Rabu, 30 Januari 2013

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

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The Malaysian Insider :: Food

Star-studded anti-hunger campaign tops rising food-related Google searches

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 04:26 PM PST

Among the most popular food-related searches on Google this week? Super Bowl recipe ideas. – Picture courtesy of ©e2dan/shutterstock.com

LONDON, Jan 31 – In this week's top trending food-related Google searches, a star-studded campaign to end world hunger and unequal food distribution was the most popular search term, notably among Googlers in the UK.

According to Google Trends, as of yesterday, the search term "enough food if" experienced a change in growth greater than 5,000 per cent over the last seven days.

That's because an online movement, powered by a bevy of celebrities like actor Cameron Diaz, Orlando Bloom, One Direction, and American business magnate Bill Gates, has gained momentum over the week.

Calling the food system "broken," Enoughfoodif.org calls on world leaders to fix the problem of unequal food distribution with four basic principles: aid, land, tax, transparency.

"The world produces enough food for everyone, but more than two million children die every year because they can't get enough to eat," the group says.

The campaign is being launched ahead of the G8 summit in June, when Northern Ireland will host the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world.

Meanwhile, other top rising food-related search terms on Google over the last week included Australia Day food ideas which was celebrated January 26 and Super Bowl recipe ideas for the big day, February 3.

Here were the top trending food searches on Google over the last week:

1. Enough food if Breakout

2. Australia Day food +250 per cent

3. Superbowl food ideas +200 per cent

4. Food fraud +180 per cent

5. Super bowl +150 per cent

6. Superbowl food +140 per cent

7. Super bowl food +130 per cent

8. Best cat food +50 per cent

9. Best food processor +50 per cent

10. Restaurants near me +50 per cent. – AFP-Relaxnews

First Barbie-themed restaurant opens in Taiwan

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 03:47 PM PST

A waitress holds up a menu during the opening ceremony of a Barbie-themed restaurant in Taipei on January 30, 2013. – AFP pix

TAIPEI, Jan 31 – With hot pink sofas, high heels-shaped tables and chairs decorated with tutus, the first Barbie-themed restaurant opened in Taiwan yesterday catering to fans of the iconic doll.

US toymaker Mattel has licensed Taiwan's restaurant group Sinlaku to operate the Barbie Cafe and hopes that the new establishment in a bustling shopping district in the capital Taipei will help promote Barbie as a fashion brand.

"We picked Taiwan because theme restaurants are very popular and successful here. We are very confident that the Barbie Cafe can promote our brand image," said Iggy Yip, a senior manager in Mattel's consumer products division in Greater China.

Besides dolls, Mattel retails garments, accessories and furniture in Taiwan and some select products will be available in the cafe, she said.

Yip is hopeful that the restaurant will also attract Barbie fans from China, Hong Kong and Japan, which are among the biggest sources of tourists to Taiwan.

Jessica Ho, an office worker in Taipei who has a five-year-old daughter, gave her thumbs-up to the Barbie Cafe.

"My child and I both love Barbie and this lovely and cute place is like a dream come true for us. I will take her here to celebrate her next birthday," she said.

Taiwan has a long history with Barbie as it used to be a manufacturing centre for the dolls until Mattel relocated its production lines to China and elsewhere to lower costs in the late 1980s.

With hot pink sofas, high heels-shaped tables and chairs decorated with tutus, the first Barbie-themed restaurant opened catering to fans of the iconic doll.

Mattel had launched a Barbie concept store in China in 2009, as it celebrated the doll's 50th birthday, but it was closed down after two years amid reports the outlet failed to get off the ground. – AFP-Relaxnews

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The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

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The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

Newcastle French connection clicks in ‘massive’ Villa win

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 06:42 AM PST

Newcastle United's Papiss Cisse (R) celebrates his goal against Aston Villa during their English Premier League soccer match at Villa Park in Birmingham, central England, January 29, 2013. – Reuters pic

LONDON, Jan 30 – Newcastle United's French spending spree paid immediate dividends in their fight against Premier League relegation with a "massive" 2-1 win over fellow strugglers Aston Villa yesterday.

Newcastle, plagued by injuries and languishing in 15th place having finished a surprise fifth last season, have signed five French players in the January transfer window.

Assured debuts by midfielder Moussa Sissoko and forward Yoan Gouffran, among 11 Frenchmen in the Newcastle squad, silenced the doubters.

"Welcome to the English league for the French boys. Every one of them put in a great shift," defender Steven Taylor, who was making his first appearance since November after an injury layoff, told the club's website (http://www.nufc.co.uk).

"It was a massive, massive win. That feels like one of the most important games I've ever played in a black and white jersey," added the 27-year-old after Newcastle pulled four points clear of the drop zone.

Taylor laughed off suggestions that there was a culture and language clash at Newcastle amid reports of club fines for players not speaking in English.

"They (the French players) got up one by one and sang in front of the lads. It's great and it's what we need at this football club – that togetherness," said Taylor who grew up in Newcastle.

"The banter was flying the night before the game and the French lads were in amongst it. Already they've been accepted by the boys. They want to come here and fight it out and that second-half performance was what we need."

Gouffran was impressed by the famous Newcastle away support, numbering over 2,500 at Villa Park.

"They were magnificent, absolutely superb. You just don't get that sort of support in France," said the ex-Girondins Bordeaux forward.

Manager Alan Pardew, under pressure having been given an eight-year contract by owner Mike Ashley in September on the back of his success last year, said France midfielder Sissoko had been a great find.

"Sissoko is a class act, trust me. Everything that I thought he might do for this team, he delivered in the first half," said Pardew after Sissoko provided the assist for Papiss Cisse to score the opener after 19 minutes.

"He ran out of steam in the second half – those French players now know the difference between Ligue 1 and the Premier League."

Newcastle next face Chelsea in the league on Saturday and play Ukraine's Metalist Kharkiv in the Europa League last 32 in February. – Reuters

QPR sign South Korean fullback Yun

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 03:06 AM PST

Hernan Perez of Paraguay (L) challenges Yun Suk-young of South Korea (R) during their FIFA U-20 World Cup soccer match in Cairo in this file photo of October 5, 2009. – Reuters pic

LONDON, Jan 30 – South Korean international defender Yun Suk-young has signed a three-and-a-half year deal with Queens Park Rangers, the Premier League club said today.

The 22-year-old joins the struggling west Londoners, who are three points adrift at the bottom of the table, from Korean side Chunnam Dragons for an undisclosed fee.

Yun was part of the South Korean side that won bronze at the London Olympics last year and made his full international debut in a World Cup qualifier last October.

QPR said on their website (http://www.qpr.co.uk) that the Korean had been granted a work permit and would be eligible to play once he had obtained a visa. – Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Features

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Could an earlier lunchtime help you lose weight?

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 07:41 AM PST

A study finds that dieters who ate early lunches tended to lose more weight than those who had their midday meal on the later side. — Reuters pic

BOSTON, Jan 30 — Want to lose weight? Eating lunch earlier rather than later may help you out.

Dieters who ate early lunches tended to lose more weight than those who had their midday meal on the later side, according to a Spanish study published in the International Journal of Obesity.

The finding doesn't prove that bumping up your lunch hour will help you shed that extra weight, but it is possible that eating times play a role in how the body regulates its weight, researchers said.

"We should now seriously start to consider the timing of food — not just what we eat, but also when we eat," said study co-author Frank Scheer, from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

His group's research included 420 people attending nutrition clinics in southeast Spain. Along with going to regular group therapy sessions with nutrition and exercise counseling, dieters measured, weighed and recorded their food and reported on their daily physical activity.

Study participants were on a so-called Mediterranean diet, in which about 40 per cent of each day's calories are consumed at lunch. About half of the people said they ate lunch before 3:00 p.m. and half after.

Over 20 weeks of counseling, early and late lunchers ate a similar amount of food, based on their food journals, and burned a similar amount of calories through daily activities.

However, early eaters lost an average of 10 kilograms (22 lbs) — just over 11 per cent of their starting weight — while late eaters dropped 7.7kg (17 lb), or nine per cent of their initial weight.

What time dieters ate breakfast or dinner wasn't linked to their ultimate weight loss.

One limitation of the study is that the researchers didn't randomly assign people to eat early or late, so it's possible there were other underlying differences between dieters with different mealtimes. Certain gene variants that have been linked to obesity were more common in late lunchers, for example.

People who eat later may have extra food in their stomach when they go to sleep, which could mean more of it isn't burned and ends up being stored as fat, said Yunsheng Ma, a nutrition researcher from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

How often people eat during the day and whether they bring food from home or eat out may also contribute to weight loss, added Ma, who wasn't involved in the new research.

He said any implications of late eating could be exacerbated among people in the United States.

"The pattern of consumption of meals is very different in the US," Ma told Reuters Health. Many people skip breakfast or lunch, then end up overdoing it on calories at dinner.

Scheer said that in the United States, where dinner is typically the biggest meal, researchers would expect people who eat later dinners to have more trouble losing weight based on his team's findings.

Regardless of exact mealtimes, Ma said it's important for people to spread their calories out through the day.

"Have a good breakfast and a good lunch, and at dinner, people should eat lightly," he said. — Reuters

Cancer gene mutation linked to earlier menopause

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 07:35 AM PST

An estimated one in 600 US women carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation. — AFP pic

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 30 — Women who carry the BRCA mutations tied to breast and ovarian cancer may hit menopause a few years earlier than other women, according to a US study of nearly a thousand women.

Doctors already discuss with those women whether they want immediate surgery to remove their ovaries and breasts, or if they want to start a family first and hold off on ovary removal.

"Now they have an additional issue to deal with," said Mitchell Rosen, who worked on the study at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

An estimated one in 600 US women carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation.

Those mutations greatly increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, a woman's chance of getting breast cancer at some point in her life increases from 12 to 60 per cent with a BRCA mutation, and ovarian cancer from 1.4 per cent to between 15 and 40 per cent.

What has been less well studied is whether those mutations also affect a woman's egg stores and her chance of getting pregnant

For the study, which appeared in the journal Cancer, the researchers surveyed 382 California women who carried the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation and nother 765 women who weren't known carriers.

The study team focused specifically on women who went through menopause naturally, and not those who had their ovaries removed before menopause.

Women with the genetic mutations said they'd stopped getting their periods at age 50, on average, compared to age 53 for other women. The youngest natural menopause, at age 46, came for women with a BRCA mutation who were also heavy smokers, Rosen and his colleagues reported.

Their study only included white women, so it's unknown whether the findings apply to other racial and ethnic groups. It's also not clear whether mutation carriers had any trouble conceiving, although it's more likely, they said.

But the last thing BRCA mutation carriers need is to have another thing to seriously worry about, said Ellen Matloff, director of cancer genetic counselling at the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut.

Those women are already advised to get their ovaries taken out b y age 40, which puts a "huge burden" on them to find a partner and start a family, she said.

"This study does not mean that you can't have children, and it doesn't mean that you have less time than you thought you did," said Matloff, who added that more research will be needed to confirm these findings and their impact, if any.

Almost all women who carry the mutations have their ovaries removed surgically before going through natural menopause anyway, she added. — Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Breaking Views

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The Malaysian Insider :: Breaking Views

Samy Vellu to assist BN in recapturing Sungai Siput

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 07:57 AM PST

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 30 — Former MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has pledged to assist the Barisan Nasional (BN) in wresting the Sungai Siput parliamentary constituency in the 13th general election.

Samy (picture), who was appointed the BN election machinery coordinator for Sungai Siput in November, said he would leave it to the party's leadership to nominate the BN candidate for the seat.

"I was appointed by the prime minister to head BN in Sungai Siput. My task is to ensure the Sungai Siput parliamentary constituency return to the BN fold.

"I will accomplish the assignment given and I do not discuss who will be the candidate," he told reporters after recording the Tamil version of the Hello Malaysia programme over Bernama TV today.

Samy, who is also Malaysia's special infrastructure ambassador to India and South Asia, was also former member of parliament for Sungai Siput. — Bernama

Donors meet target of US$1.5b aid for stricken Syrians — UN

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 07:55 AM PST

Delegates wait for the opening ceremony of the International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria at Bayan Palace on the outskirts of Kuwait City January 30, 2013. — Reuters pic

KUWAIT, Jan 30 — Donor countries have pledged more than US$1.5 billion (RM4.5 billion) to aid Syrians stricken by civil war, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today after warning that the conflict had wrought a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

"Every day Syrians face unrelenting horrors," Ban told a donors gathering in Kuwait, including sexual violence, arbitrary killings and detentions. Sixty-five people were shot dead execution-style in Aleppo yesterday, opposition activists said.

"How many more people will be killed if the current situation continues?" Ban said. "I appeal to all sides and particularly the Syrian government to stop the killing ... in the name of humanity, stop the killing, stop the violence."

Ban said in closing remarks to the one-day conference: "I am pleased to announce that we have exceeded our target" of US$1.5 billion. About US$1 billion is earmarked for Syria's neighbours hosting refugees and US$500 million for humanitarian aid to Syrians displaced inside the country.

The US$500 million would be channelled through UN partner agencies in Syria. and the entire aid pledge would cover the next six months, Ban said.

"We have brought a message of hope to the millions of Syrians who have been affected by this terrible crisis. The United Nations will ensure that we use these funds effectvely to meet the urgent lifesaving needs of the Syrian people."

But in the Syrian capital Damascus, the thud of artillery drowned out any optimism on the streets. Asked about the aid promises, Damascenes were uninterested or despairing.

"Where's the money going to go to? How does anyone know where it's going? It all seems like talk," said Faten, a grandmother from a middle-class family in the capital.

Another middle-class Damascene, a woman in her 70s who asked not to be named, said the money would not make it to Syrians.

"Tomorrow all that money will get stolen. (The middlemen) steal everything. If they could steal people's souls, they would. I wouldn't count on the money," she said.

The oil-rich Gulf Arab states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates each promised US$300 million at the meeting. Its 60 participants included Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Tunisia, the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and a number of European countries.

But relief groups say that converting promises into hard cash can take much time, and one of them said on Tueday that aid now reaching Syria was not being distributed fairly, with almost all of it going to government-controlled areas.

"GETTING WORSE EVERY DAY"

Ban said that much more remained to be done to address Syria's humanitarian emergency. "The situation in Syria is catastrophic and getting worse every day."

Four million Syrians inside the country need food, shelter and other aid in the midst of a freezing winter, and more than 700,000 more are estimated to have fled to countries nearby.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said that Syrian agriculture was in crisis, hospitals and ambulances had been damaged and even painkillers were unavailable.

Freezing, snowy winter weather had made matters worse, and people lack warm clothes, blankets and fuel, with women and children particularly at risk, she said, adding:

"We are watching a human tragedy unfold before our eyes."

Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, told the meeting "horrifying reports" of violence had raised questions about Syria's future and relief efforts had to be redoubled.

Syrian opposition activists said at least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the embattled northern city of Aleppo yesterday, the latest reported massacre over the course of 22 months of conflict.

They blamed militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, while the government blamed the Islamist rebel Nusra Front. It was impossible to confirm who was responsible given Syria's restrictions on access for independent media.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in all, according to a UN estimate, since the conflict began as a peaceful movement for democratic reform and escalated into an armed rebellion after Assad tried to crush the unrest by force.

Diplomacy to halt the war has been stymied by deadlock in the UN Security Council between Western powers, who want Assad to quit as part of a democratic transition, and Russia, a close Assad ally that rejects outside interference in Syria.

And the fighting is largely stalemated in Syria, with rebels holding much of the north and east but unable to take key cities because of the government's air power and edge in heavy weapons.

King Abdullah of Jordan told the gathering that Syrians had taken refuge in his country in their hundreds of thousands but Amman's ability to help was at its limits. "We have reached the end of the line, we have exhausted our resources," he said.

Iran, a close ally of Assad, said the blame for the humanitarian crisis lay with rebel fighters who had come to Syria from abroad.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the government and its Syrian opponents should "sit and talk and form a transitional government".

"Those who are causing these calamities are mercenaries who have come to Syria from outside the country," he said. — Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz

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The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz

Musical comedy ‘The Sapphires’ sparkles at Aussie Oscars

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 04:44 AM PST

Actor Russell Crowe arrives at the 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, California January 27, 2013. — Reuters pic

SYDNEY, Jan 30 — Homegrown romantic musical comedy "The Sapphires" shone at Australia's film industry awards today, picking up best film and lead acting trophies for Deborah Mailman and "Bridesmaids" star Chris O'Dowd.

Awards host Russell Crowe, an Oscar winner for "Gladiator," led a star-studded evening whose theme was pride in Australia's outsized success on the international film stage.

"The Australian academy may be small but over the years we have won more than 60 BAFTAs and Oscars," said Crowe at the second annual Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts awards, affectionately known as the "Aussie Oscars."

Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman and Jeffrey Rush were all on hand for the event at Sydney's Star casino, leading guest presenter Jeremy Renner to joke: "You can't throw a bottle out the window in Hollywood without hitting an Australian."

The Sapphires, a possibility for next year's Oscars, tells the story of four women from a remote Aboriginal mission who are catapulted on to the world stage as Australia's answer to the Supremes when a kind-hearted manager, played by O'Dowd, hears their powerful voices and sends them to entertain troops in Vietnam.

"Films find their way because of a certain strength," Kidman told Reuters. "The Sapphires is such a unique story and it's great music and great talent."

Director Wayne Blair's debut film also won for direction, cinematography, editing, best production design, costume design and sound.

Best Young Actor went to Saskia Rosendahl for her role in the Australian-German film "Lore", about a teenage girl who leads her younger siblings across Germany at the end of World War Two. Rosendahl was just 17 when the film was made.

The awards weren't without controversy after the director of "Bait", the 3D shark-in-a-supermarket horror-comedy that was Australia's highest grossing film internationally last year, accused the academy of snubbing his movie.

While The Sapphires was Australia's top-grossing film domestically, with more than A$14 million (RM45 million) in ticket sales, Bait snagged more than $41.8 million worldwide, more than half of that in China.

"It was never going to get best film or best director, but how can the cinematography, the visual effects, the editing, the sound design, the production design — we built a supermarket and put it underwater, for goodness' sake — be overlooked?" said Kimble Rendall to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Prior to last year, the awards were known as the Australian Film Industry (AFI) awards. — Reuters

Rushdie’s film promotion visit to Indian city cancelled after protests

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 04:39 AM PST

British author Salman Rushdie. — AFP pic

KOLKATA, Jan 30 — British author Salman Rushdie has abandoned plans to attend a publicity event for the film adaptation of his award-winning novel "Midnight's Children" in the Indian city of Kolkata after Muslim groups took to the streets to protest his visit.

Around a hundred protesters congregated outside the city's airport ahead of the Indian-born author's visit today, airport officials said, the latest in a string of recent clashes over freedom of expression in India.

Rushdie's 1998 novel "The Satanic Verses" is banned in India due to its depiction of Islam, and the author was forced to abandon a visit to the Jaipur Literature Festival last January after protests and death threats against him.

"We will not allow him here. He is hated by all Muslims in the world. I thank the government of West Bengal for listening to us," said Idris Ali, chief of the All India Minority Forum, referring to the state of which Kolkata is the capital.

"We protested under the banner of the group Milli Ittehad Parishad, an umbrella organisation of several Muslim groups." said Ali, who has previously led protests against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, whose novel "Shame" attracted widespread condemnation from Muslim groups.

"The event has been cancelled," a company official at the PVR Group, which is promoting and distributing "Midnight's Children", told Reuters on condition of anonymity as he was not permitted to speak to the media.

The official declined to comment on whether the police or local authorities had requested the cancellation of the event.

Rushdie's cancellation comes amid protests against Indian actor and director Kamal Hasan's "Vishwaroopam" film, which Muslim groups say target their beliefs.

The joint commissioner of police in Kolkata declined to comment when asked if Rushdie's event was cancelled for security reasons.

"The matter went to the home secretary but from police there is no version on whether we had refused or agreed to offer security to Rushdie," Javed Shamim told Reuters. — Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Books

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The Malaysian Insider :: Books

Mantel wins Costa award for ‘Bring Up The Bodies’

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 02:28 AM PST

'Bring up the Bodies' by Hilary Mantel. – Copyright HarperCollins

LONDON, Jan 30 – Hilary Mantel won Britain's Costa Book Award on Tuesday for her novel "Bring Up The Bodies", which has now done the double having claimed the Booker Prize.

The judges described the book, the second part of a planned trilogy about king Henry VIII's adviser Thomas Cromwell, as "head and shoulders" above the other contenders.

Mantel, 60, scooped the £30,000 (RM144,901) prize, while the other writers on the shortlist, made up from the other four category winners, received £5,000 each.

"I'm happy and I shall make it my business to try to write more books that will be worth more prizes," she said.

"Sometimes it feels like it's getting away from me, yet at the same time I'm still contained within it because I have the third book to write.

"I'm excited about it I want to know what happens, I want to know what I'll say."

Mantel made literary history in October 2012 by becoming the first woman and the first British author to be a two-time winner of the Booker Prize for fiction, one of the highest profile awards in English-language literature.

The Costa Book Award, formerly the Whitbread Literary Awards, was established in 1971 to celebrate contemporary British and Irish writing. A panel of writers, actors and broadcasters choose the most enjoyable books from the past year.

Broadcaster Jenni Murray, who chaired the nine-strong judging panel, said they had made a unanimous decision.

"This is a very difficult prize to judge because there are five categories and they are so different: poetry, children's, biography, first novel and novel," she said.

"One book simply stood head and shoulders, more than head and shoulders – on stilts – above the rest.

"We couldn't allow the number of times it has already been lauded to affect our decision; it was quite simply the best book." – AFP/Relaxnews

‘Finnegans Wake’ is new Chinese publishing hit

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 12:49 AM PST

James Joyce, author of 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegan's Wake'. – AFP pic

SHANGHAI, Jan 30 – A new Chinese translation of "Finnegans Wake", renowned for its linguistic difficulty in the original, is proving a hit in China – although one academic called the author James Joyce "mentally ill".

The first-ever mainland Chinese edition of the novel sold out its initial print run of 8,000 copies just three weeks after being launched in December, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Translator Dai Congrong of Shanghai's Fudan University toiled for eight years to render the work about an Irish family into Chinese, imitating the stream of consciousness style and unusual language, it said.

It quoted Wang Weisong of the Shanghai People's Publishing House, which released the book, as saying its success was "totally unexpected".

Both the translator and the publisher declined to comment on Tuesday.

Chinese readers are already familiar with other works of the early 20th century Irish writer. The Chinese edition of "Ulysses", considered his masterpiece, went on sale in 1995.

Literary critic Liu Wei told a recent seminar on "Finnegans Wake" that the book – the plot of which remains open to interpretation – deserved respect.

"Modern writers share a common sense of doing interesting textual experiments... among this group of writers, Joyce has the most intensive sense of all," he said, according to an online transcript.

"I think it deserves our respect that Joyce created such a rich text."

But one reader, who gave the name Eudaimonus, said in a microblog posting that the work was not accessible to all.

"Finnegans Wake is a book for book collectors and critics, but not for readers," the posting said.

Others were more emphatic. Xinhua quoted Jiang Xiaoyuan, a professor at Shanghai's Jiaotong University, as saying: "Joyce must have been mentally ill to create such a novel." – AFP/Relaxnews

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The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Protesting hegemony: The search for true islah

Posted: 29 Jan 2013 03:44 PM PST

JAN 30 ― "I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam." ~ Muhammad Abduh

Not too long ago, a young Malaysian political leader got herself into a spot of controversy for suggesting, essentially, that there is no compulsion in religion. Such a seemingly innocuous statement was immediately sensationalised by the media, following intense pressure from vocal conservatives.

Until today, I find it strange that someone should be castigated for simply repeating a fundamental truth espoused by none other than the Holy Quran itself.

And even more recently, there has been a fierce debate over the name of God ― who can use it, who cannot use it, and whether it should be banned or prohibited for use by certain communities ― as if the name of God can be monopolised or owned by anyone. So heated did this debate get that it soon culminated in vitriolic threats to burn the Bible.

I suppose all this fuss and overreaction is a reflection of how intellectually immature our society is, despite our economic progress. It is indeed sad to note that the state of religious, especially Islamic, discourse in Malaysia has been reduced to banal arguments over lexical semantics, dress codes, moral policing, punitive laws and the constant regulation of everyday life, from what we can eat to what we can say.

It also doesn't help that Islam is highly politicised in our country, with two dominant factions claiming ownership over the religion. Historically, religious contest is usually manifested by a tension between conservatism on the one hand and reformism on the other, as was the case between the Kaum Tuaand Kaum Muda movements during the first half of the 20th century.

Today, however, the Islamic debate in Malaysia is no longer between revelation and reason or between taqlid and ijtihad, but simply over who has more right to control the religion.

And worse, the politicisation of Islam has turned it into a convenient front for ethno-religious hegemony, through which the competing factions both project a vision of state dominance through the institutionalisation of what ― in their minds ― is a monolithic religion. The quarrel is not over whether Malaysia should be an Islamic State but over who can better govern an assumed Islamic State.

And so Islam in Malaysia is divided by two opposing views that differ in form but carry the same substance ― both intend to impose a narrow set of values on the larger society, both suppress differing opinions and both are antithetical to reason and enlightenment. Somehow, the maqasid or higher intention of Islam ― to achieve social justice, equality and solidarity ― has been lost along the way.

Hence the need for a third, though certainly far from new, way. The reformist spirit of Muslim intellectuals such as Muhammad Abduh and, closer to home, Syed Sheikh Al-Hadi, needs to be revived. Theirs was the spirit of reasoning, of questioning, of not accepting something simply because "it is so". Theirs was the spirit of true islah, or reform.

In this context, the Islamic reform movement has some parallels with the Protestant Reformation of 16th-century Europe. As such, some have even coined the term "Islamic Protestantism" as another label in reference to Islamic reformism or modernism.

And in similar vein to its Christian counterpart, Islamic Protestantism is not a protest against scripture but in fact against the manipulation of religion as a tool of enslavement, against the abuse of religion as a means to suppress intellectual progress. And just as Martin Luther and his cohorts remonstrated against papal dominance, so too does Islamic reform movement challenge the subjugation of religion by a self-serving class of clerics that have installed themselves as gatekeepers between God and the ummah.

But however it is called, be it Islamic Protestantism or Islamic reformism, it does not entail the advocacy of any "new" ideas on Islam. If anything, it merely encourages the rediscovery of the true values of, in the words of Iranian historian Hashem Aghajari, a "rational, scientific (and) humanistic Islam".

In other words, it provides an escape from dogmatism and the mindless debates about whether this or that should be banned. Instead, it focuses on understanding that progress and knowledge are values that are not just compatible with Islam, but also once the domain of Muslims.

Today, there are nearly 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, yet only two have won Nobel prizes in the sciences (one in physics and one in chemistry). In contrast, the Jews, who are outnumbered by a hundred to one by Muslims, have produced 79 science Laureates. And perhaps the best depiction of the state of Muslim intelligentsia is the case of the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, which reportedly has three mosques on campus (with another one in the works) but not a single bookshop.

This is of course in direct contrast to the scientific progress of the Muslim world between the eighth and 13th centuries, during which much knowledge was pioneered in the fields of medicine, mathematics and physics. Without a doubt, the foundations laid by Muslim scholars such as Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and many others would later have a profound influence on European philosophy.

Though the Islamic Golden Age has been confined to history, it is certainly not impossible to re-engineer another Islamic renaissance, so long as there is a substantial commitment to integrate scientific and worldly knowledge with core Islamic values such as justice, freedom and equality. For as long as Muslims remain fettered by the rigidity imposed by "Islamic authorities" and the pseudo-clergy class, the ummah will continue to be left behind.

That said, there is now an undercurrent sweeping the Muslim world. Some have termed it a "spring" while others call it an "awakening". However one calls it, there are now signs that Muslims are beginning to rise to reclaim their space under the sun.

In Egypt, a former engineering professor now sits in the presidential office while Tunisia is now led by the prominent Islamist intellectual Rachid al-Ghannushi. These countries now join Turkey and Indonesia as other examples of burgeoning Muslim democracies.

As freedom and democracy begin to take root in the Muslim world, so too, it is hoped, would the pursuit of knowledge and the thirst for scientific progress be revived amongst Muslims.

As for us in Malaysia, still consumed by doctrines that brook no dissent and the domination by two sides of the same repressive coin, sitting idly by is not an option. If we are to achieve the ultimate goal of true islah, then protest we must.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist

On being called an ‘ungrateful Malay’

Posted: 29 Jan 2013 03:34 PM PST

JAN 30 -- A "cybertrooper" sent me an email response to last week's column.

To assuage your curiosity, I'll let you read it: (swear words censored so I won't get more emails about offended sensitivities)

F*** U ERNA

UR A PIECE OF S****

UR REMARK ON PENDATANG ISSUE IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE UR A RUNNING DOG BARUA CHINESE UR AN UNGRATEFUL B******** MALAY QUESTIONING UR OWN RACE

UR ABLE TO WRITE N SPEAK ENGLUSH COZ OF GOVT POLICY TO HELP U A B**** MALAY TO GO TO UNI.. UR SUCH A PIG RUNNING BY THOSE SEPET

I SAY IT AGAIN UR A B******* A B**** UNGRATEFUL MALAY

YET I BET U TOOK 5PCT DISCOUNT FOR BUMI HOME BUYERS… SHAME ON U SHAME ON U

First thing: The Bumi discount is 7 per cent.

Second thing: The discount is useless to me anyway as house prices are so ridiculous these days that even my more-than-10-years of EPF can't cover a downpayment. Unless you're the CEO or editor-in-chief of a mainstream paper, journalists aren't rich, sweetheart.

Third thing: I'm not Malay nor do I have "Malay" blood anywhere in my ancestry. My birth certificate shows my father is Dusun; my mother is Bajau. Incidentally, one of my great-grandmothers is Chinese, as are quite a number of my relatives, and the other great-grandmother is Pakistani Indian.

Which still makes me 100 per cent Malaysian.

Fourth thing: In this day and age, why do I even have to make a big deal about/be forced to share details of my ancestry? Maybe I'll just do a Barack Obama and print my birth certificate online so the cybertroopers will quit harassing me on Twitter, my blog and their blogs.

(And for the record, there are non-Malay cybertroopers as well who happen to be working for ministries/agencies I won't name here. 1 Malaysia, even for cybertroopers.)

A friend of mine summarised the basic rhetoric of most cybertooper "logic": "The implication is that Malays are not capable of achieving anything on their own, and must be buoyed by a system that supports them. And, my god, how this system sustains itself!"

If you read Bernama on a daily basis like I have to, the government feels duty-bound to near-constantly remind us to be "grateful."

So I should be grateful the government is doing the job it was elected to do?

Imagine if the Armed Forces, the police, the teachers and the trash collectors kept coming around our houses telling us to be "grateful" that they were honouring their duties.

That we owe them our security, our education, our litter-free lawns.

Wait, doesn't that make them a lot like Ah Long moneylenders?

My point here is that this bullying and harassment of citizens to maintain the status quo must stop. If you need to hire people to yell at "blood traitors", if you need to constantly "remind" the rakyat how grateful they should be, how much they should trust you completely, then you're not an elected government.

You're a dictatorship.

The bullying has to stop and I for one am not going to put up with it anymore.

And by the way, Mr Cybertrooper? Thanks to modern technology, I have your IP address, your YouTube account, your Facebook page details, documentation of every single racist and hateful comment you've made on your social media channels so I can happily report your a**** off.

Enjoy being banned.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

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‘Jangan laju bro, kampung tak lari ke mana’ tema kempen keselamatan jalan raya Tahun Baru Cina

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 01:52 AM PST

'Jangan laju bro, kampung tak lari ke mana' tema kempen keselamatan jalan raya Tahun Baru Cina

PETALING JAYA, 30 Jan — Dalam usaha membantu kerajaan menangani kadar kemalangan jalan raya menjelang Tahun Baharu China ini, Syarikat-syarikat Konsesi Lebuhraya Malaysia (PSKLM) akan mengedar poster dan pelekat kereta dengan tema 'Jangan Laju Bro.

Kampung tak lari ke mana'. Poster serta pelekat kereta yang mempunyai tema itu akan diedar kepada pengguna di rumah tol semua lebuh raya seluruh negara sepanjang kempen itu yang diadakan dengan kerjasama Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia (LLM).

Yang Dipertua PSKLM Datuk Noorizah Abdul Hamid berkata tema yang menggunakan bahasa mudah dan ringkas itu dipilih kerana ia lebih dekat di hati dan senang diingat oleh pemandu di negara ini.

"Ia lebih 'catchy' (menarik) tapi dalam masa sama berkemampuan menyampaikan mesej yang besar," katanya kepada pemberita selepas melancarkan kempen itu di kawasan Rehat & Rawat (R&R) Awan Besar, di sini hari ini.

Turut hadir Ketua Pengarah LLM Datuk Ismail Md Salleh. Noorizah berkata beberapa selebriti seperti Amber Chia, Nash Lefthanded, Usop Wilcha dan pelakon Zul Ariffin akan menyertai kempen itu dengan menyampaikan nasihat dan panduan pemanduan berhemah kepada pengguna jalan raya.

"Sesi jelajah akan diadakan di R&R Gunung Semanggol, Lebuhraya Utara-Selatan pada 2 Feb untuk membolehkan pihak pengurusan dan selebriti bertemu pengguna bagi mendapatkan respon berhubung kualiti dan tahap perkhidmatan lebuh raya," katanya.

Selain itu, Noorizah yang juga Pengarah Urusan Projek Lebuh Raya Usahasama Berhad (Plus), berkata 99 peratus kemalangan di lebuh raya negara ini berpunca daripada sikap pemandu yang tidak mengutamakan aspek keselamatan dalam pemanduan.

Antara faktor utama kemalangan ialah memandu dalam keadaan mengantuk dan letih serta memandu melebihi had laju yang ditetapkan, katanya.

Sementara itu, Amber berkata beliau aktif dalam kempen keselamatan jalan raya kerana pernah kehilangan beberapa individu rapat termasuk seorang bapa saudara akibat kemalangan.

"Kematian disebabkan kemalangan lebih sukar untuk dihadapi keluarga berbanding meninggal akibat sakit kerana ia berlaku secara tiba-tiba," katanya.

Penyanyi Nash atau nama sebenarnya Jamaluddin Elias yang pernah mengalami saat cemas apabila keretanya dilanggar lori pula memberitahu, pemandu kenderaan berat perlu lebih menghormati pengguna jalan raya. — Bernama

Daftar pemilih tak mungkin 100 peratus bersih, kata SPR

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 01:43 AM PST

PUTRAJAYA, 30 Jan — Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya (SPR) berkata adalah mustahil untuk daftar pemilih bersih sepenuhnya, walaupun menerima tuntutan untuk membersihkan daftar pemilih sebelum pilihan raya.

Pengerusi SPR Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof mendakwa tidak ada sebuah negara yang 100 peratus daftar pemilihnya bersih kerana kematian, berpindah atau penarikan kewarganegaraan.

"Kita telah cuba sebaik yang boleh untuk bersihkan daftar pengundi mengikut undang-undang," kata Abdul Aziz kepada pemberita hari ini.

"Jika saya bersihkan daftar pemilih hari ini, esok seseorang (mungkin) mati, ia akan tidak bersih lagi."

Abdul Aziz mengatakan SPR tidak boleh secara undang-undang mengubah daftar pemilih sewenang-wenangnya.

SPR turut menyebut tarikh pilihan raya 2013, dimana perdana menteri Australia Julia Gillard mengumumkan pilihan raya negara itu berlangsung lapan bulan dari sekarang.

"Apa saya boleh katakan tarikh pilihan raya semakin hampir," kata Abdul Aziz lagi.

"Kita tidak boleh bandingkan dengan negara lain, kita ada cara kita sendiri."

MENYUSUL LAGI

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Rabu, 30 Januari 2013