VIDEO: Pakistan runner is country's 'last hope'

VIDEO: Pakistan runner is country's 'last hope'


VIDEO: Pakistan runner is country's 'last hope'

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 10:26 PM PDT

Pakistan's final hopes for London 2012 lie on the shoulders of 20-year-old 800 metre competitor Rabia Ashiq from Lahore.


Egypt launches air strikes after clashes in Sinai

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:24 PM PDT

AL-ARISH, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt launched air strikes near its border with Israel on Wednesday and killed more than 20 suspected Islamic militants, in a crackdown on jihadists blamed for a deadly attack on Egyptian border police, an army official and eyewitnesses said.


Spain terror arrests put paragliding in spotlight

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:32 AM PDT

FILE - In this May 2, 2012 file photo provided by Greenpeace, an activist in a motorized paraglider flies over the Bugey nuclear power plant, near Saint-Vulbas, central France, and drops a flare on the roof. Questions are being raised about whether two Russians held on terror charges in Spain were planning to launch airborne attacks on paragliders. The two Russians took paragliding lessons this year in a southern Spanish region renowned for the sport, authorities said over the weekend. A Turkish engineer also under arrest paid for the lessons. No attacks have been carried out using paragliders, experts said. However, paragliding did feature in one recent stunt by an environmentalist that must have given chills to authorities, including those from countries that use drones to target and kill suspected Islamic terrorists. The activist was arrested last May after dropping a billowing smoke bomb onto the roof of a French nuclear reactor. (AP Photo/Lagazta, Greenpeace, File)The history of terror plots is filled with unusual schemes, from an underwear bomber to model planes filled with explosives — showing how would-be attackers are constantly hatching ideas to catch authorities by surprise. Now questions are being raised about whether two Russians held on terror charges in Spain were planning to launch airborne attacks on paragliders.



Philippines rushes aid to 850,000 people affected by floods

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:19 PM PDT

MANILA (Reuters) - Emergency workers and troops rushed food, water and clothes to nearly 850,000 people displaced and marooned from deadly floods spawned by 11 straight days of southwest monsoon rains that soaked the Philippine capital and nearby provinces.


Nearly 2 million evacuated as Typhoon Haikui hits China

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:20 PM PDT

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Typhoon Haikui struck China on Wednesday, packing winds of up to 110 km per hour (68 mph), prompting officials to evacuate nearly 2 million people and grounding hundreds of flights to and from Shanghai and other cities.


500 Startups Looking to Latin America and India for Second Fund

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 07:00 PM PDT

500 Startups founder Dave McClure (Photo credit: Joi) Seed fund and incubator 500 Startups is bullish on international investing – especially Latin America and India, the overseas markets it will concentrate on in its second fund, said Paul Singh, an investing partner who manages the accelerator and focuses on investments in [...]


VIDEO: Pakistan runner is country's 'last hope'

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 10:26 PM PDT

Pakistan's final hopes for London 2012 lie on the shoulders of 20-year-old 800 metre competitor Rabia Ashiq from Lahore.


Top court orders Pakistan PM to appear over graft cases against president

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:10 PM PDT

Pakistan's Prime Minister Ashraf speaks during a news conference at the Presidential Palace in KabulISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf was ordered on Wednesday to appear before the Supreme Court this month over his failure to comply with orders to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. The move, another twist in a long-running standoff between the government and the judiciary, could lead to further political instability in Pakistan. Two months ago, Ashraf's predecessor, Yusuf Raza Gilani, was found guilty of contempt over the same issue and disqualified from holding the post of prime minister. ...



Chinese Global Brands? Not Yet.

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:45 PM PDT

A vendor smiles under a Lenovo sign at a computer center in Shanghai. (Image credit: AFP via @daylife) Guest post written by David Roman, Lenovo CMO What makes a brand truly global and why the top brands from the West should not be complacent. Market research agency Millward Brown Optimor released their 7th [...]


Partnering With Chinese Gov't Works Fine For New York Fashion Information Supplier

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:31 PM PDT

Partnering with government-backed entities in China doesn't work for every foreign company in China. Yet for one U.S. small business from New York, it's creating good results. Style Sight, a New York-based fashion information provider with more than 3,000 customers worldwide, last December hooked up with the China Textile Information Center [...]


How Sports Infect Your Brain

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 03:30 PM PDT

How Sports Infect Your Brain by Nir Eyal in Users Note: I co-authored this post with Andrew Martin and David Ngo. This week, fans packed stadiums in London wearing their nation's colors like rebels ready for battle in Mel Gibson's army. They screamed with excitement and anguished in defeat. Many paid thousands of dollars to travel [...]


Top court orders Pakistan PM to appear over graft cases against president

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:10 PM PDT

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf was ordered on Wednesday to appear before the Supreme Court this month over his failure to comply with orders to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.


US and Japanese Companies Combine to Bring Precision Spectral Matching to the Masses

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 06:04 PM PDT

As most of the world focuses on the low-cost manufacturing powerhouse that China has become, one US company is betting on Japanese precision manufacturing to help it jump start a new market. Seattle based Visulant has been working in the spectral matching market since 1998, but its products have generally [...]


Japan's Democrats offer polls in "near future" to save tax plan

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 09:11 PM PDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's ruling Democrats on Wednesday offered to call an election in the "near future" to save their sales tax increase plan after the opposition demanded a commitment to early polls in return for backing the bill in an upper house vote. The opposition has yet to formally respond to the pledge, but first reactions suggested it was too vague. "(Noda) will go to the people in the near future when the bill is enacted," Fumio Kishida, parliamentary affairs chief for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), quoted his Democrat counterpart as saying. ...


EYES ON LONDON: If barbells had feelings

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 10:21 AM PDT

Peter Nagy of Hungary competes in the men's +105-kg, group B, weightlifting competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012, in London. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)Around the 2012 Olympics and its host city with journalists from The Associated Press bringing the flavor and details of the games to you:



Punk rockers perform anti-Putin protests

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 10:18 AM PDT

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, centre, a member of feminist punk group Pussy Riot is escorted to a court room in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012. Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Thursday criticized the feminist punk rockers facing trial for performing a "punk prayer" against him at Moscow's main cathedral, but said that a punishment for them shouldn't be too severe. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)Three feminist punk rockers in Russia face a possible three years in prison for barging into Moscow's main cathedral to sing a song against Vladimir Putin as he set out to reclaim the presidency.



Mobile Payments Go Mainstream With Square's Nationwide Starbucks Deal

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 05:17 PM PDT

Square has signed a major partnership with Starbucks to enable mobile payments at the coffee giants' 7,000 stores using the startup's payment technology.


Hurricane Ernesto makes landfall along south Yucatan coast: NHC

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 08:50 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Ernesto, the second hurricane of the Atlantic season, has made landfall along the southern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula near Mahahual, Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said late Tuesday. The Category 1 hurricane was located about 40 miles east northeast of Chetumal, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (140 km per hour), the NHC said. Cyclones become named tropical storms when their winds reach more than 39 mph. They become hurricanes when winds exceed 74 mph. (Reporting by Koustav Samanta in Bangalore; Editing by Anand Basu)


THREE'S COMPANY

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 07:03 PM PDT

The high jump medals ceremony will have a packed podium.


Egypt military fires missiles on Sinai militants

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 07:33 PM PDT

Egyptian security officials and residents say Egyptian military attack helicopters have fired missiles on suspected Islamic militants in Sinai after an attack on security checkpoints.