World Briefs

An exotic lizard has been given a new home after hitching a lift to the UK in the suitcase of a holidaymaker.

Russell Lucas, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, was unpacking having just returned from Almeria, in Spain, when the tiny Moorish gecko, which measures about 4cm in length, ran from his case.

The reptile survived a two-and-a-half hour flight and nearly 24 hours in the suitcase before it was discovered. The lizard has now been given to the Blue Reef aquarium in Southsea where it will be looked after. (PA)

Plant power

A celebrity scientist has sealed himself in an airtight foliage-filled chamber in a harrowing test designed to show the power of plants.

Professor Iain Stewart could stay up to two days inside the see-through container for an experiment linked to a new BBC2 series.

The TV presenter and geologist is fronting the first programme in the channel’s How Plants Made The World series. The TV series is likely to hit screens in the New Year. (PA)

Mouthwash tragedy

A coroner said she is to make a number of recommendations to healthcare agencies as she concluded an inquest into the death of a woman who suffered a fatal reaction to mouthwash during routine dental treatment.

Recording a verdict of death by medical misadventure, coroner Karen Henderson said it was not possible to tell whether the life of Sacha Rumaner, 30, would have been saved if dental staff had recognised she was suffering from anaphylactic shock brought on by chlorhexidine.

Miss Rumaner died at the Morley Street Family Dental Clinic in Brighton, East Sussex, on February 2. Assistant deputy coroner for Brighton and Hove Dr Henderson recorded that she died of chlorhexidine anaphylaxis. (PA)

Fake university

Italian police yesterday said they discovered a fake university in the north of the country where around 10 students were paying around €7,000 for a worthless, unrecognised degree.

The university in Verona called Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne) was founded in 2005 in Rome by several people that belonged to a cultural association, which later transferred its headquarters to Verona, police said in a statement.

The university offered courses in art and entertainment management or economics and business management and assured it was registered with other public and private universities, none of which were known to Italy’s education ministry.

The students who took courses at “Carolus Magnus” ended up with invalid educational documents and none of the exams held at the university were certified by the education ministry. Four people attached to the fake university were reported to justice officials for fraud, the police statement said. (AFP)

Hunter trapped

A man has been banned from hunting anywhere in the world for two years as part of a deal with US authorities on charges that he illegally killed wildlife in Kentucky.

Federal prosecutors said Rodney Poteat carried a 14-point white-tailed deer from Kentucky to his home in North Carolina without reporting the kill. He also pleaded guilty to transporting a dead bobcat without a non-resident hunting licence.

He agreed to pay $5,300 (£3,350) in restitution for fees he would have paid for hunting in the state between 2002 and 2011. (PA)

Delivering justice

Two suspects who tried to rob a pizza delivery driver picked the wrong man – an undercover police officer.

A 30-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy were arrested in Newport, Rhode Island. Two delivery drivers had been robbed in the same area this month.

When A-1 Pizza received an order a plainclothes officer drove an unmarked police car with a pizzeria sign mounted on its roof. Two other officers hid in the backseat. Lt William Fitzgerald says the suspects were “quite shocked” to discover the delivery man was a cop. (PA)

Goating the job done

Residents and businesses in Portland, Oregon are using an effective, chemical-free solution to weeds and brambles in overgrown city spaces.

They are hiring goats – an “old-fashioned solution to an old-fashioned problem” in the words of one customer.

Georgina Stiner’s Goat Rental NW has about 100 goats. Ms Stiner’s sales pitch: Goats eat all day, but you pay by the acre, not by the hour. Goats don’t need time off, worker’s benefits or health insurance. And goats will get the job done. (PA)

Greek retirement

Close to 6,000 Greek civil servants opted to retire this week after the government announced major public sector cuts, the workers’ health insurance fund said yesterday.

The rush in applications, fund head Nikos Kalakos said, was due to the uncertain climate in the public sector after the government announced lay-offs and the introduction of a single pay scale.

The government said the lay-offs, lasting a year and with no guarantee of return, would initially affect 3,500 employees working for 150 public bodies.

The large pay cuts imposed at the beginning of the financial crisis in May last year and the single pay scale are “fuelling the rise in retirement, which is increasing the health fund deficit, currently at €1.6 billion,” said Mr Kalakos.

Greece, under pressure from its international creditors to plug a budget hole of more than €2.0 billion, this week announced a slimming-down of its state administration, with jobs cut and public bodies merged. (AFP)

Beckhams’ kids

David Beckham and wife Victoria hope to have another child, he said Friday, only two months after the former Spice Girl gave birth to their fourth child. Victoria Beckham gave birth to the couple’s first daughter, Harper Seven, at the Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles in July. She joined the Beckhams’ three sons Brooklyn, 12, Romeo, 8, and Cruz, 6.

Her middle name reflected Beckham’s obsession with the number seven — it was his number when he played for Manchester United. In addition she was born at 7.55 a.m., in the seventh month of the year, and weighed in at seven pounds, 10 ounces (3.5 kilos).

Talk show host DeGeneres noted that, with a fifth child, the family would be seven strong. “What can I say?” Beckham responded. “I love the number seven.”

Former England captain David and Posh Spice-turned fashion designer Victoria, 37, married in 1999 and live in Los Angeles where he plays for LA Galaxy. (AFP)