A braying donkey attached to a parasail and sent soaring in the blue skies above the beaches of southern Russia has stunned holidaymakers and prompted a police enquiry, officials said yesterday.
Attached to a parachute pulled by a speedboat, the apparently terrified animal circled over heads of holidaymakers sunbathing last week on a beach on the Sea of Azov in the Cossack village of Golubitskaya in the Krasnodar region.
A regional police spokesman said the donkey ended up in the skies as a result of an impromptu advertising campaign by several entrepreneurial Russians to attract beachgoers to their beach where they could indulge in the thrill of parasailing. Instead, they attracted the attention of regional police who learned of the flying donkey and launched a probe.
Hides 18 monkeys under shirt
Customs officials at Mexico City's airport have detained a Peruvian man carrying 18 baby monkeys, including two which had died, hidden under his clothes, federal police said.
The discovery was made when the 38-year-old man appeared edgy during random checks on passengers off a flight from Lima, Peru, it said.
Titi monkeys - found in Central and South America - are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Thief says it with flowers
A robber in New York came up with a disarming way to pull off his latest bank heist, approaching the teller's window with a large bouquet of flowers and handing over a hold-up note, New York media reported yesterday.
The Post, which said the man fled the scene after the teller handed over $440, reported that it was the second known bank heist by the suspect, who last week robbed a different New York bank armed with a potted houseplant.
Family with 191 cats
A 60-year-old Swedish woman lived in a Stockholm suburb with her mother, her sister, her son... and 191 cats, daily Aftonbladet reported yesterday.
Stockholm's social services, who had been alerted to the case, said the home was in an appalling condition, with cats everywhere, including on tables, countertops and window ledges, sick or hurt animals, and overflowing cat litter boxes.
Many of the animals were sick or injured and 173 had to be put down at the house. The remaining 18 cats were entrusted to animal shelters. Under Swedish law a family can have a maximum of nine cats.
Ambassador takes 40 cats, leaves wife
A Latin American ambassador to Israel abandoned his wife and left her with nothing, taking her personal belongings and the 40 cats she raised, YNet reported yesterday.
The man, who was not identified, called his wife while she was travelling in Europe to tell her he was returning to their home country and taking all the furniture, the online edition of the Yediot Aharonot newspaper said.
The woman rushed back to Israel only to find their home empty. Even her clothes, jewellery and cats were gone. Her husband cancelled her credit card and medical insurance. But she told YNet what hurt most was the loss of her 40 cats and two dogs. She filed a theft complaint with the police.
Civet poo coffee gets all clear
Indonesia's highest Islamic body yesterday abandoned a proposal to ban Muslims from drinking the world's most expensive coffee, which is extracted from the faeces of a small mammal called the civet.
It had considered issuing a fatwa against the rare coffee, made using beans picked out from the waste of the nocturnal, cat-like creature, on the grounds it was unclean.
"After a long discussion among clerics here, we decided that it's not sinful for Muslims to drink the Luwak coffee," the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) chairman Ma'ruf Amien told a press conference.
Locally known as Kopi Luwak, the beans come from the ripest fruits eaten by the civet, which are digested before being excreted and roasted. It is highly prized for its smooth flavour. The beans cost up to $500 per kilogramme, and only 200 kilos are produced worldwide each year.