First-class passengers will be able to take a shower at 43,000 feet and enjoy a drink at the upstairs bar on Dubai-based airline Emirates's double-decker Airbus A380s, the airline said yesterday.
Emirates boasted at a ceremony to take delivery of the first of 58 A380s at Airbus's Hamburg plant that the plane would have two bathrooms with showers in its first-class cabins as well as a lounge for premium travellers.
But luxury has its limits, as Emirates President Tim Clark warned passengers could not spend too long relaxing under the jets of water. "The showers are regulated through a software programme that gives people a five-minute shower, which is ample in most cases," Mr Clark told a news conference, adding that a traffic light system would let passengers know how long they had left.
The shower also complicates attempts by Emirates and Airbus to slim down the superjumbo by some five tonnes by 2011/2012 to cut fuel use amid soaring oil prices and increasing calls for the industry to reduce its impact on the environment. The plane will have to take on board an additional 500 kg of water, an increase of some 25 per cent.
Processing plant for manure
Hong Kong has prepared a HK$37 million (€2.9 million) composting plant to deal with up to 20 tonnes of manure a day from horses taking part in equestrian events in next month's Olympics and September's Paralympics.
Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department said that the plant was ready for action and would turn the stable waste into organic compost suitable for landscaping, horticultural and agricultural uses. It said the plant would eliminate all harmful pathogens as well as containing "potentially odorous emissions".
The cost of the plant includes design, construction and a two-year trial operation.
WTO talks boost trade in clean shirts
World trade talks entered a second day yesterday - with ministers and their entourages scrambling to extend hotel bookings and find clean clothes.
Initially set to run for just six days, crunch talks on the seven-year-old Doha trade round have run past Saturday's planned closing date. Delegates are showing the strain, while despairing about their laundry.
Hundreds of delegates who had packed enough clean clothes for six days were either scrabbling to find laundry services open in Geneva over the weekend, or buying new shirts.
Despite its reputation as a city with a luxury price tag, summer sales at Geneva's main department store meant business shirts were on offer for as little as 15 Swiss francs (€9.21).
Barred from social networking site
Poland's national police headquarters has banned officers from using a popular social networking site similar to Facebook because they were spending too much time using it, a newspaper said yesterday.
"Like many firms, we decided the site Nasza-klasa.pl is not essential for our employees to fulfil their professional duties," the Dziennik daily quoted police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski as saying. An internal investigation had shown police officers were often using Nasza Klasa, or "our class", for idle chit-chat instead of working, the paper said.
They will still have access to the site after their working day ends. The site will also remain available for officers trying to track down offenders over the internet, Dziennik said.
Escaped bulls on the run
Police in southern France are racing to track down more than 20 bulls after about 50 of the animals were apparently deliberately released from an enclosure over the weekend, a local official said yesterday.
Authorities planned to deploy riders on horseback to round up the remaining bulls, which were reared for traditional races in the Camargue region, said Saint Remy de Provence mayor Herve Cherubini.
"There are still 23 bulls on the run and 25 have been found as far as we know," Mr Cherubini said by telephone.
Evidence suggested the bulls had been deliberately released by unknown vandals on Saturday after wire fencing was cut and gun shots were fired to disperse them, he said.
Police used a helicopter on Sunday to help capture some of the bulls.