Teddy bear offence

Two Belarus journalists have been arrested and fined for posing for pictures with teddy bears, after hundreds of stuffed animals were dropped from the sky into the country as part of a pro-democracy stunt. Irina Kozlik, 27, a journalist for Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, and Yulia Doroshkevish, 31, a press photographer, were each fined 3 mn Belarussian roubles, or around 400 dollars. The fines came the same day Alexander Lukashenko, the country's authoritarian president, announced that he believes the Swedish embassy in Minsk had a part in the July 4 stunt, in which a plane chartered by the Swedish PR firm, Studio Total, dropped 800 teddy bears bearing pro-democracy messages over Belarus airspace.