International News 4 - President Mubarak refuses to leave office

President Hosni Mubarak provoked rage on Egypt's streets Thursday when he said he would hand over powers to his deputy but refused to step down after more than two weeks of protests demanding that he quit.

The armed forces high command had earlier issued "Communique No.1," declaring it was taking control of the nation in what some called a military coup seeking to end the turmoil under the 82-year-old former general, who has ruled for 30 years.

"Leave! Leave!" chanted hundreds of thousands who had gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square in anticipation that a televised address would be the moment their demands were met.

Instead, the former air force commander portrayed himself as a patriot and war hero overseeing an orderly transition until an election in September -- in which he said last week he would not stand. Mubarak praised young people who have stunned the Arab world with unprecedented rallies. He offered constitutional change and a bigger role for Vice President Omar Suleiman.

Waving shoes in the air in a dramatic Arab show of contempt, the crowds in central Cairo chanted: "Down, down Hosni Mubarak."

Asked if Mubarak would step down, an Egyptian official had told Reuters before the speech: "Most probably." But his information minister had said that would not be the case.

Joy turned to despair and then to anger.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace prize winner and retired U.N. diplomat who runs a liberal political movement, wrote on Twitter: "Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now."

For me, I felt very happy for Egypt when the madness has come to an end, not just the fact that President Mubarak stated that he's willing to resign, but for the fact that the riot would be over. But this incident has caused the riot to begin once again and destroys the little peace Egypt enjoyed for the few days.

Local News 4 - Malaysia Campaigns Against Valentine's Day

Malaysian Muslims debated Sunday whether to shun Valentine's Day after the government warned that the celebration was a "trap" that could trigger indecent behavior.
Although no laws prevent Malaysia's Muslim majority from marking the occasion with dinner dates and roses, officials have mounted a campaign insisting that such romantic gestures might tempt young people into having premarital sex.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said late Saturday that the government was not trying to demean Valentine's Day, but stressed that it was "not suitable" for Muslims, who comprise nearly two-thirds of Malaysia's 28 million people.

His comments came after the government-run Malaysian Islamic Development Department, which handles religious policies, launched a publicity campaign Friday called "Mind the Valentine's Day Trap" and handed leaflets advising Muslim university students to avoid Monday's celebration.

Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, the department's chief, noted that Malaysia's top panel of Islamic scholars had issued an edict in 2005 criticizing the celebration of Valentine's Day among Muslims because it had historical links to Christianity and could lead to immoral activities.

"We accept and celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day ... to commemorate our love for our parents," Wan Mohamad told the national news agency, Bernama. "At the same time, however, Islam would reject anything, even from the Eastern culture, if it contravenes the Islamic teachings."

Preachers at mosques in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city, also delivered anti-Valentine's Day sermons Friday.

Some Muslims disagreed, saying it was a harmless celebration.

"I've given my wife flowers and taken her for dinner on Valentine's Day before," Khairy Jamaluddin, a prominent ruling party politician in his mid-30s, wrote on Twitter. "I am still a Muslim. If people want to do it because they feel like it's a nice occasion, as long as they're not committing sin, why not?"

In recent years, authorities have sometimes searched hotel rooms on the night of Feb. 14 to catch Muslim couples having premarital sex. According to Malaysia's Islamic Shariah laws, unmarried Muslims who meet in private can be charged with "khalwat," or "close proximity," which carries fines and prison sentences of several months.

Personally, not to be rude, but I believe that this incident happened because of the insecurity of the Malaysian government of the Malaysian Muslims. The government doubts the Muslims of Malaysia, stating that they will have premarital sex on this occasion. But honestly, if they really wanted to do it, they wouldn't need to wait for Valentine's day.

International News 3 - Unrest in Egypt

Though this protest began on January 25^th this year, it is still one of the biggest international news this week.

In Cairo, Egypt, tens of thousands of people joined the beaten and bandaged in Cairo's Tahrir Square in Friday, transforming the bloody battleground into a scene of a large, peaceful political rally dubbed “Day of Departure” on the Islamic day of prayer.

Anti-government protesters jammed Tahrir Square chanting slogans like "He leaves, we don't leave" and "The blood of the martyrs will not be forgotten." A massive banner in the middle of the square said in English: "The people demand the removal of the regime.

The demonstrators built a barbed-wire barricade and stacked piles of rocks throughout the square. And as this happened on Friday, soldiers in riot gears and tanks surrounded the area.

Volunteers checked identifications cards of people entering the square and searched them for weapons. Others stood by with emergency medical kits.

Large screens showed coverage of the demonstrations on state television and Al-Jazeera as people played music, sang patriotic songs and danced. A man with an Egyptian flag wrapped around his head sat on a curb, flashing a victory sign.

It was a remarkable change from the scenes that unfolded in the square Wednesday and Thursday when pro- and anti-Mubarak supporters clashed repeatedly, leaving at least eight people dead and more than 900 others injured.

The Health Ministry reported that at least 5,000 people have been injured since the demonstrations began in Egypt early last week.

From this, I've learnt that the world has many gray areas, with violence being one of them. Sure many say that violence isn't the answer, but violence did give these protesters a head start on their demonstration. Even in several cases around the world, it is either the government fights back with violence, or the protesters win through violence.

And the moral of this story is, whoever is ready to sacrifice more will win the ultimate goal.

Local News 3 - Man Rapes Daughter

On Wednesday, the 2^nd of February, a food stall operator was sentenced to 20 years in jail and is to be whipped 10 times for each incident where he raped his under-aged daughter.

This 47-year-old man admits to the 4 incidents of raping his daughter thus resulting to a 80 year imprisonment and 40 lashes of the whip.

In this case, the victim was the fifth child of nine siblings and has stopped schooling after completing her Form 2. Since then she has stayed home with her family.

The first incident happened in early November last year, the man entered the room after his wife and daughter had finished cleaning the bedroom and closed the door. He then raped his 15-year-old daughter in front of his wife at about 4pm.

In mid-November, the man ordered his daughter to touch his private part while she was watching the television with her mother at 10pm. He then raped his daughter again in front of his wife.

At the end of December, the man forced his daughter and his wife to fondle him and kiss his body before raping her once again.

On January 23 this year, the man raped his daughter when his wife was not around.

In all incidents excluding the latest one, his wife was powerless to stop him from raping his daughter.

3 days later, the man told his wife that he wanted to rape the girl again and asked her to bring the daughter to him at 9pm. But the wife asked the help of a neighbor to lodge a police report over the matter.

Honestly, I am very disgusted and sad over the issue. I'm disgusted that a man can actually rape his own daughter in front of his own wife. And do it over and over again. To rape is bad enough, it is already inhumane, but to rape your own daughter, it's evil, demonic.

I'm also sad because many cases similar to this are happening in Malaysia and around the world. Yet, because we've seen it time and time again, we've become so numb to the matter, not seeing it as an issue world getting worked up over.

These people might only be one person in this world, but to one person, they might be their whole world. So let us play our part to stop this vandalism of society, this destruction of humanity.

International News 2 - Japanese Volcano Erupts

On Wednesday, Japan's Mt. Shinmoe erupted. This last eruption was in July but a large scale eruption such as this was seen 52 years ago, said a meteorological observatory.

This volcano, located on the boundary between Miyazaki and Kagoshima erupted for the second time on Thursday morning. Despite the scale of the eruption, Miyazaki disaster prevention office did not issue an evacuation. But many have voluntarily evacuated in fear of the volcano's instability.

Personally, this is big news for a volcano that has not been active for the past 50 years, why? Because if one volcano could be encountering this, how many more volcanoes could experience the same phenomenon?

Apart from that, I'm puzzled by the fact that the Miyazaki disaster prevention office did not issue an evacuation for the people living in the area. I'm strongly believe in the phrase 'prevention is better than cure'. But maybe the Miyazaki disaster prevention office is in total control of the situation.

In short, natural disasters have been occurring at an abnormally high rate in the past few years, and I believe that country's should work together and share their experiences of facing natural disasters, so that countries that have not or are facing these disasters can pull through these tough times and hope for a better future.

Local News 2 - Google and Blogger Sued

Jothy's Fish Head Curry, a popular Indian cuisine restaurant in Kota Kinabalu that was recommended by Lonely Planet, a well known travel guide filed a RM 6mil civil suit at the Kota Kinabalu High Court on Monday, naming blogger Poh Huai Bin as first defendant and Google Inc as second defendant.

The restaurant is suing Poh, a blogger originally from Sibu in Sarawak who now resides in Kuala Lumpur for negative and defaming statements on the Internet about Jothy's Fish Head Curry restaurant in May last year.

Jothy's is also seeking an order from the court to remove the offending articles from Google and other popular search engines used on the Internet.

From this article, I've learnt that despite having the freedom of speech, people need to be careful to not abuse this freedom and offend other individuals or parties. With the Internet being accessible by everyone, what we post online is visible to the public, and sometimes, different people may misunderstand or be offended by what we say.

So in short, this article is a reminder for us to always think before we post things online, whether it be posts about our parents, friends or even teachers. On another note, who are we to judge others in the first place.

Self Portrait

When I was a child, my media source was restricted only to what my parents wanted to see or hear. As a child, I watched Hong Kong dramas with my mother and listened to songs from the 80s in my father's car.

Occasionally when we watch movies, we watched what my mom wanted to watch, for example Titanic. And during explicit scenes, my mom would either cover my eyes or tell me to close my eyes until it's suitable for me to continue watching.

When I grew to be a little older, around the age of 7, I was given some freedom to watch cartoons. At this point of time, I did not have the wondrous invention of Astro, thus limiting me to Power Rangers on Thursday evenings and 2 hours of cartoons on Sunday mornings. At the age of 10, my mom finally decided on getting Astro and I began spending a lot more time watching cartoons. This became so bad that my mom placed a security code on the tv and restricted me from watching cartoons on weekdays.

When I was 11, I made my first email address. But I didn't really enjoy going online because at that age, there was nothing much to do. Besides, dialing up Jaring took forever at that time. None the less, occasionally I would check my emails, with 90% of the mails being chain-mails sent from my mom.

After UPSR, I was given my first handphone, a classic blue screen Nokia phone.

Because in primary school, everyone loves each other and we didn't care how each other looked like, I had quite some friends and I would email them and even text once in a while. But once I got into secondary school, people start caring about looks and being cool. I was a short and geeky boy with a bad haircut, thus I was bullied in class.

I was exposed to MTV when I was 14, since then, I no longer listened to music from the 80s with my dad or watched boring movies with my mom. I started listening to many different kinds of music and watch many different shows, and at last I could enjoy music of my own choice. But despite being exposed to MTV, I was still a nerdy little boy who was bullied.

At the age of 15, I was given my first laptop and I created a Friendster account, my first social networking profile. This made me go online more often and made the internet more entertaining for the 15 year old me. But as my attention moved from the television to the computer, my mom soon restricted me from going online on weekdays.

As I turned 16, my life magically change, maybe that's why they call it Sweet Sixteenth. I finally had my growth spurt, got a nice haircut, wore contact lenses and was a rebel in school. Suddenly, I was rather well known in school. The sudden attention went up to my head and I was full of myself. At one point, my handphone number was being passed around in SMK Assunta and I had weird texts coming in.

That year, I also created a Facebook account, I ditched my Friendster page and tagged along with the crowd. Facebook helped me make friends with many new people from different schools and places and quickly occupied most of my internet time.

By 17, I was given freedom to go online whenever I wanted to, watched the tv whenever I felt like it and I could go for late parties. But all this was restricted once again a month before SPM.

And at last SPM ended and secondary school is history. I got my driving licenses and received much more freedom in all aspects of my life compared to secondary school. And being in college now, I'm exposed to more new cultures, music and entertainment.

And the story continues...