Thursday, February 18, 2010

Plight of the tiger

There are less than 3,000 tigers left roaming the planet, a drastic decline from 100,000 tigers just a short century ago. There used to be nine tiger sub-species worldwide, but in the last 70 years, three have gone extinct - the Balinese, Caspian and Javan. Globally, the tiger has lost 93% of its habitat in the last 100 years.

The Malayan tiger Panthera tigris jacksoni found only in the Malay Peninsula, was recognized in 2004 as the ninth sub-species. In the 1950s, there were an estimated 3,000 tigers in Peninsular Malaysia. Today, only about 500 Malayan tigers are believed to remain, but no one knows for certain.

The initial decline in tiger numbers was primarily due to large-scale loss of habitat but in more recent times, the most urgent threat is poaching for its body parts, persecution by angry villagers, and starvation as their prey is over-harvested.

Threats to the survival of wild tigers are mounting and a world without wild tigers may become a reality in our lifetime unless drastic measures are taken.

The tiger is endangered. It is in trouble, and the time to save the tiger is now or never. The Malayan tiger needs greater interest, concern and action from the Malaysian public.

More Malaysians must join the fight to save the tiger. It may not take much to push our tiger closer to extinction, but Malaysia must act urgently if we are to save our national icon of strength, beauty and courage.
________________________
Tiger beer worth more than real tigers in Malaysia
12 February 2010
Kuala Lumpur – We are just a day shy of entering the Year of the Tiger, the year of hope for wild Malayan tigers.
While news of heightened awareness for tigers flood the media, articles about a tiger brutally killed in the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve in Perak, Malaysia, speak of the harsh reality faced by our Malayan tigers.
Responding to reports that a tiger had attacked an Orang Asli, the Perak Department of Wildlife and National Parks made the gruesome find of a dead tiger with a wire snare still entwined around its severed left forelimb. The tiger was trapped in the snare for a few days, shot in the eyes and other parts of its body and attacked with spears fashioned out of hard palm stalks. It is also believed to have been poisoned.
From HERE

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Bluefin on the brink

Monday 15 Feb, 2010
Sushi craze is pushing one special tuna close to extinction, reports Ocean Correspondent Cheryl-Samantha Owen

Life without sushi…? Judging by the popularity of the fishy food across the world, one wonders if we could cope.

But the day those perfectly timed (not too slow for fashion conscious diners to lose patience - not too fast to dry out the fish) conveyor belts present little more than rice and seaweed could be just around the corner. The Japanese-born sushi trend has turned out to be as big a threat to our oceans as pollution and warming temperatures.

Tuna, especially bluefin tuna, crowns the menu for sushi lovers and forms the basis of many fisheries world-wide.

All seven commercially fished species are being unsustainably exploited and three are already listed on the IUCN’s Red List as threatened with extinction.

Though they may be the golden goose for the fishing industry today, these magnificent fish will soon become the dodos of the sea if they are not offered immediate protection.

More than half a century of overfishing is pushing the bluefin to the brink, and scientists estimate that stocks are within three years of total collapse.

The stock of Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna has already dropped below 15 per cent of its pre-exploitation levels, qualifying it for a ban on trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Due to the rarity premium paid by diners, it is very possible that the bounty on their heads will ensure that bluefin are hunted to actual extinction.

Last month a single bluefin tuna sold at a Japanese auction for $175,000.

Perverse as it is, the faster the tuna population plummets, the higher the price of this fish soars.

Pound for pound, bluefin can be more valuable than ivory.

Most people find the idea of tucking into a plate of elephant, snow leopard, whale, dolphin, or any of the perceived “cuddly” creatures of our world hard to swallow, yet serving up slices of this marvellous apex predator is like dining on sashimi of African cheetah.

The name tuna stems from the Greek “to rush” and for good reason.

The bluefin tuna can reach bursts of speed of 90 kilometres per hour. Its extraordinary internal and external designs combine to ignite an explosive power that gives the fish its astonishing attack capability.

It is one of the most highly evolved of all fishes. Starting life as microscopic larvae they can reach 15-feet in length and grow to almost 700 kilogrammes.

It’s the widest ranging of the tunas - stretching from the tropics to the Arctic.

Once revered and traditionally fished in the Mediterranean for three millennia, today there is a scramble to catch the last bluefin. Gone are they days when bluefin the size of cows were landed and fishing was fair.

Today fishermen are catching fish a third of the size in massive purse-seine nets that can capture three hundred fish in a single haul of the net.

With spotter planes radioing to boat captains the location of schooling bluefin below and “super freezers” stockpiling thousands of tonnes for a time when they have emptied our seas - the bluefin and other shark species like it do not stand a chance.

They will lose the battle unless immediate action is taken.

Tuna farming or ranching is no panacea.

Tuna ranching relies on the capture of juveniles from the wild.

It removes immature bluefin before they have even had a chance to spawn.

In addition, almost 20 pounds of fish go into the feed that makes one pound of bluefin - a ratio even worse than prawn farming.

The end of wild stocks will be the end of ranching and the end of bluefin sashimi.

How you can help
• Avoid eating bluefin and bigeye tuna
• If you don’t know what the tuna is, where it came from and how it was caught - don’t eat it. (Tuna cans often omit this information).
• Boycott restaurants that serve endangered species, such as bluefin tuna.
• The CITES meets in March this year to debate the fate of tuna.

Encourage your government to ban the trade on bluefin tuna.

From HERE

SAVE OUR SEAS.... Visit HERE

Monday, February 15, 2010

The Unforgettable Love Story

This was emailed to me from a friend....

By Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa
She was one of the noblest women of her time, coming from a very prominent family. She was also quite beautiful and the holder of a considerable amount of wealth, for she successfully ran her own business. To marry her would have been a great feat for any man, and indeed, quite a few of the most prominent and wealthy men in society had asked for her hand. Yet, she rejected them all; already being a widow, she had lost the desire to marry again.
Until he came into her life. He was young man of 25, and although he was also of a noble family, he was an orphan and was not a man of many means. He had made a meager living tending sheep in the hills surrounding the city. Yet, he had an impeccable moral character, and he was widely known as one of the most honest men around. That is what attracted her to him: she was looking for someone honest who could conduct business for her, as she “a woman in a fiercely patriarchal society“ could not do it herself. So, he started working for her.
After he came back from his first business trip, she asked her servant, whom she had sent with him, about him and his conduct. The servant amazed her by his report: this young man was the kindest, gentlest man he had ever met. Never did he treat the servant harshly, as many others do. Yet, there was more: as they traveled in the heat of the desert, the servant noticed that a cloud had followed them the entire time, shading them from the blazing sun. Upon hearing this, she became quite impressed with her new employee.
Not only that, this new employee proved to be an astute businessman in his own right. He took his employer's merchandise, sold it, and with the profits bought other merchandise that he sold again, thus profiting twice. All this was enough for her: the embers of love in her heart that were once extinguished were re-kindled again, and she desired to marry this young man, who was 15 years younger than she.
So, she sent her sister who asked him, "Why are you not married, yet?"
"For lack of means," he answered.
"What if I could offer you a wife of nobility, beauty, and wealth? Would you be interested?" she told him.
He replied in the affirmative, but when she mentioned her sister, the young employee chuckled in amazement.
"How could I marry her? She has turned down the most noble men in the city, much wealthier and prominent than me, a poor shepherd," he said.
"Don't you worry," the sister replied, "I'll take care of it" (Ibn Al-Atheer).
Not long after, this wealthy business-owner married her young employee, and it was the beginning of one of the most loving, happiest, and sacred marriages in all of human history: that of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and Khadijah, the daughter of Khuwaylid.
When they were married, the Prophet was 25 years old, and Khadijah was 40. Yet, that did not bother the Prophet one bit. He loved her so deeply, and she loved him as deeply. They were married for 25 years, and she bore him seven children: 3 sons and 4 daughters. All of the sons died at a young age. Khadijah was a source of immense love, strength, and comfort for the Prophet Muhammad, and he leaned heavily on this love and support on the most important night of his life.
While he was meditating in cave of Hira, the Angel Gabriel came to Prophet Muhammad and revealed to him the first verses of the Quran, which Muslims believe is the word of God, and declared to him that he was to be a Prophet. The experience terrified him, and he ran home and cried to Khadijah , "Cover me! Cover me!" She was startled by his terror, and after soothing and comforting him for a while, the Prophet was able to calm down and tell her about his experience (Al-Bukhari).
The Prophet feared he was going mad or being possessed.
Khadijah put all his fears to rest: "Do not worry," she said, "for by Him who has dominion over Khadijah's soul, I hope that you are the Prophet of this nation. Allah would never humiliate you, for you are good to your relatives, you are true to your word, you help those who are in need, you support the weak, you feed the guest and you answer the call of those who are in distress." She then took him to her cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal “a Christian scholar well-versed in the Judeo-Christian scripture“ and he confirmed to Muhammad that his experience was Divine and he was to be the Prophet they had all been waiting for (Al-Bukhari).
After his ministry began, and the opposition of his people became harsh and brutal, Khadijah was always there to support Prophet Muhammad, sacrificing all of her wealth to support the cause of Islam. When the Prophet and his family were banished to the hills outside of Makkah, she went there with him, and the three years of hardship and deprivation eventually led to her death. The Prophet Muhammad mourned her deeply, and even after her death, the Prophet would send food and support to Khadijah's friends and relatives, out of love for her.
Once, years after Khadijah died, he came across a necklace that she once wore. When he saw it, he remembered her and began to cry and mourn. His love for her never died, so much so, that his later wife Aishah became jealous of her. Once she asked the Prophet if Khadijah had been the only woman worthy of his love. The Prophet replied: "She believed in me when no one else did; she accepted Islam when people rejected me; and she helped and comforted me when there was no one else to lend me a helping hand" (Al-Bukhari).
Much has been made and said about Prophet Muhammad's multiple marriages. There are many who smear him as a womanizing philanderer, citing those multiple marriages. This is, of course, totally false. If, God forbid, the Prophet was as they claim, he would have taken advantage of his youth to act on these desires. But he did not. Rather, he was with no other women before Khadijah, who was 15 years his senior, and he had no other wife alongside her, although multiple marriages was common custom at that time.
It was only after Khadijah died (God rest her soul) that he took on more than one wife at a time. All his subsequent marriages were undertaken based on divine instructions. Most of these wives were widows, whom the Prophet married to care of, or they were the daughters of prominent Arab chieftains, so that the Prophet could form a cohesive Muslim society out of a fiercely tribalistic Arab culture. The smears against the Prophet fall flat on their faces once the light of truth shines brightly upon them.
In a song about the Prophet and Khadjiah, Muslim rappers Native Deen sing:
"We look for stories of love in places dark and cold. When we have a guiding light for the whole world to behold."
Many of what we call "love stories" today are nothing more than stories of lust and desire, physical attraction disguised as love.
Yet, I can find no love story more powerful, more spiritually uplifting, more awe-inspiring than that of the Prophet Muhammad and Khadijah. It is a shining example of what an ideal marriage is, and if I ever claim that I love my wife, I must gauge my actions with that of the Prophet. As the country commemorates Valentine's Day, and everywhere we turn this month, "love is in the air," I cannot help but reflect upon, what is to me, the greatest of all love stories: that of Prophet Muhammad and Khadijah. Even with all of its amazing creative talent, Hollywood could not have come up with a story greater than this.
Works Cited: Ibn Al-Atheer, Ali. Usd al-Ghabah. Vol. 5. Cairo: Dar Ihya Al-Turath Al-Aaraby, 1996.

Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago doctor and writer. He has written extensively on a freelance basis, being published in newspapers across the country and around the world. He has been a Beliefnet columnist since 2001, and has written for the Religion News Service. In addition, his articles have been distributed worldwide by Agence Global. He is a guest blogger for The Chicago Tribune. and is a contributing writer for the prominent news website altmuslim.
Dr. Hassaballa is author of the essay "Why I Love the Ten Commandments," published in the award-winning book Taking Back Islam (Rodale). He is also co-author of The Beliefnet Guide to Islam (Doubleday). In 2007, his blog, God, Faith, and a Pen, was nominated for a Brass Crescent Award for a blog that is "the most stimulating, insightful, and philosophical, providing the best rebuttals to extremist ideology and making an impact whenever they post."

Monday, February 08, 2010

"Have Breakfast… or… Be Breakfast!"

From a colleague at the office... a good read
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By Y. L. R. MOORTHI
[Management Views from IIMB is an exclusive column written every two weeks for India.wsj.com by faculty members of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.]

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cell phones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cell phone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the Smartphone bus. They admit that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails.

The "Mahabharata" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says "What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get the answer almost immediately.

Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as "digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for tomorrow?"

The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence services of HP and Cisco.

Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.

Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs.

Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cell phone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary! The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums it up rather neatly.

—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore

Friday, February 05, 2010

UAE National Environment Day (4th Feb, 2010)

Introduction
The last year has been a phenomenal one for progress in the fields of environmental protection and wildlife management in the UAE. While much of the progress has taken place without fanfare or publicity it is clear that government commitment, corporate support and greatly enhanced awareness of the general public all factors that have received sustained attention over previous years have borne considerable fruit. The evidence for this progress is to be seen almost every where one looks in the Emirates, from the widespread improvements in environmental controls to the impressive wildlife breeding, conservation and public display projects. The fact that, after 10 years of careful study and habitat development, the greater flamingo finally bred successfully in Abu Dhabi during the winter of 1998–99, the first confirmed breeding of this species in the UAE and the first confirmed breeding anywhere on the mainland of the Arabian Peninsula, is much more than an ornithological triumph. It is also a reassuring confirmation that UAE policy on environment and species protection is actually working. As is well known in the UAE and among the world's leading conservationists, the role of Sheikh Zayed in protecting and rescuing Arabian wildlife has been crucial. He grew up close to nature and with a deep respect for the plants and animals that he encountered in the mountains, deserts, oases and coastal waters. While seeking to provide his people with the benefits of the modern world, he has never lost sight of the vital need to protect the natural one. Sheikh Zayed's government and the people have both been led by and, perhaps more importantly inspired by, his own appreciation for the environment and wildlife.

Over the years a number of government organizations have been established with the role of studying and protecting wildlife. Abu Dhabi’s Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency (ERWDA) has a major national role in this regard. In addition there are other regional departments which have their own programmes for environment protection, wildlife protection and, most importantly for increasing public awareness.

ENVIRONMENT DAY
The UAE's National Environment Day is by now a well established event that serves to focus the attention of government, the corporate sector and the general public on matters of environmental concern. On the occasion of the 1999 National Environment Day, Sheikh Zayed once again commented on the importance of the environment, calling it ‘a dear part of our heritage, civilizations and future’. This year's event focused on the particular needs of the marine environment, with the slogan: 'Together for the protection of our marine environment'. The President also announced that he had ordered there levant authorities to issue any new regulations they deemed necessary to ensure protection of the environment.

Read more HERE

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Protecting The 'Malayan Tiger'

By Mazani Chan Yat Sin
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 (Bernama) -- English poet William Blake of the 17th century era became fascinated by the tiger to the extent that he wrote a poem entitled 'The Tyger' where the opening lines are:
"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
As the Chinese community in Malaysia and rest of the world await the countdown for the arrival of the Year Of The Tiger, experts on wildlife conservation are struggling in their efforts to prevent the Malayan tiger from becoming extinct.
Wildlife Protection and National Parks Department's Director for Biodiversity Conservation, Mohd Nawayai Yasak said the population of the Malayan tiger in the Peninsula now is about 500.(According to sources, the Malayan tiger is not found in the jungles of Sabah and Sarawak. As for its cousin, the Sumatran tiger which is found in Sumatra, is bigger in size and length as compared to the Malaysian species).
MALAYAN TIGER
The Malayan tiger, Panthera Tigris Jacksoni, can only be found in the Peninsula and most of these mammals are in the thick jungles of Perak, Kelantan, Pahang and Terengganu.
"The population size of the Malayan tiger is getting smaller and we need to do something before this species become extinct," he told Bernama in Perhilitan's office at Jalan Cheras here recently.
Throughout 2008, Perhilitan's game rangers carried out 174 operations and destroyed some 1,000 tiger traps and snares.
"Most of the snares set up by poachers are of the wire type where it can endanger not only the big cats but other animals that pass through the spot," he said.
WILD AND BREED
The tiger population in the country dropped significantly from the some 3,000 in the 1950s to only about 300-400 in the 1990s.
"From 1989 to 2008, we have successfully bred 50 tiger cubs at the Melaka Zoo.
"We carried out two methods. The ex-situ breeding where the tiger born in the zoo is left to be with its group while the in-situ breeding involves the tiger that roam in the jungles and allowed to breed and move freely there," said Mohd Nawayai.
"However the cost for the ex-situ breeding is high as it incurs various expenditures like the tiger cub's upkeep, its food and the likes as a tiger is known to consume a lot of food," he said.
In the move to improve the conservation efforts, the authorities are reviewing the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 to enable stiffer fines to be imposed on poachers and wildlife smugglers.
NGO AND STATE GOVERNMENT
The cooperation from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and state governments is crucial towards protecting the tigers, he said.
"We cannot do this alone. That is why we are hoping for the collaboration from the NGOs like the WWF, the public and state governments."
"We welcome the effort of the state government to gazette the state forests and reserve jungles as the permanent place for the conservation of tigers in the country," he said.
Meanwhile the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Malaysia has created a unit known as 'Team Ronda' to curb activities that can lead to the extinction of the mammals.
"Team Ronda comprises 10 volunteers from WWF and will conduct patrols at spots that draw the presence of poachers," said the programme's officer Ahmad Zafir Abdul Wahab at WWF Malaysia office in Petaling Jaya.
"From early January 2009 until today, Team Ronda and Perhilitan have destroyed 114 tiger traps installed by poachers at the areas fringing Tasik Temenggor and Belum Forest Reserve," he said.
PUBLIC AWARENESS
Inconjunction with the arrival of the Year Of The Tiger, WWF has conducted a programme known as 'TX2' to double the population of the Malayan tiger.
WWF Malaysia corporate communications officer Sara Sukor said the programme is staged to boost public awareness on the importance of conserving the tigers.
"The programme is organised by the WWF and held worldwide. We want to deliver a message via this programme that the Malayan tiger is in danger of extinction," she said.
"The TX2 programme is not only to double the population of the tigers but also to ensure that the mammals are free from extinction," she said.
The programme uses the tiger as its mascot and contributions received from the public as well as the corporate and private sectors will be used to carry out protection and conservation efforts for these mammals.
From BERNAMA