We’re confirming a fourth World Speech Day 2021 event – this time in Subang Jaya, Selangor.
Our gratitude to Dr Sheila Cheng and Asia e University!
At this moment, the coronavirus tally is already past 42 million cases! For now, it looks like nothing is going to stop SARS-CoV-2!
France is the seventh country in the world to record one million Covid-19 cases.
And Switzerland and Costa Rica are countries #47 and #48 to have reached 100,000 cases or more. FYI, these forty-eight countries combined to account for 93.4% and 95.5% of cases and deaths respectively worldwide.
If you had been following the news, the tone has changed somewhat – it used to be that she defeated the cursed coronavirus; nowadays, it’s about her accomplishments in battling the pandemic.
I’m not trying to take away her victory – my point is just that Covid-19 is here to stay. The sooner we accept this, the better it is for all of us!
In case you're interested to know, New Zealand's current situation is still good. There are only a smattering of cases here and there. Nothing to worry about.
Really, we shouldn’t allow a virus to bring life as we know it to a screeching halt.
Get real. We have faced viral threats before, including pandemics – yet the world does not shut down for every new infection or flu season. Life does not work that way.
Under terms of the deal, they agreed to pay a $2.3 billion fine for breaking anti-bribery laws and to disgorge $600 million of ill-gotten gains.
The move followed a $3.9 billion settlement the bank reached with Malaysia in July 2020 to settle all charges against the bank there related to the matter.
The US Justice Department have said more than $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB by high-level officials at the fund and their associates between 2009 and 2015 to pay for real estate, art and other luxury items, with the help of those bankers.
While the massive impropriety has proved a humbling and costly saga for the Wall Street giant, the long-awaited settlement should allow Chief Executive David Solomon to accelerate his plans to turn the bank around after a decade of under-performance, analysts said.
The bank also indicated that they will recoup or withhold $174 million in compensation awarded to executives, including retired boss Lloyd Blankfein, under whose watch the wrongdoing happened.
That’s because the virus doesn't go after everybody here! It has been determined that the 10 percent of management and supervisory staff in any organization who are allowed to be in the office for a maximum of 3 days a week for 4 hours (i.e. 10:00 AM to 02:00 PM) are deemed safe; they will not spread Covid-19 to the rest of the people working there. This elite group is seemingly untouchable.
It also means the Malaysian variant of the virus does not have a free pass. It can count, identify who’s who and know when it’s allowed to infect the community. I tell you, SARS-CoV-2 in this country has mutated to become astute, clever and discerning.
In case you’re wondering if I’m disseminating fake news – I’m not! The information came from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and published on their Facebook page yesterday. It’s from an authoritative source, even if stupidity has taken root.
Already, on Wednesday, I had blogged about CMCO rulings that flip-flopped. I didn’t even touch on the rulings that are doltishly dopey – but I can’t pretend anymore, hence, this post.
I mean, this 10% ruling is just daft. It's saying that the virus is super smart!
Serie A leaders AC Milan overcame Celtic 3-1 in their Europa League group stage opener in Glasgow, Scotland yesterday.
Celtic’s solitary goal came from substitute Mohamed Elyounoussi's header in the seventy-sixth minute.
They’ll need to try to get back to winning ways in the Scottish Premiership when they face Aberdeen on Sunday and the next Europa League test against Lille on Thursday. They cannot afford to lose again!
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Henri Vézina, a clothing brand has released the WFH collection.
The photos of the campaign features male models dressed in formal outfits without the bottom half:
As you can see, the Canadian brand suggests its customers cut the cost of their business wardrobe in half and only worry about the top half of their formal outfit. I mean, let’s be real, no one is going to see the bottom half.
Very appropriate for those Zoom meetings!
Liverpool were helped by a fortunate own goal in the thirty-fifth minute to get off to a winning start in the Champions League Group D opening tie against Ajax yesterday.
Luck decided to come over to our side!
If it is shared on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, it must be true. Or so many people believe.
Closer to home, we have the false news that alleged that 90 percent of Covid-19 positive cases comprised those who had visited shopping malls around the Klang Valley (I call it the Greater KL Area). It's a claim that made its rounds yesterday and it is good that it was refuted by the authorities on the very same day itself.
Still, I wish they didn’t just dismiss the misinformation but rather rebut it with facts.
It is noteworthy to mention that mall infections received just as much media attention too – especially given the spate of cases that had come about from a long list of malls that included One Utama, Sunway Pyramid, Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens Mall, Setia City Mall, 3 Damansara (previously known as Tropicana City Mall), Nu Sentral, Suria KLCC, KL Gateway Mall, Paradigm Mall and Bangsar Shopping Center – and these isolated incidents played their part in helping to empty shopping malls everywhere.
Not only that but the Director-General of the Ministry of Health himself had pointed out on Tuesday that the Utama cluster that involved the One Utama Shopping Mall tallied 132 active cases – with one reported in Melaka and the rest in Selangor (Malay Mail Online, October 20, 2020).
To put it simply, it means a person who infects another, who then infects another, who infects yet another, who then infects another person, who then infects someone else.
I venture to suggest that the D-G’s statement that Tuesday might explain how the fake news came about in the first place. He was reported to have said: “…the good thing about Selangor is 90 percent of infections, we know the cluster*. Through MySejahtera, we can trace them, whether in Selangor or out of Selangor”.
Get it?
[*This refers to the Utama cluster].
It’s not difficult for any simple-minded person – and believe me, there are many of them in this country – to jump to the conclusion that malls are responsible for 90 percent of the infections in Selangor-KL. No further questions. No checking of the facts. No nothing.
The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible.
Anyway, we should know that truth is whatever people will believe.
Amazon have mistreated third-party sellers. Apple's app store fees and policies are anti-competitive. Facebook have sought to eliminate future rivals through targeted acquisitions.
And Google, instead of competing on the quality of their search results, bought their success – they pay billions of dollars a year to device manufacturers like Apple, LG, Motorola, and Samsung and browser developers like Mozilla and Opera to be their default search engine and in many cases to prohibit them from dealing with Google's competitors.
As a result, Google effectively own or control search distribution channels accounting for nearly 90 percent of all general search engine queries in the United States and almost 95 percent of searches on mobile.
In other words, Google harm competition and prevent rivals from gaining a meaningful audience.
And so, the US government finally decided to do something about the elephant in the room. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice sued Google, in the most aggressive legal challenge to the power and influence of Big Tech in more than two decades.
The much-anticipated lawsuit could lead to the break-up of an iconic company that has become all but synonymous with the Internet and assumed a primary role in the day-to-day lives of billions of people around the globe.
Such an outcome is far from assured, however, and the case is likely to take years to resolve. The last time the US took up the cudgels was when it sued Microsoft for anti-competitive practices in 1998. A settlement left the company intact, though the government's prior foray into Big Tech anti-trust – the 1974 case against AT&T – led to the breakup of the Bell System.
Google called the lawsuit "deeply flawed", adding that people "use Google because they choose to – not because they're forced to or because they can't find alternatives" – and insisting that it "would do nothing to help consumers".
Explanatory notes from Simon Gibson: “Please note the colon at the end of the phrase. It's there because we want to leave it open for each event, indeed each speaker, either to adopt this theme or adapt it for themselves by adding a phrase of their own.
For example, ‘Humanity at a Crossroads: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ or ‘Humanity at a Crossroads: Protecting our Environment’, or simply ‘Humanity at a Crossroads’."
Folks, it’s time to start thinking about your WSD speech! I'm assuming you'll want to speak!
