Earth Hour!

In support of Earth Hour

Kuala Lumpur during Earth Hour *courtesy of Google Images

Earth Hour was yesterday and I am very happy to state that my family and I have decided to close the lights for an hour to show our support for the second time-all of which were initiated by my little cousin aged 10 and my little sister aged 15.

Yet, WWF Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma urged the people of our country to go beyond simply switching off the lights. Instead of living Earth Hour for every year, let’s live it every day.

Let this be an opportunity to change our lifestyle and our resolutions. This can be done by trying to conserve energy, minimise wastage and encourage preservation and sustainability. We can try to better ourselves every day with the usage of the Earth’s sources and minerals. If we do something this little every day, it will turn into something big that can change the world.

About six million Malaysians took part in last year’s Earth Hour with Tenaga Nasional Bhd recording a 550MW drop in electricity usage, which was equivalent to the usage of about 14 million 40-watt fluorescent bulbs.

I was very happy that my 10 year old cousin was the one that encouraged us to shut off the lights last night. If all the children are educated of the importance of conserving energy, there might be a chance for preservation his children and his children’s children.

Man Ate Boy's Brain To Cure Illness

Throughout my whole years of living, I have heard some insane stories about strange medicine used to cure illnesses. But in our modern world, with our recent technological advances and professional doctors, never have I thought that a man would actually succumb into eating a child’s brain to cure his epilepsy.

Yes, recently a man in China brutally murdered an eleven year old boy named Li Xuetang because he believed that eating a mixture of a human’s brain, earthworms and ants would cure his illness.

This was taken from Wikipedia:
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, with almost 90% of these people being in developing countries. Epilepsy is usually controlled, but cannot be cured with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as syndromic with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.

The body of the boy named Li Xuetang was found buried in grain field in a neighbouring village. The village leader, Wang Wenzhong also found two stained rocks and some fractured bones before he discovered the corpse. The Sun reported that the top of the child’s head was peeled back and parts of his brain were removed.

His mother named Yu Chaohu, tried to see the body of her son but it was too badly damaged. She said that she was anxious that her son did not come home for dinner that night. She even asked the village head to broadcast on the radio in order for her son to come home. The next few hours, his body was found.

The murderer-now known as Wang Chaoxu was arrested by the authorities. Wang was said to have married a nurse, but she left him because with his illness, he was not able to work. This might have driven him to do the irrational thing in order to cure his illness and to save his marriage.

In other news, a three-year-old girl was found dead in a public toilet with a knife cut to her head. The Police are investigating if whether these cases are interconnected. How could someone succumb to such level, brutally murdering children for their satisfaction? These children do not deserve this ending that I believe will shatter the lives of their family members forever. Therefore, take care of your children before they become the next meal.

Congratulations For The New E! Entertainment Presenters!

Tonight is the grand debut of our two new E! News Asia presenters! Marion Caunter and Dominic Lau have won the dream job fantasized by millions. Being the Asian version of the world renowned hosts-Ryan Seacrest and Giulliana Rancic for the E! Entertainment Channel.

This has been a splendid choice as the duo complements each other perfectly. Marion Caunter has hosted plenty of TV shows and it makes complete sense that they chose this outspoken and bubbly beauty. Dominic Lau (VJ Dom) of Channel V fame is also an outstanding star on his own, taking over the TV waves with his charismatic charms and good looks.

Both of these outstanding individuals cannot believe that both their dreams are coming true. Marion previously said that the duo joked about going on E! and replacing Seacrest and Rancic- now their chance is going to come true.

The auditions were opened to the public and stars did not hesitate to participate. Marion has successfully beaten Nur Fazura and Sazzy Falak-just to name a few for the spot as the female presenter.

“Dom and Marion really stood out among all the people who auditioned. We were looking for a variety of qualities and they had everything we were looking for and, on top of it, they had something special as well,” said Christine Fellowes, managing director for Comcast International Media Group (CIMG), Asia Pacific.

Congratulations to the duo and I strongly believe that they will deliver well and will not disappoint the ever-loving fans of this TV show.

E! News Asia premieres tonight. 9.30 p.m. on channel 712.

Download Cap Suspended

TM Net has suspended the download cap on their high-speed broadband services. This is due to the public’s feedback on the cap.

Many voiced out their opinion over the website ‘Twitter’ about their dissatisfaction with TM Net’s performance. The users were extremely disappointed because the cap would restrict the amount of data the users can download via the high speed broadband service each day. They were also disappointed to learn that if the cap was exceeded, their connections would be shot down to about 10% of the purchased speed.

Therefore they cancelled the download cap but still enforce a download limit to ensure that everybody received the same amount of service.

Ban Street Festivities!

Festivities are meant as a celebrated event. In the spirit of 1Malaysia, these festivities are supposed to be enjoyed by everyone- no matter whether they are involved firsthand or not. Regrettably, some of these ‘street celebrations’ have interfered with the daily rituals of several residents.

When certain communities performed their religious acts like offering feasts of food to honour the dead, they performed it in front of other people’s houses. The whole process of cutting, cooking, washing and cleaning is done in front of those houses. The whole neighbourhood reeks of stagnant smells of food that are not cleared thoroughly even after the whole celebration is finished.

This deeply disrupts the residents and denies them from the comfort of their own home. They might stand the noise but the odours are a different story. It is understandable that they are having a celebration and there is nothing wrong in enjoying the festivities but I do not think it is wise to perform these activities in front of other people’s homes. The geographical factors need to be determined properly. It is hoped that the authorities act fast.

*The issue was taken from an e-mail. I am seconding the issue as an effort to help these residents have their rights voiced out.

Slum Dwellers Increased

The United Nations Habitat is an agency specialized in working out policies with the government to move people out of slum areas to improved living conditions. This effort is primarily focused on the developing countries.

The UN-Habitat reports that the number of slum dwellers have increased in the 10 years to a total of 827.6 million worldwide. "The progress made on the slum target has not been enough to counter the growth of informal settlements in the developed world," UN-Habitat said in its annual report. The report also states that the efforts are not adequate to eliminate the recurring problem.

The UN-Habitat have done their best and with their efforts have resulted people moving out of the slums but there have been new slum dwellers that appeared sometime during 2000 to 2010. There have been as estimation of 227 million that were moved out of the slums thanks to this movement and yet, more slum dwellers are at rise.

Some of the nations that have experienced reduce in their slum settlements are India, China and Brazil with 59.7 million, 65.3 and 10.4 million respectively. Other countries are inclusive of Indonesia and Vietnam. African nations that did well were Morocco and Egypt. These reductions also happened in Latin America, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru.

Even though the UN and the government have tried their best in helping the unfortunate achieving better living opportunities, more and more slum dwellers are recurring. This may require extra efforts by the UN and the government. Awareness of this oppressing problem must also be done in creating more forces to help out.

A Special Treat For Poor SPM Results

I love the idea that the Education Ministry and the Human Resources Ministry had teamed up to figure out the best solution in order to help those who did poorly in the 2009 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).

The objective of this plan is to ensure that these students still have the necessary skills that are vital in order for them to prepare themselves for the outside world.

At the 2009 SPM Excellence Awards, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is the current education minister, says that “The Education Ministry will not sideline schools which obtained less than encouraging results,” This would mean that everybody would have a fair chance at getting help.

At the event, Tan Sri Muhyiddin presented certificates of appreciation to 10 schools with stellar SPM performance. The school achievements were categorised as excellent, good, and satisfactory. He adds that this enables the principals of the respective schools to understand the position of the school and what is needed to be done in order to increase the performance of the students.

He also gave awards to 16 students with excellent academic performance. Four of which are with physical disabilities and two are from sport schools. He applauded and strengthens the fact that disabilities and sports are certainly not limitations or barriers in achieving excellence.

These students are indeed heroes and should be the source of inspiration for other students preparing to face their SPM examinations this year. Good luck!

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I would like to add that throughout all my years at school, I understood that the students whom failed their examinations-mostly have very personal issues and certainly are not daft. Some have money troubles, family problems and some were fairly distracted with unnecessary dilemmas. And at an age of 17, most of these teenagers do not know how to deal with such things and therefore gave up in their studies. All they need is the right guidance, another chance and a sense that someone out there still believes in them. How do you find diamonds if you don’t polish the stones? It is great that the Education Ministry realizes this and gives these distraught individuals a second chance at hope.