1MDB - BLESSED BY MURUGAN, SAVED BY ANANDA?

At Batu Cave's Thaipusam recently. Dangling the carrot to the Chinese was a failed agenda to get votes but brought tsunami instead, now the Pretender is going for Indian support to keep afloat a sinking ship. 

Ananda, saviour of 1MDB and the Pretender?

Keep the rotten fish head at your peril! Get rid of it not till at the 11th hour.

MOTHER THE LIVING GOOD EARTH

View of the Good Earth from outer space by NASA.

The Good Earth's parameters

Wind directions blowing over the Good Earth. "And it is He Who sends the winds as heralds of glad tidings, going before His Mercy (rain), and We send down pure water from the sky, -" (Surah 25, Al-Furqan: Ayat 48)

Clouds over the Good Earth than bring rain, filter the sun's rays ...

Wonders of the Good Earth. Mt. Cook, NZ

Rainbow over Niagara Falls

Recycling of the Good Earth's bioresources, Carbon.

Organisms play their roles to keep the Good Earth healthy for the benefit of man?

Humans toil the Good Earth to live and procreate.

Mother the living Good Earth till the end of time!

MAN OF THE ARCHIPELAGO - JOSE RIZAL

Jose Rizal (1861-1896)

Rizal balik ke Filipina tahun 1892 dan menubuhkan parti Liga Filipina untuk membawa perubahan keadaan masyarakat. Pemerintah Sepanyol Filipina berasa terancam dan memencilkan beliau ke sebuah pulau dan kemudian dihukum gantung 1892.

HUMAN SACRIFICE IN YUCATAN

The black dot in the Yucatan Peninsula (map below) is the whereabout of Campeche. The Mayan civilisation existed before in the Yucatan whereas the Aztec Empire to the west (red colour). Cortes's invasion of Mexico began with the Aztecs in 1519 and then the Yucatan and other parts of Mexico.  They were going after gold treasures.

Cortes with his 100 or so soldiers in body armour with guns and riding on horses overwhelmed the thousands of Aztecs and Mayans. They used guile and desperado strategy to the maximum aided by the mistaken belief of the Indians that the Spanish conquistadors were gods.

Part of the post-coference tour was visiting what was left of the pyramidal Mayan temples in Yucatan.

Characteristic Mayan facade using mimetic ornament - forms derived from structural or symbolic shapes.

Mayan temple at Uxmal, Yucatan.

The Mayans, Aztecs and other civilisations in Central and South America believed in human sacrifice rites where the victims' hearts are cut out using knives and offered to the gods.

... the chest of a warrior, whose soul is seen ascending skywards in a bloody trail. Another victim of the rite lies dead at the foot of the temple.

A young victim for sacrifice is selected by the high priest.

The Spaniards' cruelty were worse than the Indians whereby thousands of the vanquished were mangled and made human sacrifices. 

n.b. Thanks to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) for sponsoring to attend a five day tropical fruit conference and tour at Campeche, Yucatan (Mexico) late 1995. I was then doing a 6+3 month fellowship programme on citrus biotechnology (under IAEA) at Lake Alfred, Florida. The flight was from Miami to Merida and then by road to Campeche.

IS NAJIB MAN ENOUGH?

1MDB among many other things are bringing the country down. Is Najib - the Pretender man enough to do the most honourable thing, step down? 

Papuan

Man of Lan Yu Island (China) to the south east of Taiwan.

OLIVE FIELDS - SUSTAINABLE LIVING IN SYRIA

There are two types of oil the Middle East are famous for - carbonaceous fossil oil and olive oil. The former is an oil of contention that wars are often fought for and bring ruin to the country as in the case of Iraq.  Whereas the latter is the oil of health. 

The olive rejuvenates not only people due to its culinary and medicinal uses but also arid land. Virgin olive like virgin coconut oil is being marketed worldwide. 

The olive trees are at home of what seems marginal lands surviving for centuries and yet remain ever fruitful. The olive apart from date provides sustainable living under harsh desert-like conditions. 

Olive branches bearing fruits that are about to mature.

To help collect water for the soil, shallow dug-outs are made for planting of olive, or perimeter stones may be arranged to around the trees. 

Older trees - the sod is left to dry up to recycle organic matter.

The following pictures are view of olive fields in the province of Lattakia, Syria.

On the hill slopes terraces are built.

The village of Qassabin is where my host family lives. Wonder what happens to them now with the civil strife that has been going on for years. We have lost contact.

A tractor plowing a vegetable plot beside an olive garden; Mrs Nejmo overseeing.

SARAWAK MALAYS AND ADENAN SATEM

Adenan Satem is an unassuming Malay. I have seen him albeit from a distance several times. During weekends he likes to play golf I was told. Now as CM in his reins he would have more pressing things to do. Taib, (Melanau) has no qualms to pass the baton to a Malay but then their ties are close, Adenan married the former's sister.

At one time, when I was in Sarawak, Effendi Norwawi (Melanau) seemed to be the blue-eyed boy of Taib and on the rise likely to be CM. Well, that was what the talk then. After Effendi was sidelined there was talk of Abang Johari of the Openg family (Malay) as  potential CM. Taib played his cards well all along to the end even Rahman Yaakub  could not outplay him.

My friend Aziz (left) and blacksmith (right) at Kg. Tanjung, across the river of Kuching town. I bought a parang from the latter and still in good use for some years. Kg. Tanjung is the heartland of the Malays in Sarawak.

Malay women and children, yesteryear.

Malay ladies who were amongst those close to the James Brooke people. (Left to right) Dayang Sahada, Dayang Lehut, Mrs Maxwell, the author and attendants.

(Left to right) Inche Bakar, clerk at the Court of Justice (Malay), Datu Imam, Head of the mosque at Kuching (of Arab descent), Hadji Suden, Member of Council (partly Arab).

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