World Press freedom Index 2007

“Reporters without borders ” came out with the latest WOrld press freedom Index. Malaysiakini carried the news today.

Guess where is our country Malaysia? Not even within the top 100. Worse than Cambodia, Congo, Mongolia, Fiji, Tonga, India and so on.

Malaysia is ranked 124 this year. Last year, it was No. 92. At the rate it is going, we may very soon be at the very bottom of the index.

One consolation for those who like to compare with our southern neighbour. Singapore is ranked No.141 .

Press freedom is the hallmark of a civilised and liberal society. If we aspire to be a fully developed country, we will have to have a much freer press as press freedom is an important element in any developed society. Press is often refered to as the fourth pillar of the government in a democracy, and plays an important role as a watchdog as well as providing valuable feedback to the ruling elites. When press freedom is compromised as in our case, how are the leaders going to hear the “truth”?

I can only say with a heavy heart ” Buck up, Malaysia!!” Give a little more space for us. The people are much better educated than before and they want to read the truth.

I will post the ranking of some of the Asian countries here and then Malaysia’s ranking. For the Full list, you can access the link here.

The ranking Rank     Country             Note 32     Taiwan                         10.0 37     Japan                           11.75 39    South korea                13.12 61   Hong Kong                    20.0 74     Mongolia                     23.40 80     Congo                          24.50 85     Cambodia                   25.33  100    Indonesia                 30.50 124    Malaysia                    41.00 141    Singapore                  56.0

Urgent! My email account has been compromised

This morning, when i accessed the net I got a shock! I received an email from fellow blogger Lucia informing me that she received an email supposedly sent out from my gmail account asking for money.(which is the account for this blog). I tried to access the same gmail account but could not as someone has hacked into my email account, changed the password, and from there send out emails to all my contacts asking for money.

Many Thanks to Lucia for alerting me!

 My secondary account in yahoo.com is also compromised as the account has similar password.

Please disregard any email from me asking for money. I believe this is the work of the nigerian  scam.

the text of fraud email as provided by a friend is as followed:

—– Original Message —–

From: HsuDarRen

To: hsudarren@gmail.com

Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 8:19 AM

Subject: VERY UGENT!!! (PLEASE EMAIL ME BACK)

Hello,
I am sorry I din’t  email you about my  traveling to Africa  for a program that is taking place in three major countries in Africa.  Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria .It as been a very sad news and bad moment for me, the present condition  that I found myself is very hard for me to explain.I am really stranded in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in a Taxi where my money and passport documents were kept on my way to a Hotel that am staying, I have no  more money left with me. I am now owning a hotel bill of $1400 and they wanted me to  pay the bills soon else they will have to seize my bag and hand me over to  the Hotel Management,please I need some help from you urgently to help me  back home,and I need you to help me with the hotel bill and i will also  need $1200 to feed and help myself back home so please can you help me  with a sum of $2600 ? to sort out this problems here I need this help so much  and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here,please understand how urgent i need your help.
       
I am sending you this e-mail from the city of lagos. I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now  and I promise to pay back your money as soon as i return home, you need to  transfer the money through Western Union.

Thanks

Darren  Hsu  (Someone signing off as me)