Man falls, hangs mid-air after trousers get hooked on 6th floor air conditioning unit

A 44-year-old man was rescued by firefighters yesterday morning after he was discovered hanging from an air conditioning unit on the sixth floor of an apartment building in North Point.

The man, surnamed Yuan, is believed to have jumped from his 11th floor apartment at around 10:30am, only to be saved five stories down when his trousers got caught on an air conditioning unit, reports Apple Daily.
The police say that Yuan has a history of mental illness and it is believed that he was attempting to commit suicide.

One witness helpfully told Apple Daily on the phone that "if he were any fatter, he would have probably fallen".

Firefighters first tried to rescue him from a ladder, but failed. They then broke into the 6th floor apartment to reach the man, while lowering a rope from the unit above.

During the rescue operation, Yuan was heard shouting, “I can’t hold on anymore! I can’t hold on anymore!”

The firefighters, in return, would yell, “DO NOT MOVE! DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT MOVING!”

Though at one point it seemed like both rescuer and rescuee would fall, the brave firefighters eventually got the man to safety after a 30-minute ordeal.

Amazingly, Yuan emerged from the incident with only a scratch on his head. He was immediately sent to hospital, where he will hopefully get the help he needs.

Source: Coconuts Hong Kong

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Co-pilot appears to have crashed Germanwings plane on purpose

A French gendarme helicopter flies over the moutainside crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, March 25, 2015. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot

(Reuters) - A young German co-pilot locked himself alone in the cockpit of a Germanwings airliner and flew it into a mountain with what appears to have been the intent to destroy it, a French prosecutor said on Thursday.

Investigators and grieving relatives were left struggling to explain what motivated Andreas Lubitz, 28, to kill all 150 people on board the Airbus A320, including himself, in Tuesday's crash in the French Alps.

French and German officials said there was no indication the crash was a terrorist attack, but gave no alternative explanation for his motives.
Lubitz gained sole control of the aircraft after the captain left the cockpit. He refused to re-open the door and sent plane into its fatal descent, Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said.

He did this "for a reason we cannot fathom right now but which looks like intent to destroy this aircraft," Robin told a news conference in Marseille broadcast live on national TV.

Describing the final 10 minutes of the passengers on board as the plane hurtled towards a mountain range, Robin said sound recordings from one of its black boxes suggested most of them would not have been aware of their fate until the very end.

"Only towards the end do you hear screams," he said. "And bear in mind that death would have been instantaneous ... the aircraft was literally smashed to bits."

The CEO of Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings, said its air crew were picked carefully and subjected to psychological vetting.

"No matter your safety regulations, no matter how high you set the bar, and we have incredibly high standards, there is no way to rule out such an event," CEO Carsten Spohr said.

The world's attention will now focus on the motivations of Lubitz, a German national who joined the budget carrier in September 2013 and had just 630 hours of flying time - compared with the 6,000 hours of the flight captain, named in German media only as "Patrick S." in accordance with usual practice.

Robin said there were no grounds to suspect that Lubitz was carrying out a terrorist attack. "Suicide" was also the wrong word to describe actions which killed so many other people, the prosecutor added: "I don't necessarily call it suicide when you have responsibility for 100 or so lives."

Police set up guard outside Lubitz's house in Montabaur, Germany. Acquaintances in the town said they were stunned, describing him as an affable young man who gave no indication he was harboring any harmful intent.

"I'm just speechless. I don't have any explanation for this. Knowing Andreas, this is just inconceivable for me," said Peter Ruecker, a long-time member of the local flight club where Lubitz received his flying license years ago.

"He was a lot of fun, even though he was perhaps sometimes a bit quiet. He was just another boy like so many others here."

A photo on Lubitz's Facebook page, which was later taken down, shows a smiling young man posing in front of San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge.

Robin said the conversation between the two pilots before the captain left the cockpit started normally but that Lubitz's replies became "laconic" as they started readying what would have been the normal descent to the airport of Duesseldorf.

"His responses become very brief. There is no proper exchange as such," he said. It was not clear why the captain had left the cockpit but it was probably to use the toilet, he said.

Robin said the family of the co-pilot had arrived in France for a tribute alongside other those of the victims but was being kept apart from the others.

"SMASH THE DOOR DOWN"

The New York Times cited an unnamed investigator as saying the recording shed insight into the moment when it dawned on the captain that he had been shut out of the cockpit.

"The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer," it quoted an investigator described as a senior French military official as saying. "And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer."

"You can hear he is trying to smash the door down," the investigator added.

Investigators were still searching for the second of the two black boxes on Thursday in the ravine where the plane crashed, 100 km (65 miles) from Nice, which would contain data from the plane's instruments.

France's BEA air investigation bureau had said on Wednesday it expected the first basic analysis of the voice recordings in days.

Pilots may temporarily leave the cockpit at certain times and in certain circumstances, such as while the aircraft is cruising, according to German aviation law.

Cockpit doors can be opened from the outside with a code, in line with regulations introduced after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, but the code can be overridden from inside the cockpit. Lufthansa's CEO said that either the pilot had entered the code incorrectly, or the co-pilot inside had overridden it.

The BEA on Wednesday already ruled out a mid-air explosion and said the scenario did not look like a depressurization.

Germanwings said 72 Germans were killed in the first major air passenger disaster on French soil since the 2000 Concorde accident just outside Paris. Madrid revised down on Thursday the number of Spanish victims to 50 from 51 previously.

As well as Germans and Spaniards, victims included three Americans, a Moroccan and citizens of Britain, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Iran and the Netherlands, officials said. However, DNA checks to identify them could take weeks, the French government said.

The families of victims were being flown to Marseille on Thursday before being taken up to the zone close to the crash site. Chapels had been prepared for them with a view of the mountain where their loved ones died.

Source: Reuters

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Hong Kong man found guilty of killing and cooking parents

A Hong Kong man who was accused of killing, dismembering, salting and cooking his parents was found guilty of double murder Friday.

During the 20-day trial the court heard how Henry Chau, 31, had dismembered his elderly parents before salting, cooking and packing their body parts into lunchboxes “like barbecued pork”.

The severed heads of 65-year-old Chau Wing-ki and his wife Siu Yuet-yee, 62, were found in March 2013, stuffed into two refrigerators in a bloodstained apartment, days after they were reported missing.
A jury at the city’s high court found Chau guilty on both counts of murder by a majority of 8-to-1, the SCMP reported. His friend Tse Chun-kei was found not guilty on two counts of murder. Chau will be sentenced on Monday, the Post reported.

Chau initially told police that his parents had gone to mainland China, but later admitted to the murder on an Internet messaging group.

In evidence read to the city’s High Court last year, Chau claimed that he planned to mislead the police in order to buy himself some time to say goodbye to friends.

“My murdering partner and I were planning to make it a missing person case and dump the body piece by piece,” he said in a group message.

Source: Coconuts Hong Kong

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VIDEO: New detailed images of Germanwings A320 crash site

A plane operated by the budget carrier of Germany's Lufthansa crashed in a remote area of the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 on board in France's worst aviation disaster in decades.

With the cause of the accident a complete mystery, authorities recovered a black box from the Airbus A320 at the crash site, where rescue efforts were being hampered by the mountainous terrain.

Local MP Christophe Castaner, who flew over the crash site, said on Twitter: "Horrendous images in this mountain scenery."

"Nothing is left but debris and bodies. Flying over the crash site with the interior minister - a horror - the plane is totally destroyed."

Video images from a government helicopter flying near the area showed a desolate snow-flecked moonscape, with steep ravines covered in scree.
Budget airline Germanwings said the Airbus plunged for eight minutes but French aviation officials said the plane had made no distress call before crashing near the ski resort of Barcelonnette.



Source: The Telegraph

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Angelina Jolie has ovaries, fallopian tubes removed over cancer fears

Angelina Jolie says she has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed over fears of cancer, following her double mastectomy two years ago.

The actress, who has lost her mother, grandmother and aunt to the disease, said she had the procedure last week after results from a blood test raised fears that she may be in the early stages of cancer.

Although later tests showed that was not the case, Jolie said she chose to go ahead with the surgery because of her family history and because she carries a gene mutation that had given her a 50 per cent risk of developing ovarian cancer, the same mutation that put her at 87 per cent risk of developing breast cancer.

"I did not do this solely because I carry the BRCA1 gene mutation, and I want other women to hear this," Jolie wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, the same publication where she announced her double mastectomy.

Jolie told to see surgeon immediately following tests
Her doctors said that she should have the preventive surgery about a decade before the earliest onset of cancer in her female relatives.

"A positive BRCA test does not mean a leap to surgery," wrote Jolie, who is married to fellow Hollywood heavyweight Brad Pitt.

"In my case, the Eastern and Western doctors I met agreed that surgery to remove my tubes and ovaries was the best option, because on top of the BRCA gene, three women in my family have died from cancer," she wrote.

"My mother's ovarian cancer was diagnosed when she was 49. I'm 39."

Jolie said that she had been preparing for the possibility of ovary removal ever since her double mastectomy.

But two weeks ago, she said she got a call from a doctor who said her blood test results had "a number of inflammatory markers that are elevated, and taken together they could be a sign of early cancer".

She was told to see a surgeon immediately.

"I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren," Jolie wrote.

"I called my husband in France, who was on a plane within hours.

"The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity.

"You know what you live for and what matters. It is polarising, and it is peaceful."

Mastectomy revelation boosted interest in gene testing

Australian doctors predicted an increase in the number women getting tests for breast cancer gene mutations, after Angelina Jolie's revelation she underwent a double mastectomy.

The Oscar-winning actress revealed she had the operation after discovering she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, giving her an 87 per cent chance of developing breast cancer.

Dr Allan Spigelman, clinical director at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Sydney, said he expected the superstar's comments to spark interest in cancer gene testing in Australia.

"I fully anticipate there will be very significantly renewed interest in breast cancer gene testing across the world as a result of this high-profile person very sadly carrying the gene change but very bravely going ahead to have preventative surgery," he said.

Both the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations can greatly increase a woman's risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

Dr Spiegelman said there are a number of factors that can put a woman in the high risk category.

"The age of onset of these cancers, the number of people in their family with these cancers and also to a degree what some of the cancers look like under the microscope," he said.

Source: ABC News

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Germanwings Airbus crashes in French Alps, 150 dead

An Airbus operated by Lufthansa's (LHAG.DE) Germanwings budget airline crashed in a remote snowy area of the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 on board including 16 school children.

Germanwings confirmed its flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf went down with 144 passengers and six crew on board.

The airline believed there were 67 Germans on the flight. Spain's deputy prime minister said 45 passengers had Spanish names. One Belgian was aboard.

Also among the victims were 16 children and two teachers from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in the town of Haltern am See in northwest Germany, a spokeswoman said.

Investigators described a scene of devastation where the airliner crashed.
"We saw an aircraft that had literally been ripped apart, the bodies are in a state of destruction, there is not one intact piece of wing or fuselage," Bruce Robin, prosecutor for the city of Marseille, told Reuters in Seyne-les-Alpes after flying over the crash zone in a helicopter.

French police at the crash site said no one survived and it would take days to recover the bodies due to difficult terrain, snow and incoming storms.

Police said search teams would stay overnight at altitude.

"We are still searching. It's unlikely any bodies will be airlifted until Wednesday," regional police chief David Galtier told Reuters.

In Paris, Prime Minister Manuel Valls told parliament: "A helicopter managed to land (by the crash site) and has confirmed that unfortunately there were no survivors."

It was the first crash of a large passenger jet on French soil since the Concorde disaster just outside Paris nearly 15 years ago. The A320 is a workhorse of worldwide aviation fleets. They are the world’s most used passenger jets and have a good though not unblemished safety record.

SHARP DESCENT

Germanwings said the plane started descending one minute after reaching its cruising height and continued losing altitude for eight minutes.

"The aircraft's contact with French radar, French air traffic controllers, ended at 10.53 am at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. The plane then crashed," Germanwings' Managing Director Thomas Winkelmann told a news conference.

Winkelmann also said that routine maintenance of the aircraft was performed by Lufthansa on Monday.

Experts said that while the Airbus had descended rapidly, its rate of descent did not suggest it had simply fallen out of the sky.

France's DGAC aviation authority said air traffic controllers initiated distress procedures after they lost contact with the Airbus, which did not issue a distress call.

"The aircraft did not itself make a distress call but it was the combination of the loss of radio contact and the aircraft's descent which led the controller to implement the distress phase," a DGAC spokesman said.

The aircraft came down in an alpine region known for skiing, hiking and rafting, but which is hard for rescue services to reach.

The search and rescue effort based itself in a gymnasium in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes, which has a small private aerodrome nearby.

Transport Minister Alain Vidalies told local media: "This is a zone covered in snow, inaccessible to vehicles but which helicopters will be able to fly over."

But as helicopters and emergency vehicles assembled, the weather was reported to be closing in.

STORMS, SNOW, CLOUD

“There will be a lot of cloud cover this afternoon, with local storms, snow above 1,800 meters and relatively low clouds. That will not help the helicopters in their work,” an official from the local weather center told Reuters.

Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten Spohr, who planned to go to the crash site, spoke of a "dark day for Lufthansa".

"My deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends of our passengers and crew," Lufthansa said on Twitter, citing Spohr.

The airliner crashed about 100 km (65 miles) north of the French Riviera city of Nice. French and German accident investigators were heading for the crash site in Meolans-Revel, a remote and sparsely inhabited commune, not far from the Italian border.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would travel there on Wednesday. Germanwings and the Catalan regional government were preparing to take Spanish relatives to the site.

Family members arrived at Barcelona’s El Prat airport, many crying and with arms around each others’ shoulders, accompanied by police and airport staff.

King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain called off their state visit to France in a sign of mourning for the victims. They had arrived in Paris minutes after the crash happened.

Airbus (AIR.PA) confirmed that the plane was 24 years old, having first been delivered to Germanwings parent Lufthansa in 1991. It was powered by engines made by CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric (GE.N) and France's Safran (SAF.PA).

Source: Reuters

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"Captain America 3" looking for Southeast Asians

Cinema Online - "Captain America 3" looking for Southeast Asians

Always wanted to be in the same movie with a superhero? Marvel is opening up the opportunity for all Southeast Asians to send in their resumes and headshots for a spot in the upcoming "Captain America: Civil War" movie.

According to Disney Casting Calls, the producers of Marvel are looking for both men and women, aged between 21 to 75 and of Southeast Asian descent that includes, Malaysians, Indonesians, Singaporeans, Cambodians, Thais, Filipinos and more.

They are also welcoming experienced film crew and production staff to send in their details for the casting spot.
However, the catch is that all actors, cast and crew members must be legally eligible to work in Atlanta, the capital of the U.S. state of Georgia. This means you need to get your working permits in order before you can even apply!

Also take note that filming will begin from April 4, 2015 to August 8, 2015. So for those who are eligible and interested, you do not have much time left to decide.

However to Southeast Asians based in Atlanta with a green card or a legal work permit, here's your shot in Hollywood!

Interested? Send your details listed below to sputnikextras@gmail.com with the e-mail title "SOUTHEAST ASIAN".

1. One recent, clear face photo
2. One recent, clear full-length photo
3. If you have photos of you in ethnic wardrobe, please include one in addition 4. First and Last name
5. Email Address
6. Phone number
7. Age
8. Height and Weight
9. Clothing Sizes
Men: Jacket, collar, sleeve, waist, inseam, shoes
Women: Dress size, bust (bra/cup) waist, pants, shoes
10. CITY and STATE where you live

Source: Yahoo! Entertainment SG

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ISIS hackers post names, addresses of 100 U.S. servicemen, urge sympathizers to kill them

The names, addresses and other personal details of about a hundred American military personnel were posted online by a previously unknown arm of ISIS identifying itself as the “Islamic State Hacking Division” along with a chilling message urging “lone wolf’ sympathizers in America to take violent actions against the military personnel in the hit list.

A previously unknown ISIS arm identified itself as “Islamic State Hacking Division.”
Photo Credit: IJ Review

“We have decided to leak 100 addresses so that our brothers residing in America can deal with you,” the group warned.

Addressing ISIS sympathizers residing in the United States, the group urged them to take action.

“And now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for? Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking that they are safe.”
The “cyber militants” claimed they hacked U.S. military servers, databases and email accounts to get the information. The ISIS hackers said the military personnel in the list participated in the US-led coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

An official from the U.S. Defense Department, however, said that it did not look like that the information were hacked from U.S. government servers saying most of the information could be found in public records, social media and residential address search sites.

A Defense Department spokesperson said he can’t confirm the authenticity of the militants’ online threat, but they are looking into it saying, “the safety of our service members is always a concern.”

The U.S. government is taking appropriate steps to make sure the miitary personnel included in the “kill list” and their families are notified of the threat.

Source: Kicker Daily

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Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew dies aged 91

SINGAPORE: Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who was Singapore’s first Prime Minister when the country gained Independence in 1965, has died on Monday (Mar 23) at the age of 91.

"The Prime Minister is deeply grieved to announce the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding Prime Minister of Singapore. Mr Lee passed away peacefully at the Singapore General Hospital today at 3.18am. He was 91," said the PMO.

Arrangements for the public to pay respects and for the funeral proceedings will be announced later, it added.

Mr Lee, who was born in 1923, formed the People’s Action Party in 1954, then became Prime Minister in 1959. He led the nation through a merger with the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, as well as into Independence in 1965. He leaves behind two sons – Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang – and a daughter, Lee Wei Ling.

HIS EARLY YEARS

From early in his life, Mr Lee Kuan Yew had braced himself to face history’s tumultuous tides head-on.

His efforts to build a nation were shaped by his early life experiences.

For the young Lee Kuan Yew, the Japanese Occupation was the single most important event that shaped his political ideology. The depravation, cruelty and humiliation that the war wreaked on people made it clear to Mr Lee that, to control one’s destiny, one had to first gain power.

Born to English-educated parents Lee Chin Koon and Chua Jim Neo, Mr Lee was named “Kuan Yew” which means “light and brightness”, but also “bringing great glory to one’s ancestors”. He was given the English moniker “Harry” by his paternal grandfather.

He continued the family tradition of being educated in English, and read law at Cambridge University after excelling as a student at Raffles College. His experience of being as a colonial subject when he was in England in the late 1940s fuelled his interest in politics, while also sharpening his anti-colonial sentiments.

He said later: “I saw the British people as they were. They treated you as colonials and I resented that. I saw no reason why they should be governing me – they’re not superior. I decided, when I got back, I was going to put an end to this.”

Mr Lee’s political life began right after he returned to Singapore in 1950, when he began acting as a legal adviser and negotiator representing postal workers who were fighting for better pay and working conditions.

He was soon appointed by many more trade unions, including some which were controlled by pro-communists.

In a marriage of convenience to overthrow the British, Mr Lee formed the People’s Action Party in 1954 with these pro-communists and other anti-colonialists.

THE BATTLE FOR MERGER

A key part of winning power at the time was securing the support of the masses, and this meant reaching out to the Chinese-educated, which made up the majority of the population in Singapore. He had taken eight months of Mandarin classes in 1950, and he renewed his Mandarin education five years later, at the age of 32. And within a short time, he had mastered the language sufficiently to address public audiences.

In the mid-1950s, riots broke out that fuelled tensions between the local Government and the communist sympathisers in the Chinese community. A few pro-communist members of the PAP were arrested.

Leading the PAP, Mr Lee fought for their release and ran a campaign against corruption in the 1959 elections for a Legislative Assembly. The PAP won by a landslide, and Mr Lee achieved what he had set out to do – Singapore was self-governing, and he was Prime Minister.

But there were others who would contest the power he acquired, and they had different political agendas. It became apparent that leading Singapore meant having to break ranks with some of his anti-colonial allies – the pro-communists.

Mr Lee said of the pro-communists: “They were not crooks or opportunists but formidable opponents, men of great resolve, prepared to pay the price for the communist cause.”

Mr Lee and his team were well aware of the hard fight they faced against the pro-communists, having seen up close how they could mobilise the masses through riots and strikes to paralyse a Government. And success in this fight depended a lot on Mr Lee’s leadership.

The battle-lines were drawn sharply over the proposal for merger with Malaysia – the non-communists were for it, and the pro-communists were against it.

There were compelling economic reasons for merger, but Mr Lee was also clear about its political necessity. To him, merger was absolutely necessary to prevent Singapore and Malaya being “slowly engulfed and eroded away by the communists”.

He believed that building a common identity between individuals on either side of the Causeway would propel them across racial and religious divides towards a common land. Part of this was making sure that people felt that they are wanted, and not “step-children or step-brothers, but one in the family and a very important member of the family”.

He campaigned relentlessly and tirelessly for merger, speaking over the radio, and in nearly every corner of Singapore. After an intense public contest that pitted him against his political opponents, Mr Lee won and most Singaporeans voted in favour of the union with Malaysia.

On Sep 16, 1963, which coincided with his 40th birthday, Mr Lee declared Singapore’s entry into the Federation of Malaysia.

But this did not mean an easy working relationship between the two sides, and serious differences emerged. Mr Lee wanted a “Malaysian Malaysia”, where Malays and non-Malays were equal, and he would not condone a policy that supported Malay supremacy.

Differences between the two sides grew – from conflicts between personalities and disagreements about a common market, to the PAP’s participation in Malaysia’s general election. Malaysian politicians considered it a breach of understanding for the PAP to take part in mainland politics.

Things came to a head over constitutional rights. Mr Lee addressed the Malaysian Parliament in May 1965, in both English and Malay, laying out his case against communal politics.

But a year after racial riots were sparked off by what Mr Lee called Malay “ultras”, creating a deep divide, Singapore separated from Malaysia on Aug 9, 1965. It was a time of great disappointment for Mr Lee, a moment which he said was one of “anguish” for him.

FROM MUDFLAT TO METROPOLIS

And so it was that Singapore became an independent state that day in 1965, but not by choice. The island’s 2 million people faced an uncertain future, and that uncertainty weighed heavily on the man who was leading it.

Left with no hinterland and hardly any domestic market to speak of, Singapore’s only option was for its leaders to fight hard for its survival.

And despite the daunting task that loomed ahead, Mr Lee chose to set his sights on building a country of the future, and he never veered from that vision. In his own words in September 1965: “Here we make the model multiracial society. This is not a country that belongs to any single community -  it belongs to all of us. This was a mudflat, a swamp. Today, it is a modern city. And 10 years from now, it will be a metropolis – never fear!”

But this difficult task was soon made more challenging by another crisis. In 1968, Britain unexpectedly announced its intention to withdraw its troops from Singapore. Mr Lee and his team now had to confront the prospect of a country without its own security forces. Worse, thousands of workers retrenched from the British bases joined the already large numbers of unemployed in the country.

Mr Lee’s good ties with British leaders led them to extend the departure of their forces to the end of 1971. These military bases contributed 20 per cent to the economy and provided jobs for 70,000 people, and the extension of the pull-out date softened the blow to Singapore’s economy.

In the face of these looming challenges, Mr Lee and his team soldiered on to hold the fledgling country together, and to make it work. The vacated British naval bases were used to boost the economy, and efforts were made to attract investors to set up industries on the former British army land.

To survive what was then a hostile neighbourhood, Mr Lee adopted a two-pronged approach to grow the economy.

First, to leapfrog the region and link up with the developed world, for both capital and market initiatives; and second, to transform Singapore into a “first world oasis in a third world region”. With first-world standards of service and infrastructure, Mr Lee saw the potential for Singapore to become the hub for businesses seeking a foothold in the region.

Mr Lee most likely saw the possibilities for Singapore, including eventually enjoying the world’s highest per-capita income, and becoming a leading business centre for Asia. He would have attributed such success to the confidence of foreign investors drawn to the nation’s amicable industrial relations.

Former President S R Nathan remembers Mr Lee’s focused approach: “He emphasised that his duty was to find ways and means of getting more jobs for people, and it was also the duty of the labour movement to help their fellow workers find jobs. And so for that, we needed industrial peace and a certain balance, not exploitation.”

GETTING THINGS DONE

The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) was formed in 1961 when the PAP split. Led by Mr Devan Nair, a founding member of the PAP, the NTUC led Singapore’s labour movement away from militant trade unionism to one marked by cooperation.

This made Singapore the first in the world to have a tripartite arrangement where workers, employers and the Government came together to discuss general wage levels. This cooperation contributed significantly to harmonious labour relations and, ultimately, to Singapore’s rapid development in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr Lee firmly believed that growth and development of the country was in the best interests of the workers and their unions. Speaking in 2011, he said: “In other words, growth is meaningless unless it is shared by the workers, shared not directly in wage increases, but indirectly in better homes, better schools, better hospitals, better playing fields, a healthier environment for their families, and for their children to grow up.”

Singapore’s metamorphosis from mudflat to metropolis was not just a physical transformation. Equally remarkable was the transformation of the psyche of an entire population. Within the span of a few decades, Singaporeans came to be seen as a people who could get things done.

Mr Lee played a big part in that change. From the start, he set the pace for excellence. He once told senior civil servants: “I want to make sure every button works, and if it doesn’t when I happen to be around, then somebody is going to be in for a rough time, because I do not want sloppiness.”

Sprucing up a young nation however was not so straightforward. Besides the challenge of ensuring sufficient security for the country’s borders, Mr Lee and his team had a more fundamental problem to tackle – that of a housing crisis.

HOUSING A NATION

Today, the 50-storey Pinnacle on Cantonment Road stands as an icon in Singapore’s 50-year-old public housing landscape. It is built on the site of one of the earliest public housing projects in the country. But housing in the 1950s was a far cry from what it is today. Slums were common when Singapore achieved self-government in 1959, and there was a full-blown housing crisis.

To meet the nation’s acute housing shortage, the PAP set up the Housing and Development Board in 1960. The aim set for it was to build 10,000 homes a year.

Its predecessor – the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) – was highly sceptical that the new board would meet its ambitious target. The SIT itself had built only 20,000 flats in its entire 30-year history.

The stakes were high and the difficulties daunting. The PAP, which had just come into power, needed to deliver results fast and gain the trust and confidence of Singaporeans.

There was doubt even with the Government of whether the HDB could get the job done, and a committee was set up to find out if the board had the capability and the materials to complete 10,000 houses as planned. When the committee published its report, the HDB had already completed 10,000 units of housing.

The HDB’s performance was crucial to the PAP’s re-election in 1963.

But it was more than a question of providing affordable homes for the people. The social motive to do this was equally compelling, and public housing helped tighten the weave of Singapore’s social fabric.

Mr Lee felt that it was important to have a rooted population. He said in 2010: “If you ask people to defend all the big houses where the bosses live, and they live in harbours, I don’t think that’s tenable. So we decided from the very beginning that everybody must have a home, every family will have something to defend, and that home must be owner-owned, but they have to pay by instalments over 20, 25, even 30 years. And that home we developed over the years into their most valuable asset.”

Today, more than 80 per cent of Singaporeans now live in subsidised public flats that they can call their own.

Singaporeans now had a personal stake in their country that went beyond feelings of patriotism. They had a physical space they could call home, and a vested interest to defend it.

National Service, aimed at defending the country and ensuring its borders were safe from external aggression, took on a different dimension.

After independence, Singapore was left with just two battalions of the Singapore Infantry Regiment. There was an urgent need to build a substantial defence force. And so National Service was introduced in 1967, with universal conscription making it compulsory for every male Singapore citizen to serve in the armed forces for about two years. It also contributed to promoting racial harmony.

UNIFIED BY LANGUAGE

In multi-racial Singapore, English is the common language used by all races. Mr Lee saw early on that English would be a unifier that would give Singapore an edge in the international arena.

But he also believed that knowing one’s mother tongue would build a sense of belonging to one’s roots, and increase self-confidence and self-respect. And so he championed bilingualism.

In retrospect, Mr Lee said that bilingualism was his most difficult policy to implement. He later admitted he had been wrong to assume that one could be equally fluent in two languages. He said in 2004: “Had I known all the difficulties of bilingualism in 1965, as I know now today, would I have done differently? Yes, in its implementation, but not in its policy. I don’t regret the stress and heavy burdens I put, because the other way would have been a destruction of the chance of building up some form of culture worth preserving.”

Former senior minister of state Ch’ng Jit Koon lauded Mr Lee’s foresight in creating a bilingual society. “If he did not succeed in bringing through our education system based on bilingual education, we will not have the advantage among other countries to tap on China’s economic trade,” he said in 2008.

Indeed, Mr Lee and his team were very sensitive to issues involving race, knowing how combustible such matters could be. The formative years of the PAP, the battles against communism and extremism and the racial riots he lived through meant that Mr Lee never underestimated the potentially explosive nature of race relations.

When it was time to remove the small, dilapidated mosques built on state land, he did so with caution. His plan was to replace these “suraus” with bigger and better mosques in every housing estate through voluntary contributions from the Malay-Muslim community, creating a sense of ownership and pride.

Mr Lee also took special interest in ensuring that Singapore’s different communities would all have a share in its prosperity. He believed better education was one of the keys to uplifting the Malay community.

Cabinet minister K Shanmugam said it would have been easy for politicians in Singapore to appeal to the sentiments of the majority Chinese community to gain political power. But he felt that part of the success of Singapore is due to leaders like Mr Lee, who shunned racial politics.

In an earlier interview in 2003, Mr Shanmugam said: “I think most sensible people in the Indian community, particularly those who went through the earlier struggles, who are older than me, accepted this - that we have the space and we have far more liberty and opportunity in Singapore than we would have if we were 6 per cent in any other society, including India, where many of the so-called upper caste Indians in Singapore would not have had a chance.”

Mr Lee Hsien Loong said that the elder Mr Lee remembered the situation that had existed in Malaysia before Singapore became an independent state. “After we became independent, a point that he always reiterated was – never do to the minorities in Singapore that which happened to us when we were a minority in Malaysia. Always make sure that the Malays, the Indians have their space, can live their way of life, and have full equal opportunities and are not discriminated against. And at the same time, help them to upgrade, improve, move forward,” he said in 2013.

CLEAN AND GREEN

Singapore is widely known for being a clean city, both in terms of its environment as well as governance. It is the least corrupt country in Asia, and according to the World Bank, it is one of the most preferred places in the world to do business.

But it was not always graft-free. Corruption was widely prevalent when Singapore was still a British colony. In the 1959 election, the PAP, then the opposition, campaigned against the Government’s corrupt practices. Mr Lee said at the time: “I am convinced that we will thrive and flourish, provided there is an honest and effective Government here.”

The PAP’s anti-corruption position resonated well with the voters. When the PAP Government took office, Mr Lee and his team turned up in all-white as a promise to the people that their leaders will not stand for corruption and will be “whiter than white”.

Over the years, the leadership’s zero tolerance for corruption earned Singapore a reputation for having a clean and effective Government. Establishing rule of law, public security and safety were fundamental to the success of the PAP.

Mr Lee applied the effort to stay clean to the island’s physical transformation as well. From the outset, he was adamant that urban development in the country did not proceed haphazardly. He had seen how a lack of planning had marred other cities, and was determined that Singapore did not make the same mistake.

Observers say this focus on paving the foundation for Singapore to have a first world environment while becoming a first world economy led to the good environment actually becoming an economic asset. And some felt that the efforts to green Singapore gave a certain softness and calmness to the country, and was not just an aesthetic benefit but spoke to the soul of Singaporeans.

Mr Lee expressed his passion for greening Singapore in practical ways. He planted a tree every year, a tradition he started in 1963. This kicked off an island-wide tree-planting initiative and launched Tree Planting Day, a national campaign that helped Singapore earn its reputation as a Garden City.

Mr Lee wrote in his memoirs: “After independence, I searched for some dramatic way to distinguish Singapore from other Third World countries and settled for a clean and green Singapore. Greening is the most cost-effective project I have launched.”

Mr Lee’s original vision of a Garden City evolved over the years into the concept of a City in a Garden, with about 2 million trees planted around the island.

In June 2012, this transformation was celebrated with the opening of the Gardens by the Bay.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said this was just one example of how Singapore’s living environment is being transformed. “It may be a densely populated city, maybe one of the densest in the world, but we are determined that our people should be able to live comfortably, pleasantly, graciously. Not just good homes, efficient public transport or safe streets, but also be in touch with nature, never far from green spaces and blue waters,” he said in 2012.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew was not known to be sentimental about buildings or landmarks, and he was practical yet ambitious about transforming the nation’s landscape, even when it came to defying nature.

And one of his most important initiatives started in 1977, and involved the Singapore River – historically the lifeblood of the economy and the centre of commercial activity.

The river had been the conduit for Singapore’s entrepot trade, allowing for the movement of goods from the port to the city. Over the years, it had degenerated into a filthy, congested, polluted waterway. The industries along its banks had been dumping sewage and garbage into its waters. The water was badly polluted and caused a stench in the area.

Mr Lee’s proposal was perceived as a monumental feat: A clean-up of the entire river.

The rebirth of the Singapore River took 10 years to complete, and today, it is not only glistening again, but its banks are also bustling with trendy restaurants, clubs and offices, and fish have even returned.

The Singapore River, now part of the Marina reservoir, is a constant reminder of the man who defied time and tide. Its transformation mirrors the fascinating evolution of a small backwater into a thriving global metropolis, and its currents echo the ebb and flow of one man’s life as he turned an impossible dream into reality.

In Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s own words: “You begin your journey not knowing where it will take you. You have plans, you have dreams, but every now and again you have to take uncharted roads, face impassable mountains, cross treacherous rivers, be blocked by landslides and earthquakes. That’s the way my life has been.”

Source: Channel NewsAsia

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VIDEO: Rey Mysterio Jr. flying kick kills Mexican wrestler; manslaughter charge possible

In this May 27, 2010 photo, Mexican wrestler Pedro Aguayo Ramirez, known as Hijo del Perro Aguayo, poses for photographers at the start of a news conference in Mexico City. Ramirez, the son of a wrestling legend in the country, died early Saturday March 21, 2015, from a hit suffered in the ring in Tijuana, the Baja California state prosecutor's office said. (AP Photo/Enrique Ordonez)

WATCH:



MEXICO CITY -- Professional wrestler Rey Mysterio Jr. expressed stunned sympathy Saturday after authorities said his blow during a wrestling match the night before killed the son of a Mexican wrestling legend.

Pedro Aguayo Ramirez, known as Hijo del Perro Aguayo, fell unconscious on the ropes Friday after receiving a flying kick from Mysterio, according to video of the match in a municipal auditorium in Tijuana, Mexico.

The Baja California state prosecutor's office said Ramirez died from the blow in the ring. TMZ reported that cause of death appeared to be a snapped vertebrae when Ramirez's head hit the ropes.

The state prosecutor's office said it is investigating whether to file a manslaughter charge, The Associated Press said.

In several tweets posted in Spanish, Mysterio, whose real name is Oscar Gutierrez, said he was left wondering how God allowed such a tragic accident to occur.

According to wrestlezone.com, two of the tweets translate as: "Just formed a friendship between brothers who opened years ago and we should not question the designs of God. But in this occasion I wonder why and I do not understand it...I take you with me for the rest of my life, rest in peace HijoDelPerro." The match continued for about two minutes until other participants and the referee realized Aguayo was seriously injured and began to tend to him, AP said.

He died at the hospital at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, prosecutor's spokesman Raul Gutierrez said.

The Crash, the company that reportedly organized the event, couldn't be reached for comment.

"I have no words for this terrible news," Joaquin Roldan, director of the AAA wrestling federation, said on Twitter. "My sincerest condolences for the Aguayo Ramirez family."

Mexico is famous for its colorful characters and costumes in professional wrestling, popularly known as lucha libre. The fighters perform daring aerial maneuvers inside and outside the ring.

Aguayo, 35, had wrestled for 20 years and was the son of the legendary Pedro "Perro" Aguayo, now retired and a member of the Aztec lucha hall of fame.

The younger Aguayo was also popular and led a group called "Los Perros de Mal," or the bad dogs. He won numerous titles, including national pairs with his father, a national heavyweight championship and the Consejo Mundial Lucha Libre world trios championship.

"It makes me very sad because he was a professional colleague and I have great affection for his father," the wrestler Hijo del Santo said in a telephone interview. "I think the fans in Japan, the U.S. and Mexico, of course, where he was very popular, must be in mourning, especially because of his youth. He had much ahead of him."

Source: Syracuse

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WATCH: Piranha feeding frenzy caught on camera

Like a scene right out of a Hollywood horror flick, a video published online this week shows a river in Brazil practically boiling over with feeding piranhas.

The video may make swimmers everywhere (or at least in South America) recoil in horror, but piranhas are rarely dangerous to people, says Zeb Hogan, a National Geographic fellow and professor of biology at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The toothy, omnivorous fish are found throughout South America, where people often wade or swim around them without being bitten, says Hogan.
“But piranhas can be dangerous if they are trapped in a backwater without food, or [are] somehow concentrated in an area and they are hungry,” he says.

Such a situation was famously chronicled by Theodore Roosevelt during an expedition to the Amazon in 1913-14, when starved piranhas trapped in a small pool shredded a whole cow carcass in seconds. (Watch piranhas devour an egret chick.)

Fishermen are occasionally bitten, and there have been some recent reports of attacks by piranhas and related fish in South America, including one death, “but these events are extremely rare,” says Hogan.

The fish in the video might be particularly aggressive if they've been fed regularly by people, Hogan says. Piranhas congregating to catch an easy meal  would build up in large numbers, causing them to act just as they do when trapped in a small pool.

The area filmed might be a fish-cleaning station, or perhaps a planned act to amuse tourists, Hogan speculates. (Learn about the man who smuggled 40,000 piranhas.)

The person who posted the YouTube video has not responded to a request for more information about the scene that was recorded.

Piranhas play an important ecological role as scavengers and predators in their native rivers, says Hogan. They will often resort to cannibalism if food gets scarce. It's unknown how many species of piranhas exist, with estimates ranging from 30 to 60.

“I've been swimming dozens of times in rivers where piranha were very abundant and I've never been bitten,” adds Hogan.

Source: National Geographic

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