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."

Arkansas mom Michelle Duggar, whose family of 19 children is the subject of a TV reality show said Friday she had miscarried her 20th.
"We discovered during a routine 19-week ultrasound that our 20th child, who was due in April 2012, passed away recently," Michelle and husband Jim Bob wrote on their website, thanking supporters for their prayers.

Authorities say a U.S. man published a fake obituary for his living mother in a ploy to get paid bereavement time off from work.
Relatives called The Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper in Pennsylvania after the obit appeared to say the woman was actually alive and well. The woman herself then visited the paper.

In a reversal of fortunes, a once-unwanted cat has come to the rescue of an animal shelter in need of a new home.
However, this orange-and-white tabby named Daniel is no typical cat. He has a near-record 26 toes, a phenomenon that is helping the nonprofit Milwaukee Animal Rescue Center raise money to relocate to a new building.
