Warsaw, Poland -Poland said  it would deploy the military to look for an alleged Nazi "gold train" that sparked global fascination after two anonymous treasure hunters claimed they had pinpointed where it is buried. 

"The defence minister decided to send technical equipment to search the area in order to determine whether a train actually exists," Defence Ministry spokesman Jacek Sonta told AFP. 

"The army is acting at the request of the governor of the region concerned," he added.

Tomasz Smolarz, governor of the southwestern region of Lower Silesia, said it was "impossible to claim that such a find actually exists at the location indicated based on the documents that have been submitted."

This comes just days after a senior culture ministry officials said on Friday he was "more than 99 percent sure" an armoured railway carriage had been found based on ground-penetrating radar images.

But according to Smolarz no such images had been submitted to authorities.

Police blocked off the presumed location of the train along a stretch of active railway tracks on Monday in a bid to prevent accidents as a curious public swamps the area near the city of Walbrych.

A Polish NGO on Monday filed a complaint with state prosecutors against Piotr Zuchowski, a secretary of state at the culture ministry, for unfounded claims about the existence of the train that have lead to considerable public funds being wasted on securing the area concerned. 

Global media have become fascinated by the prospect of a railway car full of jewels and gold stolen by the Nazis after two men -- a German and a Pole -- claimed to have found an armoured train car containing valuables, precious metals and industrial materials.

The World Jewish Congress has asked that any valuables found that once belonged to victims of the Holocaust should be returned to their owners or heirs. 

Zuchowski also claimed that someone who had been involved in hiding the train, presumed to be over 100 metres (330 feet) in length, had disclosed its location before dying.

Rumours of two special Nazi trains that disappeared in the spring of 1945, towards the end of World War II, have been circulating for years, capturing the imagination of countless treasure-hunters. 

The lore is fuelled by a massive network of secret underground tunnels near Walbrzych -- including around the massive Ksiaz Castle -- that Nazi Germany built and where legend has it the Third Reich stashed looted valuables. 

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Paris, France With just over a year to go before the Rio Paralympics, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Philip Craven told AFP he is confident the 2016 Games will be a record-breaking success.

The Paralympics will run from September 7 to 16 next year, just after the Olympics in the Brazilian city, and Craven believes the combination of the Brazilians' love of sport and the dramatic backdrop provided by Rio de Janeiro itself will bring improved ticket sales and a record television audience.

"If you look at numbers, we've got more athletes than we had in London (in 2012) - 4,350 - and 22 sports," he said in an interview with AFP to discuss preparations for the Games.

"We're expecting to break for the first time the four billion cumulative TV viewer figure. We've got far more broadcasters already signed up than we had for London at this time, so things are looking really great."

The one-year countdown will be marked by the holding of a Paralympic Festival next Monday, September 7, at the city's Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, the lake overlooked by the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer.

While most headlines in the build-up to an Olympics and Paralympics are usually centred around the race to get venues and infrastructure ready, Craven says the festival -- which will see the likes of London 2012 stars Jason Smyth of Ireland and Australia's Evan O'Hanlon compete over 100 metres -- will provide a glimpse of what to look forward to.

"It's very similar to what we did with one year to go in Trafalgar Square in London, and then we launched the tickets, and that's what we're doing in Rio, where we are hoping to sell 3.3 million as opposed to 2.8 million in London."

While it has tended to be overshadowed by the Olympics in the past, London 2012 was an enormous success for the Paralympic movement, but Craven insists Rio can match that. 

"You couldn't wish to go to a city that's more vibrant. (Brazilians are) incredible...lovers of sport," he said ahead of a Games that will welcome two new events for 2016 in the shape of paracanoe and paratriathlon.

"The triathlon is on Copacabana Beach with the Sugar Loaf right behind and the canoe is in the Lagoa with the Christ the Redeemer looking down from up on high and you couldn't wish for more amazing backdrops, particularly for television."

- 'A long process' - 

This will be a particularly significant Paralympics for Craven given that he is serving his final four-year term as IPC president after being elected for a fourth time in 2013.

His eighth and last Paralympics in the role follows involvement at five Games as a paralympian in wheelchair basketball from 1972 to 1988 and also in swimming in 1972, and his contribution to disabled sport led to him being given a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005.

Concerns have been raised about the lack of wheelchair access for disabled athletes and spectators in Rio, with 2016 organising committee spokesman Mario Andrada last week telling AFP that making Rio accessible remained "a huge job".

However, Craven, who is now 65 and was paralysed in a rock climbing accident in 1966, tempered concerns by calling for patience.

"I think what we have to take into account here is that, if the Paralympics hadn't come, then there would be very, very little change at all, and this takes time," he said.

"What we've experienced in the past with Paralympic Games, if we look back to Beijing in 2008, there was an incredible transformation in accessibility in the whole of China, and the same happened following Sochi in Russia (in 2014), and this will happen in Rio. 

"It's a long process. From our experience, most of the changes will take place post the Games, and not prior."

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© 1994-2015 Agence France-Presse

Nairobi, Kenya -Kenya's triumphant world championship athletes were given a rousing welcome home, with thousands of supporters and the east African nation's leaders out in force for the homecoming.

Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport was crammed with well-wishers as the team returned from Beijing, where they topped the medals table for the first time since the championships started in 1983.

Kenya garnered seven golds, six silvers and three bronze. There were also two rare individual title wins for Julius Yego in the men's javelin and Nicholas Bett in the 400m hurdles.

"We are here to welcome our heroes who have stunned the world. You have made us proud," said deputy president William Ruto, who led the line-up of Kenyan leaders welcoming the team. He later hosted the athletes for breakfast at his residence.

"Every village, every town and every corner of Kenya is celebrating our win and our success. We are not the biggest country in the world nor the strongest country but we are simply the best," Ruto said.

"Kenya is not only a cradle of mankind but this is the only place where village girls and village boys, with one effort become champions."

Kenya's sports minister, Hassan Wario, said the team's success was a good pointer towards next year's Olympics, but said a lot of work still needed to be done to ensure there will be a well-rounded reprepresentation.

"This success augurs well for our preparations for  Rio. The Olympics will be a different kind of ball game because the Olympics is slightly wider than the world championships," he said.

"There is fencing and other events which we don't do very well in. But we have shown we are number one in the world in terms of athletics and we can now improve in other things for the Olympics."

Sydney, Australia -China have entered a yacht with a full Chinese crew into the Sydney to Hobart bluewater classic for the first time, organisers said.

Serena Cai, who is managing Ark323, said taking part in Australia's top yacht race would be a milestone moment for Chinese sailing.

"Ark323 is a purely Chinese entry; a Chinese owner, crew and administrators," said Cai, noting that while entries from Hong Kong had raced before, it was a first for the mainland.

The 12-man crew have been training together since March for the annual race that leaves Sydney on Boxing Day.

"They come from all points of China and have a wide range of sailing skills. They are very excited to be the first crew from mainland China to enter the race," added Cai in a statement issued through the race organisers.

The yacht, owned by the Noah Group, will represent Noah Sailing Club in Shanghai.

"We made a decision to enter the Rolex Sydney Hobart because of the nature of the prestigious event, the challenge it presents," said Noah Group chief Wilson Lee.

"It is also one of the ultimate platforms to showcase the Chinese team and the club’s passion to increase a Chinese presence at international yachting events."

Ark323 is a TP52 class of yacht, and will be sailed to Australia from Sanya in China.

Last year's Sydney to Hobart, won by supermaxi Wild Oats XI, drew its biggest fleet in two decades with 117 yachts taking part.

The 628 nautical mile race starts in Sydney Harbour before running down the east coast then across the Bass Strait to Hobart.

Registration for this year's race opened last week with yachts from Britain and Germany among other international entries.   

Doha, Qatar -Controversial football World Cup host Qatar will complete work on the first venue for tournament matches by 2016, six years before the event takes place, officials announced.

The 40,000-seater Khalifa International Stadium is scheduled to host group stage, round of 16 and quarter-final matches during the 2022 World Cup.

It is also the venue for the 2019 World Athletics Championships, the first time that the games will be held in the Middle East.

"We are very happy with the rapid progress of renovation works at the site," said project manager Mansoor Saleh Al-Muhannadi.

"We expect the stadium to be handed over by the main contractor at the end of 2016." 

Work has progressed at the stadium despite suggestions earlier in the year that Qatar may lose its right to host the World Cup following the fallout from corruption allegations surrounding FIFA and the launch of an ongoing Swiss investigation examining in part how the tiny Gulf state was awarded the tournament. 

The Khalifa stadium, located in the west of the Qatari capital Doha, was originally built in 1976 as a 20,000-seater stadium but is undergoing major renovation for 2022.

Qatar's worker safety record has become a controversial issue since the award of football's biggest tournament, but World Cup organisers on Tuesday said some 3,330 construction workers have worked over three million man-hours at Khalifa "without a recordable accident".

Officials said the stadium once completed will include cooling technology on "the field of play, all seats and concourses". 

Khalifa is one of up to 12 stadiums which will be used during the World Cup in 2022, which for the first time in its history will be played during the months of November and December.

A final decision on the number of 2022 venues will be made by the end of this year.

Miami, United States -Three out of four Americans' hearts are older than their chronological age, raising the risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death, officials said.

An online tool at www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heartage.htm can help people determine how old their heart is, based on factors like weight, smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For most adults aged 30–74, their predicted heart age is "significantly higher than their chronological age," said the CDC in its Vital Signs report, released Tuesday.

Researchers found that nearly 69 million adults between the ages of 30 and 74 have a heart age older than their actual age. 

"That's about the number of people living in the 130 largest US cities combined," the CDC report said.

The average predicted heart age for adult men was nearly eight years older than their chronological age, and 5.4 years older for women, it said.

When researchers divided people according to race, they found the highest heart ages among African-American men and women, who had an average heart age of 11 years older than their chronological age.

Risk factor data was collected from every US state and information from the Framingham Heart Study, which began in Massachusetts in 1948 and has followed thousands of people over time in an effort to identify the causes of cardiovascular disease.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death and serious illness in the United States.

CDC officials said they were releasing the report and the online tool in the hopes that they would encourage people to be aware of their heart health and take measures to prevent heart disease before it is too late.

"The heart age concept was created to more effectively communicate a person's risk of dying from heart attack or stroke -– and to show what can be done to lower that risk," the report said.

Maintaining a healthy weight, keeping blood pressure under control, not smoking, getting enough exercise and eating right are the top ways to avoid heart disease, experts say.

"Because so many US adults don't understand their cardiovascular disease risk, they are missing out on early opportunities to prevent future heart attacks or strokes," said Barbara Bowman, director of CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention.

"About three in four heart attacks and strokes are due to risk factors that increase heart age, so it's important to continue focusing on efforts to improve heart health and increase access to early and affordable detection and treatment resources nationwide."

San Francisco, United States-Apple is dabbling with the idea of making online television programming in a move that would challenge established players such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, according to show-business magazine Variety.

Variety cited unnamed sources as saying that the California-based company has chatted in recent weeks with Hollywood executives to assess interest in leading an effort to make original content for Apple.

Apple told AFP that it would not comment on what it referred to as "rumor and speculation."

Industry trackers have wondered what the vision is for Apple TV set-stop boxes, which the company downplayed as a "hobby" after the original version was released in 2007.

Online streaming of films and television shows has since become a mainstay of home entertainment, setting up the potential for Apple to combine iTunes digital offerings with its hardware for delivering content to the biggest screens in living rooms.

Apple TV news is expected to be part of a September 9 media event the company will host in San Francisco.

In trademark enigmatic style, the emailed invitations to the event provided little more than the time and place of the event. Beneath graphics based on the Apple logo was written "Hey Siri, give us a hint."

The timing of the Apple event did not come as a surprise since the company is known to host September events to announce iPhone updates.

Rumors about the coming event included the possibility of new iPhone models and news about Apple TV set-top boxes.

New York, United States -David Bowie, known for the intellectual bent of his music, is penning music for what will likely be lighter fare -- a musical based on cartoon character SpongeBob.

Chicago's Oriental Theatre announced that the English rock icon and artist is leading an array of top musicians in composing the score for "SpongeBob The Musical" which will premiere there on June 7 next year.

Other musicians who will contribute material include The Flaming Lips and They Might Be Giants, two US bands with similarly eclectic interests, as well as 1980s pop superstar Cyndi Lauper, members of hard rock legends Aerosmith and singer-songwriter John Legend.

The musical adapts the animated series "SpongeBob SquarePants," in which the title character -- a talking human-like sponge -- explores an underwater city called Bikini Bottom.

The musical will run for one month in Chicago before an expected move to Broadway in New York, the Oriental Theatre said in its show announcement.

Since its debut in 1999, the television series has been a massive success for Nickelodeon, the children-oriented US television network owned by Viacom.

"SpongeBob SquarePants" has won a wide following as well among adults, with US President Barack Obama a professed fan, although conservative Christian activists have attacked the show for an alleged gay subtext.

"SpongeBob The Musical" is the second current stage project by the 68-year-old Bowie, who had kept quiet for a decade before returning to the scene with his 2013 album "The Next Day."

Bowie also wrote the music for "Lazarus," which premieres in November at the New York Theatre Workshop.

"Lazarus" is based on the cult classic science fiction novel "The Man Who Fell to Earth," about an alien who arrives in search of water and becomes enamored of alcohol and television.

Bowie starred in the 1976 film version of "The Man Who Fell to Earth" but did not write the music amid contractual disputes.

Bowie, a pioneer of glam rock, has probed the nature of the universe on works such as "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?"

A trained actor, Bowie won acclaim for his portrayal on Broadway in 1980-81 of the severely deformed Englishman Joseph Merrick in "The Elephant Man."

Bowie is not expected to act in either "SpongeBob the Musical," whose cast was not immediately announced, or "Lazarus," which will star Michael C. Hall, known for the title role on the television series "Dexter."

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© 1994-2015 Agence France-Presse

Biel, Switzerland---The Swiss city of Biel and its peaceable citizens is known as the world capital for watchmaking.

But could the home of Rolex and Swatch also gain an unlikely reputation for naked flesh?

Biel has been hosting the inaugural Naked Performance Festival -- an event aimed at challenging notions of what belongs in public spaces.

"Art is welcome today in every city, but nakedness, no!" artist Thomas Zollinger, who created the event ending Saturday, told AFP.

Nudity may be commonplace in galleries and museums, but there remains deep resistance -- hypocrisy, according to Zollinger -- to seeing it in the streets. 

"The body is an accepted medium of art (in public)", he said. "But why not the naked body?" 

Persuading the Biel authorities to host the event took some work, he added, but the first day of the festival was completely "peaceful."

A row of burghers formed around a group of nude women contorting themselves on the road, while, in another location, an elderly man looked away as several performers sat in their birthday suits on a line of folding chairs. 

On his website, Zollinger said that in conceiving the piece he wanted to work "with naked bodies in a comprehensive way whereby pedestrian circulation (and) the architectural environment...are also an integral part."

Zollinger, who lives in Biel, has run the Ritual Theatre group since 1991, and has produced a number of performances based on nudity across Europe in recent years.

Nueva York, United States ---Women  parade topless through the streets of New York, flashing their breasts in the name of feminist liberation as they celebrate annual GoTopless Day.

The marches are organized by women's rights group GoTopless, which campaigns for women to be able to go shirtless across the world.

It is already legal for women to bare their breasts in public in America's biggest city, and police will seal off the route of the parade from Columbus Circle to Bryant Park, organizers said.

Dozens of people are expected to take part when the march begins. Parallel events will take place in Los Angeles' Venice Beach as well as other US and European cities.

"People should not feel that it needs to be a taboo" to go topless, said the head of the group's New York chapter, Rachel Jessee, who is also an actress, model and performer.

"It's a human right, and women should be created equally, but a lot of people view it as something very sexual."

She told AFP that forcing women and girls of a certain age to cover up subjected them to "shame and embarrassment," which is "not healthy for the mind."

GoTopless believes its campaign has been given a shot in the arm by the 2014 comedy film "Free The Nipple" and celebrities such as Miley Cyrus flashing their breasts in public.

Both men and women are invited to take part in the event, which fall a few days from the 95th anniversary of Women's Equality Day, when American women were given the vote.