KIEV – THE crocodile in ‘Peter Pan’ happily went ‘tick-tock’ after swallowing an alarm clock but a crocodile in Ukraine has been a little less fortunate. Gena, a 14-year-old crocodile at the Dnipropetrovsk Oceanarium, has been refusing food and acting listless after eating a cell phone dropped by a woman trying to photograph him last …
SEVENTEEN employment agencies are reportedly raising the monthly salaries of Indonesian domestic helpers from $380 to $450, starting this week. Nation Employment, Best Home Employment Agency and Java Maids are among the agencies planning the wage increase. Mr Desmond Chin, group director of Nation Employment, told The Straits Times that the companies believe doing so …
While warming up for her third-round Australian Open match, Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova noticed a bouncy spot on the court. “It was a little bit strange,” she said. “I thought Nike had put some extra cushioning in my shoes!” The chair umpire came out to inspect the area and tried to bounce a ball …
HONG KONG – TWO people were in critical condition in a Hong Kong hospital suffering from H1N1 flu, health officials said on Friday, one and a half years after an outbreak that killed 80 people in the city. ‘A 21-year-old female is in critical condition after contracting H1N1 flu, a spokesman for Hong Kong’s Queen …
BEIJING – AS DEMAND for pet bunnies grows ahead of the Year of the Rabbit, animal rights group Peta on Friday urged consumers to forgo adopting the furry creatures as household companions. Pet shops in China and elsewhere in Asia have seen soaring sales of rabbits in the run-up to the Lunar New Year, which …
SAN FRANCISCO – APPLE Inc is giving a whole new meaning to locking your phone with its new screws. In line with its infamous philosophy of maintaining absolute control over its products, sources said US Apple stores are replacing screws on iPhone 4s brought for servicing with tamper-proof screws to prevent anyone else from opening …
INFORMATION technology technician Derek Li is left with a crushed foot and had to have three of his toes amputated after the front wheel of an off-duty SBS Transit bus crushed his foot in an accident outside Hougang Plaza on Nov 29 last year. Mr Li, 27, was crossing a road junction when the traffic …
UNUSUALLY large numbers of people are falling ill with sore throats, the common cold, fever and diarrhoea – numbers large enough to classify the infections as an epidemic. Last week, polyclinics saw more than 20,000 patients with such problems – an indication that the infections have passed the epidemic threshold and are now spreading rapidly …
WELLINGTON – A NEW ZEALAND woman was temporarily partially paralysed by a ‘love bite’ on her neck from her amorous partner, doctors reported in the New Zealand Medical Journal. The 44-year-old woman went to the emergency department of Middlemore Hospital in Auckland last year after experiencing loss of movement in her left arm while watching …
WASHINGTON – A US woman was reunited on Thursday with doctors who gave her a new larynx and restored her ability to speak after a rare voicebox transplant surgery, only the second ever successfully performed. Ms Brenda Jensen, 52, a lifelong diabetes sufferer, lost her voice after she was hospitalised in 1998 for kidney failure. …