Instant phone translation begins in Japan

JAPAN'S biggest mobile operator says it will launch a translation service that lets people chat over the phone in several different languages.

The application for NTT DoCoMo subscribers will give two-way voice and text readouts of conversations between Japanese speakers and those talking in English, Chinese or Korean with a several-second delay, the firm says.

"Hanashite Honyaku" will be a free application that can be used on smartphones and tablet computers with the Android operating system, DoCoMo says.

Customers will also be able to call landlines using the service, it says.

It plans to next launch voice-to-text readouts in French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai.

"We hope that with this application, our subscribers will be able to widen the range of their communication," a company spokeswoman said.

However, she conceded the service does not offer perfect translations and has trouble deciphering some dialects.

DoCoMo also said it has launched a separate service that lets users translate menus and signage using a smartphone camera.

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US stocks slip on Caterpillar outlook

US stocks have opened mostly lower as investors braced for a week of earnings reports, with Caterpillar's lowered outlook hurting sentiment.

Five minutes into trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 12.86 points, or 0.10 per cent, at 13,330.65.

The S&P 500-stock index was off 0.12 point, or 0.01 per cent, at 1,433.07.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 4.71 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 3,010.33.

"Some cautious guidance from Caterpillar is helping to keep things in check," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

Although the world's largest heavy equipment maker posted its best third-quarter, with record profit and sales that beat forecasts, "the bad news is that it provided FY12 and FY13 guidance that is below current consensus estimates", he said.

"Thus far, the earnings reporting period, even with the financials, has left plenty to be desired," he added.

On Friday, stocks fell sharply after a spate of disappointing earnings from major heavyweights.

The Dow dropped 1.52 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 1.66 per cent and the Nasdaq gave up 2.19 per cent.

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11-year-old in US court on manslaughter

AN 11-year-old US girl charged with juvenile manslaughter in the death of a three-month-old baby has entered a "no answer" plea.

The girl bit her nails and looked down during the hearing in Maine on Monday. Her other plea choices were "admission" and "denial".

Three-month-old Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway was staying at the girl's home in the care of the girl's mother. The mother called police on July 8 to say the infant wasn't breathing.

The state hasn't released the cause of death, but the infant's mother, Nicole "Nicki" Greenaway, was told that her child ingested medication and was suffocated.

The state chose not to try the girl as an adult. If convicted as a juvenile, the maximum penalty is incarceration until age 21.

The girl's lawyer, John Martin, said he felt the manslaughter charge was "too harsh" given the girl's age.

The judge on Monday ordered a competency evaluation for the girl.

The Associated Press generally does not identify juveniles accused of crimes.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services removed the girl from her mother's care. In a letter, an agency case worker said the girl had a behaviour disorder that made her unsuitable for caring for the infant.

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Pregnant women going further to give birth

OVERWORKED maternity hospitals in Melbourne are being forced to turn down bookings from pregnant women, forcing them to hospitals further away or into expensive private care.

Fairfax says staff at the recently expanded Werribee Mercy Hospital have told several local women this year that the hospital is too full to book them in for antenatal care.

Victorian Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson is looking into the matter and said she had also received complaints from women who had been turned away from the Royal Women's Hospital.

Ms Wilson said the government needed to invest in growth corridors, particularly in Melbourne's west.

"The west is one of the fastest growing districts in the world," Ms Wilson said.

"There are new suburbs springing up and there are young people buying houses and moving in, but the health services are not keeping up with that spurt of growth. Unless we do something about this quickly there are going to be big problems," she said.

Doctors told Fairfax the shortage of beds at Werribee and the Royal Women's was impacting on Sunshine Hospital, which was taking the overflow despite a lack of birth suites.

They said it was also causing many women to be discharged home one day after birth, jeopardising postnatal care.

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Oldest Auschwitz survivor dies at 108

THE oldest known survivor of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Antoni Dobrowolski, has died at the age of 108, one of the site's official historians has announced.

Adam Cyra, who works at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum, said on Monday that Dobrowolski died in the town of Debno, northwest Poland.

Primary school teacher Dobrowolski ran secret classes during Germany's brutal World War II occupation of Poland, when the local population was barred from receiving an education.

Arrested in 1942 by the Nazis' Gestapo secret police, he was first sent to Auschwitz, in annexed Polish territory, and later transferred to Gross Rosen and Sachsenhausen, both in Germany.

He survived until the latter camp was liberated by Soviet and Polish forces in 1945.

Returning to Poland after the war, he first ran a primary school in Debno and then a secondary school.

Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most enduring symbol of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany's World War II campaign of genocide against Europe's Jews. After the war's end in 1945, it was transformed into a memorial and museum by Poland.

A year after invading Poland in 1939, the Nazis opened what was to become a vast complex on the edge of the southern town of Oswiecim - Auschwitz in German - initially to hold and kill Polish prisoners such as Dobrowolski.

They later expanded it to the nearby village of Brzezinka, or Birkenau, as they took the Holocaust to an industrial scale.

Of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the war, one million were murdered at the camp, mostly in its notorious gas chambers, along with tens of thousands of others including Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war.

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Caterpillar cuts outlook in weak economy

CATERPILLAR says the world's economy is weaker than it thought, and it doesn't expect growth to pick up until the second half of next year.

The company on Monday cut its 2012 revenue and profit guidance, and said next year won't be much better.

Caterpillar makes the yellow-painted excavators, heavy tractors and other construction equipment often seen on road-building projects. It's the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment, and also makes engines, so its results are watched closely for signs of where the broader economy is headed.

Where it's headed right now is for some weak growth, based on what Caterpillar was saying on Monday.

It predicted worldwide economic growth of 2.7 per cent for next year, up from the 2.5 per cent growth it expects for 2012. It expects the cheap lending offered in most countries to continue next year, although "growth has been slow to respond", the company said.

"As a result, we are not expecting improvement in overall economic growth until the second half of 2013," the company said.

Caterpillar sells to dealers, who turn around and sell to end users such as construction and mining companies. Those dealers are trying to cut inventory, so they're ordering less equipment than customers are buying.

In response, Caterpillar said it has reduced production, resulting in temporary shutdowns and layoffs. Lower production will continue until dealer demand lines up with end user demand, Caterpillar said.

As a result, Caterpillar cut its 2012 outlook for the second time this year. Revenue is expected to grow 9.7 per cent to $US66 billion ($A64 billion), after rising 41 per cent in 2011. Profit is now forecast at $US9 to $US9.25 per share, down from a previous forecast of $US9.60 per share.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected revenue of $US67.2 billion, with profit of $US9.41 per share.

The economy this year "has been a disappointment", Caterpillar said, with growth lower than expected in the US and China, and with much of Europe in recession.

Caterpillar expects 2013 revenue to be about the same as this year, in a range of up five per cent to down five per cent.

"We're not expecting rapid growth, and we're not predicting a global recession," chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman said.

The company said sales of mining gear will fall next year. Lower prices for metals and coal, along with higher operating costs, have hurt profit margins at many mining companies, Caterpillar said. Sales of construction gear are expected to increase, and it expects improving activity in the US. It expects engine sales to be flat.

Profit in the third quarter rose 49 per cent to almost $US1.7 billion. That compares with profit of $US1.14 billion a year earlier. Revenue rose 4.6 per cent to $US16.45 billion.

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Greek deficit, debt worse than thought

GREECE'S national statistics agency has revised upwards the country's 2011 deficit and public debt figures, which will likely further complicate efforts to meet fiscal targets set by international creditors for bailout aid.

According to the still provisional data, the 2011 deficit stood at 9.4 per cent of gross domestic product and the public debt at 170.6 per cent, EL.STAT said on Monday.

"The revisions as regards the debt ratios are primarily due to the update of gross domestic product estimates," the agency said in a statement.

Earlier this month EL.STAT revised the estimate for the economy's performance last year to a 7.1 per cent contraction from an earlier calculation of 6.9 per cent.

In April, the statistics authority had estimated that the public deficit stood at 9.1 per cent of gross domestic product.

While more than three times the EU limit, it was close to the nine per cent target.

The country is trying to squeeze the deficit down to 6.6 per cent of GDP this year.

In April, public debt was estimated to have reached 165.3 per cent of GDP, whereas the EU limit is 60 per cent of output.

Despite a rollover earlier this year, Greece's debt is expected to increase from 169.5 per cent of output in 2012 to 179.3 per cent in 2013, according to next year's draft budget.

Heading for a sixth year of recession, Greece has been relying on international aid packages for its financial survival and is currently in negotiations with its EU-IMF creditors to unblock a 31.2 billion euros ($A39.7 billion) tranche of aid.

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