A French court has ordered a psychiatrist to pay one of his patients 10,000 euros ($13,000) in damages for seducing her as she sought counselling to save her marriage, sources close to the case said Monday.

The Bordeaux appeals court said the 65-year-old psychiatrist had abused his position as a practitioner, taking advantage of the patient's "fragile and frustrated" emotional state when they became lovers in the summer of 2003.

Three followers of an Indian guru committed suicide Monday by jumping on a burning wood pyre, saying they wanted to "join" their leader who killed himself over a month ago, police said.

The three devotees, aged 16, 30 and 50, lived at the Chouli monastery near Badar in southern India dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva, one of the most important gods in the Hindu pantheon, known as the destroyer of evil.

A South African man in the weekend successfully flew across the sea from Nelson Mandela's apartheid island prison using helium-filled giant party balloons.

The six-kilometer (3.7-mile) crossing, to raise funds for a children's hospital named after the country's former president, was the first stunt of its kind from the historical site.

A Greek e-ticket ad will be withdrawn from television after managing to insult both the country's truckers and its gay community, top-selling Ta Nea daily said on Saturday

A Greek e-ticket ad will be withdrawn from television after managing to insult both the country's truckers and its gay community, top-selling Ta Nea daily said on Saturday.

Elevators in Singapore public-housing blocks are still sometimes being used as toilets, infuriating residents despite a long government campaign to eradicate the dirty habit, a report said Sunday.

A suburban town council has put up notices showing a bare-bottomed woman apparently urinating in a lift and a man smoking in another, the Sunday Times newspaper said.

An Italian couple in their sixties, overwhelmed by crushing financial difficulties and unable to pay their rent, committed suicide by hanging, police told local media on Friday.

Their bodies of Romeo Dionsi, 62, and Anna Sopranzi, 68, were discovered by their neighborliness on Friday morning at their home in Civitanova, a small village in the central Marche region on the Adriatic Sea.

Not content with housing a pair of celebrity pandas that attract hordes of avid onlookers, a zoo in France has decided to put their droppings to good use by recycling them into gas and electricity.

Yuan Zi and Huan Huan -- "Chubby" and "Happy" in Chinese -- arrived at Beauval zoo in central France in January last year, on loan from China for 10 years at a cost of around a million dollars a year.

Uruguay's President Jose Mujica had no apologies Friday after disparaging remarks aimed at Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner and her late husband were picked up by an open microphone.

In a radio presentation, Mujica talked about the close links between the two countries, and emphasized that no event or person "can uproot our common history."

U.S. retailer Target apologized Friday after a labeling gaffe that saw the color of a plus-size dress named after manatees, the blubbery denizens of the deep found off the Florida coast.

While the scale of the outrage caused by the blunder was not clear, Target was clearly not taking any chances by swiftly updating the color label for its "Manatee gray" kimono maxi dress.

Shackles, whips, chains and even a stretching rack will go on sale next week, with the reputable auction house Lawsons charged with selling off the contents of a closed Australian brothel.

About 250 items of furniture, clothing and books and accessories from Salon Kitty go on sale on April 12, after the Sydney establishment closed its doors last month after dominating the city's bondage scene for 27 years.