Medical students in Malaysian university brainwashed into quitting

PETALING JAYA: A group of medical students from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, one of the biggest universities in Malaysia, has allegedly been brainwashed into leaving their studies by a Buddhist monk.

The student Buddhist association from the campus in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, had voiced its concern that around 30 medical students had shown behavioural changes and disinterest in their studies after returning from a trip to Thailand with the monk in August, the Star newspaper cited Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia lay adviser Chong Hung Wang as saying.

Decision on PPSMI final, says DPM

KUALA LUMPUR: Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said today that the government’s decision to abolish the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) is final.

“The matter is closed. I can say that as of this year, PPSMI is not here anymore; we have started a new policy. Maybe people have misunderstood, we’re now actually looking at the beginning of the soft-landing of the MBMMBI (Upholding the Malay Language, Strengthening the English Language) policy,” he said.

He was speaking to reporters after attending the English Language training mentor programme where Primary Year 1, 2, 3 English teachers are being trained by foreign native English-speaking teachers.

“It’s final. Period,” Muhyiddin said, adding that he would be explaining this in more detail tomorrow to finally put the matter to rest. “As far as the government is concerned, we want to put this issue to rest.”

MIC, MCA: Give students a choice

Malaysian Post l KUALA LUMPUR: MIC president G Palanivel today urged the Education Ministry to reconsider its decision to scrap the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI).

He wanted the government not to rush into things but to think over the matter carefully.

“We have to consider the ongoing public’s reaction on this issue.” he said.

Palanivel, who is also the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said the education ministry should carefully listen to the reactions and suggestions from the PIBGs, parents and also the concerned NGOs.

The first Englishwoman who performed the Hajj

Malaysian Post

PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA
by Lady Evelyn Cobbold and Introduction by William Facey & Miranda Taylor,
Hardbound, 351 pages
Published by Arabian Publishing Ltd.
(Available from major online bookstores)

During the 19th century, many women, particularly Englishwomen, were fascinated by the Arab world. Most of these female travelers, like Lucie Duff Gordon, Lady Ann Blunt, Gertrude Bell, Isabelle Eberhardt and Freya Stark, to name but a few, are known to us through their impassioned travelogues.

However, one name, Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867 - 1963) failed inexplicably to achieve a proper recognition. William Facey finally does justice to this remarkable woman, the first British Muslim woman on record to have visited the Holy Cities of Madinah and Makkah and to have written about her pilgrimage.

In the excellent introduction, co-written with Miranda Taylor, Facey highlights for the first time the family link between Lady Evelyn and her great-aunt, the formidable Jane Digby (1807-1881) who was successively Lady Ellenborough, Baroness Venningen, and Countess Theotoky before she married her fourth and last husband, a Syrian Bedouin, Sheikh Abdul Medjuel El Mezrab. With him, she lived happily for 30 years until she died at the age of 74.

Not enough money to make babies

PETALING JAYA: There are more people living in Malaysia today than ever before. At least 28 million people reside within its shores. Selangor and Kuala Lumpur combined take the lion’s share with a total population of 7,136,762.

But these staggering numbers – made public through the Population and Census Report 2010- also highlight a disturbing trend.

We may have more Malaysians today, but we are making less babies. And the economy may have something to do with it.

International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) professor and urban planner Alias Abdullah said that the country’s growth rate was on a steady decline since the 1990s.

Legalised cruelty of animals in our zoos

Malaysian Posts ; From Shenaaz Khan, via e-mail

The extreme level of cruelty perpetrated in Malaysian zoos is not breaking news. These atrocities have rampantly and routinely been practised by zoos across this country with little or no action taken against them. The Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 and its predecessor The Protection of Wildlife Act 1972 mandate the standards of welfare of captive and exhibit animals. Yet animals in zoos, farms and exhibits almost always bear signs of malnutrition and ill-treatment.

Sabah trader crowned Sultan of Sulu

Government-in-exile installs Datu Mohd Akjan as 33rd ruler in a grand ceremony.

KOTA KINABALU: A Sulu government-in-exile has installed local businessman Datu Mohd Akjan bin Datu Ali Muhammad as sultan of the Sulu Archipelago, currently part of the Philippines.

The self-styled Interim Government of the Sultanate of Sulu announced today that the installation ceremony took place last Wednesday in Kampung Likas here.

Akjan claims to be a direct descendent of the last reigning Sultan of Sulu, Paduka Mahasari Maulana al-Marhum Sultan Shariful-Hashim.

The Prime Minister of the interim government, Datu Albi Ahmad Julkarnain, said in a statement issued here that Akjan became Sulu’s 33rd sultan after taking his oath of allegiance in front of 60 witnesses, including “senior officials” of the sultanate.

Angler's horror find

PETALING JAYA - A MAN who was fishing at a river in Kota Damansara here decided to take a closer look at a dumped bag and was shocked to see a small hand sticking out of the bag.

The man quickly alerted the police who discovered the body of a newborn baby girl inside the bag at 11.30am. Petaling Jaya OCPD Assistant Commissioner Arjunaidi Mohamed said judging from the condition of the body and the umbilical cord, the baby was a day old.

Hello Mr. Sultan !! “I couldn’t care less, I’m partying"

Malaysian Muslims Party on Despite Religious Crackdown

Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 33, was sentenced to six lashes of the cane for drinking beer.

Kartika’s sentence was commuted to community service, please ask the Sultan of Pahang... Why he amended the rules of God???

Muslims to avoid ManU jersey

KUALA LUMPUR - MUSLIMS must not wear the famous Manchester United red jersey because of the 'devil' emblem on its team crest, Malaysian clerics said on Wednesday.

Manchester United and the rest of the English Premier League are massively popular in Muslim-majority Malaysia and the rest of the Asian region, but conservative religious scholars said the jersey is un-Islamic.

The headmaster who sleeps at school

Liu spends some of his nights each week in his bedroom located inside the school. Photo courtesy: Sin Chew Daily

BUKIT PELANDOK, Negeri Sembilan: A headmaster treats his school as his second home, and has been literally living in the school three days in a week. As a result, students' parents can look for him day or night.

If the prison walls could talk

By D. RAJ and JOSEPH LOH

The Pudu Prison will soon be torn down to make way for development but the absence of the physical structure will not dim the memory of a jail that holds tales both poignant and spine-chilling.

ONE hundred and fifteen years after it was built, Pudu Prison is set to be torn apart to make way for development. The first stage is the demolishing of a wall for a road widening project, but soon there will be little left to show that a prison once stood there.


Good times at a bad place: From left, Sukhvinder, Pritan and Haji Aziz reminisce about their time in Pudu Prison.

While the physical structure may not be there for long, tales of what went on behind the prison walls will not fade away soon.

An iconic wall will fall.

A section of Pudu Prison wall fronting Jalan Pudu in Kuala Lumpur is expected to be demolished tonight. The 394m wall of the prison, built in 1895 and closed in 1996, was once famous for having the longest mural in the world at 384m. The wall will make way for a road-widening project to ease traffic congestion in the city centre. - BRIAN MOH

Monday June 21, 2010 -

MALAYSIAN minister: 'We have to tell the truth. We're just idiot'

M'sian govt's scholarship woes


KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN minister yesterday said the government did not have the 'capacity' to finance the studies of the growing pool of bright students in the country, reported a news website.

Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said the public would just have to accept the reality of the situation although it was an unpopular decision.

'We have to tell the truth. We just cannot afford it. Just as parents cannot afford to send their children abroad to further their studies, the government cannot afford it,' he was quoted as saying by Malaysian Insider. 'We do not have the financial capacity that permits us to send every good student abroad.'

Hi... pls tell the truth that Barisan Nasional are corrupted..!! Done!!!

Mr Nazri, who is the minister in charge of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships, was explaining the Cabinet's decision eventually to scrap the 1,500 scholarships offered to students for under-graduate studies overseas. He said the government spent billions on scholarships annually and could no longer afford to accommodate the growing pool of bright students.

'There are two things here. One, it is financial capacity. Secondly, it is this: However we do it, whether we reclassify the As that the students get to A+, A and A-, the fact remains that this year alone, the number of students who obtained nine A+ was over 1,200. This means the boys and girls are getting more and more clever and we cannot reduce the number of scholarships we give out by re-grading the As any further,' he said.

As a result, said Mr Nazri, the Cabinet agreed last week that PSD scholarships given to students applying for courses at foreign universities would go only to those pursuing postgraduate courses, and not undergraduate courses.

Message For The Sultans!!!

Nepal ex-king's struggles

KATHMANDU - ONCE worshipped as a divine incarnation, Nepal's deposed king Gyanendra says he is spending his days in darkness like many ordinary citizens because of the frequent power outages in his impoverished country.

Gyanendra, once the owner of several opulent palaces, has been living in a hunting lodge outside Kathmandu after a Maoist revolution forced the abolition of the 239-year-old monarchy and proclaimed Nepal a republic in 2008.

One on many Malaysian Sultan's palace.

Build from the rakyat tears..!!!

The government then took control of many of his palaces, allowing him to live in one of his tin-roofed hunting lodges.

In a televised interview, Gyanendra said he was facing up to 12 hours of power cuts a day.

'Justice has not been given to me,' a pensive-looking Gyanendra told Image television late on Tuesday, wearing a Nepali cloth cap and a loose shirt.

In Malaysia, the rakyat's palace..!! Crying for food..!!

'I think there is room for the government of the day to give a thought to our plight as, well, as common citizens.' He said he had not approached the courts yet to avoid embarrassment to the government. The ex-king's present fortunes are in stark contrast to his stature before the Maoist-led government came to power in 2008. -- REUTERS

Asian mums hooked on Net

SINGAPORE - THE Internet is a lifeline for Asian mothers, with a survey finding two-thirds use it to shop for themselves and their children and an even bigger number going online to research purchases and talk about them.

The study, by Microsoft Advertising and Starcom MediaVest Group, showed that mothers ultimately hold the purse-strings in the region, influencing purchasing decisions ranging from household staples to big-ticket items such as cars. And their resource of choice to make these purchases is the Internet, with 58 per cent saying they used online networks and online customer reviews before actually buying.

"Mums have become the one-stop shop for family purchases, and brands need to be aware of this influence," Kenneth Andrew, managing director of Microsoft Advertising Greater Asia Pacific, told reporters. "Mothers are becoming increasingly digitally savvy, and conversely, much more cynical of advertising."

The survey was based on interviews with about 3,000 mothers in eight markets -- China, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. The respondents ranged from pregnant women to mothers with teenage children.

On average, the survey found that Asian mothers spend 17 hours a week online, and the sites they visited ranged from those offering media, such as music and video download sites, to social networks, to sites specifically catered to children.

But largely, the online activities of mothers depended on the age of their children, with expectant women relying on sites that allow them to interact with other mothers, while those with older children rely on the web for email and searches. -- REUTERS

Problems come from within the Catholic Church

LISBON - POPE Benedict XVI said on Tuesday that the Church's 'truly terrifying' problems come from sin within the institution, in his strongest comments yet on sexual abuse by priests as he began a visit to Portugal.

'Today, we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but from the sin within the Church itself,' the pope said on the plane taking him to Lisbon for the four-day tour.

The 83-year-old pontiff did not refer directly to the crisis once on Portuguese soil, where he celebrated open air mass in front of some 80,000 people, Pope Benedict said during his homily at the giant gathering on the banks of the Tagus river.

Tens of thousands of families, teenagers and the elderly gathered in the Portuguese capital to greet the pope, and in many cases offer support to the Catholic leader as he battles the Church's biggest crisis in decades. In his comments, the strongest yet on the issue from Pope Benedict, he said the victims' need for justice had to take priority. The Church had a 'profound need' to 'learn forgiveness and also the necessity of justice,' but he underlined that 'forgiveness does not replace justice'.

'He has always said there needs to be justice,' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters later. US victims' support group dismissed the comments as meaningless and a poor substitute for action. 'There is no action,' said Barbara Blaine, founder and president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

'Previous to this, he was pointing fingers at the press, saying you were anti-Catholic. He said victims who spoke up were engaging in petty gossip... He may have stopped that extreme pointing of fingers, but he hasn't taken any action that will protect children,' Ms Blaine told AFP. -- AFP

Bad habits can age you by 12 years, study suggests

CHICAGO - Four common bad habits combined — smoking, drinking too much, inactivity and poor diet — can age you by 12 years, sobering new research suggests.

The findings are from a study that tracked nearly 5,000 British adults for 20 years, and they highlight yet another reason to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Overall, 314 people studied had all four unhealthy behaviors. Among them, 91 died during the study, or 29 percent. Among the 387 healthiest people with none of the four habits, only 32 died, or about 8 percent.

The risky behaviors were: smoking tobacco; downing more than three alcoholic drinks per day for men and more than two daily for women; getting less than two hours of physical activity per week; and eating fruits and vegetables fewer than three times daily.

These habits combined substantially increased the risk of death and made people who engaged in them seem 12 years older than people in the healthiest group, said lead researcher Elisabeth Kvaavik of the University of Oslo.

The study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.

The healthiest group included never-smokers and those who had quit; teetotalers, women who had fewer than two drinks daily and men who had fewer than three; those who got at least two hours of physical activity weekly; and those who ate fruits and vegetables at least three times daily.

"You don't need to be extreme" to be in the healthy category, Kvaavik said. "These behaviors add up, so together it's quite good. It should be possible for most people to manage to do it."

For example, one carrot, one apple and a glass of orange juice would suffice for the fruit and vegetable cutoffs in the study, Kvaavik said, noting that the amounts are pretty modest and less strict than many guidelines.

The U.S. government generally recommends at least 4 cups of fruits or vegetables daily for adults, depending on age and activity level; and about 2 1/2 hours of exercise weekly.

Study participants were 4,886 British adults aged 18 and older, or 44 years old on average. They were randomly selected from participants in a separate nationwide British health survey. Study subjects were asked about various lifestyle habits only once, a potential limitation, but Kvaavik said those habits tend to be fairly stable in adulthood.

Death certificates were checked for the next 20 years. The most common causes of death included heart disease and cancer, both related to unhealthy lifestyles.

Kvaavik said her results are applicable to other westernized nations including the United States.

June Stevens, a University of North Carolina public health researcher, said the results are in line with previous studies that examined the combined effects of health-related habits on longevity.

The findings don't mean that everyone who maintains a healthy lifestyle will live longer than those who don't, but it will increase the odds, Stevens said.