The Beauty Of Pregnancy

Tumthing special ... stunning snap

MORNING sickness, swollen ankles and cravings for marmite on ice-cream.

The beauty of pregnancy is often long forgotten in a sea of ailments.

That's swell .... amazing shot of pregnant tummy

But having a baby is one of the natural wonders of the world, and one man is out to prove it.

8 Japanese killed in fire

Firefighters evacuate the body of a victim at the scene of a fire at the indoor shooting range in Busan. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

SEOUL - A FIRE that tore through a South Korean indoor shooting range killed eight Japanese visitors and two South Koreans, including the group?s Korean guide, the fire service said on Sunday.

Most of the victims in the southern port city of Busan were from the Japanese town of Nagasaki and had been taking part in a school reunion outing when the blaze broke out on Saturday.

Six people were injured, including three Japanese nationals. The fire occurred on the second floor of a five-storey building and took an hour to extinguish. The cause has still to be determined.

Family members of the deceased Japanese were to arrive in Busan later on Sunday, Mr Lee said.

Police and fire officers examined the site on Sunday with National Institute of Science Investigation officials, local fire officer Lee Jung-min said.

Yonhap news agency said police focused on restoring footage recorded by seven CCTV cameras inside the building, hoping it would give clues as to what caused the blaze. -- AP, REUTERS.

Washington sniper executed

This March 9, 2004 file photo shows convicted Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad standing silently as he is sentenced to death at the Prince William County Circuit Court in Manassas, Virginia. -- PHOTO: AFP

JARRATT (Virginia) - JOHN Allen Muhammad, the mastermind of the sniper attacks that terrorised the US capital region for three weeks in October 2002, was executed on Tuesday.

Muhammad died by injection at 9.11pm (0211 GMT Wednesday, 10.11am Singapore time) at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, prison spokesman Larry Traylor said.

He said Muhammad had no final statement and that Traylor didn't hear him utter any words during the execution.

Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during a spree that left 10 dead across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC.

'We extend our condolences not only to the families and loved ones of the victims, but also to the family and loved ones of John Allen Muhammad,' said J. Wyndal Gordon, one of Muhammad's attorneys. 'It's just a tragic situation all around.'

Earlier, Gordon had described Muhammad as fearless and insisted he was innocent. 'He is absolutely unafraid and he will die with dignity - dignity to the point of defiance.' -- AP

Polygamist sect member jailed

ELDORADO (TEXAS) - THE first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following the raid of a West Texas ranch was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called 'spiritual marriage.'

Jurors who last week convicted Raymond Jessop, 38, handed down the sentence that includes an US$8,000 fine. His attorneys had sought probation for the conviction that could have brought him up to 20 years in prison.

Jessop, who prosecutors allege has nine wives, still faces a separate bigamy charge to be tried later. He is the first member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to go on trial since authorities raided the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in April 2008.

The girl in the assault case, now 21, was previously in a spiritual marriage with Jessop's brother before being 'reassigned' to Jessop when she was 15, according to documents seized at the ranch. She became pregnant at age 16.

Forensic experts who testified during Raymond Jessop's trial said there was a nearly 100 percent probability Jessop fathered the now 4-year-old daughter of the woman in the case. The woman was on the prosecution's witness list at trial, but did not testify.

Eleven other sect members, including its jailed leader Warren Jeffs, still face separate trials for charges ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault and bigamy. -- AP

5,000 killed crossing streets

WASHINGTON - ABOUT 5,000 Americans a year are hit and killed by cars while crossing or walking along a street, according to a new report by US association Transportation for America.

Every year, nearly 5,000 Americans die preventable deaths on roads that fail to provide safe conditions for pedestrians,' the group said in a report entitled 'Dangerous by Design'.

'This is the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month, yet it receives nothing like the kind of attention that would surely follow such a disaster,' the report said.

Transportation for America, which bills itself as a coalition of housing, business, environmental and other organisations, is seeking legislation that would encourage local communities to improve their pedestrian infrastructure.

Less than 1.5 per cent of all federal funds set aside for transportation are used to enhance pedestrian safety despite the deaths of some 76,000 pedestrians in traffic-related incidents over the last 15 years, according to the group.

The report said pedestrians and cyclists represent 13 per cent of all traffic deaths, adding that 3,906 children under 16 have been killed while crossing or walking along a street in the last decade. -- AFP

Drunken pilot suspended

CHICAGO - UNITED Airlines has suspended a pilot who was arrested in London on suspicion that he was about to fly a Boeing 767 with 124 passengers while drunk, the airline said on Tuesday.

The incident occurred on Monday before Flight 949, which was bound for Chicago and would have carried 124 passengers and 11 crew. The passengers were accommodated on other flights.

The 51-year-old pilot, whose name was not released, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport and freed on bail pending the results of alcohol tests, London metropolitan police spokesman Simon Fisher said. Mr Fisher declined to give further information.

United, a unit of UAL Corp, said the pilot has been suspended.

'Safety is our highest priority and the pilot has been removed from service while we are cooperating with authorities and conducting a full investigation,' UAL spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said.

'United's alcohol policy is among the strictest in the industry, and we have no tolerance for violation of this well-established policy,' she said. -- REUTERS

Israelis 'seize Iran arms ship'

The vessel was taken to Ashdod for further inspection

Israel's navy has intercepted a ship carrying hundreds of tonnes of weapons 160km (100 miles) off its coast, the military says.

The cache included rockets and missiles, the military said, adding that they originated in Iran and were destined for Hezbollah militants.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the arms were "destined to strike Israel's cities".

The Antiguan-flagged vessel has been towed to the port of Ashdod.

In recent months Israel has stepped up efforts to combat the smuggling of arms to Hamas and Hezbollah militants.

'Numerous weapons'

The Israeli military said marines had boarded the ship after its captain agreed to the search and that no force was used.

The country's deputy defence minister, Matan Vilmai, said the ship's crew were not thought to have been aware of the smuggling operation.

A spokesperson for the military said there were "dozens of shipping containers, carrying numerous weapons, disguised as civilian cargo among hundreds of other containers on board".

The spokesperson added: "The weapons originate from Iran and were intended to reach the Hezbollah terror organisation for use against the state of Israel and its citizens."

The Associated Press news agency reported that the vessel was operated by the shipping company United Feeder Services and that it had said the cargo was picked up in Damietta in Egypt.

Mr Netanyahu congratulated the army, navy and security forces on a successful action to prevent the supply of weapons.

Since Israel's offensive in Gaza last December and January, the Israeli navy and air force have been have conducting intense searches in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea for ships smuggling weapons either to Hezbollah or to Hamas in Gaza.

In February, Israel said a vessel detained off Cyprus was carrying Iranian weapons to Hamas in Gaza. Iran denied the claim.

In 2002 the Israeli navy captured the Karin-A, which was carrying some 50 tonnes of arms thought to be destined for Gaza.

112 yr old man marries 17 yr old girl

Old groom, teen bride...Dore said he had waited for Safia to grow up before proposing to her

Hundreds of people attended a wedding between a man who says he is 112 years old and his bride who is only 17.

The BBC reported Thursday that Ahmed Muhamed Dore - who already has 13 children by five wives - would like to have more with his latest, Safia Abdulleh.

"Today God helped me realise my dream," Dore was said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud.

The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband".

Dore said he and his bride - who is young enough to be his great-great-grand-daughter - were from the same village in Somalia and that he had waited for her to grow up to propose.

"I didn't force her but used my experience to convince her of my love and then we agreed to marry," he said.

The marriage, in the town of Guriceel, is being described by Somali historians as the first of its kind in the Horn of Africa nation for more than a century.

The reaction to news of the marriage has been mixed.

Some people said while it was allowed under Islamic law, they were concerned about the age gap, but others were happy that age was not a barrier to love.

Dore told the BBC he was born in Dhusamareeb in central Somalia in 1897 - and has a traditional birth certificate, written on goat skin by his father.

He joined the British colonial forces in 1941 and served as a soldier for 10 years. He later became a police officer after Somalia won independence in 1960.

Dore has a total of 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 years old and three of his wives have died.

He hopes his new bride will give him more children.

"It is a blessing to have someone you love to take care of you," he said.

91 killed in Baghdad bombings

BAGHDAD —Two powerful car bombs exploded in downtown Baghdad Sunday, killing at least 91 people in an apparent attempt to target the fragile city’s government offices, Iraqi medical officials and authorities said.

While violence has dropped dramatically in the country since the height of the sectarian tensions, such bombings like Sunday’s demonstrate the precarious nature of the security gains and the insurgency’s abilities to still pull off devastating attacks in the heart of what is supposed to be one of Baghdad’s most secure areas.

The explosions come as Iraq is preparing for elections scheduled this January, and many Iraqi officials have warned that violence by insurgents intent on making the country appear unstable could rise.

The blasts, which rivaled coordinated blasts against two government ministries in August that killed more than 100 people, also appeared to be a blow to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who has staked his reputation and re-election hopes on returning security to the country.

The area is just a few hundred yards from the heavily protected Green Zone that houses the U.S. Embassy as well as the prime minister’s offices. The street where the blasts occurred was just reopened to vehicle traffic a few months ago, in what was supposed to be a sign that safety was returning to the once devastated city.

“This is a political struggle, the price of which we are paying,” said a Shiite member of the Baghdad Provincial Council, Mohammed al-Rubaiey. He said at least 25 members of the provincial council staff were killed in the blasts and that the wounded were still being taken to the hospital. “Every politician is responsible and even the government is responsible, as well as security leaders.”

Sunday’s explosions, which also injured at least 250 people, went off less than a minute apart near two prominent government institutions — the Ministry of Justice and the headquarters of the Baghdad provincial administration — in a neighborhood that houses a number of government institutions.

Video images captured on a cell phone showed the second blast going off in a massive ball of flames, followed by a burst of machine gun fire.

Two American security contractors were injured in the blasts, but no American embassy personnel were killed, said Philip Frayne, an embassy spokesman in Baghdad. Frayne could not provide details about who the contractors worked for, or the nature of their injuries.

U.S. security contractors could be seen at the site of the explosions helping the wounded before they were transported for treatment to six different hospitals around the capital.

Iraqi hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, gave the death toll.

The explosions were caused by car bombs aimed at government institutions, said Maj Gen Qassim al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city’s operations command center. He added that it was not known whether they were suicide attacks.

The explosive-laden vehicles were parked in car parks next to the two government building, police said.

“They are targeting the government and the political process in the country,” al-Mousawi told The Associated Press.

Yasmeen Afdhal, a 24-year-old employee at the Baghdad provincial administration, said that after the first blast, dozens of employees began fleeing the building.

“The walls collapsed and we had to run out,” said Afdhal, who was not injured in the explosion. “There are many wounded, and I saw them being taken away. They were taking victims out of the rubble, and rushing them to ambulances.”

Black smoke could be seen billowing from the area where the blasts occurred, as emergency service vehicles sped to the scene. Even civilian cars were being used to transport the wounded to hospitals, al-Mousawi said.

The explosions were just a few hundred yards from Iraq’s Foreign Ministry which is still rebuilding after massive bombings there in August killed about 100 people. The bombings were a devastating blow for a country that has seen a dramatic drop in violence since the height of the sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007.

__

Associated Press Writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this story.

Google goes global with Apps

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 19 — Google Inc said more than two million businesses now use its online office software, and the web search leader is going global today with an advertising campaign to lure customers away from Microsoft Corp and IBM products.

The campaign, which starts today in countries including France, Japan and Britain, represents a rare foray by Google into mass-market advertising and underscores increasing competition to provide businesses with email and other office software.

While Microsoft and International Business Machines Corp dominate the market for enterprise email, Google is trying to convince businesses to switch to its so-called cloud-based services, in which software is accessed over the Internet and maintained at Google's data centres instead of on a company's computers.

A 'translator gadget' powered by Google Translate

Cloud-based services can provide cost and maintenance savings over traditional software, though recent high-profile outages — including an outage of Google's Gmail last month — have raised questions about the reliability of online software for business users.

Gartner analyst Tom Austin said most businesses will eventually switch to cloud-based email, but the process may take years. He noted IBM and Microsoft have introduced cloud products recently, and that Cisco Systems Inc appears to be preparing to offer its own cloud-based software.

On Thursday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told investors during the company's quarterly earnings conference call he intended to boost investments in new business initiatives.

Google's Apps business — which the company has said is profitable and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year — is a tiny portion of Google's overall business, which yielded almost US$22 billion (RM77 billion) revenue last year.

I enjoy kissing each inch of you

According to spokesman Andrew Kovacs, its Apps team has doubled over the past year to more than 1,000 employees.

Google said Apps is used by two million businesses, up from 1.75 million in June. Those include both larger businesses that pay US$50 a year per user for Apps, as well as firms with fewer than 50 employees that get the software for free.

The company also said there are now 20 million active users of Google Apps, up from 15 million in June, although that number included students who use the free version Google provides to universities.

Google's marketing campaign, which it first rolled out in the United States in August, will feature ads in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes and The Economist, as well as on billboards at airports and train stations in various cities.

Google Enterprise product marketing director Tom Oliveri would not say how much Google is spending on the campaign, which runs through 2009. He said the creative part of the campaign was designed in-house by the Google Creative Lab team led by former Ogilvy & Mather executive Andy Berndt. — Reuters