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New roads lead to more traffic

Here’s a good reason for moving to public transport: we are not going to significantly reduce traffic congestion anytime soon by using improved traffic modelling and management methods.

Traffic congestion, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Traffic snarl in Sao Paulo - Image via Wikipedia

Building new roads is not the solution either. The Wall Street online quotes Martin Wachs, director of RAND Corp’s transportation, space, and technology programme, as saying that new roads lead to more travel (traffic) due to an effect known as ‘triple convergence’: if new roads are built, many drivers who had shifted their trips 1) to off-peak hours, or 2) to different roads, or 3) to public transport, would resume their previous pattern and converge onto the new highway. See Wall Street article here.

Sukiyaki performed by Alfred Ho

Alfred Ho entertains us this weekend with the late Kyu Sakamoto’s Sukiyaki.

Food security: Are we doing enough?

Global food prices are projected to rise in future as a result of changing weather patterns, water scarcity, higher oil prices and increased demand from emerging markets like China and India.

Agricultural and farming research centre in no...
Agricultural research station, Thailand

As if that’s not enough, financial speculators are turning their attention to agricultural commodities and gambling on food products. See the Spiegel article here and the Green World Investor blog here.

We were warned in 2008 of a global food crisis. But have we learned any lessons? Are we doing enough to promote food security and sustainability in Malaysia (other than corporate agriculture)?

While we are obsessed with FDI, are we doing enough to chart out a sustainable – and the key word is sustainable or organic – agriculture blueprint that would meet the needs of our people in the future?

Careful with those flu jabs on children

Alarm bells have started ringing after it was found that children under five in Australia who had been given seasonal flu jabs suffered from fits at a rate that was ten times higher than normal.

Doctors have been alerted to use alternatives. Adults were not affected.

Up to one in 100 children given the jab, made in Australia by CSL and marketed in the UK by Pfizer, suffered febrile convulsions in the following hours and days, reports the Daily Telegraph.

A raw deal for KTMB?

Did you catch the front page of theSun today? It’s an important story not to be missed – for KTMB needs all the money it can get to upgrade its archaic rail system.

For a glimpse at what visitors think of our railway system, check out a feature in TIME here.

Yesterday, we saw how the Sarawak government would lose hundreds of millions of ringgit if land in Kuching was sold at bargain basement prices. And now this. The big question in this case is – apart from KTMB being deprived of the full value of the land – who is going to be the ‘lucky’ developer?

A 3-car KTM Komuter Class 82 EMU (Union Carria...
Image via Wikipedia

An unfair deal?
Terence Fernandez and Llew-Ann Phang

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 26, 2010): Is Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) getting a raw deal in the development of a piece of railway land in Bangsar?

This is the question on the lips of those concerned with recent developments of the 8ha site behind the former the Unilever headquarters along Jalan Bangsar.

Said to be worth at least RM400 million, the national railway company may be paid only RM50 million for giving up the prime real estate.

The trams of Penang

This is a piece on the trams of Penang that I wrote as a guest blogger for The Guardian:

Georgetown, Penang. Photograph taken on the 27...
Image via Wikipedia

George Town on the island of Penang in Malaysia used to have a viable tram system in the early

20th century. It was part of a fairly integrated and efficient transport system.

But then the trams faded away in this British ‘Crown Colony’, with the advent of buses and private motor vehicles, at about the same time some of the tram systems in Europe disappeared.

Video: DPP demonstrates ‘self-strangulation’

DPP Abdul Razak Musa demonstrates during the Teoh Beng Hock inquest how a person might strangle himself.

This clip is an except of a much longer video that was uploaded to the AG’s website this afternoon. Thanks to Malaysiakini for the editing.

Gasing Hill under threat

Blog reader Ganesh was alarmed by what he stumbled upon at Gasing Hill the other day.


Photo by Ganesh

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Ganesh shares with us what he discovered:

I saw plots of land being sold, starting from the bottom right up to the top, on both sides of the road leading to its peak.

Pas reaches out to non-Muslims

PopTeeVee interviews Pas MP Mujahid Yusuf Rawa on the party’s efforts to draw in non-Muslim supporters.

What do you think? Is Pas really genuine in reaching out to the non-Muslims or is it merely for political expedience?

Now sleepless in Seattle?

Are you interested in mansions in the United States?

Check out the Sarawak Report here, which features a couple of exclusive tastefully appointed mansions in Seattle linked to the family of a familiar politician.