China women look for financial security in marriage

SHANGHAI: Financial security in marriage ranks high among women in China.

That's according to the latest Chinese marriage report which shows that nearly 80 per cent of Chinese women look for partners who earn twice what they do.

And more than half of them want full access to their future husbands' salary.

Xizhiyuan match-making company has been in business for 13 years.

They have noticed that how much a man earns has become more important to women in recent years.

Now more than half of their female customers ask for dates with men who make at least 50 per cent more than them.

Jiang Weilan, Manager of Xizhiyuan Match-Making, said, "Young people, particularly women, tend to compete with each other. In the past, they were happy with dates who earn slightly more than they do, but now it's no longer the case. For example, she is paid 10,000 yuan a month, she require her date to earn 15,000 or 20,000 a month. 50 per cent to 60 per cent more in salary is a very common requirement now. At least that's what we found from our clients. Even if they ask for doubled salaries, it's still quite normal."

According to the 2012 Annual Chinese Marriage Report, 77 per cent of urban Chinese women want a husband whose income is at least double theirs.

Sociologists say this is a reflection of the income disparity that still exists in China.

Lu Xiaowen, Vice Director of Institute of Sociology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said, "We still face the unfairness that women are paid less than men in a lot of cases. Practically, women will naturally look for men who have higher income. This is a fact of our society. Besides, our income has increased significantly over the past few years, and the expectation of a further increase is high. Therefore, women now have a high standard when it comes to their future husbands' income."

The report also shows women now favour men with a stable income more than those who own an apartment.

The report found 89 per cent of women chose stable income as a must for marriage, whereas 68 per cent think a property decides who is qualified to be a husband.

Experts believe this shows a growing healthy trend, dubbed "naked marriage".

Lu Xiaowen added, "Naked marriage means when young people get married, they don't require an apartment or big saving. Instead, they work hard together to build their own home. A key factor in this equation is they both need a stable career and income so that they can mutually work towards their goal together."

Another interesting fact in the report - more than half of Chinese women want to control their husband's salaries after marriage.

Although men are not in favour of this idea, experts believe letting the wife act as family CFO could bring stability and harmony to a home.

Most women do, in fact, run the household and may be more equipped to deal with family expenditures.

- CNA/de

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Microsoft offers online help to Office 2013 users

Microsoft's Quick Start Guide for Word 2013.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

Office 2013 users who need a helping hand can find one through Microsoft's Quick Start Guides.

Now available online, the nine guides offer advice on using each of the applications in Office 2013, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote, Project, Visio, and Publisher.

Each guide comes packaged as a PDF that you can download or view online through Adobe Reader.

The guides provide screenshots and descriptions of the new features and layouts in Office 2013. They also clue you in as to what's changed in the new applications compared with previous versions. As with any PDF, you can zoom in to any page to get a closer look and search for specific words and terms.

Office 2013 carries on with most of the same features as in prior editions. But the suite has a more streamlined look and dangles some touch-friendly options geared toward
tablet users.

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

—Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Boy Rescued in Ala. Standoff 'Laughing, Joking'

The 5-year-old boy held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama is in good spirits and apparently unharmed after being reunited with his family at a hospital, according to his family and law enforcement officials.

The boy, identified only as Ethan, was rescued by the FBI Monday afternoon after they rushed the underground bunker where suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was holding him. Dykes was killed in the raid and the boy was taken away from the bunker in an ambulance.

Who Is Jimmy Lee Dykes?

Officials have not yet provided any further details on the raid, citing the ongoing investigation.

"I've been to the hospital," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson told reporters Monday night. "I visited with Ethan. He is doing fine. He's laughing, joking, playing, eating, the things that you would expect a normal 5- to 6-year-old young man to do. He's very brave, he's very lucky, and the success story is that he's out safe and doing great."

Ethan is expected to be released from the hospital later today and head home where he will be greeted by birthday cards from his friends at school. Ethan will celebrate his 6th birthday Wednesday.

Ala. Hostage Standoff Over: Kidnapper Dead, Child Safe Watch Video

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Jimmy Lee Dykes Dead Watch Video

Officials were able to insert a high-tech camera into the 6-by-8-foot bunker to monitor Dykes' movements, and they became increasingly concerned that he might act out, a law enforcement source with direct knowledge told ABC News Monday. FBI special agents were positioned near the entrance of the bunker and used an explosive charge to gain access and neutralize Dykes.

"Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," the FBI's Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

Richardson said it "got tough to negotiate and communicate" with Dykes, but declined to give any specifics.

After the raid was complete, FBI bomb technicians checked the property for improvised explosive devices, the FBI said in a written statement Monday afternoon.

The FBI had created a mock bunker near the site and had been using it to train agents for different scenarios to get Ethan out, sources told ABC News.

Former FBI special agent and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said rescue operators in this case had a delicate balance.

"You have to take into consideration if you're going to go in that room and go after Mr. Dykes, you have to be extremely careful because any sort of device you might use against him, could obviously harm Ethan because he's right there," he said.

Still, Monday's raid was not the ending police had sought as they spent days negotiating with the decorated Vietnam veteran through a ventilation shaft. The plastic PVC pipe was also used to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.

State Sen. Harri Anne Smith said Ethan's mother asked police a few days ago not to kill Dykes.

"She put her hand on the officer's heart and said, 'Sir, don't hurt him. He's sick,'" Smith said Monday.

Taylor Hodges, pastor of the Midland City Baptist Church, said, "Many people here don't keep their doors locked. Things are going to change, especially for our school system."

The outcome of the situation drew praise from the White House.

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Doubts remain that the Leicester body is Richard III

Douglas Heaven, reporter

(Image: Leicester University)

Hacked, sliced, stripped, slung over a horse and stabbed in the bottom. Tradition tells us that Richard III - the last Plantagenet king of England - met an especially bloody end in the battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485. Now we may have a body to go with the legend.

Anticipation started building last year when an interesting skeleton was unearthed from beneath a car park in Leicester, UK. Today a team of researchers from the University of Leicester announced that, "beyond reasonable doubt", the body is that of Richard III. They draw on multiple strands of evidence to back their claim: as well as the expected wounds, the skeleton shows signs of scoliosis, a disease that curves the spine, which fits with accounts of the king being "hunchbacked".

But the clincher - for the researchers, at least - is newly revealed DNA evidence from two of Richard's living maternal descendants.

Michael Ibsen, a furniture-maker originally from London, and his
distant cousin, who wishes to remain anonymous, were tracked down using genealogical records. Geneticist Turi King
of the University of Leicester then matched traces of mitochondrial DNA extracted from the skeleton
with samples taken from the purported relatives. Since Ibsen and his
cousin are both the last of their lines, this could have been the last
chance for such evidence to be obtained.

Mitochondrial DNA is
passed down the maternal line and has 16,000 base pairs in total.
Typically, you might expect to get 50 to 150 fragments from a 500-year-old skeleton, says Ian Barnes
at Royal Holloway, University of London, who was not involved
in the research. "You'd want to get sequences from lots of those
fragments," he says. "There's a possibility of mitochondrial mutations
arising in the line from Richard III."

"It's intriguing to be
sure," says Mark Thomas at
University College London. It
is right that they used mitochondrial DNA based on the maternal line, he
says, since genealogical evidence for the paternal lineage cannot be
trusted.

But mitochondrial DNA is not especially good for
pinpointing identity. "I could have the same mitochondrial DNA as
Richard III and not be related to him," says Thomas.

The
researchers used the two living descendents to "triangulate" the DNA
results. The evidence will rest on whether Ibsen and his cousin have
sufficiently rare mtDNA to make it unlikely that they both match the
dead king by chance.

They must also not be too closely related.
If Richard III's living descendants shared a common female ancestor even
150 years ago, their DNA could still be too close for the pair to count
as distinct samples, says Thomas.

We'll have to wait for the results to be published to know for sure, says Barnes.

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WP's Lee Li Lian holds first Meet-the-People session

SINGAPORE: Ms Lee Li Lian of the Workers' Party headed straight to her Meet-the-People session after Monday's Parliament sitting.

The session was held at Blk 135 Rivervale Street.

About 30 residents were in the queue to speak to Ms Lee about housing and parking issues.

The Workers' Party's (WP) Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang also turned up.

Ms Lee was sworn in as the Member of Parliament for Punggol East on Monday.

Ms Lee beat the People's Action Party's Dr Koh Poh Koon, the Reform Party's Kenneth Jeyaretnam and the Singapore Democratic Alliance's Desmond Lim in a four-cornered by-election on January 26.

Ms Lee won the seat with 54.5 per cent of the votes cast.

She is the seventh elected WP member in the House.

- CNA/xq

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Foxconn launches effort to increase employee union participation

Foxconn workers in 2011.

(Credit:
Apple)

Foxconn Technology Group is implementing a plan to increase employee participation in its labor union, the company said today in a statement obtained by CNET.

"As a part of efforts to implement the Action Plan that was developed together with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) following the assessment they conducted in early 2012, Foxconn is introducing measures to enhance employee representation in the Foxconn Labor Union and to raise employees' awareness of the organization," the company wrote today in a statement.

Apple brought in the FLA last year to inspect Foxconn's facilities and determine if there were any labor violations. The FLA determined that Foxconn would need to make a host of changes to its operation, including reduce overtime and increase wages. Foxconn has already implemented many of the FLA's recommendations.

In its statement, Foxconn pointed out that it has had union employee representative elections since 2008. Its first and head union, the Foxconn Federation of Labor Unions, was established in 2007. The employee's representatives are chosen in elections by their peers, and those votes are held every three years.

Foxconn's focus with its latest initiative is to increase the number of junior employees in its union. The company claims to have instituted a number of reforms to achieve that goal, and they will be printed in a pamphlet for employees, entitled "The Guidelines for Junior Employee Representative Election Process."

Foxconn's union efforts have been criticized on numerous occasions. In November, for example, the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on the needs of low- and middle-income families, wrote a paper criticizing Foxconn for, among other things, representation issues on the union leadership committee.

For its part, Foxconn argues that it was already providing a representative union and its latest efforts will only support those previous efforts.

"Our employees are our greatest asset and we are fully committed to ensuring that they have a positive and satisfactory working environment, which includes greater involvement in the Foxconn Labor Union and a more effective representation of their interests in the union," the company said. "Our hope is that our efforts in implementing these reforms will not only benefit Foxconn, but also help to lift the standards and practices for our industry in China."

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King Richard III Bones Found, Scientists Say

The search for the long-vilified English King Richard III, who died in battle in 1485 and whose image as a nasty tyrant was immortalized by William Shakespeare, appears to have ended.

In a dramatic Monday morning press conference, researchers from England's University of Leicester announced they had identified "beyond all reasonable doubt" Richard III's skeletal remains. The remains had been unearthed last August by an archaeological team from beneath a parking lot where the friary that reportedly held Richard III's body once stood.

For nearly 40 minutes on Monday, a team of scientists and historians reported the results of detailed medical, historical, genealogical, and genetic studies conducted after archaeologists discovered a skeleton that they believed to be Richard III. (Related: "Shakespeare's Coined Words Now Common Currency.")

Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester, and Kevin Schürer, a genealogist at the school, turned up the most compelling evidence. By poring over historical records and documents, Schürer conclusively identified two of Richard III's living descendants: Michael Ibsen, a furniture maker in London, England, and a second individual who now wishes to remain anonymous.

King took DNA samples from the two descendants and compared them to a sample of ancient DNA obtained from the skeleton from the friary. "There is a DNA match," King told reporters, "so the DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III."

Richard III died at age 32 of injuries he sustained at the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485, and the new evidence fits closely with these records.

University of Leicester osteologist Jo Appleby showed two gruesome head injuries that Richard received in his last moments—one likely inflicted from behind by an assailant bearing a halberd, a medieval weapon consisting of an axe blade topped with a spike. In addition, Appleby found several other wounds that she described as "humiliation injuries," likely inflicted on Richard's dead body.

Historical accounts suggest that Richard's enemies stripped his body after the battle and threw his corpse over a horse "and this," says Appeleby, "would have left his body exposed to [humiliation] injuries."

The osteologist's studies also revealed that Richard was a man of slight build who suffered from a medical condition known as idiopathic adolescent scolosis, a curvature of the spine that developed after ten years of age and that may have brought back pain to the future king.

This emerging scientific picture of Richard fits with a description of the king written by John Rous, a medieval English historian, in the late 15th century. According to Rous, Richard III "was slight in body and weak in strength."

The King's enduring image as a cruel despot was cemented by Shakespeare, who portrayed him as a glowering monster so repugnant "that dogs bark at me as I halt by them."

In Shakespeare's famous play, the hunchbacked king claws his way to the throne and methodically murders most of his immediate family—his wife, older brother, and two young nephews—until he suffers defeat and death on the battlefield at the hands of a young Tudor hero, Henry VII.

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Which Super Bowl Commercial Won the Night?

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Sneaky ninja robot silently stalks its prey

MOVE over David Attenborough. A robot that moves only when it won't be seen or heard might make it easier to sneak up on animals and film them in the wild.

Defence labs have built robots that track people through cities, avoiding well-lit areas. But cities are noisy, so if a robot keeps a certain distance it's unlikely to be heard. Tracking and filming animals in the wild is tougher because they often have keen hearing and the environment is usually quieter. Matthew Dunbabin and his collaborator Ashley Tewes at the CSIRO Autonomous Systems Laboratory in Brisbane, Australia, are teaching a four-wheeled robot to move only when intermittent sounds - like bird or frog calls - will mask its movements.

In tests, the robot picked up the sounds of things like fork-lifts, cellphones and birds, and was able to predict whether they were likely to persist long enough to cover its movement. The robot can also identify its own noise, and guess how it will vary at different speeds and turning angles - calculating what this will sound like to a target up to 50 metres away.

With the help of a camera, laser scanner and the right algorithm, the robot can figure out which vantage points will provide the best cover so it can skulk in the shadows.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Sneaky ninja robot silently films its prey"

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