Education Minister urges schools to maintain long-term partnerships

SINGAPORE: Singapore Education Minister Heng Swee Keat has urged schools here to maintain long-term partnerships, which will enrich the community. He was speaking at Yishun Junior College's (YJC) Celebrating Values Day on Saturday.It is a carnival to raise funds for charities such as the President's Challenge and Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore.YJC has roped in partners...

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BJP gears up for polls; targets Congress on terror and graft

NEW DELHI: BJP president Rajnath Singh today gave a call to his party cadre to put up a united fight in the next general elections to oust the "corrupt, ineffective" UPA as he took on Congress-led government over its alleged failure on internal security, economy and foreign policy fronts. Delivering the inaugural speech at the BJP National Council here, Singh while lauding the achievements of Gujarat...

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Rescuers Search for Man as Fla. Sinkhole Grows

Rescuers early Saturday morning returned to the site where a sinkhole swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom after the home's foundation collapsed.Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday night.While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials...

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US manufacturing rises for 3rd straight month: ISM

WASHINGTON, March 1, 2013 (AFP) - US manufacturing activity expanded in February for the third month in a row, hitting the highest level since 2011, according to the ISM survey of purchasing managers released Friday.The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing sector index rose to 54.2 from 53.1 in January, boosted by a 4.5 percent surge in new orders.Manufacturing appeared to be...

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Firing at Indian posts along LoC

JAMMU: Indian posts along the Line of Control in Mendhar belt of Poonch district came under firing, a BSF official said today.However, there was no report of any causality. There was a firing from across the border on Indian posts in Gagdiayal forward area along LoC last night, the official said. There was small arms and rocket firing, he said adding there was no loss of life or injury to anyone...

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk."The additional risk is quite small...

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Obama, Congress Fail to Avert Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.Obama met for just over an hour at the White House Friday with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...

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Pope leaves Vatican on historic final day

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI left the Vatican on Thursday for the last time as pontiff before he steps down as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, becoming the first pope to resign in 700 years.Benedict boarded a white helicopter emblazoned with the Vatican flag for the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome, flying over the Vatican for the last time as pope.As...

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Manik Sarkar, son of tailor, to be Tripura chief minister again

AGARTALA: Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, set to assume office for a fourth time after leading the Left to a huge electoral win, is the son of a tailor who still washes his own clothes.An unassuming man, the 64-year-old got down to work no soon than he was declared the winner from Dhanpur constituency. He met CPM leaders and activists at Sonamura, 60km from here. On Thursday, the Communist...

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Medicare paid $5.1B for poor nursing home care

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found.The report, released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, said Medicare paid about $5.1 billion for patients to stay in skilled nursing facilities that failed to...

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Benedict Departs Vatican for the Last Time as Pope

Pope Benedict XVI bade his final farewell to the faithful today, lifting off from the Vatican in a white helicopter as the first pope to resign in six centuries.Just before 5 p.m. local time, Benedict, 85, walked out of the Vatican for the last time as pope, waving to a cheering crowd in the Courtyard of San Damaso as he entered a black Mercedes for the short drive to a nearby...

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New Singapore ambassadors to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland

SINGAPORE: The government has appointed Mr Wong Kwok Pun as Singapore's first resident Ambassador to the State of Qatar, Mr Lawrence Anderson as Singapore's next Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Mr Tee Tua Ba as Singapore's Ambassador to Switzerland (resident in Singapore). Mr Wong and Mr Anderson will assume their post on 17 March 2013 and 30 March 2013 respectively.Mr...

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House panel against considering mercy plea of rape-murder convicts

NEW DELHI: Two months after questioning the rationale behind commuting death sentences of five rape-murder convicts to life imprisonment during then President Pratibha Patil's tenure, a Parliamentary committee has now suggested that the mercy petitions should not be by and large considered for such criminals. Though the Committee is not in favour of completely knocking out the provision of mercy...

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont woman whose face was disfigured in a lye attack has received a face transplant.Doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital say 44-year-old Carmen Blandin Tarleton underwent the surgery earlier this month.A team worked 15 hours to transplant the facial skin, including the neck, nose, lips, facial muscles, arteries and nerves.The 44-year-old Tarleton, of Thetford, Vt., was...

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Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester

Mark Lucas wouldn't mind seeing America's defense budget cut by billions."There's quite a bit of waste within the military," Lucas, who serves as Iowa state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), told ABC News. "Being in there for 10 years, I've seen quite a bit of it."With the budget sequester set to kick in on Friday, the former Army ranger is among...

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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West wary

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran gave an upbeat assessment of two days of nuclear talks with world powers that ended on Wednesday, but Western officials said Tehran must start taking concrete steps to ease mounting concerns about its atomic activity. The first negotiations between Iran and six world powers in eight months ended without a breakthrough in Almaty, but they agreed to meet again at...

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Senate committee approves Lew for US Treasury chief

WASHINGTON: The US Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday approved President Barack Obama's nominee Jack Lew to be the new Treasury secretary, replacing Timothy Geithner who stepped down last month.Senators voted 19-5 in favor of Lew, with several Republicans joining with the majority Democrats. The committee approval paves the way for a full Senate vote as early as Wednesday.With Republicans...

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Jaish-e-Mohammad 'threat' to blow up Doon, Haridwar stations

DEHRADUN: Terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad today allegedly threatened to blow up major railway stations and places of religious and tourist interest in Uttarakhand in retaliation to the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afjal Guru, a senior police official said. The letter written purportedly by the Karachi based area commander of terror outrfit Jaish-e-Mohammad contains a threat to blow up Dehradun,...

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C. Everett Koop, 'rock star' surgeon general, dies

NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. C. Everett Koop has long been regarded as the nation's doctor— even though it has been nearly a quarter-century since he was surgeon general.Koop, who died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H., at age 96, was by far the best known and most influential person to carry that title. Koop, a 6-foot-1 evangelical Presbyterian with a biblical prophet's beard, donned a public health uniform...

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'93 WTC Bombing Crushed Lives, Not Memories

Edward Smith remembers vividly the call from the morgue 20 years ago today, that his pregnant wife had died in the World Trade Center bombing hours before she was supposed to start her maternity leave."It seems like kind of yesterday sometimes," he told ABC News, "but it seems like a long time ago, too."Today marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 WTC bombing, which was overshadowed...

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UN rights chief, nations condemn Security Council on Syria

GENEVA: The UN human rights chief and several nations criticised the Security Council Monday for failing to take action to halt spiralling violence in Syria and bring to justice perpetrators of abuses in the conflict."The Security Council has so far failed with regard to Syria," Navi Pillay told ministers at the start of a regular UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.Pillay said her...

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Hyderabad blasts: NIA's claim baseless, alleges Bukhari

RAMPUR: Delhi's Jama Masjid chief cleric Syed Ahmed Bukhari has said investigation agencies have the tendency to name perpetrators of any bomb blasts in the country much before initiation and conclusion of their probes. Referring to the recent Hyderabad blasts, Bukhari said the National Investigation Agency's claim that the evidence pointed towards involvement of the Indian Mujahideen in the...

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent...

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Best Moments From the Academy Awards

Host Seth MacFarlane took the stage at the 2013 Oscars with an opening monologue revealing he was ready to poke fun at the star-studded audience."The quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh begins now," he said.But it wasn't too long before MacFarlane was interrupted. William Shatner, dressed as his iconic character Captain Kirk from "Star Trek," descended on the stage to warn MacFarlane that he...

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Football: Man City leave Chelsea trailing, Newcastle edge Saints

LONDON: Manchester City galvanised their grip on second place in the Premier League and trimmed Manchester United's lead back to 12 points with a 2-0 victory at home to nearest rivals Chelsea on Sunday.After Chelsea's Frank Lampard had seen a penalty saved by England colleague Joe Hart, City prevailed through a pair of fine second-half goals from man-of-the-match Yaya Toure and substitute...

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Finmeccanica chopper scam: CBI gets some documents from Italy

NEW DELHI: Moving forward in its probe into alleged kickbacks in the VVIP helicopter deal, the CBI has procured some documents from Italian authorities in Milan that may help it investigating whether any Indian had received bribes to swing the deal in favour of AgustaWestland. Highly-placed sources in the probe agency said on Sunday that one of the members of the CBI team who returned this morning...

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent...

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