FEOrchard appoints Koh Boon Hwee as non-exec director, non-exec chairman

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SINGAPORE : Far East Orchard (FEOrchard), formerly known as Orchard Parade Holdings, has appointed Koh Boon Hwee as a non-executive director and non-executive chairman with effect from 1 January 2013.

62-year-old Mr Koh will take over from Philip Ng who will be stepping down as a non-executive director and non-executive chairman from next year.

In a statement issued on Friday, FEOrchard said Mr Ng will also cease to be a member of the Nominating Committee, but will remain as a strategic advisor.

It added that the appointment of Mr Koh is a continuing progression in the organisational development of the company and its business growth.

FEOrchard has undergone a strategic corporate restructuring this year with a new diversified portfolio focusing on property development, hospitality real estate development and management, and healthcare real estate space.

Commenting on the appointment, Mr Ng, who is also chief executive officer of FEOrchard's parent, Far East Organization, said: "As FEOrchard begins the next phase of its transformative growth, we will actively develop and expand on our domain real estate capabilities and will also seek to enlarge our footprint beyond Singapore.

"Boon Hwee brings immense value to this endeavour with his excellent record of accomplishments in developing people, businesses and customers across a broad spectrum of industries and markets."

Mr Koh is currently chairman (executive) at Credence Capital Fund II (Cayman) Ltd and Credence Partners Pte Ltd.

He is also currently non-executive chairman of Sunningdale Tech, Yeo Hiap Seng Limited, Yeo Hiap Seng (Malaysia) Berhad, AAC Technologies Holdings, Rippledot Capital Advisers, FEO Hospitality Asset Management, and FEO Hospitality Trust Management.

- CNA/ms



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Campaigns against gender-based violence have kids as primary target

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NEW DELHI: The roots of gender-based violence go so deep-seated that organizations battling it have practically written the adults off. Nearly every campaign pushing for gender equality has kids and youths as their primary target.


Breakthrough involved youths for community mobilization and training in schools and colleges; Must Bol, run by the Youth Collective, works mainly with college students. After Sunday's gang rape, child rights NGO, Butterflies held a "consultation with children" on the issue of sexual violence against women.


"Children are as much part of the value-system and being indoctrinated from day one but they are also the most receptive," says Sonal Khan, vice president, Breakthrough. With adults, it's always a battle. "It was such hard work moving the issue (domestic violence) as these attitudes are part of the psyche," she says.


Umang Sabarwal, who, in 2011, had tried to engage adults in a discussion on women's safety and freedom, learnt more from the opposition to the Slut Walk than the walk itself.


"There was an entire movement by the media dismissing it as an attention-seeking attempt. But in the media too, women are objectified and sexualized," she says. She'd only hoped to "get a thought in people's heads" she says and "never expected [the walk] to revolutionize things" but found that the roots of this "mindset" go too deep.


Activists find even language against them. "You can't deal with it, if you don't have words for it," says Khan. The expression "eve-teasing" trivializes sexual harassment; and family members of women who were attacked are more likely to say, " kuchch kharab hua ladki ke saath" than say they were sexually assaulted.


"Many young people have had little access to spaces for interactions between the genders and these boys feel it's okay to tease girls. They may consider rape violence but not harassment. That recognition is missing," says Manak Matiyani of Youth Collective. Plus gender stereotypes work against both the sexes - women have to be fair and "homely" (meaning, good around the house) and men, masculine and tall. "People don't take harassment on the road seriously. A woman complains and there are the neighbours and elders who'll ask questions about what she was doing," says Khan. She insists that all initiatives should seek equal participation from men and women. "Otherwise we'll fall back into the same dialectic and make this a "women's issue"."


Because the youth are net savvy, these organizations have used social media extensively. Those involved in Must Bol use short films. Blank Noise started as a blog in Bangalore in 2003, to address issues of harassment on the streets. The blog lists 29 forms of it and posts photographs of garments worn by women when they were harassed. Their initiative, Action Heroes Special, a "blogathon" inviting women to share stories harassment conducted over July-August 2012, has eight-pages worth of stories from Delhi alone.


Delhi-based WhyPoll Trust runs a similar initiative - Voices from the Dark -telling harassment stories in Q&A format. In 2012, they had launched the "Fight Back" application for smartphones using which women in distress could send out SOS emails, text messages and social network posts - one of the founders, Hindol Sengupta, says it was downloaded over a hundred times. In 2011, WhyPoll had also drawn up a list of the 100 spots or roads in Delhi the women found most dangerous after a survey - Nelson Mandela Marg, Dhaula Kuan, Benito Zuarez Marg, Paharganj and Mehrauli-Gurgaon road were the top five.

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How to Live to a Ripe Old Age

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Cento di questi giorni. May you have a hundred birthdays, the Italians say, and some of them do.

So do other people in various spots around the world—in Blue Zones, so named by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner for the blue ink that outlines these special areas on maps developed over more than a decade. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

In his second edition of his book The Blue Zones, Buettner writes about a newly identified Blue Zone: the Greek island of Ikaria (map). National Geographic magazine Editor at Large Cathy Newman interviewed him about the art of living long and well. (Watch Buettner talk about how to live to a hundred.)

Q. You've written about Blue Zones in Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Nicoa, Costa Rica and Okinawa, Japan. How did you find your way to Ikaria?

A. Michel Poulain, a demographer on the project, and I are always on the lookout for new Blue Zones. This one popped up in 2008. We got a lead from a Greek foundation looking for biological markers in aging people. The census data showed clusters of villages there with a striking proportion of people 85 or older. (Also see blog: "Secrets of the Happiest Places on Earth.")

In the course of your quest you've been introduced to remarkable individuals like 100-year-old Marge Jetton of Loma Linda, California, who starts the day with a mile-long [0.6-kilometer] walk, 6 to 8 miles [10 to 13 kilometers] on a stationary bike, and weight lifting. Who is the most memorable Blue Zoner you've met?

Without question it's Stamatis Moraitis, who lives in Ikaria. I believe he's 102. He's famous for partying. He makes 400 liters [100 gallons] of wine from his vineyards each year, which he drinks with his friends. His house is the social hot spot of the island. (See "Longevity Genes Found; Predict Chances of Reaching 100.")

He's also the Ikarian who emigrated to the United States, was diagnosed with lung cancer in his 60s, given less then a year to live, and who returned to Ikaria to die. Instead, he recovered.

Yes, he never went through chemotherapy or treatment. He just moved back to Ikaria.

Did anyone figure out how he survived?

Nope. He told me he returned to the U.S. ten years after he left to see if the American doctors could explain it. I asked him what happened. "My doctors were all dead," he said.

One of the common factors that seem to link all Blue Zone people you've spoken with is a life of hard work—and sometimes hardship. Your thoughts?

I think we live in a culture that relentlessly pursues comfort. Ease is related to disease. We shouldn't always be fleeing hardship. Hardship also brings people together. We should welcome it.

Sounds like another version of the fable of the grasshopper and the ant?

You rarely get satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling.

Can you talk about diet? Not all of us have access to goat milk, for example, which you say is typically part of an Ikarian breakfast.

There is nothing exotic about their diet, which is a version of a Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes vegetables, beans, fruit, olive oil, and moderate amounts of alcohol. (Read more about Buettner's work in Ikaria in National Geographic Adventure.)

All things in moderation?

Not all things. Socializing is something we should not do in moderation. The happiest Americans socialize six hours a day.

The people you hang out with help you hang on to life?

Yes, you have to pay attention to your friends. Health habits are contagious. Hanging out with unhappy people who drink and smoke is hazardous to your health.

So how has what you've learned influenced your own lifestyle?

One of the big things I've learned is that there's an advantage to regular low-intensity activity. My previous life was setting records on my bike. [Buettner holds three world records in distance cycling.] Now I use my bike to commute. I only eat meat once a week, and I always keep nuts in my office: Those who eat nuts live two to three more years than those who don't.

You also write about having a purpose in life.

Purpose is huge. I know exactly what my values are and what I love to do. That's worth additional years right there. I say no to a lot of stuff that would be easy money but deviates from my meaning of life.

The Japanese you met in Okinawa have a word for that?

Yes. Ikigai: "The reason for which I wake in the morning."

Do you have a non-longevity-enhancing guilty pleasure?

Tequila is my weakness.

And how long would you like to live?

I'd like to live to be 200.


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White House Says It Has No New Fiscal Cliff Plan

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The White House said today it has no plans to offer new proposals to avoid the fiscal cliff which looms over the country's economy just five days from now, but will meet Friday with Congressional leaders in a last ditch effort to forge a deal.


Republicans and Democrats made no conciliatory gestures in public today, despite the urgency.


The White House said President Obama would meet Friday with Democratic and Republican leaders. But a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said the Republican "will continue to stress that the House has already passed legislation to avert the entire fiscal cliff and now the Senate must act."


The White House announced the meeting after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the budget situation "a mess" and urged the president to present a fresh proposal.


"I told the president I would be happy to look at whatever he proposes, but the truth is we're coming up against a hard deadline here, and as I said, this is a conversation we should have had months ago," McConnell said of his phone call with Obama Wednesday night.


McConnell added, "Republicans aren't about to write a blank check for anything Senate Democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff."


"That having been said, we'll see what the president has to propose," the Republican Senate leader said.


But a senior White House official told ABC News, "There is no White House bill."


That statement, however, may have wiggle room. Earlier today White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "I don't have any meetings to announce," but a short time later, Friday's meeting was made public.


It's unclear if the two sides are playing a game of political chicken or whether the administration is braced for the fiscal cliff.


Earlier today, fiscal cliff, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lashed out at Republicans in a scathing speech that targeted House Republicans and particularly Boehner.






Charles Dharapak/AP Photo















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Reid, D-Nev., spoke on the floor of the Senate as the president returned to Washington early from an Hawaiian vacation in what appears to be a dwindling hope for a deal.


The House of Representatives will meet for legislative business Sunday evening, leaving the door cracked open ever so slightly to the possibility of a last-minute agreement.


But on a conference call with Republican House members Thursday afternoon, Boehner kept to the Republican hard line that if the Senate wants a deal it should amend bills already passed by the House.


That was the exact opposite of what Reid said in the morning, that Republicans should accept a bill passed by Democratic led Senate.


Related: What the average American should know about capital gains and the fiscal cliff.


"We are here in Washington working while the members of the House of Representatives are out watching movies and watching their kids play soccer and basketball and doing all kinds of things. They should be here," Reid said. "I can't imagine their consciences."


House Republicans have balked at a White House deal to raise taxes on couples earning more than $250,000 and even rejected Boehner's proposal that would limit the tax increases to people earning more than $1 million.


"It's obvious what's going on," Reid said while referring to Boehner. "He's waiting until Jan. 3 to get reelected to speaker because he has so many people over there that won't follow what he wants. John Boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than keeping the nation on a firm financial footing."


Related: Starbucks enters fiscal cliff fray.


Reid said the House is "being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker" and suggested today that the Republicans should agree to accept the original Senate bill pass in July. Reid's comments, however, made it clear he did not expect that to happen.


"It looks like" the nation will go over the fiscal cliff in just five days, he declared.


"It's not too late for the speaker to take up the Senate-passed bill, but that time is even winding down," Reid said. "So I say to the speaker, take the escape hatch that we've left you. Put the economic fate of the nation ahead of your own fate as Speaker of the House."


Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel reacted to Reid's tirade in an email, writing, "Senator Reid should talk less and legislate more. The House has already passed legislation to avoid the entire fiscal cliff. Senate Democrats have not."


Boehner has said it is now up to the Senate to come up with a deal.


Obama, who landed in Washington late this morning, made a round of calls over the last 24 hours to Reid, Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.


Related: Obama pushes fiscal cliff resolution.






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Fewer small businesses confident of growth in 2013: survey

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SINGAPORE: Fewer small companies in Singapore are confident that their businesses will grow in 2013 compared to the years before, found the CPA Australia Asia Pacific Small Business Survey.

The survey, conducted by accounting body CPA Australia between 2 and 15 October, covered 250 businesses that have fewer than 21 employees. The businesses surveyed spanned the retail, information, media and telecommunications sectors.

Businesses in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand and Indonesia were also polled for this report.

According to CPA Australia, confidence among Singaporean small businesses has been on a steady decline since 2010.

74 per cent of small Singaporean companies expect their businesses to grow in the year ahead, down from 77 per cent and 85 per cent in the last two consecutive years.

Gavan Ord, business policy adviser at CPA Australia said: "While confidence is relatively high, Singapore small businesses are significantly more likely to expect their business to 'grow a little' than 'grow strongly', indicating that business confidence is somewhat weaker than (what) the headline figure indicates."

"Reflecting this, the percentage of Singapore businesses that expect to increase their marketing spend in 2013 is the lowest of all markets surveyed," he added.

More Singapore businesses however expect the local economy to improve.

60 per cent of small businesses in Singapore expect the local economy to grow "strongly" or "a little" in the year ahead, compared to 56 per cent a year ago.

- CNA/jc



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Nation in grip of pessimism due to 'policy paralysis, lack of leadership', Narendra Modi says

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NEW DELHI: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi launched a fresh attack on the Centre on Thursday, saying the country was in the grip of pessimism because of "policy paralysis, intellectual bankruptcy and lack of leadership".

He said the Centre's policies "lack urgency or seriousness" in tackling economic crises and thus the "sense of pessimism" in the 12th Plan.

"There is a policy paralysis, intellectual bankruptcy and lack of leadership in the country because of which the country was experiencing stagnancy. We are going on the path of negative growth," Modi told reporters at the 57th National Development Council (NDC) meeting here.

He said when the entire world was looking at India in the context of development, there is sense of pessimism from the ones who are leading the nation making it difficult to move forward.

In his speech at the meeting, Modi said, "It seems that there is no urgency or seriousness in tackling economic crises facing the country. There has been a virtual lack of direction in the macro-economic management of the country."

Attacking the government for lowering the growth target for the 12th Plan, Modi said though the target of 9 per cent GDP growth, talked about last year, appeared ambitious, "it was not impossible to achieve if we had the political will to do what is necessary".

"In this context, it is painful to note the unmistakable sense of pessimism in the 12th Plan document ... Significantly lowering the growth targets of the 12th Plan will further add to the mood of despondency and pessimism in the country and cast increasing doubts on the sustainability of the India growth story," he said.

Modi sought to project the Gujarat model of development by listing out the initiatives taken by him in various sectors including agriculture, urban development and decentralized planning.

Modi, however, evaded questions on whether he was ready to lead the nation.

Questioning the Centre for blaming the international economic situation for the slow growth, Modi said how then were some of the states performing better.

"If the Centre can blame the international situation, who should the states point out to," he said, referring to the high growth rate in some states including Gujarat.

Modi also called for setting up a National Resources Commission on the lines of the Finance Commission which discusses the allocation of grants to states every five years.

The chief minister said the national resources commission should decide on the quota utility of natural resources which were a part of the state, but noted such states should be given a say while making such allocations.

He said the country is facing a demographic opportunity as 65 per cent of the population is young and pitched for a youth-centric growth which focusses on skill development.

Modi said the Planning Commission had also studied the Gujarat model for skill development and recommneded it to other states.

Contending that growth in manufacturing has been stagnating at 16 per cent, Modi said, "The outlook for employment for the youth in industry remains bleak which casts a doubt on India's capacity to take advantage of the demographic dividend.

"It is unfortunate that the central government has been bereft of any vision or strategy in this regard. This feeling of helplessness in making effective policy interventions has resulted in job creation suffering and the youth of the country becoming disillusioned," he said in his speech.

Modi, who was sworn-in as the chief minister for the fourth time on Wednesday, was greeted by several leaders including Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Modi walked up to Himachal chief minister Virbhadra Singh to greet him.

Modi also attacked the Centre for taking "unilateral" decisions and said it should "resist the temptation to tinker with the federal structure mandated by the Constitution."

"There has also been a tendency to take unilateral decisions by legislating on subjects which are dealt by states where huge financial liabilities are created for the states without commensurate transfer of resources from the Centre. The Right to Education Act is a recent example of this," he said.

He wanted the Centre to set up a structured mechanism to address such issues and resolve them in a time-bound manner.

On the issue of capping of subsidies on cooking gas, Modi said the Centre had shown "little concern" for the "constant agony" that millions of Indians are forced to undergo on a daily basis because of rising prices.

"The recent decision of the central government to restrict the number of LPG cylinders to six per year will further add to the misery of India's middle classes and the poor," he said and demanded a review.

Modi suggested piped natural gas as an alternative to LPG cylinders and wanted the government to come out with a time- bound detailed policy and incentivise states who take up this project on a priority basis.

"The sustainable, long-term solution is to establish a gas-grid supplying piped gas to households for domestic use. This would result in proper targeting of subsidies and eliminate wastage," he said.

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Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

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Newtown Shooter's DNA to Be Studied

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Geneticists have been asked to study the DNA of Adam Lanza, the Connecticut man whose shooting rampage killed 27 people, including an entire first grade class.


The study, which experts believe may be the first of its kind, is expected to be looking for abnormalities or mutations in Lanza's DNA.


Connecticut Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver has reached out to University of Connecticut's geneticists to conduct the study.


University of Connecticut spokesperson Tom Green says Carver "has asked for help from our department of genetics" and they are "willing to give any assistance they can."


Green said he could not provide details on the project, but said it has not begun and they are "standing by waiting to assist in any way we can."


Lanza, 20, carried out the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., just days before Christmas. His motives for the slaughter remain a mystery.


Geneticists not directly involved in the study said they are likely looking at Lanza's DNA to detect a mutation or abnormality that could increase the risk of aggressive or violent behavior. They could analyze Lanza's entire genome in great detail and try to find unexpected mutations.


This seems to be the first time a study of this nature has been conducted, but it raises concerns in some geneticists and others in the field that there could be a stigma attached to people with these genetic characteristics if they are able to be narrowed down.








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Arthur Beaudet, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, said the University of Connecticut geneticists are most likely trying to "detect clear abnormalities of what we would call a mutation in a gene…or gene abnormalities and there are some abnormalities that are related to aggressive behavior."


"They might look for mutations that might be associated with mental illnesses and ones that might also increase the risk for violence," said Beaudet, who is also the chairman of Baylor College of Medicine's department of molecular and human genetics.


Beaudet believes geneticists should be doing this type of research because there are "some mutations that are known to be associated with at least aggressive behavior if not violent behavior."


"I don't think any one of these mutations would explain all of (the mass shooters), but some of them would have mutations that might be causing both schizophrenia and related schizophrenia violent behavior," Beaudet said. "I think we could learn more about it and we should learn more about it."


Beaudet noted that studying the genes of murderers is controversial because there is a risk that those with similar genetic characteristics could possibly be discriminated against or stigmatized, but he still thinks the research would be helpful even if only a "fraction" may have the abnormality or mutation.


"Not all of these people will have identifiable genetic abnormalities," Beaudet said, adding that even if a genetic abnormality is found it may not be related to a "specific risk."


"By studying genetic abnormalities we can learn more about conditions better and who is at risk and what might be dramatic treatments," Beaudet said, adding if the gene abnormality is defined the "treatment to stop" other mass shootings or "decrease the risk is much approved."


Others in the field aren't so sure.


Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is a leader in his field on this issue writing extensively on genetic discrimination. He questions what the University of Connecticut researchers could "even be looking for at this point."






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Democrats push for tax cuts they once opposed

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Democrats seeking a deal to avert the year-end “fiscal cliff” are trying to etch into stone the signature economic achievement of Republican President George W. Bush by permanently extending tax cuts enacted during his tenure.


President Obama has put the extension of the tax cuts for most Americans at the top of his domestic agenda, a remarkable turnaround for Democrats, who had staunchly opposed the tax breaks when they were written into law about a decade ago.




With Obama leaving his Hawaii vacation for Washington on Wednesday and lawmakers returning Thursday, the main dividing line between Republicans and Democrats has come down to whether tax rates should increase for top earners at the end of the year, when the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire. While Republicans want to extend all the cuts, Democrats are pushing to maintain lower rates on household income below $250,000. Those lower rates significantly reduce the taxes of nearly all American households that earn less than $250,000 — and many who earn more, even if tax rates are allowed to increase on income above that figure.

While it is increasingly unlikely that the two parties will reach an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff before Jan. 1, it is all but certain that their ultimate deal, whenever it comes, will make permanent the lower rates for most Americans.

R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School and an architect of the Bush tax cuts, said it is “deeply ironic” for Democrats to favor extending most of them, given what he called their “visceral” opposition a decade ago. Keeping the lower rates even for income under $250,000 “would enshrine the vast bulk of the Bush tax cuts,” he said.

Democrats say they have reconsidered their opposition to the Bush tax cuts for several reasons. The cuts were written into law from 2001 to 2003 after a decade in which most Americans saw robust income growth. Over the past decade, by contrast, median wages have declined, after adjusting for inflation, amid a weak economy. Allowing tax cuts for the middle class to expire would further reduce take-home pay.

“We’ve had these tax cuts in place since 2001. The world changes, and the economy is where it is,” said Steven Elmendorf, who was chief of staff to former House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), a primary opponent of the Bush tax cuts. “With people’s economic status, we should not be raising taxes on people earning under $250,000.”

What’s more, income inequality has been growing. Sparing the middle class higher taxes while requiring the wealthy to pay more would tip the scales slightly in the other direction.

“The reason there’s been this movement toward broad consensus on renewing the tax cut for working- and middle-class families is that will give us a sharper progressivity in the tax system that is very much desired by Democrats and progressives who’ve seen an income distribution more and more distorted toward the wealthy,” said Betsey Stevenson, former chief economist in Obama’s Labor Department and a professor at the University of Michigan, who added that taxes may have to rise even more than currently contemplated to meet the country’s needs.

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Vivian Balakrishnan attends state funeral of former Gerakan president

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SINGAPORE : Singapore's Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday to attend the state funeral of former Gerakan president, Lim Keng Yaik.

Dr Balakrishnan conveyed condolences on behalf of the Singapore Government.

He was accompanied by Singapore's High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur Ong Keng Yong.

Dr Lim, who served as Malaysia's Energy, Water and Communications Minister from 2004 until 2008, died on Saturday.

He was 73.

- CNA/ms



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