A group of senior retired generals and admirals are calling for Congress to amend a recent law that they say “dangerously interferes” with the ability of commanders to battle the epidemic of suicides among members of the military.
Legislation added to the 2011 defense authorization bill at the urging of gun-rights advocates prohibits commanders from collecting any information about weapons privately owned by troops.
SINGAPORE: A SMRT bus driver from China has been sentenced to six weeks' jail for taking part in an illegal strike.
Bao Feng Shan, 38, admitted that he committed the offence on 26 November.
He appeared grim in court on Monday, as the charge was read out to him in Mandarin, accusing him of "commencing" the strike between 6am and 7am on 26 November at Woodlands Dormitory.
Bao, who did not engage a lawyer, acknowledged the "adverse effects" of the strike.
Speaking through a court interpreter, he said he was "deeply remorseful and apologetic".
Bao, who teared several times, also apologised to the government of Singapore, SMRT and his family.
He said a jail sentence would have adverse effects on his eight-year-old daughter.
Bao was deployed to Kranji Depot to drive Service 106 at the time of the offence.
The tall and bespectacled man had been working for SMRT since 2008.
Some time between 6am and 7am on 26 November, he joined many drivers in refusing to go to work.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Peggy Pao told the court that Bao was not happy that he was not entitled to the same year-end bonuses and increments as his Malaysian counterparts.
He did not give notice of his intention to strike on 26 and 27 November.
The court heard that Bao did not start the strike, but took on a participatory role.
But DPP Pao pointed out that although Bao was not charged as an instigator, he was "far from a mere passive participant".
She acknowledged that there may have been "a genuine sense of frustration" but stressed that there was no justification to resort to a strike.
The DPP had pushed for a deterrent sentence of six weeks' jail, on the grounds of the "considerable public disquiet" caused by the strike.
She said a lenient approach may encourage others to think that they can commit similar offences and "conveniently express remorse to escape custodial sentence".
She stressed that the illegal strike was not a case of a few workers refraining from work but was a large-scale organised effort to use illegal means to coerce the management of SMRT into giving in to the workers' demands.
During sentencing, Senior District Judge See Kee Oon highlighted an aggravating factor - that the act was calculated to cause obstruction and inconvenience to transport services.
He noted that Bao did not return to work the next day, even though he was advised to do so by SMRT and the manpower ministry.
He also made a number of threatening comments, warning of further strikes if the demands were not met.
The judge acknowledged Bao's plea of leniency, saying he showed remorse by pleading guilty right after he was charged.
But he agreed with the prosecution that deterrence must be a primary consideration and that a jail sentence was warranted.
He said while Bao may have been motivated by sense of grievance, he went against the law.
Bao is the first of five SMRT drivers who have been charged to plead guilty.
Four other drivers were charged last Thursday with instigating the drivers to take part in the strike.
They are He Jun Ling (32), Gao Yue Qiang (32), Liu Xiangying (33), Wang Xianjie, (33).
One of them, He, faces an additional charge of making an online post about the strike.
The four are currently remanded at the Central Police Station.
SMRT said 171 bus drivers did not report for work on 26 November and 88 of them continued to stay away from work on 27 November.
Twenty-nine of them were sent back to China on Sunday. The remaining drivers involved will be let off with police warning letters.
- CNA/xq
ANI Dec 1, 2012, 03.28PM IST
NEW DELHI: India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today said retail reform is a step taken by the Congress led-federal government to safeguard the interests of the international market mafias at the cost of national interest.
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.
"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.
The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.
BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.
The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.
Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
President Obama and his White House team appear to have drawn a line in the sand in talks with House Republicans on the "fiscal cliff."
Tax rates on the wealthy are going up, the only question is how much?
"Those rates are going to have to go up," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner flatly stated on ABC's "This Week." "There's no responsible way we can govern this country at a time of enormous threat, and risk, and challenge ... with those low rates in place for future generations."
But the president's plan, which Geithner delivered last week, has left the two sides far apart.
In recounting his response today on "Fox News Sunday," House Speaker John Boehner said: "I was flabbergasted. I looked at him and said, 'You can't be serious.'
"The president's idea of negotiation is: Roll over and do what I ask," Boehner added.
The president has never asked for so much additional tax revenue. He wants another $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, including returning the tax rate on income above $250,000 a year to 39.6 percent.
TOBY JORRIN/AFP/Getty Images
Boehner is offering half that, $800 billion.
In exchange, the president suggests $600 billion in cuts to Medicare and other programs. House Republicans say that is not enough, but they have not publicly listed what they would cut.
Geithner said the ball is now in the Republicans' court, and the White House is seemingly content to sit and wait for Republicans to come around.
"They have to come to us and tell us what they think they need. What we can't do is to keep guessing," he said.
The president is also calling for more stimulus spending totaling $200 billion for unemployment benefits, training, and infrastructure projects.
"All of this stimulus spending would literally be more than the spending cuts that he was willing to put on the table," Boehner said.
Boehner also voiced some derision over the president's proposal to strip Congress of power over the country's debt level, and whether it should be raised.
"Congress is not going to give up this power," he said. "It's the only way to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would if left alone."
The so-called fiscal cliff, a mixture of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, is triggered on Jan. 1 if Congress and the White House do not come up with a deficit-cutting deal first.
The tax increases would cost the average family between $2,000 and $2,400 a year, which, coupled with the $500 billion in spending cuts, will most likely put the country back into recession, economists say.
The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.
The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.
NEW DELHI: The sight of poorly-fed and badly-treated bears being forced to dance on the streets of India is a thing of the past as a campaign to wipe out the practice has finally borne fruit, activists say.
The tradition of forcing sloth bears to dance for entertainment dates back to the 13th century, when trainers belonging to the Muslim Kalandar tribe enjoyed royal patronage and performed before the rich and powerful.
Descendants of the tribe from central India had kept the tradition alive, buying bear cubs from poachers for about 1,200 rupees (US$22) and then hammering a heated iron rod through their sensitive snouts.
After removing the animal's teeth and claws, the bear trainer threaded a rope through its snout and then headed for the streets where onlookers would pay a few rupees for a show in which the bear would sway and jump around.
"It's taken us many years but all the tribesmen we keep track of have moved on to different livelihoods," Vivek Menon from the non-profit Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), told AFP on the sidelines of a bear conference in New Delhi last week.
"The tradition might still be present in people's minds, of course, but we don't know of any cases where Kalandars are still practising it."
The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and India-based Wildlife SOS, which runs sanctuaries for bears, have also declared an end to the practice in the last few months -- 40 years after a government ban in 1972.
The key, say the donation-funded groups, has been bringing the Kalandars on board, providing them with money and incentives to re-train in other professions.
The success points the way for other campaigns, such as the one to rid India of its snake charmers who can still be spotted illegally plying their trade, often with the snakes' mouths sewn shut.
"It was very difficult to convince the bear trainers to give up their work. Most of them were very scared, they have never known any other way of life but this," WSPA campaign coordinator Aniruddha Mookerjee told AFP.
One of the owners to give up was Mohammed Afsar Khan, a 30-year-old father of three girls who used to work with his father and brother, travelling across central India with three bears in tow.
He says he used to earn about 300 rupees a day until he gave up the job six years ago.
"It's a hard life. You can never settle in one place, your children can't go to school, you end up feeling trapped. Then you are always worried about police harassing you for bribes," he said.
He handed over his bears to Wildlife Trust of India officers, who offered his family financial assistance and helped him and his younger brother learn driving skills.
He used the funds to rent a tractor and ferry bricks from kilns to construction sites in Chhattisgarh state. Today, he owns his tractor and earns about 500 rupees a day.
Declining bear populations
The bears recovered by the animal groups were often in a wretched state, suffering from infected snouts, root canal problems, even diseases such as tuberculosis which they contracted from humans.
The sloth bears also suffer from malnutrition after being fed bread, lentils and milk for years, leading to an extremely reduced life span.
Menon from WTI say that the dancing bear industry was also "a dominant cause behind the disappearance of the sloth bear" -- a focus at the conference on conservation and welfare of bears.
In the last three decades, the number of sloth bears -- a species native to South Asia -- has fallen by at least 30 per cent, according to the IUCN-SSC Bear Specialist Group (BSG). There are now less than 20,000 of them.
"The widespread poaching of bear cubs and the killing of mother bears clearly affects the population of the species," Menon told AFP.
"India is changing rapidly and this is an outmoded, inhumane tradition. The trainers themselves realise now that it is far easier for them to earn a living doing other jobs," Menon said.
Aziz Khan is another former bear-owner who never expected to leave his ancestral trade but was happy for the way out offered by WTI when officers approached him and his friends more than a decade ago.
"I didn't earn much, but I was afraid to leave it. I didn't know how else I would be able to feed my three kids," the 45-year-old told AFP.
WTI helped retrain Aziz Khan and his friends as bakers. They now run their own bakery, producing 350 loaves of bread each day.
"I have no regrets today, it was a dead-end job and I am glad I was able to move on," he said.
- AFP/xq
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.
"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.
The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.
BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.
The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.
Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
(Brendan Smialkowski/AFP/Getty Images)
Bradley Manning’s former guards testified today that they did not intimidate the man accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrets website Wikileaks during a Jan. 18, 2011 incident that resulted in Manning being placed on a temporary suicide risk watch.
Manning’s attorneys cite the event as a key reason why his pre-trial confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., was unlawful and warrants the dismissal of the charges against him.
Manning faces life imprisonment on charges that he leaked the classified military and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Details of those charges will come at a trial scheduled for February and are not being discussed at this week’s hearing, which is focused on his nine-month confinement at Quantico from July 2010 to April 2011.
On Jan. 18, 2011 Manning was being moved to his daily “recreation call” in a room at the brig when he experienced an apparent anxiety attack. Manning said Thursday the guards escorting him seemed to have an aggressive attitude that made him feel nervous and ultimately feel faint.
Manning testified Thursday that he “lost my demeanor” during a later discussion with brig officials about the incident that led them to place him on temporary suicide risk watch.
Former Marine guards Lance Corporal Joshua Tankersly and Lance Corporal Jonathan Cline testified today that Manning had been moving around while his hand and leg restraints were placed on him for the escort to the exercise room. They said they reminded Manning that he should respond properly to their orders by referring to their ranks when he answered them.
When Manning entered the recreation room they described a situation in which Manning fell backwards and landed on his backside.
They then said that when out of his leg restraints Manning ran to a weightlifting machine, hid behind it and began to cry. Both Cline and Tankersly said they could not explain Manning’s behavior. Both guards were ordered to leave the room and were replaced by two other guards who escorted Manning back to his cell.
Cline said he was puzzled when a supervisor later told him “we intimidated him or something like that.”
Each guard said he could not recall if they sounded harsh when they talked to Manning on the way to the exercise room.
They both said that aside from the January incident, Manning was courteous and professional in his interactions with them. Both described him as an average prisoner, though Tankersly acknowledged that Manning was a high profile detainee who had the attention of high-ranking officials at the base.
“It’s hard to put ‘average’ on such a high profile, when you have higher ups on base come and check through to that see all was OK,” Tankersly said.
Gunnery Sgt. William Fuller, one of the senior officers at the brig, also testified today about his participation in a Classification and Assessment board that routinely assessed whether Manning’s Maximum Custody and Prevention of Injury status should be downgraded. The board never reduced Manning’s status during his stay.
Fuller acknowledged that before the January incident he and another brig official had considered a downgrade because Manning was “doing pretty good.”
He said the Jan. 18incident “kind of reset things … we had to keep him on Prevention of Injury.”
Fuller also cited Manning’s quiet interactions with him as a reason for keeping Manning on that status.
According to Fuller “he wouldn’t communicate … it seemed like he didn’t really want to talk” and that concerned him, given training he had received that being withdrawn could be an indicator of suicidal behavior.
Fuller admitted that the conversations were really just quick interactions to see how Manning was doing.. When asked to provide examples of longer exchanges he had with other prisoners, Fuller provided brief sentences. That led David Coombs, Manning’s defense attorney to say sarcastically, “so if he’d thrown in more words then he would have classified as a Chatty Patty?”
Manning’s attorneys claim that a protest on Jan. 17 by Manning supporters, at the entrance to the base, may have motivated an aggressive attitude towards the detainee.
Cline recalled other guards “were annoyed” by the protest” because it would close parts of the base and hinder or interrupt how they got home.” But Tankersly said the protest had no impact on Manning’s treatment.
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