EPF conversion to pension not viable! Why??

KUALA LUMPUR: The proposal to convert the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) scheme to a monthly pension scheme for private sector employees is not viable as individual savings are too small.
Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) secretary general G. Rajasegaran said that on average, savings of the majority of the seven million private sector employees in the EPF upon retirement was less than RM50,000.
"Assuming the retiree lives for the next 20 years and if this savings was given to him in monthly installments instead of one lump sum, he would receive about RM214 monthly as pension," he told Bernama on Monday.
He said this amount was definitely insufficient for the retiree to sustain himself.
Rajasegaran was commenting on a statement by Human Resources Minister Datuk S. Subramaniam that the cabinet had given the green light to the ministry to study the possibility of converting the EPF scheme to a pension scheme for private sector employees.
Public sector employees in Malaysia are already enjoying a pension scheme, including free medical treatment at government hospitals for life.
Rajasegaran said the proposal was nothing new, as this was discussed between the MTUC and EPF Board more than 15 years ago and no viable solution had been found, so far.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) suggested that to make it viable, the government should give the employees an option either to withdraw their savings in a lump sum or on a monthly instalment basis.
Its executive director, Shamsuddin Bardan, said savings in the EPF rightly belonged to the employees and they had a right to do what they wanted and the government could not decide for them. - Bernama

Year's Biggest Full Moon

The full moon Friday night will be the biggest one of the year as Earth's natural satellite reaches its closest point to our planet.
Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days. But the orbit is not a perfect circle.
The moon's average distance from us is about 238,855 miles (384,400 km). Friday night it will be just 221,560 miles (356,567 km) away. It will be 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during the year, according to NASA.
Tides will be higher Friday night, too. Earth's oceans are pulled by the gravity of the moon and the sun. So when the moon is closer, tides are pulled higher. Scientists call these perigean tides, because the moon's closest point to Earth is called perigee. The farthest point on the lunar orbit is called apogee.

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Mystery solved: How bleach kills germs

Bleach has been killing germs for more than 200 years but U.S. scientists have just figured out how the cleaner does its dirty work. It seems that hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in bleach, attacks proteins in bacteria, causing them to clump up much like an egg that has been boiled, a team at the University of Michigan reported in the journal Cell on Thursday. The discovery, which may better explain how humans fight off infections, came quite by accident.
"As so often happens in science, we did not set out to address this question," Ursula Jakob, who led the team, said in a statement.

The researchers had been studying a bacterial protein called heat shock protein 33, which is a kind of molecular chaperon that becomes active when cells are in distress, for example from the high temperature of a fever. In this case, the source of the distress was hypochlorous acid or hypochlorite.

Jakob's team figured out that bleach and high temperatures have very similar effects on proteins. When they exposed the bacteria to bleach, the heat shock protein became active in an attempt to protect other proteins in the bacteria from losing their chemical structure, forming clumps that would eventually die off.

"Many of the proteins that hypochlorite attacks are essential for bacterial growth, so inactivating those proteins likely kills the bacteria," Marianne Ilbert, a postdoctoral fellow in Jakob's lab, said in a statement.

The researchers said the human immune system produces hypochlorous acid in response to infection but the substance does not kill only the bacterial invaders. It kills human cells too, which may explain how tissue is destroyed in chronic inflammation.

"Hypochlorous acid is an important part of host defense," Jakob said. "It's not just something we use on our countertops."

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Biggest Singles of All Times

The biggest selling single of all time in the United States has sold almost twice as many as its closest competition. In 1997, Elton John released a remake of his classic 1973 song "Candle In The Wind" with new lyrics that paid homage to Diana, Princess of Wales after her untimely death. This single sold over 11 million copies in the United States. An incredible figure.

Unfortunately, "Candle In The Wind" is not available for streaming via Rhapsody at this time, so it is not included in the final playlist here.

So what are the runners up to "Candle In The Wind 1997"? Well, only two have broken the 6 million mark ("A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley & "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down"), and only 12 have cracked the 4 million mark. (Please note that I am speaking only of sales in the USA).

A "single" is a song recording that has been marketed for sale as a unit, usually with a second track, or "b-side". For the most part singles also appear on a full-length album and tend to be the track(s) a record company feels have the best chance for massive sales and airplay.

All the songs in this playlist have sold over 4 million copies as a single in America. Some will surprise you, many will not. Are you one of the millions that bought one of these as a single? What's your favorite? Marvin Gaye gets my vote...
Biggest Selling Singles In The United States

1. A Little Less Conversation - Elvis Presley
2. Here Without You - 3 Doors Down
3. Another One Bites The Dust - Queen
4. Apologize - Timbaland
5. (Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams
6. Hey Jude - The Beatles
7. Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley
8. I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston
9. Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye
10. Low - Flo Rida
11. Macarena - Los del Rio
12. Ridin' - Chamillionaire
13. We Are The World - USA For Africa
14. Whoomp There It Is - Tag Team



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Warcraft Fans Showing their Looks

When BlizzCon 2008 convened in Los Angeles last month, many a Warcraft devotee flew their fan flags at full mast. Below are the dizzying panoply of colorful costumes and personalities on display at this annual gamerfest.

And......

KONG FU PANDA on the show..........

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10 top ugly buildings and monument

Travel can open your eyes to some of the world's most beautiful sights and buildings -- and to some of the ugliest. Web site VirtualTourist.com (www.virtualtourist.com) has come up with a list of "The World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments" according to their editors and readers.

"Some of these picks have all the charm of a bag of nails while others are just jaw-dropping in their complexity. Love them or hate them, the list is certainly entertaining," said General manager Giampiero Ambrosi.

1. Boston City Hall; Boston, Massachusetts
While it was hip for it's time, this concrete structure now gets routinely criticized for its dreary facade and incongruity with the rest of the city's more genteel architecture. Luckily, it's very close to more aesthetically pleasing attractions.

2. Montparnasse Tower; Paris, France
While it's almost universally agreed that this ominous stick is a blight on the landscape of the world's most stunning city, its detractors admit that there is one very good reason to take in the view from the building's observation deck: it's the only place you can go to get a view of the city without it.

3. LuckyShoe Monument; Tuuri, Finland
It may be over-the-top, but there is something to be said for the giant, golden horseshoe that looms over Finland's second-largest shopping center. The shoe, and, in fact, the entire town in which it is situated, is said to bring good luck.

4. Metropolitan Cathedral; Liverpool, England
The people who work here must be sick of the space capsule jokes. Even those who find the building's shell a bit "spacey," have to admit the circular interior is pretty spectacular.

5. Port Authority Bus Terminal; New York City, New York
Those who pass by this iron monstrosity might be tempted to ask about a completion date, but alas, this is the finished product.

6. Torres de Colon; Madrid, Spain
Like a set of giant salt-and-pepper shakers, these matching towers loom over the city to the dissatisfaction of many area residents. The buildings are also known as "El Enchufe" or "The Plug" for the plug-like structure that holds them together.

7. Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Arts; Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Some feel the building's minimalist box design is a triumph, others say it's an eyesore.

8. Scottish Parliament Building; Edinburgh, Scotland
Stone, oak, and bamboo are part of the make-up of the Scottish Parliament, a building that is the subject of much debate.

9. Birmingham Central Library; Birmingham, England
One look and it's easy to see how this genre of architecture came to be known as the "Brutalist" style. Not surprisingly, the issue of its possible demolition has been looming for years.

10. Peter the Great Statue; Moscow, Russia
Some 15 stories high, the larger-than-life monument was designed by controversial artist, Zurab K. Tsereteli, whose statue of Christopher Columbus was repeatedly rejected by the United States.

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Olga Kurylenko - The New Bond Girl

Olga Kostyantynivna Kurylenko (Ukrainian: Ольга Костянтинівна Куриленко; born November 14, 1979) is a Ukrainian model and actress. She is best known for being the Bond girl in the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

Olga Kurylenko was born in Berdyansk, Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine) on November 14, 1979. Her mother, Marina Alyabusheva, is an art teacher of Russian descent, and her father, Konstantin Kurylenko, is Ukrainian. When Olga was three years old her parents divorced, leaving her to be raised by her mother. Olga rarely had contact with her father, meeting him for the first time when she was 8 years old, and later again when she was 13. In 2000, Kurylenko married French fashion photographer Cedric Van Mol, but the couple divorced four years later. In 2006 she married American mobile phone accessory entrepreneur Damian Gabriel Neufeld. They divorced in late 2007. Kurylenko has lived in Paris since leaving Ukraine in 1996 to pursue her modeling career.

The fact she is the first Bond girl from a post-Soviet state got mixed reactions in the post-Soviet countries. The Saint-Petersburg based Communist group KPLO has accused her of "moral and intellectual betrayal" in starring in a film about the "enemy of the Soviet people" (meaning James Bond), but the mayor of Berdyansk has suggested naming a street after her and she met Ukraine's First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko in President Yushchenko's family country house

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