Why men prefer younger women

Why men prefer younger women
It's the drive for more offspring, which also leads women to older men, says researchers
PARIS - TO HAVE the most children, men should find a partner six years younger, and women, a mate four years older, Austrian researchers have said.
The researchers have used evolution to explain why men often prefer younger women and what typically drives women's desire for older men.

Evolutionary pressure - the drive to have more children, in short - is what causes the typical age gap among couples, says the study, which appears in the British journal Biology Letters.

Written by Mr Martin Fieder, an anthropologist at the University of Vienna, and Ms Susanne Huber, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, the study explored the theory that men go for younger, sexually attractive women in order to boost their chances of reproductive success, while women prefer older, successful men to provide the resources and security that increase their offspring's chance of survival.

The study was the first to quantify the age difference that results in the most children, said Mr Fieder. 'Nobody has shown before that this has consequences for the number of offspring,' he said. 'We have shown for the first time this is the case.'

The investigators trawled through a Swedish population database, covering 11,500 men and women born between 1945 and 1955, to see the age at which they became parents.

They found that relationships in which the man was four to six years older than the woman produced the most children - an average of 2.2.

When they picked partners of the same age, couples had an average of 2.1 children. The difference is significant in evolutionary terms that accumulates over time, Mr Fieder said.

The findings are the result of a statistical analysis and do not mean that every man can find a woman six years younger and that every woman would find a man four years older.

When the researchers examined couples who split up and mated again, they found that each opted for partners who were younger than the first.

That was especially so for older men, who went for women who were much younger. Women looking for a new mate generally chose a male who was slightly older than herself.

The finding regarding men was expected but that women also traded in for a younger partner was surprising, said Mr Fieder.

He suggested that because women are older when finding a second partner, they look for a younger, more fertile man.

'The age preference for the partner increases individual (reproductive) fitness of both men and women,' say the authors, who speculate that this trait has been acquired through millennia of evolution.

Beijing appoints new chiefs

Beijing appoints new chiefs
Changes set tone for President Hu to consolidate power ahead of party's 17th congress
By Clarissa Oon, CHINA CORRESPONDENT
BEIJING - CHINA'S Communist Party has appointed an associate of President Hu Jintao as deputy party chief of northern Shanxi province in a series of personnel changes ahead of a major leadership reshuffle next month.
It also appointed new chiefs for the northern province of Hebei, the tax administration bureau and the official Xinhua news agency.

Mr Meng Xuenong, 58, was appointed the Communist Party deputy secretary of Shanxi on Thursday, weeks before the party's 17th congress on Oct 15.

During the congress, President Hu is expected to further consolidate power by promoting allies to key positions.

The move marks a political comeback for Mr Meng, a former mayor of Beijing, who had worked with Mr Hu in his power base - the Communist Youth League.

Mr Meng was sacked as Beijing mayor at the height of the Sars crisis in 2003.

He now replaces outgoing Shanxi deputy secretary Yu Youjun, 54, and will eventually also take over Mr Yu's position as governor, said the pro-Beijing Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po.

Mr Yu is slated to move to an unidentified position in the central government, state media reported yesterday.

Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper also cited unnamed official sources as saying that Mr Yu, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, will be appointed the new Culture Minister.

In other personnel movements, the head of the national defence technology commission, Mr Zhang Yunchuan, 61, yesterday replaced Mr Bai Keming, 63, as Hebei party chief.

On Thursday, vice-governor of central Hunan province and a former senior treasury official, Mr Xiao Jie, 50, was promoted to the position of director of the State Administration of Taxation. Mr Xiao replaces Mr Xie Xuren, 60.

Mr Xie was installed as Finance Minister following the abrupt resignation of Mr Jin Renqing earlier this week. Hong Kong media has speculated that Mr Jin was removed for his involvement in a sex scandal.

The personnel reshuffles have also affected state news agency Xinhua, which has announced the appointment of a new editor-in -chief. Mr He Ping, 50, was promoted from his post as vice-president of the agency on Thursday. He replaces Mr Nan Zhenzhong, who has reached retirement age.

Of the latest round of appointments, it is the handover of the No. 2 leadership position in coal-rich Shanxi province that has drawn the most attention.

Shanxi was rocked recently by a massive slave labour scandal, which prompted some observers to speculate that heads might roll as a result of an investigation.

Police have rescued more than 1,300 victims - including teenagers and the mentally handicapped - all forced to work at brick kilns for no pay and under appalling conditions.

Shanxi's new deputy secretary, Mr Meng, is no stranger to controversy. His removal as Beijing mayor in 2003 was one of several sackings over the poor handling of the Sars outbreak, which officials had initially tried to cover up.

After his mayoral stint, Mr Meng was appointed deputy head of a multi-billion dollar project to divert water from China's flood-prone south to its parched north, Reuters reported yesterday.

'When I look at my backside, I find it is divided into two parts'

'When I look at my backside, I find it is divided into two parts'
CANBERRA - IN THE world of international diplomacy, the best-chosen words or phrases can leave an audience laughing, bewildered or simply lost in translation, an insider has revealed.
Undiplomatic Activities, a yet-to-be-launched book by Mr Richard Woolcott, who ran Australia's foreign service for four years, points to the pitfalls of translating thoughts into different languages.

Take the Australian diplomat in France who tried to tell his audience that as he looked back on his career, it was divided in two parts, with dull postings before life in Paris.

'When I look at my backside, I find it is divided into two parts,' Mr Woolcott quoted the diplomat as telling his highly amused audience.

Ex-Australian prime minister Bob Hawke left his Japanese audience bewildered when he used the Australian colloquial phrase 'I am not here to play funny buggers' to dismiss a trivial and pesky question from lawmakers.

The Japanese interpreters 'went into a huddle to consult on the best way to render 'funny buggers' into Japanese', he wrote.

Their translation: 'I am not here to play laughing homosexuals with you.'

Australia's Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd is regarded as a master of Mandarin. But his language skills were far from perfect when, as a diplomat in 1984, he interpreted his ambassador's speech on the close relationship Australia and China enjoyed.

'Australia and China are enjoying simultaneous orgasms in their relationship,' he apparently told the audience in Mandarin.

Mr Woolcott said the best interpretations sometimes involved no translation at all, like what happened when an Asian minister told a long joke at a banquet in Seoul.

'The Korean interpreter was lost, but did not show it. He uttered a few sentences and the audience laughed and applauded,' he wrote.

After being complimented on his translation skills, the interpreter confessed: 'Frankly, minister, I did not understand your joke, so I said in Korean that the minister has told his obligatory joke, would you all please laugh heartily and applaud.'

Diana's faithful pay tribute on anniversary

Diana's faithful pay tribute on anniversary
10 years after her death, the princess is still an object of fascination


LOYAL FAN: Mr Terry Hutt, 72, from Cambridge, visits Kensington Palace every year on Princess Diana's death anniversary. -- PHOTO: AP

LONDON - MOURNERS gathered in London and Paris yesterday to remember the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, still revered by many around the world as well as remaining an enduring object of fascination at home.
Flowers, photographs and messages were attached to the gates of Kensington Palace, her London residence, overnight, although in far fewer numbers than a decade ago, when a vast outpouring of grief stunned the nation almost as much as her death.

In Paris, where she died in a high-speed car crash alongside her lover Dodi Al-Fayed, a number of mourners gathered and left flowers at the Pont de l'Alma tunnel where the fatal incident occurred.

A memorial service, attended by Queen Elizabeth, Diana's ex-husband Prince Charles, her two sons Princes William and Harry, as well as other royals and celebrities, including pop star Elton John, took place at midday at a chapel near Buckingham Palace.

'To lose a parent so suddenly at such a young age, as others have experienced, is indescribably shocking and sad. It was an event which changed our lives forever, as it must have done for everyone who lost someone that night,' said Prince Harry, who was 12 when Diana died.

'But what is far more important to us now and into the future is that we remember our mother as she would wish to be remembered, as she was: fun-loving, generous, down to earth and entirely genuine,' he added at the memorial service.

Prince Charles' second wife, Camilla, with whom he had an affair while still married to Diana and whom the princess referred to as 'The Rottweiler', declined to attend the service to avoid controversy, although she was invited.

Egyptian millionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, father of Dodi, led two minutes of silence yesterday for the couple at his Harrods department store in London.

Mr Fayed, who believes the couple were killed in a British establishment plot, was not invited to the royal memorial service.

Diana, who was 36 when she died in the early hours of Aug 31, 1997, is still remembered as the 'People's Princess' in Britain and elsewhere, and revered by millions of people who never met her.

She was once the most-photographed woman in the world.

Ten years after her death, Diana remains the subject of constant discussion and debate, as well as controversy and speculation, especially over what might have happened had she lived and how exactly she came to die.

An official inquest into the deaths will begin on Oct 2, once again propelling Diana back into the headlines.

In a sign that perhaps, with hindsight, Britons feel that they may have overdone the grieving, a survey conducted by Sky News showed that 55 per cent of people thought the mourning had been excessive.

Helping ex-inmates turn their lives around

Helping ex-inmates turn their lives around
Meal and transport allowances, counselling, job searches are all part of SACA's support services
By Jessica Jaganathan


BACK ON TRACK: Thanks to a grant from the Lee Foundation Education Assistance Scheme managed by SACA, ex-convict Eugene is now doing a full-time diploma course in Sports and Leisure Management at Republic Polytechnic after passing his O levels last year. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

A PICTURE-PERFECT moment of a family celebrating the first-month birthday of a baby girl was shattered seven years ago when police officers came to take her father away to prison.
Eugene (not his real name) had a difficult past. He was just 14 years old when he was sent to a boys' home after getting involved in gang fights. After that, it was a kaleidoscope of secret society meetings, and eventually a two-year stint in prison for illegal moneylending in 1997.

An attempt to turn his life around failed in 2000 when the 34-year-old, who was working as a salesman, succumbed to greed and stole $10,000 from the company he was working with.

It was then that he was arrested and forced to leave his baby daughter.

'Leaving my daughter behind and not being able to see her growing up was the worst thing that happened to me,' said the man whose past is mirrored in the tattoos blanketing his body.

He finally got his life back on track after passing his O-level exams last year, and getting a place in Republic Polytechnic's diploma in Sports and Leisure Management course. This was made possible through a grant he received from the Lee Foundation Education Assistance Scheme (LFEAS), managed by the Singapore After-Care Association (SACA).

Charity facts
Name: Singapore After-Care Association

What it does/who it helps: Prisoners, ex-offenders and their family members
... more
Established in 1956, SACA is a voluntary welfare organisation that aims to reintegrate former offenders into society.

One way it does this is by providing financial support through meal and transport allowances to tide the former convicts over until they find a job. With 16 paid staff and about 200 volunteers, SACA serves as an after-care support agency for inmates by providing counselling up to six months after their release.

Former drug addict Malik (not his real name) spent more than five years in prison for drug trafficking charges.

'So many changes had taken place in Singapore during the time I was inside. I was feeling so lost when I came out. That's when my case worker really helped me,' he said.

Tapping into Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises' (Score) database of about 1,000 employers, SACA helps former prisoners find jobs as well as obtain education grants from LFEAS.

Last year, out of 11,000 prisoners released from jail, the organisation helped about 2,000. Dealing with clients whose ages range from 16 to over 70, it works closely with the Prisons Department to identify those who need more help than others.

'The ones targeted are the ones deemed to be in greater need or of higher risk,' said Mr Prem Kumar, director of SACA.

Funded by the Prisons Department, National Council of Social Service and Score, the biggest challenge SACA faces is to get the community to embrace former offenders.

Said Mr Kumar: 'The ex-offender has to take the first step, but the second step needs to be taken by the community.'

Even with rehabilitative efforts, one in five of SACA's clients returns to jail. But these numbers are still 10 per cent lower than those who do not receive any help, stressed Mr Kumar.

To reduce these numbers, he expanded the Lee education grant programme in April this year to include focus groups and workshops for those studying. Activities like bowling, movie screenings and community service are also organised to bring these former prisoners together.

Five months after his release from prison in March, Eugene still calls up SACA's counsellors whenever he needs a listening ear, or even if he has problems following schoolwork. He is now spending all the time he gets after classes with his daughter, catching up on lost time.

22 years' jail for robbing and raping two prostitutes

22 years' jail for robbing and raping two prostitutes
Judge calls man's crime 'abominable', also orders maximum 24 strokes of cane
By Selina Lum


STIFF PUNISHMENT: Mohamed Fadzli Abdul Rahim, 28, wept when he received his sentence yesterday.

FACING the prospect of 22 years behind bars and the maximum 24 lashes of the cane, Mohamed Fadzli Abdul Rahim, 28, wept.
The tears came from the man who, with his gang, picked up two prostitutes and robbed them, beat them savagely and then raped them before leaving them bruised, battered and naked or near-naked in lonely places.

Between April and August last year, the former flight supervisor and five others prowled Geylang in search of victims among the 'working girls' in the area.

In sentencing Fadzli, Justice Tay Yong Kwang noted that commercial sex workers were 'no less human beings than you and me' who were also entitled to protection under the law.

'Targeting them in the fashion shown in this case, knowing their vulnerability, is really quite abominable,' said Justice Tay.

The gang not only inflicted indignities and injuries on the two women, he said, but also abandoned them in dark and unfamiliar places. One victim was left naked, the other, clad only in her panties.

On April 1 last year, Fadzli and an accomplice picked up a 27-year-old China prostitute and drove to Geylang Drive, where three others were waiting. She was beaten and robbed by the gang, then raped by Fadzli.

On Aug 12, Fadzli and two others picked up a 36-year-old prostitute from China before robbing, raping and then dumping her along Jalan Sam Kongsi in Tampines.

Fadzli, arrested 12 days later, pleaded guilty last week to one count of gang robbery and two counts of aggravated rape. Two other counts of robbery and one of unnatural sex were taken into consideration.

Pressing for a deterrent sentence, Deputy Public Prosecutor Shahla Iqbal pointed to the 'cunning' manner in which Fadzli and his gang planned their attacks, as well as the brutality of the attacks.

Fadzli, she argued, was the oldest and the one person in the group who assaulted the women not only physically, but also sexually.

Mr Sunil Sudheesan, Fadzli's lawyer, said his client was very sorry for what he had done and had paid the women $1,000 each as compensation.

He added that his client had a minor role in the assault, and that the other gang members were the ones who orchestrated the robberies.

Of the three teens convicted of robbery, two aged 17 and 18 were sent for reformative training. The third was given probation.

Fadzli's cousin, Mohamad Norhazri Mohd Fauzi, 21, allegedly the gang's driver, has yet to stand trial for robbery and abetting the rapes.

The sixth accomplice is still at large.

Record 951,000 visitors in July and longer stays

Record 951,000 visitors in July and longer stays
$168.3m in hotel room revenue, up by 27.5% over last July; record arrivals from US, Australia and Vietnam
By Lin Xinyi & Leonard Lim


Snapshots of a bumper season
ST PHOTO: ALAN LIM, ST GRAPHICS: VINCENT LEOW AND BONG FORTIN, SOURCE: SINGAPORE TOURISM BORAD

View more photos

JULY was the best ever month for Singapore tourism.
Four records were set:


951,000 visitors - the most in a month, beating the previous high of last July by four per cent.

They stayed longer too - 3.6 million days in all, 11 per cent more than last July's record.

Travellers from the United States, Australia and Vietnam set records of their own for arrivals from the three countries.

Plus $168.3 million in hotel room revenue - 27.5 per cent over last July.
VIDEO

Ready, set...F1!
(3:03)
Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang is confident that the industry will continue to grow.

'The tourism sector has been riding a new wave in the last few years,' he said during the ground-breaking of the Pit Building for next year's Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.

With 5,883,000 tourists visiting Singapore shores in seven months, the industry is well on its way to its '10.2 million visitors' target for the year which, if fulfilled, will be another record.

July has traditionally been a strong month for tourism, said National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (Natas) chief executive Robert Khoo.

Australian tourists head here during their winter season while Americans and Europeans arrive on summer holiday.

Another lure: the Great Singapore Sale.

Visitors from Down Under made a strong showing in July, with their 76,000 visitors making them Singapore's third largest group of tourists, after Indonesians (192,000) and Chinese nationals (109,000).

Natas' chairman of the inbound committee Allen Tsang noted that several business events added to visitor numbers.

In July, the likes of Herbalife Asia Pacific Extravaganza 2007, the World Glaucoma Congress 2007 and the 18th Wonca World Conference on Family Medicine were held in Singapore.

Such business events drew close to 25,000 visitors and contributed at least $40 million in tourism receipts.

Whether tourist or business traveller, it did not matter for hotels here.

A spokesman for the Grand Copthorne Waterfront said: 'The back to back conventions in July contributed to the increase of revenue.

'We had to turn more than 3,100 room nights away. We also had to stop taking reservations as early as one month before the peak period.'

Hotel cashiers were working overtime, going by the latest Singapore Tourism Board numbers. Nine in 10 hotel rooms were booked up and average room rates hit $185 per night - a record for the month of July.

Just two years ago, room rates were averaging $136.

It was also a bumper month for Changi Airport. In July, 3.16 million passengers passed through Changi's aerobridges, the highest ever in a single month this year and 3.5 per cent more compared to the same month last year.

While hoteliers and retailers enjoyed the boom, travel agents have raised the alarm about Singapore literally running out of rooms. Natas' Mr Tsang said the pace at which new hotels are being opened is not keeping up with the growth in visitor arrivals.

And more tourists are expected with Changi Airport's Terminal 3 opening its doors in January, especially given new attractions next year like the Formula 1 and the Singapore Flyer ferris wheel in the Marina Bay area.

The F1 alone is anticipated to bring in 80,000 tourists.

Weighing in on the issue yesterday, Minister Lim said: 'We recognise that our demand is greater than supply. We have not been building sufficient hotel rooms during the difficult years from 1998 to 2003 partly because hotel rates were low and hotel developers and investors did not see the yield and the returns to hotel investments.'

In fact, Singapore will need to double the number of rooms here given that it had 'practically doubled visitor arrivals', he added.

There are 36,000 rooms here now and Mr Khoo estimates that 5,000 more rooms will be available by 2010, with the integrated resorts contributing half of the total.

The industry is also exploring novel accommodation ideas such as floating hotels, homestays and converting existing buildings to hotels to ease the tight room supply.

Mr Lim said that the Government is releasing many sites to put up new hotels and the ball is now in the developers' court.

Since August last year, contracts for nine hotel sites, which should yield about 3,100 rooms, have been awarded. Another 10 sites are available, with eight on the reserve list.

He said: 'They know hotel rates have gone up and will continue to go up at a measured pace.

'We hope they will tender sensibly for the land price and be in the position to build the supply that we need.'