Alarming success of Love Parade

BERLIN: Flushed with success following the latest edition of Berlin's vibrant techno music festival, the Love Parade organisers are debating the possibility of spreading the event across the world. The huge party began with a few loud speakers and a handful of followers in 1989 but has since grown exponentially to become the world's largest techno-music celebration. It attracted 120,000 followers in 1994, 250,000 in 1995, 750,000 in 1996 and a million this year. Techno events organiser Planetcom, which every year masterminds Berlin's equivalent of Woodstock, conceded that the parade cannot safely continue to grow at such a rate. ``One million people is an alarming figure,'' Ralf Regitz acknowledged.

Shoplifting baby food in vogue

NEW YORK: One of the hottest items being smuggled out of the United States now is stolen cans of baby formula (baby milk powder). And the destination for these cans is believed to be Middle East where a 10 dollar (Rs 350) can fetches 40 dollar (more than Rs 1250), media reports said. Law enforcement agencies are investigating whether the cans are being smuggled into Iran and Iraq in violation of the trade embargoes. In Texas state, the report says, low level drug users in need of money were recruited to steal cans from supermarkets.

Women on bicycles

CHITWAN (Nepal): This sub-tropical valley in the foothills of the Himalaya is known the world over for its famous tiger reserve. Now another rare sighting greets visitors to the region 200 km southwest of Kathmandu -- women on bicycles. Even compared to its South Asian neighbours, the status of women in Nepal's conservative society has always been one of the lowest. Only one in every seven Nepali woman is literate. All this is changing, and nowhere faster than in Chitwan, where the most visible sign of the greater mobility and freedom of women is the sight of them pedalling away -- young and old, student and women from all castes and socio-economic classes. ``If a woman does not know how to ride a bicycle, she has a hard time getting married around here,'' says Narayani Upadhyay of the agriculture college at Rampur. ``Husband and wife go to work on bicycles, they even get married on bicycles''.

Ancient writing strips found

BEIJING: Archaeologists have discovered 2,000-year-old strips of wood and bamboo used for writing, the first such materials found from the eastern Han dynasty, the official Xinhua news agency has reported. The strips, 23 cm long and three to five cm wide, were found in downtown Changsha, capital of the southern province of Hunan. They include government records and other materials with records of political, economic and social conditions of the eastern Han, which lasted from 25 to 220 AD.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.