Much of the juicy details are just adding meat to the skeletal bones that we already know. Most people with some level of intelligence, education and interest in world affairs would have an inkling of the fakeness of diplomacy and know better not to believe the words of politicians.
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-wikileaks-finally-goes-too-far/19737083
How much harm has been done? The leaks touch on past issues, not assessments and future actions. It is not as big a deal as governments citing security concerns would like to have ordinary citizens believe in.
So was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is guilty of "a reckless action which jeopardizes lives." Long have we been championing to protect the anonymity, rights and immunity of whistleblowers. But not in this case because the stakes are too high and embarrassing for key figures in the American powerhouse.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704584804575644510268871730.html
What next? Damage control of course is mean feat. The fallout will inevitably affect those in power who have to work out how not to jeopardise war and peace efforts.
The value of truthfulness and honesty has limits or even negative effects. This may be a lesson that absolute "freedom" of information could cause indiscretion, unhappiness and more trouble. To many who unconditionally worshipped the goddess of liberty, it was a dream dashed. Americans' allies include dictators, despots, autocrats and even terrorists! It should also come as no surprise that Australia is a faithful follower of the USA and will back its patron, longtime friend and cultural partner all the way.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20101129-305997/Australia-vows-to-back-any-US-legal-action-against-WikiLeaks
Someone or some people must be make to look like the fall guys and scapegoats to take the blame away from stakeholders. Not the rich and powerful even if they had done wrongs. Guess who?
Where is the hero/villian?
An international arrest warrant was issued in mid-November against Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation of two women in Sweden.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said yesterday that Wikileaks will be investigated to determine whether or not its whistle-blowing actions violated Australian law.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-assange-offered-ecuador-home-339307631.htm?feed=rss
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
School Formals need not be a costly rite of passage for parents
Are formals really platforms for one-upmanships, keeping up with the Joneses, ego boosting and self-esteem trips, extravagance at the hilt ....?
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/who-bares-wins-in-the-highcost-world-of-school-formals-20101119-180z3.html
No, school formals need not cost more than a thousand dollars estimated by a survey of private school students. It's a rip-off for whoever foots the bill. Every girl (and guy) can look good and have a great time without having a fortune. Here's a sample from less well-to-do but more sensible kids.
Challenge yourself to accomplish the same for half the amount. Pleasant memories of your peers need not be cast in expensive ways. Instead of showing off your wealth, affluence and snob appeal, why not showcase your ingenuity, cooperative spirit, resourcefulness, business sense and artistic creative talents.
Here's a guide :
Dress : $100 - $200
Jewellery & Accessories : $50
Cosmetics / skin care / borrow from mum : $50
Handbag : $50 or make your own clutch satin bag for $10
Shoes : $50 - $100
Manicure / pedicure (optional) : $50 or help each other FOC.
Hairdo : $50 - 100 (or self style at home)
Taxi /parents' car / car pool / public transport : $50
Total : from $400 to $650
- c.g.
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/who-bares-wins-in-the-highcost-world-of-school-formals-20101119-180z3.html
No, school formals need not cost more than a thousand dollars estimated by a survey of private school students. It's a rip-off for whoever foots the bill. Every girl (and guy) can look good and have a great time without having a fortune. Here's a sample from less well-to-do but more sensible kids.
Challenge yourself to accomplish the same for half the amount. Pleasant memories of your peers need not be cast in expensive ways. Instead of showing off your wealth, affluence and snob appeal, why not showcase your ingenuity, cooperative spirit, resourcefulness, business sense and artistic creative talents.
Here's a guide :
Dress : $100 - $200
Jewellery & Accessories : $50
Cosmetics / skin care / borrow from mum : $50
Handbag : $50 or make your own clutch satin bag for $10
Shoes : $50 - $100
Manicure / pedicure (optional) : $50 or help each other FOC.
Hairdo : $50 - 100 (or self style at home)
Taxi /parents' car / car pool / public transport : $50
Total : from $400 to $650
- c.g.
Pretty Business Franchise Gift Ideas - sustainable?
Japan City's Makeover
Franchise concept store Japan City has done a makeover in its recent comeback combining food with its traditional gift line of business.
The chain stores in prominent shopping centres started as a small gift shop showcasing exquite Japanese crockery, homeware, furniture, lights, small furniture, table or wall ornaments, fragrances, incense, green tea in floral printed canisters and many other beautiful boxed giftware. The novelty wore out as the stores closed down one after another like dominoes around five years ago.
The variety of products inspired by Japanese culture is unique in the sense that no other shop (except direct importers) has a wide variety of exotic stuff. However, the prices are steep unless they are discounted during rare occasions of sale. However, most of the gifts are not price competitive. Due to the costs of transport, warehousing and retail rentals factoring into the price, consumers have to pay a premium for the same thing that can be purchased in general stores and discount outlets in Japan and Southeast Asia. Many of the porcelain products are now made in Thailand, owned and managed by Japanese. The quality is impeccably Japanese. Take the pretty colourful chopsticks for instance. You could get exactly the same or similar ones for half the price during your travels or if you care to look hard enough around grocers or supermarkets in the suburbs.
What's in the box?
Japan City like some of the hip gift stores in town have added food to it's original line of gift business. The food counter sells sushi and mochi for dine-in Japanese style on low tables and floor mats and cushions as well as takeaway.
T2 that stocks a huge range of tea leaves, tea utensils and sets, is another example, of offering cafe alongside retail.
A chrysanthemum motif locket on an exquisite dark paper box. Looks more like a handbag than a cake box. Costs will undoubtedly be passed on to consumers.
The best mochi flavours can be narrowed down to green tea, red bean and peanut. They are also more traditional all-time favourites compared to other western influenced tastes.
A closer look. They are really beautiful morsels, too delicate and precious to be eaten. One gobble, it's gone. Judging by the level of customers actually purchasing gifts and food, it would take more to convince sceptics that the revivied Japan City concept is sustainable sufficiently to flourish in time to come.
Let's watch and see. Meanwhile, enjoy them while you can.
- c.g.
Franchise concept store Japan City has done a makeover in its recent comeback combining food with its traditional gift line of business.
The chain stores in prominent shopping centres started as a small gift shop showcasing exquite Japanese crockery, homeware, furniture, lights, small furniture, table or wall ornaments, fragrances, incense, green tea in floral printed canisters and many other beautiful boxed giftware. The novelty wore out as the stores closed down one after another like dominoes around five years ago.
The variety of products inspired by Japanese culture is unique in the sense that no other shop (except direct importers) has a wide variety of exotic stuff. However, the prices are steep unless they are discounted during rare occasions of sale. However, most of the gifts are not price competitive. Due to the costs of transport, warehousing and retail rentals factoring into the price, consumers have to pay a premium for the same thing that can be purchased in general stores and discount outlets in Japan and Southeast Asia. Many of the porcelain products are now made in Thailand, owned and managed by Japanese. The quality is impeccably Japanese. Take the pretty colourful chopsticks for instance. You could get exactly the same or similar ones for half the price during your travels or if you care to look hard enough around grocers or supermarkets in the suburbs.
What's in the box?
Japan City like some of the hip gift stores in town have added food to it's original line of gift business. The food counter sells sushi and mochi for dine-in Japanese style on low tables and floor mats and cushions as well as takeaway.
T2 that stocks a huge range of tea leaves, tea utensils and sets, is another example, of offering cafe alongside retail.
A chrysanthemum motif locket on an exquisite dark paper box. Looks more like a handbag than a cake box. Costs will undoubtedly be passed on to consumers.
The best mochi flavours can be narrowed down to green tea, red bean and peanut. They are also more traditional all-time favourites compared to other western influenced tastes.
A closer look. They are really beautiful morsels, too delicate and precious to be eaten. One gobble, it's gone. Judging by the level of customers actually purchasing gifts and food, it would take more to convince sceptics that the revivied Japan City concept is sustainable sufficiently to flourish in time to come.
Let's watch and see. Meanwhile, enjoy them while you can.
- c.g.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Burma - movement by all parties
Burma is facing a new dawn despite scepticism of the election facade largely directed by the military junta to ensure its continued hold on to power.
Significantly, everyone's attention is on the release The Lady and her willingness to compromise and bring about real change for her people. Western countries who had cut off ties with Burma are keen to jump on Aung San Suu Kyi's call for dismantling of economic sanctions.
Quote :
After spending 15 of the last 20 years in confinement Mrs Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and democracy advocate, acknowledged that her release marked a potential moment of great change in the stand-off between Burma/Myanmar and the West. The freeze in relations has seen the former British colony grow increasing reliant on China.
Kevin Rudd, the Australian foreign minister and former prime minister, has told Mrs Suu Kyi that "reliable" friends were ready to be flexible on sanctions if she could make headway on domestic reform with the generals that run the country.
Mrs Suu Kyi used her second full day of freedom to indicate that her position on Burma's international isolation had undergone changes from the view that the military regime could only be overthrown by sanctions and isolation. "I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism," she told the BBC. "I think it's quite obvious what the people want: the people just want better lives based on security and on freedom."
International sanctions mostly target regime figures – banning travel, financial transactions and business dealing – and many Western countries have imposed an arms embargo on the regime.
As recently as last Thursday, the EU added judges responsible for sentencing Mrs Suu Kyi to the visa ban list and President Barack Obama of the US renewed sanctions in May.
However Senator Jim Webb, a prominent supporter of President Obama, has warned that sanctions and Western business boycotts had rendered Burma as little more than a "province" of China. And the sanctions were already deeply unpopular within Asia, including among intellectual opinion. Jose Ramos Horta, the president of East Timor and a fellow winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, hit out at the isolation of Burma as not "morally good". "I'm very happy with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest after more than 15 years without reason," he said. "I see it as something good and I congratulate the military regime in Myanmar for handling this," he said.
"I'm also waiting and hoping for two blocs, namely America and Europe, which have been applying harsh sanctions against Myanmar, to lift them."
Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador in Bangkok, said: "Suu Kyi's reappearance is something that will be utilised at a time when the US and EU are looking for some kind of engagement. There are areas where she can play a considerable role. Suu Kyi could hold consultations with diplomats, even if the regime isn't prepared to talk to them at this stage. There are things she can do with the West that they can't do with the regime."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/8134988/Western-states-hint-at-support-for-easing-Burma-sanctions.html
It was easy for outsiders living in the free world to rally to liberal academicians' agitation for sanctions, not realising that blockades hurt the Burmese people more than the military regime. Similar experience in South Africa showed that sanctions against apartheid did not work.
Idealists who denounce that the military junta absolutely gives up all their power are harbouring unrealistic expectations. The military must have a continued and key role in nation building as it has the machinery to keep the country from falling apart. As history has shown, removal of autocrats and tyrants forcibly would most likely leave a power vacuum for militants, religious fundamentalists, or other tyrants to fill its place.
The generals would have more to gain to include ASSK into its fold. Together they could achieve more and deliver economic growth to the impoverished nation. Too many opportunities for unity have slipped away and it is high time that the Burmese people deserve what they are entitled to.
The world can look forward to helping the Burmese people through engagement rather than cold shoulder.
- copyright of c.g.
Significantly, everyone's attention is on the release The Lady and her willingness to compromise and bring about real change for her people. Western countries who had cut off ties with Burma are keen to jump on Aung San Suu Kyi's call for dismantling of economic sanctions.
Quote :
After spending 15 of the last 20 years in confinement Mrs Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and democracy advocate, acknowledged that her release marked a potential moment of great change in the stand-off between Burma/Myanmar and the West. The freeze in relations has seen the former British colony grow increasing reliant on China.
Kevin Rudd, the Australian foreign minister and former prime minister, has told Mrs Suu Kyi that "reliable" friends were ready to be flexible on sanctions if she could make headway on domestic reform with the generals that run the country.
Mrs Suu Kyi used her second full day of freedom to indicate that her position on Burma's international isolation had undergone changes from the view that the military regime could only be overthrown by sanctions and isolation. "I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism," she told the BBC. "I think it's quite obvious what the people want: the people just want better lives based on security and on freedom."
International sanctions mostly target regime figures – banning travel, financial transactions and business dealing – and many Western countries have imposed an arms embargo on the regime.
As recently as last Thursday, the EU added judges responsible for sentencing Mrs Suu Kyi to the visa ban list and President Barack Obama of the US renewed sanctions in May.
However Senator Jim Webb, a prominent supporter of President Obama, has warned that sanctions and Western business boycotts had rendered Burma as little more than a "province" of China. And the sanctions were already deeply unpopular within Asia, including among intellectual opinion. Jose Ramos Horta, the president of East Timor and a fellow winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, hit out at the isolation of Burma as not "morally good". "I'm very happy with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest after more than 15 years without reason," he said. "I see it as something good and I congratulate the military regime in Myanmar for handling this," he said.
"I'm also waiting and hoping for two blocs, namely America and Europe, which have been applying harsh sanctions against Myanmar, to lift them."
Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador in Bangkok, said: "Suu Kyi's reappearance is something that will be utilised at a time when the US and EU are looking for some kind of engagement. There are areas where she can play a considerable role. Suu Kyi could hold consultations with diplomats, even if the regime isn't prepared to talk to them at this stage. There are things she can do with the West that they can't do with the regime."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/8134988/Western-states-hint-at-support-for-easing-Burma-sanctions.html
It was easy for outsiders living in the free world to rally to liberal academicians' agitation for sanctions, not realising that blockades hurt the Burmese people more than the military regime. Similar experience in South Africa showed that sanctions against apartheid did not work.
Idealists who denounce that the military junta absolutely gives up all their power are harbouring unrealistic expectations. The military must have a continued and key role in nation building as it has the machinery to keep the country from falling apart. As history has shown, removal of autocrats and tyrants forcibly would most likely leave a power vacuum for militants, religious fundamentalists, or other tyrants to fill its place.
The generals would have more to gain to include ASSK into its fold. Together they could achieve more and deliver economic growth to the impoverished nation. Too many opportunities for unity have slipped away and it is high time that the Burmese people deserve what they are entitled to.
The world can look forward to helping the Burmese people through engagement rather than cold shoulder.
- copyright of c.g.
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