The POLICE makes us laughing stock

Arrest of PPS members makes us laughing stock

FMT Reporters

 | September 1, 2014

Gobind says the arrests are “nonsense” as PPS members are volunteers helping to fight crime.

KUALA LUMPUR: DAP’s Gobind Singh Deo had some strong words for Prime Minister Najib Razak, saying the arrests of PPS members on Merdeka Day was “yet another unfortunate example of how Malaysia and the Najib administration will again become a laughing stock to the international world.”

Gobind who is Chairman of DAP’s National Legal Bureau said Malaysia was probably the only country in the world that arrested volunteers who helped in the fight against crime.

“We are probably the only country which arrests its citizens who voluntarily help in the fight against crime and to keep our streets safe!” he said in a statement where he also demanded the “immediate and unconditional release” of the arrested volunteers of Penang state’s Voluntary Patrol Squad.

Gobind also said the arrests were “utter nonsense” and reflected badly upon the Royal Malaysian police.

He said, “Instead of focusing on criminals and improving safety, the police act against citizens who are committed towards fighting crime.”

Gobind also brought up the case of residents who grouped together to keep their neighbourhoods safe asking, “Are they also at risk of arrest and detention?”

The incident of the arrests of PPS members took a turn for the worse when 62-year-old Penang executive councillor Phee Boon Poh was also arrested when he went to the Northeast police headquarters to give his statement.

Phee is the chairperson of the PPS.

In justifying the police’s actions, Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said he was left with no choice but to arrest the PPS members because they persisted in carrying out their activities despite a stern warning from him to immediately stop.

Earlier the IGP sent out a tweet telling the PPS members to turn themselves in before the police raided their residences.

Despite widespread outrage from the general public over the arrests, there are still many who have criticised the PPS for taking the law into their own hands when they assaulted members of the public in two separate incidents. – AFP

With the high crime rate in the country and yet the police has so much TIME going after citizens who volunteer to help the police control crime - WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL NATION WE HAVE Become!!! And the police are even going to RAID their homes if they do not surrender! Are they terrorists! 

The IGP should be sacked immediately!!!

Old tires may find their way back to cars – in their batteries

Carbon black from tires reportedly makes a better anode material than the traditional graphite (Photo: Shutterstock)
Image Gallery (2 images)

There may soon be a new use for discarded tires ... besides turning them into mattresses for cows, that is. Researchers from the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have devised a method of harvesting the carbon black from them, and using it to make anodes for better-performing lithium-ion batteries.
The process was developed by a team led by Oak Ridge scientists Parans Paranthaman and Amit Naskar. It involves pretreating the tires and then using pyrolysis – the decomposition of organic materials by heat in the absence of oxygen – to recover pyrolytic carbon black material from the rubber.
Carbon black is similar to the graphite commonly used in battery anodes, although unlike graphite, it’s man-made.

When a lithium-ion battery with one of the carbon black anodes was tested in the lab, it was found to have a higher energy capacity than similar batteries with regular graphite anodes. This quality was attributed at least partly to the porous microstructure of the carbon black, which offers more surface area than that of graphite.
The Oak Ridge team is now working on a pilot project to scale up the process, with an eye towards ultimately licensing the technology to an industrial partner. Once the technique is commercialized, it is estimated that batteries made using it will actually be cheaper than conventional lithium-ions ... plus, of course, the tires will be diverted from sitting in a landfill.

Analysis: How Israel made Hamas crawl to a cease-fire in Gaza

By YOSSI MELMAN

LAST UPDATED: 08/27/2014 09:02

The most recent cease-fire is unlimited in time and Hamas was not promised anything except that which had been offered at the start of the military campaign.

SENIOR HAMAS LEADER Mahmoud Zahar (second right), appearing in public for the first time since the 50-day began, attends a rally in Gaza City celebrating the cease-fire that began yesterday evening. Photo: REUTERS

If the cease-fire holds, and it is a big if, the results of the 50-day war in Gaza will mark an important and impressive achievement for Israel.

Hamas was forced to accept Egyptian and Israeli dictates.

Hamas crawled to the cease-fire. One should not be impressed by the well-organized victory festivities in Gaza. Most of Hamas’s demands and preconditions were rejected from the outset.

The cease-fire is unlimited in time and Hamas was not promised anything except that which had been offered at the start of the military campaign.

Full of itself and arrogant, it miscalculated. If Hamas had not rejected the offers, Israel would not have launched a ground incursion. Hamas’s 32 attacking tunnels would not have been destroyed. Its rockets and mortar shells wouldn’t be reduced to a residual arsenal of 20 percent – from 10,000 to approximately 2,000.

And most importantly, parts of Gaza wouldn’t have been destroyed.

Unfortunately, Gaza has been set back decades. More than 5,000 houses were destroyed. Thousands were damaged and on the verge of collapse. Gaza has been suffering water and electricity shortages.

Three hundred thousand residents – 15% of its population – turned into homeless refugees within the boundaries of the small enclave, which was already mostly one big refugee camp.

Anger, despair and frustration are ruling the day in Gaza.

Surely people will not go to protest in the streets. Hamas has established a reign of fear and terror. The massive public executions during the war, and in particular last week, of alleged traitors were not aimed at unveiling and disrupting Israeli intelligence operations, rather to send a clear message to the Gazans: We are Hamas and we are here to stay. Don’t dare revolt against us.

But the locals have a long memory. They will remember who brought them the calamity.

In a sense, the Gaza war is reminiscent of what happened during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Hezbollah was defeated. Its secretary-general admitted it in public. But then he heard Israeli defense commentators who criticized the war’s conduct by then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s government and regained his self-confidence. Hassan Nasrallah told himself that if stupid Israel thought that it was defeated, so let it – and declared his false victory.

Eight years later, it is quite clear that war brought Israel significant gains at the strategic level. Northern Israel has enjoyed peace and tranquility.

Hezbollah is deterred and doesn’t dare to initiate violent and aggressive actions against the Jewish state. Nasrallah himself is in hiding fearing for his life.

As then, some of veteran commentators of the 2006 war express the same criticism with the same weeping voices, claiming that Hamas defeated Israel. Sooner or later it will emerge that as against Hezbollah, Israel will deter Hamas too.

As in the Second Lebanon War, the military campaign in Gaza unmasked some IDF tactical failures and gains for Hamas. The Islamist movement showed determination and its combatants proved to be capable guerrilla fighters, with some daring and innovative operations.

They stood up for 50 days against the mighty Israeli war machine. They paralyzed Israel’s international airport for two days. Israel’s economy took a relative hit. They tried to infiltrate in commando operations from the sea and the tunnels. But in most cases they failed and achieved nothing significant.

The bottom line is that Hamas failed to reach its strategic goals. Israel showed determination and except some marginal manifestations, the Israeli home front was stubborn and did not break down.

The real index with which to check Israel’s gains is against the war’s declared aims. The leading trio – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz – who have shown reason and self restraint in order to avoid more casualties, were determined not to surrender to populist voices, including from their cabinet colleagues who pulled out long knives to stab them in the back and demanded to “smash Hamas.”

Netanyahu, Ya’alon and Gantz decided neither to occupy Gaza nor topple the Hamas regime.

Having said all that, much depends on the cease-fire being honored.

But even if it is respected, there is a need to leverage the blows inflicted on Hamas into a brave and breakthrough move to enhance a serious and genuine negotiation with the Palestinian Authority to reach a deal over the West Bank.

Only then will it be possible to talk about the strategic victory of Israel and Zionist history.

But such a step is under a heavy cloud. Can Netanyahu show the same willpower and determination he manifested in war to make peace?

Anwar and PAS - the MB issue

Are you not ready to accept a woman leader, Anwar asks PAS

BY ‎ANISAH SHUKRY

Published: 28 August 2014

PKR and DAP are standing by their decision to nominate Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the Selangor menteri besar. – The Malaysian Insider pic, August 28, 2014.Opposition leader Datuk Seri Dr‎ Anwar Ibrahim today asked PAS whether it was defying Pakatan Rakyat's decision to nominate his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, as the sole Selangor menteri besar, simply because she was a woman.

"Because this involves a woman's position, does this mean they are not ready to accept a woman as a leader? Th‎ey must consider this," he said after he withdrew a defamation suit against former home minister Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar.

The PKR de facto‎ leader was commenting on PAS's decision yesterday to submit more than one name as Selangor menteri besar candidate to the palace.

PAS's move goes against the PR presidential‎ council's decision on August 17 to nominate only Dr Wan Azizah for the post.

On Tuesday, PKR and DAP said they were standing by their decision to nominate only Dr Wan Azizah, despite the Selangor sultan's decree that each party in PR submit at least three names to him.

But PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang told his central committee members on August 25 that he could not accept Dr Wan Azizah on the grounds of religion and qualification‎, a source said, referring to the previous argument that being a woman, she would not be able to lead.

‎"The fallout from all of this, as I told PAS, is how can we ensure PR stays strong? If this happens, this will be the first time in PR's history there is no consensus in proposing only one name," said Anwar today.

He reminded the Islamist party that the final decision had been reached during the August 17 meeting, and that the pact was bound to it.

‎"Of course, we have to respect all the decisions in the parties, but we have to appeal to them to accept the spirit of the coalition.

"This will be the beginning or perceived to be (the beginning of)‎ major differences, lack of consensus or inability to reach consensus and breach of that understanding that we achieved so far."

But Anwar denied that PAS's decision yesterday to submit more than one name to the sultan marked the end of the PR government in Selangor.

"‎It's a bit premature to say that (it is the end) because the general consensus and feeling of supporters of PAS, PKR and DAP is to make sure PR continues to be formidable.”

He added that there was still room to negotiate with PAS as the deadline to submit the candidates' names to the palace was September 3.

When asked what PR would do should PAS insist on sending more than one name to the sultan, Anwar said he did not wish to pre-empt the matter.

Anwar also maintained that the three PR party leaders ‎had submitted only Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim's name as the menteri besar candidate to the palace last year, despite the sultan requesting four names.

"‎Khalid has alleged there were other names submitted, that's for him to deduce, but certainly not from the presidents‎. I'm not discounting that.

"I'm saying parties submitted one name. There may be some other quarters. That is for him to explain," he said.

Khalid resigned as the Selangor menteri besar on Tuesday, but the sultan deferred his resignation until a new menteri ‎besar was appointed. – August 28, 2014.

Anwar still don't understand that with PAS it is not a problem with his wife as MB but with him as husband/wife team if he is considered tainted so will his wife be also, that they do not want him around!

With PAS he is tainted with sodomy, so is unfit for the MB post, even though he is not going to be the MB.

The fact is that PAS do not want him to be PM  IF the PR controls the Federal govt.

Bacteria study offers hope in fight against food allergies

The secret to minimizing allergies may lie in you gut, researchers find.

DICK LOEK / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

A new study offers hope in the fight against food allergies.

By: Jane Gerster Staff Reporter, Published on Mon Aug 25 2014

The identification of allergy-protecting bacteria living in your gut paves the way for new treatment options in the fight against growing food allergy rates, say scientists from the University of Chicago.

A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesfound Clostridia, a common type of gut bacteria, minimizes allergen exposure and prevents sensitization in mice by causing an immune reaction that prevents food allergens from entering their bloodstream.

Food allergies have been on the rise in western culture in recent years. In the United States, allergy rates have jumped roughly 50 per cent between 1997 and 2011, linked through studies to antibiotic and antimicrobial use. Around 2.5 million Canadians have self-reported at least one food allergy, with Anaphylaxis Canada labelling it a “growing public health issue.”

“All of these different western lifestyle stimuli including antibiotics, high-fat diets, Cesarean birth, formula feeding … have changed the way our immune system is stimulated and changed the populations of bacteria that are present in the gut, collectively making us more susceptible to a number of diseases” including allergies, said Cathryn Nagler, the study’s senior author and Bunning food allergy professor at the University of Chicago.

Identifying Clostridia as an allergy protection could help combat that susceptibility.

Nagler’s team tested mice born germ-free and those treated with antibiotics, exposing them to peanut allergens eliciting strong immunological responses in both. When scientists then reintroduced Clostridia bacteria, they were able to reverse the mice’s food allergen sensitization. When they tried the same process with Bacteroides, other common gut bacteria, there was no change.

“The fact that we could show so clearly that this particular bacterial population regulated the detection of the allergen in the blood stream was a big surprise,” Nagler said, but now, “we can use the information in this study to develop novel probiotic therapies, taking these bacteria and developing them as a drug.”

There’s currently no treatment for allergies, although specialists try antigen-desensitization protocol, essentially giving kids tiny amounts orally of what they’re allergic to. A Clostridia drug could help with that, Nagler says.

And while more study is needed, Dr. Paul Keith, president of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, said it’s “very interesting research.”

“It gives people hope that there may be some way that we can re-teach the gut to react,” he said.

New Metal-Air Battery Drives Car 1800Km Without Recharge

June 9, 2014 | by Stephen Luntz

photo credit: Phinergy's aluminum-air battery uses oxygen from the air instead of storing it in a cathode

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Israeli company Phinergy claim to have produced a battery that can power a Citroen C1 for 3000km, and have demonstrated a 1800km drive with a more practical version, three times that available from commercial electric cars. Even more dramatically, the battery weighs just 100kg, a fifth of the weight of those in the Tesla Model S.

Metal-air batteries use the oxygen in the air around them, rather than storing it in liquid or solid chemicals. They can store far more energy than most competing technologies. Not needing to contain the oxygen can also cut the weight dramatically – Phinergy claim that 70% of the weight in a conventional car battery is in the cathode, mostly just to store the oxygen.

With such benefits, metal-air batteries have been a topic of research for some time. Lithium-air batteries have theoretical energy per weight almost as high as petrol. However, a range of practical problems have prevented widespread commercialization.

Aluminum-air batteries don't have the same potential energy per kilogram of lithium-air battery, but could theoretically reach energy densities many times better than the lithium-ion batteries that are currently the industry standard.

One of the challenges for metal-air batteries is to capture enough oxygen to provide the power required. Phinergy's porous electrodes have the surface area to allow this. A silver-based catalyst prevents carbon dioxide from permeating the electrodes, a common problem for other experimental versions of this technology that reduces their lifespan to the point of impracticality.

Like anything based on aluminum, there is a lot of embodied energy in Phinergy's batteries, but they are manufacturing their products in Quebec, where the electricity is almost entirely sourced from hydroelectric stations, keeping the carbon footprint small.

The big disadvantage of aluminum-air batteries is that they don't last. The aluminum turns to aluminum-hydroxide. While this can be recycled, it can't be recharged by plugging the battery into a powerpoint. Instead the whole battery will need to be replaced when the aluminum has been used up. Advocates of this system claim that battery swaps can be done quickly and easily.

However, any battery that needs to be replaced so frequently is not only expensive, but runs into the problem that has bedeviled many alternatives to gasoline-powered cars. People are reluctant to buy vehicles that depend on the availability of refueling or replacement stations if these are not available everywhere they might be needed. On the other hand, without a critical mass of owners of suitable vehicles, such stations are not viable.

By extending the capacity of the electric car to drive much further on a single charge, aluminum-air batteries greatly reduce this problem when it comes to quick recharge points, but at the cost of increasing the need to be able to access places where batteries can be replaced.

Phinergy's solution is to use a twin battery solution. A small lithium-ion battery will allow trips up to 50km, more than adequate for most city journeys. The aluminum-air battery will be saved for longer trips, avoiding the need to replace it except where the car is used for frequent long journeys. If the whole battery was aluminum-air the car's maximum range might be as much as 3000km, but with the need to replace the entire engine thereafter.

Even if these problems have been successfully addressed, it remains to be seen whether Phinergy have found a solution to the other major obstacle to aluminum-air batteries, the high cost of the anode.

A zinc-air battery could potentially offer even more advantages but has been hard to mass produce. Phyinergy claim they are on the way to commercializing that as well.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-metal-air-battery-drives-car-1800km-without-recharge#Hokue1Ipob3YIEwY.99

Hypocrisy of 'condemn Israel' campaign

(CNN) -- When Israel is forced to defend its citizens from Palestinian terrorism originating from Gaza, we've come to expect outrage around the world. Critics are quick to condemn Israel's military actions -- some with such heavy-handed charges as "war crimes," "atrocities" and even "genocide," while remaining silent about the terrorists who started the conflict.

At anti-Israel protests around the world, violent anti-Semitism is on full display, thinly veiled as criticism of Israel. Demonstrators in Turkey have attacked Israeli embassies. In Germany, France, Italy and Spain and other European countries, the protests have led toanti-Semitic attacks on Jewish people, community centers and synagogues.

Abraham Foxman

We've seen violence and incitement against Jews rising in Latin America as well.

It has been lost on no one that this pronounced anti-Semitism has its antecedents in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Fortunately, some responsible European leaders are standing up to the hatred and bigotry. But their words may not be enough, as Israel continues to be treated as the international community's whipping boy in the latest conflict.

It is time for moral clarity on Gaza. The facts bear repeating. Hamas intentionally started this conflict. Hamas militants built miles of underground tunnels -- at least 30 tunnels in all -- using about 600,000 tons of cement and other materials that could have built homes or schools for Palestinians. Instead, it went into a sickening subterranean network of tunnels designed to carry out surprise terrorist attacks across the border in Israel.

Photos: Israel-Gaza crisis

It has been said that the only real growth industries in Gaza are in rocket-building and tunnel construction. This unconscionable waste of resources has brought about the two crowning "cultural" achievements of Hamas: Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli towns and cities and terrorists armed to the teeth emerging from holes in the ground, intent on kidnapping more Israeli soldiers and killing Israeli civilians. This culture of death is an essential part of Hamas' identity and ideology and has motivated the Hamas leaders for the more than eight years they have controlled Gaza.

The world knows that Hamas intentionally stores its rockets in homes, mosques, hospitals and schools. No matter how careful Israel tries to be in warning civilians before attacks, no matter how much restraint it exercises, Hamas has guaranteed that civilians will be victims. Children make up nearly half the population of Gaza, and so women and children are among those dying because of Hamas's maximalist strategy against Israel.

In Israel and Gaza, a war against peace

Israel did not want this war, and certainly does not want to see civilians killed. But no matter, the calumny continues to rain down on Israel. What hypocrisy this is.

Has anyone condemned Hamas for the death of 160 children during the construction of the Gaza tunnels? The Institute for Palestinian Studies reports Hamas uses child labor to build its terror tunnels and prizes their nimbleness and work ethic.

On the news every day there is the macabre body count of how many civilians have lost their lives in Gaza, invariably accompanied by a comparison with the cost of life for Israeli soldiers and civilians. Counts vary, but most put the numbers of Palestinian deaths around 1,800 and Israeli deaths at 65.

All deaths that come about as a result of this conflict are tragic. But who is taking steps to limit casualties? Israel. Who is apologizing for the loss of life in Gaza? Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, tries at every opportunity to inflict as much pain as possible on Israel, trying to kill more Israeli civilians by firing rockets at large population centers, by sending suicide bombers across the border and sacrificing the lives of their own children. They make no apologies for their culture of death.

Look out at the world, there is no shortage of horrific violence and tragic death. Death by the thousands, by the tens of thousands in Syria; human destruction in Libya, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. Muslims slaughtering Muslims. And in Iraq, Muslims are killing Christians. Why have the voices of outrage in response to the more than 170,000 dead as a result of Syria's civil war gone silent?

There are no cameras out there, there are few editorials, and there are even fewer demonstrations in the streets of Paris, of Rome or London.

Here is where moral myopia verges on moral blindness. It seems the world wakes up only when Jews in their own defense -- defending their men, women and children -- are forced to kill Muslims and Palestinians. That's when the world demonstrates.

This is the true hypocrisy of the "condemn Israel" phenomenon.

And there can be no doubt that the anti-Israel campaign that is unfolding around the world is a function of the anti-Semitism that we know lurks just underneath the surface in some European societies and is all-but rampant across the Middle East.

Evil people ruining the lives of the natives!

Actions speak louder than words

FMT

 | August 19, 2014

Ruthlessly destroying the crops and livelihoods of smallholders is not the way to champion their interests.

COMMENT

By Clare Rewcastle

A few days back the chief executive of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), Yusof Basiron, launched an attack on Sarawak Report, claiming it was a “sinister voice” for criticising corrupt practices in the oil palm industry, including misleading PR campaigns funded by his organisation.

His standpoint was that the oil palm industry is all about helping smallholders and he even went so far as to accuse Sarawak Report of “mocking smallholders’, which is of course untrue.

Sarawak Report replied to this widely disseminated and coordinated attack by Yusof, which included lots of tweeting and Facebook attacks on MPOC-funded web vehicles.

However, there has now emerged two news stories, which answer Yusof far more effectively, in that they come from the mouths of smallholders themselves.

In the first case, native landowners from Tinjar and Serian have made a formal protest to Yusof’s MPOC for issuing orders to local mills not to receive their fruits, thereby ruining their crops and hard-earned livelihoods.

The reason?

MPOB playing “judge and executioner” before decision in court

These native communities exercised their absolute and fundamental right to start legal proceedings against big agribusinesses, which they believe have illegally grabbed their native lands into their plantations.

In a press release today the hard-pressed native land- owners of Tinjar put it plainly:

“The villagers from the four villages in Tinjar have planted and harvested their own oil palm on their own native customary rights (NCR) land, but just because they are currently in a legal dispute with Boustead PELITA Tinjar Sdn. Bhd., a joint venture (JV) company between an oil palm company from Peninsular Malaysia, Boustead Holdings and the state owned agency, PELITA, over their NCR lands, MPOB refuses to buy oil palm from the villagers.

The villagers in Tinjar are not happy that MPOB is playing ‘judge and executioner’ and penalising the villagers before any decision is made in the court of law.”

Separately, villagers from Serian have also been excluded from the mills on the orders of the MPOC, as punishment for actually having WON their own case against another big company that was likewise intruding on their lands.

The smallholders point out that, even though they have won their case in a court of law, Yusof and the MPOC have taken the sides of the big agribusinesses and have brutally and illegally punished the smallholders for standing up for their rights:

“The courts have decided that the land is ours, how can MPOB accuse us of stealing on our own land”?

How indeed Yusof?

And how, under such circumstances, can the MPOC seriously claim to be championing smallholders, when he has shown himself to be willing to ruthlessly destroy their crops and livelihoods in order to prove that big business is the boss?

Snatching people’s land does not help smallholders out of poverty

The second news story concerning smallholders and the MPOC reports an equally familiar problem.

In this case a small oil palm farmer Cobbold anak Lusio has also been forced to go to court after a government subsidiary company took 30 hectares of his land, destroyed 3,000 of his fruit and rubber trees and threatening him with violence if he tries to enter his own legal territory.

“At the same time, Winsome Pelita lodged a false police report, resulting in him and his workers being arrested and locked up at a police station,” continues this news report, which is a scenario that is highly familiar to native landowners facing big company predators in Sarawak.

Thugs for this company have also threatened and intimidated Cobbold and his workers, which is another sadly familiar characteristic of big plantation land grabbers, whom the MPOC represents in Sarawak.

So, is all this Yusof Basiron’s idea of “helping smallholders”?

Is snatching small people’s land; beating them up and then punishing them for taking court action, by refusing to process the fruits of their hard labour, the way that the MPOC thinks they can ‘help smallholders out of poverty’?

Or should we conclude that in fact the MPOC is the cat’s paw of big businesses and corrupt politicians, and that all this talk about supporting smallholders is so much greenwash?

After all, actions speak louder than words.

Clare Rewcastle is editor of the Sarawak Report

How long will the Sarawak govt. treat the natives with contempt! Instead of helping these people they are robbing and cheating them, and allowing their cronies to do the same. Also these evil people in the MPOC are creating trouble for these poor natives.

Let God do to them all as their folly and evil deserves!