Pages

June 26, 2014

Musang King Malaysia Bukan Jaguh Kampung


Dengan hanya bau buah durian sahaja, sudah boleh mengamatkan keadaan di Australia. Bau enak yang sentiasa dinikmati rakyat Malaysia ini disangka kejadian kebocoran gas di sana. Segagah nama yang dibawa, durian Musang King (Mao Shan Wang / 猫山王) atau pun dipanggil Raja Kunyit terdahulu ini sudah dua kontena sampai ke tanah kangaroo. Raja buah durian Musang King ini bukan sahaja sudah terbang merentasi Lautan Hindi malah juga sudah merentasi benua hingga ke Eropah.

Isi ulas durian berwarna kuning keemasan ini manis apabila masak. Setiap ulas isi durian ini tebal, berkrim, berlemak, dan mempunyai biji yang sangat kecil. Antara durian Musang King terbaik berasal dari Bentong/Karak, Tangkak dan Balik Pulau.

Raja Musang ini telah didaftarkan pada tahun 1993 di Tanah Merah, sebuah daerah di jauh utara Malaysia dekat Kota Bahru. Pada ketika itu ia digredkan kod D197. Musang King yang cukup popular di Gua Musang berasal dari daerah Guar Musang dan ia merupakan daripada keluarga durian kunyit sebelum ia dikacukkan dengan durian lain dan diubah suai namanya ke Musang King seperti sekarang.

Untuk mengenali dan cam buah durian Musang King ini adalah paling senang melalui kulitnya. Pada pangkal buah akan terdapat corak seakan bintang pecah lima atau ada yang panggil corak tapak sulaiman. 

Antara durian-durian terbaik penggemar durian di Malaysia: 

Udang Merah (Ang Hae) 
D 175 
 D600 
D101 
ThRaka (竹脚) 
Ho lor 
XO 
Durian Penang D24

June 16, 2014

MH370: Hari ke-100 dan Teori Konspirasi


Kehilangan pesawat komersial negara, MH370 telah masuk hari ke-100 hari ini selepas dilaporkan hilang pada 8 Mac 2014 lalu dalam perjalanan dari Kulala Lumpur ke Beijing. Pencarian pesawat buatan Amerika Syarikat, Boeing 777 ini telah melibatkan kerahan tenaga lebih 20 negara dalam membantu misi pencarian pesawat yang sehingga kini masih samar bagaimana pengakhiran kepada MH370 ini. Adakah terhempas ke dasar lautan? Adakah meletup di udara? Pelbagai kebarangkalian ini timbul dan bermacam lagi teori kehilangan pesawat komersial Malaysia Airlines ini. Walau apa pun jalan cerita bagi MH370, dimanakah bangkai pesawat ini masih belum dapat dijawab.

Prinsip asas penulisan kewartawanan masih belum dipenuhi apabila  soalan “dimana” tidak terjawab setelah masuk hari ke-100. Bukan sahaja para media yang masih mendebatkan isu ini, malah seluruh dunia dan rakyat Malaysia khususnya masih hangat memperkatakan tentang misteri kehilangan ini.

Merujuk kepada  artikel dari Mingguan Malaysia 6 April 2014 bertajuk ‘CIA dan Teori Konspirasi Hilangnya MH370’, kemungkinan penulisan artikel ini ada wajar dan logik akalnya. Ia bukan suatu perkara yang baharu buat dunia apabila ada tangan-tangan ghaib disebalik kehilangan MH370 ini. Kapasiti pesawat yang membawa 227 penumpang dan 12 krew pesawat masih menjadi tanda soal mengenai kapasiti di bahagian kargo pesawat itu pula.

Dengan 135 penumpang warganegara China menjadikan teori mengenai penglibatan dalang CIA makin kuat apabila dua kuasa besar dunia iaitu China dan Amerika Syarikat masing masing sebenarnya terlibat cecara tak langsung. Mana tidaknya, pesawat buatan Amerika Syarikat membawa kapasiti 135 penumpang warga China, tetapi mengapa melalui MAS (Malaysia Airlines)? Adakah ia untuk menutup penglibatan secara langsung AS? Adakah ini suatu sabotaj buat Malaysia yang mempunyai hubungan diplomatik yang akrab dengan kedua-dua negara gergasi ini? Adakah ini suatu ujian buat Malaysia mengenai kesetian dipihak mana Malaysia  berada?

Dapat dilihat melalui artikel Mingguan Malaysia ini dimana tragedy “9/11-WTC” yang kesudahan ceritanya ialah dengan pencerobohan keatas bumi Afghanistan dan pembunuhan kepala pengganas Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. Adakah persamaan modus operandi 9/11 dengan MH370 ini? Yakni dengan mewujudkan kegemparan dan kemudian bertindak menyerang demi keamanan dunia seperti yang dimegahkan oleh AS sebagai polis dunia.

Peranan media antarabangsa juga dilihat sengaja menimbulkan keraguan terhadap bagaimana Malaysia mengendalikan misi pencarian. Ini telah mengeruhkan keadaan para keluarga penumpang terutama warga China. Siapakah yang dengki dengan hubungan akrab Malaysia-China? Amerika Syarikat mungkin? Apa yang membuat Presiden AS, Barrack Obama datang ke Malaysia pada April lalu? Apa ada dengan Malaysia? Episod kebencian bantahan warganegara China terhadap Malaysia telah dipadamkan dengan kehadiran dua ekor Panda dan lawatan rasmi diplomatik Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak ke China bulan lalu.

Wang berjuta ringgit telah dilaburkan dalam misi pencarian MH370 ini, dan jutaan air mata telah mengiringi kehilangan yang masih misteri ini. Kesudahan misteri ini masih belum terjawab. Iringan doa dan airmata ketabahan buat semua rakyat Malaysia dan keluarga penumpang dan krew khususnya.

June 06, 2014

Malaysian Smartphone Addiction


Smartphone had become one of the most important tools like any others such as wallet and home's key. Smartphone love has swept the world by 'sexting' over the phone had become trend for the youngster who practicing open sex nowadays. A social problem like this occurs to most countries which sex is a taboo among their community, especially Asian countries. Therefore, US falls behind many other nations with only 25% have sent sexually explicit texts or content. A sex education at young ages is one of the factor why US is more civilised in practicing open sex as they already been introduced at an early ages. 

In Malaysia, according to the study, smartphone penetration increased from 47% in 2012 to 63% this year while tablet penetration increased almost threefold from 14% in 2012 to 39% in 2013. The study is based on an online survey which queried 500 urban users who use the Internet daily, and are aged between 16 and 60. Besides voice calls and SMS, the need to connect to the Internet is one of the key drivers for buying a smartphone.

A trends by having a smartphone is only for the purpose of communication only, it also will symbolised as a social status among their friends. It will cause stress among the teenagers or youngster nowadays if their parents not giving them a smartphone. The penetration of the social network becoming wider with Facebook, Twitter and others social platform becoming trending and popular. Malaysia urban society may overlook this as a normal society progress of developing country or civilisation. But instead the addiction and too much depending on smartphone had caused lots of negative impact among the society and family especially. 

There is a case in Miri, Sarawak, where a son had murdered his mom for not allowing him having a new smartphone. This happened when the youngster's trend had set a benchmark for everyone to have a smartphone, and those who not having may become deviance and weird among the society. The 18 years old suspect found with a knife which believed to be the murder weapon for stabbing his mom. This example of phenomenon showed us that this addiction have become danger.

By having a smartphone also had isolate ourself from the social integration in real life. Where our social life might only by posting picture through Instagram and posting status through Facebook only. This had created a dull and unhealthy dinner table ambiance among family at the dinner table, where the children and both parents busy with their smartphone while waiting for the food to be served. Theres is no contact orally that can create a long conversation of the family.



June 03, 2014

Homeless Children: An Untold Reality

By: Amirul Aiman, Faarzana, Salmie & Zul Khairi

A harmony and progressive country like Malaysia sealed an untold story behind it. A city light at night become the only beam that witness loneliness and emptiness of homeless children especially in Kuala Lumpur and others city in Malaysia. The developing of the country had neglected this minority from having the same benefits like other citizens. 


Most of the homeless children are being abandon from both their parents who working late night and this will lead them to be engaged with social security problem like sexual abuse, human trafficking and others crimes. There is also homeless children who are refugees such as Rohingya and also illegal child who their mother a sex workers that make their home as place for that unhealthy activity. Does this untold realities are irritating? This unlucky minority had gone through a hard time to keep their survival. 


The numbers of homeless children or street kids is increasingly and worrying as this will lead to other unhealthy social problems. As said by UNICEF, in Malaysia, children living on the streets include undocumented children, stateless children and children of migrants. Some children may have run away from home, often in response to psychological, physical or sexual abuse. Those children without right birth registration will deny their benefits from having good education and healthcare.



According to an Inter-NGO Program on street children and youth, a street child is “any girl or boy who has not mature and reach adulthood level, for whom the street has become his or her usual sojourn and source of livelihood, and who is deficient protected, directed, and look over by responsible adults.”

IMPACTS ON HOMELESS CHILDREN


The analogy is simple-
1) What if: a herd of sheep release naked in sahara among wilderness—among lions and cheetah?
2)The cheetah and wilderness represent city and rough black hazardous environment, while sheep is symbolic to homeless kid or children.

The rough environment will shape and affect the children, while other kids enjoying pencil and book with guidance from teacher,homeless will enjoy their day with daydream or loitering around their neighbourhood without proper education. They will repeat the cycle of their parents life. In 2012 level of illiterate in Malaysia is 37,504 from 468,808 SPM candidates. (Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi,2012)

From 468,808 students are taking SPM in 2012, how about homeless? Are they seat for SPM too?

Children are persona from their elder, parents, brothers and who they friends with, the other effect of homeless is the margin of crime rapidly increase day by day. Their father as drug dealer, while sister and mother as prostitute and friend join the gangster club to try fit in the society. They are the 'noir' side of Kuala Lumpur-Chow kit. Are you sure they will became “Imam Muda’ after being raised in this black society—sure they can. But in one fine day.

ACT AND NGO's INVOLVING HOMELESS CHILDREN

            The Child Act 2001 [Act 611] was enacted in our country to fulfil its obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which is in 1995 and the goals of CRC are to uphold its commitment to the protection and welfare of her children. This was a major step for the country.

Act 611’s preamble provides that every child is entitled to protection and assistance in all circumstances without regard to distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, social origin or physical, mental or emotional disabilities or any status. In addition, the provisions of Act 611 are based on the four core principles of the CRC that is, non-discrimination, best interest of the child, the right to life, survival and development and respect for the views of the child.


Apart from that, the Act also established the National Council for the Protection of Children, which advises the Government on child protection issues while the National Advisory and Consultative Council for Children acts as a national focal point for children's well-being and development.

Act 611 also requires the setting up of Child Protection Teams and Child Activity Centres at both state and district levels. For instance, it is aimed at mobilising community participation in the implementation of preventive and rehabilitative programmes, these initiatives are targeted for children at risk or children vulnerable to all forms of abuse and exploitation.

There are following non-governmental groups that are working to respect and uphold the rights of children in our country such as Malaysian Child Resource Institute, Childline Malaysia, Malaysia Care, National Early Childhood Intervention Council, Protect and Save the children, Voice of Children, and Yayasan Chow Kit.



In a nutshell, those unlucky homeless children who being neglected apart from the developing world should have a better place and it is not only one responsibility as this issue takes more than that to combat these social problems. Lack of love and attention towards their needs had made them become vulnerable and a good approach from NGO and leader of community are needed. The NGO in our country especially should uphold the principles and provisions of the CRC such as the General Principles of the CRC concerning non-discrimination, the best interests of the child, the right to life and survival and development and the right of the child to express their views freely.


April 29, 2014

Article Review : Balkanisasi Siber: Gangguan kepada semangat 1Malaysia


Kedengaran asing perkataan Balkanisasi buat umum. Balkanisasi dalam konteks geopolitik membawa maksud proses pembahagian atau fragmentasi atau suatu wilayah atau negara kepada beberapa wilayah atau negara kecil yang bertentangan dan tidak sehaluan antara satu sama lain seperti dikata oleh Ivan Vidanovic (2006).

Huraian oleh Dr. Rahmat Ghazali melalui artikel "Balkanisasi Siber: Gangguan kepada semangat 1Malaysia" membuka dimensi ketamadunan kewujudan sesebuah negara baru yang berasas dari kepincangan fahaman dan ras kaum. Sikap penolakan dan berkelompok mengikut fahaman atau ideologi bersama ini merupakan suatu kebimbangan yang akan menjurus kepada ketidak seimbangan sosio di kalangan masyarakat berbilang kaum di Malaysia.

Konsep balkanisasi ini terang-terangan menolak Gagasan 1Malaysia yang diperkenalkan oleh kerajaa Barisan Nasional. Sifat politik Malaysia yang masih berterasakna perkauman amat tebal dan proses segragasi ini telah wujud sekian lama bermula daripada penjajahan Inggeris lagi. Ia amat sukar untuk dihakis gaya politk ini di Malaysia kerana sifat kebergantungan sesama kaum sangat tinggi malah kini budaya "melayu tolong melayu" semakin menebal. Proses integrasi yakni merupakan satu proses bagi mewujudkan satu identiti nasional dalam kalangan kumpulan yang terpisah daripada segi budaya, sosial dan lokasi dalam sesebuah unit politik (Shamsul Amri, 2007).

Balkanisasi media pula menjurus kepada dua fahaman yang ketara kini iaitu media arus perdana dan media alternatif menjadi medan pertempuran buat golongan yang merasa kelompok mereka perlu bersuara demi kebaikan bersama sesama merela (kelompok tersebut). Ketaksuban seseorang terhadap suatu individu justeru mewujudkan kelompok sendiri untuk meraih lepbih besar pengaruh menjadi-jadi kini. Ini dapat dilihat melalui sejarah dalam politik Malaysia melalui pemecatan jawatan Timbalan Perdana Menteri ketika itu Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim, telah mengapikan-apikan sifat balkanisasi dalam kalangan kumpulan yang menyokong Tun Dr. Mahathir (mantan Pedana Menteri) dan yang menyokong Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Pemisahan ini terjadi melalui balkanisasi kebencian dan dendam. Gagasan 1Malaysia yang diperkenalkan cuba untuk menyamaratakan kesemua kaum masih belum cukup untuk mententeramkan ombak kecil kebanyakan rakyat. Transformasi politik Malaysia dari Raja kepada Rakyat menurut Dr. Ishak Saat (2009), pemahaman tentang politik Melayu dapat dibuat mengikut urutan peristiwa yang berlaku secara berperingkat-peringkat. Pertamanya, pemahaman tentang konsep politik, organisasi dan sistem kepercayaan Melayu peringkat awal. Kedua, pertembungan antara feudalisme dengan kolonialisme. Ketiga, bagaimana pertembungan tersebut menghasilkan sistem bercorak negara-bangsa(nation-state) serta proses demokrasi di mana kedaulatan Raja bertukar menjadi kedaulatan rakyat yang lebih bersifat nasional.

Akhir kata, balkanisasi boleh menjadi duri dalam daging yang hendak dibuang sayang. Ini dapat dilihat melalui pengwujudan sebuah negara bangsa baru iatu di Selatan Filipina, Bangsamoro yang didokong oleh puak pemisah pembebasan wilayah yang akhirnya diberi autonomi mewujudkan kerajaan sendiri selepas bertahun berjuang dan mententeramkan ketegangan. Ini merupakan balkanisasi yang membawa keamanan melalui pemisahan. Seterusnya balkanisasi diantara fahaman dan ideologi sesama negara bangsa lebih membawa keretakan kepada sesebuah negara yang seterusnya boleh membawa kepincangan dan perang saudara. 




Online journalism is a threat to Malaysian peace and harmony

The emerging of technologies and advancement in information delivery system will keep on evolving from time to time.  The existence of Internet since 1960 started with used by academic institutions to trade information. Then the use of this platform had widely received by the medical communities stepped in for more, students, companies, random individuals, then more and more smaller networks tied in to make larger networks and it has evolved more drastically started at 1990 with the introduction of World Wide Web (www).

The Internet phenomenon had given a huge impact on journalism world. The online journalism played an important media sources Malaysia recently. Even though Malaysia is among the countries that have the slowest bandwidth speed with the highest speed only 50Mbit/s, the wide used of Internet is unstoppable here. Malaysians spend one third of their time on social networking.

October 2012

The huge numbers of users of Internet will cause some misuse of this platform. Especially evolving of media house in Malaysia now days had giving more focus in their delivering system through online. This online journalism keeps the updates faster than the offline that is newspaper, radio and television. However, it became a threat to Malaysian peace and harmony as the exchange of information through online is overwhelming and not filtered by anyone as everyone is free to post anything at anytime. Some ethics in journalism might overshadow by the craving of an individual in sharing their thought and belief.

The threat is not only by the media house, but also from the bloggers who made their blog as one of the alternative sources of information. The identity of a blogger is unknown and the writing of their posting is not filtered where they are free to write on anything above the sky. This will cause hatred among the society who might not on the same page as them. Some sensitive issues, especially racial and religious issues play a huge impact among multiethnic society in Malaysia.

The characteristic of the online journalism which is cheap and flexible made it debut is faster and easy to spread through few clicks only. The greed of sharing and becoming the first source of information without confirmation by the authorities will become rumors. The control from the interference by the government might cause distress by the users, as most of young Malaysian generations are very outspoken of the issue of freedom of speech. Therefore, the public or Internet user need to be educating of the danger of holding a wrong or unauthorized information. The spreading of wrong information will cause direct offences to the victim who involved.

It is not wrong as internet user nowadays are kind to share their thoughts but somehow the posting might offended others who know better the truth about some issues. The common and the expert might have clash of information pertaining rising issues of the nations, as recent example is the breaking news of losing MH370. The chaos will cause huge impact to the nation or even worldwide.

A good ethical online journalism is a subject that not only learned by the media practitioner, but also need to be educate to the public especially the internet user on the limit and knowing the truth before made posting or sharing some information through online.


April 25, 2014

Personality : Jeff Bezos The Amazon Tycoon


The success story of this billionaire tech titan, Jeff Bezos had become a wide coverage and his successful is build by his own ideas and conception of his imagination. All his invention of creative ideas had become a story to be fill onto his resume that could never ever been gained by others.  

The greatest invention made by Jeff Bezos is the brilliant ideas of his online retailer, Amazon.com. This idea began with John Ingram of Ingram Books together with Keyur Patel who both of them sill one of the stakeholder in Amazon. There had never been a company quite like Amazon. As being told by CBS News from their special coverage on successful of Amazon.com said that, conceived as an online book seller, Amazon has reinvented itself time and again, changing the way the world shops, reads and computes. Amazon has 225 million customers around the world. Its goal is to sell everything to everyone. The brainchild of Jeff Bezos, Amazon prides itself on disrupting the traditional way of doing things.


Amazon began with books, by started as an online bookstore who do the trading via e-commerce.  Amazon's logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, to represent that they are serving every product from A to Z, with the arrow shaped like a smile portrayed a friendly services they could offer with the best deal on market.

From times to times, Jeff Bezos had been more innovative by introducing a new sensational device to the world that he could ever offer which is Kindle in 2007. It is a handheld electronic reading device that integrated wireless Internet connectivity, enabling the reader to purchase, download and read complete books and other documents at anywhere and at anytime. This device had received a wide exposure, as far as I could remember was one show by Oprah Winfrey from one of her talk show episode reviewing Kindle and said it is “her new favorite thing”, as the device is so easy and reachable to download many book titles which may hard to be found in bookstore nowadays.

After focusing only on reading material ease, Amazon now boasts a host of diversified subsidiaries, including AmazonLocal and LivingSocial. This is to coop with the diverse of new technology keep on evolving and to keep his product on the track; Jeff Bezos had step towards and never look back. He keeps producing creative ideas to expand his Amazon branding for not only online retailing business but also more than that. In 2012, Bezos launched Amazon Studios, crowdsourcing the development of feature films and television shows. Amazon plans to present television programs through an online video service, the feature films in brick-and-mortar theaters.

Some of new expansion business under the branding of Amazon is Amazon-CloudDrive, which can store music, videos, photos, files by renting a hard drive in the cloud where is actually a database. Another one is AmazonFresh which sell and delivers groceries in Seattle and start to expand its coverage areas and this show that Amazon is trying extends the range of product they could offer from their online retailing services.

As been said by Jeff Probes himself during interviewed with correspondent Charlie Rose,  “I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer centricity, putting the customer at the center of everything we do, invention. We like to pioneer, we like to explore, we like to go down dark alleys and see what’s on the other side.” (60 Minutes, CBS News, 2013)

On the other side of Amazon’s online retailing is a business customers know little about. It’s called Amazon Web Services, AWS, and may soon become Amazon’s biggest business. To keep track of its massive online orders, Amazon built a large and sophisticated computing infrastructure. Amazon figured out it could also expand that infrastructure to store data and run websites for hundreds of thousands of outside companies and government agencies on what is known as the cloud.
           
With the great success gained from his online retailer had made him debuted as one of the living billionaire age below 50 years old. As the Amazon.com hit top 10 website for most visited internet traffic, Jeff Bezos now had widen his empire by owning few more web services.