Microsoft founder Bill Gates' casual style was the subject of criticism in some South Korean media Tuesday after he shook hands with President Park Geun-Hye, with one hand in his pocket.

The picture of the meet-and-greet between Gates and Park Monday was splashed on the front page of every national daily, some of which cropped out the offending pocketed hand while most chose to highlight it.

Vietnamese police say they have seized 53 king cobras from a car in Hanoi and arrested the driver.

Officer Dang Van Hanh said Monday the live snakes were taken to a wildlife rescue center near the capital where they treated before being released into the wild.

A French deckhand Monday admitted he was lucky to be alive after escaping with bite wounds when a crocodile latched onto his head in northern Australia.

Yoann Galeran, 29, had swum out from shore to retrieve a moored dinghy after dark at Nhulunbuy on Sunday when the two-metre (6.5 feet) saltwater croc attacked, grabbing him by the head and rolling him in the water.

A Dutch-British composer who wrote a song officially chosen to celebrate the enthronement of the Netherlands' new king later this month has yanked the tune just days after its release following a storm of public criticism.

"Dear compatriots, after having to block yet another insult on my Twitter account, I am now totally done," John Ewbank wrote on his Facebook page late Saturday.

A top Philippine newspaper Saturday was taken in by a spoof cover of Time magazine depicting President Benigno Aquino with his mouth agape, running the picture on its front page.

"We stand corrected. It was an honest mistake," said a short statement issued by the Inquirer's editor-in-chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc.

It's a typical English village overlooking the Channel, complete with traditional pub and parish church. But turn on your phone, and you could be forgiven for thinking you were in France.

The only mobile network available in parts of St Margarets at Cliffe, located on the famous White Cliffs near Dover just over 20 miles (32 kilometers) across the water from France, is French.

Thousands of Dutch citizens rose up Friday in protest against an "imbecilic" official song produced to mark the enthronement of King Willem-Alexander later this month.

"I say 'no' to the King's Song," read a petition that appeared online within hours of the much-hyped tune first being played on Friday morning ahead of the April 30 enthronement.

A hotelier in rural Austria was stuck in a lift for four days but skills acquired on a Swedish military survival course helped him pull through, police said Friday.

A friend delivering bread eventually alerted rescue services on Friday after noticing post piled up outside the hotel in Bad Gastein near Salzburg, western Austria.

A message in a bottle to a woman named Mary thrown by a Canadian into the Atlantic in 1985 has washed ashore almost 8,000 kilometres (4,971 miles) away in Croatia 28 years later.

"Mary, you are really great person. I hope we can keep in correspondence. I said I would write. Your friend forever, Jonathon, Nova Scotia, 1985," said the message found by 23-year-old Croatian Matea Medak Rezic.

A New Zealand politician whose humorous speech to parliament backing gay marriage has become an Internet hit said Friday he was staggered at the response to his words.

Maurice Williamson, a minister in the conservative National Party government, joked ahead of Wednesday's vote that he had seen "the most enormous big gay rainbow" over his electorate and taken it as a sign to back the change.