mamakk!!!

via Journal Gazette:

PITTSBURGH – In her native Malaysia, Mary Tiong developed a reputation for selling leftover computer monitors for a large manufacturer behind the industry’s best-known brands. She earned a nickname: The Monitor Queen.

From her new base in Pittsburgh, Tiong continues to move large quantities of monitors. But now, she ships thousands of discarded models with computers back to Malaysia, where they are rebuilt and sold in poor countries, mostly in Southeast Asia.

Tiong, 41, says her company, Second Life Computer Remanufacturing, has environmental and philanthropic goals: It helps stem a rising tide of electronic waste in the United States and fulfills a need for basic computer equipment in the developing world. But she hopes to expand her operations by establishing a training program to teach local students how to rebuild aging computers, which often can be used for office work, Web surfing and e-mail – and saved from the scrap heap.

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via Straits Times:

Untypical candour shown by the Environment Minister, Mr Rachmat Witoelar, will encourage hope that Indonesia is beginning to be seriously focused on tackling the pollution after the stern Asean-level intervention of three months ago. Mr Witoelar discussed coping measures before the Jakarta foreign correspondents club this week, thereby guaranteeing publicity for an issue which this year generated more dissatisfaction than usual in Singapore and Malaysia.

Not only that, he did the remarkable thing of asking Indonesia’s neighbours for two years’ forbearance before they could expect to see improvement. Was this chutzpah or realism?

There would be disagreement over whether the people of Southeast Asia would care to endure even another season of the choking carbon and methane clouds, or if he was being realistic talking of cleaning up the environmental degradation in a short period of time. By his admission, the problem had developed unchecked in Indonesia over 30 years.

At least something’s being done…and let’s hope they’ll be some results. Seriously I don’t even mind paying like RM50-100 every year to help the cause if they really need the money.

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via Sophie’s World:

Singapore seems to be doing whatever it can to reduce its dependence on its traditional hinterland — Malaysia.

It’s quite obvious that Singapore leaders have been making a beeline to the Middle East lately to help develop better guangxi with the rich Arabs. Malaysia has not profiled as prominently in the Singapore agenda despite their closer geographical and historical links.

It sounds reasonable as Singapore forges closer links with the Middle East. But is it too much to ask Singaporeans to pick up Arabic when most of them can’t even speak basic Malay, which is the lingua franca of Southeast Asia? Malay is also a much simpler language compared to Arabic. Many Singaporeans don’t even know how to sing the national anthem Majullah Singapura, which is in Malay.

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[pic source]

via AP:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The spread of AIDS in Malaysia could wipe out economic gains the country has made over the last 50 years, a top health official warned Thursday.

If stronger steps are not taken to stop the spread of AIDS, Malaysia could be swept by an epidemic, which will strike people in the prime of their lives and devastate the work force, said the Health Ministry’s director of disease control, Ramlee Rahmat.

“This may wipe out all the developmental gains we have achieved since independence” in 1957, Ramlee said in a speech at the opening of a U.N.-organized conference to commemorate World AIDS Day Dec. 1

It’s World AIDS Day today, and Southeast Asia’s like the region with the 2nd highest HIV+ people!

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via Bloomberg:

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) — Malaysia must offer government contracts equally to local and U.S. companies to seal a free- trade accord next year, said the head of the U.S. delegation negotiating the agreement.

An inclusion of government procurement in a free-trade agreement with Malaysia would offer U.S. companies such as Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co. greater access to Malaysia’s $131 billion economy, Southeast Asia’s third-largest. The U.S. is Malaysia’s largest trading partner, with about $44 billion in dealings between the two nations last year.

hmm…now foreigners have more demands than a non-bumiputera local.

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