Iceland: The Rolling Stones cannot scare herring out of Icelandic fjords
Researchers have discovered that playing The Rolling Stones hits is not the way to get herring to leave an Icelandic fjord. The fjord in question, Kolgrafafjörður, in West Iceland, is home to large shoals of herring, but last year 50,000 tonnes of them died because of insufficient oxygen as a result of landfill pollution.
Researchers came up with a bizarre idea of scaring the herring away when they arrived at the fjord this year: playing music by The Rolling Stones …
Ice News
A fjord in Iceland. (Shutterstock)
Romania: Selling Dracula – Romania and Bulgaria team up for the stake of tourism
Two towns in Romania and Bulgaria are teaming up to promote “vampire tourism”.
Bulgaria’s ancient city of Sozopol on the Black Sea coast – where archaeologists discovered the remains of a 700-year-old man with a iron spike through his chest – will work with medieval town Sighisoara in Romania, the supposed birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the ruler thought to have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula. ...
Romania Insider
“Vlad the Impaler,” believed to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” (Wikimedia Commons)
Costa Rica: Top 5 Crime Stories of 2013
The Tico Times looks back at the biggest Costa Rican crime stories of the year. ...
Dramatic cases like that of Jairo Mora, a murdered 26-year-old sea turtle conservationist, caught international attention, but nationwide, the number of homicides has been decreasing since 2010 ...
Tico Times
Korea: The victimology of a North Korean terrorist
There is no doubt that Kang Min-chol was a terrorist.
The North Korean was part of a failed assassination attempt, helped to detonate a bomb that killed 21 people, and threatened to take out police officers when his capture was inevitable.
However, “Aung San Terrorist Kang Min-chol,” a book recently released in South Korea, portrays Kang as a victim—a political pawn sacrificed in the strife between the two Koreas and a forgotten prisoner left to die in a foreign country despite the dramatic changes in the outside world. ...
Asahi
Siberia: No snow in Siberia? Locals marvel - and worry - at the ’snow shortage’
We highlight December images taken in recent days in two Siberian cities Krasnoyarsk and Barnaul showing scenes that locals insist are unprecedented in living memory. The startling pictures from Krasnoyarsk show an almost total absence of snow yet as every school child around the world knows, snow is what Siberia is all about. ...
Siberia Times
Australia: On the streets in Sydney’s boozy summer
In the middle of the city a man lies passed out, half on the footpath and half on the road - a stark reminder of the dangers alcohol brings to Sydney’s streets.
The city’s young Christmas revellers give every appearance of being unaware of any such risks as they party the night away after a week that has left two young men in comas. But as witnessed by Fairfax Media on two recent nights, sometimes it is only by sheer good luck the partying does not end in hospital - or worse. ...
Sydney Morning Herald
Canada: University of Waterloo buys BlackBerry buildings, land for $41 million
WATERLOO, ONT.—The University of Waterloo has purchased five buildings and land from BlackBerry for $41 million.
The deal, which is expected to close Feb. 14, will add an additional 300,000 square feet and more than 1,000 parking spaces to the school’s property holdings. ...
Toronto Star
*Image of a husky in Siberia via Shutterstock
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