Google+ challenges Facebook in new battle

Online search giant Google has launched a new social networking website in a bid to take on Facebook, which now has more than 500m users, says a report by the BBC.

The website, Google+, allows users to share photos, messages and comments and also integrates Google's maps and images into the service. It also aims to help users organize contacts within groups.

While Google claims the new service boasted of a number of new functions, some observers say it has simply added a video chat function before reproducing features of Facebook, according to the report.

Google has made several attempts to compete with Facebook in recent years. But its previous efforts ended in failure, with both Google Wave and Google Buzz proving unpopular with users.

The current version of Google+ has only been released to a limited number of users, according to the report, but Google said it hopes to make the social network soon available to the millions of users that access its services each day.

In April, Google reached an out-of-court settlement with a US policy group over its Google Buzz service. The legal action claimed Google deceived users and violated its own privacy policy by automatically enrolling all Gmail users in its Buzz social network without seeking prior permission.

Saudi will seek nukes if Iran gets them

LONDON: Saudi Arabia has warned NATO that it would pursue policies that could lead to "untold and possibly dramatic consequences" if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The British newspaper quoted Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington and Britain, speaking to senior NATO officials earlier this month at an unpublicised meeting at a British air base.

Faisal did not outline what the policies would be, but the newspaper quoted an unnamed Saudi official in Riyadh it said was close to the prince as saying that Iranian nuclear weapons would compel the Gulf state do develop its own nuclear arms.

"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't ... If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit," the British newspaper quoted the official as saying.

The art of Guantanamo Bay prisoners

The art of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

Osama wasn't running al Qaida from Abbottabad: officials

ABBOTTABAD: Osama bin Laden was out of touch with the younger generation of al-Qaida commanders, and they often didn't follow his advice during the years he was in hiding in Abbottabad, US and Pakistani officials say.

According to the American newspaper, Contradicting the assertions of some American officials that bin Laden was running a "command and control" center from the walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, officials say that bin Laden clearly wasn't in control of al Qaida, though he was trying to remain involved or at least influential.

"He was like the cranky old uncle that people weren't listening to," said a US official, who'd been briefed on the evidence collected from the Abbottabad compound and who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The younger guys had never worked directly with him. They did not take everything he said as right."

One new detail, discovered by US newspaper, is that the bin Laden household was buying and selling gold jewelry, perhaps as a way to raise money. Another is that for a household that included at least nine women and twice that many children, its consumption of electricity and gas was far less than that of neighboring households, a sign either of bin Laden's legendary frugality or an indication that the terrorist leader simply had run out of money and was living as cheaply as he could.

Afghan hotel assault; all attackers killed

KABUL: Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a top Kabul hotel, sparking a five-hour battle with Afghan commandos backed by a NATO helicopter in an assault that left at least 10 people dead Wednesday.

Red tracer bullets arced through the night sky around the hilltop Intercontinental Hotel, whose faded grandeur frequently pays host to Afghan officials and foreigners. Part of the building was in flames.

The state-owned 1960s hotel, which is not part of the global InterContinental chain, was hosting delegates attending an Afghan security conference and a large wedding party when the insurgents struck at dinner-time.

Kabul police chief Ayub Salangi said that 10 people, mostly workers at the hotel, were killed in the raid.

"Unfortunately as a result of this terrorist attack, 10 of our countrymen, all of them civilians lost their lives," he said, adding that three police were also injured.more