UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

For the auditions of X Factor 4, Totoshko travelled all the way from Japan to meet her idol, Simon Cowell in the Birmingham auditions of the show in August. It’s obvious that getting thru the audition was secondary in the 31-year old soft-spoken woman’s intentions.

In normal circumstances Cowell would’ve slaughtered her there and then, like he had done so many times to other people in the past, but this time a softer side of him was revealed.

She sang one of the worst ever versions of ‘My Way’ and caused Cowell to try very hard not to laugh.

She said: “I like you very much Simon, I came here just to meet you, you are very big in Tokyo.”

Cowell then gave her a hug and 2 kisses.

He didn’t let her go thru to the next round, but if he heard such singing from any other person, he would not tell them what he told her: “That was a very quiet audition but very sweet voice and you’re very cute, I may have to take you home”.

The episode was first shown on British television on 1st September 2007.

Click here to see the video

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The far side of the moon is its hemisphere that is permanently turned away from the Earth. It was first photographed by the Soviet Luna 3 probe at 03:30 UTC on 7th October 1959 at a distance of 63,500 km.

The probe took a total of 29 photos, covering 70% of the far side.

One of them looked like this:

The photographs were of low resolution, still many features of this lunar view can be recognized.

Dark patch at upper right: Mare Moscoviense

Dark areas at below and left of center: Mare Marginus & Mare Smythii.

Small dark circle at lower right: Tsiolkovskiy crater.

Its first first seen via human eyes when the Apollo 8 mission orbited the Moon in 1968.

A more recent picture:

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UPDATE 11th April 2011

It’s the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic single orbit of Earth, which marked the beginning of the era of human spaceflight.

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28 October 2007

We all know Neil Armstrong’s first words as he stepped on the moon.

But what about the first words of the first human in space as he entered orbit and definitely the first human to look down on the big blue marble from orbit, Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968)?

I think Yuri deserved all those medals. He is surely one of the bravest people, if not the bravest, who ever lived.

His capsule looked like this:

On 12th April 1961, Gagarin, 27, got on a Vostok 1 rocket and lifted off at 06:07 UTC at Baikonur.

10 minutes later, at 06:17 UTC, the rocket’s final stage shut down. 10 seconds later the spacecraft separates and Vostok 1 reached orbit.

At this point Gagarin reports:

The craft is operating normally. I can see Earth in the view port of the Vzor. Everything is proceeding as planned.

Not as dramatic as Armstrong’s first words?

One orbit, and 1 hour and 48 minutes after lift-off, he landed at 07:55 UTC.

Unfortunately, Gagarin died in 1968 when, during training as a fighter pilot, he and his instructor died in a MiG crash.

From the wikipedia article:

A 1986 inquest suggests that the turbulence from a Su-11 ‘Fishpot-C’ interceptor using its afterburners may have caused Gagarin’s plane to go out of control. Weather conditions were also poor, which may have contributed to the inability of Gagarin and the instructor to correct before they crashed.

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There’s been an amazing array of living things, including animals that have been carried up to space and returned safely to earth.

Probably the first animal ever put on a rocket and fired to space is the fruit fly. These things were launched on a V2 rocket in New Mexico in July 1946. Not quite to orbit, but still “to the edge of space.” The rocket reached an altitude of about 100 miles.

Next up, 2 monkeys creatively named Albert 1 and Albert 2. They are the very first primates ever fired to near space altitudes, in 1949. They did not survive the flight.

Other animals include:

Cats
Mice

Spiders [above: Arabella the garden spider aboard Skylab-3] I wonder if they needed to bring a brown recluse spider trap to keep these at bay?
Frogs
Fish
Snails
Worms
Bees
Ants

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There had been other animals that were put on rockets and fired skyward, but it was only during the era of the famed Russian dogs that attempts to put animals to orbit were carried out.

Before Belka and Strelka became the first creatures to make it to orbit and back unharmed, 3 dogs went up on rockets and died.

The first one we all know during history / science lessons in secondary school – Laika. This is her in her space capsule:

After the cover is closed, it looks like this:

This is a mock-up of her space capsule:

Laika aka Zhuchka aka Limonchik aka Muttnik is the first living Earth-born creature, other than microbes of course, that was successfully blasted into orbit, and possibly the first living passenger to go into space. She was aboard Sputnik II. The momentous date: 3rd November 1957.

Laika died 5 to 7 hours into her flight from stress and overheating. Her cause of death was not immediately known and decades of speculation followed, until October 2002, when the Russian scientist in charge of the project told all; he also expressed regret for allowing Laika to die.

Laika stamps:

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Dogs Belka and Strelka spent 1 day in space aboard Sputnik 5 on 19th August 1960 before safely returning to Earth. This is about 8 months earlier than the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin who went up in April 1961.

The dogs had other companions too: a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi.

The following are pictures of what it was like inside their capsule. The first picture is apparently of Laika, the first earth-born creature in space. Unfortunately s/he did not survive the flight:

This is a model of them and their spacecraft on display:

Everybody survived the flight.

They were the first Earth-born creatures to go into orbit and return alive.

Truly deserved to be featured on stamps and commemorative cards!

So now you know what to name your next puppies.

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Images are sourced via google image search.

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Vanguard I, the 4th artificial satellite, is the oldest one still orbiting the Earth, although it is no longer able to communicate: the last signal was received in May 1964. So it is now considered junk – the oldest piece of space junk still in orbit: has been junk for more than 40 years.

It is rather small: 1.47 kg aluminum sphere, 6 inches in diameter with six short aerials.

It was launched on 17th March 1958. At first it was estimated to be able to stay in orbit for 2,000 years but later this was reduced to only 240 years.

Its battery powered transmitter ran out 3 months after launch, and its solar powered transmitter stopped working 6 years later.

Since it can no longer communicate, it is now optically tracked.

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UPDATE 11 April 2011

As of 5th April 2010, based on FAI’s guideline, 517 humans from 38 countries have gone into space. As we’ve all learnt in history lessons, Yuri Gagarin was the first, in April 1961.

517 is already an exclusive club, but even more exclusive is the 24 people who’ve completely left Earth’s orbit, and the 12 persons who’ve walked on the moon.

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10th October 2007

As of today, 458 humans from 38 countries have gone into space.

Dr Sheikh Muszaphar is the 458th human to go to space, and Malaysia is the 38th country to have the honour of having at least one of its citizens up in space, in whatever designation: astronaut, cosmonaut, taikonaut, spationaut, space tourist, spaceflight participant et cetera.

We’re using the FAI‘s guidelines, who defines “gone into space” as any flight that reaches an altitude of higher than 100 kilometres (62 miles) above the surface of the Earth.

According to this guideline, as of 10th October 2007, there have been 458 human beings from 38 countries who have gone into space. Of this, 454 people have reached Earth orbit or beyond, meaning 4 breached the 100km mark, but did not reach orbit.

Of this total, 47 are women.

14 died during their mission.

A more exclusive club is those who have completely left Earth’s orbit, like those who went on lunar missions: 24 persons. Hence those who merely went to the International Space Station are “still in orbit.”

It is only appropriate that the first humans in space are from the Soviet Union and the US. The first human in space is of course Yuri Gagarin on 12th April 1961 onboard Vostok 1. He must be the bravest human who ever lived. Less than a month later, the US sent its first man into space: Alan Shepard on 5th May 1961 onboard MR-3.

It would be 17 years before a citizen of another country other than the USSR or the USA went to space. That honour goes to Vladimir Remek of Czechoslovakia, who went up on 2nd March 1978 onboard Soyuz 28.

Malaysia is the 13th Asian country (apart from the USSR / Russia) who sent one of its people to space. The first is of course Pham Tuan of Vietnam who went up on 23rd July 1980 aboard another Soyuz.

If you’re surprised to learn that a country considered less developed than Malaysia has sent its man to space earlier than us, take this: Mongolian Jugderdemidiin Gurragchaa is the 2nd Asian into space on 22nd March 1981.

As of 10th October 2007, there have been 260 manned spaceflights that breached the 100km mark. The first was Vostok 1 in 1961. Of this total, 8 did NOT reach orbit successfully.

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Wikipedia’s list of space travelers
Wikipedia’s list of human spaceflights
Wikipedia’s timeline of space travel by nationality

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By “experienced astronaut” I am referring to the number of blastoffs and reentries experienced, not the total time spent in space. Robert “Hoot” Gibson, 61 who spent time in Malaysia in conjunction with the country’s first man in space has been in space 5 times: that’s a lot, but Franklin Ramon Chang-Diaz has been to space even more: 7 times on space shuttle missions. He is tied with Jerry Lynn Ross as the most experienced astronaut ever. In contrast, the most experienced Russian cosmonaut has been to space 6 times.

Chang-Díaz, DSc was born in 1950 and is a Costa Rican-American physicist and former NASA astronaut.

His father is of Chinese-Spanish descent and mother of Spanish descent. Hence he is quarter Chinese.

He was selected as an astronaut in 1980, went to space for the first time in 1986 and last in 2002. He even did 3 spacewalks in his last mission and helped with construction of the International Space Station. He retired from NASA in 2005.

He is one of the first American citizens of Latin American descent to go into space.

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The seal dribble is performed by quickly, with the feet of course “flicking the ball up onto one’s head, whereby the player then proceeds to glide past opponents, whilst bouncing the ball on top of his forehead.” It is conceivable that one can do this to score goals, and that this tactic makes it difficult for the other team to stop legitimately.

It has been made famous by Kerlon, 19 of Brazil. He was first seen using the move at the U17 South American Youth Championship. He could do this very quickly and change directions while running with the ball on his head as well.

He said, “It’s just a skill I have, though it’s not meant to be a mark of disrespect for my opponents. The trick is beautiful and efficient. Sooner or later, defenders will find a way to stop me without conceding a free-kick. But until then, I can keep using the play to my advantage. Opponents say they will snap me. But this doesn’t scare me it just motivates me even more.”

Click here to see a video of the seal dribble performed by Kerlon

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On 28th September 2007 Yahoo News reported that in Phoenix, USA killer amoebas living in lakes entered the body of Aaron Evans, 14 through the nose, attacked the brain, eating it until the boy died.

At first Aaron complained of headache that wouldn’t go away. Doctors first suspected meningitis. Only later did doctors determine that the boy had been infected with Naegleria.

It sounds like science fiction but it’s shockingly true.

Mercifully, real-life encounters with it are very rare.

Still, it has killed 6 boys and young men this year alone: 3 in Florida, 2 in Texas and 1 in Arizona.

The amoeba is called Naegleria fowleri, and has killed 23 people in the US alone between 1995 and 2004.

Apparently it was discovered in Australia in the 60s, and there have been several hundred cases worldwide since then.

Naegleria lives almost everywhere: lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, eating off algae and bacteria in the sediment.

People get infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If water somehow shot up the nose, the amoeba can gain a foothold.

It then destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain. There, it basically eats the brain.

Symptoms include a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. Later stages, there’ll be signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes.

Once infected, most people have little chance of survival. Some drugs have stopped the amoeba in lab experiments, but people who have been attacked rarely survive.

From initial exposure, you’d die within 2 weeks.

You should avoid warm, standing water and areas with algae blooms. The easiest way to prevent infection is to use nose clips when swimming or diving in fresh water i.e. do not allow water to go way up in your nose.

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yahoo news

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Evolving life forms developed oxyphotosynthesis (the ability to generate oxygen via chemical reactions) about 2.7 billion years ago, and molecular oxygen started to be produced in huge quantities.

Organisms at that time were anaerobic(does not require oxygen for growth).

300 million years later, this surge in the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere started to pose problems, because oxygen was toxic to the existing organisms.

This period is called the Oxygen Catastrophe, and also known as Oxygen Crisis, Oxygen Revolution or The Great Oxidation.

However, instead of wiping out all forms of life, it enhanced existing life: life was energetically limited until oxygen was easily available. This caused a breakthrough in metabolic evolution: it greatly increased free energy supply to living organisms, hence a truly global environmental impact was felt.

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When one talks about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, perhaps the first one that comes to mind is the software offered by German company SAP AG, the largest European, and the world’s third largest software company.

But is it the absolute best for your company? Or is it overkill, because you only need certain features which can be done perfectly by software offered by smaller companies?

In its website, AIMPromote compares itself to 2 other CRM software, one of them being apparently the 4th biggest CRM company in the world, in terms of global revenue (source: Gartner Study). The software in question is produced by Salesforce.com, at USD281 million. In comparison, SAP is well ahead of the field at USD1.4 billion.

From the comparison, it’s interesting to note that AIMPromote includes features like lead reselling and unlimited custom fields which are completely absent from Salesforce.com, while some features like campaign performance report, ROI report and gross profit report that are already standard in AIMPromote’s package are optional in Salesforce.com’s. In fact, Salesforce.com’s offering is completely devoid of website integration and internet marketing feature, where in this day and age, you’d expect to be standard fare.

Personally I think the web analytics feature would be very useful for my site, because it can track the effectiveness of my internet marketing campaigns at amazing depth and precision. It can display tracking data for every visitor who fills out the feedback form on my site; thus enabling me to know from where the conversions came, what search terms they used, which pages they viewed, what path they took to reach the pages. This has the advantage of gleaning information about the lead that gets me better prepared before making that sales call.

No wonder AIMpromote is claiming that it is superior to traditional CRM software.

In addition to its obvious lower cost of implementation and total cost of ownership (just compare AIMpromote’s zero setup fee and Salesforce.com’s USD6,000+), they even go so far as offering to integrate your system with your website for nothing. The only cost they advertised is the USD33 per user charge (minimum 3 users). That is already cheaper than Salesforce.com’s USD65 per user.

They claim to be easy of learn, and hence use. Since they also have a 14-day free trial, this would be a good opportunity to try it and find out yourself.

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This is dedicated to those who do not need to consume any diet pills…

French weather girl Ariane Brodier makes one actually watch a weather report on TV from beginning to the end.

Click here to watch the video

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The song? James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful.

The following are IMHO the best 9 versions.

My favourite? It’s by James Blunt himself, who appeared in a Sesame Streets episode singing his multiplatinum hit with altered lyrics, this time entitled My Triangle.

Click here to see the videos

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In November 2006 I wrote about Chase Sampson, who to the first (and usually easiest) question

Homeowners buy surge protectors to protect their possessions from unexpected surges of what?
A: Electric current; B: Water flow; C: Air pressure; D: Buyer’s remorse

Answered B instead of A.

Now here are some more, the first being Paul Weir Galm who failed at the first question and therefore got nothing:

Which of these phrases is a common way of saying “I can’t take it anymore!”
A. That’s the last stick! B. That’s the last leaf! C. That’s the last straw! D. I’m moving to Canada!

He answered A instead of C.

But the absolute worst must be the following French version of the show. To the question

What is it that orbits around the Earth?”
A. the Moon B. the Sun C. Mars D. Venus

The answer should already be obvious, but he wasn’t sure, so engaged the audience. Amazingly, more people in the audience chose B than A. Swayed to the core, he went with them. So either the audience is also stupid or they wanted to get rid of him.

I saw another which purportedly showed a woman saying that an elephant is larger than a moon – but can’t vouch for its authenticity.

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Back in May, I wrote about the worst photos I have ever taken. They are truly horrendous, and mercifully, few and far between.

However, on the 29th of September 2007 I managed to take another photo which I think is good (or bad) enough to make it to the list.

The identity of the person shall remain a closely guarded secret

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UPDATED 23 July 2011

Technically, the only deaths in space (which is at least 100 km above the earth’s surface) happened to the 3-man crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov on 30th June 1971.

They were killed after undocking from the world’s first space station Salyut 1, after a 3-week stay there, the first successful visit to the world’s first space station. In preparation for re-entry, a valve on their spacecraft had accidentally opened when the service module separated, exposing them to the vacuum of space, i.e. the crew capsule depressurized, suffocating them within seconds. This was only discovered when the module was opened by the recovery team who found them already dead.

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14 October 2007

Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov (1927 – 1967) of the Soviet Union is the first person to die during a space mission.

He was on his second mission, the first Soviet astronaut to do so. He went up on 23rd April 1967, did all the things he’s supposed to do, then came back to earth the next day.

He was killed on his reentry, when the spacecraft crashed due to failure of the parachute system. Both main and reserve chutes failed. The main one did not open due to problems with a sensor, then the reserve became tangled.

Hence his ship smashed to the ground from 4 miles up, around 400 miles per hour, or 644 km/hr, or 40 meters a second, at about 0322 UT.

In addition to the parachutes, retro-rockets should have fired to further slow the drop.

But, on hitting the ground, there was an explosion. A big fire surrounded the capsule.

Farmers rushed to try to put it out, but it is very likely that Komarov was killed instantly upon impact.

The capsule’s state was such that rescue crews could not find Komarov when they arrived and approached the burning wreckage. They needed an hour of excavations to find Komarov’s remains, which were found about 0630 UT. Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev was informed at around 0900 UT.

Komarov was given a state funeral.

Apparently, just before impact, Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin told Komarov his country was proud of him. Rumours said that Komarov died cursing the spacecraft designers and flight controllers. Then, a tape from another source was reported to bear Komarov’s distraught unclear transmissions. The recording was made perhaps on his final orbit before reentry.

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Some people might think that Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor is the first South East Asian in space, but in fact Pham Tuan (born 1947) of Vietnam achieved the feat 27 years earlier. He is the first Vietnamese, the first person from a third world country, and the first Asian (excluding Russia) in space.

Reading about him, I was amazed that back in the 70s, Vietnam actually had a space program.

Pham was on a 2-man team with Soviet Viktor Gorbatko when they went up in July 1980 on board one of the Soyuz crafts. He was in space for a full week.

He is now a Lieutenant General, Head of the General Department of Defence Industry of the Ministry of Defence, and a member of the Vietnam National Assembly.

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Update: Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor is the 9th Muslim in space, not the 3rd as I mentioned earlier.

The full list:
1. Prince Sultan bin Salman AbdulAziz Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia, 1985
2. Muhammed Faris, Syria, July 1987
3. Musa Manarov, Azerbaijan, December 1987
4. Abdul Ahad Mohmand, Afghanistan, August 1988
5. Tokhtar Aubakirov, Kazakhstan, 1991
6. Talgat Musabayev, Kazakhstan, 1994
7. Salihzan Shakirovich Sharipov, Uzbekistan, January 1998
8. Anousheh Ansari, Iran, September 2006
9. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Malaysia, October 2007

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Anousheh Ansari, is second, when on 18th September 2006, a few days shy of her 40th birthday, she became the first female Muslim, the first Iranian, the first female space tourist and fourth overall space tourist.

The first Muslim, the first Arab, and first member of royalty in space is Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then 29, who went up for 7 days in June 1985 as a Payload Specialist on STS-51-G Discovery. He was a member of a 7 person international crew. He represented the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (ARABSAT) in deploying their satellite.

He is now an officer in the Royal Saudi Air Force.

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The annual International Conference on Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology has a competition called the Nanofabrication Bizarre/Beautiful Micrograph Contest.

A micrograph is basically a photograph taken via a microscope to show a magnified image of an item.

Looking through the winners of several categories of the last few years, there were truly some stunning images.

The world’s smallest hand, magnified more than 50,000 times:

The world’s smallest maze, magnified 125,000 times:

The world’s smallest toilet bowl, magnified 15,000 times:

The world’s smallest chess set, magnified 17,000 times:

Click for more pictures

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Women earning a living playing football / soccer? Better believe it. It has been argued that women’s soccer is now the third most popular sport in the world, so there should be no problem getting interested parties to pay to watch them play.

In fact, as far back as the 1970s, Italy became the first country with professional women’s football players. However, they were only professional “on a part-time basis.”

Fast forward to 1984, the first full-time pro team was the United States national squad (apparently 1984.

Then in 1992, Japan was the first country to have a semi-professional women’s football league.

Then, a few years ago, the Women’s United Soccer Association in the US became the first true all-professional league for women anywhere in the world. That did not guarantee world domination however, as top leagues in stronger nations are either amateur or semi-pro.

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The FIFA 100 was released in March 2004, supposedly a list of Brazilian striker Pelé’s choice of the “greatest living footballers”, including active and retired players.

It marked part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international governing body of football.

Why 100? It refers to the 100th anniversary of FIFA, not the number of players listed, which is 125.

The list contains 123 professional men and… 2 women players.

The 2 women are Americans Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers. None of the US men made it to the list.

Mia Hamm

Michelle Akers

Unsurprisingly, some of the generally regarded greatest players were not too pleased. Pele’s former team-mate, Gerson, was not included, so he tore up a copy of the list on a Brazilian television programme. Denis Law and Geoff Hurst were also omitted; meaning Hamm and Akers are better than them?

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Birgit Prinz, 30 is probably the greatest female football / soccer player who ever lived:

- she’s the Women’s World Cup all-time leading scorer with 14 goals.
- she has appeared in 3 Women’s Word Cup finals.
- she’s a 2-time World Cup winner, 2003 and 2007.
- she’s FIFA’s Women’s World Player of the Year in 2003, 2004, and 2005
- she was German “Women’s Footballer of the Year” every year from 2001 to 2007.
- she scored seven goals for Germany in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2003 as a center-forward
- she has had more than 170 caps

In 2003, she apparently received an offer to play for AC Perugia, an Italian Serie A side. Of course the club’s fortunes have nosedived in recent years, and currently plays in Italian Serie C1.

She could have been the first woman to play in a professional men’s league, had she accepted. However, she declined the offer.

Look at this video of her finishing when she scored Germany’s first goal in the final of the 2007 Women’s World Cup against Brazil. Sheer class.

I can’t resist this question: if the Malaysian national team (men’s) played against either the women’s national team of Brazil or Germany, could we have won the match?

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During a 1993 visit to Korea, US President Bill Clinton described the North Korea – South Korea border as the scariest place on Earth.

It is the world’s last Cold War frontier, and has separated the 2 Koreas since 1953.

The division between North and South Korea has been described as wider than the German division ever was.

It is 151 miles long and is the most heavily fortified border in the world.

There is a 4-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone (DMZ).

The Military Demarcation Line (MDL), also known as the Armistice Line, or Ceasefire Line, runs along the middle of the DMZ zone. It runs near the 38th parallel.

US and South Korean soldiers patrol this line along the South Korean side while North Korea People’s Army (NPKA) patrol along the North Korean side.

Frequent skirmishes have occured along the line over the years. At the Joint Security Area (JSA), the only place along the border where North and South military forces see each other face to face, over 750 overt acts of violence has been recorded since 1953. In addition, countless fistfights, shouting matches, exchanges of rude gestures, and other provocations have also occurred.

Tour groups are allowed inside the DMZ only with heavy military escort. A blogger reported that photography is not allowed in most areas of the border, therefore pictures are usually taken quickly & discreetly without the usual time taken preparing for things like picture composition. Some has to be taken with the camera still strapped to one’s shoulder or dangling from one’s neck; just pointing the camera in a particular direction and taking a photo without being able to peer through the viewfinder, hoping the picture will turn out ok, and all the while pretending not to do anything one’s not supposed to.

A North Korean soldier looks at passing US patrol on the South Korean side:

From oldbluejacket.com, here are some photos and descriptions of the DMZ at Panmunjom, taken in 1977.

This is the room where all the negotiations with North Korea take place. Half the room is on the South Korea side and half on the North Korea side. The border runs right down the center of the green table in the foreground – I’m actually standing on the North Korea side when taking this photo.

The Korean border is the cement line on the ground just behind the friendly border guard in the foreground. The guards in the background are North Koreans who were filming our tour group for some unknown reason. The 2-story building in the far back- ground is a facade, it is only about 10-15 feet deep, it was built for show and propaganda purposes.

Site of the 1976 poplar tree incident – - Two US soldiers, sent to clear a tree that obstructed the view in the Panmunjom truce zone (the tree to the right of the check point station), were hacked to death by a North Korean soldier.

The following image is from theodoresworld.net. On the left of the cement line is South Korea, on the right is North Korea. (more…)

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History was made on 13th June 2000: leaders of North Korea and South Korea met for the first time ever, after having never even talked on the phone. The first leaders of both countries, Syngman Rhee (South Korea) and Kim Il-Sung (North Korea), both appointed in 1948, apparently never met either.

The summit was announced 2 months earlier, which took everybody by surprise, because ever since the separate governments of the North and South were established in 1948, their relations can be summarised in 2 words: enmity and bloodshed. The Korean War in 1950-53 is testament to that. A summit was actually planned in 1994, but it never took off due to the sudden death of the North’s then-leader Kim Il-Sung at the age of 82 a few weeks before he was due to meet the South’s Kim Young-sam.

Back to 2000: the meeting took place at the airport of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. In so doing, Kim Dae-Jung became the first ever leader of the South to set foot in the North.

Dae-Jung and his entourage left Seoul at 9:18 a.m for the 180-kilometer flight to Pyongyang.

No-one had expected the reclusive North Korean dictator, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-Il to turn up in person to greet the South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, but surprise surprise: there he was, appearing from the large crowd at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport, marching purposefully across the tarmac towards Dae-Jung’s plane.

Perfectly on cue, the crowd cheered as the aircraft carrying Dae-Jung taxied to a halt. He emerged and scanned the horizon. An aide pointed out a portly man wearing spectacles waiting, standing right at the bottom of the steps.

Dae-Jung walking up to greet Jong-il:

There was a warm, highly symbolic handshake — they used both hands. Apparently, a two-handed handshake is a sign of friendship and respect in Korea. Such a gesture is comparable to a hug in the West. Nobody could have imagined the North Korean leader doing that before.

In another symbolic gesture, Kim Dae-jung let North Korea provide his security during the summit.

They’d agreed there’d be no national anthems or flags, and even Jong-Il applauded the other Kim: (more…)

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What is the best quit-smoking product? How about the best anti-hairloss product? The best personal loan provider?

These are some of the things in which it is very difficult to determine who’s the real winner.

Too-good-to-be-true claims abound, with seemingly genuine, heartfelt testimonials.

Is there any hope for the man on the street? The multitude of choices make it even more confusing for the average consumer.

trustsource.org offers a solution, where people who have actually used the products you’re thinking of purchasing give their reviews.

For hair loss products for instance, a new days brings one or ten new products on the market, each proclaiming they are the greatest product ever invented by humankind since the wheel. Trust Source, together with its readers, will evaluate and compare the claims each product makes, then they are ranked accourding to their benefits and overall value. At the moment, provillus occupies the top spot, with a rating of 94%, far outstripping the 2nd placed product (75%).

Similarly for cash advance or payday loans, you can see a list of the best user-recommended providers. This should give you a good head start to decide on which is the best and quickest way to get secure online cash in your time of need. Trustsource.org even claims that “in many cases there are no documents to fax.” Once approved, they’d deposit the moolah straight into your bank account.

Of course this is not foolproof, appointed cybertroopers might be lurking to ramp up their products of choice, however this should be able to supplement your usual methods of sorting out the gem from the trash: you can always consult another guide or ask trusted sources for their opinion.

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