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SlappingOysters writes: Within 36-hours the price of Apple apps is set to increase in Australia, Sweden and Indonesia. It will bring the price of buying an app out of alignment with the value of the Australian dollar, and leave the country's Apple fans paying 50% more for their iOS software than their American counterparts. It's unfortunate timing, with the recent launch of the iPhone 6s and the upcoming fourth generation of Apple TV.

iONiUM (530420) writes As reported by many news sources, yet another plane has lost contact during a trip. This comes on the heels of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which is still missing, and Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down. From ABC's coverage: Sixteen children and one infant were among the passengers. At a press conference this morning, Indonesian officials said the plane was several hours past the time when its fuel would have been exhausted. The six-year-old aircraft was on the submitted flight plan but requested a deviation because of enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost. The plane was under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control and had been in the air for about 42 minutes when contact was lost, AirAsia said.

jones_supa (887896) writes "Homeopathy is a 200-year-old form of alternative medicine based on the principle that substances that produce symptoms in a healthy person can be used to treat similar symptoms in a sick person. The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia has officially declared that homeopathic remedies are useless for human health. The body today released a guide for doctors (PDF) on how to talk to their patients about the lack of evidence for many such therapies. Doctors will also be told to warn patients of possible interactions between alternative and conventional medicines. On top of that, the council has produced a 300-page draft report that reviews the evidence for homoeopathy in treating 68 clinical conditions. It concludes 'there is no reliable evidence that homoeopathy is effective for treating health conditions'.

Representing the opposite viewpoint, Australian Homeopathic Association spokesman Greg Cope said he was disappointed at the narrow evidence relied on by the NHMRC in its report. 'What they have looked at is systematic trials for named conditions when that is not how homeopathy works,' he said. Homeopathy worked on the principle of improving a person's overall health and wellness, and research such as a seven-year study conducted in Switzerland was a better measure of its usefulness, he added. There are about 10,000 complementary medicine products sold in Australia but most consumers are unaware they are not evaluated by the domestic medicines safety watchdog before they are allowed on the market."

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Discovery News reports that the death cap mushroom is now an invasive species on every continent except Antarctica. It is spreading along the East and West Coasts of the U.S. and appears to be moving south into Mexico. 'When someone eats Amanita phalloides, she typically won't experience symptoms for at least six and sometimes as many as 24 hours,' says Cat Adams. 'Eventually she'll suffer from abdominal cramps, vomiting, and severely dehydrating diarrhea. This delay means her symptoms might not be associated with mushrooms, and she may be diagnosed with a more benign illness like stomach flu. To make matters worse, if the patient is somewhat hydrated, her symptoms may lessen and she will enter the so-called honeymoon phase.' Without proper, prompt treatment, the victim can experience rapid organ failure, coma, and death. But good news is on the way. S. Todd Mitchell of Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, California has treated more than 60 patients with a drug derived from milk thistle. The patients who have started the drug on time (within 96 hours of ingesting the mushroom) and who have still had kidney function intact have all survived. 'When administered intravenously, the compound sits on and blocks the receptors that bring amatoxin into the liver, thus corralling the amatoxins into the blood stream so the kidneys can expel them faster,' says Adams. Still, Mitchell cautions against the 'regular look"'of deadly mushrooms. 'They smell very good and when they're cooked, many patients have described them as the most delicious mushrooms they've ever eaten.'"

An anonymous reader writes "This is a new one, twitter as a form of historical reenactment: 'Israel's army is giving a "live" blow-by-blow account of the 1967 Six Day War, tweeting each air strike at the exact time it occurred 46 years ago ... @IDF1967 "is an official Israel Defence Forces account that is aimed at re-tweeting the events of the Six Day War in live time", ... The account was tweeting key events in the battle against the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria that took place from June 5 to 10, 1967 and includes pictures and videos, the army said. The tweets are mostly in Hebrew, with some translated into English. "In response to repeated provocations by Egypt, the State of Israel and the IDF are going to war. We will not sit idly as the enemy forces tighten the noose around our necks," the opening tweet said around 8.00am (1500 AEST) on Wednesday when Israel landed its first preemptive air strike 46 years ago.'"

iComp writes "A sophisticated scheme to use a casino's own security systems against it has netted scammers $33 million in a high-stakes poker game after they were able to gain a crucial advantage by seeing the opposition's cards. The team used a high-rolling accomplice from overseas who was known to spend large amounts while gambling at Australia's biggest casino, the Crown in Melbourne, according to the Herald Sun. He and his family checked into the Crown and were accommodated in one of its $30,000-a-night villas. The player then joined a private high-stakes poker game in a private suite. At the same time, an unnamed person got access to the casino's CCTV systems in the poker room and fed the information he gleaned back to the player via a wireless link. Over the course of eight hands the team fleeced the opposition to the tune of $33 million."

New submitter jaa101 writes "Facebook has refused a request from Australian police to take down a page with details of undercover police vehicles saying it cannot stop people taking photos in public places. The original story is paywalled and it doesn't give a link to the relevant page which seems to be here . This page for the state of Victoria has 12000 likes but a similar page for the state of Queensland has over 34000, and there are other Australian pages too."

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner has tempted fate with quite a few spectacular skydiving feats; now, he is preparing to be the first man to intentionally exceed the speed of sound by jumping from a balloon instead of staying inside a plane or a rocket. The jump is planned for Tuesday over New Mexico. National Geographic lists some of the various (deadly) things that could go wrong.

suraj.sun writes in with a story about the spread of full body scanners. It reads in part:"Passengers at airports across Australia will be forced to undergo full-body scans or be banned from flying under new laws to be introduced into Federal Parliament this week. In a radical $28 million security overhaul, the scanners will be installed at all international airports from July and follows trials at Sydney and Melbourne in August and September last year. The Government is touting the technology as the most advanced available, with the equipment able to detect metallic and non-metallic items beneath clothing. It's also keen to allay concerns raised on travel online forums that passengers would appear nude on security screens as they had when similar scanners were introduced at U.S. airports. The technology will show passengers on a screen as stick figures of neither sex."

Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that Apple's image is taking a dive after revelations in the NY Times about working conditions in the factories of some of its network of Chinese suppliers and the dreaded word 'boycott' has started to appear in media coverage of Apple's activities. 'Should consumers boycott Apple?' asked a column in the Los Angeles Times as it recounted details of the bad PR fallout amid detailed allegations that workers at Foxconn suffered in conditions that resembled a modern version of bonded labor, working obscenely long shifts in unhealthy conditions with few of the labor rights that workers in the west would take for granted." Read on, below. Pickens continues: "But Apple has come out fighting, which is no surprise given the remarkable success that the company has seen in recent years with its reputation for 'cool' among hip urban professionals and a generally positive corporate image. In a lengthy email sent to Apple staff, chief executive Tim Cook met the allegations head-on. 'We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern,' Cook said. He went on to slam critics of the company. 'Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us ... accusations like these are contrary to our values.' So will we see some kind of movement to boycott Apple products, akin to the campaign several years ago to pressure Nike to improve working conditions in its factories asks Sam Gustin in Time Magazine? "You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards," an anonymous current Apple executive told the Times. "And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.""

ocean_soul writes "Starting January 1, 2012 Samoa and Tokelau will be in time zone +13 instead of -11. This means there will be no December 30, 2011 in these countries. The decision to switch time zone was based on the changing international business relations of Samoa. Samoa had adopted the -11 time zone to make business with the U.S. easier. However, currently Samoa's most important trading partners are Australia and New Zealand. By switching time zone the work-weeks and week-ends on Samoa and Tokelau will be synchronized with those in Australia and New Zealand."

PolygamousRanchKid writes "A Siberian resident miraculously escaped serious injury or even death when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house. A Meridian satellite that was launched Friday from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket crashed near the Siberian city of Tobolsk minutes after lift-off. A titanium ball of about five kg fell on to the roof of a house in Ordyn district."

Employees at SkyCity Casino in Auckland have been forced to spray themselves with repellent and wear flea collars in an attempt to ward off an infestation. Unite Union national director Mike Treen said staff had been complaining about infestations on the casino floor "for years" and that although the business had been undertaking a cleaning process, "it doesn't seem to be working." I had no idea that those dogs playing poker paintings were based on actual events.

TomBifkin writes "A group of hearing-impaired men were recovering today after being stabbed during a night out in Florida when a fellow patron confused their sign language for gang signs. Alfred Stewart, 31, was at the Ocean's Eleven Lounge in Hallandale Beach to celebrate a friend's birthday with a group of friends, all of whom are deaf, NBC Miami reported. The group was communicating using sign language, but a woman at the bar thought the group was making gang signs in her direction. According to police, 45-year-old Barbara Lee became angry and confronted the group, but they motioned for her to leave them alone. She then left the bar, before returning with two others — including 19-year-old Marco Ibanez. Mr Ibanez allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed Mr Stewart, two of his friends and a bouncer, during a confrontation at the club."

tiltowait writes "Hot on the heels of their successful iPhone app and drive-through confessional, the BBC News reports that the Vatican Voltron Vulture Decepticons has announced plans to digitize their pornography collection and make it available online to tithing paying horny hungry subscribers. Given what the church has planned for the project's by-products offspring profits moneez , here's hoping they learn lessons from the the New York Times paywall loopholes. Is anyone in on the Indulgentia beta?"

An anonymous reader writes "Major Australian retailers are running a print advertising campaign to get the government to decrease the amount where the Goods and Services tax (Australian sales tax) comes into effect for all online purchases. Currently, the tax free amount is at $1000 AUD for online purchases. The retailers, such as Target, Harvey Norman, David Jones, Myer and others, are lobbying through newspapers and are considering launching a television commercial. The print adverts are claiming that if the amount remains the same, Australian jobs will be lost and the economy will be harmed. This is facing a massive backlash from consumers, and the government's assistant treasurer said it was an action by stores to fix the issues affecting them."

An anonymous reader writes "National Australia Bank payments to customers were again delayed today after a computer glitch yesterday morning due to a corrupted file in its mainframe computer. Upset consumers are now demanding compensation for any fees for late mortgage and credit card payments, overdrawn accounts or bounced direct debits charged by any institutions as a result of the mess."

A group of assailants got a little more than they bargained for when an entire ninja school came to their victim's rescue. A 27-year-old German exchange student was being mugged in an alley near Ninja Senshi Ryu, when a ninja student noticed the commotion. The sensei along with the rest of the students rushed out to help. "You should have seen their faces when they saw us in ninja gear coming towards them," the school's sensei, Kaylan Soto, told the Herald. It's good to see ninjas working on their brand. When I was a kid they were mostly shurikens, smoke, and attitude.

If you're in the market for a couple of ghosts trapped in vials of holy water, online auction site TradeMe has a listing for you. The seller claims the vials contain spirits that were exorcised from his home. Bidding has reached $NZ410 ($284), and has generated quite a list of comments ranging from how to get rid of the ghosts, to the ethics of selling a captured immortal essence. From the article: "The seller claims that one spirit belongs to a man who died in the house in the 1920s. 'We have had no (paranormal) activity since they were bottled on July 15, 2009,' the seller said. 'So I believe they are in the bottles.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Following worldwide attention after being caught looking at pictures of Miranda Kerr at work while a colleague was being interviewed on TV, a petition to save David Kiely's job has started. Stated motives: He seems like a nice bloke, the pics weren't hardcore, he has suffered enough, and, maybe more important, there's just too much political correctness in this world anyway. Showing class and sense of humor, miss Kerr said she will sign the petition."

The small central Australian community of Docker River is experiencing a Camelpocalypse. Over 6,000 feral camels are destroying the town. They've overrun the airport (making emergency medical service impossible), ruined the water infrastructure, tainted drinking water, and left many residents afraid to leave home for fear of being trampled. NT Local Government Minister Rob Knight said, "They're actually coming up to the houses taking water off the overflow from the rooftop air-conditioning. This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action.'' At least the camels aren't encouraging kids to smoke like they do here in the US.