'Child through rape is God's work'

Richard Mourdock has found himself in hot water for saying that a child born of rape is God's intention. Source: AP

INDIANA Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said when a woman becomes pregnant during a rape, "that's something God intended."

Mr Mourdock, who's been locked in one of the country's most watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate with Democratic challenger Joe Donnelly whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realise that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mr Mourdock said.

Mr Mourdock became the second Republican Senate candidate to find himself on the defensive over comments about rape and pregnancy. Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin said during a television interview in August that women's bodies have ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape." Since his comment, Mr Akin has repeatedly apologised but has refused to leave the race despite calls to do so by leaders of his own party, from Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on down.

It was not immediately clear what effect Mr Mourdock's comments might have during the final two weeks before the November 6 election. But they could prove problematic. Mr Romney distanced himself from Mr Mourdock overnight - a day after a television ad featuring the former Massachusetts governor supporting the Republican Senate candidate began airing in Indiana.

"Governor Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views," Mr Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. Romney aides would not say whether the ad would be pulled and if the Republican presidential nominee would continue to support Mr Mourdock's Senate bid.

Other Republicans did not immediately weigh in. Indiana Republican Party spokesman Pete Seat referred comment to the Mourdock campaign. A spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a spokeswoman for Mr Romney did not immediately return a request for comment.

National Democrats quickly picked up on Mr Mourdock's statement and used it as an opportunity to paint him as an extreme candidate, calling him a tea party "zealot." DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz described Mr Mourdock's comments as "outrageous and demeaning to woman" and called on Mr Romney to take his pro-Mourdock ad off the air.

After the debate, Mr Mourdock further explained he did not believe God intended the rape, but that God is the only one who can create life.

"Are you trying to suggest somehow that God preordained rape, no I don't think that," said Mr Mourdock. "Anyone who would suggest that is just sick and twisted. No, that's not even close to what I said."

In response, Mr Donnelly said after the debate in southern Indiana that he doesn't believe "my God, or any God, would intend that to happen.".

Along with Mr Romney's ad, top Republicans have been flocking to Indiana as part of an effort to break open the high-stakes Senate. Republicans need to gain three seats, or four if President Barack Obama wins re-election, and seats that were predicted to remain or turn Republican have grown uncertain.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to Indianapolis for a fundraiser Monday, and Arizona Senator John McCain and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham campaigned for Mr Mourdock last week.

Mr Romney's coattails carry special significance in deeply conservative Indiana, where Mr Mourdock has underperformed Mr Romney by 12 points in most public polls. Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS also has bought another $US1 million ($972,000) of airtime in Indiana, making his group the biggest player in Indiana's Senate race. A message left for Crossroads GPS spokesman Nate Hodson was not immediately returned.

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Pussy Riot punks sent to prison camps

Imprisoned women stand during morning inspection at a women's prison in a town of Sarapul, central Russia. Source: AP

JAILED Pussy Riot punks Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina have arrived at prison camps in remote Russian regions, a defence lawyer says.

"Tolokonnikova has arrived at corrective labour camp 14 in Mordovia and Alyokhina has arrived at camp 32 in Perm," lawyer Violetta Volkova told the Interfax news agency.

"We do not have official information. I found this out from my sources, they checked it," Ms Volkova added.

The Russian prison service is obliged to inform the women's relatives of their location within 10 days of their arrival.

The Mordovia camp, known for its harsh conditions, is the same one where the only woman convicted in the Yukos oil case that saw the jailing of Russia's former richest man Mikhail Khodorkovsky, lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, served time from 2006 until October 2008.

A police officer guards members of the all-girl punk band Pussy Riot (L-R) Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in a glass cage in a court in Moscow, on October 10, 2012.

The Perm camp is seen as a more pleasant option since it is in a city, although Perm is about 1400 kilometres from Moscow, where Alyokhina's young son lives.

The two women were sentenced to two years for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after they performed a "punk prayer" in a Moscow cathedral.

Bandmate Yekaterina Samutsevich was released on appeal with a suspended sentence because guards grabbed her before she could take part.

Bakhmina, now 43, told New Times opposition magazine that Camp No. 14 had no hot water and the only way to wash was once a week in a Turkish-style bath. Some women used to open radiator valves in winter to get warm water, she said.

While Bakhmina was convicted of the financial crime of embezzlement, she said she lived and slept in a section including murderers.

If Volkova is correct, Tolokonnikova will be in the same camp as Yevgenia Khasis, the partner of a nationalist activist who shot a rights lawyer and a journalist in broad daylight in Moscow in 2009.

Khasis was sentenced to 18 years for complicity in the murders.

The regional prison service posted photographs of a recent visitors' day at the camp showing the women in shabby green jackets and trousers meeting family members and in the prison chapel.

The camp's prisoners bake cookies for sale and sew uniforms, the prison service said.

Mordovia in central Russia is a region dotted with lakes that has a large number of prison camps, which grew up in the 1930s as part of the Stalin-era Gulag system of labour camps.
 

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Rogue trader gets $6b fine, jail time

French rogue trader Jerome Kerviel (L) flanked by his lawyer David Koubbi (R) arrives at court to hear the verdict in his fraud case. Source: AFP

THE Paris court has ordered former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel to spend three years in jail and pay back 4.9 billion euros ($6.2 billion).

The 35-year-old Kerviel, who never profited personally from his unauthorised trades, says he was a scapegoat for the bank and a victim of a financial system that runs on greed and profits.

His lawyer David Koubbi called the verdict "absolutely lamentable" and said his team will consider taking the case to France's highest court.

A lower court convicted Kerviel in October 2010 of forgery, breach of trust and unauthorised computer use for covering up bets worth nearly 50 billion euros in 2007 and 2008. By the time his trades were discovered and made public, he had amassed losses of almost 5 billion euro on those bets.

The sentence - a five-year prison term, with two years suspended, plus the payback of all the losses he incurred - shocked many in the French public. After a global financial crisis that many blamed on big banks, many believed Kerviel's claim that he was a victim of an unjust system.

The appeals court upheld the full conviction and sentence. It did not send Kerviel directly to prison, leaving him free pending his decision on whether to appeal to the Court of Cassation. He has five days to make that decision.

Kerviel arrived at the courthouse in a dark suit and looking tense and left through a back entrance without speaking to reporters. He had sought an acquittal, saying the bank had turned a blind eye to his exorbitant trades as long as they made money. Prosecutors and the bank say that isn't true.

Societe Generale lawyer Jean Veil said the verdict was "a great satisfaction." He suggested the bank wouldn't make Kerviel pay back the full multibillion-euro sum, and would take into account his income and assets.

"Societe Generale will look at it with realism," Mr Veil told reporters.

But he added, "It would have been indecent for Mr. Kerviel to be able to preserve revenues coming from the exploitation of his fraud" such as book or movie deals.

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Ecuador 'very worried' about Assange

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange addresses the press and supporters from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on August 19, 2012. Source: AFP

ECUADOR is 'very concerned' about the health of Julian Assange after the WikiLeaks founder lost a lot of weight while staying at the country's embassy in London, a foreign ministry official said this week while in Moscow.

The deputy foreign minister of Ecuador, Marco Albuja, expressed his concern for Assange as he gave a briefing to Russian press after wrapping up his delegation's visit to Russia.

"Assange has visibly lost weight, and we are very concerned for his health," he said, quoted by the Voice of Russia radio.

"In case of his illness we will have to pick among two options: to treat Mr Assange at the embassy or to hospitalise him."

Ecuador has asked the British government for written assurances that Assange, who has been granted asylum by Quito and remains holed-up in the embassy building in London, will not be arrested in case of hospitalisation.

Protesters show their support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange outside Ecuador's embassy in London.

"So far Britain has not agreed to this request but is thinking it over," Mr Albuja said.

The Ecuadorean embassy in Moscow said on Wednesday that the delegation was in Moscow to meet with Russian foreign ministry officials and discuss bilateral affairs such as flower trade.

Former computer hacker Assange, 41, walked into the London embassy on June 19 claiming asylum in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning over alleged rape and sexual assault.

He was granted asylum on August 16 but Britain refuses to grant him safe passage out of the country, and he remains in the embassy with Ecuador in a diplomatic stalemate with Britain.

Assange denies the sex crimes allegations and claims he could eventually be passed from Sweden to the United States for prosecution over the WikiLeaks website's publication of hundreds of thousands of classified US documents.

WikiLeaks enraged Washington in 2010 by publishing a flood of secret military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a huge cache of diplomatic cables from US embassies across the world.

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Kennedy cousin denied parole for murder

Michael Skakel, nephew of Robert F Kennedy's widow Ethel, has said he is innocent during a parole hearing. Skakel was convicted of bashing a girl to death with a golf club when he and the victim were 15 years old.   Source: AP

KENNEDY cousin Michael Skakel has been denied his first bid for parole since he was convicted a decade ago of killing his neighbor in 1975.

A Connecticut parole board rejected Skakel's request following a two-hour hearing overnight in which he proclaimed he is innocent.

Skakel is serving 20 years to life for fatally beating Martha Moxley with a golf club in 1975 in Greenwich when they were 15. Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy.

The victim's mother, Dorthy Moxley, said during the hearing at a prison in Suffield, Connecticut, that Skakel should serve at least 20 years.

The chair of the parole board, Erika Tindill, says it was odd for Skakel to ask for early release while proclaiming his innocence.

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Virgin space project delayed again

Branson, we have a problem... billionaire Richard Branson, pictured here on his recent trip to Poland, says his space tourism project keeps being pushed back.
Source: AFP

BRITISH billionaire Richard Branson says his space tourism project keeps being pushed back and he isn't sure of an exact date for the first launch.

He says it will be at least another 12 or 18 months before the Virgin Galactic venture can offer paid space travel to adventurers.

The founder of the Virgin Group met with students on his first visit to Poland on Wednesday, where he came to launch Virgin Academy, which will help young people kick start their own businesses.

Asked about Virgin Galactic, Branson said he has "stopped counting" days to the launch because it gets delayed "to the next year, to the next year."

More than 100 would-be space tourists have signed up for the $US200,000 ($195,000) two-hour trips that go 100 kilometres above Earth.

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Facebook shares soar on mobile gains

Something to smile about: Facebook shares jumped 22 per cent on smartphone gains as CEO Mark Zuckerberg, pictured, said the company was "just getting started on mobile product development and monetisation".
Source: AP

SHARES of Facebook have soared 22 per cent after the company declared it was already taking in strong advertising revenues from the migration of users to smartphones.

Five months after its disastrous IPO, sunk by a share oversupply, computer glitches and real doubts over its mobile strategy, Facebook turned in earnings late on Tuesday that showed strong growth in advertising revenues, with 14 percent coming from mobile platforms like smartphones and tablet computers.

The company booked a loss of $US59 million ($57 million), weighed down by accounting rules requiring it to set aside reserves for stock compensation.

But excluding those costs, which it said should diminish in 2013, net earnings were a positive $US311 million and earnings per share hit 12 cents, one cent above analyst expectations.

Advertising brought in $1.1 billion in the third quarter, up 36 per cent from a year earlier and 11 per cent from the prior quarter.

The results sent the company's shares sharply higher; at around 11.00 am local time they were up 21.6 per cent at $23.71.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts late Tuesday that the company was on top of the mobile challenge, and that it expected that eventually revenues would be strongest from mobile users.

"I want to dispel this myth that Facebook can't make money on mobile," Mr Zuckerberg told analysts in a conference call.

"We're just getting started with our mobile product development and monetisation," he said.

The share price was still well below the May 18 IPO release at $38, but no longer hovering close to the low of $17.55 struck in early September.

But the price still faces challenges. On October 29 a post-IPO restriction on employees selling their shares expires, potentially allowing the release of some 234 million shares into the market.

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Google sets out to map Grand Canyon

Google operations manager Steve Silverman stands along the canyon wall wearing the Trekker at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Source: AP

GOOGLE and its street-view cameras have been mounted on a backpack for the first time and down into the Grand Canyon.

It's the latest evolution in mapping technology for the Mountain View, California, company, which has used a rosette of cameras to photograph thousands of cities and towns in dozens of countries for its Street View feature.

With a click of the mouse, internet users are transported virtually for a 360-degree view of locales they may have read about only in tourist books and seen in flat, 2-D images.

"Any of these sort of iconic, cultural, historical locations that are not accessible by road is where we want to go," said Ryan Falor, product manager at Google.

Google announced the trek earlier this year but made its first official collection of data this week at the Grand Canyon.

The backpacks aren't ready for volunteer use, but Google has said it wants to deploy them at national forests, to the narrow streets of Venice, Mount Everest and to ancient ruins and castles.

The move to capture the Grand Canyon comes after Apple chose to drop Google Maps from its mobile operating systems and opted to use its own mapping program that was derided for, among other things, poor directions and missing towns.

Steve Silverman, operations manager for Google didn't directly address the competition in saying: "Just trying to document a trail, it's going to be hard to beat this."

Google launched its Street View feature in 2007 and has expanded from 5 US cities to more than 3000 in 43 countries. Google teams and volunteers have covered more than 5 million miles with the Street View vehicles on a scale that other companies haven't approached, said Mike Dobson, president of Telemapics, a company that monitors mapping efforts.

"You could safely say that it's a standout, well-used application and they don't really have any competition," he said.

As the sun rose on Monday, Luc Vincent, Google engineering director, strapped on one of the 18-kilogram backpacks and set down the Bright Angel Trail to the Colorado River - a nearly 16-kilometre hike that goes from 2100-metres in elevation to 731 metres.

He hiked back up from Phantom Ranch through the South Kaibab Trail and also gathered data on other trails.

The so-called trekker captures images every 2.5 seconds with 15 cameras that are 75 megapixels each, from the rest areas, the steep switchbacks, the change from juniper trees to scrub brush and the traffic that moves aside as a courtesy to mule riders.

The GPS data is limited, so Google must compensate with sensors that record temperature, vibrations and the orientation of the device as it changes, before it stiches the images together and makes them available to users in a few months, Mr Falor said.

Hikers that were on the trail when the data was gathered will have their faces blurred - an attempt by Google to ensure privacy. Street View has run into problems in places like Europe and Australia for scooping up information transmitted over unsecured wireless networks.

A removable hard drive on the trekker stores the data gathered at the Grand Canyon. Tourists looked at the trekker strangely this week, as if it was something from outer space.

Sharon Kerfoot, a first-time visitor from Alberta said being able to view the terrain ahead of time, gauge the difficulty of the hike and know just how wide the path is would benefit those considering a trip to the Grand Canyon. She and a group of friends headed down the same path as Vincent but on mules, not foot.

"I think it's an excellent idea to give people a broader perspective on what they're getting into," she said.

What the images won't tell visitors is how much water they should carry down the trails, how to prepare for temperature changes, what type of food to bring and how much, and how best to protect the natural resources, park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said.

"Stitched together with other information out there, the technology could be valuable," she said.

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Gunman kills parishioner in megachurch

A gunman is still at large after opening fire in an Georgian megachurch, killing one person. Source: The Daily Telegraph

POLICE say one person was killed when a gunman, who is still at large, opened fire inside a Georgian megachurch just south of Atlanta.

Fulton County Police Cpl. Kay Lester says the suspect got away in a vehicle, and was still at large around 11am local time (2am AEDT) after the shooting at World Changers Church International.

The church is one of the nation's largest. It is led by the Reverend Creflo Dollar, its founder and senior pastor. There was no indication that he was injured.

Mr Lester said she didn't know how many shots were fired.

Church officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

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