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
"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.
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.
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
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.
Image courtesy SDO/NASA
Resembling a dragon's tail, remnants of a solar filament strain to escape the sun's gravity in an image released this week by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Most of the electrically charged gas, imaged in extreme ultraviolet light, was unsuccessful in its escape attempt and fell back into the sun.
Filaments form when magnetic field lines push out of the sun in loops, holding dense gas above the surface of the sun. (Read about a huge solar filament that erupted in August 2012.)
—Jane J. Lee and Christine Dell'Amore
Published February 8, 2013
Photograph by Marcel Mivelaz, My Shot
Northern lights writhe behind a thin cloud layer above a road on Ringvassoya Island, Norway, in this picture submitted to National Geographic's My Shot photography community on January 31.
Born of violent eruptions of plasma from the sun's surface, auroras occur when the ejected gas slams into the protective bubble of Earth's magnetic field. (Watch a video about the birth of auroras.)
Published February 8, 2013
Image courtesy ESO
Like a parrot perched on a pirate's arm, the Seagull Nebula resides in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way.
This new image, released by the European Southern Observatory on February 6, shows a closeup of one of the "wings" of the Seagull Nebula. Red clouds of hydrogen gas glow from the intense ultraviolet radiation given off with the birth of stars.
The entire nebula is actually comprised of three large gas clouds arranged in the shape of a bird. (See pictures of other nebulae.)
Published February 8, 2013
Image courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA
Saturn's hexagon-shaped north pole is lit by the sun now that spring has come to the planet's northern hemisphere, as seen in a NASA picture released this week.
The 15,000-mile-wide (25,000-kilometer-wide) cloud formation, captured by the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera in November, was initially spied during the Voyager missions in the 1980s. (See another Cassini picture of the hexagon.)
Published February 8, 2013
Image courtesy U. Arizona/NASA
A 2011 frost avalanche kicks up dust on Mars in a picture released this week by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera team.
Frost avalanches usually occur at the onset of the Martian spring, when layers of carbon dioxide frost warm, causing ice and dust to cascade off of cliffs.
"While HiRISE has captured other frost avalanches before, they never cease to amaze, since it demonstrates that there are indeed active processes on the red planet," according to the HiRISE website. (Related: "First Mars Avalanches Seen In Action.")
Published February 8, 2013
Photograph courtesy NASA
London gleams in a nighttime picture taken from the International Space Station on February 2.
Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield captured the English city while flying about 240 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.
Published February 8, 2013
Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA
Published February 8, 2013
A behemoth storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts and blizzard conditions swept through the Northeast on Saturday, dumping more than 2 feet of snow on New England and knocking out power to 650,000 homes and businesses.
More than 28 inches of snow had fallen on central Connecticut by early Saturday, and areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire notched 2 feet or more of snow — with more falling. Airlines scratched more than 5,300 flights through Saturday, and New York City's three major airports and Boston's Logan Airport closed.
The wind-whipped snowstorm mercifully arrived at the start of a weekend, which meant fewer cars on the road and extra time for sanitation crews to clear the mess before commuters in the New York-to-Boston region of roughly 25 million people have to go back to work. But it also could mean a weekend cooped up indoors.
For a group of stranded European business travelers, it meant making the best of downtime in a hotel restaurant Friday night in downtown Boston, where snow blew outside and drifted several inches deep on the sidewalks.
The six Santander bank employees found their flights back to Spain canceled, and they gave up on seeing the city or having dinner out.
AP Photo/Standard Times, Peter Pereira
"We are not believing it," said Tommaso Memeghini, 29, an Italian who lives in Barcelona. "We were told it may be the biggest snowstorm in the last 20 years."
The National Weather Service says up to 3 feet of snow is expected in Boston, threatening the city's 2003 record of 27.6 inches. A wind gust of 76 mph was recorded at Logan Airport.
In heavily Catholic Boston, the archdiocese urged parishioners to be prudent about attending Sunday Mass and reminded them that, under church law, the obligation "does not apply when there is grave difficulty in fulfilling this obligation."
Halfway through what had been a mild winter across the Northeast, blizzard warnings were posted from parts of New Jersey to Maine. The National Weather Service said Boston could get close to 3 feet of snow by Saturday evening, while most of Rhode Island could receive more than 2 feet, most of it falling overnight Friday into Saturday. Connecticut was bracing for 2 feet, and New York City was expecting as much as 14 inches.
Early snowfall was blamed for a 19-car pileup in Cumberland, Maine, that caused minor injuries. In New York, hundreds of cars began getting stuck on the Long Island Expressway on Friday afternoon at the beginning of the snowstorm and dozens of motorists remained disabled early Saturday as police worked to free them.
About 650,000 customers in the Northeast lost power during the height of the snowstorm, most of them in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Mass., lost electricity and shut down Friday night during the storm. Authorities say there's no threat to public safety.
At least four deaths were being blamed on the storm, three in Canada and one in New York. In southern Ontario, an 80-year-old woman collapsed while shoveling her driveway and two men were killed in car crashes. In New York, a 74-year-old man died after being struck by a car in Poughkeepsie; the driver said she lost control in the snowy conditions, police said.
ROME: An Italian court on Friday ruled to postpone Silvio Berlusconi's appeal against a tax fraud conviction until after the election on February 24-25 following a request from lawyers for the scandal-tainted former premier.
Prosecutors will present their final arguments against the business tycoon at a hearing on March 1 and the final verdict is expected on March 23.
Berlusconi, who is running for a parliamentary seat in the vote, was convicted in October last year for fraud linked to his business empire Mediaset.
He was sentenced to one year prison and given a five-year ban from holding public office.
The sentence has been suspended pending his appeal.
Berlusconi's lawyers said their client planned to make a speech at the hearing on March 1.
The 76-year-old media tycoon and three-time prime minister, who has been a central figure in Italian politics for two decades, has been involved in dozens of court cases.
All previous convictions against him have either been overturned on appeal or the trials have expired under the statute of limitations.
Berlusconi is also a defendant in another trial for having sex with an underage prostitute and abusing the powers of his office when he was prime minister.
In both trials, Berlusconi's lawyers have argued the court cases should be suspended because he cannot attend hearings during the campaign.
A verdict in the sex trial is expected after the election.
-AFP/fl
"... it is most unfortunate that C and AG rather than validating the integrity of his numbers (on 2G presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore) chooses to criticize the Government on foreign soil and at a foreign fora," Manish Tewari told reporters here.
He was responding to questions about CAG Vinod Rai's remarks at Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday rebutting criticism that he was exceeding the mandate and saying that the auditor was treading a "new path in the belief that the final stakeholder is the public at large".
"... The question is about the integrity of numbers. Our question to Mr C and AG, where is the 1.76 lakh crore (loss), still continues to hang in the air," Tewari said.
He said this was not the first time he (the CAG) had done it (criticizing the government). "And this is not the first time that he has done it, I think constitutional authorities, you know, should circumscribe by the lakshman rekha propriety."
Delivering a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy, Rai, whose reports on various scams had raised hackles of those in government, had said the CAG would endeavour to uncover instances of crony capitalism and counselled the government to support enterprises per se and not entrepreneurs.
"We may not be able to wipe out corruption, but our endeavour is to uncover instances of crony capitalism. Government should be seen to support enterprise per se and not particular entrepreneurs," Rai, who has come under government criticism for reports on various scams like in telecom and coal, said.
Asked about European Union raising the issue of accountability for 2002 Gujarat riots, Tewari said he wondered why chief minister Narendra Modi could not stand up and take responsibility as it happened under his watch rather than India being subjected to these homilies from foreign diplomats." I think, there is a certain ignominy attached to it."
Talk about too close for comfort. In a rare cosmic encounter, an asteroid will barnstorm Earth next week, missing our planet by a mere 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers).
Designated 2012 DA14, the space rock is approximately 150 feet (45 meters) across, and astronomers are certain it will zip harmlessly past our planet on February 15—but not before making history. It will pass within the orbits of many communications satellites, making it the closest flyby on record. (Read about one of the largest asteroids to fly by Earth.)
"This is indeed a remarkably close approach for an asteroid this size," said Paul Chodas, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near Earth Object (NEO) program office in Pasadena, California.
"We estimate that an asteroid of this size passes this close to the Earth only once every few decades."
The giant rock—half a football field wide—was first spotted by observers at the La Sagra Observatory in southern Spain a year ago, soon after it had just finished making a much more distant pass of the Earth at 2.6 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) away.
This time around however, on February15 at 2:24 pm EST, the asteroid will be passing uncomfortably close—ten times closer than the orbit of the moon—flying over the eastern Indian Ocean near Sumatra (map). (Watch: "Moon 101.")
Future Impact?
Chodas and his team have been keeping a close eye on the cosmic intruder, and orbital calculations of its trajectory show that there is no chance for impact.
But the researchers have not yet ruled out future chances of a collision. This is because asteroids of this size are too faint to be detected until they come quite close to the Earth, said Chodas.
"There is still a tiny chance that it might hit us on some future passage by the Earth; for example there is [a] 1-in-200,000 chance that it could hit us in the year 2080," he said.
"But even that tiny chance will probably go away within the week, as the asteroid's orbit gets tracked with greater and greater accuracy and we can eliminate that possibility."
Earth collision with an object of this size is expected to occur every 1,200 years on average, said Donald Yeomans, NEO program manager, at a NASA news conference this week.
DA14 has been getting closer and closer to Earth for quite a while—but this is the asteroid's closest approach in the past hundred years. And it probably won't get this close again for at least another century, added Yeomans.
While no Earth impact is possible next week, DA14 will pass 5,000 miles inside the ring of orbiting geosynchronous weather and communications satellites; so all eyes are watching the space rock's exact trajectory. (Learn about the history of satellites.)
"It's highly unlikely they will be threatened, but NASA is working with satellite providers, making them aware of the asteroid's pass," said Yeomans.
Packing a Punch
Experts say an impact from an object this size would have the explosive power of a few megatons of TNT, causing localized destruction—similar to what occurred in Siberia in 1908.
In what's known as the "Tunguska event," an asteroid is thought to have created an airburst explosion which flattened about 750 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of a remote forested region in what is now northern Russia (map).
In comparison, an impact from an asteroid with a diameter of about half a mile (one kilometer) could temporarily change global climate and kill millions of people if it hit a populated area.
Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at Cambridge, Massachusetts, said that while small objects like DA14 could hit Earth once a millennia or so, the largest and most destructive impacts have already been catalogued.
"Objects of the size that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs have all been discovered," said Spahr. (Learn about what really happened to the dinosaurs.)
A survey of nearly 9,500 near-Earth objects half a mile (one kilometer) in diameter is nearly complete. Asteroid hunters expect to complete nearly half of a survey of asteroids several hundred feet in diameter in the coming years.
"With the existing assets we have, discovering asteroids rapidly and routinely, I continue to expect the world to be safe from impacts in the future," added Spahr.
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