SINGAPORE: CapitaLand has reported a 45 per cent fall in fourth-quarter net profit to US$212 million (S$262.7 million).
The Singapore-listed property developer said earnings fell largely due to lower contributions from several projects that were completed a year earlier.
Its revenue rose 5 per cent to US$887 million (S$1.1 billion).
- CNA/ck
By Alan Duke, CNN
updated 6:53 PM EST, Wed February 20, 2013
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Tourists staying at a Los Angeles hotel bathed, brushed teeth and drank with water from a tank in which a young woman's body was likely decomposing for more than two weeks, police said.
Elisa Lam's corpse was found in the Cecil Hotel's rooftop water tank by a maintenance worker who was trying to figure out why the water pressure was low Tuesday.
Lam's parents reported her missing in early February. The last sighting of her was in the hotel on January 31, Los Angeles Police said.
Detectives are now investigating the 21-year-old Canadian's suspicious death, police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said.
It was not clear whether the water presented any health risks. Results on tests on the water done Wednesday by the Los Angeles Public Health Department were expected later in the day.
The hotel management has not responded to CNN requests for comment.
Video appears to show four cisterns on the hotel roof.
People who stayed at the Cecil since Lam's disappearance expressed shock about developments.
"The water did have a funny taste," Sabrina Baugh told CNN on Wednesday. She and her husband used the water for eight days.
"We never thought anything of it," the British woman said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."
What she described was not normal.
"The shower was awful," she said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."
The hotel remained open after the discovery, but guests checking in Tuesday were told not to drink it, according to Qui Nguyen, who decided to find a new hotel Wednesday.
Nguyen said he learned about the body from a CNN reporter, not the hotel staff.
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CNN's Kyung Lah and Irving Last contributed to this report.
PRETORIA, South AfricaThe investigating officer in the Oscar Pistorius murder case made an error in his court testimony Wednesday when he identified a substance found in the athlete's bedroom as testosterone, the national prosecutor said.
Medupe Simasiku, the spokesman for South Africa's National Prosecution Agency, told The Associated Press that it was too early to identify the substance as it was still undergoing laboratory tests.
"It is not certain (what it is) until the forensics." Simasiku said, adding that it wasn't certain if it was "a legal or an illegal medication for now."
Detective Warrant Officer Hilton Botha, the investigating officer, said earlier in court during Pistorius' bail hearing that police found two boxes of testosterone and needles in the bedroom of the Olympic athlete, who is charged with premediated murder in the Feb. 14 shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
It was a mistake to identify the substance now, Simasiku said, as it was still unknown. He said the discovery of needles was in Botha's statement, however.
Pistorius denies murder, saying in an affidavit Tuesday that the Valentine's Day shooting was accidental because he thought there was an intruder in his house.
In response to Botha's claim, the defense said Wednesday, the second day of Pistorius' bail hearing at Pretoria Magistrate's Court, that the substance found was not a steroid or a banned substance but an herbal remedy.
Pistorius' lawyer Barry Roux had slammed Botha's testimony earlier, saying police "take every piece of evidence and try to extract the most possibly negative connotation and present it to the court."
International Paralympic Committee spokesman Craig Spence told the AP soon after the substance claims that Pistorius — the world's most famous disabled athlete — was drug tested twice in London last year by the IPC, on Aug. 25 and Sept. 8. Both test results were negative, Spence said.
The Aug. 25 test was an out-of-competition test, and the Sept. 8 one in-competition, a day before the end of the London Paralympics.
The International Olympic Committee said it didn't test Pistorius at the Olympics, but referred the AP to the IPC's negative tests. International athletics body the IAAF and the World Anti-Doping Agency would not comment because it was an ongoing legal case.
"Bearing in mind the ongoing police investigation, WADA must refrain from making any statement at present," WADA said.
Giving testimony, Botha said police made the discovery of testosterone in bedroom of the double-amputee runner and multiple Paralympic champion's upscale Pretoria house after the shooting of Steenkamp but offered no further details or explanation. State prosecutor Gerrie Nel also had to correct Botha when he initially called it "steroids."
Simasiku later told the AP that the detective, Botha, thought it was testosterone by reading the first few letters of the label.
Pistorius' lawyer Roux, said on questioning the detective — who has 16 years' experience as a detective and 24 years with the police — that it was not a banned substance and that police were trying to give the discovery a "negative connotation."
"It is an herbal remedy," Roux said. "It is not a steroid and it is not a banned substance."
The debate over the substance added another dramatic twist to a case that has already gripped the world's attention since Steenkamp's killing at Pistorius' home last Thursday.
Prosecutor Nel also had to clarify that police were not saying that Pistorius was using the substance, only that it was discovered along with the needles in his bedroom.
Pistorius said Tuesday in a written affidavit and read in court by Roux that he mistakenly killed model Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day when he fired four shots into a locked toilet door, hitting his girlfriend three times after thinking she was a dangerous intruder.
The prosecution claims Pistorius intended to kill the 29-year-old Steenkamp after they had a fight.
As prosecutors today outlined their case against South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius, providing details that they say indicates a premeditated act of murder against his girlfriend, his lawyers swatted at each bit of evidence on the dramatic second day of a bail hearing that will likely foreshadow the upcoming trial.
The Johannesburg courtroom sat riveted as police investigators said that Pistorius, a double-amputee who gained global acclaim for racing at the 2012 London Olympics, shot his girlfriend through a closed bathroom door at a high angle from which he had to be wearing his prosthetic legs.
Prosecutors insisted that Pistorius took a moment to put the legs on, indicating that he thought out and planned to kill Reeva Steenkamp, his model girlfriend, when he shot her three times through a closed bathroom door early on the morning of Valentine's Day.
There was a "deliberate aiming of shots at the toilet from about 1.5 meters [about 5 feet]," prosecutor Gerrie Nel said.
Read Oscar Pistorius' Full Statement to the Court
Nel said Pistorius fired four shots into the bathroom, hitting Steenkamp three times in the head, elbow, and hip.
Nel also said a witness would testify to hearing "non-stop talking, like shouting" in the early hours before the dawn shooting.
Pistorius' lawyer, who argued Tuesday that the runner accidently fired on Steenkamp believing she was an intruder, assailed each bit of the prosecution's evidence, even getting a lead investigator to concede that police had not found anything to conclusively disprove the Olympian's story.
"[The angle] seems to me down. Fired down," Police officer Hilton Botha told the court, suggesting Pistorius was standing high up on his fake legs.
PHOTOS: Paralympics Champion Charged in Killing
But when pushed by defense lawyer Barry Roux, Botha admitted he did not know whether Pistorius was wearing the prosthetics.
When asked about the witness who allegedly heard yelling between Pistorius and Steenkamp, Botha admitted under cross-examination that the woman was about 600 yards -- six football fields -- away at the time.
When the prosecutor questioned Botha a second time, he backtracked to say the witness was actually much closer.
The prosecution showed a floor-plan of the couple's apartment and said there was no way for Pistorius to cross from one side of the bedroom toward the bathroom, or retrieve his hidden pistol, without realizing Steenkamp was not in bed.
"There's no other way of getting there," prosecutor Nel said.
The defense further suggested that Steenkamp had gone to the bathroom on her own, and not to flee from Pistorius, because her bladder was empty. Had she simply run there to hide at 3 am, it would have more likely been full, Roux said.
Asked by defense attorney Roux whether Steenkamp's body showed "any pattern of defensive wounds," suggesting she had put up a fight, Botha admitted it did not.
Prosecutors also said that they found two boxes of testosterone and needles in the bedroom, although the defense disputed the finding, calling the substance a "herbal remedy," not banned drugs or steroids.
Botha told the court today that he arrived at Pistorius' home at 4:15 a.m., Feb. 14, to find Steenkamp already dead, dressed in a white shorts and a black vest, and covered in towels. The first thing Pistorius told police was that "he thought it was a burglar," officials said.
(File photo) A horse breathes heavily after finishing a race on February 10, 2013 in Exeter, England.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Roly Owers is chief executive of World Horse Welfare and a qualified veterinarian with a lifetime of involvement with horses. He is active in working with governments, sport regulators, veterinary bodies and non-profit organizations to improve horse welfare worldwide.
(CNN) -- A welcome spotlight is now being shone on the murky trade in European horsemeat, but the public are still being left in the dark about the brutal treatment and needless suffering of the horses destined for their plates.
Every year around 65,000 horses are crammed into trucks and transported across Europe to the slaughterhouse for what can be days on end in hellish conditions.
Q&A: What's behind the horsemeat contamination scandal?
Roly Owers
Stressed, injured, exhausted, dehydrated and suffering from disease, these horses are desperate for food, water and rest.
No type of horse is spared: including infirm working horses, foals (foal steak commands a premium among those who eat horse meat) and those bred and fattened to obesity to command the highest prices at slaughter.
Few, if any of them, are fit enough to travel on such long journeys -- a feat which would challenge even the most athletic sport horses. Many thousands of America's horses are also transported vast distances on journeys to slaughter in Mexico and Canada, so this is not simply a European problem.
EU health chief vows plan to restore confidence in wake of horsemeat scandal
World Horse Welfare undertakes regular field investigations as part of its campaign to stop these long-distance journeys, and for years we have documented the appalling suffering of these horses. In recent shipments we inspected, 89% of the horses had an injury and 93% showed clinical signs of disease.
Their misery was clear - all were showing signs of exhaustion and depression and many had suffered painful wounds from poorly designed compartments and terrible friction injuries due to inadequate space on the vehicle. No animal should have to suffer this.
The European Commission's own advisors, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have clearly stated that "journey duration should not exceed 12 hours for horses."
First UK tests reveal scope of horsemeat contamination
Yet still the European Commission refuses to change the legislation that allows horses to be transported indefinitely, so long as they are given rest every 24 hours (a rule often broken, in part because it is unenforceable in practice).
Horses' immune systems decline after 10 hours of transportation making them more susceptible to disease. This is extremely unpleasant for the horses and it also poses a real risk to the equine industry of Europe, as horses intended for slaughter, often mix with other horses along the major routes.
We regularly present the findings from our investigations to the European Commission, and share information on breaches of transport law with the authorities. We have also presented a number of recommendations in our 'Dossier of Evidence' of welfare problems caused by the trade and our proposed solutions.
At the center of these recommendations is a 9-12 hour journey limit for horses (in keeping with the view of the European Commission's own scientific advisors), which is perfectly feasible given the abundance of slaughterhouses licenced to take horses, and would actually save money and red tape by harmonising with other laws. Yet the European Commission still refuses to act.
So what we can do to help these horses? First, we can make people aware of this appalling trade and encourage more Europeans to speak out against it. We can also write to our own governments in Europe to call for change.
And we can continue to press the European Commission for the short, maximum journey limit that is recommended by the Commission's own scientific experts. This is not about stopping people eating horsemeat -- that is a personal choice -- it is about fulfilling our basic responsibility to care for horses during their lifetime.
Together the louder we can shout to be the horses' voice, the more chance we'll have to put an end to this needless suffering. And that's exactly what it is -- utterly needless, reckless and brutal.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Roly Owers.
MEMPHIS: Defending champion Jurgen Melzer crashed out of the ATP and WTA US National Indoor Championships on Tuesday, losing his opening-round match in straight sets.
The left-handed Austrian lost to Dutchman Igor Sijsling 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) at The Racquet Club of Memphis.
Sijsling advanced to a second-round match against Croatian top seed Marin Cilic.
Melzer, who was playing with a broken toe, defeated Milos Raonic in last year's final, snapping the Canadian's win streak at nine straight matches.
American veteran James Blake defeated German Florian Mayer 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Blake, who got into this year's tournament as a wild card, was runner-up in this event 11 years ago.
In other men's matches, US lucky loser Michael Russell beat Russian qualifier Alex Bogomolov 6-2, 6-4.
On the women's side, Slovakian seventh seed Magdalena Rybarkova reached the third round by ousting American Lauren Davis 7-6 (7/2), 6-2.
France's Claire Feuerstein upset Czech fifth seed Lucie Hradecka 6-3, 6-4, while German third seed Sabine Lisicki reached the second round with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over American Madison Keys.
-AFP/gn
By Matt Smith, CNN
updated 6:52 PM EST, Tue February 19, 2013
Warren Lee Hill's defenders say he should not be executed because he is mentally impaired.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- Warren Lee Hill, whose defenders say he is mentally disabled, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday night for the 1990 killing of Joseph Handspike.
Handspike was another inmate in a Georgia state prison.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution Tuesday, as did the state Supreme Court earlier in the day, while the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles similarly denied a request for clemency.
In Georgia, the governor does not have clemency powers.
The execution is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET at a state prison in Jackson, about 45 miles south of Atlanta.
Hill was convicted of beating Handspike to death with a nail-studded board while already serving a life sentence in the 1985 killing of his girlfriend, Myra Wright.
Hill's lawyers had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, arguing that his IQ of 70 means he should be spared under the 2002 decision that barred the execution of the mentally disabled. But a string of state courts has said Hill doesn't qualify under Georgia law, which requires inmates to prove mental impairment "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Georgia is the only state with the reasonable-doubt standard, which Hill's lawyers call "a virtually insurmountable barrier" that flies in the face of the justices' 2002 decision.
"The U.S. Supreme Court says we don't put mentally retarded people to death, but we'll let the states determine who's retarded and who's not," CNN legal analyst Paul Callan said Monday.
Handspike's family has called for the execution to be called off, as have former classmates and school officials. The Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities has weighed in against the execution, stating, "No other state risks the lives of those with developmental disabilities to this extreme."
Three doctors who examined Hill for the state "have now revised their opinions and find that Mr. Hill does meet the criteria for mental retardation," his lawyers argued in court papers.
But lawyers for the state argued that Hill had served in the Navy, held a job and managed his money before Wright's killing -- signs that while he had a low IQ, he didn't necessarily meet the legal standard for retardation.
Hill had been scheduled for execution in July, but the state Supreme Court halted the execution on procedural grounds.
Hill refused any special last meal, the state Department of Corrections said. Instead, prison officials said, he'll be offered the institution's meal tray of macaroni and cheese, baked beans, mixed vegetables, stir-fry vegetables, cornbread, cookies and iced tea.
CNN's Bill Mears, Dana Ford and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.
Oscar Pistorius, the famed double amputee South African Olympian, has been charged by prosecutors with intentionally murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria home.
He has said it was an accident, that he mistook her for a burglar when he fired several rounds through a locked bathroom door with a 9mm pistol. When a judge ruled Tuesday that he could not outright dismiss the prosecution's premeditated murder charge, Pistorius told his side of the story to the court on the same day Steenkamp's family laid her to rest in coastal Port Elizabeth.
The following are the portions of the statement Pistorius' lawyers submitted to the court via an affadavit that offer his view of the tragic events of this past Valentine's Day:
Olympian Oscar Pistorius today denied that he willfully killed his girlfriend, telling a South African court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Pistorius, 26 and a double-amputee Olympian, was charged today with premeditated murder, or a Schedule 6 offense, which under South African law limits his chances for parole if convicted.
"I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated murder because I had no intention to kill my girlfriend," Pistorius said in a statement, read by his lawyer.
"I deny the accusation," he said. "Nothing can be further from the truth that I planned the murder of my girlfriend."
The court adjourned today with no decision on his bail and the hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday.
Read Oscar Pistorius' Full Statement to the Court
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
Pistorius, who gained worldwide fame for running on carbon-fiber blades and competing against able-bodied runners at the Olympics, is accused of shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 14.
In a statement read by his lawyer today, the runner said he and Steenkamp went to bed together before he was awoken by a noise he thought was an intruder coming from the bathroom.
Filled with a "sense of terror," he removed the 9-mm pistol he kept hidden under his bed and, without putting on his prosthetic legs, began shooting through the bathroom door, according to his statement.
"I was scared and didn't switch on the light," he said. "I got my gun and moved towards the bathroom. I screamed at the intruder because I did not have my legs on. I felt vulnerable. I fired shots through the bathroom door and told Reeva to call police.
"I walked back to the bed and realized Reeva was not in bed. It's then it dawned on me it could be her in there," he said.
That's when he realized Steenkamp was not in bed, he said in the statement. Fearing she was inside the bathroom, he says, he broke down the door using a cricket bat and carried the woman outside, where he called for help, and she soon died.
Excerpts of Prosecutor's Case Against Pistorius
Pistorius appeared in court today for the first time since his Valentine's Day arrest, as prosecutors laid out their case, insisting that the runner could not have mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder.
"[Pistorius] shot and killed an innocent woman," Gerrie Nel, the senior state prosecutor, said in court, adding that there is "no possible explanation to support" the notion that Pistorius thought Steenkamp was an intruder.
Prosecutors said, "There is no possible explanation to support his report that he thought that it was a burglar. Even [in] his own version, he readied himself, walked to the bathroom with the clear intention and plan to kill the 'burglar' and did so whilst the burglar was harmless and contained in a toilet. This in itself also constitutes premeditated murder of a 'defenseless burglar.''
Pistorius said he and Steenkamp were in his bedroom the night before Valentine's Day, when she
was doing yoga exercises and he was in bed watching television. "My prosthetic legs were off," according to his statement. "We were deeply in love and I could not be happier. I
know she felt the same way. She had given me a present for Valentine's Day
but asked me only to open it the next day.
"After Reeva finished her yoga exercises she got into bed and we both fell
asleep."
Later, police responding to neighbors' calls about shouting and gunshots at Pistorius' home in the guarded and gated complex in the South African capital discovered Steenkamp's body. A 9-mm pistol was recovered at the home.
Prosecutors said Steenkamp had arrived at the house with the expectation of spending the night with Pistorius. They said that Steenkamp was shot while in the bathroom, which is about 21 feet from the main bedroom, and that the two rooms are linked by a passage. The door to the toilet was broken down from the outside, prosecutors said, implying that the bathroom door had been locked.
Prosecutors believe it's a case of premeditated murder because, they say, Pistorius had to stop, put on his prosthetic legs, grab a gun and then walk 21 feet to a bathroom.
The premeditated murder charge means that he would likely be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, and that he is likely to be denied bail.
By Samuel Moncada, Special to CNN
February 18, 2013 -- Updated 1218 GMT (2018 HKT)
One Venezuelan official says the reforms enacted in Hugo Chavez's 14-year tenure deserve respect.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Samuel Moncada has been the Ambassador of Venezuela to the United Kingdom since 2007 and holds a PhD in Modern History from Oxford University. He is solely responsible for the content of this analysis.
(CNN) -- Reading the international press, one would be forgiven for thinking that Venezuela is on the verge of collapse.
Over the past decade, all sorts of predictions have been made, ranging from catastrophic election defeats to the implosion of the Venezuelan economy. But the fact these predictions have failed to materialize has not deterred many of Venezuela's most fervent critics in their quest to engineer a constant and misleading narrative of impending disaster.
More: Chavez returns after Cuba cancer treatment
The reality is that ever since President Hugo Chavez was first elected, Venezuela has defied these negative predictions and brought unprecedented social progress to the country over the last 14 years. Since 2004 poverty has been reduced by half and extreme poverty has been cut by 70%. University enrolment has doubled, entitlement to public pensions has tripled, and access to health care and all levels of education have been dramatically expanded.
Venezuela now has the lowest levels of economic inequality of any Latin American country as measured by the Gini coefficient. Our country has already achieved many of the Millennium Development Goals, and is well on target to achieve all eight by the 2015 deadline.
This progress has been achieved by using Venezuela's vast oil revenues to transform the lives of ordinary people. The sheer scale of our oil reserves -- the world's largest -- guarantees the complete sustainability of the model in which the country's resources are used to stimulate growth in the economy and aid development.
But Chavez's most significant achievement has been to trigger the awakening and empowerment of the majority. A majority of Venezuelans have seen vast improvements in their living standards and, as a consequence, they have continued to defend their interests at the ballot box.
The Venezuelan people are very clear about what they want. President Chavez was re-elected in October 2012 with 54% of the vote in an election that boasted an 81% turnout. The Venezuelan people showed their support for the government again in December 2012 in the gubernatorial elections, which saw Chavez's political party win 20 out of 23 states.
Governments in Europe and other parts of the world could only dream of these levels of support after 14 years in power. This shows that social progress in Venezuela has been consolidated and that there is a desire to further expand this progress.
In the coming years, the Venezuelan government will continue to respond to the needs of the Venezuelan people. Hundreds of thousands of new homes have been built over the last two years which have not only greatly improved living standards but also provided jobs and contributed to a boom in the construction industry. The government is well on its way to meeting its target of building three million new homes by 2019.
While many economies around the world are shrinking, the Venezuelan economy grew by 5.5% in 2012. Against the backdrop of a continuing international financial crisis, commerce in Venezuela grew by 9.2% and communications by 7.2%, manufacturing grew by 2.1% and the oil sector grew by 1.4% -- making Venezuela one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America.
At a time when many countries are attacking the rights of the most vulnerable sectors of society, Venezuela is providing ever greater protection for low-income senior citizens and single-parent families with younger children or disabled dependents.
The failed development models of previous governments condemned millions of Venezuelans to poverty. Before the election of Chavez in 1998, Venezuela suffered years of falling GDP. The country had one of the worst economic records in the world -- a record that led to mass social unrest and violent military crackdowns.
Venezuela will continue on its path of social progress and empowering ordinary citizens. The greatest hope for the future is the people know that they alone hold the power to determine the direction the country will take.
After so many failed predictions, isn't it time to respect Venezuela's democracy and the will of the people?
Part of complete coverage on
February 18, 2013 -- Updated 1218 GMT (2018 HKT)
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