The 13th Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan of Terengganu Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, was crowned earlier today (check it out here: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Wednesday/Frontpage/20061213074823/Article/index_html). The streets remained calm and people went along with their businesses as usual. Some are probably oblivious to the fact that we have a new head of state. In my view, His Highness's subjects would've probably paid more attention had today been declared a public holiday. The citizens could've stayed at home and watched the live telecast of the coronation ceremony, which was the first time I was able to watch it myself. I found out a few weeks ago that the new Agong went to Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and then furthered his studies at the United States International University-Europe, which changed its name to Alliant International University (check it out here: http://www.alliant.edu/wps/wcm/connect/website). The Agong received a degree in International Relations there. To my knowledge, the Agong is the first prominent Malaysian who has a degree in IR. As an IR student myself, I am somewhat happy that the current head of state had to deal with the intricacies of international politics before. From what I've experienced, students of the Humanities are open-minded, thoughtful and very critical thinkers. Sadly, I couldn't say the same for most of the students of more rigid, objective and drier fields of knowledge.
The United Nations are sponsoring two events in Kuala Lumpur aimed at supporting the Palestinians. They are the UN Asian Meeting in Support of the Rights of the Palestinian People (on 15 and 16 December) and the UN Forum of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People (on 17 December). I am glad that they are having such forums in order to discuss the best way to help the Palestinians. The meetings will feature several NGO representatives, Member of the Palestinian Legislative Assembly, Member of the Knesset, Member of the European Parliament and many more. However, the conferences seem to be open only to members of NGOs (check it out here: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/calendar.htm). In my view, conferences such as these should be open for public viewing. The various ideas and thoughts on the Palestinian issue will be able to enhance the knowledge of Malaysians and put fire in their bellies for them to realise that they can do something about it. Rather than waste their bloody time with this: http://mstar.com.my/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_61789779-c0a85062-13e6f830-1514ed18.
That's all for now folks.
Godspeed,
Fadli
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