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A day in the garden

May 25th, 2009
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Spent some time in the garden today – after a week of neglect! Managed to cut grass and clear the place a bit. Tiring…and hot!

Anyway, a few firsts this week:

– first time seeing curry leave plant fruits

– papaya plant seems to be flowering.

– lady finger plant under attack

– brinjals growing well so far…

Petronas apologises over chemical leak incident

May 24th, 2009
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Following the chemical leak and subsequent protest by parents and NGOs concerned about SJKT Ladang Emerald, the below action were taken by Petronas. They had a meeting with the concerned people on Friday:

Pupils, teachers and other staff of SJK (T) Ladang Emerald who were affected by a chemical leak last Tuesday will receive free medical check-up from Petronas.

The company will also reimburse all medical expenses incurred in the treatment of the students.

Petronas Gas officials, together with the Health Department and Department of Occupational Safety and Health officers, had a meeting yesterday with the school administration and the Parent-Teacher Association.

Petronas officers apologised for the chemical leak and explained how the leak occurred while the Health department officers gave an explanation on the effects of the chemical, ethyl mercaptan.

Kota Raja member of parliament Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud also attended the meeting. She later said Petronas had also agreed to carry out community service projects at the school.
The company also gave an assurance that such an incident would not recur and all safety aspects would be strictly followed.

The leak occurred during an annual maintenance work by a contractor appointed by Petronas at 11am on Tuesday.

The Shah Alam City Gate facility, a gas sub-station, regulates natural gas flow to industries in Shah Alam.

The chemical was being added to the gas when the leak occurred and a gust of wind blew it into the school in Jalan Bukit Kemuning, 300m away. Ethyl mercaptan is used to give a strong odour to natural gas.

… During yesterday’s meeting, Petronas ruled out moving the facility as it had been there for more than 10 years, before the area became developed.

PTA chairman S. Murugiah said the medical check-up would be done in medical camps to be run by Petronas for two months.

He said he was happy with the assurance by Petronas that they were taking all possible measures to ensure such leaks did not recur.

Looks like a lot of work for Petronas over the blunder. Perhaps the school could have requested 20 PCs as well 🙂

It goes without saying that the procedures should be reviewed, the contractor penalised and more stringent methods are introduced.

We hope such incidents do not occur, but all is easier said than done. Petronas won’t move the statio since it came before the school. So, move the school?

MIC website being updated…

May 24th, 2009
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After the launch of MIC’s new portal nearly two weeks ago, I dropped the site today. To be slight surprise, it was updated!!!

mic-website-updated
I have to admit, that I was taken aback a bit. Didn’t really expect any changes since the launching day. Means there’s some full time staff taking care of the site, and there’s coordination between the PR people and website team to ensure materials from events are promptly updated on site.

Well done. Let’s hope its not a hangat-hangat tahi ayam thing. I’ll be watching….

Everywhere is 1Malaysia…

May 23rd, 2009
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Frankly speaking, I’m getting overloaded with the favorite catch-all phrase of the moment.

1Malaysia.

Hope I don’t go crazy.

Every leader/politician/official/tom-dick-harry worth his salt mentions it in the speech, or writes about it. Its being bandied about like a magic cure for all the problems in the country. Soon, even AH1N1 will be linked to it. Won’t surprise me.

Whatever happened to Wawasan 2020? Islam Hadhari? Not a single mention in papers since April.

Pusing – pusing, its the same thing only, just use different words to explain. Why not just use the 64 nilai murni learnt in Moral? 🙂 Much easier. More than 40 percent of the youths know them by heart since study for Moral.

Just call it Moral. That’s why school teacher says. Can’t be wrong there, can they?

1Malaysia is in danger of being used for the wrong reasons.

PM Najib to visit Puchong IOI Mall

May 23rd, 2009
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I first heard about the launching of Unity week over the radio two days ago. Anyway, saw these scenes on the way to Angels and Demons movie today. There’s a stage set in the IOI new wing. The center are of the new wing is a small place, I think barely 300 people can fit into it.
najib-puchong-preparation-01

najib-puchong-preparation-02

Some dance group were rehearsing on stage. There’s also an exhibition being setup on Unity.

Note: These are the first photos to be taken from hp and put up in the blog.