Singapore and Malaysia said on Monday they have resolved long-standing disputes over land and water that have plagued ties between the two neighbours for the past 20 years.

Malaysia will relocate its railway station near Singapore's central business district to an area close to one of the two bridges linking the two countries, freeing up land in the city-state for redevelopment.

Malaysia has sovereignty over the site on which the Tanjong Pagar station is located, as well as land on both sides of the railway tracks that run through Singapore, under agreements dating back to British colonial rule.

Singapore said in turn it would not seek to extend a water agreement dating back to 1961, which allowed the city-state to buy water from the southern Malaysian state of Johor at below-market rates. Singapore will also hand  over the waterworks it operates in Johor to the Malaysian state government when the current agreement lapses.

The agreement between the two countries emerged after a meeting between Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

"The points of agreement would facilitate resolution of the issue which has been outstanding for more than 19 years," the two countries said in a joint statement.

The railway station in Tanjong Pagar, owned by Malaysia's Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), will move to the Woodlands Train Checkpoint by July 1 next year. This might be moved to Johor when the proposed rapid transit system is up.

Malaysia will co-locate its railway Customs, Immigration and Quarantine facilities at the checkpoint.

The Tanjong Pagar site and five other parcels of land in Singapore owned by Malaysia - in Bukit Timah, Kranji and Woodlands - will be managed by a new company jointly owned by Malaysia and Singapore.

They may be swopped for pieces of land of equivalent value in Marina South and/or the Ophir and Rochor area.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit Kuala Lumpur within a month with a proposal for the swop, after both countries conduct their own valuations of the land.

The railway buildings at Tanjong Pagar and Bukit Timah will be conserved.

The issue of Malaysian railway land here has dogged bilateral relations for decades, and stalled after both countries signed the Points of Agreement (POA) on its status and development in 1990.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that the deal was "historic because we see now the light at the end of the tunnel with respect to an outstanding issue that has been lingering almost 20 years".

PM Lee said: "It enables us to move forward on so many other areas, to cooperate and work together for mutual benefits without having this outstanding issue always there."

Asked why the deal worked now, he said: "There's a willingness on both sides to look forward and to resolve this matter.

"There is urgency. This matter really cannot wait indefinitely because it's already been 20 years and there are many development projects in Singapore which have been held up because the POA has not been implemented as it should have been many years ago."

He added that both sides recognised the need to work together and develop a win-win relationship to stay ahead of the competition from other countries in Asia.

The company, called M-S Pte Ltd, will be set up before the end of this year, with Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional holding 60 per cent of the shares, and Singapore's Temasek Holdings taking the remaining 40 per cent.

The ownership of the six parcels of land will be transferred to it when KTM vacates Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.

BY 2018, commuters will be able to travel between Singapore and Malaysia's Johor Baru and Tanjung Puteri using a rapid-transit system, to be jointly developed by Singapore and Malaysia, the prime ministers of both countries said yesterday.

The toll charges for the Second Link will be cut on both sides; the number of cross-border bus services will be doubled with eight new bus services; and cross-border taxi services will be liberalised, among other measures to improve connectivity between both countries.

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While drug smuggling is the principal cause of our massive border-violence problem, many of the same criminal organizations also smuggle people. Busts of drop houses, where illegal immigrants are often held for ransom or otherwise severely abused, are not uncommon occurrences in Arizona neighborhoods.

Today, Arizona has approximately 6,000 prison inmates who are foreign nationals, representing a cost to our state of roughly $150 million per year. Arizona taxpayers are paying for a vast majority of these incarceration expenses because the federal government refuses to pay what it owes. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, as governor of Arizona, sent numerous requests to the federal government to pay for these prisoners -- only to be given the same answer she and President Barack Obama are now giving Arizona: They will not pay the bill.

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This new law is no different. As committed as I am to protecting our state from crime associated with illegal immigration, I am equally committed to holding law enforcement accountable should this statute ever be misused to violate an individual's rights.

There have been countless distortions, honest omissions, myths and bad information about Arizona's new law -- many, undoubtedly, spread to create fear or mistrust.

So here are the facts:

1. The new Arizona law creates a state penalty to mirror what already is a federal crime. Despite the most vile and hate-filled portrayals of proponents of the law as "Nazis," actions that have been condemned nationally by the Anti-Defamation League, it is ALREADY a federal requirement for legal aliens in the United States to carry their green card or other immigration document. The new Arizona law enforces what has been a federal crime since before World War II. As anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar laws.

2. Contrary to many of the horror stories being spread -- President Obama suggested families risk being pulled over while going out for ice cream -- law enforcement cannot randomly ask anyone about their immigration status. Much like enforcement of seat belt laws in many states, under SB 1070 there must first be reasonable suspicion that you are breaking some OTHER non-immigration law before an officer can ask a person about their legal status. Only then, after law enforcement officers have a "reasonable suspicion" that another law has been broken, can they inquire about immigration status -- but ONLY if that individual's behavior provides "reasonable suspicion" that the person is here illegally.

"Reasonable suspicion" is a well-understood concept that has been thoroughly vetted through numerous federal court cases. Many have asked: What is reasonable suspicion? Is it race, skin color or national origin? No! Racial profiling is prohibited in the new law. Examples of reasonable suspicion include: a person running away when approached by law enforcement officers, or a car failing to stop when the police turn on their lights and siren.

3. Arizona's local law enforcement officers, who already reflect the great diversity of culture in our state, are going to be trained to enforce the new immigration law in a constitutional manner. It is shameful and presumptive for opponents to question the good will and the competence of Arizona's law enforcement personnel. The specter that is raised of rogue, racist police harassing people is insulting to those in Arizona who risk their lives in the name of law enforcement every day.

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Arizona has been more than patient waiting for Washington to act. Decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation. Arizona has acted to enforce the rule of law equally and without bias toward any person.

It is time for our country to act to resolve our border security problem; an economic boycott in Arizona would only exacerbate it -- and hurt innocent families and businesses merely seeking to survive during these difficult economic times.

A boycott that would actually improve border security would be to boycott illegal drugs. Dramatically less drug use and production would do wonders for the safety of all our communities.

"Every inch of this habitat has something living on it," says environmentalist John Lopez. This marsh not only supports dozens of endangered species, says Lopez, director of sustainability at the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring and preserving the water quality, coast, and habitats of the salt water estuary. It is a nursery for the Gulf.

"Sixty to 70 percent of the commercial (fish) species in the Gulf depend on the Louisiana wetlands," he says.

Even if this area dodges the immediate threat of an oil invasion, the marsh is in a precipitous decline, and the oil industry is one of the key reasons, according to Lopez. Oil companies have carved canals through the marsh over the decades to make way for drilling rigs and pipelines, splintering a cohesive ecosystem, he says. That has changed the flow of water, the types of plants that can survive and the ability of the area to protect the mainland from hurricanes.

From 1932 to the present, the Louisiana wetland has lost about half of its total area – a football field of area every 45 minutes on average. The oil industry is believed to have caused 30 to 40 percent of the total loss of marshland, according to Lopez. "It’s hard to quantify, but we know (the oil industry) had a big impact," he says.

Projects to control the Mississippi River and hurricanes have also contributed to the loss of wetlands, he says.

The Hanging Temple (simplified Chinese: 悬空寺; traditional Chinese: 懸空寺; pinyin: Xuánkong Sì) is a temple built into a cliff ( 75m Above the ground )near Mount Heng in the province of Shanxi. The closest city is Datong, 65 kilometers to the northwest. Along with the Yungang Grottoes, the Hanging Temple is one of the main tourist attractions and historical sites in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is unique not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it includes Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian elements.

Related: 悬空寺 (百度百科)
Wikipedia 悬空寺 (Hanging Temple)

About global warming, Thầy recounted to Times Magazine the story about the couple who ate their son’s flesh – the story told by the Buddha in the Son’s Flesh Sutra. This couple, with their little child, on their way seeking asylum had to cross the desert. Due to a lack of geographical knowledge, they ran out of food, while they were only half way through the desert. They realized that all three of them would die in the desert, and they had no hope to get to the country on the other end of the desert to seek asylum. Finally, they made the decision to kill their little son. Each day they ate a small morsel of his flesh, in order to have enough energy to move on, and they carried the rest of their son’s flesh on their shoulders, so that it could continue to dry in the sun. Each time when they finished eating a morsel of their son’s flesh, the couple looked at each other and asked: “Where is our beloved child now?” Having told this tragic story, the Buddha looked at the monks and asked: “Do you think that this couple was happy to eat their son’s flesh?” “No, World Honored One. The couple suffered when they had to eat their son’s flesh,” the monks answered. The Buddha taught: “Dear friends, we have to practice eating in such a way that we can retain compassion in our hearts. We have to eat in mindfulness. If not, we may be eating the flesh of our own children.”

UNESCO reported that each day about 40,000 children die because of hunger or lack of nutrition. Meanwhile, corn and wheat are largely grown to feed livestock (cows, pigs, chickens, etc.) or to produce alcohol. Over 80 percent of corn and over 95 percent of oats produced in the United States are for feeding livestock. The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equivalent to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, more than the entire human population on earth.

Eating meat and drinking alcohol with mindfulness, we will realize that we are eating the flesh of our own children.

In 2005, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began an in-depth assessment of the various significant impacts of the world’s livestock sector on the environment. Its report, titled Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, was released on November 29th 2006. Henning Steinfeld, chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior of the report, in the executive summary, asserts that: “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency”

Land degradation: Presently, livestock production accounts for 70 percent of all agriculture land and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet. Forests are cleared to create new pastures, and it is a major driver of deforestation. For example, in Latin America some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing . From these figures, we can see that the livestock business has destroyed hundreds of millions acres of forest all over the world to grow crops and to create pastureland for farm animals. Moreover, when the forests are destroyed, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide stored in trees are released into the atmosphere.

Climate change: The livestock sector has major impacts on the atmosphere and climate. It is responsible for “18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, which is a higher share than transport.” This means that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. The livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. It also emits 37 percent of anthropogenic methane, most of that from enteric fermentation by ruminants. This is an enormous amount, because every pound of methane is twenty three times as effective as carbon dioxide is at trapping heat in our atmosphere (23 times the global warming potential [GWP] of carbon dioxide). The meat, egg, and dairy industries are also responsible for the emission of 65 percent of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, most of that from manure. Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide (296 times the GWP of carbon dioxide). It is also responsible for about two-third (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute largely to acid rain and accidification of ecosystem .

Water scarcity and water pollution: More than half of all the water consumed in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food. It requires 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat. Meanwhile, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of grain. Livestock in the United States produce an enormous amount of animal excrement, 130 times more than human excrement; each second the animals release 97,000 pounds of feces. “Most of the water used for livestock drinking and servicing returns to the environment in the form of manure and wastewater. Livestock excreta contain a considerable amount of nutrients [nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium], drug residues, heavy metals and pathogens” (page 136)1. These waste products enter streams and rivers, polluting water sources and causing disease outbreaks that affect all species.

Just as the Buddha cautioned us, we are eating the flesh of our children and grandchildren. We are eating the flesh of our mothers and our fathers. We are eating our own planet earth. The Son’s Flesh Sutra needs to be available for the whole human race to learn and practice.

The U.N.’s recommendation is clear: “The environment impact per unit of livestock production must be cut by half, just to avoid increasing the level of damage beyond its present level,” . We need to reduce at least 50 percent of the meat industry products, and that we must consume 50 percent less meat. The U.N. also reports that even if cattle-rearing is reduced by 50 percent, we still need to use new technology to help the rest of cattle-rearing create less pollution, such as choosing animal diets that can reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, etc. Urgent action must be taken at the individual and collective levels. As a spiritual family and a human family, we can all help avert global warming with the practice of mindful eating. Going vegetarian may be the most effective way to fight global warming.

Buddhist practitioners have practiced vegeterianism over the last 2000 years. We are vegeterian with the intention to nourish our compassion towards the animals. Now we also know that we eat vegeterian in order to protect the earth, preventing the greenhouse effect from causing her serious and irreversible damage. In the near future, when the greenhouse effect becomes severe, all species will suffer. Millions of people will die, and sea levels will rise and flood cities and land. Many life-threatening diseases will result, and all species will suffer the consequences.

Both monastic practitioners and lay people practice vegeterianism. Even though the number of lay practitioners who are 100 percent vegeterian is not as many as monastic practitioners, but they practice eating vegeterian meals either for 4 days or 10 days each month. Thầy believes that it is not so difficult to stop eating meat, when we know that we are saving the planet by doing so. Lay communities should be courageous and give rise to the commitment to be vegetarian, at least 15 days each month. If we can do that, we will feel a sense of well-being. We will have peace, joy, and happiness right from the moment we make this vow and commitment. During the retreats organized in the United States this year, many American Buddhist practitioners have made the commitment to stop eating meat or to eat 50 percent less meat. This is a result of their awakening, after they have listened to the Dharma talks on the greenhouse effect. Let us take care of our Mother Earth. Let us take care of all species, including our children and grandchildren. We only need to be vegeterian, and we can already save the earth. Being vegeterian here also means that we do not consume dairy and egg products, because they are products of the meat industry. If we stop consuming, they will stop producing. Only collective awakening can create enough determination for action.

Related:
The Globalization of Hunger.

Researchers analyzing the May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China's Sichuan province have found that geological stress has significantly increased on three major fault systems in the region. The magnitude 7.9 quake on May 12 has brought several nearby faults closer to failure and could trigger another major earthquake in the region.

"One great earthquake seems to make the next one more likely, not less," said Stein, who has been collaborating with Lin and Toda for nearly two decades. "We tend to think of earthquakes as relieving stress on a fault. That may be true for the one that ruptured, but not for the adjacent faults."

In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, was followed four months later by an M7.1 event in nearby Duzce. The devastating December 2004 Sumatra earthquake (M9.2) and tsunami were followed by an M8.7 quake three months later.

"Because the Tibetan Plateau is one of the most seismically active regions in the world, we believe there is credible evidence for a new major quake in this region," said Lin, a senior scientist in WHOI's Department of Geology and Geophysics. "The research community cannot forecast the timing of earthquakes, and there are still significant uncertainties in our models. But the Turkey and Sumatra events indicate that one major earthquake can indeed promote another.

Researchers see it as a domino-like effect, where the movement of one piece of Earth's crust means that another piece must move up, down, or away. While the stress in the crust gets reduced in some locations, it is transferred to other faults nearby.

With earthquakes, we can roughly forecast the probability of activity over broad ranges of time, magnitude, and location, but we cannot determine the exact value for any of these."

In addition to the broad prediction of earthquake triggering, the researchers have also forecasted the rate and distribution of seismic shocks greater than magnitude 6, a prediction that they plan to test from seismic stations over the next decade.

"Earthquakes do not kill people, buildings do," said Lin, who was a high school student in China when the devastating Tangshan earthquake struck. "There needs to be widespread education in earthquake preparedness, as well as systematic inspection of buildings in these regions of heightened risk. Every new building inspection and evacuation plan could potentially save lives."

"We hope the long-term forecasting allows the Chinese government to make it a priority to mitigate future damage," Toda added. "We recommend that Chinese scientists carefully observe changes in seismicity by installing new seismometers in the region."

"The recent quake reminded us that Earth scientists have a tremendous responsibility to work on issues of societal relevance," said Lin. "We don't want to create panic, but there is legitimate cause for concern and we have a major role to play in educating the public about what we know."

Related:

Doctors Without Borders Providing Aid in Myanmar and China.

Thousands of people gathered across Arctic regions, Siberia and China to see a total eclipse of the sun, despite Chinese warnings that it could augur bad luck.

People have been recording solar eclipses for perhaps 4,000 years, and they typically inspire a combination of dread, fascination and awe. According to NASA, the next total eclipse will occur July 22, 2009, starting in India and moving across Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and over the Pacific Ocean.