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Offbeat
Mogadishu’s ‘first tourist’
When Mike Spencer Bown disembarked from his flight in Mogadishu this
week and described himself as a tourist, Somali immigration officials thought
the Canadian man was either mad or a spy.
“They tried four times to put me back on the plane to get rid of me but I shouted
and played tricks until the plane left without me,” the 41-year-old told an AFP
correspondent in Mogadishu on his hotel’s roof terrace.
Somali officials then tried to hand him over to the African Union military force in
Mogadishu, refusing to believe that he was in the city for pleasure.
“We have never seen people like this man,” Omar Mohamed, an immigration
official, said Friday. “He said he was a tourist, we couldn’t believe him. But later
on we found he was serious.”
“That makes him the first person to come to Mogadishu only for tourism but
unfortunately this is not the right time,” he added.
The world traveller claims to have visited 160 countries since he sold his
business in Indonesia years ago and he had yet to tick Somalia – which has
been devastated by a brutal civil conflict for almost 20 years – off his list.
Mogadishu is one of the world’s most dangerous capitals, a place where no
foreigner can survive very long without heavy protection, but Bown said he
had hoped to see Somalia’s beaches and landscapes.
Somalia used to attract some visitors before it plunged into chaos following the
1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre.
Mogadishu’s Italian architecture and tree-lined avenues were renowned but
the city is now a field
of ruins where life is
cheap.
“Even though I was
told not go beyond
the gate of the hotel
for security reasons,
I still found Somalia
an interesting place
with funny people,”
the backpacker said.
“Everyone I met kept
laughing whenever
they heard the word
tourist,” he said.
Putin turf grass on sale in Russia
Turf grass with the image of Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin and the
slogan “Get Ready for the 2018
WC” is available for purchase on the
Russian Internet.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov
told the Moskovsky Komsomolets
tabloid that he was looking into
the report, but the Russian prime
minister never authorised for his use
of the image.
The paper said the bags of
seeds were probably put on sale
immediately after Russia last week
was awarded the rights to stage
the 2018 World Cup – a campaign
spearheaded by the sports-loving
Putin.
China uncovers
2,400-year-old soup
Chinese archaeologists believe they have discovered a
2,400-year-old pot of soup, sealed in a bronze cookingvessel
and dug up near the ancient capital of Xian, state
press said Monday.
“It’s the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese
archaeological history,” the Global Times quoted Liu
Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology
as saying.
“The discovery will play an important role in studying the
eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period
(475-221 BC).”
The soup and bones were discovered in a small, sealed
bronze vessel in a tomb being excavated to make way for
the extension of the airport in Xian, home to the country’s
famed ancient terracotta warriors, the report said.
The liquid and bones in the vessel had turned green due
to the oxidation of the bronze, it said. Scientists were
expected to conduct further tests to confirm the liquid
was indeed soup and to identify the ingredients.
Archaeologists also dug up another bronze pot that
contained an odourless liquid believed to be wine in the
tomb, which could belong to either a member of the landowning
class or a military officer, the report said.
Xian, a city that served as China’s ancient capital for over
1,100 years, is famed for the terracotta army at the burial
site of Qin Shihuang, who presided over the unification of
China in 221 BC and declared himself the first emperor.