Quirky World ... French-trained chefs cook up storm in North Korea

NORTH KOREA: French-trained chefs are cooking up a storm in Pyongyang where North Korea’s privileged classes are devouring their baguettes, a pro-North newspaper reported, even as much of the population outside the capital struggles to feed itself.

The Kumkop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspersons, which was established in 2011, sent its pastry chefs to train in France last year as part of a drive to become a world-class food plant, the Choson Sinbo said.

The daily, published by the association of North Korean residents in Japan, said in report from Pyongyang that the wholewheat baguette had proved a hit.

The North’s leader Kim Jong Un personally visited the factory in January. “He said that the factory should wage a dynamic drive for developing and producing foodstuff including chewing gum which is badly needed by the sportspersons and suited to the constitution of the Koreans,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

Pyongyang is home to most of the North’s wealthy and educated class.

But in the countryside, many do not know where their next meal is coming from. The United Nations has said over a quarter of all children are malnourished.

Foul practice

US: The US Park Service is weighing using dogs to drive off Canada geese that each foul the US capital’s National Mall with up to three pounds (1.4kg) of droppings a day, the agency said.

The Park Service is considering using border collies to harass the large and growing population of Canada geese from tourist draws like the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument grounds and John F Kennedy Hockey Fields.

With the dogs, “the geese will be encouraged to abandon the lawns and water in these areas and relocate elsewhere,” a statement said.

The geese, known as the Branta canadensis, produce up to two or three pounds of faeces a day per bird. The droppings damage pumps and filters of the Reflecting Pool, degrade the park and are a potential public health hazard, the Park Service said in a statement. No birds will be physically harmed.

Uphill struggle 

US: A dog escaped injury after getting a paw stuck in a treadmill in a New Jersey home. The machine was not on.

Ridgewood Police Capt. Jacqueline Luthcke tells The Record newspaper the dog’s back paw somehow got stuck in the treadmill’s rear roller.

Uninvited guests

US: A school bus ploughed through the front of a home in suburban Philadelphia, with the back end of the vehicle sticking out of the living room area.

Officials said nine students from St Helena School were on board when the bus crashed in Blue Bell in Whitpain Township.

AP VIDEO: No one was injured after a school bus drives into a Philadelphia home: http://t.co/x1eXqJi5rn

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 24, 2015

Township officials said the driver of the Wissahickon School District bus was taken to a hospital. A resident of the home escaped unhurt. Whitpain police are investigating the cause of the crash.

Crash landing

US: A man who had occupied a cypress tree for 11 days to block construction of a premier golf course in New Orleans’ large public park fell and injured himself.

The man, identified as Lloyd Boover, plummeted out of the tree in City Park. Christopher Lane, of the City Park for Everyone Coalition, said Mr Boover had apparently not eaten for a day and was disoriented from lack of sleep. Mr Lane says Mr Boover thought he may have broken an ankle and his nose in the fall.

Sheriff’s deputies had been monitoring Mr Boover’s protest and kept a spotlight trained on him at night. He was expected to be charged with trespassing.