Leg Co - the old days

Nothing much today. I spent my Friday desperately trying to complete my Sunday article for the Golden Legacy column on Brunei Times about the history of the Brunei's Legislative Council. You have to buy tomorrow's Brunei Times if you do want to read it with the nice photographs.For those who don't want to wait till tomorrow to see the photos, attached are two of them. The first is a Legislative

Day 3 Leg Co

I can only talk about a bit of yesterday's Leg Co afternoon sessions. I was only able to attend for a couple of hours yesterday but I was told that a lot of the more interesting discussions took place in the morning. Currently the members are still in committee session and going through the individual ministries and departmental budgets and approving them one by one. Technically questions about

Day 2 Leg Co

It was an interesting day yesterday. After the pomp and ceremony on the first day of the Leg Co, yesterday the members got down to business. The first order of the day was the notified questions. This is the time when members ask question to the government members in advance. This allows the government members to prepare and when called upon the various ministers stood up to answer the questions.

The Leg Co Members

A few people asked me how to get in touch with the members of the Legislative Council and whether that can be done. I asked them whether they knew who the members were and most indicated the negative. So I thought I will do a service and put the members faces up which yesteday's opening session program has kindly provided. The full list I have made available since 2005 on my library website

A New Leg Co!

Today is the start of the Legislative Council since it reconvened in 2004. I won't say much but look forward to it. I wrote about it last year which you read here and I also wrote about it in 2006 which you can read here.The very first Council meeting took place on the 29th June 1907 with the following members in attendance i.e. the Sultan Muhammad Jemalul Alam, the Acting Resident H Chevallier,

Help me, please....

I read the attempted suicide on Leo and I blogsite about that guy off the Gadong overhead pass. In the first place, I am not even sure whether that guy wanted to commit suicide or otherwise. Whatever the merit of his case, it does raise to one big issue. We either in the government or among the NGOs do not have an outlet in whatever form for anyone to ask and be counseled. If there is, it sure is

Conservation versus Development

I was at the ICC yesterday for the opening of the ISB Borneo Global Issues Conference VI by Her Royal Highness Pengiran Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah. I was very impressed with her delivery. I was also impressed with the organisation of the whole affair bearing in mind I did not see a single Adat Istiadat people. Protocols were correct. But most importantly it was not a boring opening.We had Monty