in western Austria while the grandparents were on holiday on November 24, together with three other teenagers and two men in their 20s, police said.

A 60-year-old woman was mauled to death Friday by up to 25 Rottweilers she was keeping on her property in Radonice-nad-Ohri, a village some 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the Czech capital Prague, police confirmed.

"Several dogs attacked their owner around 06:00 am (0500 GMT). She died immediately after suffering serious wounds," police spokesman Daniel Vitek told Agence France Presse.

The Occupy Wall Street movement reached Santa's workshop on Friday, at least in the imagination of a Miami web firm that has come up with a way to rant with wit over the Christmas holiday.

Occupy North Pole (www.occupynorthpole.net) features a platoon of elves in green tights waving placards bearing such messages as "Santa is a sweatshop boss" and "1 percent of people have 99 percent of holiday spirit."