Education Minister urges schools to maintain long-term partnerships

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

Read More..

Why teens are tiring of Facebook

To understand where teens like to spend their virtual time nowadways, just watch them on their smartphones. Their world revolves around Instagram, the application adults mistook for an elevated photography service, and other apps decidely less old-fashioned than Mark Zuckerberg's main kingdom. And therein lies one of Facebook's biggest challenges: With more than 1 billion users worldwide and an unstated...

Read More..

Boehner: No reason to block Keystone XL pipeline

WASHINGTON A new State Department report is the latest evidence that the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada should be approved, supporters say. The draft report, issued Friday, finds there would be no significant environmental impact to most resources along the proposed route from western Canada to refineries in Texas. The report also said other options to get the oil from Canada...

Read More..

Rescuers Search for Man as Fla. Sinkhole Grows

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

Read More..

Liew Mun Leong retires as chairman of CMA

SINGAPORE : CapitaMalls Asia's will have a new board chairman after the retirement of Mr Liew Mun Leong. He will be replaced by Mr Ng Kee Choe after the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 24 April. Mr Liew is the former CEO of CapitaLand, the parent company of CapitaMalls Asia. CapitaLand CEO Lim Ming Yan will replace Mr Liew as Chairman of CapitaMalls Asia's Corporate Disclosure Committee...

Read More..

Google CFO denies Samsung conflict

Google CFO Patrick Pichette played down reports that his company's relationship with Samsung was becoming strained and noted that "journalists love big headlines that sell newspapers." Pichette was referring to a Wall Street Journal report this week noting Google was worried about Samsung's dominance. Speaking at a Morgan Stanley investment conference, Pichette fired back:We have a terrific relationship...

Read More..

With no pope, cardinals summoned for conclave

VATICAN CITY The Catholic Church has awoken with no pontiff following Benedict XVI's resignation, in which he pledged obedience to his successor and described himself as "simply a pilgrim" starting the final part of his life. Now begins a period known as the "sede vacante" or "vacant see" — the transition between the end of one papacy and the election of a new pope. During these few days — no more...

Read More..

Fla. Man Swallowed by Sinkhole, No Signs of Life

A Florida man has disappeared into a 30-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep sinkhole that collapsed the bedroom portion of his home overnight, according to police.The hole opened up at around 11 p.m. Thursday night in the Brandon, Fla., neighborhood, authorities said."[The family] heard a sound that they described as a car crash emanating from the bedroom in the back of the house," Hillsborough...

Read More..

Scientists link two rats' brains, a continent apart

PARIS: Creating a "superbrain" of connected minds, scientists on Thursday said they had enabled a rat to help a fellow rodent while the animals were a continent apart but connected through brain electrodes.With electrodes imbedded in its cortex, a rat in a research institute in Natal, Brazil sent signals via the Internet to a counterpart at a university lab in Durham, North Carolina, helping...

Read More..

Practical, affordable phones take center stage at MWC 2013

Firefox's new mobile OS in action on the Geeksphone PeakAlthough mobile phones will always have a central role at Mobile World Congress, this year's the red-hot buzz went to software, tablets, wearable tech, and other geeky-cool oddities.With heavy hitters HTC announcing its flagship HTC One days before MWC, and Samsung saving its Galaxy S4 announcement for March 14, it was the sensible, midrange...

Read More..

Five major psychiatric disorders linked in new study

(CBS News) An international group of scientists have identified genetic links between five major psychiatric disorders, including autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia. Their study, published in the medical journal Lancet, could change how we understand and treat the illnesses. For the first time, researchers were able to see if there are any genetic variants that are linked...

Read More..

Why Should We Care? The Politics of Picking a Pope

Feb 28, 2013 9:34am                              (Image Credit: L’Osservatore Romano/Vatican/Getty Images)ANALYSISVATICAN CITY – In a U.S presidential campaign, the New Hampshire primary is thought of as “retail politics,”...

Read More..

Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West wary

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

Read More..

Fitch Ratings warns US over budget fighting

WASHINGTON: Ratings agency Fitch warned Washington on Wednesday that continued political fighting over the government budget and deficit-cutting measures could lead to the US losing its AAA grade.With the government two days away from enacting the harsh "sequester" budget cuts because political parties cannot agree a more moderate compromise, Fitch said that the policy deadlock could lower...

Read More..

LG's 4K phone upscaling squeezes Ultra HD from your mobile, wirelessly (video)

LG's 4K smart phone upscaling revealed in videoBARCELONA, Spain--LG is showing off a new smart phone system, that transforms your smart phone into a 4K media hub.The South Korean company is calling the new platform the 'world's first wireless Ultra HD transmission technology'. If you've got a game or video playing on your mobile in HD, the new platform will upscale the feed to a 4K resolution, before...

Read More..

Anti-virus firm makes new revelation on Stuxnet

LONDON An anti-virus firm says the cyberweapon that targeted an Iranian nuclear plant is older than previously believed, a finding that may shed more light on a mysterious series of attacks attributed by security experts to U.S. and Israeli intelligence. The Stuxnet worm, which experts believe damaged or destroyed centrifuges at Iran's Natanz plant in about 2009, revolutionized the cybersecurity...

Read More..

Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester

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

Read More..

Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties looked for a way forward on Tuesday after an election that gave none of them a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and European financial crisis. The results, notably by the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority in the lower...

Read More..

Rental market for private homes may soften: analyst

SINGAPORE: Landlords of private homes may see the rental market softening when higher property taxes kick in next year, as these investors grapple with higher holding costs. Owning luxury or investment homes will incur higher property taxes starting January 2014. For private homes not occupied by owners, new marginal property tax rates of 12 to 20 per cent will be levied in addition to...

Read More..

Illegal music downloads dropped in 2012, says report

Fewer people are illegally downloading and sharing music, NPD Group said in a new report out today.Among those surveyed for NPD's "Annual Music Study 2012," 40 percent who illegally downloaded music via peer-to-peer services last year said they had stopped or downloaded less music this year.Overall, the number of illegally downloaded songs from P2P services dropped by 26 percent this year from 2011.Part...

Read More..

At least 18 tourists die in balloon crash in Egypt

Updated 9:02 a.m. EST LUXOR, Egypt A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists, a security official said. The death toll rose Tuesday afternoon after a British tourist died of his injuries. It was one of the worst accidents involving tourists in Egypt and is likely to push the key tourism...

Read More..

'93 WTC Bombing Crushed Lives, Not Memories

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

Read More..

Powers to offer Iran sanctions relief at nuclear talks

ALMATY (Reuters) - Major powers will offer Iran some sanctions relief during talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, this week if Tehran agrees to curb its nuclear program, a U.S. official said on Monday. But the Islamic Republic could face more economic pain if it fails to address international concerns about its atomic activities, the official said ahead of the February 26-27 meeting in the central...

Read More..

Football: Cahill bemoans Chelsea fixture pile-up

LONDON: Chelsea centre-back Gary Cahill thinks the club's hopes of qualifying for the Champions League are being hindered by what he describes as "ridiculous" fixture congestion.The European champions lost 2-0 at Manchester City on Sunday to give hope to the teams bidding to pip them to a top-four berth.Tottenham Hotspur could climb above Chelsea into third place with victory at West Ham...

Read More..