Pakistani man fights police over 13-metre shark

Qasim Khan waged the unlikeliest of battles with Pakistani authorities on Thursday over the right to charge hundreds of curious visitors the equivalent of €0.20 each to see a roughly 13-metre whale shark he bought from a fisherman.

Khan is in the business of buying fish, albeit usually much smaller ones, and jumped at the chance on Tuesday to pay about €2,000 for the 20-ton behemoth, which was discovered dead in the Arabian Sea off the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.

Business was brisk on Wednesday, as several thousand people paid to see the brown and white-spotted shark, which Khan set up under a cloth tent next to the harbour. People crowded around to put their hands on the massive fish, and families snapped their picture with it – ignoring the pungent smell as it began to rot.

But police cracked down on Thursday, saying fishery authorities had decided people should be allowed to see the shark for free. Khan resisted and hid his prize attraction under the giant piece of green cloth he had previously used as a tent.

The move sparked a comic game of cat and mouse between Khan and the police. They would order him to remove the cover, which he would do briefly before replacing it. Then the cycle would start over again.

“We are told to protect and facilitate the people to see this rare fish, but this man is not allowing this,” said police inspector Mohammad Aslam at the scene.

Khan countered by saying he paid 200,000 rupees for it. “To recover my cost I am charging just 20 rupees per ticket, but the forsaken fishery authorities have deprived me of this fortune,” he said.

The altercation angered some of the hundreds of people who crowded around the fish.

“We came here to see the fish after the media hype, but to our dismay they are not allowing us to see it,” said a young businessman, Sohail Shah.

One local newspaper had trumpeted the discovery with a headline that read “All is ‘whale’: ‘Moby Dick’ comes to town ahead of Karachi Literature Festival.”

Whale sharks, which are believed to grow up to 20 metres in length, are the largest fish in the sea and primarily feed on plankton, squid and small fish. They are found in tropical and warm temperate seas, and are harmless to humans.

Some people who turned up in Karachi were upset to see people climbing all over the shark.

“This is sheer disrespect for animals,” said 20-year-old nursing student Usman Zada.

But nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of nine-year-old Fizza Umar, who came with her father.

“It was so huge!” Umar said. “I wish I could take it home.”

Ashraf Daniel, a pastor of an Anglican church, was also delighted by the visit because he felt it reinforced his religious faith.

“Our Bible says that Saint Jonah survived three days in the belly of a whale, so I brought my children to see themselves the strength of God,” said Daniel.

Dad plays porn instead of ‘Smurfs’ at kid’s party

Police aren’t filing charges against a father who briefly played a pornographic video instead of The Smurfs at his child’s birthday party.

Tremonton Police Chief Dave Nance tells the Standard-Examiner of Ogden the man had rented a copy of The Smurfs from a kiosk and loaded the disc onto his laptop. But when he turned the projector on for the children, pornographic images flashed on the screen.

Authorities got involved when the father complained somebody had tampered with the DVD. Police found nothing wrong, saying the porn had probably been on the laptop.

Officials aren’t pursuing charges because the incident was apparently an accident.

Bulldog adopts six wild boar piglets in Germany

Forget the three little pigs hiding from the big bad wolf. These six little pigs have found a new friend in a maternal French bulldog named Baby.

The Lehnitz animal sanctuary outside Berlin said Baby took straight to the wild boar piglets when they were brought in yesterday week, three days old and shivering from cold.

Sanctuary worker Norbert Damm said on Wednesday that, as soon as the furry striped piglets were brought in, Baby ran over and started snuggling them and keeping them warm, even though they’re almost her size.

The eight-year-old bulldog has stayed right by their side since then, making sure they’re OK, Damm said.

“She thinks they’re her own babies,” Damm said.

It isn’t the first time Baby’s taken to new guests at the sanctuary – she’s also raised raccoons, cats and many other animals, Damm said.

“She’s an uber-mother,” he said.

The piglets’ own mother was likely killed by a hunter and the litter of three males and three females was found abandoned in a forest.

At the time they were found they weighed in at under a kilogramme each but are being bottle-fed at the sanctuary and are growing well, Damm said.

He said they couldn’t be released into the wild because they have no fear of humans, but it should be possible to set them free in a nature reserve in about three months, once they can feed themselves.

Wild boars are common in Germany, even in big cities, and herds have been growing as expanding commercial crops have provided them with more food.

Recent estimates have put the boar population at more than 10,000 in Berlin alone, where they live in extensive wooded areas and often venture into backyards and sports fields, tearing up turf to look for food.

Danish cops recruit robbers to stem burglaries

What to do when burglaries get out of hand?

In Denmark, police think they might have the answer: Turn to the experts themselves, the housebreakers.

Northern Zealand police spokesman Finn Bernth Andersen says burglars caught red-handed in the district will be asked to participate in an anonymous questionnaire about their profession.

The region, which has seen a 60 per cent annual surge in break-ins in some areas, will ask robbers questions about their typical targets, motives and disposal methods for stolen goods.

Bernth Andersen conceded that police are not sure of the project’s success but said Thursday “we’ll do anything we can to lower the number (of burglaries).”

The project is planned to last a few months.

Ad promoting Kosovo proves embarrassing

The advertisement was designed to promote foreign investment in Kosovo, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

Just before Kosovo declared independence in 2008, it unveiled a large statue in Pristina with the word “newborn” spelt out in large yellow letters.

So the government decided to feature that work in its video advertisement.

But when the ad began appearing locally on Internet some viewers said the statue appeared to be spelling the word “newporn.”

Kosovo’s government soon figured out why: blue paint that vandals have sprayed on the statue is blocking out some of its lettering.

But no problem: Just before the ad was to be shown on CNN-TV it was redesigned and now works just fine.