India, Russia sign weapons deals worth billions of dollars

NEW DELHI: Russia and India signed new weapons deals worth billions of dollars on Monday as President Vladimir Putin sought to further boost ties with an old ally.

Putin and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hailed cooperation between their countries as officials signed a $1.6 billion deal for India to purchase 42 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and a $1.3 billion contract for the delivery of 71 Mil Mi-17 military helicopters.

Singh said the talks included discussions on the security situation in the region, including Afghanistan.

"India and Russia share the objective of a stable, united, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan, free from extremism," Singh told reporters after the talks.

While the volume of Russian-Indian trade has risen six-fold since 2000 and is expected to reach $10 billion this year, the growth has slowed in recent years. And even though India remains the No. 1 customer for Russia's arms industries, Moscow has recently lost several multibillion-dollar contracts to Western weapons makers.

Russia and India have shared close ties since the Cold War, when Moscow was a key ally and the principal arms supplier to New Delhi.

The ties slackened after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but grew stronger again after Putin came to power in 2000, seeking to revive Moscow's global clout and restore ties with old allies.

Russia has maintained its strong positions in the Indian market with $30 billion worth of arms contracts with India signed in 2000-2010 that envisaged supplies of hundreds of fighter jets, missiles, tanks and other weapons, a large part of which were license-produced in India. The countries have cooperated on building an advanced fighter plane and a new transport aircraft and have jointly developed a supersonic cruise missile for the Indian Navy.

But the military cooperation has hit snags in recent years, as New Delhi shops increasingly for Western weapons. The Indians also haven't been always happy with the quality of Russian weapons and their rising prices.

In one notable example, in 2004 Russia signed a $1 billion contract to refurbish a Soviet-built aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy. While the deal called for the ship to be commissioned in 2008, it is still in a Russian shipyard and the contract price has reportedly soared to $2.3 billion. The target date for the carrier's completion was moved back again this year after it suffered major engine problems in sea trials. Russian officials now promise to hand it over to India in the end of 2013.

India has also demanded that Russia pay fines for failing to meet terms under a 2006 contract for building three frigates for its navy, the third of which is yet to be commissioned.

Russia recently has suffered major defeats in competition with Western rivals in the Indian arms market.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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Get 'em While You Can? Gun Sales Soar

The National Rifle Association may still get its way and defeat the lawmakers calling for a ban on the sale of assault ridles, but some gun store owners say it seems their customers aren't taking any chances.

"We have never seen anything like this," said Larry Hyatt, who owns a gun shop in Charlotte, N.C. "We have the Christmas business, the hunting season business, and now we have the political business.

"We have seen a lot of things, but we have never seen anything like this, this is probably four times bigger than the last time we saw a big rush," he said.

Some of the customers in his store said it is the talk of stricter gun control in the wake of the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that is driving the rush.

"The way they are trying to approach it, they are just making people who have never thought about buying a gun, now they want to come in here and buy a gun," one customer said.

At NOVA Firearms in Falls Church, Va., there have been "skyrocketing" sales following the Newtown shooting, chief firearms instructor Chuck Nesby said.

"They've been off the charts. Absolutely skyrocketing," Nesby said. "If I could give an award to President Obama and Senator Feinstein would be sales persons of the year."

He was referring to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who said she will introduce an assault weapons ban in January.

Sales are up 400 percent, he said.

"We're completely out of the so-called assault weapons, semi automatic firearms that are rifles," Nesby said. "Forty percent of those sales went to women and senior citizens. We can't get them now. Everybody, nationwide is out of them the sales have just been off the charts nationwide."

National Rifle Association News Conference Interrupted by Protesters Watch Video

The horrific shooting, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza broke in to the elementary school and killed 20 children and six adults with a semi-automatic rifle, has even some former NRA supporters saying it's time to change the rules on assault weapons.

Those guns were banned from 1994 until 2004, when the ban expired and was not renewed.

Now it's not just lawmakers who have traditionally advocated stricter gun control talking about the need to act.

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas suggested today on CBS' "Face the Nation" that new regulation should be considered.

"We ought to be looking at where the real danger is, like those large clips, I think that does need to be looked at," Hutchison said. "It's the semi-automatics and those large magazines that can be fired off very quickly. You do have to pull the trigger each time, but it's very quick."

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat but a long-time opponent of gun control who like Hutchison has received an A rating from the NRA, has also come out in support of strengthening gun laws.

NRA chief Wayne LaPierre said Friday that more gun control is not the way to stop such shooting from happening again: the answer is more guns, in the form of armed guards in every school.

After being criticized for two days for the proposal, LaPierre today stuck by his guns.

"If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"When that horrible monster tried to shoot his way into Sandy Hook school, that if a good guy with a gun had been there, he might have been able to stop [it]," LaPierre said.

LaPierre and the NRA said that the media, the entertainment culture and lack of proper mental health care are to blame, not the proliferation of guns in the United States.

Asa Hutchinson, the former congressman who will lead the effort by the NRA to place armed security guards in schools across the country, said today on "This Week" that gun control efforts would not be part of the "ultimate solution" to gun violence.

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History of gun control is cautionary tale for those seeking regulations after Conn. shooting

At 3 a.m. on July 2, 1993, Steve Sposato sat down in his darkened living room to write, by hand, a letter to the president of the United States. His life had just been shattered.

Hours earlier, in the afternoon, a deranged man armed with semiautomatic weapons had gone on a rampage, slaughtering eight people at an office building in downtown San Francisco. The gunman’s motive would remain forever a mystery. Among the slain: Steve’s wife, 30-year-old Jody Jones Sposato, the mother of his 10-month-old daughter, Meghan.

His anguished letter to the president asked how it was possible for someone to possess rapid-fire weapons with 30-round magazines, seemingly designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. “Now I’m left to raise my 10-month-old daughter on my own,” he told the president. “How do I find the strength to carry on?”

That letter reached President Bill Clinton. The next year, Sposato stood by Clinton’s side in the Rose Garden as the president demanded that Congress pass a ban on assault weapons, such as the TEC-9s used to kill Sposato’s wife. Sposato testified on the Hill wearing little Meghan on his back in a baby carrier.

With some moderate Republicans joining the Democratic majority, both houses of Congress passed a 10-year ban on the sale of assault weapons and large ammunition magazines. An attempt to extend the ban in 2004 died in Congress amid opposition from the gun lobby.

Now gun control has roared back into the national conversation as the country reels from the horror in Newtown, Conn. President Obama and his fellow Democrats are vowing to pass a new assault weapons ban, along with other new laws to strengthen background checks on gun purchasers and limit the size of ammunition magazines.

But although Newtown has supercharged the conversation on how to stop another massacre, the history of gun control is a cautionary tale for those who push for more regulations. If past is prologue, the legislative fights ahead will be protracted and brutal — and any resulting legislation may well be riddled with loopholes.

There is no uncontested ground here. Few issues in the country are as polarized as gun control.

The ideological chasm was on full display in Washington on Friday when the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, held a take-no-prisoners news conference in which he called for a federal program to put armed guards in every school in the country, saying, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

He said laws making schools gun-free zones have backfired: “They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.” LaPierre’s remarks were twice interrupted by protesters; one held a sign saying, “NRA Killing Our Kids.”

The news conference provided a reminder that gun policy is a central feature of what is loosely known as the culture wars. The gun-control and gun-rights camps don’t even speak the same language, with one side arguing that the Second Amendment can’t possibly mean the right to own an assault weapon, while the other side says “assault weapon” is a pejorative invented by an urban elite that wouldn’t know an AR-15 from an AK-47.

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More renting cars & yachts this festive season

SINGAPORE: More Singaporeans are renting cars and yachts for their celebrations this festive season.

Short-term car rentals at Prime Car Rental has gone up by about 50 per cent during the festive period.

The company said MPVs are particularly popular, compared to other cars.

For some, it is all about splurging a bit more to celebrate in style.

"We don't really visit the Southern Islands that much and we don't come out to sea very often. So it's something new," said a Singaporean who had rented a yacht.

A four to five-hour cruise on a yacht can cost between S$1,500 and S$4,000, depending on the size.

MarineBookings said almost all of its vessels have been booked for Christmas Eve and the New Year period.

- CNA/xq

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Native village prays for Delhi gang rape victim's recovery

BALLIA, UTTAR PRADESH: Amid outrage across the country against the gang rape of a young woman student in Delhi, people in her native village are praying for her recovery and well-being.

Since the news of the incident came, locals of Medwara Kalan village are praying day and night in the local temple for the early recovery of the 23-year-old and that she succeeds in overcoming this testing phase, former village head Parasnath Yadav said.

The villagers have demanded capital punishment for the accused who brutalised the paramedic student in a Delhi bus.

"We will continue to struggle till the time the accused are hanged," Yadav said.

One of the victim's uncle, who lives in the village, said he and his family had gone to Delhi to see the young woman.

"People of the family are very worried after the incident," a family member said.

The native of Ballia was gang-raped by six men in a moving bus and later thrown out from the vehicle in South Delhi area on December 16.

The incident has resulted in protests across the country with people staging demonstrations and demanding stringent punishment to the accused.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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Obama, Congress Waving Bye-Bye Lower Taxes?

The first family arrived in the president's idyllic home state of Hawaii early today to celebrate the holidays, but President Obama, who along with Michelle will pay tribute Sunday to the late Sen. Daniel Inouye at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, could be returning home to Washington sooner than he expected.

That's because the President didn't get his Christmas wish: a deal with Congress on the looming fiscal cliff.

Members of Congress streamed out of the Capitol Friday night with no agreement to avert the fiscal cliff -- a massive package of mandatory tax increases and federal spending cuts triggered if no deal is worked out to cut the deficit. Congress is expected to be back in session by Thursday.

It's unclear when President Obama may return from Hawaii. His limited vacation time will not be without updates on continuing talks. Staff members for both sides are expected to exchange emails and phone calls over the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner is home in Ohio. He recorded the weekly GOP address before leaving Washington, stressing the president's role in the failure to reach an agreement on the cliff.

"What the president has offered so far simply won't do anything to solve our spending problem and begin to address our nation's crippling debt," he said in the recorded address, "The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. ... The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House."

Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Halted for Christmas Watch Video

Cliffhanger: Congress Heads Home after 'Plan B' Vote Pulled from House Floor Watch Video

Fiscal Cliff: Boehner Doesn't Have Votes for Plan B Watch Video

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed the sentiment while lamenting the failure to reach a compromise.

"I'm stuck here in Washington trying to prevent my fellow Kentuckians having to shell out more money to Uncle Sam next year," he said.

McConnell is also traveling to Hawaii to attend the Inouye service Sunday.

If the White House and Congress cannot reach a deficit-cutting budget agreement by year's end, by law the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts -- the so called fiscal cliff -- will go into effect. Many economists say that will likely send the economy into a new recession.

Reports today shed light on how negotiations fell apart behind closed doors. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that when Boehner expressed his opposition to tax rate increases, the president allegedly responded, "You are asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?"

The icy exchange continued when, in reference to Boehner's offer to secure $800 billion in revenue by limiting deductions, the speaker reportedly implored the president, "What do I get?"

The president's alleged response: "You get nothing. I get that for free."

The account is perhaps the most thorough and hostile released about the series of unsuccessful talks Obama and Boehner have had in an effort to reach an agreement about the cliff.

Unable to agree to a "big deal" on taxes and entitlements, the president is now reportedly hoping to reach a "small deal" with Republicans to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Such a deal would extend unemployment benefits and set the tone for a bigger deal with Republicans down the line.

In his own weekly address, Obama called this smaller deal "an achievable goal ... that can get done in 10 days."

But though there is no definitive way to say one way or the other whether it really is an achievable goal, one thing is for certain: Republican leadership does not agree with the president on this question.

Of reaching an agreement on the fiscal cliff by the deadline, Boehner said, "How we get there, God only knows."

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Tax fight sends GOP into chaos

The main thing that has held Republicans together philosophically is the belief in holding down taxes. Not one of them in Congress has voted for a significant increase in more than two decades.

Now that very issue is tearing the GOP apart and making it an all-but-ungovernable majority for Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead in the House.

Disarray is a word much overused in politics. But it barely begins to describe the current state of chaos and incoherence as Republicans come to terms with electoral defeat and try to regroup against a year-end deadline to avert a fiscal crisis.

The presidential election was fought in large measure over the question of whether some Americans should pay more in taxes. Republicans lost that argument with the voters, who polls show are strongly in favor of raising rates for the wealthy.

But a sizable contingent within the GOP doesn’t see it that way and is unwilling to declare defeat on a tenet that so defines them. Nor are they prepared to settle for getting the best deal they can, as a means of avoiding the tax hikes on virtually everyone else that would take effect if no deal is reached.

When Boehner tried to bend even a little, by proposing to raise rates on income over $1 million, his party humiliated him, forcing him Thursday night to abruptly cancel a vote on his “Plan B.”

“We had a number of our members who just really didn’t want to be perceived as having raised taxes,” Boehner said Friday. “That was the real issue.”

Whether and how the party can resolve the issue has implications going forward. It could determine Boehner’s viability — even his survival— as leader of the only part of the federal government controlled by the Republicans.

It also could set the terms of engagement for the battles that lie ahead, including such contentious ones as immigration and the fiscal 2013 spending bills, which are funded for only half the year and which expire March 31.

As things stand now, some worry that nothing short of a catastrophe could force a resolution.

“We have sunk to the lowest common denominator in order to get a deal — sheer panic,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, a former aide to House and Senate leadership. “The reality of a stock market crash is probably the only way Washington will strike a deal. It is probably the only scenario that could likely force the speaker’s hand and allow for a deal driven by Democratic votes to pass the House.”

Which, of course, is not an ideal way to govern.

“The hard-core anti-tax conservatives in the GOP seem to believe that Barack Obama will be blamed if there is no agreement reached to avoid sequestration and the tax increases that are coming,” said Sheldon D. Pollack, a University of Delaware law and political science professor who has written a history of Republican anti-tax policy. “Calculated gamble? Or are they simply incapable of recognizing that they do not control the White House or the Senate, and hence do not have the ability to control the agenda? Sadly, I think it is the latter.”

Their intransigence alone is unlikely to sell the electorate on the Republican point of view on taxes.

“You have to make an argument. You have to go out there and engage. You can’t just simply assert a position,” said GOP pollster David Winston, who advises the House leadership. “Part of the dynamic for Boehner is that he’s trying to have the debate over economic policies that should have occurred during the election, and he also has to deal with this piece of legislation.”

As long as there has been a Republican Party, there has been at least a faction within it that has taken a hard-line stance on taxes, Pollack said. But it has not always had the upper hand.

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was also the first to put a national income tax into place, as a temporary means of funding the Civil War. Even then, House Ways and Means Chairman Thaddeus Stevens (now enjoying a return to popular consciousness as Tommy Lee Jones’s character in the movie “Lincoln”) denounced the idea of a graduated rate structure as a “strange way to punish men because they are rich.”

The 16th Amendment, which established the constitutionality of the federal income tax in 1913, was proposed by a Republican, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Nelson W. Aldrich. But it was decried by another one, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, as “confiscation of property under the guise of taxation” and “a pillage of a class.”

The divisions went on until the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, who ran as an advocate of tax-cutting supply-side economics.

In 1990, Newt Gingrich established himself as the de facto head of his party in the House, when he stood up to a president of his own party and led the opposition to George H.W. Bush’s tax increases.

Gingrich insisted in an interview Friday that the Republicans still have leverage, if they are willing to fight hard enough.

“They need a strategy, not just a way of getting through this week,” he said.

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Agents to hire more Sri Lankan maids next year

SINGAPORE: Maid agents in Singapore are looking to hire more foreign domestic helpers from Sri Lanka.

From next year, the Association of Employment Agencies plans to bring in between 500 and 1,000 Sri Lankan maids a month, up from the current 100 to 200 a month.

Based on records from the Sri Lankan High Commission in Singapore, there are about 4,500 Sri Lankan maids here.

The association said this will help to make up for the shortfall in maids from traditional source countries, such as Indonesia and Philippines.

It will be signing an agreement with Sri Lankan authorities and employment agencies next month to facilitate the recruitment of maids.

The move to bring in more domestic helpers from Sri Lanka is part of efforts to improve the quality of domestic helpers here.

Most of the Sri Lankan maids speak English and have at least 10 years of education. About 40 per cent of them have 'A' level qualifications.

Employment agencies here said it is important to make Singapore an attractive destination for Sri Lankan women hoping to work as domestic helpers overseas.

K Jayaprema, the president of the Association of Employment Agencies said: "It's very important that when we are reviving this new market, we don't want it to go wrong because we are focusing on attracting quality FDWs (foreign domestic workers) to Singapore and for that to happen, we need to have good employment terms, the welfare of the domestic workers have to be taken care of and it must be attractive for them to come in."

A J Razzy, director of maid agency Cobb Douglas said: "There are some things that have changed for example, with the scrapping of the entry test, there are many more opportunities for agents at Sri Lanka to recruit Sri Lankan foreign domestic workers for the Singapore market."

The association is working with Sri Lankan authorities to spell out training requirements for maids, and speed up the hiring process.

Sri Lanka has an extensive training programme of more than 20 days for maids.

Singapore maid agents would like the programme to focus more on aspects such as household skills and safety.

Ms Jayaprema said that the processing time for recruitment of these maids could be faster.

The Association of Employment Agencies led a delegation of 30 maid agents to Sri Lanka recently to renew contacts with their counterparts.

It met with the Sri Lankan Bureau for Foreign Employment, which is the regulatory body for overseas recruitment of workers, and the Sri Lankan Foreign Employment Agency.

In addition, the association met over 60 Sri Lankan recruitment agencies. The last time the association organised a visit there was in 2007.

Maid agents say Sri Lankan workers can between S$400 and S$500 a month.

Sri Lanka is the fifth biggest source of maids in Singapore after Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Myanmar.

A recent report from the National Population and Talent Division forecast that Singapore is going to need some 100,000 more maids by 2030.

Muniyandi Vasanthakumari has been working as a domestic helper in Singapore for 15 years. The 45-year-old Sri Lankan is happy here and gets along well with her employer's family.

"She reads what we want, she knows our preference and she does it beforehand. Before I can tell her what I need, it's already done," said her employer Komathi Anbalahan.

- CNA/xq

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