London Eyes

The London Eye is a giant Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. Also known as the Millennium Wheel, its official name was originally the British Airways London Eye, then the Merlin Entertainments London Eye, and since January 2011, the EDF Energy London Eye.
The entire structure is 135 metres (443 ft) tall and the wheel has a diameter of 120 metres (394 ft). It is currently Europe's tallest Ferris wheel, the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom with over 3.5 million visitors annually, and has made many appearances in popular culture.

Niagara Falls, Canada

Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between Canada and the United States; more specifically, between the province of Ontario and the state of New York. They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge.

Pulau Perhentian

After less than an hour on a boat from the east coast of Malaysia, the laid-back atmosphere and the natural beauty of the Perhentian islands immediately transport you to a different world. The white sand is dotted with sun-worshipping holiday makers, some retreating to the shade for a glass of freshly squeezed juice. A group of scuba divers are boarding a boat to venture out into the turquoise waters and submerge themselves in the underwater wonderland. Later, as the sun sets, a quiet buzz of music and chatter fills the air, together with the thin wisp of smoke from the barbeque fire. The Perhentian Islands are two islands named Pulau Perhentian Kecil (Small Perhentian Island) and Pulau Perhentian Besar (Large Perhentian Island). The Malay name Perhentian is translated as “place to stop” and this is exactly what these two islands were for traders travelling between Malaysia and Bangkok in years gone by. These islands are still a gorgeous place to stop and rest today, albeit for tourists disconnecting from the stress and routine of everyday life and not for weary seafaring traders.

Sixty percent of Japanese support whale hunt

Tokyo (AFP) - Sixty percent of Japanese people support the country's whaling programme, but only 14 percent eat whale meat, a new poll showed Tuesday.
The survey comes less than a month after the United Nations' top court ruled the annual mission to the Southern Ocean by Japanese whaling vessels was a commercial hunt masquerading as science in a bid to skirt an international ban.
A weekend opinion poll conducted by the liberal Asahi Shimbun newspaper showed that 60 percent of 1,756 voters supported the "research" whaling programme, against 23 percent who opposed it.
Asked how often they ate whale meat, however, only four percent said they eat "sometimes" and another 10 percent said they eat it "fairly infrequently".
Nearly half (48 percent) said they have not eaten it for "a long time", while 37 percent of respondents said they never eat whale meat.
Although not difficult to find in Japan, whale meat is not a regular part of most Japanese people's diet.

Passengers praise MH192 pilot

SEPANG: Passengers of a Malaysia Airlines flight which had suffered a burst tyre were full of praise for its pilot Captain Nor Adam Azmi Abd Razak, whom they said had handled the situation professionally.
They commended him for carrying out text-book safety procedures to land the aircraft safely at KL International Airport.
In the incident on Monday night, the Boeing 737-800, flight code MH192, which was bound for Bengaluru (Bangalore), India, was forced to return to KLIA after a tyre in its right-hand landing gear burst during take-off.
The aircraft was carrying 159 passengers and seven crew members.
A passenger Eugene Chin, who was going for training at Bengaluru, woke up after an hour of sleep and noticed that the plane was still in an orbital pattern near Malaysia.
“I then overheard that something was wrong with the plane’s landing gear and that there was a possibility of an emergency landing,” said the 24-year-old Malaysian IT strategy analyst.
“We received constant updates. The captain did a good job and was very thorough with the safety procedures,” he added.

Selangor's free water scheme should be practical, says Yeo

IN LIGHT of the ongoing water crisis in Selangor, questions were raised on the practicality of the state’s free water scheme during yesterday’s state assembly sitting.
Yeo Bee Yin (DAP-Damanssara Utama) said the state must determine if the scheme was the most effective policy to adopt in view of the current situation.
She said the state had asked for an additional RM82.5mil for the scheme under the Additional Allocation Enactment, and this was unnecessary since the number of users had not increased drastically.
“This means RM165mil will be allocated for the free water scheme, which is 7% of the state’s yearly budget of RM1.85bil and the additional budget of RM491mil,” she said.
According to a written answer to a question from Yeo, RM77.5mil had been spent on free water and, with the additional allocation, Selangor would have spent RM1bil so far.
Yeo said a lot of residents had questioned the necessity of the free water scheme if they were deprived of water due to the water-rationing exercise.
Speaking to reporters after her speech, she said although the water problem had been caused by the weather, it has given the state an opportunity to review the money invested in the free water scheme over the long run.

Three-year-old boy killed in car crash

KUANTAN: A three-year-old boy was killed when the car he was in with his parents skidded and overturned at Km 3 Jalan Karak-Mentakab, near Temerloh on Monday.
According to Pahang Public Order and Traffic Department head Supt Mohamed Fauzi Abdul Rahim, S. Karshan died while receiving treatment for severe head and body injuries at the Mentakab Health Clinic.
In the 11.30am incident the father, in his 30s, is believed to have suddenly lost control of the car he was driving.
"The vehicle then hit a rock blocking the path causing the car to overturn," Mohamed Fauzi told reporters here on Tuesday.
The mother and father of the victim were not injured in the crash.

Burst pipe along Jalan Universiti sparks anger

PETALING JAYA: A burst pipe along Jalan Universiti yesterday afternoon not only caused traffic delays but sparked public anger over the amount of water being wasted.
A comment on the photo of this event uploaded on StarOnline by @dytia_aurinh sums up the feelings of most people:
“Dahlah air kena catu – pipe burst lagi what the hell” (Water is already being rationed and now a pipe bursts!).
Workers from Syabas, the company in charge of water distribution, were seen managing traffic at around 4pm.
According to an eyewitness, water was gushing out from the middle of the road and there had been no road works or any construction activity nearby.
Syabas put up a notice on their Twitter and Facebook accounts about the issue at around 5pm, saying that the incident would cause an unscheduled water disruption along Jalan Universiti properties, though they expect supply to resume in stages by midnight the same day.
Efforts to contact Syabas were unsuccessful. 

Citation for Datuk Mahadev Shankar

I have it from our President, Christopher Leong, that it was in the year 2011 that the Bar Council instituted the conferment of an award from time to time, to be called The Malaysian Bar Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition by the Malaysian Bar of past or present members, for outstanding contributions to the Malaysian Bar “inter alia in terms of leadership, service to the Bar and/or to the Nation, and/or in their practice at the Bar, which contributions had a significant, historical and lasting impact on the legal profession and on the community at large”.

The recipient of the inaugural Award was the late Raja Aziz Addruse; it was conferred on him posthumously in March 2012.  For 2013, there was one recipient, Dato’ Dr Sir Peter Mooney.
For this year, 2014, the recipient is Dato’ Mahadev Shankar.
I have been greatly honoured by the Bar Council requesting me to prepare, on behalf of the Bar Council, the citation for the conferment of the Award upon Dato’ Mahadev Shankar.
Dato’ Mahadev Shankar was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1932.  His father, the late Mr T V Mahadevan, had been from 1931 to 1958 (when he retired from Government service), Private Secretary to the Chief Justice of Malaya.  Shankar’s primary schooling started in 1940 at the Pasar Road School.  Two years later, the Japanese occupied Malaya.  Under the Japanese military administration, the Japanese language, Nippon-go, became the mandatory language of education in our schools.  Shankar went to one such school, Tek Sin Gakko, and by the end of 1942, Shankar had acquired a working knowledge of basic Japanese.

Man brutally stabbed and slashed to death

KUALA LUMPUR: A man was brutally stabbed and slashed to death in the heart of the city.
The body of M. Mugunthan, 28, was found in front of a hotel along Jalan Tan Cheng Lock with multiple stab and slash wounds to the neck, and his left wrist almost severed.
Dang Wangi OCPD Asst Comm Zainuddin Ahmad said a passer by had stumbled upon the body at around 10pm, Monday.
“The body was lying in a pool of blood along the five foot way, outside the hotel.
“Initial investigations have revealed that the man was from Mantin, Negri Sembilan,” he said when met at the scene on Monday night.
He said a visual inspection of the body revealed multiple stab and slash wounds to the neck and left wrist.
“We have yet to establish a motive for the case.
“We also could not find any weapon at the scene of the crime,” he said adding that the case was being investigated under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder.
Those with information regarding the case should contact the police hotline at 03-2115 9999 or visit the nearest police station.

PT3 replaces PMR, says Muhyiddin

KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) or Lower Secondary Assessment examination would be replaced with Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3 (PT3) or Form 3 Assessment, beginning this year.
The Deputy Prime Minister said through the implementation of improvements in the Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah (PBS) or School-Based Assessment on April 1, there would no longer be any centralised examination for Form 3 students implemented at the school level.
"PT3 replaces PMR. There is some form of assessment at the school level. The PT3 will be used as the basis to determine the entry of students into Form 4 whether in Fully Residential Schools, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Agama, Mara Junior Science Colleges (MRSM) including Sekolah Menengah Teknik (SMT) and Vocational Colleges.
"Besides the PT3, entry into these schools will also use the Psychometric Test to ensure that the selection and emplacement of students suited their capability and interest," he said.
Muhyidddin, who is also the Education Minister, said this at a special media conference, which was also attended by the major players in the country's education system such as the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) at Parliament House, here today.
He said the schools would inform the results of the performance assessment of the students at the end of the year the assessment was made and the student concerned could request for the result slip to go to any fully residential school.

Kenyan police arrest two men with bombs, suspected ties to militants

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan police have arrested two men suspected of links to a Somali Islamist militant group after they were tracked and found to have two large bombs that may have been aimed for use in the area of the port city of Mombasa, a senior police officer said.
The two men were arrested on Monday and police said they could appear in court on Tuesday to face formal charges.
The Somali al Shabaab Islamist group has claimed several attacks on Kenya in the past. After a September raid by gunmen on a Nairobi shopping mall that killed at least 67 people, the group said it planned more attacks. The coast, which is popular with tourists, has been a target.
Al Shabaab have demanded that Kenyan troops withdraw from Somalia where they have been fighting the Islamist rebels.
"Our first suspicion is that they are al Shabaab especially because of their origin," Robert Kitur, Mombasa police chief told Reuters, adding one man was Somali and the other was a Kenyan of Somali origin.
Kenya, which neighbours Somalia, has a large community of ethnic Somalis.
Police recovered two large improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or hand-made bombs, from the men, Kitur said. "We suspect they were planning to detonate them somewhere around Mombasa," he added.
"If they had detonated, they would have caused massive destruction," Kitur said, adding police also found mobile phones which could have been used as detonators.
Police had trailed the suspects after intercepting telephone communications they were making with suspected accomplices in Somalia, Kitur said.
The provincial police headquarters in Mombasa was sealed off as bomb experts from the Kenya Defence forces took over to examine the explosives.
(Reporting by Joseph Akwiri and Humphrey Malalo; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Chinese nationals: We are under observation all the time

CYBERJAYA: The next of kin of the passengers on missing Flight MH370 who were flown here from Beijing have likened their stay in Malaysia to being locked up.
They checked into a five-star facility here on March 11 but the families complained that they had little freedom as they were put under close observation by Malaysia Airlines officials.
At least 20 Chinese nationals are believed to have taken up the offer by MAS to travel to Kuala Lumpur as they await news on the missing flight which disappeared on March 8 with 239, including 153 Chinese nationals, on board.
“We are under observation round the clock. We feel like we are being locked up. There is no freedom,” said a Mr Xu, whose wife was among the passengers, in an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV.
MAS has been accommodating the Chinese families with their transportation and lodging needs from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur even though the information received in both countries is the same, as Firefly chief executive Ignatius Ong, who heads the command centre at Lido Hotel in Beijing, had pointed out.
The Department of Civil Aviation has been keeping the families updated on the latest news on the search and rescue mission in three briefings a day at the Beijing hotel.
However, Xu appeared determined to wait on in Malaysia.
“I want to be in Kuala Lumpur because it is nearer to where the incident happened compared to Beijing.

Missing MH370: Anwar now admits Capt Zaharie related to son's in-laws

KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (pic) has now admitted that MH370 pilot Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah is related to his son's in-laws.
"I am not denying that he ( Zaharie) is related to one of my in-laws and that I have met him on several occasions.
"In fact, he is a close friend of (PKR supreme council member and Subang MP) R. Sivarasa, as we said before," Anwar told reporters at the Parliament lobby here Tuesday.
Earlier, Anwar was quoted by South China Morning Post as saying: "I don’t recollect the name (Zaharie), but when the photographs were shown, I remembered I had seen him at party meetings," he said.