QUIRKY WORLD ... Ducks turn over a new leaf as public urged to ditch bread

BRITAIN: Ducks have been ditching bread for a cleaner diet after the public was asked to ban the breadcrumbs.

Figures from the Canal & River Trust, which cares for 3,220km waterway in England and Wales, show a 20% fall in feeding ducks bread.

Although the number of people feeding ducks a healthier dinner of seeds, fruit and vegetables has doubled, people are still throwing 3.5 million loaves into canals, rivers, ponds and lakes every year.

Bread is bad for ducks for multiple reasons: it causes over-population, as birds flock to the food; uneaten bread spreads disease and attracts pests; and excessive droppings can reduce water quality and clog channels.

Peter Birch, national environment manager for the Canal & River Trust, said: “We’re really pleased with the public response to our campaign so far and the way people are changing their duck feeding habits. However, there’s still work to be done and still too much bread is being dumped in the waterways. We need more people to get the word out and encourage everyone to feed the ducks sensibly.

EGYPT: A court has sentenced a prominent Facebook user to three years in prison with hard labour after he asserted on television that many married women in the conservative country were unfaithful.

Taymour el-Sobky was arrested last month and accused by prosecutors of slandering Egyptian women and damaging their honour. His comments on a popular evening talk show in December caused a furore.

“Thirty percent of Egyptian women are ready for immorality, they just can’t find someone to encourage them”, said Sobky, whose Facebook page called “Diaries of a Suffering Husband” has more than one million followers.

“These days, it is very normal for women to cheat on their husbands and seek it out. Many women are involved in extramarital affairs while their husbands are abroad,” he claimed.

Sobky’s comments included the suggestion that arranged marriages in traditional southern Egypt exacerbated the problem of infidelity because women ended up with men they didn’t know.

After the claim a masked man from the region appeared in a video carried on YouTube armed with an assault rifle, and issued a death threat against Sobky.

BRITAIN: A chess set which is more than 1,000 years old and worth an estimated £20,000 to £30,000 (€17,000 to €27,000) is being sold at auction. The 10th century set forms part of a collection of rare artefacts from the ancient game which is expected to sell for up to to £120,000.

Sotheby’s said the collection carries huge significance in the evolution of the game throughout Persia and the Middle East.

The pieces belonged to German chess grandmaster Lothar Schmid who is famed for refereeing what is known as the Match Of The Century — the 1972 Cold War faceoff between American Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

The items will be sold as part of the Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World auction in London on April 20.

AUSTRALIA: Roosters running rampant in an Australian city were rounded up on Saturday in a campaign to curb the crowing cocks.

The Tasmanian state capital of Hobart, and its southern fringe in particular, has been plagued by feral fowls for the past five or six years, according to resident and Southern Tasmanian Bantam Club secretary Steven Baldock.

“They’re crowing and carrying on,” Baldock told Reuters by telephone.

People who keep chickens for their eggs often abandoned roosters, which do not produce eggs, he said.