An Argentine governor has caused a kerfuffle in his province after using a YouTube video to lay off half of his 340 provincial officials.

Rather than addressing employees directly, Alberto Weretilneck, governor of Rio Negro province, Tuesday night posted a video message explaining that austerity measures had made 170 layoffs necessary to deal with budget shortfalls.

A man arrested for stealing high-heel shoes from a Tokyo hostess club was found to have a total of 450 purloined pairs when his room was searched, Japanese police said Wednesday.

"I've felt pleasure in stealing high heels. I was not interested in brand-new products," Sho Sato, 28, told investigators after he was arrested Tuesday, according to Tokyo police.

A Singapore court on Tuesday sentenced an Indonesian maid to three months in jail for burying her dead baby in her employer's backyard.

Musliyati, 37, who goes by one name, had faced up to two years' imprisonment and a fine - or both - for secretly disposing of the remains.

Flatulence from 90 cows in a German barn sparked a methane gas explosion that damaged the building and left one cow slightly injured with burns, police said Tuesday.

"In the barn for 90 dairy cows, methane built up for unknown reasons and was probably ignited by a static discharge, exploding in a darting flame," said local police in the central town of Rasdorf in Hesse state.

Pope Francis as superman, flying through the air with his white cape billowing out behind him: the image graffitied by an anonymous artist onto a wall in Rome was tweeted by the Vatican on Tuesday.

Speeding forwards with his fist raised, the heroic pontiff -- crucifix swinging in the wind -- carries his trademark black bag, with the word "values" written across it, in Spanish, in white letters.

In a long-awaited fusion between hot-blooded hormones and cold-headed engineering, a Japanese lingerie company has produced a bra they claim will only unlock when the wearer is really in love.

The "True Love Tester" uses sensors and a special gadget linked to a mobile device to analyse the pattern and speed of the user's heart beat in the heat of the moment.

Thieves armed with toy weapons who dug a tunnel into a post office in Florence stole 70,000 euros ($95,000) on Monday after locking terrified staff in the vault, police told Agence France Presse.

"The armed robbers had hidden inside the post office. They jumped out at the staff on their arrival and forced them to open up the vault," said a policewoman in charge of the probe into the theft in the Italian city.

A Russian woman on the run over unpaid debts has changed sex in an apparent attempt to avoid paying them back -- but is still liable for the money, bailiffs said Monday.

"The debtor changed gender to try to escape liabilities," the press service of the bailiff service of the southern Astrakhan region said in a statement.

An Indian lawmaker called off a hunger strike just hours into his protest Monday, prompting ridicule over what observers called the shortest fast on record.

Vinod Kumar Binny initially said he would refuse food for four days to protest his expulsion from the the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party which took control of Delhi's local government after state elections last month.

Just days after taking office, Madagascar's new president was accused Monday of plagiarizing parts of a speech by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy for his inaugural address.

Hery Rajaonarimampianina used his maiden speech Saturday to urge reconciliation on the crisis-ridden island, but for some sections of the Malagasy press his call sounded familiar.