P O Box # 1111
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
2 JULY 2013
Dear Syed,
How are you my friend? It has been some time since we last met. How was your trip to Europe? Hope you enjoyed your time there visiting many interesting places, you sure do seem enjoying your time visiting Paris, I can see it in your big smile of excitement taking picture infront of the famous Eifell tower. Thanks a bunch! for the pictures you send me in your last letter, even I get excited just looking through it.
I’am very sorry that I was too busy to reply your letter. It just that I’ve been very occupied for the last few weeks. It is because I have been busy getting myself ready going into college, buying things and settling all the form. It has been a week now that I studied in the college. Now I have more free time because I just finish my orientation at the college.
What a week it has been last week here in Malaysia, our fresh air had been polluted by clouds of smoke. Its very dangerous and harmful for people that have asthma as it make them harder to breath and can cause death. We had been advised by the Ministry of Health to stay indoor and to wear mask everytime we went out even for a short walk from the house to the car, because the particles in the haze is very tiny it can enter the lungs and can caused lung cancer.
I had done some research about the haze, it was caused by the fires in Sumatra Forest. The haze in Malaysia this year is worse than it was in 1997 and 2002, both years of major forest burning in Indonesia. The World Resources Institute has produced an analysis of where the fires are, based on NASA’s Active Fire Data and the Ministry of Forestry’s concession maps they found that most of the fires are in Riau province, and almost half are inside concessions for oil palm plantations or industrial tree plantations. According to the data, the largest number of fires are within concessions belonging to the Sinar Mas and Raja Garuda Mas groups.
It had