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The suspect of the Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West murder is an 18-year-old youth who was high on glue when he met his victim by chance during the victim

HE'S only 11. But Joe was caught by the police last Wednesday evening, allegedly for inhalant abuse. It was not his first time. His 13-year-old friend, Pete, was also caught. Joe has three older brothers. One's 15 and already under supervision for inhalant abuse. Another, 17, is in a Reformative Training Centre (RTC) for armed robbery. The eldest brother, 19, lives with his father. His parents are divorced. A reader had alerted The New Paper to a family that had turned a HDB lift lobby into a makeshift home. The "family" was Joe, his mother and 15-year-old brother. Over two days, we observed Joe and his friend loitering in Yishun instead of being in school. They appeared to be constantly drinking out of soft drink cans. It was only after they were caught that it became clear they were not drinking but getting their fix by inhaling a substance in the cans. Inhalant abuse, commonly known as glue-sniffing, usually involves substances like glue, petrol and paint thinner whose vapours can induce a high but have serious health effects on abusers. After reading this article.. I felt sad.. what if he's my brother.. sigh.. my brother age some more..

M'sia's pirated disc-sniffing dog dies: report Manny (above) and another dog Paddy were the latest additions to the world's first anti-piracy canine unit. -- PHOTO: AFP KUALA LUMPUR - A DOG trained to sniff out pirated discs, from a Malaysian unit which criminals have made threats against, has been found dead in the undisclosed location where it was kept, a report said on Sunday. The New Straits Times said that Manny, a one-year-old golden Labrador which arrived in Malaysia in February, died about a week ago and that authorities were trying to determine the cause of death. 'We have sent Manny's body to University Putra Malaysia for a post-mortem,' said Roslan Mahayuddin, the enforcement director of the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry. 'He had not started work yet so I doubt that there was anyone who wanted to harm him,' Mr Roslan said, according to the newspaper. Manny and another dog Paddy were the latest additions to the world's first anti-piracy canine unit. The first dogs in the unit, another pair of Labradors named Lucky and Flo, made headlines last year after uncovering huge stashes of pirated CDs, doing serious damage to the lucrative illegal industry. During a five-month stint during which they sniffed out 1.6 million CDs, leading counterfeiters placed bounties on their heads. Paddy and Manny, donated by the US-based Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), began work in April after spending some time getting used to the climate. The MPAA had reportedly spent 74,500 ringgit (S$31,800) to buy the dogs from Northern Ireland. The dogs are trained to freeze or sit down when they detect polycarbonate and other chemicals used in manufacturing optical discs. Paddy, a black labrador, had been found badly abused by an animal shelter before he was trained. -- AFP http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/...20.html?vgnmr=1