China to send 'duck army' to help Pakistan fight locusts
Beijing: China is planning to dispatch a 100,000-strong army of ducks to help Pakistan combat a massive locust infestation, a local newspaper reported Thursday. The legion of lotus-eating waterfowl will be sent from the eastern province of Zhejiang following the earlier dispatch of a team of Chinese experts to Pakistan to advise on a response to the infestation that is being called the worst in 20 years, the Ningbo Evening News said. AP
Bullied Australian boy to donate $475,000 to charity
sydney: An Australian boy with dwarfism whose distress from bullying became a viral video will donate hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to charity rather than a trip to Disneyland. The clip of nine-year-old Quaden Bayles showed him crying and repeatedly saying he wanted to die after being bullied at school, sparking an outpouring of support from around the world. The video prompted US comedian Brad Williams to start a GoFundMe page that eventually raised almost USD 475,000. AFP
German court upholds headscarf ban for trainee lawyers
berlin: Germany’s highest court on Thursday upheld a ban on headscarves for Muslim trainee lawyers in courts, finding that the requirement of maintaining religious neutrality was justified. The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling came after a Frankfurt-born German-Moroccan legal trainee filed a challenge to Hesse state’s rules. In the western state, trainees who keep their headscarves on are not allowed to take on tasks in which they may be seen to be acting as representatives of the judiciary or the state. AFP
