Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by avex|mode

Israel not the only one doing

avex|mode — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:04:32 +0800

/inb4 bukan org kita

Amazon plans to enter Singapore Q1 2017

avex|mode — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:55:06 +0800

Amazon plans to enter Southeast Asia with Singapore launch in Q1 2017

Amazon is ready to enlarge its presence in Asia. Months after it pumped $3 billion into its India business and a week after it quietly introduced its Prime service in China, plans for its entry into Southeast Asia next year have surfaced.

The U.S. retail giant doesn’t currently offer local services in Southeast Asia, but it is working to enter the region via a launch in Singapore. Amazon is covertly acquiring assets, including refrigerated trucks, and making new hires as part of an initiative led by head of ASEAN Steven Scrive, two sources close to the company told TechCrunch. The current plan is to launch selected services in Singapore within the first quarter of 2017, one source added.

Amazon declined to respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. company is likely to initially offer its Prime delivery service alongside its AmazonFresh grocery service, in Singapore, we understand. Earlier this year, Amazon made an offer to acquire Redmart, a grocery delivery startup in Singapore backed by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, but the bid was deemed too low and rejected. We reported last week that Redmart is in talks to be acquired by Lazada, the e-commerce firm that Alibaba invested $1 billion in earlier this year. Amazon declined to reenter acquisition talks, despite contact from Redmart, instead deciding to built out its own operations.

Southeast Asia is home to over 600 million consumers and, while online is estimated to account for less than five percent of all commerce today, its digital economy is tipped to grow significantly over the next decade. Already, Alibaba has stepped into the region via investments in Lazada, delivery firm SingPost, and payments company Ascend Money. Amazon competes fiercely with Alibaba-backed Paytm, Flipkart and Snapdeal in India, and it has decided that now is the time to join its rival in Southeast Asia.

There’s been speculative talk that Amazon is harboring plans to Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, but sources told us that Amazon is fully focused on expanding into Singapore at this point.

That makes a lot of sense because Singapore is not only smaller and easier to service from an operational perspective, but the level of customer spend and consumer culture is more closely aligned with Western markets where Amazon thrives. Other emerging markets will take great levels of adapting, leaving Singapore as an obvious first landing point and general hub/HQ for the region.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/01/amazon-southeast-asia/

Ko ingat Naruto je ke yang ada Chakra?

avex|mode — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:44:06 +0800

Dear /k, waktu merarau mkn apa?

avex|mode — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 11:33:12 +0800

thanks DBP

Tesla Model X P90D

avex|mode — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 11:58:25 +0800

[YOUTUBE]P8-Et8QSJH0[/YOUTUBE]

Iskandar Malaysia drew RM27 billion investment

avex|mode — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 19:57:47 +0800

Iskandar Malaysia says it drew RM27 billion investments

Malaysia attracted committed investments worth RM27.22 billion between January and September this year, said Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) Chief Executive Datuk Ismail Ibrahim.

The economic region drew a total of RM185.34 billion in committed investments from 2006 to September 2015, with local investors accounting for 59% or RM109.78 billion and foreign investors the remaining 41% or RM75.56 billion.

"Of the total, realised investments in various sectors comprised 49% or RM90.57 billion," he said in a statement today.

Ismail said the top five countries investing in Iskandar Malaysia between 2006 and September this year were Singapore, China, the US, Japan and Spain.

The largest investments were in the manufacturing sector at RM52.10 billion, logistics (RM5.45 billion), tourism (RM3.10 billion), healthcare (RM2.65 billion), education (RM2.06 billion), financial services (RM0.74 billion) and creative industries (RM0.56 billion).

Other sectors that supported growth in the region were the property sector, with the residential, retail and industrial segments accounting for RM94.94 billion in committed investments, followed by utilities (RM12.64 billion), and government investments in infrastructure (RM8.99 billion) and new technologies (RM2.12 billion). – Bernama, October 21, 2015.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/busines...ion-investments

Haji Disaster Death Toll at Least 2,177

avex|mode — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 14:04:09 +0800

Saudi Arabia Hajj Disaster Death Toll at Least 2,177

The crush and stampede that struck the hajj last month in Saudi Arabia killed at least 2,177 pilgrims, a new Associated Press tally showed Monday, after officials in the kingdom met to discuss the tragedy.

The toll keeps rising from the Sept. 24 disaster outside Mecca as individual countries identify bodies and work to determine the whereabouts of hundreds of pilgrims still missing. The official Saudi toll of 769 people killed and 934 injured has not changed since Sept. 26, and officials have yet to address the discrepancy.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdul Aziz, who is also the kingdom's interior minister, oversaw a meeting late Sunday about the disaster in Mina, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. The agency's report did not mention any official response to the rising death toll.

"The crown prince was reassured on the progress of the investigations," the SPA report said. "He directed the committee's members to continue their efforts to find the causes of the accident, praying to Allah Almighty to accept the martyrs and wishing the injured a speedy recovery."

King Salman ordered the investigation into the disaster, the deadliest in the history of the annual pilgrimage. It came after a crane collapse in Mecca earlier that month killed 111 worshippers, and the twin disasters marred the first hajj to be overseen by the king since he ascended to the throne at the start of this year.

The Saudi king holds the title of "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques," and the monarchy's supervision of the hajj is a source of great prestige in the Muslim world. Riyadh has rejected a suggestion by Shiite power Iran, its main regional rival, to have an independent body take over planning and administering the five-day hajj pilgrimage, which is required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lifetimes.

Iran has repeatedly blamed the disaster on the Saudi royal family, accusing it of mismanagement and of covering up the real death toll, which Tehran says exceeds 4,700, without providing evidence.

"The lying and hypercritical bodies, which claim to (be promoting) human rights, as well as the Western governments, which sometimes make great fuss over the death of a single person, remained dead silent in this incident in favor of their allied government," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday, according to a transcript on his website.

"If they were sincere, these self-proclaimed advocates of human rights should have demanded accountability, compensation, guarantee for non-recurrence and punishment for the perpetrators of this catastrophe."

Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply divided on a host of regional issues and back opposite sides in the wars in Syria and Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been at war with Iran-backed Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, since March.

Saudi Arabia has meanwhile been targeted in gun and bomb attacks by an affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group, which holds a third of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared "caliphate." Like al-Qaida before it, the IS group views the Saudi royal family as illegitimate because of alleged corruption and its alliance with the United States.

The AP count of the dead from the Mina crush and stampede comes from state media reports and officials' comments from 30 of the over 180 countries that sent citizens to the hajj.

Iran leads all the affected countries, saying it had 465 pilgrims killed. Many of the dead also came from Africa. Mali said it lost 254 people, while Nigeria lost 199, Cameroon lost 76, Niger lost 72, Senegal lost 61, and Ivory Coast and Benin both lost 52.

Others include Egypt with 182, Bangladesh with 137, Indonesia with 126, India with 116, Pakistan with 102, Ethiopia with 47, Chad with 43, Morocco with 36, Algeria with 33, Sudan with 30, Burkina Faso with 22, Tanzania with 20, Somalia with 10, Kenya with eight, Ghana and Turkey with seven, Myanmar and Libya with six, China with four, Afghanistan with two and Jordan and Malaysia with one.

The previous deadliest-ever incident at hajj was a 1990 stampede that killed 1,426 people.

sos asli: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireSt...l-2110-34571621

Chinese actress Angelababy's face examined

avex|mode — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 06:53:33 +0800

Chinese actress Angelababy's face examined for court case - BBC News

A top Chinese actress has had her face examined as part of a high-profile legal case in China, local media report.

Actress Angelababy is suing a clinic for defamation after it alleged she had plastic surgery done on her face.

Doctors who examined her on Thursday said that her looks were genuine.

It came a week after her widely-publicised wedding to actor Huang Xiaoming, who has defended her, saying she "sometimes looks quite ugly".

A Beijing judge had suggested that her face be examined by medical professionals to certify its authenticity.

The 26-year-old actress, whose real name is Yeung Wing, went through a series of X-ray scans and tests - which at one stage involved a doctor prodding her face - at a plastic surgery hospital in the capital on Thursday. She was accompanied by notaries public and several journalists.

Hospital chief Qi Zuoliang later pronounced her looks to be genuine. "Baby's entire head and facial bones do not have any signs of incisions," he told reporters, using a popular abbreviation of the actress' stage name.

News of her examination dominated discussion on Chinese social network Sina Weibo on Thursday, with many of her fans expressing support.

Angelababy, who first shot to fame as a model and actress in Hong Kong, has long been dogged by rumours that she had plastic surgery, with pictures purportedly showing her natural face circulating online in recent years.

She is suing Beijing beauty clinic Ruili for carrying an article on its website in 2012 alleging that she had plastic surgery, and is seeking 500,000 yuan (£51,000; $79,000) in compensation.

She has insisted that her unique looks come from her European heritage - her paternal grandfather was German.

Angelababy married Huang last Thursday in one of the biggest and most lavish celebrity weddings China had seen, which reportedly cost 200 million yuan (£20.3m; $31.5m).

Huang has previously defended the actress, saying in a 2014 interview: "Actually she sometimes looks quite ugly to me."

"I'm not an idiot, I definitely can tell she hasn't had plastic surgery, sometimes she doesn't put on make up and she really looks like those ugly pictures of her."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34536268

Ampang Park to be demolish.

avex|mode — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 09:07:38 +0800

Ampang Park Shopping Centre to make way for MRT station

One of the city’s oldest malls, Ampang Park Shopping Centre was developed in 1973 by Low Keng Huat Brothers Realty Sdn Bhd.

Ampang Park Shopping Centre, one of the oldest shopping centres in Kuala Lumpur, will soon be demolished to make way for the Ampang Park Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Station.

Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd (MRTCorp) strategic communications and public relations director Datuk Najumuddin Abdullah said the land upon which the shopping centre stood was in the process of being acquired by the government under the Land Acquisition Act 1960 for the purpose of constructing the MRT Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya Line (SSP Line).

“Specifically, the land is required for construction of the underground Ampang Park Station, which has to be in that location for it to be physically integrated with the existing Ampang Park LRT Station.

“The physical integration is extremely important as it will allow users to easily and seamlessly transfer between the Kelana Jaya LRT Line and the SSP Line. Construction of the underground station will require structures on the surface to be demolished,” he said.

Najumuddin said the Federal Territory Land and Mines Department would be serving Borang E to the land owner to notify him that the land was being acquired for the SSP Line Project.

“This will be done in the next few weeks. The whole land acquisition process is handled by the Federal Territory Land and Mines Department,” he said.

Najumuddin said land ownership records showed that there were 253 strata titles for the Ampang Park Shopping Centre.

“MRT Corp is not privy to such information as the number of tenants in the mall. That will be determined as part of the land acquisition process,” he said.

Najumuddin said MRT Corp, as the owner and developer of the SSP Line Project, would be meeting the land owner and all other parties affected by the acquisition.

“This is the standard practice since the start of the development of the MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang Line. Arrangements are being made for the meeting to take place,” he said.

Najmuddin said the land acquisition process also entailed hearings to determine the sum of compensation for the affected parties.

“The quantum of compensation will be determined by the Valuation Department and will reflect market prices. The land owner will hand over vacant possession of the property to the government at the end of the process.

“MRT Corp hopes that the process will be completed by the middle of next year,” he said.

Najumuddin said the Land Acquisition Act 1960 compelled the Federal Territory Land and Mines Department to gazette and notify the owner of the government’s possible acquisition of the land.

“The gazette to the effect was published on July 30 and the notices were issued after that.

“Furthermore, a reference book containing a list of land lots that are likely to be acquired for the SSP Line was also available to the public at the Land Public Transport Commission headquarters during the Public Inspection of the SSP Line from May 15 to August 17. The Ampang Park Shopping Centre land was included in the list,” he said.

According to the Ampang Park Shopping Centre website, the mall was the brainchild of the Low brothers following their successful development of People’s Park, the first shopping centre in Singapore.

Built by Low Keng Huat Brothers Realty Sdn Bhd in March 1973, Ampang Park Shopping Centre was a pioneering city mall that paved the way for shopping centres to come in Malaysia while changing the shopping habits of Malaysians. – October 13, 2015.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/citynew...for-mrt-station

Veggie orangutans turn carnivore

avex|mode — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 14:13:23 +0800

bbc.com

Veggie orangutans turn carnivore
- Melissa Hogenboom

Some orangutans can be very secretive, as a research team discovered when trying to follow a wild male Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) in a remote forest in Borneo.

They managed to locate him by following the sound of his long, bellowing calls, which advertised his presence to nearby females.

The closer they came, the more apparent it was that he was not used to having people around him, says Benjamin Buckley of the University of Cambridge in the UK. "He was acting aggressively, throwing branches and shaking trees, and soon began to flee from us."

Eventually, the orangutan calmed down and sat quietly in a tree munching on some food. He turned his back each time the team tried to see what he was eating.

"After a short while I managed to find a spot to watch him clearly," says Buckley. "I saw that he had a squirrel in his hand, which he was tugging at with his teeth, and I could hear crunching noises as he chewed."

That came as a surprise, because Bornean orangutans are thought to be virtually vegetarian. They mainly eat fruit, but also occasionally munch on leaves, flowers, bark and small insects.

The team did not witness a chase or see any fresh blood. They think that the squirrel must already have been dead before the male started eating it.

The observation is published in the journal Primates. The researchers report: "The entrails of the squirrel were dropped but every other part of the carcass was chewed and swallowed, including bones, skin, fur and tail."

Much like humans, wild orangutans can develop their own dietary preferences

It is the first time a Bornean orangutan has been seen eating any kind of meat since a project looking into their lives started in 2003. These apes have been observed for 16,000 hours since the Tropical Peatland Project began.

Despite the new observation, the scientists do not think that meat is a normal part of the orangutans' diet. "It is unlikely that a large adult male orangutan would be capable of chasing and catching a creature as agile as a squirrel," says Buckley.

It is more likely that the orangutan scavenged the squirrel opportunistically, especially considering that there was plenty of fruit to eat.

There is a second species of orangutan, which lives on the island of Sumatra. They occasionally eat meat, having been observed preying on slow lorises on five occasions since 1999. However, they only did so when fruit was scarce, which was not the case with this latest observation.

It is now clear that, much like humans, wild orangutans can develop their own dietary preferences, says Adriano Lameira of Durham University in the UK, who was part of the team that observed Sumatran orangutans eating meat.

"Such individual food preference can be passed on through generations, or spread horizontally across populations, giving raise to diet cultures," says Lameira.

Orangutans and humans share a common ancestor, which lived over 12 million years ago. The fact that both orangutan species sometimes eat meat suggests that this common ancestor did so too, at least on occasion.

"This study puts us a step further in understanding what may have been the 'ingredients' of the first food cultures to emerge in our lineage," says Lameira.

sos = http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150926-ve...-turn-carnivore

Makcik says "bullshit species"

avex|mode — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 11:13:42 +0800

Btw happy holiday /k/

[YOUTUBE]olFaWYwZpBc[/YOUTUBE]

S.Korea and US Military exercise.

avex|mode — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 23:58:29 +0800

[YOUTUBE]XVXQlkpaC5k[/YOUTUBE]

Shanghai father suffers emotional breakdown

avex|mode — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 10:53:08 +0800

Shanghai father suffers emotional breakdown as daughter accepts Japanese guy’s proposal - China News

A middle-aged man in Shanghai suffered emotional breakdown in a jewelry store recently, since his daughter had said yes to the proposal of a Japanese man.

NagaO, a post-90’s Japanese man came to Shanghai to ask his girlfriend, a Shanghai native to marry him. Unfortunately, the girl’s father was not pleased with his daughter marrying a Japanese man.

He picked on NagaO’s physical appearances, saying that his legs were too short and teeth not tidy and that he looked like a liar at the first glance. The father even demanded unreasonably that NagaO must stay in Shanghai if he marries his daughter, and not go back to Japan in five years.

The Japanese guy accepted all the demands. Thinking the marriage was approved by his girlfriend’s father, NagaO brought the girl to a jewelry store for the diamond ring, where he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

The girl’s parents rushed to the store immediately after they heard the news, only to find rose pedals all over the ground after the romantic proposal. The father collapsed on the floor, complaining to the shop assistants: “Why would you sell rings to the Japanese?”

Onlookers consoled the father that the Japanese man looked good and the couple seemed very devoted to each other. He responded angrily: “Don’t be tricked! There’s no Chinese guy in the world now?”

Half an hour later, the daughter came and picked up her parents. She said she came to know NagaO when she was studying in Japan and thought their relationship would end after she returned to China. However, his perseverance had touched her.

“He’s not just a Japanese guy. He’s the man who would warm my bed and buy sanitary towels for me,” the girl said.

http://english.sina.com/china/2015/0811/838022.html

MGS Phantom Pain PC to be released on 1 Sep 2015

avex|mode — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 10:29:49 +0800

https://twitter.com/Konami/status/628249959930818560

http://store.steampowered.com/app/287700/

LOL @ RM250 price! I guess the price is direct conversion from USD to MYR.

NO THANKS, WE DON'T WANT TO BE MALAYS

avex|mode — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 16:30:03 +0800

NO THANKS, WE DON'T WANT TO BE MALAYS: Chinese embrace Islam but fight to keep names

KUALA LUMPUR - Chinese Muslims converts are baulking at taking Malay or Arabic names upon embracing Islam, claiming the discriminatory practice forces them to abandon their culture and traditions.

Several Chinese Muslims in Malaysia are fighting for the right to keep their original names, in defiance of the convention of replacing their surname with ‘Abdullah’, in a bid to keep their culture alive.

“I will not change my ethnicity. I was born Chinese and I will die Chinese, I will not become Malay.

“I did not want to change my name to show that Islam is a universal religion for all nations, not just for the Arabs or Malays only,” the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (MACMA) Malacca official Lim Jooi Soon told the BBC in a recent interview.

Like Lim, several other Chinese Muslims view changing their names to include Arabic or Malay names to be unnecessary as they were adopting a new faith, not a new race.

“My name may change but my face remains the same. Here, Malaysians say that if someone converts to Islam it means they’re becoming Malay. If I did not change my name, then I remain Chinese,” Ting Swee Keong said, also having kept his Chinese name after converting to Islam.

Even the practice of celebrating Chinese festivals are at risk, Muslim convert Nur Caren Chung Yock Lan said, despite celebrations like Chinese New Year or Mooncake Festival not being rooted in faith.

“This cultural celebration does not go against Islamic law; the Mooncake Festival, the Dumpling Festival, the Chinese New Year celebrations, these are more cultural than religious.

“Judging from history when Saad Ibn Waqas preached in China, he easily accepted the culture since Islam did not kill the culture; the faith changed, not the culture,” she said.

Although the convention of changing an individual’s name when converting into Islam is not in Malaysian legislature, it is commonly practised by all Islamic authorities, the BBC reports.

Lim was the first Chinese Muslim in Malaysia allowed to keep his original name, a right he earned after battling Islamic authorities for five years.

“Five years to talk, debate and discussion, as well as showing strong evidence in favour of me keeping my Chinese name. After that, it made it easy for many people to embrace Islam,” he said.

“If he gets rid of his surname, it’s as if there is no contact with his family. My second name indicates which generation I belong to and my last name, which is my own, means headed for greatness,” he explained.

Although MACMA president Professor Dr Hj Taufiq Yap Yun Hin opted for a Muslim name while maintaining his surname and Chinese name upon entering Islam, he urged Islamic authorities to do away with this practice so that those choosing to embrace Islam can still keep their cultural identity.

“I have also asked the parties related to the registration of the religion that this practice be changed so that the ethnic Chinese are still able to maintain their personal name and their surname if they convert to Islam,” he said. - Mail Malay

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.ph...2#axzz3e2mty43x

Cainis Muslims the next masterrace?

/inb4 Riduan Tee gonna rage, no cainis brothers gonna join him to become meleis.

Puasa Time around the world.

avex|mode — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:42:35 +0800

Zimbabweans will get USD 5 for 175 quadrillion.

avex|mode — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 11:03:51 +0800

As currency dies, Zimbabweans will get $5 for 175 quadrillion local dollars

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabweans will start exchanging 'quadrillions' of local dollars for a few U.S. dollars next week, as President Robert Mugabe's government discards its virtually worthless national currency, the central bank said on Thursday.

The southern African country started using foreign currencies like the U.S. dollar and South African rand in 2009 after the Zimbabwean dollar was ruined by hyper-inflation, which hit 500 billion percent in 2008.

At the height of Zimbabwe's economic crisis in 2008, Zimbabweans had to carry plastic bags bulging with bank notes to buy basic goods like bread and milk. Prices were rising at least twice a day.

From Monday, customers who held Zimbabwean dollar accounts before March 2009 can approach their banks to convert their Zimbabwean dollar balance into dollars, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor John Mangudya said in a statement.

The process will legally end the local currency. Zimbabweans have until September to turn in their old bank notes, which some people sell as souvenirs to tourists.

Bank accounts with balances of up to 175 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars will be paid $5. Those with balances above 175 quadrillion dollars will be paid at an exchange rate of $1 to 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars.

The highest - and last - bank note to be printed by the RBZ in 2008 was 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. It was not enough to ride a public bus to work for a week.

The RBZ said customers who still have stashes of old Zimbabwean dollar notes can walk into any bank and get $1 for every 250 trillion they hold.

That means a holder of a 100 trillion bank note will on Monday get 40 cents. The RBZ has set aside $20 million to pay Zimbabwean dollar currency holders.

sauce: http://news.yahoo.com/currency-dies-zimbab...-153844646.html

I need your help to spread the word about the TPP!

avex|mode — Thu, 21 May 2015 10:06:37 +0800

Top ISIS commander killed in Syria

avex|mode — Sat, 16 May 2015 22:28:22 +0800

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/16/middleeast/syria-isis-us-raid/

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

ManU is the Barclays Premiership champ 2015

avex|mode — Sat, 16 May 2015 10:50:10 +0800

Manchester United U21s are the Barclays U21 Premier League Champions.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchda...hStage=NATIONAL