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...

International News 1 - S.Korea battles pirates

I was browsing through cnn.com today and read this interesting article about S.Korea fighting pirates.

This incident was code named "Dawn of Gulf of Aden". It was a trilling 5 hour execution that resulted in eight pirates dead and five captured. 21 sailors were rescued along with the captain of the 11,500 ton ship who was shot in the stomach during the rescue. No other crew member was hurt. The Samho Jewelry cargo ship was on its way to Sri Langka when it was seized by Somali pirates.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak praised the bold rescue mission and acknowledged that the US military also assisted in the operation.

Compared to many other international news this week, this might not be the greatest or the most severe case. But 2 things struck me as I was reading this article.

Firstly, my perspective of South Korea changed. Before this I associated S.Korea as a weak country because of it's ever popular K-pop and Korean dramas. But this incident has proved that the S.Korean defense force is indeed capable of protecting the country.

Secondly, I now realize the reality of pirates even in our modern era. From young I've always seen pirate movies and knew that they existed long ago, but now, in today's modern society, pirates still exist and are very active.

Local News 1 - Creativity among youths

In today's news on the Star website, there were many different news that were rather interesting and important. But of all the local news, this one caught my attention.

Our dear Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak has been in office since the 3^rd of April 2009, and since then he has done many wonderful things for example the 1Malaysia concept. But today, our Prime Minister spoke and he said that creativity among youth should be encouraged to allow them to offer sensible ideas for the country's development.

He believes that youths should be innovative and able to use their imagination to the fullest for the benefit of the society. And with this, he launched a RM 20mil fund called the 1Malaysia Youth Fund to develop the creativity among the country's youths.

Personally, I believe that this is very necessary in our country. Many times in history we can see that great inventions and innovations bloom when there is creativity. For example Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Both men were very creative, one inventing the light bulb and the other the telephone.

But with creativity and creativity alone, they wouldn't have achieved these wonders. Creativity needs to be backed up with knowledge. And with this 1Malaysia Youth Fund, I believe that the creative young minds of Malaysia will be filled with great imagination and knowledge for them to achieve their dreams and ambitions, and to contribute to the country, and even the world.