JOHANNESBURG - GIRLS who give birth before the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, the UN said on Thursday, focusing its annual children's survey on the health of their mothers.
WASHINGTON - APPARENTLY, it's a lot harder to write an inaugural address than a lot of people think - even with a little help from the Founding Fathers.
Slate magazine invited people to go online and take a crack at writing an inaugural speech for Barack Obama, offering them the crutch of MixedInk technology that seeks out similar words and turns of phrase from all previous 55 inaugural speeches. Participants could lift language from past presidents - and from one another - in the hopes of producing collective wisdom surpassing that of any one aspiring speechwriter.
SAN FRANCISCO - APPLE Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs will take a medical leave of absence till end-June because of health problems 'more complex' than he thought, stunning investors and sending its shares down 10 per cent on the prospect of the company without its visionary leader.
Mr Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, dropped his bombshell only nine days after he sought to soothe persistent concerns about his health by saying his dramatic weight loss over the past seven months was due to a hormone imbalance that was relatively simple to treat. He had promised to remain at the helm throughout his treatment.
WASHINGTON - A SIMPLE checklist to confirm a patient's name, what procedure is to be done, check allergies and count needles and sponges to make sure nothing got left inside halved the rate of surgery-related deaths, doctors reported on Wednesday.
The checklist, similar to those used by pilots before every flight, also slashed the rate of complications, the World Health Organisation team reported.
