S'pore students set for workforce & world: global quiz host

SINGAPORE: Singapore students have a hunger for knowledge and are ready to face the workforce and the world, observed a key partner of the Tata Crucible Campus Quiz.Mr Giri Balasubramaniam, more popularly known as "Pickbrain", is the host of the global business quiz.He said the world looks up to Singapore in many ways, and one of them is quality education.The Tata Crucible Campus Quiz...

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Supreme Court gets three news judges

NEW DELHI: Chief Justices of three high courts were on Saturday elevated as judges of the Supreme Court, increasing the strength of the apex court to 28. Chief Justice of Madras high court Justice M Yusuf Eqbal, Chief Justice of Orissa high court Justice Venkategowda and Chief Justice of Karnataka high court Justice Vikramjit Sen were today appointed as judges of the Supreme Court, in that order...

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter InstituteMounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to."You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations,"...

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'Fiscal Cliff' Leaves Boehner a Wounded Speaker

John Boehner is a bloodied House speaker following the startling setback that his own fractious Republican troops dealt him in their "fiscal cliff" struggle against President Barack Obama.There's plenty of internal grumbling about the Ohio Republican, especially among conservatives, and lots of buzzing about whether his leadership post is in jeopardy. But it's uncertain whether...

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N. Korea confirms arrest of US citizen

SEOUL: North Korea confirmed Friday that it had arrested a US citizen in November, saying legal action would be taken against him but giving no details of the charges.The man, identified as Pae Jun-Ho, entered North Korea on November 3 as a tourist, and "committed a crime" against the country, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said."He was put into custody by a relevant institution,"...

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Rape victim taken off ventilator, all 6 accused arrested

NEW DELHI: All the six accused in the Delhi gang rape case have been arrested with the two men on the run being caught today, five days after the assault on the 23-year-old paramedical student who was taken off ventilator but showed early signs of infection in a "mixed response". As protests continued for the fifth day here including at India Gate and outside Congress president Sonia Gandhi's 10...

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Winter Solstice 2012: Facts on the Shortest Day of the Year

Today is the winter solstice and the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It's all due to Earth's tilt, which ensures that the shortest day of every year falls around December 21.Some predicted that today would also mark Earth's doomsday, thanks to a longstanding rumor that the Maya calendar ends on December 21, 2012. But earlier this year, National Geographic grantee William...

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Amid Protest, NRA Calls for Armed Guards in Schools

The National Rifle Association stood its ground today in arguing that the answer to gun violence in schools is an armed security force that can protect students, while blaming the media and violent entertainment and video games for recent deadly shootings."The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre...

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'Erin Brockovich' toxin found at Japan plant

TOKYO: The toxic chemical made infamous by campaigning single mother Erin Brockovich has been found at up to 15,800 times safety limits in groundwater at a Japanese iron plant, the factory's operator said Thursday.Excessive amounts of hexavalent chromium were discovered at Nippon Denko's plant in Tokushima in the country's west as it prepared to halt production of chromium salts at the...

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Pak for permanent solution of Kashmir issue: Zardari

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan wants a "sustained and result-oriented" engagement with India to find a permanent solution to the Kashmir issue that could usher in peace and stability in the region, President Asif Ali Zardari told a visiting Hurriyat delegation today. "Pakistan firmly believes in a meaningful, sustained and result-oriented process of engagement with India that could lead to a permanent solution...

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite

A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.Bats are a major reservoir...

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Schools Threatened Nationwide After Sandy Hook

Schools across the country, already on edge following last week's massacre of 20 students and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school have been further unnerved following a series of copycat threats, sometimes yielding arrests and caches of deadly weapons.From California to Connecticut, police in the past five days have arrested more than a dozen individuals in Indiana,...

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President Obama’s remarks on gun control policy, Dec. 19, 2012 (Transcript)

Here’s a running transcript of President Obama’s remarks on his administration’s gun control policy as delivered on Dec. 19, 2012. Transcript is being updated as the remarks unfold. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning everybo...

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Bank of England votes 8-1 to maintain stimulus

LONDON: Bank of England policymakers voted 8-1 to maintain their quantitative easing stimulus programme at their December meeting, repeating the voting pattern from the previous month, minutes showed on Wednesday.The BoE's nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC) had voted earlier this month to keep the QE stimulus amount at 375 billion pounds ($611 billion, 460 billion euros).Polcymakers...

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Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice

A hundred years ago, two teams of explorers set out to be the first people ever to reach the South Pole. The race between Roald Amundsen of Norway and Robert Falcon Scott of Britain became the stuff of triumph, tragedy, and legend. (See rare pictures of Scott's expedition.)Today, another Antarctic drama is underway that has a similar daring and intensity—but very different stakes.Three...

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Inside One School's Extraordinary Security Measures

While schools across America reassess their security measures in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one school outside of Chicago takes safety to a whole new level.The security measures at Middleton Elementary School start the moment you set foot on campus, with a camera-equipped doorbell. When you ring the doorbell, school employees inside are...

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Coal use set to surpass oil in a decade: IEA

PARIS: Coal is set to surpass oil as the world's top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published Tuesday."Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand...

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TN minister's brother O Raja, others get anticipatory bail

MADURAI: O Raja, brother of Tamil Nadu minister O Panneerselvam, and four others, charged with abetment of suicide of a Dalit youth, were today granted conditional bail by the Madras high court. Police had filed cases against them under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) and Cr.PC 174 following a "suicide note" recovered from the spot. 21-year-old Nagamuthu of Kailapatty area in the district...

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GRAIL Mission Goes Out With a Bang

Jane J. Lee On Friday, December 14, NASA sent their latest moon mission into a death spiral. Rocket burns nudged GRAIL probes Ebb and Flow into a new orbit designed to crash them into the side of a mountain near the moon's north pole today at around 2:28 p.m. Pacific standard time. NASA named the crash site after late astronaut Sally Ride, America's first woman in space.Although the mountain...

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Assault Weapons Ban: What Was It and Did It Work?

Editor's Note: This post is part of a larger series by ABC News examining the complex legal, political and social issues in the gun control debate. The series is part of ABC's special coverage of the search for solutions in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.When the 113th Congress is sworn in in January, expect the debate over gun control...

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Government can help in training of foreign workers: SNEF

SINGAPORE: The Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) says the government can help in defraying the cost of training foreign workers. In an interview with MediaCorp, SNEF president Stephen Lee said the federation is in discussions with various agencies to see how this can be done. Mr Lee pointed out that the productivity of foreign workers must be raised in order for Singapore...

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Exit polls: Narendra Modi to sweep Gujarat, Congress ahead in Himachal

NEW DELHI: Exit and opinion polls on television channels at the end of voting in Gujarat on Sunday projected BJP to perform a hat-trick in the state while Congress is predicted to have an edge in BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh. Exit poll carried out by C-Voter for Times Now predicted 119 to 129 seats for BJP while Congress is projected to win between 49 and 59 seats out of the total 182 seats. News 24...

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Grave Obstacle to Chinese Construction Boom

A.R. Williams China's construction boom waits for no one, dead or alive. In the city of Taiyuan (map) that means a multistory residential complex is taking shape around a lone grave, which now sits atop a tower of mud about 30 feet (10 meters) above the building's excavated foundations.The family of the deceased—buried there in 2004—has refused an offer of 1,000,000 yuan (about $160,000)...

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Newtown Couple Vow to Live for Dead Daughter

The parents of Jessica Rekos, a 6-year-old girl who died during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said they are committed to keeping their daughter's memory alive despite their pain."We will talk about her every day, we will live for her," Krista Rekos told ABC News. "We will make sure her brother knows what an amazing person she was."Richard and...

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Football: Corinthians clinch Club World Cup title

YOKOHAMA, Japan: Brazilian giants Corinthians won the Club World Cup in Japan on Sunday, overcoming European champions Chelsea 1-0 in a closely-fought encounter.Striker Paolo Guerrero got the goal as the Sao Paulo club secured their second intercontinental title -- they won the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship -- and became the first side from outside Europe to win the title since 2006."We...

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US-made Apache choppers will be for the Air Force, chief NAK Browne says

NEW DELHI: 22 Apache helicopters, which are in process of being acquired from the US, will be for the IAF, Air Force chief NAK Browne said."The Apaches are going to be with us only as it is an ongoing acquisition process," Air Chief Marshal Browne told PTI here on the sidelines of a 1971 Indo-Pak war anniversary function.The defence ministry had recently allowed the Army to have combat choppers...

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National GeographicThe aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles...

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Conn. Community Mourns Victims of Massacre

President Obama will visit Newtown, Conn. today to meet with the grieving families and thank the first responders from Friday's school shooting, as the community begins the long process of healing.The pictures of the young victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School emerged Saturday, along with a remarkable story of survival.Twenty children and six adults were killed at the...

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