Copenhagen - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Ramussen was Thursday set to test ride part of the tough mountain stage in the ongoing Tour de France, reports said.

The premier was one of thousands of spectators who Wednesday saw CSC cyclist Carlos Sastre of Spain grab the overall lead after winning the 17th stage that ended with a 13.8-kilometre climb to the top of the Alpe d'Huez.

Rasmussen was to take on the climb Thursday and has trained for it during the past year, the Politiken newspaper said.

Team CSC is headed by former Danish cyclist and Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis extended the invitation, the report said.

Copenhagen  - Taking advantage of the seasonal lull, some 150 Santas from a dozen countries gathered Monday for their annual Santa Claus convention.

The three-day convention ends Wednesday when Danish strongman Asbjorn Riis is to be named honorary Santa Claus 2008.

Riis, a professional wrestler, is known from appearances in various reality and wrestling shows and also for a part in the movie The 13th Warrior, starring Antonio Banderas.

The Santas were meeting at the Bakken amusement park near the Danish capital, Copenhagen that has hosted the convention since 1963.

Over the years they have discussed topics ranging from international taxation of gifts to the standard size of a chimney.

Copenhagen  - A Danish court on Monday heard evidence against two Tunisian nationals suspected of planning to murder a Danish newspaper cartoonist.

The court was due to rule earliest Tuesday on whether the two were to remain in custody.

They have been held since February when security police said they had averted a plot to kill Kurt Westergaard, who drew a controversial cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as a turban.

The cartoon was one of 12 images published in September 2005 by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Copenhagen - Denmark-based Kurdish television station Roj TV said Friday it had nothing to do with the abduction of German climbers in Turkey.

"That has nothing in the slightest to do with us. We are also not commenting on this issue," the head of the broadcaster in exile, Manouchehr Zonoozi, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The group that abducted the three Germans late Tuesday, the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), said they were taken because the German government had banned Roj TV in Germany at the end of June.

Zonoozi said the ban in Germany was "politically motivated."

Brussels/Copenhagen - Airlines such as Ryanair, Air Berlin and Aer Lingus ar

Copenhagen  - Vandals have defaced the grave of Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen with graffiti, officials said Wednesday.