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A friendly reminder about tomorrow's annual Voice OUT art festival organised by YouthPREP Centre Alamesra, LEAP (Land Empowerment Animals People) and SAWO (Sabah Women's Action-Resource Group). WHERE: 5th Floor, Suria Sabah WHEN: 19th May 2012 TIME: 10am onwards On the program:: a) Lawyers vs. Students debate b) Reclaiming Unduk Ngadau c) Biggest Flashmob in Malaysia d) Traditional performances e) Bands f) Performances And more. See you there!

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From Petronas, Mia Palencia's song 'Kembali' is dedicated to Sabahans and Sarawakians celebrating Kaamatan and Gawai. Video by Jared Abdul Rahman of The Amadis Project.

PETRONAS Kaamatan & Gawai MV: Kembali by Mia Palencia (by PETRONASOfficial)

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Yesterday the DSN crew first saw the video above.  What is this large floating sheet of goo?  Is it alive? Was it once alive?

The two leading contenders seems to be that it is A) an old whale placenta or B) a rare and enigmatic deep-sea jellyfish.  And the answer is…. B)

A) So why is not an old whale placenta?  The video is from approximately 5000 feet (1500 m). A placenta would need to sink to this depth without any other organism consuming it.  Unlikely given that its rate of decent would have been slow and any organic food source in the deep sea is unlikely to last long.

B) So why is it a jellyfish?* In 1967, F.S. Russell described a very enigmatic deep-sea jellyfish, Deepstaria enigmatica.

During Dive 159 of the U.S. research submersible Deepstar 400 on 22 October 1966 Dr. Eric G. Barham, Dr. George Pickwell, and Mr. Ronald Church collected a remarkable scyphomedusan at a depth of about 723 m in the San Diego Trough…when first noted, the jellyfish’s margin was collapsed and the [outer, convex surface of the umbrella] indented.

In other words it didn’t look like much of a jellyfish.  Sound familiar?

On opposite sides of the umbrella are two large tubular shaped processes…It has a yellowish brown tinge…The radial canal system is most striking.  It consists of a meshwork, likened by Dr. Barham to wire-netting.

The meshwork, wire-netting like, radial canal system of Deepstaria enigmatica

The gonads are situated along the margins of fan-shape mesenteries, and tend to be broken up into several isolated processes with incurved edges.

Gonads on a fan shaped protrusion

Figure from Russell 1967

Specimen of Deepstaria enigmatica described by Russell 1967

In 1988 Larson and colleagues published further work describing this rare group of jellyfish.  They too noted the unique canal system. But it is these researcher’s behavioral notes that I find most interesting.

These two species of Deepstaria display some unique behaviour; peristaltic locomotion and pursing of the bell margin are unknown in other medusae. Probably the peristaltic locomotion is necessary because the umbrella is too thin and the subumbrella musculature too diffuse to support more rapid pulsation. Our observations of both species of Deepstaria suggest that they usually hang  motionless with the umbrella open…It seems probable to us that medusae in this genus are large ambush predators in the meso- and bathypelagic environment…we speculate that the feeding behaviour might be as follows. The medusae usually hang vertically and motionless with the bell open; occasional peristaltic contractions probably enable them to swim slowly, at least enough to retard sinking. Because the area of the subumbrella is so large, upward-swimming prey occasionally would swim into it. Once prey enter the large subumbrellar chamber, the contact stimulates rapid contraction of the coronal muscle, pursing the umbrella shut and trapping the prey. As the prey attempts to escape, it contacts nematocysts on the subumbrella, being repeatedly stung until weakened. It may additionally become covered with mucus and further immobilized. Then peristalsis and ciliary movement could transport the prey towards the mouth where the oral arms could grasp and engulf it…’Bagging’ prey in this way is not known in other medusae.

Plate 4 One of the large gelatinous organisms, Deepstaria enigmatica, that have been recently found to be very abundant in mesopelagic waters of the world ocean. This medusa was photographed in Monterey Bay by Kevin Raskoff © MBARI, 1998.

Russell, F. S. (1967). “On a remarkable new scyphomedusan Deepstaria enigmatica”. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK 47: 469-473.

Larson, R.; Madin L., Harbison, G. (1988). “In situ observations of deep water medusae of the genus Deepstaria, with a description of D. reticulum sp. nov.”. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK 68: 689-699.

*UPDATE: This has now also been confirmed by Dr. Steven Haddock of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Center, an expert on deep-sea and pelagic creatures.

UPDATE2: Steven Haddock provides some much better photos of Deepstaria engimatica on the Jellyfish Watch Facebook page.

UPDATE3: Several comments below suggest the species is Deepstaria reticulum.  Important thing is that it is still a jellyfish and already known.

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A short history lesson on the Formation and 20-points agreement in doodles! Cute and succinct :)

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We're a little late but happy 4/20!

Wind down with the Harry Nilsson classic - The Point (1971) Part 1 (by thehobbitmov)

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Tonight! #OccupyKotaKinabalu where you can also buy your official Bersih Sabah t-shirts WHERE: Lintasan Deasoka, Gaya Street WHEN: 20th April 2012 (tonight) TIME: 7 - 9pm

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Check out :: Dari Meja Lukisan Mandating S.K.T :: on Facebook

"Saya Bukan Orang Politik atau Aktivis serta tidak memihak sesiapa..Saya adalah Kartunis Bebas...INK saya akan ceritakan tentang ISU dan Realiti di Sabah..."

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KOTA KINABALU: With the slogan of ‘No RCI, No Election’, Bersih Sabah committee is targeting 100,000 supporters statewide for its planned peaceful two-hour sit-in protest on April 28.

Its chief Andrew Ambrose, who is better known as Atama, told a press conference yesterday that those who are concerned with the nation’s election system and related Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) issues are invited to gather at Padang Merdeka on April 28 from 2pm to 4pm.

[...]

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/04/13/bersih-sabah-targets-100000-in-sit-in-protest/

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WHAT :: BERSIH 3.0 Kota Kinabalu ::

WHEN: 28 April 2012 // 2pm

WHERE: Padang Merdeka

Follow Twitter: @BERSIHSabah 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bersih-30-Sabah/218741901499558

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Anwar: PKR willing to surrender seats to Sabah opposition parties

By Clara Chooi

April 14, 2012

Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim says PKR is willing to back off seats it traditionally contests in Sabah for the coming general election. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim declared today PKR's readiness to surrender some of its traditionally contested seats in Sabah to local opposition parties for the coming 13th general election.

According toBernama Online, the PKR de facto leader said this was to ensure straight fights in all Sabah seats and give the opposition greater opportunity to break into the Barisan Nasional's (BN) east Malaysian fortress.

PKR and Sabah's key opposition party SAPP (Sabah Progressive Party), which is led by former chief minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee, went on a collision course during the Batu Sapi by-election 2010, turning the fight into a three-way contest against BN.

This resulted in the opposition vote splitting between the two parties, launching BN's PBS (Parti Bersatu Sabah) candidate Datin Linda Tsen Thau Lin to the winning spot with a large vote margin.

But this time, it appears apparent that the Peninsula-based PKR does not want to repeat its mistake in Batu Sapi.

"We (PKR) agree to surrender some of the seats we contested in the previous polls to make way for Sabah's opposition parties, especially SAPP.

"We are also in negotiation with several local political leaders for the same purpose of ensuring one-to-one fights," Bernama Online quoted Anwar as telling reporters today after an economic forum in Tanjung Aru near Kota Kinabalu.

The Opposition Leader also expressed hope that other parties in the PR pact would follow in PKR's lead and stay open to negotiating with Sabah's opposition parties.

He urged all PR parties against issuing statements that would make the federal pact look "too conceited", adding that they all shared similar goals.

"However, we do hope that Sabah's opposition would also support PR's struggle and not practice state-level politics.

"I myself have observed that the political trend here is more towards Sabah-based politics.

"To PR, what is important is the struggle for the people regardless of race, religion and background," the news agency quoted him as saying.

Anwar however kept mum on the opposition's candidate for the position of Chief Minister in Sabah, only saying that the matter would be discussed between PR and Sabah's local parties "when the time arrives"

The Malaysian Insider reported last month that seat negotiations on the opposition front in Sabah was likely to break down with PR and Sabah-based parties heading on a collision course with one another ahead of an election expected by June.

Separate interviews conducted with each contender for the coming polls indicate that neither side is willing to back down from their demands, although all parties have insisted that their “doors are always open”.

For the local opposition parties, namely SAPP and State Reform Party (STAR), led by political bigwigs Yong and Datuk Jeffrey Kitingan respectively, consensus is only possible if they are allowed to contest the lion’s share of the 60 state seats up for grabs in Sabah.

This, party leaders told The Malaysian Insider recently, is to enable them to push through their “Sabah for Sabahans” agenda, which would see the state reclaim its autonomy.

But for the Peninsula-based PR, largely DAP, all parties should first commit to the federal opposition pact before facing the Barisan Nasional (BN) giants in the polls.

They believe this would strengthen the opposition front in Sabah and on the federal level, as well as help topple the ruling pact from Putrajaya.

For SAPP, the formula is simple — PR contests two-thirds of Sabah’s 25 parliamentary seats while SAPP snaps up two-thirds of the state seats. This, they said, is a win-win formula that would enable all parties to achieve their goals in addition to toppling BN.

Federal seats in east Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak are expected to be BN’s focal point come the elections as both states, including the federal territory of Labuan, make up a whopping 57 seats, or 25 per cent of the 222 Parliamentary seats available.

In Election 2008, BN lost its customary two-thirds parliamentary majority largely due to significant losses in the peninsula, where it won just 85 seats while the opposition swept 80 seats.

BN’s saving grace was in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan where the pact trounced the opposition and made a near-clean sweep, winning 55 parliamentary seats to the opposition’s two.

Today, following numerous MP deaths and defections, BN holds 138 parliamentary seats while opposition parties, including PR’s PKR, PAS and DAP, PSM, SAPP and independents, hold 84 seats in the House.

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Laura Loe, the Kota Kinabalu borne babe with the big voice makes us proud at Australia's Got Talent!

Also check out her YouTube Channel here! - http://bit.ly/Ik98VF

AUSTRALIA'S GOT TALENT 2012 - Laura Loe Sneak Peek - SOON ON SEVEN (by mikeyzl)

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Bio: Suistereo started out as a band act for Labuan Matriculation College's "Annual Acoustic Night". Due to the overwhelming supports from the students and lecturers, Suistereo decided to carry on from 2009 until this very day.

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Sabah’s Smoking Gun! Bank Statements Show That Musa Aman’s Sons Accessed Dirty Money – National Exclusive!

Posted Monday, April 9th, 2012

This post is also available in: Iban

Documents leaked from a Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) enquiry have provided devastating evidence of the Sabah Chief Minister, Musa Aman’s, personal involvement in a massive timber kickback scandal, which insiders say has been subject to a high level political cover-up.

Aman has always denied that he was linked to allegations surrounding the Sabah timber trader Michael Chia, who was arrested in Hong Kong and charged with money laundering, as he attempted to smuggle SG$16million in bank notes back to Malaysia in 2008.

However, Sarawak Report has now obtained access to secret documents from the investigations by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and Malaysia’s MACC, which directly implicate the Chief Minister.

These include copies of bank statements, which record payments to Musa Aman’s own sons from suspect accounts linked to Chia’s business activities.

Chia was Musa Aman’s ‘adopted son’

Close relationship - Musa Aman (left) and his right hand man Michael Chia

Michael Chia, who referred to himself as Aman’s adopted son, played the role as facilitator for kickbacks to the Chief Minister, according to trade insiders.

They say that soon after Aman took office, Chia started approaching key timber industry players to make plain that major concessions would be available – but only if kickbacks were paid, through him as the connector to Musa Aman.

“Tampokong was instructed to follow Chia’s instructions”, say sources. Meaning that Yayasan Sabah’s Forest Manager, Mohd Daud Tampokong, had been instructed by the Chairman of the Board Trustees, Musa Aman, to do Chia’s bidding when it came to authorising logging licences.

Yayasan Sabah controls around a million hectares of remaining forest land, which it is suppose to protect and manage on behalf of the state and its people.  Unwisely, the country’s top politician is also the head of Yayasan’s Board of Trustees, giving the Chief Minister unlimited personal control over the country’s major natural resource.

Such a lack of check and balances is a recipe for corruption and our evidence shows that Aman took spectacular advantage.

 Smoking gun bank accounts

Dandy - Chia loved the fast life. According to one friend "he would spend $2k on his underwear"!

At the time of his arrest in Hong Kong, clutching the bundle of Singapore bank notes worth SG$10,000 each, Chia was suspected of smuggling dirty money, with the intention of bringing it back to Sabah to finance election bribery by BN.

The money and related bank accounts were frozen in Hong Kong by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for the maximum period of 3 years, while investigators sought to get vital cooperation from Malaysia’s Attorney General, Abdul Gani Patail, in order to be able to get the evidence they needed from the Malay authorities.

Simultaneously the MACC began their own investigation, seizing 9 lorry loads of material and documents from the premises of Michael Chia and his timber business associates, including timber magnates Andrew Lim and Admond Looh.

The investigators discovered that Chia had been running a number of related bank accounts through HSBC, Singapore and the Swiss Bank UBS, based in Hong Kong. We have copies of statements from these bank accounts showing that the sons of Musa Aman were taking money out of one of them on a regular basis, based on a standing instruction.

This account was set up as an Australian Dollar account in Singapore, apparently because the boys were then studying in Perth, Australia.  Money was also removed from the account by Imbarine Bujang, who was the man delegated by Musa Aman to take care of the boys’ needs while away at University in Perth.

How can Musa deny his link to Chia's activities when his own sons were taking money out of accounts that were being managed by Chia and his associates?

Mohammed Hayssam Musa and Hazem Mubarak Musa are both offspring of the Chief Minister.  Sarawak Report has numerous copies of statements from this bank account, showing that their expenses were being regularly paid from it during 2006 and 2007.

A payment was also made to the Australian property company, Riverstar Investment Pty Ltd, to cover the rental costs of the boys’ apartment in Perth.

Payment for the rental for Musa's sons in Australia also came out of the same account controlled by Chia

Statements in our possession from connected USD$ accounts with the same UBS Hong Kong bank (managed through the Singapore branch) show how money was transferred to cover the payments. Our evidence is that the money flowing into these accounts was directly linked to the granting of major timber licences by Yayasan Sabah.

Chia himself paid directly to Musa’s boys

Any attempt by the Chief Minister to distance himself and his family from the evidence that he has been receiving money through Michael Chia is made even less convincing by the fact that other bank statements, made available to the MACC enquiry, show that Chia himself had been covering these regular payments to the boys in the period before setting up the UBS account in 2006.

These payments were made through his personal HSBC account!

Money for the boys was going through Michael Chia's own bank account in 2005 - Why?

SG 85,000 payment to Mohammed Tampokong!

The leaked documents in our possession also show that Yayasan Sabah’s Forest Manager, Mohd Daud Tampokong (instructed to cooperate with Chia) also received an enormous payment from another related account run by Chia and his associates, this time from a company based in the British Virgin Islands, Zenique Investments Ltd.

We question on what grounds the salaried civil servant in charge of managing Sabah’s timber concessions could legitimately accept a SD85,000 payments from an offshore British Virgin Island account?

Explanation needed? Why did Sabah's Forest Manager receive a SG85,000 payment from a BVI account in November 2006?

This evidence strongly corroborates allegations that Michael Chia was receiving kickbacks from timber companies receiving concessions from Yayasan Sabah, which had been authorised by Mohd Daud Tampokong, and that Chia was then forwarding money from his web of bank accounts to Musa and to the Forest Manager.

Musa Aman has till now distanced himself from this kickback investigation, in which case he needs to come up with convincing explanations about these payments.

Cover up

Protecting his powerful family and political allies? Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail

So far, the Chief Minister has been protected from prosecution, according to our sources, by the deliberate obstruction of the official investigation by Malaysia’s top law enforcement authority, the Attorney General.

Abdul Gani Patail is a fellow Sabahan and has close family connections with the Aman family and he has blocked the pressing of all charges.

We have learnt that the Hong Kong Anti-Corruption Commission investigators initially approached the Malaysian authorities in 2008 with a request for assistance in pursuing their enquiries after Michael Chia’s arrest.

However, the Attorney General refused to sign the necessary mutual legal assistance documents to enable inter-country cooperation on the case. We understand that Gani even went to Hong Kong seeking to negotiate with his opposite number there to close the case.

After 3 years the Hong Kong authorities were forced by statutory limitations to unfreeze the Chia accounts and shelve the investigation owing to Malaysia’s refusal to cooperate.  The millions of dollars in these accounts were released towards the end of last year and it is believed a great deal of the money will be channelled into Sabah, in order to attempt to buy votes for UMNO/BN in the coming federal election.

MACC investigation was also blocked by Gani

A parallel MACC investigation, which unearthed huge amounts of information about Sabah timber kickbacks, has also been blocked.

The Malaysian investigators, who are understood to have been extremely thorough, took evidence from numerous business associates of Chia and timber traders, who admitted to paying kickbacks.  The MACC is believed to have recommended that no less than 40 charges be brought against Sabah’s Chief Minister and yet once again the Attorney General has refused to recommend a prosecution of the case.

“The report with all the evidence is still sitting on his desk”, one source has told us.

This situation supports the clear frustration expressed publicly just last week by the MACC Deputy Commissioner, Mohd Shukri Abdull, who admitted that the Attorney-General has refused to bring many “valid cases”, claiming lack of evidence.

Sarawak Report has now received much of that evidence and over the coming days we will be sharing it with the public and inviting people to make their own judgement on the case which Malaysia’s Attorney General is refusing to bring to court.

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Schools for Undocumented Children in Sabah's Plantations (by UNICEFMalaysia)

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@BERSIH3.0 @BERSIHSabah

Ambiga addresses the RCI into Sabah's PTI situation at the end of the Jom 100 campaign launch.

Jom 100 sabah launch (by jefferi78)

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Kota Kinabalu native and internet celebrity Hong Yi takes on Chinese auteur, Zhang Yimou

Red - Zhang Yimou Portrait made of socks, bamboo sticks and pins (by ohiseeRED)

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"#OccupyKotaKinabalu [KK] adalah satu ruang diskusi yang terbuka, untuk saling berkongsi pengalaman, idea dan mempraktikkan amalan perbincangan dan proses membuat keputusan dengan cara lebih demokratik di ruang publik. Ini adalah aktiviti bukan-Partisan dan tidak ada kaitan dengan mana-mana pertubuhan bukan Kerajaan atau Parti-parti politik." WHERE: Jesselton Point WHEN: 13 April 2012 TIME: 6pm - 9pm

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Bersih 3.0's official page, twitter tag @bersih3.0: "To advocate for clean, free and fair electoral system." WHEN: 28th April 2012 (Saturday) TIME: 2pm WHERE: Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur Mission To advocate for clean, free and fair electoral system.  Description The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections or Gabungan Pilihanraya Bersih dan Adil (better known by its Bahasa Malaysia name “BERSIH”) issued its first joint communiqué on 23 November 2006.  "At its formation, BERSIH comprised civil society organisations and political parties with the objective of campaigning for clean and fair elections in Malaysia.  BERSIH’s journey thus far has been both monumental and memorable. The public demonstration of November 2007, which saw thousands of ordinary Malaysians take to the streets in support of clean and fair elections, was a critical juncture in our nation’s electoral journey.  Almost 3 ½ years later, the aims of BERSIH continue to be relevant.  The time has now come for BERSIH to continue its crusade for clean and fair elections independent of any political party. BERSIH is thus being re-launched as BERSIH 2.0, a coalition of like minded civil society organisations unaffiliated to any political party. Our aim will be to effectively monitor both sides of the political divide."