SAO PAULO: A pair of women’s underwear that fell out of a Brazilian legislator’s briefcase on the floor of Congress two weeks ago has been incinerated after no one stepped forward to claim them, O Globo newspaper reported on Thursday.
A group of five legislators was rushing into the Chamber of Deputies to vote on a cyber crimes-related bill on the evening of May 15 when one of them apparently dropped the offending red and white panties, O Globo said.
Security guards quickly, but discreetly, swooped in to pick up the panties and turn them over to the chamber’s lost and found office. O Globo said security staff then decided to incinerate the underwear shortly after a story about the incident first appeared online, and went viral on Brazilian social media.
Legislators told O Globo they were aware of the incident, but sought to play it down.
“It must’ve been a trick they played on somebody,” said Marco Maia, the ruling Workers Party’s leader in the chamber.
“I was in the coffee shop and two colleagues called me in to show me the panties,” said Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, a professional clown known as ‘Tiririca’ who won a seat in Brazil’s Congress in 2010 as a kind of protest candidate. “We have a suspicion as to who the owner is,” Oliveira said, adding, “But we’re not going to turn him in.”
Squat-down toilets will boost Nomura
LONDON: With investment banks facing an uncertain future, one Nomura shareholder has come up with a novel suggestion to help to boost its share price — replace all office toilets with Japanese-style squat facilities.
“All toilets within the company’s offices shall be Japanese-style toilets, thereby toughening the legs and loins and hunkering down on a daily basis, aiming at achieving four-digit stock prices,” the shareholder said on the bank’s website ahead of this month’s annual meeting on June 27.
“The company can surely avoid failure if they straddle over a Japanese-style toilet every day and strengthen their lower body. If it cannot, it can only be accepted as a bad luck,” he added. Under Japanese law, shareholders who have held at least 30,000 shares for six months or more can make their own proposals at annual meetings.
“When considering the proposals for the shareholders’ meeting, we take relevant action in accordance with the law,” a Nomura spokeswoman said. The bank’s share price dropped below USD 12.75 late in 2008 and has not reached the four-digit mark since then.
Other suggestions include abolishing the practice of giving three banzai cheers at the annual meeting because of too many shareholders having strong armpit odour.