Scientists on Wednesday said they had uncovered the secret behind the extraordinary jumping ability of the white-handed gibbon, capable in the wild of leaping across more than 10 meters (33 feet) in gaps in the forest canopy.

Using high-speed cameras and laser measurement, researchers recorded two captive gibbons -- one an adult male, the other a juvenile female -- as they jumped between trunks at a wildlife park in Belgium.

Renova, one of Europe's biggest producers of household paper products, has launched toilet paper in the colors of the Vatican flag in honor of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Spain next week.

Each pack contains two perfumed rolls of toilet paper, one yellow and the other white, which the company says on its online store can be used as giant streamers to welcome the 84-year-old pontiff to Madrid.

Russian authorities fired a prison governor Tuesday after scandalous photographs revealed prisoners holding a toga party with caviar and even taking a delivery of McDonald's takeaway.

The governor of Prison Number 3 in the town of Serpukhov outside Moscow and two of his deputies were fired after an investigation found "blatant breaches" at the jail, the prosecutor-general's office said Tuesday.

A gang of drug traffickers is inserting pictures of late British singer Amy Winehouse in their bags of cocaine to improve sales, Brazilian police have said.

The clear plastic bags carry a paper insert with a picture of the troubled 27-year-old singer, who died at her north London home on July 23. She is described in the insert as "Amy House."

A Malaysian man is suing his runaway bride for 1.1 million ringgit ($365,000) after she called off the wedding with just six hours to go, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Civil servant Mohammad Masran Abdul Rahman, 32, is suing hospital technician Norzuliyana Mat Hassan, 28, in the second case of its kind in northern Kelantan state in just two months, his lawyer Latifah Ariffin told Agence France Presse.

France is the home of the baguette, that savory, crisp staple of a fabled gastronomy. But just try getting a fresh one in the evening, or on a holiday, or even in August, when many of the country's 33,000 bakeries are closed.

Jean-Louis Hecht thinks he has the answer.

Malaysia's only openly gay pastor is urging homosexuals in the mainly Muslim country to "keep coming out" to help battle homophobia, as he gets set to tie the knot with his American partner.

Reverend Ouyang Wen Feng is a highly controversial figure who faced outrage and threats when he opened in 2007 the first gay-friendly church in conservative Malaysia, where sexual identity is a hot-button topic.

Long famed as a tourist destination for its sunny beaches, exotic cuisine and historic sites, Morocco is now offering foreign visitors another attraction: plastic surgery clinics.

Only a short flight from Europe, the North African country is attracting growing numbers of foreign visitors looking to take advantage of lower prices for everything from face-lifts and nose jobs to tummy tucks and penis enlargements.

A senior government minister in Australia has announced that her lesbian partner is pregnant.

Finance Minister Penny Wong said in a statement Tuesday that her partner, Sophie Allouache, had conceived through in-vitro fertilization and is expecting her first child in December.

Mexican federal police say they have captured five members of a kidnapping and extortion ring that operated in the Mexico City region and was known for leaving the heads of pigs outside homes and businesses as a warning.

A police statement Sunday says the "Pig's Heads" gang was toppled thanks to information gleaned from a gang member who was arrested in February.