Hellos :D


♥ Friday, July 31


我们是新加坡公民,
誓愿不分种族、言语、宗教,团结一致,
建设公正平等的民主社会,
并为实现国家之幸福、繁荣与进步,共同努力。

Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 11:33 AM



SINGAPORE PLEDGE
LET'S ALL RECITE THE PLEDGE TOGETHER ON AUGUST 9, NATIONAL DAY
@ 8.22 PM

We the citizens of singapore
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, lahguage or religion,
to build a democratic society,
based on justice and equality,
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.

____________________________________________________________________

POSTED BY INDEX 34 OF CLASS 3/9
____________________________________________________________________

4/9 '10 loves x3 11:27 AM




SINGAPORE: An estimated 12,000 non—management staff at Singapore Airlines (SIA) will take a pay cut of 10 per cent for three months starting from August 1.

This comes after the carrier posted a S$271 million loss at the company level in the first quarter.
As a group, SIA posted a net loss of S$307.1 million for the three months ended June 30 compared to a net profit of S$358.6 million a year earlier.


But at company level, the loss for the carrier alone was S$271 million.


Under current union agreements, a pay cut is automatically triggered if the airline posts a net loss at a company level in any given quarter.


It applies across the board, but Channel NewsAsia understands, the bulk of those affected comprise cabin crew, pilots and ground staff employed in Singapore.


The quantum is determined by the amount of losses.


The pay cuts start at 2.5 per cent for losses at the company level of S$50 million, and go up to as much as 10 per cent for losses of S$200 million or more.


The pay cut is part of union—represented staff’s monthly variable component of 10 per cent.
An SIA spokesman told Channel NewsAsia that the pay cut may continue beyond November even if the carrier posts a profit in the second quarter.


This is because the losses are calculated accumulatively throughout the financial year.

— CNA/vm
Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 11:24 AM

♥ Sunday, July 26
4th Air Crash in 2 Months



TEHRAN (AFP) - - An Iranian airliner which overshot the runway and hurtled into a perimeter wall killing 16 people appears to have hit the tarmac too fast, an aviation official said on Saturday.

"This plane should have landed at a maximum speed of 165 miles per hour but it in fact landed at around 200 mph," acting Iranian Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) director Mohammad Ali Ilkhani told state television.

He said the licence of Aria Airlines, whose plane was involved in Friday's deadly accident in the northeastern city of Mashhad, had been revoked.

The official IRNA news agency cited ICAO spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh as saying a total of 16 people were killed -- 13 crew members and three passengers.

Nine crew members were from Kazakhstan while the other four were Iranians, Jafarzadeh said. The three passengers who lost their lives were all Iranians.

"The plane was carrying 153 passengers, and 31 were wounded in the incident," Jafarzadeh said, adding that the plane belonged to Kazakhstan but was chartered to Iranian carrier Aria Airlines.
"We just heard a boom then the plane swerved to the right and then all I can remember were people praying to God," one survivor, a man with his head covered in bandages, told Iranian state run television.

An old woman, lying on bed in hospital in a gown said people from a nearby village were first on the scene.

"It took the paramedics around 20 minutes to reach us; the ordinary people came first to our aid," she said.

Mashhad, Iran's second city, is a Shiite Muslim pilgrimage destination as it was the burial place of the eighth Shiite Imam, Reza.

Iranian media reported that the managing director of Aria Airlines, Mehdi Dadpey, was among those killed in the accident.

A senior transport official said on Friday that the incoming aircraft had overshot the runway.
"Instead of landing at the beginning of the tarmac, the plane landed in the middle of the runway," the ISNA news agency quoted deputy transport minister Ahmad Majidi as saying.
"Because the tarmacs length is short, it went off the tarmac and crashed into the opposite wall.
The crash came just 10 days after another air disaster when a Caspian Airlines plane crashed near the city of Qazvin, northwest of Tehran, killing all 168 on board.

Iran has been under years of international sanctions hampering its ability to buy modern Boeing or Airbus planes and it has suffered a number of aviation disasters over the past decade.
Its civil and military fleets are made up of ancient aircraft in very poor condition due to their age and lack of maintenance.

Published By: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 12:13 AM

♥ Wednesday, July 22


VARANASI, India (AFP) - - The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century plunged millions across Asia into temporary darkness on Wednesday, triggering scenes of religious fervour, fear and excitement in India and China.

Ancient superstition and modern commerce came together in what was likely to end up being the most watched eclipse in history, due to its path over Earth's most densely inhabited areas.
A woman was killed in a stampede in the holy city of Varanasi where tens of thousands of devout Hindus had crowded the river Ganges at dawn.

Police said the 80-year-old fainted in the crush to enter a temple near the banks of the river and suffocated, triggering panic. More than 20 people were injured.

With Hindu priests conducting special prayers, the crowds in Varanasi cheered and then raised their arms in salutation as the sun re-emerged from behind the moon, before they took a spiritually purifying dip in the river's holy waters.

A total solar eclipse usually occurs every 18 months or so, but Wednesday's spectacle was special for its maximum period of "totality" -- when the sun is wholly covered by the moon -- of six minutes and 39 seconds.

Such a lengthy duration will not be matched until the year 2132.

State-run China Central Television provided minute-by-minute coverage of what it dubbed "The Great Yangtze River Solar Eclipse" as the phenomenon cut a path along the river's drainage basin.

Millions of people in areas of southwestern China enjoyed a clear line of sight, according to images broadcast on CCTV, but the view was obstructed along much of its path by cloudy weather.

Shanghai viewers braved rain and overcast skies to witness the spectacle as darkness shrouded China's commercial hub at 9:36 am (0136 GMT).

"It's like magic, the day turns into night in such a short period of time ... I have no idea where I am right now. It feels like a different world," said Chen Hong, a biotech company chief executive.

Despite the weather, hotels along Shanghai's famed waterfront Bund packed in the customers with eclipse breakfast specials.

Those who could afford it grabbed expensive seats on planes chartered by specialist travel agencies that promised extended views of the eclipse as they chased the shadow eastwards.
The cone-shaped shadow, or umbra, created by the total eclipse first made landfall on the western Indian state of Gujarat shortly before 6:30 am (0100 GMT).

It then raced across India and squeezed between Bangladesh and Nepal before engulfing most of Bhutan, traversing the Chinese mainland and slipping back out to sea off Shanghai.

From there it moved across the islands of southern Japan and veered into the western Pacific.

In Mumbai, hundreds of people who trekked up to the Nehru planetarium clutching eclipse sunglasses found themselves reaching for umbrellas and rain jackets instead as heavy overnight rain turned torrential.

"We didn't want to watch it on television and we thought this would be the best place," said 19-year-old student Dwayne Fernandes. "We could've stayed in bed."

Many did stay home, fearful of the effects of the lunar shadow which some believe can lead to birth defects in pregnant women.

"I was advised not to leave the house as the eclipse brings bad luck to you and your family," said Deepa Shrestha, a 25-year-old housemaid in Kathmandu.

Superstition has always haunted the moment when Earth, moon and sun are perfectly aligned. The daytime extinction of the sun, the source of all life, is associated with war, famine, flood and the death or birth of rulers.

The ancient Chinese blamed a sun-eating dragon. In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to "swallow" the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

Some Indian astrologers had issued predictions laden with gloom and foreboding, and a gynaecologist at a Delhi hospital said many expectant mothers scheduled for July 22 caesarian deliveries insisted on changing the date.

The last total solar eclipse was on August 1 last year and also crossed China.

The next will be on July 11, 2010, but will occur almost entirely over the South Pacific.


Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 6:23 PM

♥ Saturday, July 18



Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

IN CINEMAS JULY 15

Story Synopsis

Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts turns out to be quite the exciting year. First off is the arrival of a new teacher at Hogwarts, Horace Slughorn, who is a bit more useful to Harry than he realizes. Next, Harry obtains a Potions book which used to belong to the very mysterious Half-Blood Prince. Harry finds that the Half-Blood Prince's ancient scribbles are written along the margins of almost every page, giving Harry advice on how to improve greatly on his Potions work, and also teaching him a few helpful (and dangerous) spells along the way. Amidst this, Harry is starting private lessons with Professor Dumbledore, during which Harry learns the dark secrets of Voldemort's past, hoping that they could use these secrets to find a way to defeat him. Harry's year gets even more stressful with the suspicious actions of Draco Malfoy, who has been sneaking around the school doing, so Harry assumes, Voldemort's bidding. Harry quickly becomes determined, and slightly obsessed, to find out exactly what Malfoy has been up to and putting an end to it. Yet, during this time, Harry and his friends go through daily life, busy with school work, Quidditch (in which Harry has been made captain of the team), and, of course, romance. Ron has found a new girlfriend, Lavender Brown, a perky (if not obnoxious) Gryffindor student, and Hermione is not happy about it. Ron and Hermione's friendship takes a toll throughout the school year and Harry, as usual, is stuck in the middle. Harry, meanwhile, is facing a romantic dilemma of his own: he realizes he is falling for his best friend's sister, Ginny Weasley, who is unfortunately dating Harry's classmate, Dean Thomas. Harry's pining for Ginny and Ron's hilarious relationship with Lavender give this story a large dose of reality. Throughout all the school drama, however, the obvious darkness of Voldemort's impending rise to power is always apparent. The incredible action-packed climax is sure to leave the audience stunned and, inevitably, prove that you shouldn't trust everybody who you think is good and also prove that not everyone can manage to survive. -ceeottersEmboldened by the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters are wreaking havoc in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that new dangers may lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. He needs Harry to help him uncover a vital key to unlocking Voldemort's defenses critical information known only to Hogwarts' former Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn. With that in mind, Dumbledore manipulates his old colleague into returning to his previous post with promises of more money, a bigger office and the chance to teach the famous Harry Potter. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry's long friendship with Ginny Weasley is growing into something deeper, but standing in the way is Ginny's boyfriend, Dean Thomas, not to mention her big brother Ron. But Ron's got romantic entanglements of his own to worry about, with Lavender Brown lavishing her affections on him, leaving Hermione simmering with jealousy yet determined not to show her feelings. And then a box of love potion-laced chocolates ends up in the wrong hands and changes everything. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof with far more important matters on his mind. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.

4/9 '10 loves x3 4:07 PM

♥ Friday, July 17


I think most of you already know of the previous matter in class. However, it's been settled amicably. The root cause of the problem was actually due to:
  1. Some minor misunderstanding
  2. Insensitivity the boys and girls had between each other
  3. The lack of communication amongst classmates
  4. The segregation between the boys and the girls in our class

So, there is only two options left now.

  1. Do something about it and
  2. Pretend nothing has happened and life carries on as normal.

The class comm has actually discussed how to counter and rectify this problem. The consensus of the class comm is as follow:

  1. Terminate the use of verbal insults of which gender is superior and inferior, effective from next schooling day.
  2. To ensure the even spread of boys and girls at each quadrant of the class - 5 girls and 6 boys at each quadrant.
  3. To change sitting arrangement of class every term, to ensure communication amongst classmates.
  4. Organising of class activities to bond the class.

As for the sitting arrangement, your partner will still be of the same gender. (Might not be the same partner) However, the main difference is that the pair beside you and your partner, will be of different gender. However, at the pair at your diagonal will still be of the same gender.

We have already anticipated some major problems we might face when carrying out the issue as planned.

  1. The inability to get the co-orporation of the class with regards to the changing of sitting arrangement.
  2. The reluctance to change sitting partner as you have already more or less gotten use to the accompany of your partner. (Especially the girls)

You people must understand this is not the issue of just the monitor / monitress, or neither is it the issue of just the class comm members. It is the issue of the whole class.

Therefore, we would like to seek your co-operation and understanding in making the above mentioned points a success.

For suggestions or comments, please do not hesitate to email us at: threenine.ohnine@gmail.com

Thanks you for your understanding.

____________________________________________________________________

POSTED BY INDEX 34 OF CLASS 3/9

____________________________________________________________________


4/9 '10 loves x3 9:09 PM

♥ Thursday, July 16



TEHRAN (AFP) - - The black boxes from an Iranian airliner that crashed in flames near Tehran, killing all 168 people on board, have been found, a transport ministry official said.
Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 7:55 PM

♥ Wednesday, July 15


168 killed in Iran plane crash


TEHRAN, Iran – An Russian-made Iranian passenger plane carrying 168 people crashed shortly after takeoff Wednesday, smashing into a field northwest of the capital and shattering to pieces. State television said all on board were killed.

An unidentified witness quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency said the plane's tail burst into flames in the air and it circled in the air as if looking for a place to land before it crashed.
The impact gouged a deep trench in the dirt field, which was shown littered with smoking wreckage in footage shown on state TV. It showed a large chunk of a wing, but much of the wreckage appeared to be in small pieces, and emergency workers and witnesses picked around the shredded metal for bodies and flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

The Caspian Airlines Tupolev jet had taken off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport Wednesday and was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan. Civil aviation spokesman Reza Jaafarzadeh told state media it crashed about 16 minutes after take-off near the village of Jannat Abad outside the city of Qazvin, around 75 miles northwest of Tehran, state television said.

Jaafarzadeh said the flight was carrying 153 passengers and 15 crewmembers.
"It his highly likely that all the passengers on the flight were killed," Qazvin emergency services director Hossein Bahzadpour told the IRNA news agency. He said the plane was completely destroyed and shattered to pieces.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but Iran sees frequent crashes that are blamed on poor maintenance of its aging fleet. Hossein Ayaznia, an aviation police official, said emergency workers were searching for the plane's black box.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issed a statement expressing condolences for the deaths and urging a swift investigation of the cause.

Most of those on board the Tu-154M were Armenians, along with some Georgian citizens, a Caspian Airlines representative told AP in Yerevan, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the press. Russian news agency said Russian citizens were also on board.

Also among the passengers were eight members of Iran's national youth judo team, along with two trainers and a delegation chief, who were scheduled to train with the Armenian judo team before attending competitions in Hungary on Aug. 6, state TV said.

At Yerevan airport, Tina Karapetian, 45, said she had been waiting for her sister and the sister's 6- and 11-year-old sons, who were due on the flight. "What will I do without them?" she said, weeping, before she collapsed to the floor.

Tehran blames the maintenance woes of its airlines in part on U.S. sanctions that prevent Iran from getting spare parts for some planes. However, Caspian Airlines — an Iranian-Russian joint venture founded in 1993 — uses Russian-made Tupolevs whose maintenance would be less impaired by American sanctions.

In February 2006, a Russian-made TU-154 operated by Iran Airtour, which is affiliated with Iran's national carrier, crashed during landing in Tehran, killing 29 of the 148 people on board. Another Airtour Tupolev crashed in 2002 in the mountains of western Iran, killing all 199 on board.

The crashes have also affected Iran's military. In December 2005, 115 people were killed when a U.S.-made C-130 plane, crashed into a 10-story building near Tehran's Mehrabad airport. In Nov. 2007, a Russian-made Iranian military plane crashed shortly after takeoff killing 36 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards.









Tsunami warning issued for south-east Australia

A tsunami warning has been issued for Lord Howe Island and parts of Tasmania following a 7.9 magnitude earthquake off the west coast of New Zealand's south island.

The earthquake hit at 7.22pm (AEST).

'''Lord Howe Island'''

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said: "For low-lying coastal areas there is a threat of major land inundation, flooding dangerous waves and strong ocean currents for several hours."
"People in affected areas are strongly advised by the Lord Howe Island police to go to higher ground or at least 1km inland.

"For all threatened areas, people are advised to get out of the water and move away from the immediate waters edge. "

'''Tasmania'''

The bureau said: "Threatened areas extend from Northern Tip of Flinders Island to Low Rocky Point including Bicheno, Derwent Estuary, Eddystone Point, Flinders Island, Hobart, Low Rocky Point, Maatsuyker Island, Maria Island, Orford, Scamander, St Helens, Storm Bay and Channel, Swansea, Tasman Island and Wineglass Bay."

"Possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and some localised overflow onto the immediate foreshore for several hours from 09:30 pm (AEST) tonight.

"Although major evacuations are not required, people are advised to get out of the water and move away from the immediate water's edge."

Next update will be issued by 09.05pm AEST tonight.

For latest and further information call 1300 TSUNAMI (1300 878 6264) or visit www.bom.gov.au


Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 8:24 PM



happy birthday, pooja!!

didnt manage to sing bdae song so here sing here :)

happy birthday to u,
happy birthday to u,
happy birthday to pooja,
happy birhday to u!!!!!

woots~~

zs here.

4/9 '10 loves x3 6:04 PM

♥ Tuesday, July 14


SYDNEY, July 13 - The Indian city of Udaipur, known as the "Venice of the East", was voted the world's best city for travellers in 2009 in an online poll by Travel + Leisure magazine, trumping last year's winner Bangkok.

The island of Bali in Indonesia topped the Galapagos to be named best island in the annual poll, in which casual and laid-back destinations prevailed.

Magazine readers also voted Bushmans Kloof Cedar Mountains, in South Africa, as the world's top hotel while Singapore Airlines grabbed the best airline award again.

Nancy Novogrod, editor-in-chief of Travel + Leisure said this year's poll reflected changing travel interests in a challenging economy, with Udaipur, famous for its canals and palaces, a current tourist favourite for well-heeled Westerners.

"Value, intimacy, service, and discovery are top priorities. As for that so-last-August-sounding word, luxury, it's all about enclaves that shelter stealth wealth," she said in a statement.
Novogrod said dramatically sited outposts ranging from Jade Mountain in St. Lucia to San Ysidro Ranch in California featured highly this year.

Value ratings for a number of top-ranked cities -- Udaipur, Cape Town, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Chiang Mai, and Luang Prabang -- were sky-high while other far-flung cities also made a strong showing.

However, favourites such as New York City, Florence, Rome, and San Francisco remained in the top 10 overall.

The results were complied from votes by magazine subscribers in an Internet poll which went live between January and March. Travel + Leisure will honour winners on July 21 in New York.
The complete "World's Best Awards" is available on www.travelandleisure.com. Following are some highlights:

Best city - Udaipur, India

Best hotel - Bushmans Kloof Cedar Mountains, South Africa

Best island - Bali, Indonesia

Best cruise line - Crystal Cruises

Best cruise line - The Yachts of Seabourn

Best international airline - Singapore Airlines

Best domestic airline - Virgin America

Best tour operator - Austin-Lehman Adventures

Best car-rental agency - Sext

Best destination spa - Mii amo, A Destination Spa at Enchantment, Sedona

Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 12:08 AM

♥ Sunday, July 12


HAPPY (??) BIRTHDAY TO OUR CHEM TEACHER/form teacher Ms Vanessa!

Much Loves (L)
And girls are muchmore superior okay !

4/9 '10 loves x3 1:59 AM

♥ Saturday, July 11


SINGAPORE, July 7 - Moving to Japan? It had better be on a good salary, with a global survey naming Tokyo and Osaka as the world's most expensive cities for expatriates, largely due to the strength of the yen against the U.S. dollar.

The 2009 Cost of Living survey, by consultancy firm Mercer, covered 143 cities across the world, measuring the comparative cost of over 200 items, including housing, transport, food, clothing, entertainment and household goods.

Tokyo, last year's second most expensive city, climbed to the top spot, knocking Moscow down to number 3. Geneva and Hong Kong ranked 4th and 5th, with Asian and European cities dominating the top 10 slots.

The survey, conducted in March, uses New York as the base city for the index, with currency moves measured against the dollar. New York itself jumped to 8th from 22nd last year.

"As a direct impact of the economic downturn over the last year, we have observed significant fluctuations in most of the world's currencies, which have had a profound impact on this year's rankings," Nathalie Constantin-Metral, a senior researcher at Mercer, said in a statement on the firm's website

"Now that cost containment and reduction is at the top of most company agendas, keeping track of the change in factors that dictate expatriate cost of living is essential," she added.

Tel Aviv ranked as the most expensive city in the Middle East, while Caracas was top in South America, and Sydney was the priciest city for expatriates in the Pacific.

And the cheapest city? ... Johannesburg, which replaced Asuncion in Paraguay.

Following are the top-10 most expensive cities, according to the Mercer survey. Last year's rankings in brackets:
1. Tokyo
2. Osaka
3. Moscow
4. Geneva
5. Hong Kong
6. Zurich
7. Copenhagen
8. New York City
9. Beijing
10.Singapore


Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 2:16 PM

♥ Wednesday, July 8


WHEN DID MISS VANESSA BECAME OUR FORM TEACHER AND MR DAVID LAU CHEE WEE OUR CO FORM TEACHER.
SOMEONE PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME.

Labels:


4/9 '10 loves x3 7:22 PM

♥ Tuesday, July 7
Special Tactics And Rescue unit..





SINGAPORE: The NorthStar exercise moved on Tuesday to Vivocity where security forces handled a major "terrorist attack" at a shopping centre.

NorthStar is an annual event to test the emergency response capabilities of the different agencies. This year’s drill, codenamed NorthStar VII, simulated the attacks on India’s Mumbai city last November, with terrorists launching simultaneous assaults on key public areas.
NorthStar VII is conducted over two phases. Phase one started on Monday where a terrorist scenario was enacted on Sentosa Island.

The exercise continued on Tuesday where the focus was on how the authorities worked closely with community partners like shopping centres when tackling a terrorist attack on such premises.

This time, the exercise scenario was at Vivocity with "terrorist" attacks on three fronts. The "terrorists" landed via speedboat at the Singapore Cruise Centre, moved on to the Cable Car Towers and advanced towards the Vivocity Shopping Centre through a link bridge from HarbourFront.

The Jurong Police Headquarters received calls of "shooting incidents" at Vivocity. They swung into action, with the Special Police Forces mounting the operations.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cheang Keng Keong, Commander of Jurong Police Division, said: "One particular point we note is the involvement of the Project Guardian officers who are actually the security officers of Vivocity itself. It is reassuring to note that the Vivocity Management can effectively carry out their crisis management plans and assist the Police in their role in this situation."

One of the key units involved in the exercise at Vivocity was the Police STAR unit which has been specially trained to handle counter terrorism incidents in Singapore.

According to the Police Force, those who serve in the STAR unit must have a high level of mental and physical resilience and courage.

It was formed in November 1993 to provide the Police Force with the highest level of tactical armed response.

Phase one of NorthStar VII ended with the exercise at Vivocity. Phase two of the drill will be conducted next week.




Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 9:06 PM

♥ Monday, July 6
Medal Tally - As of 6 July 2000hr.


Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 People's Republic of China (CHN) 25 16 11 52
2 Republic of Korea (KOR) 18 16 17 51
3 Thailand (THA) 11 7 2 20
4 Singapore (SIN) 8 5 14 27
5 Hong Kong, China (HKG) 5 8 5 18


Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 8:49 PM



SINGAPORE, July 5 - Singapore will hold its biggest anti-terror drill on Monday, simulating the deadly Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people last year, ahead of hosting an Asia-Pacific summit in November. Exercise North Star VII will involve 2,000 participants from 15 state agencies and media outlets and simulate situations such as concerted terror attacks on hotels, malls and an underground train station, the Singapore Police Force said in a statement.


The exercise, based on November's Mumbai attacks, consists of 10 incidents, from the hijack of a taxi cab in a raid on a hotel to a rampage at a train station, according to plans seen by Reuters.
Singapore, home to regional offices of global firms, the world's busiest sea port and a top regional airport hub, has been safe from a militant sabotage so far, after it foiled a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into the Changi airport in 2002.


Mas Selamat Kastari, the alleged mastermind of the foiled plot and suspected leader of a Singapore radical Islamist group linked to the 2002 Bali bombings, was arrested in Malaysia in April after he escaped from a Singapore jail in February 2008.


The island-state will host an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November.
The Singapore Police said the anti-terror drill was not related to the security preparation for the summit, which will host leaders of economic heavy-hitters as the United States, Japan, China and Russia.


The exercise will be in two phases -- July 6-7 and July 15, in which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will preside over the finale at the resort island of Sentosa, the police said.


4/9 '10 loves x3 1:56 PM

♥ Sunday, July 5


WELLINGTON (AFP) - - New Zealand's national airline has come up with an imaginative way of encouraging passengers to pay attention to the pre-flight safety video -- showing cabin crew in the nude.

The Air New Zealand video for domestic flights features staff covered in body paint mimicking their uniforms, their modesty concealed by careful camera angles and strategically placed seat belts and other equipment.

"We wanted to find a way to deliver these important pre-flight messages to our domestic travellers in a way that was genuine, engaging and fun," said Air New Zealand general manager for marketing, Steve Bayliss.

The safety video follows a domestic advertising campaign using the same eye-catching stunt. Even chief executive Rob Fyfe had a brief cameo role as a baggage handler.


Published By: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 9:49 PM

♥ Friday, July 3
Air France, Airbus 330-200. AF447.


LE BOURGET, France - Air France Flight 447 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the 228 people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets, French investigators said Thursday in their first report into the June 1 accident.

Likening the investigation to a puzzle with missing pieces, lead investigator Alain Bouillard said that one month after the crash, "we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."

Problematic speed sensors on the Airbus A330-200 jet that have been the focus of intense speculation since the crash may have misled the plane's pilots but were not a direct cause, Bouillard said, while admitting that investigators are still a long way from knowing what did precipitate the disaster.

"The investigation is a big puzzle," said Bouillard, who is leading the probe for the French accident agency BEA. "Today we only have a few pieces of the puzzle which prevents us from even distinguishing the photo of the puzzle."

The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down in a remote area of the Atlantic, 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil's mainland and far from radar coverage.
The BEA released its first preliminary findings on the crash Thursday, calling it one of history's most challenging plane crash investigations. Yet the probe, which has operated without access to the plane's flight data and voice recorders, appears so far to have unveiled little about what really caused the accident.

The speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, are "a factor but not the only one," Bouillard said. "It is an element but not the cause," Bouillard told a news conference in Le Bourget outside Paris.
Other elements that came under scrutiny in the immediate aftermath of the crash, such as the possibility that heavy storms or lightning may have brought down the jet, were also downplayed in the BEA's presentation.

Meteorological data show the presence of storm clouds in the area the jet would have flown through, but nothing out of the ordinary for the equatorial region in June, Bouillard said, eliminating the theory that the plane could have encountered a storm of unprecedented power. Other flights through the area shortly after Flight 447 disappeared didn't report unusual weather, Bouillard said.

"Between the surface of the water and 35,000 feet, we don't know what happened," Bouillard acknowledged. "In the absence of the flight recorders, it is extremely difficult to draw conclusions."

Representatives of families of the victims said they learned little new and vowed to continue to push for more information.

Charles-Henri Tardivat, lawyer representing victims' families said now that the phase of grief had passed, he expected families to be "even more motivated in trying to get answers and there's going to be significant pressure put on the authorities to continue feeding the facts and the answers that are necessary in this case. "

A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search, which has failed to locate the plane's black boxes in the vast ocean expanse.

The chances of finding the flight recorders are falling daily as the signals they emit fade. Without them, the full causes of the tragic accident may never be known.

One of the automatic messages indicates the plane was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could destabilize its control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.

The Pitots have not been "excluded from the chain that led to the accident," Bouillard said.
Analysis of the 600-odd pieces of the jet that have been recovered indicate the plane "was not destroyed in flight" and appeared to have hit the water intact and "belly first," gathering speed as it dropped thousands of feet, he said.

He also said investigators have found "neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives."

Shortly after the crash, aviation experts indicated that fractures revealed during autopsies of the victims along with the large pieces of wreckage pulled from the Atlantic strongly suggested the plane broke up in the air. There was no immediate explanation for the apparent contradiction between the BEA's findings and those viewpoints.

Bouillard said air traffic controllers in Dakar, Senegal had never officially taken control of Flight 447 after its last radio contact with Brazilian flight controllers at 1:35 a.m., and it wasn't until up to seven hours later that flight controllers in Madrid and Brest, France, raised an alarm. He said the delay was being investigated but was not a cause of the crash.

Brazilian Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz said all required information on the plane's flight plan was passed to Senegalese air controllers.

Some members of the crash victims' families said that without a clear cause to blame the accident on, the interim report held little significance.

Marco Tulio Moreno Marques, a 43-year-old lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, lost both his parents in the crash. He did not bother watching the French investigators' public presentation, saying that without the black boxes, he was skeptical of any findings.

"I think it is difficult that they will ever find out what happened," he said. "They can say a flying saucer hit the plane, but if they don't find the black boxes we will never know for certain what happened."

Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport Intelligence, said although investigators seem to know very little about what happened due to "a horrendous lack of evidence," it is significant that the plane landed the right way up.

"It suggests they were in some kind of flight attitude," he said.

But he warned that "without finding the black boxes it's going to be phenomenally difficult, maybe impossible, to determine what happened."

Bouillard said life vests found among the wreckage were not inflated, suggesting passengers were not prepared for a crash landing in the water. The pilots apparently also did not send any mayday calls.

He said there was "no information" suggesting a need to ground the world's fleet of more than 600 A330 planes as a result of the crash.

"As far as I'm concerned there's no problem flying these aircraft," he said.

Air France said all elements of the investigation "will be fully and immediately taken into account by the airline" and that it is continuing to cooperate with the investigators with "a commitment to total transparency with regard to the investigators, its passengers and the general public."

The black boxes _ which are in reality bright orange _ are resting somewhere on an underwater mountain range filled with crevasses and rough, uneven terrain. Bouillard said the search for them has been extended by 10 days through July 10, while his investigation would run through Aug. 15.

Bouillard said French investigators have yet to receive any information from Brazilian authorities about the results of the autopsies on the 51 bodies recovered from the site.
But a spokesman for the Public Safety Department in Brazil's Pernambuco state _ in charge of the autopsies _ denied that.

"French medical examiners are working together with Brazilian medical examiners and they have full access to all the information obtained from autopsies," the spokesman said on condition of anonymity according to department rules.

Families of the victims met with officials from BEA, Air France and the French transport ministry before the report was released. An association of families addressed a letter to the CEO of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, demanding answers to several questions about the plane.
Investigators should have an easier time recovering debris and black boxes in the crash of a Yemeni Airbus 310 with 153 people on board that went down Tuesday just nine miles (14.5 kilometers) north of the Indian Ocean island-nation of Comoros.
___
Vandore reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Cecile Brisson at Le Bourget, Angela Charlton in Paris, Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 7:41 PM

♥ Wednesday, July 1



SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is looking at developing a potent, integrated Special Operations Task Force that will have capabilities to counter terrorist threats from land, sky and sea. This will comprise the SAF’s special operations forces, such as the Commandos and Naval Diving Unit.

The chief commando officer will be appointed commander of the Special Operations Task Force, while the commander of the Naval Diving Unit will be the Force’s deputy commander.

This is part of the overall priority to build on the third generation Singapore Armed Forces.

The moves were mapped out in an interview with Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean on Tuesday ahead of SAF Day, which is on Wednesday.

Transforming the SAF into a third generation force began in 2004. Five years later, Defence Minister Teo said the key building blocks of having a modernised networked force capable of a wider spectrum of operations and manned by well—trained and committed people are in place.

Mr Teo said: "The efforts to put this together is not just buying individual pieces of equipment but also exercising and training. So last year at Exercise Wallaby in Australia, I had the opportunity to see for myself our armoured forces working together with UAVs, the Apache Helicopters and the F16s all tied together as a cohesive package."

Mr Teo said that with the SAF now able to to conduct a wider spectrum of activities, it could also contribute to regional peace and stability besides carrying out its main mission of defending Singapore.

This has resulted in various operations such as the Malacca Strait Patrol together with the Eyes in the Sky initiative, a landing ship tank deployment in the Gulf of Aden and missions in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr Teo stressed that a key element in the 3G transformation is homeland security, and that is where the new special operations command will help the men work together much more cohesively.

The Defence Minister added: "We develop special units in the Commandos and diving unit for distinct missions, but as you can see, many of these capabilities have much more integrated missions.

"You can go over land, over sea and you have much more integration in all the operations. So the things which you used to do separately, you now do together, a lot of them. So it makes sense to put together the very sophisticated capabilities of these two forces to give them the additional support that they need and this will allow us a good platform to develop their capability further.

"One of the Special Operations Task Force’s duties is is counter—terrorism — storming buildings, aircraft, ships and so on. The technologies and techniques of these things evolve quickly.

"They also have to deal with expanded threats. For example, we may no longer be dealing only with people with guns, but you may be dealing with people with very powerful explosives and various kinds of other substances such as chemical, radiological, etc.

"So you need to develop the capability to deal with these things and you’ll require quite specialised capabilities. You have to deal with them at sea, at shore, buildings and aeroplanes, on ships, coastlines and so on. So you do need to bring together these capabilities, develop them in a much more complete, coherent manner."

Every year, up to six per cent of national spending goes to defence.

Mr Teo added that the new systems that the SAF has acquired have enabled its servicemen to make better use of their time in training and it has created people structures within the organisation to develop and train personnel to fit its third generation needs. — CNA/vm



Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 8:09 PM




A black box flight recoder has been located belonging to the Yemenia Airways plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean with 153 people on board.

Crashed plane's black box located.

Only one survivor, a 14-year-old Franco-Comoran girl, has been found so far and officials said almost all are feared dead.

The girl, identified as Bakari Bahia, was pulled from the sea after the plane crashed on its way in to land at Moroni - the capital of the main island of the Comoros archipelago - under darkness on Tuesday morning.


She had cuts to her face and a fractured collar-bone, but was stable overnight. She was picked up during rescue efforts by local fishermen and speedboats sent by authorities on the main island, Grande Comore.

"Her health is not in danger. She is very calm given the shock she suffered," local surgeon Ben Imani said at Moroni's El Marouf hospital.

French and US aircraft have joined the search where the Airbus A310-300 went down off the Comoros archipelago.

Sixty-six French nationals were aboard the doomed flight. A full list of those on the flight has not yet been published, but a Yemeni official said there were also nationals from Canada, Comoros, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, the Philippines and Yemen on board.
The plane was flying the final leg of a trip from Paris and Marseille to Comoros via Yemen.
The Paris-Marseille-Yemen leg of the Yemenia flight was flown by an Airbus A330. In Sanaa, those passengers who were flying on to the Comoros changed onto a second Yemenia plane, the A310 that crashed.

French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said France had banned the Yemenia A310 from French soil after faults were found in a test in 2007.

"The question we are asking ... is whether you can collect people in a normal way on French territory and then put them in a plane that does not ensure their security. We do not want this to happen again," he said.

But Yemen's transport minister said the plane was thoroughly checked in May under Airbus supervision.

"It was a comprehensive inspection carried out in Yemen ... with experts from Airbus," Khaled Ibrahim al-Wazeer told Reuters from Sanaa. "It was in line with international standards."
Yemenia is 51 percent owned by Yemen and 49 percent by Saudi Arabia. Its fleet includes two Airbus 330-200s, four Airbus 310-300s and four Boeing 737-800s, according to its website.
Airbus said it was dispatching a team of investigators to the Comoros. It said the aircraft was built in 1990 and had been used by Yemenia since 1999. Its engines were built by Pratt and Whitney, a unit of United Technologies.

A Yemenia official said there were 142 passengers including three infants, and 11 crew. The weather was rough, with high winds, but the cause of the crash is still unknown.
With a population of around 800,000, the formerly French-ruled Comoros archipelago comprises three islands off mainland east Africa and just north-west of Madagascar.

The crashed plane was the second Airbus to plunge into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing 228 people on board on June 1.



Published by: Raymond Lim

4/9 '10 loves x3 8:01 PM


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