World News Archive: Jan-Mar 2009
U.K.'s oldest woman celebrates birthday
(BBC) Guinness World Record holder Florence Emily Baldwin, known as Florrie, was born in the city on 31 March 1896. Mrs Baldwin, whose husband Clifford died in 1973, once met Queen Victoria in Leeds, was 16 when the Titanic sank and 73 when man landed on the moon.
Singapore wants a kinder, gentler nation
(AFP) Singapore has launched campaigns to promote everything from more romance to better English. Now, the city-state wants its citizens to just be... nicer. "Kindness. Bring It On!" -- to be launched this weekend -- is a government-backed initiative aimed at encouraging Singaporeans to be openly gracious to their relatives, colleagues, classmates and neighbours.
St. Joe teaches Thai orphans ‘to be good’
(Tibor Krausz, Christian Science Monitor) As his namesake looks on from a wall-mounted relief cradling baby Jesus, the Rev. Joseph Maier kicks up a leg in kung fu style, sending his white cassock flying. “Have any of you been fighting?” The American-born Catholic priest, speaking in Thai, is quizzing his “parishioners.” A couple of boys, 7 or 8, giggle guiltily. Sitting on the floor, 200 street kids, from 3-year-olds to teenagers, pack a narrow upper-story room that doubles as a chapel at his Mercy Centre orphanage.
Fireman dresses as Spider-Man to rescue boy
(AP) A Thai firefighter dressed as Spider-Man to rescue an autistic boy who climbed onto a third-floor balcony and dangled his legs over the side because he was nervous on his first day of school. Firefighter Somchai Yoosabai was called in after the 11-year-old boy's teachers and mother failed to coax him off the ledge on Monday, he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Two worlds, one classroom: A school in New Delhi opens its doors each week to help its disadvantaged neighbors
(Noor Brara, Christian Science Monitor) A single street shows the startling extremes of life in New Delhi, India. On one end of the street sits a slum. The neighborhood is confined by jagged wires and fencing. Thatched rooftops form mismatched lines down a sidewalk of broken cement. The contents of each shack may be no more than an old mattress and a wooden footstool for a family of four. Half-naked children play tag in the alleys between houses, weaving in and out of dirty, narrow spaces. The slum is unclean, crowded, and in need of aid.
No limits at this Laotian library
(Dawn Starin, Christian Science Monitor) Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the north-central part of Laos, has often been described as a gentle backwater, an oasis of peace and tranquility, a real-life Shangri-La lost in time and space. But in the center of Luang Prabang, not far from the banks of the mighty Mekong, is a revolutionary learning experiment – @ My Library (www.thelanguageproject.org). This small program has big hopes and aspirations for the many students who walk through its doors.
To my heroes: A grateful mother's heartfelt thanks to the men who saved her daughter
(Mike Garry, Sunshine Coast Daily) Jannette Lewis was watching the late night news when she saw an Energex rescue helicopter crew attempting to rescue a young woman clinging precariously to a rock ledge at Kondalilla Falls. She vividly remembers the rescue of the "poor girl" was "harrowing to watch". "I had turned to go up the stairs at the end of the coverage when the camera zoomed in on her face as she was brought to the top of the cliff," she said.
"It was my daughter."
Tears flow after show of kindness
(Chris Johnston, The Age) Hamed Bah, an African teenager in Dandenong, has been in The Age before. That was just after Christmas when he told his extraordinary story of how he lost everything in war and turmoil and was trying to build a new life in Melbourne. When Hamed was six, in 1996, his parents were killed by rebels in Sierra Leone. In front of him. With a brother and sister-in-law he fled and lived destitute in neighboring Guinea, in a slum, until he was 15. Then he found himself in multicultural Dandenong as a refugee, living in a flat, going to school and supporting himself with a job in a fruit stall at the local market.
Parents donate organs to daughter
(BBC News) A five-year-old girl is thought to be the first in the UK to receive organ transplants from both her parents. Jasmine Mirza is recovering after being given 30% of her father Sohrab's liver and one of her mother Cathie Locke's kidneys. Jasmine was diagnosed with liver failure at seven months before her kidneys started to fail in 2007. Ms Locke, from Farnborough, Hampshire, said the transplants have given Jasmine "her life back". "For me, I wasn't worried about the operation side of things," she added. "Through all this Jasmine's health has been the main priority."
In Tijuana, opera offers a refuge from violence
(Sam Quinones, LA Times) When Zully Martinez began to sing, it sounded like a love song and felt like an exorcism. Bathed in dim candlelight, 50 opera lovers waited silently before her in a cafe in Colonia Libertad, a banged-up neighborhood famous for boxers, smugglers and gangs that slouches into the steel wall separating Mexico from the United States. She opened her palms and began "Pur Dicesti, O Bocca Bella" ("Beautiful Mouth, at Last You Have Spoken"). Outside, a motorcycle growled by; a car alarm babbled in reply.
Up For Sale: An Entire Hampshire Village
(Sky News) An entire village complete with 22 cottages, a cricket club, a blacksmiths and a manor house is going on sale today with a price tag of 25 million pounds. Linkenholt, near Andover in Hampshire, is in an area of outstanding beauty and includes 1,500 acres of farmland and 450 acres of woodland. The only thing that is not up for sale is the 12th century village church, which does not belong to the seller, the Herbert and Peter Blagrave Charitable Trust.
Gift ticket turns into $1M winner
(CBC News) A generous father bought his daughter the winning ticket in the St. Boniface Hospital and Research Foundation's 2009 MegaMillion Lotto.
Ordinary Moments in a Once-Unpredictable Place: Two Hours at a Baghdad Shawarma Stand
(Anthony Shadid, Washington Post) The cart teetered out at 4 p.m. Unique, its owner, Bahloul Younes, called it. Admiringly, he pointed to its steel ornaments, wrought in curves like the letter S. He looked fondly at the rickety wheels that carry it each day to the neighborhood of Adhamiyah, once one of Baghdad's most dangerous. "A proper place would be too expensive," Younes admitted. Soon after, he hung three lights on it, rigging electricity from a spider's web of necessity and ingenuity that hovered over the street. They flickered on, tentative and hesitant, like so much in Baghdad these days.
After daughter's appeal, Toronto woman gets liver transplant
(CBC News) A Toronto woman who received a desperately needed liver transplant is recovering in hospital Wednesday after her daughter's high-profile appeal for help. Lidia Sorbara underwent the transplant procedure early Tuesday morning at Toronto General Hospital, her daughter Alyssa told reporters outside the hospital. The 46-year-old woman is expected to remain in an induced coma for several days.
Starlight smiles
(Mike Garry, Sunshine Coast Daily) Wish-granter is not a job you see advertised very often but Caloundra Starlight Children Foundation volunteer Maria Basso believes it is one of the most rewarding positions around. Maria, whose job is to grant wishes to seriously ill children, believes volunteer work is something everyone should do.
Tourists extend their generosity to the needy
(Hans, The Standard) One day, Marianne, a tourist from the UK, visited Malindi General Hospital and was touched when she saw children suffering because they could not afford medication. She felt she had to help and went several times to cash point machines to withdraw her own money. She nearly bought all the stock from the pharmacies. This was in 2007 and Marianne said although all her money went into this project, it was the best Christmas present she ever had.
Berlin spends €200,000 on campaign against grumpiness
(The Local) The Berlin city government has appointed 4,000 civil servants, police officers and train drivers as "good mood ambassadors" in an €200,000 effort to rid perceptions that the German capital is a gruff and ill-tempered place.
Those nice Vikings did a lot for us - and it wasn’t all pillaging
(Ben Hoyle, Arts Correspondent, Times) From the moment that they ransacked a remote priory at Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings have had a bad press. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for the year says that the raiders made “lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter”, fixing the popular image of the Vikings for the next 1,200 years. New evidence suggests that many of the Norse invaders were in fact model immigrants.
Millions Flock From Around the World to India's Hugging Guru
(AP) The droves who come here leave with no souvenirs, no memories of posh hotels, nothing more than they brought. All they came for was a hug. The woman offering the soft embrace is considered a guru, and her tender approach and simple message have galvanized followers to amass in crowds thousands deep at stops around the globe.
Creating a woman's world in Arabia
(Stephanie Hancock, BBC) From the outside, the Luthan Hotel and Spa in Riyadh's diplomatic quarter looks just like any other modern hotel. But step inside the discreet, frosted-glass building and you enter a women's world which men are forbidden to enter. The Luthan is the Middle East's first women-only hotel, and as well as catering just for female guests, all the staff are women too.
Man starts eatery for disabled son
(CNN) -- Zhao Jiuhe sweeps the floors at his dad's restaurant, chats with customers and waitresses whom he calls "older sisters," and clears the tables. But he is no ordinary 19-year-old. Jiuhe, who suffers from cerebral palsy, could not walk until he was four or talk until he was five. His father started the Beijing eatery, "Hand in Hand," to give his son a chance to improve his life after Jiuhe finished his education at a school for the disabled.
Australians who live on slumdog millionaires' row - and love it
(Matt Wade, Sydney Morning Herald) Mark and Cathy Delaney don't need to see the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. The Brisbane couple experience slum life in India every day.
Last of a breed who make boats out of reeds
(Sara Miller Llana, Christian Science Monitor) Demetrio Limachi is a man with a foot in another century. Along the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake, modernization and globalization lap at an ancient culture. Cars and tourist busses whiz by along the highway that lines the lake’s edge. Hordes of backpackers in North Face jackets explore the area by boat. Hydrofoils dart around the body of water that sits 12,500 feet above sea level.
Saudi's first female minister cracks glass ceiling
(Courtney C. Radsch and Marwa Awad, Al Arabiya) Norah al-Fayez became the first woman to crack the glass ceiling in Saudi Arabia as the first-ever woman appointed to a ministerial position as part of the king's most dramatic move yet to modernize the political system and institute promised reforms by enacting sweeping cabinet changes.