Viewpoint

The Prime Minister has often preached about new winds of change and transformation blowing through Umno and into the country. There would be reform to deal corruption a deadly blow.

He has a very dependable Minister in his department who makes up for his frequent absence in Parliament, one who is very adept at blowing in the wind in the august House, i.e., providing answers that are as intangible (in meaning) as the wind – Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz. Read more »

In this “Handbook & Call to Action,” Kolko introduces the idea of wicked problems—large-scale social issues that plague humanity, like poverty and malnutrition—then describes the role of design in mitigating these problems.

Starting with the example of his experience with Project Masiluleke, Kolko points out that traditional approaches cannot deal effectively with complex social and cultural problems. Read more »

The Passion of Christ as narrated in John’s gospel explains that after Christ death on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. John points out that Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple of Jesus and that he feared the Jews.

With him was Nicodemus, another ‘secret’ follower of Christ. These men wrapped Jesus’ body in a mixture of myrrh and aloes in strips of linen and placed the body in a tomb. Read more »

I’m reading a fascinating new book called “Why Nations Fail”.

The more you read it, the more you appreciate what a fool’s errand we’re on in Afghanistan and how much we need to totally revamp our whole foreign aid strategy.

But most intriguing are the warning flares the authors put up about both America and China. Read more »

A large segment of Malaysian society and the government in particular seem clearly xenophobic towards migrant workers, asylum seekers and refugees.

Yet in an oxymoronic way, Malaysia continues to insist on having these foreigners on her soil. More recently, Malaysia has thrown its arms wide open to asylum seekers heading to Australia, risking life and limb for a better future. How does one explain this rather bizarre phenomenon? Read more »

10 December is annually celebrated as the World Human Rights day.

It was on this day that the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at Palais de Chaillot, Paris.

The Declaration consists of a preamble and 30 articles that were formulated as a direct result of the experiences of World War II. Read more »

Could we ever imagine that, when Malaysia has achieved developed status, we could still see animals being slaughtered in public in the name of religious rite?

How then would the tourists coming to this country react to this?

Some Muslim countries such as the UAE have already worked on plans not to allow animals being slaughtered in public or at any undesignated place, including outside the mosque, other than the many authorized abattoirs they have built. Read more »

This viewpoint has been expressed by Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, President of KITA in his blog.

The Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI) recently organised a roundtable dialogue on building bridges among religions.

Fr Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot (left), Rector of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Vatican, was the main guest, and he was accompanied by other distinguished figures including the Most Rev Archbishop Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam, Senator Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon of the Prime Minister’s Office as well as social activists. Read more »

The recent news reports of Islamic religious authority claiming that a deceased person has converted to Islam  has once again caused turmoil, confusion and distress for those grieving from his departure from this life.

Instead of mourning in peace and solitude for his demise, they have had to engage in a tussle with the Islamic religious authority that had come to their door step to ‘claim’ his lifeless body to deprive the family members from carrying out the last rites in accordance with the only religious practice that they have known to have been embraced by the deceased. Read more »

This article was first published in “Off The Edge” on January 15, 2009.

By Clive Kessler, Emeritus Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia.

Once again the familiar argument has surfaced, or been desperately invoked, this time in the latest stand-off between the leading Pakatan Rakyat allies Karpal Singh and Anwar Ibrahim. Read more »