Brazil Nightclub Fire: 245 Dead, Hundreds Injured

A blaze raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing 245 people as the air filled with deadly smoke and panicked party-goers stampeded toward the exits, police and witnesses said. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Witnesses said that a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the fire.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida told local news media that the 245 bodies were brought for identification to a gymnasium in the city of Santa Maria, at the southern tip of Brazil near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay

Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless, young male partygoers joined firefighters in wielding axes and sledgehammers, pounding at windows and walls to break through to those trapped inside. Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately trying to find help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

Silva added that firefighters and ambulances responded quickly after the fire broke out, but that it spread too fast inside the packed club for them to help.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Michele Pereira, another survivor, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage and that the fire broke out after members of the band lit flares.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward. At that point the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak but in a matter of seconds it spread," Pereira said.

Most of the dead apparently suffocated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who raced the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.

He said survivors, police and firefighters told him a flare set by a band member set the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze. "Large amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room and I would say that at least 90 percent of the victims died of asphyxiation," Beltrame told The Associated Press by telephone.

"The toxic smoke made people lose their sense of direction so they were unable to find their way to the exit. At least 50 bodies were found inside a bathroom. Apparently they confused the bathroom door with the exit door."

"In the hospital I saw desperate friends and relatives walking and running down the corridors looking for information. It was one of the saddest scenes I have ever witnessed," he added.

Rodrigo Moura, identified by the newspaper Diario de Santa Maria as a security guard at the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.

Beltrame also said he was told the club was filled far past its capacity during a party for students at the university's department of agronomy. The event featured a group called Gurizada Fandangueira, which plays a driving mixture of local Brazilian country music styles. It was not immediately clear if the band members were among the victims.

The fire led President Dilma Roussef to cancel a series of meetings at a summit of Latin American and European leaders in Chile's capital of Santiago, and was headed to Santa Maria, according to the Brazilian foreign ministry.

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Get cirrus in the fight against climate change

FEATHERY cirrus clouds are beautiful, but when it comes to climate change, they are the enemy. Found at high-altitude and made of small ice crystals, they trap heat - so more cirrus means a warmer world. Now it seems that, by destroying cirrus, we could reverse all the warming Earth has experienced so far.

In 2009, David Mitchell of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, proposed a radical way to stop climate change: get rid of some cirrus. Now Trude Storelvmo of Yale University and colleagues have used a climate model to test the idea.

Storelvmo added powdered bismuth triiodide into the model's troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere in which these clouds form. Ice crystals grew around these particles and expanded, eventually falling out of the sky, reducing cirrus coverage. Without the particles, the ice crystals remained small and stayed up high for longer.

The technique, done on a global scale, created a powerful cooling effect, enough to counteract the 0.8 °C of warming caused by all the greenhouse gases released by humans (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50122).

But too much bismuth triiodide made the ice crystals shrink, so cirrus clouds lasted longer. "If you get the concentrations wrong, you could get the opposite of what you want," says Storelvmo. And, like other schemes for geoengineering, side effects are likely - changes in the jet stream, say.

Different model assumptions give different "safe" amounts of bismuth triiodide, says Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, UK. "Do we really know the system well enough to be confident of being in the safe zone?" he asks. "You wouldn't want to touch this until you knew."

Mitchell says seeding would take 140 tonnes of bismuth triiodide every year, which by itself would cost $19 million.

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At least 55 dead in Venezuela prison riot: hospital

CARACAS: At least 55 people were killed and 90 others wounded in clashes between prison gangs and security guards at a facility in northwest Venezuela, a hospital director said Saturday.

Television images had earlier shown National Guard troops surrounding the Uribana prison in Lara state as inmates in bloody clothes were taken out of the building.

Behind the barriers, relatives of the prisoners -- most of them women -- waited for news of their loved ones, many of them in tears.

"There are 55 dead already in the morgue," hospital director Ruy Medina said Saturday.

Around 30 people were still being treated, he said, adding that the patients are "progressing satisfactorily," and that more would likely be released during the day.

Medina had earlier said that most of those injured had suffered gunshot wounds, and that 14 people had injuries severe enough to require surgery.

He had called the initial death toll of 50 "alarming," saying it was based solely on bodies brought to the hospital.

Prison authorities have not yet released an official figure for the toll of those killed and wounded in the riot, but a press conference is expected later Saturday from Iris Varela, the minister responsible for Venezuela's prisons.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, freshly back in the country after visiting recovering President Hugo Chavez in Cuba, called the riot "regrettable" and "tragic," and said an investigation had been launched.

Varela said the riot was sparked after inmates rebelled when prison authorities launched a sweep of the facility in search of illicit weapons.

Authorities had swept to "completely disarm" the prisoners after receiving a tip-off that prison gangs were readying to fight, she said.

Opposition parties immediately attacked the government, accusing it of exercising lax control over the prison system.

"Who will they blame for this massacre this time around?" opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on Twitter, calling the government "incapable and irresponsible."

Humberto Prado, head of the non-governmental Venezuelan Prison Monitoring Organisation, said the government "had failed to take responsibility for the events" and instead was "piling blame on the media."

The situation in Uribana prison has been monitored by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights since 2006, he added.

"The court told the Venezuelan government that no more inmates should be dying in this jail, but the government did not comply with this request, and now we have such a serious outburst of violence," he said.

Venezuela is notorious for the poor state of its prisons, which suffer from some of the highest levels of overcrowding in Latin America.

Originally built to house 14,000 inmates, the country's prisons now hold almost 50,000 people, often with low sanitary standards and high levels of violence.

In August 2012, at least 25 people were killed and 43 wounded during a clash between rival gangs in Yare I prison near Caracas. In June 2011, dozens died in a riot that erupted at El Rodeo prison.

- AFP/jc

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Oppo BDP-105: Not your average Blu-ray player

The Oppo BDP-105 Blu-ray, SACD, and DVD-Audio player

(Credit:
Oppo)

Even by Oppo's high standards the BDP-105 is an extraordinary Blu-ray player. Sure, it's loaded with up-to-the-second features -- 4K upscaling, 2D-to-3D conversion, and a high-quality USB 2.0 digital-to-analog converter -- but what really makes the Oppo special is the sound. Pop the cover and look inside and you'll see why. Most of the 17-pound component's chassis space is devoted to the audio circuitry. That's nice, but the audio advantages will be completely irrelevant if you connect the BDP-105 to your receiver with a HDMI cable (the digital-to-analog conversion would then be handled in the receiver). The 105 was designed for buyers still using older $1,000 or $2,000 receivers from the days before HDMI connectivity, that would like to hear the Blu-rays' high-resolution DTS Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD soundtracks at their best. Since the audio won't be transmitted over the HDMI cable, you would run audio cables between the 105's seven- or five-channel analog outputs and the AV receiver's analog inputs.

The BDP-105 has 7.1/5.1 analog output jacks

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

Or you could forgo the receiver entirely and hook up the BDP-105 directly to a five- or seven-channel power amplifier. That approach would produce better sound quality, but would lack the connectivity, flexibility, and convenience of today's better receivers. Still, the BDP-105/power amp combo would sound better and be more powerful than most top-of-the-line receivers. The 105's connectivity options won't match any decent receiver, but its connectivity suite is a lot more extensive than most Blu-ray players. The Oppo has two HDMI inputs, so you can connect external devices such as set-top boxes and network streaming devices, three USB 2.0 ports, coaxial and optical digital inputs for satellite boxes, televisions, video-game consoles, etc., and there's a built-in headphone amplifier. The BDP-105's extensive bass management options are on par with a lot of AV receivers. The player's digital volume control is easy to use.

For my listening tests, I hooked up the BDP-105 ($1,199) with an assortment of self-powered Audioengine and Emotiva monitor speakers, and a Hsu subwoofer. With this setup I didn't need to use an AV receiver or separate power amp, but the Raconteurs' "Live at Montreux" Blu-ray was vivid and very live sounding. The system's freewheeling dynamics were really impressive, and the surround mix on King Crimson's "Red" DVD-A projected a remarkably seamless wrap-around soundstage. Each instrument was precisely focused in a near 360-degree sound environment.

The BDP-105 has full speaker setup and bass management options, just like an AV receiver.

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

Classical music on SACD was just as impressive, the front three speakers produced a three-dimensional soundstage with lots of depth, and string tone was top notch. Dramatic movies on Blu-ray and DVD sounded great. I plugged headphones into the BDP-105, but the sound wasn't special, Schiit Audio's $99 Magni headphone amp was a lot better.

The $499 Oppo BDP-103 shares most of the BDP-105's features, but lacks the upgraded digital-to-analog converters, so if you're planning on using HDMI to connect the player to your receiver, buy the 103, and save $700. You can use the 103's 7.1 analog outputs with an old high-end receiver lacking HDMI connectivity, but the 103's digital converters are a step down from the ones in the 105.

The BDP-105 is an update of the Oppo BDP-95, and the new one has lots of features the old player lacks, but the two players sound about the same. Oppo still has 95s in stock and sells them for $799.

Oppo sells direct and offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and the return shipping is free.

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Dung beetles navigate using the Milky Way

Ever look up at the stars and wonder if some bug-eyed creature is doing the same? It turns out at least one does: the dung beetle uses the glow of the Milky Way to navigate.

Once a beetle (Scarabaeus satyrus) has constructed its dung ball, it moves off in a straight line in order to escape from rival beetles as quickly as possible, lest they try and steal its carefully crafted ball. This behaviour doesn't sound complicated, but several years ago, Marie Dacke of Lund University in Sweden and colleagues showed that polarised light from the moon is important for dung beetles to keep to a straight line.

Then the researchers were surprised to find the insects were able to stay on course even on a moonless night. "We thought there was something wrong in our set-up," Dacke says.

The team allowed the beetles to crawl around the floor of a plain-walled cylindrical drum with an open top, meaning they could only use the night sky to orientate themselves. The researchers timed how long it took the beetles to reach the edge of the drum from the centre, and found that under a full moon, the insects took around 20 seconds on average; on a starry but moonless night, they took around 40 seconds.

But when beetles had a cardboard cap placed on them to prevent them from seeing the sky, they needed over two minutes, suggesting the stars were playing a role.

Planetarium clincher

To test this, the team moved the experiment to a planetarium. By switching stars on and off, Dacke discovered that the glowing strip of the whole Milky Way was what guided the beetles' movement. "Before it was assumed insects could not use the stars because their eyes don't have the resolution to see them," she says. Navigating using the whole of the Milky Way does away with the need to see individual stars.

Dacke says the results suggest moths, locusts and other insects might navigate by the Milky Way, too. Her team is now looking at whether the beetles prefer to navigate by the moon or the Milky Way when both are on view.

Journal reference: Current Biology, doi.org/kbm

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Ito: Think twice about immortality and the singularity

MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

(Credit:
screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Ray Kurzweil's vision of the "singularity" -- when nanobots make humans immortal and computer progress is so fast that the future becomes profoundly unknowable -- is a bad idea.

That's the perhaps surprisingly contrary opinion of Joichi Ito, who as a high-tech investor and director of the MIT Media Lab might be expected to be a natural ally. The lab, after all, aims to be at the center of today's technology revolution.

Ito, speaking today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said he believes the singularity vision puts the wrong priorities first.

"I'm on the other side of the singularity guys. I don't think immortality is a good thing," Ito said. People who think about maximizing efficiency "don't think about the ecological, social-network effects. In the future, every science invention we do should be at least neutral," and preferably positive.

"When you introduce immortality, you have to think about what does it do to the system. At the Media Lab, our design principle is not to make the world more efficient, but making the system more resilient, more robust."

Ito called for a radically restructured educational system, too.

"You're training kids to become obedient members of a mass-production society," he said. "But as there's more and more automation, you want people to be more and more creative," like kindergarten when children spend more time playing around, exploring, and teaching each other.

Tests today judge kids in a computer-free testing environment completely unrelated to what's in the real world.

Today, "you can look on the Internet, you can ask your friends," Ito said. "Cheating is actually a feature. Success as an adult is how resourceful you are at getting people to help you do things. Those are all unassessed things" in today's schools and tests.

The MIT Media Lab favors a more unstructured approach. "Our students and faculty can explore whatever they want. We just let them go," he said. "If you're not asking permission and writing proposals, the cost of innovation is very low."

Students can talk about ideas in the morning. "By the afternoon they've built a prototype," he said, especially with the increasing utility of 3D printers.

Ito had grand visions for how those printers will change manufacturing. "We're going to be manufacturing things everywhere instead of centrally. Every single person is going to become a designer," he predicted.

Technology should help people rethink what's possible with cities, he also said. With people able to page buses on demand, bus stops should be created on demand, not fixed in advance. Rentable commuter bicycles should be cheaper to use if people drop them off in high-demand areas.

"We're trying to look at the city from a software perspective and build the hardware around it," Ito said.

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Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic News).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the Web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

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Unplanned Pregnancies Hurt Military Women

Women in the military have access to some of the nation's best health care, which includes free birth control. But a new study shows that many women are not using it and the rate of unintended pregnancy is double that of the general population.

And today, with the Department of Defense having just ended its longtime ban on women serving in combat roles, an unplanned pregnancy could have wider ramifications not only for a woman's health, but for her opportunities for advancement.

An estimated 10.5 percent of active duty women, ages 18 to 44, reported an unplanned pregnancy in the prior 12 months in 2008, the last year for which there are statistics, according to researchers at Ibis Reproductive Health, a nonprofit organization that supports women's sexual and reproductive rights.

That number was higher than in 2005, when the rate was 9.7 percent.

In the non-military population, about 5.2 percent of women of reproductive age report an unintended pregnancy each year, according to the study, published this week in the February issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The Ibis study was based on surveys of more than 7,000 active-duty women; the statistics were obtained from the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act. Rates were equal among those women who were deployed and those serving stateside.

Women make up 202,400 of the U.S. military's 1.4 million active duty personnel; more than 280,000 women have deployed over the last decade to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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"It's terrific that women are getting recognition for their role in combat missions and are being considered for all types of promotions in the armed services," said lead author Kate Grindlay, senior project manager at Ibis. "But for women to reach their potential, they must be able to access birth control for their personal health and well-being."

Military warned to maintain readiness as women move toward combat.

About 900 women had been unable to deploy in the past year due to a pregnancy, either planned or unplanned, according to the study. The highest rates were among younger women with less education who were either married or cohabitating, researchers said.

The authors of the study say that an unwanted pregnancy not only disrupts a woman's military career, but takes a toll on military readiness because pregnant women cannot be deployed or must be evacuated from war zones. They say the military needs to take a more "comprehensive approach" to address the problem.

A July 2012 Ibis study, based on women deployed over the last decade, revealed they face a variety of barriers to accessing contraception.
Women said they did not speak with a military medical provider about birth control before they deployed overseas -- either it was never offered or the woman never asked.

Military policies that forbid sexual activity between fellow service members "led some women to think contraception was not available or not needed," said the report.

Others said they had trouble getting preferred types of birth control -- the IUD, for example -- or adequate supplies before deployment.

"In addition to these access barriers, the high rate of sexual assault in the military also puts women at risk of unintended pregnancy," said the July study.

New documentary explores rape in the military.

Abortions are only provided at military hospitals in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment. A woman must either risk an abortion at a local hospital during deployment or be sent home. Tricare, the military insurance plan, does not cover an abortion.

"Women who are deployed in Iraq wouldn't have any abortion options and must be evacuated and it could compromise confidentiality and access to care," said Grindlay.

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The real lesson from the bird flu storm

The controversy over whether work on airborne H5N1 bird flu can be published shows that transparency is vital to upholding public trust

So the research moratorium on H5N1 bird flu is over. In 2011 I was one of the first journalists to report the discovery that H5N1 bird flu, which is highly lethal in humans, can mutate to become readily transmissible not just in birds but also in mammals like us – while, apparently, remaining lethal.

What happened next shocked the researchers. Publication of the work was blocked, as US biosecurity experts insisted it would be crazy to tell would-be bioterrorists about this. The 39 labs around the world that do this research responded by declaring a moratorium on further work: there's little point doing research you can't publish.

A year later, the US will shortly launch a new review process to address this. This week, the labs said they would soon resume work on whether, and how, a virus now evolving across Eurasia might become an apocalyptic threat to humanity.

This resumption is good news – but there's a proviso. Hypothetical bioterrorists aside, the real worry for many critics is the danger posed by research itself. We don't want labs to inadvertently release the virus we fear.

That doesn't just require stringent containment and more bureaucracy – it means doing experiments only when benefits really outweigh risks. If, as seems likely, all parties involved cannot agree on that, then the whole process should at least be as transparent as possible. Top research officials in the US have been saying this, and that too is good.

Alarming spin

But are researchers as committed to transparency? The H5N1 kerfuffle has been notable for an alarming amount of spin. Details of the findings have been reinterpreted as pressures have mounted. The experience may have left some researchers even less likely to tell us what they're doing.

The story emerged at a flu meeting in Malta in September 2011. Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam reported that he had made H5N1 able to spread between ferrets via airborne droplets, by simply passing it repeatedly between the animals.

This was the $64,000 question in flu research. At present, H5N1 cannot become a human pandemic as it does not spread this way in mammals. But can it evolve this ability? Some virologists said no. Others said it might, but the mutant would not be as lethal.

No such luck. "All the ferrets died," Fouchier told me. "We have to do more to control H5N1." He was clearly upset at the prospect of such a virus evolving naturally; so were other flu researchers at the meeting. I reported it

Fouchier had left out a lot of detail as the research had been submitted to the journal Science, which doesn't allow authors to say much before publication. When he said the ferrets all died, I thought he was referring to the ones that inhaled the virus. In fact those ferrets lived; the ones that died had had that same virus put into their windpipe.

We would have corrected the article had the researchers complained. Maybe it seemed a minor point: the team had also reported that putting a flu virus in a ferret's windpipe was the best test of its danger to humans. The transmissible virus killed in a way that might be relevant to people – that's what mattered. The detail wouldn't have changed our conclusion.

Dangerous or not?

But then the dispute over whether the work could be published blew up, and The New York Times charged that this research was just too dangerous.

In February last year, the researchers' story had changed dramatically. The press had blown things out of proportion. The mutant virus wasn't dangerous. None of the ferrets that inhaled it died, you had to practically shove it into their lungs to kill them. Anyway, animal work doesn't show what will happen in people.

Efforts to portray the transmissible virus as harmless were almost comical. One researcher told me the mutant H5N1 was no biggie – even the 2009 pandemic flu kills in ferrets' tracheas. Ah, but only one in three – the H5N1 killed them all, so not quite the same.

When the research was finally published, none of the spin seemed very relevant. The message of Malta remained: H5N1 became airborne in mammals, and could still kill. That's enough. Yes, this is animal work: if a virus that kills in a ferret's throat, but not in its nose, emerges in nature, we may get lucky. Or maybe we'd best not inhale.

Full transparency

Some defensiveness is understandable if scientists fear work they rightly consider vitally important may be banned. Yet full transparency is the answer. I fear that lesson has not sunk in. After the papers were published, one of the researchers insisted to me that there was no reason why he should ever talk to a journalist; this week that person begged journalists to tell the public the researchers' side of the story, so they wouldn't get this kind of opposition.

That's not how it's done. Transparency is an important safeguard against some who may take excessive risks (it happens) as well as showing the good that scientists do. It must serve both these functions, or no one will believe the good news.

I gave a talk in Malta too, about public communication. I told a roomful of flu researchers the old risk-management saying: strive to be, not trusted, but accountable. I got a lot of blank, angry stares.

This problem won't go away until that gets rueful, knowing nods. It isn't happening yet.

Debora MacKenzie is a consultant for New Scientist based in Brussels

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Keppel Corp's net profit falls 22% on-year in Q4

SINGAPORE: Falling margins from building oil rigs has hit the bottomline of Keppel Corp.

Net profit for the world's leading rig builder fell 22 per cent on-year to S$305 million in the fourth quarter last year.

Still, full year profit for the conglomerate came in 15 per cent to S$2.24 billion.

Despite lower net profit in the three months ended Dec 31, Keppel Corp still declared a final dividend of 27 cents per share.

As part of its 45th anniversary, Keppel Corp is handing out more goodies to its shareholders.

The company has proposed to distribute one Keppel REIT unit for every five Keppel Corp shares.

That is about 27.4 cents per share based on Keppel REIT's closing price of S$1.37 on Thursday.

Together with the interim dividend of 18 cents, total distribution for 2012 will be 72.4 cents per share.

Keppel Corp said the lower net profit was partly due to lower contributions from its offshore and marine unit.

Offshore and Marine's contribution was 12 per cent lower from a higher base in 2011 when margins were at record highs. It contributes to half of Keppel Corp's net profits.

"Keen rivalry from Chinese and Korean yards have suppressed prices and squeezed margins on newbuilds," said Choo Chiau Beng, chief executive officer at Keppel Corp. "In 2013, we will be completing a record of 22 newbuild units."

Analysts remained upbeat of Keppel's prospects going forward.

They say their financial results still outperformed market expectations.

Keppel Corp expects crude oil prices to stay above US$100 per barrel, supporting the need for more global exploration and production.

But global challenges like the slower US economy and the eurozone crisis from last year will continue to pose uncertainties for Keppel Corp's business.

Keppel Corp's property arm, led by the listed Keppel Land, boosted the group's earnings.

Net profit for the property division was 2.5 times higher than in 2011, offsetting the lower earnings from business in the offshore and marine, and infrastructure.

But Keppel Corp does not expect its property arm to perform better this year.

This is because recognition from sales of completed units at its development Reflections at Keppel Bay is expected to be lower this financial year.

- CNA/xq

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