Tunisia weightlifter blames early exit on bad math
LONDON: Tunisia may have missed out on its first medal at the London Olympics because of bad math. Weightlifter Khalil El Maoui was in second place of the men’s 56-kilogram competition after the snatch on Sunday but never showed up on the platform for the second lift, the clean and jerk. He blamed his coach afterward for submitting an entry weight that was 10 kilograms too high. “It was a mistake,” El Maoui said. “I should have started lifting at 148 kilograms but my coach entered 158 kilograms by mistake.” North Korea’s Om Yun Chol won the event after lifting 168 kilograms in the clean and jerk, a new Olympic record.
Hong Kong hails success in monkey birth control
HONG KONG: Hong Kong yesterday hailed the success of a birth control program for the city’s wild monkeys, saying the primates’ numbers have dropped 15 percent over four years. Officials said the latest monkey census showed the population stood at 1,965 last year, down from 2,320 in 2008 — a year after the city started fertility controls for the primates using methods including vasectomies. The conservation department said about 70 percent of the monkeys had been treated under the “monkey desexing program.” All treated monkeys were implanted with a microchip for identification. The government decided to take action after receiving numerous complaints from the public including reports of aggressive monkeys chasing hikers for food. It is illegal to feed monkeys in the southern Chinese city, punishable with a fine of up to HK$10,000 ($1,300).
Stradivarius violin handed in at Swiss lost property office
GENEVA: A Stradivarius violin — possibly worth several million euros — was handed in at a Swiss lost-property office after a hapless musician left it on a train, police said yesterday. The owner had lent the precious instrument to a musician friend who took it on a train on Friday but forgot it when he got off at Bern, police said. After a fruitless search by train staff, surveillance cameras spotted a passenger walking off with the violin at a different station and police launched an appeal for help. The violin turned up Sunday in the lost-property office at Bern station. Police did not disclose the names of anyone involved, nor the value of the instrument. Around 600 violins made by Italian master craftsman Antonio Stradivari are still in existence. One fetched about 11 million euros ($13.5 million) in a 2011 charity auction for victims of the Japanese tsunami. In 2008, a US violinist left a $4-million (3.2-million-euro) Stradivarius in the back of a New York cab. The cabbie returned the violin to its owner.
Not so chivalrous knights make off with festival cash
PARIS: A gang of thieves dressed as knights and armed with a sword and an axe robbed the organizers of a medieval festival in northeast France yesterday and made off with 20,000 euros ($25,000), police said. The theft took place in the early hours of yesterday as organizers were counting revenues from the festival in Bitche, near France’s border with Germany, a spokesman for regional police in Lorraine said. “According to witnesses, there were three or four individuals, masked and wearing medieval attire,” the spokesman said. They struck one of the organizers with the handle of the axe and escaped with the cash. Police have opened an investigation and interviewed several witnesses, he said. The “Medievales Europeennes de Bitche” is one of France’s largest festivals of medieval culture and last year was attended by more than 11,000 people.
