Steady hands against bird flu

Steady hands against bird flu

When it comes to the mysterious and debilitating pandemics
that have afflicted East Asia in recent times, from the SARS
virus to bird flu, Malaysia has led a seemingly charmed life.

It is important to note again that Malaysia's relative
immunity to trans-boundary contagions such as avian flu has not
been due to sheer luck but diligent pre-emption.

Malaysia's stringent import ban on poultry and birds from
Thailand was obviously flouted by whoever smuggled in the two
infected (and illegal) fighting cocks discovered in a village
coop in Tumpat, just south of the Thai border. The area is now
under quarantine, and every hapless fowl in the vicinity will not
have survived 24 hours after those two samples tested positive
for avian flu. The Government's enduring transparency on this
matter is matched by the speed with which action has been taken.

It is understandable that Singapore should react with such
alarm. The island republic has been among the most nervously
alert to these invisible threats, and has acted with predictable
celerity in banning the import of Malaysian fowl.

This will cost Malaysia upwards of RM1 million per day,
ironically hitting hardest poultry farms in Johor, Malacca, Negri
Sembilan and Selangor, hundreds of kilometers away from that
secluded rural enclave at the far top-right corner of Kelantan.

Some damage control can be effected, with local poultry
diverted from export to the domestic market, but even as Malaysia
acknowledges the truth of those two sick Thai cockerels in
Tumpat, Singapore (as well as Japan and Brunei, which seem set to
follow its lead in banning the import of Malaysian birds) should
acknowledge the measures being taken to eliminate the virus here,
and bear with us while we clean out this other form of unwelcome
illegal immigrant. Although this incident is a reminder never to
let down our guard, neither is there cause to hit the panic
button.
-- New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur

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Anpak..r..
OtherOp-Olympics
On the Olympics
JP/6/

On the Olympics

All things that celebrate elite achievement have their
detractors.

The Olympics are a case in point. Naysayers point to drugs and
other cheating, the unbridled commercial greed, the corruption of
host-city selections, rich countries cherry-picking the athletes
of poor nations, the potentially ruinous costs on host cities,
the obscene indulgences of some Olympic family members and the
invitation to terrorism. This catalog of complaints may seem an
overwhelming case against the Olympics. It is an uncharitable
view.

The Games are about sport but a lot more, too. They are about
individual endeavor and about national aspiration. They urge us
to cheer and applaud the victors and the vanquished regardless of
national boundaries.

The temptation to dismiss the Games as unnecessarily
ritualistic, even quasi-spiritual, misses the point.

Now that the baton has passed back to ... where ancients
initiated the traditions 2780 years ago, it would be a pity if
that goodwill were to be supplanted in Australia by smug self-
satisfaction ... intended to compare Athens unfavorably with the
Sydney Games. Terrorism left Athens struggling under difficulties
not of its making, but the splendid venues have been completed,
contrary to predictions of doom, and Greeks need no one's advice
on how to party.
-- Sydney Morning Herald, Australia