Developer of project in Sembawang to fix cracks in houses nearby

SINGAPORE: The developer of a project in Sembawang will fix the cracks and damage to 22 houses nearby.

The developer is doing this after complaints of cracked walls, sunken driveways and leaking roofs surfaced in April last year from residents around Jalan Legundi.

The affected residents linked these to the construction of a three-storey mixed development nearby.

Their Member of Parliament (Nee Soon GRC), Mr K Shanmugam, visited some of the houses in December last year, along with officers from the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and grassroots leaders.

He asked the developer to repair the more serious damage before Lunar New Year and fix the rest after that.

In a Facebook post following a meeting on January 9 with the developer and his professional advisors, as well as the BCA and Neighbourhood Committee, Mr Shanmugam said the developer will carry out the repair work in two stages.

It will start with temporary works and then move on to permanent repair works.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also the Law and Foreign Affairs Minister, said some residents want the temporary works to be done before the Lunar New Year.

The contractor has agreed to do so.

Other residents asked for repair works to be done after the Lunar New Year.

The BCA told Channel NewsAsia that 22 of the 35 houses in the area are affected.

It has instructed the Professional Engineer of the construction project to inspect the affected units and submit an assessment report.

- CNA/fa

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Muslim panchayat bans use of cellphones by girls

JAIPUR: After the khaps in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, a Muslim community panchayat in Rajasthan on Thursday banned girls from using cellphones and also from dancing and singing at weddings, ostensibly in an effort to prevent incidents like Delhi gang rape.

Boys and girls have also been prohibited from marrying someone against the wish of their family members or someone from a different community, panchayat members said on Thursday.

The restrictions have been imposed on the Muslim community members at Salumbar town in Udaipur district, some 400 km from Jaipur, by the Anjuman Muslim Panchayat, a minority community council.

"We have decided to ban the girls from carrying and using cellphones. The decision was taken with a view that cellphones are spoiling girls," panchayat secretary Habibur Rahman told reporters.

He said that a slew of measures has been taken to ensure safety of girls belonging to the community in the area.

"The girls would not be allowed to dance and sing during wedding functions. A couple cannot get married against the wishes of their family members," said the panchayat secretary.

He added that punitive action will be taken against girls who are found ignoring the panchayat edicts.

"If a couple runs away from house to get married, they will be ostracised and a cash fine of Rs 51,000 will be imposed on them. Fine of Rs 51,000 has also been decided for those who marry someone from a different community," said the secretary.

He added that panchayat decisions have been communicated to all members of the community in the town.

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Embryonic Sharks Freeze to Avoid Detection

Jane J. Lee

Although shark pups are born with all the equipment they'll ever need to defend themselves and hunt down food, developing embryos still stuck in their egg cases are vulnerable to predators. But a new study finds that even these baby sharks can detect a potential predator, and play possum to avoid being eaten.

Every living thing gives off a weak electrical field. Sharks can sense this with a series of pores—called the ampullae of Lorenzini—on their heads and around their eyes, and some species rely on this electrosensory ability to find food buried in the seafloor. (See pictures of electroreceptive fish.)

Two previous studies on the spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) and the clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria)—a relative of sharks—found similar freezing behavior in their young. But new research by shark biologist and doctoral student Ryan Kempster at the University of Western Australia has given scientists a more thorough understanding of this behavior.

It all started because Kempster wanted to build a better shark repellent. Since he needed to know how sharks respond to electrical fields, Kempster decided to use embryos. "It's very hard to test this in the field because you need to get repeated responses," he said. And you can't always get the same shark to cooperate multiple times. "But we could use embryos because they're contained within an egg case."

Cloaking Themselves

So Kempster got his hands on 11 brownbanded bamboo shark (Chiloscyllium punctatum) embryos and tested their reactions to the simulated weak electrical field of a predator. (Popular pictures: Bamboo shark swallowed whole—by another shark.)

In a study published today in the journal PLoS One, Kempster and his colleagues report that all of the embryonic bamboo sharks, once they reached later stages of development, reacted to the electrical field by ceasing gill movements (essentially, holding their breath), curling their tails around their bodies, and freezing.

A bamboo shark embryo normally beats its tail to move fresh seawater in and out of its egg case. But that generates odor cues and small water currents that can give away its position. The beating of its gills as it breathes also generates an electrical field that predators can use to find it.

"So it cloaks itself," said neuroecologist Joseph Sisneros, at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. "[The embryo] shuts down any odor cues, water movement, and its own electrical signal."

Sisneros, who conducted the previous clearnose skate work, is delighted to see that this shark species also reacts to external electrical fields and said it would be great to see whether this is something all shark, skate, and ray embryos do.

Marine biologist Stephen Kajiura, at Florida Atlantic University, is curious to know how well the simulated electrical fields compare to the bamboo shark's natural predators—the experimental field was on the higher end of the range normally given off.

"[But] they did a good job with [the study]," Kajiura said. "They certainly did a more thorough study than anyone else has done."

Electrifying Protection?

In addition to the freezing behavior he recorded in the bamboo shark embryos, Kempster found that the shark pups remembered the electrical field signal when it was presented again within 40 minutes and that they wouldn't respond as strongly to subsequent exposures as they did initially.

This is important for developing shark repellents, he said, since some of them use electrical fields to ward off the animals. "So if you were using a shark repellent, you would need to change the current over a 20- to 30-minute period so the shark doesn't get used to that field."

Kempster envisions using electrical fields to not only keep humans safe but to protect sharks as well. Shark populations have been on the decline for decades, due partly to ending up as bycatch, or accidental catches, in the nets and on the longlines of fishers targeting other animals.

A 2006 study estimated that as much as 70 percent of landings, by weight, in the Spanish surface longline fleet were sharks, while a 2007 report found that eight million sharks are hooked each year off the coast of southern Africa. (Read about the global fisheries crisis in National Geographic magazine.)

"If we can produce something effective, it could be used in the fishing industry to reduce shark bycatch," Kempster said. "In [America] at the moment, they're doing quite a lot of work trying to produce electromagnetic fish hooks." The eventual hope is that if these hooks repel the sharks, they won't accidentally end up on longlines.

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Holmes 'Delighted' by Creepy Self-Portraits: Victims

After two days of apparent indifference, accused Aurora shooter James Holmessmiled and smirked at disturbing self-portraits and images of weapons shown in court today, according to the families of victims who watched him.

"When he sees himself, he gets very excited and his eyes crinkle," Caren Teves said outside of the courthouse, after the hearing. "Your eyes are the window to the soul and you could see that he was very delighted in seeing himself in that manner."

Teves' son Alex Teves, 24, died in the shooting.

Prosecutors showed photos that Holmes took of himself hours before he allegedly carried out a massacre at a Colorado movie theater. He took a series of menacing self-portraits with his dyed orange hair curling out of from under a black skull cap and his eyes covered with black contacts. In some of the photos, guns were visible.

Those haunting photographs, found on his iPhone, were shown in court today on the last day of a preliminary testimony that will lead to a decision on whether the case will go to trial. The hearing concluded without Holmes' defense calling any witnesses.

The judge's decision on whether the case will proceed to trial is expected on Friday.

James Holmes: Suspect in Aurora Movie Theatre Shootings Back in Court Watch Video

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Holmes, 25, is accused of opening fire on a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012, killing 12 people and wounding dozens others during a showing of "Dark Knight Rises."

The court room's set-up kept members of the media from being able to see Holmes' face as the photos were displayed, but victims and their families could watch him.

Teves said that Holmes was "absolutely smirking" when images of his weapons and the iPhone photos he took of himself were shown in court.

"I watched him intently," Caren Teves' husband Tom Teves said. "I watched him smile every time a weapon was discussed, every time they talked about his apartment and how he had it set up (with booby traps), and he could have gave a darn about the people, to be quite frank. But he's not crazy one bit. He's very, very cold. He's very, very calculated."

Holmes' has exhibited bizarre behavior after the shooting and while in custody. His defense team has said that he is mentally ill, but have not said if he will plead insanity.

"He has a brain set that no one here can understand and we want to call him crazy because we want to make that feel better in our society, but we have to accept the fact that there are evil people in our society that enjoy killing any type of living thing," a frustrated Tom Teves said. "That doesn't make them crazy. And don't pretend he's crazy. He's not crazy."

The photos presented in court showed Holmes mugging for his iPhone camera just hours before the shooting.

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

Half-a-dozen photos showed Holmes with his clownish red-orange hair and black contact lenses giving the photos a particularly disturbing edge.

In one particularly odd image, he was making a scowling face with his tongue out. He was whistling in another photo. Holmes is smiling in his black contacts and flaming hair in yet another with the muzzle of one of his Glock pistols in the forefront.

Yet another photo showed him dressed in black tactical gear, posing with an AR-15 rifle.

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GAO calls on Postal Service to prefund retiree benefits

U.S. Postal Service officials and postal unions have long pushed Congress to relieve the agency of its obligation to prefund retiree health benefits. It’s a burden other agencies don’t share and one that officials say the Postal Service can’t afford. Defaults on prefunding payments total $11.1 billion.

But not everyone agrees that removing or substantially reducing the prefunding requirement is the best way out of the USPS hole.

A recent Government Accountability Office report says the “USPS should prefund its retiree health benefit liabilities to the maximum extent that its finances permit.”

The GAO said that deferring the prefunding payments “could increase costs for future ratepayers and increase the possibility that USPS may not be able to pay for some or all of its liability.”

The report said the Postal Service’s financial condition makes it difficult for the agency “to fully fund the remaining $48 billion unfunded liability over the remaining 44 years of the schedule” set up by the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

USPS officials say they can pay $0.00. The Postal Service is losing $25 million a day.

“If Congress was to eliminate the requirement for USPS to pay down its unfunded liability on retiree health care, taxpayers would almost certainly pick up the bill,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). “USPS needs to cut costs, not cheat taxpayers or its own employees.”

The GAO report gives something to both sides, saying that the USPS should prefund its retiree health benefits, while acknowledging that it currently is too broke to do it.

In a response included in the GAO report, Joseph Corbett, the USPS chief financial officer and executive vice president, said the Postal Service “does not have the financial resources to make the prefunding payments required by current law.”

He criticized the GAO for releasing a report that did not include the controversial USPS proposal to sponsor its own health-care plan, outside of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan that now covers postal workers.

“Allowing the Postal Service to gain control of its own health care program would save money, reduce or eliminate the current unfunded liability, and allow for better management of health care costs going forward,” Corbett said.

Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, called on Congress to “reject the GAO’s policy myopia. . . . Government records show that 80 percent of all the USPS red ink stems directly from prefunding.”

Report: Close the digital divide

Uncle Sam needs to get with the digital program.

That’s the takeaway from a report — with the appropriate title #ConnectedGov — on the government’s use of technology and social media. It is being released Wednesday by the Partnership for Public Service, in collaboration with the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm.

The report identifies innovative digital programs in seven agencies, demonstrating that “there are places in government that are doing immensely creative and impactful things,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership.

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Driverless car concept gains traction at CES

LAS VEGAS: Automakers and technology firms are jumping on the bandwagon of the driverless car, which remains a concept as well as a platform for new technologies to improve safety on the road.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Toyota and Audi showed off their ideas for autonomous vehicles, in the wake of the push by Google on its driverless car. And others may follow suit.

Toyota drew considerable attention with its electronically gussied-up Lexus sedan, equipped with a host of sensors and cameras that can detect what is around the vehicle.

"It has the ability to drive itself, but we won't allow it," said Jim Pisz, corporate manager at Toyota North America.

Pisz said the technology is similar to Google's with the use of electronics, but that "the Google focus is on software mapping, that's what they're really good at. Toyota focuses on safety programs and more integrated programs."

The Japanese automaker maintains that its 2013 Lexus LS, also being shown at the expo, already has "the world's most advanced pre-collision safety system" but its driverless cars are only being used in closed research centres, unlike Google's publicised road tours.

The growing use of advanced electronics for auto safety, communications and entertainment has prompted a record eight automakers to attend the Las Vegas show, along with dozens of firms working on related products and services.

"Electronics are vital to our cars. Today's cars are rolling computers," Audi executive Wolfgang Duerheimer told reporters at CES.

The German automaker's Ulrich Hofmann told AFP that the new technology "helps the driver in situations where it's boring to drive, and leaves you to drive when it is fun."

At the Las Vegas tech confab, Audi showed its concept for a driverless vehicle in a simulator.

Hofmann said an autonomous car could be developed within five to eight years but noted that "there are a lot of regulatory and legal issues."

Ford Motor Co. researcher Pim van der Jagt said the US auto giant halted its program on driverless cars several years ago.

The concert "seemed so far out, it didn't make sense having big teams working on it," he said, but added that "now, with the interest in the Google car, politicians are starting to speak about it" and Ford has resumed its program.

Nevertheless, "a full autonomous car is far out, and may even never exist," van der Jagt said.

Audi engineers say they can envision an on-off switch which could be used in traffic jams on highways, where vehicles could join a sort of motorcade traveling at identical speeds, freeing a driver for a few moments.

In September, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill clearing the way for self-driving cars to jockey with human-operated vehicles to test the technology on the state's roads.

The state of Nevada in May issued a license plate giving Google's self-driving car the green light to travel along public roads there.

The growing talk of autonomous cars has sparked fresh interest in how the tech sector -- which has been under fire for fuelling "distracted driving" -- can improve auto safety and the driving experience.

"Everybody gets distracted at some point," said Steven Wenger of Mobileye, a company that makes equipment for crash avoidance for major automakers and as a consumer aftermarket device.

"Three seconds could save a person's life. We want people to be aware of these technologies which can help avoid accidents."

-AFP/fl

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Rajiv Thakur appointed secretary, finance ministry

NEW DELHI: Senior IAS officer Rajiv Thakur was today appointed secretary in the finance ministry.

Thakur, a 1979-batch officer of Gujarat cadre, is presently Additional Secretary and financial adviser in ministry of health and family welfare.

Thakur, who will be Secretary in the Department of Financial Services, will succeed Dinesh Kumar Mittal, IAS (UP:77), who retires on January 31, an official release said today.

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has approved appointment of Ravi Mathur as secretary in the department of disinvestment under the finance ministry.

Mathur, a 1979-batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently Additional Secretary in Ministry of Labour and Employment.

The ACC has also appointed Prof K Vijayraghavan, director, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore as secretary, department of biotechnology, the release said.

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Pictures: Wildfires Scorch Australia Amid Record Heat

Photograph by Jo Giuliani, European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke from a wildfire mushrooms over a beach in Forcett, Tasmania, on January 4. (See more wildfire pictures.)

Wildfires have engulfed southeastern Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, in recent days, fueled by dry conditions and temperatures as high as 113ºF (45ºC), the Associated Press reported. (Read "Australia's Dry Run" inNational Geographic magazine.)

No deaths have been reported, though a hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Dunalley, where the blazes destroyed 90 homes.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the AP.

"We are at the catastrophic level, and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Published January 8, 2013

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Dead Lotto Winner's Wife Seeks 'Truth'

The wife of a $1 million Chicago lottery winner who died of cyanide poisoning told ABC News that she was shocked to learn the true cause of his death and is cooperating with an ongoing homicide investigation.

"I want the truth to come out in the investigation, the sooner the better," said Shabana Ansari, 32, the wife of Urooj Khan, 46. "Who could be that person who hurt him?

"It has been incredibly hard time," she added. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone."

Ansari, Khan's second wife, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she prepared what would be her husband's last meal the night before Khan died unexpectedly on July 20. It was a traditional beef-curry dinner attended by the married couple and their family, including Khan's 17-year-old daughter from a prior marriage, Jasmeen, and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the paper, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She called 911.

Khan, an immigrant from India who owned three dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, won $1 million in a scratch-off Illinois Lottery game in June and said he planned to use the money to pay off his bills and mortgage, and make a contribution to St. Jude Children's Research Center.

"Him winning the lottery was just his luck," Ansari told ABC News. "He had already worked hard to be a millionaire before it."

Illinois Lottery/AP Photo

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Jimmy Goreel, who worked at the 7-Eleven store where Khan bought the winning ticket, described him to The Associated Press as a "regular customer ... very friendly, good sense of humor, working type of guy."

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Khan's unexpected death the month after his lottery win raised the suspicions of the Cook County medical examiner. There were no signs of foul play or trauma so the death initially was attributed to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which covers heart attacks, stroke or ruptured aneurysms. The medical examiner based the conclusion on an external exam -- not an autopsy -- and toxicology reports that indicated no presence of drugs or carbon monoxide.

Khan was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.

However, several days after a death certificate was issued, a family member requested that the medical examiner's office look further into Khan's death, Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina said. The office did so by retesting fluid samples that had been taken from Khan's body, including tests for cyanide and strychnine.

When the final toxicology results came back in late November, they showed a lethal level of cyanide, which led to the homicide investigation, Cina said. His office planned to exhume Khan's body within the next two weeks as part of the investigation.

Melissa Stratton, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department, confirmed it has been working closely with the medical examiner's office. The police have not said whether or not they believe Khan's lottery winnings played a part in the homicide.

Khan had elected to receive the lump sum payout of $425,000, but had not yet received it when he died, Ansari told the AP, adding that the winnings now are tied up as a probate matter.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Authorities also have not revealed the identity of the relative who suggested the deeper look into Khan's death. Ansari said it was not her, though she told the AP she has subsequently spoken with investigators.

"This is been a shock for me," she told ABC News. "This has been an utter shock for me, and my husband was such a goodhearted person who would do anything for anyone. Who would do something like this to him?

"We were married 12 years [and] he treated me like a princess," she said. "He showered his love on me and now it's gone."

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Obama’s failure to nominate women for two top Cabinet posts questioned

President Obama brought his top Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency chiefs together Monday with their potential replacements, and some critics noticed one thing that stood out: Each of them was a white man.

Obama, who made women’s issues a core of his reelection bid, has nominated men to serve in three of his most prominent national security positions, including secretary of state, where Sen. John F. Kerry (D) was named last month to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton. The president on Monday announced former senator Chuck Hagel for the defense job and counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan to head the CIA.

The moves have disappointed some supporters who said they fear, with Clinton’s departure, a paucity of females among Obama’s top advisers, particularly in the traditionally male-dominated field of defense and security.

Thomas Donilon, the president’s national security adviser, was in the audience, as outgoing Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and acting CIA director Michael J. Morrell joined their possible successors and the president.

The pattern is particularly striking for a president who was elected with majority support from women and racial minorities and focused heavily during his reelection campaign on women’s health concerns and equal pay in the workplace. Obama won 55 percent of the female vote to Republican rival Mitt Romney’s 44 percent.

Obama is committed to “finding the very best people for each job,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday, when asked about the lack of women among the second-term appointments. “And that’s what he’s done today, and that’s what he’ll continue to do.”

Among those passed over to lead the Pentagon was Michele Flournoy, who became the highest-ranking woman to serve in the Defense Department when she was confirmed as undersecretary of defense for policy in 2009. Flournoy, 52, resigned from the role last February, citing a desire to spend more time with her family. But she also served as an adviser to Obama’s reelection campaign and was considered a top candidate.

Instead, Obama chose Hagel — who got to know Obama when he was a senator — though the Nebraska Republican has been criticized by GOP leaders and some Democrats for statements on Israel.

“I think he’s blowing a huge opportunity here for reasons I don’t even get,” said Rosa Brooks, a professor on national security at Georgetown University who spent two years working for Flournoy at the Pentagon.

“It would have been fantastic for this president to appoint the first woman secretary of defense,” Brooks said, “particularly given we are so embroiled at this moment in the ongoing conflict in the Islamic world, where the suppression of women is such a major issue. It was a chance for us to show we’re leading by example.”

Carney noted that Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, and U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice are in top national security roles.

He added that Obama “insists on diversity on the lists that he considers for the job because he believes that in casting a broader net, you increase the excellence of the pool of potential nominees for these positions. But in the end he’ll make the choice that he believes is best for the United States.”

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