Individualistic World

A surveillance camera captures the suspect walking away from the scene with a pipe in his right hand. Photo Source: Internet.

In Queens, New York, Yao Yu, 23, from China, was walking home from grocery shopping at 9.30pm last May 15 when a Mexican man smashed her in the head with a pipe and dragged her into an alley.

Once inside, Carlos Salazar Cruz, 28, removed Yao's clothing and raped her.
She has been warded at the Intensive Care Unit of New York Hospital Queens for a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain and trauma to her vaginal area.
She was on life-support after being attacked and raped by a pipe-wielding rapist in New York. Officials made arrangement for her mother to go to the United States to decide on the daughter's fate, but Yao Yu died 5 days later.

The mother's pain and sorrow filled the Flushing's mostly Mandarin  funeral  home as the daughter was laid to rest. She did not leave her daughter's side during the open funeral. She would not let go of her daughter's hand and she kept fixing her hair and making sure her daughter looks good.
Mother Guihua Yu had to be carried out behind her daughter's casket.

Not many who attended Thursday's service actually knew the 23-year-old, but knowing the attack happened in their neighborhood.
Yao's father was too sick to fly in for the funeral but requested his daughter be brought back to China.
Yao's mother will bring her only daughter home in an urn, after she's cremated in New York.

Yao, whose ambition then was to become a lawyer, arrived in New York two months ago, using money that her parents borrowed. Her parents wanted her to expand her horizons as she has good grades in China.
She worked in a nail salon to save up money for her studies.

A surveillance camera has captured several people walked pass the place where the attack took place but no one helped to stop the man while another camera caught the suspect walking away from the scene with a pipe in his hand.
The weapon was later thrown into some bushes.

Police arrested Cruz, who worked at a Manhattan fish market, a few blocks from the crime scene after a witness called 911.He was charged on Tuesday.
It took several court officers to control the mother, Guihua Yu, as she faced her daughter's alleged killer in court. For now, 28-year-old Cruz is charged with attempted murder and aggravated sex abuse.
The charges are expected to be upgraded.

******

In Queens too, a good samaritan, who was seriously injured after rescuing a woman from an armed thug, was left to die on the streets of New York.

A surveillance camera had captured 25 people walking past the man but none of them lent a helping hand or called the police. One of the passers-by even stopped to snap a photo of the dying man and went off, New York Post reported.

Odd-job worker Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, a 32-year-old Guatemala immigrant, was out of work and had recently lost his home.

According to the video  footage,  Tale-Yax went to a woman's aid upon seeing that she was threatened by a knife-wielding man, on a sidewalk in Queens County of the metropolitan at about 5.40am on April 18.
He was then stabbed repeatedly in the chest by the armed man, who fled the scene soon after.
The woman, whom Tale-Yax had helped, ignored her injured hero and ran away.

Tale-Yax was seen making a few steps before collapsing onto the ground.
Police said they were only informed of the incident at 7.23am the same day but Tale-Yax had died.

Tale-Yax's relatives had condemned the cold-hearted pedestrians for being so callous. His cousin, Edwin Tacam said Hugo lost his life trying to help someone else. He's a brave hero.

Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax his wake Wednesday, April 28, 2010 in New York.

Whose Haven Is Johor Bahru?

It was reported in The Star 2 days ago that residents of Taman Majidee are living in increasing fear for the past 20 years as criminals are getting more daring and aggressive.

The neighbourhood used to be a nice place to live in the 70s but now no one can walk the streets alone without worrying about snatch thieves and robbers.
Many residents hope for a stronger police presence in the neighbourhood to curb multiple crimes, especially house break-ins. The question lingers of why the police had not been keeping an eye on the neighbourhood with the high crime rate there.

Zainab Ibrahim, 54, a retiree living with her daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandchildren, had her house been broken into at least 10 times in the past 30 years. She had also been a victim of snatch theft 3 times last year.

Low, 57, a businessman echoed Zainab’s sentiment that the crime rate in the area was much lower 20 years ago.
He owns a shop lot in the area and it is disturbing that so many crimes occur on a monthly basis.  

A retired doctor Another resident, Govind, 71, said crime was a common occurrence in the neighbourhood.

Almost every month, a house is robbed so it is no more a surprise news hearing about the robbery attempt on June 1, about 300m from his house, where robbers used a woman as a human shield when pursued by a security guard.
In the robbery attempt, a 19-year-old girl, a Datuk's daughter, suffered head injuries in the botched heist at her house has died around 10.45pm on Thursday.

The security guard opened fire on the 3 robbers while trying to escape with stolen goods on Tuesday night.
It was earlier reported that one robber involved in the heist was shot dead and another shot in the leg by the security guard.
The third robber was arrested after a car chase near Taman Kebun Teh.

Johor Baru (South) OCPD Asst Comm Zainuddin Yaakob said that police would step up patrols in the housing estate. “We are aware of the residents’ concerns. We will increase patrols as well as police presence,” he said.
He urged anyone with information on any crime related cases to contact the police hotline at 07-2212999 or the nearest police station.

Upon reading this, and reading the police statement of  "we will increase patrols and he urged anyone with information on any crime related cases to contact the police", my instinct of the ever increasing crime rate will never dip with such answers given.

I am about to share my story with readers in this blog when my eyes caught another news of JB city council taken to task for inaction.

The Johor Baru City Council has been taken to task for failing to act on public complaints despite numerous calls from local representatives.
Johor Baru MCA division chief Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong (pic) said the council must take drastic action in dealing with the people’s complaints or face the wrath of the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC).
“We feel disappointed over the lack of cooperation by the city council in taking action on complaints.
“For example, the residents in Taman Century have been complaining about excessive noise from nearby nightclubs, but they (city council) have not taken action,” he told newsmen after the division’s annual general meeting, which was launched by MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.
Dr Wee said the people in Taman Century wanted the council to ensure that the clubs kept out the noise but to no avail.
“Lack of action by the city council reflects badly on the Barisan Nasional government.
“If the mayor does not take action on public complaints, then the party has to report the matter to the MACC,” he said.
He added that he and Johor Baru MP Datuk Shahrir Samad had visited places which the people had complained about.
“The people’s concerns must be heard and acted upon quickly. The cooperation of the council is paramount towards ensuring the people’s support for Barisan here,” he said.
On the AGM, Dr Wee said that the party had grown more stable under the leadership of Dr Chua.
“The Chinese community is happy that the party is voicing their concerns on various matters,” he said.

Today, JB's mayor has defended the MBJB.

Mayor Mohd Jaafar Awang has defended the Johor Baru City Council (MBJB), which has been criticised for allegedly not being proactive towards complaints.

The city council, he said, was doing its part to address issues brought to its attention but it could not promise that all the problems could be solved.
He said the council was trying its best but “it is premature to say that it has not been taking any action on the complaints”.
Jaafar was responding to remarks made by Johor Baru MCA division chief Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong on Sunday that MBJB had failed to act on public complaints, even those raised by local representatives.
Dr Wee cited the example of Taman Century residents, who were upset about the loud noise from nearby nightspots, but MBJB allegedly did not act on the complaints.
Contacted by The Star, Jaafar said it was unfair to blame MBJB as “we are only human and cannot assure that all problems will be solved”.
“All problems are noted during council meetings regardless if they are brought up by local representatives or the public. And we always follow up on them,” he said.
Jaafar also said that Dr Wee should forward details of the grouses he received to the council.
“We would also like to urge residents who have complaints to come to our office every Thursday from 2pm to 5pm if they feel that their problems are inadequately addres­sed,” he said, adding that no appointment was required.
Jaafar said the city council had also received complaints via telephone.
“As for the residents in Taman Century, I would like to state that we have visited the area but we did not find that the noise was disturbing,” he said.
Besides MBJB, he said the district office was also in charge of issuing entertainment licences and it was equally responsible for taking action against loud entertainment outlets.

****** 

As for now, JB is all defended. Save my breath.

The Opposite Sides Of Luck

The Unlucky Malaysians

Four girls, 6 to 10 years of age, ate stones collected from the compound of their house in Kampung Padang Lembu, some 20km from Sungai Petani, Kedah.

They ate them to stave off hunger but are now under hospital observation after undergoing treatment at the intensive care unit of Sultan Abdul Halim hospital here on May 30.
The children were given blood transfusion as their haemoglobin level was too low as they had been eating stones for a week. All are in stable condition but have to be warded for a week.

The eldest, Yogeswari said the soil tasted like chocolate to her. She had been eating stones since last year, adding that it was very crunchy and tasted like chocolate.
Admitting that she was the one who had introduced the stones to the 3 girls, the schoolgirl from SJK (T) Kalaivani in Kampung Padang Lembu said they secretly ate the stones behind their parents’ back.
She will collect the stones and hid them in her schoolbag and would eat them in her room.
The 3 sisters, Yogeswary, 10, Nageswari, 8, Ganggadevi, 6, and their cousin N. Vikneswary, 9, are never full after eating food prepared by the mother.
They will only feel full after eating the stones.

Her father had caught her eating the stones few months back and was punished but soon she was back to the habit.

******

They had vomited and complained of stomach pain earlier.
The matter came to light when their 70 year old grandfather, Supramaniam, was about to send the eldest girl to a medical camp when she told him her 2 younger sisters and the cousin at home were also in pain. He visited their house and found the girls groaning. They were weak and could barely move.

The stones they ate contained worm eggs, which had hatched inside their stomach. The worm consumed blood in their bodies, As a result, it makes them weaker, suffer from stomach pain and vomit.
Although it was uncommon for people to die from such illnesses, however, if the victim had other health complications, the condition could be fatal.
The children’s parents were at home then. The mother had just given birth 10 days earlier.

Not for eating - The mother, Sarojini with one of her daughters while her only son, I. Sentilativan, 5, is holding up a handful of stones found in the compound of her home in Kedah yesterday.
 

Accompanying them at the hospital was their 61-year-old grandmother N. Bathumalai.
The mother V. Sarojini, 27, was unable to visit the daughters and niece as she has 2 other daughters and a son to take care of, at home.
The girls were admitted to the hospital after her husband, R. Inderan, 43, searched their room and found plastic packages containing stones hidden in their schoolbags and closet.
They had been warned several times about it but they denied doing it.
Ganggadevi and Nageswari were admitted to the hospital for the same problem last June and in January this year.

The father may earn a small salary working as a labourer but they are never out of food.
Inderan and his wife had been branded as unfit parents by their neighbours after the media highlighted the matter. The father said the accusations were unjust as they had done their best for the children.

The 4 girls will be referred to child psychologists if their acts are proven to be habitual and not driven by hunger. Doctors treating the children  would conduct an evaluation on the case.

******

The Lucky Chinese

A girl from north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region had set a new Guiness World Record after eating nothing but dirt for 2 months. The 19 year-old Chinese girl Bao Bao has a very weird habit of eating soil.

She became a minor celebrity after the media broadcast stories about her curious eating habits in 2006. TV stations in China, Japan and South Korea picked up her story.

It started when she was 7 years old, at a play ground. She felt the urge to taste the soil on the ground and since the first taste, she could not stop eating soil.

It gives her energy.
The girl said she feels no need to eat normal food now that she has discovered how much she likes to eat soil. If given the choice, she'd rather live without rice but not soil and it has to be yellowish, soft, and powdery.
Her daily portion is usually half pound to two pounds a day to keep her going - And she has eaten over 3,000 pounds (1360 kg).

Friends often joke her boyfriend is having a “cheap-date”.

Creating Lifestyles From Sacrificing Others

A China Daily reporter who has gone undercover at Foxconn found that the employees appeared numb.

At a recruitment drive, the reporter was ordered to stand straight under the blazing sun for hours with endless rows of people who lined up for an interview.

Aside from a way of production that reduces its staff to an absolute decimal point, the company had fostered a culture where its staff are trained to shiver in conformity, he observed, while working as a manufacturing worker.

Foxconn staff working on a circuit board at its plant in Longhua, Guangdong province (Photo: China Daily)

"I have been led to believe this corporate culture was a direct cause of the recent tragedies. "The corporate culture has numbed them to an extent where any organisation and collective struggle are deemed not only undesirable but also backward,'' he wrote.
"For workers on the production line at Foxconn and beyond, killing themselves means no more than to prove to the world their belittled existence and reaffirm to fellow comrades that there is no escape."

Another Undercover Team Reveals The Working Conditions 

Between 300,000 and 400,000 employees eat, work and sleep at Foxconn's plant, in Longhua Town, which some have labelled the IT Forbidden City due to its water-tight security. Photo: Reuters

THEY work, some on their feet throughout, up to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, assembling products that most cannot afford to buy themselves: Apple iPhones, iPads, Dell computers and Nokia mobile phones. 

They are not allowed to talk while working and could be fined for doing so. These are some of the conditions workers at Foxconn have to endure, according to an undercover team of 7 Chinese who infiltrated the Longhua plant in southern China's Shenzhen boomtown 2 weeks ago. 

The Telegraph reported. 'Hundreds of people work in the workshops, but they are not allowed to talk to one another. If you talk, you get a black mark in your record and you get shouted at by your manager. You can also be fined,' investigator Zhu Guangbing, who organised the undercover operation, told London's The Telegraph. His team included netizen volunteers and 4 Foxconn workers. 

Between 300,000 and 400,000 employees eat, work and sleep at Foxconn's plant, in Longhua Town, which some have labelled the IT Forbidden City due to its water-tight security. 'In the past 3 months, the factory has been losing 50,000 staff a month because workers are burning out,' Mr Zhu, a migrant worker and a workplace rights advocate, said. 'The workers are reduced to repeating exactly the same hand movement for months on end.' 

***In June 2006, Foxconn petitioned Shenzhen's intermediate court to freeze the assets of a reporter and editor at First Financial Daily in Shanghai after suing the pair for 30 million yuan (S$6m) for defamation. It withdrew the lawsuit 3 months later. 

******

For explanation of the above, a 21-year-old assembly-line worker says conditions at Foxconn makes his life seem meaningless. Conversation on the production line is forbidden, bathroom breaks are kept to 10 minutes every 2 hours, and workers get yelled at frequently.

"I know why all those people jumped (from the building)," said Lin Fengxiang, a 23-year-old villager from Maoming, Guangdong, as he walked into his allocated dorm. "In here, nobody gives a damn about you. Too bad I've already got one foot on this boat. It's hard to get off now." Like many his age, Lin is trying to pay off his family's debt by working here. He paid more than 400 yuan (S$80) to get in and has been assigned to Foxconn's Wireless Business Group (WLBG) to assemble cell phones. 

During training sessions, recruits are reminded they must politely refuse all interview requests from journalists and then report to their superiors. "Whatever (you think) you should say or shouldn't say, just don't say it." He was reminded. His instructor, a former armed police officer Li Mengqiang, who said has trained more than 30,000 workers, constantly reminded not to challenge his authority unless they dared to "go against all security officers in the company's compound. He had been told by a manager to punish any recruit he saw sleeping or chatting during the training.

"This is their territory. We can only try to survive," said trainee Li Cheng as he tried to comfort a fellow new arrival during lecture, which ended with the audience being made to recite Foxconn's corporate values. The company's mantra, "love" and "integration" are among the most important of their values.

"Labouring for others isn't what I want to do," said Lin Fengxiang, one of Foxconn's new recruits. "I don't want to be rich; I just want to live the life I want. But it must be fated." 

Xiao Qi, a college graduate who works at Foxconn in product development earns more than twice as much as a line worker, at 2,000 yuan (S$400) a month but he is contemplating suicide as he has no future - He does the same thing every day, day in and day out.

******

No one disputes that Taipei-based Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai, has cultivated a tough culture. But Terry Gou, the billionaire chairman of Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai, when answering to questions of suicides, he has no idea why so many of his employees are killing 

Quoted: "From a logical, scientific standpoint, I don't have a grasp on that," The billionaire told reporters on May 27 at a press conference at the company's vast production facility in Shenzhen, China. "No matter how you force me, I don't know."

The company is confident that it will be able to stabilize the situation soon as workers will be getting a 30% raise although the additional money may not be enough to prevent further tragedies.

Starting June, the basic salary for assembly line workers has been raised from 900 yuan (S$180) to 1,200 yuan (S$240) per month and other staff and foremen earning higher than 900 yuan (S$180) will also be boosted by at least 30%. The pay rise was attributed to rising living costs and corporate performance.

It is with hope that the new pay would help employees increase incomes while reducing overtime and have enough time for leisure activities.The pay rise came after 10 workers killed themselves and 3 attempted suicide at the company's Shenzhen plant this year. 
Raising salaries will impact on Hon Hai's costs, pressuring their ability to make a profit. However, that it was also a way to impress foreign investors. The higher wage increase is to reflect rising prices in the mainland, and also hoped to earn the respect of workers and raise efficiency.

The company has faced mounting public anger and questions from its major clients. It will be a test of the long-term relationships with big brands like Apple and Dell.
Shares fell 2% as it moved to quell a storm of bad publicity over the deaths.

The Taiwanese-owned manufacturer defended its labour practices.
Earlier on, Wang Tongxin, vice-chairman of the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions, in April urged Foxconn to adopt a more humane style of management. 9 sociologists in Beijing also wrote an open letter to the media that called for Foxconn and other companies to halt what they call "a model where fundamental human dignity is sacrificed for development".
After a spate of apparent suicides among its workers, it was disclosed the latest 2 deaths of Foxconn workers had plunged the company into crisis.
11 days ago there were 2 more fatalities and Foxconn says it has prevented around 20 others from killing themselves since the suicides began.
The family of those who committed suicide will each receive 110,000 yuan (S$22,000) in compensation, the Shenzhen authorities said.

After a suicide earlier this month, Foxconn said its workers enjoyed world-class treatment.
Company spokesman stated that Foxconn carried out social responsibility programs to ensure the welfare of its employees.
Following the recent tragedies, the company's managers have repeatedly cited the fact that they offer free meals and dormitories and free washing services for dorm tenants.
They have installed swimming pools and reading rooms, as evidence of Foxconn's positive treatment towards staff.
It has set up 2 mental aid lines in recent months and plans to recruit psychological counsellors.
It is hoped that with the bringing in of 2,000 choreographers, singers and gym coaches, it will help relieve workers' pressure. 

The high reported toll may be due to much public interest in Foxconn, and a larger flow of information from workers with mobile phones and Internet access, as to a rise in suicide rates at the firm, said a Shenzhen-based expert in labour issues.

The Shenzhen factory is a popular place to work, with hordes of applicants lining up for jobs during the hiring season.

Workers at the huge Foxconn plant in Shenzhen eat, live and sleep on the site. Top: New recruits wait to pass the preliminary health check; center: The compound has 20 canteens and churns out 10 tons of rice daily; bottom: A view of one of the company's dormitory buildings. Provided for China Daily - Xinhua

Foxconn insisted that workers are treated well and are protected by social responsibility programs that ensure their welfare.
Other factories also have similar problems but the problem is that Foxconn is the most well-known. In some isolated companies, it will never be made public of what has happened.

But analysts warned that reports of deaths at the firm, already a target of criticism by labour groups over its working conditions, could make its overseas clients uncomfortable. Nobody wants to buy a product that is associated with a facility at which people kill themselves.
Being a public relations problem, the company has to handle it appropriately although the deaths have also been seen as more of a social issue.

The company will do all to save lives although some of the suicides may have been linked to personal problems. It is taking other steps to get the situation under control. 
It has installed netting around outdoor stairwells of dormitory buildings to prevent people from jumping.
Foxconn has set up a hotline that employees can call to receive care and has also hired employee counsellors. Recent counselling sessions for employees also found most employees do not even know their roommates' names, said deputy chairman of the Foxconn workers' union.
They have gone so far as to invite monks to the plant to rid the company of an evil spell.

However, the company has refused to respond to comments by observers about its organisation and management practices, of media reports of employees work long hours of overtime and under a great deal of stress, that the work is monotonous and repetitive and that superiors are nasty toward them.
This psychological pressure on employees, which has come under increased scrutiny, is an occupational health hazard that results from a style of business management and an operations system that were created in the face of globalised competition

Meanwhile, work goes on in Shenzhen. Foxconn's facility which is 3 square kilometers (1.16 square miles) and is crisscrossed by tree-lined streets with a fountain at the center. There's a hospital and a collection of restaurants.
Workers live in dormitories, 8 to 10 people to a room. The company provides worker counselling as many of the young people who work there are first-timers who've been away from home. Without their families, they will left with no direction. The company try to provide them with direction and help.

Chinese psychologists have said that suicide rates among Foxconn employees are not especially high when compared with suicide rates in China as a whole.
This, however, ignores the fact that people who can work are healthier than the general population.
It is incorrect to calculate suicide rates while making the assumption that those who do not commit suicide are all healthy. Suicide is only one possible outcome of prolonged mental health problems. The bigger picture of occupational health involves other psychological threats, such as thinking about committing suicide, depression and anxiety.

The only way to judge whether suicides at Foxconn are high, therefore, is to compare suicide rates there with suicide rates in other industries.

*** Low-Cost Manufacturing Worldwide Companies Demand Are Partly Being Paid By These Human Lives Of Foxconn's Workers Suicides.  

 

 

Modern Day Technology Slaves

A dozen labour activists throw paper money in front of paper figures representing Chinese employees of Foxconn Technology Group recently died in China outside the Foxconn office in Hong Kong Tuesday.

Upon reading the 8th highest-profile death related to iPhone last July, it stirred my interest to follow Foxconn news.

Sun Danyong, 25, jumped to his death after being interrogated over a missing iPhone prototype. 
Sun was responsible for sending the device to U.S.-based Apple Inc.
Local police said they were taking the case seriously and had sent a team to look into the death.

About a dozen labour activists protested at Foxconn offices in Hong Kong.
They held signs that said, "Foxconn lacks a conscience" and "Suicide is no accident."
The protesters from the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions burned cardboard cutouts resembling iPhones.

 

The latest death, the 10th suicide, at technology firm Foxconn in Shenzhen was Nan Gang, a 21-year-old man, working in the logistic department, from Hubei province.
He jumped from the top of a 4-storey factory building in Foxconn's industrial complex in Longhua township at 4.37 am on Friday after finishing the night shift at 4am.
A migrant from central Hubei province, he landed on his head and died at the scene.

Beginning this year, Rong Bo, leapt off a building and killed himself on Jan. 8 at a Foxconn plant.
Another, Li Hai, 19, after working at the plant for only 42 days, died after jumping off the company's dormitory building.

Recent suicides included a 24-year-old male factory worker surnamed Lu.
He jumped from a building inside the factory.

A girl, aged 16, was found dead on her dormitory bed.

6 men and 2 women had died.
Another 2 female employees were seriously injured.

The dead were all young migrant workers, 16 to 27 years of age, among the millions who leave the poor hinterlands of China for the boom towns of the south and east coastal areas.
They yearned work and high wages.

Family of Yan Li, a 27-year-old engineer, claimed that Yan Li was overwork.
The claim was denied by the company.
The family alleged that Yan Li, had been working the night shift for more than a month straight.
Sometimes working 24 hours non-stop.
If what the family said is true, then it could be the 11th life taken.

He died suddenly at his home early on May 27.
But Taiwan contract electronics maker Hon Hai Precision Industry, the Foxconn owner said, it did not see the death as work-related after reviewing the matter.
There's no speculation to support the statement the specific cause of death.

The jumping incidents at Foxconn Technology Group, which makes iPhones and iPads, is the world's largest contract maker of electronics, such as the iPod, Dell computers and Nokia phones, show signs of the Werther effect - a series of copycat suicides after a widely publicised case - with the number of suicides increasing proportionally to the coverage.

It was said that employees, burdened with stress and psychological problems, simply copied deaths widely covered by the media.

A Chinese worker takes a closer look at a circuit board at Taiwanese owned Foxconn factory in Shenzhen

Foxconn is a big company with its own campus.
The company is as large as a medium-sized city.

It runs massive manufacturing complexes where workers churn out products for the world's leading computer and phone companies in round-the-clock shifts.
It had a high turnover, with nearly half the staff quitting every year.

Out of the 800,000 Foxconn employees in China, 420,000 are based in Shenzhen, where they work different shifts.
These employees live in a massive factory complex.
They share a dorm with staff doing other shifts, as they belong to different units.

Scores of workers is managed by only a supervisor.
He may not be able to name all his subordinates, let alone be aware of their mental states.
Most are under 30 and life in the company's factories can be lonely.
They need the feeling of a family to handle the severe working pressure. 

The company cannot make these young people be just money-making machines.

Under this work mode, whenever an employee has difficulties, mental problems or is considering suicide, he or she cannot get effective help from their co-workers.

Adjust in the management is needed to ensure its employees have a social support network.
It also has to find a way to identify potential suicides, as well as those with psychological problems, in order to take effective measures to help them.

The number of suicide deaths have raised more questions about working conditions at Foxconn's massive complex.
Labour activists alleged it has a long history of mistreatment of workers.

Campaign group China Labour Watch called for an overhaul of conditions for Foxconn's production line workers, after investigation prompted by previous deaths.

The string of suicides back up their long-standing allegations that workers toil in terrible conditions.
They claim shifts are long.
It recorded working days up to 12 hours.
Production line employees sometimes going for weeks without a  day off.
The assembly line moves too fast.
Managers enforce military-style discipline on the work force.

Workers, total about 300,000, are pushed too hard.
They toiled under tremendous pressure, facing harsh discipline for making mistakes - Quoting workers in a computer assembly department as saying, many attributed recent deaths to the stress they are all under.

They are extremely tired, with tremendous pressure.

Soapy And Cruel Rides

A Soapy Ride 

This is Kimba, the 4 month old Persian kitten who gave her Manly Vale, Sydney owners the shock of their lives when she emerged from the washing machine, dizzy and bedraggled after surviving a full cycle.

Rogers's father Lyndsay had turned the machine on for a cold wash without knowing the white, fluffy kitten had climbed into the front-loader machine when the door was open and curled up on the dirty clothes.
Father and son were both amazed when the cycle - including a high level spin - finished and they opened the door to pull out the clothes to find Kimba in the machine.

They could not believe their eyes when she emerged, looking like a drowned cat. Kimba was rushed to the vet where she was put on an intravenous drip and treated for shock and hypothermia. Her eyes were also badly affected by the detergent and needed treatment - She's used all of her nine lives.

This photo uploaded by a neitzen shows a motorcyclist dragging a chained dog behind his wheels

A Cruel Ride

A photo, put up by a netizen surnamed Liu, showed a man riding on a motorcycle on a highway in Fuzhou.

The motorcyclist  was seen towing a chained dog that was uploaded to the Internet has sparked off public outrage in China. The dog, which has a metal chain coiled around its neck, was being dragged along the road by the motorcyclist.

"I wound down my car window and asked the man to stop. However, he sped up and zoomed away," Liu told the Straits Newspaper, a metropolitan daily paper in the capital of China's Fujian province.
"The dog couldn't bark due to the chains around its neck, and its four legs were bleeding," Liu said.
"The motorcyclist was riding at about 50 km per hour at the time."

Some netizens left messages at Tianya.cn - a popular online bulletin board - to rebuke the man's brutality.

Some doubted that the man was a dog thief. Other furious netizens demanded a search for the man.

*Local readers, after seeing the inhumane, hurting, disgusting, unacceptable photo, named the man a barbarian, a beast, a brute, a jerk, a torturer with outrageous and savage behaviour.
They wrote that he should be chained at his neck and get dragged too. They wished him dead, knocked by the photographer's car and a trailer. He should be hunted down, punished severely and shall rot in hell as what goes around comes around.

Deep down, they are boiling.

Busy Toileting With Companions

The novel 'Drop' will be one year old this 6th June.

In a country where ghosts are traditionally believed to hide in the loo, a Japanese company had adverted its new literary experience.
'Drop' was set in a public restroom, about an evil spirit inhibiting toilets. Toilets in Japan were traditionally tucked away in dark corners of houses due to religious beliefs then. Children would be teased by parents and the elderly that a hairy hand might pull them down into the dark pool below.

The writer, Koji Suzuki by the way, is well known for his literary horror masterpiece novel 'The Ring'. One can say that he’s the Japan’s Stephen King. The horror 'Ring' had been made into movies in both Japan and Hollywood, turned into an acceptable American remake movie.
Koji Suzuki, the master of Japanese horror genre had creatively outdone himself with his literary masterpiece that had taken up the world by storm. You will roughly know what kind of a person Koji Suzuki is.
The guy didn’t have to do anything with the movie but authored the book of the same name and Suzuki had, one year ago, again released horror tale titled 'Drop'.
'Drop' was released not on movie, but on toilet paper rolls. Aptly named, I would say. The thing is seriously being marketed as “Japan’s creepiest toilet paper”.



The horror story printed on toilet paper with blue printed text interspersed with gory splatters which evoke blood. It was designed by a Japanese toilet paper design company, Banbix. Each roll carries several copies of the nine-chapter novella and the printed tale is repeated over approximately every 90cm (3 feet) of the toilet paper. The entire story can be read in a few minutes in one sitting.

The packaging comes in a black wrapping paper with the picture of the ghost’s face.
Printed on a drum-roll tissue paper, a roll, double layer, 100% recycled paper, 30m sold at US$2.20 (S$3.00). The company that promoted the toilet paper, wanted readers to experience “a horror experience in the toilet” with each of its roll.

Those who can read Japanese and has the nasty habit of reading horror books while sitting comfortably on the toilet will just have to thank Koji Suzuki for coming up with a genius idea of incorporating a reading material and toilet paper.

Horror fans can always flush the spine-chilling tale down the toilet, if it gives them the creeps although no one has ever sighted the ghost and there's the sequel, 'Drop 2'.

However, it is definitely not for kids, for it could scare even adults out of their toilets!
Will it be translated to other languages? Perhaps. Or kanji dictionary to accompany it?

If ghost is not for kids, then get them to work out with origami toilet paper.

Or sudoku for the brainers

Wants to be in the filthy rich loo, this is for you.