Daily Archives: December 24, 2013

Crowds Gather in Bethlehem for Christmas

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Large crowds have begun to gather in the biblical town of Bethlehem for Christmas Eve celebrations.

Hundreds of tourists packed the town’s Manger Square to enjoy the cool, sunny weather ahead of celebrations on Tuesday evening. The nearby Church of the Nativity sits on the spot where tradition says Jesus was born.

The number of visitors remains below the levels of the late 1990s, when Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts were at their height. Following the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising in 2000, the numbers plunged.

 

 

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But thanks to a period of relative calm, they have been steadily climbing in recent years — and are expected to get an extra push this year thanks to the resumption of peace talks.

Palestinian Tourism Minister Rula Maayah says the Palestinians “deserve to have peace.”

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Popes Francis and Benedict meet to exchange Christmas greetings

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Pope Francis made a Christmas visit to Pope Emeritus Benedict on Monday and said he found his 86-year-old predecessor looking well, according to television footage released by the Vatican.

Francis, who was elected in March, spent about 30 minutes with Benedict in an ex-convent on the Vatican grounds where the former pope has been living in near isolation.

Photos released by the Vatican newspaper show the two men, dressed in identical white robes save for Francis’ cape, chatting in a sitting room inside Benedict’s retirement home during the visit Monday.

They also prayed together in the adjoining chapel.

Television footage released by the Vatican – only the fourth time Benedict has been filmed since his resignation – showed him looking alert and in better health than on previous occasions.

Since Benedict’s retirement in February, the two men have met only once publicly, for an official Vatican ceremony in July.

Can you be DUI in a sleigh? Santa and his assistant come to grief after crashing into a wall during drunken sled ride through town

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Father Christmas and his helper are facing drink driving charges after they careered round a Polish town in a sleigh and smashed into a brick wall.

The 51-year-old Santa actor and his 31-year-old female helper lost control of their horse in the middle of a market in a busy high street of Ustrzykach Dolnych.

 

Santa- Ustrzykach Dolnych1

Police say they are looking at pressing charges against the pair, who were supposed to be greeting children anxious to prove how ‘nice’ they had been this year.

The pair had been singing carols and waving at passers-by when a passing car beeped at them.

The noise startled their horse, which reared up, sending them flying into the road.

The pair were taken to local hospital suffering from concussion.

Police spokesman Dorota Glazowska said: ‘Technically, they were drunk while in charge of a vehicle on the road.’

 

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Want people to be nicer to you? STOP wearing deodorant: Bad body odour makes others more generous and supportive

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Sharing a desk or spending time with someone who smells is usually best avoided, yet it could make you more compassionate.

Research has found that bad body odour is commonly associated with vulnerability, which triggers feelings of concern in others.

This means people tend to increase their level of co-operation when dealing with someone who smells bad because they feel sorry for them.

Lead author Jeroen Camps and colleagues, from the university KU Leuven in Belgium, said: ‘Scents are omnipresent in our daily world and they are of great importance as represented by the use of perfumes or fragrances in the work environment.’
‘Even though it has been argued that bad scents invoke negative judgments, we argued and demonstrated that a bad body odour elicits feelings of pity in others and increases prosocial behaviour.’

This can include underarm sweat, smelly feet, bad breath or other foul-smelling odours.

The research, published online in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, involved several experiments.

 

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Wing of British Airways plane apparently clips brick building

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A British Airways plane was damaged while taxiing at a South African airport Sunday, the company said.

“The 182 customers disembarked safely and there were no reported injuries onboard the aircraft,” spokesman Philip Allport said in a statement.

The statement did not detail how the Boeing 747 was damaged in Johannesburg, but photos on social media sites show the right wing of a plane apparently collided into a brick building.

British Airways said it has launched an investigation and is assisting the independent South African Civil Aviation Authority on the case.