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
;; 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