New law makes all South Koreans younger

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A South Korean child

South Korea has scrapped its traditional method of counting ages and will align with the international standard, a change that will make its citizens either one or two years younger on official documents. Koreans are regarded a year old when born and a year is added every 1 January, but when calculating the legal age to drink alcohol and smoke, a person’s age is calculated from zero at birth and a year is added on 1 January. Next June, new laws take effect meaning “only the international method of counting will be used”, said The Guardian.

Man sells burps in a jar online

A man said he is raking in £22,000 a month by selling burps in a jar and sending people his used socks. Curtis Gibbs, 25, previously made £1,300 a month working in supermarkets and had “maxed out his credit cards”, said Metro. However, he has now begun satisfying people’s fetishes online. “The list is endless when it comes to strange requests,” he said. “One guy wanted me to gulp down a bottle of Coca Cola, burp into a jar, seal the jar and post it to him.”

Passengers flee after emergency landing

Police in Spain are hunting for 14 people who ran from a commercial plane after an emergency landing that happened because a woman wrongly claimed she was about to give birth. The Pegasus Airlines flight, from Morocco to Turkey, landed at Barcelona’s El Prat airport after the woman claimed she was going into labour. Authorities said that a group of 28 people exited and “tried to flee” and police only managed to stop half. The pregnant woman was arrested “on suspicion of public disorder offences”, reported Sky News.

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