Tag Archives: offbeat

Trump cryptic tweet ‘covfefe’ trends on Twitter Washington, United States | AFP |  Not for the first time, a Donald Trump tweet has lit up the internet. But this time, users the world over have been left scratching their heads over “covfefe”: a bizarre word apparently created by the president. …

Pope risks joke about Trump’s size Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | It could have caused a diplomatic incident but a culinary quip from Pope Francis seemed to have gone down well with Donald Trump and his wife Melania. In one of the lighter moments of his meeting with …

The Hague, Netherlands | AFP |  An 11-year-old “cyber ninja” stunned an audience of security experts Tuesday by hacking into a teddy bear via bluetooth to show how interconnected smart toys “can be weaponised”. American wunderkind Reuben Paul may be still only in 5th grade at his school in Austin, …

Oslo, Norway | AFP |  “I know words… I have the best words,” Donald Trump said one day in his superlative way. Now those words by the new US president have been pulled together as a “collection of poetry” in Norway. Who knew? Trump the poet? “What Trump says is …

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | AFP |  Four wild elephants from nearby forests paid an unexpected visit to a university in Tanzania’s capital on Tuesday, triggering more entertainment than panic before being chased away by rangers. “When we saw them in the morning, we were initially afraid and informed the …

Tehran, Iran | AFP |  Iranian student Reza Parastesh looks so much like his sporting hero Lionel Messi that it almost landed him in jail for disrupting public order this week. So many people came out to take selfies with Parastesh in the western city of Hamedan over the weekend …

Beijing, China | AFP | A stream little more than a metre wide separates them, but for at least three centuries a bitter rivalry pitted two eastern Chinese villages against one another — until love brought the adversaries together. Wushan and Yuepu in Fujian province, which count between them some …

Beijing, China | AFP | China is closely following France’s presidential election, but web users appear less interested in the politics than the unusual marriage between moderate candidate Emmanuel Macron and his former teacher. Comparisons with the characters of a popular Chinese television drama called “In the Name of the People” …

Paris, France | AFP |  A French artist who hatched nine eggs after sitting on them for three weeks has been condemned by an animals rights group for depriving the chicks of a mother. Abraham Poincheval hardly slept in the 23 days he spent nesting inside a glass vitrine in …

Bum-pinching Tunisian football boss slapped with life ban Tunis, Tunisia | AFP | The head of a Tunisian football club who pinched an assistant referee on the backside during a match has been banned from the sport for life. The Tunisian football Federation (FTF) suspended CS Sfaxien President Moncef Khemakhem …