Help to fight hunger by playing quiz in FreeRice.com

FreeRice is an innovative brainchild of a programmer John Breed launched in 2007. It is a website where you can answer a series of multiple-choice quiz questions, and if you answer correctly, the site's sponsors will donate 10 grain of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

FreeRice has two goals, which are made possible by the generosity of the sponsors who advertise on the website:

1. Provide education to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

The default quiz is about English vocabulary, and you can take the quiz of different subjects covering art, chemistry, English, geography, language learning, math, etc.

John has won the Harvard University's Berkman Award in 2008 for creating the FreeRice.com website. In March 2009, John has already donated the site to the UN World Food Program. The website is also a winner of Yahoo! Finds of the Year 2007 (Charity Category).

This is not a scam. You can really take the quiz and feed the hungry with FreeRice.com. By 13 April 2009, 62,751,284,800 grains of rice already donated in this interesting way.

Here are some examples of where FreeRice rice has been distributed:

• In Bangladesh, to feed 27,000 refugees from Myanmar for two weeks.
• In Cambodia, to provide take-home rations of four kilograms of rice for two months to 13,500 pregnant and nursing women.
• In Uganda, to feed 66,000 school children for a week.
• In Nepal, to feed over 108,000 Bhutanese refugees for three days.
• In Bhutan, to feed 41,000 children for 8 days.
• In Myanmar, to feed 750,000 cyclone affected people for 3 days.

Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat 2009 with 5% annual return

Have you heard about Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat (SSR) or seen its advertisement in mass media recently?

Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat (SSR) 2009 is an RM5 billions national Islamic savings bond issued by government of Malaysia and offerred to Malaysian citizens aged 21 or above. It is part of the Malaysian RM60 billions economic stimulus package announced in March 2009.

Bank Negara will issue the SSR in 2 phases. The issuance of SSR 01/2009 amounting to RM2.5 billion is on 14 May 2009 and will be offered to the public from 14 April to 13 May 2009 on a first-come-first-served basis and subjected to terms and conditions specified.

This SSR 01/2009 will have a maturity of 3 years, with profit rate of 5% per annum. The tax exempted return is paid quarterly (amounting to about 1.25% each payment). Minimum holding per person is RM1k and maximum holding is RM50k. It is is non-negotiable, non-transferable and non-assignable. This mean that this bond cannot be traded in any way.

During the sales period, the SSR 01/2009 can be subscribed at all agent banks, i.e. commercial banks, including Islamic banks, Bank Kerjasama Rakyat Malaysia Berhad, Bank Simpanan Nasional and Bank Pertanian Malaysia Berhad.

Click here for more information about Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat (SSR) 2009.

CIMB Petronas Mastercard offers 5% rebate every 1st day of the month

CIMB Petronas Mastercard is a credit card that is free for life (no annual fee) and provides 2% rebate on spendings at Petronas service stations, 0.5% rebate on other retail transactions. Beside that, card holder can enjoy special discounts and privileges when using it to make payment in more than 500 outlets nationwide.

Now, on top of that, this credit card will also provide 5% rebate on spendings at Petronas service stations made in the 1st day of every month, until October 2009.

However, this rebate is capped to a maximum spending of RM200 or rebate of RM10 on every 1st day of the month, and subjected to a maximum spending of RM2,500 at Petronas service stations or rebate of RM50 per card per month.

This doesn't look as attractive as their previous campaign which provided 3% rebate (everyday) for spending in Petronas service stations, which has already ended on 17 November 2008. Yet, it is better than none.