ian's blog

Tzu Chi Recycling Activity in Miri - Sunday 23rd November 2008

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:26:30 +0800

Miri Branch of Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation Malaysia will be holding Recycling Activity at various locations in Miri. This event is on the 4th Sunday of every month.

Newspapers, cardboards, paper items, aluminium items, plastic items, old clothes, toys, car batteries, and etc that are recycable. Sales from the recycling items are used for charity purpose.

Please be reminded polystyrene items cannot be recycle. As such, please do not send such items to our recycle points. Your co-operation will be much appreciated. And try to avoid using polystyrene items in your daily life.

Recycling Point and Date for November

1. Piasau Garden (at the front of the shophouse)
2. In front of Faradale Shophouse
3. Pujut 7 (in front the Pujut SUPP office)
4. Morsjaya

Date : 23 November 2008
Time: 8.30 a.m - 11.00 a.m.

The public are encouraged to sort out the recyclable items before sending to our recycling points.

30th October 2008 - Flooding in rural of Sarawak affects fuel prices

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:27:06 +0800

MIRI: The price of fuel has shot up to between RM7 and RM8 per litre in flood-hit Baram district.

Jok Jau Evong, Sahabat Alam Malaysia field officer for Sarawak, conducted a survey yesterday and found prices had rocketed.

“In Marudi town, it is RM7 but in some deeper villages, it is RM8,” he said.

Emergency supplies of some 26,000 litres of petrol and diesel that were supposed to arrive from Bintulu town and Miri City yesterday could not be sent to Marudi – the transit town into Baram district – because of logistical and flood woes.
High demand: Interior folks in flood-hit Baram district desperately buying petrol and diesel even though they cost RM7 to RM8 per litre from a vendor yesterday.

The consignments are made up of 22,000 litres of petrol and diesel from the Shell depot in Bintulu, and 4,000 litres of petrol and diesel from the Miri Resident’s Office.

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Non-governmental bodies like the Red Cresent, Mercy Malaysia and others have also started arranging for food aid to be sent to the 15,000 stranded villagers in Baram.

[ Source ]

23rd October 2008: Concern over logging road into Bario highland

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:57:20 +0800

MIRI: The 300-km long mountain-logging road right to the top of the Bario highlands in northern Sarawak will permanently damage the ecology and weather systems in Sarawak's interior, warned environmental-watchdog group Borneo Resources Institute.

Institute coordinator for Sarawak, Raymond Abin, said this road might result in more highland forests being logged and this would spell the end of the pristine nature of Bario.

More at the Source

9th October 2008 : Sarawak, Sabah For Asking For Open Sky Policy

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 14:00:25 +0800

KUCHING, MALAYSIA: Sarawak and Sabah are expected to submit a joint memorandum to the federal government soon to consider the two states as separate entities for the "open sky policy" in efforts to enhance air connectivity and promote their respective tourist destinations.

State Urban Development and Tourism Minister Datuk Michael Manyin said the decision to collaborate to aggressively promote the two states' tourism industry was discussed when he visited his Sabah counterpart, Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun in Kota Kinabalu Tuesday (7 Oct).

"Normally the open sky policy is only applicable for state capital to state capital destination but we took the cue from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had stated that Sarawak and Sabah should be treated separately in terms of development," he told an AirAsia media briefing here, which was also attended by AirAsia group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes.

Manyin said he and Masidi agreed to work together on packaging each state's tourism products and destinations, including the Unesco-gazetted heritage sites of Mulu Caves and Mt Kinabalu, as well as indigenous festivals -- the Gawai Dayak in Sarawak and Kaamatan in Sabah.

The two states also proposed that the federal authorities include their tourism events in the national campaign to lure tourists as these were sometimes omitted in the past, he said.

As part of the cooperation in tourism, Manyin said Sarawak and Sabah had agreed to hold its ministerial-level meeting twice yearly.

On another note, he said, his ministry and its relevant agencies needed to work hard to ensure the industry's success, especially as the number of hotel rooms was expected to double by next year from the 5,000 available at present in all the major cities and towns.

He said four million tourist arrivals to Sarawak were projected this year from 3.6 million, including 2.4 million international tourists, in 2007.

Last year's figure was an increase of 23% from 2006, he said.

Following numerous requests from the people and industry's stakeholders, he was also confident that AirAsia would consider flying the Sibu-Singapore sector besides the Miri-Macau route in order to take advantage of the large number of tourists from Brunei visiting the nearby resort city of Miri.

Source

29th September 2008 - Villagers up in arms over eviction order

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:11:33 +0800

MIRI - Some 10,000 villagers from 13 Kedayan-Malay villages in northern Sarawak are up in arms over a move to evict them from their century-old settlements. They received the eviction notices from the Land and Survey Department recently asking them to move out by today, The Star reported.

The villages are located some 40km south of Miri City, along the Sarawak Second Coastal Highway near the Miri-Bintulu division boundary.

Yesterday, scores of villagers staged a demonstration by the road to tell motorists about their plight.

They unfurled banners and placards denouncing the eviction.

The crowd grew as passers-by joined in the protest. Two elderly Kedayan chieftains, Penghulu Sahar Pusha and Bengkil Bangkol, joined in the demonstration.

"This move to evict us is a huge shock. We have been living in these villages since 1910. We were told that they have plans to build a sawmill and develop oil palm plantations. We were informed that 1,800 hectares of our land had already been allocated for a sawmill. Where are we to go? This is our ancestral home. We have been here for almost 100 years," said Sahar.

Bengkil claimed that the developer had already cleared four cemeteries to build access roads. "We have sought urgent meetings with the relevant authorities to help us. We recently met Miri Land and Survey Department officials but they told us we have no right over the land because we only have provisional leases," said Bengkil.

"We protested saying that we have native customary rights because our ancestors have been there since 1910 but they refuse to withdraw the eviction notices," he added.

[ Source

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:54:48 +0800

MiriResortCity.com wishes a Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri & Selamat Berpuasa to everyone.

Miri Job Expo 2008 - This 27-28 Sep 2008 (Sat- Sun)

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:37:37 +0800

27-28 Sep 2008 (Sat- Sun)

09:00 am - 06:00 pm

Miri Indoor Stadium

Entrance: Free

22nd September 2008 - Sexual abuse of Penan girls

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:54:03 +0800

MIRI: Sarawak police have called on non-governmental organisations or human rights groups that have information about sexual abuse by timber workers against interior Penan and native girls to lodge official police reports immediately.

State Police Commissioner Datuk Mohmad Salleh said Sarawak police are prepared to launch an immediate investigation into these serious allegations.

“We need official police reports to facilitate an immediate probe. Any NGOs or natives who know of such cases should lodge a report at the nearest police station.

“If there is an official report, we can commence investigations immediately,” he said.

Mohamad said Miri police have told him they had not received any official report on the allegations, adding that he would also check with the police chief in the interior division of Baram.

Mohmad, here on a working visit, was presenting donations to widows and orphans at the Miri police headquarters when asked about allegations circulating in cyberspace concerning the sexual abuse of Penan women by timber workers in interior Baram.

The allegations were highlighted by the Bruno Manser Foundation on its website.

“Sometimes, the problem with NGOs is that they highlight complaints through their websites and the media. They don’t come to us (the police). They should come to us first,” he told a press conference here on Tuesday.

The website claimed that young Penan women in Baram had been sexually abused by timber workers in logging camps and in their settlements.

The foundation, based in Switzerland, is an environmental and human rights grouping set up by environmental activist Bruno Manser, the Swiss who made a name for himself in the 1980s when he organised huge anti-logging protests among the nomadic and semi-nomadic Penans of interior Sarawak.

He went missing in the interior of Sarawak in 2001.

A large part of Baram district, and other parts of interior Sarawak, have been alloted to private consortiums for logging and plantation development. Many of these areas are still populated by indigenous and minority groups, including the Penans.

21st September 2008 - Welding possible cause of Miri blast

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:11:39 +0800

MIRI: The explosion that ripped apart a fuel-laden vessel in the Miri River and killed two crew members last week was possibly sparked off by human carelessness, initial investigations revealed.

A spark from welding work being done on the ship could have triggered the fire which resulted in a huge explosion at about 9am on Sept 13.

The ship, Ark 2, was berthed along the bank of the river, adjacent to a petrol-station, for servicing.

It was supposed to ferry hundreds of drums of fuel for people in the deep interior settlements.

State fire chief Mohd Shoki Hamzah said yesterday investigations and testing was still being carried out on board the wreckage to pinpoint the cause.

Miri police chief Asst Comm Jamaluddin Ibrahim said the initial probe showed that the fire and subsequent explosion happened when maintenance workers were carrying out servicing on board the ship.

“There must be strict compliance with safety measures on board such high-risk vessels,” he said.

Experts from the Sarawak and Brunei forensic departments were trying to identify a corpse found in Brunei’s Seria district, 50km from here, to determine if it was the vessel’s missing crew member Ting Huang Ung.

Ting went missing after the explosion and was believed to have been thrown into the river from the impact of the blast.

Brunei police found the body near Kuala Belait.

The other crew killed in the blast, Richard Emang, was found floating near Bintulu, 250km south of Miri two days ago.

Source

Original news of the explosion here.

747 over Miri

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:09:52 +0800

Royal Brunei 747-400 flying circuit over Miri. They've been doing this on and off for quite some time. Apparently, they're practicing over here because Miri Airport airspace is so sparse.

15th September 2008 - Robbery!

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:12:44 +0800

At about 10am today (15th September 2008), just about less than an hour ago a snatch-and-run occurred from the bank in town center. The 2 snatch thieves ran off on bike, but crashed into a (or possibly several) cars, before fleeing on foot.

One was caught, the other ran away with the money. At this moment, the other one is still on the loose, and is said to be wearing an orange shirt. The stolen cash is said to be RM10K.

This pic was taken just right after the robber was caught.

Please note: most of what was written above were from hearsay from members of the public and some of what I saw myself. This information may not be entirely accurate.

13th September 2008 - Explosion!

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:32:39 +0800

Video captured by "SagaRaptor" and put on youtube.

Explosion on river-barge kills one
By STEPHEN THEN

MIRI: An explosion ripped apart a fuel-laden river-barge in the heart of the city here, killing a crew member of the barge and injuring several others.

The barge, similar in size to a 60-tonne fishing vessel, was torn apart by the blast which occurred at about 9am Saturday.

The barge was docked along the banks of the Miri river adjacent to a petrol-station near the Krokop Industrial Estate.

It was loading several hundred drums of fuel for transportation into the interior when an explosion occurred.

Luckily, the vessel was docked inside the river and was more than 20 metres away from the petrol station.

The explosion caused a massive fire on board the vessel. The impact of the blast rocked nearby buildings, but did not cause any other serious injuries.

Workers on board the barge jumped into the river, but one of them, a youth, was found drowned at about 1pm. Another suffered burns while the rest were slightly injured.

Miri Police chief Asst Comm Jamaluddin Ibrahim said the cause of the blast was still being investigated.

In Sarawak, river-barges are used to transport fuel to interior outposts for sale to longhouse, sawmills and riverine towns and villages.

[ Source ]

About 20+- years ago, Miri town was rocked by another early morning explosion - the infamous Public Bank Gas Leak Explosion in town center. There were many similarities to today's incident - the explosion occurred during morning, near the busy town, and some casualties.

This morning I was driving and saw an odd column of smoke rising from town and thought nothing of it - until a friend from near the explosion called me up and informed me about it.

Today is Unlucky September 13th. Condolences to the families of the victim and injured.

30th August 2008 - Massive sweep against crime, illegals in Miri

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:44:55 +0800

MIRI: More than 400 personnel from the police and other enforcement agencies carried out a massive offensive in northern Sarawak against criminals and illegal immigrants.

The operation headed by the police also involved immigration officials, the army and general operations force personnel.

Miri police chief Asst Comm Jamaluddin Ibrahim said that police stepped up anti-crime operations after Miri registered a sharp jump in the crime index lately.

“We carried out house-to-house searches and found it effective in flushing out crooks.

“We carried out raids in places where we identified our targets.

“Police personnel on foot patrols were deployed in the city to beef up our presence,” he said.

ACP JAmaluddin said that highway patrol units, tourist police and traffic police were used in areas short of staff.

“We searched 625 vehicles, 783 homes and dozens of entertainment outlets and made more than 200 arrests.

“The suspects are believed to be involved in various crimes in and around Miri,” he said after a recent briefing for Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Mohmad Salleh here.

ACP Jamaluddin said the police wanted to reduce the crime index of 15% to 5% by the end of the year.

He considered the 15% rate as high, noting that it had increased because of difficult economic times faced by certain people, which prompted them to resort to crime.

[ Source ]

My take:

Please keep it that way, not only just because crime skyrocketed. Thank you, Mr. Police.

28th August 2008 - Borneo yachting challenge growing in size and stature

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:56:35 +0800

MIRI: The Borneo International Yachting Challenge (BIYC) has grown in size and stature since it was launched five years ago, paving the way for spin-off events in Miri and throughout Sarawak.

The number of participants this year was four times greater than during the event’s debut.

The number of participants this year had surpassed even that of the more established Raja Muda Mahkota Cup in Peninsular Malaysia.

As a tourism spot, Miri is ideal for yachting events because participants are usually well-to-do members of society and retirees who can afford to sail round the world and spend up to two months in a particular port of call.
Lee hoped this would lead Miri to eventually become a yacht manufacturing hub.

This year’s BIYC participants include those from Denmark and Austria.

In the past the competition has attracted participants from the Philippines, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

Source

19th August 2008 - Putting an end to corruption

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:32:45 +0800

MIRI: An unprecedented number of Sarawakians have come forward to lodge reports and to give information to the State Anti-Corruption Agency concerning corrupt practices and irregularities in government departments and private companies here.

More than 800 cases of official reports and tip-offs had already been received throughout Sarawak so far this year, double the number for the whole of last year

Source

Doubled of last year? Assuming for every case that was reported - another 5 were not, that's probably a really high number of cases of corruption going on.