Anything to declare, sir?
QUESTION
What is the strangest thing found by Customs at an Irish airport or port?
PERHAPS the strangest thing found by Customs at an Irish airport was a crocodile head from Cambodia, discovered at Dublin Airport in 2016.
Most of the items seized by Customs at Irish airports are either excessive currency being taken out of the country, or drugs being brought in. Sometimes, weapons destined for use by criminal gangs in Ireland are seized – everything from machetes to crossbows and guns.
In one unusual case at Dublin Airport in 2015, three-year-old Leo Fitzpatrick had his Minion toy gun seized before he could bring it on the flight he was travelling on.
Very often, exotic animals and animal parts, especially from Asia, are seized at airports here. Sometimes, the animals are alive, as with the case in 2009, when a live Chihuahua was found in hand luggage at Dublin Airport. It had come from Bulgaria and the owner of the dog was on a flight that had touched down in Dublin en route to Spain. In another dog-related incident much more recently, in 2017, some 33 puppies were seized at Dublin Airport; they were being transported out of the country without being microchipped and with no pet passports.
Quite often in recent years, live turtles from China have been seized at Shannon Airport, while on various occasions at Dublin Airport, live insects from Asia have also been seized. Frogs from Thailand have been the subject of other seizures of live animals at Dublin Airport. Seizures of dead animals and animal parts at the same airport have included, in recent years, a stuffed crocodile, found in 2015, and a hippopotamus tusk from Nigeria, also seized in that year. Bush meat is another quite common seizure.
Even more unusual seizures have included a bat skeleton, snakeskin shoes and a snake in a bottle. Sometimes, the seizures are of cigarettes from abroad, alcohol, and counterfeit fashion lines. One highly unusual seizure at Dublin Airport in the past few years was coral that a passenger was bringing back from the Bahamas.
There’s no end to the ingenuity of people wanting to bring in prohibited items, often for criminal use, through the airports and ports in Ireland. But the Customs service, part of the Revenue Comthey missioners, is even more ingenious in knowing when luggage contains suspicious objects. One of the detection devices brought into service, in the summer of 2017, was a state-of -the-art mobile Xray scanner at Dublin Port, which has amazing accuracy in detecting suspect importations.
People bringing in illicit drugs through the airports is a continuing problem, and if they have swallowed them, to try to get them through, the Customs people have all the equipment, in the form of special toilets, to ensure that the drugs are passed from their bodies.
Quite apart from all the Customs safeguards in place at Irish airports and ports, the service also helps maintains close scrutiny of what’s in the post.
Packages that originate internationally come through the Portlaoise mail centre in Co. Laois, where specially trained dogs help sniff out suspect items.
There’s a rapidly growing trade in people ordering medicines, sometimes fake, online and then getting them dispatched to Ireland by post. One such product that’s been widely detected in recent years has been so-called Blue Valium, copies of diazepam.
Such is the scale of illicit drugs and medicines in the post that every week, over a dozen packages of cannabis are seized.
While the Customs seizures at Irish airports and ports are often strange, much odder things have been discovered abroad. In 2008, a flight from Sao Paolo to Naples stopped off in Munich, where customs discovered that two women passengers had the skeleton of a relative in their luggage. It was perfectly legitimate; they were taking it for burial in Italy. And at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands in 2012, some 200 poisonous tarantulas were found.
John Byrne, Dublin.
QUESTION
What is taught about the Korean War in Chinese schools?
THE Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, is sometimes called the Forgotten War in the West because it has been overshadowed in popular memory by World War II, televised images of the Vietnam War and conflicts in the Middle East.
It’s perceived differently in China. It was the first military operation launched by the communist government after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The Chinese believe
defended themselves and North Korea against imperial aggressors, a sentiment stressed in its official name: The War to Resist America and Aid Korea.
President Xi Jinping’s speech marking the 60th anniversary of the Korean War stated: ‘The Chinese people sent our volunteer troops to resist America because we were driven beyond the limits of forbearance. It was a righteous act carried out only to safeguard the peace and resist invasion.’
One class textbook says: ‘The Chinese People’s Volunteer Troops were known as “most beloved persons” thanks to their selfless patriotism and revolutionary heroism in the war against the United States to aid North Korea. The undaunted fights by the Chinese People’s Volunteers and the North Korean army and civilians led to an armistice signed by the United States in July 1953. The Chinese and North Korean people celebrated their victory in their war against aggressors.’
Jan Webb, Warwick.
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