SINGAPORE: Miss Annabel Pennefather has been named Chef de Mission for the Singapore contingent at this year's SEA Games in Myanmar.
This will be her fifth time as Chef de Mission to Singapore's contingent.
Previously, she filled that role at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and most recently, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
- CNA/de
Kurien, who is under attack since the victim demanded recently that he be made an accused in the case, has attached an elaborate note on the sequence of events along with his appeal -- "kindly read in full and apply your judicious mind". The attempt by the senior Congress leader from Kerala to reach out to Rajya Sabha members assumes significance as it comes just ahead of the Budget session beginning tomorrow during which opposition is expected to rake up the issue with demands for his resignation.
The note titled "The Truth About Prof P J Kurien" reads-- "This false allegation was investigated three times by senior-level police officers (two under the Left Front governments). The Kerala high court has exonerated him and the Supreme Court confirmed the discharge in 2007. What more can Prof Kurien do to prove his innocence?" The note alleges that the CPI(M) was "propagating falsehood" by "trying to link" the recent Supreme Court judgment in the case to the exoneration given to Kurien by the Kerala high court which was upheld by the Supreme Court.
"The Supreme Court recently set aside the Kerala high court acquittal of 35 accused in the main Suryanelli case. It must be noted here that Prof Kurien was not at all an accused in this case," says the note. It says that the recent Supreme Court direction in the "main Suryanelli case" to Kerala High Court "does not involve (a) re-trial of the case, or (b) re-investigation of the case" and "it is only for re-hearing the appeal of the convicts, who were acquitted by the Kerala High Court".
"It is (a) reiterated that exoneration of Prof P J Kurien by the Kerala high court (in a private complaint filed by the girl) and the Kerala High Court's acquittal of the 35 accused persons, convicted by the trial court, were not linke at all," the note says.
CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.
The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.
"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.
Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.
"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."
Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.
That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.
The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.
"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."
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Online:
Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com
Olympian Oscar Pistorius today denied that he willfully killed his girlfriend, telling a South African court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Pistorius, 26 and a double-amputee Olympian, was charged today with premeditated murder, or a Schedule 6 offense, which under South African law limits his chances for parole if convicted.
Pistorius, who gained worldwide fame for running on carbon-fiber blades and competing against able-bodied runners at the Olympics, is accused of shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 14.
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
In a statement read by his lawyer, the runner said he and Steenkamp went to bed together before he was awoken by a noise he thought was an intruder coming from the bathroom.
Filled with a "sense of terror," he removed the 9-mm pistol he kept hidden under his bed and, without putting on his prosthetic legs, began shooting through the bathroom door, according to his statement.
It was only then that he realized Steenkamp was not in bed, he said in the statement. Fearing she was inside the bathroom, he says, he broke down the door using a cricket bat and carried the woman outside, where he called for help, and she soon died.
Pistorius appeared in court today for the first time since his Valentine's Day arrest, as prosecutors laid out their case, insisting that the runner could not have mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder.
"[Pistorius] shot and killed an innocent woman," Gerrie Nel, the senior state prosecutor, said in court, adding that there is "no possible explanation to support" the notion that Pistorius thought Steenkamp was an intruder.
Police responding to neighbors' calls about shouting and gunshots at Pistorius' home in the guarded and gated complex in the South African capital discovered Steenkamp's body. A 9-mm pistol was recovered at the home.
Prosecutors said Steenkamp had arrived at the house with the expectation of spending the night with Pistorius. They said that Steenkamp was shot while in the bathroom, which is about 21 feet from the main bedroom, and that the two rooms are linked by a passage. The door to the toilet was broken down from the outside, prosecutors said, implying that the bathroom door had been locked.
Prosecutors believe it's a case of premeditated murder because, they say, Pistorius had to stop, put on his prosthetic legs, grab a gun and then walk 21 feet to a bathroom.
The premeditated murder charge means that he would likely be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, and that he is likely to be denied bail, which is expected to be decided later today.
South Africa has moved away from the jury system, in light of its brutally racist past, so Pistorius' fate will rest in the hands of a judge and two magistrates.
The prosecution had said that the defense would no doubt argue for the charge to be downgraded to a Schedule 5 offense, but that was clearly wrong, according to the prosecution.
In a Schedule 5 offense, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that it would be in the interest of justice to keep the accused behind bars and not release him on bail. A Schedule 6 offense is a more serious category, wherein the defense has to prove that it would be in the interest of justice to release the accused person on bail.
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder.
The double amputee said in an affidavit read by his lawyer at his bail hearing that he felt vulnerable because he did not have on his prosthetic legs when he pumped bullets into the locked bathroom door. Then, Pistorius said in the sworn statement, he realized that model Reeva Steenkamp was not in his bed.
"It filled me with horror and fear," he said.
He put on his prosthetic legs, tried to kick down the door, then bashed it in with a cricket bat to find Steenkamp, 29, shot inside. He said he ran downstairs with her, but "She died in my arms."
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel on Tuesday charged the 26-year-old athlete and Olympian with premeditated murder, alleging he took the time to put on his legs and walk some seven meters (yards) from the bed to the bathroom door before opening fire. A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.
The Valentine's Day shooting death has shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized Pistorius for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.
The magistrate ruled that Pistorius faces the harshest bail requirements available in South African law.
Nel told the court that Pistorius fired into the door of a small bathroom where Steenkamp was cowering after a shouting match. He fired four times and three bullets hit Steenkamp, the prosecutor said.
"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," prosecutor Nel argued. "It must have been horrific."
Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.
"Was it to kill her, or was it to get her out?" he asked about the broken-down door. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder."
He said the state had provided no evidence that the couple quarreled nor offered a motive.
Nel rebutted: "The motive is 'I want to kill.'"
There were affadavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp read out by defense lawyer Roux in the bail hearing.
The statements described a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home.
As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. The family said members had arrived from around the world. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.
June Steenkamp, the mother, said the family wants answers.
"Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this?" she said in an interview published Monday in The Times newspaper.
Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.
South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Another council study estimates a child or woman is raped every four minutes. While homicide rates have dropped, the number of women killed by current or former partners has increased, said the council's Professor Rachel Jewkes. At least three women are killed by a partner every day in the country of 50 million, she said.
Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.
What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle and the family spokesman Mike Steenkamp said after her memorial.
He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.
Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had them amputated when he was 11 months.
The man known as the Blade Runner because of his running prostheses has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.
On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"
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Associated Press writer Michelle Faul contributed from Johannesburg and AP photographer Schalk van Zuydam from Port Elizabeth.
SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange (SGX) is looking at reviewing listing rules to better protect retail investors of troubled firms.
This was revealed in a letter to the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS) from SGX deputy chief regulatory officer Richard Teng.
SGX was responding to SIAS' earlier proposals to safeguard investors of foreign issuers on the SGX.
The exchange said SIAS' proposals have been discussed and considered by its newly formed working committee to review the SGX listing rules.
Among the committee's proposals are to give SGX legal powers to appoint special auditors or other professionals to help or investigate troubled companies.
It added that there could also be a requirement that imposes a minimum notice period before board directors of listed companies can effectively resign.
In the meantime, SIAS said retail investors who own shares from foreign companies continue to face risks in recover their investments "should the untoward happen to any of the foreign issuers."
In a separate announcement, SGX said that it has formed a working committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the listing manual to enhance the robustness, efficacy and relevance of the listing framework in Singapore.
The new committee comprised capital market stakeholders, including representatives from the SGX, Association of Banks in Singapore, Singapore Institute of Directors, law firms, accounting firms and company secretarial firms.
The committee has commenced its review to identify areas of possible enhancements to strengthen Singapore's attractiveness as a capital market.
- CNA/fa
JALANDHAR: Dubai-based hotelier S P Singh Oberoi, who has returned with 17 Punjabi youths after saving them from gallows of Sharjah, has suggested to the NRI Sabha Punjab to have an "information and feedback offices" in every district of Punjab to guide youths who wanted to go to UAE for doing odd labour jobs.
During his visit to office of NRI Sabha Punjab, where he was felicitated on Monday late evening, Oberoi said that these offices of NRI Sabha should be approached by youths with names, addresses of the companies where the travel agents were assuring them to send and his UAE based organization 'Sarbat Da Bhalla' would get back within three days about the credentials of the companies.
"Most of the youths who go to UAE are from poor families and arrange loans to migrate there but when they don't get work in good companies or good salaries then they start trapped in illegal trades to save some money for repaying the loan," he said. "They are often misguided by travel agents and we can evolve a system of getting a reliable feedback from UAE then these youths can be saved from such entrapments which are leading them to jails," he said.
He said that several Punjabi youths were getting trapped in such illegal businesses and those he saved from gallows were caught there in similar conditions.
SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.
The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.
"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.
The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.
The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.
Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.
At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.
By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.
"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.
The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.
Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.
Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.
"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.
Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.
During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.
Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.
"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.
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Online:
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship
Mindy McCready, the country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," but struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son has died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. She was 37.
Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. today.
There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.
PHOTOS: In Memoriam 2013
McCready's boyfriend, David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.
McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.
She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.
Angela Weiss/Getty Images
RELATED: Mindy McCready: Police Take Son
Her mother, Gayle Inge, was appointed to be her son Zander's legal guardian in 2007 after McCready was arrested for violating probation on a drug-related charge. The boy's father is McCready's ex-boyfriend Billy McKnight.
Following a custody hearing in May 2011, McCready released a statement, saying, "We have progressed in a positive manner to reunite me and my son, Zander. I feel very optimistic this will happen in the near future."
But just six months later, in November 2011, was accused of violating a court order for failing to bring Zander back to her mother in Florida after a visit. The boy was placed in foster care while McCready and her mother worked out the custody dispute.
McCready's struggle with substance abuse was broadcast in 2010 on the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."
McCready also claimed to have carried on a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began was she was 15 years old and he was 28. Clemens denied that the relationship was sexual in nature.
"You know what, I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people that has a normal, quiet existence," McCready told ABC Radio in 2010. "I've been chosen for some reason to be bigger and larger than life in every way. Negative and positive."
McCready, who was born and raised in southern Florida, moved to Nashville when she was 18 to start her music career.
Within a few months, she was starting to work with producer David Malloy, who got her tapes to RLG Records. The company signed her to a contract after seeing her in concert, giving her a record deal less than a year after her arrival in Nashville.
Her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," went gold within six months of its release in April 1996, and eventually went multi-platinum. Two more followed: "If I Don't Stay the Night," in 1997; and "I'm Not So Tough" in 1999.
Her most recent album, "I'm Still Here," featuring new versions of her early hits "Ten Thousand Angels" and "Guys Do It All the Time," was released in March 2010.
GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations investigators said on Monday that Syrian leaders they had identified as suspected war criminals should face the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The investigators urged the U.N. Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for violations, including murder and torture, committed by both sides in a conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began in March, 2011.
"Now really it's time...We have a permanent court, the International Criminal Court, who would be ready to take this case," Carla del Ponte, a former ICC chief prosecutor who joined the U.N. team in September, told a news briefing in Geneva.
The inquiry, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, is tracing the chain of command to establish criminal responsibility.
"Of course we were able to identify high-level perpetrators," del Ponte said, adding that these were people "in command responsibility...deciding, organizing, planning and aiding and abetting the commission of crimes".
She said it was urgent for the Hague-based war crimes tribunal to take up cases of very high officials, but did not identify them, in line with the inquiry's practice.
Del Ponte, who brought former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the ICC on war crimes charges, said the ICC prosecutor would need to deepen the investigation on Syria before an indictment could be prepared.
Pinheiro, noting that the Security Council would have to refer Syria's case to the ICC, said: "We are in very close dialogue with all the five permanent members and with all the members of the Security Council, but we don't have the key that will open the path to cooperation inside the Security Council."
Karen Konig AbuZayd, an American member of the U.N. team, told Reuters it had information pointing to "people who have given instructions and are responsible for government policy, people who are in the leadership of the military, for example".
The inquiry's third list of suspects, building on lists drawn up in the past year, remains secret. It will be entrusted to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, upon expiry of its mandate at the end of March, the report said.
Pinheiro said the investigators would not speak publicly about "numbers, names or levels" of suspects, adding that it was vital to pursue accountability for international crimes "to counter the pervasive sense of impunity" in Syria.
FIGHT AGAINST IMPUNITY
The investigators' latest report, covering the six months to mid-January, was based on 445 interviews conducted abroad with victims and witnesses, as they have not been allowed into Syria.
"The ICC is the appropriate institution for the fight against impunity in Syria. As an established, broadly supported structure, it could immediately initiate investigations against authors of serious crimes in Syria," the 131-page report said.
Pillay, a former ICC judge, said on Saturday Assad should be probed for war crimes, and called for outside action on Syria, including possible military intervention.
Government forces have carried out shelling and air strikes across Syria including Aleppo, Damascus, Deraa, Homs and Idlib, the U.N. report said, citing corroborating satellite images.
"In some incidents, such as in the assault on Harak, indiscriminate shelling was followed by ground operations during which government forces perpetrated mass killing," it said, referring to a town in the southern province of Deraa where residents told them that 500 civilians were killed in August.
"Government forces and affiliated militias have committed extra-judicial executions, breaching international human rights law. This conduct also constitutes the war crime of murder. Where murder was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, with knowledge of that attack, it is a crime against humanity," the U.N. report said.
Those forces have targeted bakery queues and funeral processions to spread "terror among the civilian population".
"Syrian armed forces have implemented a strategy that uses shelling and sniper fire to kill, maim, wound and terrorize the civilian inhabitants of areas that have fallen under anti-government armed group control," the report said.
Government forces had used cluster bombs, it said, but it found no credible evidence of either side using chemical arms.
Rebels fighting to topple Assad have also committed war crimes including murder, torture, hostage-taking and using children under age 15 in hostilities, the U.N. report said.
"They continue to endanger the civilian population by positioning military objectives inside civilian areas" and rebel snipers had caused "considerable civilian casualties", it said.
"The violations and abuses committed by anti-government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by government forces and affiliated militia."
Foreign fighters, many of them from Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, have radicalized the rebels and helped detonate deadly improvised explosive devices, it said.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
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