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Marchisio gives Juventus extra-time Cup win Posted: 08 Dec 2011 03:28 PM PST TURIN, Dec 9 — Claudio Marchisio struck in extra-time as Juventus shrugged off Bologna 2-1 in an Italian Cup last 16 match yesterday that only burst to life in the closing stages. Former giants Juve are top of Serie A after two years of woe and although their Cup showing was not quite as fluent as recent displays, boss Antonio Conte will be glad they kept up their winning ways. After a goalless 89 minutes, Emanuele Giaccherini scored for a much-changed Juve at the end of normal time but Andrea Raggi netted for the visitors six minutes into stoppage time to dramatically force the game into an extra 30 minutes. Italy midfielder Marchisio had the last laugh. It was Juve's first match this term in the much-maligned competition and they progress to the quarter-finals. The rest of the last 16 fixtures take place later this month and in January when holders Inter Milan host Genoa. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Dublin included on London 2012 torch route Posted: 08 Dec 2011 06:59 AM PST Children watch the Saint Patrick's Day parade along Dublin's city centre in this file photo of March 17, 2007. Dublin will be on the torch relay route for next year's London Olympics. – Reuters pic LAUSANNE, Dec 8 – Dublin will be on the torch relay route for next year's London Olympics with the Irish capital hosting the flame on June 6, the International Olympic Committee and organisers LOCOG said today. "It's going to be a one-day event," Gilbert Felli, Executive Director of the Olympic Games, told reporters. "It is why it took a bit of time (to finalise). We always pop into the neighbouring countries. Knowing the sensibility of the issue here we wanted to make sure the government was in the loop." Organisers LOCOG said the flame would arrive in Dublin in the morning of June 6 and be carried through the city before a mid-morning celebration at a central location. "I am delighted that the Olympic Flame will travel across the border into the Republic next year," said Irish Sports and Tourism Minister Michael Ring in a statement. "This historic occasion recognises the friendship, peace and cooperation that now exists on the island of Ireland and demonstrates the unifying power of sport. "A number of international teams have already chosen Dublin as a training base before the London Games. The visit of the Olympic Flame next year will be a wonderful opportunity for the whole of Ireland to be even more closely involved with the 2012 London Olympic Games and for Irish people to be part of the biggest sporting event in the world," added Ring. The 70-day torch relay will travel some 12,800km around Britain, taking in 1,018 villages and the 1,085-metre summit of Snowdon, before culminating with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron on July 27. The relay will also take in landmarks around Britain with the flame travelling at times by canal boat, cable car, tram, steam train, hot air balloon and even motorcycle sidecar on the Isle of Man TT course. More than 95 per cent of the population will be within an hour of the route. London has chosen a lower profile relay than the protest-marred international route to Beijing in 2008, which included the problematic ascent of Everest. Organisers made the first conditional offers today to some of the 8,000 torch bearers who will take part in the relay. Some 90 per cent of the places were made available to people nominated through public campaigns run by LOCOG and sponsor partners while the remainder are by invitation. – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Guns N’ Roses, Chili Peppers inducted in Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Posted: 08 Dec 2011 05:48 AM PST US singer Anthony Kiedis (R) and US drummer Chad Smith perform with Red Hot Chili Peppers during a concert in Cologne, western Germany, on August 30, 2011. – AFP pic LOS ANGELES, Dec 8 – The inductees in 2012's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will be Guns N' Roses, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Laura Nyro, Donovan, and the Small Faces, it was announced on December 7. Representing two different eras, the LA-based rockers GNR and the Chili Peppers join New York-based rap act Beastie Boys from the 1980s-90s. Singer-songwriters Donovan ("Mellow Yellow," "Sunshine Superman") and the late Laura Nyro ("Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoned Soul Picnic"), plus the British pop-rock group also known as The Faces ("Itchycoo Park") hail from the 1960s-70s. Both singer Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones' guitarist Ron Wood, who were members of The Faces (known earlier as The Small Faces), were previously inducted. Also, special honours go to blues musician Freddie King for his early influence, while producers Tom Dowd (Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding) and Glyn Johns (Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin) will be inducted as non-performers. These musicians were voted in from a longer list that included The Cure, Heart, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Donna Summer, the Spinners and War. The 27th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, which is open to the public, is scheduled for April 14 in Cleveland. A telecast of the event will air on HBO in May. – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Underworld to mastermind London Olympics’ opening ceremony music Posted: 08 Dec 2011 03:27 AM PST Underworld singer Karl Hyde. Underworld – Karl Hyde and keyboard player Rick Smith – will team up again with Danny Boyle for the London 2012 opening ceremony. – AFP pic LONDON, Dec 8 – Dance act Underworld has been chosen to produce all the music for the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, Games organisers announced yesterday. The duo – vocalist Karl Hyde and keyboard player Rick Smith – will team up again with Oscar-winning film director Danny Boyle, who is the showpiece ceremony's artistic director. Underworld's hit "Born Slippy" featured in Boyle's 1996 cult film "Trainspotting" about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh. They also provided music for Boyle's films "The Beach" (2000), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and "A Life Less Ordinary" (1997). Electronic group Underworld will mastermind all the music in the three-hour ceremony on July 27 in the 80,000-seater Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London. "We want to leave people with a musical memory of the show rather than a purely visual one," Hyde said. "It's a great honour to be asked to do this and one we're taking very seriously." Boyle added: "Appointing Underworld to direct the music in the Olympic opening ceremony is the final piece of the jigsaw for the team of leading British creatives who will deliver the ceremonies. "What's interesting about working with them is how much broader their taste is than you might imagine." Around 20,000 performers are set to take part in the four events, which are expected to net billions in advertising revenue. British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday agreed to double the budget for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies after he was shown the initial plans. Organisers will now have £81 million (RM396.05 million) to spend on the opening and closing ceremonies, which are expected to be watched by a combined total of four billion global television viewers. "We decided to go in at the higher figure for the benefit of the country," explained Sports Minister Hugh Robertson. "We hope it's an impression that people will say 'we want to come back here, do business and spend tourism money'," he added. The Games' security budget has also doubled, a government report out Monday showed, with plans to recruit almost 14,000 extra personnel. – AFP Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Don Giovanni meets austere Italy at La Scala opening Posted: 08 Dec 2011 06:35 AM PST MILAN, Dec 8 — Don Giovanni, opera's notorious libertine, opened the season at Milan's La Scala yesterday to an 11-minute ovation from an audience that also had a warm greeting for the president, under whom Italy faces its most austere era for decades. Outside, hundreds of angry demonstrators packed the cordoned-off square, waving banners and jeering the wealthy, powerful and famous arriving to see Mozart's tale of arrogance, seduction and — usually but not last night — retribution. Carabinieri policemen stand in front of La Scala opera house in Milan December 7, 2011. — Reuters pic In the flower-decked hallways of the opera house, applause greeted President Giorgio Napolitano, mastermind of a political upheaval that had the scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi replaced by the respected technocrat Mario Monti as prime minister. "This is my first 'first night' at a very unexpected moment of my life," said Corrado Passera, who quit as chief executive of the Italian bank Intesa SanPaolo to join Monti's cabinet of technocrats. As Monti and his wife stood for the national anthem, protesters outside voiced their anger over the swingeing cuts to the arts and other areas of the economy in the €30 billion (RM125.6 billion) austerity package Monti's government announced this week. Under a fluttering banner reading: "WE WILL NOT PAY FOR YOUR CRISIS", a woman who gave her name as Antonietta said people had been shocked by the sudden change in the country's fortunes. "Only a month ago we could not imagine having a new government and being so close to losing our jobs," she said. European leaders are meeting this week to find a way out of a debt crisis that has engulfed Greece and forced Berlusconi to resign after 17 years at the helm of the euro zone's biggest debtor, with €1.9 trillion in outstanding bonds. Berlusconi, now facing trial on charges ranging from tax fraud to paying for sex with an under-aged prostitute, may have stepped down from high office. But La Scala is betting on its "Don Giovanni" with a shock ending to seduce an audience estimated at more than a million with a performance broadcast live on television and in cinemas across Europe, the United States and Russia. "Don Giovanni is the biggest opera ever created," director Robert Carsen told reporters this week. "He reminds us that we are responsible for our own desires. It's a mystery that nobody can explain, a game with no rules," he said. The audience at La Scala applauded the performance with enthusiasm, apart from a few whistles for Argentinian-born music director Daniel Barenboim. First performed in Prague in 1787 — with Giacomo Casanova in the audience — "Don Giovanni" is one of the world's most-performed operas. The Italian libretto centres on the charismatic libertine who meets his just deserts when he is dragged down to hell by the dead father of a girl he seduced. In this production, it is Don Giovanni who prevails. Turning the opera on its head, the final scene ends with the serial seducer alone on the stage while his accusers and enemies descend to hell. The cast featured Mozart specialist Peter Mattei as Don Giovanni, Bryn Terfel as Leporello, Barbara Frittoli as Donna Elvira and Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna. "Don Giovanni is a whirlwind of energy," Canadian-born Carsen said of his first production of the opera for La Scala. "He goes on as if he were never going to die," he said. Carsen plays with opposites, mixing tragedy and comedy, truth and falsehood, making use of effects such as giant mirrors that reflect the theatre to itself. "This is a post-modern opera, where truth is disguised. You never know who Don Giovanni is," the director said. Singers performed on and off stage, walking among the audience. Costumes were both modern and traditional. The 233-year-old La Scala has increasingly tapped private investors to cope with its own economic crises, and public funds now cover only 40 percent of its budget. But general manager Stephane Lissner appealed for more public funding this week after Monti's austerity package was unveiled. "We cannot go on like this," the Frenchman said. La Scala has barely managed to break even this year and Lissner has warned that the opera house's future could be at risk if a global recession takes hold. Last year, Barenboim delivered an impassioned speech in support of the arts just before the first night of the season, while artists and unions demonstrated outside against government cuts in arts spending. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

The pill key to health for chaste nun Posted: 08 Dec 2011 04:53 AM PST The "accursed pest" known to go back 300 years for the nun. — Reuters pic LONDON, Dec 8 — Nuns should be offered the contraceptive pill, on health grounds, since it would cut their risk of getting cancer, two Australian doctors said today. The vow of chastity taken by the world's 95,000 Catholic nuns carries with it an increased risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers — all of which are more common in women who do not have children. It is a problem that has been recognised for hundreds of years. In 1713, Italian physician Bernadino Ramazzini reported nuns had extremely high rates of the "accursed pest", breast cancer. Kara Britt of Monash University and Roger Short of the University of Melbourne, writing in The Lancet medical journal, argued that taking modern contraceptive pills could be one answer. Lack of pregnancy and lactation means childless women have more menstrual cycles, which increases cancer risk, while those who have children further decrease their risk if they have first babies while young, have several children, and breastfeed. Overall mortality in women using the contraceptive pill is around 12 per cent lower than in those who have never used it, and the risk of developing ovarian and endometrial cancers falls by 50 to 60 per cent, the authors said. "If the Catholic Church could make the oral contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns, it would reduce the risk of those accursed pests, cancer of the ovary and uterus, and give nuns' plight the recognition it deserves," the doctors said. Although the Catholic Church condemns all forms of contraception, barring abstinence, the doctors argued that using the pill might still be possible under regulations on birth control set out by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae in 1968. This document stated that "the Church in no way regards as unlawful therapeutic means considered necessary to cure organic diseases, even though they also have a contraceptive effect". Of course, the pill can also carry its own dangers, such as the risk of blood clots with the combined oestrogen-progestogen version, so the suitability of nuns would have to be assessed according to their individual medical histories, the doctors added. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Sheen ‘nourished’ by narrating Dalai Lama’s book Posted: 08 Dec 2011 07:01 AM PST NEW YORK, Dec 8 — For more than 40 years actor Martin Sheen has inhabited complex characters from the troubled Capt. Willard in the Vietnam film "Apocalypse Now" to US President Josiah Bartlet on the hit TV drama "The West Wing". But for one of his latest projects, Sheen, 71, did not have to reach far. The devout Catholic narrated the audiobook of "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World", a new book by the Dalai Lama. Martin Sheen: The social activist bares his soul. — Reuters pic Sheen, a long-time social activist, spoke to Reuters about how the book's message of compassion and universal ethics resonates with his own beliefs. Q: How did you get into this project? A: "I have a very good agent. My agent is aware that I am a social activist and this is the kind of project I'd support because I'm a big supporter of the Dalai Lama and particularly his non-violent stance on political and social justice issues. So it was a no-brainer. To be his voice for his book was a very special opportunity." Q: As a devout Catholic, how did you feel about narrating a book that calls for thinking about spirituality and ethics in a way that is "beyond religion" altogether? A: "You can't separate any honest effort that is truthful. As my wife is always telling me, the truth is universal and omnipresent. You can't question where it comes from. The Dalai Lama lives a very honest and truthful life. He's a reflection of the Gospels, whether he would call it such or not. What he is striving to do with this book is to find a common ground in the secular world because his whole point is that the vast majority of the world is not religious or religiously inclined." Q: Aren't there already a lot of ethical, non-religious people? A: "Sure and I think the Dalai Lama's book will encourage them and sustain them. It doesn't say drop your religion; you can't go this path and remain a Catholic or a Protestant or a Muslim or a Jew. On the contrary, it's about your humanity. That's where we're all united. I think what he is trying to do is enlarge the circle. He's trying to ensure people that they don't have to give up anything that they believe in in order to enlarge their possibilities." Q: How did you feel after wrapping the narration of "Beyond Religion", at age 71, compared to how you felt, say, after wrapping "Apocalypse Now", when you were in your 30s? A: "I was fragile then, both emotionally and physically. I'd gotten very ill during the latter part of the filming. So I had to recover, not just physically, but psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. "That really began my transformation into the rest of my life and basically led me back to Catholicism. I didn't have any difficulty at all embracing the Dalai Lama's philosophy. I didn't have to go to a different part of myself, like a job, like I was playing somebody else. It took me three days to record it here in Los Angeles, and each day that I went back I was more nourished by what I was learning." Q: You've been involved with many social justice activist campaigns. What is your take on the Occupy Wall Street movement? A: "I think it's an inevitable expression of the despair and equal measure of hope that people in the 99 per cent bracket have, and thank God they're expressing it with their voice and encampments instead of with guns and Molotov cocktails. It's outrageous what's happening in our country. And the rich don't get it, they don't understand. You can't just keep tripping over Lazarus every day that you leave your house. He's rotting in front of your house, you've got to be aware of it and you've got to become involved. It's a reflection of your own humanity or lack of it." Q: How has President Obama performed and what's your outlook on the 2012 presidential election? A: "I think under the circumstances, with what he inherited, two wars, an economy in the toilet, he has done quite brilliant. I'm very confident he will be re-elected and it's going to be a big surprise to a lot of people about how far in front he's going to be. The people get it: they know he's on our side. He's a good and decent man; he's middle class." — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Cuepacs bantah dasar pemisah buang kakitangan prestasi rendah Posted: 08 Dec 2011 01:21 AM PST KUALA LUMPUR, 8 Dis – Cuepacs membantah pelaksanaan dasar pemisah yang membolehkan kakitangan awam yang berprestasi rendah disarakan atas alasan ia boleh membuka laluan kepada elemen penganiayaan meskipun adanya jaminan Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA). Timbalan Presiden Cuepacs Azih Muda berkata, setakat ini badan induk kesatuan sekerja awam itu tidak bersetuju dengan dasar baru yang diperkenalkan selaras dengan sistem Saraan Baru Perkhidmatan Awam (SBPA). Bagaimanapun kata beliau, Cuepacs akan membuat pendirian rasmi mengenai dasar itu pada mesyuarat majlis kongres am 14 Disember ini. "Setakat ini kami memang tidak bersetuju. Pendirian rasmi akan dibuat oleh mesyuarat majlis kongres minggu depan," kata beliau kepada The Malaysian Insider hari ini. Azih berkata pihaknya khuatir komponen dan kriteria yang digunakan untuk menilai seseorang kakitangan akan digunakan untuk membuang atau menukar seseorang penjawat. "Cuepacs juga merasakan markah 70, 69 dan ke bawah sebagai satu paras yang terlalu tinggi untuk melaksanakan dasar pemisah ini, untuk menghentikan seseorang kakitangan awam," kata beliau dengan membuat perbandingan dengan ukuran dalam peperiksaan sekolah. "Dalam peperiksaan SPM pun, 70 peratus bermakna lulus B, tetapi di perkhidmatan awam, dengan dasar pemisah ini akan membawa kepada tindakan menghentikan seseorang pekerja. "Itu sebab kami merasakan paras markah ini terlalu tinggi selain kemungkinan boleh wujud elemen penganiayaan," kata beliau lagi. Terdahulu dalam satu penjelasan, Ketua Pengarah Perkhidmatan Awam Tan Sri Abu Bakar Abdullah berkata, pelaksanaan dasar itu tidak wajar menjadi satu isu kerana bilangan kakitangan yang tergolong dalam kumpulan mereka berprestasi rendah sangat kecil. Tambah beliau, rekod JPA menunjukkan bilangan mereka yang memperoleh markah 69 peratus dan ke bawah, kumpulan yang terdedah kepada tindakan disarakan di bawah sistem SBPA, yang akan dilaksanakan mulai 1 Januari ini, hanyalah 1.1 peratus. Paras itu bersamaan dengan sekitar 15,400 orang daripada keseluruhan 1.4 juta kakitangan awam buat masa sekarang. "Jadi, ini tidak sepatutnya menjadi isu besar ditambah pula dengan jaminan JPA akan menyiasat terlebih dahulu sebelum diambil tindakan supaya dapat dielakkan penganiayaan," kata beliau kepada The Malaysian Insider hari ini. Abu Bakar berkata, berhubung dengan isu penjawat berprestasi rendah iaitu markah prestasi di bawah 70 akan dibersarakan, semakan JPA ke atas sampel laporan prestasi bagi tahun 2010 melibatkan 131,196 orang penjawat awam atau 10 peratus, seramai 39 peratus memperoleh 90 markah dan ke atas, dan ia disusuli dengan 55.6 peratus mengumpulkan 80 hingga 89 markah dan 4.3 peratus lagi antara 70 hingga 79 markah. "Mereka yang prestasi di bawah 70 iaitu 69 ke bawah hanyalah 1.1 peratus," katanya lagi yang semalam menyifatkan angka kakitangan awam berada dalam kategori itu sangat minimal. Ketika ditemui pada majlis pelancaran pekeliling SBPA bagi kakitangan perkhidmatan umum, guru, polis dan Angkatan Tentera Malaysia semalam, Abu Bakar berkata, penjawat kerajaan yang tidak memperlihatkan prestasi baik akan dinilai mulai Januari depan, susulan pelaksanaan sistem SBPA dan akan dihentikan kerja jika terus gagal memperbaiki kedudukan mereka selepas proses penilaian. Abu Bakar menjelaskan penilaian akan dibuat ke atas kakitangan awam yang memperoleh 69 markah dan ke bawah. "Kita akan menilai mulai tahun depan. Mereka akan dinilai oleh panel dan akan diberi peluang untuk memperbaiki prestasi masing-masing, dan jika masih tidak berubah, mereka akan dibuang kerja," kata beliau. SBPA akan dikuatkuasakan mulai 1 Januari ini bagi menggantikan Sistem Saraan Malaysia (SSM). Abu Bakar berkata, mereka bukan dihentikan secara automatik jika gagal mempamerakan prestasi tidak memuaskan, sebaliknya akan diberi peluang bagi memperbaiki keadaan. "Tetapi akan dinilai oleh panel, selama enam bulan, mungkin ada sebab mengapa seseorang kakitangan awam tidak berkhidmat dengan baik. Kita semua manusiakan," katanya. Azih menambah, pihaknya seebnarnya telah berharap kerajaan dan JPA sewajarnya telah mengadakan perbincangan dengan Cuepacs sebelum memperkenalkan dasar baru ini. "Sepatutnya JPA telah berbincang dengan Cuepacs sebelum melaksanakan," kata Azih. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Jakim haramkan buku terbaru Kuan Yew Posted: 08 Dec 2011 12:27 AM PST KUALA LUMPUR, 8 Dis – Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) mengharamkan buku terbaru bapa pengasas Singapura, Lee Kuan Yew, yang menggesa agar Muslim republik itu supaya tidak terlalu "ketat" dalam amalan prinsip-prinsip Islam. Buku "Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going" yang merupakan koleksi temu bual dengan beliau, diterbitkan Januari lalu, disenaraikan sebagai antara 15 terbitan yang "diperakukan haram" oleh Jakim dua bulan lalu. Perakuan itu akan dibawa ke Kementerian Dalam Negeri untuk membuat keputusan. Bahagian Perancangan dan Penyelidikan Jakim mengesahkan keputusan itu diputuskan pada mesyuarat jawatankuasa penapisan bahan-bahan penerbitan berunsur Islam Jakim, Oktober lalu. Pengarah bahagian itu dan juga ketua pengarah Jakim tidak respons kepada pertanyaan The Malaysian Insider berkenaan sebab keputusan itu diambil selepas sembilan bulan buku berkenaan berada di pasaran Malaysia. Pada 9 Februari lalu, Datuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, ketika itu ketua pengarah Jakim berkata, Lee sememangnya seorang negarawan yang hebat kerana berjaya memajukan Singapura. Malangnya, kata Wan Mohamad Sheikh, beliau kurang berjaya dalam membangunkan minda keseluruhan rakyat kerana masih terpengaruh dengan landskap 1960-an yang penuh dengan prejudis dan prasangka terhadap penganut Islam. "Sudah tentu Lee Kuan Yew juga tidak tergamak merosakkan agenda dan pendekatan harmoni yang sedang dibawa oleh Perdana Menteri Singapura sekarang. "Di samping itu, zaman menyimpan perasaan cemburu tidak berasas kepada negara jiran sudah pun berlalu dan tidak perlu dibangkitkan kerana zaman Lee Kuan Yew juga sudah menjadi sejarah. Sisa usia yang berbaki elok dimanfaatkan untuk mewujudkan rantau yang harmoni," katanya lagi. Lee, 88, yang pernah berkhidmat sebagai perdana menteri yang pertama, menteri kanan dan menteri mentor Singapura sebelum bersara Mei lalu berkata dalam buku itu bahawa Muslim di Singapura, dari segi sosial, telah berpisah dan menjauhkan diri mereka dan oleh itu, mereka perlu kurang "ketat" dalam amalan mereka demi membantu integrasi dan proses bina negara negara pulau itu. Pandangan itu mencetuskan rasa tidak senang di kalangan masyarakat Melayu dan umat Islam di Singapura dan juga di Malaysia. Ekoran protes itu, beliau menarik kenyataannya Mac lalu - beberapa bulan sebelum pilihan raya umum. Anaknya, Lee Hsien Loong yang kini mengetuai parti pemerintah Parti Tindakan Rakyat (PAP) hanya memperoleh undi kurang kurang 60 peratus pada pilihan raya umum tahun ini, keputusan paling buruk dalam sejarah negara itu. Mengikut senarai diperoleh The Malaysian Insider, buku yang turut diperakukan untuk diharamkan ialah 1000 Hikmat (Ali Zulfakar), Methodologi Fiqih Islam Kotemporeri (Dr Ir Muhammad Shahrur), 70 Amalan Benteng Diri, Keluarga dan Kediaman Daripada Manusia dan Jin (Sharhan Shafie), Senjata Mukmin (Abu Mazaya Al-Hafiz), Detik-detik Pembongkaran Agama (NurKhalik Ridzuan), 1001 Mutiara Hikmah dan Hikmah dan Kata Nasihat (Kasmuri Selamat MA), Sebongkah Batu Di Kuala Berang (Faisal Tehrani), Commentary and Translation of the Holy Quran (Hasrath Kambam P.M Peer Muhammad Baghavy), Islam, Kemordenan dan Keindonesiaan (Dr Nurcholish Madjid) dan Islam dan Iman: Aturan-aturan Pokok (Dr Ir Muhammad Shahrur). Lain-lain ialah Mengenal Diri: Ilmu Peninggalan Tok Kenali (Mohd Yusof Che Wook), The Teachings of the Quran (H.U. Weltbrecht Stanton), Sabda Rasullah S.A.W:  Mahdi Aku Ada Dua Tanda (Mohd Zain Hassan) dan Nomad, From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (Ayaan Hirsi Ali). Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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My father’s memories of war and other things Posted: 07 Dec 2011 04:47 PM PST DEC 8 — It has been five years since my mother passed away. My father is still hanging on to the old shophouse and various other memories. The last time I went back to Kelantan, we kept talking about various old cakes; some of them I have never seen, but only heard, and some have disappeared from the village and the food market in Kota Baru. He said he used to sell some of them at the coffeeshop. A few months ago he said to me that he wanted to renovate the little "Chinese goldsmith house" my mother left me. Though I resisted the idea at first, later I understood that he needed something to do. Now that little house is fully alive as a kopitiam. My father is very excited about that rented-out shophouse and asked me to buy coffee from there. Since he was not well, I decided to stay the night, sleeping in the living room, formerly the coffeeshop. The whole night I could not sleep, and not only because of the noise from the road which is still being used for transporting goods from Thailand to Malaysia. The whole night my mind dwelled, not on my mother, but this time on my father and me. About how he taught me to make kites, catch those little fishes from the "parit" (irrigation canal) and the "sawah" (padi field), and how to get the cuckoo bird to sing. He was always excited to see the good grades in my school report and my medals when I won sports competitions, but not happy with me taking part in poetry-writing and poetry-reading competitions. He once threatened to burn my poetry collection if I did not stop that interest, a few months before the Sijil Rendah Pelajaran. Me and my father... he taught me to make kites, catch fish and make the cuckoo bird sing. He said: "You will not be able to support your life as a writer or artiste. Look at them, even P. Ramlee died very poor." But after my doctorate studies a few years ago, he stopped saying anything about my artistic life. Yesterday, when he got better after his fever I asked him about his memories of the Second World War, the Japanese Occupation and the Death Railroad. His eyes grew big and excitedly, he started telling us about the war, about how he was working with the British master, Mr Anderson, and how he was forced to work for the Japanese quarry. He had just married my mother when the war broke out and in fact my eldest sister was born during the Japanese Occupation. He went on to tell us about how he helped save five village men from being sent to the Death Railroad in Burma. Every day he had to bring food to them in a hiding place away from the village. That place was also known among villagers as a very ghostly place, where "bomohs" sent bad spirits. That was the last place a villager would want to hide, the Japanese soldiers thought as they knew the Malays were afraid of ghosts. Years and years later after the war, they sent back people from the village who had worked on the Death Railroad, but clearly they were not the same anymore. Most of them couldn't speak and some had simply gone crazy. In my first Malay play that was nominated as Best Malay Script at the Cameronian Arts Award 2007, I wrote about my visit to Singapore with my mother in the 1970s. She thought she saw someone who looked like her long-lost cousin at Masjid Sultan. Her cousin was taken by the Japanese to work on the Death Railroad. When she went back to Masjid Sultan on the next visit, she was told that he had just died a week before. My sisters and cousins only remember the time after the war when they could rent a bicycle for five cents a day. Nothing can be bought for five sen now, maybe not even 50 sen. As for me, I only remember watching "Sarjan Hassan", the Malay movie about the Second World War, with P. Ramlee as the hero. But I wonder how many people actually know and remember the first attack in Malaya which took place in Kelantan, at Pantai Sabak and Pantai Pak Amat, not far from the present Sultan Ismail Petra Airport in Pengkalan Chepa. In fact the invasion was ahead of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Today is the 70th anniversary of that attack. I wonder how much has been written about it. Years ago I met the guy who wrote the book "Japanese Occupation in Malaya", Datuk Mike Wrigglesworth, when he visited my former office in Bangkok, in 2000. The book is about his experience as a British Army war officer in Kelantan and how they fought the war. He went on to stay in Kelantan after the war. When I went back to Kelantan and tried to locate him, someone told me that he had died just a few months before. How much of the story is left with us after our fathers and grandfathers leave us? My father was 15 years old then, now he is 85. How much longer will the memories stay with him? Next to his bed on the side table there's a little fish, "puyu", known to be a small but strong fish, in a clear bottle. It symbolises his strength and sturdiness in facing his hard life. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Time for Malaysian leadership Posted: 07 Dec 2011 04:21 PM PST DEC 8 — "Yes, yes, but can you do better?" Exactly 70 years ago to this day the Japanese military launched synchronised attacks all over the Pacific — including Malaya, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore, Guam and the United States in Hawaii's Pearl Harbour ( December 7 due to time zone differences) — just like that. The audacity of the move, across the largest ocean in the world, shook the foundations of Western civilisation and dispelled the notion that there is a colour to power. The suffering brought on humanity by the war, and the reign of a Japan willing to fight the colonisers, but unwilling to free the colonised has always been regretted. War without exception is regrettable. My widowed grandmother had to see through the birth of her son, my father, during the Malaya campaign. Yet, the effort expanded by an Asian country to triumph over the military might of the West through organisation, discipline and confidence shattered stereotypes, and raised the question that perhaps nothing is decided in a life except by its participants. Which helps explain Japan's revival after a devastating defeat and American occupation, even without the fascism and an expansive military complex, a nation with organisation, discipline and confidence will advance. Which also explains why Malaysia, as do most Asian countries, look up to the attributes of the Japanese people even if we do not forgive their misconduct during the war. Here today Malaysia is trying to find its way again, just as Japan did those decades ago. Somehow a whole nation has lost its balance. The most potent of defence for a sham of a democracy governed by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government has been two; that they are the only government we've ever known, and that they have given us the lives we have. Somehow, the nature of the statements forces us to consider them. They are grave statements. However, when considered well, and it is plaintively clear that the first one is only a historical fact, not a defence for a bad government.  The second is false dichotomy; Malaysians have made Malaysia possible, not the Malaysian government. If anything, the mismanagement of the abundant resource this country possesses which has prohibited us from having substantially better living standards. More so, despite the parochial and feudalistic monopoly, Malaysian families have despite the political and economic repression fought their way through and given child after child a future. Malaysians pay for after-school classes (private tuition) to ensure their children are not victims of a collapsing public schools system their tax monies uphold. And the public have had no say in how our public schools are run; our money, the government's decision. Healthcare is not universal, nor comprehensive. The public has to pass the hat around for treatment, while hospitals heal people by their wallet sizes and pharmaceuticals get plump deals with state facilities. Small businesses have to navigate a labyrinth of ministries, agencies and departments — as more and more of them are created or tasks duplicated — while favoured conglomerates get all the protection possible. Despite these hurdles, a people move forward. And their successes are heralded by this government, as theirs. So the only thing left, almost a desperate indecipherable primal scream, is this: "Yes, yes, but can you do better?" That is the challenge, and I accept. Tomorrow There is nothing limiting us as a nation, as a people. For a duration after the end of BN rule, there will be uncertainty, hesitation and a litany of mistakes. That does not deter change. With organisation, discipline and confidence, things will become better. The Pakatan Rakyat state governments did not reinvent governance, they have just begun to plug the holes in the boat. The best thing about even the small fixes is that they renew the faith in government. A new government does not need to overreach, it needs to do the basics right. There will be no shortage of the Malaysian diaspora returning to rebuild the nation.   The time of governing through consultants will be over. Having a large civil service and not using it to do the things it was hired to do is silly. Education, healthcare and jobs must become core objectives. Business policies have to facilitate economic stability and growth, but a protracted process of divorcing government from business ownership will occur. This is crucial also to guarantee there is no more a nexus of power between governing party and big business.  The new economy is about ideas, and the end of a repressive regime will free us to speak. Ideas are constructs of speech. The future is not bleak without BN. The future actually becomes possible without BN. Back for good Britain had large nations under its colonial yoke, but none with the combination of wealth and a docile small populace as Malaya. It was a cash cow, an ATM then. We kept Britain from bankrupting after the Second World War. Malaysia started from a position of strength at independence and has declined since. Malaysians know only too well, though skyscrapers are common sights in our capital, so many things have gone pear-shaped. We are disorganised, the government has used wanton spending to cover its inadequacies. We can't get around to be being disciplined — which is a voluntary actualisation — because we spend all our time being afraid of our own government. We haven't been confident for a long, long time, how can we be, when a small group have brainwashed in our schools and daily lives that confidence belongs to the ruling class. Malaysia's time to turn back the clock is at hand. Only those ignorant of the whispers in crowds will say otherwise. I am already looking to a better tomorrow. When an organised, disciplined and confident Malaysia reclaims its rightful place as the land of opportunity for all. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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