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Son gets to follow in his father's footsteps

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - An American computer game designer reached space Sunday, fulfilling a long-deferred childhood dream that began with the flight of his astronaut father.

The Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft carrying Richard Garriott and two crewmates - and the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world's most famous minds - hurtled into a clear blue sky from the Baikonur facility on the Kazakh steppe.

Garriott, a 47-year-old multimillionaire from Austin, Texas, is the sixth paying space traveller and the first American to follow a parent into orbit.

The Soyuz is due to dock Tuesday with the International Space Station, where British-born Garriott will spend about 10 days conducting experiments - including some whose sponsors helped fund his trip - and photographing Earth to measure changes since his father snapped pictures from the U.S. station Skylab in 1973.

As the bright orange glow of the rocket disappeared, Garriott's 77-year old father watched with binoculars.

"I'm elated, elated," Owen Garriott said when a loudspeaker announcement confirmed the spacecraft had reached orbit safely.

Suicide car bombers strike in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD - Suicide car bombers struck twice Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least six people and wounding dozens of others.

Meanwhile, a car bomb killed seven other people in Baghdad and two Iraqi soldiers were killed by snipers in separate attacks in the capital's Yarmouk district.

Also Sunday, the government announced new security measures to protect Christians in Mosul after a spate of attacks against them by Sunni religious extremists.

The latest violence shows the ongoing security challenges facing Iraq as the U.S. shifts responsibility to the Iraqi military and police after a sharp decline in insurgent attacks this year.

Tropical storm Nana expected to weaken

MIAMI - Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami say tropical storm Nana has formed in the eastern Atlantic, but predict it will weaken to a tropical depression by today.

The storm is packing 65 kilometres per hour winds about 1,500 kilometres west of the Cape Verde Islands.

It is the 14th named storm of the 2008 season, and headed toward the west-northwest at about 10 km/h.

Billionaire wants to build tallest building

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal says he will build the world's tallest building in Jidda.

Sunday's statement by his firm, Kingdom Holding Co., says the building will be more than a kilometre high and will be part of a larger project that will cost $32 billion Cdn.

The project, called Kingdom City, will span 23 million square metres and will include luxury homes, hotels and offices. The booming city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has also said it will build a tower over a kilometre high.

Dubai is already home to the world's tallest building.

Source: The Associated Press, The Canadian Press