Sequestration could mean across-the-board pain

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - The entire economy is headed for trouble in just eight days -- when massive across-the-board cuts in the federal budget are scheduled to kick in automatically. The cuts were designed to be so deep and harmful, that they would force the president and Congress to find a better way. But they haven't. Just for example, there would be $46 billion cut from the Defense Department and benefit cuts for 4.7 million long-term unemployed.

The FBI says the budget cuts would require all employees, including special agents, to be furloughed for up to 14 days.

Referring to the FBI's top managers, Jan Fedarcyk, the former head of the New York field office of the agency, said: "I'm sure they are most worried about, 'What does this mean in the national security arena?' That's probably at the top of the list, a discussion about maintaining our counter-terrorism operations."

Watch CBS News correspondent David Martin's report on the impact the sequester cuts could have on those who work for the Department of Defense:

Most of the cuts would not take effect immediately on March 1 -- they would be phased in slowly over several months. And they could be avoided if Congress and the president could agree to a deal. But if they can't, the cuts will be painful.

Thousands of security screeners at the nation's airports would also be furloughed. Wait times at the busiest airports could increase by up to an hour.

Boehner, WH trade blame for sequester

Dickerson: Obama has stronger hand in sequester fight
Will sequestration really be that bad?

About 70,000 children would be dropped from Head Start.

About 600,000 women and young children would be cut from a major nutrition program.

Millions of the nation's long-term unemployed would lose an average of more than $400 in benefits.

On the health front, the FDA says furloughs would result in 2,100 fewer inspections of food plants, increasing the risk of food-borne illness. And medical research could be cut by $1.6 billion, slowing progress in the fight against disease, including cancer and Alzheimer's.

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would largely be spared. But critics of the whole process say that is a fundamental flaw because entitlement programs are a major driver of the national debt.

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Arias Leaves Stand After Describing Killing, Her Lies

Jodi Arias stepped down from the witness stand today after mounting an emotional effort to save herself from death row, insisting to the Arizona jury that an explosive fight with ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander led to his death, and that her lies about killing him masked deep regret and plans to commit suicide.

Arias, 32, will now face what is expected to be a withering cross-examination beginning Thursday from prosecutor Juan Martinez, who has been aggressive to many witnesses throughout the trial and who is expected to go after Arias' claim that she was forced to kill Alexander or be killed herself.

She is charged with murder for her ex-boyfriend's death and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The day's dramatic testimony started with Arias describing the beginning of the fight on June 4, 2008 when she and Alexander were taking nude photos in his shower and she claims she accidentally dropped his new camera, causing Alexander to lose his temper. Enraged, he picked her up and body slammed her onto the tile floor, screaming at her, she told the jury.

Arias said she ran to his closet to get away from him, but could hear Alexander's footsteps coming after her down the hall. She grabbed a gun from his shelf and tried to keep running, but Alexander came after her, she said.

"I pointed it at him with both of my hands. I thought that would stop him, but he just kept running. He got like a linebacker. He got low and grabbed my waist, and as he was lunging at me the gun went off. I didn't mean to shoot. I didn't even think I was holding the trigger," she said.

"But he lunged at me and we fell really hard toward the tile wall, so at this point I didn't even know if he had been shot. I didn't see anything different. We were struggling, wrestling, he's a wrestler.

"So he's grabbing at my clothes and I got up, and he's screaming angry, and after I broke away from him. He said 'f***ing kill you bitch,'" she testified.

Asked by her lawyer whether she was convinced Alexander intended to kill her, Arias answered, "For sure. He'd almost killed me once before and now he's saying he was going to." Arias had earlier testified that Alexander had once choked her.

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

Arias on Ex-Boyfriend's Death: 'I Don't Remember' Watch Video

Jodi Arias Describes Violent Sex Before Shooting Watch Video

Jodi Arias Testifies Ex Assaulted Her, Broke Her Fingers Watch Video

But Arias' story of the death struggle ended there as she told the court that she has no memory of stabbing or slashing Alexander whose body was later found with 27 stab wounds, a slit throat and two bullets in his head. She said she only remembered standing in the bathroom, dropping the knife on the tile floor, realizing the "horror" of what had happened, and screaming.

"I have no memory of stabbing him," she said. "There's a huge gap. I don't know if I blacked out or what, but there's a huge gap. The most clear memory I have after that point is driving in the desert."

Arias said that she decided in the desert not to admit to killing Alexander, a decision that would last for two years as Arias lied to friends, family, investigators and reporters about what really happened in Alexander's bathroom.

During that time she initially claimed she got lost that night while driving to a friend's house and never went to Alexander's home in Mesa,Ariz. She later changed her story and said two masked people, a man and a woman, burst into the home and killed Alexander and threatened to kill her family if she told anyone what happened.

She eventually confessed to killing her ex-boyfriend, but insisted it was self defense.

"The main reason (for lying) is because I was very ashamed of what happened. It's not something I ever imagined doing. It's not the kind of person I was. It was just shameful," she said. "I was also very scared of what might happen. I didn't want my family to know that I had done that, and I just couldn't bring myself to say that I did that."

"From day one there was a part of me that always wanted to (tell the truth) but didn't dare do that. I would rather have gone to my grave than admit I had done something like that," she said.

Arias said that she continued to lie because she figured she would never get caught; she was planning to kill herself before trial.

"I was concerned with how it would affect my family. I wanted to die. I was going to definitely kill myself," she said. "That was my plan. You can purchase different things in jail and I bought a bunch of Advil... and took it all in the next few days so it was in my system. They have razors for shaving, so I got one and took it apart one night with intentions to slit my wrists."

Arias said she balked at slitting her wrists after accidentally cutting herself, but that she still planned to commit suicide sometime in the future. When she told news reporters that "no jury would convict her," she claims she said it believing that she would be dead before they'd have a chance to put her on trial, Arias testified.

Arias said support from the public and her family eventually led her to change her mind.

"My family remained very supportive, and told me 'it doesn't matter what happens, we love you anyway.' I realized even if I told the truth they would still be there and wouldn't walk away," she testified.

"By the time spring, 2010, rolled around, I confessed. I basically told everyone what I could remember of the day and that the intruder story was all BS pretty much."

She said that her testimony today, a third version of events, was the truth.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander's death, and prosecutors have argued that her behavior during those weeks showed a lack of remorse for the killing and an attempt to get away with murder.

Arias said today that after she killed Alexander and drove away from his Mesa, Ariz., home in a panic, it dawned on her that police would soon be looking for Alexander's killer, and she decided that she would pretend the bloody confrontation had never happened.

"I knew that it was really bad, that my life was probably done now. I wished it was just a nightmare I could wake up from, but I knew I had messed up pretty badly and the inevitable was going to be something I could not really run from," she testified.

"I didn't want anyone to know that that had happened or that I did it, so I started taking steps in the aftermath to cover it up. I did a whole bunch of things to try to make it seem like I was never there," she said.

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 19 February 2013

Doctors would tax sugary drinks to combat obesity

Hiking the price of fizzy drinks would cut consumption and so help fight obesity, urges the British Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

Space station's dark matter hunter coy about findings

Researchers on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which sits above the International Space Station, have collected their first results - but won't reveal them for two weeks

Huge telescopes could spy alien oxygen

Hunting for oxygen in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets is a tough job, but a new wave of giant telescopes should be up to the task

Evolution's detectives: Closing in on missing links

Technology is taking the guesswork out of finding evolution's turning points, from the first fish with legs to our own recent forebears, says Jeff Hecht

Moody Mercury shows its hidden colours

False-colour pictures let us see the chemical and physical landscape of the normally beige planet closest to the sun

LHC shuts down to prepare for peak energy in 2015

Over the next two years, engineers will be giving the Large Hadron Collider the makeover it needs to reach its maximum design energy

Insert real news events into your mobile game

From meteor airbursts to footballing fracas, mobile games could soon be brimming with news events that lend them more currency

3D-printing pen turns doodles into sculptures

The 3Doodle, which launched on Kickstarter today, lets users draw 3D structures in the air which solidify almost instantly

We need to rethink how we name exoplanets

Fed up with dull names for exoplanets, Alan Stern and his company Uwingu have asked the public for help. Will it be so long 2M 0746+20b, hello Obama?

A shocking cure: Plug in for the ultimate recharge

An electrical cure for ageing attracted the ire of the medical establishment. But could the jazz-age inventor have stumbled upon a genuine therapy?

Biofuel rush is wiping out unique American grasslands

Planting more crops to meet the biofuel demand is destroying grasslands and pastures in the central US, threatening wildlife

Read More..

India's workers strike to protest "anti-labour" policies

NEW DELHI: Millions of India's workers walked off their jobs on Wednesday in a two-day nationwide strike called by trade unions to protest at the "anti-labour" policies of the embattled government.

Financial services and transport were hit by the strike called by 11 major workers' groups to protest at a series of pro-market economic reforms announced by the government last year, as well as high inflation and rising fuel prices.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had appealed to unions to abandon the strike, the latest in a string of protests against liberalisation, warning it would cause a "loss to our economy" already poised for its slowest annual growth in a decade.

But talks following Singh's appeal this week collapsed after the government refused to bow to union demands to roll back the reforms, which are aimed at jumpstarting the economy and averting a downgrade in India's credit rating.

"The workers are being totally ignored and this is reflected in the government's anti-labour policies," said Tapan Sen, general secretary of the umbrella Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

The government's "big ticket" reforms include opening the retail, insurance and aviation sectors to wider foreign investment, raising prices of subsidised diesel used by farmers and reducing the number of discounted cooking gas cylinders.

The steps aim to free up the still heavily state-controlled economy and reduce India's ballooning subsidy bill and fiscal deficit. But they have stirred anger in some areas, especially among the poor.

"The last time that we called a strike (in February 2012), nearly 100 million workers participated. This time we're expecting a bigger number," Sen told AFP.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry estimated losses from the strike at around 200 billion rupees (US$3.7 billion).

"The national economy... can ill afford this situation. In fact, the strike would aggravate the price situation because of disruption in supply line of essential commodities," the chamber said in a statement.

The strike's impact appeared to be the greatest in the eastern state of West Bengal and the southern state of Kerala where banks, schools and the transport sector were hit.

Flag-waving protesters stopped trains and staged noisy demonstrations in the eastern states of Orissa and Bihar. A trade union leader was crushed by a bus that he was trying to stop in Ambala district in the northern state of Punjab.

In Mumbai, the financial sector was crippled with government banks, insurance companies and workers at other businesses taking part in the stoppage.

The strike comes a day before the start of parliament's budget session, which is likely to be disrupted by the opposition parties over allegations of kickbacks in a US$748 million government contract for Italian helicopters.

-AFP/fl

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Pistorius back in court; bail ruling expected

Photos: 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Bail hearing resumes in South Africa


• Prosecutors are asking that bail be denied


• Oscar Pistorius paints a detailed picture of his version of his girlfriend's death


• Prosecutors dispute Pistorius' version, say he meant to kill her

Pretoria, South Africa (CNN) -- Olympian Oscar Pistorius returned to court on Wednesday to find out if he can be freed on bail after being charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend.

This is the second day of the bail hearing that is expected to last several more days.

The charge of premeditation makes it more difficult for Pistorius' attorneys to argue he should be released pending trial. To win bail, the defense must argue that "exceptional circumstances" exist that would justify Pistorius' release.

Prosecutors have said they would ask for bail to be denied in the Valentine's Day death of Reeva Steenkamp.

Tuesday's court session ended with no decision on bail for Pistorius, 26. Prosecutors said they needed time to study the affidavits read in court before deciding how to proceed.

In a statement read by his lawyer, Pistorius said he would not try to flee or influence any witnesses if he is allowed out on bail, and he argued his release wouldn't be a danger to public order.

During Tuesday's hearing, Magistrate Desmond Nair upgraded the charge against Pistorius to premeditated murder, saying he could not rule out the possibility that the track star planned Steenkamp's death. But Nair said he will consider downgrading the charge later.

Pistorius' affidavit in alleged murder of girlfriend

A tragic mistake?

While prosecutors and defense lawyers agree Pistorius shot Steenkamp, the track star denied intentionally killing her.

"I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated murder because I had no intention to kill my girlfriend," Pistorius said in his statement.

"We were deeply in love and couldn't be happier," he said. "I loved her and I know she felt the same way."

Pistorius' girlfriend dies on Valentine's Day

HIDE CAPTION

In his statement, Pistorius said Steenkamp came to his home February 13 for a quiet dinner. They wrapped up the night with a bit of television in bed for him, some yoga for her. She had brought him a Valentine's Day present to open the next day.

After the couple had gone to bed, he said he got up in the early hours of February 14 to close the balcony door in his bedroom when he heard a sound in the bathroom.

Pistorius said he'd been a victim of violence and burglary in the past, and realized with terror that contractors who worked at the house had left ladders outside.

Fearing someone had entered the home through the open bathroom window, Pistorius grabbed his 9mm pistol from under the bed, moved in the dark on the stumps of his amputated legs and yelled at what he thought was the intruder to get out.

"I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police. She did not respond and I moved backwards out of the bathroom, keeping my eye on the bathroom entrance," Pistorius said in his statement.

"Everything was pitch-dark in the bedroom and I was still too scared to switch on a light."

"When I reached the bed, I realized that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name," he said.

He said he threw open the balcony door and screamed for help, put on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick in the door to the separate room inside the bathroom containing the toilet. Then, he said, he picked up a cricket bat, smashing panels out of the door before finding a key and unlocking it.

"Reeva was slumped over but alive," he said.

Pistorius said he called for help and was told to take her to the hospital himself.

He carried her downstairs and tried to help her, but she died.

A premeditated murder?

Prosecutors, however, painted a different picture.

They rejected Pistorius' claim that he mistook her for a burglar, saying it would make no sense for an intruder to hide behind a locked bathroom door.

Instead, they say Pistorius armed himself, attached his prosthetic legs and walked 7 meters (23 feet) to shoot Steenkamp through a bathroom door after a heated argument.

Defense attorney Barry Roux questioned the state's argument, asking how prosecutors would know Pistorius had put on his prosthetic legs and walked to the bathroom before shooting his girlfriend.

Police were alerted to the shooting by neighbors, and residents had "heard things earlier," police spokeswoman Denise Beukes said.

Authorities said there had been "previous incidents" at the home, including "allegations of a domestic nature," but did not provide details.

Detectives are investigating the blood-stained cricket bat found in the home, Johannesburg's City Press newspaper reported. They are trying to determine whether it was used to attack Steenkamp, if she used the bat in self-defense, or if Pistorius used it to try to break down the bathroom door, the newspaper said.

Case rivets fans

The case of the global sports hero known as the "Blade Runner" has riveted stunned fans around the world.

As he walked into court in a blue shirt, gray suit and tie, frenzied photographers snapped away, prompting the judge to demand they stop.

The scene was a far cry from the packed stadiums that erupted in applause whenever the double-amputee competed against men with legs.

Social media reaction to the case came down against the sports star, but was still noticeably mixed on CNN's Facebook page.

"There's no amount of tears that will save you," said Anthonia Nneka Nwabueze. "Pistorius must face the Law for brutally killing an innocent girl - Reeva."

"My favorite athlete but what he did is grave and must be punished," Carlos Alvarez Ochoa said.

But another person who posted called for patience.

"(N)one of us were in the house when his girlfriend was murdered, let's hold off on casting stones at Oscar Pistorius," said Adrian van Liere Since. "Just like anyone else, he deserves a just trial, and in my eyes remains innocent until proven guilty."

Robyn Curnow and Kim Norgaard reported from South Africa; Ed Payne reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Nkepile Mabuse also contributed to this report.

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What's next in the looming budget crisis?

(CBS News) WASHINGTON -- We are nine days from the next national self-inflicted budget crisis: big, across-the-board cuts in the federal budget will hit automatically on March 1. The cuts are designed to be so deep and damaging that they would force the president and Congress to compromise on a better way.

"These cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls," President Barack Obama said Tuesday. "This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again."

Watch: Obama warns of the dangers of the "sequester," below.

Obama wants more tax revenue, but Republicans say no. Both sides say it's up to the other to give in.

There will be a continued effort by the White House to apply public pressure on Republicans to relent. This will be done in public, in events such as Obama's speech Tuesday; it's already been done privately.

Top government officials are warning businesses they could be harmed by these looming spending cuts. For example, last Friday, top officials at the Agriculture Department warned meat and poultry producers that there might not be enough federal inspectors to keep their processing plants open and operating.

These are designed to motivate businesses to plead with Republicans to find another way. For now, Republicans appear prepared to take these spending cuts, because they say they will argue to the public they're more serious about deficit reduction than President Obama.

Obama to GOP: Put away the "meat cleaver"
GOP losing faith on sequester alternative?
With sequester looming, Congress takes a break

There are currently no behind-the-scenes negotiations between the White House and Republicans. Republicans say this is President Obama's problem and that he needs to solve it with new spending cuts, because they refuse to raise taxes again this year.

As for talks, the top aide to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor joked Tuesday that President Obama has spent more time playing golf with Tiger Woods than he has negotiating with congressional Republicans.

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Former Navy SEAL on Coming Out of Shadows

It used to be that Navy SEALs didn't just operate in the shadows. They trained in them too. Their whole story stayed shrouded in mystery. Their secret missions stayed secret to the rest of us.

But when they got Osama Bin Laden, snatched back an American cargo ship taken by pirates and rescued two air workers held hostage in Somalia, then suddenly, it seemed that SEALs were headline-makers.

Add to that some SEALs wrote books about SEAL adventures and even acted in a movie about the SEAL experience using live ammunition when they made "Act of Valor." They can't quite be called "the military unit that no one ever talked about" any longer.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

Rorke Denver played Lt. Commander Rorke in "Act of Valor," a film that used dozens of SEALs and went on to gross $80 million at the box office. Now, with the help of a writer, Denver is doing some pretty decent storytelling in a new book, "Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior."

He agrees that with SEALs like him telling their stories that these guys are out in the open like never before.

"We are, at this moment in our history, when the heat is on, the missions are getting press and coverage," Denver said.

Acts of Valor: Four Boyfriends Took Bullets to Save Girlfriends Watch Video

'Zero Dark Thirty' Screenwriter Responds to Film's Controversy Watch Video

When asked if it was a good thing, he said, "time will tell."

"We are in the public eye and I think that mythology is something that people are hugely, hugely interested in and they have an appetite for it," Denver said. "So for us with the movie and then also with 'Damn Few' I had an opportunity, I feel, to authentically represent and hopefully do it from an honorable point of view and accurately do so."

It's mostly his own story Denver tells in "Damn Few," how he joined the SEALs after college -- they didn't want him at first.

"I put in my first application and they said no, and I am glad it went that way. I think the community really values resiliency and toughness and focus and a 'never quit' attitude. For me, when they said no I thought, that ain't going to cut it."

Denver didn't quit. He reapplied and went on to survive the SEALs brutal Hell Week and training, joined the team and deployed all over the world, including the deadly Al Anbar province in Iraq when the war there was at its hottest. His family waited for him to return stateside.

"The families, I feel, are the ones who pay the price of our choices," Denver said. "But I didn't appreciate how much I was asking my family to bear and experience it with me. They really are every bit a part of our experience and frankly they are the ones who are back home and praying and believing that you are going to come home."

But even his family didn't quite know what Denver did at work every day.

"I never ask questions about what he does," said his wife, Tracy.

But "Act of Valor" was revealing in that way, and Denver's wife watched the film.

"For me it was incredibly eye-opening to actually see a submarine mission or running around in the jungle, jumping out of a plane, shooting his weapons," she said. "For me, it was like, oh, so this is what you are doing when you are away. I appreciated it actually."

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We need to rethink how we name exoplanets

Fed up with dull names for exoplanets, Alan Stern and his company Uwingu have asked the public for help. Will it be so long 2M 0746+20b, hello Obama?

How did you come up with the idea for a list of potential names for exoplanets?
The number of planets in the Milky Way was recently estimated at more than 100 billion. We realised that that's far, far too many names for astronomers to supply, that it would take the general public too. We also realised how much fun this could be for people.

How do people submit names?
For $0.99, anyone can put in a name, as long as it isn't already nominated and isn't profane or pejorative. People can also vote on which names they like best. We only have a few hundred now, but the idea is that we will have hundreds of thousands of names in the database. We will take the thousand most popular, which will correspond to the thousand or so exoplanets that we already know about, and hand those to exoplanet scientists.

What kinds of names are people suggesting?
It is pretty interesting. People are putting in names of friends, spouses. They are putting in lots of science-fiction names like Alderaan and Yuggoth, names of authors such as Heinlein and Asimov, and even politicians like Obama and Romney. As this gets out to the general public, we expect there to be a lot of interesting contests going on - maybe Lady Gaga versus Madonna.

What's wrong with the existing names?
There are none - just "license plate" designations like 2M 0746+20b or OGLE235-MOA53b!

Isn't it a problem that your company, Uwingu, has no formal ties to the International Astronomical Union's naming committee?
I think most people get that this is for fun and engagement. It's not meant to be official. In a sense, it's a social experiment. Naming celestial objects is usually done by astronomers and professionals. Other people who are interested in space never get the opportunity to do that kind of thing. What if they did? What would the people of Earth choose? What would their imagination do that we wouldn't do, as astronomers?

What else is Uwingu trying to accomplish?
The mission of the company is two-fold. Priority one is to better connect the general public with space and the sky. Two is to operate a fund for space research, exploration and education.

What is the Uwingu fund?
It comes from revenues generated by people nominating and voting for their favourite exoplanet names, and it goes toward needy space projects, such as SETI's Allen Telescope Array.

Why should the public trust you with their money?
People in the research and education community recognise our names, so they will come to us in ways that they wouldn't otherwise. We are professional scientists and educators, and we will do the quality control. Our intent is to be worldwide, not only in our revenue, but in our expenditures. Uwingu is the only thing around like this; nobody else has thought of anything similar.

This article appeared in print under the headline "One minute with... Alan Stern"

Profile

Alan Stern is the former head of science missions at NASA. He and a group of fellow scientists and educators launched Uwingu's hunt for names last year at uwingu.com

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.

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Local furniture makers urged to adopt green practices

SINGAPORE: More furniture manufacturers in Singapore will be encouraged to adopt green practices with the aim of being awarded green certifications.

This is part of a three-year plan by the Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC) and Singapore Environment Council (SEC) with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

To date, 11 SFIC members have been awarded green certificates by local and international bodies. The SFIC aims to double this number by 2014.

Under the MOU, SFIC and SEC will work together to improve furniture manufacturers' expertise in environmental sustainability.

This will be done through various programmes like training seminars and conferences.

There will be programmes to help companies undertake the SEC's Singapore Green Labelling Scheme (SGLS), a leading environmental standard and certification mark.

President of SFIC, Mr Ernie Koh, said, "Our Singapore furniture companies are already well-recognised in the global market for their high quality and professional business management. This MOU will further enhance our standing and raise our competitiveness and reputation in the eco-friendly furniture market."

- CNA/fa

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Pistorius in court as slain girlfriend is laid to rest

Oscar Pistorius is pictured with Reeva Steenkamp in Johannesburg, South Africa, in January.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Prosecutors have said they intend to upgrade the charge to premeditated murder


• The funeral for his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, will take place Tuesday


• Official: Steenkamp was shot four times through a bathroom door in Pistorius' home


• Pistorius has rejected the murder allegation "in the strongest terms," his agent said

Pretoria, South Africa (CNN) -- With his hands clasped in front of him, Oscar Pistorius arrived in a South African court Tuesday to seek bail as authorities accuse him of murdering his girlfriend.

The global sports hero known as the "Blade Runner" walked in wearing a blue shirt and gray suit as frenzied photographers snapped away, prompting a magistrate to demand they stop.

South African prosecutors have said they intend to upgrade the charge to premeditated murder.

As they stated that Pistorius "shot and killed an innocent woman," Pistorius buried his head in his hands and sobbed loudly.

The last time the world saw images of Pistorius, the track star was sobbing during a court hearing Friday, crumbling as he heard that heavy, hideous word: murder.

It's a far cry from the packed stadiums that erupted in applause for the double-amputee who dared to compete against men with legs.

Police have released little about a possible motive in the Valentine's Day shooting of his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp. Early on, local media suggested Pistorius had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder.

South African authorities have stressed that the scenario did not come from them, and said there was no evidence of forced entry at the home.

Items found in Pistorius' home suggest Steenkamp intended to stay the night. She had an overnight bag and her iPad.

Steenkamp was shot four times through a bathroom door in Pistorius' upscale Pretoria home, a South African official familiar with a case said Monday.

The 29-year-old model was alive after she was shot, and Pistorius carried her wounded body downstairs, said the official, who was not authorized to release details to the media.

Police were alerted to the shooting by neighbors, and residents had "heard things earlier," spokeswoman Denise Beukes said.

A police spokeswoman said there had been "previous incidents" at the home, including "allegations of a domestic nature." They did not detail what those may been.

Detectives are investigating a blood-stained cricket bat in the home, Johannesburg's City Press newspaper reported, and are trying to determine whether it was used to attack Steenkamp, if she used the bat in self-defense, or if Pistorius used it to try to break down the bathroom door.

Pistorius, 26, has rejected the murder allegation "in the strongest terms," his agent said in a statement.

Meanwhile, friends and family will mourn Steenkamp at a private funeral service in her hometown of Port Elizabeth.

On Sunday, South Africans heard Steenkamp's voice one last time after her death, when the national broadcaster aired a pre-recorded reality TV show featuring the model discussing her exit from "Tropika Island of Treasure," on which local celebrities compete for prize money.

"I'm going to miss you all so much and I love you very, very much," she said, blowing a kiss to the camera.

Robyn Curnow reported from South Africa; Holly Yan reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Nkepile Mabuse also contributed to this report.

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