Sick as a cat

I have been feeling very sick for the last few days (you would say "sick as a dog" but as Muslim I dont like using this idiom. No offence intended against the purity of the english idiom but to be likened to a dog is to me not appropriate) Anyway, I had a very bad case of food poisoning.   I had to go to the A&E two days in a row where they had to put me on water drips as I was losing a lot of body fluid. I also had a huge dosage of antibiotics directly injected through the water tube as well as a good amount of anti-gastric medication as usually antibiotics would give me a very bad acid reflux. Although I am feeling much better now, the stomach cramps are still stubbornly there every odd hour or so. This is probably the longest case of food poisoning I have had.  One was in Bali and the other one was in London.  In Bali it was a bad big mac and London a bad indian chicken tikka. The doctor gave me 2 days medical leave. I took that opportunity to stay in bed doing my reading. I have these few books that I bought during my previous traveling as a globetrotting international lawyer that I havent quite finished reading yet, A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson, the clash of civilization by samuel huntington and a non-fiction The Afghan by Frederick forsyth just to name a few. The clash of civilisation is actually an old thesis written in 1993 by a Harvard professor but however after 9/11 it somehow generated a lot more debate. It is a scary thought that conflicts between civilizations would dominate the future of world politics and world order.  Are we returning to period of the crusades? I certainly hope not but some of the prognosis of this Harvard professor has already some tell tale signs.  Islamiphobia in Europe and the USA suddenly on the increase.  Islam suddenly became seen as a third world religion. Although I do not wish to defend the actions of the muslims who kill in the name of religion but I do raise my hope that the world order should also be on the dictate of inter-faith understandings. 

Kosovo is a state, no?

The other day at my Raya open house I had one interesting visitor.  She came from Kosovo.  I told her, I was honoured to receive her as this was my first time meeting a kosovar (I am not sure if that is a correct term). I wanted to learn about her “country” as I have heard so much about the conflicts in the former states that made up the federation of Yugoslavia.  Now Kosovo is struggling to gain recognition of her self-declared independence.  She asked me on my personal thoughts about it.  I told her personally I fully support the declaration as the world has recognised Montenegro as an independent state and after all the former states that formed Yugoslavia had been independent since the war of 1991. so now why Kosovo is singled out as having no right to the very principle of self determination? I asked.  I told her that there were 3 basic criteria of statehood, a defined territory, an effective Government and a determined population.  She then questioned me why then the OIC countries were not supportive of Kosovo independence. I could sense her frustration with the muslim countries as strangely Kosovo being mostly muslims different from the Serbs did not somehow get enough support from the OIC countries in their struggle to gain international recognition of statehood.  I somehow thought she had a point. Most EU countries now recognise its statehood and so as the USA. It is I thought different from Taiwan.  To my recollection, Taiwan had never made an official attempt to self-declare its independence  and the Taiwanese and the Mainland chinese are in effect chinese. So Kosovo is a different proposition altogether. Since 1999 it had been under the UN backed administration. So why is it that the OIC is not supportive of this struggle?

I guess if you wished to to know about the history behind Kosovo move, the following is the extract that I got from wikipedia:

When, Slobodan MILOSEVIC became president of the Serbian Republic and his ultranationalist calls for Serbian domination led to the violent breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. In 1991, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia declared independence, followed by Bosnia in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in April 1992 and under MILOSEVIC's leadership, Serbia led various military campaigns to unite ethnic Serbs in neighboring republics into a "Greater Serbia." These actions led to Yugoslavia being ousted from the UN in 1992, but Serbia continued its - ultimately unsuccessful - campaign until signing the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. MILOSEVIC kept tight control over Serbia and eventually became president of the FRY in 1997. In 1998, an ethnic Albanian insurgency in the formerly autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo provoked a Serbian counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in massacres and massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo. The MILOSEVIC government's rejection of a proposed international settlement led to NATO's bombing of Serbia in the spring of 1999 and to the eventual withdrawal of Serbian military and police forces from Kosovo in June 1999. UNSC Resolution 1244 in June 1999 authorized the stationing of a NATO-led force (KFOR) in Kosovo to provide a safe and secure environment for the region's ethnic communities, created a UN interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to foster self-governing institutions, and reserved the issue of Kosovo's final status for an unspecified date in the future. In 2001, UNMIK promulgated a constitutional framework that allowed Kosovo to establish institutions of self-government and led to Kosovo's first parliamentary election. FRY elections in September 2000 led to the ouster of MILOSEVIC and installed Vojislav KOSTUNICA as president. A broad coalition of democratic reformist parties known as DOS (the Democratic Opposition of Serbia) was subsequently elected to parliament in December 2000 and took control of the government. DOS arrested MILOSEVIC in 2001 and allowed for him to be tried in The Hague for crimes against humanity. (MILOSEVIC died in March 2006 before the completion of his trial.) In 2001, the country's suspension from the UN was lifted. In 2003, the FRY became Serbia and Montenegro, a loose federation of the two republics with a federal level parliament. Widespread violence predominantly targeting ethnic Serbs in Kosovo in March 2004 caused the international community to open negotiations on the future status of Kosovo in January 2006. In May 2006, Montenegro invoked its right to secede from the federation and - following a successful referendum - it declared itself an independent nation on 3 June 2006. Two days later, Serbia declared that it was the successor state to the union of Serbia and Montenegro. A new Serbian constitution was approved in October 2006 and adopted the following month. After 15 months of inconclusive negotiations mediated by the UN and four months of further inconclusive negotiations mediated by the US, EU, and Russia, on 17 February 2008, the UNMIK-administered province of Kosovo declared itself independent of Serbia.

1st Day Raya

1st day of raya is  always the day I am always looking forward.  Not only its a day that the whole family gather around at my parents' house for a reunion of sort, I also get the opportunity to get invited to the palace to meet and greet hari raya wishes to our beloved sultan and his family in a rather joyous settings with all the good food and the best chocolates and cakes you can ever imagine.  I always look forward to this because I could sample the fresh lobsters and huge alaskan crabs and many more. yummy..but as I always I couldnt eat that much as I would normally spend more time giving hari raya greetings to everyone. And the one thing I am sure the guests are looking forward to is probably the Raya souvenir. This year, I have to say the Raya souvenir is really pretty. I am told the palace souvenir was designed wholly inhouse. wow! my hats off to them. Inside it, there is a fruit cake laced with sweet white chocolate coating all produced by the Istana kitchen, Hyatt.

Wishing Mum for a speedy recovery

Mum underwent surgery at around 845 am this morning. She only came out of the operation theatre at around 3 pm.  I went there as early as a I could to catch a glimpse of mum before she went for the surgery. tears ran down my cheeks  and said to mum, "if God willing you would be okay". On the other hand, I wasnt ok. that morning I already had stomach cramps. so I went to the A&E and asked for a diagnosis. I had food poisoning. I wasnt exactly sure what I ate the night before. I had a feeling it was the lassi at this Indian Restaurant as it tasted so bad that I told the waiter to take it away. the stomach cramps were so excruciating that I can still feel them even as I am writing this blog which is like more than 8 hours now. the doctor gave me a jab on my butt and my little brother poked fun at me by saying I had been sodomized! I was given two days MC. Anyway, I thought of giving mum a visit but I am not too sure if I can even get off this bed.