Cuti bersalin swasta kini dicadangkan untuk ditambah sehingga 90 hari. Ini adalah berita baik kepada golongan yang bekerja dalam sektor swasta.

Kepada anda yang ada membuat permohonan sama ada melalui LHDN BR1M 2.0 online registration atau secara manual dan ingin semak keputusan permohonan BR1M 2.0 online, anda boleh membuat demikian melalui berberapa cara. Ramai yang membuat semakan status permohonan BR1M 2.0 secara online atau pergi terus ke kaunter BR1M 2.0 LHDN yang berdekatan.

Setakat ini lebih 2.3 juta permohonan BR1M 2.0 (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia 2.0) telah dihantar dan diterima setelah permohonan ditutup pada 31 Disember 2012 lepas. Daripada jumlah itu berdasarkan sumber maklumat yang kami terima, semakan BR1M 2.0 boleh mula dibuat bermula 10 Februari 2013 iaitu bermula bulan depan dan dijangka semakan BR1M 2013 boleh juga dibuat secara online buat kali yang pertama dan keputusan BR1M 2.0 juga akan dihantar melalui pos. Keputusan kerajan untuk menyediakan perkhidmatan semakan status permohonan BR1M secara online ini amatlah dialu-alukan kerana ianya dapat menjimatkan masa, tenaga dan wang pemohon-pemohon BR1M 2.0

Semakan BR1M 2.0 Online 2013:

Akan dikemaskini (Februari 2013) - Kami akan mengemaskini mengenai perkara ini apabila kami sudah memdapat maklumat lengkap dan portal untuk semak keputusan permohonan BR1M 2.0 online telah dibuka kelak. Anda dinasihatkan agar bookmark page ini untuk memudahkan anda kembali ke sini untuk mengetahui maklumat terkini mengenai semakan status permohonan BR1M 2.0 secara online nanti.

Semakan Keputusan BR1M 2.0 Secara Pos:

Selain itu keputusan BR1M 2.0 juga akan dimaklumkan kepada pemohon secara pos. Status semua pemohon BR1M 2.0 (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia) juga akan dimaklumkan mengenai keputusan permohonan BR1M RM500 (isi rumah) & RM250 (bujang) melalui pos. Walau bagaimanapun pengalaman yang lepas menunjukkan ramai pemohon gagal menyediakan alamat surat-menyurat yang lengkap dan seterusnya keputusan BR1M 2.0 gagal disampaikan kepada pemohon melalui pos.

Setiap pemohon bantuan BR1M 2.0 yang berjaya akan menerima surat pemakluman masing-masing secara berperingkat-peringkat dengan disertakan tarikh dan tempat majlis penyerahan baucar BR1M 2.0 RM500 & RM250 (bujang) diadakan.

Semakan Keputusan Permohonan BR1M 2.0 Melalui Talian Hotline:

Kaedah ini merupakan antara yang sangat popular dan mudah. Anda sendiri sebagai pemohon juga boleh semak status permohonan BR1M 2.o dengan cara menelefon talian hotline 1-800-222-500/1-300-88-3010 mulai 11 Februari ini 2013.
  
Talian hotline tersebut akan beroperasi dari jam 9.00 pagi hingga 5.00 petang setiap hari bekerja

Cara Pembayaran Baucar BR1M 2.0 2013?
Kepada pemohon yang layak dan berjaya satu majlis penyerahan baucar BR1M 2.0 RM500 dan baucar RM250 kepada senarai penerima Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia 2.0.
   
Kemudahan untuk menunaikan baucar BR1M 2.0 melalui kaunter bergerak bank juga akan disediakan. Kerajaan akan memudahkan urusan orang ramai di kawasan luar bandar menunaikan baucar BR1M 2.0 RM500 & RM250 dengan menyediakan kaunter bergerak Bank Simpanan Nasional, CIMB dan Maybank pada majlis penyerahan baucar tersebut. Kaedah menunaikan baucar BR1M 2.0 seperti ini amat disambut baik kerana ianya memudahkan penerima dan menjimatkan masa, tenaga dan wang penerima.
   
Bantuan RM500 & RM250 melalui baucar juga boleh ditunaikan di cawangan bank berkenaan di seluruh negara.
   
Tempoh sah laku baucar bantuan BR1M 2.0 RM500 dan baucar RM250 belum dipastikan setakat ini. Kami akan membuat kemaskini maklumat mengenai perkara ini pada masa yang terdekat bila maklumat terbaru kami perolehi.

Kepada anda yang ada membuat permohonan BR1M 2.0 diharapkan maklumat semakan status permohonan BR1M 2.0 secara online ini dapat membantu dan memudahkan anda. Semoga berjaya!

I received a phone call from a friend of mine yesterday about her new project. She wants me to take a look at  Project Ziarah webpage to see whether there is anything that I can do to improve the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for www.ziarah.org.my.

I took a look at the webpage. Project Ziarah for Peace is an NGO organisation promoting peace in Malaysia. This is a newly established organisation and any supports from all Malaysian are highly sought. 

So I was thinking about helping them a little to improve the visibility of their webpage in several major search engine. The keyword is 'Project Ziarah' and 'Project Ziarah for Peace'.


Now, since I don't have any access to the coding source of this webpage I can only do some simple SEO tricks. So I will do the followings for Project Ziarah webpage;

i. To submit www.ziarah.org.my to the search engine so that the url can be indexed. This will takes several weeks up to several months to take effects.
ii. I will write a blog post about 'Project Ziarah' which I'm doing it at the moment
iii. Put the  backlinks from my high pageranking webpage to www.ziarah.org.my


I think this is the best I can do to help them since I can't do anything for their webpage coding. I hope my friend the Project Director for this Project Ziarah for Peace don't get mad at me. :)) Seriously, this is the best I can do. I hope the webpage developer for 'Project Ziarah' knows how to insert this keywords into the heading part of the coding source in their webpage.

Hopefully many bloggers and websites owner can give some help by linking back to www.ziarah.org.my from their blog or websites to improve their PageRank and visibility of Project Ziarah webpage. Let us help them. Thanks  so much guys for your help.

I received email of invitation from WestCoast Communications to attend A Giant, Glamorous Moment with LUX Star Fazura at Giant Hypermarket Kota Damansara this coming saturday.

During the event LUX Star Nur Fazura will be meeting her fans in conjunction with the launch of the One Unilever Fair tie-up with Giant. Fans of Fazura will have the opportunity to meet her in person, get an autograph and even add some glamour to their photo albums with a personal shot with her.

The One Unilever Fair tie-up with Giant will feature the entire range of Unilever brands from food and home care right up to personal care products such as LUX, Lifebuoy, Knorr, Lady's Choice, Lipton, Planta, Breeze, Ekonomi Handalan, Clear, Dove, Fair & Lovely, Pond's, Rexona and Sunsilk. This is one of the biggest products fair organised by Unilever in Malaysia.

Those who purchase LUX products worth a minimum of RM15 at tha fair will also be rewarded with instant give-aways at the LUX booth where they can acquire the luxury, allure and sensuality of the LUX body shower range which provides every women with soft, silky smooth and alluring fragrance that lingers after each shower.

LUX comes in a range of six variant which are; Soft Touch, Velvet Touch, Magical Spell, Secret Bliss, White Impress and Wake Me Up. The LUX body wash range not only smells divine but also contains a blend of precious silk protein and fruit extracts to draw out the natural beauty and sensuality of every women by making the skin smooth and radiant.

So that was some brief information about the event and One Unilever products. This is a very good opportunity to meet LUX Star Fazura. If I'm happen to be in Kuala Lumpur this coming Saturday the will certainly attend this event.


If you are interested to attend to meet & greet with LUX Star Fazura, the followings is the details of the event.


EVENT: A Giant, Glamorous Moment with LUX Star Fazura
DAY/DATE: 11.30A.M
VENUE: GIANT HYPERMARKET KOTA DAMANSARA, 1st Floor, Concourse Area, No.16, Jalan PJU 5/1, Petaling Jaya.

There is some news about Telenor from Norway will increase its stakes in local telecommunication firm DiGi.com Bhd. The move  resulting DiGi.com Bhd changes of ownership to Telenor. Telenor which is currently owns 49 percent  of DiGi.com Bhd.

If the move to increase Telenor stake in DiGi.Com Bhd is materialized, then DiGi.com Bhd is no longer a Malaysian company.

As a DiGi user, I'm pretty concern about this. Hopefully everything going to be fine or even better after this.

Telenor Talks with Malaysia´s Government about Ownership of DiGi.com
By ScandAsia.com
Norway's Telenor ASA is in talks with Malaysia's government about raising its stake in local telecommunications firm DiGi.Com Bhd , Telenor's Asia chief said in an interview with the Business Times newspaper published on November 11 2011.

Telenor used to own 61 percent of DiGi but sold a 10.2 percent stake to Time DotCom Bhd in 2007 for 1.61 billion ringgit ($510.9 million), to comply with the government's foreign shareholding rule. Telenor now owns 49 percent of DiGi.

"In all the meetings with the government, we are asking: When will the telecommunications industry be liberalised or when will they take up the threshold for foreign ownership?" Telenor Asia chief executive officer Sigve Brekke said in the interview.

"We always urged the government to reconsider the ceiling for foreign ownership, and if that ever happens, we would then be considering if we should increase our stake," said Brekke.

This year Japan already experienced many natural disaster and the most recent one was Typhoon Talas which was later downgraded to a tropical storm is hitting Japan.

It is expected that more heavy rain and floods will hit Japan in the next a few days. Emergency and evacuation plan is still ongoing.

Japan was braced for more heavy rain and floods as the death toll from the worst typhoon to hit the country in seven years climbed to 34.

Rescuers searched for 55 others who remained missing, and tens of thousands of families struggled without power.

Typhoon Talas, which was later downgraded to a tropical storm, lashed coastal areas with destructive winds and record-setting rains over the weekend before moving offshore into the Sea of Japan. Thousands were stranded as it washed out bridges, railways and roads.

The destruction added more misery to a nation still reeling from a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami six months ago. In one of his first acts in office, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda - sworn in just one day before Talas made landfall - vowed the government would provide as much assistance as quickly as it could.

His predecessor, Naoto Kan, was forced out in large part because of public anger over the response to the tsunami, which left nearly 21,000 people dead or missing and touched off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

"We will do everything we can to rescue people and search for the missing," Mr Noda said.

The typhoon was the worst to hit Japan since 2004, when 98 people were killed or reported missing. It caused most of its damage on the Kii peninsula in central Japan south-west of Tokyo and hundreds of miles from the country's tsunami-ravaged north-eastern coast.

The Japan Meteorological Agency predicted more heavy rain on Tuesday in northern and western Japan, where the already sodden ground caused fears of more mudslides and floods.

Let pray for the people of Japan.

A giant crocodile that killed a water buffalo and also suspected of having killed a fisherman in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province had been captured and becomes a tourist attraction in their planned ecotourism park. This is what we called as thinking outside the box? Instead of killing the giant crocodile they make use of it for their ecotourism business to boost the economy in that area. More tourist means more business for the local people.

Giant croc becomes tourist magnet
By Belfast Telegraph, Monday, 5 September 2011
Villagers in the Philippines have captured a one-ton crocodile they plan to make the star of a planned ecotourism park.

Mayor Edwin Cox Elorde said dozens of villagers and experts ensnared the 21-foot male crocodile along a stream in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province after a three-week hunt.

Mr Elorde said the crocodile killed a water buffalo in an attack witnessed by villagers last month and was also suspected of having killed a fisherman who went missing in July.

"We were nervous but it's our duty to deal with a threat to the villagers," he said. "When I finally stood before it, I couldn't believe my eyes."

After initial sightings, hunters set four traps, which the crocodile destroyed. They then used sturdier traps using steel cables, one of which finally caught it.

About 100 people had to pull the crocodile, which weighs about 2,370lbs to a clearing where a crane lifted it into a truck.

The crocodile was placed in a fenced cage in an area where the town plans to build an ecotourism park for species found in a vast marshland in Agusan, an impoverished region about 500 miles from Manila.

"It will be the biggest star of the park," Mr Elorde said, adding that villagers were happy that they would be able to turn the dangerous crocodile "from a threat into an asset."

Despite the catch, villagers remain wary because several crocodiles still roam the outskirts of the farming town of about 37,000 people.

They have been told to avoid venturing into marshy areas alone at night.

Condolences pour in for Noramfaizul’s family
By TheStar.com.my
SERDANG: The family home of Noramfaizul Mohd Nor, the 39-year-old BernamaTV cameraman who was killed by a stray bullet in Somalia, was a scene of grief and sorrow.

Close family members gathered at Noramfaizul's house in Serdang upon hearing the news on Friday night, while members of the media fraternity also made their way there early yesterday to convey their condolences.

Noramfaizul's mother, Naemah Abd Majid, wept uncontrollably as she spoke to the press about her only son, who was the eldest of six children.

“He was a family man. He was very close to us even though he was already married with kids,” Naemah said, adding that her son, believed to be the first Malaysian reporter to die in combat zone, had spoken to her on Hari Raya Eve and told her there was a curfew imposed at the place where he stayed.

“He asked us to pray for their safety. When he went to Gaza last year, he even called me just to tell me that the sambal I made for him had run out. Everyone knows him as a joker.”

Naemah said it was not the first time Noramfaizul had gone for assignments in dangerous areas, as he had been to Gaza and Pakistan before.

Noramfaizul's family performed prayers yesterday morning.

Among those who visited the house to convey their condolences were Bernama general manager Datuk Hasnul Hassan and editor-in-chief Datuk Yong Soo Heong, and Bernama TV Synergy Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Engku Emran Engku Zainal Abidin,

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad also telephoned Noramfaizul's father, Mohd Nor Mat Yassin at about 11am to convey his condolences.

In Johor Baru, Noramfaizul's wife Norazrina Jaafar, 37, said she had never tried to stop her husband from performing his duties as a cameraman even though he had to go through risky situations.

She said this was the second time that Noramfaizul was away from the family during Hari Raya and she never expected such a tragedy would happen.

“Last Hari Raya, he was called for an assignment in Palestine and this time it was Somalia,” she said.

Norazrina said her husband had contacted his parents on Hari Raya and sent his regards to the rest of the family.

“The last time I spoke to him was before he left,” she said, adding that she would now concentrate on taking care of her two sons Mohd Irfan, eight, and Mohd Naufal, three.

Meanwhile, Noramfaizul's brother-in-law, Faizul Azmi Jaafar, 41, said the whole family was having their dinner when they received a call about the cameraman being shot.

“We are all still in shock,” he said, adding that Noramfaizul was dedicated to his job and never said no to an assignment.

Noramfaizul's remains will be buried at the Universiti Putra Malaysia Muslim cemetery in Serdang near here today after zohor prayers.

Hishashi Koze a Japanese diving instructor in Malaysia swims 20 miles through shark-infested seas to reach the shore after he was abandoned by boatman.

While we are happy he was safe, we should also must think why this incident happened. A proper safety training for boatman is necessary to prevent such incident from happening again in the future.

Below is the full story about Hishashi Koze swims 20 miles through shark-infested seas to reach safety.

Diver swims 20 MILES through shark-infested seas to reach safety after being abandoned by boatman
By Richard Shears - Dailymail.co.uk

A Japanese diving instructor managed to survive being abandoned by a boatman in shark-infested waters by swimming 20 miles to shore in 24 hours.

Hishashi Koze had been left for dead following a routine dive off Borneo's Santubong peninsula with two other diving colleagues.

The three men had gone underwater for a third dive, only to be abandoned when boatmen on the surfrace lost sight of their air bubbles underwater and assumed they were in trouble.

Mr Koze, 39, was then left alone himself after trying to swim after the boat and losing sight of his two colleagues.

Exhausted, sunburned, dehydrated and emotional, Mr Koze managed to swim back to Malaysia's Borneo island, where he told how the dive boat he was on had headed back to the shore after the boatman had decided there was no hope of finding him and his two companions alive.

But Mr Koze's friends, Satoo Makoto, 40, and Ngu Teck Hua, 52, were soon picked up by a passing fishing boat.

Mr Koze, however, lost touch with his friends and did not see them being rescued - he did not even see the fishing boat that picked them up.

'I kept thinking "I must survive - I must survive",' he told The Star newspaper of Malaysia.

'I swam backstroke against the waves, covering, I think about 30km through the afternoon, through the night and through until this morning when I reached the shore.'

Mr Koze and his companions had been taken to the site of a Japanese shipwreck, some 50 minutes from Borneo's Santubong peninsula.

The dive was routine for the three men - and none dreamed it would turn into a nightmare, particularly for Mr Koze.

'We made two successful dives and then we decided to dive for a third time,' said Mr Koze.

'The third dive lasted for about an hour. Then when we surfaced I saw the boat was quite far away.'

What the three men did not realise was that the boatman had panicked after losing sight of the trio's air bubbles, a common safety indicator between divers and boatmen.

'I left the two in order to swim to the boat and get it to pick us up, but then I lost sight of it. I then couldn't find the two other divers, but made up my mind it was my responsibility to get rescue.'

Unaware that his friends were later picked up by a fishing boat, Mr Koze struck out for what he hoped was the direction of the shore.

'As the light faded I followed the stars as I swam. I realised I had to be calm.

'The direction of the current told me I was in the right direction and I also had the help of a compass.'

All three men were kept under observation in the Sarawak General Hospital before being released.

Asked if he would go back to sea again, Mr Koze, who manages a dive shop on Borneo, said: 'Oh yes - maybe in a week or so.'

There is a very shocking report from Sydney Morning Herald this morning about human body parts in a suitcase at Meadowbank Western Sydney today. Police investigation is ongoing. Below is a complete story I lifted out from Sydney Morning Herald online news.

Body parts found in suitcase dumped in Sydney canal
by: Saffron Howden

A suitcase containing human remains found in a canal in a Sydney park today will be opened by a forensics team.

Construction workers found the large black cloth case at Meadowbank in western Sydney this morning.

They called police at 8.30am after seeing body parts through a small slit they made, Superintendent Peter Marcon of Gladesville police said.

He said the case appeared to have been in the tidal canal, which flows into the Parramatta River, for some time.

"It's just a black cloth suitcase. It's quite a large one," he said.

Police are taking statements from the construction workers, who will be offered counselling, he said.

"We're calling on anyone who has been in this area who has seen anything that is not in keeping with this area to contact police," he added.

Anyone who has any information is urged to phone police via Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

AAP reports: The body was moved to the morgue just before 1pm.

Superintendent Marcon said: "I'm unable to tell you a gender at this stage as we've been asked to leave everything the way it is for further examination at the city morgue.

"All we can say is we believe it's human remains from what we've been told from the witnesses," he said.

"We haven't opened the suitcase. We've been asked to leave the suitcase as it is for further investigation by pathologists at the morgue."

At this stage, it would appear to be "remains" in the suitcase and not bones, he said.

Four police divers are searching the canal where the case was found.

Police are also investigating tyre tracks in the park close to the canal, but the case may have floated in from the Parramatta River.

"As far as I'm concerned, this whole area is a crime scene," Superintendent Marcon said.

"We're very early and this is in the legwork stage of the investigation and we're just going to look at every possible thing that we can and see where it takes us," he said.

The remains could not have been in the park for long as it had been cleaned up on Sunday, Clean Up Australia Day, he said.

Source: smh.com.au
Photo: Brendan Esposito

This spells trouble! Real-life Dumbledore opens world's first wizard school.
By: Jeff Maysh

He is the real-life wizard headmaster giving Harry Potter’s Dumbledore a run for his money.

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, 68, has dedicated his life to studying the Dark Arts - even doing the shopping in his wizard costume and wand.

Now the magic master has opened the world’s only registered wizard academy, the Grey School of Wizardry, as he prepares to make Hogwarts and the world of Harry Potter a reality.

'If you've ever read Harry Potter and wondered if wizards really do walk among us, perhaps behind a secret train platform, or in secret communities, I can tell you that we are absolutely real,' says Oberon, from Catoti, California.

Today, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart’s Grey School of Wizardry is the first wizard school to be officially recognized as an academic establishment.

Like Hogwarts, the Grey School teaches 16 departments, including Alchemy, Beastmastery, Horse-whispering, wand-making and spell casting.

Pupils who attend s unique ‘conclave’ magic schools are split into four ancient houses - Winds, Undines, Gnomes and Salamanders, and like Potter, students study a defence against the deadly Dark Arts.

'In the magic community I’m referred to as the real Dumbledore,' admits Oberon. 'But before Harry Potter, people just called me Merlin, or Gandalf.'

The former teacher and counselor was teaching spells to aspiring wizards long before JK Rowling even dreamed up Harry Potter.

Oberon rose to fame in the early 1980s as an eccentric who claimed to have created the world’s first unicorn. Unbelievably, the self-proclaimed 'master of wizardry' created a single-horned creature, using minor surgery on a goat, that made front page news in America.

The creature later toured America with a famous circus. 'It’s every wizard’s dream to have a unicorn, and we achieved that,' says Oberon, who lives with his wife, Morning Glory, 63, a witch. In 1985, he organized a diving expedition in Australia and New Guinea to investigate the age-old mystery of the mermaid.

The Grey School boasts 735 students, of which Oberon claims 100 are under-18 ‘trainee Harry Potters.’ For now, it is an online college with regular physical wizard camps, where muggles can study seven years to graduate with a journeyman degree in Wizardry.

'She is my soulmate,' Oberon admits, 'We have everything in common. Wizards believe we are all made of the same matter, and I have never felt more connected to a human being than Morning Glory.'

It was a love story straight from Harry Potter, as the young wizard fell for his sweetheart as they learned witchcraft and wand skills. Together they founded the mystical Ecosophical Research Association in 1977, before creating a unicorn, called Bedevere, using minor surgery to the horn buds of a goat.

The animal has long since died, but Oberon keeps the remarkable skull as a prop, in his bizarre home just north of San Francisco.

There he lives with Morning Glory, and a small bearded dragon who lives on his shoulder all day. He drinks a herbal drink he calls a 'Pengalactic garglegaster'.

'Other so-called wizard schools are rip-offs and they don’t allow children,' says Oberon. 'I want to help the next breed of Harry Potters learn wizardry.' Membership is £18 and Oberon promises he can teach any student, old or young, the basics of Wizardry.

The seventh and final Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is in post-production and Internet hype has already whipped Potter fans into a frenzy.

Oberon says the Potter-buzz has increased enrolment in his school: 'Of course I love Harry Potter,' admits Oberon. 'He has increased the interest in wizardry 1000 fold, as if by magic.'

Source: dailymail.co.uk

TUCSON, Ariz. – Jared Lee Loughner, 22 is arrested and still in police custody for trying to assasinate Rep Gabrielle Giffords or well-known as Gabby of Arizona. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords or Gabby of Arizona was shot in the head Saturday by a gunman who opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with voters, killing a federal judge and four others in a rampage that rattled the country and left politicians fearful for their safety. "It is a tragedy for Arizona, and a tragedy for our entire country," President Barack Obama declared.

Giffords was among at least 10 people wounded, and the hospital said her outlook was optimistic as she was responding to commands from doctors despite having a bullet go through her head. The death toll included a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge, and a staffer for the Democratic congresswoman.

The reaction to the shooting rippled across the country as Americans were aghast at the sight of such a violent attack on a sitting member of Congress. The shooting cast a pall over Capitol as politicians of all stripes denounced the shooting as a horrific and senseless act of violence. Capitol police asked members of Congress to be more vigilant about security in the wake of the shooting, and some politicians expressed hope that the killing spree serves as a wakeup call at a time when the political climate has become so emotionally charged.

Giffords, 40, is a three-term moderate Democrat who narrowly won re-election in November against a tea party candidate as conservatives across the country sought to throw her from office over her support of the health care law. Her office in Tucson was vandalized in the hours after the House passed the overhaul last March as anger over the law spread across the country.

Police say the shooter was in custody, and was identified by people familiar with the investigation as Jared Lee Loughner, 22. Pima County Sheriff's officials said he used a 9 mm pistol to carry out the shooting spree. U.S. officials who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release it publicly.