The Singapore government apologized Thursday for the security lapse that allowed a suspected Islamic terrorist leader to escape from jail, triggering a manhunt across this usually well-policed island nation.</p><p>Authorities said Mas Selamat Kastari, who once allegedly plotted to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore's international airport, slipped away Wednesday. He is said to be commander of the Singapore arm of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian extremist group allied with al-Qaida.</p><p>Minister of Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng said Mas Selamat escaped after being taken from his cell to go to a room for a scheduled visit by his family at the Whitley Road Detention Center, which is in a wooded residential area in central Singapore.</p><p>Mas Selamat, 47, was allowed to first go to the restroom and escaped from the heavily guarded facility, Wong said in Parliament, without offering any specifics.</p><p>"This should never have happened," said Wong, who is also deputy prime minister.

Scots do not want to end the Union, merely modify it

IT'S time. Time for a change. Time to move on. This is the last column from this writer which will appear in this position in this paper. A new and extremely challenging role on the business desk awaits.Sadly, it means no time for the glorious self-indulgence of expressing a weekly opinion on the affairs of the nation.The world of politics is a continuously fascinating one. There is always something new. Political parties take power and always, in the end, lose it. Politicians' fortunes ebb and flow. Plots and conspiracies abound. Policies evolve and change.Over time, the decisions made by our elected representatives really do "make a difference", a phrase politicians use frequently, to the lives of the poor, long-suffering voters whose interests they are supposed to represent. Politics matters.And having spent many years at both Westminster and Holyrood as a reporter – and worked, albeit for only a year, on the "dark side" as a special adviser to former First Minister Henry McLeish – politics had become like a drug.

Woman shot in neck

THREE men have been arrested and an air rifle recovered after a woman was shot in the neck.

Liberals need to fill policy vacuum

What's more, he's got federal Liberal MPs to help him. Take the "3 Rs" of Australian politics — refugees, reconciliation and the republic. Howard was steadfast on each of these issues, and he spent a decade campaigning on them. With Howard gone, the Liberals have decided to agree with Labor on two of these three issues. At the weekend the Liberals announced that they accepted the shutting down of the Pacific Solution for refugees, while a fortnight ago they ultimately supported the stolen generations apology.

To this can be added a further three matters: Iraq, Kyoto and industrial relations. Rather than opposing Labor's withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, the Liberals now claim that had they won the election they would have scaled down Australia's commitment anyway. After spending years arguing against the Kyoto Protocol, and after Howard overruled Malcolm Turnbull's suggestion that the Liberals ratify it, the party has decided that ratification is a good idea.

Leaking tanker car stalls train in Oakland

An employee of NRC Environmental Services suits up to begin clean-up of a ferric flouride spill at the Union Pacific rail yard on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, in Oakland, Calif. No injuries were reported and evacuations were not necessary. (Jane Tyska/The Oakland Tribune) .

CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

Finally, the question must be asked if it is worth setting aside Title IX and possibly the culture altering woman's movement to do it?

Cyber Korp's Live Demo at Gartner's Midsize Summit 2007 Big Success

CHICAGO, Oct. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Cyber Korp, a leading Agile software development and staffing solutions provider, made a huge splash on the conference floor of Gartner's Midsize Enterprise Summit, with its innovative, live demonstration of agile software development processes at work. This type of live demonstration was the first known, and successfully highlighted one of Cyber Korp's key offerings, Agile Project Delivery through its Agile Development Center (ADC) in Chicago.

A volunteer from the conference, a Director of Technology from an Airline, chose to give them requirements for a software application that he would like to build. Once the requirements were taken, they were handed off to Cyber Korp's 100% Agile Development Center team in Chicago, and the development work began.