Mrs Lee Kuan Yew dies. PM Singapore's mom dies.

Mrs Lee Kuan Yew, the wife of Singapore’s founding father, died today at 5.40 pm at age 89, the Straits Times reported.

The newspaper quoted a statement from the Singapore Prime Minister’s Office.

According to the Straits Times, the wake will be held at Sri Temasek, official residence of the Prime Minister on Monday and Tuesday.

Visitors can pay their last respects from 10am to 5pm on Monday and Tuesday.

A private funeral will take place on Wednesday at Mandai Crematorium, said the PMO.

In May and June 2008, Mrs Lee (picture) suffered a series of stroke and was bedridden and unable to speak until her recent demise.

Born Kwa Geok Choo in 1921, Mrs Lee is the wife of Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and mother of the city-state’s current prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong.

A Queen’s Scholar at Cambridge University in the 1940s, she was also was one of the partners in law firm, Lee & Lee.

Lee Kuan Yew, 87, the architect of modern Singapore, has been in hospital since Wednesday for a chest infection.

In an unusually frank interview last month, Lee said his wife’s illness was one of the hardest things for him to face.

“What to do? What else can I do?” he told the New York Times. “I can’t break down. Life has got to go on. I try to busy myself, but from time to time in idle moments, my mind goes back to the happy days we were up and about together.”

“She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night,” he added. “She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day’s work, read her favourite poems.”

“I told her, ‘I would try and keep you company for as long as I can.’ That’s life. She understood.”

But he also said: “I’m not sure who’s going first, whether she or me.”

“I wanted someone my equal, not someone who was not really grown up and needed looking after. And I was not likely to find another girl who was my equal and shared my interests,” Lee wrote in the first volume of his memoirs, The Singapore Story.

The couple’s younger son, Lee Hsien Yang, ran Singapore Telecommunications, the country’s biggest company, for 12 years before becoming chairman of property and beverages conglomerate Fraser & Neave.

Their daughter, Lee Wei Ling, is a director at the country’s National Neuroscience Institute.

PLO says no talks until Israel halts settlements

The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday negotiations with Israel would not resume until it halted settlement building.

US-backed peace talks, launched a month ago in Washington, were plunged into crisis this week by the end of a 10-month Israeli moratorium on new settlement building in the West Bank. Israel has said it will not extend the freeze.

“The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements,” senior Palestine Liberation Official (PLO) Yasser Abed Rabbo said after a meeting in Ramallah.

“The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations,” he said, reading from a statement issued after the meeting.

Palestinians say the growth of the settlements, on land Israel has occupied since 1967, will render impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — the stated goal of the peace talks.
Some 500,000 Jews have settled on territory where the Palestinians aim to establish their state with East Jerusalem as its capital. To Israel, the West Bank is “Judea and Samaria” — where the Jews trace their biblical past.
Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government is dominated by pro-settlement parties including his own Likud, has said he will not extend the construction moratorium, which has been in place for 10 months and expired on Monday.
An official quoted Netanyahu on Friday as saying it had not been easy to freeze construction for the past 10 months and that he had lived up to his commitments to the Palestinians, the United States and the international community.
“Now I expect the Palestinians to show some flexibility,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “Everyone knows that measured and restrained building in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) in the coming year will have no influence on the peace map.”
US President Barack Obama has invested major political capital in a bid for a Middle East settlement within a year.
US envoy George Mitchell shuttled between Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu for two days this week. The sides agreed to keep talking via Mitchell, the way they had communicated before the launch of the direct talks.
“So far, efforts have reached a dead end,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Abbas, said on his way out of the PLO meeting. Abbas had informed Mitchell of the Palestinian position during their meeting on Friday, he said.
“There will be no negotiations in the shadow of continued settlement,” Abu Rdainah said. “All the while Israel is not convinced that the political process be based on international law and justice, matters will remain in a state of paralysis for a long time.”

Ecuador revolt: Attempted coup or uprising?

It was the biggest test of Rafael Correa's nearly 4-year-old presidency, a bloody trial by fire for a tenacious politician whose popular government had brought relative calm to a chronically unstable country.

The Ecuadorean leader called the police revolt, which caused four deaths, injured nearly 200 people and briefly paralyzed this Andean nation, a coup attempt. Not an outlandish claim for a country that had eight presidents in 10 years before Correa won office.

Correa's kindred leftist presidents, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, even accused the United States of pulling the strings behind the insurrection at an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Friday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Soldiers guard the surroundings of the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier.

 
Former head of Ecuador's police Freddy Martinez speaks during a press conference in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Martinez resigned after a police rebellion on Thursday

Soldiers guard the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier.

But skeptical analysts said Thursday's tumult appeared instead to be a revolt that spiraled out of control by hundreds of modestly paid police officers protesting cuts in benefits.

"You can't dismiss the possibility that some opposition figures knew about it and supported it. But if it was a coup attempt, it was hugely amateurish," said Adam Isacson of the liberal Washington Office on Latin America think tank.

Analysts also tended to agree that Correa, a U.S.- and European-educated economist, emerged strengthened from the first violent challenge to his presidency in a traditionally volatile country of 14 million with a long history of short-lived governments and of meddling by Washington.

The armed forces high command stood by Correa, as did his most powerful political rival — and governments in the region of every political stripe.

As life quickly returned to normal across Ecuador on Friday, Correa spoke by phone for 10 minutes with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who "encouraged an ongoing, rapid and peaceful restoration of order," said Clinton's spokesman, P.J. Crowley.

He said the two agreed "to continue to work together to strengthen Ecuadorean institutions and the rule of law."

Correa, 47, had ended Thursday triumphant, addressing supporters from the terrace of the presidential palace after his rescue in a hail of gunfire from the hospital where he'd been trapped for 10 hours by the insurrectionist cops.

Correa has a temper, and lost it in a tense standoff at a Quito police barracks with scores of jeering police rebels who were taking part in the blitzkrieg nationwide strike, in which several hundred troops also shut down Ecuador's two biggest airports.

"If you want to kill the president, here he is! Kill me if you want to! Kill me if you are brave, instead of hiding in the crowd like cowards!" Correa taunted the hostile crowd, loosening his slate-blue tie and thrusting out an unprotected chest.

Minutes later, the unruly police penetrated his light security detail and roughed him up. Pelted by water and fainting from tear gas — his right knee pounding from an operation last week — Correa was lifted over a wall and onto the grounds of the hospital.

Merely showing up at the barracks, said Correa's former security minister Gustavo Larrea, "was like throwing gasoline on a fire. It elevated the tone of the conflict and, what's more, they took him hostage there. Because had he not gone, nothing would have happened."

Correa became trapped in the hospital, surrounded by hundreds of renegade cops who beat back with tear gas Correa loyalists trying to come to his aid.

"Correa's impulsiveness and penchant for direct confrontation were on full display," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.

As Correa recovered in the hospital with an intravenous drip in his arm, he was visited by ministers, spoke by phone to presidents including Chavez and Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos, gave interviews to news media in which he said he was "practically captive" — and received three delegations of aggrieved police officers. All while protected by presidential bodyguards.

Correa said he'd leave only "as president or as a corpse. But I'm not going to lose my dignity."

Whether Correa's life was at ever at serious risk was doubted by some analysts — though there's no question that people were shooting at each other with automatic weapons during the roughly hourlong rescue operation.

The armored SUV the government says spirited Correa to safety — images of which were shown on TV — had been hit by four bullets, one damaging the windshield.

"Correa never lost control of the government and there is no evidence anyone was plotting and seeking to oust and replace him," said Shifter.

Larrea agreed, discounting accusations by Patino and Correa that the rioters had been incited by supporters of former President Lucio Gutierrez, who co-led a 2000 coup.

Gutierrez vehemently denied any involvement, though he has been a strident critic of Correa. At the same time, Correa's most powerful rival, Guayaquil Mayor Jaime Nebot, publicly backed the government. So did the armed forces chief, Gen. Ernesto Gonzalez. Correa enjoys high popularity. An August poll by the firm Perfiles de Opinion gave him a 73 percent approval rating. Conducted in Quito and Guayaquil, it had a 4 percent error margin.

By dawn Friday, the national police chief, Gen. Freddy Martinez, had resigned in shame, lamenting having been "disrespected" and "mistreated" by his subordinates. Correa later named Gen. Patricio Franco to the post and asked him to reform the police.

It should be no surprise that some security force members are alienated by Correa.

He purged the military intelligence chief and other top officers in 2008, accusing them of withholding from him information they shared with U.S. agents. He also fired a top police commander he accused of exhibiting greater loyalty to Washington than Quito.

But in a country with Ecuador's history, a president needs to be careful how he treats the public servants who bear arms.

The civil service law passed Wednesday by a Congress dominated by Correa allies would end the practice of giving soldiers and police medals and cash bonuses with each promotion — and extend promotion intervals.

That stings for police and soldiers, who earn well under $1,000 a month.

One police officer said in a TV interview, his face covered, that the new law would rob him of a 15-year bonus of $3,000 that he was due. Said another: "our salaries are lousy. We work without schedules, without overtime and on holidays."

The law has yet to take effect.

Gonzalez asked Correa to review and consider rewriting it.

So far, neither the president nor anyone in his government has responded.


People demonstrate next to soldiers at the surroundings of the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier


Under a photo of Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, a girl looks on through a glass door from the inside of a shop, at the surroundings of the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier


People, one carrying a flag with an image of Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, demonstrate next to soldiers at the surroundings of the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier.


A boy gestures in front of soldiers at the surroundings of the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier.


People demonstrate in front of soldiers at the surroundings of the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Ecuador is under a state of siege, with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he'd been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier

India’s biggest budget movie hits screens

Three years after his last blockbuster, bus conductor turned Indian film megastar Rajinikanth returned to the silver screen Friday with a movie expected to break all box-office records.

The 60-year-old’s latest film, the Tamil-language “Endhiran”, has a budget of 1.65 billion rupees (RM108 million) according to the movie’s official website, making it the most expensive Indian film ever made.

The science-fiction fantasy thriller, which will be screened in nearly 2,000 theatres worldwide, had its first screening in India as early as 5am, with some fans queuing through the night for tickets.

Some celebrated the release by bursting crackers, beating drums, showering the movie screen with flowers and even washing life-size posters of Rajinikanth with milk — a sign of purity.

A star of more than 150 films, Rajinikanth’s presence on screen has been likened to a leaping tiger, and his fans are known to pray in front of life-size cardboard cut-outs of him for the success of his latest release.

“It’s a superhit and the film will run for 1,000 days,” one fan, Rajini Priyan, told AFP after watching the first show.

In India’s southern city of Chennai in Rajinikanth’s home state of Tamil Nadu, life-size posters and movie billboards of the megastar lined the streets and movie theatres.

The film, which will be released in Hindi as “The Robot” and “Robo” in Telugu, also stars former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, who is one of Bollywood’s biggest names and the daughter-in-law of megastar Amitabh Bachchan.

Shooting for “Endhiran” took the cast all over the world, from the ancient Inca site of Machu Picchu in Peru to Brazil and the United States.

The reclusive Rajinikanth left his job as a bus conductor to study drama in the 1970’s and ever since he has acted in more than a 150 films