Ahad, 1 Jun 2014

The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

The Malaysian Insider :: Sports


Federer out of French Open

Posted: 01 Jun 2014 08:33 AM PDT

Ernests Gulbis (left) with Roger Federer at the end of their French tennis Open round of sixteen match against at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris today. – AFP pic, June 1, 2014.Ernests Gulbis (left) with Roger Federer at the end of their French tennis Open round of sixteen match against at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris today. – AFP pic, June 1, 2014.Roger Federer crashed to his earliest French Open defeat since 2004 on Sunday when he was bundled out in the last 16 by controversial Latvian Ernests Gulbis.

Gulbis won 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/3), 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 to reach his first quarter-final at a major since he made the last-eight in Paris six years ago.

Federer, 32 years old and the 2009 champion, last failed to make the quarter-finals in 2004 when he was demolished in the third round by Gustavo Kuerten.

Gulbis next plays Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych for a place in the semi-finals. – AFP, June 1, 2014.

Federer out of French Open

Posted: 01 Jun 2014 08:33 AM PDT

Ernests Gulbis (left) with Roger Federer at the end of their French tennis Open round of sixteen match against at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris today. – AFP pic, June 1, 2014.Ernests Gulbis (left) with Roger Federer at the end of their French tennis Open round of sixteen match against at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris today. – AFP pic, June 1, 2014.Roger Federer crashed to his earliest French Open defeat since 2004 on Sunday when he was bundled out in the last 16 by controversial Latvian Ernests Gulbis.

Gulbis won 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/3), 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 to reach his first quarter-final at a major since he made the last-eight in Paris six years ago.

Federer, 32 years old and the 2009 champion, last failed to make the quarter-finals in 2004 when he was demolished in the third round by Gustavo Kuerten.

Gulbis next plays Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych for a place in the semi-finals. – AFP, June 1, 2014.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

The Malaysian Insider :: Features

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

The Malaysian Insider :: Features


Raped, murdered girls reveal horrific risks for India’s poor

Posted: 01 Jun 2014 02:27 AM PDT

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The nightly trek into the fields behind their homes under the cover of darkness leave the women of Katra Shahadatganj in northern India feeling scared and vulnerable at the best of times. But the abduction, gang-rape and lynching of two teenage girls as they went to relieve themselves last Tuesday have added a terrifying new dimension to their...






Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion


The death-drive and never having enough

Posted: 31 May 2014 04:18 PM PDT

June 01, 2014

Alwyn teaches at a local university-college and blogs at wyngman.blogspot.com. For comments and questions, email alwynlau@gmail.com.

"Life is about the early detection of the reversal point beyond which belongings start owning you." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

First, don't buy it because there are 100 points left on your Bonus-Link card and you just GOTTA have the free gift that comes when you hit that reward threshold. Imagine the card to be a syringe stuck inside your veins, periodically sucking the life out of you.

Some people, when they go to casinos  and (perhaps out of boredom) look under the tables, claim to see shining chains around the legs of the gamblers. Such stories may be total horse dung but the metaphor works. I'm good with loyalty cards if we can't help paying for something (e.g. fuel) but not when they 'spur' us to buy something we don't need.

Secondly, don't buy it because your friends have bought it and you can't bear being the only one not having it. This way we reproduce the classic neurotic syndrome of consumer society: Buy trash we don't need with money we don't have to impress dudes we don't like or to obtain a superficial high we'll be dissatisfied the moment the cashier scans it through.

Third, don't buy it simply because it's the latest model or edition.

There are the fourth, fifth and millionth reasons, but you get the point.

A man is given two choices. The first choice is a life of contemplation and contentment with no yearning for material things. The second is the 'fast life' of corporate success, fame and fortune. What does he do? He chooses the second option but – crucially - does so as a way of RESISTING the act of choosing. He goes for life in the fast lane because he knows this choice will so inundate him with the razzle and dazzle of society that he can no longer reflect on an alternative way of life.
In other words, he chooses in order to not have to choose.

Isn't this similar to how Malaysians spend their cash (or, increasingly, credit)? Consumer debt is about to burst but every weekend the malls are still packing it. Try getting a car park at 1-Utama around lunch time on Saturday – it's easier to look for a missing Boeing in the ocean. Personal budgets are as brittle as Isma's manners but launch a new tech-gadget and there'll be queues like you're giving out free gold. As a society, we are financially fragile but we still have the Ikea mindset: Buy expensive things we can barely carry home but pay anyway since they're so colourful and we feel smart because we acted like Interior Deco experts in the process.

Mother Teresa gets excited when she sees yet another newborn orphan who needs love. She perks up when another diseased and incurably sick person reaches out for help at her Home for the Dying Destitute. Now just compare her "marginal propensity to love" with our consumer society's "obsessive craving for the marginally extra". That's my pseudo-economist way of saying that the heart of authentic humanity is filled with love, but the void of liberal free-market subjects is filled with more and more of nothing.

For folks to chuck aside their iPhone 4 and spend money on an iPhone 5 for absolutely no reason other than the fact that 5 is one integer more than 4, is like having a perfectly good plate of fried rice in front of you yet refusing it and preferring that OTHER plate of rice because it's got extra cool-looking cucumbers on it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting yet another iPhone or yet another nice dress or yet another shoe or a fancier car. Or is there? What about the waste created by all these obsolete but still functioning products hanging around? What about the "carbon footprints" produced by both the old and newer models (although I won't pretend I know anything about eco activism)? What about the demon-like sense of ingratitude and dissatisfaction fostered by the buy-more-buy-now mentality? And wouldn't it be ironic if the folks who consume the most are also those who have spent hours in business classes learning about Cost-Benefit-Analysis and continue to talk about long-term ROIs' in their offices?

Newsflash: There is no "benefit" or "return" for the planet when making and spending money is its own raison d'etre. In English, that means "no damn point asking why" (pardon my French). It's not just the reason to exist, it's the reason for reason itself. To ask why Malaysians love flocking to malls to buy stuff we don't need is like asking why chess pieces move the way they do or why royalty is royalty. You'll either get "What's wrong with you?" stares or, uh, get arrested.

But two weeks ago I wrote about education and how we must educate our children to think about the story they're in, to interrogate the coordinates of their lives. Naturally, as adults and economic subjects we too need to ask if the unquestionable are truly beyond question.

So why DO modern consumers often buy unnecessary and pricey stuff like there's no tomorrow? Here's a guess: It's because we enjoy consuming the infinity of nothing-ness.

Products, even useless ones, are like words. Just like there is no final word at the 'end' of language, there can be no final product to end desire. In this light, Google's boast that its modular phone could be the last we'll need to buy, whilst elegant, is misleading: Since when has smartphone purchase been a matter of calculated "need"? Do people switch phones the way they switch batteries? A phone which takes the world beyond the category of 'phone' will generate a lot of Facebook photos but has no impact on consumer desire, which will only be aggravated and displaced. It's like moving starving prisoners from the kopi-tiam to a 5-star buffet.

There is a lethal pull here, a poisonous desire, a force fatal precisely because it tastes so sweet i.e. a death-drive. Like alcoholics who are cursed with deriving enjoyment from enlarging the hole in their lives with more and more liquor, today's shopper is whammied by the pleasurable sickness of never possessing enough. We crave more and ooh it feels so good because it soothes some deep wound inside, except we don't realise the bliss and the chasm is ONE AND THE SAME THING. The pleasure derived from "finally" owning a Nike shoe is the same force which drives the dissatisfaction of no longer craving to wear the same pair of boots Ronaldo does the moment we've bought it.

Lest we get more funny Jibby jibes about cut-price kangkungs and chickens, it's time Malaysia reverse the trend: Buy only if you really need to. Buy less. Buy once. Buy for others who need it more. Buy little. Buy none.

Kill the death drive before it gives us something we neither need nor want but can't help paying for. – June 1, 2014.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

The death-drive and never having enough

Posted: 31 May 2014 04:18 PM PDT

June 01, 2014

Alwyn teaches at a local university-college and blogs at wyngman.blogspot.com. For comments and questions, email alwynlau@gmail.com.

"Life is about the early detection of the reversal point beyond which belongings start owning you." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

First, don't buy it because there are 100 points left on your Bonus-Link card and you just GOTTA have the free gift that comes when you hit that reward threshold. Imagine the card to be a syringe stuck inside your veins, periodically sucking the life out of you.

Some people, when they go to casinos  and (perhaps out of boredom) look under the tables, claim to see shining chains around the legs of the gamblers. Such stories may be total horse dung but the metaphor works. I'm good with loyalty cards if we can't help paying for something (e.g. fuel) but not when they 'spur' us to buy something we don't need.

Secondly, don't buy it because your friends have bought it and you can't bear being the only one not having it. This way we reproduce the classic neurotic syndrome of consumer society: Buy trash we don't need with money we don't have to impress dudes we don't like or to obtain a superficial high we'll be dissatisfied the moment the cashier scans it through.

Third, don't buy it simply because it's the latest model or edition.

There are the fourth, fifth and millionth reasons, but you get the point.

A man is given two choices. The first choice is a life of contemplation and contentment with no yearning for material things. The second is the 'fast life' of corporate success, fame and fortune. What does he do? He chooses the second option but – crucially - does so as a way of RESISTING the act of choosing. He goes for life in the fast lane because he knows this choice will so inundate him with the razzle and dazzle of society that he can no longer reflect on an alternative way of life.
In other words, he chooses in order to not have to choose.

Isn't this similar to how Malaysians spend their cash (or, increasingly, credit)? Consumer debt is about to burst but every weekend the malls are still packing it. Try getting a car park at 1-Utama around lunch time on Saturday – it's easier to look for a missing Boeing in the ocean. Personal budgets are as brittle as Isma's manners but launch a new tech-gadget and there'll be queues like you're giving out free gold. As a society, we are financially fragile but we still have the Ikea mindset: Buy expensive things we can barely carry home but pay anyway since they're so colourful and we feel smart because we acted like Interior Deco experts in the process.

Mother Teresa gets excited when she sees yet another newborn orphan who needs love. She perks up when another diseased and incurably sick person reaches out for help at her Home for the Dying Destitute. Now just compare her "marginal propensity to love" with our consumer society's "obsessive craving for the marginally extra". That's my pseudo-economist way of saying that the heart of authentic humanity is filled with love, but the void of liberal free-market subjects is filled with more and more of nothing.

For folks to chuck aside their iPhone 4 and spend money on an iPhone 5 for absolutely no reason other than the fact that 5 is one integer more than 4, is like having a perfectly good plate of fried rice in front of you yet refusing it and preferring that OTHER plate of rice because it's got extra cool-looking cucumbers on it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting yet another iPhone or yet another nice dress or yet another shoe or a fancier car. Or is there? What about the waste created by all these obsolete but still functioning products hanging around? What about the "carbon footprints" produced by both the old and newer models (although I won't pretend I know anything about eco activism)? What about the demon-like sense of ingratitude and dissatisfaction fostered by the buy-more-buy-now mentality? And wouldn't it be ironic if the folks who consume the most are also those who have spent hours in business classes learning about Cost-Benefit-Analysis and continue to talk about long-term ROIs' in their offices?

Newsflash: There is no "benefit" or "return" for the planet when making and spending money is its own raison d'etre. In English, that means "no damn point asking why" (pardon my French). It's not just the reason to exist, it's the reason for reason itself. To ask why Malaysians love flocking to malls to buy stuff we don't need is like asking why chess pieces move the way they do or why royalty is royalty. You'll either get "What's wrong with you?" stares or, uh, get arrested.

But two weeks ago I wrote about education and how we must educate our children to think about the story they're in, to interrogate the coordinates of their lives. Naturally, as adults and economic subjects we too need to ask if the unquestionable are truly beyond question.

So why DO modern consumers often buy unnecessary and pricey stuff like there's no tomorrow? Here's a guess: It's because we enjoy consuming the infinity of nothing-ness.

Products, even useless ones, are like words. Just like there is no final word at the 'end' of language, there can be no final product to end desire. In this light, Google's boast that its modular phone could be the last we'll need to buy, whilst elegant, is misleading: Since when has smartphone purchase been a matter of calculated "need"? Do people switch phones the way they switch batteries? A phone which takes the world beyond the category of 'phone' will generate a lot of Facebook photos but has no impact on consumer desire, which will only be aggravated and displaced. It's like moving starving prisoners from the kopi-tiam to a 5-star buffet.

There is a lethal pull here, a poisonous desire, a force fatal precisely because it tastes so sweet i.e. a death-drive. Like alcoholics who are cursed with deriving enjoyment from enlarging the hole in their lives with more and more liquor, today's shopper is whammied by the pleasurable sickness of never possessing enough. We crave more and ooh it feels so good because it soothes some deep wound inside, except we don't realise the bliss and the chasm is ONE AND THE SAME THING. The pleasure derived from "finally" owning a Nike shoe is the same force which drives the dissatisfaction of no longer craving to wear the same pair of boots Ronaldo does the moment we've bought it.

Lest we get more funny Jibby jibes about cut-price kangkungs and chickens, it's time Malaysia reverse the trend: Buy only if you really need to. Buy less. Buy once. Buy for others who need it more. Buy little. Buy none.

Kill the death drive before it gives us something we neither need nor want but can't help paying for. – June 1, 2014.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

The Malaysian Insider :: Bahasa

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

The Malaysian Insider :: Bahasa


Jakim sedia disaman dalam isu coklat Cadbury, kata ketua pengarah

Posted: 01 Jun 2014 02:17 AM PDT

Oleh Mohd Farhan Darwis
June 01, 2014

Dua produk coklat Cadbury yang dikesan mengandungi DNA babi (porcine) mencetuskan reaksi yang pelbagai daripada masyarakat Islam di negara ini. Gambar fail.Dua produk coklat Cadbury yang dikesan mengandungi DNA babi (porcine) mencetuskan reaksi yang pelbagai daripada masyarakat Islam di negara ini. Gambar fail.Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) sedia disaman dalam isu coklat Cadbury yang mengandungi DNA babi atas prinsip ketelusan, kata ketua pengarahnya.

Datuk Othman Mustapha dalam satu khidmat pesanan ringkas kepada The Malaysian Insider berkata, beliau bersetuju dengan tindakan pertubuhan badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) Jaringan Melayu Malaysia (JMM) yang akan memfailkan saman tersebut.

"Saya setuju, boleh mereka hendak saman, biar kita ada ketelusan," katanya kepada The Malaysian Insider.

JMM sebelum ini berkata, pihaknya menggalakkan sekiranya orang ramai ingin mengambil tindakan undang-undang terhadap pihak berkuasa agama tersebut.

Pertubuhan itu dengan kerjasama Sukaguam juga sedang meneliti untuk mengambil tindakan undang-undang terhadap syarikat Cadbury kerana mengeluarkan produk mengandungi DNA babi.

Presiden JMM, Azwanddin, Hamzah berkata selain permohonan maaf daripada syarikat pengeluar coklat tersebut, Cadbury Malaysia, Jakim dan KKM juga seharusnya mengemukakan permohonan maaf atas kelewatan mereka mengesan DNA babi dalam produk tersebut.

"Mungkin ada ketirisan berlaku dalam Jakim, tetapi saya tidak mahu menuduh, nanti mereka saman saya pula. Saya galakkan pengguna untuk saman Jakim," katanya.

JMM juga katanya, akan menghantar memorandum kepada Jakim dan KKM disebabkan insiden tersebut.

Ketika sidang media di Ibu Pejabat JMM di Kuala Lumpur minggu lalu, Azwanddin berkata, Cadbury Malaysia menipu umat Islam di negara ini dengan mengeluarkan produk mengandungi DNA babi kerana pasaran terbesar mereka adalah umat Islam dan komuniti Melayu.

"Ini penipuan jahat dan harus dibendung," katanya.

Sehubungan itu, katanya, pihaknya juga menerima sokongan daripada ramai individu yang sedia tampil bersama mereka untuk mengambil tindakan terhadap Cadbury Malaysia.

"Kita terima 700 emel menyatakan kerjasama mereka untuk mengambil tindakan guaman terhadap Cadbury.

"Kita juga mempunyai lebih 50 individu yang memiliki resit dan bukti pembelian dua produk coklat yang mempunyai DNA babi," katanya.

Azwanddin berkata, permohonan maaf syarikat tersebut tidak memadai memandangkan perkara sebegitu seringkali berulang.

"Mereka sudah sumbat babi dekat mulut kita kemudian baru nak minta maaf," katanya.

Cadbury sebelum ini mengesahkan mereka menarik balik dua produk yang mengandungi DNA babi iaitu, adalah Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut (nombor keluaran 200813M01Hh I2 yang tamat tempoh pada 13 November, 2014) dan Cadbury Dairy Milk Roast Almond (nombor keluaran 221013N01R I1 yang tamat tempoh pada 15 Januari, 2015).

"Kami turut memberi jaminan semua produk keluaran Malaysia kami yang lain tidak terjejas dengan ujian yang dijalankan," kata Ketua Pegawai Perhubungan Korporat Cadbury Malaysia, Raja Zalina Raja Safran dalam satu kenyataan sebelum ini.

Mengakui kesilapan pertama kali dilakukan Cadbury, Raja Zalina berkata pihaknya memahami isu status halal penting kepada komuniti masyarakt Islam di negara ini dan memberikan kerjasama penuh kepada pihak berkuasa sepanjang proses siasatan.

KKM sebelum ini mengesahkan kewujudan DNA babi dalam dua daripada tiga sampel coklat Cadbury yang diambil bagi tujuan pemantauan.

Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan, Profesor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Abdul Shukor Husin sebelum ini berkata hukum produk Cadbury yang disahkan halal sebelum didakwa mengandungi  DNA babi adalah seperti hukum asalnya iaitu "halal dimakan".

Beliau berkata, ia termasuk dalam kategori keadaan 'Umum al-Balwa', iaitu keadaan musibah atau kesukaran yang berleluasa dan sukar dielak.

Dr Abdul Shukor berkata, pendekatan hukum yang dibuat Muzakarah Jawatankuasa Fatwa Kebangsaan itu adalah selaras dengan ajaran Islam yang bersifat rahmah dan tidak membebankan umatnya dalam kedaan yang mereka tidak ketahui atau tidak sedari sehingga menyukarkan kehidupan seperti pencemaran DNA babi dalam produk makanan seumpama ini.

JMM bagaimanapun berkata, pihaknya akan tetap meneruskan tindakan saman terhadap Cadbury Malaysia, dan menyelar Majlis Fatwa kerana mengeluarkan kenyataan yang mengelirukan.

Beliau juga menyelar sistem Jakim  yang lemah dalam pengurusan pemberian sijil halal makanan di negara ini apabila jabatan itu sehingga kini masih tiada makmal sendiri untuk menguji produk makanan.

"Sehingga kini Jakim hanya bergantung kepada jabatan kimia, sepatutnya mereka perlu mempunyai makmal sendiri yang terdiri daripada golongan profesional dan kita tidak ada langsung pakar halal untuk memastikan ia diuruskan secara efektif," katanya.

Berikutan insiden itu, ia mencetuskan kemarahan selain tindakan saman oleh beberapa NGO di negara ini, terdapat sesetengah pihak menyuarakan Islam yang makan coklat itu sebelum ini perlu menyamak perut, mulut atau menukar darah.

JMM bersama 80 NGO Islam lain akan memfailkan saman bernilai RM100 juta terhadap syarikat Cadbury Confectionery Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Cadbury) ekoran penemuan (DNA) babi pada dua produk keluaran syarikat terbabit pada 26 Mei lalu.

Azwanddin berkata, saman itu turut mendapat kerjasama Pertubuhan Sukarelawan Peguam Malaysia (SukaGuam) sebagai mewakili pengguna Islam di negara ini bagi menuntut keadilan terhadap tindakan syarikat berkenaan yang tidak sensitif apabila sengaja menganiaya dan menghina umat Islam di negara ini dengan mencampurkan DNA babi di dalam produk mereka. – 1 Jun, 2014.

Saya reda apa yang berlaku, kata bapa Nurul Emielda Nadia

Posted: 01 Jun 2014 01:26 AM PDT

June 01, 2014

Bapa kepada kanak-kanak malang, Nurul Emielda Nadia Sallehuddin, 7, berkata beliau reda dengan kematian anaknya akibat terjatuh dari tingkat tiga sebuah pusat beli-belah di Kuala Lumpur, semalam.

"Saya reda dengan apa yang berlaku dan semua sudah jelas dalam akhbar, tolong hormati perasaan saya," katanya ketika ditemui di Ruang Menunggu Bahagian Forensik Pusat Perubatan Universiti Malaya (PPUM) di Petaling Jaya, hari ini.

Jenazah Nurul Emielda Nadia dimandi dan disembahyangkan di surau PPUM pada jam 2 petang sebelum dikebumikan di tanah perkuburan Islam Puncak Alam.

Suasana pilu menyelubungi kawasan unit Forensik di hospital itu apabila ia dipenuhi dengan saudara mara dan rakan-rakan Sallehuddin.

Dalam kejadian semalam, Nurul Emielda Nadia maut setelah parah akibat terjatuh dari tingkat tiga di pusat beli-belah berkenaan.

Polis mengesahkan kanak-kanak itu mati akibat kecederaan pada bahagian belakang kepala dan menyifatkan kes itu sebagai kematian mengejut.– Bernama, 1 Jun, 2014.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com
 

Malaysia Insider Online

Copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved