Cow urine may soon be used to clean the floors of India's government offices in a country where bovines are sacred and their bodily waste considered therapeutic and even thirst-quenching.

A charity working to care for and protect the cows that freely roam India's streets has developed a cleaning product with their urine - distilled and spiked with natural perfumes to remove the pungent odor.

An Indian public official has been sacked for taking leave 24 years ago and never returning to his desk in the country's notoriously work-shy bureaucracy, the urban development ministry said Thursday.

Assistant executive engineer A.K Verma went on leave in 1990 after joining India's central public works department (CPWD) a decade earlier.

Passengers travelling on a new flight offered by Austrian budget airline Fly Niki from April will hardly have time to sip a coffee between take-off and landing.

The flight between Vienna and Bratislava, which lie just about 50 kilometers (30 miles) apart, will last about 20 minutes, the airline said, claiming that this would be the world's shortest flight between two countries.

Hundreds watched a staging of a traditional nativity play in western Ukraine Wednesday featuring a bizarre political twist -- with an actor in a President Vladimir Putin mask playing the murderous King Herod.

A group of Orthodox Christian performers staged the open-air nativity play in the city of Lviv that is a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism on Orthodox Christmas, celebrated according to the old-style Julian calendar on January 7 instead of December 25.

Officials in San Diego are trying to sort out how a 5 1/2-foot snake wound up in a toilet at an office building.

Stephanie Lacsa told San Diego County authorities she noticed the water level in the toilet was higher than usual when she went to the second-floor restroom Tuesday. When she plunged it, a snake popped up and flicked its tongue.

A former Chinese journalist has admitted falling for an April Fool joke which sparked a decades-long myth in his country -- that U.S. officer cadets learnt from the example of Communist military hero Lei Feng.

Li Zhurun, a former reporter for China's official Xinhua news agency who is now a university professor, made the confession on his Sina Weibo microblog.

A ghost town in Canada's westernmost wilds has been sold to a Chinese real estate developer who intends to bring it back to life, according the realtor.

China Zhong Ya Group Hebei Canada-China Co. beat out bidders from around the world, real estate agent John Lovelace said in a statement.

After years of careful White House control over her few public appearances, a mysterious online image of first daughter Malia Obama, 16, has gone viral.

The rare glimpse of a personal side of President Barack Obama's oldest daughter -- sister Sasha is now 14 -- shows her wearing a tee-shirt printed with the name of the Brooklyn rap group Pro Era.

Christmas trees can be enjoyed long after they are discarded by a family. They're a great source of vitamin C — for goats.

A farm in the northeastern state of Maine is extending an invitation to residents who don't know what to do with their discarded trees.

Dutch police have discovered an illegal cannabis nursery hidden in a World War II bunker, a spokesman said on Sunday.

"Police on Friday discovered the illegal cannabis nursery in an old bunker after being tipped off by outdoor enthusiasts," Cor Spruijt told Agence France Presse.