Roman amphitheater to host different kind of gladiators
PULA, Croatia: An ancient Roman amphitheater in the northern Croatian port of Pula is preparing to host a different kind of gladiators — ice hockey players, an official said yesterday. “I’m certain that images of ice hockey being played in (Pula’s) Arena, where the gladiators used to fight, will tour the world,” the president of Medvescak Zagreb ice hockey club Damir Gojanovic, who is organizing the event to boost the sport and tourism, told reporters. The club will play Slovenia’s Olimpija Ljubljana on Sept. 14 and two days later Austria Vienna Capitals, within the EBEL league which consists of clubs from Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. An additional challenge for the organizers will be the warm weather in September in Pula, on the Adriatic coast, where average temperatures are between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius (77 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit). The Pula amphitheater, built in the 1st century AD, is the world’s sixth largest. It is believed that it accommodated some 20,000 people in its glory days. Today the space is used for summer events, hosting movie festivals, operas and rock concerts.
Spain, Croatia fans sing for absent Poland
GDANSK, Poland: Co-hosts Poland may have been knocked out of Euro 2012, but they are still being cheered on their absence thanks to fans at fixtures such as Croatia's crunch Group C clash with Spain here. Launched by a section of locals watching the Croatians in action against the defending champions in the Gdansk Arena, the classic Polish fan chant of "Polska, Bialo-Czerwoni" was taken up and belted out by the rival Spanish and Croatians. Sung to the tune of the 1979 hit "Go West" by Village People, which is adapted by fans around the world, it simply means "Poland, the White and Reds," in a nod to the national colors. While Slavic-speakers such the Croatians have an edge, the pronunciation is simpler than it looks, with "Bialo-Czerwoni" sounding like "bee-ah-wo cherr-von-ee."
Britain ready to welcome tax-avoiding French
LOS CABOS, Mexico: British Prime Minister David Cameron cheekily declared Monday that Britain would open its door wide to France’s rich if they flee abroad from steep tax hikes proposed by the new French government. During this year’s political campaign, France’s newly-elected president, Francois Hollande, proposed hitting France’s wealthy with a 75 percent tax on any annual income beyond one million euros ($1.26 million). Anticipating a mass exodus of French top earners, Cameron said refugees from the tax would be welcome across the English Channel. “When France sets a 75 percent top income tax rate we will roll out the red carpet, and we will welcome more French businesses which will pay their taxes in Britain,” he said. “That will pay for our public services and our schools,” he added, during an address to business leaders at the G20 summit in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos. Later, the French Labor Minister Michel Sapin suggested Cameron’s comment had just spilled out without much forethought. He joked, “I don’t know how one can roll out a red carpet over the Channel, it risks taking on some water.”
No laughing matter: Gigglers banned
MUMBAI: They are designed to reduce stress and improve well-being, but one laughing yoga club in Mumbai has been ordered to stop its early morning giggling sessions after complaints from grumpy neighbors. The Bombay High Court told police to clamp down on the laughing yoga group after a 78-year-old resident complained it caused “mental agony, pain and public nuisance”, the DNA newspaper reported yesterday. “It is not proper to gather outside somebody’s house and laugh,” judges said while hearing the public interest lawsuit filed by Vinayak Shirsat from the Kurla suburb of Mumbai. According to Shirsat’s petition, 10 to 15 members of the group gather at 7 a.m. to sing, clap and indulge in “loud and vigorous spells of laughter.” “They laugh at the top of their voices; every member encourages the others to laugh to their heart’s content,” the complainant said. Laughing yoga was made popular as an exercise routine by Indian physician Madan Kataria in Mumbai in 1995, based on the principle that laughter has physiological benefits. Laughter clubs, at which members burst into infectious giggles, have since caught on in many cities in India and abroad. The court gave police a week to inform judges how they planned to restrain the club from causing problems.
Compiled from agencies
Sidelights
