US economy picks up, China might slow: OECD indicator






PARIS: Economic activity in the United States is rising, in the eurozone it is steadying, but in China and India the growth trend is slowing, leading indicators from the OECD showed on Monday.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said that its index of leading indicators suggested that economic growth in the United States was "firming".

Activity in Britain was also firming but at a slower pace than seemed to be the case a month ago, the OECD said in its monthly report on composite leading indicators which are considered a reliable pointer to activity in six months' time.

In Japan and Brazil signs were emerging "of growth picking up."

For the 17 members of the eurozone, and notably in Germany and Italy, the leading indicators "point to a stabilisation in growth prospects" but in France "growth is expected to remain weak."

The OECD, which is a policy forum for 34 advanced economies but also monitors some other important economies, said that China and India appeared to be on a growth path but "below trend compared with more positive signals in last month's assessment."

The indicators for Canada and Russia continued to signal growth that was below trend, the OECD said.

-AFP/ac



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Railways struggling to deal with Kumbh rush as stampede toll reaches 36

ALLAHABAD: Frantic relatives mobbed officials on Monday seeking information about victims of Sunday's stampede which has claimed 36 lives even as the railways had a tough time dealing with the rush of three crore Kumbh devotees thronging the city.

There were chaotic scenes at the railway station and local hospitals here treating the 39 injured in the tragedy with relatives running from pillar to post to get information about their near and dear ones.

North Central Railway said a probe will be initiated after clearing the rush of pilgrims.

"A probe will follow once we are through with ferrying pilgrims back to the places they had arrived from", Alok Johri, general manager of the North Central Railway zone, told PTI.

CMO Allahabad Dr Prabhakar said 14 more people died during treatment, taking the death toll to 36.

The victims include 26 women, 9 men and a child. Bodies of 20 of the deceased have been identified.

Taking moral responsibility for the stampede, UP cabinet minister Muhammad Azam Khan resigned as the in charge of Kumbh Mela.

"Though the incident took place outside the Kumbh Mela premises, I take moral responsibility and resign as the in charge of the Kumbh. I am sending my resignation to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav", Khan told reporters in Lucknow.

The stampede occurred at 7pm on Sunday at platforms No 5 and 6 of Allahabad railway station where thousands of passengers, mostly Mahakumbh devotees returning after taking the holy dip at the Sangam on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya, had gathered to board a train.

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Year of the Snake: The Serpent Behind the Horoscope


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Horoscope: Snakes are charming, with excellent communication skills.

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

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

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

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


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Many 2011 federal budget cuts had little real-world effect



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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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LNY festivities at Marina Bay Sands in full swing






SINGAPORE: Shoppers at Marina Bay Sands were in for a treat on Sunday as festivities to usher in the Lunar New Year of the Snake got into full swing.

Stilt-walkers dressed as the Gods of Prosperity, Wealth, and Longevity mingled with the crowds while mascots representing the 12 animals of the Zodiac paraded round the skating rink and posed for pictures with delighted shoppers.

A lion dance troop also traipsed from store to store, adding more cheer to the already festive atmosphere.

- CNA/ck



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Russia remains a key defense technology exporter: Komardin

BANGALORE: Russia is still a key defense technology exporter to India said deputy general director of Russia's state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, Viktor Komardin, on Friday, on the sidelines of AeroIndia 2013.

"We have helped develop the Indian defence system since the very beginning. And we are still an important strategic parnter for Government of India, in the sphere of defence, sharing technology, and exporting weapons and material," said Komardin, who heads the Russian delegation at the upcoming Aero India 2013.

Russia, which accounts for about 70 per cent of Indian defence purchases, has lost four crucial multi-billion dollar bids to American or European firms, since Aero show 2011. Also, the country faces growing competition on the Indian defense market as India diversified military imports in the past few years.

In the recent past, US-based Boeing won the tender for attack and heavy left copters beating the Russian MI-28 and MI-26, respectively, Dassault Aviation from France bagged $11 billion (about Rs 55,000 crore) deal for 126 fighter jets, leaving Russian MiG-35 and four others out.

"We provide India with the cheapest and most substantial options and we are open to technology transfers with you unlike most other Western countries," said Komardin.

Komardin was referring to the Indian deals with US defense companies.

He, however, declined to answer the reason behind the Russian companies failing to some clinch key deals in the recent times.

"You (Indian media) often give us bad publicity and don't highlight us as your country's most important strategic partner," he said adding, "My criticism is not towards the Government of India but the media."

In 2012, Russia finalised over $3.5 billion new arms export agreements with India, which includes the purchase of 71 Mi-17B-5 Hip helicopters and the delivery of assembly kits for 42 Su-30MKI Flanker fighters, while the current portfolio of Indian contracts is worth more than $7 billion.

Rosoboronexport ships at least $3 billion worth of weapons and material annually under the contracts that have already been signed with the Indian state clients, Komardin said.

"We are also talking over plans to upgrade India's fleet of Ka-28 anti-submarine helicopters and Su-30MKIs, and to supply a batch of Mi-17V-5 to the Indian interior ministry," he said.

At the Aero India 2013, Rosoboronexport will present the Yak-130 combat trainer, II-78MK-90 tanker, latst II-76MD-90A military transport aircraft, Be-200 multipurpose amphibian, Mi-35M, Mi26T2, Ka 31 and Ka 226T helicopters and other samples of Russian aircraft industry like training aids and airborne weapons.

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Mars Rover Curiosity Completes First Full Drill


For the first time in history, humans have drilled a hole into rock on Mars and are collecting the powdered results for analysis, NASA announced Saturday.

After weeks of intensive planning, the Mars rover Curiosity undertook its first full drill on Friday, with NASA receiving images on Saturday showing that the procedure was a success.

Curiosity drilled a hole that is a modest 2.5 inches (6.35 centimeters) deep and .6 inches (1.52 centimeters) wide but that holds the promise of potentially great discoveries. (Watch video of the Mars rover Curiosity.)

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed now is a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement on Saturday.

"This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August."

Read: Asteroid to Make Closest Flyby in History

The site of the much-anticipated penetration is a flat section of Mars rock that shows signs of having been underwater in its past.

Called Yellowknife Bay, it's the kind of environment where organic materials—the building block of life—might have been deposited and preserved long ago, at a time when Mars was far wetter and warmer than it is today.

The contents of the drilling are now being transferred into the rover's internal collection system, where the samples will be sieved down to size and scoured to minimize the presence of contamination from Earth. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

Then the sample will be distributed to the two instruments most capable of determining what the rocks contain.

The first is the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM), which has two ovens that can heat the powdered rock to almost 2000°F (1093°C) and release the rock's elements and compounds in a gaseous form.

The gases will then be analyzed by instruments that can identify precisely what they are, and when they might have been deposited. Scientists are looking for carbon-based organics believed to be essential for any potentially past life on Mars.

Powder will also go to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument for a related analysis that looks especially at the presence of minerals—especially those that can only be formed in the presence of water.

Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that designing and testing a drill that can grab hold of Martian rock and commence first a percussive shallow drilling and then dig a deeper hole was difficult.

The drill, which is at the end of a 7-foot arm, is capable of about 100 discrete maneuvers.

"To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we made eight drills and bored more than 1,200 holes in 20 types of rock on Earth," Jandura said in a statement.

Results from the SAM and CheMin analyses are not expected for several days to weeks.


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Guided tours on Istana Open House days






SINGAPORE: For the first time, a guided tour will be held at the Istana to promote a deeper understanding of the national monument - a collaboration between the Preservation of Monuments Board and the Istana of Singapore.

The first tour will be offered on Monday at the Istana's Lunar New Year Open House.

Whether it's a painting inspired by a tropical plantation or a decorated ceiling, there's a human interest story behind each art piece.

President Tony Tan Keng Yam said: "People come here but they don't really understand the significance of the building and some of the artefacts and paintings until somebody explains it to you. Just like myself, I come here everyday and I pass all these things and it doesn't register until you know what are the details."

But now you can get the chance to hear the stories behind the 144-year-old national monument through a guided tour.

The 45-minute tour, led by a team of volunteers, will take visitors through Singapore during the colonial days to the tumultuous years towards independence.

One of the art pieces that stood out for President Tony Tan was a Balinese painting which has multiple stories playing out simultaneously within the picture.

So one can expect to see iconic structures and buildings of Singapore's landscape which include the Merlion, Changi Airport and the Singapore River.

Visitors can also expect to hear stories of individuals involved in the daily management in each of the three stately rooms.

A banquet hall that used to be the kitchen underwent renovation to now host State banquets held in honour of visiting heads of states and governments. The centrepiece of the room is a chandelier weighing 220 kilogrammes.

The tour will be offered on all Istana Open House days from 9:30am to 4:30pm.

Ticket fees for the guided tour are at S$2 for children between the ages of 4 and 12, S$4 for Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents, and S$10 for foreigners.

All proceeds collected from the tours will be donated to the Community Chest.
Tickets can be bought at the site itself.

- CNA/ck



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Afzal Guru hanged: 8 injured in Kashmir during protests

SRINAGAR: At least eight people were injured, two seriously, as violence erupted in the Kashmir Valley on Saturday against Afzal Guru's hanging.

A group of protesters started marching in north Kashmir's Doabgah village near Sopore town, the ancestral village of Afzal Guru, after they got news of his hanging.

Police sources said the protesters defied the curfew and attacked security forces with stones.

The security forces used batons and tear gas to quell the protests. Warning shots were fired in the air.

In another incident, three protesters sustained injuries in Baramullah in clashes with security forces.

Doctors in a Baramullah hospital told the media that two cases were referred to Srinagar.

The Hurriyat has called for four days of mourning.

It called the hanging a "political killing which has nothing to do with the legal system of India".

"Afzal's hanging has more to do with forthcoming elections than any legal process which he faced," its statement said.

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