A pair of pandas in the mood for mating were being given a bit of space Thursday with Japanese zookeepers hoping they would get it on if the public was kept away.

Female panda Shin Shin has begun to display the tell-tale behavior of being ready for action, say officials at Ueno Zoo in the Japanese capital, who add they want her and her beau Ri Ri to have enough privacy to do the deed.

An 18-year-old Manchester United fan became so incensed after a decision went against his team that he called the police during the match to report a crime.

On Wednesday, he apologized and was let off without punishment.

A Soviet soldier from Uzbekistan who went missing in 1980 while serving in the Red Army during the war in Afghanistan has turned up living in the west of the country over three decades later.

Bakhretdin Khakimov has been living in Herat province since suffering an injury there during service in September 1980, according to the veterans support organisation which found him.

A French woman's loyal German Shepherd dog saved her from committing suicide by knocking aside a rifle she tried to fire into her heart, local police said.

The 63-year-old woman had walked into her garden in the southern town of Sorgues in the Vaucluse region, fired several test shots of a 22-calibre rifle and then turned the gun on her chest.

Kia's new concept car, the Provo, is designed to provoke comment. But to many across Britain and Ireland, the name sounds like a celebration of terrorism.

British lawmakers appealed Tuesday in the House of Commons for the South Korean car maker to junk the name of its planned mini sports coupe because "Provo" is the street name for the dominant branch of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. The Provisional IRA killed nearly 1,800 people during its failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.

The body of a driver lay undetected on the front seat of his car beside one of New Zealand's busiest roads for five days before anyone called police, reports said Wednesday.

Auckland man Alvin Singh was reported missing on February 22 and his corpse was found in his car, parked in plain sight near a major intersection, on February 27, police told Fairfax Media.

Police in the U.S. say a dog searching for a gun in a snowbank accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw, firing the weapon.

No humans —or dogs — were hurt.

A wily criminal was snared with a haul of 49 mobile phones stuffed down his trousers, Swiss police said Monday.

The 27-year-old Romanian -- believed to be either the actual thief or a receiver of stolen goods -- was arrested over the weekend in the city of Zurich.

A man dressed as Batman walked into a British police station in the middle of the night and told officers: "I've caught this one for you!" as he handed them a crime suspect.

Police in West Yorkshire, northern England, are baffled after the mystery crime fighter delivered the suspect to a police station in the city of Bradford in the early hours of Thursday.

The United States on Monday called for drunk diplomats to be barred from United Nations' budget negotiations.

Annual talks on how much the global body spends have become increasingly tense as western nations call for spending cuts.