My heart wrenched when I watched the kids swimming in the river like a fun-filled swimming pool; it’s saddening, yet reminded me of how blessed I am.

Dhaka’s polluted Buriganga River from YeinJee's Asian Journal

Australia – Rafael Nadal won first Australian Open crown, defeating Roger Federer [ATP]

China – Birth defects soar due to environmental pollution; a baby is born with physical defects every 30 secs in China [Chinadaily]

Enviromental – Many effects of climate change are irreversible [BBC]

Iraq – A fibreglass-and-copper monument (pic) is built in honour of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference [Youtube]

Japan – PM Taro Aso has announced a 1.5 trillion yen (USD17bn) aid package to help Asian countries weather the economic downturn [BBC]

North Korea – North Korea is scrapping all pacts with South Korea and warned that the downward relations has pushed the peninsula to the brink of war [Reuters]

South Korea – Asiana Airlines, Korea’s second-largest air carrier, is named Airline of the Year by ATW (Air Transport World) magazine [ATW]

Thailand – Deja vu… tens of thousands of protesters held a rally in Bangkok calling on the new Thai government to resign [Youtube]

General roundup (February 1, 2009) from YeinJee's Asian Journal

The parade started in July 2008 at Paris City Hall; followed by a few other locations across France; the most recent exhibition was at Paris’ Trocadero Esplanade on October 15… while the next stop would be at Grenoble on October 25.

The panda (giant panda to be precise) is the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund; it’s estimated that there’s 1,600 pandas in the wild according to a 2004 statistic.

The panda parade at Paris’ Trocadero Esplanade (Image from WWF-France)

Panda parade in France from YeinJee's Asian Journal

The theme of TIFF 2008 is “Ecology = Preservation of Earth’s Environment”, and the organiser replaced the usual red carpet with a green carpet made from recycled plastic bottles to exemplify the theme, which I doubt could bring any meaningful effect.

A total of 315 films from around the world will be shown during the nine-day event. Chinese movie “Red Cliff”, directed by Hong Kong director John Woo, was selected to kick start the screening; would be cute if the stars wore some green outfit during the green carpet to echo the theme lol.

The main cast of Red Cliff at TIFF 2008… (L-R) Vicki Zhao, Chang Chen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, director John Woo, Tony Leung, Zhang Fengyi and Lin Chi Ling (Image from Udn)

Tokyo Film Festival 2008 opens with eco-theme from YeinJee's Asian Journal

Image by Shoreline, who said the kangaroo meat was so amazingly GOOD!

Read the rest of this post »

Eat kangaroo, save the planet from YeinJee's Asian Journal

The first phase of the project cost about 9 million Euros and generates power using 3 Pelamis Wave Energy Converters (PWEC) which are semi-submerged, articulated structures composed of cylindrical sections linked by hinged joints and are located approximately 3 miles off the coast.

The second phase of the project will install a further 25 PWEC and bring the total capacity up to 21MW, which will be able to meet the average annual electricity demand for more than 15,000 Portuguese households while displacing more than 60,000 tonnes per year of carbon dioxide emissions from conventional power plants.

Video below shows how the PWEC works…

UK will be the next to embrace the wave power with the Orcadian Wave Farm in northern Scotland and the Westwave project in Cornwall, southwestern England.

Portugal launched world’s first wave farm from YeinJee's Asian Journal