An Australian cat named Smokey survived 13 shots to the head from an air rifle and then found his way home after what police on Tuesday called a "shocking" act of animal cruelty.

The nine-year-old moggy turned up on his owners' doorstep bleeding from his head last week, three days after he went missing from the family home in Maryborough, central Victoria.

A medical examination revealed 13 pellets lodged in his head and face. Sergeant Craig Pearse said it was remarkable Smokey had managed to get home after his ordeal.

"This is just a shocking incident where someone either working alone or in a group has shown no regard for animal life and left Smokey for dead," Pearse said.

The distressed feline had to be heavily sedated while 11 of the pellets were removed, he said, adding that Smokey was expected to recover.

Animal welfare advocate Hugh Wirth said the incident was "utterly disgraceful", and that Smokey's tormentors deserved jail.

"Almost certainly these will be young males around about the age of 18 to 20 who have done this," said Wirth, Victoria state's president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"It's a pattern that we see throughout Australia and there's only one way to deal with it -- and that's jail."

Penny-pinching, rude and terrible at foreign languages: French people are the world's worst tourists according to a study of the global hotel industry released on Thursday.

Tourists walk in front of the Eiffel Tower Enlarge photo Carried out last month by TNS Infratest, the study asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip.

Clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining, Japanese tourists came top of the crop for the third year running.

At the other end of the spectrum, French holidaymakers and business travellers were the least generous or ready to tip, and ranked next-to-last for their overall behaviour and politeness.

Pushy French travellers made amends on elegance -- classed third -- as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.

But the French were the least ready to try a new language, unlike US tourists who were most likely to swallow their pride and order a pizza, baguette or a paella in the local lingo.

US tourists also got top marks for generosity -- as the biggest spenders and tippers -- but fell short on other counts as the least tidy, the loudest, the worst complainers, and the most badly dressed.

Despite cliches about beer-guzzling hordes descending on Mediterranean resorts each summer, Britons came a surprise second for their overall behaviour, politeness, quietness and even elegance -- second for dress sense only to the Italians.

But the model Japanese were followed by Canadians as the least likely to whinge when a trip goes wrong.

France's rivals for the "worst tourist" tag, Spaniards and Greeks came near the bottom of the pack in almost every category.

A six-year-old boy who missed his school bus hopped into the family car and drove alone 10 miles (16 kilometers) to school before losing control and crashing but escaping with only minor injuries, police said Wednesday.

"It's not only one miracle, it's a multiple array of miracles" that allowed the boy from Wicomico Church, in the US state of Virginia, to avoid serious injury to himself or others, Northumberland county Sheriff Chuck Wilkins told AFP.

The boy took the keys to a 2005 Ford Taurus early Monday while his mother was sleeping, and drove, possibly standing up, "during our busiest time of the day, when all the school buses are going, passing two or three cars at a time, and went over a bridge and almost made it to school" before striking a utility pole, Wilkins said.

"He just had a strong desire to go school even after the crash," so that he wouldn't miss the school breakfast or gym class, police Sergeant Tom Cunningham said.

The boy was taken to a local hospital, treated and released in time to make it to Northumberland Elementary School.

Both parents were arrested and charged with child endangerment.

"There was an outstanding court order that the children not be left with the mother alone because she had some previous issues," Wilkins said.

But the father went to work at 6:30 am and left the boy and his four-year-old brother at home. When the mother did not wake up to help him get ready for school, the boy drove there, the sheriff said, adding that the boy and his brother were put in foster care.