Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows on her first visit to Europe as secretary of state when she mispronounced her EU counterparts' names and claimed US democracy was older than Europe's.

Mrs Clinton has set herself a gruelling pace on visits to Egypt, Israel and Brussels soon after touring the Far East, attending dozens of meetings and giving speech after speech.

Tiredness appeared to show yesterday when while answering questions at the European Parliament, Mrs Clinton compared the complex European political environment to that of the two-party US system, before adding: "I have never understood multiparty democracy... and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy."

The remark provoked much headshaking in the Parliament of a bloc that traces back its democratic tradition to the days of classical Greece.

One working lunch later with EU leaders, Mrs Clinton raised more eyebrows when she referred to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana as "High Representative Solano". She also dubbed European Commission External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner as "Benito". (Reuters)

Expensive French kisses

A British man who drove with a licence plate modified to read "kisses" in French was fined €150 by a French court on Thursday.

Graham Moore, 60, from Yorkshire in northern England, had risked up to five years in prison for driving with the plate, B18OUS, modified to read BISOUS, which had belonged to his son's car.

Mr Moore said his now deceased son had modified the plate to amuse his French girlfriend.

Biodegradable gum in Europe

Street cleaners in Britain may spend less time scraping gobs of chewing gum from the pavement after indigenous farmers from Mexico launch their own brand of natural gum harvested by hand in the rainforest.

A cooperative of over 50 Mayan communities in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where Sapodilla trees have been tapped for their sticky latex since before the Spanish conquest, will start selling biodegradable chewing gum in British stores this month.

Unlike common chewing gum made of synthetic rubber, which can take years to break down, the cooperative's "Chicza" brand is made from chicle, a natural substance that degrades quickly, Jesus Manuel Aldrete, the cooperative's director, said.

Ancestors of the Mayans making the gum near the Cancun beach resort munched on chicle to help their digestion and clean their teeth, said Mr Aldrete. Modern manufacturers originally used chicle to make gum but eventually switched to cheaper polymer ingredients. (Reuters)

Archbishop is 'Macho of the Year'

A French feminist group yesterday awarded its "Macho of the Year" award to the Archbishop of Paris for his remark that women needed not just a skirt but "something between your ears as well".

Les Chiennes de garde, one of France's most outspoken women's groups, made the award two days ahead of International Women's Day. It gave second prize to comedian Fabrice Eboue for his comment on French television that "feminism is not just for authoritarian or sexually frustrated women, it's also for lesbians".

Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois (picture) made his prize-winning remark about the difficulties of recruiting women to jobs in the Roman Catholic Church last November on a radio programme.

"The hard part is finding women who are properly trained. It's not enough to have a skirt, you have to have something between your ears as well," he said.

He later explained that what he had meant was "that people are not accepted into the Church depending on their gender but on their personal ability".

Smuggler with 'cocaine' cast

Spanish police yesterday said they had arrested a 66-year-old Chilean at Barcelona airport after discovering his broken leg was supported by a "cast" made out of cocaine.

The man, who had hobbled off a flight from Santiago, was carrying more of the drug in fake beer cans and two hollowed-out stools.

"The man had a fractured leg and the 'plaster cast' that was immobilising it was entirely made from cocaine," a statement said.

He "displayed an open fracture of the tibia and the fibula, and has been transferred to a clinic for an operation.

"Investigators are examining the possibility that these injuries were brought about voluntarily... to facilitate trafficking through security checks," the statement said.

Spanish police are particularly wary about so-called "hot flights" from South America and had their suspicions about this man, which proved to be well-founded.

In total, the Chilean had 4.85 kilos of cocaine stuffed in the cans, the stools and forming his would-be "cast", police said.