Once you are seated at The Beato Aged Steakhouse in Solaris Dutamas, a board is brought to your table showing the cuts of beef available and the weight of each. Would you consider a porterhouse, ribeye, ... Read More
Once you are seated at The Beato Aged Steakhouse in Solaris Dutamas, a board is brought to your table showing the cuts of beef available and the weight of each. Would you consider a porterhouse, ribeye, ... Read More
Datuk Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub (BN-Machang)today told parliament that to revive the glory days of Malaysian football, when the national team qualified for the 1972 Munich Olympics and 1980 Moscow Olympics, FAM's Article 88 must be abolished.
Ahmad Jazlan also said Malaysia was once a powerhouse in football at regional level and even in Asia but now are in fifth spot even at Asean level, behind Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar when the latest FIFA rankings was released.
The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) Article 88 forbids officials, coaches and players from criticizing the administration and policies of the FAM is hindering football development, he told Parliamant.Ahmad Jazlan said the enforcement of FAM's Article 88 Statute has resulted in a drop in the quality and success of football in the country.
"We know that the development and success of football is the responsibility of the FAM but when the quality of football which is a sport loved by the people drops, it is my duty to bring it to the attention of the Dewan."
"I want to ask the Sports Commissioner: "Isn't it relevant for the Sports Commissioner's office to take stock of what was happening in the FAM, especially in the enforcement of Article 88, and question its existence," he asked when speaking during the debate on the royal address in the Dewan Rakyat.
A number of leading football personalities, including Tunku Mahkota Johor Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim who is the president of the Johor FA, FAM deputy president Tan Sri Annuar Musa (Kelantan FA president) and Perlis FA president Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, were suspended and fined for allegedly violating Article 88.
"For the love of football, don't tell me that someone cannot even speak out because it was merely for the good of the association and football, not for their own benefit," he said. - Bernama, July 4, 2013.
Flying Out: Cisse will be on a permanent deal at Kuban Krasnodar. He was on loan by QPR to Qatar's Al-Gharafa previously. - picture from AFP.Kuban Krasnodar have signed former Queen Park Rangers and French international Djibril Cisse on a one-year deal, the Russian Premier League club reported today.
The 31-year-old striker's contract has an option of a one-year extension. No financial details of the deal were disclosed.
Last month Cisse parted company with QPR, relegated to the English Championship, "by mutual consent".
Cisse, who collected 41 caps and scored nine goals for France, said he was happy to join the Russian top flight side.
"I talked to Samuel Eto'o and Florent Sinama-Pongolle, who both have experience of playing in Russia, before I agreed to join Kuban.," he said.
"They told me that there's plenty of skilled and talented players in Russia and the overall level of the league has risen a great deal in recent years."
Cisse has previously played for Auxerre and Marseille, English sides Liverpool, Sunderland and QPR, Italian Serie A outfit Lazio and Panathinaikos in Greece.
Last season Kuban finished fifth in the Russian league to qualify the club from the southern city Krasnodar for the Europa League. - AFP, July 4, 2013.
Farmers plow the field in Saulawa village, on the outskirts of Nigeria's north-central state of Kaduna May 15, 2013. When President Goodluck Jonathan was elected two years ago, he pledged reforms that would transform the lives of tens of millions of farmers who live on less than $2 a day despite occupying some of Africa's most fertile land. - Reuters PicDown a winding dirt track in this sleepy village in northern Nigeria lies a corn farm which looks much like the dozens that surround it. The difference is, this one is turning a profit.
"I can barely lift my 8-year-old. He's the fattest in the village," said Ibrahim Mustapha, 50, drawing laughter from his fellow farmers as he pretends to lift up his chubby son.
The Babban Gona or "Great Farm" project, in northern Kaduna state, is one of a handful where private investment is helping former subsistence farmers like Mustapha make profits for themselves and the companies backing them.
When President Goodluck Jonathan was elected two years ago, he pledged reforms that would transform the lives of tens of millions of farmers who live on less than $2 a day despite occupying some of Africa's most fertile land.
Oil remains the main source of foreign currency and state revenues, but agriculture is by far the biggest contributor to GDP, making up 40 percent of Africa's second largest economy.
With 170 million mouths to feed and a growing food import bill thanks to the disarray in the farming sector, agriculture ministry officials say there's no time to lose.
If productivity does not improve Nigeria could face a food crisis within a decade, its current account surplus would be wiped out and the credit worthiness of Africa's second biggest debt issuer would be under threat.
"If we did nothing, it would be a disaster," Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina told Reuters in the capital.
"We don't eat oil, we don't drink it ... We cannot sustain the amount of money we use to import food," Adesina said, a Nigerian flag hanging behind his office chair.
In some cases, the imports substitute for things Nigerians are growing but can't get to market or lack the means to process.
The country is the second largest grower of citrus fruit in the world after China and yet it spends $200 million (131 million pounds) a year on imported fruit juice while its own produce rots, Adesina said.
It also produces 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes annually of which 45 percent perish, while consumers spend $360 million on tomato paste imported from countries such as Italy and China.
Curing Dutch Disease
To succeed, Adesina's reforms will need to reverse the inadvertent damage done to the sector by Africa's earliest and biggest oil and gas boom, which crowded out other commodities.
In the 1960s, Nigeria was the biggest exporter of peanuts in the world and had 27 percent of the palm oil trade. It remains one of the world's top cocoa growers, but production and bean quality have declined since their heyday in the 1970s.
While an elite allied to a series of military dictatorships grew rich on the spoils of the energy sector, millions of mostly subsistence farmers were given little or no help at all.
The result: Nigeria is now the world's second largest importer of rice and the biggest buyer of U.S. wheat, while much of its own fertile land lies fallow. A booming population has sent its food import bill rocketing to around $11 billion a year - equivalent to more than a third of the federal budget.
Agriculture also offers the best chance to cut unemployment, which feeds an Islamist insurgency in the north and oil theft in the south. Unemployment is 23 percent and youth unemployment double that, national statistics suggest.
"Poverty is the source of a lot of the insecurity problems we have. A hungry man is an angry man," Adesina said.
The minister plans to create 3.5 million new jobs in agriculture and boost food production by 20 million tonnes by 2015, the year of the next national election.
To achieve this, he wants to boost access to microfinance for farmers and draw in $10 billion of foreign investment into farming and food processing.
He has received tentative praise for early successes from foreign diplomats, bankers and aid agencies, but big agro-business projects have yet to take off.
Adesina took a corrupt fertiliser subsidy out of politicians' hands and now farmers are texted subsidy vouchers directly to their mobile phones so they can recoup from fertiliser sellers, a policy used in Kenya's farming reforms.
Seventy percent of farmers now receive subsidised fertiliser and seeds, compared with 11 percent under the corrupt programme previously run by state governments, Adesina said.
Long road ahead?
Production of rice, cassava, wheat, sorghum, and corn are rising and cocoa, Nigeria's most important export crop, looks set to go up by more than a third this season.
In 2012, agriculture exports rose by 128 billion naira (516 million pounds) and food imports fell by 850 billion, Adesina says.
Foreign investors such as food giant Cargill, seed company Syngenta, brewer SABMiller and Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote are planning to build everything from fertiliser plants to food processing factories.
Yet rice imports still soak up $7 million a day, while poor infrastructure and policy flip-flopping have in the past seen farming potential wasted. Farmers needs infrastructure to get goods to market -- and rural Nigeria's is as woeful as it gets.
Nigerian billionaire Dangote has pledged to spend $35 million on a tomato paste plant in the northern city of Kano and $45 million in Cross River state to process pineapple juice.
Adesina says he has received $8 billion in commitments but such promises are often not kept in Nigeria. Cargill and SABMiller told Reuters they are only "considering" investing.
"I would estimate that no more than one dollar of investment actually occurs for every $100 of announced commitments," said Fola Fagbule, an Africa-focused investment banker in Lagos.
A central bank initiative has issued guarantees on around 25 billion naira of agriculture loans since it began in July last year, lifting lending to the sector to around 4 percent of total loans, from 1.5 percent at end-2009, the bank says.
The World Bank is putting in $100 million into agriculture, while British and U.S. aid projects pump in tens of millions.
This barely scratches the $10 billion Adesina says the sector needs by 2015. Smallholders say banks still don't lend to them, while the scheme doles out cheap money to big firms.
"We've heard it all before and I have never seen it get better," says Alhaji, a farmer wrestling with two scrawny long-horned cows dragging a rusty plough through a field.
"I have 15 children and ... we barely get enough food to feed ourselves," he said.
Bearing fruit?
A few success stories nonetheless give cause for optimism.
Farmer Mustapha says he made $1,350 per hectare from his harvest after paying back private firm Doreo Partners, which runs the Babban Gona project, compared to previous years where he might earn $200 per hectare.
"Now I want to grow my farm, I have so much space I never used. Now I will send my children to school," he said, while behind him mostly unused farmland stretched to the horizon.
Doreo is working with 600 farmers. It has ambitious plans to boost this to 500,000 by 2020, and 5 million by 2030.
"I know it sounds ambitious but it's been done elsewhere and Nigeria has so much easy-to-reach potential," said Kola Masha, the company's head.
Masha is attempting to emulate giant food cooperatives like CHS in the U.S. or India's dairy franchise Amul, who make huge profits while helping millions of smallholder farmers.
He gives farmers high-quality fertiliser, seeds, equipment and expertise on credit to massively increase their yields, while negotiating with firms like Nestle to buy the produce at higher prices than the farmers could get themselves.
Farmers working with Masha, he said, are using 40 times more fertiliser than neighbours who could never afford that amount.
"It's early days but I'm more optimistic than I've ever been," he said. - Reuters, July 4, 2013.
Scientists have for the first time created a functional human liver from stem cells derived from skin and blood and say their success points to a future where much-needed livers and other transplant organs could be made in a laboratory.
While it may take another 10 years before lab-grown livers could be used to treat patients, the Japanese scientists say they now have important proof of concept that paves the way for more ambitious organ-growing experiments.
"The promise of an off-the-shelf liver seems much closer than one could hope even a year ago," said Dusko Illic, a stem cell expert at King's College London who was not directly involved in the research but praised its success.
He said however that while the technique looks "very promising" and represents a huge step forward, "there is much unknown and it will take years before it could be applied in regenerative medicine."
Researchers around the world have been studying stem cells from various sources for more than a decade, hoping to capitalise on their ability to transform into a wide variety of other kinds of cell to treat a range of health conditions.
There are two main forms of stem cells - embryonic stem cells, which are harvested from embryos, and reprogrammed "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS cells), often taken from skin or blood.
Countries across the world have a critical shortage of donor organs for treating patients with liver, kidney, heart and other organ failure. Scientists are keenly aware of the need to find other ways of obtaining organs for transplant.
The Japanese team, based at the Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, used iPS cells to make three different cell types that would normally combine in the natural formation of a human liver in a developing embryo - hepatic endoderm cells, mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cells - and mixed them together to see if they would grow.
They found the cells did grow and began to form three-dimensional structures called "liver buds" - a collection of liver cells with the potential to develop into a full organ.
When they transplanted them into mice, the researchers found the human liver buds matured, the human blood vessels connected to the mouse host's blood vessels and they began to perform many of the functions of mature human liver cells.
"To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating the generation of a functional human organ from pluripotent stem cells," the researchers wrote in the journal Nature.
Malcolm Allison, a stem cell expert at Queen Mary University of London, who was not involved in the research, said the study's results offered "the distinct possibility of being able to create mini livers from the skin cells of a patient dying of liver failure" and transplant them to boost the failing organ.
Takanori Takebe, who led the study, told a teleconference he was so encouraged by the success of this work that he plans similar research on other organs such as the pancreas and lungs.
A team of American researchers said in April they had created a rat kidney in a lab that was able to function like a natural one, but their method used a "scaffold" structure from a kidney to build a new organ.
And in May last year, British researchers said they had turned skin cells into beating heart tissue that might one day be able to be used to treat heart failure.
That livers and other organs may one day be made from iPS cells is an "exciting" prospect, said Matthew Smalley of Cardiff University's European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute.
"(This) study holds out real promise for a viable alternative approach to human organ transplants," he said.
Chris Mason, a regenerative medicine expert at University College London said the greatest impact of iPS cell-liver buds might be in their use in improving drug development.
"Presently to study the metabolism and toxicology of potential new drugs, human cadaveric liver cells are used, " he said. "Unfortunately these are only available in very limited quantities".
The suggestion from this new study is that mice transplanted with human iPS cell-liver buds might be used to test new drugs to see how the human liver would cope with them and whether they might have side-effects such as liver toxicity. - Reuters, July 4, 2013.
A book entitled 'India and Malaysia Intertwined Strands,' authored by Professor Veena Sikri, which portrays an in-depth historical analysis of the inter-linkages between India and Malaysia, was launched ... Read More
A book entitled 'India and Malaysia Intertwined Strands,' authored by Professor Veena Sikri, which portrays an in-depth historical analysis of the inter-linkages between India and Malaysia, was launched ... Read More
Mujahid Yusof Rawa is MP for Parit Buntar and PAS National Unity Committee chairman.
Muqaddimah
Setelah artikel saya yang pertama keluar dalam usaha untuk memahami konflik Syria, ramai yang meminta supaya artikel susulan ditulis bagi mencerakinkan lagi alasan bahawa isu di Syria bukan soal 'sectarian violence' antara Sunni lwn Syiah tetapi ia lebih merupakan masalah kepincangan kepimpinan dan kepentingan geo-politik yang mengancam kepentingan kuasa besar.
Kezaliman melepasi Mazhab
Tidak ada mana-mana mazhab samada Sunni atau Syiah yang mewajarkan sebarang bentuk kezaliman. Pemeliharaan nyawa adalah merupakan titik persetujuan Sunni dan Syiah melainkan mana-mana Sunni dan Syiah tidak menghormati prinsip ini maka tindakannya tidak boleh dianggap sebagai amalan Sunni atau Syiah tetapi amalan individu yang merosakkan nama mana-mana mazhab. Basyar Al Assad hanya mewarisi kezaliman dari ayahnya Hafez Al Assad apabila suara bangkangan terus ditindas. Kebangkitan rakyat sudah sampai ke kemuncaknya di mana mereka melepasi garis takut dan Basyar bertindak balas dengan terus mengancam dan membunuh rakyatnya. Logik yang mudah difahami dalam konflik hubungan pemimpin dan rakyat ialah keganasan hanya akan melahirkan keganasan seumpanya. Basyar tidak melihat dalam kerangka demokrasi yang dituntut oleh rakyatnya tetapi Basyar memburukkan keadaan dengan menjadi lebih diktator dalam menghadapi situasi ini. Implikasi reaksi dalam konteks pergolakan politik adalah punca utama dan bukan kerana golongan Sunni memberontak terrhadap golongan Syiah.
Ironi majoriti lawan minoriti
Jika kita mengandaikan asas konflik berdarah di Syria ialah kerana pertembungan minoriti lwn majoriti,keadaan di Iraq pada zaman Saddam Husin menyaksikan golongan Sunni yang minoriti memerintah Iraq yang majoritinya ialah Syiah. Di Syria pula golongan Syiah yang minoriti dari Alawiyin menjadi pemimpin untuk golongan rakyat yang majoritinya ialah Sunni. Apakah kebangkitan rakyat di Iraq tempoh hari dengan kehadiran tentera penjajah Amerika merupakan kebangkitan Syiah ke atas Sunni? Ataukah di Syria kebangkitan Sunni ke atas Syiah? Saya tidak berfikir demikian tetapi kedua-dua pemimpin samada Saddam atau Basyar berkongsi satu sebab mengapa rakyat memberontak iaitu, penindasan ke atas rakyatnya sendiri. Jadi isunya ialah penindasan dan penindasan boleh berlaku majoriti tindas minoriti mahupun minoriti tindas majoriti seperti kesnya di Iraq era Saddam dan Syria kini.
Kepentingan kuasa besar
Ada dua kepentingan kuasa besar di Timur Tengah, pertama minyak dan kedua ialah kewujudan Israel mesti dipelihara. Syria berada pada kepentingan kedua Kuasa Besar. Amatlah kurang bijak untuk kita mengandaikan Amerika yang mewakili Kuasa Besar tidak mengambil kesempatan kebangkitan rakyat di Syria. Pendekatan Amerika selama ini ialah untuk memastikan 'regime change' berlaku supaya kepentingan Israel dipelihara dan penentangan terhadap Israel dari pejuang Palestine dapat dikawal. Syria dalam perspektif Amerika adalah jiran Israel yang buat masa ini tidak banyak membantu dasar Amerika terhadap Israel. Malah Syria menjadi tempat perlindungan kepada pejuang Hamas yang Sunni dan Hizbollah yang bermazhabkan Syiah. Perlindungan itu bukan kerana mazhab kerana Hamas bukan dari mazhab Syiah, ia lebih merupakan dasar Syria yang tidak mengiktirafi Israel malah menuntut Bukit Golan yang ditawan Israel. Amat jelas perlindungan Syria ke atas Hamas dan Hizbollah adalah tentang kepentingan keselamatan dan memelihara kedaulatan bukan melindungi mana-mana mazhab.
Keganasan kepuakan
Terma Keganasan Kepuakan atau 'Sectarian Violence' dipakai untuk menggambarkan konflik antara fahaman atau mazhab atau agama dari penduduk dalam negeri yang sama. Pertembungan Sunni dan Syiah bukanlah isu yang baru, ia bermula sejak peristiwa pembunuhan Saidina Ali dan berterusan pertembungan itu sepanjang sejarah umat Islam. Masalahnya ialah ketika proses konflik ini berlaku muncul ajaran-ajaran sesat sehingga setiap mazhab mempunyai ajaran sesat masing-masing. Basyar adalah dari Syiah Alawiyin yang bagi golongan Syiah sendiri menganggapnya sebagai sesat. Jadi ungkapan Syiah lawan Sunni itu sendiri perlu diberi fahaman yang jelas malah Basyar juga seorang yang mengamalkan dasar negara yang berfahaman Baath Nasiriyiah ( Sosialis Arab). Teori Sunni lwn Syiah perlu dilihat dalam konteks pertembungan bersifat politik lebih daripada kepuakan. Kepuakan dijadikan alat sahaja untuk mengukuhkan kepentingan politik pihak tertentu sebagai sentimen untuk kepentingan mengekalkan kuasa atau merebut kuasa. Cetusan semangat mazhab dalam hal ini lebih mudah dibangkitan berbandingkan isu ekonomi mahupun politik. Amat jelas di Syria isu mazhab hanyalah sentimen untuk mendapat simpati namun kesannya amatlah buruk kerana ia menjadi satu medan pertempuran yang lebih luas menjangkau luar bumi Timur Tengah. Usaha dialog demi keharmonian mazahib pasti akan terbantut kerana syak wasangka semakin meningkat dan sentimen prejudis menguasai keadaan.
Apakah kenyelesaiannya?
Jelas dalam hal ini remedi mesti berpandukan kepada masalah sebenarnya yang berlaku di Syria. Pastinya Basyar perlu berundur kerana kezalimannya untuk mempertahankan kuasa berada di kemuncak. Negara Islam mesti memberi tekanan dengan memutuskan hubungan dengan regim Basyar. Penyelesaian politik melalui kesatuan semua pihak yang memberontak supaya bersetuju untuk menumpukan tekanan pada rekonsiliasi nasional mesti digerakkan oleh negara Islam dan masyarakat antarabangsa. Kesalahan jenayah perang dari kedua belah pihak hendaklah dihadapkan ke mahkamah antarabangsa manakala isu pelarian mesti juga mendapat perhatian masyarakat antarabangsa. Dengan menumpukan kepada permasalahan sebenar kita boleh menghindari sentimen Sunni lwn Syiah yang kini menguasai polemik isu di Syria.
Barisan Nasional (BN) perlu bersikap lebih demokratik dan terbuka dengan turut melibatkan wakil pembangkang dalam program mereka, kata seorang ahli akademik.
Timbalan Dekan (Jaringan Industri, Masyarakat dan Alumni) Fakulti Sains Pentadbiran dan Pengajian Polisi Universiti Teknologi Mara, Prof Madya Shaharuddin Badaruddin, berkata langkah itu penting untuk menarik kembali sokongan rakyat khususnya di bandar terhadap kerajaan.
"BN perlu berani mencuba sesuatu yang baru dan tidak terikat kepada pada kebiasaan. Beri peluang untuk pemimpin Pakatan Rakyat mengemukakan pandangan. Panggil mereka untuk sama-sama berhujah.
"Bila keterbukaan dilakukan, ia akan menarik rakyat khususnya di bandar kepada BN," katanya kepada Bernama di luar Seminar Media dan Pilihan Raya Umum 2013 hari ini.
Shaharuddin berkata, media di negara ini masih bersifat tradisional berbanding media lain di Asia Tenggara yang menampilkan wakil pembangkang dalam program mereka.
"Di Singapura misalnya, parti pemerintah PAP beri peluang kepada pembangkang untuk bercakap di televisyen.
"Ia bukan menarik perhatian rakyat untuk sokong pembangkang, sebaliknya menyakinkan rakyat untuk undi BN sebab BN dilihat lebih demokratik dan terbuka," katanya.
Beliau berkata, corak pendekatan yang diambil BN di peringkat kerajaan pusat akan membantu mereka memenangi semula negeri yang jatuh ke tangan pembangkang seperti Selangor.
Katanya, sifat bandar di Selangor membuatkan rakyat tidak lagi teruja dengan program bantuan dan pembangunan semata-mata, sebaliknya mereka mahu kerajaan menghormati dan tidak menganggap mereka seperti 'anak kecil'.
Terdahulu ketika sesi pembentangan kertas kerja, Shaharuddin berkata antara faktor Pakatan Rakyat berjaya mempertahankan Selangor ialah kerana pemasaran politik mereka yang lebih berjaya berbanding BN.
"Manifesto Pakatan Rakyat dilihat lebih menarik bagi masyarakat bandar. Cadangan penurunan harga kereta, penghapusan PTPTN, malah billboard mereka juga lebih menarik perhatian.
"Mereka keluar daripada amalan kebiasaan dan mendapat perhatian rakyat," katanya.
Shaharuddin berkata. jika BN berani keluar daripada kepompong kebiasaan, tidak mustahil Selangor mampu ditawan semula pada pilihan raya umum ke-14. Bernama, 4 Julai.
Inkuiri Suruhanjaya Siasatan Diraja (RCI) hari ini diberitahu, sindiket kad pengenalan palsu di negara ini berleluasa berdasarkan kekerapan satu kes dilapor setiap dua minggu.
Memberi keterangan di Mahkamah Tinggi Kota Kinabalu, Pengarah Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara (JPN) Sabah, Ismail Ahmad ketika menyentuh isu pendatang asing mendapati ramai pemegang kad pengenalan palsu menggunakan alamat Sabah
"Sindiket IC palsu memang ada. Dia (pemegang kad palsu) di Kuala Lumpur, pakai alamat Sabah. Setiap dua minggu ada kes dilapor," katanya sambil menambah kebanyakan kes membabitkan kad pengenalan bermutu tinggi.
Saksi ke-163 itu, berkata pengesanan kad pengenalan meragukan biasanya dikesan apabila mereka menukar resit kad pengenalan sementara kepada kad pengenalan.
"Apabila ada IC yang tidak betul datang ke JPN, kita semak dan jika mendapati dia tidak layak kerana kad pengenalannya meragukan, kita tarik balik IC itu.
"Seseorang yang tidak layak tidak boleh dapat IC," katanya depan Ketua Panel inkuiri berkenaan yang juga bekas Hakim Besar Sabah dan Sarawak, Tan Sri Steve Shim Lip Kiong.
The Malaysian Insider :: Food
Once you are seated at The Beato Aged Steakhouse in Solaris Dutamas, a board is brought to your table showing the cuts of beef available and the weight of each. Would you consider a porterhouse, ribeye, ... Read More 
