COLUMN

MILAN: A Qatar sheikh held up a British Airways flight at Milan’s Linate airport for nearly three hours after discovering three of his female relatives had been seated next to men they did not know. When none of the other business class passengers agreed to swap seats, the sheikh, a member of Qatar’s ruling family, went to the pilot, who had already started the engine, to complain, an airport official said. But the pilot ordered him and his travelling companions, the three women, two men, a cook and a servant, off the plane. The London-bound flight took off nearly three hours behind schedule last Thursday evening and around 50 of the 115 passengers missed connecting flights. Traditions in the conservative Gulf Arab region bar women from mixing with unrelated men.
                                           ***
WARSAW: Krystyna Zbyszynska, 84, became Poland’s oldest parachutist when she made her first jump with her daughter-in-law, news channel TVN24 reported on Sunday. “I survived World War Two and wasn’t afraid, so what’s there to be afraid of now?” she said after clambering out of her jumpsuit. “Babcia (granny) Krysia is not your ordinary gran,” explained one of her teenaged granddaughters. “She tells me I’m not playing my music loud enough and comes into my room and wants to dance.” Asked whether she planned another jump Zbyszynska, from the northern city of Olsztyn, told the channel: “Yes, the day I turn 100.”
                                            ***
SEATTLE: Two men, on a fishing trip, discovered a 150kg white sturgeon in a lake in the northwest United States of Washington state, although sturgeons have never been found there before. Sturgeon are commonly found in deep pockets of major rivers that lead into the ocean and not in warm water lakes like Black Lake where it was found.
                                            ***
CANBERRA: A man who attempted to rob an
Australian fish and chip shop found himself on the losing side when the angry shop owner threw fish batter and hot oil at him. “The hot oil missed but the batter hit the offender and he fled empty handed,” South
Australian police said in a statement. Police said the attempted armed robbery happened last Thursday evening at the quiet seaside retirement town of Victor Harbour, near the South Australian state capital of Adelaide. Police were checking local hospitals in case the man was injured. – Reuters

Journey to Paradise

Copyright © 2003 [The National Online] Private Policy