Pentagon to Allow Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a longstanding ban on women serving in combat, according to senior defense officials.

The services have until this May to come up with a plan to implement the change, according to a Defense Department official.

That means the changes could come into effect as early as May, though the services will have until January 2016 to complete the implementation of the changes.

"We certainly want to see this executed responsibly but in a reasonable time frame, so I would hope that this doesn't get dragged out," said former Marine Capt. Zoe Bedell, who joined a recent lawsuit aimed at getting women on the battlefield.

The military services also will have until January 2016 to seek waivers for certain jobs -- but those waivers will require a personal approval from the secretary of defense and will have to be based on rationales other than the direct combat exclusion rule.

The move to allow women in combat, first reported by the Associated Press, was not expected this week, although there has been a concerted effort by the Obama administration to further open up the armed forces to women.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended in January to Secretary Panetta that the direct combat exclusion rule should be lifted.

"I can confirm media reports that the secretary and the chairman are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," said a senior Defense Department official. "This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey sent Panetta a memo earlier this month entitled, "Women in Service Implementation Plan."

Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

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"The time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service," the memo read.

"To implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our warfighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right," he said in the memo, referring to the 2016 horizon.

Women have been officially prohibited from serving in combat since a 1994 rule that barred them from serving in ground combat units. That does not mean they have been immune from danger or from combat.

As Martha Raddatz reported in 2009, women have served in support positions on and off the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, putting them at equal risk. Hundreds of thousands of women deployed with the military to those two war zones over the past decade. Hundreds have died.

READ MORE: Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

"The reality of the battlefield has changed really since the Vietnam era to where it is today," said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former military helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in combat. "Those distinctions on what is combat and what is not really are falling aside. So I think that after having seen women, men, folks who -- cooks, clerks, truck drivers -- serve in combat conditions, the reality is women are already in combat."

Woman have been able to fly combat sorties since 1993. In 2010, the Navy allowed them on submarines. But lifting restrictions on service in frontline ground combat units will break a key barrier in the military.

READ MORE: Smooth Sailing for First Women to Serve on Navy Submarines

READ MORE: Female Fighter Pilot Breaks Gender Barriers

Panetta's decision will set a January 2016 deadline for the military service branches to argue that there are military roles that should remain closed to women.

In February 2012 the Defense Department opened up 14,500 positions to women that had previously been limited to men and lifted a rule that prohibited women from living with combat units.

Panetta also directed the services to examine ways to open more combat roles to women.

However, the ban on direct combat positions has remained in place.

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PUB, PWN Technologies sign MOU

SINGAPORE: National water agency PUB will work with a Dutch water supply company in the search for innovative water solutions to meet Singapore's growing water demand more efficiently and boost its status as a global hydrohub.

PUB signed a Memorandum of Understanding with PWN Technologies to collaborate on advanced water treatment, as well as strengthen Singapore-Dutch industry relations.

Both sides will work together to reap scientific and technological benefits by developing knowledge-intensive programs and projects.

The MOU was signed following a promising trial of PWN Technologies' demonstration plant at Choa Chu Kang Waterworks.

-CNA/ac

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India Air Force airlifts 150 stranded people in Kishtwar

JAMMU: Braving minus six-degree temperature and chilly winds, India Air Force (IAF) today came to the rescue and airlifted 150 stranded people, including women and children in snow-bound Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir.

"IAF had airlifted 150 stranded people including women and children from various areas of Kishtwar district today", public relation officer (PRO), ministry of defence (MoD), S N Acharya said.

MI-17 chopper was pressed into service to ferry stranded passengers in highly snow-bound areas of Kishtwar, Nawapanchi, Sondar and Intion in several sorties, Acharya said.

The air operation was supervised by Air Commandore P Patangay and divisional commissioner Jammu Pradeep Gupta.

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The Promise and Perils of Mining Asteroids

Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.

The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")

Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.

"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].

"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.

Added Value

There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.

Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.

Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)

Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.

DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."

Efficiencies

It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.

That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")

Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.

Owning Asteroids

While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.

The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.

While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.

Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.

Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."

Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.

"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.

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Biden, Clinton and the Medicare-Eligible Primary

Barack Obama was a 40-something fresh face when he won the presidency in 2008.  He's gotten older in four years, but he was up against another older man -- Mitt Romney -- to keep his job.

But Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden -- two of the top potential Democratic replacements for Barack Obama four years from now -- will be either in or approaching their 70s when the next presidential election rolls around.

Related: A new ABC News/Washington Post Poll finds Clinton with a 19 percent favorability advantage over Biden.

Smiling, jolly Biden sure did look like he could mount a campaign in a little under four years as he bounded along the inaugural parade route, hale and lively.

In an interview that aired on CNN today, Biden said he hasn't determined whether he'll seek the presidency in 2016.

"Oh there's a whole lot of reasons why I wouldn't run. I haven't made that decision and I don't have to make that decision for a while," Biden told CNN's Gloria Borger.

Asked if he's ready to run against Clinton in 2016, Biden said, "I haven't made that judgment and Hillary hasn't made that judgment."

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"In a couple years, I think he's going to take a hard look at it," Beau Biden, the vice president's son and the attorney general of Delaware, said on MSNBC. "I hope he does."

Clinton, in her final days as secretary of state, says she needs a rest from public service and politics. But there isn't anybody who doesn't see her as one of Democrats' top contenders to replace Obama in 2016. She'd be the first woman president, but she'd also be one of the oldest.

She's the most traveled secretary of state in history and newly eligible for Medicare -- she turned 65 on Oct. 26. But Clinton, before a fall and treatment for a blood clot, could clearly still keep up with her younger staffers on whirlwind round-the-globe tours.

She'd be the same age as Ronald Reagan when he took office as the oldest first-termer in history. Biden, at 70 right now, would be the oldest newly elected president to take the oath of office at 74.

Nancy Pelosi bristled -- and maybe rightfully so -- when a 20-something reporter asked recently if she should step down as leader of House Democrats to make room for a younger generation.

"Let's for a moment honor it as a legitimate question," Pelosi said, chuckling. "Although it's quite offensive, although you don't realize it, I guess."

She said the question would never be asked for a man. But it is true that the top three Democrats in the House are all in their 70s.  John Boehner, the top Republican in the country as speaker of the house, is 63. His two deputies are in their 40s.

Anecdotally, age could be a problem. Obama, after all, beat two older men. Bill Clinton beat three older men in presidential races if you count Ross Perot. But usually age is not the overriding issue in a campaign. Reagan actually scored points declaring at a debate with the younger Walter Mondale, "I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience."

We emailed the Yahoo! News columnist Jeff Greenfield, who has covered a lot of presidential campaigns, to weigh in.

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Govt unveils measures to ease air pollution in Beijing

BEIJING : The mayor of China's capital Beijing has unveiled new measures to ease the chronic air pollution in the city.

This follows criticism earlier this month, when Beijing experienced a record level of pollution, at 30 to 45 times above recommended safety levels.

The aim of the measures is to cut the density of major air pollutants by 2 per cent, as well as improve the monitoring and release of public information on air quality.

In an effort to paint the skies blue again, 180,000 old vehicles will be taken off the roads this year.

The government is also promising to control the excessive growth of new car sales. About 250,000 new cars hit the roads of Beijing each year.

In other measures, the heating systems of 44,000 old homes and coal-burning boilers will be replaced with clean energy systems.

Beijing is under more pressure to speed up the construction of a green city, after its air pollution index hit a record high over a week ago.

This issue is also expected to be a focus at the upcoming National People's Congress to be held in March this year.

One Beijing resident said: "Every year the government says it has new measures to improve air quality but every time it is only talk without action. This leaves us very upset."

Another commented: "Perhaps there are too many social problems, let us solve them slowly. We should still have confidence."

A third noted: "There has to be a process as we develop from merely fighting for survival to learning to care about the environment. This cannot be rushed."

- CNA/ms

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Influx of patients from Bihar a problem, Mamata Banerjee says

KOLKATA: Attributing crib deaths to underweight and malnourished babies, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said the influx of patients from neighbouring Bihar was a problem.

"You know what our problem is? Many people from Bihar bring their children for treatment to hospitals in Malda and Murshidabad (districts)," Banerjee said while inaugurating a fair price medicine shop here.

She was quick to add: "Bihar is our neighbour and we have to treat children coming from there. We are ready to do it. You cannot discriminate between human beings."

Hospitals in Malda district have been in the news for regular crib deaths. In January last year alone, 100 such deaths were recorded.

Banerjee blamed underage marriage of girls for premature and underweight babies.

"Crib deaths are happening because most of the babies are born premature and are grossly underweight and malnourished. The problem is underage marriage of girls and lack of infrastructure in rural and remote areas," she said.

She claimed that infant mortality during her regime had dropped to 19% from 23% in early 2011.

"To reduce crib deaths, we will be setting up 40 SNCUs (Special Newborn Care Units) by Mar 31. Of these 21 are already operating. We are also planning to set up 11 mother-child hubs for special treatment to such babies," added Banerjee.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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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, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.

A full day of paying attention to President Obama’s second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:

1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem

Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama’s go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president’s last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful “Star Spangled Banner” is getting good reviews.

2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang

Kelly Clarkson is not as “in” with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.

3.  Obama Talked About Gay Rights

This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of  past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.

He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word “gay”: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address.

Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.

4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People

Could we expect anything less?

Here’s how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon:  ”I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy–I’m toasting you, Chuck.” Watch it:

And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:

5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely

Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America’s first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled “One Today,” which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.

6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo

President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.

7. John Boehner: ‘Godspeed’

The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: “To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed.”

7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There. 

Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn’t really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of  attention on Twitter.

Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.

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M1 provides details on service disruption & recovery

SINGAPORE: M1 has provided more details on the service disruption which affected customers from 15 to 17 January.

On 15 January, a vendor was carrying out upgrading works on the backhaul transmission network at one of its network centres.

At around 2.30am, the vendor attempted to connect its power cables from the transmission equipment rack to the distribution rack.

This caused sparks at the distribution rack, and resulted in both racks emitting smoke which caused the gas suppression system to discharge gas.

A water sprinkler was set off, causing damage to one of the mobile network switches, resulting in the service disruption.

To restore service, contingency plans for the core network was to increase network capacity and signaling links between all the other mobile network switches.

Plan A for the radio network was activated, with the radio network controller and its associated media gateway being re-linked to the alternative mobile network switch.

While the links were being re-configured, Plan B was activated.

This involved complex step-by-step restoration work including the reconfiguration of 416 base stations to the alternative mobile network switch, re-establishing communication links, and traffic rebalancing.

This was followed by comprehensive testing, including drive tests in the coverage area of each base station to ensure full call continuity for both voice and data services.

Plan B resulted in a total of 199 sites being connected by 3am on 17 January and Plan A completed the remaining 217 sites.

Partial 3G service to customers in the affected areas was restored on the evening of 15 January.

Restoration work for all affected sites was completed at about 3pm on 17 January and full service was restored at 6pm on the same day.

Plans to further enhance and improve network resiliency incorporating the latest technology commenced in the second half of 2011, with target completion date of mid-2013.

- CNA/xq

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