France: French parents learn US brand of discipline
French parents have traditionally relied on the tried and trusted method of discipline to raise their kids but change is in the air. Classes teaching how to be better parents, which have flourished in English-speaking countries, have begun taking France by storm.
French parents today want a new kind of authority that does not crush children but does not allow them to run wild either, said Beatrice Sabate, a clinical psychologist who adapted a method devised in California called “positive discipline” for France.
“There are rules, but the child helps to define them,” said Sabate. ...
The Local
India: World’s largest moustache
Think your Movember effort is going to be pretty impressive? India’s Ram Singh Chauhan will make you hang your head in shame at your weedy facial fuzz.
The 58-year-old is the proud owner of the world’s longest moustache – at an astonishing 14 feet long.
Chauhan, who hails from the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan state, says his whiskers are his ‘most prized possession’. He has spent an incredible 32 years cultivating the tash – which he spends two hours a day grooming. ...
The Daily Star
Slovakia: Man travels on bike to collect postcards
Pensioner Ladislav Holub of the eastern-Slovak municipality Poša has found an interesting way to enhance his big collection of postcards depicting Slovak cities and villages. He travels across Slovakia and asks municipal offices in each town for postcards and stamps. ...
The Slovak Spectator
Chile: President grants ESO site to build ‘extremely large’ telescope
As the European Southern Observatory marks 50 years in Chile, Piñera officially hands over land to build the world’s largest optical wavelength reflecting telescope.
Ten years from now, one of the largest telescopes ever constructed will scour the skies above the Atacama Desert, hunting for potentially life-bearing planets and contributing to our understanding of the working’s of the universe. ...
The Santiago Times
Germany: A race for justice and against time
Andreas Willms and Stefan Brendel hunt Nazi criminals. Some 70 years after WWII, the perpetrators are very old - it’s a race for justice and against time.
When asked whether it’s legitimate to take a 92-year old to court, Andreas Brendel’s answer is short: “There’s no statute of limitations on murder.” As a prosecutor it is his duty to follow up on accusations. Brendel is used to such questions coming from journalists; he has just finished an interview with a Russian TV reporter.
Of course there was the same question; it seems obvious when you have a man who for the past ten years has brought one old Nazi after another into a German court. Brendel heads the central office for dealing with Nazi crimes in Dortmund. ...
Deutsche Welle
Switzerland: Wine growers dodge bad weather to gather grapes
A cold spring means a late harvest in Switzerland’s vineyards but wine growers are optimistic about the quality of the wine this year. Caroline Bishop joins a vigneron in Lavaux, on the slopes above Lake Geneva, to discover the traditions of cultivating and harvesting grapes in these centuries-old vineyards.
The grapes keep on coming. In total around 1,500 kilograms of Chasselas are poured into the 100-year-old wooden press to extract the juice, and this is the second pressing of the day.
Artisan wine-grower Alain Chollet is in the middle of his annual harvest. ...
The Local
Turkey: Asia and Europe to get Bosphorus rail link as Marmaray opens
The European and Asian sides of Istanbul are to be connected for the first time with a railway tunnel constructed under the Bosphorus, officially opened on Oct. 29, the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Republic.
A Turkish-Japanese consortium has realized the project, called the Marmaray, fulfilling a 150-year-old dream. ...
Hurriyet Daily News
