Hidden in lorry, migrants try to escape UK
London, Feb 10 (IANS) Worried over their plight in the UK after Brexit, a group of illegal immigrants decided to flee the country in what authorities described as a “very rare and unusual attempt”.
French authorities were shocked to discover 33 runaways hiding in a lorry in Calais, France.
The group of 27 men and four women told immigration officials that they “feared how they would be treated after Brexit”, the Metro newspaper quoted the Sunday People daily as saying in a report on Sunday.
“They were found in a lorry and told security that they were leaving because they feared how they would be treated post-Brexit,” a source said.
“They said they were worried their rights would be curtailed when we are no longer in the EU. Then they were sent back by French authorities in three lots of 11, escorted by police, and taken to immigration centres.”
As of Sunday night, 31 members of the group were back in the UK and being held at immigration detention centres, the Metro newspaper said.
Under a reciprocal agreement, France is able to return migrants to the UK if they are facing criminal charges or have already applied for asylum here.
It is believed the group made the dangerous journey after sneaking on board a container truck which then boarded a Danish-owned DFDS ferry from Dover. Immigration officials at Calais discovered them hiding in the container after stopping the lorry at a checkpoint. (IANS)
Man uses ketchup to mark territory on New York subway train
New York [USA]: A New York subway commuter demonstrated a completely new and seemingly effective way of demarcating his personal territory.
Pervaiz Shallwani, who is a journalist by profession, Tweeted a picture of ketchup spilled on the floor in an MTA subway train, reported Fox News.
“A straphanger in morning A train pulled a bottle of ketchup from his bag and squirted a perimeter on the train car floor to keep folks from crowding his seat. Props to the woman seated next to him who is not going to give up her seat,” Shallwani wrote in his Tweet.
The journalist’s concern didn’t go unheard though, as just a few moments later the official Twitter handle of the New York City Transit commented: “Good morning. Do you have the 4 digit train car number the ketchup is in?”
Shallwani then replied with an image of the train car number to which the authority promptly responded by Tweeting: “Thanks for letting us know. We’ll ask our maintenance team to clean this up ASAP.”
The pesky ketchup incident attracted mostly light-hearted and humourous comments, while a handful of users also expressed their annoyance. (ANI)
Sydney hit by heaviest rainfall in 30 years
Sydney, Feb 10 (IANS) Sydney has been hit by the heaviest rains in three decades after a storm caused flooding along Australia’s east coast, but in the process extinguished a number of bushfires that have been raging for months. On Monday, the Bureau of Meteorology said that in the last four days, 391.6 mm of rain have fallen in the city, the most since February 1990 when 414.2 mm of rainfall were recorded, and warned of more rainfall in coming days, reports Efe news.
The agency issued various alerts for risk of flooding and flooding along rivers, and the coast of the New South Wales (NSW) state, whose capital is Sydney, and also for possible damage along the coast due to abnormally large swells and high tides.
Some 79,000 residents are without power across the state, power company Ausgrid said in a post on Twitter accompanied by a photo of a fallen tree on power lines.
“Ausgrid is bringing in additional crews from across NSW to help restore power as quickly as possible following the weekend’s damaging, torrential rain,” the company said in another tweet.
On the brighter side, the rains have helped firefighters, battle a series of fires that have been raging in southeastern Australia since September, with more than 30 hotspots extinguished since Friday in New South Wales alone.
“This is the most positive news we’ve had in some time. The recent rainfall has assisted firefighters to put over 30 fires out since Friday (February 7). Some of the blazes have been burning for weeks and even months,” the NSW Rural Fire Service said on Twitter.
Almost 1.5 million hectares of land have been burned by the fires in the state.
One of these is the Currowan Fire, burning 200 km south of Sydney and 90 km east of Canberra, where it remained active for 74 days, burned nearly half a million hectares, destroyed 312 houses and damaged another 173.
Since September 2019, bushfires raging in the country have claimed the lives of 33 people and razed about 180,000 square km, an area larger than the size of Uruguay and Cambodia. (IANs)