Researchers who swallowed a parboiled shrew, discovered that dung beetles navigate by the stars and invented a machine to launch hijackers from airplanes were among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes for comical scientific achievements.

Tobacco inflicts huge damage on the health of India’s people and could be clocking up a death toll of 1.5 million a year by 2020 if more users are not persuaded to kick the habit, an international report said on Thursday.

Barcelona have been careful to break new recruit Neymar in gently during the opening weeks of the La Liga season and Real Madrid are likely to follow a similar policy with Gareth Bale, even with several key players carrying injuries.

Syria is prepared to unveil its chemical weapons arsenal and halt its production, foreign minister Walid al-Muallem said Tuesday, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

In designer-obsessed Hong Kong, keeping up appearances can be hard on the pocketbook. One company has an answer: Cash-strapped shoppers can get money quickly by pawning their Gucci, Chanel, Hermès or Louis Vuitton luxury handbags.

The Afghan police has detained two insurgents suspected of killing an Indian author who they accused of spying, a provincial police chief said on Tuesday.

Wrestling completed an unprecedented Olympic comeback on Sunday, recl-aiming its spot in the 2020 Tokyo Games after beating bids from rivals squash and baseball/softball in an International Olympic Committee vote.

Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Summer Olympics on Saturday, beating Istanbul in a head-to-head vote after Japanese PM Shinzo Abe made a charismatic plea to the International Olympic Committee and promised Japan’s crippled Fukush-ima nuclear plant was “under control”.

Tokyo was awarded the 2020 summer Olympic Games on Saturday, beating Istanbul in a head-to-head vote after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered a charismatic plea to the International Olympic Committee and promised Japan’s crippled nuclear plant was “under control.”

A US porn actor has tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, the third such case reported in less than three weeks, leading a Los Angeles-based trade group for adult filmmakers to call a fresh nationwide moratorium on Friday on productions.