Fast condoms on sale in S Africa

Fast condoms on sale in S Africa: "Condoms, which promoters say can be put on in just one second, are going on sale in South Africa this week.

"Using an ordinary condom is a real pain," says Pronto condom designer Willem van Rensburg.

"By the time the condom is on, the mood is halfway out the window." Pronto condoms do not need to be unwrapped.

Mr van Rensburg told the BBC he hopes it will encourage people to use condoms in a country where 5.5m people have HIV - one of the world's highest figures.

"If you're slow, it'll take you three seconds. You can really do it in one," Mr van Rensburg's former business partner Roelf Mulder told the AFP news agency."

(Via BBC News.)

Missing Soldier Believed Alive, U.S. Says

Missing Soldier Believed Alive, U.S. Says: "A senior U.S. military spokesman said Thursday that an Iraqi American soldier kidnapped in Baghdad 10 days ago was believed to be alive and in the hands of his original captors.

Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell identified the soldier as 41-year-old reservist Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie and said that Taayie was visiting his in-laws and his wife on Oct. 23, the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, when he was abducted by three carloads of armed men. Since then, the military has conducted intensive searches for the soldier, who moved to the United States as a teenager and returned to Iraq as a translator in the U.S. Army Reserve in November 2005, Caldwell said."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

Melting Arctic Ice Has Consequences

Melting Arctic Ice Has Consequences: "OriginalArlen writes to tell us about some compelling global warming coverage in the Washington Post. First there is an article about a study indicating that melting Arctic ice is threatening polar bears with extinction. The article quotes an environmentalist: "This study is the smoking gun. Skeptics, polluting industries and President Bush can't run away from this one." And the polar melting is opening new shipping lanes. The second article details a trip late in October through the Northwest Passage by a Canadian icebreaker. Never before in history could this trip have been accomplished so late in the year; ice would have choked off the passage. Estimates of when the passage might be navigable by commercial shipping range from 2020 to the end of the century. "

Emphasis Mine

(Via /.)