World News

City celebration People carry a giant national flag during Independence Day celebrations in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on September 9. - Reuters

Happy together

Married couple approaches record

Hanoi - Two centenarians in Vietnam are looking to break a record for the longest marriage in the world. Huynh Van Lac, 110, and Nguyen Thi Lanh, 106, broke the national record for their marriage of 82 years during the final week of August.

Huynh said the secret to maintaining his long marriage was to learn how to live with each other happily and to avoid quarrels. Nguyen said it was important to exercise regularly and think positively.

Herbert Fisher and Zelmyra Fisher from the US currently hold the Guinness World Record after being married for 86 years. - DPA

Suicide stats

China reveals fatal figures

Beijing - A person tries to kill themselves in China every two minutes, giving the country one of the highest suicide rates in the world, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

China's suicide rate is 22.23 people out of every 100,000, the centre revealed. The centre also found that suicide is the biggest killer among Chinese people aged 15 to 34.

Pressure to perform well at school and to find employment are believed to be the main reasons for suicide among youths. - AFP

EASY NEWS FOR M1-3

Plane plummets

Sports team dies in crash

Yaroslavl, Russia - A jet crashed in Yaroslavl, Russia. It crashed on the Volga River. An ice hockey team was on board the jet. The accident killed 36 people. One person was seriously injured. - AP

Dramatic date US President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, ex-President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush walk past the 9/11 Memorial during 10th anniversary ceremonies at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11. - EPA

Grounded flight

Hoax holds up passengers

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia's international airport was declared free from threat on September 8 after a Pakistan International Airlines flight with 177 people on board landed following a hoax bomb threat.

The aircraft and luggage were searched and screened by a bomb disposal unit. The aircraft was declared safe and free of any explosives.

Airport officials said they had received an aircraft bomb warning for flight PK898 from Lahore to Kuala Lumpur. - DPA

Angry official

New rule upsets diplomat

Montreal - A Canadian government decree that Queen Elizabeth II's portrait be displayed at all embassies and missions abroad caused an angry response from a former diplomat.

"This decision is retrograde and anachronistic," Canada's erstwhile ambassador to the UN Paul Heinbecker said. "After 60 years of emancipation, this is a backwards step for our country."

On September 7, Foreign Minister John Baird's office confirmed that all of its diplomatic missions had been told to raise a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, given that she is Canada's head of state. - AFP

Jungle rescue

Single crash survivor found

La Paz, Bolivia - A single survivor was found on September 9 in Bolivia's Amazonian jungle, three days after the crash of a small plane that killed the other eight people on board.

"I ate nothing and I drank my own urine when I was thirsty," 35-year-old Mino Vidal Huerta said. "The first night I slept in the plane, and the other two nights in the jungle."

The Aerocon plane carrying seven passengers and a crew of two crashed on September 6 as it flew from Santa Cruz to Trinidad. Mino was rescued on September 9 by a military patrol on the shore of Lake Rosendi, 18 kilometres north of Trinidad airport. - DPA

EXERCISE

1. Who was onboard the jet that crashed in Russia?

a. A football team.
b. A tennis team.
c. An ice hockey team.

2. Two people survived the plane crash in Bolivia. True or false?

3. Who is Education Minister of Thailand?