Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Police in Nigeria have arrested scores of motorcycle taxi riders with dried fruit shells, paint pots or pieces of rubber tire tied to their heads with string to avoid a new law requiring them to wear helmets.

The regulations have caused chaos around Africa’s most populous nation, with motorcyclists complaining helmets are too expensive and some passengers refusing to wear them fearing they will catch skin disease or be put under a black magic spell.

The law, which came into force on January 1, pits two factions equally feared by the common motorist against one another: erratic motorcycle taxis known as “Okadas,” whose owners are notorious for road-rage, and the bribe-hungry traffic police.

Some bikers have used calabashes — dried shells of pumpkin-sized fruit usually used as a bowl — or pots and pans tied to their heads with string to try to dodge the rules.

Read more > Nigeria

Urgent action is required to boost the number of ethnic minority managers in UK workplaces, according to an equality lobbying group.

A study by Race for Opportunity – part of the Business in the Community campaign group of employers – analysed office labour market statistics between 2000 and 2007, and found ethnic minorities have not been gaining the share of jobs that their proportion in the wider UK population would justify. The gap between the overall ethnic minority population and those in managerial positions is even greater, with the report warning that, based on current trends, ethnic minority managers will never be in line with their representation in the wider population.

The Race to the Top report showed that more than one in 10 of the UK population comes from an ethnic minority group, yet just one in 15, or 6.8%, were in a management position at the end of 2007.

Read more >> Management

The Warner Bros studio said on Wednesday it has canceled plans to release its blockbuster Batman movie “The Dark Knight” in China, citing “cultural sensitivities” surrounding the film.

The studio, a unit of Time Warner Inc, did not specify what Chinese audiences or censors might find objectionable about the movie.

“Based on a number of pre-release conditions that are being attached to ‘The Dark Knight,’ as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film, we have opted to forego a theatrical release of the film in China,” Warner Bros said in a statement.

The film includes a sequence in which Batman, the movie’s comic book superhero played by Christian Bale, penetrates a criminal mastermind’s skyscraper redoubt in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.

Read more > Dark Knight