■ France
False win compensated
Games company Francaise des Jeux said it would compensate a handful of people who mistakenly thought they had won the jackpot because of printing errors on a batch of Black Jack scratch cards. Eight people in the Lorraine region of eastern France will be awarded between 2,000 and 40,000 euros (US$2,410 to US$48,240) for having had their dreams of wealth raised -- and dashed. The misunderstandings arose because one digit was missing on each defective scratch card, indicating in some cases that a key number was a winning "1" instead of, for example, "19" or "14."
■ United States
Farmers fume over tree
The speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is under fire and having his Lone Star State pride questioned, all because he decorated the House floor with a giant made-in-China plastic Christmas tree. The state's tree growers are up in arms over the 4.6m polyvinyl chloride tree that Speaker Tom Craddick had installed on the House floor. They have supplied the State House in Dallas with free trees and are ready to bring in a Texas-grown tree to replace the plastic model. "I think people can deduce for themselves about what it means to have a plastic Christmas tree from China in the Texas State House," said Lanny Dreesen, a spokesman for the Texas Christmas Tree Growers Association.
■ Germany
Vicar red-faced over porn
A vicar inadvertently supplied his parish with dozens of hardcore porn films in an unsuccessful bid to teach people about the life of Christ. Lampoldshausen vicar Frithjof Schwesig, ordered 300 copies of a video film portraying the life of Christ as told by the gospel according to Luke. "In a first batch, 20 to 30 videos were distributed and we immediately got a reaction from five to seven people saying we must have given them the wrong film," he said. Schwesig said there had been a mistake at the Munich video copying plant and that 200 of the tapes handed out were pornographic.
■ Belgium
Row over Hitler wine
Belgium's official anti-racism center said it was preparing legal action to stop imports of an Italian wine with labels depicting Adolf Hitler and other leading Nazis. "A picture of Adolf Hitler is in itself too little [to trigger legal action], but he's also doing the Hitler salute and there is this message `One People, One Empire, One Leader,'" said Ingrid Aendenboom, spokeswoman for the Centre for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism. The wine "is apparently a huge success in Italy," but Belgians were "very sensitive to this kind of thing," she said. The wine was sold in flea markets.
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