SINGAPORE: An Australian man has been cleared of a charge of molesting a purchasing officer.
This came after Mr Kevin Francis D'arcy, 59, made a public apology in a local English daily on January 19 as requested by the woman.
The incident happened on August 31, 2012 in Boat Quay.
Mr D'arcy apparently squeezed the buttock of the 32-year-old woman, who was clubbing with her sister and friend.
-CNA/ac
Google has finished a version of its Native Client programming technology that extends beyond mainstream x86 PC processors into the world of ARM chips.
Native Client, or NaCl for short, is designed to let programmers easily adapt the C or C++ software they've written for native software so that it can run as a part of Web apps, too. It's designed for high performance, but it's also got security mechanisms built in to counter the risks of running malicious code directly on the processor. The first version of NaCl, though, only worked on personal computers using Intel or AMD's x86 chips.
Google's David Sehr announced NaCl for ARM today with version 25 of its NaCl software developer kit, which programmers use to build NaCl programs.
The technology is designed so that programmers can bring their existing code to the Web -- for example, game designers who have written a physics engine in C++. But NaCl has been at odds with the Web philosophy in one important way, namely, that NaCl software doesn't simply run on any device with a browser.
Extending to ARM is thus an important for NaCl, because ARM chips power almost every smartphone out there. But this version of NaCl doesn't do that -- it only works on the new ARM-based Samsung Chromebooks.
To reach mobile phones, Google is banking on a revamp called Portable Native Client, or PNaCl. It adopts a low-level translation technology called LLVM that adapts native code to a variety of processors.
"With Portable Native Client, we'll be able to support not just today's architectures, but also those of tomorrow - and developers won't have to recompile their app," Sehr said in the blog post.
With PNaCl, programmers will be able to produce a single package (with the .pexe extension rather than NaCl's .nexe extension) that will run on all supported devices. With today's approach, programmers must produce separate .nexe files for ARM and for x86.
Another major challenge for Native Client is attracting support. It's built into Chrome, but no other major browser maker supports it, and Mozilla is downright frosty about NaCl.
So far you can only get NaCl software through Google's Chrome Web Store. That's also a big departure from the ordinary Web, where you simply point a browser at a Web page to fetch the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript software.
That'll change with PNaCl, too, Google said. The Chrome Web Store is required today to ensure software is compatible with different chip architectures, Google said in a statement. PNaCl sheds this chip-architecture constraint.
Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.
The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")
Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.
"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].
"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.
Added Value
There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.
Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.
Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)
Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.
DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."
Efficiencies
It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.
That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")
Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.
Owning Asteroids
While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.
The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.
While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.
Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.
Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."
Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.
"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.
The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.
According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.
On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.
No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.
PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave
READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports
Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.
READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'
But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.
At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.
Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.
Anyone who fondly remembers the heady days of excitement preceding the Higgs boson announcement last year can now relive the experience
A buzzing GPS-fuelled belt that tells cyclists when to turn might help them keep their eyes on the road and save lives
Pregnant women can do without being made to feel guilty and burdened by wrong or contradictory advice. Just give them the facts, says Linda Geddes
The infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows how a massive speeding star is electrifying its surroundings
Watch a pair of squid caught in the act for the first time in an unexpected sexual position
Should Californians have had iodine after Fukushima? In Radiation Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax clear up the confusion over radiation and health
Although aesthetic concerns need to be heard, qualms about wind's reliability are wide of the mark, argues an energy policy researcher
The classic double helix has been joined by a four-stranded version that may play a role in cancer
Subwoofers that blast out sounds too low to be heard by humans can keep birds out of busy air space, and prevent them colliding with planes
If the universe is a patchwork quilt of exotic force fields, we should be able to detect dark matter whenever we cross between patches
A steering wheel that buzzes when drivers are dazzled by bright lights and drift from their lane could help curb accidents
The Kepler space telescope has put its search for alien Earths on hold while it recovers from a stressed reaction wheel
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is replete with cutting-edge technology. But problems with its complex systems now have the planes grounded around the world
TOKYO: Japan plans to ease restrictions on American and French beef imports imposed due to concerns over mad cow disease, government officials and local media said Tuesday.
Japan, which was once the largest buyer of US beef, halted imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in an American herd in 2003. It now imports meat only from cattle aged under 20 months.
Tokyo plans to raise the limit to 30 months starting on February 1 if the health ministry's council gives approval, the health, labour and welfare minister Norihisa Tamura told a news conference.
Japan will also apply the same age limit to beef imported from France, which was previously totally banned, Kyodo News quoted unnamed ministry officials as saying.
As for beef from cattle raised in the Netherlands, currently also subject to a total ban, Japan has been in talks with the Dutch government to set the age restriction at up to 12 months in response to its request, Kyodo said.
Beef meeting these relaxed criteria is expected to start arriving in Japan around late February to early March, it added.
-AFP/fl
North Korea's army.
North Korea is easing some of strict cell phone rules -- now, visitors can bring their own mobile devices into the country, according to the Associated Press.
While this may seem like a minor move on the part of the North Korean government, it is actually a big step for one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Despite the ease in regulations, foreigners are still not allowed to talk to any locals via mobile device.
For years North Korea's authorities made visitors leave their cell phones at the border or airport when arriving to the country, according to the Associated Press. Now, the new rules allow foreigners to bring their own WCDMA-compatible phones or rent a mobile and buy a local SIM card at the airport. These SIM cards allow calls to Japan and the U.S., but not South Korea.
This change in the rules may have been brought on by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's recent trip to the country in his push to get North Korea's government to give its citizens more Internet access. On his visit, Schmidt elected to leave his phone in China and rent a local handset.
"We left our phones and laptops behind in China, since we were warned they'd be confiscated in NK, and probably infected with lord knows what malware," Schmidt's daughter, who accompanied her father to North Korea, wrote in a blog post yesterday.North Korea is known for restricting its citizens' access to cell phones. In 2008, the government banned the use of cell phones to prevent its residents from sharing news about a worsening food crisis. And in December 2010, after the death of president Kim Jong-il, all cell phone use was prohibited during a 100-day mourning period. Those people caught using a mobile device were considered war criminals and "punished accordingly."
The ongoing bans on cell phones seems to stem from the government's desire to keep a tight reign on information flow in and out of the country. According to the Associated Press, more than 1 million North Koreans now have cell phones and that number is growing. However, 1 million people is still less than 5 percent of the country's total population.
The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")
As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.
Map by National Geographic
Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")
"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")
"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.
On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.
"A Hot Place to Drill"
The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.
Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.
Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.
Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.
"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."
This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.
A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night–and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don’t let you off for a federal holiday.
Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn’t know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs news professionals stationed in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.
A full day of paying attention to President Obama’s second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:
1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem
Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama’s go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president’s last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful “Star Spangled Banner” is getting good reviews.
2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang
Kelly Clarkson is not as “in” with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.
3. Obama Talked About Gay Rights
This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.
He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word “gay”: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address.
Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.
4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People
Could we expect anything less?
Here’s how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon: ”I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy–I’m toasting you, Chuck.” Watch it:
And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:
5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely
Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America’s first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled “One Today,” which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.
6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo
President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.
7. John Boehner: ‘Godspeed’
The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: “To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed.”
7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There.
Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn’t really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of attention on Twitter.
Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.
Although aesthetic concerns need to be heard, qualms about wind's reliability are wide of the mark, argues energy policy researcher Reg Platt
THE location of the British Isles at Europe's wild and windy western fringe does not always seem like a blessing. But in one important respect it is: the UK has the greatest potential for wind power, both onshore and offshore, of any European country.
Onshore wind power has expanded steadily across the UK in recent years and is a key plank of the country's commitment to greening its electricity supply. But as the turbines have gone up across the countryside, so has the level of opposition. Wind power has become a deeply divisive issue in British politics.
The issue exploded last year when 106 members of parliament, mostly Conservatives representing rural constituencies, signed a letter to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. They urged him to cut subsidies for the onshore wind industry, describing wind technology as "inefficient and intermittent".
Things escalated in the autumn when the recently appointed Conservative energy minister, John Hayes, told two newspapers that "enough is enough" and that no new onshore wind farms would be built. He was slapped down by his boss Edward Davey, the secretary of state for energy and climate change and a member of the Liberal Democrat party. But simmering tensions remain at the top level of the coalition government. Another Conservative, finance minister George Osborne, is known to be sympathetic to the anti-wind cause. Wind turbines also became an important point of contention between the parties in a recent by-election.
Two of the anti-wind campaigners' main concerns are the impact of turbines on the beauty of the countryside and the opposition of local people. It is absolutely right that these be taken into account. But they need to be balanced against the bulk of public opinion, which strongly supports the increased use of wind turbines.
Any misgivings must also be balanced against the important role that this technology can play for the UK, both in fulfilling its climate-change commitments and for future economic success.
Anti-wind campaigners frequently make claims about the shortcomings of wind power. Their main complaints are that the turbines are so inefficient that they actually increase carbon dioxide emissions, and so unreliable that they require constant backup from conventional coal and gas-fired stations.
If correct, these claims would be devastating to wind power. But they are not.
My organisation, the Institute for Public Policy Research, recently published a report tackling these questions. Our conclusions are unambiguous. Onshore wind power reduces carbon emissions and is a reliable source of electricity, at least up to the capacity of wind power that is forecast to be installed in the UK by 2020.
To answer the carbon question, we used a simple model of the UK electricity market. As demand increases, say on a weekday morning when people are waking up and getting ready to go to work, power plants increase output to meet it. Plants with the lowest marginal cost - that is, those that can produce additional electricity most cheaply - are selected first by the market. Here wind beats gas and coal, as no fuel is needed to generate electricity.
The upshot is that, in theory, adding wind power to the energy mix should displace coal and gas, and hence cut carbon. This is backed up by empirical data on emissions reductions from wind power in the US.
There is another way of looking at it. In 2011, wind energy contributed approximately 15.5 terawatt-hours of electricity to the UK. If this had been supplied by fossil fuels instead, CO2 emissions would have been at least 5.5 million tonnes higher, and as much as 12 million tonnes higher.
As for the important matter of reliability, the obvious worry is that because the wind does not always blow, the system will sometimes not be able to supply electricity when needed.
This seems like common sense. However, the reliability of wind power does not depend on the variability of wind. Instead, it depends on how well changes in wind power output can be anticipated.
Forecasts of wind farm output are increasingly accurate, and drops in output can be predicted and compensated for using conventional power stations. In any case, output is surprisingly stable across the country's entire network of wind farms: when the wind isn't blowing in one area, it usually is somewhere else. The relatively small changes that do occur are well within the capabilities of existing systems for balancing supply and demand on the grid.
Even when winter delivers a "long, cold, calm spell" with low temperatures and little wind, the system can cope. This was demonstrated by a two-week period in February 2010 in Ireland, a country that is much more reliant on wind than the UK. It coped perfectly well.
If the UK government caves into pressure and lowers its ambitions for onshore wind, it will make more expensive forms of low-carbon generation a necessity to hit the UK's target of producing 30 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2020. The result will be even higher electricity bills.
Scaling back on wind would also be a lost opportunity. The natural resource at our disposal, combined with the UK's engineering heritage, could create significant economic growth and jobs.
The concerns of people who do not want wind power on their doorsteps need to be taken into account. We must also be sensitive to the need to preserve areas of natural beauty. But we should not sacrifice important opportunities because of the views of vocal minority groups and their unsubstantiated claims.
Reg Platt is a research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank based in London
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.
Copyright © News sugarplum. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
