MPs in $300k printer ink binge

It has been dubbed "toner-gate" - a three-week, $300 000 splurge on printer ink by Australian Liberal MPs to stock up on office supplies for the pending federal election, reveals News.com.

After being told in September 2009 that a strict finance cap would be introduced from 1 October that year, opposition members ordered $267 288 worth of printer cartridge toner, according to documents obtained through Freedom of Information.

With the election almost a year away, some Liberal figures claimed they were told by party HQ to be "ruthless" ordering taxpayer-funded supplies ahead of the campaign.

Intelligence picked up by The Herald have revealed that the $50 million 2010 Population and Housing Census organised by the Ghana Statistical Service and the Electoral Commission failed due to the existence of a mafia within the commercial printing industry, called the Big Six, reports Ghana Web.

With the involvement of some top state officials, the modus operandi of the companies is to circumvent the much-lauded public procurement law, passed by the government, to curb corruption in the country.

In the end, while the state officials hugely benefit financially from the printing jobs, government is left very embarrassed as a result of their greed.

New X-ray imaging technology could show how snakes lost their legs, according to research published on Tuesday, states myFOXla.

Scientists from France and Germany hope high-resolution 3D images of a 95 million-year-old fossilised snake called Eupodophis descouensi will help settle the debate over whether the species evolved from a terrestrial or ocean-based lizard.

Researchers led by Alexandra Houssaye from the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, say the images showed in fine detail a small buried leg concealed in one of the ancient stones.