Google takes on China

Google has vowed to defy Chinese Internet censors and risk banishment from the lucrative market in outrage at “highly sophisticated” cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a statement posted on the company’s blog.

“We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

The announcement was made amid growing tensions between China and the United States where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Beijing to explain cyberattacks on the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists using its Gmail service, and that more than 20 other companies were similarly attacked.

Human rights activists hailed Google, voicing hope it would lead Western companies to reconsider their compromises in doing business in China.

“Through international pressure, finally a big business in the West has come to realize its own conscience,” said prominent Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, who spent 18 years in prison before seeking refuge in the United States.

Jordan demands return of Dead Sea Scrolls from Israel

Claiming that the Israelis took away from Jordan the Dead Sea Scrolls during the 1967 Six-Day war, Rafea Harahsheh, Jordan’s antiquities department official, said the government has initiated a move in the United Nations to get the ancient texts back from the Jewish state.

“Israel seized the scrolls and other antiquities from the Palestinian Museum, which was managed by Jordan, in East Jerusalem when it occupied this part of the city in 1967,” Mr. Harahsheh said.

“The government has legal documents that prove Jordan owns the scrolls.”

The scrolls, which is also called the Qumran manuscripts, are of great historical significance to biblical scholars as it ascribes the earliest origins of Judaism and Christianity.

It will be remembered that East Jerusalem was captured from Jordan during the Six-Day war and Israel later took possession of it, a move not recognized by the international community.

Slugger McGuire admits steroid use

Mark McGwire finally came clean, admitting he used steroids when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998.

“I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era,” McGwire said in a statement on the Cardinals website.

Big Mac, the moniker given him by fans, was summoned to a congressional hearing in 2005 to testify on the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Major League Baseball, but repeatedly deflected questions that honed in on his personal use.

The burly Cardinal slugger captured the imagination of American sports fans in 1998 when he out-slugged Chicago Cubs Sammy Sosa in their head-to-head battle to break Roger Maris’s 61 coveted home-run record that stood since 1961. McGuire finished the 1998 season with 70 home runs against Sosa’s 66 runs.

The newly hired St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach, by his admission, has now settled for good the issue surrounding his use of steroids during his battle for the home run record

Last surviving helper to hide Anne Frank dies

The Anne Frank Museum, through its spokeswoman, Maatje Mostart, has confirmed the death of  Miep Gies, the last of the surviving non-Jews who helped the teenage diarist’s family hide from the Nazis.  She was 100.

Gies and several other employees of Anne Frank’s father provided food and other necessities to the Jewish family while they hid in a concealed apartment for 25 months.

Anne Frank called them the Helpers.

Mrs. Gies is said to have found and save Anne’s diary of their life in hiding after the family was arrested in 1944. She kept the diary, one of the most famous records of the Holocaust, in a safe until after the war. She later gave it to Anne’s father Otto, the only survivor, who published it in 1947.

Mrs. Gies died in a nursing home from a brief illness after suffering a fall just before Christmas

Porn industry going 3D

Adult film-makers are riding on the success of James Cameron’s stereoscopic Avatar that drew 3D fanatics to the big screen in 2009.

Visitors at the hi-tech AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas were treated with the special presentation of the Bad Girls in 3D by donning the 3D “active shutter glasses” to try out the virtual film.

Film producer Lance Johnson said: “For several decades, the adult entertainment industry has driven adoption of every significant new entertainment delivery system – the VHS home-video craze in the 1980s, the satellite television mania in the 1990s and the present day Internet.

“2010 and beyond will be all about 3D.”

The firm’s futuristic show pieces of 3D package consists of a 60-inch (152-centimeter) 3D TV, a compact computer server, and shutter glasses that sync with the screen to trick eyes into viewing in 3D.

Israel to build fence along Egypt border

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered to construct a fence at a cost of 1 billion shekels (163 million pounds) along two segments of Israel’s border with Egypt, in an attempt to stem the infiltration of migrant workers as well as of terrorist elements into Israel.

The bold project is estimated to be completed in two years, where the first segment will be near the southern city of Eilat and the second segment near Israel’s border with Gaza strip.

“I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Netanyahu said Israel would “remain open to refugees” from conflict zones but added, “we cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens.”

The barrier will not be erected along the whole border, but advanced surveillance equipment will be installed to help border control officers spot the infiltrators.

Buyer pays $3.7 million for 1913 U.S. coin

A rare 1913 U.S. coin dubbed the Liberty Head nickel was sold “in spirited bidding” to a private coin collector, who wished to remain anonymous, in a public auction in Orlando, Florida.

The buyer paid over $3.7 million for a rare coin which, once, formed part of the coin collection of Egypt’s King Farouk, who was overthrown in 1952. Since then, it has changed hands several times and even appeared as part of the story line in a 1973 episode of the famed CBS TV series “Hawaii Five-O.”

The Liberty Head nickel which was made at the Philadelphia Mint with the Miss Liberty figure is said to be one of only five known having that specific date and design. I

“It is probably the most famous United States rare coin,” Greg Rohan, president of Dallas, Texas-based Heritage Auctions said in a statement, knowing that even in 2003, it already surpassed the million dollar price.

World’s tallest building to open in Dubai

Dubai is set to open the world’s tallest building amid the Gulf’s emirate’s financial woes.

The Burj Dubai – Arabic for Dubai Tower – is said to contain 57 elevators, 1,044 apartments, 49 floors of office space and a hotel.

It can be seen from as far as 59 miles away and is estimated to have cost one billion dollars.

While the exact height of the building is under wraps, Emaar, the firm that developed the property, says it exceeds 2,640 feet, putting it far higher than Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower.

“We weren’t sure how high we could go,” said Bill Baker, a partner in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), which designed the tower, said. “It was kind of an exploration. … A learning experience.”

Work on the Burj Dubai began in 2004 and continued despite the financial crisis. Property prices in Dubai have dived over 50 percent over the past year and some believe the skyscraper will be the last of the giant projects that have brought global fame to Dubai.

Badge averts fatal injury to police officer

Police officer Joshua Smith was shot at point-blank range, but luckily the bullet hit his badge, thwarting it away from his protective vest.

“Even if the vest stops the bullet from penetrating,” Police Chief Keith Hogwood said, “the blunt-force trauma can be deadly. More than likely, this would have been fatal. Even with the vest.”

The incident occurred when Smith noticed a car weaving across a highway in Oakland, Tenn., in the morning of Christmas Eve.

After Smith was able to pull the car over, the driver came out swinging with a knife and later on pulled out a gun and shot the police officer hitting his badge.

“As soon as the shot happened and I fell back, I was thinking, defend, defend, defend,” Smith recalled.  “It felt like someone hit me in the chest with a baseball bat.  I couldn’t breathe.  I couldn’t catch my breath.  At that point, I was worried about finding a wound and stopping the bleeding.”

According to authorities, the driver Smith pulled over had not been captured.

Smaller condoms needed for India’s male population

A two year study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research, a leading state-run center, said its initial findings showed that 60 percent of men in the financial capital of Mumbai have penises about 1 inch shorter than international standards manufactured condoms.

Over 1,200 volunteers representing the whole of India in terms of class, religion and urban and rural dwellers had their penises measured and the researchers concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.

A poor fit meant the prophylactics often didn’t do the job they were bought for, and led to some tearing or slipping off during use.

Dr. Chander Puri, a specialist in reproductive health at the Indian Council of Medical Research, said there was an evident need in India for custom-made condoms, as most of those currently on sale are too large.

Dr. Puri said many men in India, which has the world’s highest number of HIV infections, were too shy to ask for condoms.

“We need more vending machines for condoms of different sizes so people can pick a condom with confidence that is suited to their needs,” Dr. Puri said.