Investment in research encourages young scientists to return to S'pore

SINGAPORE: Singapore has committed more resources toward research, innovation, and enterprise.

It recently hosted the inaugural Global Young Scientists Summit, which brought many bright sparks of the international scientific community together.

Several young researchers came back to Singapore to further their research, even though they hold qualifications from prestigious universities overseas.

Ng Hui Khoon, who has a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology, said: "At the same time when I was looking for a post-doctoral position, the Centre for Quantum Technologies was just being set up in Singapore as well. So this was a very good opportunity for me. They were hiring people, they were having this huge research lab that was getting a lot of prominence in the world. So this in itself was actually a very attractive thing for me."

Graduate student Reuben Ng is studying ageing and public health at Yale University's School of Public Health. He hopes his work can help Singaporeans age positively.

He said his area of study is focused on helping older people prepare for retirement psychologically because that has been associated with longer life and better health.

"Because most of the time we focus on physical variables on old people and I think it's equally important to look at mental health and psychological variables," he said.

"We're doing this thing known as non-invasive intervention, for longer lives and healthier lives, so it's not just having an injection, or eating a pill but how you can change your mental health, how you can change your mindset so that it could lead to longer and healthier lives at a lower cost."

Mr Ng added: "I think in Singapore, we are facing an ageing population so I want to come back and contribute that way. I think first of all, most of my research has been based in the US and I want to come back and do studies so that we can have an evidence base so we know what we can do to make a difference to older people here in Singapore. Building the evidence base provides a bedrock on which policy decisions or programme decisions can be made on."

Biomedical researcher Khoo Xiaojuan hopes to inspire a new generation of scientists by joining the teaching faculty at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

She said: "What Singapore has to do is to organise, maybe invite people from different aspects of academia. So not just from the universities or research institutes, but those doing other things in the biomedical, pharmaceutical industry - people who are doing teaching, or have set up their own companies, and invite them to come back to talk about their experience."

Ms Khoo said this will go some way in changing mindsets that science is boring.

- CNA/xq

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Internet rules: More cats. LESS CAPS

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

Our 12 Rules of the Internet

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Yes, there ARE some rules to the Internet, though, for now they're mainly an inside joke


• Some rules based on pop culture, some have become Web memes


• Other rules ominously quote Anonymous


• Is there a need for rules on the vast and wild Web? Depends on where you stand

Editor's note: In the gallery above, we've selected a handful of our favorite Internet rules, or truths. (You might recognize a few.) What are some of yours? Tell us in the comments. We'll feature some of the best on CNN.

(CNN) -- Hello!

Welcome to the Internet. It's a big place, so let me show you around.

You're approaching Oversharing Pass, where residents routinely post too much information. The Facebook Gorge and Twitter Triangle are particularly nefarious time-sucks. Restraint is advised.

Up ahead is Hyperbole Junction, which is the Worst. Spot. Ever. We recommend that you maintain an even keel and stay to the center; the extreme left and right can be dangerous.

And over there is the infamous Lair of Sociopaths, the home of trolls and loners who mercilessly mock everyone who enters their territory. Watch your step: They may trip you up and you'll fall into the Chasm of Lulz.

Our world isn't all dangerous, of course. You may visit Squee City, where images of cute cats and laughing babies fill the landscape. You'll also meet countless kind strangers, hilarious raconteurs and hard-working fact-checkers. They make it all worthwhile.

Hmm. Maybe it would be easier if you had a guide -- you know, some rules to help you find your way.

What, you didn't know there are rules of the Internet?

Of course there are rules. How do you think we maintain order around here?

A parody of rules

That's a joke.

But there really are some rules of the Internet -- even if they, too, began as kind of a joke.

According to the site KnowYourMeme.com, the Rules began around 2006 as a guide for the Internet collective Anonymous and emerged on the old Encyclopedia Dramatica, a bawdy meme catalog. Soon a version emerged on 4chan, an online bulletin board where most users post anonymously, says Jamie Cohen, director of web/digital media at Hofstra University's School of Communication.

"Chris Poole (4chan's founder) kind of designed it, kind of like a Netiquette rules," he says, describing the unspoken code of conduct that lubricates Internet discourse. (Poole has attributed the rules to Gaia Online, a role-playing community.)

But the rules of the Internet deliberately mocked many of those conventions. The self-reflexive parody fit perfectly with its community's attitude, points out Anthony Rotolo, a professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.

"These jokes are meant to comment on something happening in the world," he says. "Later they get accepted as truisms or become a meme."

The absurdity has been reflected even in the supposed number of rules. Though the best-known first version claimed there were 50 rules, only 18 were listed. Number 1 was initially "Do not talk about Rules 2-33"; no Rules 2-33 were on the list.

The sarcastic attitude was reinforced by the kicker found on Encyclopedia Dramatica. It was a parody of Wikipedia's stub language: "This article is crap. You can help by completely re-writing it."

'Fight Club' and Monty Python

Very quickly, the lists started multiplying and expanding, liberally borrowing from comedy, Web culture and math-science tropes. On one list, a few were designated by complex numbers and mathematical symbols. Some were observations; others were directives.

Some have traced the Internet rules to Chris Poole, the founder of 4chan.

Two rules were taken from "Fight Club": "You do not talk about 4chan (or "/b/," 4chan's random, free-wheeling bulletin board) and "You DO NOT talk about 4chan." One version of Rule 6 stated "There is no Rule 6," which is from a Monty Python sketch. Rule 42, "Always bring a towel," was drawn from Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. (If you have to ask, read the books.) "Profit," Rule 49, came from "South Park."

Other rules went the reverse direction and became part of mainstream culture. Rule 34 -- "If it exists, there is porn of it" -- is likely the most famous. But there's also "Pics or it didn't happen" (Rule 30), "For every given male character, there is a female version of that character; conversely for every given female character, there is a male version of that character" (Rule 63) and, of course, the corollary to Rule 34 -- "If no porn of it exists at the moment, it will be made" (Rule 35).

Most retained a sense of humor, riffing off established rules and occasionally ending with a giggly "No exceptions."

But a handful were, and remain, as serious as a judge -- notably the three directly about Anonymous (commonly Rules 3-5):

- We are Anonymous.

- We are legion.

- We do not forgive, we do not forget.

The overall Internet rules may have started as a joke, but such ominous language from Anonymous speaks to some of the paradoxes of the Web:

Rules? Why do we need some stinkin' rules?

After all, rules can be helpful -- or divisive. They can create community -- or subvert it.

Even Anonymous, the activist group itself, cuts both ways, says Rotolo. When it hacked the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, many people cheered. But when it goes after less unpopular targets, some cry vigilantism.

Cohen says that the rules themselves try to have it both ways. They're funny until someone gets hurt.

They "play more of a game type of role. They can be bent or broken or cheated or moved around, as you would in any game that has no physical reaction," he says. "That doesn't take into account ever the result of real people being affected by this -- such as teenagers, children, anybody who's seeing things that they shouldn't."

He adds, "There's a lot of rules in there that work for (the creators) more than anyone else. Until they become victims of their own thing, they don't know how powerful the rules are."

Evolving from the Wild West

Of course, the Internet isn't that old, and we're still in its Wild West era in many ways. As the technology evolves from a handful of hackers on Usenet bulletin boards to billions of users on officially sponsored sites, the customs -- the rules -- of the Web will evolve with it.

But we're not talking about the kinds of changes that your family makes to the rules of Monopoly (no, Free Parking is NOT for the pool of money acquired via Chance and Community Chest). We're talking something more expansive: All the established customs of our carbon-based life forms, making way for the instantaneous and virtual modes of silicon-based electronics.

Who knows what new rules may be written?

"When you're in the midst of social change, it's impossible to determine where it's going," says Peter S. Vogel, a former programmer who's now a Dallas-based attorney. "And I think we are in the greatest social change in the history of humans, because there are no boundaries of geography or time."

We haven't even sorted out what happens when the differences in local culture meet global technology. Bruce Umbaugh, a philosophy professor at Webster University in St. Louis who teaches a course on philosophy and technology, argues that not all parts of the world are as tolerant or open-minded as Western democracies.

There's a lot of rules in there that work for (the creators) more than anyone else.
Jamie Cohen, Hofstra University

"There are a lot of other places in the world that are actively using the technology of the Internet to control the free communication among citizens, and to identify critics of the government and hurt them," he says. "We need to be mindful in what we advocate from our perspective that the tools that are implemented on the Net are tools for the global Net."

In other words, citizens of other countries already face actual, enforceable rules -- unlike the folkways established by Web users in the West. Witness the frictions of the Arab Spring, or the restrictions of societies such as North Korea.

It's the kind of perspective that provides a different context for the issues raised by a libertarian, anything-goes Internet. It's hard enough to stop "Star Wars" comment boards from devolving into flamebaiting, meme-generating files of NSFW Yodas.

So for now, we're still making our way through the Series of Tubes, and nobody knows where the boundaries lie. We joke, we grimace and we marvel at the creativity of the hive mind. The Internet is a big place, and countless cultures have set up residence. Eventually, what is now humor may lose its zing; what are now customs may become laws.

Will the rules ever become The Rules? Maybe some future generation will figure out the true guideposts of Internet life, and the singularity will be upon us.

Nah. It'll never happen.

What did we miss? Share your rules for the internet below in the comments. We'll feature some of the best on CNN.

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Dozens of pro-Dorner protesters rally at LAPD HQ

LOS ANGELES Dozens of protesters rallied outside Los Angeles police headquarters Saturday in support of Christopher Dorner, the former LAPD officer and suspected killer of four who died after a shootout and fire this week at a mountain cabin following one of the biggest manhunts in recent memory.

Protesters told the Los Angeles Times they didn't support Dorner's deadly methods, but objected to police corruption and brutality, and believed Dorner's claims of racism and unfair treatment by the department. Many said they were angered by the conduct of the manhunt that led to Dorner's death and injuries to innocent bystanders who were mistaken for him.

Play Video

New details of Dorner's final hours

Michael Nam, 30, who held a sign with a flaming tombstone and the inscription "RIP Habeas Corpus," said it was "pretty obvious" police had no intention of bringing Dorner in alive.

"They were the judge, the jury and the executioner," Nam said. "As an American citizen, you have the right to a trial and due process by law."

During the hunt for Dorner, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called for Dorner's surrender and said he didn't want to see the suspect or anyone else injured.

Dorner was already believed to have killed three people when he was cornered Tuesday at the cabin near Big Bear Lake, and during the standoff shot and killed a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy, authorities said.

Play Video

Reporter records gunfight in Dorner capture effort

Only after calls for surrender and use of milder tear gas did deputies launch pyrotechnic gas canisters into the cabin, and the subsequent fire was not intentional, the Sheriff's Department said.

Dorner died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the end of the standoff, sheriff's officials said.

The 33-year-old has already inspired a burgeoning subculture of followers. While most don't condone killing, they see him as an outlaw hero who raged against powerful forces of authority, and some even question whether he really died.

Tributes include a ballad titled "El Matapolicias," or "The Police Killer," penned by a Mexican crooner with lyrics paying homage to Dorner, and a YouTube clip showing excerpts from a video game titled "Christopher Dorner's Last Stand Survival Game" whose opening frame declares him "A True American Hero."

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Meteor Blast Creates Rush to Cash In

The shattered glass and broken walls caused by the massive explosion of a monstrous meteor over this remote, industrial Russian city is not even cleaned up, and people are already trying to cash in.

Some residents want to turn this city known mostly for its tank factory into a tourist destination, while others from all around the world are determined to find fragments of the meteorite.

Meteor hunters say it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. A small piece of the space rock that exploded over Russia Friday could be worth thousands of dollars, and bigger chunks could fetch hundreds of thousands.

SEE PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia

"I haven't been able to sleep for the last two days because of this," said Michael Farmer, who runs the website Meteor Hunter. "This is a once in a lifetime event. We've never seen anything like this in the last hundred years."

He said he started planning a trip to Chelyabinsk as soon as the meteorite exploded.

"The next morning I was on the phone working on visas. I'd like to get a visa and get over to Russia as quickly as possible," he said. "When this type of thing happens, you know hours count so we try to arrange that as fast as possible."

A day after a massive meteor exploded over this city in central Russia, a monumental cleanup effort is under way.

Authorities have deployed around 24,000 troops and emergencies responders to help in the effort.

Officials say more than a million square feet of windows -- the size of about 20 football fields -- were shattered by the shockwave from the meteor's blast. Around 4,000 buildings in the area were damaged.

Nasha gazeta, www.ng.kz/AP Photo

The injury toll climbed steadily on Friday. Authorities said today it now stands at more than 1,200. Most of those injuries were from broken glass, and only a few hundred required hospitalization.

According to NASA, this was the biggest meteor to hit Earth in more than a century. Preliminary figures suggest it was 50 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower.

NASA scientists have also estimated the force of the blast that occurred when the meteor fractured upon entering Earth's atmosphere was approximately 470 kilotons -- the equivalent of about 30 Hiroshima bombs, but it did not cause major damage because it occurred so high in the atmosphere.

"This was caused by a small asteroid, about 15 meters in diameter, coming in at around 18 kilometers per second, that's in excess of 40-thousand miles per hour," NASA planetary scientist Paul Abell said. "As the asteroid comes in, it interacts with the atmosphere and effectively it converts all the energy, the kinetic energy of the asteroid, the mass of the asteroid and the velocity and it's actually that velocity, the asteroid just effectively explodes and that creates the pressure wave, the blast wave that comes down."

Treasure hunters hoping to cash in on the bits of space rock aren't the only ones eager to find pieces of the meteor, Abell said. Scientists say the material could offer valuable information.

"One of the things we'd like to learn is first of all, what was the composition of the asteroid, where did it come from," he said. "We know it came from the asteroid belt but can we link it to a bigger asteroid and also, get an idea of the dispersal pattern."

Residents said they still can't believe it happened here.

"It was something we only saw in the movies," one university student said. "We never thought we would see it ourselves."

Throughout the city, the streets are littered with broken glass. Local officials have announced an ambitious pledge to replace all the broken windows within a week. In the early morning hours, however, workers could still be heard drilling new windows into place.

Authorities have sent divers into a frozen lake outside the city, where a large chunk of the meteor is believed to have landed, creating a large hole in the ice. By the end of the day they had not found anything.

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False memories prime immune system for future attacks

IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon.

When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts an attack by sending in white blood cells called T-cells that are tailored to the molecular structure of that invader. Defeating the infection can take several weeks. However, once victorious, some T-cells stick around, turning into memory cells that remember the invader, reducing the time taken to kill it the next time it turns up.

Conventional thinking has it that memory cells for a particular microbe only form in response to an infection. "The dogma is that you need to be exposed," says Mark Davis of Stanford University in California, but now he and his colleagues have shown that this is not always the case.

The team took 26 samples from the Stanford Blood Center. All 26 people had been screened for diseases and had never been infected with HIV, herpes simplex virus or cytomegalovirus. Despite this, Davis's team found that all the samples contained T-cells tailored to these viruses, and an average of 50 per cent of these cells were memory cells.

The idea that T-cells don't need to be exposed to the pathogen "is paradigm shifting," says Philip Ashton-Rickardt of Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study. "Not only do they have capacity to remember, they seem to have seen a virus when they haven't."

So how are these false memories created? To a T-cell, each virus is "just a collection of peptides", says Davis. And so different microbes could have structures that are similar enough to confuse the T-cells.

To test this idea, the researchers vaccinated two people with an H1N1 strain of influenza and found that this also stimulated the T-cells to react to two bacteria with a similar peptide structure. Exposing the samples from the blood bank to peptide sequences from certain gut and soil bacteria and a species of ocean algae resulted in an immune response to HIV (Immunology, doi.org/kgg).

The finding could explain why vaccinating children against measles seems to improve mortality rates from other diseases. It also raises the possibility of creating a database of cross-reactive microbes to find new vaccination strategies. "We need to start exploring case by case," says Davis.

"You could find innocuous pathogens that are good at vaccinating against nasty ones," says Ashton-Rickardt. The idea of cross-reactivity is as old as immunology, he says. But he is excited about the potential for finding unexpected correlations. "Who could have predicted that HIV was related to an ocean algae?" he says. "No one's going to make that up!"

This article appeared in print under the headline "False memories prime our defences"

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Govt looking to up support for social enterprises running hawker centres

SINGAPORE: The government is exploring ways to boost support to social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations, which are set to manage hawker centres of the future.

This comes after a government-appointed hawker centre consultation panel recommended that social enterprises run hawker centres of the future, with the aims of giving the disadvantaged jobs, and providing the community with affordable food.

Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan shared this at the official launch of Kampung @ Simpang Bedok, Singapore's first hawker centre to be run by a social enterprise.

In February last year, social enterprise Best of Asia took over the management of the centre.

Some of the changes include the use of space to allow patrons to shop, or just hang out. The management plans weekly flea markets and band gigs to draw in the crowd.

Deirdre Murugasu, leader of Best of Asia said: "All along, there are many Singaporeans who are unable to actually expand even if they are very good hawkers, there's no succession planning. This place is a place for them to all try out. Make it, don't make it, we're there to help them."

There are 32 stalls at the centre. Best of Asia offers various forms of help to stall holders - including charging them partial rent.

Full rentals range between S$1,500 and S$4,000, based on individual assessments of stall holders.

Dr Balakrishnan said: "This is a very important new start and we'll have to see how this develops over the years to come. The key thing is for it to remain viable, for it to provide good livelihood to people who may be disadvantaged or who may otherwise have an opportunity to start their own businesses. And also for good-hearted people with business ideas and imagination to help others to create a multi-disciplinary team to make this place viable, attractive and hopefully a model for the future."

Hawker centres run by social enterprises can help boost community ties.

Kasmah Sukor, a cook at Pitstop @ Haniff said: "I see that we are working together, helping each other. Everybody tries to support each other in any way we can. That is why I feel that we have the kampung spirit to help out and work. That is what I like about this place."

The government hopes that the 10 new hawker centres in the next five years would be run by social enterprises.

It will look into ways to best support such a model, to ensure long-term sustainability and viability.

- CNA/xq

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Sen. Rubio drowning in 'water-gate'

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Man arrested in Alaska Coast Guard base deaths

ANCHORAGE, Alaska An Alaska man was arrested Friday in last year's shooting deaths at a Coast Guard air station on Kodiak Island that left two employees dead, the U.S. attorney said.

James Michael Wells of Kodiak is accused in a federal murder complaint of killing Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins and retired Chief Boatswain's Mate Richard Belisle on April 12.

Another Coast Guard member found the victims shortly after the two would have arrived for work at the station, which monitors radio traffic from ships and planes and is home to cutters, helicopters and rescue swimmers that aid mariners in the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean. Their bodies were found in the rigger building, where antennas are repaired.

FBI agents immediately flew to Kodiak Island from Anchorage, about 250 miles away, to investigate the case as a double homicide. Few details were released in the weeks after the deaths.

Wells' arrest came after "an extensive investigation" led by the FBI and the Coast Guard Investigative Service, with help from the Alaska State Troopers, U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler said in a statement.

Wells is expected to appear in court next week in Anchorage, Loeffler said.

No one was immediately reachable by phone Friday evening at the U.S. attorney's office to provide additional details.

Hopkins, 41, was an electronics technician from Vergennes, Vt. Belisle, 51, was a former chief petty officer who continued service to the Coast Guard as a civilian employee.

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Brecht's Galileo is a play for our times

Tiffany O'Callaghan, Opinion editor

Ian McDiarmid as Galileo (left) and James Tucker as the Bursar (Image: Ellie Kurtz)

It has been more than 400 years since Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope toward the night sky and observed the movement of the moons around Jupiter, providing proof that all things do not revolve around the Earth - and drawing the ire of the Catholic church.

And it has been nearly 80 years since playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote the first version of A Life of Galileo while living in Denmark after fleeing Germany when Hitler took power.

Yet the latest retelling of this famous tale by the Royal Shakespeare Company underscores the emphatically contemporary nature of the struggle between static world views and dynamic knowledge.

This is reinforced by using the familiar, modern clothing of tweedy dishevelment among Galileo and his colleagues and pupils, and sets featuring the lab-staple whiteboard and a large blue backdrop that resembles a wall of solar panels.

But of course this is not simply an old story with modern accoutrements and gimmicky staging. Portrayed by Ian McDiarmid, Galileo’s compulsive curiosity, his sheer joy when his pupil grasps a new concept for the first time, and his bewildered frustration when adversaries refuse to observe the evidence literally in front of them feel both timely and timeless. “All I ask is for them to believe their eyes!” exclaims poor Galileo.

In a moment when 46 per cent of US citizens believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and four US states are weighing up bills that would challenge the teaching of evolution, the tension remains strong between theologies that carve out a creation story for humans and the evidence that we are the serendipitous result of millions of years of evolution.

There are strong reminders of these tensions in the play, for example, when a cleric bullies Galileo to keep his heliocentric ideas to himself, crystallising the church’s terror at the implications of his ideas: “Is no one watching us?" asks the cleric. "Has no one imagined a part for us to play other than this one?”

Galileo is cowed into compromise. His new ideas may be used to help seafarers better navigate by the stars, but not to upend the understanding of the order of things. They may answer practical questions, but not existential ones. “We may research, but we may not draw conclusions.”

He accepts the new conditions in word only. His experiments continue, and when given the slimmest opening his feverish curiosity breaks out into the light of day. When he learns that his friend and science enthusiast Cardinal Barberini may ascend to the papacy, he lauds the arrival of an era of reason. Too soon, of course.

In the second act, we meet the new pope in his undergarments. As he debates the use of torture and threats to force Galileo to renounce the Copernican ideas laid out in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Barberini dons layer upon layer of vestments. Crimson robes, a glittering great cape, and finally the mitre: when he is cloaked in the power of his office, Barberini assents to the threat of torture.

The scene parallels the opening scene of the play, in which Galileo, also in only his undergarments, is bathing and getting ready for the day. The contrast is evident: in the flesh, they are both ageing men. But their power to spread ideas is proportional to the grandeur of their garments. When Galileo is threatened and ultimately abjures his earlier assertions, he returns beaten and bare-legged in a crumpled white gown.

The legacy of Galileo’s recantation is left open. Brecht rewrote aspects of the play following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, when he was living in the US. “Overnight the biography of the founder of the new system of physics read differently,” he wrote in an introduction to the new version. “The infernal effect of the great bomb placed the conflict between Galileo and the authorities of his day in a new sharper light.”

Brecht never saw the stage production of his later version in New York, as he left the country after being questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

By the end of the play, Galileo is wary of science shaped by interests more nefarious than the quest for truth. He sees a danger in scientists being reduced to little more than “inventing pygmies” for sale to the highest bidder, their ideas open to be used for cruel ends. Galileo’s public recantation and private pursuit of truth and Brecht’s ambivalence about the responsibility of scientists to shape the use of their research for the benefit of humankind are not necessarily two sides of the same coin, it seems.

But it isn’t clear that in publicly defying the church Galileo would have reshaped the way that scientific knowledge is applied. And in real life, as in the play, in sneaking his final, influential publication Discourse and Mathematical Demonstrations About Two New Sciences out under the noses of the church which held him under house arrest for the final years of his life, Galileo seems vindicated in his decision to live to think another day.

As New Yorker critic Adam Gopnik recently put it, “the best reason we have to believe in the moons of Jupiter is that no one has to be prepared to die for them in order for them to be real”.

It may be an excruciatingly slow process, but the truth has a way of emerging into the light eventually. It was just two decades ago - and 350 years after Galileo’s death - that the Catholic church finally admitted that it had been wrong to condemn him.

A Life of Galileo is on at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, until 30 March.

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Former MM Lee Kuan Yew misses Lunar New Year dinner

SINGAPORE: Former Minister Mentor and Member of Parliament (MP) for Tanjong Pagar Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Mr Lee Kuan Yew did not attend the annual Lunar New year dinner at his GRC on Friday evening.

Senior Minister of State for Law and MP for the area, Ms Indranee Rajah told grassroots leaders and residents at the dinner that Mr Lee was not feeling well and had extended his apologies for not being at the event.

Mr Lee thanked all residents for attending the event.

On behalf of the gathering, Ms Indranee wished Mr Lee a speedy recovery and hopes he feels better soon.

Channel NewsAsia understands from grassroots leaders in the division that this is the first time Mr Lee has missed the Tanjong Pagar division's Lunar New Year dinner celebrations.

- CNA/xq

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