An Austrian man was saved from tragedy in the early hours of Friday morning after his cats woke him up by repeatedly walking over his face as he slept, police said.

When the 37-year-old from Hohenems in the western state of Vorarlberg finally came to, he smelled burning and discovered the blaze in his flat.

Three Zimbabwean women have appeared in court charged with indecent assault for a spree of sex attacks on male hitchhikers and using their victims' semen for undisclosed rituals, police said Saturday.

"We can confirm that three female and one male suspect were arrested," national police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told Agence France Presse.

While his fellow businessmen moan about Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's constant sex scandals and the fallout for Italy's image abroad, Carlo Pagani has decided to cash in.

Inspired by the Italian leader's "bunga bunga" parties -- reportedly a form of lap dancing enjoyed by Berlusconi, Pagani's small plastics factory has come out with the "Bunga Bunga Band,” a bracelet with supposedly aphrodisiac qualities.

Deep inside the Philippines' largest marshland, tribespeople who once revered crocodiles as mystical creatures say they now feel terrorized by them.

Reports of attacks on people and livestock have become more frequent and tensions reached a peak last month when a three-week hunt netted what is believed to be the world's biggest crocodile ever captured.

An Italian woman claiming a disability allowance for blindness was remanded in custody on Friday for benefit fraud after police filmed her working as a hairdresser and cycling about town on her bicycle.

The 62-year old woman, who owns a hair salon in the town of Lugo in northern Italy, began claiming benefit in 1986 because her vision was degenerating and by 2011 she claimed to be "totally blind," according to a police statement.

Ex-Soviet Uzbekistan has banned naming towns, villages, streets and parks after historically "insignificant" people under a new law signed by President Islam Karimov, state-run media said Friday.

The state-run newspaper Khalk Suzi published the text of the law, banning the naming of streets, airports, terminals, and other places after political leaders.

An "Obedient Wife Club" known in Malaysia for its controversial views has published a book urging men in polygamous Muslim marriages to have group sex with their wives, a report said Friday.

The club, formed earlier this year, has made headlines with its radical suggestions on sex and marriage in conservative, Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Police in the French resort city of Cannes have arrested three Italians and a Frenchman using invisible ink to cheat at poker in a local casino, law enforcement sources said on Thursday.

The four were detained on Tuesday at the Les Princes casino after pocketing 30,000 Euros ($41,200) in winnings, the sources said.

Arms wide open above Rio de Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer marked its 80th anniversary Wednesday as the fifth largest statue of Jesus in the world and a symbol of the 2016 Olympic city.

Hundreds of worshippers are expected to celebrate the anniversary, along with a vigil, concerts and an eight-meter (26-foot) cake, a fitting tribute in Brazil, the biggest Catholic country in the world with 130 million faithful.

Unheard of during the reign of Saddam Hussein and unthinkable during years of violence, an unlikely innovation is slowly being rolled out in Baghdad by Iraqis back from overseas: the one-stop beauty centre.

Three decades of instability -- from wars with Iran, Kuwait and the U.S.-led invasion, to 13 years of sanctions and embargo, and a sectarian war in which thousands died -- all but ruled out leisure activities for women, including trips to a beauty salon.