US Secretary of State's Award for International Women of Courage to Malaysia 's Ambiga Sreenevasan

Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama
12 Mar 2009, 0853 hrs IST

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and first lady Michelle Obama present give away Secretary of State's Award for International Women of Courage to Malaysia 's Ambiga Sreenevasan (Malaysian Bar Council) at the State Department in Washington , DC (AFP)

This is exactly one year old. I just read it from an email buried down in my inbox. Yes, I haven't got time to clear my inbox for a while.

Apparently it didn't made it as a big news in Malaysia (those who were in Malaysia this time last year can tell me if you knew this). So I think we should all be proud.

Here's the transcript of the event - transcript of remarks by Clinton and Ambiga Sreenevasan

Ambiga's speech is towards the end.

May 13 on a positive note

Yesterday is May 13, a date that has been stabbed into Malaysia history 40 years ago and demonised by politicians over and over.

However, I found this refreshing school of thoughts by zubedy to have a positive note on May 13.

I’d like to recolor May 13th. I would like to breathe new spirit into the date, to dilute and eventually erase the negative aspects and memories and replace them with positive meanings and values. I want our future generation to see this date with kind and loving recollections. We can always change things, if we so willed it.

The article is well written and touches my heart. I think every Malaysian should read it, maybe the book too.
A book to unite Malaysians

His company zubedy.com looks very interesting too.

Earth from above

I went to watch the earth from above exhibition in Perth last Saturday. It's a photography exhibition of aerial photos of some interesting places on earth -- to provoke thinking about over-consumption and sustainable living. Awesome photos with awesome message! The only down side is that it's outdoor under the beautiful summer sun! There are some shaded area where I enjoyed most of the photos and caption readings.

Go and see it if you haven't, it's at the cultural precinct (just north of the Wellington train station). It's open till 7pm daily till 12th this month. Last 8 days.

There's also a Google earth version.

Since 1950, economic growth has been considerable, and world production of goods and services has multiplied by a factor of 8. During this same period, while the world's population has doubled, the volume of fish caught has multiplied by 5 and the volume of meat produced by 6. Energy demand has multiplied by 5. Oil consumption has multiplied by 7, and carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of the greenhouse effect and global warming, by 5. Since 1900, fresh water consumption has multiplied by 6, chiefly to provide for agriculture.

And yet, 20% of the world's population does not have drinkable water, 40% have no sanitary installations, 25% is without electricity, and 820 million people are underfed with half of humanity living on less than A$3 a day.

In other words, a fifth of the world's population lives in industrialized countries, consuming and producing in excess and generating massive pollution. The remaining four-fifths live in developing countries and, for the most part, in poverty.

From: earthfromabove.com.au

A More Perfect Union

I didn't really follow much of American presidential campaign and didn't know much of Barack Obama. Today I took a 2 seconds interests in him and looked up Barack Obama in wikipedia and came across his famous speech of A More Perfect Union.

Obama was responding to a spike in the attention paid to controversial remarks made by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and, until shortly before the speech, a participant in his campaign. Obama situated his response in terms of the broader issue of race in the United States. The speech's title was taken from the Preamble to the United States Constitution.

Obama addressed the subjects of racial tensions, white privilege, and race and inequality in the United States, discussing black "anger," white "resentment," and other issues as he sought to explain and contextualize Wright's controversial comments. His speech closed with a plea to move beyond America's "racial stalemate" and address shared social problems.

The address was given on March 18, ten days after Malaysians non-racial coalition gained a great leap in political support against the racial coalition in the general election. The whole Malaysia, including myself in Perth, was in surprise, shock and excitement about a new dawn in the political landscape.

I find the speech a great lecture on racial relation in the Malaysian context also. Although the situation between the white and the black in US is different from the Malays and non-Malays in Malaysia, there are much similarity that Malaysians can learn from the speech to forge a better union too.


Read the transcript here.

Donations for China and Burma disasters

Donations for the Quake Relief in Sichuan, China:

Account Name: Embassy of The People's Republic of China in Australia
Earthquake Relief Fund
Account No. BSB:352-000 A/C: 126512
Bank Name: Bank of China, Sydney Branch.
***Telephone No. of the Embassy: 0414880919; 0408784630;0414793168

More information and other method of donation see the China ambassy website: English version | Chinese version


Donation for he Burma cyclone:

I chose Avaaz as my channel, as they claim that the money go straight to the International Burmese Monks Organization, which will transmit funds directly to monasteries in affected areas.
Burma cyclone site on Avaaz.com

Randy Pausch reprising his "Last Lecture"

There's a 76mins full version on his CMU website - CMU website with a full transcript.

Michael Backman on Malaysia General Election 08

Michael Backman - Malaysia needs a strong Opposition

Rudd's 'sorry' address

It's 10 days old, but I just read it via Nick's blog.

On the same day, Malaysia parliament was dissolved to prepare for the 12th General Election. The inter-racial misunderstanding and stereotype in Malaysia is still very strong and the BN government keeps on squeezing on old wounds and conniving new destructive behaviours for their political survival. When will the parliament of Malaysia be mature enough to one day produce something like this, to lead the people into new era of renewed hope and inspiration.

PM Rudd's 'sorry' address
February 13, 2008 - 4:08PM

I move:

That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

...

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.

Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time.

....

One of the most notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated: ''Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes'' - to quote the protector - ''will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white''.

The Western Australian Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference on indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives.

These are uncomfortable things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing.

...

There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation - and that value is a fair go for all.

There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all.

There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.

It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology - because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.

We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves.

As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well.

Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia's history.

In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate.

In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul.

This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth - facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it.

Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people.

It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry.

On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry.

On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry.

I offer you this apology without qualification.

...

Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that.

Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing.
I ask those non-indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you.

I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive.

My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia.

And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.
Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot.

For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history.
Today's apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs.
It is also aimed at building a bridge between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt.

Our challenge for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives.

But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation,
to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between indigenous and non-indigenous in overall life expectancy.

The truth is: a business as usual approach towards indigenous Australians is not working.

Most old approaches are not working.

We need a new beginning, a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible,
tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly-agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation.

However, unless we as a Parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose; we have no centralised organising principle.

Let us resolve today to begin with the little children, a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations.

...

None of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard, very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles of this new partnership on closing the gap.

The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on indigenous policy and politics is now very simple.

...

Mr Speaker, today the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched.

So let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection.

Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest
level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.

It is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet.

Growing from this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future.

Let us turn this page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this new chapter in our nation's story together.

First Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House.

AAP

Read the full text on The Age.

Is democracy really the best type of governance for South East Asia

Al Jazeera’s People & Power program

Is democracy really the best type of governance for South East Asia? People & Power investigate in a compelling discussion with four prominent Asians.

The Miniature Earth

If the world's population were reduced to 100, it would look something like this.

You and me are really really fortunate.

Golden Rules for Career Success

I got this from my brother.

Golden Rules for Career Success - Richard Moran

Working as a business consultant all over the world, I have discovered some basic career-related rules that everyone should know—but many don’t.

• Business is made up of ambiguous victories and nebulous defeats. Claim them all as victories.
• Keep track of what you do; someone is sure to ask.
• Be comfortable around senior managers, or learn to fake it.
• Never bring your boss a problem without some solution. You are getting paid to think, not to whine.
• Long hours don’t mean anything; results count, not effort.
• Write down ideas; they get lost, like good pens.
• Always arrive at work 30 minutes before your boss.
• Help other people network for jobs. You never know when your turn will come.
• Don’t take days off sick—unless you are.
• Assume no one can/will keep a secret.
• Know when you do your best—morning, night, under pressure, relaxed; schedule and prioritize your work accordingly.
• Treat everyone who works in the organization with respect and dignity, whether it be the cleaner or the managing director. Don’t ever be patronizing.
• Never appear stressed in front of a client, a customer or your boss. Take a deep breath and ask yourself: In the course of human events, how important is this?
• If you get the entrepreneurial urge, visit someone who has his own business. It may cure you.
• Acknowledging someone else’s contribution will repay you doubly.
• Career planning is an oxymoron. The most exciting opportunities tend to be unplanned.
• Always choose to do what you’ll remember ten years from now.
• The size of your office is not as important as the size of your pay cheque.
• Understand what finished work looks like and deliver your work only when it is finished.
• The person who spends all of his or her time is not hard-working; he or she is boring.
• Know how to write business letters—including thank-you notes as well as proposals.
• Never confuse a memo with reality. Most memos from the top are political fantasy.
• Eliminate guilt. Don’t fiddle expenses, taxes or benefits, and don’t cheat colleagues.
• Reorganizations mean that someone will lose his or her job. Get on the committee that will make the recommendations.
• Job security does not exist.
• Always have an answer to the question, “What would I do if I lost my job tomorrow?”
• Go to the company Christmas party.
• Don’t get drunk at the company Christmas party.
• Avoid working at weekends. Work longer during the week if you have to.
• The most successful people in business are interesting.
• Sometimes you’ll be on a winning streak and everything will click; take maximum advantage. When the opposite is true, hold steady and wait it out.
• Never in your life say, “It’s not my job.”
• Be loyal to your career, your interests and yourself.
• Understand the skills and abilities that set you apart.
• Use them whenever you have an opportunity.
• People remember the end of the project. As they say in boxing, “Always finish stronger than you start.”

Transforming the Mind, Yunus-style

Transforming the Mind, Yunus-style by Marina Mahathir.

There I listened to Dr Jonathan Mann articulate a very new concept to me, that a person's health is directly related to the human rights he or she is able to enjoy.

What underlies Prof Yunus' motivation is something extraordinary in these cynical times: he has total faith in the human spirit.In believing that every human being is at heart an entrepreneur and has skills that are under-utilised, Prof Yunus revolutionized the way we look at the poor. No longer are they to be looked down as incapable, unreliable, too ill-educated to better themselves. They are human beings who happened to be born in difficult circumstances which are no fault of theirs. As Prof Yunus likes to remind people, "Poverty is not the fault of the poor".

Stop the clash of civilizations

Avaaz.org

Stupid thesis will be defeated

Stupid thesis will be defeated
Have your speaker on.

Thanks Danno, I'm inspired.

Tear in my eyes

Dearest to my heart, the people that I love,
I'll take some time now, I pause, and I make a choice,
about what my life is really for.

Prepare tissues.


(Nick, thought of you because of these videos)

My David Suzuki's videos posted on Youtube.

I was going through some photos last year and watch this video of David Suzuki that I tool with my Canon PS S3IS. It's so inspiring even after half a year. So i decided I should share it with the world.

David Suzuki on World Scientists' Warning to Humanity (1992)


David Suzuki on Kyoto Protocol

Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets

I read this from MM's Rantings. I thought it's worth re-posting it on mine.

Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 30, 2007

DAVOS, Switzerland

The World Economic Forum here in Davos is the kind of place where if you let yourself get distracted while walking by a European prime minister on your left, you could end up tripping over a famous gazillionaire — and then spilling your coffee onto the king on your right. But perhaps the most remarkable people to attend aren’t the world leaders or other bigwigs.

Rather, they are the social entrepreneurs. Davos, which has always been uncanny in peeking just ahead of the curve to reflect the zeitgeist of the moment, swarmed with them.

So what’s a social entrepreneur? Let me give a few examples among those at the forum in Davos.

• In Africa, where children die of diarrhea from bad sanitation, Isaac Durojaiye runs a franchise system for public toilets. He supplies mobile toilets to slum areas, where unemployed young people charge a small fee for their use. The operators keep 60 percent of the income and pass the rest back to Mr. Durojaiye’s company, Dignified Mobile Toilets, which uses the money to buy new toilets.

• Nic Frances runs a group that aims to cut carbon emissions in 70 percent of Australian households over 10 years. His group, Easy Being Green, gives out low-energy light bulbs and low-flow shower heads — after the household signs over the rights to the carbon emissions the equipment will save. The group then sells those carbon credits to industry to finance its activities, and it is now aiming to expand globally.

• In the U.S., Gillian Caldwell and her group, Witness, train people around the world to use video cameras to document human rights abuses. The resulting videos have drawn public attention to issues like child soldiers and the treatment of the mentally ill. Now Ms. Caldwell aims to create a sort of YouTube for human rights video clips.

Social entrepreneurs like Ms. Caldwell resemble traditional do-gooders in their yearning to make the world a better place, but sound like chief executives when they talk about metrics to assess cost-effectiveness. Many also generate income to finance expansion.

“We’re totally self-sustaining,” said Mirai Chatterjee, a dynamo who is coordinator of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India. “From Day 1 our idea was to run a strong economic organization.” Ms. Chatterjee’s organization now has nearly 1 million members, owns a bank, runs 100 day care centers, trains midwives and provides health insurance for 200,000 women. It is empowering women and fighting poverty across a growing swath of rural India, and its down-to-earth approach is characteristic of social entrepreneurs.

“Politics is failing to solve all the big issues,” said Jim Wallis, who wrote “God’s Politics” and runs Sojourners, which pushes social justice issues. “So when that happens, social movements rise up.”

Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, demonstrated with Grameen Bank the power of microfinancing. His bank has helped raise incomes, secure property rights for women, lower population growth and raise education standards across Bangladesh — and now the success is rippling around the globe.

One of those inspired by Mr. Yunus, for example, was Roshaneh Zafar, a young Pakistani economist. She quit her job and started Kashf, a microfinance institution that now gives hundreds of thousands of Pakistani women a route out of poverty.

Ms. Zafar also received help from Ashoka, a hugely influential organization for social entrepreneurs started by an American, Bill Drayton (who describes social entrepreneurs as “the most important historical force at work today”). Ashoka is one of a growing number of donor groups that offer the equivalent of venture capital for social entrepreneurs.

“The key with social entrepreneurs is their pragmatic approach,” said Pamela Hartigan of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which is affiliated with the World Economic Forum. “They’re not out there with protest banners; they’re actually developing concrete solutions.”

When I travel around the world, I’m blown away by how these people are transforming lives. A growing number of the best and brightest university graduates in the U.S. and abroad are moving into this area (many clutching the book “How to Change the World,” a bible in the field).

It’s one of the most hopeful and helpful trends around. These folks aren’t famous, and they didn’t fly to Davos in first-class cabins or private jets, but they are showing that what it really takes to change the world isn’t so much wealth or power as creativity, determination and passion.

Drought appeal - Shop at woolworth today

Woolworth is donating its entire day's profits today to Australian farming families in need.

Support for Drought Relief at Woolworth

Shop at woolworth on 23 Jan to donate for drought

Woolworth is donating its entire day's profits on 23 Jan 2007 to Australian farming families in need.

Support for Drought Relief at Woolworth

Have we set our food priorities right?

A very good article on Malaysiakini on 29/12 last year by Nick Josh K Karean.

Think about this. They are 20 billion ‘slaughter animals’ on our planet. What do they eat? Forty percent of the world’s grain harvesting lands is for the factory farms of industrial nations. Thus, in order to ‘produce’ one kilo of beef, you need nine kilos of grain.

If the massive quantities of grain, soybeans, corn, peanuts etc. that are now fed to farm animals like cows, chickens, pigs and so on were freed up, there would be plenty of food for the entire world’s starving people.

The production of one kilo of beef generates approximately 15 kilos of liquid manure. The nitrate contained in it pollutes the groundwater. The ammonia fumes from manure and slurry is a major contributor to the development of acid rain and dying forests.

Fifty percent of the entire consumption of drinking water is accounted for by factory farming. For the production of one kilo of meat, 100 times more water is used on the average than for the production of one kilo of grain or vegetables.

My question now is, have we really set our food priorities right? Or do we rather take the easy way out by selfishly blinding ourselves from the truth?

Read the full article here.

That's why I choose a vegetarian diet, apart from health concern.