Australia: Sydney man runs 622 marathons in 622 days
Australian Tom Denniss has become the fastest person to circumnavigate the world on foot after an epic marathon that saw him chalk up 26,000 kilometres in 20 months.
Denniss began his journey on December 31, 2011, and went through 17 pairs of shoes while running the equivalent of a marathon a day for 622 days. ...
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Germany: Court Says Schools Can Require Muslim Girls to Participate in Co-Ed Swims
Germany’s top federal administrative court has ruled that schools can require Muslim girls to participate in co-ed swimming classes. The judges argue they can wear a burqini to address any concerns about religious dress codes.
Germany’s highly anticipated “burqini ruling” is out. The federal administrative court in Leipzig, the highest in the country for such issues, ruled on Wednesday that schools can demand that Muslim school girls participate in co-ed swimming classes. The court stated that in order to respect their religious dress codes, girls are allowed to wear a full-body bathing suit known as a “burqini.” ...
Spiegel Online
Koreas: Koreas exchange lists of family reunion candidates
The two Koreas on Friday exchanged lists of candidates for this month’s reunions of separated families.
The North’s Red Cross confirmed the survival of 167 people on the list of 250, which was sent on Aug. 29. Excluding the deceased, sick and unwilling, 117 candidates are able to take part in the event on Sept. 25-30 at Mount Geumgangsan, a Unification Ministry official said. ...
The Korea Herald
Japan: Metro police stage counterterrorism drill for 2020 Olympics
TOKYO—Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department held a counterterrorism drill Thursday as part of measures to protect the Olympic village to be built for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
About 50 people, including private security guards, took part in the drill in the Harumi district of Chuo Ward along Tokyo Bay, where the Olympic village is planned to be built. Much of it consists of landfill.
A neighboring commercial complex just a kilometer away that draws more than 20,000 office workers during weekdays, was also involved in the drill. ...
Japan Times
New Zealand: Maori woman refused entry to public bath in Japan over tattoos
A Maori woman has reportedly been refused entry to a public bath in Japan because of her ta moko facial tattoo.
Japanese news source the Mainichi reported that the 60-year-old Maori language lecturer had been in the town of Biratori for a conference on indigenous languages. ...
APNZ
Argentina: Stolen child of Chilean militants discovers his true identity
Taken from his parents after an Operation Condor mission in Argentina, one of the dictatorship’s youngest victims is reunited with family 37 years later.
Thanks to the tireless effort of a group calling itself the “Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo,” an Argentine man recently discovered that, as a baby, he was taken from his revolutionary Chilean parents by the Argentine government.
The Satiago Times
Canada: How Ontario plans to deal with tonnes of nuclear waste: Bury the problem
Marti McFadzean was never too concerned about the proximity of a nuclear plant to her family’s tranquil summer retreat, where five generations have gathered since 1928. But this summer, the former school administrator interrupted her retirement to become a full-time NIMBY activist.
She and many of her neighbours along Lake Huron’s eastern shore are campaigning against a $1-billion plan by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to bury low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste in a deep geologic repository (DGR) at the Bruce site, a facility that would be built just two kilometres from her home and only a kilometre from the lake itself. ...
Globe and Mail
