Mar
16
Lawmakers defend traditional coca use
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LIMA (Reuters) - Lawmakers defiantly chewed coca in Peru’s Congress on Thursday while criticizing a U.N. recommendation to criminalize traditional uses of the plant.
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The coca leaf, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is used by millions of people to stave off hunger and fight altitude sickness. It is also used in teas, in cooking and by fortune tellers.
“The coca leaf has existed for thousands and thousands of years. It’s part of our agriculture, our food and our medicine. It’s sacred,” Congresswoman Hilaria Supa told Reuters before the start of Thursday’s session.
“The United Nations doesn’t know our culture. It doesn’t understand our values,” she said.
Supa and Congresswoman Maria Sumire offered coca to their colleagues on the Congress floor from small hats. Dozens of politicians took handfuls and chewed the leaf during a raucous session with boos and hisses.
Earlier this month, the International Narcotics Control Board of the United Nations in its annual report urged Peru and Bolivia to ban coca chewing, with an eye toward cutting cocaine production.
Jose Garcia Belaunde, Peru’s foreign relations minister, says Peru’s right to chew coca is protected as an Andean tradition. Bolivian President Evo Morales, who rose to power as a leader of coca growers, has pushed to have it declassified as a drug.
Peru and Bolivia are the world’s second and third largest coca producers after Colombia.
(Reporting by Dana Ford; Editing by Terry Wade and Xavier Briand
Source : Yahoo News
Mar
16
State passes droopy pants law
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TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate wants public school students to pull up their pants. Lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that could mean suspensions for students with droopy britches.
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It won’t become law unless the House of Representatives passes a companion measure.
Florida could join several southern U.S. towns and cities that have passed “saggy pants” laws aimed at outlawing what some teenagers consider a fashion statement — wearing pants half way down their buttocks, exposing flesh or underwear.
Supporters say schools sometimes don’t properly police dress codes and parents are often “under aware” of what their kids are wearing to school.
Critics say the measure is unnecessary, arguing that appearance and dress codes should be the responsibility of school districts and parents.
Despite being the butt of jokes, the bill’s sponsor, Orlando Sen. Gary Siplin, a Democrat, has said the fashion statement has a back-story — it was made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.
“All we’re trying to do now is trying to inform folks that we have a fad now that does not have a very good origination,” Siplin said. “We’re trying to make an example in school,” he added, saying it would help students get jobs and a degree.
The Florida city of Riviera Beach passed its own saggy pants law Tuesday, with a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail for repeat offenders.
(Reporting by Michael Peltier, editing by Jim Loney and Todd Eastham)
Source P: Yahoo News
Mar
16
Source Yahoo News
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LONDON (Reuters) - It is the one moment every man wants to get right — and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.
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The luckless 28 year-old’s dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.
Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.
But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring — and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend — sailing away over the rooftops.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he told The Sun newspaper.
“I just watched as it went further and further into the air.
“I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me.”
Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.
“I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question,” he said.
“But I had to tell her the story — she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring.”
He is hoping the ring will still turn up.
“It would be amazing if someone found it,” he added.
(Reporting by Peter Apps. Editing by Steve Addison