Man arrested after suicide attempt at Sengkang






SINGAPORE: A Chinese man has been arrested after he threatened to jump from the 16th floor of a block of flats in Sengkang.

The incident happened at Block 210A Compassvale Lane.

Police said they received a call for assistance at 12.45am on Friday morning. The Singapore Civil Defence Force was alerted to the incident at 12.53am.

One fire engine, one red rhino, four support vehicles and an ambulance were dispatched.

The man was rescued by personnel from the SCDF's Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART), which laid a rescue net and deployed two rappellers.

Police investigations are ongoing.

-CNA/ac



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Italian naval guards return to Kerala

KOCHI: Italian naval guards, who were allowed to go to their native country to celebrate Christmas with their family, returned to Kochi on Friday. Naval guards Latore Massimiliano and Salvatore Gironi arrived at Cochin International Airport in a special flight.

According to officials, they will proceed to Kollam magistrate court where they will surrender their passports.

"We have kept our word and have full faith in the Indian judicial system. I'm sure the people of Kerala and the country will look upon this as an act that shows the good relations the two countries have," Italy's consular general told reporters.

The guards, accused of shooting down two Indian fishermen off Kerala coast on February 15, were staying in Kochi on conditional bail and they were given permission to go to Italy by Kerala high court on a plea submitted by them.

The Kerala high court allowed the two Italian to visit their homes for Christmas after Italy gave an undertaking that the guards would return to India after their short stay in Italy. The high court modified the bail condition and directed that they should return to India on or before 3 pm on January 10. They should also furnish a bank guarantee for Rs 6 crore before the court.

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CDC: 1 in 24 admit nodding off while driving


NEW YORK (AP) — This could give you nightmares: 1 in 24 U.S. adults say they recently fell asleep while driving.


And health officials behind the study think the number is probably higher. That's because some people don't realize it when they nod off for a second or two behind the wheel.


"If I'm on the road, I'd be a little worried about the other drivers," said the study's lead author, Anne Wheaton of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


In the CDC study released Thursday, about 4 percent of U.S. adults said they nodded off or fell asleep at least once while driving in the previous month. Some earlier studies reached a similar conclusion, but the CDC telephone survey of 147,000 adults was far larger. It was conducted in 19 states and the District of Columbia in 2009 and 2010.


CDC researchers found drowsy driving was more common in men, people ages 25 to 34, those who averaged less than six hours of sleep each night, and — for some unexplained reason — Texans.


Wheaton said it's possible the Texas survey sample included larger numbers of sleep-deprived young adults or apnea-suffering overweight people.


Most of the CDC findings are not surprising to those who study this problem.


"A lot of people are getting insufficient sleep," said Dr. Gregory Belenky, director of Washington State University's Sleep and Performance Research Center in Spokane.


The government estimates that about 3 percent of fatal traffic crashes involve drowsy drivers, but other estimates have put that number as high as 33 percent.


Warning signs of drowsy driving: Feeling very tired, not remembering the last mile or two, or drifting onto rumble strips on the side of the road. That signals a driver should get off the road and rest, Wheaton said.


Even a brief moment nodding off can be extremely dangerous, she noted. At 60 mph, a single second translates to speeding along for 88 feet — the length of two school buses.


To prevent drowsy driving, health officials recommend getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, treating any sleep disorders and not drinking alcohol before getting behind the wheel.


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Online:


CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr


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Central African Republic rebels halt advance, agree to peace talks


DAMARA, Central African Republic (Reuters) - Rebels in Central African Republic said they had halted their advance on the capital on Wednesday and agreed to start peace talks, averting a clash with regionally backed troops.


The Seleka rebels had pushed to within striking distance of Bangui after a three-week onslaught and threatened to oust President Francois Bozize, accusing him of reneging on a previous peace deal and cracking down on dissidents.


Their announcement on Wednesday gave the leader only a limited reprieve as the fighters told Reuters they might insist on his removal in the negotiations.


"I have asked our forces not to move their positions starting today because we want to enter talks in (Gabon's capital) Libreville for a political solution," said Seleka spokesman Eric Massi, speaking by telephone from Paris.


"I am in discussion with our partners to come up with proposals to end the crisis, but one solution could be a political transition that excludes Bozize," he said.


Bozize on Wednesday sacked his Army Chief of Staff and took over the defense minister's role from his son, Jean Francis Bozize, according to a decree read on national radio, a day after publicly criticizing the military for failing to repel the rebels.


The advance by Seleka, an alliance of mostly northeastern rebel groups, was the latest in a series of revolts in a country at the heart of one of Africa's most turbulent regions - and the most serious since the Chad-backed insurgency that swept Bozize to power in 2003.


Diplomatic sources have said talks organized by central African regional bloc ECCAS could start on January 10. The United States, the European Union and France have called on both sides to negotiate and spare civilians.


Central African Republic is one of the least developed countries in the world despite its deposits of gold, diamonds and other minerals. French nuclear energy group Areva mines the country's Bakouma uranium deposit - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.


RELIEF IN BANGUI


News of the rebel halt eased tension in Bangui, where residents had been stockpiling food and water and staying indoors after dark.


"They say they are no longer going to attack Bangui, and that's great news for us," said Jaqueline Loza in the crumbling riverside city.


ECCAS members Chad, Congo Republic, Gabon and Cameroon have sent hundreds of soldiers to reinforce CAR's army after a string of rebel victories since early December.


Gabonese General Jean Felix Akaga, commander of the regional force, said his troops were defending the town of Damara, 75 km (45 miles) north of Bangui and close to the rebel front.


"Damara is a red line not to be crossed ... Damara is in our control and Bangui is secure," he told Reuters. "If the rebellion decides to approach Damara, they know they will encounter a force that will react."


Soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs, rocket propelled grenade launchers and truck-mounted machineguns had taken up positions across the town, which was otherwise nearly-abandoned.


Some of the fighters wore turbans that covered their faces and had charms strung around their necks and arms meant to protect them against enemy bullets.


Chad's President Idriss Deby, one of Bozize's closest allies, had warned the rebels the regional force would confront them if they approached the town.


Chad provided training and equipment to the rebellion that brought Bozize to power by ousting then-president Ange Felix Patasse, who Chad accused of supporting Chadian dissidents.


Chad is also keen to keep a lid on instability in the territory close to its main oil export pipeline and has stepped in to defend Bozize against insurgents in the past.


A CAR government minister told Reuters the foreign troop presence strengthened Bozize's bargaining position ahead of the Libreville peace talks.


"The rebels are now in a position of weakness," the minister said, asking not to be named. "They should therefore stop imposing conditions like the departure of the president."


Central African Republic is one of a number of countries in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local soldiers track down the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group which has killed thousands of civilians across four nations.


France has a 600-strong force in CAR to defend about 1,200 of its citizens who live there.


Paris used air strikes to defend Bozize against a rebellion in 2006. But French President Francois Hollande turned down a request for more help, saying the days of intervening in other countries' affairs were over.


(Additional reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana in Bangui and Jon Herskovitz in Johannesburg; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Janet Lawrence)



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One killed as cyclone hits New Caledonia






NOUMEA: One man was killed and another was missing after Cyclone Freda hit New Caledonia, as landslides blocked roads and high winds downed power lines, officials in the French Pacific territory said on Thursday.

Wind gusts had weakened to 90 kilometres per hour (60 miles per hour) as it moved towards the east Caledonian island of Mare, after hitting the Solomon Islands earlier this week as a destructive storm with gusts reaching 231 kph.

High commissioner Albert Dupuy told reporters in the capital Noumea that one man had drowned in high seas whipped up by Freda, while an 18-year-old male was missing after attempting to cross a swollen river.

Some 3,200 people were without power, Dupuy said, adding that multiple roadways were blocked by landslides or flooding.

The storm was moving eastward at 30 kph and set to leave the New Caledonian region over the next 48 hours, officials said.

- AFP/al



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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating


This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.


After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.


It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.


All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.


For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.


Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."


What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.


"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.


Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.


What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.


A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.


The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.


Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.


Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.


"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.


The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.


A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.


Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.


"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."


___


Online:


Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html


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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe


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Hillary Clinton Discharged From Hospital


Jan 2, 2013 7:18pm







ap hillary clinton ll 130102 wblog Hillary Clinton Discharged From Hospital

Hillary Clinton, rear center, leaving hospital. Frank Franklin II/AP Photo.


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been released from the hospital following treatment for a blood clot in her head, the State Department confirmed on Wednesday.


In a statement, Deputy Assistant Secretary Philippe Reines said Clinton’s medical team “advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery.  She’s eager to get back to the office.”


Clinton’s daughter Chelsea tweeted, “Thank you to the doctors, nurses & staff at New York Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University Medical Center for taking great care of my Mom.’


State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters on Wednesday that the secretary has been “quite active on the phone,” working from the hospital, regularly speaking to State Department staff.


Last Sunday, Secretary Clinton was admitted for treatment of a blood clot in her head that developed following a concussion she sustained earlier this month after fainting from illness. The  pictures of Clinton, smiling and wearing sunglasses,  are the first time she has been seen in public since Dec. 7.


Earlier on Wednesday the Secretary was seen by journalists leaving a building at New York-Presbyterian Hospital with her husband and daughter. Officials told the Associated Press that Clinton was just having tests done at another location on the sprawling hospital campus.


Hours later, she was released for good, driving away in a black van with her family.



SHOWS: World News







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At least 61 crushed to death in Ivory Coast stampede


ABIDJAN (Reuters) - At least 61 people were crushed to death in a stampede after a New Year's Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan early on Tuesday, officials said.


Witnesses said police had tried to control crowds around the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium following the celebrations, triggering a panic in which scores were trampled.


"The estimate we can give right now is 49 people hospitalized ... and 61 people dead," said the chief of staff of Abidjan's fire department Issa Sacko.


Crying women searched for missing family members outside the stadium on Tuesday morning. The area was covered in patches of dried blood and abandoned shoes.


"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.


Sanata Zoure, a market vendor injured in the incident, said New Year's revelers going home after watching the fireworks had been stopped by police near the stadium.


"We were walking with our children and we came upon barricades, and people started falling into each other. We were trampled with our children," she said.


Another witness said police arrived to control the crowd after a mob began chasing a pickpocket.


President Alassane Ouattara called the deaths a national tragedy and said an investigation was under way to find out what happened.


"I hope that we can determine what caused this drama so that we can ensure it never happens again," he said after visiting the injured in hospital.


The country, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.


Ivory Coast's security forces once were among the best trained in the region, but a decade of political turmoil and the 2011 war has left them in disarray.


At least 18 people were killed in another stampede during a football match in an Abidjan stadium in 2009.


(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Michael Roddy)



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Asian markets rise as US averts fiscal cliff






HONG KONG: Asian shares rose sharply Wednesday as the US Congress backed a deal to avert a "fiscal cliff" of drastic tax rises and spending cuts in an upbeat start to the year for regional markets.

As the House of Representatives approved the bill, which avoids tax hikes for most Americans and delays automatic spending cuts, the dollar strengthened against the yen and oil prices surged.

Hong Kong was up 1.91 percent, Singapore gained 1.26 percent, Seoul rose 1.48 percent, and Sydney put on 1.29 percent. Financial markets in Japan and China were closed for a public holiday.

Asian shares had risen on Wednesday morning in anticipation of a deal in Washington, strengthening further after it was approved by US lawmakers.

Jason Hughes, head of premium client management for IG Markets Singapore, said the market reaction was "very positive".

"With the final hurdle being passed now, we've got a minimum deal that avoids any immediate threat of the US falling off the cliff... that's definitely boosted Asian equities markets," he said.

The gains followed jumps in US stocks on New Year's Eve as Congress moved towards a deal.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 1.28 percent, the S&P 500 gained 1.69 percent and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite surged 2.00 percent.

The upbeat start for shares in 2013 will be a relief for investors after the uncertainty that clouded markets in the final months of last year as wrangling over the fiscal cliff dragged on.

The US deal passed the Senate early on Tuesday but its fate hung in the balance for hours as House conservatives sought to amend it to include big spending cuts, which would likely have killed it.

In the end, the House voted by 257 votes to 167 to pass the original bill with minority Democrats joining a smaller number of majority Republicans to pass the legislation after a bitterly contested session on New Year's Day.

The deal between the White House and Senate Republicans raises taxes on the rich and puts off automatic $109 billion budget cuts for two months.

Had it splintered, all Americans would have been hit by tax increases and spending cuts would have kicked in across the government, in a combined $500 billion shock that could have rocked the fragile recovery.

The House vote took place after a conservative rebellion fizzled when it became clear there were not sufficient votes in the restive Republican caucus to send an amended version of the bill with spending cuts back to the Senate.

Republican party leaders ultimately feared they would carry the can if the deal collapsed.

On currency markets in Asian afternoon trade, the dollar rose to 87.18 yen from 86.69 yen on Monday and the euro strengthened to $1.3272 from $1.3192. The single currency was at 115.71 yen from 114.45 yen.

On oil markets, New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February gained 63 cents to $92.45 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for February delivery advanced 65 cents to $111.76.

Gold was at $1,677.72 at 0440 GMT compared with $1,658.90 late Friday.

- AFP/al



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Supreme Court upholds appointment of Gujarat's Lokayukta

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed Gujarat government's plea challenging governor Kamla Beniwal's decision to appoint Justice (retd) R A Mehta as Lokayukta without consulting it.

Gujarat government had challenged the appointment on the grounds that the governor Kamala Beniwal had not consulted the state government.

A bench of Justices B S Chauhan and F M Ibrahim Kalifulla passed the order on the state's appeal against the order of the Gujarat high court which had upheld the governor's decision last January.

The high court's verdict had been delivered by Justice V M Sahai after a division bench gave a split judgement on the legitimacy of the governor's action in Justice Mehta's appointment as Lokayukta.

Justice Sahai, who decided the matter as a third judge, had also pulled up Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for creating a constitutional crisis and held that the governor had the discretionary power to make the appointment. He had said the "pranks" played by the chief minister on the Lokayukta issue "demonstrates deconstruction of our democracy."

Challenging the high court's order, the state government had contended that the personal discretion exercised by the governor in unilaterally issuing the warrant of appointment of Lokayukta was "unwarranted."

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