Air Force To Train Battlefield Doctors

Chief Warrant Officer James Brad Smith broke five ribs, punctured a lung and shattered bones in his hand and thigh after falling more than 20 feet from a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad last month. While he was recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, his doctor suggested he add acupuncture to his treatment to help with the pain. On a recent morning, Col. Richard Niemtzow, an Air Force physician, carefully pushed a short needle into part of Smith's outer ear. The soldier flinched, saying it felt like he "got clipped by something." By the time three more of the tiny, gold alloy needles were arranged around the ear, though, the pain from his injuries began to ease. "My ribs feel numb now and I feel it a little less in my hand," Smith said, raising his injured arm. "The pain isn't as sharp. It's maybe 50 percent better. Acupuncture involves placing very thin needles at specific points on the body to try to control pain and reduce stress.

There are only theories about how, why and even whether it might work. Regardless, the ancient Chinese practice has been gradually catching on as a pain treatment for troops who come home wounded. Now the Air Force, which runs the military's only acupuncture clinic, is training doctors to take acupuncture to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. A pilot program starting in March will prepare 44 Air Force, Navy and Army doctors to use acupuncture as part of emergency care in combat and in frontline hospitals, not just on bases back home. They will learn "battlefield acupuncture," a method Niemtzow developed in 2001 that's derived from traditional ear acupuncture but uses the short needles to better fit under combat helmets so soldiers can continue their missions with the needles inserted to relieve pain. The needles are applied to five points on the outer ear. Niemtzow says most of his patients say their pain decreases within minutes.

The Navy has begun a similar pilot program to train its doctors at Camp Pendleton in California Niemtzow is chief of the acupuncture clinic at Andrews Air Force Base. He's leading the new program after training many of about 50 active duty military physicians who practice acupuncture. The U.S. military encountered acupuncture during the Vietnam War, when an Army surgeon wrote in a 1967 edition of Military Medicine magazine about local physicians who were allowed to practice at a U.S. Army surgical hospital and administered acupuncture to Vietnamese patients. Niemtzow started offering acupuncture in 1995 at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Several years later, he became the first full-time military medical acupuncturist for the Navy, which also provides health care for the Marines. Later, he established the acupuncture clinic at the Malcolm Grow

Medical Center at Andrews, and he continued to expand acupuncture by treating patients at Walter Reed and other Air Force bases in the country and in Germany. Niemtzow and his colleague Col. Stephen Burns administer about a dozen forms of acupuncture — including one type that uses lasers — to soldiers and their families every week. Col. Arnyce Pock, medical director for the Air Force Medical Corps, said acupuncture comes without the side effects that are common after taking traditional painkillers. Acupuncture also quickly treats pain. "It allows troops to reduce the number of narcotics they take for pain, and have a better assessment of any underlying brain injury they may have," Pock said. "When they're on narcotics, you can't do that because they're feeling the effects of the drugs." Niemtzow cautions that while acupuncture can be effective, it's not a cure-all. "In some instances it doesn't work," he said. "But it can be another tool in one's toolbox to be used in addition to painkillers to reduce the level of pain even further."

Smith says the throbbing pain in his leg didn't change with acupuncture treatment but that the pain levels in his arm and ribs were the lowest they've been since he was injured. He also said that he didn't feel groggy afterward, a side-effect he usually experiences from the low-level morphine he takes. Ultimately, Niemtzow would like troops to learn acupuncture so they can treat each other while out on missions. For now, the Air Force program is limited to training physicians. He says it's "remarkable" for the military, a "conservative institution," to incorporate acupuncture. "The history of military medicine is rich in development," he said, "and a lot of people say that if the military is using it, then it must be good for the civilian world."

Surging Towards Stalemate In Afghanistan

The United States will soon double the number of its troops in Afghanistan from about 30,000 to 60,000, and several other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries will also up their troop levels. The move comes with little surprise and considerable bipartisan support in the US, but with little public discussion of the aims and likely outcomes. Evocative as the move is with similar events in Iraq that are generally (though perhaps uncritically) credited with bringing stability there, it is hoped that a similar outcome will come about in Afghanistan, where the situation has deteriorated badly while US attention has been focused on Iraq and Iran. The troop surge in Afghanistan will strengthen defenses around major cities such as Kabul, Jalalabad, Gardez and Kandahar, countering the Taliban's infiltration and growing presence in city neighborhoods. (Though Afghan guerrilla movements are thought rural, during the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the mujahideen were able to operate in many cities, especially Kandahar.) Presently, the Taliban use their infiltration of cities to gather intelligence, send out bombing operations and make their presence otherwise felt through intimidation of officials and establishing an alternate government. Two years ago, Taliban bombings were remarkably ineffectual, killing only the bomber in about half of the attacks. In recent months, however, their campaign has demonstrated increased skill in the deadly trade. In time, they will seek to turn Afghan cities into Fallujahs and Baghdads. The surge will allow for more sweep operations in rural areas where the Taliban have been spreading and consolidating. Such operations will halt and hopefully reverse the unfavorable momentum that has been underway for several years. Halting that momentum is critical, as many Pashtun and other tribes are beginning to see the Taliban as a likely victor with whom they must come to terms, sooner or later. Yet there is evidence that even a few non-Pashtun tribes in the geographic center, including Tajiks and Hazaras, are choosing to do so sooner rather than later. It is crucial to stave off the drift toward reducing the US/NATO presence to a series of enclaves surrounded by a Taliban-controlled countryside - a state of affairs especially pronounced in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand and in several eastern provinces as well. Anti-Taliban tribes along the supply routes from Pakistan will welcome sweeps as removing pressure on them, though the Taliban might simply move operations to the Pakistani side of the frontier and seek to isolate US/NATO forces from that side of the frontier. Sweeps will also provide the opportunity for greater village security on which counter-insurgency programs depend. This is essential if there is any hope of detaching the populace from the Taliban and engaging them with the Hamid Karzai government. At present, the Taliban are able to move freely in and out of many villages to impose their own form of security and justice, both of which are becoming acceptable to a war-weary people. A doubling of US troop levels, however, will entail at least as many problems as advantages. More US troops will add to the growing perception that US/NATO forces are no longer there to help them, rather they are an occupying force like the Persians, British and Russians before them, and as such they are to be treated as the others were.

The same perception, regardless of Western forces' actual intentions, will resonate in much of the Islamic world, where hostility to the US is strong and attributing imperialist motives requires little evidence or promulgation. After the collapse of Iraq as the central theater of operations, many Islamist fighters now see Afghanistan as the setting for defeating the US. The various insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have already drawn additional international fighters including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Reports state that a number of al-Qaeda fighters have left Iraq for the more promising campaign to the east. More US/NATO sweeps in contested areas may push the Taliban off balance, but they can cause troubles as well. Many village chieftains complain that such operations bring fighting and attendant ills to areas that had not endured serious warfare in years. In other words, they see US/North Atlantic Treaty Orginization (NATO) efforts to oust the Taliban - not the Taliban itself - as the cause of fighting, destruction, stray ordnance and death. Thousands more US troops raises the question of their suitability for the intricate and frustrating nature of counter-insurgency warfare. Most if not all will be regular infantry units, which are neither trained for nor suited to counter-insurgency operations and as such are not as politically adroit as the Taliban, who have been conducting a form of such operations for many years now. More useful in this regard are special forces, which are trained in negotiating with chieftains, attending to village needs and otherwise garnering local support. Regular infantry troops rely on extensive use of massive firepower - a way of war that has been with the US military for generations and has become a veritable instinct in non-commissioned officers and officers. It has led to considerable success over the years, but also to notable failures where it alienated civilian populaces. Though developments in Iraq have somewhat disabused the US of relying on massive firepower, US forces in Afghanistan, when under heavy sustained fire, revert to form and call in artillery and air strikes - and do so far more readily than would British, French, Canadian and other NATO troops. The consequences are reduced US casualties and a number of guerrilla casualties, but often a great deal of civilian casualties and damage to villages. Recent Taliban tactics indicate awareness of this, as guerrillas now attack a position in a populated area, such as a police station, wait for US firepower to rain down, then withdraw to sanctuaries, confident that the damage will turn villagers against the US - a confidence that has not led to general disappointment. Furthermore, US battlefield intelligence is poor, leading to high casualties as misdirected ordnance falls on hapless civilians, not canny guerrillas. Despite the tightest discipline and the inculcation of respect for local nationals among US infantry, many of whom are on their fifth or sixth combat tour, it is likely that a small but significant percentage of soldiers have become hostile to the people of the region - Islamist or not, pro-Taliban or not, armed or not. More troops will require more supplies to be delivered into the remote, landlocked country, most of which come through Pakistan. Aside from the increase in US troops, there are plans to vastly increase the size of the Afghan army, which of course will be mainly supplied from outside.

Japan NEC Corp Will Cut 20K Workers

Electronics giant NEC Corp in Japan will cut 20,000 workers worldwide to stanch mounting losses, joining a slew of other Japanese corporate heavyweights who are slashing jobs to survive the deepening global downturn.

Hitachi, another maker of electronic products, also said on Friday that it will cut 7,000 jobs and forecasted a net loss of 700 billion yen ($7.7 billion) for the year through March.

NEC's net loss for October-December swelled to 130 billion yen ($1.46 billion) from 5.2 billion yen a year earlier as the global slump hit semiconductors and other businesses, it said on Friday.

If Not The Alertness Of Pilot & Traffic Controller

Fire on your left engine," an air controller screamed to the pilot at 6.29am. "Mayday! Mayday!" Captain Ajay Keri, the pilot of flight S2-361, shouted back into the radio. These were the terse distress messages swapped after a JetLite aircraft sustained a bird-hit soon after taking off from Kolkata for Guwahati on Saturday morning. With Friday's images of the US Airways Airbus floating on the Hudson still fresh, the controller acted promptly on spotting smoke billowing out of the left engine of the Boeing 737-800. After warning the pilot, he alerted ground services to prepare for an emergency landing.

Just the day before, a flock of geese got sucked into two engines of the US Airways Airbus A320 and forced captain Chesley Sullenberger to make a dramatic splashdown on the river. Like the Hudson hero, Captain Keri, too, showed presence of mind after being alerted about the fire ignited by a kite getting sucked into the left engine of his Boeing. He took the crucial step of cutting off fuel supply to the damaged engine to prevent the fire spreading. Once that was done, he returned for an emergency landing.

The 38 passengers and five crew members of the aircraft survived a potential disaster due to the alertness of Keri and the traffic controller. Inspections later revealed that the engine was badly damaged. "A detailed probe is in progress. An overall assessment of Kolkata airport surroundings (to find what attracts birds here) is also being conducted," Director General of Civil Aviation Nasim Zaidi said. The B-737 aircraft has two engines. When one engine fails, the pilot has a problem balancing the aircraft but it can still be managed. On Saturday, the automated fire extinguishing system (AFES) on board functioned properly, preventing the fire from spreading beyond the engine.

An Airports Authority of India official later said dense fog had reduced visibility when the flight took off. "The bird had not been spotted from either the cockpit or the ATC due to poor visibility. Fortunately, the traffic controller saw the flame just in time to alert the pilot. The aircraft had then soared to barely 500 feet," the official said. After being alerted, the pilot sought emergency landing clearance and requested for more airspace to enable a slow turn for a safer approach. He aligned the aircraft with the runway, scanned the instrument panel, murmured a prayer and descended. Minutes later, the wheels touched down softly. Fire trucks raced in. The passengers were herded into buses and taken to the terminal. They were later accommodated on an Air India flight that took off at 10 am.

"The incident that happened today should never happen. Though chances of two birds striking the two engines are remote, it cannot be ruled out. If a plane encounters a flock during takeoff, the unforeseen can happen. It can then be disastrous," an airline pilot said, adding that there have been several close calls in the past and had been reported to AAI.

South Korean President Named His Unification Minister

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday named as his unification minister an architect of his hardline policy on the communist North two days after the latest threats by Pyongyang. The North Korean threat coming just days before Barack Obama is sworn in as U.S. president was largely dismissed by Lee's government as a repeat of past rhetoric, but analysts saw it as an attempt to grab the attention of the incoming U.S. leader. Hyun In-taek who takes over at the Unification

North Korea, which analysts suspect is trying harder to grab the attention of incoming U.S. president Barack Obama, on Tuesday accused the South of driving the divided peninsula back into war. It is the latest verbal onslaught against South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who on Monday put the architect of the policy that has so angered the North in charge of relations between the two Koreas. "It goes without saying that Lee Myung-bak is the one who has driven the bellicosity high," the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried on North Korea's KCNA news agency.

South Korea at the weekend placed its military -- backed by some 28,000 U.S. troops in the South -- on high alert and warned of possible conflicts off the west coast of the peninsula which has been the scene of deadly naval disputes in the past, after Pyongyang said it would wipe out its neighbor."Only those who made up their minds to start a war can say this nonsense ... This is hysterical madness and the situation is grave," the newspaper added.

Analysts say the secretive North, which often uses key events when it wants to make a point to the outside world, is using its latest surge in furious rhetoric to try to attract the attention of Obama, who will be inaugurated later in the day. Investors shrugged off North Korea's repeated threats as South Korea's five-year CDS, a measure of risk premium on investing in the South, stood at 310 basis points, up slightly from Monday but still far below levels seen last week.

Pyongyang's rocky relationship with the Bush administration has been calmer in the past year or so, after it agreed to start moves to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, though negotiations have been stalled for months over the North's refusal to allow nuclear material to be taken outside the country. Many North Korea-watchers say Pyongyang's ultimate goal, using the threat of nuclear weapons as its leverage, is to have diplomatic relations with Washington and it may be hoping for an easier relationship with the Obama government.

The relationship between the two Koreas -- still technically at war -- has chilled sharply since Lee took office almost a year ago with a promise to end the free-flow of aid to his communist neighbor unless it moved to end its nuclear weapons program. On Monday, he named as his new unification minister conservative scholar Hyun In-taek, a major figure in developing Lee's policy of heavy investment into the North in exchange for nuclear disarmament and economic reform. Pyongyang's leaders have bridled at the policy which many analysts say would ultimately undermine the authority of iron ruler Kim Jong-il, who has maintained absolute control while his country's economy has sunk into ruin.

Since late last year, the North has blocked almost all traffic between the two sides but has allowed a South Korean team of officials in to discuss the possible purchase of fuel rods from its nuclear reactor. The team is due back in Seoul later on Tuesday.

The North Korean Problem

North Korea may be on the back burner as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office but analysts said Pyongyang would be a major problem spot for him in his years in office. North Korea this week fired what appeared to be a final shot at the Bush administration by saying it would not give up its nuclear weapons unless Washington drops its hostile policies and establishes formal ties with Pyongyang. U.S. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton told a Senate committee she backed the multilateral disarmament talks set up under Bush, but also said Washington would "embark upon a very aggressive effort to try to determine the best forward to achieve our objectives with them".

SILENCE OR CRISIS?

North Korea's bureaucracy moves slowly and it will take time for Pyongyang to figure out how to respond to the new Obama administration. This means the North will likely drag its heels when it comes to clearing up pending issues in the nuclear talks with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Dennis Wilder, senior adviser for Asia on the National Security Council, feels the Obama administration should be ready for early challenges from North Korea as it tries to test Obama and sunder the six-party talks. "The North's best act is to try to create the conditions of crisis in order to renegotiate with the United States and the new team will have to be ready for that," Wilder said. The latest snags in the sputtering disarmament-for-aid deal include the North's objections to nuclear samples leaving its borders and setting up a system to check its nuclear claims.

GIVING DISARMAMENT A CHANCE

North Korea's already weak economy will be dragged down even further the longer the nuclear talks are stalled because Washington has called for a suspension of most aid to North Korea for not abiding by the disarmament deal. This could lead North Korea back to the bargaining table, where it might make concessions in return for the resumption of aid. North Korea could accept a verification system that allows international inspectors to visit the North's well-known nuclear plant at Yongbyon, which produces arms-grade plutonium. North Korea would not allow inspectors to look into suspected secret facilities that make nuclear weapons or investigate U.S. suspicions it has a secret programme to enrich uranium for weapons, giving it another path to fissile material. Analysts have said the North's military threat is the only real bargaining power leader Kim Jong-il has, without risking his control, to wring concessions from the world, and he is unlikely to dare give up nuclear weapons no matter what Obama does.

BRINKMANSHIP

North Korea might feel it can win more over the long term from Obama if it ups the stakes. In order to increase its leverage, the North could begin to restore operations at its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant and reverse disablement steps that were designed, in total, to put the facility out of business for at least a year. The North's most likely priority would be restoring its facility that separates plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Experts said the North could have it up and running again in a few months. There are discharged, irradiated fuel rods cooling at Yongbyon that the North could use to produce what experts said would be enough plutonium for one more nuclear weapon. North Korea does not like to be ignored and may try to force Obama's hand by raising tension through test-firing missiles, or, in an extreme measure, conducting another nuclear test. Any renewed North Korean brinkmanship would also be designed to "see just what the new leader of the United States is made of," Wilder said. If it opts for brinkmanship, Obama may put North Korea back on a U.S. terrorism blacklist and restore trade sanctions.

LOOKING FOR AID

If one channel of aid for North Korea stops, Pyongyang often tries to open a separate one. So if it loses out on aid from the international nuclear dealings, it might try to warm up to South Korea, Japan or its biggest benefactor China. South Korea may be the North's first choice. North Korea threatened to reduce its rich South Korean neighbor to ashes last year after political wrangling led Seoul to suspend aid handouts that were roughly equal to about five percent of the North's estimated $20 billion a year economy. North Korea could see some of that money return if it restores bilateral contacts or returns a few of the more than 1,000 South Koreans it has abducted or prisoners of war it did not return after the 1950-53 Korean War.

KIM'S HEALTH

Despite Pyongyang's insistence that Kim has recovered from a suspected stroke last August, doubts still linger about his health. Reports of his illness have raised questions about leadership in the world's first communist dynasty and about who was in charge of its nuclear arms programme.

Star Trek Couple

The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his actress wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry are to be launched into space. Some of Gene Roddenberry's remains were aboard the 1997 maiden flight of Celestis Inc, which specialises in space journeys. His wife, who was the only actor to take part in all five Star Trek TV series, died of leukaemia in December. The spacecraft carrying the couple's ashes is set to launch in 2012.

Boldly going

Gene Roddenberry came up with the concept for Star Trek in 1964 under the original title of Wagon Train to the Stars. It was not a great success initially and was cancelled due to low ratings after running for three series in a poor time slot. However, it found an audience in syndication and carried on for four more series and 10 films so far. The latest in the franchise, directed by Lost creator JJ Abrams, is due out in May. Majel Barrett, who married Roddenberry in 1969, was involved with Star Trek from the start. She was cast as second in command in a pilot which never aired and later played Nurse Chapel in the original series. As the voice of the computer in the follow-up shows and films she became an icon to fans and earned the nickname The First Lady of Star Trek. After her husband's death in 1991 she made sure that two of his unrealised projects Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda made it to the small screen.

Infinite journey

It was Barrett Roddenberry who arranged for some of her husband's ashes to make the first memorial trip into space. The couple's son Eugene says she made it clear at the time that she wanted a joint mission after her own death.

He said she hoped the rocket would "carry their spirits, memories, and the message of their life's work into the cosmos on an infinite journey into deep space". Celestis offers to launch cremated remains into Earth's orbit, onto the lunar surface or into deep space. The Roddenberrys are following James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek, into space. His ashes were fired off in 2007 but the space flight lasted only four minutes before the rocket fell back to Earth. The rockets carrying the ashes usually burn up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. A tribute site has been set up by Celestis so Star Trek fans can leave parting messages which will travel in the space ship along with the Roddenberrys. One couple from the UK wrote: "As we will look up at the sky and see the two brightest stars we will always think of you and the light you brought to our lives."

Have One Lustrous Hair

MANY of us envy women who are blessed with elegant hair. You know, those women with thick hair full of body? Although it seems impossible to have lustrous hair, the good news is one can achieve beautiful hair by getting to know one’s hair type and looking after it. To understand hair better, consultant trichologist (hair specialist) Mark Birch recommends visiting a trichologist who can give a prognosis and diagnosis based on one’s hair type and scalp problems. Dubai-based Birch was in Kuala Lumpur for a series of talks on hair, organized by Svenson Hair Centre.Despite the number of hair treatments available (laser, infra red, ultra-violet, high frequency, ray therapy and hair growth lotions, among others), Birch advised hair loss sufferers to consult hair specialists who can determine hair loss programmes suited to one’s needs.

Dubai-based Birch was in Kuala Lumpur for a series of talks on hair, organised by Svenson Hair Centre. Despite the number of hair treatments available (laser, infra red, ultra-violet, high frequency, ray therapy and hair growth lotions, among others), Birch advised hair loss sufferers to consult hair specialists who can determine hair loss programmes suited to one’s needs. “You won’t have the same volume of hair in your 20s compared with your 50s so you need to take certain steps to maintain your hair. Research shows that one in three men will go bald while one in five women will lose their hair genetically. “Trichologists can educate you if your diet is lacking vitamins. Asian women are usually thinner than Western women as they consume less red meat and tend to skip meals. To boost health, women should increase their meat intake and those suffering from anaemia should consume vitamin B complex, zinc and iron.”

He added that losing their “crowning glories” may have a devastating impact on women’s quality of life and this includes psychological and emotional effects ranging from decreased self-esteem to anxiety and depression. “There are some ‘normal’ causes for female hair loss such as ageing, hormonal changes associated with pregnancy and genetics. However, women who are losing hair should note that hair loss could be an early indication of some illnesses or other problems such as overuse of prescription drugs, dietary deficiencies, stress or damage to hair and scalp caused by styling,” said Birch, who has over 30 years of experience in the profession. “You won’t have the same volume of hair in your 20s compared with your 50s so you need to take certain steps to maintain your hair. Research shows that one in three men will go bald while one in five women will lose their hair genetically.

The British-born trichologist, who studied Combined Science (Trichology) at the London College of Fashion, explained it was also important to use hair products suited to one’s needs. “There are many types in the market and people often end up using products recommended by friends or purchase shampoos based on advertisements which might not be suitable for certain hair types,” he explained. Birch added that hair is a barometer of one’s health and a trichologist would know everything about an individual by merely studying hair samples. Hair is the fastest growing cell in the body apart from bone marrow and is important in DNA. A hundred strands of hair is called a trichogram (1g of hair) and if you break it down, you can ascertain if it lacks any minerals. No two hair samples in the world are alike.

“Hair plays an important role in DNA and can determine if you have taken drugs for the past six months or even five years. A few years ago, researchers discovered that hair analysis of a lock of German composer Beethoven’s hair suggested that he died from lead poisoning. It’s amazing how much can be discovered through hair,” he explained. When asked how often hair should be washed, Birch recommended at least once a day. He said it was an old wives’ tale that hair should be washed on a weekly basis. “People sweat everyday and there’s a build up of dead skin cells, bacteria and pollution on your head. People usually wash their face twice or thrice a day. What’s the difference between your face and hair? The sweat glands on your scalp are twice the size compared to those on your face. Hair should be washed daily to avoid complications like dandruff and itchy scalp,” he said.

Pets & Technology

Let's face it; we're obsessed with our pets and technology is making it easier. Other equally infatuated pet lovers have devised all sorts of ways to indulge our passion for our pets while sitting in front of our computers. Even though this website is primarily for cat lovers, it's filled with such hilarious photos and captions, even hardcore dog people will spend hours flipping through page after page of entries.

Know you, it's my favorite of all the websites and the one that has been most forwarded to other people. Each of them has become an instant addict as well Share photos and videos, read blogs and get information about cat breeds and anything else cat-related. Since cats generally think the world revolves around them, why not find out which spoiled celebrity your cat is most similar to with the Which Celebrity Is Your Cat?

You know how they say that dogs and their owners look alike? Well, perhaps that's because deep down they really are the same. Try the What Breed Are You? game. Each pet has its own picture profile page cataloging its favorite things to do and who's on their "pals" list. Your dog or cat can send other pets "treats" and "barks" or "meows." Want to meet someone and, for once, not have to worry about allergies or fur balls being a deal breaker? It's online dating for single pet owners (or just the pets.) across Canada and the U.S.

If you're having trouble figuring out what to name your new fluffy friend, you should be able to pick one out of the more than 20,000 pet names listed here. If you want something exotic sounding, choose names from countries all over the world. Like being popular? Pick a Top 10 pet name. Or, name your pet after a famous celebrity. You can even find out if the name you gave your pet has any special meaning.

Why not just let the pets themselves do the talking? That's what Max's owner did by giving his dog his own blog. Max dishes on his park escapades, how to sneak up on squirrels and when to use "puppy eyes" for maximum effect. Your young humans can have fun playing online games with Rover while beginning to develop a lifelong passion for pets, too. Hey, it's never too early to start "grooming" them.

Mobile Phone Slump

The mobile-phone market is polarizing as the global econ-omic slump prompts some consumers to trade down to cheaper devices and operators feed demand for high-end handsets by promoting them with subsidies. Nokia, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, is selling entry-level devices costing less than $50 and advanced phones with satellite navigation, music and e-mail as fewer consumers consider mid-tier handsets. Vodafone Group offers Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm for free with an 18-month plan in the UK and Sweden's TeliaSonera sells Apple's iPhone 3G for one krona (12 US cents) with a two-year contract.

The global handset industry is forecast to shrink for the first time in eight years, with Citigroup analysts predicting a 13 per cent plunge as consumers are more hesitant to replace their phones. Espoo, Finland-based Nokia cut its industry outlook twice in less than a month in the fourth quarter and said in December the market will slide five per cent or more this year. "This year will reshape the industry quite a bit," said Mikko Ervasti, an analyst at Evli Bank in Helsinki. The polarization of the market may squeeze those in the middle. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Motorola and LG Electronics have struggled to come up with hit phones or stumbled in their attempts to widen their product offerings.

Nokia, which ships 15 units per second, may boost its global market share to more than 40 per cent in 2009, said Geoff Blaber, an analyst at CCS Insight in London. Nokia's third-quarter market share was 38 per cent, more than its next three rivals combined. "In this economic environment, we expect some, not all, consumers to trade down to less expensive devices," Nokia chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said on a call last month. "We are best positioned to take this tradedown opportunity." Nokia also has an advantage in its network of suppliers and distribution. Nokia was ranked first globally in sourcing, logistics and distribution last year, ahead of companies like Procter & Gamble and Toyota Motor, according to ARM Research. Nokia's size allows it to demand lower prices for the 120 billion parts it buys from suppliers.

The Finnish company may post a 47 per cent drop in profit to 975 million euros ($1.29 billion), the median of 16 analysts' estimate compiled by Bloomberg. "Nokia is set to be a winner on a relative basis, but they will be hurt too," said Martti Larjo, an analyst at Nordea Equity Research in Helsinki. "Apple and RIM will also be winners in relative terms as the smartphone market will still continue to grow, albeit at a lower pace." The growth in sales of so-called smartphones, which have computer-like capabilities, will be fuelled by the addition of features such as Web browsing, e-mail and video to cheaper models. Apple, whose iPhone is the industry's most-hyped handset in the past few years, moved to third place in the smartphone segment last year. The advance of Cupertino, California-based Apple is set to continue as most new touch-screen products to be announced in 2009 by competitors are likely to disappoint given the high standard set by the iPhone, according to CCS Insight. Apple stunned the market on Thursday by reporting an increase in net profit to $1.61 billion in the quarter ended December 27, up from $1.58 billion a year ago.

Nokia has trailed Apple in touch screen devices and started selling its first model in the fourth quarter, more than a year after the first iPhone went on sale. The Finnish company has said it plans to bring touch-screen models across the price range. "Even as Nokia missed some of the trends, they could pick them up in six to 12 months, come back and really crush some of their smaller rivals," said Greger Johansson, a Stockholm-based analyst at Redeye. Research In Motion is well positioned to advantage of the industry shift to smartphones, Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said last month, when the Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry maker forecast sales in the fourth quarter ending February 28 that topped analysts' estimates. Sales have been buoyed by demand for the new Bold and touch-screen Storm models."Apple and RIM, they are almost niche businesses in a sense as they are focused on a very high-end segment, but it's the segment that is going to see better growth prospects and healthier margins as well," CCS's Blaber said.

Samsung Electronics is poised to increase its market share and remain the second-biggest phone maker, Blaber said. Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung reports earnings today, when it may say fourth-quarter profit at the unit that makes mobile-phones fell 42 per cent from a year earlier, while revenue increased 43 per cent, as competition drove up marketing expenses, according to a Bloomberg survey. Samsung's revenue from the handset business will probably rise eight per cent this year, with shipments increasing three per cent, according to UBS estimates. "This will pinch everybody," Nordea's Larjo said. "The weak will suffer the most and it will be even more difficult for companies with bad balance sheets and an inferior product offering to cope." Sony Ericsson, which has posted two consecutive quarterly losses and cut jobs, said last week it will refocus on pricier models. The venture between Sweden's Ericsson and Japan's Sony may struggle to return to profit this year

Deer Hunting In Some Parts Of The World

Doyle Ritchie has been telling anyone who will listen that the number of deer on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia, where he hunts, has experienced a drastic decline. “This year the hunting season was just terrible on the national forest,” said Ritchie, a veteran deer hunter of 40 years. He lives in Fulks Run on the edge of the national forest in Rockingham County.

“I scouted week after week all summer and fall. I hunted day in and day out during the archery, early muzzle loader and firearm’s seasons. I’ve been out during the late archery and muzzleloading season, but with the same results. There are few, if any, deer in the national forest in the many regions I hunted.” You might think Ritchie’s message would be a tough sell, considering Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ officials are saying the 2008-09 deer season could go down as a record when the final count is made in a few weeks.

“You won’t see mature deer if you shoot out the young ones,” Richie said. “You won’t have deer around here if you take the does.” Richie, who calls himself “blunt,” is a newcomer to this debate, which has been going on for about four years and mostly has involved hunters in Rockingham, Augusta and Highland counties. He is more aggressive than most, leveling stinging criticism at Matt Knox, the DGIF deer project coordinator.

“Knox and his team seem to want to kill off the deer, no matter what,” said Richie. “If it is brown, it needs to go down. You never hear Knox or members of his team say good things about deer. The mentality is pest control.” During a recent meeting with Knox, Jeffreys and Bob Ellis, chief of the DGIF wildlife division, Richie recommended a moratorium on shooting does in the national forest and a limit of two bucks that meet a minimum of six points.

Some restrictions are expected to be set this year, but Richie isn’t likely to get all he wants by a long shot. But officials are sympathetic. Here’s the challenge, said Jeffreys: Deer don’t recognize boundaries. They range on both national forest and private land. When they come out of the national forest to forage for food they are confronted by more liberal seasons and bag limits. When they return to the forest there isn’t that much food available. “Private land regulations may well have driven down deer numbers on adjoining public land,” he said.

One resolution would be to enhance deer habitat on the national forest, but state biologists are limited in what they can do. “We as an agency can enact regulations but we have real limitations in managing deer habitat on U.S. Forest Service land,” said Jeffreys. Just this week, Congress advanced legislation that would set aside 43,000 acres of additional wilderness in Virginia, and environmentalists are betting on the new president to move even further down that road. Wilderness and roadless areas prohibit the kind of forest management that provides the new growth necessary to advance the wellbeing of deer, especially during times of mast failure.

One factor the two sides agree on, deer are being impacted by the growing number of predators, namely coyotes and black bear. “The talk out here where I live is not how many deer that hunters saw, but how many bears they saw,” said Ritchie. “The bear hunters brag about how they have brought the bears back, and they certainly have been successful. But the problem is the number of fawns the bears and coyotes are taking. Last summer, I found so much bear crap in the national forest containing fawn hair that it was hard not to step in it.”

Warmest Year On Record

Last year was the eighth warmest year on record, according to the National that of 2001 according to the center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Preliminary calculations show the world's average temperature for 2008 was 0.88 degree Fahrenheit above the 20th Century average of 57.0 degrees F.

The ranking means that all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997.

Climate scientists around the world have raised concerns about global warming caused by the so-called greenhouse effect in which chemicals, largely generated by human activity, trap solar radiation.

Researchers fear far-reaching effects ranging from changing storm patterns, damage to crops and wildlife, droughts to spread of disease.

The climate center noted that since 1880, the annual combined global land and ocean surface temperature has increased at a rate of 0.09 degree F (0.05 degree C) per decade and the rate has increased over the past 30 years.

NASA, which uses a slightly different method of calculating temperatures, has rated 2008 as the ninth warmest on record.

Transport Ministers Meet In Japan To Plot Climate Action

Twenty-two nations met in Japan yesterday to find ways to curb global warming from transport, which causes nearly one-quarter of carbon emissions but has partly evaded strict regulation. Transport ministers from the nations — including key polluters such as the US, China and India — opened two days of talks in Tokyo as momentum builds to draft a post-Kyoto treaty on climate change.

“Everyone living on the Earth is expected to take responsible actions to protect our planet,” Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told the session, which also includes UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. “I would like each participating country to accelerate its efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the transport sector, as well as to enhance its support for developing countries, utilizing its technologies and experiences,”

Aso said. It is one of a series of meetings to lay the groundwork ahead of a December conference in Copenhagen which is supposed to approve a treaty for climate action for after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s obligations expire. Transport — air, sea and land — accounts for 23 percent of carbon emissions, topping all sectors except electricity generation and indoor heating, according to the International Energy Agency. An April meeting in Bangkok agreed to look at reducing emissions from air and sea travel, which is a growing source of emissions but had been left out of the Kyoto Protocol because of its international nature.

But nations have already been toughening standards for cars’ emissions — decisions mostly taken before the current economic crisis. Kazuyoshi Kaneko, Japan’s transport minister, said that tackling global warming was in the world’s long-term economic interest. “Establishing more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly transport systems will strengthen the foundation of each economy, opening a brighter future for our society,” Kaneko said.

Puerto Rico's Golf Resort

This seaside stretch, a half-hour's drive east of the airport in San Juan, is not placid in midday. Construction equipment rumbles through the beachfront while workers sweat out installing the marble floors and granite countertops in developer Donald Trump's latest Caribbean venture.

The 700-villa Trump International Golf Club and Residences is among several golf resorts on this Caribbean island that are either under construction or being upscaled. Some have famous course designers like Robert Trent Jones, and many are attached to luxury resorts with well-known hotel brand names like St. Regis and Mandarin Oriental.

Golf is one of three tourism niches being targeted for promotion here, along with water sports and food, said Mari Jo Laborde, deputy executive director of marketing and promotions of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. Golf is a big part of the island's "Explore Beyond the Shore" campaign highlighting activities outside beaches, she said. And although Puerto Rico has long been a golf destination, the combination of a growing local golf market and a drive to attract more affluent tourists is putting an emphasis on luxury.

This might seem like a risky approach given the current economic downturn. Puerto Rico, like many tourism destinations, is experiencing a drop in visitors, with a 3 to 5% decline projected for the near future.

More Weight Reducing Diets

Low-carb diets may make people's short-term memory a little foggy, but they could improve people's ability to focus and pay attention, new research hints.

The key to keeping one's smarts while dieting seems to be not to cut out carbs completely, Dr. Holly A. Taylor of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, the lead researcher on the study, told Reuters Health. "Low carbohydrate is OK; no carbohydrate is not," she said. "Low-carb diets," Taylor added, "in the initial time period when they're actually no-carb diets, have the greatest potential to impair cognitive function because the brain uses glucose (sugar) as its primary fuel. The body breaks carbohydrates down into smaller components, including glucose, which the brain gets from the bloodstream, Taylor explained. So once carbohydrate stores are gone, the brain starts to starve.

Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is known to worsen brain function, while low-carbohydrate diets that force the body to use body fat for fuel, a process known as ketosis, have long been used to control seizures, which "suggests that they can profoundly influence brain functioning," Taylor and her team note in the journal Appetite. To investigate how low-carb diets might impact thinking and mood, they had 19 women choose either a low-calorie, balanced diet recommended by the American Dietetic Association (ADA), or a low-carb diet in which they cut out carbohydrates completely for a week and then gradually reintroduced them to their diets.

The study participants completed several tests of mood and cognitive function 72 hours before they began the diets and 48 hours, one week, two week and three weeks after starting the diet. The nine women who chose the low-carb diet fared worse on tests of their memory during the first week of the diet, when no carbohydrates were allowed, than the 10 women on the ADA diet. Once they started eating carbs again, the memory differences between the two groups disappeared. "Even with a very small amount of carbohydrate, performance returned to normal," Taylor said. She pointed out that the diet allowed them to add just 5 to 8 grams of carbs a day, while the daily recommended intake of carbohydrates for people who aren't trying to lose weight is 130 grams.

After the first week, the low-carb group performed better on a test of sustained attention than the ADA group, and also reported feeling less confused.

Past research has shown that people do better on tests requiring attention and vigilance after a high-protein meal compared to a high-carb meal, and also feel less fatigued, the researchers note.

The current findings, Taylor said, show that "there's more to weight reducing diets than just losing weight."

Thailand's Tourism

In the closing weeks of 2008 it looked like Thailand might be beckoning visitors for an opportunity of a lifetime: cheap luxury hotel rooms and empty beaches. The global economic downturn combined with the seizure of Bangkok's two main airports by protesters in late November brought the travel industry to its knees. In early December staff at Bangkok's top five-star hotels greatly outnumbered the dwindling number of guests. But as has happened many times in recent years when tourism suffered from disasters natural and human-made - the tsunami of 2004 and military coup of 2006 among them - the foreigners have returned to Thailand.

"It's started to bounce back," said Pornthip Hiranyakij, secretary general of the Tourism Council of Thailand, a travel industry association. She estimates that beach resorts in southern Thailand were about 80 to 85 percent full during the holiday season compared with about 90 percent last year. A staff member at the high-end Four Seasons hotel in the northern city of Chiang Mai said the hotel would be "crowded" for the rest of January; on the resort islands of Samui and Phuket the beach chairs filled up for the holidays.

The Thai central bank reported this week that the weeklong closure of Bangkok's airports by protesters cost the country 290 billion baht, or $8.3 billion, in lost income, about 3 percent of the country's total gross domestic product. Thailand remains a relatively cheap place to visit. Hotel Web sites are offering off-season rates for what would normally be peak season, even around Chinese New Year, when visitors from Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China normally flood the country. The Year of the Ox starts Jan. 26.

Some luxury hotels are discounting more than others. Hotels that cater to business travelers were worst affected by the cumulative effect of the business downturn, Thailand's political crisis and the airport closure. The Conrad Hotel, which caters to business travelers and diplomats, is offering rooms for $150. By contrast the riverside Mandarin Oriental Hotel, popular with well-to-do tourists, showed no discounted rates in early January on its Web site and was offering rooms upwards of $389. The early months of the year are traditionally considered the high season in Thailand because it rains less frequently and temperatures are generally cooler. But travel industry executives say they are most concerned about the political climate.

Thailand's three years of political turbulence climaxed Nov. 25 with the seizure of both of Bangkok's airports by anti-government protestors. The airports reopened eight days later, but only after hundreds of thousands of foreigners were left stranded. Now with a new government in power and the protesters strutting victoriously - the new foreign minister was one of the anti-government protesters who shut down the airport - the tables are turned. Supporters of the previous government are out on the street protesting.

Thailand's political crisis looks likely to drag on. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced that an upcoming summit of regional leaders would be moved from Bangkok to the beach resort town of Hua Hin because of fears protesters could disrupt the event. The summit by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which will begin Feb. 27, was initially scheduled to take place in December but was postponed because of the country's political crisis.

The Creature That Once Ruled The Earth

THIS holiday season, meet the creatures that ruled the earth millions of year ago!

After visiting Bangkok and Jakarta and astounding hundreds of thousands of visitors, the “Dinos Alive! Tour” is now in Manila. At the Mall of Asia, a huge air-conditioned lot, equivalent to 30 basketball courts, houses 31 interactive dinosaurs, some of them several feet high.

The dinosaurs represented at the show date back to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, more than 200 and 140 million years ago, respectively.

Jurassic Park

Where did the word “dinosaur” come from?

A. It is Greek for dragon.
B. It is Latin for “smelly breath.”
C. It is Latin for “gone long ago.”
D. It is Greek for “fearfully great lizard.”

The answer is D. Dinosaur comes from the Greek words deinos (terrible, powerful, wondrous) and sauros (lizard, reptile).For millions of years, they ruled the earth until, whether due to a meteor impact, severe weather changes, or other causes, they suddenly became extinct. But unlike, say, werewolves or vampires, dinosaurs really existed once upon a time.

In the tour, dinosaurs are brought to life with high-quality latex, visually similar to what scientists believe dinosaur skin looked like. Robotics technology, reportedly from Japan and used in the movie “Jurassic Park,” makes the creatures amazingly lifelike. Realistic light and sound effects transport us to the dinosaurs’ world.

T-rex and other predators

What color was Tyrannosaurus rex?

A. green
B. gray
C. brown with spots
D. no one knows

The answer is not A, B, or C. Scientists are still debating its actual color. What we do know is that this Tyrant Lizard King was a fierce predator with a huge head, large teeth, strong jaws—and tiny arms with two fingers each. That is why T-rex could not box well and had to rely on other assets to fight other creatures. T-rex had a stiff, pointed tail to provide balance and let it to do quick turns while running.

My son Scott relished the sight of a two-story-high T-rex, its enormous teeth bared, snapping away at visitors. He also loved another T-rex, busily gnawing away at its prey. Scott looked up its jaws, and proclaimed, “This T-rex is really eating flesh!” to which our guide replied, “The technology is amazing, even to the last detail.”

A fan of T-rex, Scott did not particularly care for the Allosaurus, which also had powerful legs, a strong neck and a bulky body. Scott decided to go head-to-head and, staring down one Allosaurus, he bared his own teeth to the horrified fascination of two young kids nearby.

The kids had been whimpering since the first loud roar so, to reassure them, I asked Scott to pat the Allosaurus. Their grateful mother said, “See? The dinosaurs like to be touched.” (Parents, do not let young children go in alone since the effects are quite realistic, and the place is dark more than half of the time.) To my shock, Scott’s favorite was the Velociraptor, immortalized in “Jurassic Park.” He certainly got his fill in this exhibit, which had six of them lurking in various corners.

Velociraptor, a fast-running, two-legged dinosaur, had 30 very sharp teeth. But its major weapon was a long sickle-shaped claw in the middle toe of each foot that it could retract or flash at will. The fearsome claw enabled the Velociraptor to kill prey many times its size and weight.

“The Velociraptor is very smart,” Scott informs me, and he is right. In fact, scientists agree that, as calculated from brain-body weight ratio, the Velociraptor was the most intelligent of all dinosaurs.
These creatures also hunted in packs, which made them even deadlier. The exhibit had a replica of a Jurassic Park electric cage, complete with a hungry Velociraptor.

The gentle ones

Which of the following dinosaurs had a giraffe-like neck?

A. Brachiosaurus
B. Allosaurus
C. Torvosaurus
D. Ankylosaurus

The answer is A. Remember Littlefoot in the movie “Land before Time”? The 50-foot-tall Brachiosaurus walked on four legs (slowly). With front legs longer than the back, and with its long neck, it looked like a very tall giraffe. About 85 feet long, it weighed 80 tons. It ate the tops of tall trees, swallowing food without chewing, and digesting its meal in its stomach.

One problem the Brachiosaurus had was high blood pressure. Because of their long necks, these animals needed large powerful hearts and very high blood pressure to pump blood up the neck to the head, which was many feet above the heart. Scientists estimate that their normal blood pressure was probably over five times as high as ours.

Similar to the Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus was my favorite dinosaur in Jurassic Park. This long-necked gentle plant-eater also had four massive legs and a long whip-like tail. Its height protected it from enemies like the Allosaurus, which could not reach high enough to attack the head or neck, and probably would not attack the feet or tail.

Apatosaurus’ nostrils were not in the middle of its face, as we would expect, but were at the top of its head, “like the blowholes of a whale,” Scott said. But the Apatosaurus did not live in or near water. So why these weird holes? No one knows.

NASA Rover Marks Five Years On Mars

The US space agency’s Mars rovers ‘Spirit and Opportunity’ this month mark their fifth anniversary on the Red Planet, where they have endured harsh conditions and revealed a deluge of information.

The twin robots, which landed on Mars three weeks apart in January 2004, were initially expected to have just 90-day missions, but have since sent back to Earth a quarter-million images, toured mountains and craters and survived violent dust storms.“The American taxpayer was told three months for each rover was the prime mission plan. The twins have worked almost 20 times that long,” said NASA assistant administrator Ed Weiler in a statement.

“That’s an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times.”

The rovers, which along with 250,000 images have sent back to Earth some 36 gigabytes of data, have greatly advanced NASA’s understanding of Mars’ geology, including peeks into the planet’s wet and habitable past.

Analysts say the wealth of information data will keep scientists busy for years as they further unravel the vast banks of data.

Since 2004 the machines have covered 21km of Mars’ characteristic red rock desert, driving inch by inch to avoid chasms and rocky obstacles, picking up samples and snapping images to beam back to mission control on Earth.

“These rovers are incredibly resilient considering the extreme environment the hardware experiences every day,” said John Callas, project manager for Spirit and Opportunity.

“We realise that a major rover component on either vehicle could fail at any time and end a mission with no advance notice, but on the other hand, we could accomplish the equivalent duration of four more prime missions on each rover in the year ahead.”

While the machines have had relatively balmy 20 degrees Celsius summers, they have had to endure frigid extremes, where temperatures of minus-100 degrees Celsius in winter are common.

Harsh Martian winds, however, have provided an occasional cleaning job to the rovers’ solar panels – critical instruments to power the machines.

This unconventional aid, however, has not been reliable, with the Spirit machine’s panels hardly clear enough to survive its third southern hemisphere winter, which ended in December.

Although the $820 million project’s mission began as scientific, it has become something much larger, according to Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the rover mission’s principal investigator.

The journeys “have led to something else important,” he said. “This has turned into humanity’s first overland expedition on another planet.

“When people look back on this period of Mars exploration decades from now, Spirit and Opportunity may be considered most significant not for the science they accomplished, but for the first time we truly went exploring across the surface of Mars.”

The continuing wealth of data provided by the rovers is a welcome holdover for the US space agency, which was forced to delay a landmark mission to Mars by 26 months last month.

The $2.3 billion Mars Science Laboratory is now expected to be launched in 2011.

Launch opportunities for Mars come only every 26 months, when the planets are in right alignment

Frugal Brides

The dour economy is not stopping brides and grooms from the USA from saying "I do" on Caribbean sand. Many hoteliers expect to handle about the same number of destination weddings this year as 2008, despite a drop in overall bookings. A 2006 survey estimated that 16% of U.S. unions took place in a destination setting, which also saves money by combining the ceremony with the honeymoon.

"This is a recession-proof market," says Donald Foste, group sales director for Occidental, a hotel chain with properties in Aruba and the Dominican Republic. "Brides are going to get married regardless of what's happening in the economy." At SuperClubs, the Jamaica-based operator of about a dozen all-inclusive resorts under the Grand Lido, Breezes and Hedonism names in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Curaçao and the Bahamas, executives hope weddings will help offset the dip in overall bookings, says marketing director Zein Nakash.

Many people will look at all-inclusives such as SuperClubs because "you know exactly what your wedding is going to cost you," she says. The Caribbean's destination wedding industry hopes to thrive on budget-minded lovebirds such as Tilly Lashel Gant and Terrance Flaggs of St. Louis. For $3,600 at Riu Ochos Rios, Jamaica, the couple is receiving airfare and lodging for two, an upgraded honeymoon suite, food and drinks, and the wedding ceremony. Picking the offseason date of April 29 helped them lower their rate. "You can't beat that," says Gant, 31. "It is so much cheaper than having a traditional wedding at home, where the cost can skyrocket."

The destination wedding market is so promising that some Caribbean hotels are trying to boost their share. SuperClubs is taking out TV ads. It's also attending more bridal shows. And at the Wyndham hotel and casino on Nassau's Cable Beach in the Bahamas, manager Jeffry Humes had the hotel renovated specifically to please brides, with a new boardwalk and gazebo with ocean views for wedding photos.. The hotel has 200 weddings planned this year, double last year's count. The hotel also hopes to lure more cruiseship passengers who disembark in Nassau with a desire to exchange vows on a beach, says Lisa Harris, who handles the hotel's wedding sales. The hotel plans to charge couples $300 to use the gazebo, she says.

Still, the economy is having an effect:

•Smaller wedding parties. Because wedding guests typically pay their own airfare and lodging, hoteliers expect to see fewer people attend. SuperClubs expects a 25% decline in guest numbers, Nakash says. Because of the economy, Gant and Flaggs expect few people to join them in Ocho Rios. She says her mother can't afford to join them, and their bridesmaid and best man have yet to book their trip. They're prepared to do without a bridal party.

•Fewer extras. At upscale Paradisus in the Dominican Republic, which handles nearly 400 weddings a year, couples typically spent about $40,000 last year. But this year, Paradisus executive Maria Gomez expects they'll stop at $30,000, with fewer flowers and extra events such as welcome parties, bridesmaid lunches and spa treatments.

•More price quotes. Brides who are "being more frugal" are taking more time to book weddings, Foste says. Brides used to book their wedding at an Occidental hotel within three weeks of requesting information, but now they're taking up to six weeks so they can shop more, he says. Melvin Grant, a Bahamian minister, says he's marrying more people on free public beaches. Couples are also calling him directly to lower the price. "Two years ago, they didn't care," he says. "But since last year, they've been cutting corners."