ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Meet Azalea the smoking chimp, new star at zoo

PYONGYANG, North Korea

Pyongyang’s newly opened zoo has a new star: Azalea, the smoking chimpanzee.

According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favorite leisure spot in the North Korean capital since it reopened in July, the 19-year-old female chimpanzee, whose name in Korean is “Dallae,” smokes about a pack a day. Dallae is short for azalea.

They insist, however, she doesn’t inhale.

Thrown a lighter by a zoo trainer, the chimpanzee lights her own cigarettes. If a lighter isn’t available, she can light up from a lit cigarette if one is tossed her way.

Though such a sight would draw outrage in many other locales, it seemed to delight visitors who roared with laughter last week as the chimpanzee, one of two at the zoo, sat puffing away as her trainer egged her on. The trainer also prompted her to touch her nose, bow thank you and do a simple dance.

The zoo is pulling in thousands of visitors a day with a slew of attractions ranging from such typical fare as elephants, giraffes, penguins and monkeys to a high-tech natural history museum with displays showing the origins of the solar system and the evolution of life on Earth.

Australian officials fly to Paris to discuss saving funds

CANBERRA, Australia

Australia’s foreign department, searching for ways to shrink its spending, flew 23 bureaucrats business class from Canberra to Paris to attend a three-day conference and discuss ways to save money, officials said last week.

A Senate committee quizzed senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials on whether a video conference or a less expensive city had been considered as cheaper alternatives when the department was trying to reduce its spending by $9.7 million a year.

The official who chose Paris, John Fisher, told the committee the agenda of the in-house conference in September included ways to save money.

“We flew people to Paris to talk about how we might do things in a more effective way,” Fisher told the committee.

Fairfax Media on Thursday conservatively estimated the cost of flying 23 bureaucrats from their Canberra headquarters on the 21,000-mile round trip to Paris plus accommodation at the four-star Mercure Paris Center Eiffel Tower Hotel, where most stayed, at $165,000.

Associated Press