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Happy New Year, folks!

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Happy New Year, folks! Here’s to a cleaner, greener, more democratic, accountable and socially just Penang and Malaysia. Cheers! Let’s work together to realise this dream.

And let’s protect our planet too. It’s the only one we have. You will be pleased to hear that Italy has announced a complete ban from 1 January on shops and supermarkets handing out plastic bags to their customers – the first country in the European Union to do so. (See Telegraph report here.) Earlier in August, Mexico announced a similar ban (as reported in the BBC here).

So Penang is in good company.  Here are a few photos of George Town by night for you to enjoy:

Sprucing up Penang

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Good to see efforts being made to spruce up Penang.

The ban on free plastic bags is the right way to go.

Swiftlet breeding will soon be banned from the heritage zone. In the interim period, 32 new or unregistered breeders will have to move out by 1 January 2011. The remaining 78, who are registered breeders, will be given three years to relocate. See theSun report here.

Meanwhile, theSun also reports that the state government plans to restructure the Batu Feringghi ‘cowboy town’ zone, where most of the retail outlets and beach operators have been unlicensed for several decades. In the first phase, massage parlours and reflexology operators on the beach will be relocated to gazebos. Enforcement action against quad bike operators and horse-riding on the beach has started. Water sports activities may be relocated to areas within safety buoys.

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Trams return to Auckland after 50 years

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Auckland is bringing back trams to its heritage quarter after an absence of more than half a century.

The proposed tram stops will be integrated with future bus stops.

The city’s original trams ran from 1902 to 1956. Their removal in 1956 has now been described as a “terrible mistake”. See this report in the Auckland Trains website.

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MTUC polls: ‘Black day’ for workers

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Syed Shahir and his team have been defeated in the MTUC elections today.

I spoke to a veteran unionist to find out the implications of the result. “It’s a black day for the workers’ movement,” he lamented.

He described the new set of top leaders as generally pro-establishment. “We will have to sit down and find out how to react to the leadership change.”

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1Malaysia: So much for all the hype

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Now this news item is disturbing. Catholic church officials were reportedly told to remove religious symbols before Najib attended the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur’s Christmas Day tea party.

See a Malaysian Insider report here.

A church source, however, told me the party was held in the grounds of the archbishop’s residence which is normally used as a car park for neighbouring offices during the week, and thus religious symbols were not an issue.

But the requests or instructions from the PM’s aide(s) reflect the reality of Najib’s 1Malaysia in everyday life.

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No free plastic bags in Penang

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It seems that plastic makers are saying they are going to distribute 150,000 free plastic bags next year to counter the Penang state government’s ‘no free plastic bags’ policy.

The news was published all over the Chinese-language media on Sunday. See a Guang Ming report here.

Let’s take a poll to see what kind of support the state has for its policy.

[poll id=”60″]

The Penang state government has asked NGOs to back its policy. Here is a response from an anti-plastic bags activist:

I am not sure whether the state government has a strategy to counter the plastic manufacturers who had been attacking the Penang State government since it first started the no plastic bags campaign.

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More US cities turn to light rail systems

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More and more American cities are turning to light rail trains at street level to reduce congestion in cities.

From a cost-benefit perspective, these systems make good sense. They can complement the bus service and transform the image of public transport, making it more attractive to more commuters.

Check out this NPR article:

It’s hard to find a city in America that isn’t planning, proposing, studying or actually building a light rail system. Cities as diverse as Dallas, Seattle and Washington, D.C., all see light rail as part of their future — a way to reshape their development.

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Local council transparency: Try this

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I wonder how many of our local councils can achieve this level of transparency.

A billboard in Auckland - Photo courtesy of S H Tan

We still have a long way to go. Even in the CAT land of Penang, the MPPP (the council for Penang Island) still does not put up its annual budget on its website for public view. It only has the annual accounts.

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Group Lotus ties up with Renault F1

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Now what do you make of this? Proton’s wholly owned subsidiary Group Lotus plc is tying up with the Renault F1 team.

We should learn the lessons from Honda, Toyota and BMW quitting Formula One. See this BBC report:

Toyota has confirmed that it is pulling out of Formula 1 racing after posting its worst financial loss.

The world’s largest car manufacturer will concentrate on its core business.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda said the Japanese team had no option but to pull out citing “the current severe economic realities” affecting the world.

The team failed to win any of the 139 races it entered after making its F1 debut in 2002 but was fifth in the 2009 constructors’ championship.

Toyota’s withdrawal leaves the sport with no Japanese team after Honda left F1 at the start of the 2009 season. They become the third manufacturer to quit the sport in the last 11 months after BMW announced it was leaving in July.

Apart from this, if we are serious about curbing climate change, preserving depleting oil reserves and promoting green technology and public transport, an oil-guzzling motor racing sport may not be the most appropriate choice for a GLC to be involved in.

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GM crops: Wikileaks exposes US push

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Cables released by Wikileaks have exposed United State diplomatic efforts to strongly back the corporate push for GM crops to be accepted in Europe and elsewhere.

Not only that, the US diplomats under the Bush administration recommended retaliatory action against a list of ‘targets’ in Europe for failing to embrace GMOs. In a leaked cable, US Ambassador to France Craig Stapleton wrote:

Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory.

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