Twenty Things: Did You Know...?

The Rohingya have faced decades of persecution from Buddhists in Myanmar/AFP.

Notable news nuggets picked from the press.

1. In England, a five-year-old boy was shocked to discover a baby python inside his toilet when he lifted up the lid. Specialists came to the rescue from a pet shop called Scales and Fangs.
2. The rules to the board game Monopoly were invented by a woman who wanted to demonstrate the problems with capitalism.
3. A woman who stole about £15,000 from a junior football club, leaving the team on the brink of collapse, has been asked to pay back £10 in return.
4. Iranian authorities have blamed a "technical glitch" after female football fans were given hope that they could watch the men's national team.
5. Japan's Princess Mako announced her engagement to a commoner, meaning, under Japanese law, she must forgo her royal status.
6. Hyperemesis gravidarum or severe morning sickness affects about one in every 200 pregnancies - with one of the main dangers being dehydration.
7. Indian police are investigating the deaths of dozens of newborns at a hospital in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh.
8. A generation who have spent their entire adolescence with smartphones are feeling negative impacts on their mental health, an author claims.
9. PR firm Bell Pottinger's work on a campaign for Oakbay Capital, a South African company owned by the wealthy Gupta family, is claimed to have "incited racial hatred".
10. A transgender model, sacked by L'Oreal after claims she posted racist comments online, has stood by her view that "all white people benefit from racism".
11. Alt-right Americans have been sharing fake news on Twitter that mosques in Texsas refused shelter during Storm Harvey. In fact, at least four mosques were turned into 24-hour shelters providing food and water.
12. Dutch people have proclaimed themselves as "terrorist hunters" who engage in something they call LARPing (Live Action Role Playing), which involves "infiltrating and baiting" individuals who may be planning attacks in Europe.
13. Over ten custody officers at an immigration removal centre in England have been secretly taped severely abusing the detainees.
14. Nearly 40,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since violence erupted in Myanmar's Rakhine state a week ago, the UN estimates. The UN has described them as the most persecuted people on earth, with Pope Francis appealing for an end to violence on 27 August.
15. The Rohingya Muslims who face persecution in Myanmar are a stateless ethnic minority. Many of those who have fled describe troops and Buddhist mobs burning their villages and attacking civilians in the province in Rakhine.
16. South Korea says that North Korea could be preparing more missile launches after details of the isolated nation's latest test - equivalent to a 6.3 magnitude earthquake - emerged over the weekend.
17. The US envoy to the UN has said that North Korea is "begging for war", while Donald Trump has tweeted that he will punish all countries who still do business with North Korea by stopping US trade with them, including Germany, Portugal and France.
18. One of Italy's most wanted fugitives, Rocco Morabito has been arrested in Uruguay after 23 years on the run from convictions for mafia association and drug trafficking. Morabito is of the 'Ndrangheta organised crime gang, which controls much of the world's cocaine trade.
19. The largest asteroid in more than a century is set to pass by Earth at a relatively close distance, which were it to hit would have global effects. Scientists believe they have now identified more than 90% of such monster rocks moving through space near our planet.
20. For the first time, more than half of people in the UK do not identify as religious, a survey suggests.

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