Annoyed at seagulls that pester its patrons, a restaurant in the Australian city of Perth has armed customers with water pistols to stop the birds from ruining the waterfront dining experience.

Toby Evans, the owner of 3Sheets restaurant in the capital of Western Australia, said the seagull problem was unusually bad and something had to be done to keep customers from being scared away.

“It was bad, it was bad. I think it’s the time of year,” he told Nine Network television on Wednesday. “Now they are getting cheekier and cheekier.”

The seagulls congregate near the waterfront restaurants at a marina, Hillary’s Boat Harbour, scavenging leftovers or hoping for scraps from diners.

Evans decided to equip each table with a water pistol and customers say the strategy, adopted since Saturday, works.

“We didn’t have to throw anything at them or run for cover,” said one customer.

Using data collected from underwater drones, merchant ships, fishing boats and even explorers, a new scientific project aims to map the ocean floor by 2030 and solve one of the world’s enduring mysteries.

With 190 million square km (73 million square miles) of water – or about 93 percent of the world’s oceans with a depth of over 200 metres (650 feet) – yet to be charted, the initiative is ambitious.

Satinder Bindra, director of the Seabed 2030 project, said the work can be completed within the period and will shed light on everything from tsunami wave patterns to pollution, fishing movements, shipping navigation and unknown mineral deposits.

“We know more about the surface of the Moon and Mars than our own backyard. This in the 21st century is something that we are working to correct,” Bindra told Reuters.

“For too long now we have treated our own oceans as a forgotten frontier.”

The project is a collaboration between Japan’s philanthropic Nippon Foundation and GEBCO, a non-profit association of experts that is already involved in charting the ocean floor. GEBCO operates under the International Hydrographic Organization and UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency.

“We are not driven by profit, we are driven by science,” Bindra said.

“There’s unanimity within the scientific and the mapping community that a map is essential.”

Still, the ocean economy is expected directly to contribute $3 trillion to the world economy by 2030 from $1.5 trillion in 2010, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The initiative has received support from Dutch deep-sea energy prospector Fugro, which was involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared in 2014. Fugro has contributed 65,000 square km of data.

Ocean Infinity, which has taken up the search for MH370, is another company contributing to the 2030 initiative.

Bindra said they are also looking to tap research missions as well as explorers searching for sunken wrecks together with data pulled from ships, fishing boats and commercial companies.

The project, which has an estimated cost of $3 billion, will leave waters closer to shore to national research bodies. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is separately supporting the initiative.

One potential problem such exploratory research could face would be from rising geopolitical tensions in sensitive waters around the world including the South China Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

“By being open in our data sharing, we are also hoping that national hydrographic organisations will start sharing their data and closer to shore,” Bindra said.

Bindra said the data obtained from the multiple sources would be pulled together by experts at four centres around the world and then collated at Britain’s National Oceanography Centre, adding that they planned to produce their first bathymetric map by the end of 2018 and update it annually.

Peter Thomson, the U.N. secretary general’s special envoy for the ocean, said he was “very aware … of the mineral aspects” of exploring the seabed, adding that the main charting activity would be from the scientific community.

“The United Nations has adopted a resolution to have a decade of ocean science for sustainable development running from 2021 to 2030. And during that decade I’m very confident we will have totally mapped the floor of the ocean.”

A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of LochNess next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may disover whether Scotland’s fabled monster really does, or did, exist.

The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks.

Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine.

“This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms,” said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand.

The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a “water beast” to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century.

The most famous picture of Nessie, known as the “surgeon’s photo”, was taken in 1934 and showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water. It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine.

Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since, notably in 2003 when the BBC funded an extensive scientific search that used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking to sweep the full length of the loch.

The most recent attempt was two years ago when a high-tech marine drone found a monster – but not the one it was looking for. The discovery turned out to be replica used in the 1970 film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”, which sank nearly 50 years ago.

Gemmell’s team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt.

“While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness,” Gemmell said on his university website.

He predicts they will document new species of life, particularly bacteria, and will provide important data on the extent of several new invasive species recently seen in the loch, such as Pacific pink salmon.

Their findings are expected to be presented in January 2019.

In the Guadalix mountains outside Madrid, Argentine horse whisperer Fernando Noailles uses his animals to help people suffering from stress and anxiety.

The 57-year-old, who spent many years in the Patagonian wilderness living with horses, uses the animals as a way for patients to interpret and control their emotions.

People who come to his sessions spend time with the horses and learn through the movement of the animal what mental state they themselves are in, says Noailles, who charges up to 120 euros per session.

“The horse is a mirror,” he says. “They are gregarious creatures, born to live in herds.”

The therapy consists of monitoring how the horse responds to the client’s moods. From watching the horse’s reaction, the client learns how to identify and control emotions, he says.

“People in the first session, when they are in a difficult state of mind, see a horse that doesn’t stop, that moves, that even gallops. The horse is showing you a mind that doesn’t stop, that is tormented,” he says.

Loreto Garcia has spent two years in sessions with Noailles to help her cope with stress.

“Fernando sees the reaction of the horse – he can tell if I’m centred in the moment, how I feel. He uses the horse as a guide to let him know how the session is going,” she says.

Latin America must give serious thought to legalising drugs in order to reduce the human cost of prohibition, the head of a United Nations agency for the region said on Monday.

Tens of thousands of people across Latin America have died in violence stemming from the struggle to control the lucrative trade in narcotics, particularly in Mexico, where murders fueled by warring drug cartels reached a record high last year.

Alicia Barcena, a Mexican who heads the Santiago-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United Nations’ regional arm, told a Latin America forum in Paris the time had come to explore a new strategy.

“I’m going to be very provocative. Who would drug legalization be good for? Latin America and the Caribbean, for God’s sake. Because the illegality is what’s killing people,” she said. “It’s time to seriously consider legalizing drugs.”

Peru, Colombia and Bolivia are the top producers of coca leaves used to make cocaine, much of which is smuggled through Mexico to reach the world’s biggest market, the United States.

The battle to dominate crystal meth and heroin markets has also precipitated mounting violence in Mexico.

Most countries in the Americas continue to pursue restrictive policies toward drugs, although growing liberalisation of marijuana laws in the United States has encouraged supporters of legalisation to redouble their efforts.

Starbucks Corp appealed to customers for forgiveness in a row over racial profiling on Tuesday, saying its behavior towards two black American customers last month had been reprehensible as it closed 8,000 stores for anti-bias training.

The company has settled privately with the two men after the incident in a Philadelphia store on April 12 and will try to draw a line under the row with a day of workshops in traditionally slow afternoon hours which Wall Street analysts say will only cost it $5-$7 million in lost business.

Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz, the architect of its move into a cafe format in the late 1980s, said in an open letter that the decision to call police and their subsequent arrests “were reprehensible and did not represent the company’s mission and enduring values”.

“We determined that insufficient support and training, a company policy that defined customers as paying patrons—versus anyone who enters a store—and bias led to the decision to call the police,” he said.

Analysts say Starbucks can ill afford the bad publicity at a time of growing competition in a coffee industry which has seen a number of rivals bought out or merged.

British sandwich and coffee shop chain Pret A Manger was sold for $2 billion on Tuesday in the latest move by Germany’s billionaire Reimann family to challenge Nestle in the coffee sector.

Starbucks signed a $7 billion licensing deal with Nestle earlier this month that banks on the power of its brand in the United States to strengthen the Swiss company’s leading position globally.

Starbucks is closing 8,000 company-owned U.S. stores at around 2 pm local time on Tuesday as a first step in training 175,000 employees on racial tolerance. Some 6,000 licensed Starbucks cafes will remain open in locations such as grocery stores and airports, and those employees will be trained at a later time.

The arrests sparked protests and accusations of racial profiling at the coffee chain known for its liberal stances on social issues such as same-sex marriage.

Black leaders who are advising Starbucks Corp on the training hope it will reinvigorate decades-old efforts to ensure minorities get equal treatment in restaurants and stores, setting an example for other corporations.

“The incident has prompted us to reflect more deeply on all forms of bias, the role of our stores in communities and our responsibility to ensure that nothing like this happens again at Starbucks,” Schultz said.

Serbian archaeologists at the site of the ancient Roman city of Viminacium have found an intact sarcophagus with two skeletons bedecked with gold and silver adornments.

Ilija Mikic, an anthropologist at the site, said the skeletons were of a tall, middle-aged man and a slim younger woman.

In addition to three delicate glass perfume bottles, the woman had golden earrings, a necklace, a silver mirror and several expensive hair pins, while a silver belt buckle and remains of shoes were found lying around the man.

“According to grave goods … we can conclude that these two people surely belonged to a higher social class,” Mikic said.

The Viminacium site, near the town of Kostolac, around 70 km east of Belgrade, was a military camp and the capital of the Roman province of Moesia Superior, dating back to the 1st century AD. It had a hippodrome, fortifications, a forum, palace, temples, amphitheatre, aqueducts, baths and workshops.

According to historians, it could have been the home to some 40,000 people. So far, only about 4 percent of it has been explored, said Miomir Korac, the director of the site.

He said that ancient Roman settlements that were not buried under modern cities such as London, Milan, Budapest or Belgrade were rare.

“Only Viminacium with its 450 hectares is an open area for exploration. And I am sure this will bring an immeasurable quantity of information,” Korac said.

So far, archaeologists there have uncovered tens of thousands of artefacts, including golden tiles engraved with Roman magical symbols, jade and marble sculptures, pottery, mosaics and frescos, along with 14,000 tombs, since excavations started in 1882.

Devastated by the Huns in the 5th century, Viminacium was later rebuilt by the Emperor Justinian. It was razed and destroyed by the Slavs in the 6th century.

Over the centuries since, the sarcophagus would have survived looters, ploughing and a machinery of a nearby coal mine.

Like many soccer fans trying to predict the results of the World Cup, Achilles is busy studying the teams heading to Russia this month for the sport’s biggest global showdown. But he has one advantage: cat sense.

The furry white feline, who lives in St Petersburg’s Hermitage museum, is being touted as a cat psychic who will predict the winners and losers of the tournament kicking off in Russia in two weeks.

Achilles has some big shoes – or tentacles – to fill: predecessor Paul the octopus became an international celebrity when at the 2010 World Cup he correctly forecast the outcome of Germany’s games and picked eventual winners Spain.

One of the many cats to have lived at the Hermitage, once the imperial Winter Palace, Achilles previously predicted outcomes during the 2017 Confederations Cup.

Achilles is deaf, meaning he will not be easily distracted by waiting journalists when he makes his predictions by choosing between two bowls of food, each bearing a team flag.

For his training, Achilles, dressed in a red soccer jersey, looks at a chart of the teams and game schedules, before, slightly reluctantly, moving onto an exercise wheel.

“Achilles is now in his place of work, he is preparing for the World Cup and going through the adaptation process,” veterinarian Anna Kondratieva said during a training session at a pet shop near the museum.

“People tend to feed him more than they should. When he came to us he looked like a football, not a cat, so we decided to put him on a strict diet.”

When Achilles is not in training, he can also be found posing for pictures in the museum yard, building a celebrity persona that is about to get a huge lift from one of the world’s most-watched sporting tournaments.

An Australian comedian known for impersonating North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was detained by Singapore‘s authorities on Friday and questioned about his political views.

Singapore‘s immigration and checkpoints authority and the Singapore police did not immediately have comment. The incident came just days before the city-state hosts high stakes talks between U.S. and North Korea’s leaders.

Howard X, who declined to give his real name, told Reuters he was detained for two hours and questioned for around 30 minutes when he arrived in the early morning hours at Singapore‘s Changi Airport.

“(They) asked me what my political views were and if I have been involved with protests in other countries,” he said, adding that he was told to stay away from Sentosa Island and the Shangri-La, two areas that are designated ‘special event areas’ for the summit.

“They said, ‘It’s the Trump-Kim summit, you’ve come at a very sensitive time.'”

Howard X was in Singapore late last month, posing as Kim Jong Un against a backdrop of the city’s bay which features sites such as the Merlion and the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

He said he is planning similar stunts for the purpose of political satire in the coming days, this time in tow with Donald Trump impersonator Dennis Alan. He said he is not planning any protests.

Rights groups have criticised Singapore‘s laws that they say limit critical speech and peaceful assembly.

For example, protests have to be pre-approved and are allowed only at a designated downtown area called the Speakers’ Corner.

Singapore has held the position that its laws and regulations are needed to maintain social order and harmony.

Thousands of Irish women shed their inhibitions and their clothes on a secluded beach fifty kilometres south of Dublin on Saturday for a world-record setting “skinny dip” to raise funds for a children’s cancer charity.

Lucia Sinigagliesi, the Guinness World Records official that adjudicated the naked swim, said that 2505 women spent at least five minutes in the sea to set a new world record.

The previous record was set in Western Australia in 2015 when 786 participants swam naked to promote a positive body image near the regional capital Perth, in waters that are usually around 23 degrees centigrade at that time of year.

On Saturday, the sea temperature off Magheramore beach, where the Irish swim was held, was a bracing 12 degrees, despite a recent spell of warm weather.

The swim has been an annual event since it was started by Dubliner Dee Featherstone in 2013, just weeks after her own mastectomy. The events have raised more than 153,000 euro, not including what will be raised this year.

“Oh my god it was amazing. I have never been naked in front of anybody before, except my husband, and it was brilliant and bracing. It was great craic,” Deirdre Betson from Dunboyne told a Reuters reporter after leaving the water.

“We are all different shapes and sizes and ages and it was just super.”

This year the money raised will go to Aoibheann’s Pink Tie, a charity set up in 2010 by Mick Rochford and Jimmy Norman, after Jimmy’s daughter Aoibheann died from cancer aged 8 years.

“Aoibheann went to school with my daughter. She would have been seventeen this year. We did it in her memory,” said Betson.

A radical plan to upend Switzerland’s financial landscape by barring commercial banks from creating money when they lend was heading for defeat, according to early projections on Sunday.

Some 74 percent of voters had rejected the so-called Sovereign Money initiative according to initial forecasts from Swiss broadcaster SRF. A final result is expected around 1500 GMT.

Concerns about the potential risks to the Swiss economy from introducing the system appear to have convinced voters to reject the proposals.

The initiative, called under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy after gathering more than 100,000 votes, wanted to make the Swiss National Bank (SNB) the only authority in the country authorised to create money in the country.

The plan, if accepted could have had repercussions beyond Switzerland’s borders by removing a practice which underpins most of bank lending in the world.

Contrary to common belief, most money in the world is not produced by central banks but is instead created by commercial lenders when they lend beyond the deposits they hold for savers.

Supporters said their plan would make the Swiss financial system more secure and the money in people’s accounts safe from bank runs.

But opponents, including the SNB, Swiss government and the banks, have said the plan was a dangerous experiment which could damage the Swiss economy.

House President Demetris Syllouris poses with ‘Nicky’, a robot developed by the University of Nicosia, on the sidelines of a conference in Nicosia on the digital economy and the digital society. Moments earlier, Syllouris and the robot had a brief conversation, where ‘Nicky’ asked him to pass a bill to regulate robots.

Many parents will have thought it for a long time, but they now have a new argument to limit their children’s ‘screen time’ – addiction to video games has been recognised by World Health Organization as a mental health disorder.

The WHO’s latest reference bible of recognised and diagnosable diseases describes addiction to digital and video gaming as “a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour” that becomes so extensive that it “takes precedence over other life interests”.

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which has been updated over the past 10 years, now covers 55,000 injuries, diseases and causes of death. It forms a basis for the WHO and other experts to see and respond to trends in health.

“It enables us to understand so much about what makes people get sick and die, and to take action to prevent suffering and save lives,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement as the ICD was published.

The ICD is also used by health insurers whose reimbursements depend on ICD classifications.

This latest version – known as ICD-11 – is completely electronic for the first time, in an effort to make it more accessible to doctors and other health workers around the world.

ICD-11 also includes changes to sexual health classifications. Previous editions had categorised sexual dysfunction and gender incongruence, for example, under mental health conditions, while in ICD-11 these move to the sexual health section. The latest edition also has a new chapter on traditional medicine.

The updated ICD is scheduled to be presented to WHO member states at their annual World Health Assembly in May 2019 for adoption in January 2022, the WHO said in a statement.

When bank technicians in India were finally summoned to investigate why an ATM (automated teller machine) had not been working for days, they began to smell a rat.

What they found inside the ATM was almost $18,000 worth of shredded Indian rupee notes and one dead rodent that had somehow eluded the machine’s security camera for its next, and last, meal, a State Bank of India (SBI) official said on Thursday.

“The ATM was out of order for a few days and when our technicians opened the kiosk we were shocked to find shredded notes and a dead rat,” said Chandan Sharma, SBI branch manager in the town of Tinsukia in the northeastern state of Assam.

“We have started an investigation into this rare incident and will take measures to prevent a recurrence.”

SBI is India’s largest bank with more than 50,000 ATMs spread across the country. Most ATMs in India have a closed-circuit camera installed for enhanced security.

But an inspection of the camera footage at the ATM in Tinsukia turned up no rat entering it, Sharma said. Of the 2.9 million rupees ($42,685) in the ATM, 1.7 million rupees ($25,022) were recovered intact.

But banknotes worth 1.2 million rupees ($17,662) were destroyed. Photographs taken by a local reporter and reviewed by Reuters after the ATM was opened showed fragments of grey and purple coloured notes of 500- and 2000-rupee denominations.

($1 = 67.9400 Indian rupees)

For many people, the smell of a pizza fresh from the oven and lovingly crafted is a culinary delight that’s hard to beat. But now that hand-crafted pizza has a rival: pizza made by robot.

French start-up Ekim wants to change and speed up the way pizza is made and served using a pizzaiolo robot the company hopes to soon install in an autonomous 24/7 restaurant.

The robot’s gestures have been programmed to match those of real-life pizzaiolos, or pizza-makers, and with three arms it can make several pizzas at the same time.

“We are not faster than a pizzaiolo as we make a pizza in 4 minutes and 30 seconds because the pizzas are made on demand in front of the customer, we take time to cook them well, to put the ingredients,” Ekim Chief Executive Philippe Goldman said.

“But the robot has three arms, can co-ordinate tasks and make several pizzas at once. So yes, making a pizza takes 4 minutes 30 seconds but we deliver one pizza every 30 seconds, which allows us to deliver 120 pizzas an hour when a pizzaiolo can only make 40 pizzas an hour.”

The idea comes from two Ekim engineers from when they were students after they grew tired of eating low-quality fast food, the only meals they could afford at the time.

The robot is currently in a showroom outside Paris while Ekim searches for a location to start a pizza-making service, using produce from France and Italy.

Like with a vending machine, the concept would allow customers to order a freshly-made pizza at any time. Using an automated screen, they can chose from an array of pizzas, including the traditional Margherita and richer four cheese.

“People nowadays have less and less available time to eat, they hardly have 30 minutes to have lunch. Therefore, they have to chose between time and food quality. What we’re doing is providing both,” Goldman said.

Other restaurants around the world have used food automation to serve up meals, and one in California sees humans and robots making pizzas together.

But for some, a pizza can only be made by human hands.

“A human being is faster, he can tell if the dough is good or not,” Naples-born pizzaiolo Vittorio Monti said as he served up pizzas in a Paris restaurant. “If there are any problems, the robot can’t tell, but the pizzaiolo yes.”

Fifty-three men slung their wives or partners over their shoulders and hurtled off on an hour-long race in the small Finnish town of Sonkajarvi on Saturday, as thousands of fans cheered from the stands.

The World Wife-Carrying Championship, now in its 23rd year, draws thousands of visitors to the town of 4,200 and has gained followers across the world.

There are official qualifying competitions in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Estonia. On Saturday, 53 couples from 13 countries joined the competition, organizers said.

The idea of wife-carrying as a sport was inspired by the 19th century legend of Ronkainen the Robber, who tested aspiring members of his gang by forcing them to carry sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course.

The championship is also said to stem from an even earlier practice of wife-stealing – leading many present-day contestants to compete with someone else’s wife.

On Saturday, Lithuanian parents of two Vytautas Kirkliauskas and Neringa Kirkliauskiene won the race which involved running, wading through a slippery pool and getting through an obstacle course. The two defeated six times world champion Taisto Miettinen, a Finn.

“It’s my wife,” Kirkliauskas shouted happily after the race, “She’s the best.”

The couple first competed in Sonkajarvi in 2005.

Finland, which straddles the Arctic Circle and goes through long, dark winters, is no stranger to strange sports. It has also given the world the world boot throwing, air guitar and mobile phone throwing competitions, to name just a few.

“I think because we have only three months of light we need to come up with nice stuff to do during the summertime, and we want to show everyone we have a great sense of humour,” said Sanna-Mari Nuutinen, a volunteer at Saturday’s event.

A plastic surgeon known as ‘Dr. Bumbum’ or ‘Dr. Butt’ on social media because of his buttock-enhancement operations was arrested on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, four days after one of his patients died, police said.

Police in Rio de Janeiro said on their website that they had been searching for Denis Furtado since Sunday when his patient Lilian Calixto, a 46-year-old bank manager, died at a hospital where Furtado had taken her after a procedure.

Local media reported that the hospital said Calixto arrived with tachycardia, an abnormally fast heart rate, after having silicone injected into each buttock.

Police said Furtado and his mother, who is also a doctor, were arrested in an office in a business center in the Barra de Tijuca beachside neighborhood of Rio in connection with the woman’s death. It was not clear if they had been charged with any crime.

Furtado’s lawyer, Naiara Baldanza, said at a news conference in Brasilia on Wednesday that her client was innocent and had not turned himself into police because he was in a panic.

In a video posted on social media after his arrest on Thursday, Furtado called the woman’s death a “fatal accident,” saying he had performed 9,000 such procedures and that they were legal in Brazil.

Furtado’s plastic surgery work turned him into a celebrity. He had a massive following on social media, including 645,000 followers on Instagram, where he posted photos of before and after operations.

A sheep in eastern Australia is leaping about more lightly after being sheared of its massively overgrown fleece.

In a social media post that has gone viral, farmer Graeme Bowden shared pictures of the sheep dubbed “shriek 2”. He said a friend found the sheep with several years of growth, which he sheared to produce 30 kg (66 pounds) of wool – more than six times greater than the average fleece.

“He cut 30 kilograms of wool, which was 13 inches long”, Bowden said in his Facebook post, adding that the fleece was unbelievably clean.

“Anyway he’s light footed now, would be nice at the moment with the price of wool to have about 2,000 of them, gee I’d be able to buy some hay,” Bowden finished his post by saying.

Australian wool prices have been running at record highs this year.

Bowden is a farmer in Coonabarabran, a town in New South Wales state, about 450km (280 miles) northwest of Sydney, local media said.

Swimming instructor, lifeguard and adventurer Yane Petkov – Bulgaria’s answer to Houdini and Michael Phelps combined – reclaimed on Tuesday the Guinness world record for swimming along with his hands and feet tied while fully wrapped inside a sack.

Petkov, 64, swam 3,380 metres in Macedonia’s Lake Ohrid, beating the record of Indian fisherman Gopal Kharvi, who in 2013 swam 3,071 metres in the Indian Ocean – though not in a sack.

The Bulgarian swimmer already had one entry in the Guinness Book of Records in 2013 with 2,030 metres, but he only held it for three months until he was overtaken by Kharvi.

Before his latest attempt, Petkov said he had planned to swim 3.5 kilometres, and Guinness observers were present for his swim, organised by the Red Cross and the waters sports clubs of Ohrid and Petric.

Petkov took around three hours to worm his way along through the water, face-up and feet first, before he emerged on the shore in the ancient town of Ohrid, a popular holiday resort.

A city in Japan has been bombarded with inquiries from aspiringninjas, the country’s famed feudal mercenaries and spies, after a news report on city tourist promotions was mistaken for a “ninjas wanted” advertisement.

Iga, a small city in central Japan, has long dubbed itself the home of one style of the black-clad, throwing-star-wielding covert agents for hire, staging ninja shows and offering “ninja experiences” for tourists.

But a programme aired last week on National Public Radio in the United States about Iga’s ninja-centred town promotion effort set off a frenzy of internet interest after its host said the city faced a shortage of ninja performers and even quoted potential salaries, giving the impression it might be hiring.

“That’s wrong, all wrong,” said Motoyoshi Shimai, an official of Iga’s tourism strategy division. “There was no discussion about that, and we didn’t mention money.”

Still, the city received volleys of telephone and email queries from 115 ninja wannabes in 23 countries, including Japan.

“Most were questions about whether we were really hiring, but there were a few that begged us to employ them and tried to promote themselves,” Shimai added. “Some had real confidence in their bodies and strength.”

Iga ultimately issued a statement in several languages saying it was not hiring and warning against fake news, but said plenty of other ninja fun was on offer.

“(The city) is the Iga-style ninja birthplace. We can feel breath of ninja at every turn of downtown,” it said.

City officials were surprised but not annoyed by the fuss, Shirai said.

“We were made to viscerally feel how high interest is in ninjas all around the world,” he added.