Right to vote
A woman shows her identity card while waiting to cast her vote during a referendum in Harare, Zimbabwe on March 16. — AFP
Tourist trouble
Visitor turned away from Sri Lanka
Colombo — Sri Lanka denied entry to a British tourist sporting a Buddha tattoo on his arm because he showed disrespect to Buddhism, a report said on March 16.
The unnamed man was turned back at Bandaranaike International Airport on March 15, according to the daily Lankadeepa Sinhalese.
“When questioned about the tattoo, he spoke disrespectfully about Buddhism,” an immigration official told the newspaper. “If he expressed such views after entering the country, it would have been a threat to his own safety.” — AFP
Big bang
Fireworks wreak havoc in village
Mexico City — A truck loaded with fireworks exploded during a religious procession in a rural village in central Mexico, killing at least 13 people and injuring 154, authorities said.
The blast on March 15 was set off when a firework malfunctioned and landed on the truck, igniting the fireworks it carried, officials said. Seventy people were seriously burned in the annual procession in honour of Jesus Christ, the patron saint of Jesus Tepactepec, a village of about 1,000 people. — AP
Happy landing
On March 16, International Space Station crew member Kevin Ford is dressed in Kazakh traditional clothing at Kustanay Airport after landing near Arkalyk in Kazakhstan. — Reuters
Airport action
Strike delays flights
Berlin — More than 300 flights were cancelled at Germany’s Duesseldorf and Cologne-Bonn airports on March 15 after security personnel walked off the job to press wage demands.
At least 250 workers started a day-long strike at 4 am local time, causing the cancellation of 228 flights in Duesseldorf and 78 in Cologne-Bonn.
They workers were seeking a 30 percent pay increase for private security workers, including about 2,000 airport security personnel and 32,000 others in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Employers have offered a 9 percent raise. — AP
Fatal fun run
Heat hurts marathon runners
Jerusalem — An Israeli medical official said that a man in his 30s died of a heatstroke suffered just after finishing a Tel Aviv marathon race on March 15.
Rescue services spokesman Zaki Heller said the runner collapsed and was rushed to a hospital, but medics were unable to resuscitate him.
The race was run in 32 degree Celsius heat. Four other runners who collapsed from the heat were put on respirators at a Tel Aviv hospital. Medics treated more than 50 runners at the race. — AP
Light reading
Tiny book published
Tokyo — A book with pages the size of the eye of a needle has been printed in Japan, the Toppan Printing publishing company announced on March 13. Each tiny page apparently shows a microscopic flower.
The 22-page micro-book, Shiki no Kusabana (Flowers of Seasons), contains names and monochrome illustrations of Japanese flowers, the publishers said, adding the 0.75-millimetre pages were impossible to read with the naked eye.
Toppan Printing said letters just 0.01 millimetre wide were created using the same technology as money printers use to prevent forgery. — AFP
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
Crash course
Bus falls into valley
Abbottabad, Pakistan — A bus slid off a road and fell into a valley. It happened on March 16 in Pakistan. The bus was carrying soldiers. The accident killed 24 people. Five other injured people were sent to a hospital. — AP
Exercises
1. Where did the fireworks truck explode?
a. In Mexico.
b. In Australia.
c. In the US.
2. Shiki no Kusabana features colour photos of flowers. True or false?
3. In what province is Phrao district?
Vocabulary
- referendum (n): an occasion when all the people of a country can vote on an important issue
malfunction (v): to fail to work correctly
ignite (v): to start to burn
heatstroke (n): an illness with fever and loss of consciousness, caused by being in too great heat for too long
resuscitate (v): to make somebody start breathing again or become conscious again after they have almost died
respirator (n): a piece of equipment that makes it possible for somebody to breathe over a long period when they are unable to do so naturally
microscopic (adj): extremely small and difficult or impossible to see without a microscope
monochrome (adj): using only black, white and shades of grey
forgery (n): the crime of copying money, documents, etc. in order to cheat people
