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.

The oldest known woman in Europe, French national Marie-Therese Bardet, died Friday days after celebrating her 114th birthday, her retirement home in the western village of Pontchateau said.

Bardet, whose birthday was June 2, was the sixth oldest person in the world, according to the U.S. -based Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which compiles birth certificates of people aged over 110 years.

A 200-year-old bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne found on the bottom of the Baltic fetched 15,000 euros ($18,600) on Friday in Finland, less than half what sale organizers had hoped.

"We are quite happy about the money raised although we expected a new world record," Rainer Juslin, an Aaland provincial government official, told Agence France Presse.

Could some really great cupcakes be enough to send Americans back to the Moon?

More than a dozen U.S. universities are hosting events on Saturday to urge support for the cash-strapped space agency, which faces major cuts to its planetary programs in fiscal year 2013.

Sightseers flocking to see a tsunami-wrecked dock washed up on a U.S. beach were urged Friday to reflect on the "tragedy" of last year's killer quake and tidal wave in Japan.

Local authorities in Oregon, where the 66-foot (20-meter) floating dock made landfall Tuesday after a 5,500 mile, 15-month trip across the Pacific, said they had not yet decided how to dispose of it.

A man assigned the old phone number of a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer charged with murder for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager is seeking compensation, after a rash of threatening calls.

Junior Alexander Guy, 49, got his first cell phone last month. Immediately he was besieged by callers angry at George Zimmerman. "You murderer!" "You deserve to die!"

An Algerian man has died after setting himself ablaze in protest when a policeman took away his driver's license in the Mascara region, the El Watan Week-end newspaper reported Friday.

The 36-year-old victim, named only by his initials A.A., had third-degree burns when he was admitted Wednesday to hospital in the city of Oran, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) west of Algiers. He died the following day.

From testicle-biting police dogs to sonic cannons capable of inducing involuntary urination, Polish anti-hooligan squads have an array of weapons ready for potential trouble-makers at Euro 2012.

The English-language Krakow Post newspaper asserted in an editorial that local law enforcement agencies were more than ready to tackle any hooligan threat at England's southern Poland base camp.

A Malaysian minister has provoked outrage with a $7,600 bid for a special number plate for his official car, at first saying he did not know who had paid for the item, then claiming it was free.

Malaysia's Road Transport Department (RTD) has sold off plates prefixed WWW -- an Internet-related allusion to technology -- to raise funds.

France's wealthy could take it on the nose if the French tax man gets his way and cosmetic surgery becomes subject to the value added tax.

France's new Socialist government has promised to tax the rich, and the tax authorities are looking at going after expensive cosmetic surgery such as tummy tucks, liposuction and breast enhancements that so far have escaped the country's 19.6 percent VAT tax.