The people of Newtown, Conn., and the surrounding towns are filled with fear and doubt in light of the rampage that turned their worlds upside down. Despite the uncertainty, however, there is one thing parents are adamant about: They're not going anywhere.
"I know it's an awful thing, but this town and the towns surrounding it, it's a big community where people come together and people know each other," resident Chris Roman said. "Growing up here, I would definitely stay."
He paused a moment, before saying with great resolve, "I'm definitely going to stay. One tragedy is not going to push us away."
Roman and his wife, Ellen Roman, are the parents of 16-month-old Stella and they have held her even closer since the Adam Lanza killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School before turning the gun on himself. He had killed his mother at her home earlier that morning.
"I don't think I've kissed her as much as I have in the past three days as I have the entire time she's been alive," Ellen Roman, 33, said. "I constantly am picking her up and kissing her and hugging her."
The new mom is still shaken by the shooting, gasping to choke back tears as she recalled hearing the news.
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"Before I even knew that anyone had died, before I even knew that anyone had been shot, I was bawling; just to know that gunfire had happened anywhere near a school in Newtown affected me," she said through tears. "This town is so small and it's such a tight community and everyone knows everyone so it's just, it just doesn't happen here. It just doesn't happen in this town."
Chris Roman, 36, said there's "a big hole to fill that will never be filled" in the community, and he hopes for change so that the only tricky conversation he'll have to have with his young daughter in the future is "the birds and the bees talk."
"It's something that we all have to deal with and work together and try to stop it from happening so I wouldn't have to explain it to her," he said of school shootings.
Other parents echoed the Romans' sentiments.
Maureen Pendergast is the mother of 11-month-old James and her 8-year-old nephew is a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
"It's absolutely terrible," Pendergast said. "My nephew, Brian, was in the school when it did happen and James goes to day care right down the street here, so it's hard to say [Lanza] didn't stop into the day care."
She said Brian is "as OK as he can be" and that his parents are planning on putting him in counseling. Pendergast knows that healing will take time, but she plans on sticking it out.
"I want to stay," she said. "Overall, it's a very cute and quiet town. My husband has lived here his entire life and I like it. It's a tough community."
Others are equally committed, including Ana Deaguiar of nearby Danbury.
"I'm not going anywhere," Deaguiar, mother of 16-month-old Giovanni, said. "I've spent 11 years in Danbury and I don't think about moving at all. I want him to grow up here and not let this be the only memory there is of this state and this region."
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor resigned under pressure from his opponents in the judiciary, dealing a blow to President Mohamed Mursi and drawing an angry response on Tuesday from the Islamist leader's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Seeking to keep pressure on Mursi, the main opposition coalition will hold new protests against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has divided Egypt but which looks set to be approved in the second round of a referendum on Saturday.
Mursi obtained a 57 percent "yes" vote for the constitution in a first round of the referendum last weekend, state media said, less than he had hoped for.
The opposition, which says the law is too Islamist, will be emboldened by the result but is unlikely to win the second round, to be held in districts seen as even more sympathetic towards Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.
Protesters broke out into cheers when the public prosecutor appointed by Mursi last month announced his resignation late on Monday.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power in elections in June, said the enforced resignation of public prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim was a "crime".
The Supreme Judiciary Council, which governs the country's judicial system, should refuse to accept the prosecutor's resignation, the Brotherhood said.
Further signs of opposition to Mursi emerged when a judges' club urged its members not to supervise Saturday's vote. But the call is not binding and balloting is expected to go ahead.
If the constitution passes next weekend, national elections can take place early next year, something many hope will help end the turmoil that has gripped Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.
The National Salvation Front opposition coalition said there were widespread voting violations in the first round and called for protests across Egypt on Tuesday to "bring down the invalid draft constitution".
The Ministry of Justice said it was appointing a group of judges to investigate complaints of voting irregularities around the country.
DEMONSTRATIONS
In Cairo, the Front planned to hold demonstrations at Tahrir Square, cradle of the revolution that toppled Mubarak, and outside Mursi's presidential palace, still ringed with tanks after earlier protests.
"Down with the constitution of the Brotherhood," the Front said in a statement. "Down with the constitution of tyranny."
A protester at the presidential palace, Mohamed Adel, 30, said: "I have been camping here for weeks and will continue to do so until the constitution that divided the nation, and for which people died, gets scrapped."
The build-up to the first round of voting saw clashes between supporters and opponents of Mursi in which eight people died. Recent demonstrations in Cairo have been more peaceful, although rival factions clashed on Friday in Alexandria, Egypt's second biggest city.
On Monday evening, more than 1,300 members of the General Prosecution staff gathered outside the public prosecutor's office, demanding Ibrahim leave his post.
Hours later, Ibrahim announced he had resigned and the crowd cheered, "God is Great! Long live justice!" and "Long live the independence of the judiciary!" witnesses said.
The closeness of the first-round referendum vote and low turnout give Mursi scant comfort as he seeks to assemble support for difficult economic reforms.
OPPOSITION BOOST
"This percentage ... will strengthen the hand of the National Salvation Front and the leaders of this Front have declared they are going to continue this fight to discredit the constitution," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University.
Mursi is likely to become more unpopular with the introduction of planned austerity measures, polarizing society further, Sayyid told Reuters.
To tackle the budget deficit, the government needs to impose tax rises and cut back fuel subsidies. Uncertainty surrounding economic reform plans has already forced the postponement of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The Egyptian pound has fallen to eight-year lows against the dollar.
Mursi and his backers say the constitution is needed to move Egypt's democratic transition forward. Opponents say the document is too Islamist and ignores the rights of women and of minorities, including Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.
Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself extra powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies and boycotted by many liberals.
The referendum has had to be held over two days because many of the judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott in protest. In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those voting.
(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands: Titleholder Nicol David showed how much she likes the music and warmth of the bay-side venue at Grand Cayman on Monday with an in-tune performance which carried her to the quarter-finals of the World Open in less than half an hour.
The six-time champion from Malaysia looked as strong a favourite as ever as she won 9-3, 9-2, 9-3 against Annie Au, the Hong Kong player who has become a regular in the world's top ten, but was allowed no chance to show how.
David struck the ball rhythmically and well, gave little away, and kept pressure on so relentlessly that it was easy to forget that the tournament had undergone a major shift of playing conditions.
"They made the ball bouncy, but at the same time this is a glass court so if you play your shots, it goes in," said David referring to the more favourable chances of putting the ball away compared with the first round which had been played on conventionally walled indoor courts.
David, occasionally a tense starter, seemed to be relaxed by the idyllic courtside view and sociable evening ambience and comfortably swept aside one of the tour's most improved and promising younger players.
"It's such a good vibe and everyone is in such a lively mood that I feed off the energy of it," she said happily. It was easy to see why, in three previous tournaments here, David has never been beaten.
She now has a rest day before taking on Madeline Perry, the tenth-seeded Irish woman who beat David back in 2009 en route to the final of the British Open in Manchester.
The oldest player in the top ten, Perry won 11-2, 11-9, 11-9 against the youngest, Nour El Sherbini, the 17-year-old Egyptian who still combines school with professional squash.
By contrast, Perry has been on tour for much of a decade and a half, though it was hard to tell that she was fully 18 years senior during this effective performance.
However, her opponent was not quite the same Egyptian who contested this year's British Open final against David.
Instead, El Sherbini became frustrated by her slow start, and not until the third game, when she had her nose ahead for a while, that the teenager looked like the player touted as David's successor.
Earlier, two English players, Alison Waters, the fourth seed, and Jenny Duncalf, last year's runner-up, also reached the last eight, where they will play each other.
Waters saved a game point in the second game to beat Samantha Teran, the 15th-seeded Mexican, 11-5, 12-10, 11-5, while Duncalf saved a crucial game point in the first game of her 12-10, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8 win over Camille Serme, the 14th seeded French woman.
That swung the match almost irrevocably, for Duncalf went on to take 11 out of 12 points, and by the time Serme had recovered it was well into the fourth game and too late to pull the deficit all the way back.
A fragment of a manuscript of the Ten Commandments.
(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)
Google is once again providing a journey into ancient history with online images of rare scrolls dating back more than 2000 years.
Courtesy of Google, in collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the new Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library is now home to detailed digitized photographs of thousands of biblical and non-biblical manuscripts. These ancient scrolls were discovered in a remote cave near the Dead Sea between 1947 and 1956.
Among them, the scroll of the Ten Commandments may be one of the most fascinating. Dating back to sometime between 30 and 1 BCE (before the Common Era), the damaged yet still readable document in Hebrew is one of the earliest known copies of the Ten Commandments.
Other biblical scrolls include a copy of a section from the book of Genesis dated between 100 and 1 BCE, a Psalms document dated between 1 and 68 CE, and a fragment from the book of Leviticus dated between 1 and 50 CE.
You can browse among the various high-resolution featured scrolls or search for specific documents by discovery site, language, or content. You can zoom in to each manuscript to view the details up close and move your mouse from one section to another.
The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls project is devoted to preserving historical documents for future generations.
Each fragment of the manuscripts is imaged separately through a pain-staking process that captures not just the text but also the texture of the document. The process can even reveal characters that have faded and are no longer visible to the naked eye.
Google has played its own vital role in the effort by bringing these ancient documents to the Internet for anyone to see. Last year, the search giant set up a similar project that first brought some of the Dead Sea Scrolls to life online.
NEWTOWN, Conn. With security stepped up and families still on edge in Newtown, schools are opening for the first time since last week's massacre, bringing a return of familiar routines -- at least, for some -- to a grief-stricken town as it buries 20 of its children.
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Holiday week is full of funerals for Newtown, Conn.
Two 6-year-old boys were laid to rest Monday in the first of a long, almost unbearable procession of funerals. A total of 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S history.
While classes resume Tuesday for Newtown schools -- except for students at Sandy Hook -- some parents were likely to keep their children at home anyway. Local police and school officials have been discussing how and where to increase security, and state police said they will be on alert for threats and hoaxes.
Suzy DeYoung said her 15-year-old son is going back to the high school.
"I think he wants to go back," she said. "If he told me he wants to stay home, I'd let him stay home. I think going back to a routine is a good idea; at least that's what I hear from professionals."
On Monday, Newtown held the first two funerals of many the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people will face over the next few days, just as other towns are getting ready for the holidays. At least one funeral is planned for a student -- 6-year-old Jessica Rekos -- as well as several wakes, including one for teacher Victoria Soto, who has been hailed as a hero for sacrificing herself to save several students.
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Two funeral homes filled Monday with mourners for Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, both 6 years old. A rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of David on it.
"I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room," Noah's mother, Veronique Pozner, said at the service, according to remarks the family provided to The Associated Press. Both services were closed to the news media.
"Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future," she said. "You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos."
She closed by saying: "Momma loves you, little man."
Noah's twin, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy.
At Jack Pinto's Christian service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay in an open casket. Jack was among the youngest members of a youth wrestling association in Newtown, and dozens of little boys turned up at the service in gray Newtown Wrestling T-shirts.
Jack was a fan of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz and was laid to rest in a Cruz jersey.
In the middle of town, an ever-growing memorial has become a pilgrimage site for strangers who want to pay their respect.
One man told CBS Station WCBS why he visited: "Because I'm a dad with four beautiful daughters, when I found out it broke my heart. It's hard to sleep, I don't know how to feel."
Authorities say the man who killed the two boys and their classmates, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his mother, Nancy, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.
As investigators worked to figure out what drove him to lash out with such fury -- and why he singled out the school -- federal agents said he had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years but that there was no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.
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"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert said.
Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.
Whatever his motives, normalcy will be slow in revisiting Newtown.
Classes were canceled district-wide Monday, though other students in town were expected to return to class Tuesday.
Dan Capodicci, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, said he thinks it's time for her to get back to classes.
"It's the right thing to do. You have to send your kids back. But at the same time I'm worried," he said. "We need to get back to normal."
Gina Wolfman said her daughters are going back to their seventh- and ninth-grade classrooms tomorrow. She thinks they are ready to be back with their friends.
"I think they want to be back with everyone and share," she said.
Newtown police Lt. George Sinko said whether to send children to school is a personal decision for every parent.
"I can't imagine what it must be like being a parent with a child that young, putting them on a school bus," Sinko said.
The district has made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to Chalk Hill, a former middle school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook desks that will fit the small students are being taken there, empty since town schools consolidated last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school ready within a matter of days.
"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.
With Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt. Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back over to the district.
The shooting has put schools on edge across the country.
Anxiety ran high enough in Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a train station.
Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt., because of an unspecified threat. A high school in Windham, N.H., was briefly locked down after an administrator heard a loud bang, but a police search found nothing suspicious.
Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. It is similar to the weapon used in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon and other deadly attacks around the U.S. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in this country under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
The outlines of a national debate on gun control have begun to take shape. At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution."
Carney did not offer specific proposals or a timeline. He said President Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and mental health professionals in coming weeks.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flanked by shooting survivors and relatives of victims of gunfire around the country, pressed Mr. Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement after the Newtown massacre.
"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"
At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack in Newtown has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.
"This is bigger than just about guns," he added. "It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our schools. It's just so sad."
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 to have renewed urgency. Several prominent lawmakers have already come forth to call for a re-examination and re-working of our nation's gun laws in the wake of Friday's mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
While new legislation likely won't be introduced until after Jan. 3, statements from top Senators such as Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) suggest that new proposals could be similar to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was in in place from 1994 to 2004.
"I can tell you that he is going to have a bill to lead on because as a first-day bill I'm going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House -- a bill to ban assault weapons," Feinstein said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
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"High-capacity magazines -- devices that dramatically boost a weapon's firing power -- were prohibited from 1994 until 2004, when the federal assault weapons ban was in place... It's time to end the bloodshed and restore common sense to our gun laws -- beginning with a permanent ban on high-capacity gun magazines," Lautenberg wrote in an op-ed on the Huffington Post that he penned with Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed in the Long Island Railroad shooting of 1993.
What Did the Assault Weapons Ban Do?
Passed by Congress on Sept. 13, 1994, and signed by Bill Clinton later that day, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban prohibited the manufacturing of 18 specific models of semiautomatic weapons, along with the manufacturing of high-capacity ammunition magazines that could carry more than 10 rounds. The ban had a provision that allowed it to expire in September 2004.
Several attempts were made in Congress to re-up the ban, the most recent in June 2008, according to the Library of Congress, but none of them have been successful. Republicans generally opposed it; high-profile Democrats typically shied away from the issue.
In the second presidential debate of the 2012 campaign, President Obama said he was interested in re-instituting the ban.
"Weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don't belong on our streets. And so what I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally," the president said. "Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced."
Could a Ban Have Prevented the Connecticut Shootings?
It's impossible to say for sure, but it seems unlikely that if the law were still in place, as it was written, it could have done much to prevent Friday's tragedy. Lanza's primary weapon, the Bushmaster .223 rifle, is a type of AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, certain models of which were prohibited from being sold under the ban, but the Bushmaster model used by Lanza was not on that list.
Additionally, the language in the law was loose enough that a gun enthusiast who was interested in adding a type of AR-15 to their collection could have purchased one legally.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said that neither the forces of President Bashar al-Assad nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war which is now being fought on the outskirts of Assad's powerbase in Damascus.
Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power structure dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, has rarely been seen since the Syrian revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president's inner circle directing the fight against Sunni rebels.
But he is the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not win. He was speaking to the pro-Assad al-Akhbar paper in an interview from Damascus which is now hemmed in by rebel fighters to the south.
Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama.
Sharaa said the situation in Syria, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, was deteriorating and a "historic settlement" was needed to end the conflict, involving regional powers and the U.N. Security Council and the formation of a national unity government "with broad powers".
"With every passing day the political and military solutions are becoming more distant. We should be in a position defending the existence of Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime," Sharaa was quoted as saying.
"The opposition cannot decisively settle the battle and what the security forces and army units are doing will not achieve a decisive settlement," he told the paper, adding that the insurgents fighting to topple Syria's leadership could plunge it into "anarchy and an unending spiral of violence".
Sources close to the Syrian government say Sharaa had pushed for dialogue with the opposition and objected to the military response to an uprising that began peacefully.
In Damascus, residents said on Monday the army had told people to evacuate the Palestinian district of Yarmouk, suggesting an all-out military offensive on the southern district was imminent.
The centre of the city, largely insulated from the violence for 21 months, is now full of army and vigilante checkpoints and shakes to the sound of regular shelling, residents say.
Queues for bread form at bakeries hours before dawn, as people seek out dwindling supplies, power cuts are increasing and fears are growing that Damascus could descend into chaos.
In a veiled criticism of the crackdown, Sharaa said there was a difference between the state's duty to provide security to its citizens, and "pursuing a security solution to the crisis."
He said even Assad could not be certain where events in Syria were leading, but that anyone who met him would hear that "this is a long struggle...and he does not hide his desire to settle matters militarily to reach a final solution."
CHANGE INEVITABLE
"We realize today that change is inevitable," Sharaa said, but "none of the peaceful or armed opposition groups with their known foreign links can call themselves the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people".
"Likewise the current leadership...cannot achieve change alone after two years of crisis without new partners who contribute to preserving (Syria's) national fabric, territorial unity and regional sovereignty".
Rebels have now brought the war to the capital, without yet delivering a fatal blow to the government. But nor has Assad found the military muscle to oust his opponents from the city.
In Paris, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, one of the powers most insistent that Assad has lost his legitimacy, said: "I think the end is nearing for Bashar al-Assad."
On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the center.
Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said fighters had been ordered to surround and attack checkpoints across the province. He said forces loyal to Assad had been given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.
"When we liberate the countryside of Hama province ... then we will have the area between Aleppo and Hama liberated and open for us," he told Reuters.
The city of Hama in the province of the same name has a special resonance for anti-Assad activists. In 1982 Hafez al-Assad, father of the current ruler, crushed an uprising in the city, killing up to 30,000 civilians.
In Damascus, activists said fighter jets bombed the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Sunday, killing at least 25 people sheltering in a mosque.
The attack was part of a month-old campaign by Assad's forces to eject rebels from positions they are establishing around the capital's perimeter. Yarmouk, to the south, falls within an arc of territory running from the east of Damascus to the southwest from where rebels hope to storm the government's main redoubt.
MOSQUE HIT
Opposition activists said the deaths in Yarmouk, to which refugees have fled from fighting in nearby suburbs, resulted from a rocket fired from a warplane hitting the mosque.
Footage showed bodies and body parts scattered on the stairs of what appeared to be the mosque.
The latest battlefield accounts could not be independently verified due to tight restrictions on media access to Syria.
Syria is home to more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees, most living in Yarmouk, and both Assad's government and the rebels have enlisted and armed Palestinians as the uprising, which began as a peaceful street movement 21 months ago, has mushroomed into a civil war.
After Sunday's air raid, clashes flared between Palestinians from the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and rebels including other Palestinian fighters and some PFLP-GC fighters were killed.
In the latest of a string of military installations to fall to the rebels, the army's infantry college north of Aleppo was captured on Saturday after five days of fighting, a rebel commander with the powerful Islamist Tawheed Brigade said.
(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Anna Willard)
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 to achieve its long term productivity target of 2 to 3 per cent.
To recruit better skilled workers, the federation says a few industries are working with the authorities to implement a stricter pre-selection process where workers are tested for their skills before they arrive in Singapore.
Construction workers like Umesh Sundaram survives on less than S$300 a month. He earns about S$1,100 a month and sends most of it to his family in India.
The 25-year-old hopes he can earn more as his skills improves.
"I'd like to go for training to be more productive, so it can increase my salary," said Umesh.
The Workforce Development Agency (WDA) tells MediaCorp that only a small number of foreign workers are sent for training by their companies.
Mr Lee said foreign workers, who represent one third of the workforce, cannot be neglected.
"We must have some programmes to train foreign workers. Those who are already here, (we can) re-train them, to upgrade their skills...the more sensitive question is: who will take up the tab for this training?" he said.
"We are in discussions with various agencies to see how they can do that without putting undue burden on the government's training expenses," he added.
The government currently does not provide direct training subsidies for foreign workers.
Labour chief Lim Swee Say pointed out that employers are ultimately responsible for improving the productivity of migrant workers.
"The ownership of upgrading every worker cannot be with the government, or the tripartite partners, it has to be with the management," he said.
Observers noted that some companies hire foreign workers on short-term contracts, which reduce the incentive to send them for training.
However they pointed out that there were many reasons to train workers who stay with the company longer; HR experts believe foreign workers will be able to earn more when their productivity increases and can take on greater responsibilities.
"Cost is always a major consideration for any business and if the company has to come out with additional cost to train these foreign workers and with very minimal productivity gains, then it won't be (much of an incentive)," said Ronald Lee, managing director of PrimeStaff Management Services.
"However, if the government does come by and also support and provide finances to supplement this training, then it will be easier to incentivise the employers to provide more training," he said.
Happy Free Shipping Day, fellow cheapskates. Nearly 1,700 online merchants are offering "free delivery by Christmas Eve," so today might be the ideal day to finish up your holiday shopping.
That said, lots of stores offer free shipping every day, and I have no doubt we'll see lots of other "free shipping in time for Christmas" offers in the days to come, so don't fret too much if you miss FSD.
Today I couldn't decide on a single deal, so instead I rounded up a bunch of good stuff -- a little something for everyone. Take a look:
1. Asus Ultrabook. In the market for an ultrabook -- preferably one running Windows 7? Today only, and while supplies last, 1SaleADay has the refurbished Asus Zen UX31 13.3-inch ultrabook for $579.99, plus $4.99 for shipping. Specs include an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD. The only hitch: shipping could take 2-3 weeks.
The Asus Zen UX13.
(Credit: 1SaleADay)
2. Game time! For a limited time, GameFly has cut upward of 75 percent off the price of some great PC games. Among the top picks: Portal 2 for $4.99, Dishonored for $29.99, Civilization V for $7.49, and the Mass Effect Trilogy for $29.99.
3. Game time, iOS edition! Today only, Halfbrick Studios is offering all its iOS games for free. Your choices include Age of Zombies, Age of Zombies Anniversary, Blast Off, Fruit Ninja, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots, and Monster Mash. These normally range in price from 99 cents to $2.99.
4. Security and utility software. Need to re-up your security suite? Or maybe tune up your PC? For a limited time, Newegg has free-after-rebate deals on iolo System Mechanic, Panda Internet Security 2013 3-user, Webroot SecureAnywhere 2013 5-user, and other titles. Sure, there are freeware options that work nearly as well, but I always recommend getting commercial stuff when you can, especially if you'd benefit from having tech support at the ready.
Have a safe and peaceful day, my friends.
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Longtime Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., seems poised to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but no announcement appears imminent in the wake of recent mass shootings in Connecticut, and senior White House officials said that as of this weekend a decision had not yet been made.
Kerry, who is currently chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has made no secret of his desire for the post since Mr. Obama took office, has looked increasingly likely to earn the nomination since U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice - previously thought to be the favorite to succeed Clinton - withdrew her name from consideration last week.
Rice's decision came amid ongoing controversy surrounding comments she made in September about the recent violence in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Now, she is expected to remain in her current post at the U.N. at least until another high-profile cabinet position opens up.
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Susan Rice withdraws secretary of state bid
Kerry's nomination, however, is not a done deal. White House officials told CBS News Saturday there was still a "slight chance" Mr. Obama would name someone else to the post. And amid speculation about who will fill a handful of remaining cabinet vacancies, the New York Times quotes one White House official who expressed "some discomfort" with the notion that the president's second term national security team would be comprised of white males.
There's another possible hitch to a Kerry nomination: It would open his long-held Senate seat, potentially opening the door for Scott Brown, R-Mass., who lost his seat last month to Democrat Elizabeth Warren, to attempt a return to the Senate.
Even so, indications suggest that Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has no major competition for the job, and many believe he'll be tapped as head of the State Department at some point this week or beyond.
