PETALING JAYA, June 14 – Located in the secluded, semi-industrial enclave of Section 13 PJ, Artisan Roast HQ isn't where you'd expect the third and latest café of a highly successful independent coffee ... Read More
David Beckham drew a line under China's soccer history today, saying he hoped to inspire local children to get back into the sport.
Appointed in March as a Chinese soccer ambassador shortly before the start of the new Super League season, the former England captain faces a tough task with local soccer still in a quagmire following a long line of graft issues.
In February, two former soccer administration heads were banned for life by the Chinese Football Association for accepting bribes, while Shanghai Shenhua, who made waves by signing former Chelsea strike duo Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, were docked points for matchfixing and stripped of the 2003 title.
"When I first came on as ambassador of the Super League, I was well aware of what has happened in the past, and people question why I wanted to be involved in something that in the past had a bad name or corruption involved," Beckham told reporters in Shanghai.
"For me, the past is the past, this is the future," added Beckham who had to cut short his programme at the Tongji University where his arrival sparked a stampede in which at least five people were injured.
He was mobbed by some 500 fans, some pushing police officers as they tried to film Beckham.– Reuters, June 20, 2013.
While Brazil enjoy a perfect record of two wins, five goals scored and none conceded from their two matches at the Confederations Cup, another statistic has shown a less appealing side to their game.
Brazil committed 25 fouls during yesterday's 2-0 win over Mexico, the highest by any team in a single match at the tournament so far and more even than the 22 Uruguay conceded in the face of Spain's relentless passing game.
Brazil are usually associated with the finer arts of the game, yet systematic fouling in midfield has often been just as much a part of their football culture, at both club and national team level, as the exuberant skills of their forwards.
Although there was no obvious violence the match at the Castelao, Mexico repeatedly found their moves interrupted by so-called "tactical fouls" such as a sly trip or tug of the shirt.
"I was surprised and a little disappointed at the number of fouls that they have, constantly fouling," said former United States defender Alexi Lalas, analysing the game for ESPN.
"We know how important setpieces are, and that is going to be something to look for if they keep fouling, rather than actually playing the game."
The fact that Brazil picked up only two yellow cards for their 25 fouls suggested that Fifa may need to consider the way tactical fouls are dealt with by referees.
Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has courted controversy in the past by publicly complaining that his players were not fouling enough.
During a stint with Cruzeiro, he admitted that his team gave away an average of 25 fouls per match but said was it one of the lowest numbers in the Brazilian championship at the time.
When he was at Palmeiras, there was uproar after a television crew outside the changing room recorded a private team talk in which he urged his players to kick a member of the opposing team.
Scolari was certainly not alone and there was a period in Brazilian football around 10 years ago where some coaches believed that committing more fouls than the opposition was the key to winning the game. Many regarded fouls as a tactical resource rather than an infringement on the laws of the games.
Yet, attitudes can change radically depending on the team doing the fouling.
In his most recent spell in Brazilian club football with Palmeiras, Scolari was furious after his side were on the receiving end of systematic fouling.
"We have 150 fouls against Palmeiras, 20 against (striker) Kleber and yellow cards were not given," he said.
"If the opponents take it in turns to kick foul the players and the statistics show that, it's time for the federation to have a look at this type of refereeing."
Many critics might agree with those sentiments after watching Brazil's performance against Mexico. - Reuters, June 20,2013.
Black Sabbah in Auckland, New Zealand, early 2013Veteran heavy-metal band Black Sabbath landed its first No. 1 album on the US Billboard 200 album chart yesterday, more than four decades after the rockers debuted their first album in the United States.
"13," the 19th studio album from Black Sabbath, sold 155,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, knocking last week's No. 1 album by Queens of the Stone Age off the top spot on the weekly American album chart.
Black Sabbath, an English rock band fronted by lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, released their debut self-titled album in North America in 1970, but were never able to notch the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart in a career spanning 43 years.
"The news is absolutely amazing - we couldn't have imagined this would happen," guitarist and founding member Tony Iommi said in a statement.
Black Sabbath was one of five new debut albums in the top ten this week. Boy band Big Time Rush came in at No. 4 with "24/Seven," alternative-rockers Goo Goo Dolls landed at No. 8 with their latest record "Magnetic," and movie score maestro Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for Superman movie "Man of Steel" flew into No. 9. Comedy trio The Lonely Island, fronted by former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Andy Samberg, rounded out the top 10 with their latest collection of parodies, "The Wack Album."
Overall album sales totaled 5.25 million for the week ending June 16, down 10 per cent from the comparable sales week in 2012, according to Billboard.
Next week's chart is likely to see a high debut from rapper Kanye West, who released his latest record "Yeezus" this week and is currently at the top of the iTunes album chart.- Reuters, June 20, 2013.
Showbiz power couple Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, or Kimye, have reportedly named their newborn baby girl Kaidence Donda West.
Keeping the "K" empire going, the name seems to be a twist on the conventional spelling for Cadence. The other women in the Kardashian clan are Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall, Kylie and their mother Kris.
The baby's second name is believed to be a tribute to Kanye's late mother Dr Donda West.
Kardashian gave birth on Saturday, ahead of schedule, with the baby reportedly due in early July.
Kardashian stars with her sisters in the reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. She has a clothing line and several product endorsements and was the most-searched person on the Yahoo! in 2012.
Grammy-winning rap star Kanye West and Kardashian began dating in April 2012.
Two months ago Kardashian and her second husband, Kris Humphries of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, announced they had reached a divorce settlement. They had split 72 days after their August 2011 wedding.
Humphries had first sought an annulment, alleging that Kardashian, who cited irreconcilable difference when filing for divorce, had no intention of keeping to the marriage, which was filmed as part of her reality show, Los Angeles. - Agencies, June 20, 2013.
A year after Facebook Inc's fumbled IPO, Wall Street remains slow to recognize what Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg (pic) argues has been an across-the-board improvement in its business.
Facebook's ability to deliver ads to mobile phones, improvements in measuring the effectiveness of its ads and increasing user engagement have all put the world's largest social network in a better position than before the IPO, Sandberg told the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Wednesday.
"When I look back at the last year since we went public, I believe we are unequivocally a much stronger company today than we were on literally any metric I can think of," Sandberg said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Wednesday.
Facebook became the first U.S. technology company to debut with a value of more than $100 billion, in May 2012. Its shares have lost almost 40 percent of their value since.
"I can't speak to the stock price but I do feel strongly that we are a better positioned, stronger company than we were a year ago," she said.
With 1.1 billion users, Facebook is one of the Web's most popular destinations for consumers and advertisers. But growth in the company's revenue has slowed sharply from two years ago and some investors fret that a new crop of mobile apps aimed at younger users could chip away at Facebook's hold on consumers.
Analysts also wonder if the company's depressed share price could dampen morale and hamper its ability to attract talent in Silicon Valley's ultra-competitive talent arena.
"I don't think it's actually had a huge impact," the ex-Google Inc executive said, adding that while there had been some worries in the company about it, she was less worried as she had been through it before.
The cool investor reception to Facebook and other recent consumer dotcom debutantes from Groupon to Zynga has helped chill the Silicon Valley IPO train.
"If you miss in the first six months of being a public company, you're in the penalty box for a very long time," Sequoia partner Roelof Botha said at a panel about the fate of Silicon Valley public offerings.
"If you beat too much, you're an idiot because you should have forecast higher."
OLD AND NEW
Under co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's new mission is to carve out a dominant position in smartphones and tablets to keep up with shifting consumer habits.
The company's mobile ads, which appear directly in users' newsfeeds and now account for 30 percent of Facebook's overall ad revenue, command higher prices than its previous PC ads and are tougher for competitors to replicate, Sandberg said.
It has recently introduced new features that have been popularized on rival service Twitter, such as verified user accounts and "hashtags," which make it easier for users to follow activity on the social network.
Within the last year, Facebook made its largest acquisition ever, paying about $700 million for Instagram. Sandberg said the company was in no hurry to generate revenue from the mobile photo-sharing app.
Facebook will at some point monetize the popular picture-postings service, Sandberg said. But for the near term "we all think it makes a lot of sense for Instagram to be focused on growth" in users.
Another untapped opportunity is China. Facebook remained interested in offering its service in the world's largest Internet market, where the social network is banned.
"It's an ongoing conversation with the government. At the end of the day it's their choice," she said. Sitting on the sidelines too long did not mean Facebook would cede the market to local competitors, she insisted.
"We were not the first entrants in our space to any market I'm aware of. There were markets like Brazil where Orkut had huge penetration, we're now over 80 percent penetrated into the Internet population," Sandberg said.
Sandberg, 43, joined Facebook as chief operating officer in 2008, overseeing business operations and transforming the fast-growing social network into a multi-billion company, while Zuckerberg focused on product strategy.
A former Google sales executive who also served as chief of staff to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Sandberg is credited with bringing valuable business experience and organizational discipline to the company.
With her new book, Lean In, currently the No.2 bestseller in the New York Times hardcover non-fiction list, some wonder whether Sandberg might be ready to take on a new challenge, perhaps in the world of politics.
She dismissed the notion of political aspirations, noting that she has already been in government and had no plans to leave Facebook. - Reuters, June 20, 2013.
June 17, 2013, New York - A major auction of manuscripts and letters of American writer William Faulkner, a Nobel laureate, drew an underwhelming public response at auction in New York Tuesday, with the ... Read More
June 17, 2013, New York - A major auction of manuscripts and letters of American writer William Faulkner, a Nobel laureate, drew an underwhelming public response at auction in New York Tuesday, with the ... Read More
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had mentioned about the war of perception for more than once.
If the BN's conclusion for losing votes of urban and young voters in the 13th general election is because it was defeated in the war of perception, I am afraid that it would find it very difficult to regain the support of these voters in the next general election.
The so-called perception may refer to cognitive errors or biases, is that really the case?
Transformation plans have indeed brought some gratifying data.
For instance, the ETP had announced a total of 149 projects with a cumulative total of RM211.34 billion in committed investments as of December 31, 2012.
Also, the national per capital income has increased from US$6,700 in 2009 to US$9,970 in 2012.
These data are credentials for the BN's growing prosperity claim, insisting that the country is not as bad as described by the alternative coalition.
However, they should collect data more comprehensively and make multifaceted comparisons to get a more realistic picture.
Malaysia's economic growth reached 5.6% last year but it had slowed sharply in the first quarter of this year to 4.1%, while household debt had risen to 82.9%.
Despite the salary increment, car and housing loans have led to the rising household debt.
According to a survey, nearly 90% of respondents believed that they could not afford the real estate, feeling that their salary increment rates were too low to catch up with the rising speed in housing prices.
Also, car prices, except for national cars, have not yet been lowed and these were the reasons why urban residents were not happy.
While it is committed to reducing the fiscal deficit, the government must not neglect the soaring household debt.
In terms of crime, the crime rate had dropped by 27% over the past three years.
As of April this year, the crime rate had also dropped by 3.1% compared to the same period last year.
According to a survey, however, 52.8% of people were still feeling insecure and were worried about security problems.
The OXY robbery gang continued to break into ATM machines even after the police announced to have round-the-clock hourly patrols nationwide to prevent ATM thefts.
And now, restaurants and eateries have become the new targets of robbers.
The reduced number of people staying outside at night showed that instead of a stereotype, members of the public are really feeling insecure.
Meanwhile, the problem of human rights violation was not just plucked out of the air.
From 2000 to February 2011, as many as 156 deaths in custody were reported and there were four custody deaths in two weeks recently, attracting even international media to cover the deaths.
Amidst the call for an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), which was proposed but rejected and replaced by the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC), it was discovered that the only investigator of the EAIC has been one of the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) officers involved in Teoh Beng Hock's case.
How could the people be convinced as instead of being demoted, he was actually promoted to hold such an important post?
In addition, other National Key Results Areas (NKRA), including improving student outcomes and improving urban public transport, have failed to leave a good impression on the people.
According to the 2011 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), Malaysia was the worst performing nation of the 59 participating countries in terms of marks scored.
Only 19% of Kuala Lumpur residents are taking public transport is not a satisfactory datum either.
Therefore, the people judge based on facts, rather than perception.
They should immediately recognise the reality and intensify reforms to hope for a change in the public's view. - Sin Chew Daily, June 20, 2013
THE blight of haze, originating in forest fires in Sumatra, is once again badly affecting Singapore and Malaysia, along with Indonesia itself.
These countries have been choking on the problem for the past 16 years since the great South-east Asian haze of 1997, a disaster that disrupted air and sea traffic and business activities and resulted in US$9 billion in economic, social and environmental losses.
Yet, the deplorable pollution continues, prompting ordinary people, visitors and investors to ask if the problem is beyond the capacity of Jakarta to solve.
The mood of public disquiet in Singapore was reflected in the reaction of Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who said: "We need the Indonesians to enforce their own laws."
Legal convention imposes strict liability on land owners who allow anything that causes harm to escape.
Alongside this is the common law duty of care that each owes to "neighbours" not to cause them injury.
The same, of course, cannot be simply applied to neighbouring countries. As Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam noted, Singapore cannot intervene in what sovereign Indonesia does or fails to do.
Unfortunately, one strand of the Indonesian response has been to deflect blame by arguing that Malaysian and Singaporean palm oil companies investing in Indonesia might have been responsible for the fires in Riau province.
This is an astonishing rejoinder.
Even if the companies using slash-and-burn techniques are foreign-owned, they are operating on Indonesian soil and are subject to national laws.
If there is sufficient evidence, it is Indonesia that should name them and prosecute offenders.
Singaporeans and Malaysians who are outraged by the blatant conduct of offenders would cheer such action.
They might also go further by exerting public pressure on them, perhaps to the point of boycotting their products.
Before any action, they must allow the law to take its course.
The truth, sadly, is that rogue firms thrive in permissive regimes where commercial interests overshadow environmental concerns.
That situation can be changed only by an act of political will and faithful implementation of laws with sufficient bite.
What Indonesia's neighbours could do is to nudge it towards ratifying the agreement on transboundary haze pollution which Asean adopted in 2002.
Some critics fault the pact for not taking concrete action, for example, by imposing sanctions, especially if assistance to fight recurring haze is unreasonably declined.
Nevertheless, the agreement remains a starting point in addressing an environmental and health hazard that respects no borders.
Indonesia should act to resolve a problem that literally clouds relations with its neighbours. - The Straits Times, June 20, 2013.
Dua warga Pakistan dihadapkan ke Mahkamah Majistret Ampang di sini hari ini atas pertuduhan membunuh paderi warga Amerika bulan lepas.
Shaheen Murad, 37, dan Hassan Raza, 21, bersama dua lagi yang masih bebas, didakwa membunuh David James Ginter, 62, di No 2, Lorong 2A, Taman Sri Ukay, Hulu Kelang, Ampang Jaya, di sini antara 5.30 petang 3 Mei dan 10.45 pagi keesokan harinya.
Tiada pengakuan dicatatkan daripada kedua-dua penganggur itu yang berdepan hukuman mati mandatori jika disabitkan kesalahan mengikut Seksyen 302 Kanun Keseksaan.
Majistret Noor Farah Hazwani Osman menetapkan 18 Julai untuk sebutan. Timbalan Pendakwa Raya S.Purnima mewakili pendakwaan manakala kedua-dua tertuduh tidak diwakili peguam.
Pada 13 Jun lepas seorang pengawal keselamatan warga Pakistan Shahbaz, 25, didakwa terhadap pertuduhan sama. - Bernama, 20 Jun, 2013.
Bekas Menteri Pengangkutan Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik yang didakwa menipu kerajaan Malaysia berhubung projek Zon Bebas Pelabuhan Klang (PKFZ) selesai membela diri selepas memanggil saksi terakhirnya, iaitu Ketua Pegawai Operasi Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) Datuk Faizal Abdullah.
Dr Ling, 70, yang diperintah membela diri pada 9 Mac tahun lepas, mengemukakan sembilan saksi, termasuk dirinya dan bekas Perdana Menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Hakim Mahkamah Tinggi Datuk Ahmadi Asnawi menetapkan 22 Julai untuk hujahan.
Dr Ling didakwa menipu kerajaan Malaysia apabila tidak mendedahkan kepada Jemaah Menteri fakta berkaitan kadar faedah sebanyak 7.5 peratus setahun adalah tambahan kepada harga pembelian tanah pajakan negeri 7324 Lot 67894 yang berasaskan RM25 sekaki persegi (skp) iaitu RM1.088 bilion sedangkan beliau tahu Jabatan Penilaian dan Perkhidmatan Harta (JPPH) Kementerian Kewangan, dalam menentukan nilai itu, telah mengambil kira kadar kupon.
Dia juga berdepan dua pertuduhan pilihan (pindaan) iaitu menipu dan sengaja tidak mendedahkan kepada Jemaah Menteri fakta berkaitan kadar faedah 7.5 peratus setahun adalah kadar faedah tambahan kepada harga pembelian tanah pajakan 7324 Lot 67894 berasaskan RM25 skp iaitu RM1,088,456,000.
Dr Ling didakwa melakukan semua kesalahan di tingkat 4, Pejabat Perdana Menteri, Bangunan Perdana Putra, Putrajaya antara 25 Sept dan 6 Nov 2002.
Terdahulu, Faizal memberitahu mahkamah bahawa Dr Ling tidak mempunyai sebarang kepentingan dalam syarikat KDSB atau syer dan tidak pernah menawarkan habuan untuk projek PKFZ.
Faizal, yang merupakan Timbalan Ketua Pegawai Operasi KDSB ketika projek itu berlangsung, berkata sepanjang proses penjualan tanah di Pulau Indah beliau hanya berurusan dengan bekas Ketua Setiausaha (KSU) Kementerian Pengangkutan Datuk Zaharah Shaari, bekas Timbalan KSU Datuk Abdul Rahman Mohd Noor dan bekas Ketua Penolong Setiausaha Bahagian Maritim P.Chandrasekaran.
Ditanya peguam Wong Kian Kheong sama ada beliau pernah berjumpa Dr Ling ketika itu, Faizal berkata: "Saya tidak ingat."
Dr Ling didakwa pada 29 Julai 2010, dan perbicaraan yang bermula 1 Ogos 2011 membabitkan 25 saksi pendakwaan termasuk bekas pegawai Kementerian Pengangkutan dan menteri kabinet.
Barisan pendakwaan diketuai Timbalan Pendakwa Raya Datuk Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah. - Bernama, 20 Jun, 2013.
The Malaysian Insider :: Food
PETALING JAYA, June 14 – Located in the secluded, semi-industrial enclave of Section 13 PJ, Artisan Roast HQ isn't where you'd expect the third and latest café of a highly successful independent coffee ... Read More 
Showbiz power couple Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, or Kimye, have reportedly named their newborn baby girl Kaidence Donda West. 
A year after Facebook Inc's fumbled IPO, Wall Street remains slow to recognize what Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg (pic) argues has been an across-the-board improvement in its business.