Rakyat must be given fair, accurate information in process of development

Obviously, some activities of foreign NGOs, carrying out one-line campaign against, what they perceive to be issues, are coming more and more into the shores Sarawak because of the borderless nature of the world and with the penetration of the Internet into the society. 

 

Hence, a lot of their activities, which have no relevance to Sarawak, are being exposed to the people. Some of the influences may be good but most tend to mislead them with half truth or outright falsehood in information. For example, some pursing the campaign to save the world environment somehow decide to concentrate their activities in the jungles of Ulu Baram to stay with the nomadic Penans.  What has that got to do with saving the world environment?

Obviously, the group has a sinister motive to blow the local situation out to the world to portray the State as if it is neglecting a segment of the society in pursuit of progress and development. Of course, they are ignorant of efforts of the government to resettle the nomadic to lead a more settled lifestyle. They are also ignorant of the fact Penans constitute less than 5,000 people and only 500 of them are still wandering in the forests.

But they are also exposing their own ignorance and shallow nature of their campaigns. Hence, the local people are not being downhearted by their unfounded allegations being made internationally, for example, on the mismanagement of the natural resources. In other words, the campaigns do not have impact on the local people, who generally realise the success sustainable forest policies being enforced by the State government to ensure that the forests can be inherited by the future generation and continuous prosperity of the timber industry.  

3rd Youth Dialogue organised by Angkatan Zaman Mansang (AZAM) and Sarawak Development Institute (SDI) in collaboration with Sarawak Unity Foundation

Understandably, the State government has been enforcing a policy whereby 50% timber should be exported through the cultivation of the quick growing species of trees in order to increase the yields.  The target is to have 15 million cubic meters of tropical timber by the year 2020.  The only thing is whether it will be done entirely by the local efforts or the open approach, which will allow the people at the international level to come in and participate in the development of planted forests. 

Besides, some the one-line NGOs have weird views that the Penans should be preserved like human museum.  Those in Human Rights group, on the other hand, would shout to the top of their voices that no segment of the society should be left in isolation in development. Obviously, the one-line campaign groups   have conflicts of views, which sometimes are hard to reconcile, among them. 

Therefore, there will always be a struggle in the new media, which will confuse young people. Hence, the onus is on the local friendly NGOs to find ways to sort the real picture.  Obviously, the foreign NGOs carrying out the one-line campaign, believe that they do not owe us anything to tell the truth or to expose a balanced view between ours, who are affected and theirs who are campaigning against us. 

Obviously, the best way forward is to build up the local participation in the spread of information in the new media.  Basically, efforts must be made to make our views to dominate the local people as they are the ones who will determine success of the transformation as we move forward towards the year 2020 and beyond. They should not be detached too much from the fundamental path of contributing ideas to the society that are relevant for better development of the country.

Obviously, ways must be found how to reach out and continuously feed the people with what is going on in the country. The people must get the truth than anything else.  The people should not take the stand to side with any particular people even in the government; when the government is wrong, the government is wrong that is all. 

In this respect, any analytical views that reflect  the  best  of people namely  the accumulation of experience  that  development and the incorporation of the latest method  of management  and better means of evoking  people’s participation  must be brought into the approach to  inform the people, particularly young  people on development.  

Basically, the communication strategy must not only give information but emphasise on interaction with the people all the way to the grass root level. It is the only way to make the people to become better recipients of information on development.  Besides, it must also emphasise on upgrading the quality of leadership at the grass root level. They must be able to convince the people with the knowledge that development will become more successful with their active involvement at their lower levels.   

The State is in the process of migrating from the medium to high income economy towards the year 2020 and beyond in the transformation that should benefit everybody. The process will create a lot of opportunities for people who have the capability in terms of knowledge, skills and expertise to exploit them. Obviously, the coordination between getting the solution to be worked out and the people to respond to them requires a great deal of explanation.

Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud receiving an old photograph of him   with a group of youths from Azam’s youth representative after delivering his speech at the dinner in Kuching.

Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud in his speech during last AZAM’s dinner, says conscientious efforts must be made to convince young people, who are still governed by the perception of the old opportunities that new opportunities are growing for people with technical education and training. 

Besides, the wrong perception of young people on technical education must be corrected. The prevailing views among young people are that technical education   involves a lot of academic training though it is not so for those for semi-skilled and skilled workers. It does not require them to master calculus; even those with Form 3 qualification should be able to pursue it. It only requires them to be able to recognize the machine or whatever equipment that they will work with and understand the theory  behind it.  

Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says the economic transformation will be brought   in a massive way throughout the country.  Hence, communication to enforce the ideas to the people especially at the grass root level must be prepared by now. The Government, on its part, will institute changes in the machinery of local government in order to engage more people, who are oriented towards serving the community at lowest level, to be engaged in the service.

Basically, the people both young and old people must be encouraged to become more   active in cultural activities, develop better habits  through recreation and be acquainted   with activities at their level in order to get the community to become active all the time;    these are things that will come up in future.  

He says interpersonal communication will be emphasized at the level of the local government, being its machinery that is closest to the people, in the service from now onward. Obviously, it must be oriented to become the machinery that can bring new forces of development in the transformation of the society. For example, it can help to organize cultural and social activities and promote interactions among schools through sports, debates or any other activities. 

He believes AZAM can be the centre of the activities in terms of dissemination ideas. Hence, it may consider setting up a communication institute as a vehicle to promote   interactions with the mass media, the Administration, local government and councilors.  They must work together to formulate a new approach to development transformation primarily to get people to respond positively to development.

2010 Dialogue with Sarawak Youth organised by AZAM and SDI

It can be anticipated that new development will bring brought new economic changes in the environment and new opportunities for employment. These are things that will come up for the next 20 years.  Obviously, AZAM must play a more active part and add more professional input into the strategies of development communication on how it can permeate into the society through the process of communication, interpersonal communication in particular. 

Pehin Sri Abdul Taib, who is the Emminent Person of AZAM, recalls that AZAM was the first organization that he had to set up as soon as he became the Chief Minister on  March 26, 1981 with understanding that without a communication tool all efforts on development on sustainable and continuous basis would not be successful.  

He says AZAM was set up earlier than the declaration of the politics of development and later on the concept of New Reality with the belief that it could help to propagate both concepts to the people. Both concepts, for the first time, emphasise on the roles of the people as the important components of development.  

Obviously, the State government, being led by him, recognizes from the very beginning that communication is very important in the development of Sarawak with its huge land surface and the population that is spreading thinly in more than 5,000 settlements over a wide area. They comprise of traditional kampong and longhouses in remote areas that risked being isolated without efforts to establish communication link with them.

benuasains

 *Photos Source: 

google.com

Ground Allspice Tin

Ground Allspice Tin Reviews

More Picture

Our Jamaican allspice is great for pickling, Caribbean cuisine, mulling, marinades and even desserts. 

Go tO Store Now !!

More Products

More Reviews

The Ombuds Year in Review: 2011 (Part II)

This is the second installment of the top ten Ombuds stories of the year. The series will conclude on December 22.

6. Notable Ombuds Retire -- This year saw the retirement of many prominent Ombuds, including: Janis Schonauer (AllianceBernstein); Dorothy Graham (Kennesaw State University); Sandy McDermott (Portland State University); John Mather (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Stan Soffin (Michigan State University); Pierre Niedlispacher (Coca-Cola Refreshments); Lewis Redding (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Suzanne Belson (Department of National Defense and Canadian Forces); Carolyn Noorbakhsh (National Renewable Energy Laboratory); John S. Carter (The Citadel).

5. New Offices Open in Africa -- In 2011, three African universities created Organizational Ombuds offices: University of Cape Town; University of KwaZulu-Natal; and American University in Cairo. (Previously, the only true Organizational Ombuds programs on the continent were within the African Development Bank and United Technologies Corp.) In addition, the African Ombudsman Research Centre was established at UKZN in South Africa.

4. Chuck Howard Takes His Show on the Road -- The year after the ABA published his seminal book about Ombuds, Howard embarked on series of speaking engagements with stops at: IOA Conference in Portland; Quinnipiac University School of Law; ABA Dispute Resolution Section conference in Denver; RAND Corporation Whistleblower Symposium; Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics webinar; Defense Industry Initiative's Annual Best Practices Forum; Marquette University; Minnesota State Bar ADR conference; Silicon Valley Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors; and Stanford University. In addition, he published articles in: Hartford Business Journal; Journal of IOA; and Connecticut Law Tribune.  Wow.

Related post:  The Ombuds Year in Review: 2011 (Part I).

Barista Prima

Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig Brewers

CHEAP,Discount,Buy,Sale,Bestsellers,Good,For,REVIEW, Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig BrewersBarista Prima,Wholesale,Promotions,Shopping,Shipping,Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig BrewersBarista Prima,BestSelling,Off,Savings,Gifts,Cool,Hot,Top,Sellers,Overview,Specifications,Feature,on sale,Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig BrewersBarista Prima Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig BrewersBarista Prima

Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig Brewers Overview

ITALIAN ROAST : A deep, dark-roasted delight, done right. This rich, heavy-bodied cup with its ripe fruit and berry notes epitomizes the time-honored Italian tradition of dark-roasted coffeehouse brews. Bold yet ideally balanced, with a subtle hint of smokiness and a sweet, clean finish, our Italian Roast is a hearty and flavorful testament to the art of dark roasting.

Barista Prima Coffeehouse -- ITALIAN ROAST -- 1 box of 24 K-Cups -- for Keurig Brewers Feature

• Includes 24 single-cup servings (K-Cups)
• Designed for use in Keurig brewing systems
• Offers the ease of making coffee 1 cup at a time

Article Spotlights Work of Ombuds in San Diego

The San Diego Union-Tribune recently profiled Ombuds at four local universities. The newest is Derrick Crawford, who became the first Ombudsperson at California State University San Marcos earlier this year. Crawford serves the entire campus and also handles diversity and educational equity issues.


Crawford says that when he was hired, he sought advice from Judy Bruner at the University of California San Diego and Marit Bessesen at San Diego State University.

Bruner also serves all campus constituents. Although she declined to be interviewed for the article, student leaders said Bruner recently helped diffuse a campus protest when UCSD students demanded that administrators reopen a closed library. “She was there in the morning, before the (administrators) got there,” said Josue Castillo, 21, who was involved in negotiations with officials over the library. “She was there talking to students and getting their perspective. She was very helpful in general, being there and offering her presence.”

At San Diego State, Bessesen serves Ombuds just for students. “I do talk with faculty, but only if it’s a student focused issue,” she said, adding that the kind of faculty and staff issues handled by her counterparts would be addressed by unions or human resources officials at SDSU. Bessesen said she can work with 10 to 30 students a day.

At the University of San Diego, Tom Cleary’s work as an Ombuds is limited strictly to external relations. Cleary, who is also the director of community and government relations, explains, “We are in a residential neighborhood. I deal with neighbors over traffic from basketball games or football games and noise from construction projects or students opening their windows and blaring their stereos.” (SD Union-Tribune.)

Related posts: San Diego State Ombuds Office Marks 40 Years With New Appointment; Slate for 2009 IOA Board Election; Google Map Shows California Ombuds Offices; California State University San Marcos Appoints First Ombuds.

7 things you may not know about catalysis

Engineerblogger
Dec 19, 2011

The ice-like hexagonal structure of water molecules interacting with and above a model platinum catalyst surface is determined from quantum chemical calculations. Oxygen atoms in water shown as red, hydrogen atoms as white; platinum atoms are shown in bluish-grey. High-level details of the structure can be seen in the reflections of each atom surface.  Rees Rankin (Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials) Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory.

Catalysts are all around us.

Catalysts are one of those things that few people think much about, beyond perhaps in high school chemistry, but they make the world tick. Almost everything in your daily life depends on catalysts: cars, Post-It notes, laundry detergent, beer. All the parts of your sandwich—bread, cheddar cheese, roast turkey. Catalysts break down paper pulp to produce the smooth paper in your magazine. They clean your contact lenses every night. They turn milk into yogurt and petroleum into plastic milk jugs, CDs and bicycle helmets.

What is catalysis?

Catalysts speed up a chemical reaction by lowering the amount of energy you need to get one going. Catalysis is the backbone of many industrial processes, which use chemical reactions to turn raw materials into useful products. Catalysts are integral in making plastics and many other manufactured items.

Even the human body runs on catalysts. Many proteins in your body are actually catalysts called enzymes, which do everything from creating signals that move your limbs to helping digest your food. They are truly a fundamental part of life.

Small things can have big results.

In most cases, you need just a tiny amount of a catalyst to make a difference. Even the size of the catalyst particle can change the way a reaction runs. Last year, an Argonne team including materials scientist Larry Curtiss found that one silver catalyst is better at its task when it's in nanoparticles just a few atoms wide. (The catalyst turns propylene into propylene oxides, which is the first step in making antifreeze and other products.)

It can make things greener.

Industrial manufacturing processes for plastic and other essential items often produce nasty by-products which can pose hazards to human health and the environment. Better catalysts can help solve that problem. For example, the same silver catalyst actually produces fewer toxic by-products—making the whole reaction more environmentally friendly.

At its heart, a catalyst is a way to save energy. And applying catalysts on a grand scale could save the world a lot of energy. Three percent of all of the energy used in the U.S. every year goes into converting ethane and propane into alkenes, which are used to make plastics, among other things. That's the equivalent of more than 500 million barrels of gasoline.

Catalysts are also the key to unlocking biofuels. All biomass—corn, switchgrass, trees—contains a tough compound called cellulose, which has to be broken down to make fuel. Finding the perfect catalyst to disintegrate cellulose would make biofuels cheaper and more viable as a renewable energy source.

Often, we have no idea why they work.

The precise reasons why catalysts work are often still a mystery to scientists. Curtiss works in computational catalysis: using computers to tackle the complicated interplay of physics, chemistry and math that explains how a catalyst operates.

Once they've figured out the process, scientists can try to build a catalyst that works even better by simulating how different materials might work instead. Potential configurations for new catalysts can run to thousands of combinations, which is why supercomputers are best at dealing with them.

When Edison was building the lightbulb, he tested literally hundreds of different filaments (likely testing the patience of his lab assistants as well) before discovering the carbonized filament. By taking advantage of supercomputers and modern technology, scientists can speed up the years of testing and expense to get to breakthroughs.

Curtiss runs simulations on Argonne's Blue Gene/P supercomputer to design possible new catalysts. "As supercomputers have gotten faster, we've been able to do things we'd never have been able to do 10 years ago," he said.

They could be essential for the next big revolution in batteries.

Newly efficient lithium-ion batteries helped turn clunky car phones into the slim, elegant cell phones and laptops available today. But scientists are already searching for the next revolution in batteries—one that could someday make a battery light and powerful enough to take a car 500 miles at a go. A promising idea is lithium-air batteries, which use oxygen from the air as a primary component. But this new battery will require totally revamping the internal chemistry, and it will need a powerful new catalyst to make it work. A lithium-air battery works by combining lithium and oxygen atoms and then breaking them apart, over and over. That is a situation tailor-made for a catalyst, and a good one would make the reaction faster and make the battery more efficient.

How do you make a new catalyst?

Understanding the chemistry behind reactions is the first step; then scientists can use modeling to design potential new catalysts and have them tested in the lab. But that first step is difficult unless you can get down to the atomic level to see what is happening during a reaction. This is where big scientific facilities like Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS) shine. At the APS, scientists can use the brightest X-rays in the United States to track the reactions in real time. At the laboratory's Electron Microscopy Center, researchers take photos of the atoms while they react. Curtiss and the team have used both of these in their search for better catalysts.

Source: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)

Fuel Cells: A Clean Energy Alternative at New World Trade Center, New York City’s Octagon

CleanTechnica
Dec 18, 2011

Photo courtesy UTC Power

Our posting of UTC Power’s February 2011 infographic comparing the energy conversion and green tech attributes of their 400 kilowatt (kW) model PureCell with that of the equivalent solar and wind power systems generated a number of comments and criticism.

Looking to clarify matters and respond to readers’ comments, including adding information about the infographic’s underlying assumptions and data sources, I got back in touch with UTC Power’s marketing and communications manager Mike Glynn with the help of the MSL Group’s Mary McCeney. I believe it pays to keep an open mind when considering clean, green energy alternatives.

In the process, I learned about two high-profile applications of UTC Power’s PureCell fuel cell systems. First, 12 UTC Power PureCell Model 400 fuel cell stacks are now on site at the new World Trade Center in downtown New York City. Providing 4.8 megawatts (MW) of clean power when operational, the combined systems will rank as one of the largest fuel cell installations in the world, according to UTC.

In a second installation, solar and fuel cell power are both providing clean energy at The Octagon, a mixed-use residential and commercial building complex on Roosevelt Island in midtown Manhattan. A 50kW solar power array and a PureCell Model 400, 400kW system are supplying 50% of the building’s power needs.
To read more click here...