Friday, February 26, 2010
DIGGING IN THE MUD FOR THE MISSING
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FUNCHAL (Madeira) - Portugal was expected to announce three days of mourning after flash flooding on the island of Madeira killed at least 42 people.
Troops and other rescue workers on Sunday continued to dig through mud-filled houses to find those missing. "It is very probable that we will find more bodies," said Mayor Miguel Albuquerque.
A shopping centre in Funchal was also completely destroyed and firefighters feared there were people trapped in an underground parking lot which was still under water. The government rushed medical and rescue teams including divers and sniffer dogs and relief supplies to the Atlantic island.
A special Cabinet meeting was to be held yesterday to discuss the period for mourning as well as financial aid to rebuild Madeira's destroyed roads and bridges. The regional government says it has no estimate yet of its financial needs.
Madeira's social issues affairs secretary Francisco Ramos told reporters the disruption to phone lines had made it difficult to establish how many people needed to be rescued because many of them just could not be contacted.
A morgue has been set up at the airport, where local official said they had not yet been able to identify all the bodies.
Football star Cristiano Ronaldo, Madeira's most famous native, expressed shock and promised help for relief efforts. "It is a huge catastrophe," said the world's most expensive footballer, who was born in a poor district of Funchal.
Britain said a British national was among those who died on Saturday when torrents of muddy water swamped buildings and streets on the island. It was the first confirmed death of a foreign national in the disaster. AFP
From TODAY, Tuesday, 23-Feb-2010
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Posted by PrfyVdlx at 12:36 AM
Labels: Atlantic Ocean, Cristiano Ronaldo, Death, Flash flood, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, Shopping mall comments (0)
REFUGEES MAY BE ALLOWED TO WORK
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Posted by PrfyVdlx at 12:30 AM
Labels: Asia, Burma, KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Malaysian Trades Union Congress, Minister for Home Affairs, Refugee, United Nations comments (0)
Thursday, February 25, 2010
WORKER LEVIES UP FROM JULY
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Posted by PrfyVdlx at 11:57 PM
Labels: Asia, Employment, Finance Minister, Foreign worker, Government, Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Work Permit comments (0)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Haiti in need...
Posted by PrfyVdlx at 11:57 PM
Labels: Coast Guard, Facebook, Haiti, Haitian Creole language, Humanitarian aid, Mobile phone, United States armed forces, United States Southern Command comments (0)
Whaling Banned, but not Diplomatic Ties...
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Posted by PrfyVdlx at 11:41 PM
Labels: Australia, International Court of Justice, International Whaling Commission, Japan, Kevin Rudd, New Zealand, Stephen Smith, Whaling comments (0)
It Was Simpler Then; Now Employers Have To Undergo Course As Well
Posted by PrfyVdlx at 11:22 PM
Labels: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines comments (0)
The hard truth about raising a family in SG...
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YES, WE WANT KIDS, BUT ...--------------------------
SINGAPORE - Young Singaporean couples want to have children - but they are apprehensive about taking the first step towards parenthood or delaying it for practical reasons.
Most want to focus on careers and being together, while some want more family support. The cost of having babies is also an issue.
These were the key findings of a survey of 50 young Singaporeans at focus group discussions conducted by voluntary welfare organisation, I Love Children (ILC) last year.
ILC president Joni Ong was not surprised.
"The results show that, as expected, establishing their career, waiting for their finances to be built up, even trying to find more time for couplehood - those were some of the reasons that came up."
So, why have the survey? "The whole idea is it is going to serve as an impetus for us to have a quantitative study, some time towards the end of this year, where we're going to survey 1,000 young people on how we can help them," Mrs Ong explained.
Even before that, the VWO is coming up with its Maybe Baby campaign in April, where it wants those between 21 and 39 to start talking about parenthood.
"We want them to come forth and share with us their issues, whether it be work-life balance, whether it be career establishing, and things like that.
"We want to have a forum to discuss such things so there'll be seminars, there'll be life talk shows, there'll be expert advice panelists," said Mrs Ong.
The campaign follows the Prime Minister's recent call to couples to have more babies.
Singapore's resident total fertility rate slid to 1.23 last year - the lowest level ever. This means the country was short of at least 10,000 babies.
To help couples get over their parenting fears, an ILC bus highlighting the joys of parenthood will make its way around Singapore to the heartland shopping malls as well as the community centres from next month onwards.
The revamped three-year-old ILC bus made its debut with 70 young couples and Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports over at the Chingay Parade on Saturday.
A one-stop Web portal will also be launched in May to share parenting tips and the kinds of financial assistance available.
From TODAY, Monday, 22-Feb-2010
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Posted by PrfyVdlx at 10:41 PM
Labels: Asia, Child, Chingay Parade, Prime minister, Shopping mall, Singapore, Total fertility rate, Work-life balance comments (0)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
BEING CONTENTED: Living without the frills
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Posted by PrfyVdlx at 9:27 PM
Labels: Asia, education, Housing and Development Board, Income, Life expectancy, Population, Public housing, Singapore comments (0)