THE FORCE has propelled American film production company LucasFilm’s five-year-old Singapore office to new heights. On Thursday, the company behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, announced details of an ‘iconic’ new building being constructed at the Fusionopolis high-tech park. The new eight-storey glass-and-steel Sandcrawler Building, named after the towering mining machines first seen […]
Berlusconi says he’ll live to 120, won’t quit
ITALIAN Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday vowed not to quit, promising to hang in there as long as he’s needed. And that could be a long time. He boasted playfully he’ll live to 120. Only a few days earlier, at a dinner for foreign correspondents, Mr Berlusconi seemed to be pre-announcing his eventual exit from […]
All female protest erupts in Syria
Syrian women attend an anti-government protest in Daraa. Tens of thousands of people chanting ‘Freedom!’ held protests in several Syrian cities. MORE than 1,000 women marched on Saturday in the Syrian city of Banias in an all female pro-democracy protest, a rights campaigner said. ‘Not Sunni, not Alawite. Freedom is what we all want,’ the […]
Recession cuts U.S., Russia 2009 greenhouse emissions
U.S. and Russian greenhouse gas emissions fell in 2009, according to data submitted to the United Nations, as economic decline cut the use of fossil fuels. Other rich countries including Australia, Italy, Spain and France have also reported falls in emissions to the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, in final data on Friday that is used […]
Soviet space capsule sells for $2.8 million
A SOVIET space capsule sold for US$2.8 million at auction in New York on Tuesday, the 50th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic conquest of space. The spherical Vostok 3KA-2 Space Capsule went under the hammer at Sotheby’s at the lower end of the US$2 million to US$10 million range expected by the auction […]
China slaps ban on time travel TV, claiming it’s ‘absurd’ and ‘promotes reincarnation’
IT’S the basis for some of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time – The Terminator, Back to the Future, Black Knight, just to name a few. But if you ever find yourself in China wanting to check out what Bill and Ted willn’t be up to last week, forget it. Time travelling is banned. […]
For 30 yrs, US thought Hitler faked’ 45 suicide
The FBI believed that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler faked his suicide in 1945, and tried to track him down for nearly 30 years after his death, according to de-classified files. On 29 April 1945, Hitler and his lover Eva Braun killed themselves in the Berlin bunker. Now, 66 years on, the FBI files reveal that […]
Laser gun fired from US navy ship
A high-energy laser (HEL) fired from a US warship off the California coast has ignited a nearby boat. Video courtesy of the US Office of Naval Research. The US Navy has fired a laser gun from one of its ships for the first time. Researchers used the high-energy laser (HEL) to disable a boat by […]
French full veil ban goes into force
FRANCE’S ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force on Monday, exposing anyone who wears the Muslim niqab or burqa in public to fines of 150 euros (S$271). A Muslim property dealer, who is urging women to keep wearing the veil if they want to, has urged supporters to go to […]
Gaddafi regime accepts African Union peace plan
THE regime of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi has accepted an African Union peace plan designed to end the current conflict, South African President Jacob Zuma said from Tripoli on Sunday. Gaddafi’s delegation had accepted the AU’s proposals, details of which would be set out in a statement later, Mr Zuma added. While other commitments meant he […]