Paris, France | The lives of millions of women and children can be saved every year with an investment of under $5 per person on basic healthcare and contraception, a study into pregnancy-related deaths showed.
Nearly six million children younger than five and 300,000 women died in 2015, according to research in The Lancet medical journal.
Ninety-five percent of maternal and child deaths occur in 74 low- and middle-income countries.
"Many of these deaths could be prevented if high-impact and affordable solutions reached the populations that needed them most," study leader Robert Black of John
Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health said in a statement.
"Our analysis shows that expanding access to care to keep more mothers and children alive and healthy is feasible, and a highly cost-effective investment."
Four million lives could be saved each year by reaching 90 percent of those in need with basic services such as pregnancy and delivery care, childhood nutrition, and treatment for infectious diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, said the team.
This was broken down into 1.5 million newborn deaths, 1.5 million child deaths, 149,000 newborn deaths and almost 850,000 stillbirths.
Access to contraception on its own, could reduce 67,000 maternal deaths, 440,000 newborn deaths, 473,000 child deaths and 564,000 stillbirths, they estimated.
The cost would be $6.2 billion (5.4 billion euros) in low-income countries, or $6.7 per person who needs it.
In lower middle-income countries, the required amount is $12.4 billion or $4.70 per person, and in middle-income countries $8 billion or $3.90 per person.
Overall, the cost per head would be $4.70, the team said.
Berlin, Germany |The first reprint of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in Germany since World War II has proved more popular than expected, its publisher said, with pre-orders almost four times above its first print-run.
The Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IFZ) had been planning to print only 4,000 copies of its annotated version of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic diatribe.
But already on the first day of its sale Friday, "15,000 copies had been pre-ordered" by bookstores, said Simone Paulmichl, IFZ spokeswoman.
Those who have placed orders must "expect some delay" before receiving their copies, she said, adding however that she was unable to say how many of the books, which are retailing at 59 euros ($65) each, have actually been sold.
"The bookstores are telling us that there are many historians or scientists" buying the book for educational purposes.
"But it also appeals to a wider public of people who are interested in politics and history in general" and who want to read what Hitler actually wrote, said Paulmichl.
She said however that there is no indication that the strong demand came from neo-Nazis, pointing out that the edition contains 3,500 commentaries criticising Hitler's argument.
New copies of "Mein Kampf" hit bookstores in Germany after the copyright of the anti-Semitic manifesto expired.
Bavaria was handed the copyright of the book in 1945, when the Allies gave it control of the main Nazi publishing house following Hitler's defeat.
For 70 years, it refused to allow the inflammatory tract to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent incitement of hatred.
But "Mein Kampf" -- which means "My Struggle" -- fell into the public domain on January 1.
Partly autobiographical, "Mein Kampf" outlines Hitler's ideology that formed the basis for Nazism. He wrote it in 1924 while he was imprisoned in Bavaria for treason after his failed Beer Hall Putsch.
The book set out two ideas that he put into practice as Germany's leader going into World War II: annexing neighbouring countries to gain "Lebensraum", or "living space", for Germans, and his hatred of Jews, which led to the Holocaust.
Some 12.4 million copies were published in Germany until 1945, some of which can be found in academic libraries.
Moscow, Russia | Russian police said they were probing a cheeky stunt by a group of passengers on the Moscow metro who stripped down to their underwear as part of a worldwide flashmob.
Police failed to see the funny side after the group rode the Moscow metro wearing warm coats with their boxer shorts or briefs and posted images online as part of the so-called "No Pants Subway Ride" event that originated in the United States.
"The police force on the Moscow metro are carrying out a check into the holding of the 'flashmob' in the metro," a Moscow police spokesman told RIA Novosti news agency.
"A decision is being taken on whether their actions constitute an administrative offence."
A spokesman for the police force in the Moscow metro told AFP however that even if the participants had been detained, it was unlikely they had committed even a public order offence.
The Moscow metro responded with a statement calling for passengers to "treat each other with respect and observe the generally accepted rules of behaviour in public places."
It was the first time Russians had taken part in the jokey flashmob which originated in New York in 2002 but has now spread to cities including London and Bangkok.
The idea is that participants behave exactly like normal commuters, just without skirts or trousers.
One of the at least half-dozen Moscow participants, Mark Vesely, wrote on VK social networking page afternoon that "the first official No Pants in the Subway flashmob was a success."
He posted photographs of a handful of bare-legged participants sitting in down jackets and underwear in a metro carriage.
The flashmob started from the central Tverskaya metro station, Vesely wrote.
Vesely complained, however, that not all had gone to plan, with one couple simulating sex during the flashmob, which he said was "unacceptable."
A splinter group from Russia's main Communist Party, the Communists of Russia, on Monday angrily denounced the stunt as "shameless and amoral" and called for the participants to be "charged with a crime for hooliganism in a public place."
Snow fell on Moscow and daytime temperatures were around minus 13 degrees celsius (8.6 Fahrenheit), although inside the metro system is considerably warmer.
Moscow police have little tolerance for youth culture stunts and in 2011 detained costumed participants in a "zombie parade" down a pedestrian street.
Wellington, NEW ZEALAND | Colander-wearing members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster could soon be legally married in New Zealand after the church was approved to hold "Pastafarian" marriage ceremonies.
Church adherents, who wear colanders on their heads, revere pirates and believe the universe was created by a flying noodle, have been recognised in New Zealand as a bone fide organisation.
Their right to nominate marriage celebrants was approved on December 10 and the church head, the "Top R'Amen", was reported saying she had filed her application and hoped to begin conducting Pastafarian weddings next month.
The woman, who requested anonymity, earlier told Radio New Zealand it was only right that marriages in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster be recognised.
"We are a bone fide church and our people do like to get married, some of them several times," she said.
"We like to have baptisms and babies and celebrations and divorces and it's always nice to have an official marriage celebrant to preside over these celebrations."
The wedding feast would be pasta, "the main holy meal", the Top R'Amen said, and the wedding dress distinctive.
"The colander is the traditional headgear but if you also wish to dress up as a pirate that's also approved because of course the first people that the flying spaghetti monster created were pirates."
Registrar-General Jeff Montgomery, who approved the Pastafarians right to apply to be marriage celebrants, told Radio New Zealand it was "one of the more unusual" requests he has received but they met the conditions of the Marriage Act.
"I have come to the view they do uphold or promote philosophical convictions and therefore are able to nominate marriage celebrants," he said.
Under New Zealand law, he said an organisation would be granted celebrant status as long as they can demonstrate that they are promoting some philosophical or religious convictions.
"A marriage certificate won't actually have on it that a person has been married by a particular celebrant or particular organisation," he said.
The "Flying Spaghetti Monster" movement, which developed in the United States about 10 years ago, also believes there is a good beer volcano in heaven but the beer in hell is stale.
The church supreme leader is described on their website as "a heap of spaghetti appendages with two meatballs and a pair of eyes attached to the noodly body through a pair of stalks".
Rome, Italy | Porn star Rocco Siffredi, known as the "Italian stallion", has launched a petition demanding sex education become mandatory in Italy's schools and offered himself up as a teacher.
"I wanted to launch this appeal because sex is a magnificent thing," he wrote on the website that began collecting signatures.
"I put forth my name and my experience, I make myself fully available to go into Italian schools and personally promote this initiative," the 51-year-old added.
Despite efforts stretching back over a century and dozens of legislative proposals, sex education is not part of the curriculum in Italy's schools.
The petition on change.org, addressed to Italian Education Minister Stefania Giannini, had gathered some 21,600 supporters
"Pornography should be entertainment, but due to lacking alternatives, it has become a means to learn, especially for young people," he said.
"I have been doing my work for 30 years and I have acquired enough experience to guarantee that what I do is not sex education," he added.
Las Vegas, United States | Is it a car, a bike or some other kind of contraption?
It looks like an inverted tricycle with an egg-shaped shell. The makers of the Elf vehicle tout it as the future of environmentally friendly urban transport, combining pedal power with battery propulsion and solar charging.
Take a look inside: there are no doors or floorboards, making it appear like a car that came out of a "Flintstones" cartoon.
"We believe in human-powered mobility," said Craig Sparks, showing off the vehicle from startup Organic Transit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
"This is a town runner. You can run your errands, go to the grocery store. You don’t need a car."
The price tag starts at $7,000 but it pays for itself because it uses no fuel, he said.
You start it up with a modified bicycle pedal crank, and steer and brake with handlebars. The battery kicks in to take it up to a speed of some 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour.
The Elf has a solar panel on the roof that charges the battery, which offers a range of around 50 kilometers (30 miles) -- or more, if you are willing to pedal.
Sparks said the Elf is "street legal" and requires no registration or insurance, with federal rules classifying it as a bicycle. But some state or local rules may be different.
In terms of technology, El uses a Trylon plastic body and aluminum frame and features "dynamic dampening suspension."
The motor and pedal system operate independently. It uses lithium-ion manganese batteries and has an optional continuously variable transmission. In future versions, Sparks said the devices will use pedal power to charge the batteries.
The company has been selling them over the past year online and plans to ramp up production.
"Our costs will come down," he told AFP. "Right now we produce around 20 per week and there is a long waiting list."
But he said the company has no plans to sell itself to another manufacturer for mass production.
"If we got a million orders today, a lot of those people could just have to wait," he said.
Las Vegas, United States | It is a spherical computer that costs $79, is packed with a fair amount of what the Internet has to offer -- and fits in the palm of your hand.
The computer startup Endless is out to bring the Internet to people without deep pockets or reliable online connectivity.
"The idea is to make it useful with full Internet, limited Internet or without any Internet," Endless chief executive Matt Dalio said of the computers aimed at emerging markets.
"It comes pretty loaded," he added, speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
For example, the Endless Mini includes online encyclopedia Wikipedia and courses from non-profit educational organization Khan Academy.
The computers, which require keyboards, can be plugged into any television to provide a display.
Dalio depicted the San Francisco-based startup's mission as a for-profit spin on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project launched a decade ago by Nicholas Negroponte, who has advised Endless.
OLPC originally aimed to create a $100 computer for children in developing countries, but the price later approached twice that amount.
"OLPC was before its time," Dalio said. "We are learning from what they did right and what they did wrong."
Instead of giving computers away to those who can't afford them, Endless prices its offering to be within reach of people with just enough money to join the "knowledge economy," according to Dalio.
"The barriers are cost and connectivity," he said, holding up an Endless Mini. "With cost, we solve that right here."
Endless Mini addresses the connectivity problem by coming loaded with large amounts of information which is then updated whenever it is connected online. A larger and more powerful model sells for $189.
Endless computers are powered by open-source Linux operating software with a simplified user interface.
"Linux has historically been targeted at the most tech-savvy users and we are targeting the least tech-savvy users," Dalio said.
"We needed to make it as easy as a smartphone to use."
The computers are being sold at the website endlessm.com.
"It costs too much to give away computers to a billion people," he said.
"But if you can sell them you have a revenue stream that allows you to build a product of epic proportions."
Paris, France | David Bowie was not just a musical visionary, he also made history on financial markets two decades ago when he rocked Wall Street with a "celebrity bond", raising $55 million.
In 1997, the British singer launched the securities backed by the royalties to all his pre-1980 albums, which included smash hits "Let's Dance" and "Hunky Dory".
The bonds had a 10-year maturity and carried a 7.9 percent coupon or interest rate, about 1.5 points above the market's benchmark, US Treasury bonds.
Securitising, by which illiquid assets are bundled into tradable securities, was already common in the mortgage and car loan sectors, but Bowie was the first to apply the same logic to song royalties.
The issue was bought by the Prudential Insurance Company of America for what was then $55 million.
The 287 songs on Bowie's 25 pre-1980 albums were used as collateral.
Other artists, including James Brown, Rod Stewart and Iron Maiden later used the same technique to raise funds via celebrity bonds.
Bowie bonds attracted negative attention when rating agency Moody's Investor service in 2004 downgraded them from A3 to Baa3, just one notch above junk status, because of a downturn in the sale of recorded music.
Also in 1997, Bowie signed a deal with the EMI label giving him a $30 million advance on future royalties in exchange for the worldwide distribution rights of his 1969 to 1990 catalogue.
Pilar, Argentina | Soccer-mad Argentina has hosted a novel tournament that featured plenty of footballs but no goals as such: the second-ever FootGolf World Cup.
Instead of dribbling, tackling and sliding around getting muddy, FootGolf players boot the football large distances into a hole 53 centimeters (20 inches) wide, in as few kicks as possible.
Spectators follow the players around each of the 18 holes over a course complete with flags, slopes and bunkers.
Keeping to the golfer-like dress code, they wear harlequin-patterned socks and pristine white shorts and caps.
Said to have been invented in the Netherlands in 2009, the sport has spread worldwide.
Players from Australia, Britain, Ireland and the United States joined their Argentine hosts in the tournament in Pilar, a posh suburb of Buenos Aires, that wrapped up at the weekend.
The first FootGolf World Cup was held in Hungary in 2012, with 77 players from eight countries. This year, turnout multiplied with 230 players from 26 countries.
"It far surpassed our expectations," said organizer Javier De Ancizar, head of the Argentine FootGolf Association.
"This was the first tournament we have played with spectator stands, and they were full."
Argentine Christian Otero was crowned world FootGolf champion on Sunday after topping the players' table.
"I had to win. I felt a lot of pressure and I am very happy," Otero said.
"This sport is incredible. There aren't many sports that have such a lovely setting," he said, speaking near the green expanse of the upmarket Golf Pilar Club.
A good FootGolf player, he said, "has to have a strong mind, a good touch and cool-headedness, because in this game, you make a lot of mistakes and the important thing is to get back into it quickly."
