Police in northern Bangladesh say they have arrested dozens of swindlers who conned people out of money by calling them on mobile phones and pretending to be genies with supernatural powers.
"It has become an epidemic here," said Farhad bin Imrul Kayes, police chief of Gobindaganj district. "In the last three months alone we have arrested 24 of these so-called 'kings of genies', some of whom have even become rich in just a year," he said. The scammers would gather personal information about their victims beforehand, call them and speak "in a tone similar to Arabic", he added.
Claiming to be genies who had descended from the sky, they would tell people to send money to a specific location, threatening a family tragedy if they disobeyed.
The police cracked down after receiving numerous complaints and used phone taps to identify Gobindaganj district as the source of all the calls. (AFP)
Discounts for cyclists
A Berlin brothel has come up with a novel way to negate the impact of the global economic crisis and target a new group of customers at the same time - offering a discount to patrons who arrive on bicycles.
"The recession has hit our industry hard," said Thomas Goetz, owner of the Maison d'Envie brothel.
"Obviously we hope that the discount will attract more people," he added. "It's good for business, it's good for the environment - and it's good for the girls."
Customers who arrive on bicycle or who can prove they took public transportation get a €5 discount from the usual €70 fee for 45-minute sessions, Goetz told Reuters. He said the environmentally-friendly offer was working. "We have around three to five new customers coming in daily to take advantage of the discount," he said, adding the green rebate has helped alleviate traffic and parking congestion in the neighbourhood. (Reuters)
Clerics condemn theft of electricity
The Karachi Electric Supply Co. (KESC) has obtained a fatwa, or decree, from 12 top Islamic scholars condemning electricity theft, which it says is costing it millions of dollars a year.
"It is astonishing and disturbing to find that certain segments of our society do not even consider theft of electricity 'theft', let alone immoral or illegal," said KESC spokeswoman Ayesha Eirabie. Typically, people steal electricity by hooking up a wire to overhead electricity cables, siphoning off power without paying for it. Another way people steal power is to slow down their electricity meters.
Eirabie said most of the people who steal electricity could afford to pay for it but choose not to.
"Legal action against such people committing electricity theft is fair," the clerics said. (Reuters)
Smile for the tourists, please
Faced with a fall in tourist numbers due to the financial crisis and a reputation for unfriendliness, the Paris tourist board has made a simple request to the city's residents: smile.
Visitors to Paris, the world's most visited city, have fallen 17 per cent since January compared with the same period in 2008, official figures show.
To counter the slump and boost revenues, the tourist board has set up stands manned by teams of "smile ambassadors" to welcome holiday-makers at the city's most popular spots.
As if to heed its call, hundreds of roller-skaters formed a giant smile in Place Vendome in the city centre on Sunday. "We have to work on striking and simple images. There's nothing as telling as a smile," said tourist board head Paul Roll. (AFP)
Promotion: toxic water
Two maverick film-makers are handing out toxic bottled water from Bhopal, the site of a major industrial disaster in India, in London to highlight the plight of locals and promote their new movie. The Yes Men, whose new film "The Yes Men Fix The World" premièred at this year's Sundance Film Festival in the United States, will also take some of the water to the headquarters of Dow Chemicals.
In 1984 a storage tank at a pesticide plant run by Union Carbide - bought by Dow Chemicals in 1999 - leaked cyanide gas into the air in Bhopal, immediately killing more than 3,500 slum dwellers. The US Congress has estimated that 15,000 others have died since.
Mike Bonanno, one of The Yes Men, said that they wanted to get the message across that "the mess has still not been cleaned up". He described the film as being like "Michael Moore crossed with Borat", adding that The Yes Men are "a couple of gonzo journalists who take on corporations on their own terms. It's a comedy, but it's serious." (AFP)