Asia must show the way on climate change — Jose Ramos Horta |
- Asia must show the way on climate change — Jose Ramos Horta
- Clooney wants ‘dream wedding’
- London: The new billionaire capital of the world
- My Awesome Café: Creating a happy place for all who enter
- A spicy chicken dish to kick off an austerity drive
- Ipoh’s Simee Market: Every bite brings back happy memories
| Asia must show the way on climate change — Jose Ramos Horta Posted: 10 May 2014 05:54 PM PDT
We were not responsible for the pollution, we argued; so we should not have to pay for it. Yes, Asia's industrialization was quietly building up toxic stores of carbon, but we were only following the rich world's prescription for success. Carbon equals growth, it said; and, like those who took up smoking on the doctor's orders, we were not to blame. There was a time when the assumptions underpinning this line of thinking were true. Not anymore. Climate change has become malignant. It threatens to blunt Asia's growth and upend our development. Climate scientists are increasingly certain that catastrophic weather events — such as the 2011 floods in Thailand, one of history's costliest disasters, or last year's Typhoon Haiyan, which killed and displaced thousands of people in the Philippines — will become more frequent and intense. From small island states to delta settlements, Asia is the climate frontline. Seven of the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change are in Asia and the Pacific. Millions of Asians are at risk. It falls to Asian governments, whose primary responsibility is to protect their citizens, to respond. For decades, we left it to the West to solve the problem. And for decades they failed to do so. If Asian countries don't help push things forward, the United Nations climate summit in Paris next year — where world governments are due to sign a crucial agreement to curb emissions — could fail. Three things need to happen. Firstly, Asian Heads of Government should reposition their countries ahead of the Paris talks. We should instruct our negotiators to leave behind entrenched positions and work positively towards a global deal. It is difficult to admit, but sometimes we Asians have been less than helpful in the UN climate negotiations: Using arguments about "equality" as a pretext to pollute; playing on post-colonial guilt to stymie progress; or claiming poverty when our per capita incomes sometimes rival Europe's. One of the few positive outcomes from the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 was the creation of a new group, the Cartegena Dialogue for Progressive Action: like-minded countries that refused to allow their differences in size, wealth or geography stand in the way of their mutual desire to curb climate change. We need to more of this kind of co-operative action if we are to seal a deal in Paris. Secondly, Asian countries should focus on building clean economies to boost growth, increase wealth and reduce pollution. This isn't rocket science but it does involve planning and preparation: we need electricity grids that can accommodate vast quantities of renewable energy; infrastructure that promotes green vehicles; and regulations that encourage energy efficiency. Many Asian nations are already leading the way. South Korea is investing 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) per year in green growth. China — the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter — is also the biggest investor in clean energy. In 2012, it poured US$65 billion into renewables; over the next 20 years, it will add more clean energy than the US, Europe and Japan combined. Switching from fossil fuels to clean energy already makes straight economic sense in many countries, in large part thanks to the collapsing price of renewable energy — a trend likely to accelerate in future. The carbon/growth connection is being turned on its head, and Asian nations — many of whom are still developing — are well placed to get ahead of the curve. Thirdly, Asian nations need to better protect their natural environments. Many Asian countries, preoccupied by short-term profits, are guilty of the rapacious destruction of the natural world. But as we are finding out, nature often provides the best form of defense against the storm surges, droughts and typhoons that will progressively worsen this century. Mangroves and coral reefs protect coastlines from storms, while rainforests help regulate local weather patterns; protecting forests is one of the most effective ways to cut carbon pollution, and a healthy natural environment protects human health. The threats to our nations are changing, and we must change accordingly. Huge standing armies, or high-tech weaponry, won't protect us from the next super-typhoon. In the climate battle, our infantry will be mangrove forests and solar panels. By strengthening our natural defenses, embracing clean growth, and leading the push for a global climate deal, Asian leaders can secure a more stable climate — and safeguard our development. Asian people need a climate deal, and the climate problem needs Asian leadership. It is time for Asia to show the way. * José Ramos-Horta is the former president of Timor-Leste. Mohamed Nasheed is the former president of the Maldives? — jakartapost.com ** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.  |
| Posted: 10 May 2014 05:52 PM PDT
The 53-year-old actor is engaged to British lawyer Amal Alamuddin, who he began dating last September. He is said to have got down on one knee with a seven-carat diamond ring after the couple holidayed together in several exotic locations, including Tanzania. It seems the pair is already preparing their ceremony and have several locations in mind to tie the knot. "They're busy planning the wedding, which will be later this year. As well as having ceremonies in both London and Los Angeles, they'll also say their vows at Lake Como in Italy, where George has a luxury home," an insider indulged to British magazine Look. "He's set his heart on making it a dream day, which is all about celebrating their love. He says he feels very honoured to have found Amal, and everyone in his life agrees - she's most definitely 'The One'." George reportedly proposed to his wife-to-be several times before she said yes. It is thought her turning down the offers spurred him on even more. "Now George is wildly in love with Amal who he sees as an intellectual and worldly-wise equal, as she's just so intelligent and smart," the insider added. "Right from the day he met her he fell in love, and the fact she turned down his advances and refused to become another notch on his bedpost impressed him." Even George's parents have given Amal the seal of approval, with his dad Nick describing her as "wonderful" and his mom adding, "I am extremely happy, Amal's a lovely girl." — Cover Media |
| London: The new billionaire capital of the world Posted: 10 May 2014 05:47 PM PDT
The survey of Britain's super-rich compiled for the Sunday Times newspaper is likely to prompt debate in a country where many still struggle financially and where food banks are a fact of life, despite economic growth recently returning to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crash. London is home to 72 of Britain's 104 sterling billionaires, well ahead of Moscow in second place with 48 people worth the equivalent of £1 billion or more. New York is in third place with 43 billionaires, San Francisco in fourth place with 42, Los Angeles next with 38 and Hong Kong in sixth place with 34. Indian-born brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja top the British list with a fortune of £11.9 billion (RM64 billion), amassed through the family-owned Hinduja Group, which has interests in oil, banking, the automotive industry, property and the media. The pair nudged last year's top of the billionaire list, Alisher Usmanov, to second place. The Uzbekistan-born Russian's fortune has been hit by the fall in value of the rouble and Russian stock prices due to the Ukraine crisis. Others in the top 25 include Ukrainian-born internet, chemicals and music industry investor Len Blavatnik in fourth place, property magnate the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, in tenth place, and Saudi-born Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber and his family, known for their hotel and resort investments, in thirteenth place. This year is the first year the minimum wealth of Britain's 50 richest people has topped £1.5 billion. Only £700 million was needed to join the exclusive club a decade ago. Britain's 104 billionaires have a total wealth of £301.13 billion, compared to 88 a year ago with a combined worth of £245.66 billion. The combined wealth of Britain's super-rich is now well ahead of pre-recession levels of 2008, which then totalled £201.99 billion. On Friday independent think-tank the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said British per-capita gross domestic product - often used to indicate a population's average wealth - was "well below" the pre-2008 peak, and unlikely to exceed it before 2017. The Trussell Trust, Britain's largest food bank network, said the number of people that had approached them for emergency food had risen 163 per cent in the year to the end of March to just over 913,000 people. The group labelled the figure "shocking," particularly as it does not include those helped by other food providers or the large number of people too ashamed to seek help and who cope by eating less food. ― AFP |
| My Awesome Café: Creating a happy place for all who enter Posted: 10 May 2014 05:43 PM PDT
Locals are said to favour latte art as the defining criterion for what makes a good café. Hipster décor must surely run a close second given the number of cafés popping up all over the island with faux vintage or industrial furnishings. Not many can claim a real slice of history as the foundation for their coffee shop though, but that's exactly what the enthusiastically-named My Awesome Café in Telok Ayer has to offer. French owner Franck Hardy – a mountain of a man but friendly like a gentle bear – used to be a globe-trotting model and a five-star hotelier before settling down in Singapore. He says, "I have made hotels, restaurants and cafés successful for others. I decided this was the right time for me to open my own. Singapore has been my home for the past nine years and the perfect place for My Awesome Café. I hope to bring back the history of this country inside this old shophouse."
As Hardy puts it, "This shophouse came to us." The Chung Hwa Free Clinic has a long history. Its current owner, the non-profit Singapore Chinese Physicians' Association (SCPA), was first established as the Singapore Chinese Medical Society in 1946 in order to promote traditional Chinese medicine on the island. Practitioners even offered free medical consultations to the needy and poor. In 1952 SCPA set up the Chung Hwa Free Clinic with support from the public and moved to their permanent premises at Telok Ayer Street four years later. In time, Telok Ayer became part of a thriving commercial district and the clinic stopped operations in 2005. Today the neighbourhood has been designated as a conservation area by the authorities. Once Hardy and his partners decided that the shophouse was ideal for their café, they embarked on a challenging and long process of securing the site. He says, "Dedication, patience and passion are definitely attributes needed to start a café in a protected shophouse. First we had to make a bid to SCPA and submit a proposal." Theirs was the winning bid despite not being the highest as they presented a concept that made the best use of the space while conserving much of its historical heritage. Once the lease was signed, the next step was applying to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) for the change of use to a café. Hardy explains, "Any changes inside the shophouse, such as new partitions, had to be approved by the URA. So we decided to simply return the shophouse to its earliest state circa 1952, including the two original staircases." Thus the café retains its original 1952 façade with old black Chinese characters on the twin pillars. Look up and observe three yellow beacon lights that came from an American airport, representing the three owners and welcoming customers.
To restore some of the shophouse's original charm, Hardy created a little Chinese clinic corner. He says, "Our water dispenser used to be an old Chinese medicinal tea warmer. Below the dispenser is a beautiful turquoise traditional Chinese medicine cabinet for our cutlery." No effort was spared; even the light bulbs were created from scratch. Hardy flew to Guzhen in Guangdong, known as the City of Light Fittings in China, to order custom-made LED light bulbs that resemble a Christmas tree. He explains, "The idea is for our customers and our crew to celebrate Christmas at My Awesome Café every day. We even have folks telling us they come in to get inspired for their creative work!" Of course, what's a café without bites and brews? Hardy, who hails from a small French village near the wine region of St Emilion, has been surrounded by good food all his life and understands the value of using the freshest ingredients possible.
Coffee here is made from a blend of Colombian, Brazilian and Sumatran beans, while Mexican Coke in old-school glass bottles offers a more natural taste as it is sweetened using cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. My Awesome Café also carries a range of Chinese medicinal wines, including Ning Xia Hong wolfberry wine made from carefully hand-picked berries and herbal ginseng wine that has been used to improve overall health for thousands of years. Hardy says, "This is part of our East-meets-West concept to promote peace, discovery and harmony."
Indeed, nostalgia is a big part of My Awesome Café's appeal. Hardy and his partners are so fond of the shared history of their host country and her closest neighbour that they converted the café's backyard into a mini Malacca, complete with Stadhuys-red walls, restored old fans, a vintage ais kacang machine and 1950s conference chairs with a little heart on their backs. "It's our way of paying tribute to Malaysia and the fact that so many Malaysians work in Singapore." Some of those Malaysians work at the two-year-old creative agency Mangham Gaxiola, recently voted as one of the Top Three Best Independent Agencies in Asia by Marketing Magazine. The agency is situated on the second and third floors of the shophouse. Hardy shares, "This is a very New York concept that we have brought to Singapore. The staff from the agency come down for their coffee and client meetings here. This is exactly what we wished to create: a second home for others, the way Singapore has become a second home for us. The idea is for all of them to share the same feeling of 'This is an awesome place, a place where I belong!'" With passion this strong, how could we disagree? My Awesome Café |
| A spicy chicken dish to kick off an austerity drive Posted: 10 May 2014 05:43 PM PDT
Determined to have at least a reasonable amount of savings every month, I resorted to cooking more meals at home. The first dish I decided to master was kung pao chicken, also known as dried chili chicken. I love it because it's flavourful and full of protein. Also, it's a favourite in Chinese households so it could be something I can impress my future mother-in-law with. After searching for the right recipe online, I went shopping at a nearby market for the ingredients. I worked out a budget of RM100 spent on ingredients per week on the basis that I cooked every day! What a far cry from the hundreds I spend every week eating out. I'm not sure if my kung pao chicken would taste as good as the one dished out at the neighbourhood dai chow but I was impressed by the amount of savings. My favourite part of the chicken is the breast so I got two pieces for my recipe. I didn't have black vinegar at home so I tweaked the online recipe a little to accommodate the ingredients I had at home. At the first try, the chicken didn't taste half bad. In fact, it was rather delicious except that I would have preferred more sauce with it. So the next time I made it, I doubled the amount of sauce. What can I say? I like things saucy. Kung pao chicken Ingredients: 2 boneless & skinless chicken breasts
For the marinade: 1 tablespoon corn starch For the sauce: 1 1/2 tablespoons light soy sauce
Method: 1. Cut the chicken meat into small cubes, rinse in water, pat dry with paper towels and marinate with the ingredients above for 30 minutes. 2. Mix the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. 3. Heat up a wok with one tablespoon cooking oil and stir-fry the marinated chicken until it is about 70% cook. Dish out and set aside. 4. Clean the wok and add in the remaining 2 tablespoons of cooking oil until it smokes.
6. Stir fry the dried red chilies until aromatic and they smell spicy, then add in the chicken meat. 7. Do a quick stir before adding in the cashew nuts and continue to stir a few times. 8. Add in the sauce and stir continuously until the chicken meat is nicely coated with the sauce. 9. Add in the scallions and stir evenly. 10. Dish out and serve hot with steamed white rice. |
| Ipoh’s Simee Market: Every bite brings back happy memories Posted: 10 May 2014 05:42 PM PDT
Imagine biting into one such piece de resistance freshly baked from the oven; crumbling pastry bursting with the aroma of butter and a wobbly, creamy centre of rich egg custard. I found myself looking forward to Saturday mornings more often after discovering the magic of Choy Kee's egg tarts from Simee Market. Packed neatly in a box of 8s, the quality of the egg tarts has been well-maintained over the years. They go really well with a cup of frothy milk tea or robust Ipoh old town white coffee. Choy Kee opens early in the morning; and on good days (weekends or public holidays), the egg tarts sell off really fast. Diehard loyalists line up even while the tarts are being baked in the oven! If you happen to come in between batches, be prepared to wait (you can check with the ladies manning the stall on the timing for the next batch of tarts to be ready) or better yet, make full use of your time and go savour some other hawker delicacies around the market. Simee Market has always been one of the cleaner markets (relative to the other wet markets of Ipoh) and houses quite a healthy number of hawker stalls. On certain days when I had to tag along with Mum or grandma to the market, we would sometimes stop by the chee cheong fun stall right behind Choy Kee. The lady managing the stall took over from her mother-in-law who has been selling her trademark chee cheong fun (CCF) since the 50s. My personal favourite is the CCF served with mushroom and minced pork gravy (what we call tung koo jup). This is a savoury brown sauce infused with the earthiness of shiitake mushrooms, and sweetness from minced pork. The smooth sheets of steamed rice noodles studded with dried shrimps are first cut into strands and then garnished with fried shallots and sesame seeds. The CCF ensemble is usually completed with pickled green chillies; and here lies the litmus test for some. Homemade pickled green chillies that taste fresh, crunchy and without burning the tongue are preferred over softened, spicier ones sourced from other suppliers. Besides the mushroom gravy, the most popular combination of sauces is still the chilli + sweet sauce (lat jiu tim jeong), while some adventurous souls go for the curry pig's skin for a heavier start to the day. The CCF stall is sandwiched between two other equally interesting ones; on the left is the fish ball noodles stall (what we Ipohans call liew fun) with fish balls, pork balls, stuffed bell peppers and stuffed tofu dipped in the owner's brand of tangy chilli sauce, while on the other side is the auntie selling various types of old school kuih including savoury glutinous rice with dried shrimps and omelette strips, sweet glutinous rice coloured with blue dye (pulut tai tai) served with kaya, and something very rarely seen nowadays -- white chunks of alkaline kuih (kan sui gou) served with a dark-coloured sauce made from gula Melaka and fried minced garlic.
Each prawn fritter has two prawns with shells intact; fried to a crisp and diced yam bean and chopped scallions embedded into the dough. The spherical sweet potato balls from this stall were grandma's favourite; just the right balance of sweetness and a chewy texture that's second to none. And if you love bak zhang -- wrapped steamed glutinous rice in lotus leaf -- then you're in luck. She sells them too every morning. And finally, another stall worth mentioning (and the ensuing guilt) is this truck on the outside of the market selling Menglembu's famous apam balik (ban chang kueh or dai gau min). The popularity of this stall transcends the local community though, as they move around Ipoh a lot. Made freshly on the spot before your eyes, every single bite into the thick, chewy dough filled with crushed peanuts and sugar is a real delight.
A stroll around Simee Market has never failed to bring a smile to my face, bringing back sweet memories of my teenage days and the lingering first bite of that delectable egg tart. Simee Market is open early in the morning (about 6am onwards). The food stalls have different days off. The chee cheong fun stall closes on Tuesdays (not fixed), the cucur udang stall closes on Mondays and Tuesdays, while the apam balik truck does not do business on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. James Tan loves good food and blogs at Motormouth From Ipoh (www.j2kfm.com) |
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