
The Daily Tulip — News From Around The World
Tuesday 22nd August 2017
Good Morning Gentle Reader…. Well, all those clouds yesterday blew through quickly and we are back to the normal warm weather again, with an expected high of 30c and a night time low of 21c so no complaints from me or Bella this morning… Sandra is performing Cataract Surgery this morning in Malaga, using the latest technology with the new C8 machine, maybe fantastic but it still needs a skilled human hand to operate it and with over 10,000 eye operations to her credit, Sandra is the first person to use this revolutionary machine in Spain… While Sandra is performing surgery on 12 clients, I shall be relaxing on the beach… waiting for the call to drive her home….
CANADIAN COP’S LACK OF FRENCH CANCELS SPEEDING TICKET…. A straightforward traffic stop resulted in a legal row over Canadian language rights A Canadian driver has been told that a speeding ticket against him has been cancelled because the police officer involved only addressed him in English. Lawyer Antoine Hacault, whose first language is French, was due to face a judge next week over an alleged speeding infraction in the largely French-speaking village of St-Pierre-Jolys in southern Manitoba, broadcaster CBC reports. Mr Hacault claims that under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Official Languages Act, police are obliged to offer their services in French, in areas — such as St-Pierre-Jolys — that are officially designated bilingual. The officer involved did not speak to him in French, and also wrote out the speeding ticket in English, he says.
Now the courts have agreed with him, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. Mr Hacault has received an email informing him that since his language rights were not respected, the matter is being dropped.
BELARUS MINISTER WANTS EX-PRISONERS TO WORK ON FARMS…. Belarusian Interior Minister Ihar Shunievich wants ex-cons to work the land The interior minister of Belarus has caused a stir by suggesting that convicts could be sent to work the land on their release from prison. Ihar Shunievich told Belarusian state TV that his ministry is working on a bill to set up its own farms to help rehabilitate former jailbirds. “Having a job will reduce rates of reoffending and help them reintegrate into society, earn their keep, set up families, raise children, and pay any outstanding court costs,” he said on a visit to the Khutor-Agro cooperative farm in the country’s southern Homiel Region this week.
The experiment will first be tried out at Khutor-Agro itself. “If it proves successful, we will set up similar schemes in all regions,” Mr Shunievich promised, excluding the capital Minsk. The produce of the farms will go to feed the staff and inmates of the prison system, he added. There has been fierce criticism of the plan online, with leading journalist Andrzej Poczobut sees it as a sly attempt to stop the population drift from failing farms.
ICELAND TOILET ROLL ‘PRICE WAR’ WIPES OUT JOBS…. Iceland’s only toilet paper manufacturer says it is being forced to lay off staff as it cannot compete with the prices offered by a US competitor. American retail giant Costco opened a new shopping warehouse in Iceland’s Reykjavik earlier this year and was initially met with enthusiasm. However, this excitement has not been matched at the offices of toilet paper company Papco, which says its sales have plummeted by up to 30%, Iceland Magazine’s website reports.
Papco’s Alexander Karason fears that his company’s future is being flushed away, saying that the company cannot compete with Costco’s wholesale prices. Papco has been forced to cut six jobs as a result, he says. Speaking to Visir newspaper, he claims that Costco are charging considerably lower prices for their loo roll than in their western stores. “That’s something we can’t compete with, as we have to buy our raw materials, the paper, at world market prices,” he told Visir. However, the bulk purchases offered at Costco’s warehouse store have had an unexpected benefit for at least one local manufacturer. Richard Kristinsson of Mjallar Friggjar, which makes and sells detergents and kitchenware, says that Icelanders have been put off by the huge pack sizes, and have returned to buying their goods in smaller quantities.
RUSSIA DENIES GIVING LAKE TO KAZAKHSTAN…. The Russian authorities have had to deny media reports that a Siberian lake popular with tourists has been transferred in its entirely to neighbouring Kazakhstan. Reports that Lake Sladkoye was going to disappear behind the international border caused public anger when they surfaced earlier this week, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. Novosibirsk Regional Council condemned the reports, with its deputy leader Andrei Panferov telling Kommersant newspaper that this was “just idle talk — How can anyone imagine we can just hand over a chunk of sovereign territory?” The confusion arose when Kupino district council asked people to stay away from the lake while border demarcation work was under way. The public misunderstood this as meaning the border, which runs through the lake, was going to move, Mr Panferov insists.
The head of Kupino council, Vladimir Shubnikov, told regional newspaper NGS Novosti earlier this week that “Sladkoye is not much more than a marsh, and quite useless. It would be simpler to hand it all over to Kazakhstan”. But the idea that Mr Shubnikov was just expressing a personal opinion was undermined by a widely-reported statement on the Kupino council website that “Sladkoye will lie completely in Kazakhstan once the border work is finished”.
CHINESE MAN TREATS 5,000 TO NOODLES AFTER RING RECOVERED…. Long queues formed in Chongqing’s Jiefangbei for a free bowl of spicy noodles A Chinese man paid for 5,000 bowls of spicy noodles in the southwestern city of Chongqing after a vendor recovered his lost engagement ring, it’s reported. According to the Chongqing Morning Post, the man surnamed Wang wanted to surprise his girlfriend with the proposal on their one-year anniversary. He had spent the morning of 13 August making preparations ahead of the engagement, but while having his lunch he moved away from his seat to take a call from his girlfriend, in case she spotted him. When he returned, he found his bag had gone, containing the three-carat diamond ring worth 300,000 yuan (US $44,900; £35,000). But fortunately a local resident had handed the bag in to the restaurant manager Yue Xiaohua, who later returned it to Mr Wang. Mr Yue told the Chongqing Morning Post that Mr Wang “unexpectedly” returned to the restaurant the following day. “He asked us how many bowls of spicy noodles we sell in a day, and then gave me 35,000 yuan (US $5,200; £4,000), which is 5,000 bowls, saying ‘please invite everyone to eat for free for the day’. “
Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, Tuesday morning… …
Our Tulips today are at sunset……
A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it’s always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of “Colombian” Coffee and wish you a safe Tuesday 22nd August 2017from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…
All good stuff….But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in
Be safe out there…
Robert McAngus
