New SGH Heart Centre

The new Sarawak General Hospital Heart Centre (SGH Heart Centre), previously known as Sarawak International Medical Center (SIMC)  in Kota Samarahan is a heart referral hospital. Starting on the 1st January 2011, all heart referral patients from divisional hospitals will be referred to this hospital for cardiac care.

In the future, the SGH Heart Center will also support cancer and kidney care.

Congratulations Malaysia

Congratulations to Malaysia for winning the AFF-Suzuki cup on 4-2 aggregate.

The last time the Malaysian national team became champions in a regional competition was at the 1989 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian striker, Safee Sali, won the Golden Boot award with five goals to his name.


Best of all, our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has declared Friday, December 31 2010, a public holiday to commemorate Malaysia's victory in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup.

Terminal Bersepadu Selatan

Newly completed Integrated Terminal namely Terminal Bersepadu Selatan-Bandar Tasik Selatan (TBS-BTS) is expected to start operating early next year. The terminal will provide services to bus and taxi passengers travelling from Kuala Lumpur to North and South of the Peninsular Malaysia. The terminal will be equipped with Customer Service Counter, e-ticket counter, etc.

According to today's news report, the terminal is a six-storey building housing 55 bus platforms, 150 taxi bays, 1000 parking facilities and air-conditioned waiting areas. The terminal is built in an area of about 19.6 hectare.

Another Approach to Reduce Traffic Jam in Megacities

Daily gridlocks in megacities such as Beijing have worsened recently. There are several measures being taken by authorities to help alleviating traffic congestion in the cities. The traffic congestion in the city causes severe air pollution. During the Summer Olympics in 2008, hosted by Beijing, vehicles with odd or even number plates were banned to drive in Beijing on alternate days in order to reduce congestion and reducing air pollution in the cities.

Now, all cars are banned on the streets one day a week, based on their license plate number. However, some drivers evade the rules by purchasing a second vehicle.

According to news report, soon Beijing will start to sharply limit new vehicle registrations in an effort to reduce traffic jam in the city. The city will allow only 240,000 vehicles (which is about one- third of the vehicle registration this year) to be registered starting next year.

According to the report, Beijing now has 4.76 million vehicles as compared to 2.6 million in 2005. With the population of 17 million, it is expected that car ownership will reach 7 million in the year 2015 in case of a do nothing scenario.

Fighting Crimes Through CCTV

Penang Integrated Public Safety System (PIPS), which used broadband wireless access 4.9GHz, was the first system installed in the country. The system integrates the camera to three control centres – the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) traffic control, Patani Road police station and the state police headquarters. The PIPS also doubles as a public announcement system, emergency kiosk and stability system. Since February 2008, a total of 31 CCTVs were installed in Penang under the PIPS project.

 Penang will have a total of 48 CCTVs, 24 each on the island and Seberang Prai on the mainland,

The first phase of installing closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in crime hotspots nationwide will be completed by March, with 496 cameras in place at major crime prone areas in the peninsula.

According to this REPORT, the system had managed to reduce crime within the locations installed.

Another location where PIPS is being installed. Unfortunately, it seemed that the system is not being maintained properly because the line of sight of the CCTV is  blocked by tree branches.

Flying Doctor Service

In Sarawak, the only way for rural communities to receive health care services is through the service of flying doctors. Due to the vast area of Sarawak, the preferred mode of transportation is using helicopters. The helicopters are used to transfer emergency cases to hospital in the city center. The above picture shows the arrival of a patience transported using helicopter.

Sarawak Government Hospital in Kuching has a helicopter landing facilities to provide efficient services to the rural communities.





The helicopter service is operated by Layang-Layang Aerospace.

New INTAN Building on the Block

The new INTAN Sarawak's building located in Kota Semarahan is almost come to completion and the design of the building is quite unique. The dome like entrance of the building is built using steel frame.

The building is a new feature in the fast developing Kota Semarahan and it is just a matter of time that the building will be fully occupied. It is the latest building in the block.




Another view of the new INTAN Sarawak's building.

Hope This Finding is Statistically Untrue

Two most common reasons for not staying in a house besides a busy highway are noise and air pollution. Another reason might be an unwelcoming lost tourists using your driveways to turn around (blame it on Garmin, your trusted route navigation system, maybe).

However, there is a new finding based on a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives offers another reason for not living in a house besides a busy highway: children who lived near highways at birth had twice the risk of autism as those who live farther way.Researchers found that children whose families lived within 1,000 feet from a freeway at birth were twice as likely to have autism as those who lived farther from a highway.

Let us hope that the finding is statistically untrue since there are a lot of people staying besides a busy highway. Read more Here.

Latest Bus Stop Design

What is so latest about the design of this bus stop? Except the bench, other aspect of the bus stop seems to be a new concept i.e. steel frame structure, roofing material and glass panel of this bus stop is so different from other bus stops that I had seen in the area. There also seem to be decent lighting for the bus stop which I haven't checked yet during the night whether the lighting is operational or only a gimmick.

The roofing and glass panel is very good design to give shelter to bus users from shearing tropical heat and also from tropical rain.

However, one important item that is still missing at the bus stop, i.e. information about bus route and bus time-table. Hopefully, one day (I am not sure when yet) the information about bus routes, arrival and departure time will be made available at all bus stops around here.

Actually, I am not Alone

Apparently, I am not alone in having a missing opportunity to take good picture because of the undesirable changes in shooting mode due to inadvertent knocking of the dial mechanism of the EOS Canon camera. For example, after carefully setting the shooting mode to capture a portrait with a nice, wide aperture and released the shutter only to find that you are waiting for a 2-second exposure to finish up. Or capturing a decisive moment of street action, only to find that your Shooting Mode dial is in green-rectangle-full-Auto mode or Tv Mode (Shutter Speed Priority).

Apparently, there are a lot of users having similar problems and for EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 7D users, Canon provides a chargeable service to install a brand new, lockable, press-and-turn mode dial.

Unfortunately, the service is only available in USA, what a pity.

However, for the time being, I have to keep on double checking the dial mode before taking pictures in order to ensure the right setting is being used. 

For further detail, click HERE. 

Tokoh Maal Hijrah 2010

This year "Tokoh Maal Hijrah" 1432H is Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz. The award was conferred at the national-level Ma'al Hijrah celebration at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre here Today.

Tan Sri Dr Zeti is the first woman ever named as the recipient of the "Tokoh Ma'al Hijrah" award in the celebration's history of 24 years. She received a cash prize of RM100,000, a medal, plaque and a certificate.

Her father, Royal Professor Ungku Abdul Aziz Ungku Abdul Hamid was also named recipient of the award 11 years ago.

Tan Sri Dr Zeti had also received numerous national and international recognition. She contributed her success to her habit of instilling curiosity in the quest for knowledge where she spent most of her time reading, especially about financial, economic, leadership development and self-improvement.

This year award was given to he due to her contributions in the development of the financial system and national economy, including the Islamic financial system.

Previous years Tokoh Maal Hijrah, read HERE.

Ancient Bridge

IMG_4840
Originally uploaded by wanhashim

This bridge is located in one of the Angkor Wat complexes leading to one of the ancient temple. More than 1000 years ago, they are the master of stone craftmen and their ingenuity is still becoming a mystery until now.