Pakistan, March 21 -- The people of Montevideo, Uruguay's charismatic capital city, are rightly proud of the Rambla, the 14-mile promenade that runs alongside the mighty River Plate and, as it happens, has the world's longest continuous pavement.

So imagine the dismay in 2012 when, on a pleasing stretch of the city's most famous thoroughfare, the authorities built a gigantic statue of a naked Korean man.

Worse, the man is bowing towards the river, which means that his vast bare bottom is pointing directly at a primary school. Bemused Montevideans wanted to know why, and eventually government officials coyly admitted they had quietly leased their own waters to South Korea, for fishing purposes. The Korean gent is bowing to say thank you....