The unfortunate ones of Ladang Bukit Jalil

PETALING JAYA: There is something whimsical about Ladang Bukit Jalil. The houses still have chimneys, and the roads that lead to these homes look like something out of an Enid Blyton book. The houses are simple, but spacious and sitting inside one of them will make you oblivious to the scorching heat. It seems an idyllic, placid place; nothing about it says that the 41 families residing there are in danger of losing their homes.

But today, however, they have chosen fun over fret, forgetting the bulldozers, local authorities and the police, just to mention a few of their daily concerns. Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) is invoking the Emergency Ordinance (1969) to evict the 41 families who still reside there, which their lawyer claims is illegal as they are licensed former estate workers.

Malacca becomes Malaysia's first smoking-free city

MALAYSIAN POST : The state has become the first in the country to gazette five areas - including the entire districts of Alor Gajah and Jasin - as no-smoking zones. -- ST PHOTO: MALCOLM MCLEOD

MALAYSIAN POST : KUALA LUMPUR - THE Malaysian world heritage city of Malacca will be smoke-free from June 15, a first for the country, the health minister said on Monday.

The move was to bring in more tourists and help stamp out smoking in a country where the habit is widespread, Liow Tiong Lai told AFP, insisting it would also help preserve the city.

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.

Asian population surged 43% in the US over last decade

Malaysian Post : NEW YORK: The size of the population of Asian descent in the United States has surged 43% in the last decade, according to the latest census data released by the US government.

In absolute terms, the Asian population increased from 10.2 million in 2000 to about 14.7 million in 2010, census officials said.

Asians now account for about 5% of the nation’s total population.

Tower plan under siege

A bird's eye view of Stadium Merdeka (right) and Stadium Negara (dome-shaped roof) where the 100-storey skyscraper is proposed to be built beside the two stadiums in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. -- PHOTO: AP


KUALA LUMPUR - THE Malaysian government faced mounting opposition Wednesday to a US$1.6 billion (S$2.1 billion), 100-story skyscraper plan, with critics slamming the government-backed project as an unnecessary extravagance at a time of belt-tightening and rising prices.

Bakun Dam has no genuine economic purpose

News publications have been chewing over the figures as Bakun waits to be flooded and have come to some inevitable, long-predicted conclusions.

Firstly, the Dam has no genuine economic purpose. Sarawak already has more electricity than its impoverished population can afford to use and the plans to send it to Malaysia by undersea cable was a fantasy by technology-illiterate ministers.

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 -

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.

Earth may collide with Venus

Orbital chaos may cause our Solar System to go haywire, leading to possible collision between Earth and Venus or Mars. -- PHOTO: AP

PARIS - A FORCE known as orbital chaos may cause our Solar System to go haywire, leading to possible collision between Earth and Venus or Mars, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The good news is that the likelihood of such a smash-up is small, around one-in-2500. And even if the planets did careen into one another, it would not happen before another 3.5 billion years.

Indeed, there is a 99 per cent chance that the Sun's posse of planets will continue to circle in an orderly pattern throughout the expected life span of our life-giving star, another five billion years, the study found.

Using powerful computers, Mr Laskarand colleague Mickael Gastineau generated numerical simulations of orbital instability over the next five billion years.

Unlike previous models, they took into account Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Over a short time span, this made little difference, but over the long haul it resulted in dramatically different orbital paths.

The researchers looked at 2,501 possible scenarios, 25 of which ended with a severely disrupted Solar System. 'There is one scenario in which Mars passes very close to Earth,' 794 kilometres (493 miles) to be exact, said Laskar.

'When you come that close, it is almost the same as a collision because the planets gets torn apart.'Life on Earth, if there still were any, would almost certainly cease to exist.

The key to all the scenarios of extreme orbital chaos was the rock closest to the Sun, found the study.

'Mercury is the trigger, and would be be the first planet to be destabilised because it has the smallest mass,' explained Mr Laskar. At some point Mercury's orbit would get into resonance with that of Jupiter, throwing the smaller orb even more out of kilter, he said.

Once this happens, the so-called 'angular momentum' from the much larger Jupiter would wreak havoc on the other inner planets' orbits too. -- AFP

$1b to green S'pore

THE Government on Monday unveiled a sweeping $1 billion blueprint for Singapore's sustainable development over the next 20 years, which covers broad areas from the way Singaporeans live to the way businesses will run.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee for Sustainable Development (IMCSD), set up in January last year, announced its findings and detailed goals for the next 10 to 20 years.

Speaking at a media conference, Minister for National Development and co-Chair of the IMCSD Mah Bow Tan said: 'Sustainable development can only be achieved through long-term attention and effort. We must act now.

'As individuals, we must be prepared to change the way we live, work, play and commute. As a nation, we have to invest to develop new technologies and alternative sources of energy.'

Noting that the economic situation has changed dramatically since the committee was set up, Mr Tan said: 'The temptation is to slow down our efforts in the area of sustainable development while we tackle the immediate economic challenges. However, the two are not mutually exclusive.'

Singapore will also continue to invest in the clean technology industry that will help green urban cities. This will contribute some $3.4 billion to Singapore's GDP and create 18,000 jobs by 2015.

The other IMCSD co-chair, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, said that the concrete targets set out in the blueprint 'reflects how serious we are about sustainable development.'

'These targets will be reviewed regularly, as technology improves and the cost-effectiveness of measures changes,' he added.

Dr Yaacob also emphasised the role that all Singaporeans must play and how this could have a global impact, noting that that 'achieving our goals will require a whole-of-nation effort.'

Over the past year, members of the public and leaders of non-governmental organisations, businesses, grassroots organisations, academia, and media have contributed to the blueprint. More than 700 people gave their views through various focus group discussions, and members of the public submitted over 1,300 suggestions.

Asia acts against flu threat

South Korea said it would increase the number of its influenza virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the US -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

ASIAN nations have started taking measures, including quarantines and screening passengers at airports, to combat the the threat of a deadly swine flu which has killed 103 in in Mexico and stoked fears of a global epidemic as new cases cropped up in the United States and Canada.

Some have warned citizens against non-essential travel to North America while others tightened rules on pork imports.

Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors who came back from flu-affected areas with fevers would be quarantined. China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival from an affected area had to report to authorities. A Russian health agency said any passenger from North America running a fever would be quarantined until the cause of the fever is determined.

Tokyo's Narita airport installed a device to test the temperatures of passengers arriving from Mexico.

New Zealand health officials started screening passengers arriving at Auckland International Airport from the United States and other parts of North America.

Indonesia increased surveillance at all entry points for travelers with flu-like symptoms - using devices at airports that were put in place years ago to monitor for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, and bird flu.

Malaysia is looking at vaccinating its pig farmers as well as doctors and nurses on the ground. Hong Kong and South Korea warned against travel to the Mexican capital and three affected provinces. Italy, Poland and Venezuela also advised their citizens to postpone travel to affected areas of Mexico and the United States.

Symptoms of the flu-like illness include a fever of more than 37.8 deg C, body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhoea.

The virus is usually contracted through direct contact with pigs, but Joseph Domenech, chief of animal health service at U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency in Rome, said all indications were that the virus is being spread through human-to-human transmission.

No vaccine specifically protects against swine flu, and it is unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer.

Russia banned the import of meat products from Mexico, California, Texas and Kansas. South Korea said it would increase the number of its influenza virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the US.

China has also joined the fray and banned the import of hog and pork products from Mexico and parts of the US. -- REUTERS, AFP.

Major rivers drying up

WASHINGTON - RIVERS in some of the world's most populated regions are losing water, many because of climate change, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Affected rivers include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.

When added to the effects from damming, irrigation and other water use, these changes could add up to a threat to future supplies of food and water, the researchers reported in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

'Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases,' Aiguo Dai of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study, said in a statement.

'Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern.' Dai's team looked at records of river flow in 925 big rivers from 1948 to 2004, finding significant changes in about a third of the world's largest rivers.

Rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by 2.5 to 1, they said. For instance, annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about 6 per cent, or 526 cubic kilometres - about the equivalent volume of water that flows out of the Mississippi River each year.

Annual river flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about 3 per cent during the 56-year period, or 140 cubic kilometres. The Columbia River in the US Northwest lost about 14 percent of its volume from 1948 to 2004, largely because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage in the West, Dai's team said.

But the Mississippi River drains 22 per cent more water because of increased precipitation across the US Midwest since 1948, they said. Annual discharge from melting ice into the Arctic Ocean also rose about 10 per cent, or 460 cubic kilometres.

'Also, there is evidence that the rapid warming since the 1970s has caused an earlier onset of spring that induces earlier snowmelt and associated peak streamflow in the western United States and New England and earlier breakup of river-ice in Russian Arctic rivers and many Canadian rivers,' the researchers wrote.

'As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on,' said NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, who worked on the study. -- REUTERS

Earth-sized planet found

HATFIELD (England) - IN A discovery that one expert called 'extraordinary', European astronomers reported finding one planet close to Earth's size in a different solar system and realizing that another planet could possibly sustain a large ocean.

European researchers said on Tuesday that not only had they found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but they realized that a neighbouring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.

'The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'' said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.

Exoplanets are planets outside our solar system. Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of Earth - while previous planets found outside our solar system are closer to the size of massive Jupiter, which NASA says could swallow more than 1,000 Earths.

Gliese 581 e sits close to the nearest star, making it too hot to support life. Still, Mr Mayor said its discovery in a solar system 20 light years away from Earth is a 'good example that we are progressing in the detection of Earth-like planets.'

Scientists also discovered that the orbit of planet Gliese 581 d, which was found in 2007, was located within the 'habitable zone' - a region around a sun-like star that would allow water to be liquid on the planet's surface, Mr Mayor said.

He spoke at a news conference on Tuesday at the University of Hertfordshire during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.

Fellow astronomer and team member Stephane Udry said Gliese 581 d is probably too large to be made only of rocky material, adding it was possible the planet had a 'large and deep' ocean.

'It is the first serious 'water-world' candidate,' Mr Udry said. Mr Mayor's main planet-hunting competitor, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, praised the find of Gliese 581 e as 'the most exciting discovery' so far of exoplanets.

'This discovery is absolutely extraordinary,' Mr Marcy told The Associated Press by e-mail, calling the discoveries a significant step in the search for Earth-like planets. -- AP.

Spam 'produces 17m tons of CO2'

A study into spam has blamed it for the production of more than 33bn kilowatt-hours of energy every year, enough to power more than 2.4m homes.

The Carbon Footprint of e-mail Spam report estimated that 62 trillion spam emails are sent globally every year.

This amounted to emissions of more than 17 million tons of CO2, the research by climate consultants ICF International and anti-virus firm McAfee found.

Searching for legitimate e-mails and deleting spam used some 80% of energy.

The study found that the average business user generates 131kg of CO2 every year, of which 22% is related to spam.

Unwanted traffic

ICF say that spam filtering would reduce unwanted spam by 75%, the equivalent to taking 2.3 million cars off the road.

However, the ICF goes on to say that while spam filtering is effective in reducing energy waste, fighting it at the source is far better.

The report highlights the case of McColo , a US web hosting firm that had ties to spammers. The day after it was taken offline by its two internet service providers, global spam volume fell by 70%.

Although the respite was only temporary, McAfee said the "day without spam amounted to talking 2.2 million cars off the road" and that tackling spam should be part of the campaign to reduce carbon emissions.

Richi Jennings - an independent spam analyst who helped produce the report - told the BBC that the figures were based on the extra energy use spent dealing with spam.

CO2 deemed health risk

WASHINGTON - THE US Environmental Protection Agency shifted course and deemed carbon dioxide a health risk on Friday, in a turnabout important to global warming-related regulation.

'After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the US Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed finding... that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare,' an EPA statement posted on the agency website read.

'This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations. Fortunately, it follows President Obama's call for a low carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation,' Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

'This pollution problem has a solution - one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country's dependence on foreign oil.' 'As the proposed endangerment finding states, 'In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act,'' she added.

Five out of nine Supreme Court justices ruled in April 2007 that carbon dioxide was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

They ordered the EPA to decide if the greenhouse gas endangered public health and welfare and said that if a so-called endangerment finding was made, the agency must draft rules to reduce vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide.

In December 2007, the EPA sent a draft finding to the Bush White House, presenting evidence that CO2 did endanger public welfare.

But the administration of President George W. Bush failed to acknowledge the report and spent the remainder of its tenure resisting the Supreme Court decision. -- AFP