The uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is eviscerating the country's economy, threatening to hit hard at the business community and prosperous merchant classes, which the embattled regime relies on to help retain its grip on power.

About two months of violent protests around the country have shuttered businesses, driven away tourists and thrust Assad's regime into an unprecedented political quagmire that found its roots in the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Economic growth rates that had hit around 3.5 percent in fiscal 2010, are seen, according to some estimates, contracting by 3 percent in fiscal 2011.

As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world's end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet, said Monday that he felt so terrible when his doomsday message did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the Judgment Day message.

Yahoo Inc. is giving its popular email service a long-promised facelift in an attempt to make it more appealing to people who are increasingly using Facebook, Twitter, Google and other online alternatives to communicate.

The changes announced Tuesday build upon a redesigned email format that Yahoo began testing seven months ago. The estimated 277 million users of Yahoo's free email service will be switched to the new version during the next few weeks.

A married couple pleaded guilty Monday to charges that they planned to ship money to Hizbullah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.

The plea deal will spare Hor and Amera Akl from potential life sentences.

Britain's privacy rules are under assault by rambunctious journalists, Twitter users and even sports fans, as thousands defy a judge's order keeping the name of a well-known soccer star secret.

The disclosure of the sportsman's identity has made a mockery of recently introduced rules protecting public figures' privacy, raising questions about whether it was desirable — or even possible — to order journalists to keep a secret in an age where a single rogue tweet can be read around the world.

In a remote village in North Africa, women use the only weapon they have — sex — and go on a "love strike" that challenges traditional gender roles.

Director Radu Mihaileanu says he sees the fictional gender revolt depicted in his new movie "The Source" as crucial to the success of popular uprisings that have toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt this year and still smolder across the Arab world.

Iceland closed its main international airport Sunday as a volcanic eruption sent a plume of ash, smoke and steam 12 miles (20 kilometers) into the air.

Airport and air traffic control operator ISAVIA said Keflavik airport was closed at 0830 GMT (4:30 a.m. EDT), and no flights were taking off or landing.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Sunday that he would order another covert military raid like that which killed Osama bin Laden if it was necessary to stop terrorist attacks.

Pakistan is furious that that United States sent Navy SEALs to raid bin Laden's Pakistan hideaway earlier this month without informing Pakistani authorities.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned on Sunday of civil war if the opposition defied his call for them to be present at his palace for him to sign a Gulf deal on a transition of power, as pro-regime gunmen encircled a meeting of Arab and Western diplomatic mediators.

"If they remain stubborn, we will confront them everywhere with all possible means," he said in a televised address, moments before members of his ruling party were seen signing the Gulf Cooperation Council deal.

More than a dozen bomb attacks in and around Baghdad on Sunday left at least 18 people dead, including 12 people killed in a suicide attack, and 80 wounded.

The series of attacks comes just days after blasts against police in a tense northern city killed 29 people, with just months to go before all U.S. forces must withdraw from Iraq amid questions over whether local security forces are up to the task of maintaining stability in the war-wracked country.