Which New Year?

[I wrote the following piece for Brunei Times for the New Year 2008. I thought it is still valid for the New Year 2010. Happy Reading.]TODAY is the first day of 2008 AD or, to be all-inclusive 2007 CE ("Common Era") since AD stands for the Latin expression Anno Domini — "in the year of our Lord", in reference to Jesus Christ. As the Oxford Dictionary pointed out, "AD" refers strictly to "the

On hiatus

Apologies to regular visitors. My PC has died on me (suspected motherboard problem), so I can't update from home. And I don't have time and I should not update during office hours. Besides all my photos and notes are on that PC, so I don't have much reference material. So, I am going on forced hiatus until I can sort something out. In the meantime keep on checking, maybe by then my PC would have

Jerudong Park v.2?

I thought I was an avid newspaper reader and I was quite surprised to have missed this one. Anyway, I found this news on www.earthtimes.org about our Jerudong Park:-Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei's famed 644-million-dollar amusement park - Jerudong Park Playground - will relaunch this weekend after being "virtually dead" for years, park officials said Friday. Opened in 1994, the Playground was once

Jame Asr Stained Glass

The Guardian UK had this story on 8th December 2009 about John Lawson. Who? I bet that you would ask. I asked that too until I saw this photograph:-[Stained Glass at Jame Asr Mosque in Kiarong]And it was this guy who made that:-John Lawson, who has died of cancer aged 77, was one of the leading stained-glass artists of his generation. He designed glorious windows not only in Westminster Abbey and

Remember, Remember, The 8th of December

Exactly 47 years ago today, some people thought they heard fireworks. They were wondering why fireworks? Thy did not know that it was not fireworks that they heard. It was the sound of small arms fire. A group of people decided that they needed to take matters into their own hands. I was a two month old fetus in those days. My mother told me that she and my father had to sleep on the floor in

Karnival Daerah Tutong

The people in Tutong District are really working hard to make their Tutong District Carnival a success. For those who do not know what to do today have the following options at Tutong:-* Pesta dan Pertunjukan Kereta @ Kompleks Dewan Kemasyarakatan (from 9 am to 10 pm), today is the last day. It started on Friday.* Pesta Pengguna @ Petani Mall (from 10 am to 10 pm), it started yesterday and will

Bruneian in Atomic Bomb Hiroshima

I remembered when I was in Darjah 4 way back in the very early 1970s, one of the fahaman article or comprehension I was reading had a story about a Brunei man during the aftermath of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Apparently he had been a student there and the bomb fell over the city. Luckily he survived the bombing. After that I searched high and low for the book but to no avail. At that

Our Pantangs

Someone asked in the comment box whether I could write something about pantang larang of Bruneians. I could. But then why would I do that? There is a book that you can actually buy and read all about it.This book published by our Dewan Bahasa in 2006 contained all there is to know about the do's and dont's of our society or rather the dont's of our society. All the pantangs are listed in

Old Tutong Photo

I was looking through my father's old album searching for photographs to illustrate my third book when I came across this photograph. I thought this will go nicely with the maulud article in that book.My father was an Assistant District Officer in Tutong in the 1960s. You can see him in the middle of the photograph in white with his interesting long shoes. That shoe we used to call as kasut

The History of the Borneo Games

I was asked to research on the history of the Borneo Games by Brunei Times. The 3rd Borneo Games is currently on at various venues throughout Brunei at the moment. I found out many things including the fact that one of my uncles was the first Brunei Borneo Games athletes. My article was published yesterday on Brunei Times:-Remember these names? Sinin Metali, Aloysius Sibidol, Zainab Kadir,

Brunei Statistics 2008

What is the GDP of Brunei Darussalam? What is the amount of rainfall in Brunei? What is the maximum and minimum degrees over the last five years? How many teachers are there in Brunei? What is the value of our exports? Or our imports? How many Dewan Bahasa book members are there? How many criminal cases were handled by the police? What is our road casualties? How many dentists are there? Or

Selamat Hari Raya Haji

Two of the most important Islamic holidays of the year are Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha. Brunei as the rest of the world is celebrating Hari Raya Haji or Hari Raya Korban or Eid ul Adha. Do you know the history behind it? We know Hari Raya Eid ul Fitr or Hari Raya Aidil Fitri as we say in Brunei marks the end of the long fasting month of Ramadan, Eid-ul-Adha marks the end of Hajj, the sacred

Expensive Brunei Stamps

Not many things can make me go gaga. But the sight of this stamp on ebay certainly does the trick. This $5 stamp overprinted by the Japanese during the Second World War is worth a fortune. I tell you it's a fortune. At the moment, the opening bid for it is US$1,099.95 and so far no one has bid. But if I know the ebayers, wait till the last minute, someone will snap this up.This is the other one

Bruneians Winning Golf!

Yesterday, our football veterans won. Today, I found another winning Brunei entry, this time at Golf. This is a report from Malaysian Mirror also dated 23rd November 2009:-JOHOR BAHRU: Brunei team, Lapor Po Tiger blazed the course on a very wet week at Tanjong Puteri Golf Resort to emerge as winners in the grand final of the World Amateur Inter Team Golf Championship (WAITGC), from November 3-5.

Brunei Football Veteran Wins!

The New Sabah Times yesterday (23rd November 2009) reported this headline "Spectacular Bothwell goal seals Brunei Veterans’ victory" and had this story (good to know we can still win it):KOTA KINABALU: Mohd Brian Iman Abdullah Bothwell scored a spectacular goal in sudden-death extra time to help Brunei Veterans retain the Borneo 7s crown for the second successive year.Brunei Veterans, made up of

Rice Industry Statistics

During the launch of the agrifood by His Majesty, all the guests received several books as gifts. One of the books is a small booklet containing the Agriculture statistics of 2008. I was quite intrigued with the statistics on rice which looks like this:-Throughout the last 10 years from 1999 to 2008, our local production has increased. The Agriculture Department has been slowly making local rice

Brunei's Finest Veterans

My spare time this week has been taken up calling up some of Brunei's athletes in order to complete my article on Borneo Games. I asked a number of people for names and my Minister gave me this name - Cikgu Haji Abdul Razak bin Bongsu. Finding his contact number was one of the easiest. Two of his children are engineers with the Public Works Department.When we finally talked to each other, I

Borneo Games

The Managing Editor of Brunei Times asked me to write an article about the upcoming Borneo Games. This is not an easy subject to write. You see, for most of the articles I have written, I have practically all the reference books and other reference articles somewhere in my library. So I generally am able to write most things about Brunei but give me a topic on sports, my mind will be unable to

Old Chinese Temple in Muara

Muara Chinese would remember this. This was the old chinese Temple in Muara. This was eventually demolised in the mid 1980s to make way for the expansion of the Muara Port.

Brunei Otters

A couple of months back, one of my junior colleagues took this photograph from his office. He has a nice office on the sixth floor of the MOD Building. That office overlooked the Highway and the airport as well as the huge canal flowing next to the highway. We have actually taken a boatride along that canal all the way from Kampong Ayer. When he first showed me this photograph, I was not sure

Labuhan Kapal and Sungai Tekuyung

Yesterday during the 100 Years of Modern Land Administration Symposium, also held on the sidelines was a small exhibition of previous land related items. These are the cadastral equipment used to measure the size of land etc and also related old documents.[The forerunner to today's electronic calculator][Really old land document][Minister looking at old land documents]What we found interesting is

100 Years of Modern Land Administration

Today will be held a special symposium to mark 100 years of modern land administration in Brunei. It will be held at the Kiulap Plaza Hotel.Land Department itself is not 100 years old. It was formed in the early 1960s. Prior to that, it was the District Offices with special District Land Officers working in the district offices that determined whether or not you could have your land application

BEDB's 2000 Housing Project

Yesterday morning, I accompanied my minister to visit the housing project conducted by BEDB at Pandan 10 in Kuala Belait. It was a working visit to see if there is anything new that our own Housing Development Department (HDD) can learn from it as well as keeping an eye on the project as the houses will form part of our housing stock soon.[Getting ready for the group photograph]I remembered and

Brunei $100 1988

How many people remember this $100 note? Not many I am sure.All these while, all my other notes collection was growing, I only had two pieces of this $100 note. On the internet too, especially on ebay, this is rarely available. On the current ebay, there is one currently available note with a price of about US$260. I was quite surprised the other day when my nephew said someone deposited a few

A Growing Industry in Brunei

The Oxford Business Group on 3rd November 2009 published the following article:+++++Brunei Darussalam: A Growing Industry3 November 2009Ensuring domestic food security and developing a viable export sector are at the heart of Brunei's efforts to establish a strong commercial food processing industry, though the country has to balance its staunch commitment to environmental protection with the

High Pay with Minimal Schooling

I was intrigued by one article on finance.yahoo.com entitled "10 Jobs With High Pay and Minimal Schooling Required!" The article was written by Michael Kling and published on yahoo finance on Tuesday, November 3, 2009. It read as follows:+++++You don't have to go to college earn a decent living. Some professions pay good salaries without requiring post-secondary schooling.Your New CareerHere's a

Rebellion in Brunei

Tun Teja commented in the Comment Box a few days ago about how he just came across this book. In fact this is not a new book, this book has been around since the third quarter of 2007. I bought it in Singapore last year for a would you believe it price of S$193.81. I checked on the internet this morning, the price is much lower now. Barnes and Nobel is selling it for US$56.21 (S$78.86), Amazon

Graduating Today?

This morning, lots of people will be coming out of ICC with brand new degrees and diplomas. I was going to do a short piece about the History of UBD and found that UBD has already publicised it in its website, but just in case, you have not read or seen it yourself, here it is with some additional notes.The idea of establishing a university of Brunei Darussalam was first raised during a

The Story of Two Books

I bought two books this week. One is a normal price or rather, locally Brunei priced best seller book and the other is an old almost antique book which cost five times more than the other one. When I look at Amazon, the price of that best seller was almost half but I guess with postage etc, it would probably cost close to what our local bookstores are selling. Anyway, I am talking about Dan

RBA's Boeing 777?

According to The Washington Post compiling news from Indian newspapers on 26th October 2009, amongst them The Indian Express, Royal Brunei Airlines will finally be acquiring her Boeing 777.Remember the continuing saga about Boeing 777? About 2 years ago, RBA was supposed to have leased a couple of Boeing 777. Brunei Times in its 18th June 2007 news wrote that "... reports on the internet (

Brunei - now a big fish!

The Oxford Business Group reported the following on 26th October 2009:+++++Brunei Darussalam: Diving In at the Deep End26 October 2009Brunei Darussalam is steadily building on its reputation as an Islamic financial services hub, making up for lost time and developing a credible sharia-compliant banking and financial sector. Though the Sultanate has long offered Islamic financial services,

A Sad Year

This has been a very sad year. This year I have already seen my aunty, my uncle, my grand uncle passing away. On Saturday, it was the turn of my dear mother in law. I remembered when we were busy by the bedside, my phone rang. I did not recognise the number but when I answered, it was my 9 year old son. We had left him at my sister in law's place.He asked, 'Babah, banar nini nada lagi?' (Dad, is

Puspa Hotel - Short History

The winner of Saturday's post of what happened to this hotel is my good friend, Mr. Haji Awang. Unfortunately he only texted me so his note was not available to readers.Anyway, before Puspa Hotel was built, it was the site of a factory. The factory was producing bottled softdrinks called Snowman. Most probably the factory was built soon after the war and the factory lasted until the 1960s. That

Puspa Hotel

I am just wondering who remembered this? Be the first to tell the world what happened to it.

Chinese Temple in Brunei Town

There seemed to be a rush of entries yesterday about the development in Brunei. For today I thought I will look at the Chinese Temple. I wrote about the old Chinese Temple a couple of years back and received interesting comments. The original Chinese Temple is not at its location in front of Sungai Kianggeh. It was originally at the wharf. During the early 1950s, you can still find the old temple

Building Brunei in the 1950s

I recently received a note from a Mr Sun-Hoo Foo which talked about my books, the Golden Warisan Volume 1 and 2. But most importantly he was talking about his father which I took the liberty to quote as follows:-Your article 7 on the Mosque in the Capital is most interested to me, since our family is tied most closely to the construction of this magnificent mosque. My father Foo Hong was the

International Airport

[Brunei International Airport around 1970s]I had to hunt high and low for this postcard. Eventually one was offered on ebay together in a package with postcards of the Logan Airport in Boston which I used to use when I studied in the US and the Minneapolis-Saint Paul's (MSP) Airport which is an interesting airport as it is surrounded by Minneapolis, St. Paul and the suburban cities of Bloomington

Two Bridges Over Time

[Clifford Bridge or also known as Jembatan Rangas]This is a postcard of the Clifford Bridge or is popularly known as Jembatan Rangas. This one was built in the 1920s replacing an older wooden bridge. This bridge is still in existence today. If you happen to be crossing the river into Bandar, you can see the old bridge on the left. It was just left there. The bridge was very narrow and only

Brunei, Male Only Policy?

More than twenty years ago when I went to UK, I had a hard time explaining where Brunei was. Ten years later when I was studying for my Masters in the USA, it was the same problem. But I thought recently with our disappearing act in the 2008 Olympics and our recent run-in with BAFA/FIFA saga, many journalists, especially sporting ones would have realised where Brunei was. Apparently not so. In

Brunei No.1

Oxford Business Group's Report on Brunei on 9th October 2009 are as follows:+++++Brunei Darussalam: Praise and Pointers9 October 2009Brunei Darussalam's economy has received somewhat mixed reviews in two internationally recognised reports, having been rated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the number one country globally in terms of macroeconomic stability but also well down the rankings when

Zero Poverty

Yesterday's ceremony when His Majesty handed out the zakat funds to those who are needy certainly marks a new chapter in Brunei's history.I was sitting on the stage watching from the back seeing the faces of all those receiving the zakat funds. Certainly a number of them deserved to receive the funds. A number of them were in wheel chairs and a number of them too had difficulty walking.

Brunei's GDP 2008

I got this book from my colleague at PMO yesterday. It is Brunei's 2008 Annual National Accounts. What is it?It is a publication by the Statistics Department of the Economic Planning and Development Department of the Prime Minister's Office. It tells you what Brunei's GDP is. This one tells you what the 2008 GDP figures look like.First of all, the statistician corrected the growth rate of 2007.

Brunei Money Defects

This was in the cbox ** salwa: Mr BR, i discovered a print defect on our Brunei $1 notes. I compared it with one another, the defect one has a low upper sides and longer on the right hand sides. ** Actually I am not surprised. I remembered sometime in November 2006, one reader sent me a newspaper cutting of a news written in the Miri Daily Newspaper. Not many Bruneians came across that paper as

Constitution of Brunei Darussalam 50th Anniversary

Not many realised that on 29th September 2009, Brunei Darussalam’s Written Constitution celebrated its Golden Anniversary of 50 years old. This news from RTB:-The Brunei Written Constitution and Brunei Agreement was signed on 29th of September 1959 between Brunei Government and the British Government at the Lapau Building, in Bandar Brunei. Through the declaration, the status of the country has

Nobilities of Brunei

I was doing a bit of research for the Civil Service Day article which was published yesterday on Brunei Times. I am sure most readers by now know that the title of the Cheterias and Pehins are like today's Minister. If you are appointed as Pengiran Cheteria or Pehin so and so, you are being appointed as a Minister for a particular portfolio. For instance, Pengiran Derma Wangsa would be the head

Raya Blues

During Hari Raya or any other festivities, when we are with our families and close friends, we often forget that there are people out there with no one to talk to, no one to visit or no one to care about them. Hari Raya can be the most poignant to many people out there. If you were formerly a student overseas, you would know it. It is so sad to be away from families. Luckily nowadays many Brunei

Selamat Hari Raya

Today's question - do you know when was the first Hari Raya Aidil Fitri celebrations?In 624 CE, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) with his companions and relatives celebrated Eid ul-Fitr for the first time ever after winning the Battle of Badr. The Battle of Badr was a key battle in the early days of Islam and marked a turning point in the Muslims' struggle against the Quraish in Makkah. This

Zakat Fitrah

I brought my 9 year old boy yesterday to the mosque to see the paying of the fitrah for the first time. I told him that if the fitrah is not paid, then our pahala for the fasting will not be delivered. He kept a copy of the receipt and told me that it is proof that it has been paid.I went to the mosque at about 12 noon and was the only one seen paying for it. The other imams were sitting there

Brunei's National Flower?

[Photograph of Simpur taken from trek earth]Someone ask whether I can post about the national flower, simpur? This is interesting. I am not sure when simpur became our national flower. But definitely during the APEC Summit which Brunei hosted in 2000, simpur was part of the official APEC 2000 design and simpur by then if you don't know it already was definitely on its way to becoming Brunei's

Unattainable Wish

If someone was to ask me what is it that you want? There are many things that many of us want and I too have my own wants. But I am pretty much satisfied with the Al-Mighty's gifts.However philatelically, there is something I want the most. That one is this Brunei's stamp during the Japanese Occupation in the second World War. During the War, the Japanese overprinted Brunei's stamps with their

Happy Families II

Yesterday, many happy families received their houses. By the afternoon, today and for the next few days, many of them will be rushing in to move into their houses in Lumapas and Rimba. Many of them too will be rushing to the shops to stock up their houses for the upcoming Hari Raya.A few other families will be happy today. I have already wrote about the Majlis Ugama Islam Brunei funding houses

Happy Families

[Model of Class A house at Rimba - price $92,000]Today some 223 families would be ballotting for their houses. They will get their keys and they will be able to move in by later today if they can clear all the paperwork.The Housing Development Department has two housing areas completed recently, about 200 over houses at Lumapas and more than 320 houses in Rimba. Out of the 200+ houses in Lumapas,

Modern But Gone Kampong Ayer

Apologies to those who visit my blog in the early morning. Today, the posting is late. You see, I start my leave today. A few weeks ago, I realised that I have not taken leave for Hari Raya for about 20 years. I remembered the first few years before I got married, I did take Raya leave to join my parents when they were posted to Singapore but that was in the 1980s. Anyway for this leave, I

First Arch

You must be thinking, what is extraordinary about this arch? We all know where this is. This is the traditional arch on Jalan Sultan in between the Secretariat Building and the General Post Office Building. You cannot imagine His Majesty's birthday without an arch in that location.This photo is actually a postcard which is part of my collection. I collect old Brunei postcards as part of my

Gula Anau

Many people know about gula melaka or gula anau. They are not quite the same thing and sometimes mistake gula melaka is gula anau. Honestly I did until I had to do tomorrow's articles about Brunei cakes for Hari Raya (as usual will be published in Brunei Times Sunday Edition).This sugar was and continued to be a very important ingredient for local delicacies. For those who loved cindul temburong,

Looking at the Past

I don't know how many of my blog readers know Tuan Haji Ahmad Arshad. As a small boy, Haji Ahmad regularly appears on television. I always remember him giving his enthuasistic report on the Legislative Council in the late 1970s and early 1980s before the Legislative Council was kept on hold. Somehow I don't remember anyone else. I remembered there was someone else but up to now, all I can

Socioeconomic Histroy of Brunei

On the subject of Malay books, this one is interesting. I bought this a number of years ago but from time to time I refer to this book for some of my Golden Legacy articles. This book was published in 1995, so it is a bit old. But I saw one the other day at Mega and sometimes during the books show, this book is still around. It cost me $14.40 but I don't know what the price is now.Anyway, this

Gaplah

I saw the news, I read the news and a few blogsites have reported it. But I have not seen the book till yesterday. I came, I saw, I conquer or rather I bought it.Gaplah is a Brunei dialect comic book currently in the markets for the last few months. The book itled: "Gaplah" - was officially launched by my colleague at the PMO Haji Omar bin Haji Abdul Rahman. It's the fourth comic by Malai Yunus

Brunei Star Athlete?

I was trawling the news looking for Brunei news. One photograph from Associated Press (AP) popped up. This photograph had this writeup "Brunei's Yusuf Saad Kamel celebrates winning the gold medal ahead of Ethiopia's Deresse Mekonnen, right, in the final of the Men's 1500m during the World Athletics Championships in Berlin on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)"Wow! I didn't hear

Aerial Seria

This postcard came up on ebay the other day. I tried to win it but apparently there are other people out there willing to pay the earth for it. I couldn't figure out why.This aerial photograph of Shell's housing at Seria with Seria itself in the background. I am not very familiar when this is but the houses looked as if this photograph belonged to sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Seria

Sarawak Stamps Used in Brunei

Look at the stamp on the left. What do you see?For the uninitiated, you will see a Sarawak stamp. But not realising that this Sarawak stamp was postmarked in Brunei. Brooketon was the former name for today's Muara. Unfortunately the year is not very clear, it was 96 (1896). In those days, Rajah Brooke was the concessionary holder for the coal in Muara (what do you mean you did not there was coal

The Churchill Museum

Remember this? I have posted several photographs from this defunct museum. The most memorable was this statute in front of the museum.If you go in to the museum, there was a button which when you press, you will hear the late Sir Winston Churchill speaking in the British Parliament: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the

Brunei in London Papers in 19th Century

I wrote this for my "The Golden Legacy" column on Brunei Times published about three weeks ago.+++++Brunei in the Illustrated London NewsONE interesting source for those interested in Brunei’s history is found in the pages of a London newspaper “The Illustrated London News” (ILN). The ILN has often been described as the world’s first illustrated newspaper.It published its first issue on 14 May

Weddings in the past

I have always wondered what a Brunei wedding in the past looked like. This postcard unfortunately is not a Brunei Malay wedding but a wedding somewhere in Malaya in 1908. I wish someone would have taken a photograph of a Brunei wedding then.Wedding practises changed. I remembered not that long ago, for a wedding ceremony, you need a lot of help. One is to get all the bamboos from the nearby

A Battle in Brunei

I was reading this interesting book entitled "THE EXPEDITION TO BORNEO OF H.M.S. DIDO FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY: WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF JAMES BROOKE, ESQ., OF SARAWAK" written by Captain Keppel and published in 1846. There were many mentions of Brunei (Bruni or Borneo Proper as mentioned in the book). One was especially about the British and James Brooke wanting to keep Pengiran

Old Airport Road

I was furious the other day for not being able to win this photograph on ebay. I was wondering who else is out there trying to win old photographs of Brunei. I hope that collector is a Brunei and would one day be able to share with us his collection of photographs.This particular photograph is of the old Brunei Airport. If you don't know where that is, I suggest you walk over to the Government

Brunei's First Letter

This is what the first letter posted from Brunei using Brunei's stamps looked like. This was posted in July 1895 to London. In those days, Brunei was not a member of the Universal Postal Union, so the letter could only be posted to Labuan. Labuan was part of the British Straits Settlement and could post letters anywhere in the world. So if you look at the stamps, there is one Labuan stamp on the

Kuih Keria and Changes

We stopped by at my parents' and my mother in law yesterday and got loaded with lots of food. No matter how old you are, parents still dote on you and make sure you get enough to eat, though in my case, clearly way too much. Anyway, one of the delicacies we got was an old favourite of mine, Kuih Keria.Kuih Keria is both a Brunei and a Malaysian dish. There was a time when I tried to write the

Oil and Islam

This is normally how many international journalists wanted to depict Brunei. Oil and Islam. And the easiest way to get it is to use a photograph of the oil donkey with the Seria Mosque in the background. Watch videos or productions about Brunei, inevitably this scene will come out, taken from many different angles. I have watched so many that the show will surprise me if it does not have this

Kuala Belait 1970s

One of my hobbies is collecting postcards. The other day I managed to acquire the above postcard. This postcard is a used one. It was sent by someone in Kuala Belait to someone in Gronigen, Holland and was postmarked sometime June 1981 about 28 years ago. Apparently he had just arrived three days in Kuala Belait and would be in Brunei for only about two more days. The card also says he does not

Management Lessons

Monday's Non Sequitir cartoon had us in stitches yesterday. We have too many that sometimes we just moved from one committee meeting to another committee meeting. Committees solved problems if used rightly. But it is also a place some used for distributing blame and to slow down decisions. Used wrongly as the above cartoon can doom an organisation. Management Lesson number 1 - committees must be

Sooka chetha

Lately I have been reading a lot of materials about the origins of the Malays. This is very interesting but unfortunately most of the materials do not cover us here in Brunei except in passing. Though it is interesting to note where was the centre of the Malay centre - some writers argue that it was the west of Borneo (code name for Brunei) and some say it was Malacca and some say it was

40 years of Bandar Seri Begawan

I posted this earlier. This is Bandar Seri Begawan or Brunei Town from the air around end of 1960s and early 1970s.40 years later. This is Bandar Seri Begawan as it is today. Many more buildings in the background.This photograph is courtesy of my adventurer friend. Thank you Tuan Sheikh.

Brunei $25 1992

Every now and then, I come across this $25 paper money. Recently my sister managed to get a few pieces for me. I had a few but my stocks dwindled down when I left MOF one and a half year ago. It is legal tender. However whenever this note turned up, many recipients would keep it as a souvenir. So it is disappearing. A few Hari Raya ago, I used the notes to give to some of my close family. It's

Selamat Berpuasa

Selamat Berpuasa kepada Semua Pembaca Daily BR!

New Moon Sighting 2009

Last year I was at the Bukit Shahbandar Moon Sighting Tower. This year I could not make it but I was also warned in advance that the chances of sighting the hilal was, not to put a finer word, next to impossible. The moonset occurs before the sunset. So the new moon was below the horizon at the time of the sighting. According to moonsighting.com which produced the chart above, there were only a

Houses for the Needy

Yesterday together with my colleague, the PS at PMO, we visited the sites and progress of 19 houses that are currently under construction under the Fakir/Daif Housing Assistance Scheme financed by the Brunei Islamic Council and built by PWD. My colleague visited 9 houses in Brunei/Muara and Temburong Districts. I covered 10 houses in Tutong and Belait Districts. Altogether there are 38 houses

Makkah Tower

TradeArabia News Service in Manama, Bahrain reported the following news yesterday:+++++Al Salam, Brunei Bank JV to manage Makkah towerManama: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 Nabeel Ebrahim Al Tattan Bahrain-based Al Salam Bank, a leading Shari’ah compliant institution and Perbadanan Tabung Amanah Islam Brunei (TAIB), a leading Islamic financial institution, have entered into a strategic partnership on Burj

Houses, Houses and More Houses

It was a late night again last night. The night before was MOD 5 MCYS 0. Last night was making sure the seating arrangements and all other arrangements are okay for today's ceremony. Just in case there is any last minute thing.This morning, His Majesty will be handing 70 lucky land owners with their own land titles and 38 people the plaque to their own houses at the Parit Community hall. The 70

MOD 5 MCYS 0

We need goals alright. The Minister and I were at the Track and Field Stadium last night watching our MOD team beat the MCYS team at the inter-ministry football final. The scoreline was a very flattering 5-0 in our favour!The MOD team played well as a team and we were especially proud of a number of players who were unselfish and worked hard as individuals winning balls and not giving up. Not to

Brunei's Water Supply

The Minister and us went round again yesterday to see the water supplies as part of our regular inspection. Because of the shift in wind directions, we have been quite lucky to receive the rains instead of the rain dropping out at sea. We have been lucky too that with the winds blowing the other directions, we don't get the smog from the end of the Borneo Island. However once the winds shitt

Which is correct? Brunei or Berunai?

Someone asked on the comment box which I copied Nazri: kn betanya, kenapa nama ejaan Brunei B.R.U.N.E.I? Sedangkan sebutannya BRUNAI? nda pernah ku tejumpa mana-mana ejaan yang berakhir dengan E.I disebut "ai".Nazri brought up an interesting point. When did 'Brunei' became Brunei?I will ignore the old Chinese reports which used various names such as Poli and Poni and concentrates on the word

Brunei-Philippines Rice Cooperation

You don't often find our beloved Sultan's image or even Brunei's images on other countries' stamps. The ones that I have come across so far are 4 - the image of our Sultan on a Korean stamp to commemorate Brunei-Korea relationship, the image of the dome of SOAS Mosque on a Japanese stamp to commemorate the ASEAN-Japan relationship, the image of the State Secretariat building on the other 9 ASEAN

The Haze according to Cuboiart

Every now and then when I read the Borneo Bulletin, I would be smiling and there are times when I would be chuckling and if it is really hillarious, laughing out loud. If I do that, that would mean that I have come across cartoons written or rather drawn or created by Cuboiart, Brunei's finest satirical cartoonist.These two cartoons are about the haze that we are facing at the moment especially

BRIDEX 2009

I was at the opening ceremony of BRIDEX's conference yesterday and listened to General Ul Haqq of Pakistan giving the keynote address. I have not been to BRIDEX before and neither have I been to the new exhibition centre. My comments? I was very impressed with the organisation of the conference and the exhibition halls and no doubt this will be a much better site to hold exhibitions and other

Issues in The Golden Warisan Volume 2

Today I thought I will spend a bit of time answering Tun Teja who raised these issues with my new book, The Golden Warisan Volume 2 (which is available for sale now):-Q1. loving ur new book mr BR. i have some qs though, how come sultan muhammad ali in ur makam d luba article ada haji to his name but in ur civil war artcle, nada.. im curious raja dulu2 ada naik haji? n how? ..i tot raja yg baru2

My Sunday

I have a confession to make. I did not go to a single wedding invitation yesterday. My apologies to the 5 families who invited us. My son wanted to go visit the museum and I thought why not. We have not gone out for a while and when my son expressed interest in museums, I am not one to disappoint. I try to visit Brunei's museums every so often even if there is nothing new to see. I always managed

The Brunei Time Line

[Note: My article below was published in Brunei Times about a month ago and was actually based on my blog entry about 2 years ago.][This sketch of Kampong Ayer was published in the Illustrated London News on 27 June 1857.]Prior to the 1960s, Bruneians have their own concept of time. A number of our elderly Bruneians, when you asked them do not know exactly when they were born. Sometime some do

Water is precious

The haze did it. We have been having El Nino for a couple of months now. Not many of us in Brunei realised it because we have been blessed with rains occasionally falling on us. But over the past few days, the haze has been getting visible or rather has made things not so visible that we now realised, aha, we have dry weather.We visited all the water dams yesterday to see for ourselves for their

Laila Rice Cookbook

When I attended the Padi Laila harvesting ceremony the other day, every guest was given a souvenir bag. Inside the bag, among other things, were an apron with the Padi Laila stitched to it and a recipe book entitled "Hidangan Beras Laila - Dishes from Beras Laila".The book contains recipes and I have to admit, beautiful photographs for 30 of Brunei's delicacies:-Nasi Ayam Laila BersambalNasi

Brunei Memories

Yesterday, the printers called and told me to collect the second batch of books and everything else will be in the remaining third batch. So today, I will be spending my after office hours getting 500 copies of my book entitled "The Golden Warisan Volume 2" into the bookshops. I have to send the books to the bookshops' store rooms. Since my first book, nowadays I know where Best Eastern and Bismi

Harvesting Laila

Information Department's photograph of His Majesty harvesting Laila padi yesterday.This is a very nice photograph from the Brunei Times of His Majesty harvesting Laila padi yesterday with a very delighted Minister of Industry and Primary Resources.A picture is worth a thousand word. Two pictures, much more. I was speaking to a former army commander who now runs a 30 acre padi plantation in Labi

Brunei Halal

Everyone was queuing to get a nice reusable bag with this Brunei Halal logo yesterday including my better half and me. At first we did not want to queue but the entire ICC was full with people with green bag with this logo, we did it too. The most important thing is that the Brunei Halal logo is up and running. I really hope that our local food producers can use this logo branding and exploit it

The Golden Legacy Vol.2

This is the backcover of the book. Not much different from the first one if you remember. My artistic sister says that since I have named the first book volume 1, I had to follow the same design for volume 2. I am beginning to regret naming the first book volume 1 but I gues it is the contents that matter.I was hoping that the printers would be able to print all the books but unfortunately no.

The Golden Warisan Volume 2

For those keeping track of the publication of my book 'The Golden Warisan Brunei Darussalam Volume 2' will be pleased to know that the book will be available from Monday. I have an advance few copies which I will make available for sale to people who has time to drop in to my office starting from this morning. The book is 1/3 thicker than last time and the price is unfortunately too $15 instead

A Time to Reflect

Apologies to the few faithful readers that I have left of this blog. I have not been able to update this blogspot and thoughts of closing it down completely have crossed my mind. Work as usual is very hectic but at the same time family commitment too.We lost a young junior colleague a couple of months back. Last week my aunty Hajah Maimunah too was called. The last I saw of her was during my

Quote of the Week

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."John Calvin Coolidge

What is SCP? Part 2

I remembered when I helped launched TAP in 1993, one wisecracker came up to me and asked me 'do you know what TAP stands for?' So I asked him and he said that 'TAP' stands for Tidak Ada Pencen. I thought to myself when I heard that SCP was announced by His Majesty that it won't be long before someone comes up with something interesting. I heard it today, the Brunei wisecracker has done it again,

What is Strata Title?

[The following entry is extracted from the Press Release issued by Ministry of Development on Thursday, 16th July 2009]Pada menjunjung titah perkenan Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan dan Yang Di-Pertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam, Kementerian Pembangunan sukacita memaklumkan bahawa Baginda telah memperkenankan supaya Kanun Tanah Strata (Penggal 189), Negara Brunei Darussalam

What is the SCP?

The details of the Supplemental Contributory Pension (SCP) announced by His Majesty during His Birthday's Titah was released by Ministry of Finance yesterday. I have made available the 5 pages document scanned as jpg files in the last posting. You can click on each one and print that page out. It is not as clear as I would have liked, the original scans are clear, but this one is reduced

What is SCP?

On 15th July 2009, His Majesty says

Alhamdulillah, syukur kehadhrat Allah Subhanahu Wata'ala, diatas limpah rahmat-Nya mengizinkan kita sama-sama menyambut Hari Keputeraan Beta yang Ke-63 tahun.Walaupun semua majlis, kecuali Majlis Membaca Do'a Kesyukuran Di Masjid-Masjid, telah ditangguhkan, namun Beta dapat merasakan, semangat 15 Julai adalah tetap hangat dan segar, sebagaimana juga biasanya pada setiap tahun.Beta tidaklah lupa

His Majesty's Speech and Strata Title

As always His Majesty's Birthday Speech contained enough to satisfy everyone. His touch in knowing what the issues are and how to solve them is something which we have always admired in him. Some have asked me to comment on His Majesty's speech but I think that would be better be left to the people out there. Of the issues which concern the public the most is always financial. By the comments I

Geocentric Datum Brunei Darussalam 2009

I launched the Brunei Darussalam Geocentric Datum 2009 yesterday. My speech was about how useful it would be etc. The Surveyor General's speech outlined what Geocentric Datum Brunei Darussalam is all about (if you still don't understand it, then go down to the very last paragraph for my very short non-technical summary):-+++++The continuing development of global communication and information

Tale of an Envelope

These stamps on this cover were the first truly official Brunei stamps. In 1895, Brunei had the first private but officially sanctioned stamps. In 1906 when the British Resident first appeared in Brunei, there was a postal service but the stamps were Labuan stamps overprinted Brunei. So these stamps were the first officially used stamps in Brunei to be used by the Postal Authorities. In fact

H1N1

Yesterday, Reuters reported the following:-WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who are obese but otherwise healthy may be at special risk of severe complications and death from the new H1N1 swine flu virus, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.They described the cases of 10 patients at a Michigan hospital who were so ill they had to be put on ventilators. Three died. Nine of the 10 were obese, seven

Brunei $25 stamp 1910

Yesterday, I was off to Gadong during lunchtime and drop into my friend who deals with antique books. I was not expecting to buy anything but normally just have a quick look around at whatever new that he has got. Maybe I shouldn't say new. Whatever old things that he managed to acquire recently.When I was there he showed me these 4 stamps:-These stamps were issued for the Brunei Postal

Brunei $5 note

Every now and then you get to see the previous paper note of Brunei's currency. This $5 paper note surprisingly is still circulated. I was quite intrigued to see Brunei's $100 notes the other day being used at HH. So there are still some old notes. But this $5 note is interesting. You look at the back and you will see this:-This water village photograph being used for the note is unusual. It is

Ancient Trading Customs of Brunei and China

[I wrote the following article for my Golden Legacy column on Brunei Times two Sundays ago:-]+++++The history of friendly exchanges of envoys and trade between China and Brunei went back a long way. According to Chinese records, the earliest recorded contact date back to more than 2,000 years. Relationship was established as early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 23 AD). By 669 AD during the

UK 20 pence Coin Error 2008

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. As a civil servant, I have seen obviously my fair share of errors in policies and actions. Most are unintentional but the mistakes or the shortcomings are seen only when those policies or actions have been put into place. As a collector of things, obviously I loved it when errors or mistakes happen. This morning one of my friends holidaying in

Brunei Stamp $5 Japanese Occupation 1942

Yesterday I mentioned one of the 4 Brunei stamps which I don't own and by the looks of it can never afford to own. The other Brunei stamp which I don't own include this Brunei $5 stamp overprinted during the Japanese Occupation.This stamp is very rare and only appears every now and then. But whenever it comes it, the price tag is scary. This one is currently out on ebay at the starting price of

Brunei 6 cents stamp 1942

There are 4 stamps of Brunei which I have not owned. I owned every single stamp which has appeared in Brunei since 1895 with the exception of 4 stamps. The above is one of them.The highest value stamps of Brunei are all during the Japanese occupation of Brunei. When the Japanese arrived in Brunei, they took over all the left over stamps and overprinted them. Some of the overprints were on stamps

Sungai Kianggeh 1960s

With this postcard, we have left Jalan Chevalier. We are now on Sungai Kianggeh. But we can still see Brunei Hotel in the center of the postcard which marked the beginning of Jalan Chevalier. That landmark hotel is still visible as a modern hotel now in Brunei's capital city.In this postcard, Sungai Kianggeh and Jalan Kianggeh has yet to be modernised. There is no grand footpath of today neither

Jalan Chevalier 1960s

This is another of the old postcards which I recently acquired. This one is of Jalan Chevalier which is now renamed Jalan Pemancha. This actually is an extension of yesterday's postcard.If you look closely, you can still see the two buildings which I mentioned yesterday but now they are towards the horizon. What you can is see now on the extreme left is the Brunei Hotel. Though the building is

Jalan Pemancha 1960s

I was going to continue my series on old Brunei money but yesterday the postman delivered a few surprises. It was a bunch of postcards which I bought a couple of weeks earlier of Brunei in the 1960s and 1970s.This particular one is a little bit unrecognisable to our young Bruneians. This is Jalan Pemancha in the 1960s. It was not until the 1970s that this sight began changing. The building on the

The Forbidden Track

Yesterday was the scariest ride I have ever been on in my life in Brunei. We were accompanying our Acting Minister to visit two works currently being undertaken by the Public Works Department for the Forestry Department which was to build a helipad and a suspended bridge and for the Youth and Sports Department which was to repair the Outward Bound facilities, both at Belalong.Normally one will

Brunei $1 1935

In 1935, King George V was in reign. In fact in 1935, King George celebrated his Silver Jubilee. He was crowned King in 1910 when his father King Edward VII died.This is the first Straits Settlement dollar which had the portrait of the King. Since the money was used throughout the Straits Settlements, it was also used in Brunei as part of the 1906 law. The most interesting thing about this $1

Brunei $1 1925

People sometimes ask me whether I can do the old money series. I said why not? So, this week is the week beginning with the money that was used in Brunei after the First World War.Brunei by 1906 stopped producing its own money. It relied extensively on the Straits Settlement Dollar which was issued through the SS Office in Singapore. So if you were living in Brunei then, and if you rich enough,

Yayyyyyyyyyyy!

We don't often win much in football but not this time around. From Channelnewsasia.com:-Football: Bruneians become first foreign side to win silverware in S'poreBy A S Dwight, TODAY | Posted: 20 June 2009 0630 hrs SINGAPORE : DPMM made history on Friday night, becoming the first foreign club to win silverware in Singapore football when they beat SAFFC 4-3 on penalties in the 2009 League Cup Final

eXpensive Wedding!

I was intrigued to read of one letter to Brudirect on the cost of a wedding. The letter was written by a friend of a clerk who is getting married. His friend was worried that his parents wanted a normal wedding, all he wanted was a simple nikah ceremony. He could not afford the wedding as he is already paying for a car loan plus other loans.This one is certainly a dilemma. My sister just got

US Report on Human Trafficking in Brunei

On June 16th, USA's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the annual publication of Trafficking in Persons Report. The U.S. Department of State is required by law to submit each year to the Congress a report on foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. The report, the most comprehensive of its kind, this year assesses 175 countries. Countries are

Graying Hair

The other day, while waiting for my turn to speak in a meeting, I was looking round the room to my colleagues. Although most are on average about 45 above, I realised that most are showing graying hair or in our language memutih. At this age, not surprising really.Then I came across this article on psychocentral about graying hair. According to this article, graying hair is not showing signs of

The IMF Report

My apologies for the regular readers for not posting anything lately. My sister got married over the weekend and as you know there were many functions which our family had to tend to and hence the lack of postings.My colleague at MOF informed me that the International Monetary Fund had posted a PIN (Public Information Notice) about the recent Article IV consultation with Brunei. As a member of

Brunei's Anti Corruption Bureau

I am looking through the Transparency International publication entitled the 2009 Global Corruption Barometer given to my by my colleague at Anti corruption Bureau. The report was recently highlighted in the local press about Brunei's position in the fight against corruption.The interesting bit about this report is how the report was derived. For Brunei's case, 820 Bruneians were interviewed by

Back to Business

My thanks to the espeed team yesterday. They came round for the second time, brought my new modem but unfortunately could not test it as it is not the modem but the line. Anyway, the espeed team contacted the line people and the line people came and fixed the line which apparently was broken. That got fixed and when I got home at 6, the modem and finally espeed worked. I was just wondering this

Work Smarter

Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it.The pay was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason,the woodcutter was determined to do his best.His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work. The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees."Congratulations," the boss said. "Go on that way!"Very

British Coin in Brunei

This is the British Trade Dollar coin. It is made out of pure silver and widely circulated in the region. BUT, this is the most interesting 'but'. Did you know that this was also used in Brunei at the beginning of the 20th century? But did you know that it was banned in 1906 when the British Resident was first placed in Brunei? Did you also know that the Straits Settlement Government (the

The Environment Day

Yesterday was Environment Day. The Friday sermon at the mosque yesterday was on environment, remember? Anyway, the Ministry is celebrating the World Environment Day today. What is World Environment Day?World Environment Day (WED) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.Commemorated yearly on 5 June, WED is one of

e-speed? e-slow! e-notworking!

When I first started blogging 4 years ago, I promised myself I will not use the freedom to write anything that I wouldn't have like to read myself - I will not rant. I broke that rule once when I was so angry with the espeed sometime in September 2006 when I posted this.About six weeks ago, my once reliable espeed went on the blink. Nothing I would do would stop that blinking light on the modem.

President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World

I received an email this morning from Shova Thapa, Cultural Affairs/Press/Webmaster of the Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy in Brunei with the following content:-On June 4, President Obama will travel to Egypt for a historic speech in which he will seek to strengthen U.S. relations with the Arab world and the larger Muslim world. President Obama chose Egypt as the venue for the

How to be seen

I found these ten tips from employers to employees on how to avoid getting laid off on Businessweek. The tips are not all relevant to the many Bruneians who are civil servants but they do provide tips on how to improve ourselves and how to be 'seen' or be more visible.1. Remember: It's Not About You Right NowForce yourself to focus with laser accuracy on your company's success, not your own. In

Cheer Up!

I know after a long weekend, it's a drag to get out of bed and to work this morning. Anyway, I spent the whole morning yesterday babysitting my little boy doing his homework. While he was doing it, I spent my time surfing the net. I found a couple of funny stories which I thought I will 'borrow' and placed here. They are good reads to cheer you up for this coming back to work day:-+++++ STORY 1 +

Australian Scholarships Endeavour Awards

I received an email from the Australian High Commission which will be holding a briefing tomorrow about the Endeavour Awards, an Australian Government Scholarship Programme. The Scholarships are a great opportunity for anyone wishing to study or gain professional experience abroad. The Australian High Commission is trying to reach students, young professionals, and government employees who are

Paquebot Post Office?

I saw this old Brunei stamp on ebay. Do you know what's unusual about it?What's unusual about it is the postmark. Postmarks are usually done at the post office where the letter is posted. If it is posted in Kuala Belait, it will be postmarked Kuala Belait. Tutong etc. Notice on this stamp, it says Paquebot. But we do not have a post office with the name of Paquebot. If you can find one, let me

Sharing Information

These two entries are borrowed from my facebook friend:-+++++A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert like island.The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agreed that they had no other recourse but to pray to God.However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them

Don't Read and Drive

Someone complained on brudirect's hys about a driver which he saw reading the Borneo Bulletin while driving. He was reading the newspaper while the car was in a traffic jam. I have seen this many times. I am very lucky not to have to drive to work and I have more time to see what others are doing. From what I have seen, texting on mobile phones I think is the number one no-no activity which is

Football Talk

Yesterday afternoon, at Jerudong, together with my deputy minister and deputy ps, we were watching our MOD football team playing a friendly against DPMM FC. The Crown Prince came later. To say it was a friendly probably is an understatement. No doubt our MOD football team is considered among the best, if not the best team among the ministries in Brunei, against DPMM FC, we were clearly out of our

Were we born yesterday?

Jakarta Globe reported that National Police on Monday announced the arrest of a group of alleged con artists said to have scammed Rp 20 billion ($1.9 million) from a senior Brunei government official by impersonating a representative of a prominent Indonesian political party and asking for a donation.The group, most of whom were from South Sulawesi, had been operating since 2006 and made their

A Depressed Day

I saw among my files yesterday were two letters given to me by my minister received from two brothers who were seeking his help in finding employment. The letters were form letters and I bet the two brothers must have sent them to anyone who they think can help them get employment. The letters listed identical jobs which they applied for which were if I am not mistaken for mandurs, office

The 1000 Year Old Brunei Food

I wrote the following article for The Golden Legacy column on Brunei Times yesterday:-+++++Like most countries around the world which has their own traditional dish, Brunei too has its own traditional dish. The ‘Ambuyat’ is one of Brunei’s well known traditional dish. It is certainly unique and one wonders how the dish came about.Ambuyat is made from sago. Sago is derived or extracted from the

The 1,000 year old Brunei food

Do you know what this guy is doing?He is making sago by pressing on the cut rumbia tree trunks. Ambuyat is made from sago which is in powder form. To make sago, a rumbia tree is cut down. The trunks are cut into pieces and crushed. While crushing water is added to it. The remnants of the crushings are washed and when dried, sago will be obtained.In the old days, crushing was done manually. This

Who talkin' abouta sexa?

I have to change the name of this blogsite. I can't keep up being informative but I will try to be remain entertaining, if that helps your day.Yesterday, I overheard this joke while going round doing our rehearsals for HM's visit. One of my colleagues was telling us this story about Lee Kuan Yew. He was telling us that Lee Kuan Yew had 21 siblings. And Lee Kuan Yew was the 21st among all the

You Reap What You Sow

If you plant honesty, You will reap trustIf you plant goodness, You will reap friendsIf you plant humility, You will reap greatnessIf you plant perseverance, You will reap victoryIf you plant consideration, You will reap harmonyIf you plant hard work, You will reap successIf you plant forgiveness, You will reap reconciliationIf you plant openness, You will reap intimacyIf you plant patience, You

You Get More of What You Have

I found this interesting thoughts by Gretchin Rubins writing about The Happiness Project and I thought this is really good to be shared.I find myself thinking about it in the happiness context, and I’ve often reflected that this statement sums up one of the cruel truths about happiness, and about human nature generally: you get more of what you have.When you feel friendly, people want to be your

Doctor's Misadvice

I don't know where this doctor gets his degree from. But his advice does kinda make sense, no?Q: Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life

Go out to the world

The Crown Prince gave a good speech yesterday for the ITB graduation. For graduates, a graduation speech is something which you will quite remember, that is the last speech you will hear as a student. I was trawling on the internet for good graduation speeches, in America, graduation is called commencement, hence commencement speeches. Here is one which I found to be very good. Unfortunately the

MOD Fear Factor Team

After signing the contract for the Tutong District Masterplan yesterday, we headed towards Ukong. Ukong has a speciality which we feel can be developed further under the district masterplan. Ukong is the home to the only Ambulong Factory left in Brunei. Ambulong or sagu is the flour which we make our local delicay 'ambuyat' from. I have a whole bunch of photographs of the visit to the factory.

The Lessons of Burnt Toasts

I was feeling a bit peckish last night. So I thought I will toast two slices of bread for myself. I switched on the oven toaster and watched television while waiting. When I thought the bread was done, I went into the kitchen. I had a shock. There was so much smoke and my toast apparently went over from being toasted bread to being a candidate for winning the blackest burnt thing on earth.I must

Don't Be Selfish

Yesterday, we were at this ceremony in Danau. It was the laying of the pillar for a house for the 'daif' or the very poor and those who cannot afford to build a house. Together with my colleague at PMO, we chair this working committee building houses for the very poor paid for by the Baitul Mal fund of the Brunei Islamic Religious Council. Baitul Mal has funded a number of welfare projects but

Of politics and sausage

As they say, making legislation is like making sausage. There's a final product, but you surely don't want to see the ugly process of it being made.

I'm reminded of that old adage thanks to the political horse-trading that's going on, now that the election numbers are in and the presidential wannabes are all jostling for position. Kalla and Wiranto, SBY and take your pick of Boediono, Megawati, Prabowo, or even the Sultan of Yogyakarta.

It's all a bit unseemly, much like New York Governor David Paterson's recent botched selection of a senator to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In fact the governor was so damaged by the affair that his career may never recover.

Food for thought, that such political negotiations should always be delicate and behind closed doors, never conducted as a virtual wrestling match. The public may know that politicians are craven and grasping creatures, but we'd rather not witness it in action.

Today's Top Stories

Megawati graft scandal?

Talk about bad timing

This week in irony news ...

Anticorruption chief up on murder charges

It's alive!

The rupiah, back from the dead

A car company that's not going out of business?!

VW plans new Indonesia plant

Quote of the week

PLAN while others are playing.STUDY while others are sleeping.DECIDE while others are delaying.PREPARE while others are daydreaming.BEGIN while others are procrastinating.WORK while others are wishing.SAVE while others are wasting.LISTEN while others are talking.SMILE while others are frowning.COMMEND while others are criticizing.PERSIST while others are quitting.William Arthur Ward

Thinking About Higher Education

I was chatting with one of the senior officers yesterday morning. I saw his application to transfer one piece of his landholdings. I ask casually why he wanted to sell it. He said he needed it to cover the cost of sending his son studying abroad. That is indeed an expensive education.When I told the story to my better half, she was saying just how much parents are sacrificing for their children

The Golden Warisan Volume 1 Final

It has been a tiring one week. Asia Printers printed all 500 copies of my book about two weeks ago but since I ask for laminated binding, that apparently took a while. I ask for the first 20 copies which I brought with me to Singapore as my gift to all the Singapore agencies which I visited. The remainder came out last week.Since my printers only print, I have to do the marketing myself. So I

Let Your Boss Have First Say

You know when I am bereft of ideas to write in this blog - I always repost something from my friend's facebook notes:-A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out.The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.''Me first, me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving

H1N1

I admired the fast action by our medical and response team in isolating the 200 soldiers. Our response team has been ready since 2005 with avian flu. Previous bouts of pandemics have left us with better preparations. Luckily too H1N1 can be cured with antiviral tamiflu. But I am sure that medical and our ndmc have got situation under control. I just want to congratulate and thank those involved

What to do with your enemies?

One of my facebook friends posted this story. It was too good to be left there without being shared:-A kindergarten teacher has decided to let her class play a game.The teacher told each child in the class to bring along a plastic bag containing a few potatoes.Each potato will be given a name of a person that the child hates, so the number of potatoes that a child will put in his/her plastic bag

What I have learnt

My apologies to regular readers. Ever since my trip to Singapore and coming back and the publication of my book, The Golden Warisan, I have not had much time to devote to updating the blogsite.The Singapore trip was very informative. A group of us went to visit the various agencies looking after planning and land issues in Singapore. Under the Singapore e-government projects, there are three

The Golden Warisan PUBLISHED!

In early March 2007, I was approached by The Brunei Times on the possibility of writing a weekly column for the newspaper. I went over to Wisma Haji Taha and discussed the matter with a consultant and the then Features Editor who was a former Malaysiakini.com editor. We talked about it and agreed that I should contribute a weekly article to be published in a column called Golden Legacy starting

Lombok, getting on my nerves

Someone please stab me in the eye.

Look, I love Lombok as much as the next guy. But the western media's obsession with 'The Next Bali' story is starting to rub me the wrong way. To wit, here's the latest version from Forbes. The trope goes thusly: Bali and its execrable Kuta Beach are overrun with hammered (usually Australian) tourists, therefore it's time to look to other undiscovered islands in the archipelago ... and hey, there's Lombok right next door. Write it up!

If I see one more article like this I'm going to go postal. First of all, Lombok is not as 'undiscovered' as clueless feature editors would have you believe. Second, this story is about 20 years old. Third, there are 14,000 other islands that could use a bit of the spotlight (and accompanying tourist dollars), not just Lombok.

So editors of the world, take note. Of course print journalism is dying a quick death anyways, so this message may get to you a little too late.

Today's Top Stories

Asian Development Bank meets in Bali

World crisis slamming poor

Indo tourism numbers up

Impressive showing during economic catastrophe

Three jailed on terror charges

Botched cafe bombing snares Osama wannabes

Parties ganging up on SBY

Golkar, PDI-P, PPP, others form big coalition

Labour Day

Today is May Day or Labour Day for a number of other countries. However like Brunei, there are a few other countries who do not observe Labour Day today. The Americans celebrate their Labour Day on the first Monday of September.But the oberservation of the first ever Labour Day was on the first Monday in September is usually attributed to the Knights of Labor who held their first parade on

The Monkey and the Apple

There once was a happy monkey wandering the jungle, eating delicious fruit when hungry, and resting when tired. One day he came upon a house, where he saw a bowl of the most beautiful apples. He took one in each hand and ran back into the forest. He sniffed the apples and smelled nothing. He tried to eat them, but hurt his teeth. They were made of wood, but they were beautiful, and when the other

Election 2009: Lessons Learned

Now that we've had some time to digest the numbers - 'quantitative analysis,' they call it in the investment world - we can draw some conclusions from the recent Indonesian elections. And perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that there was no real surprise.

President SBY's party came out on top, an event predicted by most polls in the runup. What wasn't quite as foreseen was the significant slump borne by the main opposition parties, like Golkar and Megawati's PDI-P. Late in election seasons most populations shift back to the status quo instead of the great unknown, and this time was no different. But the sub-20% showings were particularly crippling.

No wonder it looks like Megawati is reaching out to former Gen. Prabowo Subianto as a running mate, desperate to glean any possible support. But unless a political earthquake arrives in short order, SBY looks to cruise to victory.

Today's Top Stories

Watch out for swine

Indonesia on alert for flu pandemic

Someone's got gas

Indo is region's worst greenhouse-gas emitter, says ADB

Islamic parties stumble in elections

Global caliphate will have to wait

SBY-Kalla relations frosty

Presidential challenge leads to rift

You Called Her Mama

Tun Teja wrote in the comment box about the origin of the word 'Babu' which are used by some of our Bruneians for 'mother'. The perception is that the word 'babu' is used by family of Pengirans but of course that are also non-Pengiran families who used the word as well. In Brunei, our usage for the word mother ranged from the English Mummy or Mum to the Arabic Umi to the Brunei Mama or Babu.

Anthropophagous Thoughts

I was at Borders last night and managed to get a couple of books. One very interesting one which I read through last night was this book about hard words. Words have always interested me and the other day when my minister asked whether he should buy the full blown Oxford English dictionary, I said he should. The full blown Oxford English dictionary comes in 20 volumes and each volume is about

Struggling Your Way Through

Last week, our ministry's ladies netball team lost the final to MOE. Congratulations to both teams for making the final. I was happy that our ministry's team had reached the final and I know they practised hard. But I was not expecting our team to win, not because they are not capable or I was not supportive. I realised earlier on that they had a psychological problem. From the outset, they were

The Giant Quran

How many people remember this scene?I was trawling through my hard disk and found this photograph. This was taken about three years ago when His Majesty received the Giant Quran as a birthday gift. I wrote about the whole event and also the history behind it. I am hoping that it will be on display one of these days, if it has not already been done so.It is not the world's largest Quran, even

On Friday

This is one of the hardest entry to type. Its not a sad entry or anything like that. I am doing this from the comfortable by the sea yacht club, my cousin's son is having his birthday here. But I am using my tiny handphone. I am a trained typist and being forced to use two thumbs really slows me down. A tweeter would be better. Where is the return key? Cant even do a new paragraph!Found the

Fifth Day of Fifth Month Festival

My secretary came in and said that anakbrunei was outside. She could not or did not know Reeda's name but anakbunei she remembered. So anakbrunei trademark is well and truly established. Anyway anakbrunei's Reeda dropped in my office the other day with a nice surprise - homemade Bakchang. My better half and I tried it for our dinner on the same day. I took a few photos of the bakchang with my

A Cup of Coffee

One of my friends posted this on facebook about a couple of weeks back. I know quite a number of readers out there have seen this but I am sharing this with those who have not. For you to ponder:-+++++A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.Offering his

Pay for Services?

There was someone who wrote either in Brudirect or somewhere that I read over the last few days about the need to clean up the housing estates and to charge people for the clean up. At the moment, the Housing Development Department is responsible for the common areas of the housing estates. There is also no charges for the work. Getting people to pay is always one of the biggest issues in

Bangar Jetty and the 1962 Memorial

Exactly one year ago, I wrote about the above 1962 monument. Yesterday, I read in the papers about the Minister of Communications laying the foundation stone for the new Bangar Jetty and Terminal Building in Temburong. What is the connection?At present, if you arrive or depart from Bangar, you would arrive in an open air small roofed structure. There is no other facility there. This $1.4 million

A City of Many Waters

[This article was published two weeks ago in my Golden Legacy column in Brunei Times]About fifteen years ago, there was an article about a book which the UBD Library had just purchased. It was described as the only book that was written about Brunei around the end of the nineteenth century. The article was written by C.H. Gallop, who was an expatriate teacher in Brunei writing under the pseudonym

Brunei 1989 Paper Money

Yesterday I was talking about the Begawan money. Today I am talking about more money but more recent ones. My sister-in-law's husband (my biras) called me up the other day and said that he had discovered an old piggy box where he has been stashing his coins and dollar notes and he found about 15 pieces of the above and 1 piece of a $5 note. He asked me whether I wanted them. Of course, I told him

The Begawan Money $50

Yesterday, I managed to get two of the above notes. The Begawan Series or the 1967 Brunei First Modern Series is still a favourite among collectors. Issued in 1967, it marked the first time that Brunei issued its own currency by its own Currency Board. Prior to that, Brunei currency notes were issued by the Straits Settlements Government and the Malaya-Borneo Board of Currencies.The $50 Begawan

Our Modern Conveniences

Do you know what this guy does for a living?He does not know do it anymore. His trade died out in the 1960s. But when he was doing his trade, he did not have much competition or any competition. Nobody else wanted his job. But if he did not do his job, the whole Brunei Town would suffer. That's how important his job was.I was quite surprised to see this photograph sometime last year during an

Why can't we have a specialist phlebotomist?

By the time you read this, both my left and my right arms would be like bruised pincushion. I have to undergo the 'ambil darah' procedure.No disrespect to the nurses or the medical staff doing the procedures but apparently I am born with a delicate very deep vein which no one can find in one go. This bruised pincushion is something I undergo everytime I go to either our general hospital or the

Who is a Pebalat?

I guess many have read that the Eskimo had many words for snow. The idea is that the language we speak both affected and reflected our own views of the world and since the Eskimos lived in a snowy world, they should have more words for snow. Though there is some argument how many words the Eskimos actually have for snow. In a popular 1940 article on the subject, the writer referred to Eskimo

Ambassador to Brunei

Last week Dilbert had a short series about the 'temp'. In today's corporate America where there are lots of unemployment, many people find jobs by 'temping' which is to work for companies temporarily while hoping to find full time employment.Scott Adams, the founder of Dilbert, last week had a short series of these 'temps'. Dilbert's boss' secretary went away for a short holiday and the temps

The World According to Stercus Accidit

One of my friends keeps a blog entitled 'the world according to stercus accidit'. I won't put up the link just yet until he says okay. It took me quite a while but the other night I was wondering to myself what 'stercus accidit' was. You see, I took up Latin as a supplementary subsidiary subject when I did my Law and Economics degree. When you study law, knowing Latin is quite useful as many

CLEX 2009

Her Royal Highness Princess Majeedah officially launched CLEX 2009, the Expo on Construction and Life Expo and Conference, last Thursday at the Plenary Hall of the ICC. If you are like going "uhhhh?", CLEX 2009 is Brunei's largest showcase for the construction and lifestyle related industries under one roof. The Expo featured both local and international exhibitors. There are many things for you

I'm Yours

Over the last few months, I have heard this song with this opening lyrics:-Well you done done me and you bet I felt itI tried to be chill but you're so hot that I meltedI fell right through the cracks, now I'm trying to get backBefore the cool done run out I'll be giving it my bestestAnd nothing's going to stop me but divine interventionI reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn someBut I

Family

I have always watched Yasmin Ahmad's short clips for Petronas especially during Hari Raya and Chinese New Year. She has a unique talent in turning 3 minutes into something really meaningful. Yesterday I read about her doing a clip for Singapore's Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports about the family. I had to see it for myself. In fact I found two videos. The first one is about a

Our Future Port

I was searching for something in my office when I came across this. This picture of Muara Port came from a BEDB presentation about the Pulau Muara Besar project (PMB is that island opposite the Port). For some reason when I saw the photo of the port, it really reminded me of my time when I was a Ports Officer. Many many years ago, my then Permanent Secretary had a policy that whenever a Division

The 'lost' camera

They found my camera! I got an SMS yesterday and hopefully when someone comes up from Ulu-Ulu sometime today, the camera will come along as well. The strange thing was that the camera was found at a place where I never did go on Sunday. So either someone found it and brought it there or it 'moved' by itself or 'assisted' by someone or something, that's what some of my officers were telling me

Election 2009: It's he-ere!

It seems like the buildup has been forever- although not quite as long as the interminable American version - but the elections are finally imminent. Glory glory hallelujah.

Consensus is that the party of the generally inoffensive SBY will prevail, although polls have been fairly close in recent weeks. The 'Intelligence Unit' of the venerable Economist magazine predicts as much here, although noting that he'll be under rising pressure in coming months thanks to a global economy that's been brought to its knees.

The electoral process will likely be a messy event, given the huge population and the thousands of far-flung islands we're talking about. But let's have a glass-half-full moment, and appreciate the fact that Indonesia has evolved from a longtime dictatorship to a thriving democracy within a few short years. Not many countries in the world can pull off such a jarring transition - witness Russia, which has backslid to the times of yore - but Indonesia has. In that spirit, hats off to the victors, whoever that turns out to be.

Today's Top Stories

Military plane crash in West Java

24 perish in fireball

Campaigning wraps up

SBY crosses his fingers

Interest rates cut to 7.5%

Indonesia trying to stay ahead of global slowdown

Police shoot Papuan protesters

Tensions simmering in eastern province

Ulu-Ulu Resort

The last three days have been interesting for our Strategic Planning, Public Speaking and Team Building session at the Ulu-Ulu Resort in Temburong. I was going to write about it with lots and lots of photographs but unfortunately my camera did not make the trip back. I have no idea where it is. So if there is anyone out there who saw my Olympus, please let me know. In the meantime, if you want to

Through Other People's Eyes

I am away to Ulu Temburong for the next 3 days and there will not be any telephone or internet connections for the next 3 days. I leave last Sunday's article in the Brunei Times on the history of Brunei through other people's eyes:-+++++BRUNEI’S recent history from the 18th century onwards is well documented. We can go to the British records and use those records. But as we go further into the

And the winner is ... Megawati's party?!

Heed well the old children's fable of the tortoise and the hare. Because with just a week to go before the general elections, a new poll bombshell has Megawati's party pulling ahead.

For months President SBY and his Democratic party have been mopping the floor with rivals in most polls. But this survey by the Strategic Centre for Development and Policy Review has the party of Sukarno's daughter - noted for her particular fondness for cooking and gardening, not so much for her policy brilliance - ahead by a half-point, with SBY's cohorts second and Golkar a close third.

All of them, crucially, fall short of the 20% barrier to nominate a presidential candidate on their own. So may the horse-trading begin in the nation's political backrooms, because it looks like we're in for some delicious chaos. That's democracy, in all its beautiful messiness.

Today's Top Stories

12th-century stone Ganesh recovered in Indonesia

Don't mess with the God of Good Luck

Dangdut concert, anyone?

Elections more about music than smart policy

The rupiah continues its slide

Suitable for lining birdcages

Sumatran elephants shot dead

Poachers win; only 3,000 left in wild

What is the Sustainability Fund?

During the opening of the recent Legislative Council, His Majesty announced the formation of the Sustainability Fund. I have been asked a number of times what it is. I was still in MOF when the project started and the concept took quite a while to gel and after that the legal part took quite sometime as well because it affects the Constitution. Since there is still some interest, I thought I will

Buku Adat Istiadat

Yesterday was the launch of this book by HRH The Crown Prince. This book has been in the making since 1958 reading the write up in the program book yesterday. I wanted to show the contents of the book but unfortunately I don't have the time to show them. Basically the book is full of things that you may want to know all there is about the Adat Istiadat of Brunei including where you should be

Are Brunei prices lower or not?

It was interesting that BT picked up the arguments about the recently released Consumer Price Index (CPI) which our Economic Planning and Development Department (JPKE) recently released. The CPI is showing signs that it is lower and everybody assumes that with lower CPI, the prices should be lower. But for some prices, it is not. This would make a great Economics A Level or first year

Favorite Place on Earth

If there's anyone who knows something about travel, it's Arthur Frommer. The creator of the Frommer's travel-guide series has been to just about every nook and cranny in the world. His favorite of them all, though? None other than Bali.

We find this out courtesy of a new book from National Geographic, "My Favorite Place on Earth," where assorted celebrities let us in on their secret haunts. Other favored spots: The Simpsons creator Matt Groening likes Kauai, Hawaii, while Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler prefers Nepal - and designer Isaac Mizrahi singles out good old Brooklyn. (Big ups!)

As for myself, I'd have to say Cambodia's Angkor Wat, Martinique in the Caribbean, and India's Varanasi. And, of course, my hometown of Vancouver, Canada and my host village of Kota Intan in Indonesia's Riau province.

So, how about you?

Today's Top Stories

Indonesian and proud of it

No to changing nationalities

Climate change summit to host RI

Environment minister headed to DC

Dam death toll rises to 98

Overseer offers to resign

Indonesia hacked by China?!

Secret spy network hit 103 countries

Enemies in the Blanket

I was quite surprised to read this today from Sky.com. The news is as follows:-+++++Cyber Spies Hack Govt PCs Around The WorldA cyber spy network based mainly in China has hacked into classified documents from government offices around the world, a research group has said.It claims 1,295 computers have been compromised in 103 countries.The investigations began when the Tibetan community in exile

The History of the Streets of Bandar Seri Begawan

[My article below was published in The Brunei Times about two months ago.][Photo: Jalan Sultan in 1951]Even though Kampong Ayer has been the capital of the Brunei Sultanate for hundreds of years, Bandar Seri Begawan or the city on dry land is relatively recent. When the first British Resident, M.S.H. McArthur arrived in Brunei to begin his official duty, he stated that he '... wanted a clean dry

Royal Brunei Airlines Previous Aeroplanes

I recently purchased two postcards showing these two RBA aeroplanes. The first is a Boeing 727 and the latter is the Fokker 100, I think.I have not boned up on the history of RBA aeroplanes, though it would be very fascinating to go through the various aeroplanes that RBA had from day one of its operation up to now. I know the previous Boeing 757s and present Boeing 767s and the leased Airbus

Food riots as global phenomenon?

The global economic crisis has made "pessimism porn" something of a favorite pastime these days. More and more publications are talking up apocalyptic scenarios like food and water shortages, devalued currencies, and huge spikes in crime rates as old orders break down. (Great piece in the New Yorker recently that should be required reading.)

Poorer countries have some familiarity with phenomena like food riots, since when you're living close to the poverty line, even slight changes in commodity prices can be the difference between eating and not eating. Hence situations like Haiti, where elements of the government fell when food prices got out of hand.

Indonesia too has seen some isolated food rioting in recent years, and there could be more to come depending on how deep this crisis goes. But when you hear experts talking about such possibilities in America, it's time to rethink your assumptions about the world. Here's forecaster Gerald Celente on the possibility of social breakdown in the US itself, not just the so-called Third World.

Even level-headed writers like Peggy Noonan are being told by expert buddies to start growing their own food and stockpile gold coins. Rewind to 2007, and who would've thought any of this craziness would come to pass?

Today's Top Stories

Colonial dam bursts in Jakarta

52 killed, search for missing underway

Global currency gets traction

Indonesia likes Chinese idea

Growth forecast cut, again

Second time in just a month

Separate or not?

Rebel leader in Papua raises passions

On Friday

The Imam at the Kilanas Mosque struggled to read today's sermon. It must have been written in jawi and full on modern words. Today's sermon was about the ecology. I think many in the mosque must have raised eyebrows today when they left the mosque. It is not often to hear about the ecology being mentioned in Friday's sermon. But nevertheless, it is indeed interesting to hear about the ecology and

Of slow blogging, and the reasons for it

Sorry for not posting for a while. In this economy-from-hell, I had to go and make some money while I still could!

But by way of an excuse, here's an interesting Slow Blogging Manifesto that I came across, and that nicely justifies my absence. Should blogging be about multiple daily posts, or should it be about more occasional worthy insights? Should bloggers work with a mindset of ever-passing deadlines, or with a goal of deeper breakthroughs?

The author's position is obvious ... here's a sample: "Slow Blogging is a rejection of immediacy. It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly, and that many thoughts are best served after being fully baked and worded in an even temperament."

When time passes and we're all six feet under, is an ephemeral blog any kind of legacy to leave? Perhaps we should all return to the writerly habits of yore, and write personal letters in longhand. At least it would be something tangible to hold on to ...

Today's Top Stories

Papua simmers on rebel's return

Leader Nicolas Jouwe offers mixed messages

When Komodo dragons attack!

Poor fruit picker on the receiving end

More Islamic bonds on the way

Hey, anything's better than stocks

Islam the election's wild card

Won't get a prez candidate, but will shape results

On Leave

Someone has to tell me why are these fish called 'Uji Rashid'? I know Bruneians are avid fishermen, surely someone out there must know. I have a slight free time at the moment and I saw the label the other day at that huge supermarket in Rimba. No one was able to answer me then.I have been using up my leave doing a lot of personal things, other than answering the phone calls from the office. I

Transparent Words

The Local Government Association (LGA) in UK has published a list of 200 words that public bodies should not use if they want to communicate effectively with local people. These 200 words and phrases are to be avoided when talking to British people about the work they do and the services they provide. The idea is that the public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases. Why use

Brunei Budget 101

The budget for financial year 2009/2010 was finally approved yesterday. That means the Supply Act is finally law and the government can go on ahead for another year. Budgets are usualy approved in most countries in the same way, debates and then approved. But there has been a few ocassions when budgets are not approved and chaos reigned. I remembered reading last month when California's lawmakers

The Legislative Council Session continues

[This photographs is the old State Council meeting in 1948 - the surrounding not as plush as today's Legislative Council.This afternoon, it is the turn of the Minister of Communications to answer questions. On Saturday afternoon, there were a few questions that the Minister has to answer mostly on Telbru and DST services. The Minister was quite comfortable answering the questions including even

No more flood?

I am on leave until the end of the month. I started last Wednesday but you wouldn't know it. I have been in the office as well as at the Legislative Council since then. I am really looking forward to really go on leave. I needed the break and I thought all the questions will be done by yesterday. However at 2.30 pm, my minister was still tied up at the palace. It was about 3+ when he came in.

The Legislative Council Session Continues

[View of Legislative Council from my old office on the 17th Floor of MOF Building]The Legislative Council session continues this afternoon. It will still be my minister's turn to be grilled - 5 departments will be covered - Land, Survey, Town and Country Planning, Environment and Parks and Public Works Department. After all the ministries are done by Monday, we still have the National Development

Whither Papua?

Word that a key leader of the Free Papua movement is finally warming up to the idea of Indonesia.

Somewhat of a mystery, for beliefs that have been decades in the making for Nicolas Jouwe. A feint to wrest more powers from the government, and prevent much-needed funds from leaking back to Jakarta? An admission that a tiny country, alone, might not reach the promised land via independence alone (viz: East Timor)? Or a personal power grab, since he apparently would like to advise SBY on Papuan affairs?

Perhaps a combination of the three. Or, even, a touch of well-timed propaganda from the government - he was meeting with Minister Bakrie, after all, who might not be the most trustworthy mouthpiece in the world.

Deserving Special Awards?

Yang Berhormat Mohd Shafie, the Representative from Belait District, I think is the most eloquent and well versed of all the Yang Berhormats in the Legislative Council, always coming up with the most interesting questions and suggestions. In a way, it's a pity he is representing Belait District only.Anyway, in one of his long list of questions and suggestions was the one concerning the firemen.

Our Tropical Rainforest

by. Iman Brotoseno

These are more than 17,500 islands in Indonesia, strechted out along the equator like green, ruby and bronze beads of an exquisite necklace. These islands are endowed with vast biological diversity, and approximately one third of the huge number of spieces found on them are endemic. Indonesia stil has one of the largets remaining tropical rainforest in the world, many of which are managed as conservation area. Unfotunately these gifts from nature have been greatly damaged by three decades of exploitation.Indonesia's forests are being degraded and destroyed by logging, mining operations and large-scale agricultural plantations, and from time to time the regime of government always blame the indigenous and local people for shifting agriculture and cutting for fuelwood. I don’t believe that colonization, and subsistence activities cause a major problem of this issue. Their culture is to maintain close links between nature and life as they believe nature will protect them.

Logging for tropical timbers and pulpwood is the best-known cause of forest loss and degradation in the country. Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of tropical timber, generating upwards of US$5 billion annually, and more than 48 million hectares (55 percent of the country's remaining forests) are concessioned for logging. Logging in Indonesia has opened some of the most remote, forbidding places on earth to development. But do you know that 75 % of logging in Indonesia is illegal. Despite an official ban on the export of raw logs from Indonesia, timber is regularly smuggled to Malaysia, Singapore, and other Asian countries. This crime to our forest cause terrible damage, according to World bank data in 2002, every 12 seconds we lost 5000 meter square of tropical rain forest. Indonesia has a biggest contributor in the world as a forest destroyer by erasing 2 percent of its tropical rainforest. Between 1990 and 2005 the country lost more than 28 million hectares of forest, including 21.7 hectares of virgin forest. Its loss of biologically rich primary forest was second only to Brazil during that period, and since the close of the 1990s, deforestation rates of primary forest cover have climbed 26 percent. Today Indonesia's forests are some of the most threatened on the planet. Rainforest cover has steadily declined since the 1960s when 82 percent of the country was covered with forest, to 68 percent in 1982, to 53 percent in 1995, and 49 percent today. Much of this remaining cover consists of logged-over and degraded forest.

The effects from forest loss have been widespread, off course it will affect the global climate as tropical rainforest is actually a world’ s lung. Forest management in Indonesia has long been plagued by corruption. Underpaid government officials combined with the prevalence of disreputable businessmen and shifty politicians, mean logging bans go unenforced, trafficking in endangered species is overlooked, environmental regulations are ignored, parks are used as timber farms, and fines and prison sentences never come to pass. Even the campaigns was launched to raise the awareness, I strongly feel this more to lips service of our government as I believe in NATO ( Not action talk only ) policy. We Indonesia's forests face a discouragingly grim future. And as I write this issues for more than 5 minutes, we loss again 125,000 meter square of our tropical rainforest. So how do you help our mother nature?

Article Source: www.imanbrotoseno.blogspot.com/2007/10/our-tropical-rainforest-these-are-more.html