In January a bunch of crowd-sourced volunteers got around 10,000 Twitter addicts, worldwide, to meet up in real-space. They raised money for water projects; the effort raised USD250,000 in a day, and resulted in 55 wells drilled in Uganda, Ethiopia and India. Cnet UK, quick to usher in a new aeon, called it “Live Aid 2.0″.

And while the Twestival was a success, it fell short of its USD1 million mark - so a change of tack is in order. Enter Twestival Local.

No intercontinental theme, this time: just individual cities supporting local causes, all between 10 to 13 September. Twestival KL happens tomorrow, at Mist Club Bangsar, and will be supporting the lyrically-named Destiny Starting Point home for delinquent youths. Entry at the door is available for a minimum donation of RM40.

But not everything is charity: since the driving instinct in human nature is greed, there are goodie bags - containing Starbucks vouchers, and Golden Screen Cinemas complimentary passes, among other things - for the first 150 people to show up. That’s already worth more than RM40, apparently.

GEORGE BURNS/HARPO PRODUCTIONS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oprah Winfrey, right, and Whitney Houston at their highly-anticipated sit-down at Town Hall in New York. The two-part season premiere of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ will air Sept. 14 and 15. Whitney Houston tells Oprah Winfrey that her mother Cissy showed up at her home with deputies during the dark days of her drug addiction to force her into rehab.

According to the excerpt from the much-anticipated interview, set to air Monday and Tuesday as Winfrey’s season premiere, Houston says that Cissy threatened to sic the deputies on Bobby Brown, her then-husband, if he made a move.

Winfrey, the East Orange native who once infamously denied doing crack because she’s too rich (”Crack is whack,” she told Diane Sawyer in 2002), did check into rehab in 2004. “I’m not losing you to the world,” Cissy said during the intervention, Houston recounts. “I’m not losing you to Satan ... I want my daughter back. I want you back. I want to see that glow in your eyes, that light in your eyes.”

Houston is embarking on her long-in-the-making comeback, promoting her first studio album in seven years, “I Look To You,” which debuted at the top of the Billboard charts. (This despite her “Good Morning America” appearance right after her “Oprah” interview not going as well as she had hoped. To put it mildly.)

Australian police announced the probe on Wednesday, nearly two years after a coroner’s investigation and just weeks after the release of “Balibo”, a hard-hitting film depicting the killings.

“Obviously our friends in Jakarta have been surprised by this because it’s been quite a long time, but I believe we can manage these challenges,” Rudd told public broadcaster ABC late on Thursday.

“There are bumps in the road with most relationships around the world, and I think we’ll have to manage this one as well.”

The five Australian-based journalists were killed by troops in the East Timor border town of Balibo as they covered an invasion by Indonesia that led to a brutal 24-year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.

A 2007 coroner’s investigation found they were murdered in a bid to keep the invasion secret. Indonesia says the five were killed accidentally during fighting with Timorese rebels, an explanation accepted by successive Australian governments.

Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the new probe was contrary to the best interests of relations with Australia, which have improved markedly in recent years.

“Frankly, this of course goes against our desire to look to the future. The desire of Indonesia and East Timor is to end all those things that harm our relationship, through our decision together to form the CTF (Commission of Truth and Friendship),” Yudhoyono said on Thursday.

“This is important, so the good or even great relationship between Indonesia and Australia isn’t harmed by problems that have arisen because of a mindset or way of thinking that, in our opinion, is inaccurate,” he said.

Police investigators can ask Australia’s chief prosecutor to consider laying war crimes charges if enough evidence comes to light.

The 2007 coroner blamed members of Indonesia’s special forces for the killings, including Yunus Yosfiah, who rose to become the country’s information minister in the late 1990s.

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, a rebel leader at the time who investigated the deaths, said in July that at least one of the five victims was “brutally, brutally tortured”. - AFP/ms

•Stars such as James Franco and Natalie Portman have also gone Ivy League

•Boston Globe reports actress Ashley Judd asked Harvard to protect her privacy
September 9, 2009 — Updated 0243 GMT (1043 HKT)Next Article in Entertainment »
By Lisa Respers France
CNN
(CNN) — Emma Watson may have wanted to just blend in when she started her freshman year recently at Brown University, but it seems not everyone has the same idea.

“Harry Potter” actress Emma Watson is an incoming freshman at Brown University in Rhode Island.
The actress, best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” films, showed up last week at the Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island, where new students were treated to orientation activities before the official start of classes on Wednesday.

Watson was photographed looking very relaxed in jean shorts and a white T-shirt, but reports are that her introduction to academia has been less than low-key, with much excitement being stirred by her presence.

The blog Just Jared reported that while the British actress visited the campus on Friday with her mother and her boyfriend, Jay Barrymore, Twitter user @cupcakenar sent out the following tweet: “My dad made Emma Watson mad by taking a photo of her going inside the Financial Aid office at Brown. She was with her mom & boyfriend.”

Celebrities furthering their education are not new, but with the advent of social networking sites, stars’ every move can be tracked and reported.

When actor James Franco apparently fell asleep during a lecture at Columbia University in New York City earlier this year, a photo snapped by a classmate made the rounds online and prompted many a tweet.

Franco, who has appeared in films such as “Spiderman” and the critically acclaimed “Milk,” was reported to be taking classes at Columbia and New York University while also writing a book.

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Paparazzi were on high alert when Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen began attending classes at NYU in 2004.

Photos appeared constantly of the tiny twosome — often with bodyguards in tow — on their way to and from class after they moved from Los Angeles to New York City for school.

Stars such as Julia Stiles, who enrolled in Columbia, and Natalie Portman, who attended Harvard, have tried to be as under the radar as possible while pursuing their education.

According to a 2003 article about Portman in the university’s Harvard Crimson newspaper, the “Star Wars” actress lived on campus her freshman and sophomore years while pursuing a degree in psychology.

Portman told the college publication that she was able to enjoy her time as a student, despite her celebrity status.

“At the beginning of college I was talking to people who were actors who had gone to college, and I heard awful stories about people getting 200 visitors a year knocking on their dorm room, or having awful stalker issues,” Portman said. “But I’ve not been bothered once, and that’s also thanks to the police here, who have been really wonderful.”

Watson also has been quoted as saying she just wants to be treated as a regular student.

“I do hope that it will be only a short time before I am known as Emma Watson the student from the UK, rather than Emma Watson who starred in the ‘Harry Potter’ films,” Watson said.

The “Harry Potter” actress isn’t the only famous student taking her seat at an Ivy League school this year.

The Boston Globe reported that actress Ashley Judd has enrolled in Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Mid-Career Master in Public Administration program and asked officials to take additional measures to ensure her privacy.

The paper reported that school officials complied, including having the registrar put a privacy block on Judd’s file to prevent information about the actress from being made public and arranging to have Harvard police present during the program’s coffee breaks.

In speaking with the Boston Globe, Brown University’s director of communications Mark Nickel declined to confirm that Watson was a student there, but he did say the school might take extra precautions to protect a young wizard.

‘’We do whatever we need to do to ensure safety and privacy, and that applies pretty much to all students,” Nickel said.
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This is more a human story than news of the dramatic escape of British Hostage Stephen Farrel from Taliban in Afghanistan. Stephen Farrel of New Yorker and his Afgan translator Sultan Munadi were captured on Saturday near a village by local Taliban. They had gone there to cover NATO air strikes that destroyed two petrol tankers, hijacked by Taliban killing 125 civilians.

Mr.sultan was an avid blogger for The New York Times and was studying in Germany for last nine months. He was back in Afghanistan for Ramadan and offered to work for the newspaper to support his wife and two children.

In the words of Farrel when the raid began all the Taliban ran away. Taking their chance to escape they ran too and finding their way through bullets and danger. The risk was always there but their fate was otherwise sealed too. Sultan had been told he would be beheaded like another translator only two months ago and the captive stuck together.

Sultan had promised to help Farrel escape somehow and their chance came when he shouted journalist, journalist as they rushed to a spot. What he was met with were bullets that brought him down. “He was lying in the same position as he fell. I saw him go down in front of me. He was so close-just two feet in front of me when he dropped.” says Mr.Farrel. That was the dividing line between life and death.

There was no time to think or feel and Farrel dived into a ditch where when he identified himself as British Hostage he was ordered out and flown away in a helicopter. Sultan was left behind where he had fallen. Villages came and took his body and one cannot blame the family who have asked the staff of the newspaper to stay away from the funeral.What kind of justice is this that all are fighting for, forgetting basic human decency.

They apparently believed they were to be on a television show similar to Big Brother, but were surprised to find that pictures of them by the pool and exercising in skimpy clothing were appearing on the internet, where users were allowed to vote for their favourite by mobile telephone and charged to see more.
Hilmi Tufan Cakir, the lawyer for the company behind the operation, said that eight of the nine women had decided to sue, but denied that they had been held captive.
“It is very sad for my client to have been the target of such accusations,” Mr Cakir said. The girls had known that this was a competition designed by the internet service Weareathome TV (bizevdeyiz.tv) and were taken to the house under the terms of the contract that they willingly signed, he added.
Mr Cakir denied newspaper accusations that naked pictures were sold to a website and that the girls were tricked and threatened by the production company.
Yesterday the homepage for bizevdeyiz.tv, which proclaims that it is Turkey’s first internet television, carried a statement denying the news reports.
It still carried a link to the competition. Leading the vote was brunette Gul, a 21-year-old who was shown belly dancing in a miniskirt by the poolside and later diving in with a white bikini. Elsewhere on the page are messages of encouragement from her family.
Turkey is as enamoured with reality shows as any Western country, with a number of spin-offs as well as Big Brother. One popular show was called Will You Be My Daughter-In-Law?.

Late Thursday, Jones decided to call up the backup landing site in Southern California — Edwards Air Force Base — for the next go-around. He made it clear that if the weather remains poor in Florida, then the shuttle will be diverted to Edwards. The cross-country ferry trip eats up $1.7 million and just over a week, however, which is why NASA prefers sending shuttles straight to their home port.
Discovery has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Sunday.
There was a bit of excitement earlier in the day when the shuttle astronauts had to steer clear of a mysterious piece of space junk. The debris apparently came from the shuttle or international space station, while the two were still linked. It’s believed to have become dislodged during the crew’s third and final spacewalk Saturday.
Specialists did not know how big the piece was — or even what it was — but determined it was going to pass uncomfortably close to Discovery beginning Thursday afternoon. The threat went away after the pilots slightly lowered the shuttle’s orbit.
NASA kept a close watch with two other pieces of space junk during the flight, while the shuttle still was docked to the international space station. But no dodging was required in those cases.
There was good news Thursday on the space station front: A brand new Japanese cargo ship successfully rocketed into orbit carrying a full load of supplies. It’s due at the outpost next Thursday. It will be plucked from orbit by the station’s robot arm.
Discovery dropped off tons of equipment and experiments at the space station, as well as a fresh crew member. The shuttle is returning with garbage, surplus gear, science samples, a former station resident and Buzz Lightyear. The 12-inch action figure doll has been in orbit for 15 months and awaits a tickertape parade at Walt Disney World.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission(underscore)pages/shuttle/main/index.html

China is currently the leading monitors of carbon dioxide in the air on a global scale. It generates 80% of its electricity from coal, polluting cities and contributing to the green house effect. There is wonderful news now for the world citizen who want to breath fresh air and save the environment.

A research conducted by Harvard and Tsinghua universities claims China can now cut Carbon dioxide emissions by 30% and yet meet its electricity demand through 2030. Currently, coal is used to generate 792.5 giga watts of electricity per year. This is set to grow at 10% per year and increase carbon emission to 3.5 giga tons yearly, yeh one horrific picture just from one country, think of the rest of the world!

The team used date from NASA, global meteorological data from surface, aircraft, balloons, ships and satellite to conclude, if a network of wind turbines operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity can generate 7 times China’s current electricity consumption.

Currently only 0,4% of Wind energy is used in China to generate electricity. But this change does not come cheap, it would cost $900 billion in current value over 20 years. This will require a long term investment carefully planned over the years.

But then I guess clean energy will be the order of the next generation and gradually all nations with huge populations have to realise simply because the energy resources will not be met by current needs. Countries like United States, Spain, Germany are learning to change and adapt why not others.