A "grotesque" plant that mimics the smell of rotting flesh to attract flies has gone on display in Wellington's Botanic Gardens.

The dracunculus vulgaris, commonly known as the voodoo lily, began flowering on Thursday and will emit a strong stench of putrid meat for about a week, botanic gardens general manager David Sole said.

A man tried to rob a bank of $1 because he hoped to be sent to a federal prison nearby, police said.

Jeffrey McMullen, a 50-year-old regular customer of an AmeriServ bank in the western Pennsylvania town of Northern Cambria, handed notes to two tellers Friday demanding a dollar, according to a police complaint reported by The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown (http://bit.ly/Qcdx17).

Sticks, stones and firebombs are routine at Greek anti-austerity protests but the streakers that turned up at this week's demonstrations against German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit are a first.

Two men, a 56-year-old American and a younger man believed to be British, startled onlookers on Tuesday by running naked in central Athens where riot police had earlier clashed with masked protesters throwing bottles and broken masonry.

A South Korean was jailed for life Thursday for the murder of his girlfriend, who police originally believed had accidentally choked to death while eating a live octopus.

A district court in Incheon, west of Seoul, convicted the defendant, identified only as Kim, and sentenced him to life imprisonment for what the judge described as a "heinous crime".

Pizza Hut is promising "free pizza for life" to whoever dares to ask Barack Obama and Mitt Romney the most burning question of the day: sausage or pepperoni?

The fast food chain is angling to get some publicity out of a town hall debate on October 16 between the Democratic president and his Republican challenger at a liberal arts college outside New York.

French President Francois Hollande potentially won the hearts of thousands of future voters on Tuesday by announcing he wants to abolish homework.

Unveiling a new education program, Hollande said school work should "be done at school, rather than at home", to foster educational equality because some students do not have support at home.

Biologists on Tuesday said they had figured out how the New Caledonian crow, a bird famed for using tools, does its party trick.

Corvus moneduloides, a native of France's South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, is one of the stars of the avian world.

New Zealand will release commemorative "The Hobbit" coins worth thousands of dollars ahead of next month's premier of director Peter Jackson's latest Tolkien epic.

The coins featuring characters such as Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the wizard will be legal tender in the country, New Zealand Post said, although their face value will be only a fraction of the cost collectors will be expected to pay.

A sumptuous new French restaurant in Sydney said Wednesday it would remove two urinals designed to resemble a woman's lipsticked mouth, apologizing for any offense they have caused.

The Ananas Bar and Brasserie said the bright red-lipped urinals shaped like an open mouth were "a commonly used European design piece from female Dutch artist Meike van Schijndel".

Equatorial Guinea's interior ministry issued a series of recommendations to ensure that Friday's independence day is celebrated in style, banning revellers from wearing flip-flops in the president's native village.

"To ensure the smooth running of the October 12 national holiday, 44th anniversary of our independence, using mobile phones, wearing cropped trousers and flip-flops, carrying knives and drinking alcoholic beverages are banned," Interior Minister Engonga Nguema Onguene said in a statement read out on state radio Monday.