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StrangeSights – Does Giorgia Meloni step on ants?; Pakistan’s Trump lookalike; and, a new war game in Taiwan…

DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…


Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends her end-of-year press conference in Rome, Italy, on 9th January, 2025. PICTURE: Reuters/Remo Casilli

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was briefly wrong-footed by a surprise question about ants last Thursday when she faced a grilling by Italian and foreign reporters lasting more than two hours. After covering major domestic and international issues, such as Italy’s dealings with Elon Musk’s Starlink, the war in Ukaine and Donald Trump’s return to the White House, proceedings took a slightly surreal turn. “I’d like to ask you a very simple question. I hope a far-reaching one, too…Prime Minister: do you step on ants? Do you pay attention when you walk?”, Meloni was asked by a video journalist, originally from Bulgaria. He said the question was connected to a folk saying about treading on ants leading to rainfall. Looking visibly taken aback, Meloni laughed nervously. “Do I walk on ants? Well, if I see them no, I confess. But I don’t see them all the time. Is that the right answer? I don’t know, what can I say? I’m at a loss, guys,” she said, before moving on to the next question – which was about Musk’s contested political views.

 


Saleem Bagga, seen by some as a lookalike of US President-elect Donald Trump, poses for a selfie with a customer while selling kheer, a traditional South Asian rice pudding, along a road in Sahiwal, Pakistan, on 13th January, 2025. PICTURE: Reuters/Nida Meboob

In a bustling market in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, a food vendor who locals say bears an uncanny resemblance to US President-elect Donald Trump gets more business – and attention – than others. “We feel as if Trump has come here to sell kheer [pudding],” said Mohammad Yaseen, a local resident who prefers to buy the dessert from Saleem Bagga, the look-alike vendor who also sings to draw customers. “When he sings to sell kheer, we come down to him,” Yaseen said. Bagga, 53, pushes his colourful wooden cart along the road delivering the milky pudding, a black jacket over his beige shalwar kameez tunic to keep out the winter cold. A crowd gathers as Bagga, who sports a distinctive blond quiff because of his albinism, sings the lyrics to a Punjabi song: “Now you come down to me my love, don’t delay, my eyes are tired of waiting.” Local resident Imran Ashraf takes a selfie with Bagga. “His kheer is really delicious…we talk to him and we take selfies with him and we tell our friends that we have taken these pictures with Trump,” Ashraf said. Bagga is unfazed by the stream of attention and cameras that follow him throughout the market and even in his home neighbourhood in the district of Sahiwal. “My face resembles Donald Trump, that is why people take selfies with me…I feel very good,” he said, before extending an invitation. “Donald Trump sahib [sir], you have won the election, now visit here and eat my kheer, you will really enjoy it,” he said. – Reuters TV, Sahiwal, Pakistan/Reuters.


Players test “2045”, a new board game by Mizo Games set against the backdrop of armed conflicts around Taiwan, in Taipei, Taiwan on 22nd September, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Ann Wang.

A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan invites players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. The new game, titled “2045”, tasks gamers with navigating the troubles of war by using colourful action cards, and role-playing characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of Taiwan’s armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians working to sabotage the island’s defence, as well as citizens picking up guns to defend their homeland. China claims Taiwan as its own and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan’s president and his government strongly object to China’s sovereignty claims and say only the island’s people can decide their future. Taiwanese board game maker Mizo Games started crowdfunding the game in August. Within two-and-a-half-months, the company had received more than $T4 million ($US121,966) to fund the project. “It is not quite peaceful around Taiwan island and the Western Pacific as we speak,” Chang Shao Lian, the founder of Mizo Games told Reuters at his Taipei office. Chang said he wanted “players to feel they want to win and think about what they will do to win”. The game, which is also set to go on sale in the US and Europe later in the year, has been developed at a time when Taiwan officials have intensified preparations for scenarios including a China conflict. Players who participated in a test run of “2045” said they learnt about what might happen in the event of a Chinese invasion and that they hoped the game could help people understand the implications of a war. “I’m not very knowledgeable on military matters, therefore through this game I learnt about where the army may land and launch an attack,” said Kalin Lai, a 23-year-old who tried out the game. Mizo has previously created two other Taiwan war-themed board games – one about surviving an air raid in Taipei and the other about a bombing in Kaohsiung during Japan’s colonisation of the island between 1895 and 1945. – with FABIAN HAMACHER and ANGIE TEO, Taipei, Taiwan/Reuters.

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