With a single tweet, France's first lady managed Tuesday to take a swipe at her man's ex, put herself publicly at odds with the president, and throw a spanner in the works of his Socialist party.

Valerie Trierweiler posted an apparently innocent message on Twitter wishing a relatively unknown politician good luck in his bid to win a seat in the National Assembly in Sunday's second round parliamentary vote.

A huge colony of fruit bats that live in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens are such a pest that desperate officials have taken to blaring industrial noise and banging sounds to scare them off.

And the ploy appears to have worked.

This year's Nobel Prize laureates will have a little less to pad their wallets with than previous winners, organizers said Monday, announcing a 20-percent cut in the award because of the economic crisis.

"At its meeting on June 11, 2012, the board of directors of the Nobel Foundation set the amount of the 2012 Nobel Prizes at 8.0 million Swedish kronor (900,800 euros, $1.13 million) per prize," the foundation said in a statement.

China will loan two endangered baby pandas to Malaysia for 10 years to commemorate strong diplomatic ties between the two Asian countries, the environment ministry said Tuesday.

"The Malaysian government will be receiving a pair of pandas following an agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association," the Natural Resources and Environment ministry said in a statement.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was named Tuesday as the winner of this year's Seoul Peace Prize, the prize foundation said.

Ban was chosen for promoting the rights of women and children, efforts to eliminate poverty in developing nations, and contributing to the democratization of Middle Eastern countries, the foundation said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron left his eight-year-old daughter at the pub for around a quarter of an hour following a family lunch, his Downing Street office confirmed Monday.

Nancy Cameron wandered off to the toilets while the premier and his wife Samantha were arranging lifts and the couple only realized she was missing once they got home, The Sun newspaper reported.

The Jerusalem municipality is planning to compile a DNA database for dogs in the Holy City in a bid to combat the problem of dog poo by tracing droppings back to the offending pooch.

In a statement, the municipality said it would first be collecting saliva samples from dogs in the city before inputting them into a citywide database.

A Saudi city known for its ultra-conservatism has created its own version of the "Arabs Got Talent" television reality show, but with no music and women banned from taking part.

Instead, competitors will be permitted to perform religious chants, recite poems and engage in sports events.

Does the sea hold the secret to truly great wines? To find out a trio of French wine lovers -- a vineyard manager, a barrel maker and an oyster farmer -- teamed up to test the myth, above and below water.

"I had heard a bunch of stories about wines ageing at sea," Bruno Lemoine, who runs the cellars of Chateau Larrivet Haut-Brion in the southwest Bordeaux region, explained as he unveiled their findings this week in Paris.

Trees as far as the eye can see are the weapons one Iraqi province is using in the fight against desertification in a country where decades of conflict have exacted a terrible environmental toll.

Karbala, 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of Baghdad, is best known as the site of the shrines of Imam Hussein and Abbas, who are among the most revered figures in Shiite Islam, and sees millions of pilgrims visit every year.