Starbucks in Finland at last

The second Starbucks coffee shop is opening soon in Helsinki center, Finland.

After McDonald's,  H&M and Ikea, Starbucks is finally 

opening a café in the city center of Finland's capital. First 

café of the brand from Seattle opened in spring 2012 at the 

international Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

 This second shop will open in autumn 2013, and is located in the Stockmann bookshop Akateeminen at the crossing of the Pohjois-Esplanadi and Keskuskatu where previously the magazines were sold. The American coffee shop will bring some international atmosphere in the building designed by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto in 1969. At the second floor of the largest bookshop of Scandinavia is established the café Aalto. The manager told that he does not think that the café will suffer the new competitor under the same roof.

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Kevin Kwan's Rich Rich World

In this book by ex-Singaporean American author Kevin Kwan, only the rich elite and their families, fashions, couture, cuisine, businesses, properties, etc.....matter. And these are people from China, Hong Kong and Singapore. It is their world as they jet from city to city, have their meals in the poshest restaurants, stay in the exclusive hotels for the very wealthy.

They are cocooned in oases of luxury, away from the mundane grind of daily life. They attend gala events where the women compete to show off the latest in clothes and fashions and flashy jewellery. They live on gossip, praising one another on the latest acquisitions of things, while whispering juicy bad takes once backs are turned. It is a one-dimensional world free from wars, daily grind, traffic jams and average to low life of the rest of us.

The plot is paper thin as the characters flit from city to city. A film is being hatched out of the novel. Social climbers and those who are voyeurs on the lives of the rich may pick up the things of the world of fashion from Kwan, who used to study such high-class stuff for glamour magazines.

Sexual Sadism madness

A badly written novel depicting sexual sadism/ masochism has taken the world by storm. It has become the world's bestseller toppling JR Rowling's novels. And it has been made into a film, as has been a lot of written sewerage.

This is a sign that that the world has gone bonkers; moral standards are zero and anything parading sexual abuse in its worst forms is sought after.

Fifty Shades of Grey has topped best-seller lists around the world, selling over 125 million copies worldwide by June 2015. It has been translated into 52 languages, and set a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest-selling paperback of all time. Critical reception of the book, however, has tended toward the negative, with the quality of its prose generally seen as poor. Universal Pictures and Focus Features produced a film adaptation, which was released on 13 February 2015 which also received generally unfavourable reviews.

 Sir Salman Rushdie said about the book: "I've never read anything so badly written that got published. It made Twilight look like War and Peace."^] Maureen Dowd described the book in The New York Times as being written "like a Bronte devoid of talent," and said it was "dull and poorly written." Jesse Kornbluth of The Huffington Post said: "As a reading experience, Fifty Shades ... is a sad joke, puny of plot".

Hyde Park London

Malaysian Mr Teflon - Kee Thuan Chye

The very boldly outspoken and patriotic Malaysian

Kee Thuan Chye aged 61 is a Malaysian actor, dramatist, poet and journalist. Acting in theatre, films, and on television for more than 30 years, he continues to do so. In 1981, Kee co-founded the theatre group, KAMI, in Kuala Lumpur. A noted civil rights activist, he would express in his plays whatever he could not express through the newspapers under Malaysia's repressive Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).

For speaking out without fear or favour, Kee was among the first recipients of The Annexe Heroes Freedom of Expression Awards when it was launched in 2008. In 2010, he was also voted the 34th Most Trusted Malaysian in a poll conducted by Reader's Digest.

At the New Straits Times, Kee Thuan Chye received numerous memos from his editor-in-chief for trying to push the parameters and opening up public discourse on what was deemed 'sensitive' issues. Firmly believing that the responsibility of a journalist to the public is to inform them of the truth, he had to battle with his superiors and as a consequence, he was often punished, marginalised, and shut out. In 1988, Kee received his master's degree in drama from the University of Essex, after being awarded a British Council Fellowship for postgraduate studies in England.

In 2001, Kee Thuan Chye became the Associate Editor of The Star in Kuala Lumpur, creating and editing the English column, Mind Our English, until retirement in May 2009. His Sunday Star column, Playing the Fool, which he began in April 2001, ran for only two instalments before it was cancelled. In his inaugural article, Kee had written that he would be speaking out frankly on social and political issues, without fear or favour. His second article, hitting out at racial discrimination in Malaysia, was published but when it came to his third article, the editors got jittery and suppressed it. The Star finally decided to terminate the column after Kee submitted his fourth article.

                              Books Authored:

·        Ask for No Bullshit, Get Some More! 2013

·        No More Bullshit, Please, We're All Malaysians, 2012

·        8 March: Time for Real Change, 2010

·        8 March: The Day Malaysia Woke Up, 2008

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Malaysia insults Israeli Wind Surfer

Facebook user Jonathan Ong Ujang is heating up the social network with his apology post on behalf of Malaysia and an “I love Israel” remark after the Middle Eastern nation’s sports body accused Putrajaya of being difficult, forcing it to withdraw its two athletes from an international windsurfing tournament in Langkawi.

Ong, whose Facebook profile shows him to be a Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris student from Kuching, Sarawak, sparked debate with his sympathy for the Israeli athletes caught in a diplomatic policy row.

“On behalf of Malaysia, I would like to sincerely apologise for causing Israel much humiliation and burden. You are an national entity and have the right to be proud of your nation and national symbols. It is too bad that the government policy dictates that they do not recognise the State of Israel. Once again, deepest apologies to Israel. I love Israel,” he wrote yesterday on the Facebook page of Israeli news portal, The Jerusalem Post.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Israel Sailing Association chairman Amir Gill blamed Malaysia for delaying the visa application and putting “unacceptable” restrictions on its two athletes Yoav Omer and Noy Drihan who were set to defend this titles at the Langkawi youth windsurfing tournament Sunday.

Gill claimed Omer and Drihan would not be allowed to compete under the Israel flag, nor would they be allowed to wear any symbol to identify them as Israeli, or even have their national anthem played if they should win the gold medal, as is customary.

He reportedly added that Israel is considering suing Malaysia and the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) for not allowing its athletes to participate.

Starbuck CEO Howard Schultz

Schultz was born to a Jewish family on July 19, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of ex-United States Army trooper and then truck driver Fred Schultz, and his wife Elaine. As Schultz's family was poor, he saw an escape in sports such as baseball, football, and basketball, as well as the Boys and Girls Club. He went to Canarsie High School, from which he graduated in 1971. In high school, Schultz excelled at sports and was awarded an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University – the first person in his family to go to college. A member of Tau Kappa Epsilon, Schultz received his bachelor's degree in Communications in 1975.

After graduating, Schultz worked as a salesperson for Xerox Corporation and was quickly promoted to a full sales representative. In 1979 he became a general manager for Swedish drip coffee maker manufacturer, Hammarplast, where he became responsible for their U.S. operations with a staff of twenty. In 1981, Schultz visited a client of Hammarplast, a fledgling coffee-bean shop called Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, curious as to why it ordered so many plastic cone filters. He was impressed with the company's knowledge of coffee and kept in contact over the next year, expressing interest in working with them. A year later, he joined Starbucks as the Director of Marketing. On a buying trip to Milan, Italy for Starbucks, Schultz noted that coffee bars existed on practically every street. He learned that they not only served excellent espresso, they also served as meeting places or public squares; they were a big part of Italy's societal glue, and there were 200,000 of them in the country.

On his return, he tried to persuade the owners (including Jerry Baldwin) to offer traditional espresso beverages in addition to the whole bean coffee, leaf teas and spices they had long offered. After a successful pilot of the cafe concept, the owners refused to roll it out company-wide, saying they didn't want to get into the restaurant business. Frustrated, Schultz decided to leave Starbucks in 1985. He needed $400,000 to open the first store and start the business. He simply did not have the money and his wife was pregnant with their first baby. Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker offered to help. Schultz also received $100,000 from a doctor who was impressed by Schultz’s energy to “take a gamble”. By 1986, he raised all the money he needed to open the first store 'Il Giornale' after the Milanese newspaper. Two years later, the original Starbucks management decided to focus on Peet's Coffee & Tea and sold its Starbucks retail unit to Schultz and Il Giornale for $3.8 million.

Schultz renamed Il Giornale with the Starbucks name, and aggressively expanded its reach across the United States. Schultz's keen insight in real estate and his hard-line focus on growth drove him to expand the company rapidly. Schultz did not believe in franchising, and made a point of having Starbucks retain ownership of every domestic outlet.

On 26 June 1992, Starbucks had its initial public offering and trading of its common stock under the stock ticker NASDAQ-NMS: SBUX. The offering was done by Alex, Brown & Sons Inc. and Wertheim Schroder & Co. Inc.

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