“500 Attractive Girls”

Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi surprised a hospitality agency in Rome yesterday – where he is attending the World Food Summit-, by requesting the attendance of “500 attractive girls between 18 and 35 years of age, at least 1.7 meters high” at the home of the Libyan ambassador. The Italian hostesses were duly dispatched to visit Gaddafi expecting “a party” but found themselves having a lesson – given in person by man himself – on the Koran and were each sent home clutching a copy of the religious tome. “The women were paid €50, and lectured on the Koran, the superiority of Islam, the failings of Christianity, and the role of women in the Western world – where, Gaddafi said, they were ‘often used as pieces of furniture, changed when it pleases men,’” reports The Independent.