'Bark Mitzvah' for Elvis the Dog

Elvis the dog is one pampered pooch. His owner spent $10,000 to throw Elvis a "bark mitzvah."

Check out this Web Extra video from the big night.

Religion can kill you!

A crocodile killed and devoured a 25-year-old man in Bangladesh who waded into a pond next to a shrine hoping to be blessed by the animal, police said on Thursday.

Rubel Sheikh and his mother travelled 30 miles from their home to visit the Muslim Khan Jahan Ali shrine, where the attack happened.

Hundreds of people visit the shrine every day to offer hens and goats to the five crocodiles living in the pond.

Part of the ritual also involves bathing in the water.

Source: Independent Online

Photo credit & more detail about the Khan Jahan Ali shrine: Crocodiles in Peril

Saudi religious police ban pet cats and dogs

Saudi Arabia's religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.

Othman al-Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, known as the Muttawa, told the Saudi edition of al-Hayat daily that the commission has started enforcing an old religious edict.

The reason behind reinforcing the edict now was a rising fashion among some men using pets in public "to make passes on women and disturb families," he said, without giving more details.

The 5,000-strong religious police oversees the adherence to Wahabism -- a strict version of Sunni Islam, which also forces women to cover from head to toe when in public, and bans them from driving.

Graphic: Cartoon Stock

Source: AFP