Author: Frank_omatic

The terrorist attacked London today just as soon as London was declared the venue for the 2012 Olympic host.
This is a report from Guardian

A series of explosions ripped through London’s transport system today as suspected terrorist attacks on tube trains and a bus plunged the capital into chaos.

At least two people are known to have been killed, and hundreds of wounded are being treated in London hospitals.

Officials shut down the whole of the London Underground system and the Docklands Light Railway, and also cancelled all central London bus services as they tried to comprehend the scale of the disaster.
The prime minister, Tony Blair, said it was “reasonably clear” that the blasts were the work of terrorists, and added that it was “particularly barbaric” that attacks had been timed to coincide with the start of the G8 summit. He said he would leave Gleneagles, in Scotland, to return to London.

With the leaders of the G8 nations lined up behind him, Mr Blair said: “We condemn utterly these barbaric attacks.

“All of our countries have suffered from terrorism …we are united in our resolve to confront and defeat this terrorism that is not an attack on one nation but on all nations and on civilised society everywhere,” he said.

He insisted the G8 leaders would continue their discussions and would not allow the terrorists to halt a summit aimed at helping the world’s poorest people.

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, confirmed that there had been four blasts: one on a tube train between Aldgate and Liverpool Street, one on a train between Russell Square and King’s Cross, one on a train at Edgware Road station, and the last on a bus at Tavistock Square.
He told the Commons in an emergency statement: “The situation is developing, and I am not yet in a position to give a conclusive account of all that has happened.”

Earlier, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, reported seven explosions. “We are concerned that this is a coordinated attack,” Sir Ian said.

The only attack visible to the general public was that on the double-decker bus. A bomb ripped the bus apart at Tavistock Square, near Russell Square, leaving its seats exposed and the roof blown away.
Union officials said they had received reports of two more bus explosions, but police did not confirm those reports.
Coordinated attacks across London

The police and government did not say who had carried out the attacks.

However, BBC Monitoring said it had found a website carrying a brief statement in which an al-Qaida-related organisation claimed responsibility for today’s blasts.

Police said two people had been killed in the explosion at Aldgate, and an unknown number had died at Edgware Road.

A policeman at the scene of the bus explosion at Tavistock Square said people had been killed there, and the ambulance service spoke of “a number” of fatalities.

Sir Ian said there had been many casualties, but would not give estimates of the numbers of people involved. He said the most seriously injured were currently being operated on.

Both Sir Ian and Mr Clarke urged people to stay at home until further notice, telling them not go into central London. People currently working in the centre of the capital are being advised to stay where they are.

“We are gradually bringing order to the city. Just stay where you are for the time being until the situation clears,” he said.

Hospitals deal with horrific injuries

Julian Nettle, of St Mary’s hospital, said the hospital was dealing with four people with critical injuries, including the loss of limbs, and eight people with serious injuries including head wounds.

He said a further 14 people were being treated for more minor injuries including temporary hearing loss, which he said appeared to have been caused by involvement in an explosion.

The Royal London hospital said it had treated 95 people, including seven with critical injuries.

Laura Matthews, a press officer at Universities UK, which has offices in Tavistock Square, said she had seen bodies lying around the bus explosion, some of them without arms or legs. “Get people down here quickly,” she sobbed. She thought a bomb had gone off and was trying to evacuate her office.

“We believe there have been a number of fatalities and a number of people who are seriously injured,” a policeman at the scene said.
Union officials said sources had told them there had been at least one explosive device on the Underground. British Transport police initially said power surges had caused explosions across the network.

The blasts began just before 9am, as commuters made their way to work.

Emergency services attended to wounded passengers outside Aldgate station, and there were reports of passengers covered in soot emerging from King’s Cross. Commuters came out of tunnels covered in blood.

A passenger on the train that exploded at Edgware Road said he had seen several bodies in the wreckage, the Press Association reported.
A Scotland Yard source said the force would be setting up a casualty bureau with a telephone number for people to call if they were worried about loved ones.

Downing Street emergencies committee meets Mr Clarke said the public would be kept updated on the situation. He confirmed there had been “terrible injuries” in the explosions across the capital.

Speaking outside 10 Downing Street soon after the blasts, he said the Cobra civil emergencies committee of senior ministers had met.

The police had taken “operational command” of the situation, he added.
“Health services are in support to deal with the terrible injuries that there have been, and I want to express sympathy on behalf of the whole government,” he said.

‘There were loads of people screaming’

Eyewitness Belinda Seabrook said she saw the explosion rip though the double-decker bus as it approached Tavistock Square, between Euston and Russell Square stations.

“I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang. I turned round and half the double-decker bus was in the air,” she said.

Simon Corvett, 26, from Oxford, was on the eastbound train leaving Edgware Road tube station when an explosion happened.

“All of sudden there was this huge bang. It was absolutely deafening and all the windows shattered. The glass did not actually fall out of the windows, it just cracked. The train came to a grinding halt and everyone fell off their seats,” he said.

Mr Corvett, who works in public relations, said the commuter train was absolutely packed. “There were just loads of people screaming and the carriages filled with smoke.

“You couldn’t really breathe and you couldn’t see what was happening. The driver came on the Tannoy and said ‘We have got a problem, don’t panic’,” he said.

Mr Corvett, whose face was covered in soot, joined other passengers to force open the train doors with a fire extinguisher. He said the carriage on the other track was destroyed. “You could see the carriage opposite was completely gutted. There were some people in real trouble.”

Eyewitnesses reported “multiple casualties” at Liverpool Street. A spokesman for the Airport Express Alliance, which operates the Heathrow Express, Gatwick Express and Stansted Express train services said: “They are operating on injured people on the concourse at Liverpool Street station.”

One witness who had been in a train at the time of the explosions reported seeing “bodies everywhere” in the carriages and limbs lying on the floor. Emergency services reported several injuries.

The shutdown of the London Underground system is thought to be unprecedented.

Public told to avoid London

The public were warned to stay clear of London for non-essential journeys. A Network Rail spokesman said southbound services into the capital were terminating at Watford, with no onward bus transfers.
“Some trains are being cancelled and others are getting as far as Watford,” he said. “The message we are trying to get across to passengers is don’t travel if you don’t have to.”

Mr Clarke said the Tube network would remain closed for some time, and certainly for the rest of the day.

News of the explosions caused the FTSE 100 index of leading shares to plunge by more than 200 points.

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It’s very terrifying to me when all those places were the places that i frequent in London. It is more terrifying when those places are where my uncles offices are. I hope they are okay. So far they have not contact me yet. I pray for their safety and well being….

Continue reading Bombing in London

To all the cat lovers,
meow……….=)










P.S. Also read xes’s story about cat

Mobile Phone, a necessity of our life. I feel naked if I forgot to bring my mobile phone with me. However, how many of us know who invented the phone. Below is an article written by Jano Gibson
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Meet the man who invented the mobile
By Jano Gibson

Dr Martin Cooper with the first mobile phone that he invented

It was April 3, 1973. Richard Nixon was in power, Elton John was top
of the pop charts and a bloke by the name of Martin Cooper was about
to make a phone call that would change the world.

Cooper worked for what was then a little-known company called Motorola

and he had just developed the world’s first “hand-held cellular
telephone”.

“It was huge,” recalls Cooper, who was in Sydney this week to address
a communications conference.

“The phone weighed almost two kilos – it was about the size of a
brick.” If that sounds prehistoric, so too was the phone’s power
efficiency.

“The battery lasted somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes. But that
didn’t matter very much because you could only hold it up to your ear
for 10 minutes before your arm got tired,” he says.

Cooper knew the first call he ever made on that state-of-the-art phone
would be a moment of history.

So who did he call on that April day from a Manhattan street corner?
He rang the communications Joel Engel, the head of research at Bell
Labs, an arms of the telecommunications giant AT&T – Motorola’s direct
competitor – to let them know he had beaten them in the race to make
the first mobile phone.

“It was one of the more chilling conversations that I’ve ever held.
These people at AT&T could not understand how a little upstart, a tiny
company like Motorola, would dare to tell them, the largest company in
the world, how to run their business.

“I thought I heard some gnashing of teeth in the background,” jokes
Cooper.

At the time, the thought millions of people around the world owning
their own mobile seemed like a pipe dream to Cooper.

“Keep in mind that the first [mobile] telephone cost millions of
dollars to make. Ten years later we produced the first commercial
phones and those phones sold for US$4000 [$A5180], which would be
closer to US$10,000 or US$15,000 today.

“So the idea of having a billion and a half people having cell phones
– some of which are literally given to them for nothing – was a really
long reach.”

And is there ever a time when the man who made the mobile wants to
tell mobile phone users to shut up?

“It depends whether they are being rude or not. If they’re talking quietly and they are benefiting from that phone call, I feel very
proud because I think people’s lives have been improved.”

Note: This article was originally published in Melbourne Age / Sydney Morning Herald

On Thursday (14/4/2005), while i was having my break outside my office. A salesman approached me.
“Tai Gor (Big Brother or Boss in Cantonese), how are you today?”
I looked left and right, thought that he was speaking to another people
Salesman(S): “Tai Gor, i am over here lar”
Me (F): “ooooooooooh”
S: “Tai Gor, are you free ar?”
F: “No”
S: “Tai Gor, can you answer some survey for me ar?”
F: “No”
S: “Comon, just one question only.”
F:”…..”
S: “Have you ever hurt a Woman?”
F: “Huh?”
S: “Have you ever hurt a Woman?”
F: “HUH!!!”
S: “Have you ever HEARD of WOMAN?”
(It was raining heavily so i didn’t hear him correctly)
F:”What?”
Then he took out, a perfume from a his bag. The perfume’s brand name is call Woman.
F: “oooooooooooh”
S: “How much do u think this perfume cost?”
F: “Don’t know”
S: “Can i spray some on you?”
F: “Please don’t. My boss hate cheap perfume smell.”
(I was actually scare that his perfume is actually some kind of black magic spray that might hypnotise me)
S: “Do you think RM180.00. Is that too expensive for this perfume.”
F: “yes”
S: “What about RM 48.90?”
F: “Expensive.”
S: “Rm 48.90 wor?”
F: “Expensive lar.”
S: “It was RM 180 now going for RM48 wor?”
F: “Expensive lar.”
S: “Ok, thank you.”
He finally left me alone and walked off to another building in the rain. It’s tough being a salesman especially if your potential client (victim) was stone and not very responsive.