Posted: 16 Jan 2014 11:01 AM PST

by Lim How Pim, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on January 17, 2014, Friday

KUCHING: Sarawak will get its own Henry Gurney School (SHG) this year so that juvenile prisoners no longer need to leave the state for education as required under the Child Act 2001 and Prisons Act 1995.

Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Development Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said until SHG Sarawak is set up, juvenile inmates are sent to Sabah, which has SHG (W) Kota Kinabalu and SHG Keningau.

As of yesterday, Sarawak has 55 juvenile inmates receiving education in the neighbouring state.

"Many parents have pleaded so that their children would not be sent to Sabah given that we do not have any SHG in Sarawak at the moment.

"We are glad to hear good news in 2014, that an SHG will be set up in Kuching," she said during a visit to Sekolah Integriti (SI) at Puncak Borneo Prison in Padawan yesterday.

The other SHG is SHG Telok Mas in Melaka.

"Everybody deserves a second chance despite the mistakes they have made," said Fatimah of juvenile convicts.

She said the government would continue running both SHG and SI so that juvenile prisoners could also receive education.

In the meantime, she pledged to look into the welfare of SI teachers here as well as the viability of establishing a childcare centre for prison officers and staff.

"We will give due attention to the welfare of SI teachers. As for a childcare centre here, we will do our best since this is also in line with the ministry's target to set up more childcare centres at workplaces.

"It will be a win-win situation as when we look after the welfare of officers, productivity can be guaranteed."

Established on Feb 20, 2009, SI Sarawak has 10 students and seven teachers. It recorded a 100 per cent pass rate for Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) in the past two years.

SI Sarawak is among eight such schools in the country.

The others are SI Kajang in Selangor, SI Kluang and SI Muar in Johor, SI Marang in Terengganu, SI Sungai Petani in Kedah, SI Kota Kinabalu in Sabah and SI Bentong in Pahang.

These schools had 98 teachers and 2,137 students as of last December.

The schools believe inmates can be rehabilitated and through education, can stand on their own feet when they are released.

Equipped with computers and resource centres, students are expected to perform academically and take part in extra-curricular activities.

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Sarawak aims to organise own prestigious film festival - The Borneo ...

Posted: 15 Jan 2014 11:01 AM PST

by Jonathan Chia, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on January 16, 2014, Thursday

KUCHING: Sarawak aims to organise its own prestigious film festival much like the Cannes Film Festival in France and the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

Tourism Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg said he was confident that the state would be able to organise such major event after it had successfully organised Asean Film Festival last year, which was attended by many renowned world class artistes.

"God willing, we are confident that we will have our own award in the film industry because we have organised it before.

"The artistes, such as Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh, did their corporate social responsibility (CSR). She adopted our turtles in Pulau Talang-Talang as part of the green effort," he said in a press conference yesterday.

Apart from the film award festival, Abang Johari said last year alone, a total of 248 conferences were held in the state, which raked in an estimated expenditure of about RM42 million from the delegates.

Besides that, he said the state had also won 57 convention bids of predominantly international conferences, which are scheduled to be held from early 2014 to 2019.

"We are targeting to win 50 convention bids but we hope to win 60. We are targeting conventions that will provide much better yield than just economics. We are looking for yield that can provide greater education, research, foreign exchange, much better trade and CSR.

"The state government is committed to promote Sarawak as a MICE destination. The trend (of conferences being held in Sarawak) is upward and we have been very competitive. For subsidiary conferences, we are among the top in this region."

Abang Johari said the state was proud that Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) had been chosen to be the host of International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) in 2016, after beating a venue in Prague in Czech Republic.

"So the participants will come over to Kuching and will see for themselves the infrastructures we have in Kuching. BCCK is quite a unique convention centre. It looks like many like to use BCCK as part of our effort to attract the convention market."

Apart from the conferences, he said the state government also sees the importance of making conference delegates stay longer in the state to tour its various interesting destinations.

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Soppoa: Wilmar's declaration detrimental to local industry ...

Posted: 16 Jan 2014 09:18 AM PST

KUCHING: The unilateral action of Wilmar International (Wilmar) in coming out with a declaration policy stating 'No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation' is detrimental to Sarawak's oil palm industry, says the Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa).

This declaration, Soppoa said, is damaging to the state's government's development plan of achieving three million hectares of oil palm.

Wilmar recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Unilever, a global consumer goods leader, that aims to accelerate sustainable market transformation for palm oil with the declaration of 'No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation'.

"Soppoa is very disappointed by the unilateral action of Wilmar in coming out with the declarations as it is discriminatory and detrimental to the development of oil palm industry here," it said.

"In fact, it will have a major impact on the oil palm industry here given their high volume purchase in Sarawak."

Wilmar, which operates the Bintulu Edible Oil plant in Sarawak, purchases about 1.7 million tonnes of crude palm oil (CPO) annually here.

Wilmar also said it will immediately cease to do business with suppliers who do not take immediate action in compliance with the policy.

Among such actions include no new planting in peat areas regardless of depth and no new planting in high carbon stock and high conservation value forest areas.

Only young scrub and cleared open land with mostly grass and non-woody plants are eligible to be planted under the conditions set.

In Sarawak, there are no scrub or grassland areas. As such, the development of oil palm will have to cease immediately to comply with the conditions set.

As declared by Wilmar, suppliers must comply with their policy by Dec 31, 2015 after which verifications by independent consultants will be compulsory for suppliers to meet the conditions set.

Failure to comply will see those suppliers being dropped from their list.

"Willmar's policy is based on a Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) benchmark with nine other additional conditions which is driven by NGOs (non-governmental organisations) based on assumptions, prompting the Indonesian palm oil producers (GAPKI) to pull out of the RSPO last year," said a Soppoa spokesperson.

"This is because the RSPO aims to discriminate against oil palm in peat based on the assumption that peat has high carbon stock and allegedly releases high carbon dioxide (GHG). These allegations and assumptions have yet to be scientifically proven but Willmar and Unilever have already passed judgment on the industry here."

Currently, Malaysia has been conducting scientific research for the past four years, through the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and Tropical Peat Research Laboratory (TPRL) to ascertain the amount of GHG releases in oil palm planted in peat areas which will provide scientific data and facts.

"The RSPO assumptions are based on temperate peat conditions which are totally different from those in tropical peat areas," the spokesperson revealed.

Soppoa urges the state and federal governments to view the matter urgently and take immediate steps to save the industry from such discriminatory actions which are detrimental to the oil palm industry in Malaysia.

Soppa also calls on the Malaysian Palm Oil Association and other members of the palm oil industry in Malaysia to be united to jointly oppose the declaration.

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Sarawak to get Henry Gurney School - The Borneo Post Online Berita Sarawak - News 2 Sarawak

<b>Sarawak</b> to get Henry Gurney School - The Borneo Post Online Berita Sarawak - News 2 Sarawak

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