Farmer arrested for naming donkey after top general
Washington: A farmer in southern Egypt has been arrested for naming his donkey after the military chief’s name and putting an army-style cap on it. According to Fox News, the farmer, Omar Abul-Magd, was arrested late Friday in Qena province for allegedly insulting General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi when he rode the donkey through the town. El-Sissi led the military-backed ouster of former president Mohammed Morsi in July and has been hailed by millions of Egyptians as an icon, the report said. Meanwhile, eight other people were arrested in other parts of Egypt for spraying anti-military graffiti. The arrests point to a long-standing taboo in Egypt against criticizing the country’s powerful military. (ANI)
Man accused of 30 murders held in Colombia
Bogota: The suspected leader of criminal gang, believed to have committed more than 30 murders, has been arrested in Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos
Picante, leader of the Los Rastrojos gang, was arrested at a luxury estate in Dagua region in Valle del Cauca province, in an operation Friday by police and the federal Attorney General’s Office.
Authorities are investigating Picante for at least 32 homicides, most of them in the last 18 months in Tulua town, where several dismembered bodies were found.
Other gang members have also been arrested in Tulua, Buga, Andalucia and Cali. (IANS)
Thousands clean Puerto Rico beaches, rivers
San Juan: Thousands of volunteers cleaned 200 beaches, rivers and lakes in Puerto Rico to celebrate International Coastal Cleanup Day Saturday.
Alberto Marti, executive director of the Scuba Dogs Society, said the goal this year was to collect more than 250,000 pounds (113,500 kg) of solid waste scattered around Puerto Rico.
Pablo Mendez Lazaro, professor of the Environmental Health Department at the University of Puerto Rico, said they would gather data about solid waste in estuaries, coastal areas, rivers and other bodies of water and see “how badly we are managing them”.
“We don’t intend to pick up anybody’s trash so they can just go on littering. What we want is to create a database from what we observe that will help us understand how we are managing solid waste on the island,” he said.
The Scuba Dogs Society, founded in 1993, said the effort would help beautify some of the more privileged places on the island, which will make Puerto Rico more of a tourist attraction and will in turn benefit the whole community.
During last year’s International Coastal Cleanup Day, around 600,000 volunteers from 100 countries took part in cleaning coastal areas around the world. They collected nine million pounds of garbage (more than 4,000 tonnes). Six out of every 10 pieces of trash were plastic. (IANS)
China sees drop in donations
Beijing: About 82 billion yuan (around $13 billion) in donations from home and abroad were made in China last year, according to a charity report.
The figure was down 3.31 percent year-on-year, Xinhua reported.
It is the second consecutive year there has been a drop in donations, according to the China Charity and Donation Information Center (CCDIC) report.
The centre’s statistics showed that the total amount donated was 84.5 billion yuan in 2011, down 18.1 percent from the previous year.
The reputation of charity groups took a major hit in 2011 when a woman used social media to claim she managed a charity organisation and openly flaunted her wealth and extravagant lifestyle. (IANS)
New British citizen every 150 seconds
London: Britain has issued two million passports to immigrants since 2000 – one every 150 seconds, a media report said.
Last year alone, a record 204,541 requests for a British passport were approved by the government, the Daily Mail reported citing the British home department.
The main beneficiaries of British citizenship were from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China and the Philippines.
The total number of passports given out since then stands at 2,053,396, the report said.
This means one migrant being granted British citizenship every two-and-a-half minutes.
Once approved, new citizens were treated in the same way as anybody else with a British passport. They get access to benefits such as housing and jobs.
In Britain, a person qualifies for citizenship after living and working in the country for five years and if they were not engaged in any criminal activities.
However, critics insisted that the government have adopted a deliberate policy of mass immigration for political reasons. (IANS)
Schoolgirl first to be detained under new censor law in China
BEIJING: China’s new law against online rumour mongering claimed its first victim when police detained a 16-year-old schoolgirl for raising questions about official investigations in a murder case.
The tweet posted by the girl named Yang was picked up and retweeted over 500 times as it evoked a lot of interest in the Twitter-like Sina Weibo. The new law, which was issued last week, stipulates that a person would be punished if a rumour posted by him/her is retweeted more than 500 times.
Yang’s detention has caused a lot of resentment over the internet with many web users protesting against it. “This interpretation is against the constitution and is robbing people of their freedom of speech,” wrote a Weibo user.
The issue involved a man who was found dead outside a karaoke bar in Zhangjiachuan County, Gansu Province on September 12. Local authorities said the death was caused by an accidental fall from a high place. But his family claimed it was a case of murder. His family members said the man was beaten up before being thrown out of a window.
The girl, who is a student at Zhangjiachuan middle school, posted her views about the murky circumstances of the death on Weibo several times. The girl can get three years jail sentence, which is the punishment prescribed by the new law. (Agencies)
Iran parades 30 2,000 km range missiles
Tehran: Iran paraded 30 missiles with a nominal range of 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) on Sunday, the first time it had displayed so many with the theoretical capacity to hit Israeli targets.
Iran displayed 12 Sejil and 18 Ghadr missiles at the annual parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
The stated range of both missiles would put not only Israel but also US bases in the Gulf within reach.
But in his speech at the parade, President Hassan Rowhani insisted the weaponry on show was for defencive purposes only. (PTI)