I am not Dhritharashtra, Bal Thackeray during Raj face-off

MUMBAI: "Even if I wear black goggles I am not Dhritharashtra."

This was how Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, who died today, had responded after he was called Dhritharashtra during the intense faction fights in his party which had led to his nephew Raj Thackeray leaving the party and floating his own outfit Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

During the course of an interview to Sena mouthpiece "Saamna" during which he spoke his mind after Raj's departure from the party, a question - "In this entire episode you are being called Dhritharashtra" - was posed to him.

"Even if I wear black goggles, I am not Dhritarashtra of Mahabharat", replied Thackeray, who often wears dark glasses. Dhritharashtra is the fabled blind king and father of the Kauravas in the Mahabharat epic.

After Raj left the party, the Sena boss had asserted that he was not saddened by his exit. But a day later he said those who have left the party should return.

"Ya chimnyno parat phira re.... Gharakade apulya (little sparrows should return to their nest)," he said, quoting a popular Marathi folk song.

"I was shocked and hurt. I did not expect this from Raj. I did not even think that Raj would do such a thing even in my dreams," he had said.

"Whatever Raj wanted, I and Uddhav had agreed to. But I can not tell which 'guru' advised and poisoned his mind," he added.

Thackeray also had said it was he who runs the Shiv Sena. "I told Raj that he and Uddhav should sit together and discuss."

"My writ still runs in the party," he added.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Israel Targets Hamas Headquarters

In the early hours of Saturday morning, Israel's Air Force reduced the headquarters of the militant group Hamas to rubble. It was one of several Hamas buildings and homes targeted, part of Israel's continuing effort to destroy the group's command and control structure as speculation mounts over an Israeli ground invasion.

The Israel Defense Forces released aerial drone video of the attack on the government building, the seat of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Hanniyeh. Israeli warplanes have also struck the main police station, the interior ministry and the homes of top Hamas leaders.

As of Saturday morning, almost 900 "terror sites" had been targeted by Israel, including weapons caches and rocket launching sites. Around 600 rockets have been fired into Israel by Hamas and other militant groups, around a third of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, according to the Israeli military.

The loud thud of Israeli missiles hitting Gaza and the buzz of drones overhead were consistent on Saturday, as Israeli tanks and troops massed on the border in preparation of a ground invasion. Israeli media also reported that 20,000 reservists have been called up.

PHOTOS: Airstrikes and Rocket Attacks Continue

"We are preparing for any possibility, a ground invasion is a possibility although it hasn't been decided at this point," said IDF spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Avital Liebovich. "We are ready to continue this operation "Pillar of Defense "until the peace and quiet and normality will return."

Israel Showdown: Tel Aviv Braces for More Rocket Attacks Watch Video

On Friday, Jerusalem was targeted for the first time in this escalation by militants in Gaza. A rocket landed around ten miles south near the West Bank Israeli settlements of Gush Etzion. And for the second day, sirens sounded in Tel Aviv as a rocket landed off the coast.

Three Israelis were killed Thursday by a rocket attack in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi. As of Saturday morning 39 Palestinians had been killed, among them more than half were civilians, according to Gaza health officials.

"Up until now we can say the situation is stable," Dr. Ayman al-Sahbani, the head of the emergency unit at Gaza's main al-Shifa hospital, said on Friday. "If it continues, we can't [cope]. Of course we can't. We hope to stop the [Israeli] aggression."

Israel's Iron Dome Proves Effective

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil visited the strip for three hours Friday morning, raising hope a ceasefire would be brokered. Qandil and the Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, are both from the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot. They have the delicate task of trying to coordinate between Hamas, Israel and the United States.

"What I am witnessing in Gaza is a disaster and I can't keep quiet," Qandil said, "The Israeli aggression must stop."
Israel says this operation, dubbed "Pillar of Defense," is the result of the rockets that regularly fly into southern Israel from Gaza. This operation started when Israel assassinated the top commander of Hamas' military wing, Ahmed Jabari.

"As long as Israel keeps killing us, we will keep defending ourselves by any means possible," the spokesman of Islamic Jihad, Daoud Shahab said in an interview. "If Israel stops its aggression, we are ready to stop firing the rockets."

In Washington, the Obama administration reiterated its view that Israel has the right to defend itself.

"It's a matter of the international community and particularly regional states with influence to do what they can to make clear to Hamas that this is not benefiting the cause of the Palestinian people, and it's certainly not benefiting the cause of regional stability," said State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland.

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Israel hits Hamas government buildings, reservists mobilized

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the prime minister's office, after Israel's cabinet authorized the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a possible ground invasion.

Palestinian militants in Gaza kept up their cross-border rocket salvoes. One rocket hit an apartment building in the Israeli Mediterranean port city of Ashdod, ripping into several balconies, and police said five people were injured.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister - and struck a police headquarters.

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia's foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

Officials in Gaza said 41 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children and a pregnant woman, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egypt's leader, Mohamed Mursi, would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo broke down over the past weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Israel started its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared aim of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel's right to self-defense, along with appeals to both sides to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

"We have not limited ourselves in means or in time," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Israel's Channel One television. "We hope that it will end as soon as possible, but that will be only after all the objectives have been achieved."

Hamas says it is committed to continued confrontation with Israel and is eager not to seem any less resolute than smaller, more radical groups that have emerged in Gaza in recent years.

The Islamist movement has ruled Gaza since 2007. Israel pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but has maintains a blockade of the tiny, densely populated coastal territory.

RESERVE TROOP QUOTA DOUBLED

At a late night session on Friday, Israel's cabinet decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said.

The move did not necessarily mean all would be called up or that an invasion would follow. Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the sandy border zone on Saturday, and around 16,000 reservists have already been called to active duty.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

Israel rushed an "Iron Dome" missile interceptor battery to the Tel Aviv area on Saturday after the city, its commercial center, came under rocket fire from Gaza on Friday for the second straight day.

The Tel Aviv beachfront was bustling on a sunny weekend day.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in four decades, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

Some Gaza families abandoned their homes - some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets - and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

GAZA TARGETS

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh's office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister's office and pledged: "We will declare victory from here."

A three-storey house belonging to Hamas official Abu Hassan Salah was also hit and totally destroyed early on Saturday. Rescuers said at least 30 people were pulled from the rubble.

In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama commended Egypt's efforts to help defuse the Gaza violence in a call to Mursi on Friday, the White House said in a statement, and underscored his hope of restoring stability there.

On Friday, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil paid a high-profile visit to Gaza, denouncing what he called Israeli aggression and saying Cairo was prepared to mediate a truce.

Egypt's Islamist government is allied with Hamas but Cairo is also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

In a call to Netanyahu, Obama discussed options for "de-escalating" the situation, the White House said, adding that the president "reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives".

The Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

While Hamas rejects the Jewish state's existence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in areas of the nearby West Bank not occupied by Israelis, does recognize Israel but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Jeffrey Heller and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Marine Parade shaping up to be more seniors-friendly

SINGAPORE: Marine Parade is shaping up to be an elderly-friendly estate, as facility improvements and programmes are being rolled out to help the elderly in the area.

This comes after the Marine Parade pilot project launched last year aimed at addressing the social, healthcare and hardware needs of senior residents there.

Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who is also a Member of Parliament for Marine Parade GRC, said caring for the elderly should go beyond physical facilities.

One of the initiatives launched in the ward is the GoodLife! Angel Ambassadors programme.

Under the programme, elderly volunteers, who are trained to recognise signs and symptoms of depression and dementia, will visit senior residents who live alone in Marine Parade.

The 40 ambassadors, whose age ranges from 52 to 83, received their appointment certificates from Mr Goh at a community event on Saturday.

Besides the ambassadors programme, more improvements will be made in the estate.

For instance, seats at bus stops will be modified to make it easier for the elderly to use.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will also put in place large-print bus services information posters.

In addition, more than 800 drain covers will be coated with anti-slip paint.

Meanwhile, estates such as Whampoa, Bedok and Taman Jurong have also started similar efforts to make their communities more senior-friendly.

- CNA/ir

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Old Hyderabad tense after fresh violence near Charminar

HYDERABAD: The old city of Hyderabad remained tense on Friday after a fresh bout of violence near Charminar over a temple row.

A curfew-like situation settled in the usually busy markets as police sealed all routes leading to the monument. Streets in the surrounding areas wore a deserted look as fear gripped people following the violent incidents in the afternoon.

Home minister Sabita Indra Reddy told reporters that the situation in the old city was under control. "Additional forces were mobilized and if necessary more forces will be deployed," she said while appealing to people to cooperate to maintain peace.

The Charminar area was rocked by violence after Friday prayers, breaking the fragile peace returning to the commercial hub after days of tension over a temple abutting the monument.

The communal tension has crippled the economic activity, severely affecting the traders in the centuries-old markets. The Charminar area, famous for pearls, bangles, clothes and the eateries, is the main commercial hub and lifeline of old city, the region to the south of Musi river.

At least seven people were injured in stone throwing by an unruly mob, and baton charge by police as fresh violence rocked the area.

Teargas shells were also burst by the police to disperse the mob, which set afire four vehicles and damaged several other vehicles, witnesses said.

Trouble broke out soon after Friday prayers at the historic Mecca Masjid when a large number of people coming out of the mosque tried to proceed towards Charminar to offer 'salam' at a religious symbol abutting the monument.

Policemen and paramilitary personnel, however, stopped them by setting up barricades.

Raising slogans against police and demanding that restrictions be lifted, the protestors started pelting stones at policemen and attacking vehicles and shops.

Police resorted to baton charge and burst several teargas shells to disperse the mob, which was pelting stones from three sides of the Charminar.

Member of Parliament from Hyderabad and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi, who visited Mecca Masjid in the evening, blamed chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy for the violence. He accused police of committing excesses and demanded immediate release of innocent Muslim youths.

The communally sensitive old city had been witnessing sporadic incidents of violence for the last two weeks following a row over the Bhagylakshmi temple abutting Charminar, which symbolizes the historic city.

Muslim groups have been opposing attempts to expand the temple on the ground that it was illegal and had marred the beauty of the 400-year-old monument.

The Andhra Pradesh HC on Nov 5 had ordered status quo as on Oct 30.

However, the erection of a canopy over the temple structure, in alleged violation of the court orders last Sunday, triggered violent protests.

The government claimed that it was allowed only to implement court orders.

Accusing the Congress government of colluding with communal elements, the MIM withdrew support to the government.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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4 Dead as Train Hits Trailer Carrying Vets at Parade

Police have identified the four servicemen who died in Midland, Texas, when a freight train plowed into a parade float carrying wounded veterans and their spouses at a crossing, one of whom, a Purple Heart winner, saved his wife by pushing her to safety before he died.

Army SGM Gary Stouffer, 37, and 47-year-old Army SGM Lawrence Boivin were pronounced dead at the scene, police said, after the float carrying wounded veterans and their families to an honorary banquet was struck by a Union Pacific train around 4:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon. The train struck as the parade was crossing the tracks, turning the honorary event into a scene of destruction.

Army SGT Joshua Michael, 34, and 43-year-old Army SGM William Lubbers were transported from the scene and later pronounced dead at Midland Memorial Hospital, according to the Midland Police.

Seventeen people in all were transported to the hospital and 10 were treated and released. Four people were in stable condition and one is in critical condition as of this morning.

Michael was killed in the crash but was able to save his wife, his mother-in-law told the Amarillo Globe-News.

"He pushed his wife off the float -- my daughter," Mary Hefley told the newspaper. "He was that kind of guy. He always had a smile on his face. He would do for others before he would do for himself."

Hefley said Michael retired from the Army due to health reasons.

AP | Courtesy Mary Hefley

Train Hits 18-Wheeler Full of Veterans, 4 Dead Watch Video

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According to a website set up by Cory Rogers, a friend of Michael's family, the father of two completed two tours of duty in Iraq, and received two Purple Hearts after being wounded in combat.

"His love of country and for his wife, Daylyn and their two children shone through," his family said in a statement on the site. "The family appreciates everyone's thoughts and prayers in this very difficult time."

About two dozen veterans and their spouses had been sitting in chairs on the back of a flatbed tractor-trailer decorated with American flags and signs identifying each veteran.

The first truck crossed the tracks in time, but the second did not, according to Hamid Vatankhah, a witness who owns a used car lot near the scene of the crash.

Sirens from the police cars in the parade may have drowned out the sound of the approaching train, Vatankhah said.
The impact, witnesses say, was deafening as the train plowed through the parade float crossing the tracks in an industrial part of Midland.

"Some people were able to jump, and some that were sitting in wheelchairs on top couldn't do nothing about it," Vatankhah added.

Patricia Howle was sitting traffic with her daughter watching the parade go by when she heard the train honking its horn.

"I just saw people going under the train. There was blood. There was blood all over," said eyewitness Eservando Wisler.

A Union Pacific spokesman Tom Lange said it appeared safety devices at the crash site were working. But there were conflicting reports by eyewitnesses about whether the gates went down at the crossing when the train approached.

"I saw the truck crossing the tracks. About halfway across the gates started coming down. The truck tried to blow his horn to get the other people in front of him out of the way. The gates actually hit the first people on the trailer," witness Michael Briggs said.

"Our preliminary findings indicate that the lights and gates were working at the time of the incident and that our train crew sounded the locomotive horn," said Lange.

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Egypt in Gaza truce bid as rocket jolts Tel Aviv

GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt tried to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza on Friday, but hopes for even a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of the Islamist Hamas movement were immediately dashed.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited the Gaza Strip officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end militant rocket fire at Israel.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt's mediators told Reuters Kandil's visit "was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve".

Israel undertook to cease fire during the visit if Hamas did too. But it said rockets fired from Gaza hit several sites in southern Israel as he was in the enclave and has begun drafting 16,000 reserve troops, a possible precursor to invasion.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area of Friday and sirens sounded again over Tel Aviv, after witnesses in Gaza saw a long-range rocket launched. Israeli police said it landed in the sea off Israel's commercial centre.

A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas's commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

Israel's military strongly denied carrying out any attack from the time Kandil entered Gaza, and accused Hamas of violating the three-hour deal.

"Even though about 50 rockets have fallen in Israel over the past two hours, we chose not to attack in Gaza due to the visit of the Egyptian prime minister. Hamas is lying and reporting otherwise," the army said in a Twitter message.

Kandil said: "Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce."

At a Gaza hospital he held the bloodied body of a child. He left the Gaza Strip after meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the enclave's prime minister.

Palestinian medics said two people were killed in the disputed explosion at the house, one of them a child. It raised the Palestinian death toll since Wednesday to 22. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

The Palestinian dead include eight militants and 14 civilians, among them seven children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israeli civilians in a town north of Gaza, men and women in their 30s, hitting their apartment.

GERMANY BLAMES HAMAS

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to engulf the whole region.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Egypt to use its influence on Hamas to bring the violence to an end, her spokesman said, adding that Israel had the "right and obligation" to protect its population.

"Hamas in Gaza is responsible for the outbreak of violence," Merkel's spokesman Georg Streiter told a news conference. "There is no justification for the shooting of rockets at Israel, which has led to massive suffering of the civilian population."

Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, whose efforts to achieve a treaty with Israel are scorned by Hamas as treason, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's "efforts are focused on one thing: deescalate the violence and save lives in Gaza. That's what we're hoping for."

"No amount of pressure can stop our efforts at the United Nations" to obtain a General Assembly vote at the end of the month granting observer status to the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, he said.

Hamas rejects the diplomacy of Abbas outright. But Erekat said: "It is our brothers' and sisters' blood. This is no time for internal squabbles or pointing fingers."

TEL AVIV

Air raid sirens wailed over Tel Aviv on Thursday evening, sending residents rushing for shelter, and two long-range rockets exploded just south of the metropolis. The location of the impacts was not disclosed.

They exploded harmlessly, police said. But they shook the 40 percent of Israelis who, until now, lived in safety beyond range of the southern rocket zone.

"Even Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was rushed into a reinforced room," said cabinet minister Gilad Eldan.

Just as in late 2008, Israel's demands that Hamas and other militants stop firing rockets at southern towns appeared to be being ignored, and the fire was increasing.

The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilian, and killed 13 Israelis.

THE MESSAGE

"If Hamas says it understands the message and commits to a long ceasefire, via the Egyptians or anyone else, this is what we want. We want quiet in the south and a stronger deterrence," Israeli vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon said.

"The Egyptians have been a pipeline for passing messages. Hamas always turns (to them) to request a ceasefire. We are in contact with the Egyptian defense ministry. And it could be a channel in which a ceasefire is reached," he told Israeli radio.

Tunisia's foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday "to provide all political support for Gaza" the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

On Israel's side of the border there were signs of possible preparations for a ground assault on Gaza. In pre-dawn strikes, warplanes bombed open land along the fence, in what could be a softening-up stage to clear the way for tanks.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

EGYPT ON THE SPOT

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas's supporters say they will push ahead with their plan to become an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity" at the United Nations later this month.

Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

The conflict poses a test of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought him to power in an election after the downfall of pro-Western Hosni Mubarak, has called for a "Day of Rage" in Arab capitals on Friday.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said they had targeted over 450 "terror activity sites" in the Gaza Strip since Operation Pillar of Defence began with the assassination of Hamas' top military commander on Wednesday by an Israeli missile.

Some 150 medium range rocket launching sites and ammunition dumps were targeted overnight, the IDF said.

"The sites that were targeted were positively identified by precise intelligence over the course of months," it said. "The Gaza strip has been turned into a frontal base for Iran, forcing Israeli citizens to live under unbearable circumstances."

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Ari Rabinovitch, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Home Team officers conferred National Day Awards

SINGAPORE: 258 Home Team officers have been conferred National Day Awards at the Ministry of Home Affairs Investiture Ceremony.

The awards include the Commendation Medal, Efficiency Medal, and Long Service Medal.

Winners received the awards from Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs Teo Chee Hean.

They come from various departments under the Home Affairs Ministry, which include the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Civil Defence Force, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, and Singapore Prison Service, among others.

One SCDF officer was also conferred the Singapore Civil Defence Force Overseas Service Medal this year.

- CNA/jc

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