Saying ‘I do’ overseas

Roughly one in five couples today are shunning the traditional church wedding in their hometown, opting for a destination wedding on a beach, mountaintop, castle or vineyard instead. And the trend is on the rise as couples realise that they can have their dream wedding by going abroad.
“With the average overseas ceremony costing less than a third of the cost of a traditional wedding in the UK, even for a really exclusive event, couples no longer need a big bank balance,” said Jennifer Kelly of Barefoot Bride, an online wedding planning service.
A destination wedding also solves the issue of who to invite. In Asia, many couples feel that having an intimate destination wedding is a way to reclaim their special day, rather than feeling obliged to invite many guests who are friends and associates of their parents.
Once you have decided to get away to tie the knot, the next question is where to go.
Greek islands
The Mamma Mia effect is still very much alive, leaving lots of couples dreaming of a Greek Island wedding. Greece spoils you for choice with its roughly 6,000 idyllic islands, with endless sands and dramatic cliffs surrounded by aquamarine seas. As brides today favour the smaller islands for a more intimate wedding of no more than 20 guests, pearls like Amorgos and Kefalonia are now more fashionable than party islands like Mykonos or Phapos.
Cyprus
The island country of Cyprus, located in the eastern Mediterranean, is locally known as Aphrodite’s Isle. Where better to get married than where legend holds the goddess of love rose from the waves? There is sunshine nearly year round, English is widely spoken and it is very reasonably priced. Options for all budgets range from exclusive boutique hotels to family friendly all-inclusive properties. Pritoras’s Fig Tree Bay and Green Bay Beach are among the choicest areas.
Caribbean
The allure of the sun-drenched Caribbean is very popular with North American couples. There are thousands of islands to choose from, with miles of golden sandy beaches and clear blue water.
Getting married in the Caribbean also means your guests can enjoy laid back group activities like catamaran cruises or dinners on the beach. “Most of our clients want a location and a resort where their guests can have unlimited access to meals included in the cost; they seem concerned with keeping the costs down for their guests so places like Dominican Republic and Jamaica, which have a lot of all inclusive resorts, are very popular,” explained Sandra Aaron from Mindless Sophistication Events, a wedding planning service.
Indonesia
Bali is the top destination for weddings in Indonesia. The island has a moderate, warm climate, tropical jungles and stunning Indian Ocean views.
“A good number of small, bespoke wedding chapels have sprung up on the island in recent years too, but most importantly, there are lots of agents on the ground who handle all the marriage paperwork” explained Jonathan Goh from Wedding Acts, a wedding planning service based in Singapore. “The couple just needs to arrive a couple of days before the wedding.”
Thailand
The legalities in Thailand are not as easy as Bali, but most couples choose this destination for its beautiful beaches, delicious food and the warm local hospitality. Most wedding ceremonies here will offer the choice of a Buddhist blessing, lantern lighting ceremony and perhaps hiring a baby elephant (a controversial practice we do not condone).
Phuket and Koh Samui are the more popular destinations, but smaller islands too are coming into vogue. “With air travel these days, you can bring 50 people to Thailand at a reasonable price and stay in Thailand’s most luxurious resort, at a price that is probably half what it would cost to get married in Europe or Sydney,” boasted Anthony Lark, General Manager of Trisara resort in Phuket.
South Africa
The variety of this country is what makes it stand apart. Some couples opt for a game reserve in the heart of the South African bush or a stylish vineyard setting, but most cannot resist the lure of the beaches that lap the country's coastline from Cape Town all the way round to Durban.
“It's where we got married three years ago and I think it offers all that you get from a beach wedding in the Caribbean, but also has so much more on offer for the honeymoon and the guests -- be it a bush safari or the colourful culture and night life in Cape Town,” Kelly said.
Emerging destinations
Many couples are opting for more far-flung and exotic destinations, like Cambodia and Vietnam, Stephanie Chai from weddingguideasia.com said. Khmer ceremonies in Cambodia can add a different dimension to nuptials, while in China, resorts in Ringha, in the Yunnan Province, are offering Tibetan ceremonies too.

Mini guide to the Peloponnese, Greece

The Peloponnese in southern Greece is the stuff legends are made of, literally. Here, Greek gods and heroes strutted their stuff in historical cities such as Ancient Olympia. The landscape is equally impressive, from some of Greece’s finest beaches on the southernmost peninsula Mani, to the flower-covered mountains of Arkadia.
Related article: Travelling to Olympia, now and in 480 BC
See
Byzantine churches and palaces in the ruined fortress town of Mystras spill from a spur of the Taÿgetos Mountains, four miles west of Sparta. This Unesco World Heritage Site is one of the most important in the Peloponnese (00 30 27310 83377; 8am-7.30pm summer, 8am-3pm winter; £4.50).
Sat beneath the Palamidi fortress, the pretty port of Nafplio has narrow streets and Venetian-style houses. The Alexandros Soutzos Museum features exhibits from the 1821 Greek War of Independence (00 30 27520 21915; Sidiras Merarhias 23; 10am-3pm Mon, Thu and Sat, 10am-3pm and 5pm-8pm Wed and Fri; 10am-2pm Sun; £2.50).
The lovely village of Stemnitsa is the starting point for walks into the Lousios Gorge. Walks vary from one hour to day-long hikes, where you can trek the gorge, taking in monasteries along the way. Maps are available locally.
People used to visit Epidavros to seek miraculous cures. Today, they come for its well-preserved theatre and Ancient Greek drama performances in July and August (00 30 27530 22009; greekfestival. gr; Epidavros; 8am-7.30pm summer, 8am-5pm winter; £5.50).
Olympia has a host of museums, with the excellent Archaeological Museum of Olympia featuring a superb marble statue of Hermes by Praxiteles (00 30 26240 22742; 1.30pm-8pm Mon, 8am-8pm Tue-Sun Apr-Oct, 10.30am-5pm Mon, 8.30am-3pm Tue-Sun Nov-Mar; £8 including site visit).
Eat and drink
I Stemnitsa is the only year-round taverna in the mountain village of Stemnitsa. Tables are arranged under giant umbrellas and they serve a good Greek menu. The local butcher owns it, so expect generous, quality cuts of meat (00 30 27950 81371; Stemnitsa; lunch and dinner; mains from £3).
A long-standing Sparta favourite, Restaurant Elysse serves hearty home-cooking. The menu includes Lakonian specialities from the south-central region of the Peloponnese, such as bardouniotiko – chicken cooked with onions and feta (00 30 27310 29896; Paleologou 113, Sparta; lunch and dinner; mains from £5).
Omorfi Poli offers traditional dishes and meze with a twist, such as Greek-style mushroom risotto. There’s also a good wine list showcasing local labels (00 30 27520 29452; omorfipoli-pension.com; Bouboulinas 75, Nafplio; dinner; mains from £5).
Located in the tiny seaside village of Plaka, near Nafplio, Fishermen’s Tavern is run by a family of fishermen, so you dine on whatever is caught that day – typically bream, mullet and sardines (00 30 27570 22815; Plaka; lunch and dinner Apr-Oct; fish priced per kilogram from £26).
Luxurious Hotel Kyrimai occupies an idyllic setting on Gerolimenas harbour, in Mani. Menu highlights include shrimp stuffed zucchini with saffron (00 30 27330 54288; kyrimai.gr; Gerolimenas, Mani; lunch and dinner; mains from £14).
Sleep
Located just 200 metres from the centre of Olympia, Camping Diana occupies a lovely shaded spot beneath fragrant pine trees. Open year-round, the site has a pool, mini-market, internet access and friendly staff (00 30 26240 22314; campingdiana.gr; Olympia; camp sites per adult/tent/car £7/£5/£4).
Hotel Marianna is one of Nafplio’s best. Some rooms open onto terraces with hillside views, and all have characterful exposed stone walls and traditional bedsteads. The owners, the Zotos brothers, provide handsome breakfasts (00 30 27520 24256; pensionmarianna.gr; Potamianou 9, Nafplio; from £75).
Perched amid the wooded slopes around Stemnitsa, Mpelleiko is a 17th-century stone house and a perfect rural retreat. Rooms are styled with authentic Greek furnishings and brightly coloured throws, and some feature large, stately fireplaces. Breakfast is a huge selection of homemade produce (00 30 27950 81286; mpelleiko.gr; Stemnitsa; from £85).
Located in a newly renovated Nafplio mansion, Ippoliti offers discreetly luxurious accommodation. A grand stone staircase leads up to tastefully decorated rooms with elegant sleigh beds. There is also a small pool and gym (00 30 27520 96088; ippoliti.gr; Aristidou & Ilia Miniati 9, Nafplio; from £110).
Curl up in the shell room, relax in the mushroom room or dream of travel in the map room at Patra’s Primarolia Art Hotel. This highly individual hotel has rooms ranging in style from minimalist to baroque. There’s also an in-house sauna (00 30 2610 624900; arthotel.gr; Othonos Amalias 33, Patra; from £120).
Getting around
Slow trains connect main towns. There’s a reasonable network of buses serving Nafplio, Epidavros, Mycenae and Kalamata, but they are often slow and services to smaller villages infrequent. To really explore, hire a car in Nafplio (£35 per day; europcar.com).
When to go
Visit in spring when the mountains are swathed in flowers, or between June and September to catch the Patras International Festival, featuring a range of visiting performers.
How to go
Thomas Cook flies from Gatwick (from £345) and Manchester to Kalamata (from £355; May-Oct; flythomascook.com). EasyJet flies to Athens from Gatwick (from £285) and Manchester (from £275).

Twin towers monument soon will be a memory

MONROE — For almost 10 years, passers-by from near and far have stopped at Ken Kokoska’s home to leave notes and flowers or pose to have pictures taken in front of the makeshift twin towers on his front lawn. But that’s about to end.

The iconic towers, which have worn with age, soon will be taken down.

“I’m planning on taking them down at the end of September or early October,” the Mounts Mills Road resident said. “They’re showing their age and (Osama) bin Laden is dead. I originally thought I would just keep it up one day for each death, but when I did the math, I realized I was well beyond that.”

Kokoska said he got the idea for the towers shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.

“I didn’t know anyone who died in 9/11, but I didn’t want people to forget what happened,” Kokoska said. “I didn’t know how long it would take for official monuments to show up in towns, and I wanted something that would remind people right away.”

He started working on the project in his basement but soon got distracted. Working as a postal employee, he was dealing with an anthrax scare that occurred shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

The towers finally were erected on Dec. 19, 2001.

Kokoska said he used a tax refund to partially fund his project. The project cost about $500, he said. Kokoska’s models were built on a 1:100 scale. His towers, made of wood, are about 13.5 feet tall and 2 feet wide.

One tower has an antenna and the other includes an inside stairway that allows him to climb to the top.

Floodlights shine on the towers a few hours a night, he said.

“They also had aircraft warning lights that flashed for five years, but they wore out,” he said.

Kokoska, who works for Norfolk Southern, said the towers have become a landmark.

“People ride by and then do U-turns,” he said. “I love when they send their kids out to pose in front of the towers. When we’re sitting watching TV, we see the flashing of a camera.”

“One time, somebody knocked on the door when my brother was home and gave him a couple of pieces of concrete from the towers. We have them downstairs.”

Even Kokoska’s wife, Renee, is amazed at the reaction.

“It’s a tremendous thing he has done,” she said. “When I moved in here and told people I live in Monroe, they would ask me if I knew the house with the World Trade towers.”

Electric motor made from a single molecule

The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology.

The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of energy can be put to efficient use.

Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

"People have found before that they can make motors driven by light or by chemical reactions, but the issue there is that you're driving billions of them at a time - every single motor in your beaker," said Charles Sykes, a chemist at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US.

"The exciting thing about the electrical one is that we can excite and watch the motion of just one, and we can see how that thing's behaving in real time," he told BBC News.

Miniature uses
The butyl methyl sulphide molecule was placed on a clean copper surface, where its single sulphur atom acted as a pivot.

The tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope - a tiny pyramid with a point just an atom or two across - was used to funnel electrical charge into the motor, as well as to take images of the molecule as it spun.

It spins in both directions, at a rate as high as 120 revolutions per second.

But averaged over time, there is a net rotation in one direction.

By modifying the molecule slightly, it could be used to generate microwave radiation or to couple into what are known as nano-electromechanical systems, Dr Sykes said.

"The next thing to do is to get the thing to do work that we can measure - to couple it to other molecules, lining them up next to one another so they're like miniature cog-wheels, and then watch the rotation propagation down the chain," he said.

As well as forming a part of the tiniest machines the world has ever seen, such minute mechanics could be useful in medicine - for example, in the controlled delivery of drugs to targeted locations.

But for the moment, Dr Sykes and his team are in contact with the Guinness Book of World Records to have their motor certified as the smallest ever.

Probe pictures Moon landing sites

The pictures clearly show the hardware left on the lunar surface by American astronauts in the 1960s and 70s, including Apollo 17's "Moon buggy".

The images were acquired by the robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been circling Earth's satellite since 2009.

Such shots have been returned before, but these are the best yet.

LRO has recently lowered its orbit from 50km above the Moon's surface to just 25km.

This makes it easier to see equipment, such as the descent stages that put the astronauts on the surface. Some of the science experiments are visible, also - as are the trails of bootmarks left in the dirt as the crews positioned these science packages.

Harrison Schmitt sits in the LRV

The Apollo 17, 14 and 12 sites are the focus of the latest release.

They were viewed by the narrow-angle imaging system on LRO's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument.

At the lower altitude, this instrument sees objects at a resolution of 25cm by 25cm per pixel.

In an extreme blow-up of the Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), it is just possible to discern the condition in which the astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt parked the buggy - with its wheels turned to the left.

LRO has been a highly productive mission. It has now returned several hundred thousands pictures of the lunar surface.

The probe was originally conceived as a robotic precursor to future manned missions. However, when Nasa might return to the lunar body with astronauts is not clear. Last year, US politicians cancelled the project, known as Constellation, that was intended to achieve this feat.

"We all like to obsess and look at the Apollo landing site images because it's fun," said Mark Robinson, the LROC principal investigator from Arizona State University, Tempe.

LRO was launched in 2009

"People actually used to be able to go to the Moon; people used to explore the Moon - and hopefully sometime in the future that will continue again. But LROC is looking at the whole Moon and we've taken about 1,500 of these high-resolution images distributed all around the Moon… and this is just a huge resource for anybody studying the Moon, doing science; and engineers planning to go back to the Moon in general and to specific sites."

Erosion processes on the Moon work much slower than on an active planet like Earth. Eventually, though, all traces of the Moon landings will be erased.

The lunar body is constantly bombarded by micrometeorites that will, in time, mix up the boottracks and break down the equipment. It has been estimated that rock at the surface erodes at a rate of about 1mm per million years.

"In human years, it may seem like forever, but in geologic terms probably there will be no traces of the Apollo exploration in let's say 10 to 100 million years," said Dr Robinson.

On Thursday, Nasa will launch its latest Moon mission - the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail).

This is a pair of satellites that will survey the Moon's gravity in unprecedented detail. The data will reveal its internal structure, helping to explain how the lunar body formed and why its nearside now looks so different from its farside.

Strong showing for Arab artists at Venice Biennale

Arab artists are captivating audiences at this year's Venice Biennale, as the Arab Spring lends added potency to works from the Middle East.

At the United Arab Emirates pavilion, Abdullah al-Saadi from Sharjah puts on a polished exhibition with images of a land in transition, wrapped up in a plea for environmental awareness.

Naked Sweet Potato is Saadi's song of praise to the local staple, which has sustained Emirati families throughout the UAE's history.

"We eat this in the winter time," said Saadi. "It is part of our culture."

A neighbouring pavilion holds a more mysterious object - a glimmering metal box balanced on its point over hundreds of carefully placed identical glistening balls.

At first it appears to be a symbol for Mecca, Islam's holiest city in Saudi Arabia. But on closer inspection, the accompanying video and audio suggest possibilities beyond the Kaaba and swirling crowds of pilgrims encircling it.

This piece, The Black Arch, is by Saudi sisters Raja and Shadia Alem, who are at the forefront of a renaissance of Arab art that is making its presence felt at the 54th Venice International Biennale.

That Arab artists are the flavour of the month was demonstrated by the welcome afforded to the Iraqi pavilion, which is back at the Biennale for the first time since 1976.

Housed in a run-down building, six Iraqi artists present Wounded Water, a display that is as moving as it is poignant.

While the Iraqi artists have been invited to all the glitzy, celebrity-studded parties and their pieces are rumoured to be sought after by big name collectors, the works show restraint and maturity.

Walid Siti's blood-red river made of mirror and ribbons captured the wounds of a country still trapped in the repercussions of war.

"The river is al-Zab, a tributary of the river in Dijla," he said. "The red ribbons hint at the terrible things that have happened in Iraq."

Ali Assaf underlined the true price of oil in a video of dead and maimed birds in the wake of an oil spill. It is accompanied by a haunting childhood song teaching youngsters respect and love of marine wildlife.

Also making use of an atmospheric building, the pan-Arab exhibition, Future of a Promise, shows 30 works by artists from eight Arab countries in a former salt storage facility.

Curated by Lina Lazaar, it is the largest show in Europe of contemporary art with Arab origins.

The show's only video is Shadow Sites II, part of a larger work by Jananne al-Ani, an Iraqi based in London.

"The work comes from an English forensic anthropologist's search for butterflies," Ani explained. "She was looking for a species that only breeds on a particular wildflower. When they dug underneath they would inevitably find mass graves."

The idea is that the natural world covers over atrocities, yet there is always a clue on the surface as to what is going on underneath.

"Where the earth is disturbed by digging graves the dormant seed bank is activated and germinates producing flowers," she says.

"Chasing butterflies seems innocent enough, but it unravels horrific acts of brutality.
In a separate performance show, Lebanese artist Marya Kazoun, has thousands of pieces of broken glass scattered over the floor with amorphous figures picking them up.

"After a bomb explodes, destroying a building, the area is cleared. Then the empty space becomes a parking lot," she says.

"Then land values rise and another building is constructed on the site. It is a non-stop cycle of destruction and reconstruction."

Arab Spring
With most Arab artists hedging their bets when it comes to the uprisings, the Egyptian pavilion stood out.

Critics hesitate to call it art, referring instead to a homage to the late Ahmed Basiony, shot during mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square in January.

A series of screens show the deceased in the midst of his last artistic performance at the Cairo opera in 2010, while footage that Basiony shot of mass protests just days before his death is projected alongside
Although it is tempting to bracket contemporary Arab art as a separate category, the huge variety of work on display at the Biennale demonstrates that there is no single defining character, theme or genre to fit all Arab artists.

The one unifying element is the desire to tell their stories through art to a curious world.

The art exhibition at the 54th Venice Biennale runs until 27 November 2011.

Turkish net hijack hits big name websites

Visitors to the websites of Vodafone, the Daily Telegraph, UPS and four others were re-directed to a site set up by Turkish hackers on Sunday night.

The diversion was the result of the group's attack on computers that hold web address information.

Real URL names were deliberately mistranslated into the IP address of the hackers' site.

No data from the seven victims was lost or compromised as a result of the attack.

The hacking group, called Turkguvenligi, targeted the net's Domain Name System (DNS).

This acts as an address book for the web and turns the names that people use (eg bbc.co.uk) into IP address numbers that computers understand (eg 212.58.246.90).
In its attack, the Turkguvenligi group changed the records relating to seven sites in DNS databases run by NetNames and Ascio - two subsidiaries of domain name management firm Group NBT.

In an interview with the Guardian, Turkguvenligi revealed that it got access to the files using a well-established attack method known as SQL injection.

It said it had targeted the sites and found that attacking their DNS records was the easiest way to achieve their ends.

"The hardest one is reaching the domain company but if you can succeed there will be a treasure for you," Turkguvenligi told the Guardian.

According to Zone-H, which logs website defacements and hack attacks, Turkguvenligi has carried out 186 defacements since late 2008.

In a DNS attack, the sites targeted are not affected at all. The only impact is for visitors who will be re-directed to a site they were not expecting.

A statement by The Register about the attack suggests the re-direct was active for about three hours.

Writing on the blog of security company Sophos, Graham Cluley said: "We have to be grateful that the message displayed appears to be graffiti, rather than an attempt to phish information from users or install malware."

A spokesperson for Group NBT said the hijack was carried out by the hackers managing to trick servers used to update its DNS database.

"The illegal changes were reversed quickly to bring service back to the customers impacted and the accounts concerned have been disabled to block any further access to the systems," said NBT.

"While no-one can completely defend against such sustained and concentrated malicious attacks we will continue to review our systems to ensure that we provide our customers a solid, robust and above all secure service," it added.
DNS is consulted by a person's web browser when they want to visit a particular site.