Khamis, 20 Disember 2012

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

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The Malaysian Insider :: Food

British House of Lords bans foie gras from in-house menu

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 09:12 PM PST

The Parliament building's fine dining restaurant The Barry Room has taken the controversial French delicacy off their menu. – Reuters pic

LONDON, Dec 21 – The House of Lords in the UK has buckled to mounting pressure from animal rights groups and banned foie gras from their in-house restaurant.

British media are widely reporting that the Parliament building's fine dining restaurant The Barry Room has taken the controversial French delicacy off their menu following campaigns by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Until recently, foie gras was served as a starter for £7.50 (RM37) as part of a holiday meal. It is already banned in the House of Commons.

Animal rights groups charge that foie gras is produced inhumanely because ducks and geese are force-fed until their livers have swollen by up to 10 times their normal size.

This move follows on the heels of the state of California's foie gras ban, which spurred benders, underground foie gras-themed dinners, and divided big-name chefs, like Thomas Keller, and consumers. – AFP-Relaxnews

A silken dessert

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 04:30 PM PST

The process of making tau fu fa is almost similar to that of making soy bean drink.

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 – As a self-professed tofu lover, I have a deep attachment to all things made from soy beans, and this Chinese dessert is no exception.

Tau Fu Fa, also known as soy custard or silken tofu pudding, is a silky-smooth Chinese dessert that seems to glide effortlessly down your throat. Some like it hot, some like it cold, and there are quite a few different ways to enjoy this dessert.

The process of making tau fu fa is almost similar to that of making soy bean drink, and what makes it different is the additional step of adding in a curdling agent to set the dish.

Usually, the curdling agent is either gypsum powder or glucono delta-lactone (GDL) mixed with a small amount of water and corn flour, and they work to harden the soy mixture and help it set.

I would advise using GDL powder, which is a naturally occurring food additive, instead of gypsum powder, which is made of calcium sulphate as it is said to be disadvantageous to our health.

Like most dishes made from soy beans, there are a few things you have to be careful with during the preparation of this dish. Firstly, after preparing the soy milk, you have to make sure you gently remove the bubbles at the surface of the milk before proceeding to cover it with a cheesecloth or a muslin cloth.

This will ensure you obtain a smooth, even texture once it has set instead of "holey" ones. Also, when you pour the soy milk into the pot to set, I would recommend pouring it at a height of about two feet.

This seems to work best to give beautiful tau fu fa, not only in terms of appearance, but also when it comes to its taste, even if it's just a subtle one.

Once the tau fu fa has set, you should very gently and thinly scoop them out into bowls as they have a very delicate texture, and ladling them out roughly will only spoil the whole experience of devouring this silky-smooth dessert.

Tau fu fa does not only taste good, it's also a sweet blessing for people watching their weight and a must-have for women craving good skin.

Soy beans ensures a healthy complexion, so enjoy!

Tau fu fa

Prep time: 4-5 hours

Cooking time: 40 minutes (including 30 minutes to set the dessert)

Serves: approximately 10 people

300g soy beans, soaked in water for 5 hours

2 litres water

½ teaspoon glucono delta-lactone curdling agent

1 tablespoon corn flour

3 tablespoon rock sugar

2 pandan leaves, knotted

1. Blend soy beans in batches with 500ml water each time. You'll need to do about 4 batches.

2. Also in batches, strain the soy bean mixture through a muslin cloth into a large cooking pot. Discard residue.

3. Bring soy bean milk to a boil over medium heat.

4. Mix curdling agent, cornflour and ¼ cup water in another bowl. Pour mixture into boiling pot and mix thoroughly.

5. Turn the heat off and cover the pot with a lid. Set aside in a heat proof container for approximately 30 minutes to let the mixture set. Do not open the lid until after 30 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, prepare syrup by mixing rock sugar, pandan leaves and water in another smaller pot. Boil over low heat until mixture thickens to reflect a syrup.

7. Dish out set Tau Fu Fa, layer by layer onto a bowl. Ensure you use a flat ladle or a turner to scoop out the layers. The thinner the better!

8. Drizzle with sugar syrup.

For more recipes, go to www.chopstickdiner.com.

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The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

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The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

Swansea’s Michu happy to get hurt against Man United

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 06:26 AM PST

Michu, joint top scorer in the Premier League. — Reuters file pic

LONDON, Dec 20 — Swansea City striker Michu says he will keep going for the ball even it means getting hurt after being knocked flat by Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris on Sunday.

Lloris caught Michu on the head when punching clear late in Tottenham's 1-0 win and the Spaniard lay motionless on the pitch for a while before recovering.

Michu, the joint top scorer in the Premier League, said his headache did not clear until Tuesday but he would not pull out of a similar situation against Manchester United at the Liberty Stadium this Sunday.

"It was a big collision between me and Lloris," Michu said on the Swansea club website. "We both went after the ball and it was unfortunate for me that he just got there first.

"I am a player who wants to win the ball and if that means getting hurt in the process then that's fine.

"If the opportunity arises again this Sunday against Manchester United, I will go through it again — I won't be pulling out of any challenge like that because I want to score for my team."

Michu has hit 12 league goals this season, the same tally as Robin van Persie who is expected to lead the line for league leaders United.

"We have lost two league games in a row now and, although Manchester United are a massive club, we need to pick up points," said Michu.

"They have great players, but so do the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle and Arsenal. We managed to beat them, so we can take confidence from that."

Swansea are 10th in the Premier League. — Reuters

Ronaldo returns to Man United in Champions League

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 05:05 AM PST

LONDON, Dec 20 — Cristiano Ronaldo will return with nine-times winners Real Madrid to Manchester United, where he developed into one of the world's greatest forwards, and Lionel Messi's Barcelona take on AC Milan in the Champions League last 16.

Bayern Munich, last season's beaten finalists, play Arsenal and Juventus take on surprise qualifiers Celtic. Big-spending Paris St Germain face Valencia.

But the fate of the two Spanish giants in today's draw at UEFA headquarters attracted most interest, and both were pitted against clubs with decades of European experience.

Real, the Spanish champions, have been disappointing in La Liga this season and they finished second in their Champions League group behind Borussia Dortmund.

Ronaldo: Back to the pitch that spawned his world stature. — Reuters pic

But Ronaldo, a United player from 2003 to 2009, will be desperate for Real to rise to the occasion against the club at which he won the European Cup in 2008.

Real manager Jose Mourinho, once of Chelsea, will also come up against his old rival Alex Ferguson.

"I'm sure it's going to be a special game for him (Ronaldo)," said Emilio Butragueno, Real Madrid's director of institutional relations. "I think the fans will be very, very happy with this very attractive, thrilling tie.

"It will be a great experience for everybody. I would have liked to have played against United later in the competition but they won't be pleased either."

United, three-times European champions, have played Real eight times and won only twice. Real, who will host United in the first leg on February 13, last won the European Cup in 2002.

Barcelona are now 2-1 favourites to win the Champions League although they could hardly have picked a club with more experience of success in Europe in seven-times winners AC Milan when the competition resumes in mid-February.

World player of the year Messi has scored 90 goals in 2012 and has fired Barcelona to a nine-point lead in La Liga while Milan are 14 points adrift of Juventus in Serie A and finished second behind Malaga in their group.

Barcelona vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu told Spanish broadcaster Canal Plus: "Milan are one of Europe's greats and a club that commands a huge amount of respect.

"They are not going well in their league right now but they have some excellent players. They are not currently at their best but football changes from one day to the next."

Juventus, who last won the European Cup in 1996, finished top of their group and will not be disappointed to have drawn Celtic who pulled off a major shock by beating Barcelona this season.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon believes Scottish lightning could strike twice.

"Over two games anything is possible," he said. "It's a beauty against one of the traditional European teams.

"In terms of quality it's going to be very, very tough."

Bayern confident

Bayern Munich, beaten by Chelsea in last season's final, have a nine-point lead in the Bundesliga and were content to have drawn Arsenal who have struggled this season for any consistency.

"We can be satisfied with the draw, but we mustn't underestimate them," said Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

"It's important we try to come away from London with a good result, score a goal there and lay down a marker. We can win it, and we start as favourites."

Chelsea failed to qualify for the last 16 from the group won by Juventus.

Paris Saint-Germain have invested heavily in players over the past 12 months and now lead Ligue 1 on goal difference. Valencia are mid-table in Spain and in some disarray after losing to Rayo Vallecano at home at the weekend.

PSG sports director Leonardo said current form would have little importance in February.

"In the Champions League, it always depends on the moment you play the game, the run of form," he said.

"We are going to have a difficult encounter with Valencia who are an experienced side," he said.

Valencia director Fernando Giner told Canal Plus: "If we have got this far it's because we are among the 16 best teams in Europe but PSG are a tough opponent.

"We have to be satisfied to be here and it's a way of coming together at a difficult moment to achieve the result we all want. During these difficult times the Champions League is tremendously exciting for us."

In the other ties, Galatasaray will play Schalke 04, Shakhtar Donetsk take on Dortmund and Porto face Malaga.

Dortmund, Bundesliga champions and winners of a tough group including Real, Ajax and Manchester City, were wary of their Ukrainian opponents.

"They are not necessarily the team we would have wanted," said Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke. "It's a very difficult tie but we showed in the group stage that we can beat strong opponents."

Schalke were happy to draw Turkey's Galatasaray.

"There are no easy opponents at this stage of the competition but to be frank I think we have a good chance of reaching the quarter-finals if we play to our potential," said team captain Benedikt Hoewedes. — Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz

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The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz

Israeli Arab wrestles with grief, guilt in suicide bomb film

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 06:26 AM PST

Doueiri poses with Golden Star award for film "The Attack" during the 12th International Marrakech Film Festival in Marrakech. — Reuters pic

DUBAI, Dec 20 — When Universal Studios took a disliking to the script for Ziad Doueiri's Israeli-Palestinian suicide bombing drama, the Lebanese director thought his career was over.

Six years later "The Attack" is garnering interest on the festival circuit, winning praise in Toronto, an award in Marrakech, and wowing audiences at the Dubai international film festival in the United Arab Emirates this week.

"When they got the script they rejected it, and they not only rejected it, they pulled the project and kept the script. We had a three-year legal battle to try and get it back," Doueiri, whose 1998 debut "West Beirut" drew praise at Cannes, said after a screening.

"I understand the sensitivity of the film and I knew at the start it had a lot of landmines along the way. We knew we were going to have people who oppose it on the Arab side and the Jewish side."

Now he has distribution in 40 countries including the United States for a dark love story where an Arab Israeli surgeon, Amin Jaafari, who is a model of successful integration in Jewish society is on a mission to find out if his wife Siham was the suicide bomber who killed 17 children at a birthday party.

In the opening scene he is honoured at a ceremony for his work, offering platitudes in a speech about Arab and Jewish coexistence, the next day he is thrown into brutal detention as the suspect husband of a terrorist.

Eventually released after police realise he knew nothing about the attack, the surgeon, played with gripping understatement by Ali Suliman, begins to see that perhaps his wife of 15 years had done it after all.

He follows clues that lead to Nablus in the Palestinian territories where he finds Siham's posters plastered on walls as a martyr and locals treating him as a turncoat.

Towards the end he takes a trip to Jenin - site of an Israeli operation in 2002 that left dozens of Palestinians dead - in a scene that Doueiri said was meant to signify that Amin understood what drove his wife though he didn't condone it.

Doueiri said graffiti on the ruins of homes in Jenin reading "Ground Zero" - a reference to the site of New York towers destroyed in the 9/11 attacks in 2001 - was one scene that particularly riled his original US collaborators.

Amin also realises that while he was a part of Israeli society, his wife had felt like an outsider.

"It's about this man who is absolutely attached to his wife, who believed at the beginning of the film that he could be very well-integrated into Israeli society," Doueiri said. "Only, at the end there's that truth that comes up that the bottom line is there's us and there's them."

The film has already drawn sharp reactions in the Arab world, with some Algerian media accusing Doueiri of defiling the novel that inspired it, by Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra, and Moroccan Islamists accusing it of being pro-Israel.

Much of the film's dialogue is in Hebrew.

Doueiri and fellow scriptwriter Joelle Touma altered a number of elements in Khadra's ending, in which Amin dies in an Israeli drone strike as he confronts the sheikh who mentored his wife.

The film has the surgeon return to Tel Aviv, living with his guilt but shunned by friends for not revealing what he knows to the authorities - a shift reflecting Doueiri's ambitious intersection of the personal and the political.

"We wanted to show that Amin has an incredible moral problem by his wife killing innocents. If she had blown herself up at a military checkpoint, Amin would not have had such a big problem," Doueiri said.

"I challenge anyone to tell me I took the side of the Israelis. I just wanted to make a film where I did not shout slogans and soundbites. We had that for years."

The Attack has echoes of "Paradise Now", another suicide bomb film - also starring Nazareth-born Ali Suliman - which won international acclaim.

"It was shown in Toronto and when American producers saw it they wanted to distribute it again," Doueiri said. "I thought we really nailed the script, so we didn't give up the fight." — Reuters

‘Dirty Harry,’ ‘The Matrix’ added to US film archive

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 05:02 AM PST

WASHINGTON, Dec 20 — Clint Eastwood cop drama "Dirty Harry," sci-fi epic "The Matrix" and timeless romantic comedy "Breakfast at Tiffany's" are among 25 films being added to the US National Film Registry.

"The Times of Harvey Milk," a 1984 documentary about the life and assassination of San Francisco's first openly gay lawmaker, will also join classics like "Citizen Kane" and "Casablanca" in America's official film archive, the registry announced Wednesday.

Librarian of Congress James Billington said the National Film Registry, established in 1989, "spotlights the importance of preserving America's unparalleled film heritage.

"These films are not selected as the 'best' American films of all time, but rather as works of enduring importance to American culture. They reflect who we are as a people and as a nation," he added.

To qualify for possible inclusion films have to be at least 10 years old and "culturally, historically or esthetically" significant, said the registry, part of the Library of Congress.

"The Matrix" from 1999 is the most recent of the new additions, while 1971's "Dirty Harry" is probably the most popular and classic in the mainstream sense of the word.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's," starring Audrey Hepburn as New York society girl Holly Golightly and with a screenplay co-written by Truman Capote from his own novella, dates from 1961.

Others chosen to join are less well known: they include "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1914), which features the first black actor to star in a feature-length US film, and "One Survivor Remembers," a 1995 short about a Holocaust survivor.

"A Christmas Story" (1983) is based on humorist Jean Shepherd's "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," while "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959) broke barriers due to its blunt language and willingness to openly discuss adult themes.

More well known perhaps are 1957 western "3:10 to Yuma" and "Born Yesterday" (1950), featuring an Oscar-winning turn from Judy Holliday," while 1991's "Slacker" marked the blossoming of American independent cinema in the 1990s.

The National Film Registry was created in 1989 and now has some 600 movies dating from 1897 to 1999, with 25 new ones chosen each year.

Well-known movies already in it include everything from 1930's "All Quiet on the Western Front" through "Easy Rider" (1969) and Woody Allen's "Manhattan" (1979) to 1977 blockbuster "Star Wars" and 1989's "Sex, Lies and Videotape." — AFP-Relaxnews

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The Malaysian Insider :: Features

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The Malaysian Insider :: Features

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 08:00 AM PST

JAKARTA, Dec 20 — Until this year, 1,000 or so residents of Mambi on Indonesia's Sulawesi island used their mobile phones as calculators, cameras and music players. But only if they rode up to five hours by bus or motorcycle over muddy roads could they actually use them for their primary purpose: to make phone calls or send messages.

And they're not alone.

A study finds that 1.5 billion people lack access to a cellpone signal in Indonesia. — AFP pic

According to a study released in October by the GSM Association (GSMA), a grouping of mobile operators, 1.5 billion people lack access to a cellphone signal.

This is primarily because cellular operators haven't considered connecting remote communities such as Mambi worth the cost. But with demand for cellphone services in rural parts of the developing world rising, and the cost of the technology to connect them falling, the equation is changing.

That means rural folk like those in Mambi will form the bulk of some 700 million new cellular subscriptions in the next five years, reckon the GSMA.

"The barrier to entry is no longer the device but the availability of the network," says Prashant Gokarn, chief strategy and planning officer at Indosat Tbk PT, Indonesia's second largest operator.

This shift has led to a rash of moves by operators to reach beyond the low-hanging fruit of urban subscribers to connect "the unsignalled".

Driving this shift are small companies like Ireland's Altobridge, which offers base stations at a fraction of the cost of traditional ones designed for urban environments. They are powered by solar panels, removing the need for regular shipments of diesel to keep them going, and also reduce the load on traffic back to the network - called backhaul.

While installing an urban base station with tower, power and air conditioning in remote areas would cost around US$250,000, says Altobridge's marketing director Peter Tuomey, his solar powered station costs a fifth that. And the monthly costs are reduced in part by routing local calls back through the base station— rather than sending them over the satellite backhaul.

Not all such technology is exclusive to smaller players such as Altobridge, but their willingness to share some of the risk has helped them carve a niche away from main players like Nokia, Siemens Networks, Ericsson and Huawei.

India's Vihaan Networks Ltd (VNL), for example, has deployed hundreds of thousands of such base stations across the developing world. Says founder and CEO Rajiv Mehrotra of his bigger rivals: "We start where they stop."

In Indonesia Indosat and Altobridge have jointly installed base stations in nearly 100 sites, including Mambi. That's only a start: Altobridge estimates 35 million Indonesians — about 14 per cent of the population — do not have access to a cellphone network.

But it's already making a difference.

In Mambi, for example, Altobridge sent one of its engineers, Australian Sean Heffernan, at the beginning of the year to set up two base stations covering a cluster of villages.

He was surprised at what he found: not only was he told he was the first white man many of the villagers had seen, but he observed a relatively prosperous life. Mambi had a paved high street, school and restaurants, all partly funded by thriving cocoa, coffee and rice growing and remittances from relatives working overseas.

But soon after the network was up and running, the change was visible. Residents could phone doctors in the regional capital, Makassar, check market prices of goods they sold like chillies and lemons rather than guess them, and order supplies from town instead of trekking several hours there and back.

"It basically changed their lives," he said.

That may only be the start. In Indonesia's far east region of Papua, where base stations have been in place longer, their deployment has been followed by the arrival of bank branches, government services and retail businesses, says Indosat's Gokarn.

That's because such services all rely on communications. Djemi Suhenda, deputy president director of Indonesia's Bank BTPN, said his bank was keen to reach out to such communities, but must first wait for the telephone operators, or telcos.

"As the economy grows, as the middle income grows, these are the future customers of telcos," he says.

"And for us, it's simple: we're a mass market bank and so these are the customers we'd like to see."

Indeed, research indicates the arrival of a cell phone signal does have an economic impact. A study for Nordic telecoms group Telenor by Deloitte in 2008 suggested that a 10 per cent rise in mobile penetration would boost the long-term GDP rate of a developing country by 1.2 per cent. Indian researchers came to similar conclusions in 2009.

Key, though, to any wider deployment is going to be whether such moves pay off for operators. Indosat's Gokarn said that while his company recognises the benefits of being the first to arrive in a village like Mambi, figuring out pricing is key.

Charge local users too much and you hit "miscall culture" — where users call a distant friend but hang up before he or she answers. That prompts the friend to call back, potentially losing the operator revenue to a rival network.

Instead, Indosat cut tariffs. While the average revenue per user didn't necessarily rise, the increased traffic pushed up a more relevant metric: the average revenue per base station.

"It's probably not a good model to price it very high," Gokarn said.

This seems to match Altobridge's broader experience.

"Mobile spend levels in these newly connected rural villages is generally on par with the national average," says Tuomey. "However, in some cases, we are actually seeing average monthly spend in rural villages exceeding the national average."

For some the technology has more ways to go.

University of California, Berkeley, PhD student Kurtis Heimerl has spent the past few months in a remote Papuan village testing a base station he helped develop that powers down when it's not in use, saving up to 80 per cent of the energy usually required. Incoming calls automatically wake up the unit, while outgoing callers can activate it with modified cellphones.

"It's not about the cost of the base station anymore," he said. "It's power."

Others would like to see telecommunications spread to rural areas more quickly by turning to open source software that in effect replaces much of the traditional hardware needed for cellular telephony.

Indonesia technology activist Onno Purbo, for example, has been pushing the government to allow his open-source base stations to connect to existing providers. Deploying such technology is not only cheaper, he says, but it means communities don't have to wait for operators.

"The long-term goal is to bring connectivity to those who don't have it," he says. "The normal strategy is to ask commercial operators to do these things."

Onno has had little luck so far. More promising is the commercial deployment of technology allowing faster 3G connections to rural areas. While most solar-powered base stations only support voice, short message service and very rudimentary 2G services, the next step is to add more power-hungry 3G data. Altobridge's Tuomey says he's working to commercially deploy mobile broadband with Malaysia's Maxis.

Whether its 2G or 3G, says VNL's Mehrotra, there's no question that there's pent-up demand. "We see the traffic and it's unbelievable," he says.

"They talk, talk, talk. They want to talk to everyone." — Reuters

Diamonds are a German’s best friend this Christmas

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 06:22 AM PST

A model holds the "Archduke Joseph" historial diamond. — AFP pic

FRANKFURT, Dec 20 — With record low interest rates providing little incentive to open a bank account, canny Germans are choosing a more glamorous place to put their money this Christmas — jewellery.

Demand for diamond rings and gold watches is also being fuelled by an uncertain economic outlook, which is making shoppers in Europe's largest economy seek out gifts more likely to retain — and possibly increase — their value.

The BVJ German association of jewellers and watch retailers is forecasting sales of 5 billion euros (RM20 billion) this year, matching last year's record despite the euro zone crisis, and with over a third of that to come over the Christmas season.

"If the trading we have seen in the last few days keeps up we may even improve slightly on last year," BVJ managing director Joachim Duenkelmann told Reuters.

The BVJ says Germans are looking for security against the backdrop of the euro zone debt crisis, political uncertainty in the Middle East and continuing low interest rates.

"People are investing in two things these days — diamonds and property," said one shopper admiring diamond rings and a single 2.1 carat diamond costing 63,000 euros in a window on Frankfurt's exclusive Goethestrasse shopping street.

Interest rates in the euro zone are at an all-time low of 0.75 per cent, and many economists expect the European Central Bank to cut them further in early 2013 to try to revive the bloc's ailing economy.

While European neighbours are tightening their belts, low unemployment and rising wages are also encouraging Germans, traditionally a nation of savers, to spend their cash.

Data from the Bundesbank shows the proportion of disposable income that Germans put into savings stood at 8.8 per cent in the third quarter of this year, down sharply from 13.7 per cent in the first quarter, and compared with 10.4 per cent in 2011.

"Consumers are therefore tending to put their finances into purchases that will keep their value, instead of leaving them in banks," market research group GfK said.

The BVJ says gold, platinum and diamonds are seen as especially safe investments, and that while market prices of these metals have soared, that has not necessarily translated into sharply higher prices for jewellery.

Gold prices are up around 7 per cent this year and set for a 12th consecutive annual rise, driven by low interest rates, concerns over the euro zone and diversification into bullion by central banks.

HSBC on Tuesday raised its forecast for platinum prices in 2013 and 2014.

Enduring value

A study by Ernst & Young shows that 26 per cent of shoppers in Germany were planning to buy jewellery as gifts this year, up from 23 per cent last year.

"No matter what happens to the piece of jewellery or to the economy, the material value of precious metals and stones will remain," the BVJ's Duenkelmann said.

German retailer Douglas may be battling stiff competition from online retailers like Amazon at its book stores, but says its Christ chain of 209 jewellery stores is a bright spot.

"Sales of diamond jewellery are currently on the up — whether as an investment or simply as a piece of beautiful jewellery," Chief Executive Henning Kreke told Reuters

In the first nine months of its 2011/2012 business year, Douglas' jewellery arm saw a 10 per cent rise in sales to 291 million euros, with core profit up 7.6 per cent to 34 million.

Staff at high-end jewellers in Frankfurt reported good demand for classic rings, necklaces and watches, especially those with diamonds.

"People are looking for items that keep their value. We're definitely doing more business than last year," said a sales assistant at one jeweller who declined to be named because of company policy. — Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Breaking Views

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The Malaysian Insider :: Breaking Views

More funerals, gun-control push follow Connecticut shooting

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 08:18 AM PST

Sophie Bell, 9, at an interfaith candlelight prayer vigil at Los Angeles City Hall, December 19, 2012, holds a sign to end gun violence. — Reuters pics

NEWTOWN, Connecticut, Dec 20 — Even as they buried more victims of the second-deadliest school shooting in US history today, residents of Newtown, Connecticut, looked for ways to pressure national leaders to restrict access to weapons.

Funerals were scheduled for a half-dozen people, some as young as 6 years old, who were shot and killed on Friday by a heavily armed 20-year-old man who attacked an elementary school with an assault rifle.

The December 14 rampage, in which 28 people were killed including 20 children and the gunman, has sparked new discussion on tightening the nation's gun laws, a thorny political issue in the United States, which has a strong culture of individual gun ownership.

Police officers escort family members at the funeral for six-year-old victim Catherine Hubbard at St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Newtown, December 20, 2012.

Vice President Joe Biden plans to convene today the first meeting of a new White House task force charged by President Barack Obama with drawing up a plan to tackle gun violence in the United States.

The powerful firearms lobby, the National Rifle Association, which has long resisted any effort to restrict gun ownership, signalled this week it might be ready to bend. It said it would offer "meaningful contributions" to prevent future such massacres at an event in Washington tomorrow.

In Newtown, a few dozen residents met at the town library last night to discuss ways they could influence the national debate. Senator Richard Blumenthal told the group it was time for a "seismic change" in gun policies.

"This horrific tragedy has changed America, in the way that it is ready to stop the spread of gun violence," Blumenthal said.

The shooter, Adam Lanza, used guns that were legally purchased and registered to his mother Nancy, his first victim, in Friday's attack.

A funeral home outside Connecticut plans to claim her body, The New Haven Register reported, citing Connecticut's chief medical examiner, Dr. H. Wayne Carver II. Lanza's brother is a retired police official from New Hampshire.

Speaking at the town library meeting, Connecticut Senator-elect Chris Murphy urged the participants to use the formerly quiet suburb's time in the national spotlight to pressure his future colleagues in Washington to act.

"The most important thing is to build a movement here, to build a network," Murphy told the group, Newtown United. Both Murphy and Blumenthal are Democrats.

US lawmakers are already taking steps to restrict access to the deadliest weapons. Democrats in the House of Representatives yesterday began to push for a vote on a bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition clips that allow a shooter wielding an assault rifle to spray dozens of bullets without pausing to reload.

The backlash against guns has not been limited to lawmakers. Retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc took down an informational website about Bushmaster rifles, the sort used in the attack. Dick's Sporting Goods pulled all guns from its store closest to the massacre in Newtown, about 130 km northeast of New York City.

Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP this week said it would sell the Freedom Group, the largest US manufacturer of firearms, which produced the Bushmaster AR-15-type rifle used in the attack.

Officials from states including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and California have begun a review of their investments in firearms manufacturers. — Reuters

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 08:00 AM PST

And they're not alone.

A study finds that 1.5 billion people lack access to a cellpone signal in Indonesia. — AFP pic

According to a study released in October by the GSM Association (GSMA), a grouping of mobile operators, 1.5 billion people lack access to a cellphone signal.

That means rural folk like those in Mambi will form the bulk of some 700 million new cellular subscriptions in the next five years, reckon the GSMA.

"The barrier to entry is no longer the device but the availability of the network," says Prashant Gokarn, chief strategy and planning officer at Indosat Tbk PT, Indonesia's second largest operator.

This shift has led to a rash of moves by operators to reach beyond the low-hanging fruit of urban subscribers to connect "the unsignalled".

But it's already making a difference.

In Mambi, for example, Altobridge sent one of its engineers, Australian Sean Heffernan, at the beginning of the year to set up two base stations covering a cluster of villages.

"It basically changed their lives," he said.

"As the economy grows, as the middle income grows, these are the future customers of telcos," he says.

"And for us, it's simple: we're a mass market bank and so these are the customers we'd like to see."

Instead, Indosat cut tariffs. While the average revenue per user didn't necessarily rise, the increased traffic pushed up a more relevant metric: the average revenue per base station.

"It's probably not a good model to price it very high," Gokarn said.

This seems to match Altobridge's broader experience.

For some the technology has more ways to go.

"It's not about the cost of the base station anymore," he said. "It's power."

"The long-term goal is to bring connectivity to those who don't have it," he says. "The normal strategy is to ask commercial operators to do these things."

Whether its 2G or 3G, says VNL's Mehrotra, there's no question that there's pent-up demand. "We see the traffic and it's unbelievable," he says.

"They talk, talk, talk. They want to talk to everyone." — Reuters

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Book Talk: The sin of envy on a small Greek island

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 07:53 AM PST

TOKYO, Dec 20 — After a Greek bride is abandoned at the altar and her prospective bridegroom is found blinded from an acid attack, local villagers are baffled until Hermes Diaktoras, a portly man in white tennis shoes, arrives to help.

Author Anne Zouroudi. — AFP pic

So begins "The Doctor of Thessaly," the third in a series of detective stories by British-born author Anne Zouroudi that feature Hermes, who even as he works to unravel the crime has more than a hint of mystery about himself.

Zouroudi, who married a Greek fisherman and lived for a while in the remote Greek islands, spoke with Reuters about the origins of her sleuth and the themes that underpin her series.

Q: What started the series?

A: "When I came back to England with my tail between my legs and a failed marriage and a small child in tow, I wrote the first book in the series, 'The Messenger of Athens' kind of to get the issues out for myself, to understand for myself what had gone wrong and why it hadn't been this idyll. I was expecting to live the rest of my life there. So I think 'The Messenger of Athens' is quite a bleak book, really, sort of explaining to myself and to the world what I found in a very isolated and very tiny Greek community.

"But the lead character in that book is obviously slightly worldly and I based him on my interest in Jungian archetypes, actually. The idea of this figure of justice had immense appeal to me and I think he really appealed to readers as well. So when the first book was published, Bloomsbury really liked that character and said, come on, we can do more with him.

"So because the first book was based around lust and love, and there were very blurred lines between lust and love, I thought, you know, lust is supposed to be a sin so we could go through the seven deadly sins. That's how the series was born."

Q: You said you were working through issues, why choose the detective story form?

A: "Because I wanted to write something that I would like to read, and I love to read crime ... When I travel, I like to read books that are about the place that I'm visiting, and yet I could find very few novels of any description based in Greece.

"It seemed to be a market where there was a bit of a dearth, actually. So I really wrote originally a book that I would like to read, and happily other readers seemed to like them too."

Q: You said Hermes was kind of a Jungian archetype — how else did you come up with him

A: "The story of his appearance is actually quite an interesting one. In the Greek islands in winter, there isn't very much to do. One Sunday afternoon, my ex-husband and I took a walk to the local cemetery because where else are you going to go? When we got there, there was another couple there, and one of them was a man I didn't know. I hadn't seen him before, which once again is very unusual in small Greek islands in winter

"He was a very elegant man. He was wearing a suit and a raincoat, and he had owlish glasses and a quite distinctive hairstyle, distinctive longish gray curls. He was standing on the cemetery wall and looking down onto the sea. He was such a striking character that when I came to think of a description of Hermes he immediately came to mind. But rather unglamorously, he turned to out to be the new manager of the bank of the island where I was living ... I should say, though, that the bank manager was not wearing the white tennis shoes, they were another quirky detail that came from childhood."

Q: So then he gradually developed?

A: "The fact is, through the books Hermes never changes because it's the nature of who he is and what he is, not to change. Readers can make of him what they will, but to me, he is an incarnation of the god Hermes. My theory on the gods is this: as we have slowly forgotten about them, the immortals have begun to age, very slowly. So over millennia Hermes has begun to age and become quite portly, he is going a bit gray. My theory is that if we started to remember the old gods — and I think to an extent that's happening (and) the Greek myths are becoming quite voguish at the moment — perhaps he might reverse and revert to his original golden youth and become young and dashingly handsome again."

Q: Are you doing books on all the seven deadly sins?

A: "Yes, I've just finished the seventh. It's out next June in the U.K. So we're at a bit of a crossroads with Hermes right now, where should we go next?"

Q: So you're not finished with him?

A: "No, I don't think so, because I have a quite big fan base here in the U.K and abroad. People are just loving the character. They love the idea of this character who just turns up from nowhere, fixes everything and then quietly melts away ... It's at the heart of all crime fiction, really, but I think because Hermes is not a policeman and it's based more on natural justice rather than legal justice, people find that really appealing. But now having done the seven deadly sins, where should he go next? I'm thinking the Ten Commandments, maybe. We're still thinking about it." — Reuters

Lawyer who foretold church scandals writes his story

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 07:44 AM PST

LONDON, Dec 20 — Ray Mouton was a successful young lawyer in Lafayette, Louisiana, respected in the community and blessed with a loving family, when he received a call from a vicar in the Roman Catholic diocese for a lunch meeting on a fateful day in 1984.

"In God's House" was a work of atonement for Ray Mouton. — AFP pic

The diocese asked him to defend an errant priest, accused of abusing dozens of children in a rural community. Mouton reluctantly agreed to take on the task.

What followed over the next few years was the uncovering of an institution riddled with paedophile priests on a national scale and efforts at high levels in the Catholic Church to hide the problem away.

For Mouton, it meant the end of his law career, health problems, and anger, depression and guilt.

After many years of writing from his self-imposed exile in France, he finally tells his story in the novel "In God's House". It is a harrowing read laden with sickening detail, but also for Mouton, a work of atonement.

"There's not a day I don't think about the children. When I was writing the book, whenever I wanted to quit, I thought about the victims and their families," he told Reuters.

In person, Mouton, now aged 65, looks like a southern lawyer from central casting, with a head of thick white hair and a sonorous Louisiana drawl.

He chose to tell the story in novel form although the characters, from the lawyer to a senior Vatican official who proves an obstacle to addressing the scandal — are based on real figures.

"The novel is a dramatic experience. My experience was a traumatic one. Every day there were revelations. I didn't want to believe, the country didn't want to believe," he said.

Mouton and his family — Cajuns whose ancestors came to Louisiana as part of the Acadian diaspora — were strongly Catholic. His family had donated land for the cathedral in Lafayette and built schools, churches and a seminary.

When he first agreed to defend the priest, Father Gilbert Gauthe, he believed he was dealing with an isolated case.

"I believed priests were somehow superior. I had never heard of a priest having sex with a child. I could not believe a Catholic priest could do this. I thought he was just one then it all unravelled. In that diocese alone there were a dozen more."

The church preferred to deal with the problem by paying off victims' families. But one family wanted to see justice done.

As a lawyer, Mouton believed Gauthe had the right to a fair trial. He soon realised the church was deeply compromised. It had known about Gauthe's crimes since his days in seminary but had moved him around various parishes, where the abuses continued.

The church was in effect harbouring criminals, Mouton said.

"I did start out on the side of the church. I couldn't imagine they had foreknowledge," he said.

Mouton joined forces with Father Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer in the Vatican Embassy in Washington, and Father Michael Peterson, a psychiatrist priest who treated sexually deviant clergymen. The two had heard many other cases across Louisiana and the United States — and attempts to bury the problem.

Believing they had the support of the church hierarchy, they set out on a crusade to bring it into the open and seek justice for the victims.

They spent a year working on a document detailing the scale of the abuse, the steps the church should take to address it and the consequences if it did not. It stated that there was a national crisis involving dozens, if not hundreds, of priests.

"It told them what the deal was — you'll lose 1,000 priests and a billion dollars."

They hoped to present the document to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for debate. But after a meeting in a Chicago hotel in 1985 with a cardinal, they were told to kill it.

"They put the reputation of the church above the value of the little children. They did all they could to avoid scandal."

Fall from grace

"In God's House" details a powerful apparatus at work involving local politicians, expensive lawyers, insurance companies and bishops. It also reached into the Vatican, which Mouton says considered the institution above the law.

It also shows the devastation of the victims and their families — shame, anger and frustration as well as physical damage. Many were told that to seek redress would be disloyal to the church, adding further conflict to their emotions.

Mouton himself suffered verbal abuse and even death threats in the community for defending Gauthe. He was accused of trying to extort the church for exorbitant fees.

He put up an insanity plea for Gauthe but the priest himself insisted he was sane. He was sentenced to 20 years.

However, a senior jurist in Louisiana involved himself personally in Gauthe's case. Instead of going to a prison that was a treatment facility for paedophiles, the priest was sent to a prison where juveniles were held. He was released after serving only half of his sentence

Gauthe was picked up in Texas soon after his release for molesting a 3-year-old boy, but put on probation rather than being sent back to prison.

Mouton's marriage broke up and he became an alcoholic.

"It was a cataclysmic event. It broke me in half. I did fall from grace," he said.

It took many years but subsequent events have vindicated Mouton as widespread sexual abuse by priests came to light across the United States and the world, from Ireland to Australia.

The church and its insurance companies have paid out more than US$2 billion dollars (RM6.11 billion) in the United States, bishops have been disgraced, and its reputation has suffered to the point that the faithful have deserted in droves.

Mouton now lives in southern France close to the Pyrenees with his second wife Melony and travels frequently to Spain, Mexico and other countries.

He is still bitter about the cover-ups and that many of those responsible have never been brought to justice. Nor has the problem been eradicated, he believes.

"I don't think we've reached critical mass on it yet. The question is what can the church do? The church needs to release all the documents and demand the resignations of those involved."

The novel is dedicated to Scott Anthony Gastal, the first child to testify in court against a bishop, and to the victims and their families, who, he says, "were abandoned not by their God, but by their Church".

"I was haunted by my experience. I felt I had to do something," he said. — Reuters

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It can be fun being the opposition!

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 04:10 PM PST

DEC 20 — While the rest of mankind may justifiably feel — after December 21 — that the end of the world has been averted for another millennium at least, Umno leaders are likely to stay in the doomsday funk for a tad longer as their stay of execution shortens with a nearing general election in 2013.

Smile, my friends in Umno, not all will be lost when you lose the polls; always look at the bright side of death.

While I may appear smug, I readily concede that an election should be entirely about the will of the people and Pakatan Rakyat is completely entitled to lose too. All of us can win or lose the mandate of the people.

Just that Pakatan leaders have lost many, many times before. We've got oodles of practice, while our colleagues in Umno will go chart a course into the great unknown when they are ousted.

Things like winning voters with ideas not handouts and asking BN volunteers to work for free, frightening!

So we care, I care, about these Umno men lost at sea. When I say Umno men, I am not referring to the millions of people living or dead, real or fictional listed in its membership directory, but the thousands who live off the party's largesse through the control of government, state companies and ownership of businesses with "guarantees."

How would these Umno men carry on?

Since this is Christmas, a season to give, let's list down the positive flip-side of being in the federal opposition.

There are some upsides, stretch your imagination a little.

And then there'll be things I will work to ensuring the opposition Umno gets access to; all part of being in the happy family of a democracy.

The cussing ends... for a while

It's been raining without respite the last month in the Klang Valley, it can be annoying. Therefore, Klang Valley residents can sense somewhat how it feels to be an Umno operative; it has been an unrelenting typhoon shower since somewhere in the start of the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administration.

The good times are still the good times (the contracts are always there), but the national moan about the excesses of the Umno community can be off-putting. During the tail-end of the Mahathir years, the tales of unaccountability and high-handedness was pointed at the man who doesn't give a flying teacup when criticised, but since he took leave of office — maybe not power — the Malaysian public have turned their swords on Umno.

Mind you, Malaysians may still vote Umno into power again, however the collective spite will return after the euphoria of electoral victory. A classic case of the cancer cells returning with verve after a short period of remission.

So as an operative, think of it as a short planned holiday.

Power is desirable, but so is popularity, so in a bid for the latter Umno men must go on a sabbatical, like Luke Skywalker in "Empire Strikes Back" — without the sliced hand ending.

Come back rejuvenated and righteous and tell people why Pakatan is not fixing quickly all the problems you have engineered and executed over decades.

Use old methods, accuse Pakatan of creating the problems. Causality does not matter in politics, only present realities.

Stand on the moral high ground with your new south-of-France tan, and pontificate about two years of Pakatan is two years too long. And in a year you can use the most original line of three years of Pakatan is three years too long.

Keep in touch, vote away from home

The overseas vote will be realised under Pakatan, so a million-odd Malaysians with education, worldliness and experience in other democracies will vote. Guess which way they'd vote, Umno?

On a brighter note, those who are now just MPs or no more — actually it doesn't matter either way if you are not in the coalition that wins — can now spend more time in their beach houses and country homes away from Malaysia. Because you can vote without having to fly back.

The kids won't treat you like a paedophile

Selangor might have been a Pakatan state for the last four years and houses most of the public schools in the country, but Pakatan MPs never get invited to the schools. The state also is the home to most of the premier public universities, but Pakatan leaders can't officially sniff the campus lawns.

I'm not about to claim there is an elaborate and dishonest policy to shut out Pakatan leaders from all public educational facilities, but you can say our official invites never get delivered by the mailmen.

Selangor does have one tertiary institution, Universiti Selangor, the single oasis for your Pakatan leaders to mingle with young voters in a campus.

Worry not Umno, universities and schools can invite you as they please.

No point teaching civics and social responsibilities if the guy responsible to carry your political mandate is not allowed in a classroom.

No point telling kids that a democracy is about choosing when they have no valid way to weigh all their choices.

And it is just downright mad to let children pay the price of all political decisions and then bar them from interacting with the key players of the field of decision making. It is akin to manufacturing indifference and possible ineptitude in our children, and then in their adulthood demanding a refund because the unit has no opinion.

Sorry Umno man, saw you yawning, here's the cliffnote: you can talk to the kids, even about your archaic, vitriolic and unproductive race-hate discourse, we'll focus on making them smarter. If they can't see past your simplistic notions of might is right, then we've done a lousy job with the education and they do belong with you.

Show the right stuff at your states, run a tight ship

Kelantan has had a 22-year run as a renegade state in the eyes of BN, it would be good to see how long a state like Johor would have under a Pakatan government.

However, fear not those set to run BN states in a Pakatan federal government, there'll won't be the "interruption to normal service" and standoffs.

If Lim Guan Eng can plod along despite being called a man who walks around like the Gestapo for Malays, and not implode; and instead outperform all expectations, I'm sure Umno can outshine Lim when they are in similar situations under Pakatan's Putrajaya.

And there is so much more

I can go on and on, waxing lyrical about all of which Umno will be getting on our watch, but the short of it is that Umno will get everything we should have been having a crack at if this were a level playing field now. How it is supposed to be.

But I have to admit, I will miss what is now becoming a norm, to blame all the endemic wrongs in the country on Umno. I mean there will be a time, not much longer after Pakatan takes over and when the bloodletting in Umno is complete, that people will ease off on Umno.

It is the nature of people. No functioning state can fill its day with blame and the past.

It would be fun to see Umno struggle to perform basic political work as we do because they are suppressing us now, but wanting that on your opponents is just mean.

And being mean is not how you make things better, make Malaysia better. Which is why, Umno is about to have an easier ride as the opposition party. Good enough? Adjust dude, all said and done, it is a fall.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Tahniah Teresa Kok

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 03:19 PM PST

20 DIS — Ucapan tahniah buat Teresa Kok yang memenangi pemilihan Jawatankuasa Pasat DAP dan kemudian terpillih pula menjadi Naib Pengerusi DAP.

Ia adalah satu penghormatan kepada perjuangan wanita di Malaysia dan sekalian wanita wajar berbangga dengan pemilihannya. Dan dengan kedudukan itu, kiranya Pakatan Rakyat berjaya menawan Putrajaya pada PRU13 nanti, Teresa diduga akan duduk dalam kabinet.

Saya tidak menduga seorang gadis muda yang datang ke pejabat saya di pejabat Harakah berbelas tahun lalu adalah seorang pimpinan penting DAP hari ini dan mungkin menjadi seorang tokoh nasional yang ke depan.

Teresa dan seorang wanita lagi datang ke pejabat saya beberapa tahun sebelum dia menjadi anggota Parlimen Siputih. Dia tidak memberitahu saya yang dia adalah aktivis DAP.

Pertama kali saya menemuinya itu, dia meninjau pandangan saya tentang Aung San Suu Kyi, wanita ikon demokrasi Myanmar yang ditahan rumah lebih 20 tahun itu. PAS adakah bersama sekalian pejuang kebebasan demokrasi di seluruh dunia menentang penahanan itu.

Dia mengaku ada hubungan langsung dengan penyokong wanita itu dan ada asas jalan darat melalui Thailand untuk sampai ke tempat tahanannya.

Dia tanya saya apakah saya mahu menemuinya? Jika saya mahu, dia boleh mengatur perjalanan bersama kedua wanita itu pergi mengunjunginya melalui jalan darat. Ia mungkin mengambil masa seminggu untuk pergi dan seminggu lagi untuk balik.

Saya sendiri tertarik untuk pengembaraan seperti itu, untuk mencari pengalaman dan untuk melihat desa dan hutan rimba wilayah-wilayah yang dilalui.

Kalau saya setuju, dia sedia untuk menyusun perjalanan dan mengatur pertemuan itu. Saya setuju pada dasarnya. Dia minta saya menghubunginya jika saya bersedia.

Kemudian datang fikiran saya telah masalah perjalanan lama dengan wanita-wanita muda pula. Banyak fitnah yang menunggu. Terutama Teresa itu orangnya amat peramah. Oleh kerana saya rasa saya tidak cukup merdeka dan tidak terdaya mendekati fitnah, saya tidak menguhunginya.

Satu hari saya menghadiri pertemuan dengan belia NGO di sebuah rumah dekat dengan pejabat DAP di Petaling Jaya. Saya jumpa Teresa di situ. Jika saya tidak silap, dia tinggal di rumah itu. Masa itu baru saya tahu dia aktivis muda DAP.

Dalam satu seminar di Universiti Malaya, saya jumpa lagi dia di situ. Kata Syed Azman, pensyarah di situ masa itu, Teresa adalah penuntutnya. Syed Azman adalah ADUN PAS Terengganu sekarang.

Kemudian dia menjadi calon DAP di Parlimen Siputih. Dia menang. Lepas itu kerap saya menemuinya di Parliman. Semasa Ustaz Fadzil Noor menjadi ketua pembangkang di Parlimen, Teresa selalu ada di pejabat ketua pembangkang itu.

Dia memang peramah, sentiasa senyum, mudah diajak berbincang. Dan pandai pula bergurau. Kira-kira itulah watak yang esok untuk menjadi wakil rakyat kerana caranya itu mudah menarik pelanggan.

Bila tiba waktu solat kami selalu solat di bilik Ustaz Fadzil itu. Bila Teresa ada dia melihat kami solat.

Bila tiba waktu solat ketika sedang berbual dengannya, saya berita dia saya hendak solat sebentar dan dia boleh duduk di situ dulu.

Kerana dia seorang yang senang berkawan, saya tidak terasa segan solat semasa dia ada, dan pernah bergarau, "Teresa mari kita solat bersama!"

Sambil senyum dan bersahaja dia menjawab, "You solat dulu."

Kami tergelak. "I sungguh anak you solat sama."

Jawabnya, "Tak apa you solat dulu. Nanti I solat pula..."

Sudah lama tidak ke Parlimen dan tidak bertemu dengannya. Semasa Kongres DAP di Pulau Pinanag itu dia jadi orang penting mengendalikan persiapan Kongres. Sekarang dia sudah jadi Naib Pengerusi DAP dan pengerusinya ialah Karpal Singh.

* Ini adalah pandangan peribadi penulis.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Khamis, 20 Disember 2012