Brunei-Malaysia Border Resolution

Today, all the newspapers would be reporting about the press release issued by Malaysia's Foreign Affairs about the resolution of the martime border dispute between Brunei and Malaysia. I got this Reuters report released yesterday:-+++++KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 (Reuters) - Malaysia and Brunei will sign an agreement this weekend to resolve a maritime border dispute that has halted oil exploration

Brunei Japan Partnership by RB

Mr. BR's entry on the protests against the Chinese Premier in Tokyo reminded me of another post when he was in Korea last year when Koreans were protesting against the Korea-USA FTA (Free Trade Area). Korea then only had one FTA with Chile, compared to us Brunei which has 8. I understand that Brunei is now in negotiation with Japan for a Brunei-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (BJEPA) even

Languages in Brunei

I haven't done a Brunei book review for quite a while. I thought I will do one on the many books that have arrived over the last couple of months.This book 'Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam' I thought was particularly interesting to people who study languages in Brunei. We take our languages for granted but apparently according to language researches, our beloved country

Brunei and the Empire

It's a long weekend and I needed something to fill in the daily entries. I browsed the internet looking for something on Brunei from others' point of view. I found many entries (non-Bruneian ones) and I kept some of them. I realised later that I could not find the original sites for me to link to. I will not make the comments on the writings, that I leave up to you. Here are some of their

Mauludin Rasul in Brunei Darussalam

I was watching television last night when there was someone from the Religious Affairs Ministry talking about the history of Maulud Nabi or as we now call it Maulidin Rasul - the ceremony to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad SAW. I was quite intrigued as he was talking about how grand the first celebration was which was surprisingly a few hundred years after the death of the Prophet.It

'Smoking' in Brunei by Awang Sihat

Do you know that RIPAS hospital is now officially a “No Smoking Zone”. There are billboards placed at every major entrance to RIPAS Hospital to remind people of this fact. This is one of many initiatives of the Ministry of Health in promoting a healthier lifestyle in our country, one of which is staying tobacco free.Unfortunately there are still many people smoking in the hospital especially

The Taj Mahal - A Wonder of the World

Yesterday we had some spare time, while waiting for our counterpart to prepare the text and go through the final process of cleaning up the languages, grammar etc for our signing later today, we thought why not go somewhere. And we did.We went to Agra to visit one of the World's seventh wonders - the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built about 400 years ago and took 22 years and 20,000 people to

A Bruneian in a Foreign City

Nothing on Brunei at all today, so if you are looking for one, read next week's entries when I am back in Brunei. For today, I am a photoblogger.Yesterday we had an interesting day. We spent the whole morning negotiating for the treaty and then spent the late afternoon and evening walking along the streets, using rickshaws and state of the art metro system opened just a few months ago and then

200,000! And What I did on Sunday

After slightly more than a year on blogspot.com, I started on 11th March 2006 here, sometime today, the counter should read the above. There is not much for me to say but to thank everyone again for making the Daily BR your daily reading and hope that you all enjoyed the little snippets about Brunei. It's the little things that make us Bruneians Bruneians, you know what I mean.Yesterday, I took a

Investment Treaties with Brunei

I have just been told that approval has been granted for me to lead a team from Brunei for an investment treaty negotiation with an Asian country. Negotiations will start Tuesday and I have to fly there on Monday with officers from the investment, legal and tax agencies for the third round of negotiations. It will be my second time leading the team. About a couple of weeks ago, a country from the

Will the Brunei Economy Grow in 2007?

I don't normally like putting my economist hat on. I do that in my day job and I like to go home and think, read and write about other things - and that's why I look at history and other things. However with the budget debate just over, sometimes I get people asking me what I think will happen to the Brunei's economy this year now that the budget has been passed especially given that that some of

Legislative Council 2007 Sessions

Someone mentioned to me that some of the people he spoke to think that the Legislative Council is just a rubber stamp and that all the legislations have already been approved - indirectly, saying that this is a waste of time.I wrote about the Legislative Council process almost a year ago which I am sure not many people have read. Click on it, so that I won't have to bother to describe the

Support Our Andaman Youths

I received an invitation to the opening of a restaurant in Beribi. I told my secretary that I won't be coming. However I did not realise the persistence of the organisers. They called me up again and sweet talked me into attending it. I was wondering who these people were. But you know what? I am glad I attended because I think this is the group of people that we need for the future of Brunei -

Muhibah March/April 2007

I was quite surprised to see a photo of me in the Pelita Brunei behind the Royal Family when Brunei scored against Cambodia in the first game of the Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy. Luckily it was taken a few seconds after my colleagues and I had literally jumped out of our seats to celebrate that goal. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there and I was saddened to hear that we did not make it to the

The Third Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy

Brunei 2 Cambodia 2 was the final score last night. Brunei could have gone 3-0 up in the first 25 minutes but the missed penalty was a chance that we rued. Brunei's second goal by no.10 Mohd Najib probably was one of the best I have ever seen at the stadium. He was easily the man of the match. But the lethal combination of Cambodia's no.8, 9 and 10 is probably something that the Brunei defence

The Local Brunei Writing Scene

I find it ironic that for Brunei Malays or Brunei Chinese that we are proud of whatever race we belong to, we speak the languages but surprisingly if I was to ask the Malays - do you read Malay books and the Chinese - do you read Chinese books - the answer I get is often the negative. Not many of us read books in our native languages yet we all race to the next best selling English novels. Some

The Brunei Book Fair

The Book Fair is finally here. Book fairs in Brunei are a mixed affair. I don't know whether this is a reflection of our society as a whole or is it because of our small size or something else. I have been to book fairs in other parts of the world. There all I see are books and many and many more books. In Brunei, I see books but I also see computers, compasses and carpets among the book sellers.

National Day - the aftermath

There was a lot of nationalistic feeling yesterday judging from what I read and all the people I talk to. I certainly enjoyed myself marching with 112 people from my agency in front of His Majesty. The performance on the field despite having seen several rehearsals and knowing what to expect, was still as exciting as ever. I know the things that had to be done to get everything to go like

Happy National Day 2007!

Join the 23rd National Day Celebrations!

This morning as was yesterday morning, I will be at the Padang for the National Day rehearsal. Yesterday morning was the first time I was able to come and I got to see what everyone will be seeing on Saturday. It was a full dress rehearsal but our team was not yet wearing our full suit. I was told that mine is still making its way from a factory in KB plus the fact that the Admin Head Honcho