China police chief accused of having 192 houses

BEIJING: A Chinese police chief is alleged to have had at least 192 houses and a fake identity card, state media said Tuesday, the latest in a number of similar cases that have sparked outrage online.

Zhao Haibin, a senior police official in Lufeng in the southern province of Guangdong, was reported by a businessman to have accumulated the properties under his name and his company's, the Guangzhou Daily said.

The businessman, Huang Kunyi -- who was involved in a dispute with the officer -- also said Zhao used a fake identity card to record a different name on company documents, the newspaper reported.

Authorities cancelled the false card after Huang's report in 2011, it added.

An official of the Communist Party's discipline department for Lufeng told AFP Tuesday that Zhao -- who is also the vice party secretary of a local county -- had been investigated but the inquiry was over and he retained his public offices.

According to the newspaper, Zhao said the properties were owned by his younger brother, a businessman, and that he was only "managing" them for him.

A separate report said Zhao or the company had 192 properties in the city of Huizhou, also in Guangdong, and others in the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai.

The case is the latest of a series of reports involving officials owning multiple houses with different identity cards and residence permits.

Gong Aiai, a vice president of a bank in the northern province of Shaanxi and a delegate to the local legislature, was reported last month to hold more than 20 houses worth nearly one billion yuan (US$160 million), using four different residence permits and three identity cards.

She was detained by police Monday on suspicion of "forging official documents and stamps", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The cases have sparked mounting criticism in Chinese social media over rampant graft and high home prices that are running out of reach of the average citizen.

"(I) finally realised that in China, properties are forever in the hands of a tiny number of people," said a user of China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

-AFP/fl

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Yeddyurappa catches rivals off guard, decides to go on Padayatra

MYSORE: Newly founded Karnataka Janata Party chief B S Yeddyurappa on Tuesday caught all his political rivals off guard by announcing an impromptu padayatra from Mysore to Bangalore from February 7 , particularly when all parties are busy with the ongoing assembly's budget session. At the same time he tried to sell and defend his newly founded regional outfit KJP.

In addition he scored a brownie point over his rival by declaring the padayatra as "apolitical" and saying anybody is free to join it . " If any big leader joins me I am ready to walk behind him" he claimed, adding that his intention is to fight for the state's cause and not to gain any political mileage out of it .

Speaking to reporters here, he said he will launch the padayatra on February 7 from Mysore palace's north gate after offering pooja at Chamundeshwari temple which will culminate in a rally at Bangalore on February 14.

Referring to Cauvery row, he said Centre should immediately file a petition before the Supreme court and plead that it is trying to resolve the problem through negotiations and it needs time to tackle it . " This would automatically get a breathing time for state and in the process Centre should resolve the issue amicably" he said adding that any water sharing pact will be "impractical to implement" with no national water policy in place.

" First the Centre should work out a national water policy and distress formula on sharing water during drought" he suggested , criticizing the Centre on the issue.

Yeddyurappa said the Centre is neglecting Karnataka farmers in its enthusiasm and eagerness to placate the regional outfits DMK or AIADMK .

" Centre has always acted as per the wish of the DMK or AIADMK" he alleged, adding that Karnataka would have countered their influence on Centre if strong regional party existed in the state.

" I appeal the state people to support KJP, I am not seeking their support to KJP to become a CM , my only intention is Karnataka interests are taken care of by the central government" he felt and said both the present state government and union government lack will to protect the interests of Cauvery basin farmers.

In reply, Yeddyurappa said , he agreed that all governments in the past in Karnataka being a governments of national parties have failed to protect farmers interests following predicament faced by them.

" Now it is time for Karnataka people to assert and prevail upon the central government by supporting my regional outfit KJP" he added.

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

—Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Sarai Sierra's 2 Young Boys Don't Know Mom's Dead

The two young sons of slain New York mom Sarai Sierra are under the impression that their father has gone to Turkey to bring their mother home - alive.

Sierra, whose battered body was found near a highway in Istanbul over the weekend, was the mother of two boys aged 9 and 11.

Steven Sierra, who went to Istanbul in search of his wife after she disappeared nearly two weeks ago, told his children that he was going to Turkey to bring their mom home.

"The father will be speaking to them and it's something that's going to be hard and he's going to be talking to them when he comes back," Betsy Jimenez, the mother of Sarai Sierra, said today during a family news conference.

State Representative Michael Grimm said Steven Sierra's biggest concern is telling his children that mom's not coming home.

"It's going to be the hardest thing he's ever going to have to do in his life," said Grimm, who added that the Staten Island family isn't sure when Steven Sierra will be able to bring home his wife's body.

An autopsy was completed Sunday on Sarai Sierra, 33, but results aren't expected for three months. Turkish officials however said she was killed by at least one fatal blow to her head.

A casket holding the Staten Island mother was carried through alleyways lined with spice and food stalls to a church, where the casket remained on Monday.

Turkish police hope DNA samples from 21 people being questioned in the case will be key to finding the perpetrators, the Associated Press reported, according to state run media.

Sarai Sierra's Body Found: Missing New York Mom Found in Turkey Watch Video

Body Found in Search for Missing Mother in Turkey Watch Video

Vanished Abroad: US Woman Missing in Turkey Watch Video

Earlier this week, it was also reported that Turkish police are speaking to a local man who was supposed to meet Sierra the day she disappeared, but he said she never showed.

After an intense search for Sierra that lasted nearly two weeks, her body was found Saturday near the ruins of some ancient city walls and a highway. Sierra was wearing the same outfit she was seen wearing on surveillance footage taken at a food court and on a street the day she vanished, Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin said.

Sierra's body was taken to a morgue, Capkin said, and was identified by her husband.

It did not appear she had been raped or was involved in any espionage or trafficking, Capkin said.

Betsy Jimenez said Monday that her family has many unanswered questions such as what happened to her daughter after she left her hotel room to go and take photographs of a famous bridge.

"They're still investigating so they might think it might be a robbery, but they're not sure," said Jimenez.

Sierra, who had traveled to Istanbul on Jan. 7 to practice her photography hobby, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.

Dennis Jimenez, Sierra's father, told reporters Monday that he didn't want her to go on the trip.

"I didn't want her to go. But, she wanted to go because this was an opportunity for her to sightsee and pursue her photography hobby because Turkey was a land rich with culture and ancient history and she was fascinated with that," said Jimenez.

While in Istanbul, Sierra would Skype with her family and friends daily, telling them about how amazing the culture was.

Sierra's best friend Maggie Rodriguez told ABC News that she was forced to pull out of the trip at the last minute because she couldn't afford it. That's why Sierra traveled alone.

Her husband, Steven Sierra, and brother, David Jimenez, traveled to Istanbul last Sunday to meet with American and Turkish officials and push the search forward.

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Why immigration reform in 1986 fell short

When Ronald Reagan signed a comprehensive immigration overhaul in 1986, he confidently predicted: “Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people — American citizenship.”

More than a quarter-century later, however, that law has not turned out to be the triumph that Reagan envisioned. Instead, those on both sides of the immigration debate see it as a cautionary lesson.

As President Obama and lawmakers from both parties begin to take their first tentative steps toward again rewriting the nation’s immigration laws, opponents warn that they are repeating the mistakes of the 1986 act, which failed to solve the problems that it set out to address. Critics contend that the law actually contributed to making the situation worse.

An estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States when the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed. Now there are upwards of 11 million. And the question of who gets to be an American, far from being settled, has been inflamed.

The latest proposals contain the same three components as the 1986 law: a legalization program — and a possible path to citizenship — for those who are in the country illegally, stepped-up enforcement along the border, and measures to discourage employers from hiring workers who lack proof of legal residency.

“This is the same old formula we’ve dealt with before, including when it passed in 1986, and that is a promise of enforcement and immediate amnesty,” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said last week
on the Laura Ingraham radio show. “And of course, the promises of enforcement never materialize. The amnesty happens immediately, the millisecond the bill is signed into law.”

But immigration experts note that the country has undergone big changes since then. And the experience of what went wrong after 1986 might help policymakers get it right this time.

“There’s just an entirely different mentality,” said Doris Meissner, who was commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Bill Clinton administration and who now directs immigration policy studies at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

Technology affords new means of enforcing sanctions against hiring illegal immigrants, for instance, and Americans in the post-9/11 world may have lost some of their squeamishness about carrying tamper-proof government identification or submitting personal information to a national database. Meanwhile, businesses are eager to come up with a legal system of immigration that can more quickly adapt to their constantly changing labor needs.

Still, “the problem is always in the details, and that was certainly true in 1986. Once the debate got into the details, the compromises proved to be counterproductive,” said Susan F. Martin, director of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration, who in the 1990s served as executive director of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.

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More bus drivers from China sign up as union members

SINGAPORE: NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say said there has been an increase in the number of bus drivers from China working with SMRT signing up to become union members.

Mr Lim said this in Parliament when he joined Acting Minister for Manpower Tan Chuan-Jin in his reply to questions on the SMRT bus drivers' illegal strike last year.

Mr Lim said prior to the November 2012 incident, less than five percent of the 400 drivers from China working with SMRT were union members. As of today, about 75 percent of them have signed up to be union members.

In the case of SBS Transit, Mr Lim said they have about 600 drivers from China, and more than 90 per cent are already union members.

Overall, of the 1.2 million foreign workers in Singapore, about 100,000 of them are union members making up about 15 per cent of the union membership in Singapore.

- CNA/de

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Fatwa against rock band: Singers can't be silenced by morons, Omar Abdullah says

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah has come down heavily on those threatening the three young girls who have formed the Valley's only rock band, Pragaash, and promised police investigations into the threats againnst them.

He encouraged the girls, saying their talent should not be stymied by "a handful of morons who are trying to silence them".

Late on Sunday evening, Kashmir's Grand Mufti (head priest) Mufti Bashiruddin had issued a 'fatwa' (religious decree) against the singing of the girls, and criticised the government for "trying to encourage a shameless act".

The chief minister, however, was unfazed and poured scorn on the 'fatwa'.

"Given the importance people attach to the fatwas of the Grand Mufti, the less said the better," he tweeted.

The three local girls formed the Valley's only girls' rock band last year. The girls had earlier received threats on social media. Local police have begun investigations into the threats, and the girls have taken a break from performing.

The girls' band attracted public attention when they finished third in a local competition, 'Battle of Bands' last month.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Ravens Defeat 49ers in Historic, Unusual Super Bowl

The Baltimore Ravens emerged Super Bowl champions after one of the strangest and most incredible Super Bowl games in recent memory.

It's the second championship for the Ravens, who pulled out a 34-31 win over the San Francisco 49ers at the Superdome in New Orleans.

The Super Bowl is the biggest spectacle in American sports, and each year becomes the most watched television event in history. This year, Jennifer Hudson kicked things off with a touching performance of "America the Beautiful" with a choir of students from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Alicia Keys accompanied herself on the piano for a long, jazzy rendition of the national anthem, before the coin toss which resulted in San Francisco receiving to start the first half.

Although the game looked at one point like it was going to be a completely unexpected blow-out, with the Ravens leading 28-6 at the beginning of the 3rd quarter, the 49ers got some unusual help that turned the showdown into a much more exciting battle.

About a third of the way into the 3rd quarter, right after a record-tying Ravens rushing touchdown, the power went out at the Superdome, knocking the lights and air conditioning out in the indoor stadium. The crowd of more than 71,000 strong, along with a lot of antsy players, coaches, and staff waited for 34 minutes for the power to fully come back on and the game to resume.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Super Bowl 2013: Beyonce Rocks the Halftime Show Watch Video

Super Bowl 2013: Alicia Keys Sings 'The Star-Spangled Banner' Watch Video

Super Bowl 2013: Jennifer Hudson, Sandy Hook Students Perform Watch Video

In a statement, the NFL said authorities were "investigating the cause of the power outage," and law enforcement sources told ABC News it was just an issue with the building.

That didn't stop many people on Twitter from jokingly blaming Beyonce, the energetic halftime performer who surprisingly reunited shortly with her former band Destiny's Child, for shutting down the power. After her performance, even her husband Jay-Z got in on it, tweeting "Lights out!!! Any questions??"

VIDEO: Super Bowl 2013: Beyonce Rocks the Halftime Show

The 49ers quickly followed the long delay with a touchdown, getting themselves right back into the game. Then just a few minutes later, they found themselves in the end zone again, and it appeared the power outage had flipped the momentum towards the 49ers.

With a score of 31-29 with more than 7 minutes left in the game, San Francisco looked poised to make the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, but the team, trying for its 6th title, wasn't able to overcome the Ravens lead.

Baltimore was able to run out the clock, and the game ended with a final score of 34-31. Purple and gold confetti fell as the Ravens rushed onto the field and celebrated -- with some colorful language from quarterback Joe Flacco audible on the live broadcast, who was caught saying, "f***ing awesome" on CBS' cameras.

The game was already historic thanks to the match-up for John and Jim Harbaugh, the first head coach brothers to ever face each other on football's biggest stage. It was also the final game for the future Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis, who is, as of the conclusion of the game retired from football.

This is the fifth season in a row that the Ravens have made it to the playoffs, led by Coach John Harbaugh, and SB XLVII MVP Quarterback Joe Flacco. It's the team's first Lombardi trophy since 2000. Their victor tonight made them the only team left in the NFL to have never lost a Super Bowl in multiple appearances.

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Along the U Street corridor, her honor finds all the comforts of home

The Social Committee at the U Street corridor condo building was planning a “progressive” holiday dinner party for its residents. People on the ground floor would provide cocktails and snacks; hors d’oeuvres would be on the next floor; and courses 1 to 3 would be on the next three levels up. ¶ One person, at least, couldn’t make the original date but still wanted to pitch in. ¶ “Dear Neighbors,” the new woman on the third floor wrote to the building’s e-mail group. “I hate to miss this get together, but I understand that if everyone else can make it, you can’t change it for me. I will contribute a couple bottles of wine before I leave. Warm regards, Sonia Sotomayor.” ¶ Along the U Street corridor — a Northwest Washington hotbed of urban renewal — neighbors and take-out joints are embracing a relatively new arrival: Sotomayor, the nation’s first Hispanic and third female justice on the Supreme Court. ¶ Sotomayor, who moved first to staid Cleveland Park after her 2009 appointment, now lives side by side with members of the city’s diverse class of professionals in a hip, transforming Washington neighborhood once known as the cultural hub of black D.C.

When Sotomayor, a former federal judge in New York, lived in Manhattan’s West Village, she seized on her neighborhood’s offerings, going twice a week to a bakery on Bedford Street for coffee and breadsticks and hosting friends at her apartment for Spanish or Thai take-in.

Now, Sotomayor is trying to re-create some of those rhythms in Washington.

Near her sleek U Street area condo building, where prices for units range from $350,000 to a little more than $1 million, the staff at the “green eatery” chicken place knows whom to expect when the name on the take-out order is “Sonia.” At The Greek Spot, the owner says that Sotomayor sometimes swings by on her way home from work for the $9.75 gyro platter.

Other Supreme Court justices — who live in Fairfax and Montgomery counties, Georgetown, near Adams Morgan or at the Watergate building — have been fairly involved in their neighborhoods, too.

The court’s proceedings are not televised, so they can maintain some level of anonymity when they venture out. The big exception: Clarence Thomas, who’s been a recognizable figure ever since his contentious 1991 confirmation hearings.

Then there’s Sotomayor. Last month, she took center stage, swearing in Vice President Biden during the inauguration ceremonies. Also, she’s been busy plugging her new memoir, “My Beloved World,” on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and other TV shows.

Within her condo building, Sotomayor has already engendered such affection that last month another resident e-mailed the group list to remind everyone about her upcoming “60 Minutes” appearance:

“[M]ake sure to set your DVR’s to tape or watch 60 Minutes who will have our most famous and esteemed neighbor Justice Sotomayor on, speaking about her amazing life story from the Bronx to the Supreme Court. . . . 7 PM tomorrow! CBS.”

Slav Gatchev, 39, who is an emerging-markets finance specialist, said he occasionally runs into Sotomayor in the building. One recent night, Gatchev, dressed in sweatshirt and sweatpants, dropped off items for recycling in the garage and bumped into Sotomayor on her way home from work.

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