It's "Bandh" Day,Happy In The East

Hantu Laut

Here I am, completely immobilised, eating dust instead of breathing fresh mountain air.

Kathmandu is highly polluted with dust particles due to many of its unpaved roads.

It's an old civilisation that had grown backward.

Today is bandh day in Kathmandu. There is bandh every other day in this city, but today is a big one that virtually lock down the city. 

Most schools, shops and offices are closed and many major roads in the city are closed to traffics and almost all public transports will came to a grinding halt, I was told.



Yesterday, the government raised fuel prices and angry student unions affiliated to various political parties have said that they would close down all petrol kiosks across the country for three days from Sept 14 to protest the price hike. 

'Lo and behold' I wonder how they are going to do that, but in Nepal, I was told, by hook or by crook, it will happen.

I am not very clear what today's big protest really about, nothing much in the newspaper to tell the true story. 

Of little that I know, being told, it is about protest against elections to the Constituent Assembly, which comprises many political parties including a communist led 33-agitating party alliance led by the CPN-Maoist party. 

Hahaha! These communists are serious about democracy and the right to demonstrate freely on the streets.



This is a wonderful country for people who like to protest, demonstrate, or just go walkabout. 

However, nothing have ever changed in spite of the frequent demos, protests, rallies, marches and whatever name you wish to give it.It's the only growth industry here.

Most protests are peaceful and accompanied by the police, but once a while, some ended up in bloody clashes with the police.


Well, if you are bored we can always go to Freak Street where its squalor and beauty are no more irresistible of days bygone the Flower Power. 



The freakish madness of the time had passed into the dustbin of history.

It's A Joke: Obama Should Return His Nobel Peace Prize.

Hantu Laut

Will Barack Obama bomb the hell out of Syria?

Obama should return the Nobel Peach Prize as he is no more fighting a leftover war, but himself into war. 

He never did deserve the Nobel Peace Prize anyway. I have written here some time ago why he didn't deserve the Nobel Prize.

He says America is not the world's policeman, why than is he trying to get involve in an area of conflict that has nothing to do with the U.S?



The American never seem to learn their lessons, poking their noses in every area of conflicts whenever they think American interests are at stake.

Syria, for no viable reason, do not fit the picture of danger to American interests, but there is more to it than chemical weapon of mass destruction to justify U.S involvement.


The Syrian war if left unchecked can destabilise the region.

That's the only reason the U.S. wanted to exert its military power in Syria......... to shield Israel and protect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia from a spill over of the war, where a motley mix of dangerous rebels forces, including Al Qaeda are fighting to topple Bashar al-Assad. 



More than 100,000 people have been killed and 1.7 million forced to flee to neighbouring countries since the conflict started 30 months ago.

The U.S. have closed its eyes to what had happened in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda where millions were slaughtered by murderous dictators and the American never bat an eyelid.

Why than is the U.S. keen to get involved in Syria? 

Why Syria, where Assad is fighting rebel groups as atrocious, cruel and murderous as Assad is ? 

The Middle East is the most important region for the U.S and for the security of Israel and the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. 

The U.S. doesn't give two hoots about human lives. If sincerely so, why wait until over 100,000 lives have been lost before it triggers the American conscience.

Obama says if they do proceed, it will be limited war, no ground troops.

Aren't aerial bombings the most destructive to human lives and properties and more often than not do not hit the intended targets, resulting in gross destruction to civilian lives and properties?

How many people have Assad killed using chemical weapons and how many more will Obama kill with his indiscriminate bombing of the country?

I am no fan of Assad, I think he is reincarnation of the devil itself and should be taken out, but not the way the American want to do it. 

The American with all the sophisticated weapons that they have are not known to be dead accurate hitting their targets and many civilians would become collateral damage if the U.S.military resorted to aerial bombings using drones or manned flights.

The rebels atrocities and cruelty are not less than what Assad is doing. Can Obama explain to the world his reasoning of supporting the same kind of evil that he is trying to stop, this war of baddies against baddies.

The video below was smuggled by a rebel disillusioned with the atrocities inflict on the enemies and civilians who do not support their cause.

Rebels have also reportedly killed 123 civilians in Assad's home province of Latakia and Assad's Alawite sect that controlled the military and have kept his family in power for over four decades. The massacre could have been retaliatory.

Among the rebels are opportunistic terror groups like Al Qeada and freedom fighters from other Muslim countries. 

America's next biggest headache is if the rebels succeeded in taking over Syria, there are no visible leaders align to the U.S. who can take over the running of the country.

Between the two evils, which one is Obama going to play ball with?

Obama is now looking for an escape tunnel where he can escape  from attacking Syria.

A Rogue Chief Minister And Rogue Loan Defaulters

Hantu Laut

Away on holiday somewhere in the Himalayas. 

Haven't posted anything the past two weeks, bit tired writing about Malaysian politics, which is fast sliding down the gutter.

Badasses from both sides of the political divide giving the country a bad name.

When you have chief minister of a state going overseas running down his own country, you know what kind of fuck head you have heading a government and one who thinks his state is a separate entity and another sovereign power.

Now, I would like to ask Lim Guan Eng where his allegiance lies, here or in Timbaktu?

No matter how much you are against the government, as an elected member you can only denigrate or ridicule the government within the country or in parliament, but doing it overseas in an international forum is outright treachery and should not be condoned by any patriotic Malaysian. 

To be fair to him, the government must get a transcript of his speech to determine whether the complaint is true or not and whether the nature of the speech is treasonous. The transcript should also be published in the media for the people to judge.

From a chief minister who thinks he is an emperor of an island nation to a government losing sense in good governance, using soft approach to loan defaulters depriving others of the opportunity to further their studies

I read this with great concern concerning PTPPN loan defaulters. What kind of signal is the government sending to the Malays and Bumiputras. 

Hutang, tak payah bayar balik kah?

A mind-boggling sum of RM2.3 billion in unpaid loans by 400,000 defaulters of the PTPPN study loans of mainly Malay/Bumiputra students. 

Now, you know why the other races rejected the BN government. This is the kind of nonsense they do that riled up the other races. 

A proposal to denounce and blacklist the name of defaulters was opposed by UMNO Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin and accepted by the Cabinet.Blacklisting may not be the answer. PTPPN must use legal action to collect the debts from adamant borrowers.

We, businessmen, would be severely punished if we failed to repay our debts, not only our own loans, but personal guarantee we gave to financial institution for third party's debt, which can be your friend, relative, or your own company where you may be one of the directors.Failure to repay would end up in bankruptcy.

Debt is a debt and must be repaid. If the borrower is not able to repay on time than the loan should be rescheduled to ease the borrower's burden.

Politicians should not set bad example by defending these rogue borrowers, who, obviously, have no intention of repaying the loans from the very beginning.

Legal action should be taken against the loan defaulters. 

Your Computer May Be Watching You

Written by Vanson Soo

MONDAY, 26 AUGUST 2013

No Cheeze Please

If you have ever got the feeling someone was watching you while you were using your computer, tablet or smartphone, it could be because someone is. You may well be sitting there while someone, somewhere out there, is commanding your electronic device to transmit pictures of you and what you are doing.

You might assume that if you haven't given electronic orders to the camera, it's shut off. But this might send a chill down your back. The friendly folks at the US's National Security Agency - the omnipresent spy agency dominating the news, and not in a good way - recently released a little two-page primer on tips to "harden" your computer against attacks.

One eye-catching bit of advice is to "Disable Integrated iSight and Sound Input" on Mac machines - the handbook was written explicitly for Mac devices but it is safe to assume the same applies to all built-in Webcams on other computers and devices.

"The best way to disable an integrated iSight camera is to have an Apple-certified technician remove it," according to the NSA Systems and Network Analysis Center. "Placing opaque tape over the camera is less secure but still helpful. A less persistent but still helpful method is to remove /System/Library/Quicktime/QuicktimeUSBVDCDigitizer.component , which will prevent some programs from accessing the camera."

And don't forget to mute or disable the internal microphone of these devices, the document says.

This comes as no surprise as anything with an Internet connection is vulnerable to attacks. The real surprise is that this advice came from the very agency now infamously known for conducting covert cyber-snooping and surveillance on ordinary citizens, as the former NSA contractor turned fugitive Edward Snowden has alleged.

But if even the NSA doesn't trust those Webcams, why should you? Irrational paranoia or cold reality?

The real issue is that most people have become thoroughly accustomed to these devices, it is indeed almost oxymoronic behavior to disable or give up on those innovations and gadgets supposedly designed to give us a modern digital lifestyle and to make us more efficient and put us abreast with the real world.

A hard pill to swallow? Consider this.

There are reportedly now special spy apps designed for smartphones. You don't have to be interested in them. You don't have to buy and install these apps. More importantly, you don't even need to know about them. Their very existence simply makes everyone highly vulnerable.

All it takes is for someone to install one of these apps on his/her phone and then covertly target another phone. The innocent victimized phone will then serve as a live broadcast for all the actions and conversations of the phone owner, or whoever was holding it or in proximity to that phone - who wouldn't even have the slightest clue as the compromised phone remains in rest mode in the midst of these intrusions.

The implications? Just imagine using the compromised phone in business meetings or say, on personal concerns, in the washroom - remember most smartphones these days come with front and rear cameras.

A client recently shared his concerns about these intrusive apps. But it is hard to give up the smartphone, he acknowledged.

The same good old words of wisdom: remove the SIM card and battery during important business meetings or private conversations. To go a step further, leave the phone outside the meeting room or inside a zip-loc plastic bag. Snowden was known to leave his phone inside the fridge, which works fine at home but isn't so convenient in a business setting. And what if the phone rang and you missed the calls?

The simple solution is to forward all calls to a spare old-fashioned mobile phone with a spare SIM card. Yes, those good old Nokias and the likes that are designed solely for phone calls and free of camera, internet connection, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. Any phone but a smartphone.

So the choice is, give up the smartphone altogether or forward all calls to the spare phone, especially during those private, important conversations when you feel compelled to disable the smartphone. The forwarding function still works even when the smartphone is stripped of its SIM card and battery.

Now, it is fair to ask if the world has gone berserk. What is the point of buying sophisticated computers with all the digital add-ons and then disabling them? Using smartphones and reverting to old fashioned cellulars?

Well, just look at the Kremlin. The FSO, successor to the Russian KGB, announced last month a move to boost security of its communications and safeguard against cyber-snooping and NSA eavesdropping. The solution? Electronic typewriters.

Asia Sentinel: l