RP's Jeyaretnam to hold Meet-the-People session on Wednesday

SINGAPORE: Reform Party candidate Kenneth Jeyaretnam has said he plans to hold a Meet-the-People's session on Wednesday evening.He met Punggol East residents at Rumbia LRT Station at 7.30am on Tuesday, a day after he cancelled a feedback session with residents due to flu.Speaking to Channel NewsAsia after breakfast, Mr Jeyaretnam said he will continue to walk the ground. So far, he has...

Read More..

Cold wave continues to sweep Rajasthan

JAIPUR: Cold wave conditions on Tuesday continued to sweep Rajasthan where Sriganganagar recorded a low of 2.3 degrees Celsius. Churu, Pilani, Chittorgarh, Dabok and Jaipur shivered at 2.8, 3.1, 3.5, 3.8 and 4.4 degrees Celsius respectively. Other places recorded a low between 4.5 and 9 degrees Celsius, according to a MET report here....

Read More..

Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

Read More..

Inauguration: 7.5 Things You Should Have Seen

A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night–and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don’t let you off for a federal holiday.Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn’t know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs  news professionals stationed in Washington,...

Read More..

Algeria hostage toll rises with report of Japanese deaths

ALGIERS, Algeria (Reuters) - The hostage death toll from a four-day siege at an Algerian gas plant deep in the Sahara has risen to almost 60, with at least nine Japanese nationals also reported killed in an attack claimed by a veteran Islamist fighter on behalf of al Qaeda. Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is expected to give details at a Monday news conference about one of the...

Read More..

China labour camps set for abolition: legal official

BEIJING: China's hugely controversial "re-education" labour camps are set to be abolished this year, state media Monday quoted a senior legal official as saying.It is another signal that the widely criticised system -- where people can be sentenced to up to four years' "re-education" by a police panel, without an open trial -- is coming to an end.The comments come after the Communist Party's...

Read More..

Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

Read More..

Obamas Share the Love, Even for Michelle's Bangs

Jan 20, 2013 10:49pm (Charles Dharapak/AP Photo)President Obama used the first public remarks of his second term to address what he called the “most significant” event of this weekend: his wife’s much-talked-about new haircut.“I love her bangs,” Obama told supporters at an inaugural reception at the National Building Museum. “She looks good. She always looks good.”First...

Read More..

Algeria ends desert siege with 23 hostages dead

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algerian troops ended a siege by Islamist militants at a gas plant in the Sahara desert where 23 hostages died, with a final assault which killed all the remaining hostage-takers. Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind...

Read More..

By-election is about choosing the right candidate who can serve: minister

SINGAPORE: Education Minister Heng Swee Keat said the by-election in Punggol East is not about voting more opposition into Parliament. He said it is about electing the right candidate who can best serve the residents in the ward.Mr Heng said these in response to comments made by the Workers' Party (WP) secretary-general Low Thia Khiang at the WP rally on Saturday.Mr Low had said that...

Read More..