NAGOYA, Japan: Singapore bowler Shayna Ng has added another title to her belt after winning the DHC International Bowling Championship in Nagoya, Japan.
The 23-year-old claimed the women's crown after a title match showdown with American pro bowler Kelly Kulick.
With the victory, Ng takes home close to S$82,000 in prize money.
This is the second year that a Singaporean has won the title at the International Bowling Championship, following Cherie Tan's victory last year.
- CNA/fa
This inside compartment lets you use your smartphone without removing it from the waterproof pocket.
A new line of men's suits from custom online menswear brand Indochino might not contain aloe vera and algae extracts like these new skin-pampering blue jeans, but they still join the denims in the fancy-futuristic-fabric category.
The Ultimate Tech Collection boasts nanotech suits that supposedly repel liquid and stains and resist odors and wrinkles, all while staying breathable and comfortable. If the suits live up to their promise, you should be able to run through a rainstorm while sweating profusely, then break a ballpoint pen over your leg -- and still show up at the board meeting looking no worse for the wear.
The wool suits not only sport a protective nanotech coating that ought to keep you relatively unscathed by the elements, they also include a detachable down "storm flap" that's designed to protect your neck and chest from the cold.
Available in navy, light blue, and look-over-here orange, the flap buttons into the inside of the jacket as a kind of scarf stand-in.
The jacket joins the growing list of gadget-compatible garments with a touch-responsive Smart Pocket that lets you operate your smartphone straight from the suit (from the look of the pocket's location, that could require some maneuvering). The jacket also comes with a metal earphone cable clip and rubber earphone hole under the lapel.
So how much will one of these weather-resistant, smartphone-loving getups run you? They fall in the mid to high range, at approximately $630. Again, that includes a storm flap but not aloe vera sleeves.
A rubber earphone hole under the suit's lapel helps the wearer stay untangled and hands-free.
Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o told ESPN that he "never, not ever" was involved in creating the hoax that had him touting what turned out to be a fictional girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua."
"When they hear the facts, they'll know," Te'o told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap in his first interview since the story broke. "They'll know that there is no way that I could be a part of this."
"I wasn't faking it," he said during a 2 1/2-hour interview, according to ESPN.com.
Te'o said he only learned for sure this week that he had been duped. On Wednesday, he received a Twitter message, allegedly from a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, apologizing for the hoax, Te'o told Schaap.
The sports website Deadspin, which first revealed the hoax this week, has reported that Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old of Samoan descent who lives in Antelope Valley, Calif., asked a woman he knew for her photo and that photo became the face of Kekua's Twitter account.
Te'o told Schaap that Tuiasosopo was represented to him as Kekua's cousin.
"I hope he learns," Te'o said of Tuiasosopo, according to coverage of the interview on ESPN.com. "I hope he understands what he's done. I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough."
Click Here for a Who's Who in the Manti Te'o Case
AP Photo/ESPN Images, Ryan Jones
Te'o admitted to a few mistakes in his own conduct, including telling his father he met Kekua in Hawaii even though his attempt to meet her actually failed. Later retellings of that tale led to inconsistencies in media reports, Te'o said, adding that he never actually met Kekua in person.
Te'o added that he feared people would think it was crazy for him to be involved with someone that he never met, so, "I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away."
The relationship got started on Facebook during his freshman year, Te'o said.
"My relationship with Lennay wasn't a four-year relationship," Te'o said, according to ESPN.com. "There were blocks and times and periods in which we would talk and then it would end."
He showed Schaap Facebook correspondence indicating that other people knew of Kekua -- though Te'o now believes they, too, were tricked.
The relationship became more intense, Te'o said, after he received a call that Kekua was in a coma following a car accident involving a drunk driver on April 28.
Soon, Te'o and Kekua became inseparable over the phone, he said, continuing their phone conversations through her recovery from the accident, and then during her alleged battle against leukemia.
Even so, Te'o never tried to visit Kekua at her hospital in California.
"It never really crossed my mind," he said, according to ESPN.com. "I don't know. I was in school."
But the communication between the two was intense. They even had ritual where they discussed scripture every day, Te'o said. His parents also participated via text message, and Te'o showed Schaap some of the texts.
On Sept. 12, a phone caller claiming to be Kekua's relative told Te'o that Kekua had died of leukemia, Te'o said. However, on Dec. 6, Te'o said he got a call allegedly from Kekua saying she was alive. He said he was utterly confused and did not know what to believe.
ESPN's 2 1/2-hour interview was conducted in Bradenton, Fla., with Te'o's lawyer present but without video cameras. Schaap said Te'o was composed, comfortable and in command, and that he said he didn't want to go on camera to keep the setting intimate and avoid a big production.
According to ABC News interviews and published reports, Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family, and teammates spoke to her on the phone.
ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army on Saturday carried out a "final assault" on al Qaeda-linked gunmen holed up in a desert gas plant, killing 11 of the Islamists after they took the lives of seven foreign hostages.
"It is over now, the assault is over, and the military are inside the plant clearing it of mines," a local source familiar with the operation told Reuters.
The state oil and gas company, Sonatrach, said the militants who attacked the plant on Wednesday and took a large number of hostages had booby-trapped the gas complex with explosives.
The exact death toll among the gunmen and the foreign and Algerian workers at the plant near the town of In Amenas close to the Libyan border remained unclear.
Earlier on Saturday, Algerian special forces found 15 burned bodies at the plant. Efforts were underway to identify the bodies, the source told Reuters, and it was not clear how they had died.
Sixteen foreign hostages were freed on Saturday, a source close to the crisis said. They included two Americans, two Germans and one Portuguese.
Britain said fewer than 10 of its nationals at the plant were unaccounted for.
The attack on the plant swiftly turned into the biggest international hostage crises in decades, pushing Saharan militancy to the top of the global agenda.
Reports earlier put the number of hostages killed at between 12 to 30, with many foreigners still unaccounted for, among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons and Americans.
The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details. The French defense minister said he understood there were no more French workers among the hostages.
Two Norwegians were released overnight, leaving six unaccounted for, while Romania said three of its nationals had been freed. A number of Japanese engineering workers were still unaccounted for.
Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to a French military operation in neighboring Mali.
Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched its operation, but many hostages were killed.
(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London, Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries in Dublin, Andrew Quinn and David Alexander in Washington, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
JAKARTA: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has condemned the deaths of civilians in the Algerian hostage crisis.
He has also called on the Algerian government to prioritize the safety of hostages.
Mr Abe was speaking at a joint news conference in Jakarta after his meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
During their talks, both leaders agreed to strengthen their strategic partnership in political, security and economic relations.
Japan is involved in a maritime dispute with China over a group of islands in the East China Sea - a dispute that Mr Abe said should be resolved legally.
Mr Yudhoyono added that an open-sea policy should be enforced by law, and not by might.
He said: "All of us in Asia want to see a region that is stable, safe and peaceful. Therefore if there is a problem in the South China Sea or East Asia or anywhere in Asia, the solution should be peaceful, refrain from applying immediate military force and it must refer to international law. That is Indonesia's stance."
Prime Minister Abe's visit to Jakarta comes a day after the city was inundated with floodwaters. He expressed his sympathy towards the suffering of the flood victims in Greater Jakarta and vowed to help to restore and reconstruct damaged infrastructure.
Mr Abe also reaffirmed Japan's support for the development of Indonesia's railways, ports and sewage system, including the construction of the Cilamaya seaport and Jakarta's MRT.
- CNA/xq
Quad-core smartphones.
If the mobile phone giants are looking to strengthen their revenue streams in 2013, developing markets could be the best place to spot.
According to a new report from Nielsen Wire, smartphones still have "room to grow" in several top emerging markets.
Specifically, Nielsen found that feature phones, which researchers defined as "devices with no touchscreen, QWERTY keypad or operating system" are far more dominant in India and Russia, covering 80 percent and 51 percent of mobile users, respectively.
That's definitely not the case in the United States. For example, in another report from Nielsen in 2011, the research firm reported that nearly 60 percent of all new cell phones being sold at that time were smartphones.
Other analysts are already predicting big things for smartphones across emerging markets.
Canalys predicted on Thursday that developing markets will see smartphone growth of at least 22.5 percent this year -- particularly within the BRIIC group of Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, India and China.
China, incidentally, was the only emerging market listed in the Nielsen update where smartphones are now more dominant than feature phones.
That's not surprising as China continues to overtake the United States as a top tech market in a number of different ways. For instance, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that he expects China to be the iPhone maker's number one market at some point.
This story originally appeared at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Nielsen: Still room for smartphones to grow in emerging markets.
By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto, Fred Backus and Leigh Ann Caldwell
As the president outlined sweeping new proposals aimed to reduce gun violence, a new CBS News/New York Times poll found that Americans back the central components of the president's proposals, including background checks, a national gun sale database, limits on high capacity magazines and a ban on semi-automatic weapons.
Asked if they generally back stricter gun laws, more than half of respondents - 54 percent - support stricter gun laws; 53 percent say it would deter gun violence. That is a jump from April - before the Newtown and Aurora shootings - when only 39 percent backed stricter gun laws but about the same as ten years ago.
Not all respondents, however, back stricter gun laws. The idea is more popular among Democrats and a slight majority of independents while only 31 percent of Republicans back stricter limits on guns. The ideological split is similar to the split among gun ownership. While 74 percent of people who don't keep guns in the house back stricter gun laws, 36 percent of gun owning households do and 26 percent of gun owners.
When asked about specific proposals, however, people were more inclined to back stricter gun laws. For instance, nine out of 10 respondents support background checks on all potential gun buyers, and nearly four-fifths of respondents are in favor of a national database to track gun sales. As for limiting access, 63 percent support a ban on high-capacity magazines and 53 percent back a ban on semi-automatic weapons.
The president proposed all of those ideas during a news conference Wednesday after receiving recommendations from a task force led by Vice President Joe Biden.
Gun owners, however, had a somewhat different take. While 70 percent back a national database, 64 percent oppose a ban on semi-automatic weapons and 51 percent oppose a ban of high-capacity magazines.
The least popular idea asked in the poll would drastically change the nature of gun ownership in many places around the country and was not proposed by the president. A national ban on carrying concealed firearms was opposed by two-thirds.
The president did propose expanded access to mental health records, which 82 percent of respondents say would at least somewhat help prevent gun violence. As for other preventative measures, 74 percent say that armed security guards would also help prevent mass shootings in public places, and 75 percent say gun violence in movies and video games are a contributing factor.
The major players around gun policy receive mixed ratings. Respondents said they trusted the president more than Republicans in Congress to deal with the issue by 47 to 39 percent. Vice President Joe Biden received a similar rating to the president, with 49 percent supporting his role, which has been a central to the gun debate. The National Rifle Association, the gun lobby opposed to gun restrictions and the president's proposals, have similar approval ratings to Republicans in Congress. Thirty-eight percent have a favorable view of the organization, 29 percent view it unfavorably and 31 percent are undecided.
For the full poll results, see next page.
This poll was conducted by telephone from January 11-15, 2013 among 1,110 adults nationwide.
Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.
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Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend "Lennay Kekua" may have hoaxed other unsuspecting suitors.
"Catfish" movie director and actor Ariel Schulman told "Good Morning America" today that he believes there may have been "a few other people duped by the fake Lennay character."
Schulman and his brother Nev Schulman have been looking into the elaborate scam and claim to be corresponding with various players involved. They have come to believe that there were "a lot of other people that she was corresponding with before and maybe even during her relationship [with Te'o]."
Nev Schulman was the subject of the 2010 movie "Catfish," which spawned the TV series, because he himself was sucked in by an Internet pretender -- or a "catfish" -- who built an elaborate fake life.
As questions mount about Te'o's possible role in the complex scam, the number one question is whether Te'o was unknowingly ensnared, as he says, or whether he was complicit in the scam.
"I stand by the guy. My heart goes out to him," Ariel Schulman said. His brother has reached out to Te'o, but has not heard back.
"He had his heart broken," Schulman said. "He was grieving for someone, whether she existed or not. Those were real feelings."
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Click here for a who's who in the Manti Te'o case
Te'o has kept a low-profile since the news of the scandal broke. He released a statement calling the situation "incredibly embarrassing" and maintaining that he was a victim of the hoax.
He was captured briefly by news cameras on Thursday at a Florida training facility, but has not spoken publicly.
As for the woman whose photo was used as the face of Lennay Kekua, "Inside Edition" has identified her as Diane O'Meara who is very much alive. The show caught up with her on Thursday, but she declined to comment.
ABC News' legal analyst Dan Abrams said that O'Meara may be the one person in the scandal with the power to sue since her likeness was taken and used without her permission.
As for Te'o, even if he knew about the deception, it appears that he did not do anything illegal.
"He's allowed to lie to the public. He's allowed to lie to the media. He's not allowed to lie to the authorities," Abrams said on "Good Morning America."
Questions also remain about the timeline of events and when Te'o discovered that the "love of his life," as he called her, was nothing more than a fake Internet persona.
According to Notre Dame's timeline of events, Te'o learned his girlfriend didn't exist on Dec. 6.
But in a Dec. 8 interview with South Bend, Ind., TV station WSBT, Te'o said, "I really got hit with cancer. I lost both my grandparents an my girlfriend to cancer." And on Dec. 11, he talked about his girlfriend in a newspaper interview.
Te'o alerted Notre Dame on Dec. 26 about the scam, the university said.
Click here for more scandalous public confessions.
Skeptics have also cited comments by Te'o's father Brian Te'o who told a newspaper how Kekua used to visit his son in Hawaii.
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the university launched their own investigation.
"Our investigators, through their work, were able to discover online chatter between the perpetrators," Swarbrick said at a Wednesday news conference. "That was sort of the ultimate proof."
ALGIERS (Reuters) - About 60 foreigners were still being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants, who threatened to attack other energy installations.
The attack, which plunged capitals around the world into crisis mode, is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.
"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.
A local Algerian source said 60 foreigners were still in the facility and some were being held hostage, but it was unclear how many and how many might be in hiding elsewhere in the sprawling compound. It was also not known whether some might have been killed and the bodies not found.
Those still unaccounted for included 10 from Japan, eight Norwegians and a number of Britons put by Cameron at "less than 30". Washington has said a number of Americans were among the hostages, without giving details, and the local source said a U.S. aircraft landed nearby on Friday.
As Western leaders clamored for news of their nationals, several expressed anger they had not been consulted by the Algerian government about its decision to storm the facility.
Algeria's state news agency said earlier more than half of 132 foreign hostages were freed and that the army had rescued 650 hostages, 573 of whom were Algerians.
"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.
Thirty hostages, including several Westerners, were killed during Thursday's assault, the source said, along with at least 18 of their captors, who said they had taken the site as retaliation for French intervention against Islamists in neighboring Mali.
(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
TOULOUSE, France - European group Airbus lost its top spot as the world's biggest maker of airliners to the US giant Boeing last year, but did better than expected and sees big sales this year, it said on Thursday.
Publishing results just as Boeing is hit by a crisis of confidence in its Dreamliner plane after a series of incidents, Airbus said that last year it delivered 588 aircraft to 89 customers, a record after 534 deliveries in 2011.
But sales of the flagship superjumbo A380, the biggest airliner in the world, disappointed, coming in at about one third of the target figure after a problem was discovered with the wings which the company says is now behind it.
Airbus sold a total of 833 aircraft last year, far more than the initial target figure of 650, chief executive Fabrice Bregier told a press conference near where Airbus is based at Toulouse, southern France.
However, the sales figure was far lower than the record of 1,419 sales in 2011.
Boeing delivered 601 airliners last year and took 1,203 orders.
For this year, Airbus expects to take 700 orders, excluding any cancellations, and to deliver more than 600 planes.
The order book now total 4,682 planes representing about eight years of production work.
Airbus said that it hoped that its new long-range A350 aircraft would make its maiden flight at the end of June or beginning of July.
Referring to the A350, Bregier said: "We have made reasonable good progress but I will keep cautious until the end.
"For the first flight, we expect it by mid of this year which is a big milestone, mid means end of June or early July...We are not optimistic nor pessimistic but realistic."
He added: "I'm very humble. Lots of risks are behind us but I'm interested in what is in front (of us)."
Of the 833 net orders last year, allowing for 81 cancellations, 739 were for medium-range A320-type airliners, popular with low-cost airlines, and of those 478 were for the "neo" version with new more fuel-efficient engines. The orders also comprised 58 long-haul A330 aircraft and 27 of the future A350.
Airbus booked orders for nine of its A380 superjumbo jetliners.
Bregier said that Airbus, the main part of the giant European EADS aerospace group, had exceeded its targets in terms of new orders booked and of completed aircraft delivered, even though sales of the superjumbo had underperformed.
Airbus had counted on selling 30 of the superjumbos but this target was knocked off course by the discovery of micro-cracks in the wings which cooled some customer interest.
Bregier said that this problem had been "resolved" and said he expected that this year the company would take 25 orders and would also deliver 25 of the enormous aircraft.
Referring to the position of Airbus in the global market and to the "neo" version, Bregier observed: "When we do better than expected we can be satisfied. When we see we are still in the leading position on neo market, we can be satisfied."
He said: "We started earlier with a good product. If we do the right job and I plan to do the right job, it's a huge advantage."
In view of the rapid growth, the airline has recruited a net number of 7,000 people in the last two years, hiring 10,000 while 3,000 have left for normal reasons.
The company cut 10,000 jobs between 2007 and 2009 as it restructured after a severe crisis over delays to the superjumbo programme which revealed weaknesses in the industrial workflow system.
The company now employs 59,000 people and expects to recruit 3,000 this year.
This is in contrast to many substantial employers in France which are restructuring with big job cuts, and the economy as a whole is struggling to boost its export performance and raise the niche speciality of its industrial products.
The Airbus aircraft are built mainly in Germany, Britain and Spain, and in France where they are assembled in Toulouse.
- AFP/ir
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