Police in Papua’s Jayawijaya district, Indonesia, issued a public apology after a video showing an alleged thief being interrogated by security forces using a two-meter live snake went viral online.

Human rights advocates in Indonesia are condemning the use of a live snake during the interrogation of an alleged thief in Western New Guinea. In a video doing the rounds on social media, a barefoot, handcuffed man can be seen squirming and screaming as police officers push a live snake in his face and threaten to put in his mouth and in his pants. Later, the reptile is also seen wrapped around the suspect’s neck, as police try to get a confession out of him about some stolen phones.

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The air pollution crisis in Thailand has gotten so bad that authorities are trying some unconventional methods of clearing the air of dust and hazardous particles. For example, the local Government in Bangkok recently started spraying sugar-infused water in the atmosphere.

Yesterday, Thai media reported that in a desperate attempt to bring down critical air pollution levels in Bangkok, local authorities started experimenting with sweetened water, instead of regular one. The idea behind the bizarre pollution-fighting strategy is that by increasing the viscosity of the water using sugar will allow it to trap more dangerous particles when sprayed into the air. However, some experts believe that the unconventional approach could do more harm than good.

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An 18-year-old boy recently shared the story of his impressive physical transformation to inspire other teenagers who consider themselves unattractive to start taking care of themselves and not to be ashamed to use makeup to improve their looks.

They say a person’s personality is more important than their physical looks, but try telling that to a high-school student who constantly gets ridiculed for their his acne, geeky glasses and poor fashion sense. The protagonist of this story knows all about that, but unlike most other teens in his situation he actually did something about it and recently took to the internet to share the details of his transformation, hoping to inspire other “ugly ducklings” to enhance their appearance.

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TV viewers in China recently noticed something strange whenever certain male celebrities showed up on screen – their ears were digitally blurred as if to hide something. While Chinese television has yet to make an official statement on this issue, the measure seems meant to hide men’s earrings.

Last year, China’s media regulator banned TV stations from showing celebrities’ tattoos as well as other elements of “hip hop culture, sub-culture and immoral culture,” in an effort to minimize Western impact on China’s pop culture. It was only a matter of time before men’s earrings were targeted, and earlier this year people started noticing that earring-wearing male actors and other pop icons had their ears blurred. The hashtag #MaleTVStarsCantWearEarrings recently went viral online, with tens of thousands of people criticizing the move as discriminatory.

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A company in Shandong province, China, has come under fire for forcing six of its employees to crawl through the streets on their hands and feet as punishment for not meeting sales targets.

The humiliating procession reportedly took place in the city of Zaozhuang on January 14 and was recorded by shocked passers-by. Six people can be seen crawling on all fours through traffic behind a man carrying a red flag emblazoned with their company’s name. With no protection other than their office clothes, the punished staff struggles to keep up with the flag bearer, but somehow find the strength to keep going, probably fueled by the fear of losing their jobs.

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Hong Kong is famous for its expensive nano-flats, but one property developer recently made international headlines for selling apartments smaller than the average parking space.

Just when you thought homes in Hong Kong couldn’t get any smaller, a local real-estate developer unveiled the T-Plus, a new type of so-called “shoebox flat” measuring only 128 square feet, which makes it smaller than the average Hong Kong parking space (130 square feet). Despite its shockingly small size, the T-Plus housing unit includes all the amenities a person might need, including a kitchen, a toilet, storage space, a refrigerator, a bed and a dining table. That’s pretty impressive, considering that this apartment is so small that you only need to take a total of five steps to get from one end of it to the other.

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AJ Nirvana Battle, a three-year-old Afghan hound from China is the canine version of a fashion model. He’s got a slender physique, loves posing for pictures and he has the most incredible hair.

Looking at AJ Nirvana Battle and his luxurious locks, it’s easy to see why he turns heads wherever his owner takes him. But his impeccable looks aren’t all natural. Kevin Chan, a Beijing-based marketing director, spends six to eight hours bathing and grooming him every seven to ten days, and doesn’t mind spending big money on the best grooming equipment and hair products. He claims to have spent around 100,000 yuan ($15,000) on grooming tools for his three-year-old pooch, and spends another 1,000 yuan ($150) on bathing products every week. That’s a lot of money, but Chan says it’s worth it, as he considers Battle a member of the family.

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A Chinese polygamist who was secretly married to three women managed to keep them from finding out about each other despite arranging for them to live within a one kilometer radius, for his own convenience.

The 36-year-old man, surnamed Zhang, is facing up to two years in prison for polygamy, after he exploited a loophole in the system to legally marry three different women in a period of three years. He worked as a real-estate agent in Kunshan, eastern China’s Jiangsu province, and made a lot of money thanks to the country’s booming property market, so providing for three different families was no problem, but he admitted that traveling between three homes up to 10 times a week could be a bit tiring. Not as tiring as it could have been, though, as Zhang made sure to buy the three women apartments within a one kilometer radius, for his own convenience.

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Long haul truck driving is generally seen as a man’s job, but Rino Sasaki, a young female truck driver from Japan, is challenging this stereotype and conquering social media in the process.

Rino Sasaki grew up in Kochi Prefecture as the daughter of a long haul truck driver, but never really considered the idea of becoming one herself until seven years ago, when her father became sick. He continued working, but she couldn’t stand the thought of her father all alone on the road, thousands of miles away from home, with no one to care for him. So 21-year-old Rino, who worked as a traditional dance teacher at the time, got a truck driving license and decided to join her father on his long haul trips. She tried teaching her dance classes as well, but soon learned that driving thousands of miles around the country meant that she might not always be back home on schedule, so she eventually abandoned her old career and became a full-time truck driver.

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Zhang Daming, an 18-year-old Malaysia, allegedly spent 10 days wandering through Singapore because he was too shy to ask for directions after becoming unable to find his way to the apartment building he was staying in.

Zhang reportedly traveled from Malaysia to Singapore last month in order to look for work, and was sharing an apartment in the island city with a friend who had been working there for some time. On the day of his disappearance, Zhang Daming’s roommate gave him SGD50 ($37) for food before leaving for work, as the 18-year-old only had Malaysian ringgit. He used some of that money to get some lunch at a nearby cafe, but didn’t bother keeping an eye out for markers to help him find his way back, and upon leaving the cafe, he quickly realized that he didn’t know how to get back to his friend’s apartment building.

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Eleven schools in the Chinese province of Guizhou have introduced micro-chipped uniforms that track and monitor the students even beyond school grounds.

Developed by local company Guizhou Guanyu Technology, the smart school uniforms feature two microchips embedded into the shoulder pads which allow both the school and the children’s parents to monitor their activity at all times. A GPS system tracks their movements and an alarm informs both teachers and parents whenever a student leaves the classroom or school grounds without permission, or if he falls asleep during classes. The smart uniforms also allow students’ parents to monitor their purchases at school and set spending limits via a mobile app.

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A Chinese man was recently arrested and charged with fraud for impersonating a police officer. He’s definitely not the first person to do that, but what makes his case special is that he managed to convince everyone around him that he was a real police officer for 12 years.

41-year-old Wang Feng had always wanted to be a police officer, but never actually trained or studied to become one. That didn’t stop him from pretending to be one for over a decade, though. It all started in 2006, when Wang’s brother was involved in a debt dispute case and needed a lawyer. To make sure that his brother’s counsel gave 100% in court, Wang met with the man and pretended to be a police officer at the Haiyan Baibu Police Station, in Baibu Town, China’s Zhejiang Province. The ruse actually worked, which made Wang Feng want to try it on others as well. Soon, he started telling friends and acquaintances that he had become a police officer, bought a fake uniform, handcuffs, and even had a fake ID done.

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Imagine working as a shop assistant at a jewelry store and having to jump over the glass counter to stop a potential client who’s sprinting towards the door with an expensive necklace around their neck. You’re about to lay your hands on them when they abruptly stop in front of the mirror to admire the jewelry, as if they had never planned to run off with it. That’s the world Chinese shop assistants are living in these days, because of a viral jewelry-stealing prank trend.

Chinese social media has been flooded with videos of people putting on expensive jewelry at jewelry stores and then pretending to run out only to stop in front of a mirror, while an accomplice films the poor shop assistants desperate attempts to stop the apparent theft. Some will leap over the glass counters, others will try to go around them, but they all embarrassingly turn around the moment they realize the potential client’s intentions. It’s funny to watch, I will say that, but you kind of feel bad for the poor jewelers at the same time.

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A Thai conman was recently arrested and charged with robbery after successfully pulling out a sophisticated plan that involved setting up a fake jewlery store and luring an Indian businessman there so he could steal a valuable diamond.

59-year-old Pipatpongpat Suksawatpipat, the man arrested for the ingenious robbery, was once a prosperous jewlery trader himself, but fell on hard time when he became addicted to gambling a few years back. He went from being one of the richest people in Chanthaburi to having just 40,000 baht ($1,200) to his name, but he recently put that small amount of money to good use and pulled off a scam that would make any self-respecting conman jealous. In just a week’s time, he managed to rent a commercial space and turn it into a fake jewelery store, lure an Indian jeweler there with a 10 million baht diamond, and eventually steal that diamond before riding out into the sunset. Alas, his success was short-lived.

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It turns out that smelling your own socks is not only gross but potentially deadly. A Chinese man was recently hospitalized with a severe pulmonary fungal infection, which he allegedly developed by constantly sniffing his used socks.

When he was brought in to the No 909 Hospital in Zhangzhou, China’s Fujian Province, the 37-year-old man, surnamed Peng, complained of chest pain and frequent coughing. An X-ray showed that he was suffering from a severe lung infection, and subsequent tests revealed that it had been caused by a bacteria typically found in used footwear. After being questioned by his doctors, Peng admitted that he had long developed a habit of sniffing his dirty socks every day after coming home from work, before throwing them in the laundry basket.

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