Kissing checks on China students

Students at a university in eastern China have posted complaints on the internet about kissing patrols set up by the authorities.

China: The patrols at Nanjing Forestry University watch out for couples who are hugging, kissing or sitting too close to each other.

The university says the patrols will "clean up the atmosphere" on campus.

Teachers supervise the patrols, which are staffed by fellow student volunteers working two-hour shifts.

On the college's internet bulletin boards one woman describes how she and her boyfriend were sitting together when a patrol spotted them. The patrol member got behind them and kept coughing until they moved apart.

Others complain that the university authorities should spend their time managing the institution, not regulating young lovers, and speak of their shame at the publicity the crackdown has generated.

In one of the complaints, student Gui Ya, says: "The news is spreading over the internet. It's like being naked and shown to the public."

And a colleague with the user name Raymondxiao moans: "The action is a shame. The university is not going to be a real university."

Another bulletin board complaint from Yi Fu Jia Da Po Tou says: "There are no human rights on this issue."

Volunteers who turn a blind eye to an infraction are said to face penalties themselves, although calls to the university to confirm this went unanswered.

Google offers free holiday Wi-Fi at airports

You're stuck in an airport terminal, desperate to check your e-mail, but your iPhone's battery is dead from having watched the entire 1980's classic Short Circuit during your flight delay. So, you crack open your MacBook and fire up your e-mail client.

Then, some jerky airport Wi-Fi provider wants you to pony up $10 for the 20 minutes you'll spend goofing off getting work done online before you join the angst-filled crowd hovering around the pre-boarding lines.

Not this year, greedy WiFi-hoarding overlords!

This holiday season, Google is offering free WiFi at 47 participating airports, from now through January 15th, 2010. According to the FAQ, Google's doing this "to make the holiday travel crush a little easier." To that end, the company is working with Boingo, Advanced Wireless Group, Time Warner Cable, Electronic Media Systems, Lilypad, and other airport Wi-Fi providers to foot the bill for airport travelers. The search giant also struck a similar deal earlier this year with airline Virgin America to provide free Wi-Fi on its flights.

And Google's holiday spirit doesn't stop with the free Wi-Fi. The company will also prompt folks using the gratis Internet connection to make donations (via Google Checkout, of course) to one of several non-profits—and will match the donations to boot (up to a maximum of $250,000). You're not required to make a donation to use the free Wi-Fi, but doing so just might help you feel a bit more jolly.

If your airport isn't on the list—like LAX, SFO, EWR, JFK, BOS, and many others—you can continue to project Grinch-like misanthropy onto the greedy purveyors of overpriced Wi-Fi.

Jennifer Lopez Files $10M Suit Against Ex-Husband Over Sex Tape.Reports

The mega-star attempts to block release of steamy footage from 1997 honeymoon with ex Ojani Noa

This is one hot video Jennifer Lopez doesn't want to see shooting up the charts.

Thanks to a first husband she cannot seem to shake, the "Jenny from the Block" singer has found herself embroiled in a Paris Hilton-like sex-tape scandal over steamy footage the former lovebirds shot on their 1997 honeymoon -- which ex Ojani Noa now wants to cash in on.

The sultry singer/actress filed a $10 million lawsuit against Noa, claiming that he breached a confidentiality agreement and was also peddling the sexy home videos. And yesterday, a Los Angeles judge ordered Noa to put the wraps on the intimate footage -- at least for now.

The hot footage, which reportedly also includes scenes of an embarrassing, ugly argument between J.Lo and her mom, is allegedly part of a movie titled "How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The J.Lo and Ojani Noa Story."

Artificial Penis Tissue Proves Promising in Lab Tests

One day artificial penis tissue could be grown to help men, new findings in rabbits now suggest.

After implantation with replacement tissue, lab rabbits that once had damaged penises had working organs and could produce offspring.

"Further studies are required, of course, but our results are encouraging and suggest that the technology has considerable potential for patients who need penile reconstruction," said researcher Dr. Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Such methods could potentially aid men who just want to enhance their normal penises, rather than repairing any damage.

"Our intent and the goal of our work is to provide a solution for men who need penile erectile tissue for medical reasons," Atala told LiveScience. "Of course, you cannot control how the technology is used in terms of what patients want."

The real hope is "that patients with congenital abnormalities, penile cancer, traumatic injury and some cases of erectile dysfunction will benefit from this technology in the future," Atala said.

Click here to read more from Live Science.

Japan pledges two, five bln dlrs for Pak and Afghanistan

TOKYO: Japan's government decided to pledge five billion dollars in new aid over five years from 2010 to help rebuild war-torn Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday.

Media reports said the government also pledged two billion dollars in assistance for neighbouring Pakistan in a decision that came days before US President Barack Obama visits Tokyo on Friday and Saturday.

"The government decided to extend five billion dollars in assistance to Afghanistan over the next five years," said a news agency report that was confirmed by a foreign ministry official.

The cabinet of centre-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama early Tuesday agreed the plan for the aid, likely to be disbursed through international organisations such as the UN Development Programme.

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White House: No Afghanistan troop decision made

WASHINGTON:  White House National Security Adviser Retired Gen. Jim Jones issued a rare public statement Monday vehemently denying media reports that suggest U.S. President Barack Obama has privately decided to send close to 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

"Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false," Jones, who has a low public profile, said in a statement. "He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources. Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources."

The statement was issued shortly after CBS News' veteran Pentagon correspondent David Martin reported that Obama has "tentatively decided" to send four more combat brigades to Afghanistan and thousands more support troops starting early next year. That would bring the total number of new troops to close to the 40,000 more troops originally requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Two other senior administration officials told CNN that the CBS report and other similar speculation is false.

The two senior administration officials suggested the information is being leaked by Pentagon sources who are trying to box in Obama by setting public expectations that he will send close to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, as requested by McChrystal.

"People at the Pentagon are trying to force a certain outcome," one of the senior administration officials told CNN.

Both senior administration officials insisted Obama has not made any decision on troop levels in Afghanistan, noting that the president has another meeting with his national security team Wednesday to receive a final set of recommendations from the Pentagon brass. The senior officials said the president could not possibly make a decision on troop levels before receiving the Pentagon's final recommendations.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday it was "doubtful" that Obama will announce a troop decision before he leaves for a trip to Asia on Thursday. Gibbs added it was also unlikely that Obama would make such an announcement during his trip to Asia, which is largely focused on economic matters and separate diplomatic issues like North Korea's nuclear program.

Obama is scheduled to return from Asia on November 20, after stops in Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea. Officials have suggested Obama could announce a troop decision shortly before or after Thanksgiving.

Gibbs has said repeatedly the decision will be revealed in "coming weeks."

2 pregnant women die from H1N1

RALEIGH:  Two pregnant North Carolina women died of pandemic H1N1 flu during the week of Oct. 25, state health officials confirmed Monday.

A spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services declined to identify where the two women lived.

In addition to the two pregnant women, three other people died in North Carolina from "influenza-like illness" during the week of Oct. 25.

Up through Sept. 26, North Carolina reported only deaths and hospitalizations attributed to the H1N1 virus. On Sept. 27, the state expanded its reporting to cover hospitalizations and deaths attributed to any influenza-like illnesses, whether seasonal flu or pandemic H1N1 flu.

A total of 12 deaths and 267 hospitalizations this year, through Sept. 26, were attributed to laboratory-confirmed H1N1 virus. Since Sept. 27, the state says 32 North Carolinians have died from influenza-related viruses, including H1N1.

The reporting change was ordered by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide a fuller picture of the impact of flu, since the number of laboratory-confirmed pandemic H1N1 flu cases is much lower than the true number of cases.

Both pregnant women and children are considered high-risk groups for infection by the H1N1 virus and have priority for the vaccine.

News of the deaths came as Wake County ran out of the vaccine and shut down H1N1 flu clinics Monday afternoon. County health officials say they expect to reopen the clinics when they receive additional doses.

Many physician practices and pharmacies still have the vaccine available.

Berlin Marks 20th Anniversary of Wall's Fall

BERLIN:  World leaders, dignitaries and thousands of visitors are in Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is a time to remember the past and celebrate the November day in 1989 that changed the future.

Despite the rain, crowds gathered at the Bornholm Bridge, the first checkpoint in the Berlin Wall to open the night of November 9, 1989.

The Wall stood for nearly three decades, dividing the city and Germany into East and West. But in the end, protests and peaceful revolutions, such as in Poland, and changes in Moscow brought it down. That led to the reunification of Germany and the end of the Cold War.

In a gesture full of symbolism, Chancellor Angela Merkel crossed from one side to other, accompanied by VIP guests, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former Polish labor leader and president Lech Walesa, and civil rights activists of 20 years ago.

Mrs. Merkel said meeting here was especially significant.

She said there is joy in the possibilities that opened up at this very bridge, noting it was the result of a long struggle against oppression. She thanked Lech Walesa and his Solidarity Labor movement in Poland and Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist leader in Moscow. Both paved the way for what would happen in Germany in 1989.

World leaders and dignitaries have gathered to join in the 20th anniversary celebrations, which include open air concerts, fireworks, and the symbolic collapse of a wall of brightly painted oversize dominoes. The dominoes have been set up to run for one and a half kilometers in an area where the Wall once stood, and late Monday they will be toppled - much like the Wall was two decades ago.

Organizers of the anniversary events say they want the festivities to connect with ordinary people - to show that it was people power, with the help of reform-minded political leaders, that brought down the Wall and changed the course of history.

Berlin Wall festivities not just a party: Clinton

BERLIN: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Europeans and Americans on Sunday to see the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall as a call to action against new global threats.

On the eve of celebrations marking 20 years since the collapse of the wall that divided East and West Berlin, Clinton said the hard work that went into ending the Cold War must be channeled to meet fresh challenges, including the fights against extremism and climate change.

As the Obama administration looks to often reluctant European allies to bolster their NATO forces in Afghanistan, Clinton said Monday's commemoration of Nov. 9, 1989, the night "when history pierced the concrete and concertina wire," must look forward and not back.

"Our history did not end the night the wall came down, it began anew," she told a group of U.S. and European dignitaries while accepting a Freedom Award on behalf of the American people from The Atlantic Council, a group that promotes trans-Atlantic ties.

The moment the festivities begin "should be a call to action, not just a commemoration of past actions," Clinton said. "That call should spur us to continue our cooperation and look for new ways that we can meet the challenges that freedom faces now."

"We owe it to ourselves and to those who yearn for the same freedoms that are enjoyed and even taken for granted in Berlin today," she said.

Clinton praised U.S.-European collaboration on ending the world financial crisis as well as steps to cooperate on global warming. She also hailed NATO security operations, from Afghanistan to fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia.

But she said the spirit of the Berlin Wall's destruction — the symbolic end to the Cold War — had to be reinforced.

"We need to form an even stronger partnership to bring down the walls of the 21st century and to confront those who hide behind them: suicide bombers, those who murder and maim girls whose only wish is to go to school, leaders who chose their own fortune over the fortune of their people."

Clinton will lead the U.S. delegation to Monday's ceremonies in Berlin.

Other speakers at The Atlantic Council event on Sunday were more blunt.

Former U.S. national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who served under Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush, lamented that trans-Atlantic cooperation and understanding had fallen off in the two decades since the Berlin Wall fell.

"We no longer have an intimacy of dialogue like we had in 1989," he said. "It's important that we restore that closeness in order that we can all in unity face the challenges confronting us."

Other U.S. foreign policy veterans at the event included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.