Bra for the boys an online bestseller in Japan...

Reuters

Fri Nov 21,2008. TOKYO (Reuters) - Who said bras are only for women? A Japanese online lingerie retailer is selling bras for cross-dressing men and they've quickly become one of its most popular items.

Since launching two weeks ago on Rakuten, a major Japanese web shopping mall, the Wishroom shop has sold over 300 men's bras for 2,800 yen ($30) each. The shop also stocks men's panties, as well as lingerie for women.

"I like this tight feeling. It feels good," Wishroom representative Masayuki Tsuchiya told Reuters as he modeled the bra, which can be worn discreetly under men's clothing.

Wishroom Executive Director Akiko Okunomiya said she was surprised at the number of men who were looking for their inner woman.

"I think more and more men are becoming interested in bras. Since we launched the men's bra, we've been getting feedback from customers saying 'wow, we'd been waiting for this for such a long time'," she said.

But the bra, available in black, pink and white, is not an easy sell for all men.

The underwear has stirred a heated debate online with more than 8,000 people debating the merits of men wearing bras in one night on Mixi, Japan's top social network website.

($1=94.34 Yen)

(Reporting by Toshi Maeda, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Top anti-drink cop caught drunk driving...

Reuters

Tue Nov 18, TOKYO (Reuters) - A senior Tokyo police official tasked with keeping the city's roads clear of drunk drivers has been arrested for driving under the influence, police said on Tuesday.

The deputy inspector, on his way home from a camping site, was caught late on Monday after bumping into another car and veering off the road, said a police official in Ibaraki.

"He smelled of alcohol and he couldn't walk straight," the official said.

Local media said the arrested official had been in charge of a campaign to stop drunk driving, handing out stickers to bars and restaurants around the city.

"It is inexcusable for a member of the police to have caused this case and we plan to deal with it strictly," Tsutomu Sato, the head of the National Public Safety Commission told reporters.

(Reporting by Chisa Fujioka' Editing by David Fox)

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Too little sleep tied to increased cancer risk | Health |

Health Reuters By Will Dunham

Mon Nov 17, 2008. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regular exercise can reduce a woman's risk of cancer, but the benefits may slip away if she gets too little sleep, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The study involving 5,968 women in Maryland confirmed previous findings that people who do regular physical activity are less likely to develop cancer.

But when the researchers looked at the women ages 18 to 65 who were in the upper half in terms of the amount of physical exercise they got per week, they found that sleep appeared to play an important role in cancer risk.

Those who slept less than seven hours nightly had a 47 percent higher risk of cancer than those who got more sleep among the physically active women, the researchers reported at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"We think it's quite interesting and intriguing. It's kind of a first look into this. It isn't something that has been widely studied," James McClain of the National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. government's National Institutes of Health, said in a telephone interview.

McClain, who led the study, said it is unclear exactly how getting too little sleep may make one more susceptible to cancer. "Getting adequate sleep has been long associated with health," McClain said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls sleep loss an under-recognized public health problem, saying Americans are getting less and less slumber. The CDC said the percentage of adults reporting sleeping six hours or fewer a night increased from 1985 to 2006.

Sleep experts say chronic sleep loss is associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cardiovascular disease, depression, cigarette smoking and excessive drinking.

In addition, research had shown that people who get regular exercise have a reduced risk of breast, colon and other types of cancer. Experts think the effects of exercise on the body's hormone levels, immune function and body weight may play an important role.

(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen)

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Resort plans nude anything goes party...

Reuters

<---Tony Fox, the owner of the White Cockatoo resort in Mossman, in tropical Queensland state, and his wife Lenore pose in this undated handout photo at the resort. REUTERS/White Cockatoo/Handout

Thu Nov 13, 2008. CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian holiday resort will hold a month-long, nude "anything goes" party to combat an expected economic downturn, media reports said on Thursday.

"Tough economic times call for stiff measures," Tony Fox, the owner of the White Cockatoo resort in Mossman, in tropical Queensland state, told the Courier-Mail newspaper.

"It will be a hedonism resort, where anything goes for a month. It doesn't take rocket science to work out what it means," Fox said, naming March as the risque party month.

The controversial "clothes optional" resort made headlines three years ago when police were called to end partner-swapping parties after a swathe of public complaints.

"You've got to wonder what sort of people go and why. Where is the moral code of behavior and how do you stop jealousies and fights?" Cairns Catholic Bishop James Foley said after Fox's announcement.

But local regional Mayor Val Schier said she was not opposed to the event as long as no laws were broken.

"People in tropical north Queensland are extraordinarily creative," Schier said. "It is tough economic times and as long as it is with consenting adults, then there is no problem."

Australia's tourism in industry is being hit hard by global economic turmoil with official figures showing a 7.6 percent decline in overseas visitors in September.

Industry leaders expect holiday bookings may drop by up to a third in early 2009 and are planning a new international advertising campaign to coincide with the movie "Australia" starring Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman.

Fox said his resort was almost fully booked for the month-long rainforest party.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Miral Fahmy

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Canadian prisoner, too fat for cell, released early | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Reuters

Wed Nov 12, 2008. OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian prison authorities were forced to release a 450-pound (205 kg) drug gang member this week because he was too large for his cell, the Journal de Montreal newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Michel Lapointe -- known as Big Mike -- was arrested in September 2006 and received a five-year sentence in May this year. The paper said he could not fit on the chair in his Montreal prison cell and when he went to bed, his body protruded six inches on either side.

A letter from the authorities to Lapointe said: "You have been detained for more than 25 months and your prison conditions are difficult because of your health".

The authorities also cited the refusal of two other facilities to accept the 37-year-old. He was freed late on Tuesday.

"I'm going to have a proper bed and finally have a chair I can sit in," he told the paper outside the prison.

"I want a normal life. I've done some stupid things and I've paid for them," he said.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frank McGurty)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Preacher with 86 wives gets court reprieve...

Reuters By Tume Ahemba

Thu Nov 13, 2008. LAGOS (Reuters) - A Nigerian court said an 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives should be released from jail after he was held for failing to heed a call by local leaders to divorce all but four of the women, his lawyer said.

The authorities in central Niger state had charged Mohammed Bello with "insulting religious" creed and "unlawful marriages" after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him a September 7, 2008 deadline to comply with sharia, Islamic law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives.

He was jailed after he failed to comply.

"The Federal High Court granted Bello unconditional release yesterday," defense lawyer David Ikotun told Reuters by phone from Abuja.

Niger is one of 12 predominantly Islamic northern states that started a stricter enforcement of sharia eight years ago.

Bello, who lives with his wives and about 170 children in the town of Bida, had pleaded not guilty to the charges at an Upper Sharia Court in the state capital Minna. But the judge refused him bail and ordered he be remanded in prison.

Before his detention, the preacher had filed a petition at a Federal High Court in the Nigerian capital Abuja seeking to enforce his rights and to be protected from local chiefs and Muslim leaders who threatened to banish him if he failed to divorce 82 of his wives.

"The judge also ordered that the inspector general of police provide him with adequate protection to ensure that his fundamental human rights are not infringed," Ikotun said, adding that Bello was still in custody.

The Niger state government said it will appeal the judgment, the lawyer said.

The court adjourned Bello's hearing to December 12.

His case has stirred controversy in Africa's most populous country of 140 million people, roughly half of whom are Muslims.

The preacher had received a number of death threats after Nigerian media began reporting on his situation in September, his spokesman said.

(Editing by Randy Fabi and Matthew Jones)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Police chief arrests 48 relatives...

Reuters

Tue Nov 11, 2008. BEIJING (Reuters) - A police chief in a remote county of southwestern China has taken down 48 of his relatives, including brothers, cousins and a number of his wife's family, for various crimes, local media said on Tuesday.

Laobulaluo, a police chief in Heizhugou township, Sichuan province, had seen 25 relatives either jailed, sent for "re-education through labor," or punished in other ways, according to a report posted on state news portal Chinanews.com ( www.chinanews.com.cn ).

The police chief, who is in his 30s, is a member of China's Yi ethnic minority. Over a 10-year career, He had personally arrested a brother and two cousins after finding they had beaten local teachers at a primary school while drunk.

Other family members were arrested after stealing a woman's handbag.

The policeman's sense of duty had inflamed his relatives, some of whom had taken turns threatening his parents, and had "even secretly cut off the tails and slashed the legs of their cows," the report said.

"In the first few years, I did not dare head back to my hometown to pass the New Year holiday, but now it's all right. Everyone understands and supports what I was doing at the time," the report quoted him as saying.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved.

Philips - Eindhoven develops intelligent pill...

Technology Reuters

Wed Nov 12, 2008. AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch group Philips has developed an "intelligent pill" that contains a microprocessor, battery, wireless radio, pump and a drug reservoir to release medication in a specific area in the body.

Philips, one of the world's biggest hospital equipment makers, said Tuesday that the "iPill" capsule, measures acidity with a sensor to determine its location in the gut, and can then release drugs where they are needed.

Delivering drugs to treat digestive tract disorders such as Crohn's disease directly to the location of the disease means doses can be lower, reducing side effects, Philips said.

While capsules containing miniature cameras are already used as diagnostic tools, those lack the ability to deliver drugs, Philips said.

The "iPill" can also measure the local temperature and report it wirelessly to an external receiver.

The company plans to present the "iPill" at the annual meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in Atlanta this month.

The iPill is a prototype but suitable for serial manufacturing, Philips said.

(Reporting by Niclas Mika; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Google adds video and voice chat to Gmail...

Gmail Technology Reuters

Tue Nov 11, 2008. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc added a voice and video chat feature to its Gmail email service on Tuesday, launching a free Web-based service that competes with the likes of eBay's Skype.

Gmail and Google App subscribers can now choose to speak with friends on a video screen and simultaneously instant message them in a Google Chat box.

The video screen can be popped out of the chat box and moved around a user's computer screen. Users can also change the size of the screen and expand it to full-screen size.

"The idea was to make it quicker and easier to communicate with other people by whatever means is best convenient," said Google spokesman Jason Freidenfelds.

"It's a nice alternative for businesses looking for another way for people to connect," he added.

The feature is available for both PC and Apple computer users.

A webcam and small web browser plug-in are required to use the video chat. Users who do not have a webcam will still be able to chat with friends by voice.

(Reporting by Jennifer Martinez; Editing by Brian Moss)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Ballmer cracks Telstra jokes...

News - Communications - ZDNet Australia By: Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet.com.au

<--Steve Ballmer at Telstra's investor day this morning(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet.com.au)

Sydney 06 November 2008. 02:08 Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer cracked jokes at a Telstra event today as the telco's live demonstration of 21Mbps speeds on its Next G network came unravelled.

"I do have to say, I think I probably did it," laughed Ballmer, pointing out Telstra had already demonstrated the devices involved (which will launch in early 2009) to him privately.

"[Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo] wondered whether we were competing for all those years and we finally got things in constructive partnership and I went and ruined the first 21Mbps wireless demonstration ever. You're going to wonder about me again Sol I'm pretty sure," the Microsoft supremo added, referring to a partnership unveiled yesterday between his company and Telstra.

The telco has been upgrading its Next G network from its current 14.4 Mbps to 21Mbps, work which it hopes to finish by the end of this year. However, despite the high maximum theoretical speeds of the network, until now, devices have only been able to achieve speeds of 7.2Mbps.

The telco had recently announced that it was working together with Sierra Wireless, Qualcomm and Ericsson towards bringing out a faster device. Now Telstra will enjoy the fruits of the collaboration, with what it calls "the world's fastest mobile device" set to come out early next year.

When asked about when handsets might come out capable of 21Mbps speeds, Trujillo was coy. "That's clearly on the road map," he said.

"We're not only working with companies like Sierra and working on the dongle data card side of things, but we're also working with the companies that are in the handset side of things," he said. "Yes we will have devices ... but I'm not going to tell you when, because we like competing to win."

Later on this afternoon Ballmer will address an audience of software developers and Microsoft partners at Sydney's Darling Harbour conference centre; the speech will be broadcast live on ZDNet.com.au from 3:30pm AEST.

Tomorrow the executive is slated to address a business lunch hosted by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney.

Victim drives sleeping rapist to police station...

Reuters

Wed Nov 5, 2008. WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A New Zealand rape victim drove her rapist to a police station when he fell asleep in his car after assaulting the woman, local media reported on Wednesday.

Vipul Sharma, 22, was found guilty of abduction and two charges of rape by the Auckland District Court Tuesday, court officials told Reuters Wednesday.

The New Zealand newspaper said Sharma met the woman at an Auckland bar in 2006 and later drove her first to a park where he raped her in the back seat of his car.

After the attack Sharma allowed the woman to drive and fell asleep in the passenger seat, so the woman drove him to Auckland Central police station where he was arrested, said the newspaper.

"She showed a lot of bravery and common sense. I have nothing but respect for what she has endured," police detective Simon Welsh told the newspaper.

(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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Doctor sparks immigration controversy...

Reuters By Rob Taylor

Fri Oct 31, 2008. CANBERRA (Reuters) - A German doctor refused permission to live permanently in Australia because his son has Down Syndrome, on Friday promised to fight the decision as an immigration row erupted over his future.

Bernhard Moeller came to Australia two years ago with wife Isabella and three children to work at the Wimmera Base Hospital in rural Victoria state, and was given a temporary visa to help plug a critical doctor shortage in Australia.

But immigration officials refused permission for the Moellers to settle permanently because youngest son Lukas, 13, failed health tests and was judged by officials as likely to be a permanent drain on taxpayer funding due to his condition.

"I think they just use my skills as long as it is necessary, but they don't welcome my family," Moeller told Reuters.

Moeller, from Bad Driburg near Cologne, supervises intensive care for a community of 54,000 people. He said he was told by officials he was unwelcome because he had a mildly disabled son. Lukas is able to attend a normal school and play sports including cricket and football.

Moeller is the second German doctor to run into recent difficulties with Australian officials.

Thomas Kossman, chief trauma surgeon at a major Melbourne hospital, was suspended last year and accused of over-billing and carrying out complex surgery he was untrained for. Kossman says he is the victim a witch-hunt orchestrated by jealous rivals.

Australia has a critical doctor shortage, particularly in regional and rural areas. Many foreign doctors and nurses have been employed in the over-stretched health system.

Moeller's plight prompted thousands of public Internet and radio complaints from across Australia on Friday. Immigration officials defended their handling of the case, saying the family could seek intervention from Immigration Minister Chris Evans.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said she would immediately speak to Evans about reversing the decision, and was supported by powerful Victoria state government Premier John Brumby.

"We understand the importance of having doctors working in our rural and regional communities," Roxon said.

(Editing by Valerie Lee)

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Soup kitchen opens for dogs...

Reuters

Mon Nov 3, 2008. BERLIN (Reuters) - A soup kitchen exclusively for dogs has opened its doors in Berlin providing pets of the homeless and unemployed with a free meal, the director of the establishment said on Friday.

Despite the looming financial crisis, director Claudia Hollm dismissed criticism that it may be more sensible to collect money for humans than for dogs.

"Nowadays people underestimate dogs. They are incredibly important for those who lack social contact with other humans," Hollm told Reuters.

"Making sure dogs don't go hungry is just as important as making sure that people don't starve," she added.

Hollm, and her company "Animal Board," gets sponsorship from companies, including animal food manufacturers.

One woman who uses the free service said she had two dogs, four cats, a rabbit and some guinea pigs.

"Without this animal bread line, I'd probably starve to death," the 20-year old told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The opening of the soup kitchen follows last month's launch of a new bus service in Berlin for dogs, which shuttles their furry friends to a luxury dog day-care center.

(Reporting by Josie Cox)

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