These Amazing Durian Trees!

Please change your facts as to how durian trees bear their fruits. If in the past, they bear it on their branches,today that is no longer the case.






Seeing is believing. Look at these pictures. I could not believe my eyes too!

Teoh Beng Hock: The Forensic Tales of a Homicide Victim

This article by Debra Chong today in the Malaysian Insider is shockingly revealing. What ever happened to the tragic Teoh is taking new shape.

Post-mortem results by a Thai forensic expert has indicated that he could possibly be physically and sexually assaulted, strangled and thrown down from a building.

Let us read Debra's report in verbatim.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — Thai pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand told the Coroner’s Court this morning that there was an 80 per cent probability that Teoh Beng Hock’s death was a homicide and not suicide, and suggested that some of his injuries were sustained before his fatal fall.

She said that Teoh’s injuries showed he could have been strangled and that he sustained anal penetration before he fell to his death earlier this year.

The stunning testimony made by the pathologist, who gained prominence from her work on identifying Tsunami victims and in the recent death of Hollywood star David Carradine, appeared to suggest Teoh was assaulted before his death.

Using a graphics presentation, she told the court that not all the injuries sustained by Teoh were consistent with that of a fall.

The skull fracture on Teoh’s head, she said, was not typical of an injury from a fall, but more compatible from blunt force applied directly to the skull.

She also noted round marks on Teoh’s neck which could mean “manual strangulation” with fingers.

She said that her assessment was based on Teoh’s autopsy report and from photographs taken at the site where his body was found.

Dr Pornthip was engaged as an expert witness by the Selangor state government.

Earlier she told the court that she had conducted over 10,000 autopsies in her career, of which more than 100 dealt with fatal falls from high places.

Dealing with National Debts-A Pricky Issue

Question:

How much debt can an industrialized country carry before it ravages its economy and the nation’s currency?

Right now, that question looms large in the United States, as a surging budget deficit pushes government debt to almost 50 per cent of gross domestic product. In Europe and developing Asian nations like India,it has also become a major concern. But it looms even larger in Japan.

Let us look at the Japanese scenario.

Gross public debt mushroomed during years of stimulus spending on expensive dams and roads. In 2009,it passed 187 per cent of Japan’s economy.

This debt could soon reach twice the size of the US$5 trillion (RM17 trillion) economy — by far the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in recent memory — and the biggest, in real terms, the world has seen. Just imagine,Japan’s outstanding debt is as big as the economies of Britain, France and Germany combined.

Now, in this testy time, a new government in power, has promised yet another ambitious social agenda; to issue more debt this year than Japan has ever issued in a single year. Yesterday, Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said the government would sell a record ¥50 trillion (RM1.9 trillion) or more in new bonds this fiscal year to meet a budget shortfall he attributed to the fallout from the global financial crisis.

Japan has pumped about 3 per cent of its economy into stimulus measures aimed at easing the country’s economic slump, the worst among the most developed countries.

“There’s no mistaking the budget deficit stems from the past year’s global recession. Now is the time to be bold and issue more deficit bonds,” Fujii told reporters at the National Press Club in Tokyo. He indicated that tax income for the year could fall below ¥40 trillion, more than ¥6 trillion less than previously expected, as companies continued to suffer from the global recession. For the first time since the chaos of World War II, Japan will issue more in new government bonds than it will receive in tax receipts.

Still, “those who may call this pork-barrel spending — that’s a total lie,” Fujii said.

For jittery investors, Japan’s growing debt raises the nightmarish prospect of a sovereign debt crisis, a currency meltdown or both. Fujii’s remarks raised concerns of a supply glut in bond markets, sending yields on 10-year Japanese government bonds to their highest level in six weeks.

“Public-sector finances are spinning out of control — fast,” said Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, in a recent note to clients. “We believe a fiscal crisis is imminent.”

Japan’s troubles also demonstrate how a government saddled with debt can quickly run out of room to maneuver. Plunging tax revenue, anaemic growth prospects and the costs of caring for a rapidly aging population have tied the government’s hands in terms of any workable solutions.

“Japan will keep on selling more bonds this year and next, but that won’t work in three to five years,” said Akito Fukunaga, a fixed-income strategist in Tokyo for Credit Suisse. “If you ask me what Japan can resort to after that, my answer would be, ‘Not very much.’”

How Japan got into such deep debt is a tale of reckless spending. The country poured hundreds of billions of dollars into civil engineering projects in the postwar era, riddling Japan with highways, dams and state-of-the-art ports.

The spending initially fuelled Japan’s rapid postwar growth and kept the Liberal Democratic Party in power for most of the past half-century. But after a spectacular asset and stock market boom collapsed in 1990, the country fell into a long economic malaise.

The Democratic Party, which swept to a landslide electoral victory in August, has promised to rein in the public works spending, cutting as much as a fifth of an extra budget passed by the previous government to divert to social welfare.

But the party’s generous welfare agenda — like cash support for families with children and free high schools — could ultimately widen budget deficits at a time when tax revenue continues to plunge in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, analysts say. “It’s dangerous for the Democrats to push on with all of their policies when tax revenues are so low,” said Chotaro Morita, head of fixed-income strategy at Barclays Capital Japan. “From a global perspective, Japan’s debt ratio is way off the charts.”

Still, officials insist that Japan is better off than the United States by some measures.

For one thing, Japan is rich in personal savings and assets and owes less than 10 per cent of its debt to foreigners. By comparison, about 46 per cent of America’s debt is held overseas by countries like China and Japan.

Moreover, half of Japanese government bonds are held by the public sector, while government regulations encourage long-term investors like banks, pension funds and insurance companies to buy up the rest.

All of this makes a sudden sell-off of government bonds unlikely, officials argue.

“The government is just borrowing from one pocket and putting it in the other,” said Toyoo Gyohten, a former top Finance Ministry official and a special currency adviser to Fujii.

“Although the numbers appear very fearsome, we have some leeway,” Gyohten said during an interview.

But others say the sheer size of Japan’s debt makes even paying off the interest increasingly difficult. Japan’s debt service obligations took up a fifth of the entire budget for 2008, compared with the roughly one-tenth of its budget that the United States spent on servicing its debt.

Each year, Japan doles out more in interest payments alone than the GDP’s of midsize countries like Malaysia or Israel.

Many analysts agree that Japan should forget trying to cut down that debt for now and concentrate on at least making sure that spending does not go overboard again.

“The government needs to stabilize the debt, first and foremost. Only then can it start setting other targets,” said Randall S. Jones, chief economist for Japan and South Korea at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

A credible plan to pare down spending is important “to maintain public confidence in Japan’s fiscal sustainability,” said the OECD’s economic survey of Japan for 2009.

In the long run, even Japan’s sizable assets could fall and eventually turn negative. Japan’s rapidly aging population means retirees are starting to dip into their nest eggs — just as government spending spikes to cover their rising medical bills and pension payments.

The fall in savings could eventually reverse Japan’s current account surplus, possibly driving up interest rates as the public and private sectors compete for funds. Higher interest rates would increase the cost of servicing the debt and hence increase Japan’s default risk.

In the worst case, Japan’s currency could suffer as more investors switched away from Japan to other assets.

And if Japan were to print more money and set off inflation to reduce its debt burden, the supply of yen would shoot up, lowering the currency’s value.

One puzzle, however, is the yen’s resurgence in recent months as the dollar has weakened against major currencies.

The yen recently surged to a seven-month high, with US$1 buying about ¥89 before easing slightly, as near-zero interest rates in the United States prompted investors to take their money elsewhere.

Many strategists say they expect the yen to strengthen further, at least in the short term.

Still, “in 10 or 20 years, Japan’s current account surplus will fall into deficit, and that will lead to a weaker yen,” said Morita at Barclays Capital. “But if investors become pessimistic about Japan before that, the yen will weaken earlier than that.”

A slide in the national currency would not be as detrimental to Japan as it would be to the United States, because most of Tokyo’s debt is held in yen. If the dollar were to depreciate sharply, American debt burdens would surge.

Get Ready for the Transition!

Now you too can drive and fly as well.

The Transition, a hybridized surface and air combo vehicle is currently in the POC (Proof of Concept) stage. So far, it has been promising.If all goes well, commercial production will start in 2011.






A spokesman of the production company,Terrafugia explains,"Simply land at the airport, fold your wings up and drive home. The test distance has been 725 kilometers at speeds of 115 km /hour."

He added,"You do require a special license to drive and fly the Transition."

Flight testing has yielded the following information.

The time required for the transition from plane to car takes less than 30 seconds.

Vehicle speed is 185 km /hour, while range is 724 km on highways.

Vehicle is fueled with gasoline,

The price of the car is expected to be around $200,000.

So in our currency, it adds up to something like RM700,000. A small price for buying sheer luxury!

Believe it! The Praying Prayer Mats!

News of strange happenings was abuzzing in the small town of Pasir Mas in Kelantan on October 20th.

At a local school,the Sekolah Kebangsaan Tok Sangkut, 35 prayer mats supposedly mysteriously raise themselves in the musalla (place where prayer is performed), with some appearing like people performing their prayers.

Teacher Adnan Abdullah, 37, said he was informed of the matter by a student during his class near the musalla.

“Because my classroom is being renovated, I carry out lessons outside and at about 10.40am, a student had glanced in the direction of the musalla and saw the ‘standing’ prayer mats,” he told reporters here today.

Adnan said he then opened the door to the musalla and was shocked to see 35 prayer mats in a standing position, 16 of which were standing in the male section and 19 in the female section.

“What was even more weird was that there was one (prayer mat) at the very front, as if it was acting as an imam leading a congregational prayer,” said the teacher who has been teaching at the school for seven years.

He said the same thing happened at a villager’s house during Ramadan where a prayer mat was said to have stood by itself.

People thronged the school on hearing about the “phenomenon” to see for themselves the “standing” prayer mats.

What do you gather from this occurrence? A figment of imagination or an episode from "the Twilight Zone"?

Metronic Global's Brand New Direction

After a long Rip Van Winkle session of about close to 5 years, Metronic Global Berhad (MGB)finally sprung back to life.

On 15th October, it announced that its wholly owned special purpose company, namely Anhui Lai’An Metronic Water Supply Co. Ltd, has commenced the earthworks of the construction for the water treatment plant in Lai’An County, Anhui Province in the PRC and is expected to be completed by year 2010.

This BOT Water Concession is for a period of 33 years (inclusive of 3 years construction period) with the total estimated costs and funding for construction of the water treatment plant of approximately RMB61 million (equivalent to RM30 million at an exchange rate of RMB1 equals to RM0.49).

The BOT Water Concession is expected to contribute positively to the future earnings of MGB upon the completion of construction in year 2010.

So, apart from just telemetry and computerised health systems, MGB is now right into the business of utilities which will certainly use their in-house telemetry technology for control purposes.