NTU to offer new degree programme in public policy & global affairs

SINGAPORE: Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will offer a first-of-its-kind degree programme in Public Policy & Global Affairs in Singapore.

The Bachelor of Arts (Honours) programme offers a unique interdisciplinary curriculum that combines politics and international relations, public policy and public administration.

The programme, which will enrol its pioneer class of 55 students this August, will focus on two key areas for its teaching and research - global Asia and Asian regionalism and public policy in science and technology, creating new niche areas for NTU.

NTU said the new programme will prepare students for career and leadership roles in government agencies, non-profit organisations and the private sector.

It also fills the gap of one of the disciplinary cores in social sciences to be offered by NTU, namely political science.

Presently, through its School of Humanities and Social Sciences, seven social science majors are offered by NTU: Chinese, English, Economics, History, Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Psychology and Sociology.

Prof Kam Chan Hin, Associate Provost in charge of Undergraduate Education at NTU, said: "As a university with established strengths in science, engineering and public administration, NTU is well-placed to offer this new programme to meet the growing demand for such policy experts, especially in Asia. The course will offer students real-world learning and practice in public service, particularly on how to deal with such strategic challenges and international and public affairs as a whole.

"The course builds on the strengths of NTU's core disciplines in the social sciences and enhances the intellectual breadth of the university. Besides providing rigorous training on the finer aspects of policy-making and global affairs, it will also imbue students with the critical values of leadership, integrity, life-long learning, exemplary character and professionalism."

Throughout the four-year direct honours programme, students will be exposed to a broad variety of subjects, such as policy analysis, programme evaluation, public financial management, human resource management and non-profit management.

They will also receive professional training in political dynamics, international politics, comparative politics, comparative public administration and global affairs.

Interdisciplinary courses will be taught by professors from different disciplines drawn from across the schools at NTU.

Prof Kam said: "Upon graduation, students will be ready to pursue a broad spectrum of rewarding careers in civil service administration, public management, policy analysis, journalism and research. They can also choose to become teachers, especially in Social Studies, History and China Studies. I am pleased that several potential employers, including a few ministries, the Economic Development Board and IE Singapore, have already expressed support for the programme."

Graduates from the programme will also be qualified to teach Social Studies, History and China Studies from primary school to junior college levels, to meet a growing demand in Singapore's schools.

As the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) will be a major partner in teaching and research, graduates from the programme can also pursue further studies at the RSIS.

The Public Policy and Global Affairs programme will be driven by Prof He Baogang, who has established an international reputation as an authority on Chinese democratisation, non-government organisations and local governance, as well as in international relations and Asian studies.

Prof He had also served as an adviser to public and governmental organisations, including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Danish International Development Agency.

- CNA/xq

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U.S. to 'rain mice' on tree snakes

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U.S. evolves on same-sex marriage

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The president and the nation have shifted perspectives on same-sex marriage


• Supreme Court ruling on California's same-sex marriage ban a critical test


• Growing public support for gay marriage give proponents hope for change

Washington (CNN) -- The nation's growing acceptance of same-sex marriage has happened in slow and painstaking moves, eventually building into a momentum that is sweeping even the most unlikely of converts.

Even though he said in 2008 that he could only support civil unions for same-sex couples, President Barack Obama nonetheless enjoyed strong support among the gay community. He disappointed many with his conspicuously subdued first-term response to the same-sex marriage debate.

Last year, after Vice President Joe Biden announced his support, the president then said his position had evolved and he, too, supported same-sex marriage.

So it was no small matter when on Thursday the Obama administration formally expressed its support of same-sex marriage in a court brief weighing in on California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex weddings. The administration's effort was matched by at least 100 high-profile Republicans — some of whom in elections past depended on gay marriage as a wedge issue guaranteed to rally the base — who signed onto a brief supporting gay couples to legally wed.

Obama on same-sex marriage: Everyone is equal

Then there are the polls that show that an increasing number of Americans now support same-sex marriage. These polls show that nearly half of the nation's Catholics and white, mainstream Protestants and more than half of the nation's women, liberals and political moderates all support same-sex marriage.

According to Pew Research Center polling, 48% of Americans support same-sex marriage with 43% opposed. Back in 2001, 57% opposed same-sex marriage while 35% supported it.

In last year's presidential election, same-sex marriage scarcely raised a ripple. That sea change is not lost on the president.

"The same evolution I've gone through is the same evolution the country as a whole has gone through," Obama told reporters on Friday.

Craig Rimmerman, professor of public policy and political science at Hobart and William Smith colleges says there is history at work here and the administration is wise to get on the right side.

"There is no doubt that President Obama's shifting position on Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage more broadly is due to his desire to situate himself on the right side of history with respect to the fight over same-sex marriage," said Rimmerman, author of "From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States."

"I also think that broader changes in public opinion showing greater support for same-sex marriage, especially among young people, but in the country at large as well, has created a cultural context for Obama to alter his views."

For years, Obama had frustrated many in the gay community by not offering full-throated support of same-sex marriage. However, the president's revelation last year that conversations with his daughters and friends led him to change his mind gave many in that community hope.

Last year, the Obama administration criticized a measure in North Carolina that banned same-sex marriage and made civil unions illegal. The president took the same position on a similar Minnesota proposal.

Obama administration officials point to what they see as the administration's biggest accomplishment in the gay rights cause: repealing "don't ask, don't tell," the military's ban on openly gay and lesbian members serving in the forces.

Then there was the president's inaugural address which placed the gay community's struggle for equality alongside similar civil rights fights by women and African-Americans.

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well," Obama said in his address after being sworn in.

In offering its support and asserting in the brief that "prejudice may not be the basis for differential treatment under the law," the Obama administration is setting up a high stakes political and constitutional showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over a fast-evolving and contentious issue.

The justices will hear California's Proposition 8 case in March. That case and another appeal over the federal Defense of Marriage Act will produce blockbuster rulings from the justices in coming months.

Beyond the legal wranglings there is a strong social and historic component, one that has helped open the way for the administration to push what could prove to be a social issue that defines Obama's second term legacy, Rimmerman said.

The nation is redefining itself on this issue, as well.

Pew survey: Changing attitudes on gay marriage

The changes are due, in part, to generational shifts. Younger people show a higher level of support than their older peers, according to Pew polling "Millennials are almost twice as likely as the Silent Generation to support same-sex marriage."

"As people have grown up with people having the right to marry the generational momentum has been very, very strong," said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, a gay rights organization.

That is not to say that there isn't still opposition.

Pew polling found that most Republicans and conservatives remain opposed to same-sex marriage. In 2001, 21% of Republicans were supportive; in 2012 that number nudged slightly to 25%.

Conservative groups expressed dismay at the administration's same-sex marriage support.

"President Obama, who was against same-sex 'marriage' before he was for it, and his administration, which said the Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional before they said it was unconstitutional, has now flip-flopped again on the issue of same-sex 'marriage,' putting allegiance to extreme liberal social policies ahead of constitutional principle," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement.

But there are signs of movement even among some high profile Republican leaders

Top Republicans sign brief supporting same-sex marriage

The Republican-penned friend of the court brief, which is designed to influence conservative justices on the high court, includes a number of top officials from the George W. Bush administration, Mitt Romney's former campaign manager and former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.

It is also at odds with the Republican Party's platform, which opposes same-sex marriage and defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Still, with White House and high-profile Republican support, legal and legislative victories in a number of states and polls that show an increasing number of Americans support same sex-marriage, proponents feel that the winds of history are with them.

"What we've seen is accelerating and irrefutable momentum as Americans have come to understand who gay people are and why marriage matters," Wolfson said. "We now have a solid national majority and growing support across every demographic. We have leaders across the spectrum, including Republicans, all saying it's time to end marriage discrimination."

CNN's Peter Hamby, Ashley Killough and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

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Bomb kills two, wounds 12 in Thai south

BANGKOK: Two security officials died and 12 people were wounded in a blast in Thailand's restive south on Saturday, an army spokesman said, as unrest continued despite plans for talks with a key rebel group.

The bomb hidden in a motorcycle in Yala provincial town was aimed at paramilitaries who had been manning a nearby checkpoint, said southern army spokesman Colonel Pramote Promin. Six civilians were among the wounded.

It follows twin bombings on Friday in Narathiwat province, near the Malaysian border where a nine-year insurgency has claimed more than 5,500 lives.

The Thai government has agreed to hold talks with Barisan Revolusi Nasional, part of a web of insurgent groups in the south.

A stubborn insurgency seeking greater autonomy has raged across several provinces in the south of Thailand for nine years -- with near-daily shootings and bombings.

Malaysian premier Najib Razak on Thursday said his country would host the talks in Kuala Lumpur in two weeks, following discussions with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was in the country for bilateral meetings.

- AFP/xq

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U.S. to 'rain mice' on tree snakes

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Fla. man presumed dead after sinkhole opens under his bed

SEFFNER, Fla. A man was missing and feared dead early Friday after a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house near Tampa.

Jeff Bush is presumed dead after a sinkhole opened under his bed.

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CBS

His brother says Jeff Bush screamed for help before he disappeared.

The 36-year-old man's brother, Jeremy Bush, told rescue crews he heard a loud crash around 11 p.m. Thursday, then heard his brother screaming for help.

"When he got there, there was no bedroom left," Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said. "There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up."

Jeremy Bush called 911 and frantically tried to help his brother Jeff. He said he jumped into the hole and dirt was quickly up to his neck.

"The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy said. "But I just couldn't do nothing."

An arriving deputy pulled Jeremy Bush from the still-collapsing house.

28 Photos

Sinkholes

"I reached down and was able to actually able to get him by his hand and pull him out of the hole," Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy Douglas Duvall said. "The hole was collapsing. At that time, we left the house."

Engineers worked to determine the size of the sinkhole. At the surface, officials estimated it was about 30 feet across. Below the surface, officials believed it was 100 feet wide.

"The entire house is on the sinkhole," Damico said.

Hillsborough County Fire Chief Ron Rogers told a news briefing that extra-sensitive listening devices and cameras were inserted into the sinkhole. "They did not detect any signs of life," he said.

By early Friday, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue officials determined the home had become too unstable to continue rescue efforts.

Neighbors on both sides of the home have been evacuated.

Sinkholes are common in seaside Florida, whose underlying limestone and dolomite can be worn away by water and chemicals, then collapse.

Engineers condemned the house, reports CBS Tampa affiliate WTSP.

From the outside of the small, sky blue house, nothing appeared wrong. There wear no cracks and the only sign something was amiss was the yellow caution tape circling the house.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesman Larry McKinnon said authorities asked sinkhole and engineering experts, and they were using equipment to see if the ground can support the weight of heavy machinery needed for the recovery effort.

Jeremy Bush stood in a neighbor's yard across the street from the house Friday and recounted the harrowing collapse.

"He was screaming my name. I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him," he said of his brother Jeff.

Jeremy Bush's wife and his 2-year-old daughter were also inside the house. "She keeps asking where her Uncle Jeff is," he said. "I lost everything. I work so hard to support my wife and kid and I lost everything."

Janell Wheeler told the Tampa Bay Times newspaper she was inside the house with four other adults and a child when the sinkhole opened.

"It sounded like a car hit my house," she said.

The rest of the family went to a hotel but she stayed behind, sleeping in her car.

"I just want my nephew," she said through tears.

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Obama Signs Order to Begin Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.

President Obama officially initiated the cuts with an order to agencies Friday evening.

He had met for just over an hour at the White House Friday morning with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold at midnight.

"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."

READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester

Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.

Sequestration Deadline: Obama Meets With Leaders Watch Video

Sequester Countdown: The Reality of Budget Cuts Watch Video

Federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day off per week through the end of the year.

The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.

"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."

The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.

The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.

"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."

Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester

Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.

Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like."

But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.

"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."

Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?

The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.

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