The president of Brazil's senate, Renan Calheiros, will repay the cost of using an air force jet for a trip during which he reportedly had a hair transplant, his spokesman said Tuesday.

"The president is to repay the costs of this flight. He is waiting for the air force to calculate the bill before doing so," he said. "I don't know if the president has had a hair transplant."

A British surgeon has been suspended over allegations that he "branded" his initials onto a patient's liver, media reported on Tuesday.

Simon Bramhall faces an investigation after a colleague discovered the initials "SB" on the organ during a follow-up operation at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, newspapers said.

Notorious punk rocker Sid Vicious dances to Christmas hits with a gaggle of children, while fellow Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten hands out presents. It sounds implausible, but this is how the British punk band spent Christmas Day 1977.

Unseen footage of Sex Pistols in this unlikely scenario will be broadcast for the first time in a new documentary to be aired on BBC television on December 26.

Santa Claus was officially cleared for entry into the United States as federal agriculture officials waived stringent livestock checks on his nine reindeer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in a light-hearted statement that a "Mr. S.Claus" of the North Pole was free to enter the United States with his reindeer from December 24 to December 25.

A North Carolina judge has approved a mountain town's New Year's Eve celebration in which organizers capture a possum and hoist and lower it in a cage at midnight.

Attorneys for the Wildlife Resources Commission and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were in court in Raleigh on Monday. The animal-welfare organization sought to block the annual Possum Drop in Brasstown next week. A PETA lawyer says the lights, noise and crowd of people can wreck a possum's nerves and health.

Local officials in a Beijing suburb have built themselves a white-walled, gold-domed office complex resembling Moscow's Kremlin, state media reported, prompting anger among Chinese who condemned the lavish buildings.

Photos published by the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper show the sprawling complex, whose arched windows and gleaming spires resemble those of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Russian presidential palace, flanked by factories churning out smoke in the background.

An Indonesian district chief got revenge on an airline that refused to let him board a full flight by sending officials to block the runway and stop the plane landing, authorities said Monday.

Marianus Sae, head of Ngada district in the eastern island of Flores, wanted to get home quickly to Ngada from the city of Kupang on Timor island so that he could attend a meeting.

In this land of fire and ice, where the fog-shrouded lava fields offer a spooky landscape in which anything might lurk, stories abound of the "hidden folk" — thousands of elves, making their homes in Iceland's wilderness.

So perhaps it was only a matter of time before 21st-century elves got political representation.

In the race to extract cash from Christmas shoppers, Hong Kong's myriad shopping malls have taken to heart the maxim that you must spend money to make money when it comes to decorations this festive season.

From two-storey-high polar bears to giant Disney characters, the southern Chinese city is awash with increasingly elaborate displays as luxury outlets bid to outdo each other and get wealthy mainlanders through the door.

Police in the Philippine capital have banned the wearing of caps in shopping malls to stop criminals concealing their identity from security cameras.

The ban was imposed after a gang of hammer-wielding robbers looted a jewelry store at a popular suburban Manila shopping mall on December 15. The suspects are believed to have used baseball caps to hide their identities.