Category: Blogging

Most interior designers out there will be in on one of the greatest design tricks of all time. They can use this when they have a picky client, when they have not met face-to-face with a a client and are unsure of what they want, or if they need something for a quick fix. This can be used to tie almost any theme together and can be suited to any gender e.g. male, female, or neutral.

This design trick is simply filling a space with leather lounges. In Sydney leather lounges are commonly used because of their versatility and endurance. It is very hard to damage this kind of furniture and they tend to last for many years. This makes them the perfect investment to style any type of room.

They can be used in an office, in a basement, in a games room, or even in a motel room. They can suit a lounge room, a bedroom, a garage, and can be a great addition to any waiting area. What is also so great about choosing leather lounges is that they never go out of style. They have been in fashion for hundreds of years now and they don’t seem to be going anywhere. For all of these reasons as well as many more, leather lounges can be used to style any type of room.

They are a great option for young and old

There are many older people out there who love the nostalgic feel of leather lounges. They can remember a time when it was fashionable to have a bar in the lounge room and everyone sat around listening to great music and smoked cigars. While smoking has gone out of fashion, these types of couches certainly have not. But because of this nostalgic feeling that they can elicit, they make a great option for styling an older person’s home or room. Furthermore, for those who have a mix of ages living with them, they also make a great option for kids as well. This is because they are so easy to clean. Unlike fabric, they are harder for kids to draw on and they can simply be wiped down with a cloth or wet wipe when something is spilled. Different colours and shades can be purchased to make any kids area look fantastic and once again, they are able to withstand the trials that kids can put any couch through.

Leather lounges are timeless and stylish

This type of furniture wouldn’t still be in fashion today if they weren’t stylish. They can be purchased in pairs or in the form of sofas or recliners. Corner options can be purchased for large rooms to create a grand feeling, or smaller options can be chosen for office spaces. While common colours are brown or black, they can also be purchased in grey, in white, or something else entirely. This is why so many designers love this option because there is so much versatility which allows them to play and ensure that any space has that timeless and stylish look. Furthermore, when they are paired with the right accessories they don’t look clinical either. Almost everyone has a loved one that they remember when they look at leather lounges, which is exactly the type of feelings that designers want to embrace. All in all, there are many different reasons why it can be a good idea to opt for leather lounges. Not only are they timeless and stylish but they are able to be used to style any type of room.

Earlier this month, police were called to a local bar in Hangzhou, China after bar workers found a suspicious package left behind in the premises. On opening the package, police found a figure of 2 million Yuan, around $418,000 dollars, a figure enough to buy a house in Hangzhou.

Managing to track down the owner, the man was called into the station and according to local police had arranged to meet his ex-girlfriend in the bar. The suitcase filled with money was a “break-up” fee, an emerging trend in China in the past few decades.

Not much is known about the man and his girlfriend, except that they were both in their 20’s and he worked in I.T. Having broken up, the woman had demanded a fee and they arranged to meet to make the payment. However, things took a turn for the worse, when the woman found out how much was in the briefcase, claiming this not to be enough to cover her heartbreak.

She got up and left in disgust soon after, not realising that her former partner had already left, leaving the suitcase unattended. On being contacted by the police, both parties came to the station to collect the suitcase. The police warned him not to be so careless in future with such a large sum of money to which he reportedly asked, “Is 2 million yuan a big sum?”.

The new trend, which isn’t widespread but growing, is said to come on the back of the huge economic growth in the past two decades. In 2016, China had the highest number of new billionaires, sitting at 90% worldwide. With this cash and historic inequality in Chinese culture, “break-up fees” have become more popular.

There have been numerous cases which have made it into the media spotlight with an infamous story involving a couple who both had a husband and wife. When they broke up, the woman refused to pay a break-up fee, which the man disagreed with and attacked her family with acid.

While the fees are usually paid for by men, it has been known for women to pay the fee, as the man will usually pay for meals and gifts throughout the relationship.

The World Health Organisation has confirmed that a third case of Ebola has been found in the Democratic Republic of Congo increasing fears that there could be another outbreak mirroring that of 2014, which killed 11,000 people mostly in west Africa. In the DRC, this is the ninth outbreak of the deadly disease, which is named after the country’s Ebola River.

The latest confirmed case was in Mdandaka, the provincial capital of DRC, with a population of 1.2 million people. This north-western city is a transport hub along the Congo river and there are fears that the disease may spread quickly to surrounding areas as well as the capital of Kinshasa.

WHO had previously admitted they were too slow to react to react to the outbreak in 2014 have stressed that at the moment, there are no restrictions on trade or travel internationally. However, officials are using infrared technology to scan passengers at river ports for fevers.

The 2014 outbreak which last two years, was traced to a one year old who died in December 2013, in the west African nation of Guinea. The disease spread quickly to Liberia and Sierra Leone, becoming the largest outbreak of Ebola ever documented and the first in the region.

Ebola is said to spread over long distances by fruit bats and can be transmitted to humans eating contaminated bush meat such as monkeys, chimpanzees, or antelopes or by those who come in contact with blood, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals.

The virus itself causes severe bleeding, organ failure and can lead to death. Initially, sufferers can experience fever, headache, muscle pain and chills. While internal bleeding can develop resulting in vomiting or coughing blood.

Anyone with these symptoms requires a quick medical diagnosis involving lab tests or imaging. Medical professionals wear full body suits to prevent any spread of the disease, while patients are kept in isolation.

At a count, 500 people are thought to have come in contact with the most recent Ebola patients. Vaccines have been tried and tested but only recently has one been developed that can be used on humans. 4,000 doses of an experimental vaccine, sent by the WHO, has landed in Kinshasa and hopes to stop initial spreading of the disease and any repeat of 2014.

Having voted in favour of gay marriage in the year 2015, Irish citizens are once more going to the polls this year to vote on the 8^th Amendment, which recognises the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn child. Abortion had been illegal in Ireland and subject to criminal penalty since 1861, however this amendment ensured that abortion would legal in the circumstances whereby the life of the pregnant woman was at risk. It was approved by referendum and signed into law in 1983.

In 1992, following case X, whereby a pregnant 14-year old rape victim’s case was brought before the Supreme Court in order to decide whether she could have an abortion as she was suicidal, the Irish public once more went to the polls. The electorate supported two out of the three proposals, they rejected the proposal that would exclude suicide as grounds for abortion and endorsed changes to ensure that a woman had a right to travel to a different country for an abortion and the freedom to access information about abortion from other countries.

Running up the 2016 general election, several parties committed to a referendum on the 8^th amendment after a campaign which gathered momentum after the death of Savita Halappanavar, who died during child birth, after doctors were conflicted on whether to save her or her unborn child.

Since 2016, several marches have taken place both for and against the issue, drawing crowds of up to 20,000 onto the streets. While, international human rights bodies have questioned Ireland’s opposition to abortion claiming that it violates a woman’s right to control over her own body.

In March 2018, debate began within the government on an amendment to the constitution and May 25^th was chosen as the date to hold it.

In what is most likely the last poll before election day, 56% of the electorate are in favour of repealing the 8^th, the No side sits at 27%, while 14% said they don’t know. In a technique used to correctly predict the outcome of the same-sex marriage referendum, the Sunday Business Post Poll also asked voters to predict the outcome of this one. This “wisdom of the crowds” technique predicted that 56% of the electorate would be in favour, while 44% would be against amending the constitution.

In a story, that will shock all commuters in the western world, a Japanese rail company has apologised after it’s train left the station 25 seconds before departure, the second case like this in the past few months.

Scheduled to leave at 7.12 am, the train pulled out of the station 25 seconds before the change of minute, leaving passengers to miss their train.

The official explanation given by the train company? The conductor had thought departure was a minute earlier and closed the doors. On quickly realising his mistake, he looked at the empty platform and pulled away from the Notogawa Station, according to reports in Japan Today.

On missing the train, commuters complained to the rail operator and an apology was issued, stating the “great inconvenience we placed upon our customers was truly inexcusable”.

In November 2018, a similar story broke where a train left 20 seconds early. Scheduled to leave at 9:44:40, the train pulled out of Minami Nagareyama Station, which is just north of Tokyo, at 9:44:20. The train company explained the staff had not correctly checked the timetabling.

Japanese train companies have built a reputation for on time travel and delays and changes to timetables are very rare. The country’s Tokaido line, running from Tokyo to the city of Kobe, is the world’s busiest and carries up to 150 million passengers a year.

The Japanese railway, is operated by the Japanese Railways Group, which consists of seven companies that took over the government owned railway system in 1987. Since then they have introduced, 6 different “companies” to operate systems in different parts of the country. Passengers are able to travel across several different JR companies without purchasing separate tickets or changing trains which can work across all different companies

However, the Japanese obsession with punctuality has ended in tragedy once before, in the year 2005. A driver, realising he was 100 seconds late, sped up, derailing the train and costing over 100 people their lives. Just after rush hour on the 25^th of April 2005, the seven-car commuter train came off the rails in the Hyogo prefecture, close to the city of Osaka. Of the 700 passengers on board, 106 passengers lost their lives, including the driver, while 562 people were injured. It was the worst rail disaster in Japan since the 1963 Tsurumi tragedy, in which two trains collided, killing 162 people.

Malaysia, the South East Asian nation of 39 million people, has a new Prime Minister after six decades spent under the rule of the BN, or National Front Party. The victory which has sent a shockwave through the South East Asian country comes on the back of very public allegations of corruption against the outgoing PM, Najib Razak.

New premier and leader of the PH, or Alliance for Hope party, Mahathir Mohamad will be the oldest serving PM in the world at 92 years old. Having previously ruled the country for 22 years, he only recently stepped out of retirement to take part in this election.

The ousted, Najib, was embroiled in scandals, most notably with regards to wealth fund 1MDB, which the ex-PM set up and oversaw, but who is alleged to have looted to the tune of billions of dollars. His government has also weakened the role of public institutions as well as barring opposition MP’s from re-contesting their parliamentary seats due to previous political offences, including whistleblowing on a government financial scandal and insulting a police officer.

Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy PM and Finance Minister, and political opponent of Najib, had found himself under investigation for sodomy and was convicted and Imprisoned in 2015. Amnesty International claimed his incarceration was politically motivated. Since the election results, he has been given a royal pardon from Sultan Muhammad V and was released from prison on May 16. He has since released a statement saying that the outgoing PM had asked him on 2 separate occasions for advice on defeat in the election. Ibrahim urged him to accept defeat in public and said that no offer was made to form a joint government by either party.

The ruling party’s regime’s disregard for the rule of law, democracy and constitutional rights was revealed as election day approached. Hoping to avoid defeat and drive down voter turnout, the election was scheduled for midweek, instead of the usual weekend date, in the hope that workers would not be able to travel back to their constituency in time to vote. Ballots for overseas were also sent out late so that there wouldn’t be enough time to return them before votes were counted.

Despite this, on winning election Mahathir has stated that he is not out for revenge on the outgoing PM but rather “to restore the rule of law” to the country.

The Pope, the descendant of St. Peter and head of the Roman Catholic church, has released a document outlining advise for nuns covering a range of topics including their use of Twitter and other social media.

In a document released by the Vatican, Pope Francis, the Bishop of Rome, has advised nuns that they need to spend less time interacting with their social media accounts and more on praying and spreading the word of God

The document, entitled “Cor Orans”, Latin for “praying heart”, offers instructions on how to apply principles published in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Constitution, published in 2016. While the Vatican are prolific users of social media, they have appealed to nuns to not let it become a time-wasting task.

Nuns were told that discretion should apply to the “quantity of the information and the type of communication” as well as to the actual content of the media. In a high-profile case of nuns using social media, a group from Pamplona took to Facebook to defend a girl who had been raped by a gang of youths. The men were handed down a lenient sentence in the opinion of the nuns, and many others, who defended the victims right to choose, as they had chosen to live in a monastery and “to FREELY do the opposite without being judged, raped, intimidated or humiliated for it”.

It is thought the Vatican wish to limit any chance of social media controversy and have released the latest guidelines in effort to do so.

In a press conference, detailing the news, Spanish Archbishop José Rodriguez Carballo, also touched on the autonomy of female monasteries, stating that “The Holy See is the only one that can erect a monastery, and the Holy See is the only one that can suppress it”.

With over 37,000 contemplative nuns throughout the world, the “Cor Orans” document aims to help monasteries achieve self-sufficiency in all of its functions including governmental, formative, relational and vocational. If any monastery can’t satisfy some of these conditions, it can be placed under inspection from the Vatican.

Carballo added the main goal of the document is unite “a desire for renovation with the protection and safeguarding of the pillars of contemplative life.”