Global Oddities

President Zuma and his wives

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has defended polygamy during a question and answer session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Mr Zuma, who married his third wife earlier this month, said it was part of his Zulu culture and did not detract from his belief in women’s equality.
Asked if he loved all his wives equally, he replied: “Absolutely”.
Correspondents say Mr Zuma’s belief in the traditional practice of polygamy has divided South Africans.
Some support him but many younger people believe it should have no place in a modern society.
Newsweek International’s editor Fareed Zakaria was chairing the session on South Africa with Mr Zuma at Davos.

“There are many people who say that symbolically this is a great step backward for the leader of South Africa to be embracing a practice that they say is inherently unfair to women,” he said.
But Mr Zuma dismissed the criticism.
“That’s my culture. It does not take anything from me, from my political beliefs, including the belief in the equality of women,” AFP news agency quoted the president as saying.
“Some think that their culture is superior to others, that’s a problem we have in the world.”
His answer on equality drew laughter from the audience, AP news agency reported.
“There are many people in this audience who find it a challenge to be married to one person,” Mr Zakaria quipped.

Source: BBC news online, January 29, 2010

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has a black goat slaughtered at his house almost every day to ward off “evil eyes” and protect him from “black magic,” a newspaper reported Wednesday.

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A spokesman for the president told the Dawn newspaper the goats were slaughtered as an act of Sadaqah — meaning “voluntary charity” in Islam whereby one gives out money or the meat of a slaughtered animal to the poor to win Allah’s blessing and stave off misfortune.

“It has been an old practice of Mr Zardari to offer Sadaqah. He has been doing this for a long time,” the spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, told the paper.

Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country where many of the well-off offer Sadaqah. Though Muslim, many people also follow certain superstitious practices.

Hundreds of goats had been sacrificed at Zardari’s house since he was sworn in September 2008, the Dawn newspaper reported.

It said Zardari’s detractors would see in his “new-found religiosity” a sign of nervousness in the face of growing woes.

Zardari, who rose to power after the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in late 2007, has become increasingly unpopular and faces a range of problems from Islamist militancy to a stagnant economy and political rivalry.

A Supreme Court ruling last month throwing out an amnesty for Zardari, several top aides and thousands of political activists and government figures triggered a political storm and expectation that Zardari was on his way out.

Source: Reuters, January 27, 2009

Peruvian doctors amputated the healthy leg of an 86-year-old man, then amputated the other leg when they realized their mistake.

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“I was shocked when I lifted the sheets and saw they had taken his left leg,” the man’s daughter, Carmen Villanueva, told Peruvian radio station RPP.

“The ulcer was on his right leg and they had to amputate that one too to keep the infection from spreading,” she said.

The Alberto Sabogal Hospital in the coastal district of Callao just north of Lima said it had suspended the doctors involved in the botched surgery for a life-threatening ulcer, pending an investigation.

Source: Reuters, January 26, 2010

More than 100 Russian Orthodox believers have been hospitalised after drinking holy water in Irkutsk, Siberia.
Those affected, including 48 children, are being treated in hospital for acute intestinal pain after drinking water from wells around a local church last week.
The believers were celebrating Epiphany (Greek for “appearance”, or “revelation”), which is traditionally commemorated by Orthodox Russians on January 19.
Spokesman Vladimir Salovarov said a total of 204 people required some medical treatment. However it is too early to say exactly what caused the illness.
Many Russians consider any water obtained on Epiphany to be holy. The water is typically bottled for consumption later. Tap water in most of Russia is undrinkable.
The Russian Orthodox Church is said to be one of the largest Eastern Orthodox churches in the world, second only to the Roman Catholic Church among Christian churches.
It is estimated to have 135 million followers worldwide.
Source: Skynews online, January 25, 2010

Venus plays "without" underwear

Venus Williams stunned the crowd at the Australian Open in Melbourne by apparently playing a match without any underwear on.
But the seven-times Grand Slam winner later clarified on her Twitter page that she was in fact wearing a flesh-coloured top and shorts that she designed herself during her fourth-round clash with Francesco Schiavone.
“This is completely my design,” she said of the outfit, which made her appear to be bra-less and knicker-less out on court.
“It was one of my old sketches and kind of got recycled and I kind of sat on it for a while.
“Finally it came out. The whole idea is just about an illusion.
“Obviously the most effective part of the illusion are the slits. Then the idea was to wear shorts that were like the same colour as my skin, so it works very well apparently.”
Source : Eurosport, Jan 24, 2010

International hotel chain Holiday Inn is offering a trial human bed-warming service at three hotels in Britain this month.
If requested, a willing staff-member at two of the chain’s London hotels and one in the northern English city of Manchester will dress in an all-in-one fleece sleeper suit before slipping between the sheets.
“The new Holiday Inn bed warmers service is a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed,” Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
The bed-warmer is equipped with a thermometer to measure the bed’s required temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).
Holiday Inn said the warmer would be fully dressed and leave the bed before the guest occupied it. They could not confirm if the warmer would shower first, but said hair would be covered.
Florence Eavis, Holiday Inn spokeswoman told Reuters that the “innovative” bed-warming method was a response to Britain’s recent cold weather and marked the launch of 3,200 new Holiday Inns worldwide.
She could not explain why the beds were not being warmed by hot water bottles or electric-blankets, but admitted the human method was quirky.
Holiday Inn are promoting the service with the help of sleep-expert Chris Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Center, who said the idea could help people sleep.
“There’s plenty of scientific evidence to show that sleep starts at the beginning of the night when body temperature starts to drop,” he said. “A warm bed – approximately 20 to 24 Celsius – is a good way to start this process whereas a cold bed would inhibit sleep.”
Source: Reuters, January 21, 2010

A Briton whose noisy sex sessions were officially branded anti-social behaviour is liable to find herself behind bars if she fails to stop excessively loud lovemaking, a court has ruled.

Caroline Cartwright has been given an eight-week prison term suspended for 12 months — meaning if she engages in over-noisy coupling again in the next year she will immediately be jailed.
“I’ve heard a very short extract of the noise you make and can well see that your neighbours would be upset and distressed by this,” said judge Beatrice Bolton at Newcastle Crown Court.
Cartwright was served with a civil order over marathon romps with husband Steve, described in court as “unnatural” and “like they are both in considerable pain.”
Neighbours at their home in Washington, south of Newcastle in northeast England, had complained about the noise — as did passers-by and the neighbourhood letter carrier.
Cartwright was served with an anti-social behaviour order, known among Britons as an asbo, but admitted at a previous hearing to having violated it almost immediately, and repeatedly, last April.
An anti-social behaviour order is a civil order made against people deemed to be a public nuisance, and is more typically issued for young delinquents using threatening behaviour, or disrupting the peace.
At an earlier hearing the court was told that the local council set up special equipment in a neighbour’s flat and recorded noise levels of 30-40 decibels, peaking at 47 — as loud as a conversation in the same room.
Cartwright told the court she had tried to restrain herself.
“I did not understand why people asked me to be quiet because to me it is normal,” she said, adding: “I have tried to minimise the situation by having sex in the morning – not at night – so the noise was not waking anybody.
“I may be sympathetic to it, but it is not something I am doing on purpose.”
Source, AFP January 22, 2010

Over 30 competitors in the Xiamen International Marathon in China have been disqualified after officials caught them cheating.

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Race organisers found video footage that revealed some runners had carried the time-recording microchips of others so that one runner would register two or more results on passing the finish line. Others made their way around at least some of the course in vehicles, while some hired imposters.

All the runners were ranked in top 100 of the men’s race at the January 2 event in the south-eastern port city, according to the Jiefang Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Shanghai Communist Party.

The report suggested the cheats were not professional athletes but students. Most had times under two hours 34 minutes, which is the minimum standard required for high school students to get extra credits for China’s highly competitive college entrance examinations.

The marathon is one of the biggest in the world, attracting 48,000 participants this year. It is one of only 24 IAAF Gold Label Road Races, along with prestigious events such as the London, New York and Tokyo marathons.

The 2010 men’s race was won by Feyisa Lilesa of Ethopia in two hours, eight minutes, 47 seconds, while his compatriot Atsede Baysa won the women’s race in 2:28.53.

Source: Reuters, January 21, 2010

Air France KLM denied media reports on Wednesday that it planned an extra charge for overweight passengers if they were unable to fit into a single seat.

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Instead, the national carrier said that from Feb 1. overweight passengers who had freely chosen to buy an extra seat for comfort would get their money back on flights that were not fully booked.

“Contrary to reports in the press this morning, Air France is not planning to force corpulent passengers to pay for a second seat,” the statement said.

Air France said that since 2005 it had offered overweight passengers an option to buy a second seat at a 25 percent discount.

“It is not an obligation; we suggest to such passengers they buy a second seat for their own comfort and in order to be sure the seats are adapted to their needs. If the plane is not full, they can get a refund,” Air France spokesman Jean-Pierre Lefebvre said.

Several newspapers had reported that obese passengers flying Air France-KLM would have to pay 75 per cent of the cost of a second seat on top of the full price for the first seat, and that the measure was introduced for safety reasons.

Southwest Airlines and United Airlines have a policy where “oversize” people need to buy a second seat and can claim a refund if the plane is not full. This followed complaints from adjacent passengers.

In 2006 Air France was sued by a French passenger after the airline told him he was too big to fit in one seat and would have to buy an additional seat if he wanted to fly from New Delhi to Paris.

The passenger, who sued on the ground he was deeply humiliated by the situation because he was measured in a public area of the airport, won the case.

Source: Reuters, January 20, 2010

Poland’s tax office has levied a fine of 2.3 million zlotys ($820,000) on an unemployed woman for failing to pay tax on income worth at least 13.7 million zlotys she said she had earned as a prostitute.

The woman told the tax office in the southern city of Katowice that she had very “generous” customers, the website gazeta.pl, which is linked to leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, reported Tuesday.

One of her clients paid the woman 5 million zlotys during the 1997-2002 period, she was quoted as saying.