NTU to offer new degree programme in public policy & global affairs

SINGAPORE: Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will offer a first-of-its-kind degree programme in Public Policy & Global Affairs in Singapore.

The Bachelor of Arts (Honours) programme offers a unique interdisciplinary curriculum that combines politics and international relations, public policy and public administration.

The programme, which will enrol its pioneer class of 55 students this August, will focus on two key areas for its teaching and research - global Asia and Asian regionalism and public policy in science and technology, creating new niche areas for NTU.

NTU said the new programme will prepare students for career and leadership roles in government agencies, non-profit organisations and the private sector.

It also fills the gap of one of the disciplinary cores in social sciences to be offered by NTU, namely political science.

Presently, through its School of Humanities and Social Sciences, seven social science majors are offered by NTU: Chinese, English, Economics, History, Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Psychology and Sociology.

Prof Kam Chan Hin, Associate Provost in charge of Undergraduate Education at NTU, said: "As a university with established strengths in science, engineering and public administration, NTU is well-placed to offer this new programme to meet the growing demand for such policy experts, especially in Asia. The course will offer students real-world learning and practice in public service, particularly on how to deal with such strategic challenges and international and public affairs as a whole.

"The course builds on the strengths of NTU's core disciplines in the social sciences and enhances the intellectual breadth of the university. Besides providing rigorous training on the finer aspects of policy-making and global affairs, it will also imbue students with the critical values of leadership, integrity, life-long learning, exemplary character and professionalism."

Throughout the four-year direct honours programme, students will be exposed to a broad variety of subjects, such as policy analysis, programme evaluation, public financial management, human resource management and non-profit management.

They will also receive professional training in political dynamics, international politics, comparative politics, comparative public administration and global affairs.

Interdisciplinary courses will be taught by professors from different disciplines drawn from across the schools at NTU.

Prof Kam said: "Upon graduation, students will be ready to pursue a broad spectrum of rewarding careers in civil service administration, public management, policy analysis, journalism and research. They can also choose to become teachers, especially in Social Studies, History and China Studies. I am pleased that several potential employers, including a few ministries, the Economic Development Board and IE Singapore, have already expressed support for the programme."

Graduates from the programme will also be qualified to teach Social Studies, History and China Studies from primary school to junior college levels, to meet a growing demand in Singapore's schools.

As the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) will be a major partner in teaching and research, graduates from the programme can also pursue further studies at the RSIS.

The Public Policy and Global Affairs programme will be driven by Prof He Baogang, who has established an international reputation as an authority on Chinese democratisation, non-government organisations and local governance, as well as in international relations and Asian studies.

Prof He had also served as an adviser to public and governmental organisations, including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Danish International Development Agency.

- CNA/xq

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Yeddyurappa openly supporting Congress, Jagadish Shettar says

GULBARGA:Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar today charged KJP president B S Yeddyurappa with openly supporting Congress in the March 7 urban local body polls to free himself from CBI cases over his alleged involvement in illegal mining.

"Yeddyurappa is under the tight grip of Congress due to CBI cases and wants to come out of it. Hence he is openly supporting Congress in the March 7 urban body polls," he told reporters here.

Shettar alleged that Yeddyurappa does not mind Karnataka Janata Party candidates losing the polls, but is coaxing people to vote for Congress to trounce the ruling BJP.

"This clearly shows he is under the tight grip of the Congress," he alleged.

Yeddyurappa had said yesterday that his KJP would support Congress in all wards where it did not contest and urged his supporters to work for Congress candidates in such segments to defeat BJP and Janata Dal(S).

Shettar was speaking after a BJP road show in the run up to the polls.

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Man's Body Recovery Effort Ends; Sinkhole 'Unstable'

Authorities have discontinued the rescue effort for a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole when his home's foundation collapsed and said it is unlikely his body will ever be recovered.

"We feel we have done everything we can," Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrell said at a news conference this afternoon. "At this point, it's not possible to recover the body."

Merell said officials would bring in heavy equipment to begin demolishing the home on Sunday.

"We're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole," he said. "It's very deep. It's very wide. It's very unstable."

Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday.

Two homes next door to Bush's residence were evacuated today after authorities said they had been compromised by the growing sinkhole.

With the assistance of rescuers, the homeowners will be allowed to enter their home for only 30 minutes to gather valuables, authorities said.

Rescuers returned to the site in Seffner, Fla., early this morning to conduct further testing, but decided it was too dangerous for the family initially affected by the sinkhole to enter their home, which was declared condemned.

Florida Sinkhole Opens Up Beneath Man's Home Watch Video

Florida Man Believed Dead After Falling into Sinkhole Watch Video

Florida Sinkhole Swallows House, Man Trapped Inside Watch Video

While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials now estimate it measures 30 feet across and is up to 100 feet deep.

The Hillsborough County Fire Rescue has set up a relief fund for all families affected by the growing sink hole.

MORE: How Sinkholes Can Develop

Rescue operations were halted Friday night after it became too dangerous to approach the home.

Bill Bracken, an engineer with Hillsborough County Urban Search and Rescue team said the house "should have collapsed by now, so it's amazing that it hasn't."

RELATED: Florida Man Swallowed by Sinkhole: Conditions Too Unstable to Approach

Using ground penetrating radar, rescuers have found a large amount of water beneath the house, making conditions even more dangerous for them to continue the search for Bush.

Hillsborough County lies in what is known as Florida's "Sinkhole Alley." More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in the area since 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.

Meanwhile, Bush's brother, Jeremy Bush, is still reeling from Thursday night.

Jeremy Bush had to be rescued by a first responder after jumping into the hole in an attempt to rescue his brother when the home's concrete floor collapsed, but said he couldn't find him.

"I just started digging and started digging and started digging, and the cops showed up and pulled me out of the hole and told me the floor's still falling in," he said.

"These are everyday working people, they're good people," said Deputy Douglas Duvall of the Hillsborough County sheriff's office. "And this was so unexpected, and they're still, you know, probably facing the reality that this is happening."

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Obama to refocus attention on immigration, gun control

President Obama signaled Friday a desire to refocus his attention on second-term priorities, such as immigration and gun control, after weeks of fruitless wrangling with Republicans over his fiscal agenda.

“What I want to try to do is make sure that we’re constantly focused . . . on how are we helping American families succeed,” Obama said at a news conference after failing to strike a deal with congressional leaders to avert $85 billion in mandatory budget cuts.

“Deficit reduction is part of that agenda, and an important part, but it’s not the only part,” he said. “And I don’t want us to be paralyzed on everything just because we disagree on this one thing.”

For a president who has bemoaned Washington’s penchant for lurching between self-manufactured political crises over the past two years, the inability to compromise with Republicans appeared to leave him simultaneously exasperated and emboldened.

Though he had run out of ideas on how to get Congress to support his plan on taxes and spending — “What more do you think I should do?” he asked a reporter — Obama sounded an upbeat note on other initiatives, including raising the minimum wage, expanding preschool programs and changing voting laws.

“There are other areas where we can make progress,” he said. “This is the agenda that the American people voted for. These are America’s priorities. They’re too important to go unaddressed.”

The president’s tone came as a relief to advocates who have fretted that the ongoing fight over the deficit would drain attention and critical momentum from Obama’s promise to champion reforms to gun control and immigration laws.

Though Obama touched on both during his State of the Union address Feb. 12, the last event he dedicated solely to gun control was a Feb. 4 appearance at a Minneapolis police station, and on immigration it was a Jan. 29 speech at a Las Vegas high school.

In the meantime, the administration has tried to remain engaged via less high-profile means. Vice President Biden made policy speeches and met with advocates on gun control, and Obama used phone calls to Capitol Hill and a private Oval Office meeting with two Republican senators to push quietly on immigration.

“There are plenty of issues Congress needs to be getting to,” said David Leopold, an executive committee member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Manufactured crises like the ‘fiscal cliff’ or sequester do not advance anyone’s agenda, least of all the American people’s agenda.”

Advocates acknowledged that the White House’s decision to focus on the economy made sense in light of polls showing Americans overwhelmingly believe that jobs and growth should be Obama’s top priority. But they have learned from experience that momentum for their causes can disappear quickly.

Obama promised comprehensive immigration reform in his first term but pursued a major health-care overhaul that ate up his political capital and the administration’s attention. He gave a much-heralded speech about gun violence after the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011 that wounded former representative Gabby Giffords (D), but no changes to gun laws followed.

Obama has “got to be an effective spokesperson on [gun violence] to do a good job, but the minute he changes focus from the economy, everybody goes bananas,” said Matt Bennett, a senior vice president at Third Way, a think tank that supports stricter gun control. “That puts him in a bit of a bind.”

On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan coalition of senators is working on legislation that would require mandatory background checks for all private gun sales, closing a long-standing loophole. The bill hit a snag after Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) opposed adding language to the bill that would require gun owners to keep transactional records of private firearms sales.

Another bipartisan Senate group is drafting a comprehensive immigration bill that would likely include a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants. Senators said they hope to produce a draft in March, but the bill could be delayed until after the Easter recess, which runs through April 5, several sources said.

In a pointed reminder of the difficulty of engaging on more than one issue at a time, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) were late to a meeting with the bipartisan immigration group last week because they were on the Senate floor blasting Democrats over the mandatory budget cuts. Only after their floor speeches ended did the pair join their colleagues for more cordial discussions.

On Friday, even as he bemoaned the lack of GOP cooperation on the spending cuts, Obama made a point to praise the Republican-led House for approving a renewed Violence Against Women Act this week.

“What I’m going to keep on trying to do is to make sure that we push on those things that are important to families,” Obama said. “We won’t get everything done all at once, but we can get a lot done.”

Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

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Bomb kills two, wounds 12 in Thai south

BANGKOK: Two security officials died and 12 people were wounded in a blast in Thailand's restive south on Saturday, an army spokesman said, as unrest continued despite plans for talks with a key rebel group.

The bomb hidden in a motorcycle in Yala provincial town was aimed at paramilitaries who had been manning a nearby checkpoint, said southern army spokesman Colonel Pramote Promin. Six civilians were among the wounded.

It follows twin bombings on Friday in Narathiwat province, near the Malaysian border where a nine-year insurgency has claimed more than 5,500 lives.

The Thai government has agreed to hold talks with Barisan Revolusi Nasional, part of a web of insurgent groups in the south.

A stubborn insurgency seeking greater autonomy has raged across several provinces in the south of Thailand for nine years -- with near-daily shootings and bombings.

Malaysian premier Najib Razak on Thursday said his country would host the talks in Kuala Lumpur in two weeks, following discussions with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was in the country for bilateral meetings.

- AFP/xq

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Congress is synonymous with price rise, Nitish Kumar says

PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today attacked the UPA government by saying that the Congress was synonymous with price rise.

"Congress party ka dusra naam mahangai party hai....jab tak ye log satta mein rahenge mahangai badhti rahegi (Congress is synonymous with price rise .... as the Congress is in power prices will rise)," Kumar told reporters here.

On the phone tapping of BJP leader Arun Jaitley, he accused that this was an act of a "weak" government.

"A weak government always resorts to such tactics," Kumar charged, adding that it was a violation of privacy.

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Black Hole Spins at Nearly the Speed of Light

A superfast black hole nearly 60 million light-years away appears to be pushing the ultimate speed limit of the universe, a new study says.

For the first time, astronomers have managed to measure the rate of spin of a supermassive black hole—and it's been clocked at 84 percent of the speed of light, or the maximum allowed by the law of physics.

"The most exciting part of this finding is the ability to test the theory of general relativity in such an extreme regime, where the gravitational field is huge, and the properties of space-time around it are completely different from the standard Newtonian case," said lead author Guido Risaliti, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and INAF-Arcetri Observatory in Italy. (Related: "Speedy Star Found Near Black Hole May Test Einstein Theory.")

Notorious for ripping apart and swallowing stars, supermassive black holes live at the center of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way. (See black hole pictures.)

They can pack the gravitational punch of many million or even billions of suns—distorting space-time in the region around them, not even letting light to escape their clutches.

Galactic Monster

The predatory monster that lurks at the core of the relatively nearby spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is estimated to weigh in at about two million times the mass of the sun, and stretches some 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) across-more than eight times the distance between Earth and the moon, Risaliti said. (Also see "Black Hole Blast Biggest Ever Recorded.")

Risaliti and colleagues' unprecedented discovery was made possible thanks to the combined observations from NASA's high-energy x-ray detectors on its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) probe and the European Space Agency's low-energy, x-ray-detecting XMM-Newton space observatory.

Astronomers detected x-ray particle remnants of stars circling in a pancake-shaped accretion disk surrounding the black hole, and used this data to help determine its rate of spin.

By getting a fix on this spin speed, astronomers now hope to better understand what happens inside giant black holes as they gravitationally warp space-time around themselves.

Even more intriguing to the research team is that this discovery will shed clues to black hole's past, and the evolution of its surrounding galaxy.

Tracking the Universe's Evolution

Supermassive black holes have a large impact in the evolution of their host galaxy, where a self-regulating process occurs between the two structures.

"When more stars are formed, they throw gas into the black hole, increasing its mass, but the radiation produced by this accretion warms up the gas in the galaxy, preventing more star formation," said Risaliti.

"So the two events—black hole accretion and formation of new stars—interact with each other."

Knowing how fast black holes spin may also help shed light how the entire universe evolved. (Learn more about the origin of the universe.)

"With a knowledge of the average spin of galaxies at different ages of the universe," Risaliti said, "we could track their evolution much more precisely than we can do today."

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Obama Signs Order to Begin Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.

President Obama officially initiated the cuts with an order to agencies Friday evening.

He had met for just over an hour at the White House Friday morning with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold at midnight.

"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."

READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester

Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.

Sequestration Deadline: Obama Meets With Leaders Watch Video

Sequester Countdown: The Reality of Budget Cuts Watch Video

Federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day off per week through the end of the year.

The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.

"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."

The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.

The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.

"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."

Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester

Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.

Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like."

But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.

"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."

Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?

The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.

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"Don't Stop Believin'" tops 2012 most-watched dramas list

SINGAPORE: Singapore broadcaster MediaCorp on Friday unveiled the list of most-watched television programmes over its main free-to-air channels.

School drama "Don't Stop Believin'", which features stars like Felicia Chin, Romeo Tan, Elvin Ng and Ian Fang, topped the list of popular Mandarin dramas on Channel 8, with an average viewership of 918,000.

Heartland drama "It Takes Two" trailed close behind, drawing 912,000 viewers each night, with the blockbuster period drama "Joys of Life" rounding out the top three, bringing in 875,000 viewers each episode.

Despite strong competition from imported dramas, locally-produced "Show Hand" emerged tops on Channel U, with 361,000 viewers tuning in for the moving drama series each night.

"Show Hand" beat out Korean drama "He's Beautiful" and Taiwan drama "Material Queen" which both drew 342,000 viewers each episode, and took the second as well as third spot respectively.

Light-hearted Singapore school drama "Jump!" managed to take the fourth spot, with an average viewership of 337,000.

"Crimewatch 2012" was tops on Channel 5, heading the list of most popular English drama and variety series with an average viewership of 382,000 , followed by "Sasuke Singapore", "Point of Entry 2" and its sequel "Point of Entry 3".

Other notable shows include "Food Source", which was named the most popular Mandarin variety show, attracting some 831,000 viewers per episode, as well as "Star Awards 2012 - Show 2", which drew over 1.5 million viewers.

This makes "Star Awards 2012 – Show 2" the most-watched television programme of last year, beating even the televised broadcast of the National Day Parade 2012.

In addition to the viewership figures of its most popular shows, MediaCorp also revealed in the same report that the average viewership of Channel 8, Channel U and Channel 5 has increased in 2012, as had the number of people who watched its programmes online, via xinmsn.com's Catch-up TV service.

-CNA/ha

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Hyderabad blasts: NIA interrogates Indian Mujahideen operatives

HYDERABAD: Two suspected Indian Mujahideen operatives are being questioned by the NIA today in connection with the February 21 twin blasts here that left 16 people dead.

A court in Delhi had yesterday granted the NIA five-day custody of Syed Maqbool and Imran Khan for their interrogation following which the two were brought here by the agency.

The agency had told the court that it would take both of them to Hyderabad and question them for more clues about the blasts, as the ongoing probe points that Indian Mujahideen (IM) module was behind it.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had alleged that Maqbool and Khan had in July last year recced Hyderabad's Dilsukhnagar area where the blasts occurred claiming 16 lives and leaving 119 injured.

Maqbool and Khan are presently lodged in Tihar Jail following their arrest by Delhi Police in connection with the August 2012 Pune blast case.

"The duo are in NIA custody and are being questioned here," sources said without elaborating much.

According to the NIA, the blasts took place on the alleged instructions of IM's Pakistan-based founder Riyaz Bhatkal and the duo's interrogation will help in unearthing the exact plan envisaged by him.

The blasts in Hyderabad were triggered by powerful IEDs planted near Konark and Venkatadiri theatres in Dilsukhnagar.

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