23:46
Tieng Anh Vui
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth."
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"I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth."
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Saturday, 31 January 2015
Arnold Bennett
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own."
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"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own."
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Mahatma Gandhi
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."
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"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."
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Friday, 30 January 2015
Brenda Ueland
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable."
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"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable."
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John Atkinson
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"If you don't run your own life, somebody else will."
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"If you don't run your own life, somebody else will."
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Robert Louis Stevenson
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?"
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"You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?"
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Mary Pettibone Poole
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"People who are always making allowances for themselves soon go bankrupt."
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"People who are always making allowances for themselves soon go bankrupt."
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Do over
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
Do something again from the beginning, especially because you did it badly the first time
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Tieng Anh Vui
Do something again from the beginning, especially because you did it badly the first time
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Tieng Anh Vui
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Billy Joel
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"It's okay if you mess up. You should give yourself a break."
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"It's okay if you mess up. You should give yourself a break."
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Johann Georg von Zimmermann
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement."
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"Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement."
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Mark Twain
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain."
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"Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain."
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Pythagoras
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few."
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"It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few."
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Banyan: Watch your back!
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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IN POLITICS the world over it is often not the other side you have to worry about, but your own. In October Joko Widodo was inaugurated as Indonesia’s president, with parliament controlled by an opposition of bad losers threatening to thwart all his plans. Yet by this week, when Jokowi, as he is known, marked 100 days in office, his biggest headaches were caused by his own party, the PDI-P. It has stoked a confrontation between the notoriously corrupt police force and a popular anti-corruption body. The row risks blunting the great political weapon Jokowi has so far wielded to cow friend and foe alike: his personal popularity.
At the centre of it is Budi Gunawan. The policeman had been under a cloud since 2010 because his bank balance bulged suspiciously for a humble cop’s. But on January 9th Jokowi nominated him as chief of police. Days later he was named a suspect by the independent anti-corruption commission, known as the KPK. The opposition-dominated parliament scented a chance to embarrass the president and endorsed the nomination anyway. Jokowi suspended but did not revoke Mr Budi’s appointment. Then, on January 23rd, the police arrested a KPK commissioner, Bambang Widjojanto, on flimsy-looking charges of encouraging perjury in 2010, when he was a campaigning private lawyer. He has resigned. To many, the arrest seemed like retaliation by the police. The three other KPK commissioners are also under investigation. The KPK needs a quorum of three to function, so it risks paralysis. But rather than protect the KPK, Jokowi stayed neutral, saying no institution was above the law, and handed the issue to an independent nine-member panel, which on January 28th recommended he ditch Mr Budi.
This seemed to offer the president a face-saving way out. But by then serious harm had been done to his public image. First, the affair undermines faith in his commitment to wiping out corruption. Like his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in other ways his polar opposite, Jokowi is respected as honest and a doughty fighter against graft. Many Indonesians know from personal experience that the police cannot be trusted. The KPK, on the other hand, has a good reputation, largely earned under Mr Yudhoyono, during whose tenure it brought down some lofty figures. In 2009, however, it also found itself under attack by the police, prompting demonstrations by its supporters.
Mr Budi’s appointment also mocked hopes that Jokowi would make promotions on merit. A businessman from a humble background, Jokowi worked his way to power through winning direct elections, first as mayor of his Javanese hometown, Solo, then as governor of the capital, Jakarta. He promised a break from the old politics of patronage and cronyism. The promise was already dented by the cabinet he named. Almost half the posts went to political allies rather than to talented technocrats. Mr Budi is very close to Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia’s independence leader, a former president and leader of the PDI-P. His promotion seemed a case of jobs for the boys.
It also suggested that Jokowi is not his own boss, and that Ms Megawati still calls the important shots. Part of Jokowi’s appeal—that he is a political outsider—can also appear a weakness, making him look dependent on the PDI-P’s machinery and easily outmanoeuvred by grandees such as Ms Megawati, Surya Paloh, head of a party in his coalition, and even his own vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, who held the same job in Mr Yudhoyono’s first term. The PDI-P, for its part, is disgruntled that Jokowi is not more of a loyalist. The complaints prompting police action against Mr Bambang and the other KPK commissioners were made by party stalwarts. Some are even muttering about impeaching the president.
Meanwhile, Jokowi has also been disappointing some of the many foreign governments that welcomed his election victory last year over Prabowo Subianto, a former general and avowed economic nationalist. He has rejected appeals for clemency for 64 drug smugglers and manufacturers sentenced to death. Six, including five foreigners, were executed by firing squad on January 17th. Two of their governments—Brazil’s and the Netherlands’—withdrew their ambassadors from Jakarta in protest. Among those still on death row are Australian, British and Chinese citizens. And the way Jokowi has chosen to rid Indonesian waters of the scourge of poaching by foreign fishermen—blowing up their vessels—has also caused some concern.
At home, these hardline policies are popular. Mr Jokowi appealed to voters not as a soft-centred liberal but as a no-nonsense small-town mayor who gets things done. And that is another reason why his deliberate, letter-of-the-law handling of the crisis over the KPK is so damaging.
It is also distracting attention from his rapid achievement of some economic-policy goals: starting the distribution of smartcards to poor Indonesians, entitling them to free health care and education, and removing fuel subsidies. Greatly helped by the plunge in the oil price, this last measure has freed billions of dollars for investment in infrastructure and social welfare. Environmentalists also give the president grudging credit for making a start on another crying need: affording better protection to Indonesia’s forests.
Change you can believe in
The activists who helped propel Jokowi to power, however, hoped for much more than an honest president with some good policies. They saw in his election victory the final, critical step in Indonesia’s evolution from the 32-year Suharto dictatorship, which ended only in 1998, into a true democracy. As the first president from outside an elite that had kept control of most levers of power even as the dictatorship was dismantled, he was expected to be a transforming leader. That was always a lot to ask. And it is still far too early to give up a more modest hope: that Jokowi will change Indonesian politics more than it changes him.
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Politics in Thailand: Thaksin times
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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LESS than two years ago Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister of Thailand and something of an establishment outsider, appeared to be winning his bitter battle against the traditional elites in Bangkok, the capital. They, led by the army, had toppled Mr Thaksin in a coup in 2006. But Pheu Thai, the party he directs from self-imposed exile in Dubai, rocketed back to power in 2011 with his sister, Yingluck, at the helm. And in November 2013 Ms Yingluck’s government promised a blanket amnesty wiping out a corruption charge preventing Mr Thaksin from returning.
The pledge proved a colossal mistake, for it galvanised Mr Thaksin’s enemies. Last May Ms Yingluck was ousted by the constitutional court and, shortly after, the army seized power in another coup. And in recent weeks the prospects for Mr Thaksin and his political movement have darkened greatly, perhaps irrevocably. On January 23rd the generals’ rubber-stamp parliament retrospectively impeached Ms Yingluck, banning her from politics; she also faces criminal charges. Her party has begged its “red shirt” supporters not to protest, for fear of giving the junta an excuse to prolong its rule. Yet the generals seem bent on eradicating the influence of Mr Thaksin, who has dominated Thailand’s political discourse since he first swept to power in 2001.
Ms Yingluck’s impeachment—ostensibly for failing to tackle fraud made possible by a costly rice-subsidy scheme—marks a new phase in the army’s rule. Right after last year’s coup, General Prayuth Chan-ocha and his fellow officers said they favoured reconciliation over revenge. By and large, elected politicians of all hues co-operated with the army, leaving journalists, academics and other activists to suffer most under martial law (a large number of dissidents are thought to be in jail). But the persecution of Ms Yingluck suggests that “the gloves are starting to come off”, says Daniel Giles of Vriens & Partners, a political consultancy. The criminal case against Ms Yingluck could mean ten years in jail—a threat that, the generals perhaps hope, will encourage her to flee the country.
The junta’s shift may be a self-interested move. Some politicians from the royalist establishment, including in the Democrat Party that is loosely affiliated with it, seem to have thought that the junta would quickly hand power over to them, as happened after the previous coup. Yet this junta seems inclined to entrench its own authority. Offering up Ms Yingluck to the establishment could buy the generals time. Her impeachment also helps vindicate the coup-makers’ narrative, useful to the junta, that politicians elected through democratic means, rather than appointed by them, will lead Thailand to ruin.
With Ms Yingluck under attack, Pheu Thai will need to find a new leader—hard when martial laws forbid unauthorised assemblies. But Mr Thaksin’s troubles run deeper. An army purge of the police force, supposedly to battle corruption, has removed many crucial allies (Mr Thaksin was a police chief before telecoms deals made him rich). Entrepreneurs with links to Mr Thaksin’s business interests are also being hounded.
For many years Mr Thaksin was thought to be friendly with the crown prince, Maha Vajiralongkorn. Yet recent announcements from the palace—including the prince’s decision to divorce his wife, little-loved by the establishment—suggest that the unpopular prince has come to some kind of accommodation with the generals, whose support will make it easier for him to succeed his frail father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
As for the huge loyalty Mr Thaksin enjoyed in Pheu Thai’s heartlands in the poor, rural north and north-east of the country, that can no longer be taken for granted. Disillusion is taking hold. Some party members resent the cack-handed efforts to have Mr Thaksin pardoned in late 2013, which only led to renewed army rule.
Picking a new leader will widen divisions in Pheu Thai, some of whose members may be tempted away should the generals propose some kind of national unity party to help string out their rule. The presumption is that a Shinawatra clan member will be Pheu Thai’s next leader—perhaps Mr Thaksin’s brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat; another sister, Yaowapha Wongsawat; or his son, Panthongtae. Yet at least one party activist has hinted that a leader not so obviously in hock to Mr Thaksin would be better, such as Chaturon Chaisang, Ms Yingluck’s deputy.
The junta seems to be playing a long game. It probably wants to keep power to see through the succession, and secure its own influence, when the current monarch dies. (It may have to hang on for years, including a suitable mourning period.) There is talk of having a new constitution drafted later this year, probably with provisions to prevent Pheu Thai or something like it ever returning to office.
Yet sooner or later, the junta will face resistance from an electorate with vigorously democratic elements. Reconciliation is still badly needed. In particular, destroying Mr Thaksin and his family as a political force will not prevent the poor Thais who repeatedly vote for them from demanding their say in how the country is run. Pressing the criminal case against Ms Yingluck, Thailand’s first female prime minister, may yet provoke sympathy for her, at home and abroad. The junta talks of bringing a lasting peace in Thailand’s long-running class wars. But that looks ever more distant.
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Myanmar’s commercial capital: The square mile
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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YANGON’S circular railway clacks, rattles and chuffs along a 46km (28.5-mile) loop around the city. On the way to Danyingon—a bustling farmers’ market supplying the vendors who dot Yangon’s pavements—it runs through crowded urban neighbourhoods. Then the scent of exhaust gives way to loam, and ox-pulled ploughs replace cars amid paddy fields and rickety thatched houses.
The journey makes Yangon, or Rangoon, seem small and backward. In fact it is booming. Since 1983 its population has tripled, to 7.4m. It has claimed much of the foreign investment that has flooded Myanmar since political reforms began in 2011. Such investment was just over $900m in 2010, compared with $5 billion forecast for this fiscal year. As for the paddy fields, they are not so much timeless as on borrowed time: many sit on land zoned for manufacturing that has lain fallow for want of industry—which may now begin to come.
In the city’s urban core, the honking of horns has replaced the jingle of trishaws. Bars and restaurants are popping up in restored colonial buildings, as well as in more imaginative places: one is tucked down an apartment stairwell, another in a warehouse on the waterfront by the chocolate Irrawaddy river. Families still cook mohinga, a pungent fish-and-noodle soup, on open braziers and sell 50-kyat (five-cent) cigarettes by the stick from tiny, crammed shopfronts. But office rents are as high as anywhere in Asia. On the skyline, the hilltop gilt of the Shwedagon pagoda still gleams, but cranes loom above rows of rusty, tin roofs.
Some worry about what might be lost. Thant Myint-u, founder of the Yangon Heritage Trust (YHT), says the city’s people ought to discuss the kind of city Yangon should be. “Dense? Sprawling and car-based? What’s the optimal size? These aren’t technical questions, they are questions about what we want,” Mr Thant Myint-U says. His group is leading the preservation of a one-square-mile (2.6-squarekilometre) area in central Yangon jammed with more than 1,000 old buildings. Among them are 140 houses of worship: churches, mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist pagodas and a synagogue.
Many of these buildings lie at the centre of tangled webs of ownership. Longtime residents may own their own flats, but the buildings and land may belong to others—local mosques, churches or temples, or families bearing 19th-century deeds. Land acquisition and disposal are governed by archaic laws, barely enforced, which hinder investment. Yet land prices in Yangon and across the country are soaring—partly because speculators are holding out for huge payouts, but also because, with no functioning stockmarket and a shaky banking system, Myanmar offers few other places for the wealthy to park their cash.
Rich as old Yangon’s heritage is, it accounts for just a tiny percentage of the city’s total area, leaving ample room for development. Japan’s aid agency, JICA, has put together a “master plan” for Yangon’s development over the next 25 years. The plan has its detractors. Some see it as just an engineer’s infrastructure plan, and others note the immense opportunities it seems to offer Japanese firms. But even controversial urban planning is better than none.
Htet Myet Oo is a 25-year-old who was raised in north-eastern England, returned to Yangon after university and now owns the chic Rangoon Tea House. He complains that the long-term vision sometimes precludes easier short-term fixes. Instead of building flyovers to ease congestion, Mr Htet Myet Oo says exasperatedly, “just fix the traffic lights”. Similarly, waste management is a huge long-term challenge, “but it wouldn’t hurt anything just to put a few more bins around the city.” A burst pipe near the reservoir left him without water for three days. Reluctant to close, he was using 500 litres of bottled water a day.
The public water supply is patchy throughout Yangon—most residents rely on rainwater, ponds or unregulated private wells, which deplete the city’s groundwater supply. Other infrastructure is little better. The sewers have hardly been upgraded since they were built in 1888. They serve less than a tenth of the city’s population, with the rest relying on septic tanks or pit latrines (at best). Power is unreliable. Even in districts that no longer suffer extended cuts, supply often fluctuates. Khin Sanda Win, who runs one hotel and is renovating an old building for another, compares her enterprise to “running a small city”: business owners must provide themselves services that elsewhere municipal governments provide, such as waste disposal and a steady power supply.
Rich meet poor
Even so, high rents are pushing longtime residents out of the city centre to its outskirts, where they increasingly find themselves living cheek by jowl with new arrivals from the countryside, drawn to the city in search of work: a recipe for a massive increase in slums. Mr Htet Myet Oo worries that Yangon “could go the way of Dhaka or Mumbai, and just become too populated and messy.”
Another risk is that political reforms might stall—or worse—and that investment and aid money might dry up. In other words, in 50 years’ time the YHT could find itself campaigning to preserve the very few glass-and-steel high-rises of the early 21st century—a long gone but fondly remembered period of optimism.
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Australia and the monarchy: Abbott’s knightmare
Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Robert Herrick
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside; Who fears to ask, doth teach to be deny'd."
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"To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside; Who fears to ask, doth teach to be deny'd."
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Jose Ortega y Gasset
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself."
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"We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself."
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Louis Pasteur
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."
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"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."
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Margery Cuyler
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I think wholeness comes from living your life consciously during the day and then exploring your inner life or unconscious at night."
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"I think wholeness comes from living your life consciously during the day and then exploring your inner life or unconscious at night."
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Tuesday, 27 January 2015
Theodore Roosevelt
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!"
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"Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!"
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Francis Quarles
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse."
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"Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse."
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Henry Fielding
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil."
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"Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil."
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Robert Fritz
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise."
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"If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise."
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Monday, 26 January 2015
Florence Shinn
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy."
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"The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy."
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Moliere
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"To find yourself jilted is a blow to your pride. Do your best to forget it and if you don't succeed, at least pretend to."
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"To find yourself jilted is a blow to your pride. Do your best to forget it and if you don't succeed, at least pretend to."
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Irish Proverb
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was."
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"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was."
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Sunday, 25 January 2015
Elizabeth Aston
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"One's life is not as fixed as one believes. Surprises may lie in store for you, the unexpected often tends to happen, sometimes bringing in its train the most delightful change in one's life or circumstances."
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"One's life is not as fixed as one believes. Surprises may lie in store for you, the unexpected often tends to happen, sometimes bringing in its train the most delightful change in one's life or circumstances."
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Raoul Vaneigem
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create."
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"In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create."
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Abraham Lincoln
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him."
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"It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him."
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Aldous Huxley
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
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"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
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Saturday, 24 January 2015
Randy K. Milholland
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"You make me understand how wonderful it is for little lizards when they find that one special rock that's perfect for sunning themselves on. You make me lizard-happy."
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"You make me understand how wonderful it is for little lizards when they find that one special rock that's perfect for sunning themselves on. You make me lizard-happy."
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Ellen Goodman
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck... But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness."
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"We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck... But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness."
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Salma Hayek
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves."
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"People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves."
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Margaret Lee Runbeck
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling."
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"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling."
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Friday, 23 January 2015
Oprah Winfrey
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, because that's really why were here: to evolve as human beings."
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"Walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, because that's really why were here: to evolve as human beings."
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Og Mandino
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished."
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"Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished."
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new."
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"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new."
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Thursday, 22 January 2015
Melanie Benjamin
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"There is always so much talk about the sins of the fathers, but it is the sins of the mothers that are the most difficult to avoid repeating."
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"There is always so much talk about the sins of the fathers, but it is the sins of the mothers that are the most difficult to avoid repeating."
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Cory Doctorow
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal."
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"Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal."
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Jeanne Moreau
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I don't think success is harmful, as so many people say. Rather, I believe it indispensable to talent, if for nothing else than to increase the talent."
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"I don't think success is harmful, as so many people say. Rather, I believe it indispensable to talent, if for nothing else than to increase the talent."
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Corita Kent
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries."
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"Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries."
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Japan and jihad: Sand storm
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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A TOUR of the Middle East by Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, was knocked sideways by the news on January 20th that Islamic State (IS), the extreme jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, threatened to kill two Japanese hostages unless Japan quickly pays a ransom of $200m. The sum demanded is equal to an amount Mr Abe had committed days before in Egypt to give to countries battling IS. As The Economist went to press, the outcome seemed uncertain.
Japan’s heavy reliance on Middle Eastern oil and gas prompts a desire to foster stability in the region. How to handle the hostage crisis now poses Mr Abe’s toughest foreign-policy challenge. He vowed to use all means to secure the two men’s release. Yet paying a ransom would anger America, Japan’s ally, while Japan has neither the skills nor, because of a pacifist constitution, the legal backing to mount a rescue mission itself. In any negotiations with IS, Japan must preserve the appearance of being a reliable partner against terrorism, says a government official, but should explore ways to free the hostages. In the past, Japan has paid ransoms.
The two captured men make an unlikely pair. Haruna Yukawa appears to be something of a lost soul who travelled to Syria to find himself. He joined rebels fighting IS, which captured him last summer. Kenji Goto is a seasoned journalist and documentary maker known for his portrayals of the human anguish of war. If he approached IS with a view to securing Mr Yukawa’s release, he will have done so with his eyes open.
As for Mr Abe, the crisis complicates his avowed mission to have Japan play a bigger part in the world (he is no fan of the pacifist constitution). To judge by social media, ordinary Japanese not only have sympathy for the hostages but also support Mr Abe’s efforts to free them. But many Japanese also wish the troubles of the wider world would just go away. That hope has now got harder.
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Indonesian politics: Jokowi’s jinks
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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WHEN, earlier last year, it looked as though Joko Widodo would let slip the chance to become Indonesia’s president, thousands of volunteers rallied round to propel him to election victory. They staged a giant rock concert in Jakarta, the capital, and campaigned ceaselessly to fend off a late challenge from the opposing candidate. But less than 100 days after Mr Joko, known to all as Jokowi, took his oath of office in October, these same volunteers are starting to turn against him.
On January 15th Jokowi’s volunteers, rock stars from the election gig among them, marched to the Jakarta headquarters of the anti-corruption commission, the KPK, in protest against their president’s candidate for police chief. Jokowi had proposed Budi Gunawan as his sole pick for the post, only for the KPK to name Mr Budi four days later as under suspicion of corruption. Jokowi refused to revoke the nomination. So, in an open letter, Jokowi volunteers reminded the president of his pledge to pick only clean candidates for office, and threatened to take to the streets if he let the appointment stand.
For six years Mr Budi served as an adviser to Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president and still the leader of Jokowi’s party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P. Many suspect that Jokowi, in the Javanese way, was deferring to his patron by promoting Mr Budi, whose suspicious bank balance the authorities began to investigate back in 2010. Perhaps Jokowi hoped that parliament might veto Mr Budi’s appointment, so that he would not have to. But the opposition-controlled legislature mischievously declared Mr Budi to be a fit person to lead the police.
Forced to choose between snubbing Ms Megawati or his own volunteers, Jokowi dithered again. In a televised address to the country on January 16th he said that he had “postponed” Mr Budi’s appointment, but not “cancelled” it.
Jokowi, a former furniture salesman from outside the political establishment, has made some bold decisions since he took office, notably scrapping popular but profligate petrol subsidies on January 1st. But his indecision over Mr Budi’s appointment is the first blot on his leadership. At the start of his five-year presidency, with many battles still to fight, he may need to remember that his true allies are his popular supporters. Ms Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia’s founding president, endorsed Jokowi only reluctantly as the PDI-P’s presidential candidate. The party itself did little to support his campaign when it mattered most.
It is not only Jokowi’s volunteers who are feeling let down, but, over a separate matter, countries that have applauded his rise. On January 17th six drug-traffickers, five of them foreign nationals from Brazil, Malawi, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Vietnam, were executed by firing squad after Jokowi turned down their appeals for clemency. Human-rights groups condemned the executions; Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors. Elsewhere, Jokowi’s policy of destroying vessels found illegally fishing in Indonesian waters has also caused concern among the country’s neighbours. So, too, have statements from his advisers hinting at growing aloofness towards ASEAN, the ten-country Association of South-East Asian Nations, of which Indonesia is the most populous member.
Jokowi’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, followed a “million friends, zero enemies” governing philosophy, which in the end seemed little more than a screen for indecisiveness. Jokowi wishes to appear tougher. But standing up to the entrenched elites would be a better measure of that than executing drug mules.
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The South China Sea: Oil on troubled waters
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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TWO Chinese oil companies show contrasting approaches in their attempts to operate in the South China Sea where, to the discomfort of its smaller neighbours, China’s claims in disputed waters have grown increasingly assertive. One company’s actions are adding to tensions in the area, while the other’s may hint at a way to ease them.
Last July Brightoil, a company listed in Hong Kong with high-level political connections on the mainland, bought the exploration rights to 6.2m acres (2.5m hectares) of seabed from an American company, Harvest Natural Resources. The block, which the Chinese call Wan’an Bei 21 (WAB-21, part of an area known in English as the Vanguard Bank), has a controversial history. Although it lies more than 650 nautical miles (about 1,200km) from the Chinese coast and just 200 nautical miles from Vietnam, China asserts “historic rights” over the area. It lies near the south-western edge of the U-shaped “nine-dash line” that marks Beijing’s ambiguous claim in the sea (see map).
China issued a licence to explore for oil in WAB-21 in 1992. That came as a shock, because it was the first time China had claimed resources in the South China Sea so far away from its own coast. When Chinese vessels attempted to survey the block in 1994, Vietnam sent its navy to stop them. Vietnam then dispatched an oil rig to drill there, and it was China’s turn to impose a blockade. Neither side was able to extract any oil.
In 1996 Benton Oil and Gas, the precursor of Harvest Natural Resources, bought the rights to WAB-21 for $15m. Harvest was never able to develop the block. Instead, Vietnam drew up its own exploration blocks over the same area and awarded them to Talisman of Canada and ExxonMobil of America. China regards the move as a violation of its own claim. Four years ago Beijing organised a flotilla of fishing vessels to block and ensnare a seismic-survey vessel working for Talisman in the area. Talisman continued regardless, and has recently been drilling in a southern part of WAB-21, in a block the Vietnamese call 136/03.
Yet since Brightoil picked up the rights to WAB-21 (for just $3m), the Chinese have muscled back in. In late October a Chinese craft, the Hai Yang 4, guarded by four escort vessels, spent two weeks conducting seismic surveys in the area. The Vietnamese authorities appear to have decided not to force a showdown, unlike earlier in the year when they sent dozens of vessels to challenge a Chinese oil rig drilling off the Paracel Islands further north. Indeed, as the Hai Yang 4 was surveying WAB-21, China was hosting the highest-level Vietnamese military delegation to visit Beijing in years. The visit was intended to repair the damage to bilateral relations caused by the oil-rig incident. Yet renewed surveying by China could strain relations again.
A different approach to finding oil in the South China Sea emerged late last year. In mid-November Fosun, a big, private Chinese conglomerate, bought a small Australian energy company called Roc. Perhaps unwittingly, it also bought into the South China Sea disputes. Among its many interests, Roc has a contract with Malaysia’s state oil behemoth, Petronas, to develop fields off the coast of Sarawak. Crucially, though these fields, known as the Balai Cluster, lie within Malaysia’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, they are also inside China’s claimed nine-dash line, whose legitimacy Malaysia contests. Assuming Fosun holds on to these interests, a Chinese company is in effect recognising Malaysia’s claim in this area of the sea at the expense of the Chinese claim.
Both Brightoil and Fosun have powerful connections with China’s political elite. Fosun’s chairman, Guo Guangchang, is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body controlled by the Communist Party. Brightoil’s chairman, Sit Kwong-lam, also sits on the CPPCC and is vice-president of the state-dominated oil industry’s trade body. His company seems to be acting as an arm of Chinese policymaking in the South China Sea, whereas Fosun seems to be acting against it. But by working with the Malaysian authorities rather than against the Vietnamese, Fosun appears much more likely than Brightoil actually to deliver oil to Chinese consumers.
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Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Jane Austen
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in a long engagement."
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"I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in a long engagement."
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John Green
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I thought being an adult meant knowing what you believe, but that has not been my experience."
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"I thought being an adult meant knowing what you believe, but that has not been my experience."
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Dr. Joyce Brothers
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words."
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"Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words."
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Confucius
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"He who will not economize will have to agonize."
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"He who will not economize will have to agonize."
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Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Ken Doherty
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"A runners creed: I will win; if I cannot win, I shall be second; if I cannot be second, I shall be third; if I cannot place at all, I shall still do my best."
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"A runners creed: I will win; if I cannot win, I shall be second; if I cannot be second, I shall be third; if I cannot place at all, I shall still do my best."
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M. F. K. Fisher
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist."
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"War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist."
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Celia Thaxter
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."
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"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."
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Sam Rayburn
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Son, always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time."
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"Son, always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time."
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Larry Page
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. In fact, there are so few people this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name."
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"I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. In fact, there are so few people this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name."
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Martin Luther King Jr.
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."
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"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."
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Monday, 19 January 2015
W. Somerset Maugham
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do."
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"An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do."
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Sunday, 18 January 2015
Thomas Carlyle
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand."
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"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand."
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Shakti Gawain
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"When I'm trusting and being myself... everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously."
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"When I'm trusting and being myself... everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously."
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Pearl Buck
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."
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"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."
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Saturday, 17 January 2015
Robin Norwood
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Make your own recovery the first priority in your life."
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"Make your own recovery the first priority in your life."
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Alexis Carrel
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"To accomplish our destiny it is not enough to merely guard prudently against road accidents. We must also cover before nightfall the distance assigned to each of us."
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"To accomplish our destiny it is not enough to merely guard prudently against road accidents. We must also cover before nightfall the distance assigned to each of us."
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Jane E. Brody
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline."
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"Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline."
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Friday, 16 January 2015
Hugh Macleod
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"The fact is, the old clich%uFFFDs work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clich%uFFFDs are clean and tidy."
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"The fact is, the old clich%uFFFDs work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clich%uFFFDs are clean and tidy."
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Cher
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Fitness - If it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body."
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"Fitness - If it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body."
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Helen Keller
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure."
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"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure."
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Erich Segal
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked."
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"True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked."
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Audrey Giorgi
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself."
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"Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself."
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Thursday, 15 January 2015
L. M. Montgomery
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself."
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"Doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself."
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Jesse Stuart
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it."
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"Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it."
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Walt Whitman
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling."
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"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling."
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Sri Lanka’s election: Ask Siri
Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com
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MANY Sri Lankans are still gobsmacked by an election on January 8th that ended nine years of presidential rule by Mahinda Rajapaksa, a strongman appearing to settle in for the long term. Replacing him is Maithripala Sirisena (pictured), until recently the health minister, who won 51.3% of the votes on a record turnout of 81.5%. Mr Sirisena was backed by Sinhalese unhappy about inflation, corruption and the Rajapaksa dynasty, as well as by minority Tamils, Muslims and Christians worried by repression since the end of the civil war or by the weak rule of law.
Mr Rajapaksa conceded defeat early on January 9th. Some in Mr Sirisena’s camp claim that was an act, and that Mr Rajapaksa first explored whether the attorney-general, chief justice and heads of the army and police would agree to cancel the election—in effect, a coup attempt. Mr Rajapaksa denies it, saying that he had “always bowed down to the people’s verdict”.
Coup talk may explain Mr Sirisena’s hasty swearing-in on January 9th and his appointment, minutes later, of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Mr Wickremesinghe has twice held that post before. A behind-the-scenes operator, he may prove stronger than the president. The smallish cabinet they formed on January 12th is likely to expand as former supporters of Mr Rajapaksa defect.
An early priority for Mr Sirisena is fulfilling his promise of constitutional change within 100 days. He wants to tame a presidency that Mr Rajapaksa made nearly paramount, especially after a constitutional amendment in 2010 that did away with presidential term limits and with independent commissions to appoint bureaucrats, judges, police and electoral officers. Reversing the amendment would empower Parliament and the prime minister.
Habits of sycophancy will widen support for the new rulers. The state-run press, especially, toadied up to Mr Rajapaksa and is already fawning upon Mr Sirisena. Parliamentarians fiercely loyal to the old government now flock unashamedly to the new. One defector this week breezily dismissed his former boss as a mere “dead body in the house”.
Yet much remains in flux. Until the dust settles, it is not obvious whether constitutional reform can follow; nor whether the chief justice, ultraloyal to Mr Rajapaksa, can be replaced with someone better. Both, in theory, require support from two-thirds of Parliament. Just possibly the chamber could reconvene as a constitutional assembly, as happened in 1972, allowing some reforms to be pushed through with only a simple majority.
Meanwhile, the victorious coalition could come under strain. On January 15th Mr Rajapaksa was poised to lose control of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, but he can yet sow division. He never seriously sought national reconciliation after ending the 26-year civil war in 2009, though he rebuilt much of the Tamil-dominated north. Since his defeat he has tried stirring nationalist sentiment, blaming his defeat on Muslim and “Eelam” (ie, secessionist Tamil) voters; his implication is that the majority Sinhalese were betrayed. An observer in Colombo worries that such talk could provoke “very ugly” hostility towards minorities.
Parliamentary elections are likely in April or May. Ahead of those, the new government must judge how much to concede to Tamil allies without alienating Sinhalese. Tamils blame Mr Rajapaksa for the deaths of perhaps 40,000 northerners late in the war. Now they expect Mr Sirisena to let civilians evicted by the army return to their land. They also want sympathetic figures put in key posts in the north, and an end to surveillance and intimidation.
No war-crimes trials are looming. During the campaign, Mr Sirisena said he would not order the prosecution of Mr Rajapaksa, aware how unpopular that would be among the Sinhalese and the army. And his own spell at the war’s end as (a largely toothless) defence minister may add to his reluctance. In any case, most Tamils inside Sri Lanka see reconciliation as more important than trials. (A large Tamil diaspora is more strident.)
Still, a rigorous inquiry into events at the end of the war would be valuable. From afar, the UN is already conducting one and will now seek the access to the country it has been denied. Sri Lanka could improve on its own “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission”, which whitewashed the war crimes. Someone should probe persistent rumours about mass graves under army-controlled land in the north.
Amid the political drama, Pope Francis arrived on January 13th. Christians make up only 7.4% of the population, yet he drew large crowds, telling Sri Lankans that confronting wartime atrocities would help reconciliation. In Colombo, the capital, he called for the “pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and unity”. The idea of a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission could be resurrected.
Other foreigners wonder whether foreign policy will be redirected. Sri Lanka’s diplomatic and economic ties to China are deep: in September President Xi Jinping visited and promised many development projects, adding to an estimated $6 billion or more in loans already dispensed. India dislikes the chumminess, all the more furiously after spotting a Chinese navy submarine twice visiting Colombo. If Mr Sirisena now signalled warmer ties with India, that would also please Western powers wary of China’s regional influence. On several fronts, Sri Lanka’s new rulers have much to change.
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