Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival

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North Korea Says it Has Conducted a Nuclear Test

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North Korea says it has successfully tested a miniaturized nuclear device Tuesday, according to state media.


A large tremor measured at magnitude 4.9 was detected in North Korea and governments in the region scrambled to determine whether it was a nuclear test that the North Korean regime has vowed to carry out despite international protests.


Official state media said the test was conducted in a safe manner and is aimed at coping with "outrageous" U.S. hostility that "violently" undermines the North's peaceful, sovereign rights to launch satellites. Unlike previous tests, North Korea used a powerful explosive nuclear bomb that is smaller and lighter, state media reported.


President Obama called the test "a highly provocative act" in a statement Tuesday morning.


"The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,"Obama said.


"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region," he added.


The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on North Korea's nuclear test later this morning.


China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement expressing "firm opposition" to the test.


"We strongly urge the DPRK (North Korea) to abide by its denuclearization commitments, and to refrain from further actions that could lead to a deterioration of the situation. Safeguarding Korean Peninsula and East Asian peace and stability serves the shared interests of all parties," the statement read.










North Korea Threatens More Nuclear Tests, Warns U.S. Watch Video







China, North Korea's main ally in the region, has warned North Korea it would cut back severely needed food assistance if it carried out a test. Each year China donates approximately half of the food North Korea lacks to feed its people and half of all oil the country consumes.


Suspicions were aroused when the U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a magnitude 4.9 earthquake Tuesday in North Korea.


The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told ABC News, "We confirm that a suspicious seismic event has taken place in North Korea."


"The event shows clear explosion-like characteristics and its location is roughly congruent with the 2006 and 2009 DPRK nuclear tests," said Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the organization.


"If confirmed as a nuclear test, this act would constitute a clear threat to international peace and security, and challenges efforts made to strengthen global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation," Toth said in a statement on the organization's web site.


Kim Min-seok, a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters that North Korea informed United States and China that it intended to carry out another nuclear test, according to the AP. But U.S. officials did not respond to calls from ABC News Monday night.


The seismic force measured 6 to 7 kilotons, according to South Korea.


"Now that's an absolutely huge explosion by conventional terms. It's a smallish, but not tiny explosion by nuclear terms. It's about two-thirds the size of the bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima," James Acton, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told ABC News.


North Korea threatened in January to carry out a "higher-level" test following the successful Dec. 12 launch of a long range rocket. At the time, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un said his country's weapons tests were specifically targeting the United States.


The suspicious tremor comes just hours before President Obama is to give the State of the Union address, and it marks the first diplomatic test in the region for new Secretary of State John Kerry.


Also, South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, is scheduled to be sworn in on Feb. 25. One of North Korea's biggest holidays, Kim Jong-il's birthday, falls on Feb. 16.


Both of North Korea's previous tests used a plutonium-based method for making bomb fuel. The first was deemed a failure, the second only slightly less so. If the most recent test used HEU (highly enriched uranium), a far more difficult-to-detect method of producing bomb fuel, it would be a significant and worrisome step forward for North Korea's weapons program.






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Who is responsible for the looming ‘sequester’ spending cuts?

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(Carolyn Kaster/AP)



Question: “Looking at all this, do you regret that this White House suggested this in the first place?”



White House spokesman Jay Carney: “The notion much propounded by the spin doctors on the Republican side that the sequester is somehow something that the White House and the president alone wanted and desired is a fanciful confection. The fact of the matter is, as I think you all recall in the wake of the passage of the Budget Control Act, it was the Republicans, including the Republican Leader of the House, who celebrated it as getting 98 percent of what they wanted.”




Question: “But does he regret it anyway? I mean, regardless of whose idea it was, does he now, looking at all of the consequences that are --”



Carney: “What he regrets is that we ever had a circumstance like this country was forced to contend with in the summer of 2011 that there was a certain amount of enthusiasm even within the Republican Party, especially within the House, for the prospect of the United States defaulting on its obligations for the first time in its history.”


--exchange at the White House press briefing, Feb. 8, 2013

Who is responsible for the notorious automatic spending cuts contained in the sequester — the White House or congressional Republicans?

It’s a little like asking what came first — the chicken or the egg?

Carney’s remarks above indicate how the answer differs depending on when you start counting.

In a bit of elegant spin, Carney first denies that the sequester is something “the White House and the president alone wanted and desired.” That actually wasn’t the question. Rather, the reporter wondered whether the president regretted proposing the sequester.

Then, Carney skips back, and pins the blame on the Republicans for using the debt ceiling as a tool to force the White House to make spending cuts, including the threat of default.

In other words, the sequester never would have been proposed if not for the threat of default. (You could play this backwards game of leapfrog for a while. Republicans might argue that the debt ceiling fight would not have been happened if Obama had been more diligent about reducing the deficit. And then Obama might reach back and blame the Bush tax cuts for keeping revenue so low. And so on.)

We’ve taken two deep dives on this issue in the past, so here is a summary of our conclusions, along with links to the original articles.

Who first suggested the sequester?


During one of the presidential debates, Obama declared that he did not propose the sequester, but that Congress did. Drawing largely on the reporting of our colleague Bob Woodward, we concluded that claim was worth Four Pinocchios.

In sum, during the debt-ceiling showdown, the White House originally proposed the idea of a compulsory trigger, with White House aide Gene Sperling calling it an “automatic sequester.” Initially, the White House plan was to include tax revenue, not just spending cuts. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was “nervous” about using it as a budget tool.

But once tax increases were off the table, the White House staff came up with a sequestration plan that only had spending cuts and sold Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the idea. The White House put together the plan for sequester, using language from a congressional law approved 25 years ago.

Under the plan, a congressional “supercommittee” was tasked with finding ways to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion over 10 years. If the committee failed — which it did — then automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion would take effect at the beginning of 2013. (The effective date was delayed until March 1 as part of the “fiscal cliff” agreement.)

Who is responsible for the looming cuts?


No matter who first came up with the idea, it took bipartisan votes to make it a reality. In other words, the sequester was part of a negotiation in which the two sides were haggling over an enforcement trigger that would cause pain on both sides. We examined this question when we awarded Two Pinocchios to the Mitt Romney campaign for trying to blame the defense cuts contained in the sequester only on President Obama.

As noted above, the Obama administration originally wanted the trigger to hinge on repeal of Bush tax cuts on the wealthy. Republicans responded by saying the trigger should be balanced by repeal of the individual mandate in Obama’s health-care law.

Ultimately, that was too much for both sides, so they settled on security spending (pain for Republicans) balanced by nonsecurity spending (pain for Democrats). But the fact remains that both sides agreed to take this step together.

In other words, Republicans cannot hide from the consequences of their own actions, especially because at the time they crowed that they had won a great victory.

Here, for instance, is a statement by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the Budget Committee, about the law that contained the sequester: “The Budget Control Act represents a victory for those committed to controlling government spending and growing our economy.”

The Bottom Line


The sequester was clearly an idea advanced by the White House in order to avoid a second debt ceiling showdown in Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Thus, the sequester was structured to include only spending cuts — and to take effect after the election if the supercommittee was unable to reach a deal.

But Republicans agreed to this plan and thus also are equally responsible for the looming across-the-board cuts, absent a bipartisan agreement to delay or change them.

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Aero India Show attracts over 700 exhibitors from 27 countries

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NEW DELHI : Global armament companies were in for a bit of disappointment at the Aero India Show, with India's defence minister warning of budget cuts this year.

Military spending will reportedly go down by about US$2 billion.

Many firms had been hoping to secure multi-billion dollar deals at the Aero India Show, which ended on Sunday.

One of Asia's biggest air shows, the Aero India Show showcased the latest in aerospace, defence and civil aviation, attracting more than 700 exhibitors from 27 countries.

But for armament companies, their trip to Bangalore was to pitch for multi-billion dollar contracts from the world's biggest weapons importer.

A K Antony, India's Defence Minister, said: "There are big opportunities for major international aerospace companies to enter into new alliances and forge partnerships with the Indian industry and set up bases in India."

Makers of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) were at the show.

They are hoping that India would add more surveillance drones to its existing fleet, used mainly to monitor Maoist rebels.

Dale McDowall, director of business development and strategy at Insitu Pacific, said: "In fact, we have achieved more than 675,000 operating hours around the world. Of course, that includes predominantly the operations that occurred in the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"However, we have other nations around the world, throughout the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere that are operating the UAVs."

The five-day show concluded on Sunday with a spectacular aerobatics display by the Russian Knights.

Another highlight at the show was the Rafale fighter jet from Dassault Aviation.

India wants to buy 126 of them and has yet to finalise the US$10 billion deal with its French makers.

The deal has been put on "highest priority" in India's budget for the upcoming financial year.

N A K Browne, chief of the Indian Air Force, said: "It is not directed against China...It is for every body. We need to have a strong and potent airpower capability in the country, to meet any of the threats or any of the challenges."

The Indian Army also received its first indigenously-developed attack helicopter.

The Rudra is an Advanced Light Helicopter, equipped with state-of-the art weaponry and self-defence systems.

The border rivalry with Pakistan and China has prompted New Delhi to go on a billion-dollar shopping spree to update its ageing military hardware. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, India received 9 per cent of global arms transfers from 2006 to 2010, making it the world's largest importer of weapons.

- CNA/ms



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BJP condemns Omar Abdullah for 'sympathetic chord' towards Afzal Guru

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NEW DELHI: BJP on Monday charged Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah with "provoking" the situation in Kashmir Valley and condemned his interview for having a "sympathetic chord" for Afzal Guru who was hanged last week for his role in the Parliament attack case.

Talking to reporters, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said the Congress should clear its stand on the interview given by Abdullah as the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister was "part and parcel" of the UPA.

"We deeply condemn his interview because it has a sympathetic chord for the terrorist who attacked Indian Parliament, the idea of India and condemned to death eight years ago.

"So, to raise the issue of discrimination or some other references, actually is nothing but provoking the situation in the Valley. At least the chief Mminister of Jammu and Kashmir should not do this," he said.

The BJP spokesperson was addressing the media after senior party leaders including L K Advani, former party president Nitin Gadkari and others paid homage to its former chief Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay on his 45th death anniversary.

Javadekar said such statements from a chief minister were "totally unacceptable" when the country was feeling "national sense of relief" after Guru was executed.

"We condemn his statement and we want to ask Congress whether they agree with what Omar Abdullah has said because they are part of parcel of UPA and they are supporting it. So, Congress owes responsibility to respond to what Omar Abdullah is saying," he said.

Yesterday, Abdullah had voiced displeasure at the execution of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and said it would reinforce a sense of alienation and injustice among generation of youth in the Valley.

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Year of the Snake: The Serpent Behind the Horoscope

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On February 10, people all around the world will ring in the Lunar New Year with paper lanterns and firecrackers. At the heart of it all sits the snake, a slithery reptile feared for its sharp fangs and revered for its undeniable charm. (Watch videos of some of the world's deadliest snakes.)

Those born in the Year of the Snake are said to be intelligent and quick thinking, but they can also be dishonest and prone to show off. Though based on Chinese astrology, some of these traits are similar to characteristics of the actual serpent.

Snakes are known to be great at outsmarting their predators and prey. Their colorful, patterned skin makes them some of the best tricksters in the animal kingdom. And despite a bad rap as frightening creatures, snakes never fail to fascinate scientists, explorers, and zoo-goers. (See pictures of snakes.)

With more than 3,400 recognized species, snakes exhibit incredible diversity in everything from behavior and habitats to skin colors and patterns.

"As a vertebrate lacking in limbs, all snakes look largely like other snakes, yet they succeed in tremendous diversity in multiple directions," said Andrew Campbell, herpetology collections manager at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute.

To usher in the Year of the Snake, Campbell and herpetologist Dennis Ferraro at University of Nebraska-Lincoln weigh in on some of the snake's qualities that the Chinese zodiac predicts people born this year will have.

Horoscope: Snakes have an innately elegant personality but can also be ostentatious at times.

In Nature: Snakes come in all different colors, patterns, and textures, making them some of nature's most visually stunning creatures.

According to Campbell, the utility of their coloring falls into two main categories: to use as camouflage and to warn predators to stay away.

Among the most beautiful are the emerald tree boa (Corallus caninus)—whose vibrant green body is decorated with white stripes resembling lightning bolts—and the Brazilian rainbow boa (Epicrates cenchria), characterized by its iridescent skin and the large black rings down its back.

For some snakes, the diversity in color occurs within the same species, which is why Ferraro tells his student not to identify snakes by colors. For example, the polymorphic bush viper (Atheris squamigera), many of which are green, also come in shades of yellow, orange, red, and blue, as captured in photographer Guido Mocafico's "Serpent Still Life" photo series.

Horoscope: The snake is known to be the master seducer of the Chinese zodiac.

In Nature: Female garter snakes (Thamnophis) have all the luck with the gentlemen.

When a female garter snake is ready to mate, she announces it by producing chemicals called pheromones. Males, upon encountering the scent, immediately come crawling out and gather around the female in a large, wriggling "mating ball."

The competition intensifies when a male passing by the ball tries to fool the others by producing a scent that mimics that of the female, said Ferraro.

As soon as his rivals are led off in the wrong direction, the trickster slides right in. In areas with smaller populations of garter snakes, each ball consists of about 12 males and one female.

But in places like Manitoba, Canada, where garter snakes travel to certain areas to mate after coming out of hibernation, a mating ball can have thousands of males and only a hundred females.

Horoscope: Though snakes don't often tell lies, they will use deception when they feel it's necessary and they think they can get away with it.

In Nature: When it comes to using trickery to catch dinner, or to hide from predators, snakes are no amateurs.

Their sneaky techniques range from tricking fish to swim right into their mouths, to playing dead when threatened, to using their wormlike tails to lure in prey.

The most cunning of them all is the two-headed snake. To protect against a sneak attack from behind, the two-headed snake's tail looks just like its head. While the business end looks for food, the snake coils up its body and rests its tail on top to look like it is on guard.

The tail can even mimic the behavior of a retreating snake to trick predators into thinking they're going face-to-face with their opponent.

Horoscope: When snakes get down to work, they are organized and highly efficient, and they work quickly and quietly.

In Nature: While snakes are often perceived as lazy, Campbell said people are mistaken. "What we perceive as shy, lazy, or inactive is really efficiency," he said.

"On average, they are bigger than other lizards and can build a lot of body mass. They do that by being efficient in feeding and traveling." In other words, snakes don't move very much because they don't have to.

When it comes to food, snakes catch prey that are significantly larger than them so they can eat less frequently. This reduces the time they spend hunting and thus makes them less vulnerable to falling victim to a predator themselves.

For Campbell, the most impressive hunter is the eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus Adamanteus), which is able to hunt and kill its prey very quickly using venom, so it doesn't have to travel far. "Because they don't have to do that, they can become relatively large and heavy, being able to build up body mass and not having to spend that energy hunting."

Horoscope: Snakes are charming, with excellent communication skills.

In Nturea: For snakes, their visual and auditory senses don't mean much when it comes to communicating with each other.

Instead, they use their sense of smell and the chemicals produced by their musk glands. Unlike mammals, a snake picks up scent through the forks of its tongue.

When the snake retracts its tongue, it inserts the forks into grooves in an olfactory organ located at the roof of its mouth. Depending on which fork picks up a stronger scent, the snake knows in which direction to go when looking for prey or a mate.

It's when snakes are threatened that they use sight and sound, said Ferraro. Rattlesnakes, for example, shake their tails, making a loud rattling noise to ward off predators.


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Possible Dorner Sighting Leads to Store Evacuation

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A Northridge, Calif., home improvement store was evacuated tonight because of a possible sighting of suspected cop-killer Christopher Dorner, just hours after police announced a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest.


As helicopters hovered overhead and a command center was established, police searched the Lowe's store and eventually told shoppers they could leave, but could not take their cars out of the parking lot.


LAPD spokesman Gus Villanueva said the major response to the possible sighting was a precaution, but couldn't say whether Dorner was in the area.


The announcement of the $1 million reward today came as authorities in Big Bear, Calif., scaled back their search for Dorner, the disgruntled ex-cop who is suspected in three revenge killings.


"This is the largest local reward ever offered, to our knowledge," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference today. "This is an act of domestic terrorism. This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered."


The money for the reward was pooled by businesses, government, local law enforcement leaders and individual donors, Beck said.



PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings


The reward comes on the fourth day of a manhunt for Dorner, who has left Southern California on edge after he allegedly went on a killing spree last week to avenge his firing from the police force. Dorner outlined his grievances in a 6,000 word so-called "manifesto" and said he will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.






Irvine Police Department/AP Photo











Manhunt for Alleged Cop Killer Heads to California Mountains Watch Video









Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video







Dorner's threats have prompted the LAPD to provide more than 50 law enforcement families with security and surveillance detail, Beck said.


Authorities are chasing leads, however they declined to say where in order to not impede the investigation.


Dorner's burned-out truck was found Thursday near Big Bear Lake, a popular skiing destination located 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.


Investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned, sources told ABC News.


The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.


Full Coverage: Christopher Jordan Dorner


Officers have spent the past couple of days going door-to-door and searching vacant cabins. The manhunt was scaled back to 25 officers and one helicopter in the resort town today, according to the San Bernadino Sheriff's Office.


On Saturday, Beck announced he would reopen the investigation into Dorner's firing but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive ex-cop.


"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," Beck said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint."


Dorner is suspected of killing Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence last Sunday in their car in the parking lot of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.


Quan's father, Randal Quan, was a retired captain with the LAPD and attorney who represented Dorner before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force in 2008.


On Wednesday, after Dorner was identified as a suspect in the double murder, police believe he ambushed two Riverside police officers, killing one and wounding the other.


The next day, Randal Quan reported he received a taunting call from a man claiming to be Dorner who told him that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to court documents documents.


Anyone with information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner is asked to call the LAPD task force at 213-486-6860.


ABC News' Dean Schabner, Jack Date, Pierre Thomas, Jason Ryan and Clayton Sandell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Many 2011 federal budget cuts had little real-world effect

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Late on the night of April 8, 2011, Washington’s leaders announced that they’d just done something extraordinary. They had agreed to cut the federal budget — and cut it big.


“The largest annual spending cut in our history,” President Obama called it in a televised speech. To prevent a government shutdown, the parties had agreed to slash $37.8 billion: more than the budgets of the Labor and Commerce departments, combined.


At the Capitol, Republicans savored a win for austerity. There would be “deep, but responsible, reductions in virtually all areas of government,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.)
promised a few days later, before the deal passed.

Nearly two years later, however, these landmark budget cuts have fallen far short of their promises.

In some areas, they did bring significant cutbacks in federal spending. Grants for clean water dried up. Cities got less money for affordable housing.

But the bill also turned out to be an epic kind of Washington illusion. It was stuffed with gimmicks that made the cuts seem far bigger — and the politicians far bolder — than they actually were.

In the real world, in fact, many of their “cuts” cut nothing at all. The Transportation Department got credit for “cutting” a $280 million tunnel that had been canceled six months earlier. It also “cut” a $375,000 road project that had been created by a legislative typo, on a road that did not exist.

At the Census Bureau, officials got credit for a whopping $6 billion cut, simply for obeying the calendar. They promised not to hold the expensive 2010 census again in 2011.

Today, an examination of 12 of the largest cuts shows that, thanks in part to these gimmicks, federal agencies absorbed $23 billion in reductions without losing a single employee.

“Many of the cuts we put in were smoke and mirrors,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a hard-line conservative now in his second term. “That’s the lesson from April 2011: that when Washington says it cuts spending, it doesn’t mean the same thing that normal people mean.”

Now the failures of that 2011 bill have come back to haunt the leaders who crafted it. Disillusionment with that bill has persuaded many conservatives to reject a line-by-line, program-by-program approach to cutting the budget.

Instead, many have embraced the sequester, a looming $85 billion across-the-board cut set to take effect March 1. Obama and GOP leaders have said they don’t like the idea: the sequester is a “dumb cut,” in Washington parlance, which would cut the government’s best ideas along with its worst without regard to merit.

But at least, conservatives say, you can trust that this one is for real.

“There has been a shift in resolve. They have been burned in these fictional cuts. And so the sequester is like real cuts,” said Chris Chocola, a former congressman who now heads the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group. “So I think that there is a willingness to say, ‘We’ve really got to cut stuff, and [the cuts] have got to be real.”

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Rare exhibits dating back 150 million years to go on display

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SINGAPORE: The first of what visitors to the upcoming Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum's new building can expect to see were put on display recently including a prehistoric shrimp and an ancient relative of sea stars.

The exhibits are part of the collection that will be housed in the museum's new building at the National University of Singapore, as announced at the building's recent groundbreaking ceremony.

Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large and Honorary Chairman of Singapore's National Heritage Board, Professor Tommy Koh, graced the event.

Professor Koh first advocated the idea for a natural history museum for Singapore in 2004.

When completed in 2014, the new building is set to house one of the largest collections of Southeast Asian biodiversity in the region as well as three nearly-complete dinosaur fossils - fondly known as Prince, Apollonia and Twinky - from the Jurassic period.

- CNA/ck



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Changi Airport heralds in the LNY with auspicious floral displays

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SINGAPORE: Changi Airport is all set to herald in the Lunar New Year decked in festive finery.

In recent years, florists have started to dye the white flowers in a variety of colours including red, blue and orange.

But horticulturalists said they've mostly hung on to tradition.

Manager at Changi Airport Operations Planning, Look-Tan Hwee Sung said: "Like hydrangea, in Chinese is called 'xiu jiu hua', it represents love. 'Fong mei' is related to 'fong huang', which means 'phoenix tail', which is related to prosperity. In the olden days, 'fong mei' was always in the royal family and things like that."

Most of the plants were grown locally or imported from the Cameron Highlands. And it took the 10-men horticulture team two months to select and design the flora displays.

Look-Tan Hwee Sung said: "The flowers are in full bloom because throughout the propagation period we feed them different types of fertiliser. Either you get cuttings or seed sowings, but we'll target for the date for it to bloom."

The 5th day of the Lunar New Year falls on 14 February which happens to be Valentines Day. So they've added a touch of romance to the terminals, along with Singapore's favourite couple - Kai Kai and Jia Jia.

The displays will be around until 6 March before making way for the next festive season.

- CNA/ck



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