SMRT says no further adjustments of pay for China bus drivers

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SINGAPORE: SMRT will not make further adjustments to the salaries of its drivers from China, despite an illegal strike last week over pay and living conditions.

But it will look into the possibility of allowing its drivers to encash their unused leave.

This was the decision communicated to drivers by SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek at a townhall meeting on Monday morning.

Describing what has been a difficult week for everyone in SMRT, Mr Kuek said the management team is surprised and saddened that the situation had reached the point of an illegal strike.

He stressed that the existing compensation and contract terms are fair.

He also said SMRT reviews the salaries of its drivers regularly to keep pace with the market.

This year, it raised the starting pay of those who joined before July by $75, even though there's no contractual obligation to do so for short-term contract workers.

In mid-November, it decided on a second increment of $25 to their basic salary out of goodwill, backdated to July.

This is being communicated to the drivers and will be implemented in December.

Mr Kuek said the full monthly increase in salary from July 2012 would therefore be $100, and this will be implemented as planned.

With these increments, their starting pay is now $1,100.

He stressed that the remuneration package is fair and equitable, including transport, accommodation and utilities amounting to about $275 borne by the company.

Drivers from Malaysia, said Mr Kuek, are not provided accommodation by the company.

With many drivers clocking an average of 60 hours in overtime a month, their gross pay can reach $1,800 or more.

Addressing complaints from some drivers about misrepresentation by agents in China who had hired them, Mr Kuek said SMRT will raise this matter with the relevant agencies to investigate further.

He also urged drivers to use the right and proper channels of communication and feedback to voice their unhappiness.

SMRT, he said, acknowledged that its managers and supervisors down the line could have been more sensitive and responsive to the needs of drivers.

It will address this shortcoming with priority and is strengthening its staff communications and engagement.

Turning to the living conditions of the drivers, Mr Kuek said he visited the drivers' rooms and surroundings recently and agreed with them that things can be improved.

As for bed bugs, the dormitory rooms were fumigated last month and again last week.

Mr Kuek said this appears to be a more persistent problem and SMRT will continue to monitor and act on this.

- CNA/de



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FDI in retail to safeguard international market mafias' interest: BJP

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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.

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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Boehner on Fiscal Cliff Talks: 'You Can't Be Serious'

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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















Obama Balances Fiscal Cliff, Defense Department Appointment Watch Video





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.



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DIA sending hundreds more spies overseas

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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.

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Family tells of escape from Japan fire tunnel

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OTSUKI, Japan: A man who fled with his wife and children from a collapsed Japanese tunnel in which at least five people died spoke Sunday of how he had been unable to get anyone out of a crushed and burning vehicle.

Tomohiro Suzuki said the nearly five-kilometre (three mile)-long tunnel, passing through hills near Mount Fuji, had been the scene of confusion as cars drove the wrong way to try to escape the cave-in and ensuing fire.

At least five people are known to have died after being trapped inside their burning vehicle on one of Japan's most important highways. Officials had said at least seven people were missing.

Other vehicles were believed to have been buried when the 20-centimetre- (eight-inch)-thick concrete roof panels caved in on the Tokyo-bound side of the Sasago tunnel, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the capital.

Suzuki, 37, said he had jumped out of his car and rushed towards a vehicle that had been crushed by the fallen concrete in a bid to rescue people inside.

"A part of the ceiling, just as wide as the road, had collapsed straight down and broken in the middle into a V-shape," he told Jiji Press.

He told the agency there was a fire in its bonnet, but he could find no way in.

"I called the police as I thought it was impossible for me to rescue anyone inside."

"I could hear after a while on the public address system that a fire has occurred inside the tunnel and the sprinkler system was going to be activated."

Suzuki said people in the tunnel were in panic, with cars starting to drive the wrong way to try to get out.

He gathered up his 38-year-old wife, Nishiki, and their two children, six and nine, and hurried them to safety as several dozen people rushed to get out.

"I was anxious as I could not see the exit," he said.

"I kept wondering when the fire would spread and catch us. I tried to let my children get away first of all."

Suzuki, from central Nagano prefecture, said it had taken him and his family about an hour to get out of the tunnel. By the time they got out, the fire had established itself and they could see smoke coming from the tunnel mouth.

A search-and-rescue operation, which swung into operation shortly after the collapse at around 8 am (2300 GMT Saturday), was temporarily halted when engineers said there was a risk of a secondary cave-in.

But by late afternoon it had been resumed, with teams of rescuers, along with heavy equipment, including car transporters, sent back inside the tunnel.

Footage from security cameras nearly ten hours after the collapse showed large concrete panels still sitting in the V shape that Suzuki described, with men in protective gear scrambling over the top of them.

Broadcasters said they were working to get to at least one vehicle underneath the debris.

At the tunnel mouth, dozens of emergency service workers milled around. A number of tents had been set up, with crews apparently using them to co-ordinate their work.

- AFP/ck



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FDI in retail to safeguard international market mafias' interest: BJP

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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.

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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Wikileaks Case: Guards Deny Intimidating Manning

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gty bradley manning dm 121108 wblog Bradley Mannings Former Guards Testify About Controversial Incident

(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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Sen. Ayotte offers GOP an influential new voice

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The three Republican senators emerged grim-faced from a basement meeting room in the Capitol on Tuesday and took turns before a bank of televisions cameras, blasting away at the Obama administration for its handling of the deadly attack on an American outpost in Benghazi, Libya.


The first two were prominent national security heavyweights, Arizona’s John McCain and Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina. Then the third senator, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, stepped forward. A freshman in her second year and ranked 99th in seniority, Ayotte said she had not been swayed by the administration’s efforts to explain how and why U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had initially suggested the attack was the result of a spontaneous street protest, instead of a coordinated terrorist attack.

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