Cold forces shirtless thief to surrender

The cold weather in Central China’s Hubei Province came to the aid of local policemen and firemen, as they tried to apprehend a thief in the city of Ezhou.

When firemen were called to the scene by policemen, they found a shirtless man hanging outside a sixth-floor window, trembling in the sub-freezing weather. It was later understood that the man was a fugitive habitual thief who had fled through the window of a balcony to evade police.

In order to prevent the man from falling, one policeman handcuffed himself to the thief after he became emotional and threatened to jump off the building.

Eventually, the suspended thief was persuaded to give up by the police, the firemen, and most importantly, the cold weather. With the man too exhausted to move, the firemen lowered a rope through the window and pulled him back to safety.

120-year-old chocolate found in poet’s papers

Staff members at the National Library of Australia were stunned when they found a 120-year-old box of chocolate hidden in papers of the late poet and journalist A.B. “Banjo” Paterson.

They were going through the recently acquired papers of the Australian poet when they stumbled on the souvenir tin filled with chocolate. The chocolate still was in its straw packaging and silver foil wrapping.

The tins were commissioned by Britain’s Queen Victoria and sent to soldiers in South Africa during the Boer War around 1900 as a gift to the troops.

“There was quite an interesting smell when they were unwrapped,” National Library of Australia conservator Jennifer Todd said.

Paterson served as a war correspondent in South Africa for nearly a year starting in October 1899 before returning to Australia. His papers were passed down by his family after his death in 1941, before the library donation in 2019.

Boy identifies 39 airlines by their plane tails

A 12-year-old boy living in the United Arab Emirates set a Guinness World Record by identifying 39 airlines by the designs on their airplane tails in one minute.

Siddhant Gumber, who is from Haryana, India, and lives in Abu Dhabi, was awarded a Guinness certificate for the most airlines identified by their airplane tails in one minute after he managed to identify 39 carriers by photos of plane tails.

The boy said his mother helped him prepare for the attempt by creating PowerPoint slides of airplane tails.

“Although he loves country flags, we focused on airplane tails for the Guinness record because they are unique,” the boy’s mother, Monisha Gumber, told.

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 2nd, 2021