A northern Chinese city has come up with an innovative way to encourage residents to keep the streets clean – it is paying five fen (just under one US cent) for every used cigarette butt they pick up.
Authorities in Shaanxi province’s Xianyang city launched the campaign in September and so far enthusiastic residents have handed over seven million butts. In return, the local government has paid out 100,000 yuan ($15,000) for two million of the butts.
“We started the drive as part of an effort to make our city more clean and civilised, increase public environmental awareness and warn against the dangers of smoking,” said the deputy head of the office overseeing the campaign.
One person reportedly handed over 7,500 cigarette butts all at once while some people are rooting around internet cafes, restaurants and even dustbins to collect butts and get a reward. (AFP)
Pilgrims flock to Jordan River
Several hundred Catholics made a pilgrimage to the Jordan River yesterday for an annual celebration at the site where Jesus was baptised.
The ceremony, which took place at Qasr al-Yahud on the banks of the river near the occupied West Bank town of Jericho, was organised by the Catholic Franciscan Order.
The site is believed to be the spot where Jesus entered the water some 2,000 years ago to be baptised by John, who immersed his followers in the Jordan to symbolise their purification in the eyes of God. (AFP)
Town evacuated after dynamite find
The centre of a New Zealand town was evacuated for several hours yesterday after boxes of unstable dynamite were dumped on the steps of the local police station.
Police said about 100 sticks of the explosive were found in wooden boxes at the Balclutha police station on the South Island early yesterday morning.
“The dynamite was sweaty, wet and thought to be unsafe,” they said.
The Balclutha police station and surrounding streets were evacuated and cordoned off until army explosive experts arrived and took the dynamite to a nearby quarry for detonation.
Police said the dynamite was left by a farmer unsure of how to dispose of the explosives. (AFP)
Opting out?
More than a quarter of Britons (27.5 per cent) think they can opt out of being a “citizen of the European Union”, according to a new survey.
They cannot – whether they like it or not, nationals of all 27 EU member states are automatically EU citizens too but fewer than six out of 10 people (58 per cent) in the UK understood that.
The Eurobarometer poll of more than 25,500 of those EU citizens – including 1,000 in the UK - may alarm the European Commission, whose declared aim is to promote the notion of European citizenship. (PA)
Too little, too late
Bulgaria’s defence ministry yesterday lifted a ban on women serving aboard submarines just as Parliament decided to mothball the country’s only submarine.
“There is no such ban anymore,” Defence Minister Anyu Angelov told journalists, adding that women would be free to apply for jobs on submarines and in the national guard – which was also banned previously – as early as next month.
In effect, however, women wishing to serve on submarines will have no such opportunity,
as Parliament yesterday also passed a plan to reform the armed forces that involved mothballing the nation’s lone sub. (AFP)
Shark attack
Villagers in the Philippines butchered for food an endangered whale shark that was trapped in a fish pen. Environmental officers found about a dozen people with knives running away with basins full of meat carved from the shark when they reached the village of Bio-os.
Only the head of the whale shark – the world’s biggest fish species – was left, weighing 200kg. (PA)
Happy to kiss
Heterosexual male students are more comfortable kissing their friends than ever before, researchers said. University students now see nothing wrong with showing friendship to another man through a kiss on the lips. Researchers at the University of Bath found 89 per cent of white undergraduate men at two UK universities and one sixth form college said they were happy to kiss another man on the lips through friendship. (PA)
Men living longer
Life expectancy for men increased by almost three years in the last decade to close the gender gap
with women, Government figures showed. The improvement means boys born in England between 2007 and 2009 can expect to reach the age of 78, while girls are likely to live just past their 82nd birthday - a difference of four years.
Almost 10 years ago, the gap in life expectancy was nearly five years, with boys expecting to live to 75.3 while girls were likely to reach 80.1. (PA)