Odd news from around the world
Cape Town: A South African museum is to open an exhibition of 17th century Dutch master paintings all hung with the artwork facing the wall.
Curator Andrew Lamprecht said the "Flip" exhibition, which opens in Cape Town next month, represents "a conceptual art intervention" on one of the country's premier art collections.
"They'll all be flipped, to completely take the space and turn it into something new and unexpected," Mr Lamprecht explained.
The Michaelis Collection at Cape Town's Old Town House includes works by Dutch and Flemish masters including Frans Hals, Jan Steen and Anthony van Dyck, and is seen as one of the best collections of its kind outside the Netherlands.
Mr Lamprecht said the idea of turning the exhibition to face the wall was intended to force gallery goers to reconsider their preconceptions about the art and its legacy in South Africa. "I'm asking questions about the history," the curator said, adding that the reverse of the paintings revealed a wealth of detail not normally on view to the public, ranging from old attempts to preserve the canvas to notes from various collectors.
Helsinki: A number of Finnish conscripts have been excused their full term of military service because they are addicted to the Internet, the Finnish Defence Forces announced yesterday.
Doctors found that the young men miss their computers too much to cope with their compulsory six months in the forces.
"For people who play (Internet) games all night and don't have any friends, don't have any hobbies, to come into the army is a very big shock," said Commander-Captain Jyrki Kivela at the military conscription unit.
"They get sent home for three years and after that they have to come back and we ask if they are okay ... they will have had time to grow up."
"We are very proud of our Finnish men. Eighty-two per cent of all Finnish men manage their whole military service," Commander Kivela added.
Hong Kong: A 14-year old boy needed three stitches in his finger after being bitten by a piranha while playing in a public fountain in Hong Kong.
The piranha - which has its origins in warm South American rivers and can devour whole cows when hunting in packs - is a popular fish in Hong Kong home aquariums and can be bought in Mongkok pet shops for less than €10.6 a pair.
The bleeding teenager was taken to a local hospital last night and was said to be in a stable condition.
Fountain staff drained it and found three freshwater fish, which died. Two were identified as a rare breed of piranha.
"Pet owners should be considerate and should not abandon pets without due care," said a spokesman for Hong Kong's Fisheries Department.
Beijing: China is giving the beauty pageant a surgical makeover with plans to anoint its first Miss Plastic Surgery this October, state media announced yesterday.
Open to women from any country, the only requirement in the made-to-order competition is proof of inauthenticity - in the form of a doctor's certificate guaranteeing cosmetic surgery, the China Daily newspaper reported.
The recent rise of China's "man-made beauties" has been attributed to a common sentiment that better-looking women find better jobs and marry wealthier men, said the paper.
Last month, China announced plans for a beauty pageant for the elderly, with contestants aged 55 and over competing in the Zhen'ap Cup National Contest of the Beauty of the Gray-Head Group.