Floods worsen in Pahang

Floods worsen in Pahang

Floods worsen in Pahang

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 07:10 PM PST

KUANTAN: The flood situation in Pahang has worsened with more that 5,000 people in Flood Relief Centres (FRCs) in four districts this morning.

A spokesman at the Pahang police headquarters said the four districts were Rompin, Kuantan, Pekan and Maran.

"In Rompin 2,595 victims from 23 kampungs have been placed in six FRCs," he said when contacted by Bernama.

He said in Pekan, six kampungs were inundated forcing 341 people to move to FRCs.

In Kuantan, 23 kampungs were affected causing 1,824 victims to be relocated to 23 FRCs.

In Maran, nine kampungs were hit resulting in 633 victims having to take shelter in seven FRCs.

The situation is expected to worsen further following incessant rain since the past two days.

The spokesman also said that the Sungai Charu bridge at Km28 Jalan Sungai Lembing-Kuantan was closed to all traffic after the water level rose to nearly one metre at the stretch.– Bernama

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Death toll rises to 62 in East China pipeline blast

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 06:31 PM PST

Posted on December 3, 2013, Tuesday

QINGDAO: The death toll from Qingdao City's oil pipeline explosion in east China's Shandong Province has risen to 62 as the body of the last missing victim was retrieved Monday.

As of Tuesday, a total of 136 people were hospitalised and 14 discharged from hospital earlier, Xinhua news agency reported.

Initial reports put the death toll at 55 and missing victims at 9.

On Nov 22, crude oil leaked from an underground pipeline in Qingdao's Huangdao district and flowed into the city's sewage network which empties into the Jiaozhou Bay.

Explosions ripped through residential and commercial roads in Huangdao at around 10:30 a.m. on the day while workers were clearing the spill. –BERNAMA

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Five-storey building collapses in Sao Paulo

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 06:09 PM PST

SAO PAULO: A five-storey building under construction collapsed outside Sao Paulo late Monday but officials said there was no word on casualties.

More than 70 firefighters, accompanied by sniffer dogs, were on the scene,  combing through the rubble of the building in search of possible victims in the  city of Guarulhos, the fire department said.

It said 13 workers had been working on the site but were not inside when  the building gave way, apparently as a result of a structural fault.

Search teams were looking for one person who might have been inside, the  department said on its Twitter account.

Television pictures showed a huge crater where the building stood.

"It was a building under construction, with all the features of a  commercial building," Civil Defense coordinator Victor Novaes told Globonews.

Authorities said a nearby building was evacuated as a precautionary measure  to ensure it did not sustain damage.

Guarulhos is home to Sao Paulo's main international airport.

Last August, 10 people were killed in the collapse of a building under  construction in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city and business capital. — AFP

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Apple buys analytics firm for $200 mln

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 03:38 PM PST

Apple has acquired social media analytics firm Topsy for more than $200 million, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the deal, said it was unclear how Apple planned to use the firm but that it could be related to Apple's new streaming music service.

Topsy, according to the report, is among a handful of Twitter partners which has access to the full range of data from the fast-growing messaging platform.

Earlier this year, Topsy said it had created a searchable index of all the publicly available tweets ever made, to be available for marketers and others.

Apple and Topsy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Topsy describes itself as a company "with the only full-scale index of the public social web," to help its customers "instantly analyze any topic, term or hashtag across years of conversations on millions of web sites."

The data can be used to analyze the effectiveness of a social media ad campaign, for example.

Apple had a music-oriented social network called Ping, but shuttered that last year as it created sharing options through Facebook and Twitter.

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1,035 residents in Mersing moved to flood evacuation centres

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 03:24 PM PST

JOHOR BAHARU: As flood waters rose in Mersing, 1,035 residents involving 306 families had to temporarily take shelter at evacution centres.

Mersing district police chief DSP Zulkifli Hashim said the victims were from 16 villages, Kampung Air Tawar, Kampung Lubuk, Felcra Sri Mahkota Endau, Semaloi and Kampung Bukit Pasir.

"Also affected were Kampung Tenglu Besar, Kampung Air Papan, Kampung Orang Asli Labung, Kampung Peta, Kampung Air Merah, Kampung Wak Salam, Jalan Sekakap, Kampung Che Wok, Kampung Sawah Datuk, Kampung Makam and Kampung Paya Tunggal," he said when contacted here.

Zulkifli said rain was still falling and the rising tide had caused the water to rise to 3.3 metres as at 9.30 pm.

He said the roads at KM7 Jalan Nitar-Mersing, KM32 and KM35 Jalan Mersing-Kota Tinggi could only be accessed by heavy duty vehicles.

He said the district operations room was monitoring the situation while the rescue team involving various agencies were evacuating the residents to safer ground.

Meanwhile in Kuala Terengganu, 20 victims from five families have been moved from their low lying residence in Kemaman to three evecuation centres.

According to the National Security Council portal, 16 of them were placed at Sekolah Kebangsaan Telok Kalong, three at Masjid Batu 16 and one at Dewan Serbaguna Kampung Batu 14. –BERNAMA

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BlackBerry dismisses demise talk, says ‘very much alive’

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 03:23 PM PST

BlackBerry's new chief executive cast off persistent talk of the smartphone maker's demise, vowing on Monday that the company would pick itself back up and was "here to stay."

"Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated," John Chen, who was appointed interim chief executive last month, said in an open letter to customers.

"We are very much alive, thank you."

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company helped create a culture of mobile users glued to smartphones, but lost its luster as many moved to iPhones or devices using Google's Android software.

BlackBerry still has some 70 million subscribers worldwide, but most of these are using older handsets, with newer devices on the BlackBerry 10 platform failing to gain traction.

In September, the company announced that it was laying off 4,500 staff — or one third of its global workforce — after losing $965 million in its last quarter.

Two months later, it scrapped a search for a suitor and nixed a deal with its largest shareholder Fairfax Financial that would have taken the company private, sparking rampant speculation about its future.

"Our 'for sale' sign has been taken down and we are here to stay," Chen said, adding: "We're going back to our heritage and roots — delivering enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions."

In his open letter, he said BlackBerry is committed to its handsets, messaging service and servers that manage mobile devices for companies.–AFP

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