Palm | Kelapa Sawit

Zuhaila Sedek-De Booij New Straits Times 1 Mar 13;

Four birdwatchers tell Zuhaila Sedek-De Booij about the joys of observing the creatures on their migratory journey

IT is scorching hot at Tanjung Tuan in Port Dickson and there are beads of sweat on everyone’s foreheads. Birdwatchers Andrew J. Sebastian, Khoo Swee Seng, Caroline Ho and Lam Mow Sum are waiting anxiously. They hope to see raptors emerge from among the cottony clouds.

Ho keeps one eye on the lens of her telescope. In one hand, she holds a clicker counter. Click... click... She is counting the number of raptors she spies with the telescope. The instrument lets her see what’s not visible to the naked eye.

While Ho is busy taking count, the rest carry big digital cameras in their hands. They wait patiently, observing the clear blue sky.

Every end of February till early March, the four birdwatchers go to Tanjung Tuan to be part of the Raptor Watch, an event organised by Malaysian Nature Society. At the event, bird lovers witness magnificent views of migrating raptors that fly over the waters of Straits Malacca. Among the species of raptors that migrate through this waterway are the Oriental Honey Buzzard, Black Baza, Japanese Sparrowhawk, Chinese Goshawk and Grey-faced Buzzard.
The quartet’s effort at Tanjung Tuan is not only a hobby, but also a contribution to the environment. Here’s why:

CONSERVE RAPTORS

For Sebastian, 42, birdwatching has been a passion since the last decade. He became hooked on it after seeing a rare Red Head Dragon bird in Fraser’s Hill some years ago.

“I was so surprised to see such a wonderful creature in Malaysia. I saw this beautiful bird on a bench but I didn’t know what species of bird it belonged to. I bought a guidebook and saw a picture of of it. It triggered my interest in birdwatching,” says Sebastian who is also Malaysian Nature Society’s head of communications.

Apart from Tanjung Tuan, he has gone birdwatching in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand. To date he has seen about 800 species of birds.

He believes that birdwatching can bring people closer to nature. “Sometimes, in our busy lives, we forgot to look up at the sky and see how wonderful the world is. Birdwatching gives you a chance to do that.”

At Tanjung Tuan, events like Raptor Watch can help the public understand the importance of conserving natural forest, such as the coastal forest at the area. Tanjung Tuan is significant to migrating raptors. The coastal area offers a shorter passage from Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra to Pulau Rupat in Indonesia. From Pulau Rupat, the migrating birds will continue their way towards Indonesia’s other archipelago islands.
Tanjung Tuan is also one of the last remaining coastal rainforests in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

Raptors need the right thermals for flight. Tanjung Tuan acts as a rest stop for the raptors while waiting for the right thermals.
“Tanjung Tuan is located along their way, they need trees to take a break from a long journey.”

The migrating raptors originate from North Asia, Northeastern Asia, Eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, Northeastern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan and fly along the East Asian Flyway.

COUNTING FOR THE FUTURE

For married couple Khoo and Ho, watching the raptors at Tanjung Tuan is an annual event. They spend a few weeks at Tanjung Tuan lighthouse to watch and capture images of the raptors and, most importantly, count the number passing through Malacca Straits. Both are volunteers for raptor-counting.

Khoo, 52, is a remisier by profession. He takes time off from work to go birdwatching. The couple go up the lighthouse at 9am and set-up their tents and equipment to carry out the count till the evening.
Khoo captures the images while Ho, 34, counts the birds.

The data collected is given to Malaysian Nature Society for researchers.

Though they are volunteers, Khoo and his wife have spent RM30,000 on equipment for birdwatching.

“When you see hundreds of Honey Buzzard in the sky, words can’t describe what you feel. Even though you’ve seen it before, the amazement never seems to wear off,” says Khoo.

For Ho, not knowing what’s coming their way makes the venture more adventurous. If they are lucky, they get to see rare species.

“We have been counting the birds for many years. We feel like it is a responsibility,” says Khoo.

The duo started birdwatching at Tanjung Tuan since the first Raptor Watch in 2000. At that time, they watched by the seaside. Now, they get a better view from the lighthouse. But they worry that there may not be anyone to take their place.

“Finding an apprentice is not easy. You must have the passion to watch out for and count the birds,” says Ho.

LIFE LESSONS

Watching the migrating birds is calming. Lam suggests birdwatching as a remedy for stress.

“Whenever I watch the migrating birds, I feel very relaxed. Birdwatching is all about observing and doesn’t require you to run around,” says the 62 year-old retiree.

The former teacher started birdwatching around his school compound.

“The raptors are amazing. They are so beautiful and they make the world a better place,” says the soft-spoken Lam.

“These birds need their habitat so we have to safeguard it.”

He also learns a lot from these wonderful creatures. “They are tough. Despite the challenges ahead of them, they will try to make it,” says Bentong-based Lam.

He recalls raptors gasping due to fatigue while in the air.

“You can tell they are struggling when their beaks are open. Once, I saw a bird crash into the trees. I felt so bad for not being able to do anything.” .

As a senior citizen, he believes that the younger generation can learn life lessons from the raptors.

Birds of prey
• Their population is sensitive to the alterations in ecosystem structure and energy flow.
• They are birds of prey like hawks, eagles, falcons, vultures and owls.
• If they fall in the water while migrating, chances are they are going to die. This is because they need thermals to elevate them so that they can fly.
• Sixty five species of raptors are protected under the protection of Wildlife Act 1972 in Peninsular Malaysia.
• In the 1990s, the numbers of raptors migrating through the Straits of Malacca was about 350,000. Last year, the number was 47,000.
• The biggest threat for raptors is the loss of habitat.

David Stanway PlanetArk 21 Feb 13;

China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth.

China is promising to invest 4 trillion yuan ($650 billion) - equal to its entire stimulus package during the global financial crisis - on rural water projects alone during the 2011-2020 period. What's more, at least $200 billion in additional funds has been earmarked for a variety of cleanup projects nationwide, Reuters has learned after scouring a range of central and local government documents.

That new cash injection will be vital, with rivers and lakes throughout China blighted by algae blooms caused by fertilizer run-off, bubbling chemical spills and untreated sewage discharges. Judging by Beijing's cleanup record so far, however, the final tally could be many times higher.

Over the five years to 2010, the country spent 700 billion yuan ($112.41 billion) on water infrastructure, but much of its water remains undrinkable. The environment ministry said 43 percent of the locations it was monitoring in 2011 contained water that was not even fit for human contact.

"The reason why they have achieved so little even though they have spent so much on pollution treatment is because they have followed the wrong urbanization model - China is still putting too much pressure on local resources," said Zhou Lei, a fellow at Nanjing University who has studied water pollution.

A close look at publicly available documents shows limited environmental ambitions, as Beijing strives to prolong three decades of blistering economic growth and fill the estimated annual water supply shortfall of 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) required to feed growing energy and agricultural demand.

At the same time, the government faces growing pressure to address environmental effects of fast growth, as public anger over air pollution that blanketed many northern cities in January has spread to online appeals for Beijing to clean up water supplies as well.

The huge costs suggest that treatment, rather than prevention, remains the preferred solution, with industrial growth paramount and pollution regarded as just another economic opportunity, Zhou said.

"They always treat environmental degradation as an economic issue. China is even using pollution as a resource, and using the opportunity to treat environmental degradation as a way to accumulate new wealth," he said, referring to business contracts local governments offer to big water treatment firms.

"INDUSTRIAL-USE ONLY"

On top of the 10-year rural water plan, China last year vowed to spend another 250 billion yuan on water conservation, and has since allocated a further 130 billion yuan to treat small and medium-sized rivers over the next two years.

Local governments are also spending heavily, with Dianchi Lake in southwest China's Yunnan province being lavished with 31 billion yuan of investment in the next three years in order to produce "obvious improvements" in water quality, records show.

East China's Lake Tai, a test case for China's environmental authorities after suffering a notorious bloom of algae and cyanobacteria in 2007, has spent 70 billion yuan in the five years since, and more is expected.

Both cleanup projects have been designed merely to bring water up from "grade V" - meaning "no human contact" - to "grade IV", which is designated "industrial use only", according to detailed plans listed on local government websites.

Even such negligible gains could be crucial for a country that has the same amount of water as Britain although its population is 20 times as big.

Data from China's Ministry of Water Resources shows that average per capita supplies stand at 2,100 cubic meters, 28 percent of the global average. The government has vowed to cap total use to 700 bcm a year by 2030, but that will still require a big increase in supplies, with consumption now about 600 bcm.

Costly engineering and technological feats, though unlikely to address the underlying causes of pollution, could at least make more water available, allowing marginal quality improvements without interfering with industrial growth or the country's ambitious and water-intense urbanization plans.

"Part of this increase in the supply of water will come from removing all 'grade V' water supplies, which is actually useless even for agriculture," said Debra Tan, director at the China Water Risk organization. "Grade IV is not safe to swim in, but it at least is usable." ($1 = 6.2270 Chinese yuan)

(Editing by Ken Wills)

Stephanie Pappas LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 Feb 13;

Good news from Antarctica: The hole in the ozone layer is shrinking, new measurements reveal.

Ozone is a molecule made of three oxygen atoms. It's relatively highly concentrated in a particular layer of the stratosphere about 12 miles to 19 miles (20 to 30 kilometers) above Earth's surface. This ozone layer prevents ultraviolet light from reaching Earth's surface — a good thing, given that UV light causes sunburn and skin cancer.

Ever since the early 1980s, though, a hole in this layer has developed over Antarctica during September to November, decreasing ozone concentration by as much as 70 percent. The cause is human-produced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were once heavily used in aerosols and refrigeration.

By international agreement, CFCs have been phased out of use. The policy has real effects, new satellite observations reveal. In 2012, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica was smaller than it has ever been in the last 10 years.

The new observations, announced by the European Space Agency (ESA) on Feb. 8, come from Europe's Met Op weather satellite, which has an instrument specifically designed to sense ozone concentrations. The findings suggest that the phase-out of CFCs is working, the ESA reports.

Antarctica is particularly vulnerable to ozone-depleting substances, because high winds cause a vortex of cold air to circulate over the continent. In the resulting frigid temperatures, CFCs are especially effective at depleting ozone. The result is that people in the Southern Hemisphere are at increased risk of exposure from UV radiation.

CFCs persist in the atmosphere for a long time, so it may take until the middle of the century for ozone concentrations to rebound to 1960s levels, the ESA reports. However, the hole in the ozone over Antarctica should completely close in the next few decades.

Chuah Bee Kim New Straits Times 22 Jan 13;


A flock of Asian Openbill Storks spotted in a padi field in Teluk Rimba, Muar, Johor, on Sunday. Pic courtesy of Vincent Chow

FIND OF A LIFETIME: Nature society chairman chances upon rare storks in padi field

MUAR: A MALAYSIAN Nature Society (MNS) Johor member who has been on the trail of the Asian Openbill Storks since a pair was spotted in Johor Baru recently, scored big when he came across more than 140 of the rare bird species at Teluk Rimba here on Sunday.

MNS Johor chairman Vincent Chow said he was on the way to the Johor National Park in Gunung Ledang when his instincts prompted him to make a left turn instead of right at the junction to Gunung Ledang.

The detour led him to Teluk Rimba, where Chow said he saw a group of Asian Openbill storks frolicking at a padi field there.

Chow said he had been carrying out research on the birds (Anastomus oscitans) since the first pair of Asian Openbill was spotted in Johor Baru.

"Hundreds of the species had been spotted in Kuala Gula, near Taiping, and Penanti, Penang, on Jan 8 and the Batang Tiga padi fields in Malacca the following day.

"The species was first sighted in Ulu Dedap, Perlis, in March 2008.

"I knew there would be more of the birds in Johor. Since there are numerous padi fields in Muar, I decided to check the place out.

"True enough, the birds have found their natural habitat which included lakes, marshes and padi fields," Chow told the New Straits Times yesterday.

He said the Asian Openbill was the smallest of the nine species of storks found in Southeast Asia.

"In Peninsular Malaysia, we have the Lesser Adjutant, Milky Stork, Painted Stork and the rarer Storm's Stork. Sightings of the Asian Openbill in such a large group is unprecedented and a very important entry for the record of our local natural history as it is not found here," said Chow.

He estimated the flock in Muar to number more than 140.

"To a regular person, they may just be a flock of birds. But birders will drop everything in an instant to come here because they know that it is a rare occurrence and once these migratory birds fly off, birders would have missed the opportunity of a lifetime."

He said the Asian Openbill was so named as the beak was arranged in such a way that a gap was seen in the closed mandibles in adult birds. This feature was not developed while at the juvenile stage.

"They serve to accommodate the snails that they feed on and this rather usual feature gave them the name of 'openbill'.

"The bird ranges from India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and are occasionally seen as a vagrant in Malaysia as records indicate.

"I spent an hour watching the Asian Openbill here and confirmed that they were the real McCoys.

"I also talked to the farmers in the area and they confirmed that they have never seen these birds at the padi field before.

"I don't know what the birds are doing here, but let us welcome them with open arms as their presence will certainly boost the tourism sector."

Avitourism is a multi-billion industry, with birders from Singapore willing to pay as much as RM16,000 to local guides who can help them find a particular species of bird.

However, MNS Johor has called on the relevant authorities to step up efforts to train more nature guides if the Iskandar Regional Development Authority was serious in developing the lucrative niche market.

Nina Larson (AFP) Google News 19 Jan 13;

GENEVA — More than 140 countries agreed Saturday on a ground-breaking treaty to rein in the use and emission of health-hazardous mercury, the UN said, but environmental activists lamented it did not go far enough.

The world's first legally binding treaty on mercury was reached after a week of thorny talks and ends four years of heated discussions on how to cut global emission levels of the toxic heavy metal, which poses risks to human health and the environment.

"This was a herculean task .. but we have succeeded," Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told reporters in Geneva.

The treaty has been named the Minamata Convention on Mercury, in honour of the Japanese town where inhabitants for decades have suffered the consequences of serious mercury contamination.

It will be signed in Minamata in October and will take effect once ratified by 50 countries -- something organisers expect will take three to four years.

Mercury, also known as quicksilver, is found in products ranging from electrical switches, thermometers and light-bulbs, to amalgam dental fillings and even facial creams. Large amounts of the heavy metal are released from small-scale gold mining, coal-burning power plants, metal smelters and cement production.

"It is quite remarkable how much mercury in a sense has entered into use in our lives... We've been creating a terrible legacy," Steiner said.

"Mercury accumulates in the food chain through fish... It is released through coal fired power stations and it travels sometimes thousands of kilometres. It affects the Inuit in Canada just as it affects the small-scale artisanal gold miner somewhere in southern Africa," he said.

Serious mercury poisoning affects the body's immune system and development of the brain and nervous system, posing the greatest risk to foetuses and infants.

The treaty sets a phase-out date of 2020 for a long line of products including mercury thermometers, blood pressure measuring devices, most batteries, switches, some kinds of fluorescent lamps and soaps and cosmetics.

It makes exceptions, however, for some large medical measuring devices where no mercury-free alternatives exist.

In a controversial move, it also excluded vaccines that use mercury as a preservative.

The risk from these vaccines is considered low and for many developing nations, removing them would entail losing access to vaccines altogether, Tim Kasten, head of UNEP's chemicals division explained.

Amid pressure from dentist groups, the treaty also did not provide a cut-off date for the use of dental fillings using mercury amalgam, but did agree that the product should be phased down.

The text gives governments 15 years to end all mercury mining.

While welcoming the treaty, a number of non-governmental groups said they were disappointed it did not go further.

The text, many said, fell short in addressing the greatest sources of mercury in the environment: artisanal small-scale gold mining, which directly threatens the health of the some 10-15 million people working in this field and contaminates water and air, as well as emissions from coal-burning power plants.

"We're disappointed... The two biggest sources of mercury have only weak controls on them," Joe DiGangi, a science advisor with the IPEN advocacy group, told AFP.

For coal-fired power plants, the treaty calls only for control and reduction of mercury emissions "where feasible", which is "vague and very discretional," he said.

As for small gold mining activities, using mercury will still be allowed, meaning imports and exports of the metal for this process will be legal, and governments will only be required to control the activity if they deem it "more than insignificant -- whatever that means," DiGangi said.

Richard Gutierrez, the head of Ban Toxics!, agreed.

"With the current text, it seems the mercury use in (small-scale gold mining) may go on indefinitely," he said in a statement.

Steiner acknowledged the criticism but stressed the treaty "is a dynamic instrument" and would evolve over time to address all concerns.

Switzerland and Norway, which initiated the process a decade ago, with Japan pledged an initial $3.0 million (2.2 million euros) to get things started.

Once up and running, the treaty will provide funds to ease the transition away from mercury through the UN's existing Global Environment Facility (GEF), and probably also a second mechanism, organisers said.

Nations agree on legally binding mercury rules
Mark Kinver BBC News 19 Jan 13;

More than 140 countries have agreed on a set of legally binding measures to curb mercury pollution, at UN talks.

Delegates in Geneva approved measures to control the use of the highly toxic metal in order to reduce the amount of mercury released into the environment.

Mercury can produce a range of adverse human health effects, including permanent damage to the nervous system.

The UN recently published data that showed mercury emissions were rising in a number of developing nations.

The deal was agreed after all-night talks.

UN Environment Programme (Unep) spokesman Nick Nuttall told Reuters: "A treaty to start to begin to rid the world of a notorious health-hazardous metal was agreed in the morning of Jan 19."

The rules, known as the Minamata Convention and named after the Japanese town that experienced one of the world's worst cases of mercury poisoning, will open for nations to sign at a diplomatic conference later this year.

The convention will regulate a range of areas, including:

the supply of and trade in mercury;
the use of mercury in products and industrial processes;
the measures to be taken to reduce emissions from artisanal and small-scale gold mining;
the measures to be taken to reduce emissions from power plants and metals production facilities.

Ahead of the five-day meeting, the UN Environment Programme (Unep) published a report warning that developing nations were facing growing health and environmental risks from increased exposure to mercury.

It said a growth in small-scale mining and coal burning were the main reasons for the rise in emissions.

As a result of rapid industrialisation, South-East Asia was the largest regional emitter and accounted for almost half of the element's annual global emissions.

Lasting effects

Mercury - a heavy, silvery white metal - is a liquid at room temperature and can evaporate easily. Within the environment, it is found in cinnabar deposits. It is also found in natural forms in a range of other rocks, including limestone and coal.

Mercury can be released into the environment through a number of industrial processes including mining, metal and cement production, and the burning of fossil fuels.

Once emitted, it persists in the environment for a long time - circulating through air, water, soil and living organisms - and can be dispersed over vast distances.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says: "Mercury is highly toxic to human health, posing a particular threat to the development of the (unborn) child and early in life.

"The inhalation of mercury vapour can produce harmful effects on the nervous, digestive and immune systems, lungs and kidneys, and may be fatal.

"The inorganic salts of mercury are corrosive to the skin, eyes and gastrointestinal tract, and may induce kidney toxicity if ingested."

The Unep assessment said the concentration of mercury in the top 100m of the world's oceans had doubled over the past century, and estimated that 260 tonnes of the toxic metal had made their way from soil into rivers and lakes.

Another characteristic, it added, was that mercury became more concentrated as it moved up the food chain, reaching its highest levels in predator fish that could be consumed by humans.

Alister Doyle Reuters Yahoo News 7 Jan 13;

OSLO (Reuters) - Green schemes to fight climate change by producing more bio-fuels could actually worsen a little-known type of air pollution and cause almost 1,400 premature deaths a year in Europe by 2020, a study showed on Sunday.

The report said trees grown to produce wood fuel - seen as a cleaner alternative to oil and coal - released a chemical into the air that, when mixed with other pollutants, could also reduce farmers' crop yields.

"Growing biofuels is thought to be a good thing because it reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," said Nick Hewitt, who worked on the study with colleagues from England's Lancaster University.

"What we're saying is 'yes, that's great, but biofuels could also have a detrimental effect on air quality'," he added.

The report, in the journal Nature Climate Change, looked into the impact of a European Union scheme to slow climate change by producing more biofuels.

Hewitt told Reuters there would be a similar impact wherever biofuels were produced in large quantities in areas suffering air pollution, including the United States and China.

Poplar, willow or eucalyptus trees, all used as fast-growing sources of renewable wood fuel, emit high levels of the chemical isoprene as they grow, the study said. Isoprene forms toxic ozone when mixed with other air pollutants in sunlight.

"Large-scale production of biofuels in Europe would have small but significant effects on human mortality and crop yields," said Hewitt.

"As far as we know, no one has looked at the air quality of growing biofuel crops before," he added.

The report estimated that ozone from wood-based energy to meet the European Union's 2020 goal would cause nearly 1,400 premature deaths a year, costing society $7.1 billion.

The European plan would also would reduce the annual value of wheat and maize production by $1.5 billion since ozone impairs crop growth, the study added.

LUNG PROBLEMS

Siting new biofuel plantations far away from polluted population centres would help limit ozone formation, the study suggested. Genetic engineering might be used to reduce isoprene emissions, it said.

Ozone can cause lung problems and is blamed for killing about 22,000 people a year in Europe. Overall air pollution, mainly from fossil fuels, causes about 500,000 premature deaths in Europe a year, according to the European Environment Agency.

Sunday's study did not compare the potential damage caused by biofuels to the impact on human health from producing coal, oil or natural gas as part of policies to slow global warming. "We're not in a position to make that comparison," Hewitt said.

He noted that the main reason to shift to biofuels was to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, mainly from fossil fuels, that U.N. studies project will become ever more damaging this century.

The United Nations' World Health Organization estimates global warming has caused more than 140,000 deaths annually worldwide since the 1970s.

The biggest impact was recorded in developing nations where the floods, droughts and other disasters blamed on climate change left millions suffering from diarrhea, malnutrition, malaria and dengue fever.

Burning biofuels is viewed as neutral for climate change because plants soak up carbon when they grow and release it when they burn or rot. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, add carbon to the atmosphere from underground stores millions of years old.

Biofuels are often blamed for causing food price spikes by competing for cropland. Responding to such criticisms, the European Commission said last year it aimed to limit crop-based biofuels - such as from maize or sugar - to five percent of transport fuels.

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

New Straits Times 1 Jan 13

JOHOR BARU: Representatives from various segments of society here expressed their wish for better things to come this new year.

Malaysia Nature Society Johor chairman Vincent Chow hoped more attention would be given to protect the environment.

He urged the state government to be serious in addressing river pollution as about 60 per cent of rivers in the state were polluted by household and factory effluents.

"It is my wish that the Department of Environment be more vigilant against people discarding waste into our waterways and carry out deterrent measures.

"We wish all heads of departments and politicians would attend courses on nature awareness and sustainability, so they can help the DOE in environmental issues."

Chow said without sufficient knowledge on the environment, decision-makers would not be aware of the seriousness of the matter, and this would jeopardise efforts to deal with the problem.

He also urged the state government to impose a ruling for all housing developers to set up a centralised sewerage system to ensure efficient management.

He said many of the sewerage systems in housing estates were decentralised and this did not augur well for the state capital.

For the benefit of wildlife, Chow hoped there would be a law to prevent plantation owners from encroaching on buffer zones at river banks, as this was vital for wildlife preservation.

"Buffer zones are important habitats for wildlife. Just let these areas be, and let wildlife have a place of their own to survive."

Malaysian Indian Business Association president P. Sivakumar's wish for 2013 was for a quantum increase in funding and less red tape in government agencies.

He wanted more fields and opportunities to be opened up for the Indian community to allow every race to have a share in the country's economic pie.

"We need more co-existence in social, economic, education and employment policies for all the three major races.

"I believe this will greatly foster unity among the races."

Sivakumar hoped the government would carry on with its good work, adding that the year was rather promising as the government had remedied certain long-standing issues such as funding for small-and medium-sized industries.

Semarang assemblyman and state Umno information chief Datuk Samsol Bari Jamali hoped 2013 would be a better year for Malaysians.

"I also wish everything that the government has planned for the country will be implemented successfully and all of the country's ambitions will come to fruition.

"Lastly, I hope every Malaysian will have success in whatever they do," said Samsol.

Watching a 9-11 documentary on NGC last week, I happened to catch this short snippet. Check it out.



-AML