Agence France Presse reports: Pilloried by neighbours, laughed at in freakshows and spurned by the women he admired from afar, Chandra Bahadur Dangi has always seen his tiny stature as a curse.

But the 72-year-old Nepali, who claims to stand at just 56 centimetres (22 inches), is on the brink of a life change as significant as a lottery win as experts prepare to test his claim to be the shortest man in history. Read the full story.

See previous world record PhotoBlog posts and our 2012 Guinness World Record slideshow.