Friday, 18 February 2011
Thursday, 17 February 2011
'Tweet-bot' may blast into space
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Japan's space agency is considering putting a talking humanoid robot on the International Space Station (AP)
And for the people back home, it will tweet.
Japan's space agency said it is considering putting a talking humanoid robot on the International Space Station to watch the mission while astronauts are asleep.
It would also monitor their health and stress levels and communicate to Earth through the microblogging site Twitter.
The mission under consideration would be in 2013.
Japan does not have a manned space programme of its own but its astronauts have been part of the space station crew.
Japan also maintains a laboratory, called Kibo, or Hope, on the space outpost.
Three men killed on Gaza border
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Israeli forces have killed three Palestinian men along the border with the Gaza Strip (AP)
Israel's military said the three were militants but relatives identified them as fishermen.
The military released a statement saying soldiers fired on the men after they were spotted planting an explosive device in a no-go zone along the border between 2am and 3am.
A spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, Adham Abu Salmiya, said they were killed by Israeli fire near the Mediterranean shore in northern Gaza. They were in their 20s and were wearing civilian clothing, he said.
Relatives who came to the hospital to receive the bodies for burial said they were fishermen. None of Gaza's armed groups immediately claimed the men as members.
The military maintains a buffer zone along the border fence, where militants have planted bombs targeting Israeli forces in the past.
Gaza is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas. Bloodshed in the territory has decreased since Israel's military offensive in Gaza just over two years ago, but rocket fire and border clashes have continued.
Iraqi protests spread to Basra
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Iraqis take to the streets to protest over public services in Basra (AP)
The new demonstration by people demanding better services, an end to corruption and more jobs is the latest outburst to hit Iraq in the wake of the regional upheaval that started in Tunisia and is now sweeping the Middle East.
About 600 people gathered in front of the Basra provincial headquarters, facing off against police protecting the building. There was some pushing and shoving between protesters and police, but the protest was largely peaceful.
A day earlier in the city of Kut, 100 miles south-east of Baghdad, about 2,000 stone-throwing demonstrators attacked local government offices, setting fire to some buildings, including the governor's house.
Witnesses said Iraqi police and soldiers shot at demonstrators who pelted the officers with stones and commandeered military vehicles. The spokeswoman for Wasit province, Sondos al-Dahabi, said three demonstrators were shot and killed. Mr al-Dahabi put the number of the wounded at 30, including 15 policemen.
The senior health official for the province, Diaa al-Aboudi, said he was only aware of one death, an Iraqi soldier. Fifty-five people were injured, he said. Some were shot while others were hit by stones thrown by demonstrators or burned in the melee.
Provincial authorities held an emergency meeting to discuss protesters' demands, Mr al-Dahabi said. The authorities also lifted a curfew imposed on Wednesday.
Iraq is one of the few countries with a democratically elected government in the Middle East but leaders here have not been immune from the anger engulfing the region. Iraqis have a long list of grievances against their leaders, including electricity that sometimes works only a few hours a day, unemployment that runs as high as 30% and rampant corruption.
As security has improved, attention has turned to quality of life and economic issues instead.
Meanwhile, gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a local official in the northern city of Mosul, police said. Hilal al-Ahmadi, 50, was the spokesman of the provincial post and communication office.
Cybercrime costs more than £27bn
Attacks on computer systems, industrial espionage and theft of company secrets costs businesses alone at least £21 billion.
Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones said the answer lies in private firms and the Government working together to disrupt criminal networks rather than prosecution.
Matthew Knowles, spokesman for aerospace, defence and security trade organisation ADS, said: "Industry in the UK works well with the Government bodies responsible for security and cyber-security and the British sector is one of the world leaders in this area.
"The industry looks forward to working with the Prime Minister and the working party to build on that spirit of partnership to deliver the high-tech solutions that will continue to protect both military and civilian systems that are crucial to our security and way of life."
Egypt tourism industry sees hope in revolution
2 big European travel firms to restart trips in March
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Egypt's uprising emptied the hotels, casinos and bars of a tourist trade that employs one in eight Egyptians, but staff expect the recovery to be quick and the revolution to boost business in the long run.
With its year-round warm beaches and wealth of pharaonic antiquities, Egypt earned nearly $11 billion from tourism in 2009, according to the tourism ministry, accounting for over a tenth of gross domestic product.
An 18-day upheaval prompted many countries to issue warnings against travel in Egypt, hamstringing the industry. Sites such as the Giza Pyramids, usually overrun with sunburned visitors, stood ominously empty.
We have a good feeling for next time. People come here five, six times and they come back. Maybe next time they'll have a good feeling, a feeling of freedom, you know 
But workers in Sharm al-Sheikh, a Sinai peninsula resort that usually crams in package tourists by the jetful this time of year, say they hope future holiday-makers will be drawn to a country that threw off the shackles of authoritarian rule.
"We have a good feeling for next time. People come here five, six times and they come back. Maybe next time they'll have a good feeling, a feeling of freedom, you know," said Mahmoud el-Helefy, 30, who manages a open-air seaside restaurant.
Hotel occupancy in Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, another Red Sea tourist hub, sank to 11 percent from 75 percent after the unrest erupted on Jan. 25, the Egyptian Hotels Association said.
During his brief time as vice president, Omar Suleiman said about 1 million tourists fled Egypt, costing it some $1 billion.
Sympathy
It's hardly the first time this decade that Egypt's tourist trade has been forced to recover from a near-fatal disruption.
From the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, to bombings on Sinai resorts, to Red Sea shark attacks, to last year's Icelandic volcano -- headlines have a history of tearing through the business.
Still, the overall trend has remained ever upward.
"I am very optimistic tourism will pick up very quickly because I think tourists find the revolution positive," Hala el-Khatib, secretary general of the Egyptian Hotels Association, said, adding he did not see large-scale layoffs happening yet.
Mahmoud, a Sharm el-Sheikh tour operator who declined to give his full name because he preferred to go by his nickname "Mahmoud Crystal", said he had not had a customer in over a week but he is used to cycles of boom and bust.
"It's a crazy city. It's like a casino," he said as he sat smoking cigarettes in his empty offices, guidebooks in Russian, Italian and English arrayed before him.
Despite the drop in revenue, sympathy for the revolution runs deep among Sharm el-Sheikh residents. Many came from Cairo and the Nile Delta because there was no work at home.
At a popular restaurant chain, the bar staff chanted revolutionary slogans on Wednesday night, recalling visits to Cairo's Tahrir Square -- the heart of the protest movement -- and talking politics as they served beer to tourists.
Many in the tourism industry share the anger at patronage and official corruption that was one of the principal complaints of the protesters. The former tourism minister now faces graft charges.
Recovery
Two of Europe's biggest travel companies said on Monday they would restart holidays from Germany to Egypt in March. The German units of British groups Thomas Cook and TUI Travel had cancelled holidays until the end of February.
Some tourists have already shrugged off the unrest, especially Britons. Unlike many countries that discouraged all travel to Egypt during the unrest, Britain advised its citizens to avoid big cities like Cairo, Alexandria and Suez but did not warn them to keep away from resorts like Sharm El-Sheikh.
"Before and after the revolution, I think it would have been fine. It's kind of like a country in and of itself here," Simon Box, a 27-year-old IT manager, said of the beach resort.
For European tourists drawn to the Red Sea's winter sun, he doubted a change in Egypt's governing structure would have much impact one way or the other.
"It will affect the people, no doubt, but tourism I think will stay the same," he said.
Cairo teen finds looted Paranoiac statue
Statue belongs to Pharaoh Akhenaton
Thursday, 17 February 2011
A Cairo teenager found a priceless statue of Pharaoh Akhenaton near a garbage bin after it had been stolen from the Egyptian Museum during anti-regime protests, Egypt's antiquities chief said on Thursday.
The museum's world renowned collection was burgled and several artefacts went missing last month, including statues of King Tutankhamun and Pharaoh Akhenaton.
A 16-year-old protester found the sculpture near a rubbish bin in Tahrir Square, the focal point of the demonstrations which brought down president Hosni Mubarak, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.
He took the statue home, where his uncle Sabri Abdelrahman, a professor at the American University in Cairo, recognized the piece and returned it to authorities, Hawass said.
"The statue is one of the most beautiful statues of Akhenaton, which highlights the skill of Egyptian artists at the time," said Egyptian Museum director Tarek al-Awadi.
The statue would be restored before going back on display in the museum.
Akhenaton was a ruler of the 13th Dynasty. Last year, Egypt announced that DNA tests had confirmed him to be the father of famed boy King Tutankhamun.
Nationwide protests erupted in Egypt on January 25, which led to the overthrow of Mubarak and left at least 365 dead and scores more injured or detained.
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