Commentary from the office desk: 2 cents worth of political events (Part III)

Part III of this series today now comes with a twist – a mixture of the good, bad and ugly. Now one might understand the good and bad – but ugly? Allow me to explain. Ugly news happens because it is something nobody wants to happen. Of course things that fall into this category can include natural disasters biological epidemics and etc…ok I think you will get the point.

Speaking of the good, there are quite a few things that occurred this week…maybe a listing will be gd:

- Ceasefire in Gaza by Israeli troops – good that the carnage generated has been halted, but one can be sure that it will not be long before the Israelis come in again…and the case for justification may be as blurred as the previous one…
- Barack Obama’s inauguration – certainly one well watched by the world and hopes for him rise exponentially. His first call to Mahmoud Abbas, and then later to Olmert and the rest indicate that the Middle East is priority to him. And of course to add to that, he added heavyweight diplomats in his arsenal for dealing with Israel and Afghanisatan/Pakistan. Hope that he displays the same audacity and boldness for the economy as the whole world needs it
- Budget Statement – The ‘resilience’ package sure has a lot of measures which will try to soften the blow. But as the government mentioned, they are ‘soft beds to cushion a hard landing’ – so everyone will have to pray and ride it out still.

Now of the bad, definitely one or 2 things have to be mentioned, and the one that comes up to mind definitely is the media resurgence of Al-Qaeda. Following addresses by Osama Bin Laden, now other senior figures called up to declare all out war to attack targets in US and Britain for the ‘atrocities’ of the war. If that happens, US may have no choice but to smash Pakistan to get to Osama, but that itself faces difficulties due to the resilient Pakistan premiership and presidency. Also the fallout of the Mumbai incident in November 08 does not look to cease with India apparently ‘not impressed’ with the arrests made by the Pakistanis…so this looks to point to another period of instability in South Asia in 2009.

The ugly – is the occurrence of natural disasters and ecological problems in Indonesia and HK respectively. Seemingly earthquakes increasingly common in the last 4 years after the Tsunami indicates that that event had long lasting consequences on Indonesia’s geological formations, while the rise in pollution levels in HK indicate that the inevitable discussion of air pollution and traffic cannot be discarded in Asia’s 2nd most developed city after Tokyo – so watch this space.

Finally, one final mention that has to go to football today is that sanity has resumed with Kaka’s rejection of Manchester City. I have to confess, that was a close call coming – I certainly would not have expected that to come…but at least the good thing shows that money cannot buy everything for a person – but it is still a weapon that many people can do with.

Many happy returns, and have a happy Chinese New Year 2009 of the Year of the Ox =D