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Airline Boss Takes 20% Pay Cut in Penance for Drunk JAL Pilot A drunk pilot has just cost the president of Japan Airlines 20 percent of his salary for a few months. Taking responsibility for the errant cockpit crew member, the top executive at the carrier, Yuji Akasaka, will take home less pay December through February, while Toshinori Shin, a senior managing executive officer, will have his reduced by 10 percent. Both of them had already voluntarily given up a part of their salaries for November. The pilot, who showed up for duty to fly the London-Tokyo route on Oct. 28, was found to have consumed excessive alcohol, following which he was handed a 10-month sentence in the U.K. Japan Airlines Co. apologized for the embarrassing incident and announced corrective measures, including better awareness and training for all its employees. It isn’t unusual for top Japanese executives to take pay cuts in an act of contrition. After revealing improper vehicle inspection practices at their local factories last year, the chief executive officers of Nissan Motor Co. and Subaru Corp. announced a similar move.

Went for the annual Qing Ming session yesterday at Peck San Theng @ Bishan. In other years, we will avoid the 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after the actual day, to avoid the expected jam. This year, though, my uncle asked my mother to go yesterday (which I realized only when i asked being stuck in the jam, that it's the very weekend of Qing Ming) as my that works best for my cousins. Big mistake! I went via CTE side and missed the long queue which started before SPH, then had the bad experience of having to try to cut into the bumper-to-bumper queue of cars waiting to turn into Peck San Theng… Even before I reached there (to start to squeeze), at the traffic light, can hear got cars sounding (not sounded) their horns non-stop - an indication of the frustration of being obediently queueing but seeing other vehicles cutting in in front. The fact that the cars inside the single-lane road were crawling (as most cars will stop to allow passengers to alight somewhere inside, hence stopping traffic), doesn't help. 10+ years ago, when caught in such jams, I would let my folks alight on the main road, then I proceed to go to the HDB carpark opp RI to park and walk over, so as not to get caught in the unpleasant situation like yest. Now my folks are 79 and 82, and my mother had knee op on one leg last year, and is going for the other leg next month. She walks with a walking stick, very very slowly - but refuses to use wheelchair. Yest was to pray to her late parents and elders, and she insisted must go. Wouldn't have been able to make her walk the long distance from main road to go in... Really no choice but had to resort to squeezing in and cutting queue. Can feel the frustration and unhappiness of the other drivers. To them all, very sorry for the bad driving behavior. Apology... Already told my mum, next year if my cousins/uncle side said can only make it on the '2+2' peak weekends, then we split and go separately. Confirm don't want to do this again.

For some fans, it's not enough to just catch a glimpse of Korea's hottest girl group, Girls' Generation, who will be in town for two sell-out concerts on Dec 9 and 10. There's a new, more determined K-pop fan culture in town. Many Girls' Generation fans want to be noticed by the nine beautiful members and to get as close as possible to them. Student Gary Tan, who leads local fan club Sonesg, flew to Korea with two fellow club members to visit the parents of one of the singers to apologise for upsetting her when she was in Singapore last year.

MANILA, Philippines - On the first anniversary of the August 23 Manila hostage crisis, President Aquino expressed his sympathies for the victims and their families. Aquino expressed regret over the incident but would not apologize, saying the harm was done by one man and not by the state.