Doraemon, Japan's robot cat from the future, will celebrate turning minus 100 years old by being given official residence of the city where he will be born, a city official told Agence France Presse on Friday.

The electronic blue feline, whose cartoon exploits have captivated children across Asia, is to be given a residency certificate for Kawasaki, a city near Tokyo, on September 3, exactly a century ahead of his supposed birth.

Batman, the comic book superhero, stalks the night saving Gotham from villains, but Baltimore's Caped Crusader just wants sick kids to feel better -- a mission undeterred by last month's deadly shooting at a screening of the fictional hero's latest movie.

Clad in a heavy leather and neoprene Batsuit, the Baltimore man drove up on a recent day to the orthopedic wing of the east coast city's Sinai hospital in a slick Batmobile -- a perfect replica of the Hollywood one.

A New Zealand man who fled to China after a bank mistakenly deposited millions of dollars into his account was jailed for four years and seven months Friday.

Hui "Leo" Gao and his then-partner Kara Hurring skipped the country when Westpac bank accidentally put NZ$10 million (U.S. $8.1 million) into Gao's account in April 2009 after he requested a NZ$100,000 overdraft.

A Nepalese farmer who was bitten by a venomous snake took revenge by sinking his teeth into the reptile and killing it, police said on Thursday.

Mohamed Salmo Miya was farming near his village 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of Kathmandu when he encountered the deadly common cobra, district police chief Uma Prasad Chatrubedi told Agence France Presse.

Police say a western Pennsylvania woman blamed her nonexistent twin sister for stealing items from ahotel room.

The Beaver County Times (http://bit.ly/Sm5XDv ) reports Wednesday that police charged 31-year-old Jennifer Brown, of Rochester, with false reports and theft.

Warders in a French jail where prisoners are allowed to grow their own produce have been left red-faced after the discovery of cannabis plants among the flowers and vegetables.

The plants, which had reached a height of around 80cm (two and a half feet) before being spotted at the weekend, were found in vegetable patches located in the exercise courtyard of the Saint-Martin-de-Re prison in the west of France, Christophe Beaulieu, a regional official of the prison officers' union, told Agence France Presse.

A Frenchwoman endured an 18-hour journey from the Pakistani city of Lahore to Paris and back again after sleeping through her plane's stop in the French capital, officials said on Wednesday.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is investigating how ground crew failed to notice the woman during the plane's two-hour stopover at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

The British royal family said Wednesday nude photographs of Prince Harry cavorting with friends on holiday in Las Vegas were genuine.

The photographs, published in the United States by celebrity news website TMZ.com, show the third-in-line to the throne standing naked in a hotel suite.

German customs seized a $1.2 million violin from a Japanese professional musician and are demanding she pay almost $500,000 to get it back, reports said on Wednesday.

Belgium-based Yuzuko Horigome was transiting through Frankfurt Airport last week after performing in Japan, the top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.

A telegram found during a clear-out at a British bus depot has solved the mystery of a soldier not seen since the D-Day landings, Britain's press reported on Wednesday.

The family of Private Gordon Heaton assumed the Worcestershire Regiment soldier had been killed in fighting following the World War II landings, but could not understand why they had not received an official telegram.