21,227 cartons of contraband cigarettes seized

SINGAPORE: Customs officers seized 21,227 cartons of contraband cigarettes and arrested five men and a woman during islandwide operations last week.

Singapore Customs said on Wednesday that the total value of the cigarettes seized was over S$2 million, while the total duty and goods and services tax (GST) evaded was S$1.8 million.

Three distribution networks were disrupted.

The biggest seizure was from a prime-mover, which had a consignment of goods declared as pottery.

The vehicle, which was moving out of Jurong Port on 23 January, had 18,000 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes hidden in wooden crates.

Three men were arrested in connection with this seizure.

Investigations are ongoing.

- CNA/ck

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Obama backs immigration reform for skilled tech workers

Obama announced today that he backs immigration reform.

(Credit:
White House)

Tech companies may score a victory in their hopes to get immigration reform passed for skilled tech workers.

President Obama urged Congress today to work on immigration policy that would allow foreign-born startup founders to stay in the country. At the same time, several U.S. senators introduced a bill focusing on the same. As U.S. immigration policy currently stands, U.S.-educated computer programmers and engineers could be deported once finishing school.

"Right now in one of those classrooms there are students wresting with how to turn their big idea -- their Intel or Instagram -- into a big business," Obama said during a speech in Las Vegas today. "We're giving them all the skills they need to figure that out, but then we're going to turn around and tell them to start that business and create those jobs in China or India or Mexico or someplace else. That's not how you grow new industries in America. That's how you give new industries to our competitors. That's why we need comprehensive immigration reform."

The president mentioned that Instagram was co-founded by an immigrant -- Brazilian Michel Kreiger who studied at Stanford University. But, he said, not all startup founders are able to secure visas and stay in the U.S.

In addition to Obama urging Congress to act today, a handful of U.S. Senators -- Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Chris Coons, D-Del. -- introduced new legislation called the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013. This bill focuses on reforming the country's immigration laws for high-skilled workers. The idea is to increase the H-1B visa cap from 65,000 to 115,000, along with easing green cards rules.

Several tech companies have come out in support of such reform. Google, Intel, and Hewlett Packard all commended the government's efforts on changing the country's immigration policy today.

Google's senior vice president of People Operations Laszlo Bock wrote in a blog post today that immigrants founded 40 percent of tech sector companies that went public in the U.S., including Yahoo, eBay, Intel, and Google. And, one in four startups were founded by an immigrant. Combined, these companies employ about 560,000 workers and make $63 billion in sales.

"Our experiences here at Google and in the tech sector show us that immigrants to the U.S. are a powerful force for entrepreneurship and innovation at every level, from startups to multinational corporations," Bock wrote.

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Timbuktu’s vulnerable manuscripts are city’s "gold"

French and Malian troops surrounded Timbuktu on Monday and began combing the labyrinthine city for Islamist fighters. Witnesses, however, said the Islamists, who claim an affiliation to al Qaeda and had imposed a Taliban-style rule in the northern Malian city over the last ten months, slipped into the desert a few days earlier.

But before fleeing, the militants reportedly set fire to several buildings and many rare manuscripts. There are conflicting reports as to how many manuscripts were actually destroyed. (Video: Roots of the Mali Crisis.)

On Monday, Sky News posted an interview with a man identifying himself as an employee of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run repository for rare books and manuscripts, the oldest of which date back to the city's founding in the 12th century. The man said some 3,000 of the institute's 20,000 manuscripts had been destroyed or looted by the Islamists.

Video showed what appeared to be a large pile of charred manuscripts and the special boxes made to preserve them in front of one of the institute's buildings.

However, a member of the University of Cape Town Timbuktu Manuscript Project told eNews Channel Africa on Tuesday that he had spoken with the director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, Mahmoud Zouber, who said that nearly all of its manuscripts had been removed from the buildings and taken to secure locations months earlier. (Read "The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu" in National Geographic magazine.)

A Written Legacy

The written word is deeply rooted in Timbuktu's rich history. The city emerged as a wealthy center of trade, Islam, and learning during the 13th century, attracting a number of Sufi religious scholars. They in turn took on students, forming schools affiliated with's Timbuktu's three main mosques.

The scholars imported parchment and vellum manuscripts via the caravan system that connected northern Africa with the Mediterranean and Arabia. Wealthy families had the documents copied and illuminated by local scribes, building extensive libraries containing works of religion, art, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, history, geography, and culture.

"The manuscripts are the city's real gold," said Mohammed Aghali, a tour guide from Timbuktu. "The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"

This isn't the first time that an occupying army has threatened Timbuktu's cultural heritage. The Moroccan army invaded the city in 1591 to take control of the gold trade. In the process of securing the city, they killed or deported most of Timbuktu's scholars, including the city's most famous teacher, Ahmed Baba al Massufi, who was held in exile in Marrakesh for many years and forced to teach in a pasha's court. He finally returned to Timbuktu in 1611, and it is for him that the Ahmed Baba Institute was named.

Hiding the Texts

In addition to the Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu is home to more than 60 private libraries, some with collections containing several thousand manuscripts and others with only a precious handful. (Read about the fall of Timbuktu.)

Sidi Ahmed, a reporter based in Timbuktu who recently fled to the Malian capital Bamako, said Monday that nearly all the libraries, including the world-renowned Mamma Haidara and the Fondo Kati libraries, had secreted their collections before the Islamist forces had taken the city.

"The people here have long memories," he said. "They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe."

Though it appears most of the manuscripts are safe, the Islamists' occupation took a heavy toll on Timbuktu.

Women were flogged for not covering their hair or wearing bright colors. Girls were forbidden from attending school, and boys were recruited into the fighters' ranks.

Music was banned. Local imams who dared speak out against the occupiers were barred from speaking in their mosques. In a move reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha sculptures, Islamist fighters bulldozed 14 ancient mud-brick mausoleums and cemeteries that held the remains of revered Sufi saints.

A spokesman for the Islamists said it was "un-Islamic" for locals to "worship idols."

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Jodi Arias Borrowed Gas Cans Before Killing Ex

Accused murderer Jodi Arias borrowed two five-gallon gas cans from a former boyfriend the day before she drove to Arizona to kill another ex, Travis Alexander, according to testimony in Arias' murder trial today.

In cross examination, prosecutors also forced Arias' former live-in boyfriend Darryl Brewer to describe his sex life with Arias as "pretty aggressive."

Brewer, 52, dated Arias for four years and shared a home with her in California for two years. He told the court today that Arias called him in May 2008, asking to borrow gas cans, but would not explain why. She called him again at least two more times, and arrived at his house on June 2008, to borrow the cans.

On the day she picked up the gas cans she told Brewer that she was going to visit friends in California and Arizona.

Prosecutors argue that Arias then drove to Mesa, Ariz., where she allegedly had sex with Alexander, took nude photos of him, and then stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat, and shot him twice in the head. She is charged with murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Arias, who claims she killed Alexander in self defense, had approached prosecutors two years ago offering to plea to a second degree murder charge, which could carry a 25 year term, but the state rejected the offer, Nancy Grace reported on Good Morning America today.

Brewer said that Arias never returned the gas cans. The pair had been broken up two years earlier and they had only spoken "sporadically," he said.

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Prosecutors also showed receipts from Arias' trip from her California home to Alexander's home in Mesa, showing that she purchased a 10 gallons of gas at one gas station the night before she drove to Arizona, and then another 10 gallons from a different gas station 10 minutes later. Prosecutors are expected to argue she brought the gas with her to fill up her car secretly on the way to Alexander's home, showing premeditation for the murder.

Arias' attorneys called Brewer as one of their first witnesses as they began mounting their case that Arias killed Alexander in self defense, arguing that Alexander was controlling and abusive toward Arias.

They asked Brewer to explain how he and Arias had been in a stable relationship for four years, from 2002 to 2006, and had bought a home together before Arias met Alexander at a business conference and began to change.

"I saw a lot of changes in Jodi. She became a different person than I had known previously," Brewer said, describing how Arias' behavior changed in May 2006 when she joined a company called Pre-Paid Legal. There, she met Alexander and began seeing him. She continued to live with Brewer.

"She had continued to pay the mortgage, but she was not paying other household bills, she began getting into debt or financial trouble," Brewer said. "For me it seemed she was not as rational or logical."

Arias also converted to Mormonism while living with Brewer, telling him that he could no longer curse and she would no longer have sex with him because she was saving herself for marriage.

The pair had previously had an "enthusiastic" and "aggressive" sex life, Brewer admitted to prosecutors. They had engaged in anal sex, Arias had taken nude photos of Brewer, and Arias had purchased breast implants in 2006, he testified.

Brewer said that after Arias began to change, he made arrangements to move closer to his son from his first marriage, and he and Arias broke up.

They kept in touch with occasional phone calls until Arias asked to borrow the gas cans in June 2008, and then called him a week after borrowing the cans to say that her friend had been killed.

Martinez, reading notes from an interview Brewer gave to authorities during the investigation into Alexander's death, asked if Arias had ever mentioned needing an "alibi." Brewer said he did not recall any conversation about alibis.

"After this date of June 4, 2008," Martinez asked, "you received a call from Jodi Arias, and she was very agitated?"

"She was sad," Brewer said.

"Did she tell you that her friend had been killed and she did not have an alibi?"

"I don't remember that," Brewer said.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander was found dead, in July 2008.

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Iran launches monkey into space

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

Last summer, the Iranian Space Agency announced their plan to send a monkey into space - and now they've apparently done it.

According to Iranian state-run television, a press release on the space agency's website, and photos of the event, Iran sent a live rhesus monkey into sub-orbital space aboard a small rocket called Pishgam, or Pioneer. There's even a video posted on YouTube that appears to be of the launch (though New Scientist could not confirm its authenticity).

The report has not been confirmed independently, however, and the US air force's North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has not reported seeing any missile launches from Iran.

But independent observers say the launch looks legitimate.

"Really, I see no reason not to take their word for it," says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who also keeps a log of space launches. He says he's convinced by the photos and discussions he's had with several knowledgeable source in online forums.

In photos released on the Iranian Space Agency's website, the rocket looks like the same kind the agency has launched before, but with a larger nose cone designed to fit a small chamber that can support life. Images also showed a live rhesus monkey strapped to a small seat.

The reports say the rocket went straight up 120 kilometres, which McDowell says qualifies as outer space, but not high enough to reach orbit, and came back down with a parachute.

It's unclear exactly when the launch took place. The press release says that the launch happened on the birthday of Mohammed the Prophet, which is celebrated by Shiites on 29 January, but was celebrated last week elsewhere in the world.

Some countries worry that Iranian rockets capable of carrying animals or people could also carry weapons. Iran has denied any military intention.

"This is not a scary thing because this is not a big new rocket that could hit America or anything like that," McDowell says. "There's nothing military to this. It's purely for propaganda. Nevertheless, it advances their science and their technology by being able to do it."

Iran says the launch is a first step towards sending humans into space, which they intend to do in the next 5 to 8 years. To do that, McDowell says, they'll need to build a larger rocket. The country currently has a vehicle called Safir that has successfully put satellites in orbit, and is developing a more powerful launcher called Simorgh.

The next step will probably be to either launch Safir to carry a human to sub-orbital space, or an unmanned Simorgh flight into orbit to make sure mission controllers can return it to the ground safely.

"They don't want to repeat what the Soviets did" in 1957, McDowell says, "which is put a living being in orbit before you figure out how to get it back."

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Myolie Wu seeing new mystery man

SHENZHEN, China: Hong Kong actress Myolie Wu revealed Monday that she is now seeing someone, months after she ended her eight-year relationship with actor Bosco Wong, reported Hong Kong media.

When asked if she has any suitors recently, Wu told reporters "that's about right".

Speaking at a hotel in Shenzhen, where she was shooting a wedding scene for her new Chinese drama "Scent of Beauty", Wu said she is "happy" and that the new man in her life is "not of the entertainment industry".

Although Valentine's Day is just round the corner, Wu expressed that they may not be spending it together as they are "still at the 'friends' stage".

Apart from love, Wu also spoke about her career.

Wu is one of the many Hong Kong stars that have headed to China in recent years, lured by high acting fees.

The actress denied rumours that she is making a killing taking on roles in Chinese productions, though she conceded that her acting fee in "Scent of Beauty" was "enough to buy a property".

-CNA/ha

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Google sued by iPhone users in U.K. over Safari tracking

Riding on the heels of the recent U.S. lawsuit against Google for Safari tracking, Apple users in the U.K. have now launched their own similar case against the Web giant.

Peeved that their online privacy was violated, roughly a dozen people are suing Google in a class action suit, according to The Guardian. The case alleges that Google secretly tracked their Internet habits via cookies in the
Safari Web browser. The lawsuit revolves around the way Google may have sidestepped Apple's security settings on the iPhone, iPad, and desktop versions of Safari.

"This is the first time Google has been threatened with a group claim over privacy in the U.K.," Dan Tench, a lawyer at the London-based firm Olswang that is representing the plaintiffs, told The Guardian. "It is particularly concerning how Google circumvented security settings to snoop on its users. One of the things about Google is that it is so ubiquitous in our lives and if that's its approach then it's quite concerning."

The plaintiffs want Google to say how it used the information it allegedly got its hands on, according to The Guardian. Additionally, they want to know how much of their personal data was supposedly taken and over what period of time. They are suing Google for breaches of confidence and privacy, computer misuse and trespassing, and breach of the Data Protection Act of 1998.

In November, a U.S. judge agreed to fine Google $22.5 million in a similar case. In this suit, the Federal Trade Commission also claimed that the Web company illegally bypassed user privacy settings in Safari. The FTC and Google previously reached a settlement in August when the company agreed that it "placed an advertising tracking cookie on the computers of Safari users who visited sites within Google's DoubleClick advertising network."

At that time, Google said it takes privacy very seriously and that it didn't intentionally sidestep Safari's default settings.

According to The Guardian, damages in this suit could be in the millions since the U.K. has 10 million people who use the applicable Apple products and could sign on as plaintiffs.

CNET contacted Google for comment. We'll update the story when we get more information.

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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

The sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)

By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the sun, researchers can monitor its surface and atmosphere, picking up on activity that can create space weather.

If directed towards Earth, that weather can disrupt satellite communications and electronics—and result in spectacular auroras. (Read an article on solar storms in National Geographic magazine.)

The surface of the sun contains material at about 10,000°F (5,700°C), which gives off yellow-green light. Atoms at 11 million°F (6.3 million°C) gives off ultraviolet light, which scientists use to observe solar flares in the sun's corona. There are even instruments that image wavelengths of light highlighting the sun's magnetic field lines.

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 28, 2013

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US Mom Missing in Turkey Took Side Trips

Sarai Sierra, the New York mother who disappeared in Turkey while on a solo trip, took several side excursions out of the country, but stayed in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Turkish media reported today that police were trying to establish why Sierra visited Amsterdam and Munich. Police were also trying to establish the identity of a man Sierra, 33, was chatting with on the Internet, according to local media.

Rachel Norman, a family friend, said the man was a group tour guide from the Netherlands and said Sierra stayed in regular touch with her family in New York.

Steven Sierra, Sarai's husband, and David Jimenez, her brother, arrived in Istanbul today to aid in the search.

The men have been in contact with officials from the U.S. consulate in the country and plan to meet with them as soon as they open on Tuesday, Norman said.

After that, she said Sierra and Jimenez would meet with Turkish officials to discuss plans and search efforts.

Family of Sarai Sierra|AP Photo

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Sarai Sierra was supposed to fly back to the United States on Jan. 22, but she never showed up for her flight home.

Her two boys, ages 11 and 9, have not been told their mother is missing.

Sierra, an avid photographer, left New York on Jan. 7. It was her first overseas trip, and she decided to go ahead after a friend had to cancel, her family said.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul.

But when it came time to pick her up from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Sierra wasn't on board her scheduled flight.

Steven Sierra called United Airlines and was told his wife had never boarded the flight home.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey, he said.

The family is suspicious and said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the Turkish National Police are involved in the investigation, WABC-TV reported.

"They've been keeping us posted, from my understanding they've been looking into hospitals and sending out word to police stations over there," Steven Sierra said. "Maybe she's, you know, locked up, so they are doing what they can."

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DNA privacy: don't flatter yourself

The secrets contained in our individual genomes are less valuable than we like to believe

IMAGINE donating your DNA to a project aimed at discovering links between genes and diseases. You consent to your genome sequence being released anonymously into the public domain, though you are warned there is a remote possibility that it might one day be possible to link it back to you.

A few years later, that remote possibility comes to pass. How should you feel? This is no longer a hypothetical scenario. About 50 people who participated in a project called 1000 Genomes have been traced (see "Matching names to genes: the end of genetic privacy?").

The researchers' intentions were honourable. They have not revealed these identities, and the original data has been adjusted to make a repeat using the same technique impossible. All they wanted to do was expose privacy issues.

Consider them exposed. It is clear that genomics has entered a new phase, similar to that which social media went through a few years ago, when concerns were raised about people giving away too much personal information.

What happens when the same applies to our DNA? Having your genome open to public scrutiny obviously raises privacy issues. Employers and insurers may be interested. Embarrassing family secrets may be exposed.

But overall, personal genetic information is probably no more revealing than other sorts. In fact there are reasons to believe that it is less so: would an insurance company really go to the trouble of decoding a genome to discover a slightly elevated risk of cancer or Alzheimer's disease?

The available evidence suggests not. In 2006, Harvard University set out to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and make them publicly available, along with personal information such as names and medical records. One of the goals was to see what happens when such data is open to all. The answer seems to be "not a lot". So far this Personal Genome Project has published 148 people's full genomes. Not one volunteer has reported a privacy issue.

This is not a reason for complacency, but it suggests that our genomic secrets are less interesting to other people than we might like to believe.

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