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Less than 3 weeks and Christmas 2009 begins...

I just wanted to write about some true facts about Christmas... mainly about the iconic figure: Santa Claus.

Historial Similarities
Santa Claus is said to exist; resembling the Bishop, Saint Nicholas (Nicholas of Myra/Turkey) who is known to the people of his time as a patron Saint of giving... so based on this fact, he does not give only toys to children. A well known story of his legendary deeds was that he was said to give dowries to help three poor daughters belonging to a very poor but devoted Christian family so they would get married legitimately without ending up becoming prostitutes (selling girls for money leading to underaged prostitution is practised even to this day in various parts of the middle east, India and Asia)

Saintly Cause
St. Nicholas is a saint often prayed to, for the protection of certain countries (Russian and Greek), children, sailors, prisoners, bakers, pawnbrokers, shopkeepers and animal creatures (mainly wolves).

Manner of Dressing
The only reason why Santa Claus looks the way we see him now - is because his appearance is a combination of old traditions and religions: Christian, Pagan, Old Catholic, Scandinavian, Dutch, German and English.

This is somewhat old news actually... but is one worth mentioning anyway...

AirAsia begins long haul flight routes direct to London from Kuala Lumpur under their affiliate company that's in charge of long haul flights, AirAsiaX (AAX) starting March 2009. Bookings for the new flight path have opened for sale since November 25th and according to the website's official press release, standard ticket prices are within the average amounts of £500-£600 / RM2,500-RM3,500...

You got to be wondering if this is another another petrol hike rise queue...

... well actually it isn't...

Penampang Servay Hypermart, one of the first established Hypermart in the Western Coast of Sabah - is on fire...

Petrol price hikes in Malaysia has been implemented today (5th June); within days of the government announcing the increase of prices in gasoline and diesel that was supposed to be implemented in August!

Rumors of the price hike had started after noontime, and was officially announced through television and radio throughout the nation sometime past lunch. The hike results to an approximate of 41% increase, resulting in petrol officially priced at 2.70/litre (increase of 0.78 compared to yesterday's 1.90) and diesel, 2.50/litre (increase of 1.00 and was previously 1.50)... the price is believed to rise again from 3.0-4.0 reaching August this year...