GOOD WEEK FOR:

• British tap water, after inspectors announced that it is just as good as mineral water, 1000 times cheaper and often considerably fresher.
• Egle Soll, who has won the "Wife-Carrying World Championships" held in Finland. Other competitions have included: Sauna Sitting, Mosquito Swatting, Mobile Phone Throwing, Air Guitar, Boot Throwing and Swamp Soccer. 12000 people attended the events.
• McDonald's customers, who can now order their food from computer terminals in the restaurants. Customers make their selections on a touch screen and either pick up their food at a separate area or wait to have it brought to their table.
• Wrigley’s, with the news that the world's largest chewing gum maker has been given approval to sell its big sugar-free brands, Orbit and Orbit White, through pharmacists in Singapore. Singapore famously banned gum in 1992 after leftover wads were blamed for disrupting subway operations by gumming up doors.
• Norway, Iceland and Sweden, which have topped a list for the best places to live, in a released UN report. African states occupied all the bottom 25 places. The top three were followed by Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, Canada and top ranked Asian nation, Japan, in ninth place. The United States fell from the sixth to seventh despite its per capita income of (34,320 dollars) being second only to Luxembourg (53,780 dollars), which was 15th. Life expectancy at birth was highest in Japan (81.3 years), the only country where it exceeded 80 years. By contrast, a child born in Sierra Leone today will probably die before reaching the age of 35.
• Takeru Kobayashi of Japan, who ate 44 and a half hot dogs in 12 minutes, confirming his status as the greatest competitive eater in the world. Kobayashi, is 25 years old and surprisingly only weighs 59kg.
• Camels in Israel’s Negev desert, which are being fitted with glow-in-the-dark strips to make them more visible to motorists. More than 5000 camels roam the desert. 10 people have been killed and 50 injured in the past 2 years.
• A school in Beijing, which has banned pupils from farting in public. Children caught breaking wind at Hu Zhuang Elementary school will be fined US$0.75.

BAD WEEK FOR:

• An Israeli woman, who swallowed a fork while trying to catch a fly she had swallowed earlier.
• A woman, who boarded the wrong plane in Los Angeles and instead of arriving in Hong Kong as she planned, found herself in the Melbourne, Australia. She said the mistake happened because a computerised system used to check boarding passes was out of order and ground staff in Los Angeles missed the error. The woman then sat in an unoccupied seat and did not realise her mistake until minutes before landing.
• A South Korean man, who was angry with his daughter's use of the internet and so threw the computer monitor out of his 12th-floor apartment. Unfortunately the monitor hit a 4-year-old girl below on the head. Police said that the 49-year-old man got angry when he returned to his flat in Seoul on Saturday. His 20-year-old daughter was playing an online computer game and failed to greet him, as Korean custom requires. The man has now been arrested.
• A German fireman, who has admitted committing more than 30 acts of arson so he could fight more fires. "The man said he did it because he really enjoyed putting out fires," said a police spokesman.
• The Eiffel Tower in Paris, with news that police are investigating some Eiffel Tower staff over allegations they pocketed almost 1 million euros by selling fake tickets to tourists.

What do the British and the Germans think about eachother?

A new survey, by the British Council and the Goethe Institute, indicated that nearly half of young Germans have a positive view of Britain -- rating its language, its monarchy and its multiculturalism particularly highly.
81% of young Germans could recall at least one famous Briton -- with pop singer Robbie Williams, the late Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II being most well-known. 11% of Germans have a negative view of Britain, mainly for political reasons such as Britain's "special relationship" with the United States and its perceived scepticism towards the European Union. Among young Britons, 40% felt "positive or very positive" about Germany -- with beer, education and sports being rated just ahead of the quality of German cars. However, 17% had a negative view of Germany based on its wartime past.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK:
Unlikely as it may sound, Kabel, the capital of Afghanistan is becoming a muscleman's paradise, with body-building gyms opening all over the city.

WHAT DO THE BRITISH THINK?
47% of Britons think the war in Iraq was "the right thing to do" (down from 64% in April). 54% of the British public would not trust Tony Blair "as far as they could throw him".

QUOTATION OF THE WEEK:
"If you are planning for 1 year, plant rice. If you are planning for 10years, plant trees. If you are planning for 100 years, educate people" – Old Chinese proverb

OK - that is the news for this week. Now here are the answers to last week’s homework.