Royal wedding in offing, or just rumours?

PARIS: Is the reformed bad girl of Monaco ready for marriage? Princess Stephanie had her two children baptised last month, paving the way for her to wed their father, live-in boyfriend Daniel Ducruet. according to French press reports, says AP.

The principality's press office confirmed Wednesday that Louis, two and a half, and 11-month-old Pauline were baptised April 17 in a private ceremony at Monaco's Church of St. Devote.

Reports of impending marriage were "more rumours, just rumours." the press office said.

The event was a reconciliation of sorts between Stephanie, a rock star-turned-bathing suit designer, and her father, Prince Rainier, who reportedly never approved of his daughter's relationship with Ducruet.

Ducruet met the princess while he was her bodyguard.

Sugar-powered spacecraft!

LONDON: A suger-powered spacecraft designed by an amateur rocket engineer has been cleared for . lift-off for its two-mile flight into the sky in Wales, reports AFP.

Aviation authorities and police -gave the go-ahead to 35-year-old laboratory technician Steve Bennett to launch the "Starchaser" rocket he has been working on for years. The Times reported yesterday.

Bennett, from Manchester in northern England, claims the ten loot (three-metre) craft will travel at 900 feet (270 metres) a second and has a range of six miles (ten km).

He plans to launch the rocket later this month in Wales. It is scheduled to fly two and a half miles (four km) before parachuting down to be recovered.

But Bennett has been obliged to take put a hefty insurance policy in case things don't go according to plan, the paper said.

Eating feat

KATHMANDU: A Nepalese man took about seven kilograms of food at a picnic, becoming a glutton known to all, The Kathmandu Post reported Thursday, says Xinhua. *

Keshab Prasad Subedi. a peon of the Ramechhap District Development Committee in central Nepal, who was invited at a picnic organised recently by the committee, devoured about 2.5 kilograms or the entire fat of a he-goat about 1.5 kilograms of meat and about 3.5 kilograms of other food including

It took Subedi five hours to complete the eating feat.

However, the 42-year-old glutton, who weighs 60 kilograms. was not satisfied with the quantity of the food at the picnic. It is reported that he had the record of eating about four kilograms of rice.

Furthermore, he was not mindful of whether the food was cooked or uncooked. He had chewed and devoured two kilograms of uncooked rice immediately without any digestive problem.