Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Wierd/silly/amusing/good news

Calling moderators! I don't know how to link to you here, but if you see this - please can this thread be moved to the general urban forum? It's not only for UK news, and not only for non-UK "world news" either!
 
A Hero’s Retirement For Cambodia's Landmine-Hunting Rat

"famous landmine-hunting “hero rat” will retire this month due to old age after a stellar five-year career in which he located 71 mines and 38 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Cambodia, according to the charity that cares for him....Born in Tanzania and trained by Belgian non-profit organization APOPO, which teaches African giant pouched rats to detect landmines and even diseases like tuberculosis, Magawa rose to international fame in September when he was awarded a gold medal by the British charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), the animal equivalent of the George Cross....
in a statement this week, APOPO said Magawa was “slowing down” and would retire after a new group of 20 landmine detection rats arrived in Cambodia in March.
The group added that he would “mentor” and settle in the new recruits before taking a bow."
 
Calling moderators! I don't know how to link to you here, but if you see this - please can this thread be moved to the general urban forum? It's not only for UK news, and not only for non-UK "world news" either!
You could report the OP (with an explanation) if you wanted to move forum but it's more likely to stay on the first page of a smaller forum.
 
Charlie Bit Me NFT sale: Brothers to pay for university with auction money

"Harry, who is now 17, tells Radio 1 Newsbeat he wants to study "some kind of engineering" at either University College London or Imperial College London.
Charlie, now 15, isn't yet sure what he wants to study. But he says the money generated by the video will also cover the uni fees of his two younger brothers, Jasper and Rupert, if they want to go.
"I can't even remember doing it so making money off it, and having experiences off it, is really cool," Charlie says."
 
This isn't exactly "news" as he's been doing it for over a year now, but it's nice that he's getting more recognition:

Hackney trader praised for low-price masks

"A Ridley Road market trader has been selling masks at "rock bottom" prices since the pandemic began, as well as giving them out for free to anyone short of cash.
Hemin Abdullah, also known as Mr Hamma, has been trading in Ridley Road market for 15 years selling spices.
But for more than a year now, he has been offering boxes of 50 masks for £1, to help local people social distance."
 
To add to this, NPR did a radio show on this McDonald's in 2019 which explains a lot more of the background, and then did a second show in April 2021 updating the story. It includes interviews with all the key figures, with a particular focus on the manager who threatened to set himself on fire and the franchise owner who refused to buy the McDonald's. You can find the 2021 show (or a transcript if you prefer) here. It's roughly 50 mins long.
It is a decent story but will macs allow it to continue?
The story is quite complicated, and the interviewees in the linked show will explain it far better than I can in a short post, but the employees took over the McDonald's because they wanted it to remain a McDonald's. The initial plan was to sell it separately from other local McDonald's and turn it into a halal restaurant (because the person who wanted to buy the other franchises didn't like the manager's politics), which many people in the community saw as potentially turning their area into a Muslim ghetto. The more radical stuff came about as a result of the pandemic.

I don't pretend to know the workings of the minds of corporate capitalists, but I would imagine that McDonald's France have realised that this is relatively good publicity for their brand, or at least isn't hurting their brand as much as them suing a group of community activists and long-term McDonald's employees to stop them from giving out free couscous would do.
 
Back
Top Bottom