My husband and I are full-time students, ex-military and taking advantage of the G.I. Bill. We're looking for jobs, but my parents have threatened not to speak to me if we take jobs closer to his parents. I'm trying to be fair to both sets of parents, but we can't stay unemployed because of this issue. We have a family to support.

I tried reasoning with them, but I'm unsure how to proceed. Dad called and offered my husband a job in my hometown. We declined because if we accept, they will expect us to live near them. Please tell me what to do. I don't want my family to fall apart any more than it already has. -- SMOTHERED IN THE SOUTH

DEAR SMOTHERED: If you feel smothered now, imagine how it would be if you and your husband were economically dependent on your parents. No part of your lives would be separate from them, and you would be completely under their control. Holding the family together is not your responsibility, and you should not sacrifice your independence in an attempt to do so.

Your parents' emotional blackmail has already driven away two of your sisters and their families. I assume you have relationships with your siblings. I'm advising you to maintain them and live your own lives. With time, your parents may realize they haven't isolated their children; they have isolated only themselves.

DEAR ABBY: Today I saw a former classmate I hadn't seen in 22 years. He always seemed a little slow and different from the rest of us, and he was picked on at school because of it. When I said hello to him and reminded him of my name and that we went to school together, he said, "You danced with me at prom, and I always thought that was so nice!" I had forgotten that I had danced with him, but obviously, the fact that I did meant something to him.

My parents raised me to be nice to everyone, even if they weren't in my circle of friends. I'm not claiming that I was a saint in school, but I did try to stand up for people who were being picked on.

I wanted to share with your readers that any act of kindness probably means more than you know to the other person. I will be sharing my parents' message of kindness with my own daughter, and I hope other parents read this and do the same. -- PASSING IT ON IN OHIO

DEAR PASSING IT ON: Thank you for a wonderful letter. Your lesson in compassion is one that all parents should discuss with their children.

DEAR ABBY: I'm an 18-year-old girl who will be job searching pretty soon. I have never felt the need to wear makeup in my day-to-day life, but now I'm wondering. Is it unprofessional to go into a workplace sans makeup? Will future bosses think I don't look put-together? I wonder if any other girls my age are having the same confusion. -- READY TO BE OUT THERE

DEAR READY: It depends upon what kind of job you'll be searching for. If you plan to work with the public, you should try to look your best at all times. For your interviews, you should be neatly, but conservatively dressed. And as for makeup, you needn't apply it as though you were going on stage, but a touch of color wouldn't hurt.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

For an excellent guide to becoming a better conversationalist and a more sociable person, order "How to Be Popular." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Popularity Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

Would it be tacky for me to request this of Mom if I tell her why? I don't want to offend anyone, and I know the person who inherits her jewelry will probably pawn or sell it anyway. (I'd also like to keep it on the down low so my partner doesn't find out until the ring is given to him.) What do you think, Abby? -- PHIL IN PENNSYLVANIA

DEAR PHIL: I think what you have in mind is beautiful, and I can't imagine why your partner's mother would object if you raise the subject. Estate planning is a fact of life. However, if she doesn't wish to change her will, and you think the granddaughter is likely to pawn the ring anyway, you could offer to buy it from the granddaughter when the time comes.

DEAR ABBY: Is it proper to invite men to a bridal shower? -- CURIOUS GUY IN MINNESOTA

DEAR CURIOUS GUY: According to Emily Post: "Today, showers are just as likely to include the groom and his male friends."

There's nothing improper about asking men to participate. The purpose of a shower for a bridal couple (or the expected arrival of a baby) is to celebrate the upcoming event and express good wishes. It's also a way to give the couple things they'll need.

DEAR ABBY: I am no advice columnist, but may I offer a few wise words to future brides?

I have been married for 25 years and have never had an argument with my mother-in-law. Never! My mother gave me some valuable advice before my wedding that I'd like to pass along. She said, "Always respect the woman who made the man you love."

I never forgot it, and my MIL has always been welcome in my home for as long as she wishes. If we had any differences, a respectful dialogue was opened right away -- especially if it concerned our kids' education.

We have enjoyed shopping, eating, cooking, parties, caring for newborns and family moments together for as long as I can remember. Sadly, she is now frail and can no longer travel as much as she once could.

The women who made our husbands deserve all the respect we can offer them because if we are happy as wives, it is thanks to all of them. -- SIMONE IN SAN FRANCISCO

DEAR SIMONE: Your mother is an intelligent lady, and so are you for having taken her advice to heart. Because few people are in total agreement about everything, there is much to be learned when adults can air their opinions respectfully. This is true of all human relationships.

Because today is Mother's Day, I would like to wish a happy Mother's Day to mothers everywhere, be they birth mothers, adoptive and foster mothers, stepmothers or grandmothers who are raising grandchildren. I applaud you all.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

Good advice for everyone -- teens to seniors -- is in "The Anger in All of Us and How to Deal With It." To order, send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Anger Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

Fossils of at least five species of vegetarian birdlike dinosaurs known as caenagnathids have been found from West Texas to Canada with wide variation in their beak shapes and body size, giving scientists clues about how the small creatures could coexist by carving out different dietary niches.

Charlesby natural selection was famously inspired by the diversity ofon the Galapagos Islands, which he took as a sign that the birds had somehow adapted to the specific environments where they lived. More recent research has shown that Darwin's finches can evolve quite quickly. For instance, one speciesto better compete with another bird for small seeds in a mere two decades. []

Millions of years ago, different species of caenagnathids may have similarly adjusted their beak size across western North America.

"Each species has a different beak structure. You could have a lot of different species in one environment, because they ate different kinds of foods, which is how different species of Darwin's finches coexist," Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, said in a statement. "So, in a way, the evolution of modern dinosaurs birds provides insight into ancient, extinct dinosaurs."

Fossil collectors in Texas recently found a new species of the turkey-sized dinosaur, dubbed Leptorhynchos gaddisi, in the Aguja Formation near Big Bend National Park. The 75-million-year-old remains of this species suggest it had a more rounded chin and a less upturned beak than its Canadian relative, Leptorhynchos elegans. The short deep mandible of the new species also suggests it ate tougher, more fibrous plants than its neighbors known as Chirostenotes and Caenagnathus, researchers say.

"These are subtle differences, but they mean we're dealing with different species," Longrich said. "If you look at modern birds, one of the things that distinguishes a crow from a raven, or two types of albatrosses from each other, is the beak proportions. We can do the same thing with dinosaurs that we do with modern birds, and identify them using beak shapes."

Considering that small dinosaurs have a poor fossil record in North America, having at least five known specialized species of caenagnathids some of them living side-by-side suggests the group had relatively high diversity, the researchers say.

The findings were detailed April 26 in the Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Follow Megan Gannon onandFollow us ,& . Original article on .

The Dow Jones industrial average was down six points at 15,076 shortly after the opening bell Friday. The Dow is still up 0.7 percent for the week, and 15 percent so far this year.

The Standard & Poor's 500 was down a fraction of a point at 1,626.

The Nasdaq was up seven points at 3,416.

Priceline.com and chip maker Nvidia both rose after reporting higher earnings. Clothing store chain Gap rose after reporting higher sales in April and predicting first-quarter earnings that were higher than analyst expected.

Japanese stocks surged after the dollar rose above 100 yen for the first time in four years.

En su intervencin en la cumbre de pequeos negocios latinos 2013, celebrada en las dependencias de la Cmara de Comercio de EE.UU., Sebelius apel al "liderazgo" de los empresarios para explicar la medida a sus potenciales beneficiarios, quienes, en muchos casos, "no escuchan lo que se dice en Washington".

"Sabemos que hay millones de personas para quienes el idioma supone una barrera. Por ello, necesitamos lderes comunitarios que transmitan, en su lengua, las mejoras que estarn disponibles a partir de este otoo", emplaz la secretaria de Salud a los presentes, en relacin a la nueva etapa del despliegue de la reforma sanitaria el prximo 1 de octubre.

A partir de entonces, los individuos y pequeos negocios tendrn la opcin de acceder a los llamados "intercambios" en el sector privado que, segn ha explicado en varias ocasiones el ejecutivo del presidente, Barack Obama, ofrecern flexibilidad en el tipo y costo de las coberturas mdicas.

"Cuanto ms sanos estn vuestros trabajadores, ms exitosa ser vuestra empresa", asegur Sebelius al auditorio, para recordar despus que "dos quintas partes de los estadounidenses sin seguro mdico tienen entre 18 y 35 aos, y ms de un cuarto de ellos son latinos".

La reforma sanitaria fue promulgada por Obama en 2010 y avalada por el Tribunal Supremo el ao pasado, y, entre otras cosas, pretende que a partir de 2014 la mayora de ciudadanos tenga cobertura mdica.

Se trata de una reforma que ha suscitado polmica desde el principio, especialmente a causa de la disposicin que obliga a los estadounidenses a contratar un seguro mdico so pena de multa, lo que supone, para los crticos -fundamentalmente la oposicin republicana- una intromisin "intolerable" del Estado en las relaciones entre mdico y paciente.

Sebelius sali hoy al paso de las crticas y record que, antes de la reforma (en 2010), "ms del 60 por ciento de las quiebras familiares en EE.UU. tenan relacin con facturas y gastos sanitarios".

"Tenemos una oportunidad histrica. El sistema estaba roto", insisti la secretaria de Salud, quien puso como ejemplo que los pequeos empresarios pagaban "alrededor de un 20 % ms que sus grandes competidores" para garantizar la cobertura mdica de sus empleados.

En la necesidad de hacer llegar las ventajas de la reforma a la comunidad latina coincidi el presidente de la fundacin "The California Endowment", Robert Ross, quien explic que para ello se ha lanzado la campaa en espaol "Asegrate aqu", en colaboracin con medios latinos como Univision o Telemundo.

"Hay siete millones de personas sin seguro mdico en California, y dos tercios de ellos son latinos", indic Ross, para asegurar luego que "el 70 por ciento" de los hispanos de California apoyan la reforma sanitaria.

Por su parte, en declaraciones a Efe, la directora de polticas pblicas de salud de la oficina de la reforma sanitaria, Marya lvarez, explic que la voluntad del departamento de Salud es "educar a los lderes comunitarios para que ellos tengan la informacin correcta y la transmitan a los latinos".

La reforma sanitaria supone el mayor cambio en el sistema de salud en Estados Unidos desde 1965, cuando se cre el Seguro Social y los programas pblicos Medicaid, para personas sin recursos, y Medicare, para la tercera edad y jvenes minusvlidos.

Desde su promulgacin en 2010, la ley se ha aplicado de forma paulatina y la parte ms controvertida entrar en vigor en enero prximo, cuando se exija que casi todos los estadounidenses tengan un plan mdico y que las grandes empresas lo ofrezcan como beneficio, o afronten fuertes multas.

La secretaria de Salud, Kathleen Sebelius, habla ante el Comit de Finanzas del Senado en una audiencia celebrada en el Capitolio. EFE/Archivo

LONDON (Reuters) - Austerity is having a devastating effect on health in Europe and North America, driving suicide, depression and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care, researchers said on Monday.

Detailing a decade of research, Oxford University political economist David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor of medicine and an epidemiologist at Stanford University, said their findings show austerity is seriously bad for health.

In a book to be published this week, the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America.

In Greece, moves like cutting HIV prevention budgets have coincided with rates of the AIDS-causing virus rising by more than 200 percent since 2011 - driven in part by increasing drug abuse in the context of a 50 percent youth unemployment rate.

Greece also experienced its first malaria outbreak in decades following budget cuts to mosquito-spraying programs.

And more than five million Americans have lost access to healthcare during the latest recession, they argue, while in Britain, some 10,000 families have been pushed into homelessness by the government's austerity budget.

"Our politicians need to take into account the serious - and in some cases profound - health consequences of economic choices," said David Stuckler, a senior researcher at Oxford University and co-author The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills

"The harms we have found include HIV and malaria outbreaks, shortages of essential medicines, lost healthcare access, and an avoidable epidemic of alcohol abuse, depression and suicide," he said in a statement. "Austerity is having a devastating effect."

Previous studies by Stuckler published in journals such as The Lancet and the British Medical Journal have linked rising suicide rates in some parts of Europe to biting austerity measures, and found HIV epidemics to be spreading amid cutbacks in services to vulnerable people.

But Stuckler and Basu said negative public health effects are not inevitable, even during the worst economic disasters.

Using data from the Great Depression of the 1930s, to post-communist Russia and from some examples of the current economic downturn, they say financial crises can be prevented from becoming epidemics - if governments respond effectively.

As an example, they say, Sweden's active labor market programs helped the numbers of suicides to fall there during its recession, a big rise in unemployment. Neighboring countries with no such programs saw large increases in suicides.

And during the 1930s depression in the United States, each extra $100 of relief spending from the American New Deal led to about 20 fewer deaths per 1,000 births, four fewer suicides per 100,000 people and 18 fewer pneumonia deaths per 100,000 people.

"Ultimately what we show is that worsening health is not an inevitable consequence of economic recessions. It's a political choice," Basu said in the statement.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Stephen Powell)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday announced its second civil fraud lawsuit against Novartis AG in four days, accusing a unit of the Swiss drugmaker of paying multimillion-dollar kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

Authorities said the Basel-based company for a decade lavished healthy speaking fees and "opulent" meals, including a nearly $10,000 dinner for three at the Japanese restaurant, Nobu, to induce doctors to prescribe its drugs.

They said this led to the Medicare and Medicaid programs paying millions of dollars in reimbursements based on kickback-tainted claims for medication such as hypertension drugs Lotrel and Valturna and the diabetes drug Starlix.

The charges are detailed in a whistleblower lawsuit first filed against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp by a former sales representative in January 2011 and which the U.S. government has now joined.

Twenty-seven U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the cities of New York and Chicago are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which seeks triple damages under the federal False Claims Act.

"Novartis corrupted the prescription drug dispensing process," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement. "For its investment, Novartis reaped dramatically increased profits on these drugs, and Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal healthcare programs were left holding the bag."

On Tuesday, the government accused Novartis of inducing pharmacies to switch thousands of kidney transplant patients to its immunosuppressant drug Myfortic in exchange for kickbacks disguised as rebates and discounts.

Novartis spokeswoman Julie Masow said the company disputes the claims in both lawsuits and will defend itself. She also said physician speaker programs are "an accepted and customary practice" in the industry.

People who file whistleblower lawsuits, sometimes known as "qui tam" lawsuits, on behalf of the government under the False Claims Act share in recovered damages.

The United States does not participate in all such lawsuits, but often joins cases it believes have greater merit.

The original lawsuit against East Hanover, New Jersey-based Novartis Pharmaceuticals was filed by Oswald Bilotta, who now lives in North Carolina. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We believe that Novartis' alleged payment of kickbacks is yet another example of abuse in the pharmaceutical industry that contributes to skyrocketing medical costs," James Miller, a partner at Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller, and Shah in Chester, Connecticut representing Bilotta, said in a statement.

A $9,750 DINNER

According to the complaint, from January 2002 to November 2011, Novartis often paid doctors to speak about its drugs and programs that were supposed to have educational purposes, but which in reality were often social occasions or not held at all.

Authorities said that for Lotrel, Valturna and Starlix alone, the company spent nearly $65 million and conducted more than 38,000 speaker programs over the decade.

The complaint describes a variety of alleged improper programs, including seven at Hooters restaurants that Novartis sales representatives attended, and pricey meals to which Novartis allegedly treated doctors.

Among these meals were dinners at high-end Chicago restaurants such as Japonais and L20, a $2,016 dinner for three at Smith & Wollensky in Washington, D.C. and the $9,750 dinner for three at Nobu in Dallas in December 2005.

Satow, the Novartis spokeswoman, said speaker programs are "promotional programs" designed to inform physicians how to use the company's medicines.

Novartis "invests significant time and resources to help ensure these programs are conducted in an ethical and responsible manner," she said. "We are dedicated to doing it right.

Bilotta filed his lawsuit four months after Novartis in September 2010 agreed to pay $422.5 million to resolve criminal and civil liability over its marketing of several drugs, including the epilepsy drug Trileptal.

The case is U.S. ex rel. Bilotta v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-00071.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Andre Grenon)

(Photo: )

"Over 86% of Africa's population has no Internet access and many live in isolated, impoverished regions, cut off from education, employment and empowerment," said Deborah Plotkin, Founder and Executive Director. "In recent years,have demonstrated that technology can be leveraged to dramatically impact lives in the developing world. Now, we have exciting expansion plans.

"We've gained unique expertise establishing digital centers in challenging regions and we're evolving our model to have even greater, more sustainable global impact. Our centers are becoming hubs that can provide NGOs with IT training resources and businesses with trained employees for outsourced transcription, data entry, graphics, computer repair and other services. They can also serve as Internet cafes for tourists and local people. These revenue-generating services will help sustain and extend the positive cycle of bridging the digital divide."

U-TOUCH established its initial Digital Centers in the rural villages of Northern Uganda, a region ravaged by extreme poverty and rebounding from a horrific civil war, and has graduated over 3000 trainees since 2010. Using their new IT skills, young women and men are being employed for the first time or becoming entrepreneurs, with an income to support their households, children's education, nutrition,healthcare and independence.

Communities where U-TOUCH centers are located saw healthcare workers gain improved diagnostic and treatment skills, and more efficient dissemination of critical health information; students have improved their academic performance, achieved acceptance to universities and found scholarships; and farmers received agricultural information that improves yields and the nutrition of the community.

U-TOUCH wants to join forces with:

Find U-TOUCH on , , and .

About U-TOUCH U-TOUCH () is an innovative social enterprise that is transforming lives in Africa by bridging the global digital divide. It establishes and operates digital centers in isolated, impoverished regions that previously lacked Internet access, leveraging the power of IT to improve education, employment and empowerment. U-TOUCH seeks NGO, business and philanthropic partners to extend the impact to millions of individuals and communities in the developing world. U-TOUCH is a non-profit 501c3 organization.

SOURCE U-TOUCH

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The upheaval in financial markets caused by a false report of explosions at the White House was brief, but its effect on traders who have come to rely on Twitter may last quite a bit longer.

Volatile price moves ricocheted through markets for stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities around 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday after a tweet purporting to be from the Associated Press said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama had been injured.

The move in stocks, described by one futures trader as "pure chaos," briefly wiped out about $140 billion in U.S. market value. When it became clear that the tweet was fake, equities rebounded and more than recovered the losses - the S&P 500 index ended up 1.04 percent.

The episode led some investors and traders to ask whether the increasing domination of high frequency trading means that there is an increasing danger that even highly questionable information can have a more dramatic impact than it ever could in the past.

What jolted investors and traders was the source: The Associated Press, which describes itself as "one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering." The tweet was sent from its "verified" Twitter account.

"If that tweet had come from me, the market would not have crashed 100 points," said Gautam Dhingra, founder and chief executive of hedge fund High Pointe Capital Management LLC in Chicago. "Being a journalist, you have more credibility. The AP has more credibility being a larger and longer-living organization."

The benchmark S&P 500immediately fell about 1 percent before bouncing back. U.S. government debt prices briefly surged and oil and gold markets were also roiled.

The impact quickly started to wear off as traders began to question the veracity of the tweet. Within a few minutes, the AP had told Reuters and other news organizations that the report was "bogus" and the White House confirmed that there had been no explosions and Obama was fine.

But the damage had been done, and it appears to have stirred some soul-searching among traders for whom Twitter has become an important source of information.

The moves echo the May 6, 2010 plunge in markets now known as the "flash crash," when the Dow industrials dropped more than 600 points, eventually piling up a loss of about 1,000 points, in a few minutes before recovering. The precise causes of that plunge have never been clear.

More than 620,000 front-month S&P 500 E-mini futures contracts - the most popularly traded futures contract - and more than 180,000 front-month 10-year Treasury futures contracts changed hands between 1:09 p.m. and 1:12 p.m. EDT (1709 to 1712 GMT) after the tweet.

"All the phones were lighting up on what had been a very quiet day, and there was shouting from other desks," said Art Nolan, an interest-rate futures broker who was on CME Group's Chicago trading floor when the bogus tweet sent stocks reeling.

"All of our customers have every news service, and they had seen the AP print and were calling for confirmation. There was an enormous amount of trading going on in the stocks indexes, and if you are long stocks you could lose three months of your income in a matter of minutes."

Not everyone reacted, however. Paul Sacks, principal gold trader at Aurum Options Strategies in New York, said liquidity dried up as suspicion of the news grew.

"As soon as (gold) started acting a little weird, I pulled all my bids and offers because I wanted to know why something unusual was going on," said Sacks.

In recent months, Twitter hoaxes by anonymous users pretending to be prominent market players have sparked declines in the shares of specific companies, though not the entire market.

But the use of social media is expected to continue to grow, not shrink. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said earlier this month that companies can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to make key announcements, but this latest incident will likely increase investor skepticism about that move.

"It's important for us to understand what happened and make sure no investors were harmed," SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher told Reuters TV.

The SEC's website has a warning that swindlers can use social media "to appear legitimate, to hide behind anonymity, and to reach many people at low cost."

"There have always been rumors that circulate impacting the market," said Kim Rupert, managing director of global fixed income analysis at Action Economics in San Francisco. "It's not that this is new, but just the fact that it's so instantaneous now and it's got such a broad reach. Before it would take a bit of time to circulate the information, but now it's just like, poof!"

Many called for market regulators to do more.

"Hopefully it wakes up the regulator to take action," said Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex, a Winnetka, Illinois-based trading software company that tracks market activity.

Some said such hoaxes may convince traders to take smaller positions during the trading day to minimize potential losses. Traders in the bond futures market said the bid-ask spread widened sharply when the fake tweet went out.

The events come after investors were already on edge after two fatal explosions last week at the Boston Marathon led to a lockdown and manhunt in Boston. One suspect died and another was arrested.

"We see this every time this type of news comes out: Liquidity evaporates quickly," said Dennis Dick, proprietary trader at Bright Trading LLC in Las Vegas.

"High-frequency traders cancel their orders on even one little tweet. We need other participants to make sure this kind of volatility doesn't happen and we don't anymore. The market isn't built for this kind of market impact. I can't imagine a 9/11 event in this type of environment."

(Reporting By Doris Frankel in Chicago, Ann Saphir in San Francisco, and David Gaffen, Herb Lash and Caroline Valetkevitch in New York; Editing by Martin Howell and Leslie Gevirtz)

World number seven Oosthuizen will be the highest-ranked player at the 2.2 million euros ($2.87 million) European Tour event, which is co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour.

The two Americans pulled out of the event against a backdrop of political tension as North Korea threatened nuclear attacks on the United States, South Korea and Japan after new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear test in February.

Sponsors of the European Tour event said in a statement on Monday: "They have reached this decision following perceived unrest on the Korean peninsula".

While the situation has eased in recent days, the South's Yonhap News agency reported on Sunday that the North had moved short-range missile launchers to its east coast, indicating it was pushing ahead with preparations for a test launch.

"It was a personal decision the two of them made not coming here and ... you can't really give them any hard time about it," Oosthuizen told a news conference, adding "... both of them made the decision with their families not to come.

Oosthuizen, who flew from his home in Florida to South Korea on a private jet provided by organisers, said he had consulted his management before deciding to come.

"I took the word of the guys that, everything is fine over here and ... I was looking forward to the week and I think something drastically needed to go wrong for me, for me not to come, and, yes, I'm glad I came," he added.

Oosthuizen missed the cut at the Masters earlier this month and said he had to tighten things up around the greens.

"My short game really let me down at the Masters as my putting wasn't good enough. I had far too many putts, and ended up missing the cut by two," he said.

"I hit it okay. It was not great, but not terrible either. The greens just got the better of me for the two days. But it hasn't knocked my confidence too much, and I still feel good about this week."

Former U.S. PGA Championship winner Yang Yong-eun of South Korea, 1999 British Open winner Paul Lawrie and former European Ryder Cup player Paul Casey will also be chasing victory in the event, which kicks off on Thursday.

($1 = 0.7683 euros) (Reporting by Reuters TV, writing by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by Peter Rutherford)