Teenagers at Rende Medical College are being given the unusual lessons which tutors say should give them an insight into death.The students have to write a will, dress in a funeral shroud and then climb into a coffin while they are buried under floorboards before they are released.Qiu Daneng, a professor at the college explained: “Although it’s just 10 minutes, the effect is equal to real death.”And student Xiao Lin said: “I felt like I was reborn when I came out and now I know that every second counts in life.” — Orange news.
MAKE-UP MENA SUDANESE court convicted seven men of indecency after police accused them of wearing makeup during a fashion show in Khartoum, their lawyer said.The men, amateur models at the “Sudanese Next Top Model Fashion Show” in June, were arrested by the public order police, a body known for its crackdowns on perceived indecent dress and drinking in the Muslim north, one defendant told Reuters.All seven were found guilty and each fined 200 Sudanese pounds (US$80), as was a woman who faced the same charge for applying the makeup, said lawyer Nabil Adib.“The court thought that they were indecently dressed. The judge thought that wearing makeup could be offensive for men and allowing a woman to put makeup on men was against the law,” said Adib.The lawyer said he had argued in court that men, including religious preachers, regularly wore makeup for appearances on Sudan’s state television station.Sudanese UN official Lubna Hussein was briefly jailed for wearing trousers in public after being found guilty of the same offence in 2009, a case that drew international criticism. — Reuters.
MINI-SKIRTS BACKFIRE A BID to slow down traffic by installing life-sized cardboard cut-outs of mini-skirted policewomen has backfired.The scheme, in the Czech Republic, has actually doubled accident rates by distracting male motorists.The cardboard cut-outs were installed at busy junctions throughout the country to save cash on installing new traffic lights. But local police say the accident rates have soared as men take their eyes off the road.Motorist Petr Lederer — who complained to the country’s Interior Ministry after driving his car off the road — said: “The cut-outs are distracting. I mean, mini-skirts? In this weather?”But a police service spokesman explained: “The cardboard WPCs are a way of saving money during the austerity cuts.”— Orange news.
NUN TOO GOODA CATHOLIC nun with a reputation for gambling trips to Atlantic City was accused of embezzling more than US$850 000 from a college where she oversaw the school’s finances, officials said on Friday.Sister Marie Thornton, former vice president of finance at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, is charged with sending phony invoices to the school to pay off personal credit card bills and expenses, the US Attorney’s office said.The thefts occurred between 1999 and 2009, when Thornton resigned from the Catholic college, court documents said. She entered a plea of not guilty to a federal embezzlement charge. The college of some 5 000 students has come under fire from alumni and donors for never reporting the missing money. Thornton’s lawyer Sam Talkin said: “We think the case will be resolved in a manner fair to all the parties involved.” — Reuters.
