Quirky World: Town’s new name may not click with tourists
A linguistic storm is brewing in Luderitz, where some residents of the remote Namibian town are protesting plans to change its name to !Nami#nus.
No, those are not typographical errors.
The name, proposed by some government officials and tribal authorities, incorporates click-like sounds in the language spoken by the Nama ethnic group in the southern African nation. Those sounds are often represented in written form with punctuation symbols.
However, resident Crispin Clay says the change could hurt the “international reputation” of coastal Luderitz as a tourist destination and might not be recognised by computers and websites.
The town was named after German coloniser Adolf Luderitz. Germans killed tens of thousands of Nama and Herero people in the early 20th century.
German police say they helped American skier Lindsey Vonn get to Bulgaria for a World Cup event after she forgot her passport in Austria.
Munich airport police say Vonn realised after arriving for a flight to Sofia that she had left her passport in Salzburg, more than 90 minutes away.
Officers at the airport issued an emergency travel document for the 30-year-old American that allowed her to take her flight to Bansko, Bulgaria.
People from Arizona to Canada have reported seeing bright lights in the sky as a Chinese rocket burned up in the atmosphere.
Witnesses described the lights as about three dozen fireballs moving slowly north. Photographer Neil Zeller says it looked like a cluster of fireballs followed by a long orange tail.
Major Martin O’Donnell, of US strategic command, said the lights were a Chinese rocket booster that re-entered the atmosphere and broke apart about 11pm local time.
A New Hampshire man has survived being buried in the snow for more than three hours.
Drew Mullins says he was using a rake to clear snow off the roof of his Peterborough home when it came down all at once and within seconds, Mullins was trapped under about 60cm of snow. He says his heavy breathing caused the snow above his head to melt to the point where he could get some air.
When Mullins’ wife arrived three and a half hours later, she heard his muffled cries for help. She called 911 and Mullins was taken to a hospital for exposure.
A chef is creating a luxurious Cornish pasty costing £230 (€315) using beef from Japan, peppercorns from India, and potatoes from Illinois, US.
Richard Shaw, who runs Southwick Village Stores in Hampshire, is hoping his creation called the Very Important Pasty will win the World Pasty Championships being held in Cornwall.
The 33-year-old said his ingredients, including Japanese Wagu beef, travelled a total of 11,300 air miles to reach his kitchen.
An unexploded Second World War bomb was found near Borussia Dortmund’s stadium, forcing the Bundesliga club to shut down some operations.
The British bomb was found at a parking area near the west tribune of the Signal Iduna Park hours before coach Juergen Klopp’s news conference ahead of the Ruhr valley derby against Schalke 04 on Saturday.
Unexploded ordnance is a common occurrence in Germany, where several million tonnes of bombs were dropped during the war by Allied and Soviet forces, with Dortmund suffering extensive destruction.
Chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander presided over dough of a different kind as he launched the search for Scottish baker of the year.
The Highlands MP joined football commentator Archie Macpherson in Nairn to mark the official start to this year’s competition by trying their hand at icing cup cakes.
Their hosts, Ashers Bakery, scooped the title in 2014 when more than 20,000 members of the public voted to select Scotland’s best cakes, scones, and biscuits.
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