World Vignettes

Ostrich on the menuKINGSTON: Spicy jerk' chicken is a Jamaican specialty. But jerk ostrich? Veterinarian-turned-rancher Marc Panton want...

Ostrich on the menu

KINGSTON: Spicy jerk8217; chicken is a Jamaican specialty. But jerk ostrich? Veterinarian-turned-rancher Marc Panton wants it on the menu. Panton, 27, has opened a ranch in southwestern St Elizabeth to raise the long-legged bird, and he is hoping tourists will snap up ostrich burgers, ostrich steaks maybe even sweet-and-sour ostrich at local hotels.

The 100-acre farm already has nine adult birds and 19 young ones, including an 2.4-meter-tall prize breeder named Mandela. Panton says he hopes to have more than 100 by 2000.

He said he8217;ll hawk ostrich wallets and the birds8217; gargantuan eggs to gift shops. 8220;We8217;ll be looking into the sale of accessory items like their skin one of the world8217;s most expensive leathers as well as feathers and egg shells which we have painted and will sell as souvenirs,8221; Panton said.For tourists with a yen for big bird watching, the farm is open to the public. It has a small petting zoo, ponds for fishing and an herb garden.Ostrich and emu farms, oncefound only in Africa, have multiplied in other countries, especially in the western United States.

Soap resistance

DENVER: An antibacterial agent widely used in soaps, lotions and other consumer products triggers a genetic change in bacteria that could widen the scope of life-threatening drug resistance, a new study shows.

Now germ hunters from Tufts University Medical School in Boston are hoping to capture some of the drug-resistant bacteria they suspect may lurk in households where heavily advertised products containing the compound Triclosan are being used every day. The researchers, whose study appears in Thursday8217;s issue of Nature, described the use of antibacterials outside of hospitals as a 8220;fad that has crept up on us over the past three or four years to the point where it is overwhelming when you go to the supermarket.8221;

Surgical error

MADRID: A woman who went into a hospital for a sonogram lost her baby, ovaries and uterus to surgeons who mistook her for an elderly cancerpatient with the same name, news reports say. The mix-up occurred a year ago in the southern city of Cordoba, and has ended up in a lawsuit.

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Rafaela Martinez Ruiz, 39, has been under psychiatric care since she lost her baby and any chance of having another, the local newspaper Cordoba reported. Martinez Ruiz is suing the Andalusia regional health department, the Reina Sofia university hospital8217;s obstetrics and gynaecology department and all the doctors and nurses who operated on her on August 12 of last year, the paper said. It quoted her lawyer as saying surgeons mistook Martinez Ruiz for another Rafaela Martinez Ruiz, age 71, who was in the hospital at the same time.