Putin rushin' to rip NATO as a threat

MOSCOW - Russia identified NATO as the nation's No. 1 military threat and raised the possibility of a broader use of precision conventional weapons to deter foreign aggression under a new military doctrine signed by President Vladimir Putin yesterday.

NATO flatly denied it is a threat to Russia, and accused Moscow of undermining European security.

The new doctrine, which comes amid tensions over Ukraine, reflected the Kremlin's readiness to take a stronger posture in response to what it sees as U.S.-led efforts to isolate and weaken Russia.

The paper says Russia could employ nuclear weapons in retaliation for the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the country or its allies, and also in the case of aggression involving conventional weapons that "threatens the very existence" of the Russian state.

DUBLIN - A brain-dead pregnant woman was taken off life support yesterday after a court ruled that her 18-week-old fetus was doomed to die - a case that exposed fear and confusion among doctors over how to apply Ireland's strict ban on abortion in an age of medical innovation.

The three-judge Dublin High Court said that all artificial support for the woman should end more than three weeks after she was declared clinically dead. Her relatives gathered at a hospital in the Irish Midlands to bid farewell to the unidentified woman, who was in her late 20s and had two young children.

In their 29-page ruling, the judges accepted testimony from seven doctors who said the fetus couldn't survive for the extra two months of development needed to be delivered safely. The doctors detailed how the woman's body was becoming a lethal environment rife with infections, fungal growths, fever and high blood pressure.

SAN FRANCISCO - Sony's PlayStation network remained offline yesterday on the second day of an outage that began roiling the online world just as eager video game players were unwrapping new consoles on Christmas morning.

Microsoft's Xbox Live service, which also went down Thursday, was back online yesterday although the company reported reported problems with some functions in the afternoon.

Credit for the disruptions was claimed on Twitter by a group of self-proclaimed hackers called Lizard Squad - or someone purporting to speak for the group. But many video-game enthusiasts and some other hacker groups quickly condemned their actions.

CINCINNATI - A baby gorilla raised by human keepers wearing hairy vests is ready to be placed with other gorillas and will move to the Columbus Zoo, the Cincinnati Zoo said yesterday.

Kamina, a young, female Western lowland gorilla, was born in August at the zoo in Oklahoma City but was shunned by her mother, so she was sent to Cincinnati in September. The human surrogates taught her to act like a gorilla and then placed her with two female gorillas.

When they didn't bond with her, keepers decided Kamina's best option was moving to Columbus.

- Associated Press