Two News That Caught My Eyes Today!

2009/04/20
NST Online

'Varsity students are adults'

KUALA LUMPUR: Stop treating university students as if they were still in school.

Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, who said this, added that it was important for these students to be treated as adults since there was a stark contrast between university and secondary school."The first difference is their age. According to law, 18 is the age of maturity. So if the person commits a crime, he or she can be charged. And some students are already 21 and eligible to vote. "So, I urge for them to be acknowledged as adults and not treated like schoolchildren," he said at the Kolej Teknologi Yayasan Pendidikan Cheras-iTWEB fifth convocation ceremony yesterday.Saifuddin said university students could think and decide on their own as they were groomed to become intellectuals.

"I hope the university's student affairs department can understand the amendments made to the Universities and University Colleges Act."We are still receiving complaints that students are not allowed to do things permitted by the act just because the universities are worried. This is an old way of thinking."



"All because of a curious puppy"

KUALA LUMPUR: First, they strangled a four-month-old puppy to death, then they threatened its owner.

A puppy named Maya, belonging to Indonesian national Sri Indria, was killed on Friday after it entered a neighbour's house in Kampung Padang Lalang, Langkawi. The incident took a dramatic twist when the neighbour's son, who had killed the pet, came to Sri's house on Saturday armed with a metal pipe and spoiling for a fight.Sri called the New Straits Times to say she had returned from the pasar malam at 7pm on Friday to find Maya missing. "I was only away for about an hour. I knew something was terribly wrong when I didn't see her," she said in the telephone interview.

After a futile search around the kampung, her neighbour, who lives about 50m from her house, told Sri very angrily that her puppy had entered her house.When Sri asked for Maya, her neighbour brazenly told her "we have killed it".Sri turned back to enlist her sister's help before returning to the neighbour's house to look for Maya's carcass.They found the dead puppy in the undergrowth with a wire noose around its neck."They watched my sister and I look for my puppy. They were still scolding me as we carried the carcass home."

Sri, whose Malaysian husband runs a travel agency, did not lodge a police report initially as she took partial responsibility for the puppy's disappearance.She was forced to lodge a report after the neighbour's son threatened her the next day.A distressed Sri rang the NST to say that he had come to her house armed with a metal pipe, shouting for her and her husband. He was angry that the incident had reached the ears of the media. "I'm so scared. I'm home alone and I'm pregnant," she cried. A friend later took her to the police station to lodge a report and there Sri and her neighbour settled matters."I've made peace with them. What they did was wrong but I understand why they did it. It's the culture and religious beliefs."