A 63-year-old Dutch woman gave birth to a daughter on Monday, becoming the oldest-ever new mother in the Netherlands, the hospital and news reports said.

"Baby Meagan was born at the Medical Centre Leeuwarden at 9:48 am (0848 GMT) on March 21," said a statement on the website of the hospital in the northern Dutch province of Friesland.

A helicopter used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel came close to crashing last week when both engines failed just after she had disembarked, a government spokesman said Sunday.

The Super Puma 332, which reportedly only entered service in December, suffered double engine failure at an altitude of 1,600 meters (5,250 feet) on Wednesday in southern Germany, the spokesman said.

Italy Sunday snatched from Romania the record for the production of the world's longest sausage when a team of pork butchers crafted a delicacy more than half a kilometer long, the ANSA news agency reported.

Alberto Della Pelle from Penne, a small town in central Italy, helped by nine colleagues, created a sausage 597.8 meters (1,961 feet) long in the main street.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stood meters away from a snow leopard in his latest stunt involving a threatened animal but insisted Monday he was just an "ordinary guy" in touch with Russia's problems.

Putin knelt meters away from the snow leopard, kept in a wire-mesh enclosure, as the mythical animal warily eyed the man who has dominated Russia for the last decade in Siberia, state television pictures showed.

‘Lebanon Animals’ association rescued a hyena put in a small cage at a pet shop in the southern port city of Sidon, the National News Agency reported Sunday.

It said the association seized the animal after getting the consent of the environment and interior ministries.

Tanzanian police said Saturday they arrested a man who tried to sell his wife's head and other body organs including breasts and genitals.

Police said the man confessed during interrogation to killing his wife to sell her body parts because he heard that human organs were in demand in his Shinyanga region in the north of Tanzania.

The first Saturday in Lent feels like any other market day in this tiny village in central Bulgaria, but fruit and vegetable stalls are nowhere to be seen among the milling patrons.

Instead, young eligible bachelors from the Roma community are here to find themselves a wife at a traditional "bride market".

ArabNet, the largest gathering for the Arab web/mobile industry, today announced the finalists and runners-up for the forums’ annual competitions; the Ideathon and the Startup Demo.

The ArabNet Shift Digital Summit brings together Arab web executives, entrepreneurs, developers, investors, NGOs and media, to discuss the latest trends and technologies in the sector. The four-day event, which takes place in Beirut on March 22-25, hosts the two annual competitions for upcoming entrepreneurs.

A French court has banned a company set up by a descendant of King Louis XIV from selling luxury condoms described as from the southwestern town of Condom, the town's lawyer said on Wednesday.

The court in the nearby city of Bordeaux banned "the continued sale of condoms under the brand 'The Original Condom from Condom, France,'" said Caroline Lampre, lawyer for the picturesque town of 7,500.

Unknown assailants tossed overnight a hand grenade at the Beirut building where Tawhid movement leader Wiam Wahab resides, As Safir daily reported Thursday.

The newspaper said the incident caused material damage only.