Terry Fox Run - 19 Sept 2010.

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Mahathir blames S’pore for racism in M’sia
By Angela Lim – September 15th, 2010

A war of words has erupted between Singapore and Malaysia’s former leaders.

Ex-Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that racism in Malaysia is a result of Singapore’s two-year membership there, and not because the island was “turfed out” as suggested by the Republic’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew recently.

Rebutting recent comments made by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Tun Dr Mahathir wrote on his blog, “With the background of Singapore’s activities in Malaysia in the short three (sic) years of its membership, can we really believe that if it had not been ‘turfed out’, race relations would be better in Malaysia?”

“While Kwan Yew (sic) talks about his belief that all ethnic communities should free themselves from the shackles of racial segregation in order to promote fairness and equality among races, he also said that ‘once we are by ourselves (out of Malaysia) the ‘Chinese become the majority’.”

His remarks were in response to comments Mr Lee made in an interview with The New York Times in which he compared how Singapore and Malaysia handle race relations.

Mr Lee had expressed that Malaysia would have achieved much of what Singapore had accomplished if it had accepted a multi-racial base, and described Malaysia as being in a “most unhappy situation”.

“I think if the Tunku had kept us together, what we did in Singapore — had Malaysia accepted a multi-racial base for their society– much of what we’ve achieved in Singapore would have been achieved in Malaysia. But not as much because it’s a much broader base. We would have improved inter-racial relations and an improved holistic situation,” Mr Lee said in the NYT interview, referring to Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The 85-year-old Dr Mahathir rejected the view, claiming it was “not supported by facts of history”.

“Before Singapore joined the Peninsular, Sabah and Sarawak to form Malaysia, there was less racial politics in the Federation of Malaysia,” he wrote.

Dr Mahathir claimed that after Singapore became a part of Malaysia in 1963, Mr Lee reneged on a promise that the People’s Action Party (PAP) would not participate in Peninsular, Sabah and Sarawak politics and attempted to displace the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) in the Alliance by appealing to Chinese sentiments in the Peninsular.

“Of course the slogan was ‘Malaysian Malaysia’, which implied that the Chinese were not having equal rights with Malays. If this appeal to Chinese sentiments against the Malays was not racial, I do not know what is racial,” Dr Mahathir said.

Instead, he took aim at Singapore politics, claiming “whether the PAP admits it or not, the party has always been led and dominated by ethnic Chinese and has won elections principally because of Chinese votes. The others are not even icing on the cake,” he said.

“Amnesia is permissible, but trying to claim it is because Singapore had been ‘turfed out’ for the present racial politics in Malaysia is simply not supported by facts of history,” he added.

In Malaysia, opinions were mixed in response to both leaders’ remarks.

The Straits Times reported that Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said on Monday that Mr Lee’s comments were “ill-informed and coloured with historical bias.”

On the other hand, Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim felt that Mr Lee’s comments were a “historical statement”. Selangor executive councillor and opposition politician Teresa Kok agreed, saying Singapore is ahead of Malaysia because it placed merit above race considerations.

MCA president Chua Soi Lek admitted that race relations are not as good as they should be. But he told Bernama it would be unfair “to say that Malay leaders always harp on Malay superiority”.

Tan Sri Khalid said both Dr Mahathir and Mr Lee had the right to express their opinions on the issue.

“You can’t say Singapore has progressed while Malaysia has not. Malaysia’s progress is subject to several constraints, and so is Singapore’s,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

“The future is not about that, it’s about how we can work together,” he adds

Popular people get flu first

By Maggie Fox WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Think you're popular? Well, name a friend. It turns out that this person is probably more popular than you, a tendency that scientists might be able to use to predict the spread of disease. But the popular pay a price: they get flu first, on average two weeks sooner than most others, two experts report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE. "Being at the center of the network tends to make you happy but it also exposes you to disease," James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview. Fowler and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University in Massachusetts said the so-called friendship paradox could be important to working out how a flu pandemic or some other nasty virus is likely to behave. "This would allow an earlier, more vigorous, and more effective response," Christakis said in a statement. This is how the friendship paradox works. If a person is asked to name a friend, that friend is statistically likely to be more popular than the original individual. That is because if people are asked to name a friend or two, they are more likely to choose someone who connects them to others, Fowler says. An example is a party, where most guests would name the host as a friend as opposed to the wallflowers at the fringes of the gathering. Fowler and Christakis are experts on social networks and have used their methodology to show that obesity, smoking and other behaviors are directly related to a person's friends, and the friends of their friends. They teamed up again to study the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic among 744 Harvard students. Their findings are published here "Our method goes and picks people at random and then we ask them who their friends are and then we study the friends," Fowler said. "We studied the H1N1 pandemic last fall in a small group of students. This friend group -- they got the flu about two weeks earlier than the other groups." Fowler would like to work with other experts on tracking disease, such as Google Flu Trends, a free service of Google. Google Flu Trends works on the premise that people's Web searching behavior matches circulating disease. When people feel ill, they look up terms such as "fever" and by watching when and where these search terms become more common, health officials should be able to track disease trends. It does not yet work perfectly but Fowler thinks there may be a way to get the popular "friends" at the hubs of social networks to volunteer to let their Web searches be monitored in such a database. "This is one way we could really turn friends into our crystal ball," Fowler said.

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Beneficial Vegetables and Spices for Hypertension

A number of common vegetables and spices have beneficial effects in controlling hypertension. Incorporate these into your cooking. Alternately, you can make a tea or a vegetable soup.

Celery (Apium graveolens). Oriental Medicine practitioners have long used celery for lowering high blood pressure. There are some experimental evidence that shows that celery is useful for this. In one animal study, laboratory animals injected with celery extract showed lowered blood pressure. Eating as few as four celery stalks was found to be beneficial in lowering blood pressure in human beings.

Garlic (Allium sativum). Garlic is a wonder drug for heart. It has beneficial effects in all cardiovascular system including blood pressure. In a study, when people with high blood pressure were given one clove of garlic a day for 12 weeks, their diastolic blood pressure and cholesterol levels were significantly reduced. Eating quantities as small as one clove of garlic a day was found to have beneficial effects on managing hypertension. Use garlic in your cooking, salad, soup, pickles, etc. It is very versatile.

Onion (Allium cepa). Onions are useful in hypertension. What is best is the onion essential oil. Two to three tablespoons of onion essential oil a day was found to lower the systolic levels by an average of 25 points and the diastolic levels by 15 points in hypertension subjects. This should not be surprising because onion is a cousin of garlic.

Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum). Tomatoes are high in gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA), a compound that can help bring down blood pressure.

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea). This vegetable contains several active ingredients that reduce blood pressure.

Carrot (Daucus carota). Carrots also contain several compounds that lower blood pressure.

Saffron (Crocus sativus). Saffron contains a chemical called crocetin that lowers the blood pressure. You can use saffron in your cooking. (It is a very popular spice in Arabic cooking.) You can also make a tea with it. Many Indians add a pinch of saffron in the brewed tea to give a heavenly flavor. Unfortunately, it is very expensive.

Assorted spices
Spices such as fennel, oregano, black pepper, basil and tarragon have active ingredients that is beneficial in hypertension. Use them in your cooking.