Sudan delays elections by six days

Sudan on Sunday announced a six-day delay to long-awaited elections to make up for hold-ups in registering millions of voters in the oil-producing country.

Election officials have faced huge logistical challenges in rolling out the first multi-party polls in 24 years in Sudan, Africa's largest country.

Sudan's National Elections Commission said it was extending voter registration across the country by seven days to December 7 because of a late start in some areas and appeals for an extension from some political parties.

As a result, the start of the ballot would be pushed to April 11, 2010 from April 5, said a statement from the Commission on state news agency Suna.

The elections -- parliamentary, presidential and local -- have been delayed twice before from their original date of July this year, set under the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.

The timing of the poll has been a sensitive issue as any significant delay would push the vote into the start of the rainy season in May when large parts of Sudan are inaccessible.

Some southerners fear a long delay could encroach on a referendum on southern independence promised in January 2011 under the same peace accord.

North Sudan's dominant National Congress Party (NCP) on Sunday said it supported the latest small delay, which would give voters more time to sign up.

"We are afraid that a large extension of the elections will take us to the rainy season. But six days will not do that ... Most of the parties have asked for an extension. This is not going to be controversial," senior NCP official Ibrahim Ghandour told Reuters.

No one was immediately available to comment from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the dominant party in the south.

The SPLM and opposition parties have previously said they would boycott the elections if a package of democratic laws they see as necessary for the vote was not drafted and passed by November 30.

Delays in implementing the 2005 north-south peace deal have raised tensions with less than five months until the elections.

Stair Climbers: Every step you take

Pity the poor stepper.

While gym lines form for treadmills, elliptical trainers and stationary bicycles, the stair climbing machine is all too often the neglected wallflower of the cardio room.

Maybe that's because whether you call it a stepper, stair climber or stair mill, it evokes the drudgery of Sisyphus, the character in Greek mythology condemned to push a boulder uphill for eternity.

But experts say if you master the stairs, you'll reap dividends in tight abs, butt and thighs.

"It's the intensity," said Kerri O'Brien of Life Fitness, which designs and manufactures exercise equipment. "There's a vertical component. You're going to be working harder because you're going against gravity," she explained.

"Also you'll have isolated muscle soreness because you're using muscles you're not used to using," O'Brien, an exercise physiologist, added.

But if done regularly, O'Brien promises it will become more enjoyable. It is also a great workout for the muscles that make up the buttocks.

Staircases have been around almost from the beginnings of civilization. In 2004, archaeologists found a stair case in Austria believed to be at least 7,000 years old.

O'Brien said modern steppers evolved from so-called Jacobs Ladders, climbers prevalent in high school gyms of the 1950's.

"And ever since the 1950's, football and track teams have used running up stadium stairs to work out. People also use step climbers to train for mountain climbing and hiking," she said.

It's also an effective low-impact cardio choice. One study of 10,269 Harvard alumni found that those who climbed at least 55 flights of stairs a week had a 33 percent lower death rate.

A British study found that daily stair climbing among sedentary young women resulted in a rise in HDL, or good cholesterol.

Dr. Hank Williford, of the American College of Sports Medicine, thinks steppers are a good fit for women.

"They're not bouncing around like with a treadmill and still they can increase their bone marrow density and prevent osteoporosis," he said.

It is also effective for burning calories than stairs.

"In regular going up and down stairs the energy cost is one-third going down versus going up. With steppers you do not go down the steps you just keep going up," Williford said.

Michael Karlin, a lawyer in New York City, started using a stair climbing machine to lose weight and wound up scaling all 1,576 stairs of the Empire State Building.

Stair climbing races are held worldwide. The American Lung Association alone holds 57 in stadiums and skyscrapers throughout the United States.

"I competed in the Empire State Building climb last year, finishing in 16 minutes, 3 seconds," said Karlin, who has also raced up the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower in Chicago and the U.S. Bank (formerly Library) Tower in Los Angeles.

"I have derived tremendous benefit," the 38-year-old said.

"My legs are really strong, my sprinting has improved, and my lung capacity is much greater," he said. "Competitive stair climbing pounds my legs and knees substantially less than running."

So how would Karlin feel about French writer Albert Camus' essay suggesting that Sisyphus was happy in his uphill struggle?

"I love preparing for a race, finishing the race, and talking about it!" Karlin said. "Doing the race itself, though, well, that really hurts."

Gold hits record above $1,167/oz as dollar slips

LONDON - Gold hit a record high at $1,167.35 an ounce on Monday as dollar weakness pushed the metal through key technical resistance levels, fuelling momentum buying after the metal's sharp run higher earlier this month.

Spot gold was bid at $1,165.55 an ounce, against $1,148.20 late in New York on Friday. U.S. gold futures for December delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange rose $19.20 to $1,166.00 an ounce.

Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at MKS Finance in Geneva, said the metal's rise through technical stops had triggered fresh buying.

"The way the market held the $1,130 support on Thursday and Friday was very impressive," he said. "It looks like $1,200 will be seen much sooner than expected."

The dollar extended broad losses on Monday, hitting a six-week low versus the yen after comments from a Federal Reserve official bolstered the view that U.S. interest rates will stay low.

Weakness in the U.S. unit boosts gold's appeal as an alternative asset and makes dollar-priced commodities cheaper for holders of other currencies.

Oil prices rose more than 1 percent, meanwhile, to top $78 a barrel, after the U.S. dollar lost its footing and heightened tensions between key oil exporter Iran and Western nations raised speculation of a potential supply threat.

Strong oil prices raise the metal's safe-haven appeal against inflation. For a graphic on gold, oil and dollar's performance, click on the link:

Technical analysts at Barclays Capital -- who study past price charts to determine trends in future trade -- said in a note that gold was poised for further gains.

"Gold has entered a seasonally bullish period and is also performing well when priced in the other major currencies," the note said.

"Such a backdrop suggests higher prices into year-end," it added.

Cenbanks fuel investment

Investment buying has also been encouraged by a spate of acquisitions of gold by central banks, most notably that of India, which bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal from the International Monetary Fund.

"You've got more high-profile hedge funds visibly investing in gold. That's yet another factor encouraging moves into gold by the wider investor community," said David Barclay, commodity strategist at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong.

Option traders are betting gold will hit $1,200 an ounce or higher by early next year, and strong options interest could in turn lift underlying prices further into uncharted territory.

On the physical side of the market, dealers in Asia noted buy-backs and limited sales of scrap from jewelers due to expectations that gold prices could rise further.

Nabavi said some light physical demand had been seen out of Asia overnight.

Gold's gain lifted other precious metals, with platinum hitting its highest since September 2008 at $1,467.

Spot platinum was at $1,466 an ounce against $1,441, while palladium was at $366.50 against $361. Spot silver was bid at $18.78 an ounce against $18.46.

500 fishermen detained overseas

Around 500 Vietnamese fishermen are being detained overseas for fishing in the waters of neighboring countries, according to the authorities of southernmost Ca Mau Province.

The Ca Mau Department of Natural Resources and Environment said some 500 crewmen on 43 fishing boats caught this year are mostly detained in Malaysia and the Philippines.

More than 200 of those are serving jail terms in Malaysia because their families could not pay the ransoms, according to the report.

The provincial authorities said it had given local fishermen maps to help them define Vietnamese territorial waters.

In September, more than 200 Vietnamese fishermen, including children, from central Quang Ngai Province were shot at, beaten and robbed by Chinese forces while they were sheltering from devastating typhoon Ketsana at the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.

Passenger says to sue VNA after fight

A Vietnam Airlines passenger said on Sunday she would file lawsuit against a VNA stewardess with whom she picked up a fight on a Sunday flight.

Do Thi Kim Lien, the general director of AAA Assurance Corporation was accompanied by her husband and two children on the VN740 flight from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City.

The family of four sat in the same cabin although they bought only three business class tickets and one economy class ticket.

When a VNA stewardess discovered the family took up one business class seat, she required one of them to move to the economy class seat.

The female passenger and the stewardess had a quarrel, and then the family was escorted by security forces after the plane landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC.

Lien said she would sue the VNA stewardess for deliberately humiliating her before the public. Meanwhile, crew members said the passenger caused disorder on the flight, which violated the aviation security regulations.

The same day, a drunken male passenger was fined VND1 million (US$56) for threatening to bomb a VNA flight from HCMC to Hanoi.

Dang Quang Tuan, was reported to threaten airline officers while checking in, thus being seized at the airport until the plane took off.

VNA representatives said the passenger would be banned from flying with VNA permanently.