News Today

Left high and wet
PHOTO: EDWIN KOO For the past week, home for the 22-member family of Mr Hassan Talib has been a big tent by the village road in Batu Pahat, Johor. About 40,300 flood victims were still at 93 relief centres in the... [Read more]

Rafidah slams US threat over Iran gas deal
KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA has said it will drop free trade talks with the United States if it is asked to scrap a multibillion-dollar gas deal with Iran, according to a news report yesterday.Mr Tom Lantos, chairman of the foreign affairs... [Read more]

NST and blogger agree to blackout before hearing
KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN blogger and a pro-government newspaper suing him for defamation agreed yesterday to cease publishing items related to the case to ensure fair proceedings.Lawyers for Mr Ahirudin Attan and the plaintiff, the New Straits Times newspaper, issued... [Read more]

Nigeria's plea for trafficker rejected
SINGAPORE has rejected Nigeria's plea for clemency for a Nigerian drug trafficker who has been sentenced to death.In a letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the Singapore Government has a duty to safeguard the interests of... [Read more]

Knicks capitalise on Bryant's absence to win
NEW YORK - THE Los Angeles Lakers missed Kobe Bryant's skills, and fans at Madison Square Garden missed his showmanship.But the New York Knicks did not miss the opportunity to profit from his absence.They hit the short-handed Lakers 99-94 on Tuesday... [Read more]

Companies in brief
ST ENGG WINS $68.5M TAIWAN TRAIN CONTRACTSINGAPORE Technologies Engineering (ST Engg) has won a $68.5 million contract from engineering firm Marubeni to supply communications and other electronic systems for a railway project in Taiwan. The company's electronics arm will design and... [Read more]

FairPrice to absorb GST hike for 6 months
SHOPPERS with rice and about 400 other essential items in their baskets at NTUC FairPrice supermarkets will not feel the pinch when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is raised on July 1. This is because, for six months from that... [Read more]

A head for figures
Wearing bills of 10,000 yen on his head for luck, this Tokyo craftsman is painting 'daruma' dolls at a fair in a temple. The dolls have faces painted with moustaches and beards and their eyes are left white. After buying the... [Read more]

2 new PAP MPs elected into party's HQ exco
TWO of the 24 new PAP MPs elected at last year's general election have been appointed to the party's headquarters executive committee. It is an indication that Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui Tuck Yew and Mr Lee Yi Shyan are seen as having... [Read more]

Accredit counsellors so that unqualified ones can be purged
With the number of private institutions offering counselling/psychology courses and higher certificate programmes, possibly to accommodate the growing need of counselling and social work in Singapore, there is a need to 'qualify' those deem fit to do the work of counselling.As... [Read more]

Floods bring Jakarta to a standstill
JAKARTA - TORRENTS of shoulder-deep muddy water swamped roads, left residents stranded, and brought the Indonesian capital to a virtual standstill yesterday, after two days of torrential rain. The waters, up to 3m high in what has been described as the... [Read more]