MSF to focus on better organising its delivery of social services

SINGAPORE: Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing said his ministry will focus on how to better deliver social services to the people.

This comes after Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced that Budget Day this year will be on February 25.

Mr Chan spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a community event on Sunday morning.

He noted that beyond adjusting and tweaking some of the policies, it is important to assess how these policies can be systematically implemented across the ministry's entire span of social services.

He added that announcements will be made by his ministry in the lead-up to Budget Day.

Mr Chan said: "The focus is not just on the policies alone, of course that we will do, but the focus is also to make sure that we organise ourselves better so that we prepare the ground and set up the social service infrastructure for the many years to come so that in time to come when our social needs increase, when we have more social challenges, we have what we call the social service infrastructure in place to deliver the help to the people in need."

- CNA/fa

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People living near LoC demand grant for constructing bunkers

SRINAGAR: People living in areas close to Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir are demanding special grant for construction of bunkers to escape shelling as India and Pakistan have resumed hostilities by heavy firing at each others' position.

Residents of villages close to the LoC in Uri sector of north Kashmir Baramulla district claim that the earthquake of 2005, which had flattened wide parts of Kashmir on either side of the ceasefire line, had destroyed their bunkers.

"We did not reconstruct those bunkers as we did not feel the need. The ceasefire between India and Pakistan along the LoC had held good for two years," Mohammad Aslam, a resident of Churunda village in Uri, said.

Churunda has been the worst affected areas in recent time as three civilians were killed in Pakistani shelling in October last year.

The village was again the target on January 6 but the cross LoC shelling resulted in damage to a residential house.

India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir in November 2003. Barring minor aberrations, the ceasefire had been successful, providing major relief to the residents of borders areas in the state who were living in constant fear.

However, the recent incidents of shelling along the LoC and transgression of the ceasefire line by Pakistani troops in Mendhar area of Poonch district is threatening the truce pact. Two Indian soldiers were killed in Mendhar incident while Pakistan has claimed that two of its soldiers died in shelling by Indian army since January 6.

A delegation of villagers living close to LoC told PTI that government should provide them special grant for reconstructing the bunkers in case the hostilities continue.

"The government should either construct or provide us money to construct these bunkers. If they fail to do so, we might have to migrate from the area," Bashir Ahmad, who was heading the delegation, said.

He said the areas of Uri likely to be affected by cross-LoC shelling include Hathlanga, Churunda, Tilwari, Silikote and Sura, where over 1,000 families reside.

District development commissioner Baramulla Khwaja Ghulam Ahmad said the authorities have not received any representation for construction of bunkers so far.

"However, we will forward a proposal to Government if any such application is received," Ahmad said.

He said all the families living along the LoC in Uri were given Rs 15,000 in mid-1990s for construction of the underground bunkers.

"These bunkers do not get affected by earthquake," he added.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right.

"He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and, the thing is: After he won the lottery and the next day later he passes away -- it's awkward. It raises some eyebrows."

The medical examiner initially ruled Urooj Khan, 46, an immigrant from India who owned dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, died July 20, 2012, of natural causes. But after a family member demanded more tests, authorities in November found a lethal amount of cyanide in his blood, turning the case into a homicide investigation.

"When we found out there was cyanide in his blood after the extensive toxicology reports, we had to believe that ... somebody had to kill him," Minhaj Khan said. "It had to happen, because where can you get cyanide?"

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Authorities could be one step closer to learning what happened to Urooj Khan. A judge Friday approved an order to exhume his body at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago as early as Thursday to perform further tests.

Lottery Winner Murdered: Widow Questioned By Police Watch Video

Moments after the court hearing, Urooj Khan's sister, Meraj Khan, remembered her brother as the kind of person who would've shared his jackpot with anyone. Speaking at the Cook County Courthouse, she hoped the exhumation would help the investigation.

"It's very hard because I wanted my brother to rest in peace, but then we have to have justice served," she said, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago. "So if that's what it takes for him to bring justice and peace, then that's what needs to be done."

Khan reportedly did not have a will. With the investigation moving forward, his family is waging a legal fight against his widow, Shabana Ansari, 32, over more than $1 million, including Urooj Khan's lottery winnings, as well as his business and real estate holdings.

Khan's brother filed a petition Wednesday to a judge asking Citibank to release information about Khan's assets to "ultimately ensure" that [Khan's] minor daughter from a prior marriage "receives her proper share."

Ansari may have tried to cash the jackpot check after Khan's death, according to court documents, which also showed Urooj Khan's family is questioning if the couple was ever even legally married.

Ansari, Urooj Khan's second wife, who still works at the couple's dry cleaning business, has insisted they were married legally.

She has told reporters the night before her husband died, she cooked a traditional Indian meal for him and their family, including Khan's daughter and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the Chicago Sun-Times, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She said she called 911.

"It has been an incredibly hard time," she told ABC News earlier this week. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Ansari has not been named a suspect, but her attorney, Steven Kozicki, said investigators did question her for more than four hours.

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Jay Rockefeller, likely the last of a political dynasty

Uncle Nelson was vice president. Uncle Winthrop a governor. Great-grandfather Nelson a senator.

Political bloodlines, he had.

But the great American electoral dynasty that abruptly announced its end Friday, or at least signaled what looks to be a long, long pause, always evoked more. That name on the ballot — Rockefeller — meant money. It meant epic-scale success. It meant everything.

And it meant that Jay Rockefeller wasn’t ever going to be just some Democratic senator from West Virginia. Rockefeller, who said Friday that he would not seek reelection in 2014 after nearly three decades in the Senate, was always going to be the oil titan John D. Rockefeller’s great-grandson, too. One of the heirs to a legendary fortune.

“He’s proud of being a Rockefeller. He talks about his uncles and his grandfather, about that legacy. It’s an important part of who he is and how he thinks about himself,” Rockefeller’s longtime political adviser, Geoff Garin, said in an interview. “He found a way to be a Rockefeller that was about serving people.”

Dynasties like these roll across American political history. Not just Rockefellers, but Adamses and Kennedys and Bushes. A nation formed to escape power granted as a birthright still embraces power that follows the contours of a family tree. Voters even expect it, and so do political scions.

“It’s so predictable!” said Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution senior fellow emeritus and author of the book “America’s Political Dynasties.” “It’s daddy’s business and increasingly it’ll be mommy’s business, too.”

For Hess, each dynasty takes on a different aura. There were the “crafty” Roosevelts, headlined by a couple of presidents — Franklin Delano and Theodore — and his favorites, the Tafts, whose standout, William Howard, was about the “nicest” guy ever to occupy the Oval Office, in Hess’s estimation, and who also managed to become chief justice of the Supreme Court.

The Rockefellers were almost incidental dynasty builders, Hess said. “That generation — the robber barons, if you want to call them that — wasn’t interested in politics. Politics was something you could marry into.”

Indeed, John D. Rockefeller’s only son married the daughter of Nelson Aldrich, a prominent Republican senator of the late 1800s and early 1900s who wielded tremendous influence over monetary policies. Their son, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, became governor of New York and was Gerald R. Ford’s vice president. Another son, Winthrop Rockefeller, became governor of Arkansas.

“My great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, worked at it very, very hard. There’s an ethic in the Rockefeller family of hard work,” Jay Rockefeller wrote in an e-mail late Friday. “It’s expected that everybody work hard. And there has been a tradition of public service.”

John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV entered politics unconventionally, drawn into that sphere by his experiences as a volunteer for VISTA (the precursor of Americorps) in Emmons, W.Va., a small coal mining town. “Coming to West Virginia was life-changing for him,” Garin said. “West Virginia exposed him to a whole new world that broadened his world; and in a lot of respects it gave his career a defining purpose.”

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More seeking social assistance at CDCs

SINGAPORE: Singapore's five Community Development Councils (CDCs) have seen an increase in the number of social assistance cases coming to them for help in 2012.

SINGAPORE: A key reason for this uptrend is the revision in the criteria of people who can now qualify for such help under the ComCare scheme.

The scheme was revised last year.

Among the changes - the income criteria for short and medium term assistance schemes have been revised and there are more pre-school and student care subsidies.

There are four key challenges which will shape the work of the CDCs in 2013 - an expected slowdown in economic growth in Singapore coupled with economic restructuring, preserving social mobility, a rapidly ageing population and the continued costs of living pressures.

For cleaner Tay Kheng Leong, a sole breadwinner earning about S$700 a month, schemes from the North East CDC have come in very handy for him to meet his daily and medical expenses for his family members, who live in a two-room rental flat.

Mr Tay said CDC has been giving him S$300 every month for more than a year. His children get free textbooks and school uniforms. He provides for his children's pocket money.

Between January and September 2012, the CDCs received close to 44,900 applications for help, an increase of 8.2 per cent compared to 2011. In 2011, there were 41,500 applications for the period between January and September.

Teo Ser Luck, mayor of North East CDC said: "There is the lower middle income (group) that we have to help. Based on the rising costs of living, some of them may be struggling, some of them may have a one-time expenditure which they could not handle or afford. These are the ones we look out for.

"But we have to make our schemes more readily available on the ground and accessible. That is why more resources would be put into the community, engaging the residents and helping the residents this year."

Dr Teo Ho Pin, mayor of North West CDC added: "This year we have set aside a budget of about S$3.5 million in our CDC funding to support the needy. What we want to do is to provide a more holistic approach to help the needy families to achieve self reliance.

"In the areas of social assistance services, we will be decentralising some of our service points. Secondly we will be improving our processing time. Today we are processing 99 per cent of our cases within four weeks. We are going to do it within two weeks, so that we can respond faster."

Dr Amy Khor, coordinating chairman of the mayors' council, feels more can be done to improve the accessibility and delivery of social assistance.

"The CDCs are also actually working to further enhance and improve the efficiency and effectiveness as well as accessibility of social assistance and social assistance delivery," said Dr Khor, who is also the mayor of South West CDC.

"We are looking at a standard referral form and protocol, as well as working closely with our partner agencies to ensure that no one falls through the cracks and that they can get targeted assistance which is needed, relevant and useful to them."

Sam Tan, mayor of Central Singapore CDC said: "In the past, there were many who lived in the one and two-room rental flats, they may not be able to read the newsletter, internet and so on. We have done a lot of outreach activities like doing home visits, working closely with the VWOs (voluntary welfare organisations), the seniors activity centres, asking them to recommend the probable and suitable (potential beneficiaries) so that we can get in touch with them."

But there may still be some who do not qualify for the schemes and who need some interim help.

"In our case we always take a more generous approach in that we always exercise flexibility for people who may just marginally, or for some reasons may have exceeded the criteria a little bit more," said Mr Tan.

"We always look at their family background to find if there are other justifying factors or reasons so that we can have reasons to offer the assistance to them, even though they may have exceeded the criteria."

"Definitely there are applicants who may not qualify, but they come forward. Some of them may know that outright they do not qualify," said Dr Khor.

"They may suffer pay cuts but they expect to maintain their standard of living. That can be a problem and so we need to counsel and explain to them. In some cases when they really do not qualify because of their income criteria, we may still assist them through our own local schemes, in various ways, may not be in cash assistance but other ways, in terms of training where they can get other jobs. Or for instance in terms of looking at their needs of their children."

The next focus area for the CDCs is the elderly, and a pilot programme is underway in Marine Parade to assess their needs.

Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman, mayor of South East CDC explained: "Marine Parade is where we pilot the concept of a city of all ages where we want to help the seniors ensure that they are able to age successfully with the younger generation.

"So we assess all the abilities of the elderly, whether they are wheelchair bound, whether they have visual difficulties. The whole of Marine Parade is assessed physically and at the same time they also look at the social infrastructure of Marine Parade to respond to the varying needs of senior citizens there. Hopefully if Marine Parade succeeds we will try to expand it to other towns."

When it comes to employment assistance, the picture at the CDCs is slightly different. The CDCs say the number of people coming to them for job referrals and employment matters has dipped slightly in 2012 compared to 2011. And one key reason for this fall in numbers is the tight job market in Singapore last year.

Between January and November 2012, the number of people approaching the CDCs for training and employment assistance was 24,500, a 3 per cent drop compared to the same period in 2011.

The success rates of those being placed into employment has also been higher in 2012. 11,800 were placed into jobs between January and November 2012, compared to 10,100 for the same period in 2011.

But if Singapore faces a recession, the mayors say they are ready with their help schemes, having gained from the experiences in 2003 and 2008.

- CNA/xq

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Border meet between BSF and Pak Rangers next month

NEW DELHI/JAMMU: A flag meeting between commanders of the BSF and Pakistan Rangers is expected to be held next month over a host of issues including ceasefire violations.

Border Security Force (BSF) sources said that a "routine" border meeting between the field commanders of the force and Rangers was scheduled for January 16 on the Pakistani side at Munnabao border.

"This was posponed till February 20 this year by Pakistan Rangers. No specific reason was cited and this decision was conveyed to us on January 4," they said.

A host of border issues will be taken up during this meeting, they added.

On January 8, two Indian soldiers were killed on the Line of Control ( LoC) by Pakistani troops with the body of one being badly mutilated, sparking outrage in the country.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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CDC: Flu Outbreak Could Be Waning

The flu season appears to be waning in some parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback in the next few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Five fewer states reported high flu activity levels in the first week of January than the 29 that reported high activity levels in the last week of December, according to the CDC's weekly flu report. This week, 24 states reported high illness levels, 16 reported moderate levels, five reported low levels and one reported minimal levels, suggesting that the flu season peaked in the last week of December.

"It may be decreasing in some areas, but that's hard to predict," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a Friday morning teleconference. "Trends only in the next week or two will show whether we have in fact crossed the peak."

The flu season usually peaks in February or March, not December, said Dr. Jon Abramson, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina. He said the season started early with a dominant H3N2 strain, which was last seen a decade ago, in 2002-03. That year, the flu season also ended early.

Click here to see how this flu season stacks up against other years.

Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic/AP Photo

Increasing Flu Cases: Best Measures to Ensure Your Family's Health Watch Video

Because of the holiday season, Frieden said the data may have been skewed.

For instance, Connecticut appeared to be having a lighter flu season than other northeastern states at the end of December, but the state said it could have been a result of college winter break. College student health centers account for a large percentage of flu reports in Connecticut, but they've been closed since the fall semester ended, said William Gerrish, a spokesman for the state's department of public health.

The flu season arrived about a month early this year in parts of the South and the East, but it may only just be starting to take hold of states in the West, Frieden said. California is still showing "minimal" flu on the CDC's map, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Click here to read about how flu has little to do with cold weather.

"It's not surprising. Influenza ebbs and flows during the flu season," Frieden said. "The only thing predictable about the flu is that it is unpredictable."

Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said he was expecting California's seeming good luck with the flu to be over this week.

"Flu is fickle, we say," Schaffner said. "Influenza can be spotty. It can be more severe in one community than another for reasons incompletely understood."

Early CDC estimates indicate that this year's flu vaccine is 62 percent effective, meaning people who have been vaccinated are 62 percent less likely to need to see a doctor for flu treatment, Frieden said.

Although the shot has been generally believed to be more effective for children than adults, there's not enough data this year to draw conclusions yet.

"The flu vaccine is far from perfect, but it's still by far the best tool we have to prevent flu," Frieden said, adding that most of the 130 million vaccine doses have already been administered. "We're hearing of shortages of the vaccine, so if you haven't been vaccinated and want to be, it's better late than never."

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Bibles used by King, Lincoln to be part of Obama’s second inauguration

Martin Luther King Jr. carried a black leather King James Bible on his journeys as a young pastor starting out in Montgomery, Ala. He turned to this “traveling Bible” for inspiration, his family says, as he fought for freedom and equality.

President Obama will put his hand over King’s well-worn Bible at his public swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, the holiday celebrating the birthday of the slain civil rights leader. King’s Bible will be stacked with the burgundy velvet and gilded Bible used by President Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration.

Obama chose the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration in 2009, making him the first president to do so since it was initially used in 1861. President Harry S. Truman also used two Bibles, as did Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon.

The announcement about the Bibles, to be made publicly Thursday, is part of the slow unspooling of inaugural details that fascinates lovers of ceremonial Americana.

Presidential inaugurations have become more filled with rites, and such decisions are especially weighty now at a time when the White House is aware that Americans are struggling to come together.

King’s family said in a statement that he would be “deeply moved” to see Obama use the traveling Bible on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, “and we hope it can be a source of strength for the President as he begins his second term.”

“With the Inauguration less than two weeks away, we join Americans across the country in embracing this opportunity to celebrate how far we have come, honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. through service, and rededicate ourselves to the work ahead,” the statement added.

According to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which organizes the swearing-in ceremony, King traveled with various books, including this Bible. “It was used for inspiration and preparing sermons and speeches, including during Dr. King’s time as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church” in Montgomery, the committee said in a statement.

Obama and Vice President Biden will be sworn in privately on Sunday, Jan. 20 — the date required by the Constitution. For that first ceremony, Obama will use the family Bible of his wife’s family. According to the inaugural committee, that Bible “was a gift from the First Lady’s father, Fraser Robinson III, to his mother, LaVaughn Delores Robinson, on Mother’s Day in 1958. Mrs. Robinson was the first African-American woman manager of a Moody Bible Institute’s bookstore.” That Bible was the only one Michelle Obama’s grandmother used after that, a committee statement said.

For both the private and then the Monday public ceremonies, Biden will be sworn in with a Bible that has been in his family since 1893: a five-inch-thick volume with a Celtic cross on the cover. He also used it for his swearings-in as a U.S. senator and in 2009 as vice president.

Some aspects of the inaugural ceremony have changed slightly over the decades. Having official prayers offered dates only to the 1930s, historians say. But presidents have used Bibles to be sworn in since George Washington, even though the Constitution does not require it. The Constitution also does not require the phrase “So help me God” at the end, but that has become standard, said Donald Ritchie, the historian of the U.S. Senate.

He also noted that the image of the president’s spouse holding the Bible dates only to Lady Bird Johnson doing so in 1965.

Chief justices of the Supreme Court now traditionally deliver the oath, but Ritchie said any federal official can do so.

Several non-Christian members of Congress have recently used other scriptures, including Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, in 2007. The Minnesota Democrat used a Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Obama veered from tradition in one key aspect of the ceremony: He invited Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights figure Medgar Evers, to deliver the invocation prayer. It will be the first time a woman, and a layperson rather than clergy, has done so.

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