Dortmund, Germany - The town of Nordhorn in north-western Germany is set amidst a landscape of charming farmhouses and old oak trees. But occasionally, modern technology is visible in the form of crude oil pumps scattered across the land.

Motorists holidaying in the region will experience the old and the new travelling around Nordhorn and anyone with a little more time on their hands can drive across the border to the Netherlands to experience van Gogh country.

Oil pumps are one of the region's main features. Visitors can find out more about them with the help of the new electronic Dynamic Audio Geo Information System for Tourists (DAGIT) which consists of a small computer attached to a car's radio.

A $4.4 billion upgrade program has been approved by the San Francisco officials to safeguard the Hetch Hetchy, the Bay Area's largest drinking water system from drought or a catastrophic earthquake.

Both San Francisco's planning and public utilities commissions, despite opposition from some environmental groups have approved the upgrade though they have put off plans to divert more water from the Tuolumne River for another decade.

Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain - Volcanic landscapes, jungle-like laurel forests, lava deserts and thick pinewood: La Palma is not only the greenest island of the Canaries, it's also the most diverse.

A network of trails totalling 1,000 kilometres on La Palma, nicknamed Isla Bonita makes it a hiker's paradise.

GlaxoSmithKline P. L. C.'s drug Avandia is facing flak for causing more than one dozen cases of liver failure and death in patients taking the drug according to a consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

A study by Swedish researchers has found that the extra hour of sleep that the daylight savings time gives could prevent some people from having a heart attack. The research based on heart attacks in Sweden found that lack of sufficient sleep could adversely affect cardiovascular health and may even result in an increased likelihood of having a heart attack.

Hong Kong - A 16-year-old Hong Kong schoolgirl unhappy about her appearance forged documents to get a bank loan to pay for plastic surgery, a news report said Tuesday.

Chan Yee-yee paid an older friend to supply her with payrolls advice slips so she could apply for the 20,000-Hong-Kong-dollar loan (2,580 US dollars) and pay for the surgery, a court heard Monday.