SINGAPORE: Miss Annabel Pennefather has been named Chef de Mission for the Singapore contingent at this year's SEA Games in Myanmar.
This will be her fifth time as Chef de Mission to Singapore's contingent.
Previously, she filled that role at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and most recently, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
- CNA/de
The Backblaze Storage Pod 3.0 contains three rows of 15 hard drives.
Backblaze, a startup offering online backup service, has released the designs for its newest Storage Pod, a low-budget storage server with 180TB of capacity.
It was something of a PR stunt when the company shared its first-gen Storage Pod design back in 2009, but the 67-terabyte system proved useful to organzations including the Vanderbilt University Institute of Image Science, which stores medical imaging data, ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and and the Geographic Information Network of Alaska. Netflix was inspired to share its Open Connect Appliance Hardware design, and Backblaze also showed its Storage Pod 2.0 design, which could accommodate 135TB of data.
Now the Storage Pod 3.0 design is out, too. Backblaze uses 450 pods to hold more than 50 petabytes of customer data, it said.
The third-generation pods use 4TB drives -- up to 45 of them -- which increases the total capacity. Instead of being held in place by a band, they're now squeezed by an anti-vibration panel that also shaves an hour off storage pod assembly time and makes it easier to replace failed drives.
The new design also switched to a Supermicro MBD-X9SCL-F motherboard, upgraded to a second-generation, lower-power Intel Core i3-2100 processor, improved airflow to keep components cool. The total cost for the pod -- without drives -- dropped to $1,942.59, $37.41 less than the second-gen Storage Pod.
"The real influencer in the total cost will be the hard drives. The lingering effects from the Thailand drive crisis and consolidation in the drive industry have meant that even today hard drive prices are higher than they were when Pod 2.0 was introduced back in July of 2011," Backblaze said.
The company has been hurt by the hard drive shortages in Thailand and, perhaps, by consolidation in the industry that's slowing the ordinary pace of price cuts. Indeed, the cost per gigabyte is somewhat higher for new 4TB drives than for the earlier 3TB models it's been using. But lower costs for power consumption, rack space, and installation mean the 4TB drives work out to be the same cost.
Anyone interested in actually building the Storage Pod 3.0 can check Backblaze's description for parts listings, assembly instructions, and other details.
Backblaze's Storage Pod 3.0
PHOENIX Arizona took center stage in the national immigration debate Tuesday as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano toured the state's border with Mexico and Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix.
The presence of the top officials is the latest sign that Arizona will play a prominent role in the immigration debate as President Obama looks to make it a signature issue of his second term.
Napolitano toured the border near Nogales with the highest-ranking official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the incoming chairman of the Senate's homeland security committee and an Arizona congressman. Napolitano, Arizona's former governor, said afterward that comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen the nation's border against criminals and other threats.
Also Tuesday, McCain hosted two town hall meetings in Arizona, during which he defended his immigration plan to upset residents concerned about border security. A bipartisan group of senators — including Arizona Republicans McCain and Jeff Flake — want assurances on border security as Congress weighs what could be the biggest changes to immigration law in nearly 30 years. Arizona is the only state with both of its senators working on immigration reform in Congress, a sign of the state's widely debated border security issues.
Immigration activists and elected officials say it's only natural for Arizona to continue to take the forefront in the national conversation on immigration after years of internal debate on the topic.
"No state in this country has had more experience with enforcement-only immigration laws than Arizona," said Todd Landfried, executive director of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, which opposes the state's tough immigration laws.
During a heated town hall gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, McCain said the border near Yuma is largely secure, but he said smugglers are using the border near Tucson to pump drugs into Phoenix. He said immigration reform should be contingent on better border security that must rely largely on technology able to detect border crossings.
McCain said a tamper-proof Social Security card would help combat identity fraud, and noted any path to citizenship must require immigrants to learn English, cover back taxes and pay fines for breaking immigration laws.
"There are 11 million people living here illegally," he said. "We are not going to get enough buses to deport them."
Some audience members shouted out their disapproval.
One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.
McCain urged compassion. "We are a Judeo-Christian nation," he said. McCain's other town hall meeting took place in Green Valley, south of Tucson.
Arizona gained international recognition as an epicenter of the U.S. immigration debate when it passed its tough anti-immigrant law in 2010. A handful of other states — including Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — have since adopted variations of Arizona's law.
Arizona has the nation's eighth-highest population of illegal immigrants, according to the Pew Research Hispanic Center. In 2010, illegal immigrants represented roughly 6 percent of the state's population.
Activists said Arizona's anti-immigrant laws inspired many illegal immigrants to demand more rights. Last week, some college students rallied outside Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's office for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
"They no longer are afraid to come and say, 'I am not able to vote, but I can make my voice heard, and they have to listen to me,"' said community organizer Abril Gallardo.
A report released in January showed the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector remains the busiest along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Tucson sector accounted for 38 percent of all drug seizures and 37 percent of all apprehensions along the border.
Brewer said last week the border cannot be declared safe until the people living near it feel secure from drug and human trafficking.
But Democratic Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona told Latino and black community leaders at a Phoenix luncheon Tuesday that Arizonans need to spread the word on how much more secure the border has become.
"There are lots of folks who don't live in Arizona who have no idea what the border is like," Sinema said.
Napolitano toured the border Tuesday afternoon with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar, Democratic Rep. Ron Barber of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware. Carper is the incoming chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
She said in a statement after the tour that border crossings are down 50 percent since 2008 and 78 percent since their peak in 2000.
At the second day of a bail hearing for Olympian Oscar Pistorius, a South African investigator who arrived at the scene of the Feb. 14 fatal shooting said that Reeva Steenkamp was shot from a high angle, which prosecutors say contradicts the runner's account that he was not wearing his prosthetics when he shot his girlfriend to death.
Pistorius, a double-amputee who runs on carbon-fiber blades, appeared in court for the second day in a row after his arrest in the death of girlfriend Steenkamp at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa.
Read Oscar Pistorius' Full Statement to the Court
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
Arresting officer Hilton Botha told the court today that the 26-year-old was standing in the master bathroom when he shot the supermodel, who was crouched in a defensive position behind a locked door in a smaller powder room. He also said that the bullets that were fired had been fired from high up, and the bullets seemed to be coming in a downward direction.
"[The angle] seems to me down. Fired down," Botha told the court.
Pistorius said Tuesday that he went to the bathroom and fired through the door before putting on his prosthetic legs.
He said he mistakenly shot his girlfriend, thinking she was an intruder.
Prosecutors also said that they found two boxes of testosterone in the bedroom, although the defense disputes that, saying it's just herbal supplements.
The court also heard that a witness, someone about 2,000 feet away from Pistorius' home, heard nonstop fighting the morning of the shooting.
"We have a witness who says she heard non-stop shouting and fighting between 2 and 3 a.m.," said prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who added that another witness saw lights on at the time of the gunshots.
Pistorius says he spent a quiet night with Steenkamp before the shooting.
Nel said that Pistorius' actions and phone calls on the night indicate pre-planning, and that there was a "deliberate aiming of shots at the toilet from about 1.5 meters [about 5 feet]."
He says Steenkamp was shot on the right side of her body.
Officer Botha also said Pistorius should be considered a flight risk because investigators discovered that he has offshore bank accounts and a house in Italy.
"I think it would be hard to get him back," Botha told the court. "This is a very serious crime, shooting an unarmed woman behind closed door."
Prosecutors also say they may file more charges for unlicensed ammunition, after a special-caliber .38 round was found in a safe in Pistorius' home.
Botha told the court today that he arrived at Pistorius' home at 4:15 a.m. Valentine's Day to find Steenkamp already dead, dressed in a white shorts and a black vest, and covered in towels. The only thing that Pistorius said was, 'I thought it was a burglar,'" according to Botha.
The 26-year-old sprinter Tuesday denied that he willfully killed Steenkamp, telling the court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Botha said today that he attended Steenkamp's postmortem, and that she had three entrance wounds: one on the head, one in the elbow and one in the hip.
Describing the scene to the court, Botha said that the shots fired into the bathroom were aimed at the toilet bowl.
The shooter "would have to walk into the bathroom and turn directly at the door to shoot at the toilet the way the bullets went," he said.
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis.
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early election.
Wage and pension freezes and tax hikes have bitten deep in a country where living standards are less than half the EU average and tens of thousands of Bulgarians have rallied in protests that have turned violent, chanting "Mafia" and "Resign".
On Tuesday, 11 people were hospitalized - including one man bleeding heavily from the head - and 11 arrested after protesters threw flares at police, who fought demonstrators with shields and truncheons.
"I will not participate in a government under which police are beating people," Borisov, who began his career guarding the Black Sea state's communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, said as he announced his resignation on Wednesday.
Parliament is expected to accept the resignation later in the day.
The spark for the protests was high electricity bills, after the government raised prices by 13 percent last July. But it quickly spilled over into wider frustration with Borisov's domineering manner and unpredictable decision making.
The prime minister made sacrifices in an attempt to cling on, sacking his finance minister, cutting power prices and risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by punishing foreign-owned companies, a move that conflicted with EU norms on protection of investors and due process.
Borisov's rightist GERB party is the dominant faction in parliament but will not take part in talks to form a new government, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said, indicating that an election planned for July will now be held early.
"He made my day," student Borislav Hadzhiev, 21, in central Sofia said, commenting on Borisov's resignation. "The truth is that we're living in an extremely poor country."
IRE
GERB's popularity has held up well and it still leads, just, in the polls, largely because budget cutbacks have been relatively mild compared with those in many other European countries. Salaries and pensions were frozen rather than cut.
But the last opinion poll, taken before protests grew last weekend already showed the opposition Socialists were nearly tied with the ruling party and analysts said the protests had boosted the Socialists' chances.
Unemployment in the country of 7.3 million is far from the highs hit in the decade after the end of communism but remains at 11.9 percent and average salaries are stuck at around 800 levs ($550) a month.
Millions have emigrated in search of a better life, leaving swathes of the country depopulated and little hope for those who remain.
The measures announced this week has also put the country on a collision course with the EU and financial investors without easing the tension at home.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas demanded an explanation from Bulgaria and accused it of "politicizing" the power sector by threatening to revoke the electricity distribution license of central Europe's largest listed company CEZ, 70 percent of which is owned by the Czech state.
There have also been fines for another Czech company, Energo-Pro and Austria's EVN.
The precedent is unlikely to encourage other foreign investors, who already have to navigate complicated bureaucracy and widespread corruption and organized crime if they want to take advantage of Bulgaria's 16-percent flat tax rate.
"The resignation is the only responsible move," said Kantcho Stoychev, an analyst with pollster Gallup International. "It also gives Borisov some legitimacy to stay in political life in the future, despite the violent police actions last night."
(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Patrick Graham)
SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange (SGX) is looking at reviewing listing rules to better protect retail investors of troubled firms.
This was revealed in a letter to the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS) from SGX deputy chief regulatory officer Richard Teng.
SGX was responding to SIAS' earlier proposals to safeguard investors of foreign issuers on the SGX.
The exchange said SIAS' proposals have been discussed and considered by its newly formed working committee to review the SGX listing rules.
Among the committee's proposals are to give SGX legal powers to appoint special auditors or other professionals to help or investigate troubled companies.
It added that there could also be a requirement that imposes a minimum notice period before board directors of listed companies can effectively resign.
In the meantime, SIAS said retail investors who own shares from foreign companies continue to face risks in recover their investments "should the untoward happen to any of the foreign issuers."
In a separate announcement, SGX said that it has formed a working committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the listing manual to enhance the robustness, efficacy and relevance of the listing framework in Singapore.
The new committee comprised capital market stakeholders, including representatives from the SGX, Association of Banks in Singapore, Singapore Institute of Directors, law firms, accounting firms and company secretarial firms.
The committee has commenced its review to identify areas of possible enhancements to strengthen Singapore's attractiveness as a capital market.
- CNA/fa
Apple's Mac Pro
Consumers in Europe looking for a Mac Pro are now out of luck, at least when trying to buy one online.
Apple's online stores in the U.K., Italy, Germany, France, and other European countries show all three editions of the
Mac Pro as "currently unavailable."
The news isn't exactly a surprise. Apple told European retailers and distributors last month that it would stop selling the Mac Pro come March 1 due to new safety regulations. The regulations impose certain electrical requirements, and the Mac Pro's ports and fans aren't in compliance.
The regulations affect 27 different countries in the European union. Apple did have until March 1 to curtail sales of the Mac Pro across Europe, so it's not clear why the company jumped the gun a bit early. The new safety regulations affect only Europe, so the Mac Pro is still available at Apple's online stores in the U.S, Japan, and other non-European countries.
The Mac Pro is the only Apple product that runs afoul of the new safety regulations. Beyond a couple of minor changes last year, Apple hasn't updated the Mac Pro in more than two years. Last June, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an update for the high-powered desktop in 2013, saying that we're "working on something really great for later next year.".
Apple could even have a Mac Pro refresh in store sooner than later. Earlier this month, two online publications in France reported that a French reseller received word from Apple that a new Mac Pro lineup would debut this spring.
CNET contacted Apple for comment and will update the story if the company responds.
(Via 9to5Mac)
As the clock ticks on the automatic spending cuts set to kick in on March 1, President Obama will hold an event this morning to urge Congress to come up with an alternative plan to avert the cuts.
The White House says Mr. Obama will emphasize the potential negative effects of the so-called sequester - the $1.2 trillion over 10 years in cuts - by standing with first responders, people who the White House says will be directly affected by the cuts.
The president "will be joined at the White House by emergency responders - the kinds of working Americans whose jobs are on the line if Congressional Republicans fail to compromise on a balanced solution," a White House official said in a statement.
"The President will challenge Republicans to make a very simple choice: do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle and working class Americans?" the official continued.
The $1.2 trillion sequester cuts, which were initially set to kick in on Jan. 1, emerged out of Congress' 2011 budget negotiations. Congress agreed that if a congressional "supercommittee" couldn't come up with an acceptable deficit reduction plan, Congress would just slash $1.2 trillion from the budget over 10 years -- half coming from defense spending and half from non-defense. The cuts were designed to be so drastic that Republicans and Democrats would be compelled to craft an alternate, bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction.
Ten days out, however, no single substitute plan exists and lawmakers are on a week's recess until next Monday.
Economists agree the steep, across-the-board cuts would slow the economy. The White House recently laid out the ways the sequester would hurt the middle class, from slashing education programs to small business loan guarantees. Taking $1.2 trillion out of the economy would put close to a million jobs at risk, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated.
The president and his chief of staff Denis McDonough have publicly prodded Congress multiple times since Mr. Obama's State of the Union address last Tuesday, emphasizing education, manufacturing, and immigration reform as the keys to growth. In his weekly address over the weekend, Mr. Obama lobbied for his "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that would combine "responsible reforms" on health care spending and taxes to stabilize our finances.
The president contrasted his approach with Republicans, who have proposed "even bigger cuts to things like education and job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits."
"That won't work," Mr. Obama said. "We can't just cut our way to prosperity."
Meantime, McDonough said the president hasn't "given up" on coming up with an alternative to avert the current set of cuts and he's doing "everything he can to not let this happen." In his State of the Union address last week, McDonough said, the president laid out what he's prepared to offer to avoid the cuts.
"We're ready to do another trillion-and-a-half to get to the $4 trillion mark that every economist in the country says we need to do to stabilize the debt problem," McDonough said on "Face the Nation" Sunday.
"Now when we think of the kinds of things that we're going to have to invest in, the president has also been very clear that he's ready to take on, as he laid out in the speech, a question like rising health care costs and Medicare."
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Olympian Oscar Pistorius today denied that he willfully killed his girlfriend, telling a South African court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Pistorius, 26 and a double-amputee Olympian, was charged today with premeditated murder, or a Schedule 6 offense, which under South African law limits his chances for parole if convicted.
Pistorius, who gained worldwide fame for running on carbon-fiber blades and competing against able-bodied runners at the Olympics, is accused of shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 14.
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
In a statement read by his lawyer, the runner said he and Steenkamp went to bed together before he was awoken by a noise he thought was an intruder coming from the bathroom.
Filled with a "sense of terror," he removed the 9-mm pistol he kept hidden under his bed and, without putting on his prosthetic legs, began shooting through the bathroom door, according to his statement.
It was only then that he realized Steenkamp was not in bed, he said in the statement. Fearing she was inside the bathroom, he says, he broke down the door using a cricket bat and carried the woman outside, where he called for help, and she soon died.
Pistorius appeared in court today for the first time since his Valentine's Day arrest, as prosecutors laid out their case, insisting that the runner could not have mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder.
"[Pistorius] shot and killed an innocent woman," Gerrie Nel, the senior state prosecutor, said in court, adding that there is "no possible explanation to support" the notion that Pistorius thought Steenkamp was an intruder.
Police responding to neighbors' calls about shouting and gunshots at Pistorius' home in the guarded and gated complex in the South African capital discovered Steenkamp's body. A 9-mm pistol was recovered at the home.
Prosecutors said Steenkamp had arrived at the house with the expectation of spending the night with Pistorius. They said that Steenkamp was shot while in the bathroom, which is about 21 feet from the main bedroom, and that the two rooms are linked by a passage. The door to the toilet was broken down from the outside, prosecutors said, implying that the bathroom door had been locked.
Prosecutors believe it's a case of premeditated murder because, they say, Pistorius had to stop, put on his prosthetic legs, grab a gun and then walk 21 feet to a bathroom.
The premeditated murder charge means that he would likely be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, and that he is likely to be denied bail, which is expected to be decided later today.
South Africa has moved away from the jury system, in light of its brutally racist past, so Pistorius' fate will rest in the hands of a judge and two magistrates.
The prosecution had said that the defense would no doubt argue for the charge to be downgraded to a Schedule 5 offense, but that was clearly wrong, according to the prosecution.
In a Schedule 5 offense, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that it would be in the interest of justice to keep the accused behind bars and not release him on bail. A Schedule 6 offense is a more serious category, wherein the defense has to prove that it would be in the interest of justice to release the accused person on bail.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro would comfortably win a presidential election should his boss Hugo Chavez's cancer force him out of power, according to an opinion poll.
The first survey on such a scenario, by local pollster Hinterlaces, gave Maduro a potential 50 percent of votes, compared to 36 percent for opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
Chavez returned to Venezuela on Monday after a long stay in Cuba to continue treatment at home for the disease that is jeopardizing his 14-year socialist rule of the South American OPEC nation.
He has named 50-year-old former bus driver and union activist Maduro as his preferred successor. But Capriles, 40, a center-left state governor who lost to Chavez in a presidential vote last year, would likely run again.
Chavez still has not said a word in public since his December 11 operation in Cuba, and Venezuelans were debating on Tuesday the various possible scenarios after his homecoming - from full recovery, to resignation, or even death from the cancer.
Should Chavez be forced out, Venezuela's constitution stipulates an election must be held within 30 days.
Capriles, who crossed swords with Hinterlaces at various points during the presidential election, again mocked its director, Oscar Schemel, as being biased against him.
"That man is not a pollster, he's on the government's payroll," Capriles told local TV.
"He said in December I would lose the Miranda governorship," he added, referring to his defeat of government heavyweight Elias Jaua, now foreign minister, in that local race.
Opinion surveys are notoriously controversial and divergent in Venezuela, with both sides routinely accusing pollsters of being in the pocket of the other.
Hinterlaces surveyed 1,230 people between January 30-February 9.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
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