Columnist - New Straits Times

Where are the smiles?

WHAT is it with Terengganu? It takes an average of seven hours to reach Kuala Terengganu by road, depending on which route you take and at what speed you drive.

Getting lost in translation

NO LAUGHING MATTER: Some signs at places of interest will move you to tears

Get other girls, women screened for cervical cancer

CALL FOR ACTION: We need to step up and do our part to make cervical cancer history

Penang needs a tourism blueprint

HERITAGE CITY: With more airlines and cruise ships coming to the state it is vital to improve its tourism infrastructure

Moulding a new breed of foreign service officers

GETTING THE JOB DONE: Nation can use services of veteran diplomatic practitioners schooled in unconventional diplomacy

Political rebranding needs guts, ideas

MULTIRACIAL PARTY: The need to refresh the BN brand is seen to be more vital after the recent polls

Japan can be the model for change

SLUMP: The Western world has seemingly succumbed to a severe case of economic defeatism and is not trying to solve problems

Overstretching the brain

FAILING TO SEE: It can run economically by ignoring things that are not needed, creating illusions before our eyes

From batting to betting

SPOT-FIXING: This is not the cricket that Indians grew up playing and watching

Fighting crime is a joint effort

IN my lifetime, I have been robbed twice -- in 1982 and just last month. I was lucky to have survived both episodes. Perhaps that was why I was neither traumatised nor did I begin to play the blame game.

Time to implement IPCMC

WHILE there is obviously still a lot to be done in order to bring the country's governance standards in line with international best practice, the government's response to the many major issues of public concern of the day in social, economic and political terms deserves our support.

Cynicism can't fight corruption

CREATE AWARENESS: Combating the menace has to be a people's movement

A not-so-united front in Selangor

TUSSLE OVER EXCO POSTS: Leaders are jostling for the biggest slice of the state pie

US economy needs both reform and investment

ONE way President Barack Obama can begin to put the Internal Revenue Service scandal behind him is by proposing comprehensive tax reform. Beyond the usual Washington theatrics, the real problem is that the US tax code is unbelievably complicated, clocking in around 74,000 pages, with all rulings, regulations and other material.

Putting out fires from within

CONFLICT-RIDDLED PKR is keen to hold back its party elections, supposedly to let it recover from the fierce electoral battle fought with political opponents in the just concluded national polls.

America by proxy?

THE demise of the Roman Empire resulted from a combination of strategic overreach and excessive delegation of security responsibilities to newcomers. Without making undue comparisons, the question for the United States today is whether it can remain the world's leading power while delegating to others or to technological tools the task of protecting its global influence.