I'll be leaving for Batam tomorrow for a three days visit. So hopefully it's going to be a worthwhile trip though I don't expect Batam to be as colourful and vibrant as Jogjakarta or Bali. In case you don't where the heck Batam Island is; it is situated to the south of Singapore about 20km away. History has it that Hang Nadim, the boy of great wisdom of the classic "Singapura Dilanggar Todak" fame had once set foot on the island of Batam, hence the reason why the international airport in Batam (Hang Nadim International Airport) is named after him. Off.

1Malaysia hi-tea with PM Najib's Facebook friends at the his official residence, Seri Perdana 1Malaysia kuih-muih On the 9 of March, unexpectedly I received an email (below) from the Prime Minister inviting me to his tea party at the prime minister's official residence, Seri Perdana, Putrajaya! Of course, I wouldn't expect the PM himself to email me. Email aside, Najib confessed during the hi-tea that most of the time he would personally update his Facebook and Twitter himself, and only on certain occasions he would get his staff to do the postings on his behalf. Najib should perhaps give some advice to his Information Minister, Rais Yatim about Facebook or Twitter. Rais's recent statement on Facebook shows how ignorant and out of touch he is with the Internet and the "social media culture". And this is the man who is supposed to be in charge of the Internet and broadband. Should Najib plans to have a cabinet reshuffle, I would urge him to place Rais somewhere...

Four in five people around the world believe that web access is a fundamental human right, according to a new survey. The poll, which collated the answers from more than 27,000 people across 26 countries and was conducted on behalf of the BBC World Service, found that 87 per cent of interne t users felt that web access should be a basic right. More than 70 per cent of non-users felt they should have access to the net. In Japan, Mexico and Russia, nearly 75 per cent of respondents said they could not cope without their internet connection. Ninety per cent of those polled in Turkey believed web access was a fundamental human right, making it the strongest supporter of the widely held sentiment. "The right to communicate cannot be ignored," Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told BBC News. "The internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created." He said that governments must "regard t...