THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT !!!

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Ancelotti explains Emenalo role

Sat, 20 Nov 07:58:06 2010

Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti has revealed he had no input in Michael Emenalo's promotion to assistant first-team coach, and he does not want the Nigerian to actually work with the team.

Revealing some of the tensions at the club in the wake of Ray Wilkins' shock departure last week, Ancelotti made clear that both decisions were made over his head, leaving him uneasy.

"I am not here to explain how I feel at the moment, because it is not the right moment," he said in the Daily Telegraph. "I'm professional, I will continue to work. I want to stay focused on my team."

He added: "The club made this decision (to promote Emenalo) after the decision on Ray. But nothing has changed, for me. Emenalo has been working with me before.

"He started when I came here last year. He was the opposition scout and was supporting me. He's not been involved in the training, and won't be, because (first-team coach) Paul Clement has been and will remain doing that.

"But nothing changes. It was not my decision, but he is working with me for a year and a half anyway."

In announcing Emenalo's promotion, a Chelsea statement had said Emenalo "will continue to oversee the first team scouting operation as he makes the transition to coaching" as he needed to gain additional qualifications.

But Ancelotti's comments suggest he does not want any such transition to take place.

When pressed on the matter, Ancelotti reiterated: "He won't be involved in the training sessions."

However, Emenalo will sit on the bench for matches, starting on Saturday at Birmingham City.

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Chelsea youngsters brighten gloom for Carlo Ancelotti

Reuters - Wednesday, November 24

By Mike Collett

LONDON - Chelsea put aside uncertainty over their immediate future with a performance that boded well for the longer term as their young players inspired a 2-1 comeback win over MSK Zilina in the Champions League on Tuesday.

An equaliser from 21-year-old Daniel Sturridge and assured displays from 17-year-old midfielder Josh McEachran, 19-year-old defender Jeffrey Bruma and 20-year-old defender Patrick van Aanholt in the second half helped Chelsea to victory after going behind in the 19th minute.

Florent Malouda scored a late winner to leave Chelsea with a maximum 15 points from their five matches, and guaranteed first place in Group F, followed by Olympique Marseille . Zilina are bottom with no points.

Zilina went ahead through Babatounde Bello and held that lead until six minutes into the second half when Sturridge equalised with a close range effort in Chelsea's 100th match in Europe's elite club competition.

The London side then dominated the second half before finally getting the goal they deserved through Malouda's tap-in four minutes from time.

The result lifted some of the gloom over Stamford Bridge following the recent, controversial departure of popular assistant coach Ray Wilkins and three defeats in their last four Premier League matches which have sparked rumours over the future of coach Carlo Ancelotti.

He, however, was calm and composed after a win against surprisingly stubborn opponents, who lost by a record home Champions League score of 7-0 in their last group match against Olympique Marseille.

Ancelotti made six changes to the side that lost to Birmingham City on Saturday and was without injured or rested senior players like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Alex, and gave some of his younger players a chance.

"We did not play well in the first half but we were very good in the second half and I was very pleased with the young players generally," Ancelotti told reporters.

"It was important to win and move on. We have now had 60 shots at goal in our last two games but only scored twice. We have been unlucky not to score more but the young players have had some good experience tonight and showed the quality they can bring to the team."

He singled out McEachran, a slightly-built creative England Under-17 midfielder who has been with Chelsea since he was eight, for his second-half performance.

"He was good defensively today but can play the ball long or short without a problem," he said. "He has to grow, he has to improve -- but he is ready to play."

SURPRISE GOAL

Chelsea hardly looked ready for anything much in the opening half but it was still a surprise when they fell behind when Bello, a 21-year-old Nigerian-born Benin international exchanged passes advancing up the field with Robert Jez before firing wide of goalkeeper Peter Cech's stand-in Ross Turnbull.

That was Zilina's first goal in the competition since their 4-1 home loss to Chelsea in September, and they continued to worry the English champions.

The home side gradually began to assert themselves with Sturridge prevented from an equaliser before halftime only by a superb save from Martin Dubravka.

At the start of the second half, Ancelotti replaced the only youngster to disappoint -- 19-year-old Gael Kakuta -- with Salomon Kalou and with two wingers stretching the Zilina defence, his side began to dominate.

Didier Drogba and Van Aanholt hit the post before Malouda scored when Zilina's defensive frailties were exposed.

"I thought we had done enough for as point and we are obviously disappointed to lose right at the end," said Zilina boss Pavel Hapal, whose team are in danger of ending this group stage with the worst record since the Champions League began.

"Chelsea though had more chances in the second half, and we could have conceded a lot more, so it's good, if we had to lose, we only lost 2-1."

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US vows 'unshakeable' support for S.Korea after attack

AFP - 11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - – US President Barack Obama described North Korea as a pressing threat and pledged "unshakeable" support for South Korea after the communist state rained a deadly artillery barrage on a border island.

Washington and Seoul agreed to "coordinate" any response to North Korea after Tuesday's attack, which killed two South Korean marines and sent panicked civilians fleeing the flashpoint Yellow Sea island of Yeonpyeong.

In an interview with ABCNews, Obama would not speculate on military actions that the United States may take in response to the artillery deluge, which has incited global condemnation and depressed financial markets around the world.

But the "outraged" president was quoted as saying: "We want to make sure all the parties in the region recognize that this is a serious and ongoing threat that has to be dealt with."

South Korea, after decrying an "inhumane atrocity" against defenceless civilians, said Wednesday that it was suspending promised flood aid to North Korea, and has already called off talks on reuniting families split by war.

Obama was briefed by top security and military aides on the nuclear-armed Stalinist state's assault on the island, one of the worst border incidents since the 1950-1953 Korean war. History: Clashes between North and South Korea

"The president reiterated the unshakeable support of the United States for our ally, the Republic of Korea, and discussed ways to advance peace and security on the Korean peninsula going forward," a White House statement said. Analysis: N.Korean attack related to succession

But both the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, and Seoul appeared bent on what officials called a "measured" response in tackling the latest spasm of tensions with North Korea.

"We're going to work with China, we're going to work with all our six-party partners on a response," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, referring to an international group tackling North Korea's nuclear program.

The firing came after North Korea's disclosure of an apparently operational uranium enrichment plant -- a second potential way of building a nuclear bomb -- which is causing serious alarm for the United States and its allies.

It also comes as North Korea prepares for an eventual dynastic succession from Kim Jong-Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un. The expected transfer is fueling speculation about the opaque regime's military and nuclear intentions.

Scene: Islanders tell of terror as N.Korean shells land

Japan and Russia, both members of the six-nation group, have slammed North Korea's artillery raid.

Stephen Bosworth, a US nuclear envoy visiting Beijing on Wednesday, demanded that North Korea cease its "provocative" actions and urged "all members of the international community to condemn" Pyongyang.

China -- North Korea's sole major ally and economic prop -- has expressed "concern" over the shelling but has not publicly criticized North Korea.

The US-led United Nations Command, which monitors the uneasy 1953 armistice, called for general-level talks with North Korea to "de-escalate the situation."

South Korea's military went on top alert Tuesday, its troops fired back with cannon and the government convened in an underground war room after North Korea fired up to 50 artillery shells onto Yeonpyeong.

North Korea's supreme command, however, accused South Korea of firing first and vowed "merciless military attacks with no hesitation if the South Korean enemy dares to invade our sea territory by 0.001 mm".

Analysis: N.Korea wages war in search of peace pact

"We ran for our lives. Both my shoes were pulled off my feet and I had to ride the boat barefoot," Han Mi-Soon, 52, said after fleeing to mainland South Korea aboard a ferry along with hundreds of other civilians.

Yeonpyeong lies just south of the border declared by UN forces after the war, but north of the sea border declared by Pyongyang. The Yellow Sea border was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and last November.

Tensions have been acute since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which Seoul says was the result of a North Korean torpedo attack. Pyongyang has rejected the charge.

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Got BUY boh ???

Controversial pope book already selling fast

AFP - Wednesday, November 24

VATICAN CITY (AFP) - – A new book in which Pope Benedict XVI talks candidly about issues including sexuality and child abuse hits bookshop shelves on Wednesday and is already selling fast, its publishers say.

Extracts in which the 83-year-old German pope broke a Roman Catholic Church taboo and said condoms were acceptable in some cases have whetted the public appetite for "Light of the World", which is being published in 18 languages.

"We've had over 12,000 pre-release orders over the last month and the numbers are about to jump pretty rapidly," said Neil McCaffrey from Ignatius Press, the US publishers of the book.

"The sale numbers are rising fast as we speak: I've already had wholesalers on the phone demanding more copies because they've exhausted their supply."

Booksellers are hoping the tome will have the same success as previous books by Benedict. In 2007 "Jesus of Nazareth", the first part of a biography of Christ, was an immediate bestseller both in Italy and abroad.

After extracts of "Light of the World" were published at the weekend, interest surged when Benedict's comments that condom use may be justified in the case of male prostitutes were mistranslated in the Italian edition to specify female sex workers.

Key quotes from Pope's new book

The Vatican clarified Tuesday that condoms used in the fight to reduce the risk of HIV infection was valid for all sex workers.

"It makes no difference whether the prostitute is male, female or transsexual: the message is to avoid posing a serious risk to the lives of others," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

Until now, the Vatican had prohibited the use of any form of contraception -- other than abstinence - even as a guard against sexually transmitted disease.

Anti-AIDS campaigners welcomed what they saw as a U-turn by the pope on the use of condoms Sunday, saying it marked a historic break with the past which would save lives.

"Light of the World" is based on 20 hours of interviews with German journalist Peter Seewald, the author, and explores the pontiff's views on sexuality, abuse, Islam and female ordination, among other issues.

In the interviews, he also addresses the paedophile clergy scandals in Europe and the United States that have pitched the Church into its worst crisis in many years and have clouded his pontificate.

The pope describes the scale of abuse by clergymen as an "unprecedented shock" for him and likens the crisis to "a volcano out of which suddenly a tremendous cloud of filth came, darkening and soiling everything."

"It is necessary for the Church to be vigilant, to punish those who have sinned, and above all to exclude them from further access to children," he said.

Hundreds of cases of abuse have been reported across Europe and the United States since he became pope in 2005. Benedict has apologised, met with victims and approved stricter rules for dealing with predator priests.

He is also asked during the interviews whether he would consider resigning as pope.

"Yes," he responds, saying that this could happen when "a pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office."

Benedict's comments on the child sex scandal were criticised by an association of victims, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

The pope admits "that maybe he should have launched a global investigation into clergy sex crimes back in 2002. Hes right. But he didnt then and he isnt now," said Washington-based SNAP member Mark Serrano in a statement Tuesday.

"Neither the pope nor his interviewer addresses widely circulated charges that the pope, while serving as the Archbishop of Munich and later as a Vatican cardinal, himself mishandled cases of pedophile priests.

"Benedicts moral authority will continue to be seriously compromised until he finds the courage to address his own personal involvement -- in Munich and in Rome -- in concealing horrific child sex crimes," he said.

Seewald, the author, is a former communist who became Catholic after meeting Benedict when he was known as cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and with whom he produced two earlier volumes of interviews.

The latest interviews took place in July.

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Mark ya Calendar & join the CELEBRATION folks !

Britain's Prince William to wed in April at Abbey

AFP - Wednesday, November 24

LONDON (AFP) - – Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton are to marry on April 29 at Westminster Abbey, the historic London church where the funeral of his mother Diana was held in 1997, royal officials said Tuesday.

Downing Street announced that there would be a special public holiday on the day, perhaps the biggest royal event in Britain since the ill-fated union of William's parents Prince Charles and Diana nearly three decades ago.

"The venue has long associations with the royal family -- it is in many ways the royal family's church -- and of course with Prince William personally," said Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, private secretary to the prince.

The imposing gothic abbey has been the British monarchy's coronation church for centuries. Queen Elizabeth II also married Prince Philip at the abbey in 1947. Related article: Britain's royal weddings of the past

The date and venue were revealed just under a week after the second-in-line to the throne officially revealed his engagement, capping a romance that began at St Andrews University in Scotland nearly eight years earlier.

In what the prince said was a way of giving a posthumous role to his mother who died in a car crash in Paris 13 years ago, he also revealed that he had given Kate his mother's diamond and sapphire engagement ring.

The wedding has given Britain a boost as it battens down the economic hatches ahead of harsh budget cuts aimed at cutting the country's huge deficit, and with its armed forces mired in a tenth year of war in Afghanistan.

Mindful of the economic circumstances, Lowther-Pinkerton said the costs of the wedding would be paid for by the royal family and Middleton's parents.

"All parties involved in the wedding, not least Prince William and Miss Middleton, want to ensure that a balance is struck between an enjoyable day and the current economic situation," he said.

"To that end the royal family and the Middleton family will pay for the wedding."

The announcement has sparked calls for William and Kate to ascend directly to the throne -- leapfrogging his less popular father Prince Charles and his second wife Camilla a constitutionally problematic arrangement.

Four newspaper polls at the weekend showed that a majority of Britons would like to see him become king when Queen Elizabeth II dies and thought that he would be a better monarch than the 62-year-old Charles. Related article: Public want William and Kate as next king and queen

Amid an outpouring of national mourning in Britain after her death, Diana's funeral was held at Westminster Abbey, with pictures of William and his younger brother Harry sadly watching her coffin beamed around the world.

The shadow of Diana, her famously unhappy marriage and her ceaseless pursuit by the media -- photographers were chasing her at the time of her death -- has hung over her son and his relationship with Kate from the beginning.

William has reportedly taken steps to prepare his fiancee to deal with the glare of the media, as well as with the the formality of royal life which Kate at a press conference last week admitted were "quite daunting." Timeline: Prince William's romance with Kate Middleton

The then-Lady Diana Spencer married William's father Prince Charles at St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981 in a ceremony that drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets.

But they divorced in 1996 amid admissions of adultery on both sides -- in Charles' case with Camilla.

Public support for the wedding has, however, not extended into a desire for it to receive public funding, with a poll at the weekend found that 82 percent of people said the royals should cover the cost of the event.

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Champions League - Sporting Braga stun Arsenal

Tue, 23 Nov 21:49:00 2010

Sporting Braga inflicted a shock 2-0 defeat on Arsenal with late goals from Matheus after the Gunners were denied a penalty at the Estádio Municipal in Champions League Group H.

Arsene Wenger was fuming when substitute Carlos Vela was denied a clear spot kick and it proved costly as Matheus broke to beat Lukasz Fabianski before clinching victory in stoppage time with the visitors down to 10 men after Emmanuel Eboue was taken off on a stretcher.

With skipper Cesc Fabregas aggravating his hamstring problem in the second half, this was a terrible night for the Gunners as they sought the point that would clinch their place in the last 16 of the Champions League.

The Gunners started positively and looked keen to erase the memory of Saturday's second-half collapse against Tottenham in the North London derby.

With Fabregas attempting to direct the play, the stage looked set for the visitors to take control but Braga eventually gained in confidence and managed the first real attempt on goal when Lima's shot deflected off Sebastien Squillaci and squirted through to Lukasz Fabianski.

Moises failed to get any direction on a header as he stretched to meet Luis Aguiar's free-kick and it took 19 minutes before Arsenal managed a noteworthy attempt as Fabregas flashed a shot well off target.

Seconds later, Fabianski was called into action to deal with a cross-######-shot by Lima as the Polish keeper spectacularly pushed the ball away to safety.

A free-kick in a dangerous area allowed Fabregas to float in a shot that was comfortably flipped over by Felipe but the keeper had to react much quicker when the Gunners captain created the half's best opening on 35 minutes. A superb through ball by the Spaniard released Theo Walcott but Felipe was out swiftly to block and avoid conceding a penalty as the England international raced towards him.

With Walcott still down inside their box, Braga countered and Lima flashed a decent attempt just wide of Fabianski's right-hand post.

Nicklas Bendtner had to be alert to head behind a cheeky near-post free-kick by Uruguayan Aguiar and the Dane was also involved when producing an inventive lofted pass to feed Walcott, but the wide man's first-time finish drifted harmlessly wide.

Fabregas's poorly-struck free-kick was screwed well off target to sum up a disappointing opening 45 minutes.

Another free-kick, from Walcott, provided the first effort of the second half but his shot was too high and Fabregas got a curler all wrong to fire well off target.

With an hour gone, Braga wasted a glorious chance when Squillaci produced a terrible header from an Alan cross and Aguiar looked nailed on to score, only to drag his shot narrowly wide.

Seven minutes later, things started to unravel for Arsenal as Fabregas hurt himself stretching to try and collect a Jack Wilshere pass and was substituted for Samir Nasri.

With Vela thrown on as Wenger's third change of the night, it looked an inspired move when the Mexican immediately latched onto a knock-down by fellow sub Marouane Chamakh inside the box. Rodriguez's despairing challenge was clearly a foul but, instead, Vela was ridiculously booked for diving.

Four minutes later, Eboue was taken off on a stretcher and the 10 men fell behind when a long ball forward by Elton caught out the defence and Matheus set himself up for a left-footed finish wide of Fabianski and into the far corner of the net.

For all their possession, Arsenal were unable to carve out a genuine opening in their bid for an equaliser and, instead, another Braga breakaway saw referee Viktor Kassai play a good advantage and Matheus finished emphatically to double the lead, via the underside of the bar.

All in all, this was a nightmare for the Gunners who only needed a point to progress. It all goes down to their group finale with whipping boys Partizan Belgrade but the injuries to Fabregas and Eboue will also be worrying Wenger.

This was the last thing the Frenchman will have wanted after the trauma of the derby defeat on Saturday.

Adam Marshall / Eurosport

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Two Sporeans charged for million-dollar heist

By Angela Lim November 24th, 2010

It took just four hours for a Singaporean to allegedly stage a daring million-dollar heist in what is called the first of its kind in Fiji.

According to a Straits Times report, 38-year-old Abdul Quadir Katu Miah robbed the Reserve Bank of Fiji on August 19 without even leaving Singapore.

He and an unknown number of accomplices climbed aboard a ship at anchor at Jurong Port and allegedly looted 1 million Fiji dollars (S$709,000) from a container filled with freshly-printed banknotes.

The banknotes, all of which were FJD$20 bills, were en route to Fiji from England, where they had been printed. The notes were meant to replenish the supply of FJD$20 bills in Suva, the capital of Fiji.

Curiously enough, some of this stolen money was already circulating in Fiji, prior to the ships arrival at Suva Wharf. A spokesman for the Fiji Police Force, Mr Fred Elbourne, said it was most likely brought in by tourists from Australia.

The theft itself, however, was only discovered two weeks later, after the shipment reached the Fijian capital.

Abdul Quadir was arrested last Thursday, and charged with theft in a subordinate court on Friday.

Another man, Azlee Abd Shukor, 37 was charged with receiving and retaining FJD$480,000 of the stolen money.

It is unclear if the men involved worked on the shipyard. Both Singaporeans have been remanded and will appear in court on Friday.

According to court documents, more than one accomplice was likely to have been involved in the heist. Police declined to comment further as investigations were still in progress.

Mr Elbourne declined to disclose the total amount the shipment contained, but said the shipment was in transit in Singapore for about two weeks.

Abdul Quadir allegedly boarded the Pacific Voyager between 7pm and 11pm on August 19 to commit the theft. Two days later, Azlee reportedly received part of the stolen money. While it remains unknown as to whether Azlee took part in the heist, he was reportedly aware that it had been stolen, court documents revealed.

The theft was only discovered when a truck driver at the Suva wharf noticed the broken seal on the container when the ship docked on September 4 and alerted the authorities.

The Fiji Police Force followed up by launching investigations, working with authorities in Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Australia. Two senior Fijian police officers spent about three weeks in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia assisting in investigations that ended more than a week ago.

Mr Elbourne said that this was the first case of its kind in Fiji where banknotes were stolen from a cargo ship in transit.

If found guilty of theft, Abdul Quadir could be looking at a fine and up to three years in jail.

For dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property, Azlee could face a fine and a five-year jail term.

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Tighter screening for teaching scholarships: MOE

By Faris – November 24th, 2010

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has revoked the scholarship given to undergraduate Jonathan Wong, 23, after he was caught in possession of hardcore child pornography videos in his computer in March this year.

The Straits Times (ST) reported that the decision to evoke the scholarship comes after the student had “committed serious criminal offences, and pleaded guilty to the charges against him”.

Wong, a third-year history undergraduate in the University of York pleaded guilty last Tuesday to 17 charges of downloading child pornography videos between July 15, 2008 and March 19, 2009 featuring girls as young as 6-years-old.

The Ministry will also tighten its processes which require schools to provide information on specific “behavioural problems” of potential scholarship holders which may impinge on their selection as future teachers.

In the case of Wong who was awarded the Teaching Scholarship (Overseas) in 2006, MOE said it reviewed the required documents and testimonials written by teachers from his secondary school and junior college.

However, it was not mentioned in those documents that he had been publicly caned when he was a Secondary 3 student at Chinese High School, which is now part of Hwa Chong Institution (HCI), after he was caught peeping in a women’s toilet.

MOE said the teachers had excluded this incident from his testimonials “as they thought that he had overcome this errant behaviour after professional help”.

According to a HCI spokesman, after Wong was punished, “he received counseling and responded well to the professional help”.

He subsequently did well and did not behave inappropriately the following year or while in junior college. The spokesman added, “His teachers thus thought he had learnt from his mistake.”

Since his scholarship has been revoked, Wong will have to pay liquidated damages in accordance with his scholarship agreement. This amount includes tuition fees at the University of York range from £11,300 (S$23,500) to £14,850 a year for those enrolled this year, and living expenses.

Based on the current MOE guidelines, applicants for teaching scholarships have to submit their academic and co-curricular activity record, school testimonials, and a written statement giving insights into their character, abilities and suitability for teaching.

Applicants will also be screened for criminal records while those shortlisted will then undergo further evaluation including psychometric assessments and interviews.

After Wong was arrested, police discovered graphic images and videos, some of which had audio and lasted over an hour long, on his computer. About 50 videos were found in which 25 were rated in some of the highest categories of hardcore pornography.

Wong is currently out on bail but his sentencing is scheduled for Dec 13. Wong can be jailed for up to five years.

Principals and teachers shared mixed reviews on the Ministry’s decision to tighten its selection and screening process for teaching scholarship holders.

Victoria Junior College principal, Chan Poh Meng, told ST that when teachers write testimonials for students, they are making a judgment call.

“They have to decide what is important to include, so good or not-so-good behaviour should be included. That has always been the expectation,” he said.

But JC teachers who have written testimonials for students say that the issue is not so clear-cut.

31-year-old teacher, Mr I. See said, “It’s good MOE is tightening procedures but can these be effectively executed? After all, teachers don’t want to jeopardize the chances of their students getting scholarships.”

Singaporean Student-Jonathan Wong Arrested For Child Pornography

by Nadira Begum

Child pornography videos, some featuring girls as young as six and some lasting longer than an hour, were found in the possession of a Ministry of Education (MOE) scholar studying in Britain.

Singaporean Jonathan Wong (picture), a third-year history major at the University of York, pleaded guilty on Monday to 17 charges of owning child pornography videos since July 2008.

Jonathan Wong, 23, could be facing more than a year in jail after the magistrate’s court in York decided that its maximum sentencing power of 12 months in prison was insufficient and committed him instead to the York Crown Court where he will be sentenced on Dec 13, the city’s The Press newspaper reported.

In reply to media queries, the ministry said that it was looking into the matter and added that it “will take the necessary disciplinary action against those (scholars) who have behaved inappropriately”.

The Press said Jonathan Wong’s offenses came to light after fellow students alerted the campus authorities about suspicious audio files being uploaded onto the university’s intranet.

After tracing the files to Jonathan Wong, the police confiscated his computer hard disk drive and found 50 videos – 25 of which were rated as “four” on the Copine scale.

(The Copine Scale is a rating system used in the United Kingdom to categorise the severity of child pornography. Level 4 is where “penetrative sexual activity between child(ren) and adult(s) is involved”)

On this scale used to rate the severity of child pornography, levels “four” and “five” constitute hardcore pornography.

The North Yorkshire police told MediaCorp yesterday that Wong was arrested on March 19, adding that he did not produce the videos but downloaded some of them from the Internet.

According to The Press, UK prosecutor Martin Butterworth told the court: “We are talking about girls as young as six. Of the movies, some of them are graphic, some of them have audio, some of them last more than an hour.”

Since the case surfaced in the local Chinese media and online, Singaporeans and those acquainted with Wong have berated him and expressed shock over his actions.

A Singaporean student at University of York, however, painted a different picture of him. Describing Wong as a “big brother”, he told MediaCorp: “Jonathan is a nice, generous and helpful person … He gave me medicine when I was sick and he cooked us meals.”

The 22-year-old, who said he has known Wong for over a year, added: “He does not like loud parties but prefers a quiet peaceful dinner with friends … I am disgusted by what he has done but I feel sorry for him too as a friend.”

A spokesman for the University of York declined comment, saying it would respond to MediaCorp’s queries only after court proceedings have been concluded. With additional reporting by Saifulbahri Ismail

Source:TodayOnline

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U.S. aircraft carrier heads for Korean waters

Reuters - 2 hours 43 minutes ago

By Jack Kim and Lee Jae-won

INCHEON, South Korea - A U.S. aircraft carrier headed towards the Korean peninsula on Wednesday, a day after North Korea launched dozens of artillery shells on a South Korean island.

The nuclear-powered USS George Washington, which carries 75 warplanes and has a crew of over 6,000, left a naval base south of Tokyo on Wednesday morning and would join exercises with South Korea from Sunday to the following Wednesday, U.S. officials in Seoul said.

"This exercise is defensive in nature," U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement. "While planned well before yesterday's unprovoked artillery attack, it demonstrates the strength of the ROK -U.S. alliance and our commitment to regional stability through deterrence."

China came under heavy pressure to rein in North Korea after its reclusive ally fired dozens of artillery shells at the South Korean island, killing two South Korean soldiers and setting houses ablaze in the heaviest attack on its neighbour since the Korean War ended in 1953.

U.S. President Barack Obama, woken up in the early hours to be told of the artillery strike, said he was outraged but declined to speculate on possible U.S. military action.

However, in a telephone call with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Obama pressed the North to stop its provocative actions.

The U.S.-led U.N. Command said it had asked North Korea for talks to try to reduce tension on the divided peninsula.

"We're in a semi state of war," South Korean coastguard Kim Dong-jin told Reuters in the port city of Incheon where many residents of Yeonpyeong island fled in panic as the bombardment triggered a fire storm.

The bombardment nagged at global markets, already unsettled by worries over Ireland's debt problem and looking to invest in less risky markets.

But South Korea's markets, after sharp falls, later started to rebound.

"If you look back at the last five years when we've had scares, they were all seen as buying opportunities. The rule among hedge funds and long-only funds is that you let the market sell off and watch for your entry point to get involved," Todd Martin, Asia equity strategist with Societe Generale in Hong Kong, said.

Despite the rhetoric, regional powers made clear they were looking for a diplomatic way to calm things down.

South Korea, its armed forces technically superior though about half the size of the North's one-million-plus army, warned of "massive retaliation" if its neighbour attacked again.

But it was careful to avoid any immediate threat of retaliation which might spark an escalation of fighting across the Cold War's last frontier.

"My house was burnt to the ground," said Cho Soon-ae, 47, who was among 170 or so evacuated from the island of Yeonpyeong on Thursday.

"We've lost everything. I don't even have extra underwear," she said weeping, holding on to her sixth-grade daughter, as she landed at the port of Incheon.

South Korea was conducting military drills in the area at the time but said it had not been firing at the North. It later said it would resume those drills once the situation stabilised.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on China, the impoverished North's only powerful ally, to help rein in the hermit state.

China has long propped up the Pyongyang leadership, worried that a collapse of the North could bring instability to its own borders and also wary of a unified Korea that would be dominated by the United States, the key ally of the South.

In a clear prod to Beijing during a visit to the Chinese capital, U.S. North Korea envoy Stephen Bosworth said: "We call on all members of the international community to condemn the DPRK's acts and to make clear that they expect the DPRK to cease all provocations and implement its denuclearisation commitments."

On Tuesday, Obama said he would urge China to tell Pyongyang "there are a set of international rules they must abide by."

Beijing said it had agreed with the United States to try to restart talks among regional powers over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

A number of analysts suspect that Tuesday's attack may have been an attempt by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to raise his bargaining position ahead of disarmament talks which he has used in the past to win concessions and aid from the outside world, in particular the United States.

"It's Mr Kim's old game to get some attention and some economic goodies," said Lin Chong-pin, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taipei.

Several analysts believe the attacks may also have been driven by domestic politics, with the ailing Kim desperate to give a lift to his youngest son, named as heir apparent to the family dynasty in September but who has little clear support in the military.

US vows 'unshakeable' support for S.Korea after attack

AFP - 11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - – US President Barack Obama described North Korea as a pressing threat and pledged "unshakeable" support for South Korea after the communist state rained a deadly artillery barrage on a border island.

Washington and Seoul agreed to "coordinate" any response to North Korea after Tuesday's attack, which killed two South Korean marines and sent panicked civilians fleeing the flashpoint Yellow Sea island of Yeonpyeong.

In an interview with ABCNews, Obama would not speculate on military actions that the United States may take in response to the artillery deluge, which has incited global condemnation and depressed financial markets around the world.

But the "outraged" president was quoted as saying: "We want to make sure all the parties in the region recognize that this is a serious and ongoing threat that has to be dealt with."

South Korea, after decrying an "inhumane atrocity" against defenceless civilians, said Wednesday that it was suspending promised flood aid to North Korea, and has already called off talks on reuniting families split by war.

Obama was briefed by top security and military aides on the nuclear-armed Stalinist state's assault on the island, one of the worst border incidents since the 1950-1953 Korean war. History: Clashes between North and South Korea

"The president reiterated the unshakeable support of the United States for our ally, the Republic of Korea, and discussed ways to advance peace and security on the Korean peninsula going forward," a White House statement said. Analysis: N.Korean attack related to succession

But both the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, and Seoul appeared bent on what officials called a "measured" response in tackling the latest spasm of tensions with North Korea.

"We're going to work with China, we're going to work with all our six-party partners on a response," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, referring to an international group tackling North Korea's nuclear program.

The firing came after North Korea's disclosure of an apparently operational uranium enrichment plant -- a second potential way of building a nuclear bomb -- which is causing serious alarm for the United States and its allies.

It also comes as North Korea prepares for an eventual dynastic succession from Kim Jong-Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un. The expected transfer is fueling speculation about the opaque regime's military and nuclear intentions.

Scene: Islanders tell of terror as N.Korean shells land

Japan and Russia, both members of the six-nation group, have slammed North Korea's artillery raid.

Stephen Bosworth, a US nuclear envoy visiting Beijing on Wednesday, demanded that North Korea cease its "provocative" actions and urged "all members of the international community to condemn" Pyongyang.

China -- North Korea's sole major ally and economic prop -- has expressed "concern" over the shelling but has not publicly criticized North Korea.

The US-led United Nations Command, which monitors the uneasy 1953 armistice, called for general-level talks with North Korea to "de-escalate the situation."

South Korea's military went on top alert Tuesday, its troops fired back with cannon and the government convened in an underground war room after North Korea fired up to 50 artillery shells onto Yeonpyeong.

North Korea's supreme command, however, accused South Korea of firing first and vowed "merciless military attacks with no hesitation if the South Korean enemy dares to invade our sea territory by 0.001 mm".

Analysis: N.Korea wages war in search of peace pact

"We ran for our lives. Both my shoes were pulled off my feet and I had to ride the boat barefoot," Han Mi-Soon, 52, said after fleeing to mainland South Korea aboard a ferry along with hundreds of other civilians.

Yeonpyeong lies just south of the border declared by UN forces after the war, but north of the sea border declared by Pyongyang. The Yellow Sea border was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and last November.

Tensions have been acute since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which Seoul says was the result of a North Korean torpedo attack. Pyongyang has rejected the charge.

[kueytoc]

Cannot CALL...then use EMAIL lah !

India district bans cell phones for unmarried women

AFP - 1 hour 51 minutes ago

NEW DELHI (AFP) A local council in northern India has banned unmarried women from carrying mobile telephones to halt a series of illicit romances between partners from different castes, media reports said Wednesday.

The Baliyan council in Uttar Pradesh state decided to act after at least 23 young couples ran away and got married over the last year against their parents' wishes.

"The panchayat (assembly) was convinced that the couples planned their elopement over their cell phones," village elder Jatin Raghuvanshi told the Calcutta Telegraph.

The rules of inter-caste marriages are complicated and extremely rigid in many rural communities in India, with some lovers even murdered in "honour killings" by relatives trying to protect their family's reputation.

"All parents were told to ensure their unmarried daughters do not use cell phones. The boys can do so, but only under their parents' monitoring," said Satish Tyagi, a spokesman for the village assembly.

Caste discrimination is banned in India but still pervades many aspects of daily life, especially outside the cities.

Traditional Hindu society breaks down into brahmins (priests and scholars), kshatriya (soldiers), vaishya (merchants) and shudra (labourers). Below the caste system are the Dalits, formerly known as "Untouchables".

Caste categories often determine Indians' life prospects, and conservative families will only marry within their own caste sub-division.

[kueytoc]

PHEW !

New AIDS cases fall by one fifth in a decade: UN

AFP - Wednesday, November 24

GENEVA (AFP) - – The number of new cases of HIV/AIDS has dropped by about one-fifth over the past decade but millions of people are still missing out on major progress in prevention and treatment, the UN said on Tuesday.

In 2009, 2.6 million people contracted the HIV virus that causes AIDS, down 19 percent from the 3.1 million recorded in 2001, said UNAIDS, the UN agency spearheading the international campaign against the disease.

"Fifty-six nations around the world have stabilised or significantly reduced infections," UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe told journalists.

But about half of the 60 million people who caught HIV/AIDS since the start of the pandemic 30 years ago have died, according to the agency.

Sidibe urged caution over the growing impact of prevention measures and medical treatment highlighted in the 2010 global report on the AIDS epidemic and warned about a slowdown in finance.

"We have halted and begun to reverse the epidemic. Fewer people are becoming infected with HIV and fewer people are dying from AIDS," he said.

"However we are not yet in a position to say 'mission accomplished'," he added in the report.

About 33.3 million people worldwide were living with the HIV virus that causes AIDS at the end of last year -- about 100,000 less than in 2008.

The UNAIDS chief heralded a "prevention revolution" in the pipeline, including a gel that could help women protect themselves, and a breakthrough on drugs treatment.

The report showed that treatment has made huge inroads in the past five years. Global estimates of the HIV/AIDS epidemic

Some 5.2 million people in poor countries had access to costly lifesaving anti-retroviral medicine in poor countries last year, compared to 700,000 in 2004.

However, overall "demand is outstripping supply," Sidibe warned, while investment against HIV/AIDS stopped growing for the first time last year.

"If we stop financing, the five million people who are under treatment will start to die," he warned.

An estimated 10 million people who need anti-retrovirals do not have them, while "stigma, discrimination, and bad laws continue to place roadblocks for people living with HIV and people on the margins" of society, he added.

The report found that epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa, the worst hit continent, were declining or stable.

AIDS-related deaths there fell by 20 percent over the past five years, while the number of people living with the HIV declined from an estimated 2.2 million to 1.8 million.

In Asia, HIV stabilised at a caseload of about 4.9 million, with "significant" progress on tackling mother-to-child transmission, UNAIDS said.

In India, Nepal and Thailand the rate of new infections fell by more than a quarter.

However, the annual death toll has grown by about 50,000 to 300,000 in Asia over a decade. The pattern of disease within highly populated countries such as China and Indonesia can vary significantly.

The biggest inroads were found in North America and west and central Europe, with a 30 percent decline in the caseload over a decade.

But new infections rose there slightly last year and UNAIDS signalled a resurgence of the epidemic among male homosexuals due to unprotected sex.

In eastern Europe and central Asia, the number of people with the virus has almost tripled over the past decade to reach about 1.4 million, while deaths grew fourfold.

Russia and Ukraine account for nearly 90 percent of new infections in the region.

[kueytoc]

Now where are the videos ???

Indonesia rock star on trial over web sex videos

AFP - Monday, November 22

BANDUNG, Indonesia (AFP) - An Indonesian rock star went on trial Monday charged with distributing two homemade sex videos on the Internet, in a case that has shocked and fascinated the country in equal measure.

Nazril Ariel, 29, appeared at the closed-door trial in Bandung district court, West Java province, facing criminal charges including those filed under a 2008 anti-pornography law, prosecutor Rusmanto told reporters.

More than 500 police were on hand to ensure security, while adoring Ariel fans -- mostly young women -- mixed with radical Islamists outside the court, illustrating the yawning cultural divide the case has opened in Indonesia.

"There are so many cases like this, why are they freed and not Ariel? Is it because he's famous? We want justice," 22-year-old waitress Ruri Astari told AFP, as around 20 fans sang Ariel's hits and carried "Free Ariel" banners.

Islamic hardliner Hirman Firdaus said the hard-living rock'n'roll singer was a threat to society and deserved the maximum punishment.

"I want him to be severely punished. This is immoral," he said.

If convicted Ariel could face 12 years in jail and fines of up to six billion rupiah (672,000 dollars) for offences including distributing pornography on the Internet.

"Ariel helped to provide facilities to distribute the pornographic videos," Rusmanto said.

The singer looked relaxed in a grey shirt and black trousers as he spoke to reporters from behind bars in the court lockup.

"I've read the charges. I'm ready to face anything," he said.

He has been behind bars since he surrendered to police on June 22 amid a media circus over the explicit videos, which showed him having sex separately with two television celebrities, Luna Maya, 27, and Cut Tari, 33.

Maya remains his girlfriend and was at the court on Monday.

Neither Maya nor Tari has been charged with any offence, although Islamist hardliners have called for Tari -- who is married -- to be stoned to death for adultery.

Both women have lost lucrative marketing deals as a result of the scandal.

The clips have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people online and sparked fears about a wave of licentiousness and immorality spreading among the mainly Muslim country's youths through the Internet.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, an ex-general aged 61, was moved to warn that the nation of 240 million people was at risk of being "crushed by the information-technology frenzy".

Dubbed "Peterporn" after Ariel's band Peterpan, the scandal also fuelled efforts to purge the Internet of pornography.

Web usage has taken off among Indonesia's upwardly mobile urban youth, who have come from nowhere to rank among the world's biggest users of social media sites over the past five years.

The trial is taking place in closed hearings to protect the public from the "inappropriate" sexual nature of the subject matter, according to the judge.

[kueytoc]

Bigger year-end bonus for civil servants

By Alicia Wong – November 24th, 2010

Civil servants will be getting a fatter bonus this year, to the tune of a two-month year-end payment, thanks to Singapore’s strong economic recovery.

In a media statement on Wednesday, the Public Service Division (PSD) said civil servants will get a year-end bonus of two months, with one month being the annual variable component and the other, the 13th month Annual Wage Supplement (AWS).

In March 2011, good performers will further get a Special Variable Payment, also known as the Growth Bonus, of one month, while better performers will receive up to 1.6 months. Poor performers will not receive any, said the PSD.

This brings the total variable payment for 2010 to 2.5 months and $300, said the PSD. In July, civil servants were given a mid-year AVC of half a month and a one-off $300.

If the Growth Bonus is included, better performers could get paid up to 4.1 months and $300 for the year of 2010.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the Civil Service Teo Chee Hean said, ”Civil servants accepted a wage reduction during the difficult economic times and worked hard to help turn the economy around quickly.”

The Growth Bonus recognises their contribution in helping Singapore “recover from one of its worst recessions”, he said.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry‘s GDP forecast for 2010 is around 15 per cent. The Singapore economy expanded by17.9 per cent in the first half of this year.

Last year, civil servants received one of the smallest bonus packages in recent history. They went without a mid-year bonus, and received their 13th month wage supplement and a one-off payment of a quarter month’s pay, up to a cap of $750, at the year-end.

DPM Teo added, “To ensure that Singapore can continue to grow, we will have to work even harder to raise productivity and find new ways of expanding the economy.”

The total bonus for this year is slightly more than that of 2007, when total bonus was 2.5 months and $220, excluding the Growth Bonus. If included, better performers could have gotten up to 3.3 months.

In 2006, before the Growth Bonus was introduced, civil servants received one of the highest bonuses in recent years of 2.7 months and $200.

Civil servant Stephanie Lim told Yahoo! Singapore she is glad to hear the news, saying, “I will be very happy if I can get two months’ bonus”.

But another civil servant, who declined to be named, said, while “satisfied”, he had expected half a month more in bonus, considering the Republic’s strong growth.

In its statement, the PSD said, salary adjustments for Administrative Officers, Political, Judicial and Statutory Appointment Holders will continue to be deferred.

It explained, “This is in view of the reduction in the private sector benchmarks this year. There is currently adequate flexibility in the salary structure to allow salaries to rise and fall in line with economic growth.”

The Government will monitor the economic growth and movement of the benchmarks before deciding when to implement the salary adjustment.

The first two phases of adjustment were made in 2007 and 2008, but the last phase, which was due in 2009, has been deferred twice since.

[kueytoc]

Lapses in procedures, human error behind IVF mistake

By Alicia Wong November 24th, 2010

The in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) error at Thomson Medical Centre (TMC) was due to lapses in procedures and human error, said Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Tuesday.

Reporting the completed investigations findings to Parliament, he said investigators found the centre had deviated from some of the procedures that are in accordance with international best practices.

It resulted in the botched IVF, where another mans sperm was given to a couple, and the mistake was discovered only after the baby was born.

Mr Khaw said, the National Medical Ethics Committee was consulted on the matter, and concluded that TMC would have the duty to inform the sperm donor he was the father, should he ask.

But it should not volunteer the information, taking into account the impact it may have on the baby, he said, pointing out while TMC had a duty to all parties involved, the rights of the baby the most vulnerable party should take priority.

Outlining how the mistake occured, Mr Khaw described, At the time of the incident, the embryologist was processing semen specimens of two individuals at the same workstation at the same time.

The pipette used for transferring the specimen was reused, instead of being discarded after each step, he said, pointing out that even though it was reused for handling specimens from the same person, it unnecessarily raised the risk of human error.

This was particularly risky as there was no second person to counter-check that the specimens were transferred to the correct receptacles at every critical stage, he said.

The health minister concluded, the lapses contributed to the human error, and both led to the IVF mix-up.

He added, the ethics committee recommendation to protect the child was that information on the error, and other sources of identification of the child, should not be conveyed to the unintended genetic father without consent from the biological mother and her husband.

Mr Khaw stressed, The incident has no doubt impacted the reputation of the TMC IVF Centre and indirectly affected Singapores reputation as a regional medical hub.

He urged, the key to regaining patients trust is full disclosure of facts and immediate correction of any systemic inadequacies.

Other than TMCs fertility centre, another two assisted reproduction centres did not comply with all the procedures, revealed the Health Minister, without naming them.

Both failed to have a second person to double-check that semen was transferred properly from one receptacle to another in the laboratory, but have since rectified the lapse.

The Ministry of Health has directed all assisted reproduction centres to strictly follow correct procedures and suspended the operations of TMC IVF Centre.

The procedure in accordance with international best practices:

1. The embryologist works on the specimens of only one individual or one couple, at a workstation at a time

2. He carefully labels all receptacles and instruments with the couples or the individuals name.

3. He discards the disposable instruments such as pipettes, after each use to avoid any contamination.

4. At every critical step, a second operator will counter-check that the specimens are transferred to the correct receptacles.

According to their lawyers, the couple at the heart of the IVF mix-up are seeking a copy of MOHs investigation report, said The Straits Times. This would allow them to better decide on an appropriate future course of action.

[kueytoc]

Niece who harboured Mas Selamat likely to lose teaching job

By Ion Danker – November 22nd, 2010

The niece of Mas Selamat Kastari, who harboured the terrorist after his escape two years ago, will likely be dismissed from her post as a Malay language teacher, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE).

A spokesman told The Straits Times (ST) on Tuesday, “‘MOE takes disciplinary action, including dismissal, against teachers who have been charged and convicted in court for a criminal offence.”

“We will proceed to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Nur Aini Asmom, with a view to dismiss her from service, as she has been found guilty by the Subordinate Courts for harbouring a prisoner of State.”

Nur Aini was sentenced to 18 months’ jail for her role in harbouring Mas Selamat.

Mas Selamat, who escaped the massive island-wide manhunt for two days after his escape from the Whitley Road Detention Centre (WRDC), hid in his brother’s home in Tampines for a night on Feb 29, 2008, before escaping to Malaysia.

It was a move that puzzled many, since standard procedure for season militants from Jemaah Islamiah (JI) would be to approach other JI members and not family members.

Terror experts said it could be because the authorities were focusing on other JI members, or that the JI network in Singapore had been dismantled.

Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said in a Ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday, “Mas Selamat believed that it would be safe for him at Asmom’s house as only Nur Aini would be there and that she would render assistance to him.”

He wanted to get help from his niece, Nur Aini, whom he thought was home alone. He had thought that his brother and his wife were staying in their Johor house, while Asmom’s son, Mahadir, was overseas.

Asmom, his wife Aisah and daughter Nui Aini were jailed between three and 18 months for harbouring the terrorist after his escape. His brother, Asmom was given 12 months while his sister-in-law Aisah, three months’ jail. They were arrested and charged last Wednesday, on November 10.

Mas Selamat’s nephew, Mahadir, who had a lesser role in the matter, has been served a stern warning in lieu of prosecution.

Mr Shanmugam added that Nur Aini had persuaded her mother to allow Mas Selamat to enter the flat. Her mother had reservations about allowing Mas Selamat into the flat because his fugitive status had gone public and she knew that it was wrong to help him.

Nur Aini allowed him to use her bedroom, provided him food and water, and also helped him to destroy the clothes he wore to the flat, which included his WRDC-issued attire.

On 1 Mar 2008, before Mas Selamat left the flat, Nur Aini applied make-up on Mas Selamat and secured a tudung (headscarf) over his head so that he could disguise himself as a woman to evade detection and recapture. She also handed to him a map of Singapore that showed part of Malaysia.

Asmom gave him S$100 and RM100 to facilitate his escape from Singapore to Malaysia. He also gave Mas Selamat some traditional medicine which the latter kept in his backpack while Aisah gave him an EZ-link card and hair-net which he wore as part of his disguise, and some paracetamol.

Mr Shanmugam said the three had knowingly harboured Mas Selamat, an escaped prisoner of the State, whom they knew was the subject of a massive manhunt.

They deliberately withheld information when they were interviewed by the authorities on March 3, 2008.

It was only in October this year, after being confronted with the facts, that they admitted to what had happened.

Mr Shanmugam added that Asmom and his family’s decision to harbour Mas Selamat and provide him with material support that enabled him to escape to Malaysia was very wrong, illegal, and had grave security implications.

As to how Mas Selamat made his way to Asmom’s flat and how he subsequently made his way to Malaysia, Mr Shanmugam said the account given by Mas Selamat is still subject to verification.

Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, said he was very disappointed that Mas Selamat was aided by his family members after he escaped from WRDC.

In a statement, Dr Yaacob, who is Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, said harbouring criminals is a very serious offence — more so when it involved a wanted fugitive who was a threat to the whole country — at a time when everyone was deeply concerned and actively looking out for him.

“I am disappointed because we know that Singaporeans from all backgrounds have come together since 2002 — the Malay/Muslim community very prominently — to keep the lid on the danger of terrorism.”

He added that the good work must continue at all levels to build understanding and confidence, and enhance safety and security for Singapore to emerge stronger from this episode as a society.

Mas Selamat is a hardened and dangerous terrorist, who has been involved in various plots by the JI to mount terrorist attacks in Singapore since the 1990s. He is operationally trained and has undergone training twice in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Mas Selamat was caught in Johor on April 1, 2009 and held in a Malaysian prison until he was handed over to Singapore on Sept 24, 2010.

Yahoo! Fit-to-Post user Stella Jane commented, “The police should have first searched the relatives’ houses. Now, they are just playing the blame-game, which is rather childish. Though prominently the Malay-Muslim society has a bigger part to play… it’s a little bit hard to turn away family.”

[kueytoc]

'Stars & Crescent' in all the wrong places...!

Design of trunks not appropriate: MICA

By yahoosingapore – November 25th, 2010

Singapore’s national water polo team competing at the Asian Games in Guangzhou is in hot water.

This after the team sported a brand new design of swimming trunks that incorporated the design of the national flag’s crescent moon and five stars near the groin area.

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts released a statement, saying the new design is inappropriate, as elements of the flag must be treated with dignity.

It added the water polo team did not seek its advice when they decided on the new design.

MICA says the team should have sought permission to wear the new trunks.

The team’s bright red, self-designed swimming trunks have raised eyebrows for its daring design.

Previously, the water polo team would wear plain black trunks to competitions but it thought of a new custom-made design for the Asian Games.

Mr Ivan Tan, vice-president (water polo), Singapore Swimming Association, told The Straits Times the team is apologetic and did not intend to show disrespect.

“The crescent moon and the stars were meant to be placed more towards the side. We will work with the designers to change the design immediately upon our return,” he said.

Competition rules state that a team can only wear one colour of trunks throughout the competition so the Singapore team will not be able to change their trunks for their final match against Kuwait on Thursday.

[kueytoc]

Alamak !...Papal dun Preach...CONFUSION, CONFUSION, CONFUSION ! ...

Pope's remarks on condoms sow widespread confusion

By Tom Breen And Rachel Zoll, Associated Press – 59 mins ago

RALEIGH, N.C. – Some Roman Catholics are confused. Some are angry. Others just don't believe the pope meant what it seems he said.

Days after the release of Pope Benedict XVI's comments that condoms can be justified to prevent the spread of HIV, there is widespread confusion about exactly what he was trying to say. The remarks have put some of the strictest defenders of church teachings in the awkward position of potentially disagreeing with the pontiff.

Many church officials worldwide have been conspicuously silent. Some bishops are even seeking clarification from the Vatican.

"It's a mess," said John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, which advises church leaders, hospitals and Vatican offices. "I'm not ready to say that the pope said what (papal spokesman Rev. Frederico) Lombardi said."

On a practical level, most Catholic-affiliated charities that minister to people at high risk of contracting AIDS are unlikely to make changes anytime soon.

Haas, also a moral theologian, said he fielded calls all day Tuesday from confused bishops. Benedict's comments come at a time when American bishops are focused on upholding Catholic orthodoxy on marriage and sexuality.

"It's important to recognize this is not some blanket opening of the door for married people to use artificial birth control," said Mark Silk, director of the Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

In some heavily Catholic nations, church leaders have avoided discussing the matter. In Spain, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela made no mention of the pope's statements during a meeting of the Spanish Bishops' Conference.

When pressed by reporters, only Cardinal Carlos Amigo responded. Church leaders, he said, would have to read the book carefully first.

In the Andes region of South America, there appeared to be few mentions of the pope in news media, and his remarks were not mentioned in services at several Masses attended by Associated Press reporters.

The National Conference of Brazilian Bishops said it would not comment. Brazil has one of the world's most advanced anti-AIDS programs, and the government distributes more than 200 million free condoms each year, especially during Carnival.

The Brazilian church has officially opposed the distribution of condoms, but historically has done little to stop it.

The U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops has not issued a statement and referred questions to the Vatican.

The uproar is over comments Benedict made in a new book titled "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times." In an exchange with the author about AIDS in Africa, Benedict said that for some people, such as male prostitutes, using condoms could be a step in assuming moral responsibility because the intent is to "reduce the risk of infection."

At a news conference Tuesday in Rome, Lombardi said Benedict knew his comments would provoke intense debate, and that the pope meant for his remarks to apply not just to male prostitutes, but also "if you're a man, a woman, or a transsexual."

The pope did not suggest using condoms as birth control, which is banned by the Roman Catholic Church, and he said condoms were not a "real or moral solution" to the AIDS crisis. Catholic teaching has never totally barred condom use for protection against HIV, and the Vatican has no official policy on the issue.

Larry Barkowski, a lifelong Catholic and married father of three from the Pittsburgh suburb of Natrona Heights, doesn't believe the comments constitute anything new.

"The popes have always promulgated responsible parenthood and responsible sexuality, and this is just a continuation of that. This is really nothing new other than the fact that he addressed the actual use of the condom, which has been something of a taboo," Barkowski said.

Catholic groups who minister to AIDS sufferers and those at high risk of contracting HIV agreed that the pope's remarks — and the rival interpretations of them — leave long-standing practices in place.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles began what is likely the first U.S. Catholic AIDS ministry in 1986. The Rev. Chris Ponnet, who directs HIV and AIDS outreach efforts, said the pope's comments do not mean a change in doctrine or in practice. Catholic outreach groups are not going to start distributing condoms, he said, adding that a singular focus on condoms ignores the roots of the problem.

"Consistently, the church has called for faithfulness in marriage and for people not to use intravenous drugs, and that's proven wise counsel," he said.

Ponnet sees Benedict's remarks as directly addressing parts of the world where HIV and AIDS infection rates are far higher than in the United States.

"I see this as not breaking any new ground, necessarily," he said. "I hear the holy father responding to that pastoral concern that's come from the grass roots as well as bodies of bishops in sub-Sahara Africa."

Catholic Relief Services, a global humanitarian agency headquartered in the U.S., has also been providing HIV and AIDS care and education for more than two decades. The group has AIDS-related programs in 62 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, spending more than $170 million on the projects in 2009.

As long as official Catholic teaching condemns the use of condoms, the relief agency will follow that guidance, spokesman Michael Hill said.

"Catholic Relief Services follows the teaching of the Catholic Church," he said. "Our current policy holds that we do not purchase, distribute or promote the use of condoms."

The pope's comments in a book interview do not amount to an official teaching, a point conservative Catholics have made repeatedly. They argued that the pope was only noting that by using a condom, a person with HIV is displaying some moral sense about the consequences of his behavior.

"I maintain that nothing new has happened, that the church's teaching hasn't changed," said the Rev. Joseph Fessio of Ignatius Press, the English publisher of the book, in a phone interview from Rome.

"We're in for a long period of confusion," said Russell Shaw, a writer for the Catholic publication Our Sunday Visitor and a former spokesman for the U.S. bishops' conference. "The bishops — and clergy especially — will have to go home now to their own dioceses and, whether they like it or not, start speaking very clearly about what just happened."

Associated Press writers Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

[kueytoc]

What’s causing recent spate of teen violence?

By yahoosingapore – November 24th, 2010

By Seah Chiang Nee

For many middle class families and party-loving youths, Downtown East — with its tree-lined holiday chalets, restaurants and theme parks — is an ideal weekend retreat.

The sprawling entertainment zone situated on the eastern seafront not far from Changi Airport has become a favourite haunt for hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans since it opened 22 years ago.

Recently, however, its picturesque image suffered a setback as the result of an intrusive scourge that Singaporeans thought had long been eradicated from their lives.

For years, even as the fun hub was attracting hordes of merrymaking teens, it was apparently also pulling in teenage gangs to mark out spheres of influence.

Recently, the gang activity erupted into open violence and death, raising suspicions that behind the rising affluence, not everything is going well for a segment of Singapore’s young generation.

These are bored, disconnected teenagers, some as young as 13, who failed to make good in school, family life or work.

“And they seemed to have declared open war on the police and on society” is a general public reaction to recent violent rampages by groups of parang-carrying teenagers bent on hurting bystanders or suspected rivals.

This was what happened.

Oct 30: As people celebrated Halloween, polytechnic student Darren Ng, 19, and three friends were chased by chopper-wielding men at Downtown East and he was hacked to death.

Five men have been charged with his murder, including one who suffered head injuries while trying to jump from a three-storey building.

Nov 8: Two separate attacks were reported in another part of Singa­pore. Some 20 youths (aged 14-20) were surrounded by a parang-carrying group shouting Hokkien expletives.

A 20-year-old assistant technician, an Indian, was slashed in the back and legs, along with six other victims.

Nov 10: Outside the court in which 16-year-old Louis Tong Qing Yao was being charged with Ng’s murder, 19 suspected gang members turned out to support him and ended up being arrested.

Old timers who are familiar with the bad old triad days are shaking their heads in disbelief at such meaningless blood-letting.

“Fifty years ago people joined gangs to earn a living. Today these kids do it for pride and thrill, not because of poverty,” said an old hawker.

Then, a pugnacious Lee Kuan Yew had to deal with some 33,000 triad members who had as much real power as the police.

His weapon was a mixture of logic and legislation, which often meant heavy punishment.

As a result, their strength has been vastly reduced — until the current resurgence by a growing minority of juvenile delinquents.

One reason for the triads’ decline was a better living standard. Another was the island’s small size where wanted criminals had few places to run or hide.

Besides, a criminal record could mean one could kiss goodbye to a government job.

Recently, however, teenage gangs seemed to have started to flex their muscles in various neighbourhoods; that could be blamed partly on the widening gap between rich and poor.

Their numbers are anybody’s guess, ranging from several hundred to one or two thousand.

“In much of Asia, teenage gangs are mainly a result of poverty. Here the chief factors are poor family environment and resentment against society,” said a student councillor.

(Last year, 468 youths were arrested for rioting and this year it could be worse. In the first six months alone, 278 were caught.)

For an old newshound like me, who had reported Singapore for more than 40 years, it was deja vu but under a different setting.

As a boy, I once watched in horror as a few old Gang 369 killers cut off someone’s head in a coffee shop.

After decades of controlled, peaceful living, many of us have grown unfamiliar with severe violence, teen or otherwise, and are ill-prepared for what has just happened.

Most parents, cocooned in stability for a whole generation, still think their children are incapable of creating mayhem.

They grew up in a strict law-and-order setting, having to go to school wearing their hair short and their skirts long, and with jukeboxes banned.

With teenagers’ values constantly shaped and reshaped by films, violent video games and the Internet, many modern parents are finding it hard to communicate with, let alone influence, their children.

And the public is reacting to it in shocked disbelief, many asking “Where were the police? Why were they caught unawares?”

One Straits Times online writer said: “The recent killing and brutal attacks on a group of youngsters in a playground (have) exposed the inadequacy of police presence in public areas.”

Another observed that with the coming year-end school vacation, more students would be going out to have fun. It was, he said, imperative that police increase street patrols.

“If they are short-handed, please ask the army to help.”

A worried parent wrote: “I have more reason to panic now. I told my seven-year-old boy no more football, basketball on open fields. He can only take part under the supervision of teachers … in the school, with camera. No means no! I told him.”

Another lady, Abideh, posted this brief note: “I’m beginning to feel scared for my family and my safety.”

However, some calming voices cautioned against paranoia, saying they believed that given their record, the authorities would very soon have the upper hand and these horror stories would become a passing cloud.

“These gangs will be crushed soon. The political price is too huge for the government to pay if it does nothing,” said another.

A former Reuters correspondent and newpaper editor, the writer is now a freelance columnist writing on general trends in Singapore. This post first appeared on his blog, www.littlespeck.com, on October 16, 2010.

[kueytoc]

Bruce Lee biopic tracks action hero's early life

Reuters - Thursday, November 25

HONG KONG - Authenticity is the heart and soul of the new biopic "Bruce Lee, My Brother," the early life story of the man who put Hong Kong action films on the map, its director told The Hollywood Reporter.

As its title declares, the film pieces together the superstar's childhood - Lee would have turned 70 on Sunday - and young adulthood from the memories of his four surviving siblings, Phoebe, Agnes, Peter and Robert.

"The Lee family supplied us with all the details and the tidbits of their family life," director Raymond Yip said. "So we took great care to be loyal to the truth and avoid anything that felt fake, which made it rather difficult for us in terms of creating the structure of the script. But the Lee family was very pleased with the result, especially with how close it was to what actually happened."

The biopic took years to put on the screen, not least because of the difficult task of finding a young actor to play the role of the iconic megastar. "We've been on the lookout for a possible candidate all over China since 2008, but no one could capture the Hong Kong spirit of the young Bruce Lee," Yip explained.

But when writer-director team of Alex Law and Mabel Cheung, invited the film's producer, Manfred Wong, to a screening of their opus "Echoes of the Rainbow," the search was over. Aarif Rahman, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter who made his acting debut in "Echoes," was locked in as the young Bruce Lee.

"Including Lee's brother Robert, we were quite amazed by how much Aarif resembles Bruce. No one can say for sure whether an actor really embodies Bruce's spirit except for his family. So it was a go from then on," Yip recalled.

The film began pre-production in March to push for a November 25 release in Hong Kong. The HK$36 million project has been snapped up by distributors in over 10 territories.

The Hong Kong-born Rahman, of Malay-Arab-Chinese ancestry, will have to shoulder any potential sequels for the Bruce Lee life story, said Yip.

"We certainly hope to continue telling Bruce Lee's story, but it depends on how this one is received, especially on the public reception of Aarif as Bruce Lee. Lee was a legendary figure. Who plays him in the film is the biggest issue for us as filmmakers. But I have faith in Aarif," Yip said.

Although the biopic tracks the early life of the kungfu master from his birth in San Francisco, old Hong Kong plays a key role. The film shows Lee and his friends as fixtures in the mid-century Hong Kong film industry, allowing the filmmakers to reenact scenes from famous movies of the age.

"Bruce Lee grew up on soundstages. But the films-within-a-film were also a way for us to recapture the collective memories of the Hong Kong people," Yip said.

[kueytoc]

SKorea's defense chief resigns over NKorea attack

By Hyung-jin Kim And Kwang-tae Kim, Associated Press – 1 hr 34 mins ago

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea – South Korea's defense minister resigned Thursday amid intense criticism two days after a North Korean artillery attack killed four people on a small island near the Koreas' disputed frontier.

The move came as President Lee Myung-bak vowed to send more troops to the front-line South Korean island and as residents tried to salvage belongings from the blackened wreckage of their homes. Pyongyang warned of additional attacks if provoked.

Hours before Defense Minister Kim Tae-young's resignation, lawmakers had lashed out at the government, claiming officials were unprepared for Tuesday's attack and that the military response to the North's barrage was too slow. Even those in Lee's ruling party demanded Kim's dismissal as well as those of military leaders and some presidential aides.

Lee accepted Kim's resignation and a new defense chief will be announced Friday, presidential chief of staff Yim Tae-hee said.

Skirmishes between the Korean militaries are not uncommon, but North Korea's heavy bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island was the first on a civilian area, raising fears of an escalation that could lead to a new war on the Korean peninsula. South Korean troops had returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response.

Seoul and Washington ratcheted up pressure on China to rein in its ally North Korea, and China on Thursday urged both sides to show restraint.

Reporters allowed for the first time onto the island found streets strewn with broken glass and charred debris. Blackened beer bottles lay beside what was left of a supermarket as coast guard officers patrolled in pairs past deserted offices and schools used by relief workers for meetings and meals.

Many residents fled as quickly as they could, but restaurant owner Lee In-ku, 46, joined a handful of villagers trying to salvage belongings from half-destroyed homes.

"It was a sea of fire," Lee said of Tuesday's attack. "Many houses were burning and many people were just running around in confusion. It was real chaos."

At an emergency meeting in Seoul on Thursday, President Lee ordered top-level weapons for troops manning the tense Yellow Sea, a presidential aide said.

"We should not ease our sense of crisis in preparation for the possibility of another provocation by North Korea," presidential spokesman Hong Sang-pyo quoted Lee as saying. "A provocation like this can recur any time."

Hong said South Korea will sharply raise the number of ground troops on Yeonpyeong and four other islands, reversing a 2006 decision to draw down forces. He declined to discuss specifics but said troops there currently are about 4,000.

He also said the military would change its rules of engagement to better counter North Korean provocations.

The defense minister's resignation came hours after he visited Yeonpyeong, home to military bases as well as a fishing community of 1,300 residents. It lies about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from South Korea's western port of Incheon, and just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from North Korean shores

Two marines and two civilians were killed in Tuesday's exchange, and at least 18 people — most of them troops — were wounded.

Marine Lt. Col. Joo Jong-wha acknowledged that the island is acutely short of artillery, saying it has only six pieces, the howitzers used in Tuesday's skirmish.

"In artillery, you're supposed to move on after firing to mask your location so that they don't strike right back at you. But we have too few artillery," he said on Yeonpyeong.

Military officials analyzing debris have not ruled out North Korea's use of thermobaric bombs, which burn more violently and increase casualties and property destruction, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said. He asked not to be identified, saying he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

The two Koreas are required to abide by an armistice signed at the close of their three-year war, but the North does not recognize the maritime line drawn by U.N. forces in 1953 and considers South Korean maneuvers near Yeonpyeong island a violation of its territory. South Korea was conducting firing drills, though not in North Korea's direction, when the North Korean artillery barrage came Tuesday.

The attack added to animosity from the March sinking of a South Korean warship in nearby waters that killed 46 sailors in the worst military attack on the nation since the Korean War.

The defense minister also offered to resign following that incident, but the president refused.

The shelling occurred as North Korea is undergoing a delicate transition of power from leader Kim Jong Il to his young son Kim Jong Un. The son, who is in late 20s, was made a four-star general and nominated to high-ranking Workers' Party posts in the first steps toward eventually succeeding his father.

North Korea's state news agency reported Monday, a day before the attack, that the elder Kim and the son and other key political and military figures visited duck and fish farms in an area about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the base where the artillery barrage was launched.

The attack alarmed world leaders, including President Barack Obama, who reaffirmed plans for joint maneuvers with Seoul involving a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea starting Sunday.

North Korea made no specific mention of those exercises but warned Thursday of "strong physical retaliations without hesitation if South Korean warmongers carry out reckless military provocations."

Pyongyang also said Washington was partly to blame for letting South Korea hold artillery drills that it said prompted the artillery barrage.

Washington "should thoroughly control South Korea," it said. The warning was issued by North Korea's military mission at the truce village of Panmunjom and carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration urged China to rein in ally North Korea.

"We really think it's important for the international community to lead, but in particular China," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington.

South Korea said it will increase diplomatic efforts to get China, which supplied North Korea with troops during the Korean War and remains its main ally and biggest benefactor, to put pressure on Pyongyang.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called on all sides to show "maximum restraint" and called again for renewed six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs. Wen said those talks, involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States, are the best way to ensure stability on the peninsula and its denuclearization.

In Seongnam just outside Seoul, military officers, family members and dignitaries mourned the two marines killed in the attack, laying flowers and burning incense at an altar. Funerals are to take place Saturday.

Former President Kim Young-sam used the occasion to criticize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, saying he is "not a human," and said that a China that defends North Korea "can never be trusted," Yonhap said.

Kwang-tae Kim reported from Seoul. Kelly Olsen and Foster Klug in Seoul, and Matthew Lee in Washington, also contributed to this report.

[kueytoc]

Aiyoh !...veri Troublesome leh.

Having children abroad? Your country may not want them

By Laura MacInnis Laura Macinnis 2 hrs 36 mins ago

GENEVA (Reuters) Baby Rachel's dad is Canadian, her mother is Chinese and 14 months after her birth in Beijing she's finally a citizen too...of Ireland.

However, Chloe -- who was born a month later in Brussels to Canadian and Algerian parents -- is still stateless.

The two girls and their professional parents are confronting the increasingly common problem of securing nationality for children of the more than 200 million people who choose to live, work and study outside of their home countries.

Most of the world's estimated 12 million stateless people -- who cannot cross national borders -- are poor, marginalized and live mainly in Kuwait, Nepal, Iraq, Myanmar, Thailand and the former Soviet republics.

But Mark Manly, head of the statelessness unit at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that gaps between national citizenship laws have put high-flying professionals around the globe in the same boat as migrants and refugees when it comes to getting passports for their kids.

"Far more people live outside their country of nationality than before, and there are more children born to parents of different countries," he said. "We have a lot of situations where the children are not acquiring any nationality at all."

Certain countries, including Switzerland, Japan and much of the European Union, do not confer citizenship automatically to babies born on their soil. In such places, expats whose own nationality cannot be transmitted abroad can find themselves with more than the usual dose of new-parent stress.

'FLABBERGASTED'

Ian Goldring and his wife Yamina Guidoum, both 43-year-old consultants based in Brussels, were not aware their daughter Chloe would be stateless until after her birth last year in Belgium, where the family of three has been marooned since.

Goldring, who was raised in Canada after being born in Bermuda where his Canadian father was working as an accountant, cannot pass on his citizenship because Ottawa changed its laws in 2009 to limit nationality to one generation born abroad.

And Guidoum was told that because she is a woman married to a foreign man, she cannot transmit her Algerian citizenship to a child born overseas. That leaves 16-month-old Chloe without a passport and her family confined to Belgium.

"I was flabbergasted," Goldring said. "There are things that you could imagine happening in your life, like getting cancer, things that happen to people more or less like you. Having a stateless child is something that never occurred to me."

Many countries limit citizenship to a certain number of generations born abroad, though in most cases an exemption is given when a citizen born abroad later resides in the country.

Women from Malaysia and Lebanon are also unable to pass on their citizenship abroad, a situation that until recently also applied to mothers from Kenya, Egypt, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Goldring said his family's struggle to get a passport for Chloe has shocked their friends in Brussels and caused extra, undue anxiety in his and Guidoum's initiation to parenthood.

"When people think of refugees and stateless people they don't think of Western, educated professionals with an office job," he said.

DIFFERENT PASSPORTS

Rachel's parents -- Canadian teacher Patrick Chandler and Chinese mother Fiona Zou -- were aghast to discover that because Chandler was born in Libya to Canadian parents and Zou was not married to him at the time of Rachel's birth, neither of their home countries were willing offer citizenship to their tiny tot.

Rachel was stateless for 14 months until she acquired Irish nationality through her paternal grandfather, who was born in Ireland and emigrated to Canada four decades ago.

"It really did not take long to get Irish citizenship for her, once we realized that it was an option," said the 22-year-old Chandler, who teaches English in Beijing.

"I also applied for Irish citizenship for myself, because I figured that it might look strange to some customs officials at an airport when my family travels. They would see a Canadian, a Chinese, and an Irish baby traveling together," he said.

Nationality is often the last thing on the mind of couples who fall in love, especially in places with large expatriate communities where international partnerships are common.

"When I married my husband I wasn't thinking about the nationality of our children," said a 46-year-old Briton working for an international organization in Geneva, who is trying to secure British nationality for her sons.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the fact that she was born in Kenya never crossed her mind as a complication when she and her Belgian spouse started a family in Switzerland. She considers it a cultural and emotional rift not to share her nationality with the boys.

"This is something you don't actually stop and think about when you are working as a professional in a highly mobile world. You move to different countries for your career and you don't necessarily look at the practicalities of what that is going to mean," she said.

'DIFFICULT TO PREDICT'

The United Nations estimates there are 214 million people currently living outside of their home countries, a large number of whom are workers of child-bearing age.

While it is hard to quantify how many professionals abroad are facing nationality trouble, International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy said citizenship laws were not designed for the international life that many professionals today are pursuing.

"All kinds of people can fall through the cracks," he said.

Several of Manly's colleagues at the UNHCR in Geneva have knocked on his door seeking help with the jigsaw of nationality laws that affect them, including the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

That convention, which has only 37 signatories, states that when a child is ineligible at birth for another nationality, the country where he or she is born must grant them citizenship. The process to seek such recourse, where it applies, can be tricky and parents often need legal help to do so.

Philip Turpin, an Oxford-based solicitor, said he and his legal colleagues were receiving increasing numbers of requests for help with citizenship issues from overseas professionals.

"Individuals will often sort out their visas and the visas for their families but, when it comes to the birth of a child, different considerations arise," he said.

"It is difficult to predict these because every country has its own provisions allowing the passing on of citizenship to children born overseas -- what we call citizenship by descent -- and every country has its own provisions for the acquisition of citizenship by birth."

Statelessness rarely arises as a problem in the Americas region, where babies are broadly eligible for citizenship of their country of birth under the legal principle of "jus soli."

Calls in the United States to deny nationality to "anchor babies," whose U.S. citizenship at birth can keep their foreign parents in the country, would not necessarily lead to more statelessness overall, Manly said.

Requirements that citizenship be passed by descent or blood -- in legal terms, "jus sanguinis" -- are fine when there are policies in place to prevent people from falling through the cracks, he said, pointing to successful programs in Spain.

"The U.N. does not say that jus soli or jus sanguinis is better. There needs to be a combination of the two and adequate safeguards in place so that statelessness does not occur on the territory or to the nationals of the country abroad," he said. (Laura MacInnis was born in the United States to Canadian parents and has worked for Reuters in Switzerland since 2006.)

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Paul Casciato)

[kueytoc]

Premier League - Papers: Why Wilkins was axed

Thu, 25 Nov 09:13:00 2010

Former Chelsea assistant manager Ray Wilkins was given his marching orders at Stamford Bridge following a blazing row with the club's top brass, according to this morning's papers.

The Daily Express reports that the former England midfielder argued during the summer with Roman Abramovich, and had a further furious bust-up with chief executive Ron Gourlay just two weeks before he was told his contract was not being renewed.

Apparently, the row with Gourlay came over the use of substitutes; Wilkins is now suing Chelsea for unfair dismissal.

The Champions League victories by Tottenham and Manchester United take up plenty of column inches in this morning's papers - and if all you'd seen were the back pages you'd have thought that Wayne Rooney had taken on Rangers all by himself and still won 10-0.

"GeROOnimo," blasts the back page headline in the Daily Mirror, while by The Sun's inside headline is "Och aye the Roo - Life's sweet as Wayne sinks Scots". All good fun - though not exactly representative of a tight match in which United failed to impress and were rescued by the, admittedly, excellent Rooney spot kick.

Spurs, meanwhile, were impressive in beating a weakened Werder Bremen, and the papers heap praise on them. "Everyone will fear us now," claims the Daily Express, with the Daily Mirror claiming that, "Spurs are on their way to Wembley." Presumably, they're not referring to a potential FA Cup semi-final against one of their London neighbours.

Elsewhere, Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce has apparently been told by the club's new owners to make his side play more entertaining football, according to The Sun.

Venky's chairwoman Anuradha Desai seems unaware that her request is a bit like asking the Pope to be a bit less religious, or suggesting to Ferrari engineers that they think about fuel economy a bit more. Then again, she did betray her knowledge of football by saying that Blackburn "should go up in the rankings" - but, in the century which saw McDonalds start selling salads, anything can happen.

Desai - and Allardyce - will both be full of Christmas cheer if the top transfer rumour of the day comes off: former Blackburn striker Roque Santa Cruz could be on his way back to Ewood Park for £4 million in January, according to The Sun. That's £13m less than the sum they sold him to Manchester City for under two years ago.

Chelsea's young star Daniel Sturridge could be set for a surprise loan move to Swansea, according to the Daily Mirror.

The Swans had originally asked about an emergency loan earlier this week, but Brendan Rodgers is apparently now looking for a longer loan deal, as of January.

And finally, the Daily Record reports that the Scottish refereeing saga is set for a few twists today: the paper reports that refs will vote not to back down on their strike threat - but also claim that the Dutch FA have agreed to provide all the officials required to enable this weekend's fixtures to go ahead.

Eurosport

[kueytoc]

Stolen Children in China are Seeking Answers

By AUSTIN RAMZY / SHANGHAI Austin Ramzy / Shanghai – 2 hrs 5 mins ago

He remembers playing in the countryside - a place where farmers grew wheat and snow fell in the winter. There was a house filled with many families who would wash clothes together outside or sit and gossip in their shared courtyard. Someone may have even had a television, though that bit is hazy. His parents ran a noodle stall, and his father would give him dried beef to eat on the walk to school. He wasn't a great student, and the teacher would criticize his classwork. He remembers an older brother who looked out for him until, in the end, he couldn't. And he even recalls his former name, Zhou Chengliang, though he still can't figure out who he is, or where in the vast nation of China he is from.

Today, Zhou is about 27 years old (he doesn't know for sure), goes by the name Huang Jie, and is an entrepreneur based in the western Chinese city of Lanzhou, where he buys building materials such as granite and marble from mines on the Tibetan Plateau. He spends part of each year in Shanghai, selling the materials for construction projects along China's central east coast. Zhou has made a life for himself feeding China's voracious economic engine, but he suffers from memories of a lost past: he was one of countless young Chinese children kidnapped and sold to strangers to be raised as their own. Zhou's story is a human tragedy, but it's also emblematic of a country in the throes of rapid change, torn between tradition and modernity, challenge and opportunity, morality and corruption.

Zhou's nightmare began when he was 6. He and his older brother - Zhou thinks his name was Chengjiang - were leaving school when they met a couple who claimed to be friends of their parents. The man and the woman said they were there to take them home. They asked Zhou what he wanted to eat and treated him to a bowl of his favorite cold noodles. But Chengjiang was wary and stood watching from outside the shop. When they boarded a bus, his older brother refused to go along. As the bus went past his stop, Zhou sensed something was wrong. "I remember thinking, 'These people are so cold,'" Zhou says. They boarded a train, and there was nowhere to sit. So he lay down on the floor and cried. No one paid him any notice.

The journey, which lasted at least two days, continued by another bus and then by boat. The couple transferred Zhou to an older woman in the countryside. "We went to a house. I remember it was along a road," he says. "And that didn't work out. Maybe it was an issue of price? So we took a three-wheeled cart to another place. And then we went to another place. In the end she took me to my new family."

The late 1980s were an unsettling period for China. The economic reforms that had begun a decade earlier had opened up huge opportunities - and not just for law-abiding citizens. Corruption also began to rise, and organized crime, beaten back by relentless social controls during the Maoist era, grew once again. Because of new freedom of movement, gangs found it easier to take children from one place and sell them in another. The authorities are slowly coming to terms with the extent of the problem; last year they launched their biggest crackdown ever, with more than 15,000 people arrested over 17 months. In September, a court in Quanzhou city in southeastern Fujian province sentenced to death the two ringleaders of a gang that had sold 46 children for up to $6,000 each.

Tackling the aftermath, however, can be even harder than cracking the trafficking gangs. In the Quanzhou case, many of the stolen children were left with the people who bought them even as the authorities tried to track down their real families, according to a report in the state-run Legal Daily. Despite a new official effort to reunite families with their lost children, volunteers shoulder much of the work. And while the public is increasingly aware of the extent of the human trafficking, the implications of having tens of thousands of children wrenched from their families are only now emerging as those who went missing in the 1980s reach adulthood. Some were kidnapped at such a young age that they will never have any recollection of their birth family.

A Pained Beginning

Zhou was repeatedly told by his new family, a large farming clan in Fujian, that his life would have been much worse had he never been sold to them. During his first several years in his new home, that seemed hardly the case. While the family was relatively prosperous by local standards, Zhou says he was given less food than the others, and he had to do more work around the farm to earn his keep. He constantly fought with his new parents, and would escape several times a year in hopes of returning home. But he had no idea where home was.

By his midteens, Zhou had learned to grudgingly get along in his new surroundings. The family paid for a better school for him, and he stopped running away so often. They began to treat him more like one of their own. In 1997, he left home and moved to Shanghai. He married, had a daughter and started his building-materials-supply company. Despite the painful circumstances of his upbringing, he still considers the people who raised him as family. "My feeling is, no matter how you treated me, you raised me to this point, so I should thank you," he says. But Zhou still feels the undeniable pull of kinship, and over the past several years has struggled to find his brother and his birth parents. "Seeing my own daughter's infant gurgling slowly turn into speech has made me think of how my own parents must have once raised me," he wrote in an online plea. "I can't help but long for them."

Profit and Loss

To control population growth, in 1979 the central government launched the one-child policy, which prevented most families from having multiple offspring. A traditional preference for male children, meanwhile, persisted in many parts of the country. These factors contributed to the development in the late 1980s of syndicates that traded not only in children but also in young women, who were then sold into marriage in rural areas short on eligible brides. "Things that you used to not be able to sell, you could sell again," says Pi Yijun, an expert on juvenile justice at China University of Political Science and Law. "People's lives, sex - these all became things you could sell. So it was natural that this would become much more hot than under the planned economy."

The trafficking routes follow China's geographic divides between rich and poor. Children are kidnapped from poor interior provinces like Yunnan or Guizhou in the south or the anonymous migrant-worker districts of bustling manufacturing cities. They are then sold in relatively prosperous smaller towns in places like coastal Fujian. Generally the buyers aren't wealthy but are rural or suburban residents who have achieved moderate prosperity, says Pi. For them, buying a child is an investment to ensure they are taken care of in old age. "Older people worry about this," he says. "So they are willing to spend money, or even borrow money, to buy a child who will take care of them." Zhou's Fujian parents, for instance, have their own children but wanted more for precisely the reason Pi gives. While China has a one-child policy, it is unevenly implemented and sometimes loosely enforced, particularly in rural areas. Violators can pay a fine - or circumvent the rule by bribing local officials.

Chinese authorities have launched multiple crackdowns on kidnapping, but it remains a scourge. In the first seven months of last year there were 2,093 cases reported, although the total number of disappeared could easily be five times that, experts say. In September, says China's Public Security Ministry, more than 10,000 women and nearly 6,000 children had been rescued in a crackdown that began in April 2009. If a case is broken immediately after the crime, police can easily reunite children with their families. The longer the time lag, however, the more difficult the task; also, many victims are often too young to provide useful information.

Even arrested kidnappers are of limited value in tracing the victims' origins, as such details are intentionally obscured as children are channeled through kidnapping networks. "Children are often sold several times during the crime," says Chen Shiqu, who heads the Ministry of Public Security's anti-human-trafficking office. "If we missed one of the suspects, or if any of the suspects died, we wouldn't be able to find out where he got or sold the child." As part of last year's crackdown, the police launched a website called "Baby Searching for Home," which publicizes the details of rescued children whose parents haven't been identified. The authorities confirm any possible matches through DNA tests. So far 813 children have been reunited with their families through the program.

Litany of Sorrow

For every successful reunion, however, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of unresolved kidnappings. In recent years volunteer organizations have emerged to help pick up the slack. In April 2007, Zhang Baoyan, a 49-year-old former bank employee in Tonghua, a city in northeastern Jilin province, started a website called "Baby Come Home" that has since become a clearinghouse for information about missing children. Zhang says she was moved after losing her own 4-year-old son in a market for a brief but horrifying few hours. "Even though I managed to find him after a couple of hours, I still felt the fear," she says. "Then I started to pay attention to parents who lost their children."

Most post flyers with photos and terse stories of their children's disappearance. Zhang's husband Qin Yanyou, who runs the computer center at Tonghua Normal University, said that organizing them online would improve their effectiveness, so he helped her set up the website. So far, they have successfully reunited 155 families. But they still have over 5,000 unsolved cases. Each notice of a missing child is a condensed portrait of pure grief. "Baby, where are you? Have you eaten? Mother misses you; you have to wait for her," begins one with a photo of a toddler staring quizzically at the camera, a single lock of hair pulled up in a red ribbon. "Pan Hong, female, born Feb. 4, 2007; went missing Feb. 8, 2010, from the Jianshe Road vegetable market in Dengbu village, Yujiang county, Jiangxi. She has short, soft but thin hair, a round face with single-fold eyelids and a birthmark 10 cm below her left knee."

A Quest in Vain

Zhou turned to the internet because he feared that attempts to find his parents via official channels in his new family's hometown of Putian, a midsize manufacturing center along the Taiwan Strait, would go nowhere. "Before, I thought the easiest way to find them was to go through the police. But Putian is a very unenlightened place," he says. "It's all about power, money and connections." Any vigorous effort to investigate his case could uncover official corruption, as the arrival of a child should have raised questions when his new family applied for his residence permit and sent him to school. While the police do crack down on kidnapping, from Zhou's perspective, "it is mostly just for show." So he began posting his own story online, plus a photo of himself as an adult - his sharply angled face with high cheekbones staring down at the camera - in whatever forums he could find. In April he told his story on Zhang's "Baby Come Home" website. He received more than 200 replies from volunteers who forwarded his story to other forums, searched public records for matching names and suggested other lines of inquiry based on the faintest of clues. His recollection of eating dried-beef snacks led some to suggest looking in Shandong, Henan or Anhui provinces, where such food is common. Since he speaks Mandarin without a distinct accent, others volunteers concluded he was from north China. (Read "China's Alarming Spate of School Knifings.")

One volunteer, a 38-year-old woman surnamed He (she would not give her full name), took up the case in Guizhou, a poor province in southern China where kidnappings are common. He, a Guizhou native, learned of the antikidnapping group through her work with another charity that improves access to education for children in impoverished areas. Zhou's was the first kidnapping case she worked on.

After volunteers for "Baby Come Home" found 30 possible matches for the family names that Zhou recalled, He agreed to help track down a Zhou Chengjiang - the name he remembered as his older brother's - who was listed in the town of Liupanshui. On a hot day in late May she went with another volunteer to the police station in a mining village, where they learned that a coal miner matching that name had moved away two years ago. The police furnished them with a new address, so they went to another village, only to learn the address didn't exist. They went back to the first village, hoping to find more clues.

Most of the residents, however, were miners who traveled from all over the country to work temporarily, then head elsewhere. Many locals were suspicious of their questioning, says He, but a local newspaper reporter had tagged along, and after he showed his credentials some people opened up. Finally someone came up with a phone number for Zhou Chengjiang. He called, and the man said he did have a brother with the name Zhou Chengliang, but he had never been kidnapped. "I should have been happy for that family," she says. "But I thought about all the hard work in that heat, and I burst into tears." Later, a volunteer told her that the other leads for names matching Zhou's had been tracked down; none was a match. (Read "Why Americans Are Adopting Fewer Kids from China.")

Zhou is stoic about the disappointments. Being taken from his family at such a young age has left him with a hard-earned resilience. He relishes raising his own 3-year-old daughter, even when it reminds him of what his life is missing. "This experience taught me to cherish happiness," he says. "I worked hard to have what I have now. I learned to do everything the best I could. I often rethink what I did at the end of the day, to see how I can improve tomorrow." Like the booming, striving nation he lives in, Zhou's future appears bright. It's the past he is trying to figure out.

with reporting by Chengcheng Jiang / Shanghai

This article originally appeared in the November 22, 2010 issue of TIME Asia.

[kueytoc]

Artillery heard on tense Yellow Sea island

By Associated Press Jin-man Lee And Foster Klug, Associated Press 18 mins ago

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea Fresh artillery shots were heard Friday on the tense South Korean island of Yeonpyeong just three days after it was devastated by a North Korean attack. One report said the shots were from military drills being carried out on the nearby North Korean mainland.

The blasts came hours after Pyongyang warned that the peninsula was on the brink of war, and just after the top U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter Sharp, toured Yeonpyeong Island in a show of solidarity with Seoul and to survey damage from Tuesday's hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.

An official at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said several new rounds of artillery fire were heard Friday on the island, just 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of the North Korean mainland. The military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several distant explosive sounds came from the direction of North Korea.

North Korea's heavy bombardment of Yeonpyeong on Tuesday took hostilities to a new level because civilians were killed, prompting Washington to reaffirm plans to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to South Korean waters for joint military drills starting Sunday.

The North unleashed its anger over those drills in a dispatch earlier Friday on its state news agency, saying the weekend drills were a reckless move to target the North. "The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," the Korean Central News Agency said.

Hours later, AP photographers at an observation point on the northwest side of Yeonpyeong heard about four explosions, and said they witnessed at least one flash of light on the North Korean mainland.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

South Korea's YTN television network, citing an unidentified military official, said North Korea apparently was carrying out a military drill, and had fired up to 20 rounds. Yeonpyeong residents were fleeing to shelters, the report said. The report couldn't be immediately confirmed.

Only a few dozen residents remained on Yeonpyeong, with most of the population of 1,300 fleeing in the hours and days after Tuesday's attack and authorities urging them to evacuate.

Sharp toured Yeonpyeong earlier Friday, dressed in a heavy camouflage jacket and army fatigues and wearing a black beret. He walked down a heavily damaged street strewn with debris from buildings. Around him were charred bicycles and shattered bottles of soju, a kind of Korean alcoholic drink.

Sharp had returned to Seoul before the reports of artillery shots, said Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman for the U.S. military.

North Korea's dispatch said that the country's army and people are "now greatly enraged" and "getting fully ready to give a shower of dreadful fire," the agency said. "Escalated confrontation would lead to a war, and he who is fond of playing with fire is bound to perish."

[kueytoc]

Moyes offers Beckham Everton loan deal

AFP - Sunday, November 28

LONDON (AFP) – Everton coach David Moyes on Saturday offered David Beckham a route back into English football by saying that he would be prepared to offer the England superstar a loan move to Goodison Park.

Beckham recently finished the Major League Soccer season with the Los Angeles Galaxy, but he spent the last two winters on loan at Italian giants AC Milan in a bid to prove his form and fitness to England coach Fabio Capello.

The 35-year-old missed the World Cup after sustaining an Achilles tendon injury with Milan in March and said in September that he would not be joining another European side this season.

Moyes, though, said a loan deal would be easy to arrange and hinted that Everton skipper Phil Neville, a former team-mate of Beckham's at Manchester United, could play a part in setting up the move.

"I hope that if David wanted to come he would give me a call. He only needs to call me or Phil Neville," said Moyes, who briefly played alongside Beckham at Preston North End while Beckham was there on loan from United in 1995.

"He knows how to get hold of Phil and he knows how to get hold of me.

"We would have to look into it financially. But if he came and said to me 'I would like to come and play' then I would have to go to the chairman and ask if we could make it work by selling enough replica shirts."

Despite his "respect" for Moyes, Beckham did not seem over-enthusiastic about the offer.

"Right now I'm just getting my body back into shape because I was out of the game for six months with a pretty serious injury and I came back pretty quickly," Beckham said after LA Galaxy's 2-1 friendly loss to the Newcastle Jets in Australia on Saturday night.

"I think I'm feeling the effects of the month and a half I've played since I got injured.

"I think it's always nice to be wanted and it's always nice to have options out there and I've always respected David Moyes from the time I've played with him at Preston North End ... plus I respect him as a manager.

"It's always nice to be wanted, but I'm a Man United fan and it's a pretty close rivalry, so I don't know."

Beckham is England's most capped outfield player with 115 caps and is only 10 caps short of goalkeeper Peter Shilton's overall record.

He has not played for England since before the World Cup but a move to a European team would likely boost his chances of earning a recall from Capello.

Beckham's Galaxy team-mate Landon Donovan impressed during a loan spell at Everton last season and Moyes revealed that he was also hoping to bring the American international back to the club.

"Landon does not need to make up his mind until next month," said the Scot.