QUIRKY WORLD ... 151 couples tie the knot at a mass wedding in India
The nuptials were hosted by an Indian diamond trader who has been paying for the weddings of fatherless women in the city of Surat for several years.
Mahesh Savani said he first stepped in to play the role of the father in 2008, when one of his employees died a few days before the weddings of his two daughters.
Every year since then, Savani has paid for the weddings of young women from poor families who have lost their fathers.
Weddings in India are expensive affairs, with the bride’s family traditionally expected to pay the groom a large dowry of cash and gifts. Hundreds of people, mostly family members and neighbours of the couple, are hosted at lavish meals over a number of days, adding to the cost. Savani said the wedding and gifts for the 151 couples would cost more than 50m rupees (€689,000), with around 100,000 guests joining in the three days of festivities that ended today.
“I see this as something sacred, so I am not counting the expense,” Savani said.
A Spanish galleon that went down off the nation’s coast with what may be the world’s largest sunken treasure while trying to escape from British warships more than 300 years ago has been found.
President Juan Manual Santos said the exact location of the Galleon San Jose and how it was discovered with the help of an international team of experts was a state secret.
The ship sank somewhere in the wide area off Colombia’s Baru peninsula, south of the colonial port city of Cartagena.
While no humans have yet to reach the wreckage site, autonomous underwater vehicles had gone there and brought back photos of dolphin-stamped bronze cannons in a well-preserved state that leave no doubt to the ship’s identity, the government said.
The discovery is the latest chapter in a saga that began three centuries ago on June 8, 1708, when the galleon with 600 people aboard sank as it was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships.
It is believed to have been carrying 11m gold coins and jewels from then Spanish-controlled colonies that could be worth billions .
The ship has also been the subject of a legal battle in the US, Colombia, and Spain over who owns the rights to the sunken treasure.
Almost two thirds (62%) of Britons will be buying Christmas presents for their pets this year, with a quarter planning to spend more on their furry friends than ever before.
Sales of festive pet products have already doubled compared to 2014, as demand for animal presents reaches an all time high, Waitrose Weekend found in a survey of 1,000 people.
One in eight people admitted they will spend more on their pets than their human relatives, with people in Yorkshire and Humber being most generous towards their pets.
A tourist was poised to photograph a sedate scene of two crocodiles sunning themselves at the edge of an Australian waterhole when the picture unexpectedly exploded into violence.
Sandra Bell said she was startled but managed to snap around 20 graphic photos as a 5m estuarine croc killed and devoured a far lighter 2.5m specimen over the course of 15 minutes at Catfish Waterhole in the Rinyirru National Park, north Queensland state.
Crocodile expert Grahame Webb says cannibalism is common among crocodiles, although humans rarely witness such attacks in the Australian wilderness.
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