I was spanked (virtually!) in an online forum for hinting that FDA (Food & Drug Administration) may not be a reliable source of information regarding safe food & drugs. Unfortunately, recently there’s another article in a journal again giving the proof of this issue:
GM Crop Safety Tests ‘Flawed’

GM (Genetically Modified) food have potentials to be good or evil. However, FDA decided that some of them are good based on the information from its producers. Which, of course, should be expected to be highly biased.

If you live in USA, here’s another thing that you need to be careful of:
Problems with milk

Yanuar Nugroho posted this on PPI-UK mailing list. I’ve been monitoring this for quite a while as well, and it just doesn’t make sense on how some people can be so cruel as to block access to cheap medicines using patents (and therefore killing millions in the process).
I think they should be brought to court and dealt as murderers.

OPINION & EDITORIAL – The Jakarta Post, 12 September 2003

HEALTH ISSUE: THE ART OF PLAYING GOD?

Yanuar Nugroho,
Director, The Business Watch Indonesia, Surakarta,
yanuar-n@unisosdem.org

Having less money means less opportunity to survive — to keep alive. We are
in a world in which death and life are no longer “natural,” but
“manufactured.

The association of pharmaceutical industries in the United States, PhRMA,
quoting last year’s World Health Organization report, describes how diseases
quickly and harshly kill people — 4 million people die annually due to
respiratory infection, 2.2 million from typhus-cholera-dysentery, 1.7
million from tuberculosis, 1 million from malaria, 900,000 from blood-fever
and 3 million from AIDS-related diseases.

And what is the “progress” of medical discoveries? From 1975 to 1996, 1,223
new kinds of medicine were developed, but only 13 types were designed to
cure the disadvantaged of major tropical diseases. The greatest proportion
of production costs for medicine was allocated to research into cosmetics,
obesity and other beauty-related medicines.

In 1998, of a total budget of US$70 billion allocated for research carried
out by the giant pharmaceutical corporations, only $300 million (0.43
percent) went on AIDS vaccine research and $100 million (0.14 percent) on
malaria research (The Economist, Nov. 10, 2001).

Unless we admit that health has been in the arena of profit-making, we will
not be able to understand this irony. This is all about an accumulation of
power and money that sacrifices everything for its own sake.

In 1999, of a total 33 million people living with AIDS, 26 million (78.8
percent) were in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the market for pharmaceutical
products in Sub-Saharan Africa was only 1.3 percent of the world total. The
poor here could not afford expensive, patented medicines — there is an
intellectual property right that must be taken into account in the pricing
policy.

In the ongoing 5th WTO Ministerial Meeting in Cancun, Mexico, the issue of
Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), especially related to
public health, is among the central themes. The issue is how to ensure that
patent protection for pharmaceutical products does not prevent people in
poor countries from having access to drugs, while maintaining the patent
system’s role in providing incentives for research and development into new
medicines. Are these two objectives compatible?

Flexibilities, such as “compulsory licensing,” are indeed in the TRIPS
Agreement. Governments can issue compulsory licenses to allow a competitor
to produce the product or use the process under license, but only under
certain conditions aimed at safeguarding the legitimate interests of the
patent holder. Parallel importing — where a product sold by the patent
owner more cheaply in one country is imported into another without the
patent holder’s permission — is also possible.

But countries’ laws differ on whether they allow parallel imports. The TRIPS
Agreement simply states that governments cannot bring legal disputes to the
WTO on this issue. In addition, these flexibilities do not have to be
applied. They are sometimes used as a means of bargaining. The threat of a
compulsory license can encourage a patent holder to reduce the price.

But some governments are unsure of how these flexibilities would be
interpreted and how far their right to use them would be respected. All the
WTO’s African members are among those pushing for clarification — the
consequence is about life and death. The generic versions of patented
medicine, for example, are not permitted for 20 years!

In the main declaration, WTO stressed that it was crucial to implement and
interpret the TRIPS Agreement in a way that supported public health — by
promoting access to existing medicines and the creation of new ones. Yet, in
a separate declaration, they still disagree on the phrase, “countries still
unable to produce pharmaceuticals domestically can import patented drugs
made under compulsory licensing.”

Clearly, it has an indirect impact on countries unable to make medicines and
which therefore need to import generics, like Africa for AIDS medicines.
They would find it difficult to find countries that could supply them with
drugs made under compulsory licensing.

The global pharmaceutical industry is worth US$ 300 billion nowadays. As of
1997, the largest pharmaceutical market was developed countries — the U.S.
and Canada (36.1 percent of the world total), followed by Europe (29
percent) and Japan (15.9 percent). Poorer countries followed: Latin America
(7.7 percent;), Asia, minus Japan (7.3 percent), the Middle East (1.9
percent), Africa (1.2 percent) and Australia-Pacific (0.9 percent).

A multilateral solution should therefore be decided at Cancun as it now
seems that industries in the health sector only belong to those who can pay.

It seems we are playing with life and death; we are dangerously playing at
being God. Let’s stop it. ***

(The writer is also a researcher at Uni Sosial Demokrat, Jakarta)

Coba bandingkan logo perusahaan ini :
622mob.com

Dengan logo PDI Perjuangan :
http://www.megaforpresident.org/

Pertanyaannya sekarang – yang mana yang tukang contek ?

Kiai Kanjeng @ Birmingham

UPDATE:
A few of their video clips can now be downloaded [ from here ]

Yesterday (Wednesday, 24 November 2004), we enjoyed the opportunity to watch Kiai Kanjeng’s live show at the BMI (Birmingham and Midlands Institute). I must admit that I never heard their performance before. My knowledge about Emha Ainun Nadjib (the leader of the group) was strictly limited to his writings and interviews in the various mass media.

Some people criticised him, saying that music is not permitted in Islam, and said he’s doing the wrong thing. I honestly admit that I don’t feel capable to judge whether they’re right or wrong; I can only relay things that I’ve read and hear – but I reserve the final judgement to Allah swt.
Anyway, most of the time I’m not hugely interested in music, and therefore didn’t really looking forward to this event.

It all turned out to be a lot of pleasant surprises and experience.

I was most impressed by the composers (I believe Emha is not the only composer in the group) skill and talent. We’re talking about many type of instruments and kinds of music: saron, rebana, keyboard, violin, electric guitar, bass, drum, percussion, demung, kendang, bamboo flute, (and of course) gamelans; dangdut, jazz (there were even jam sessions!), pop, rock, arabian, javanese, blues, chinese, etc.
I’m still amazed and very impressed that the composers managed to bring them together in various of their songs and adaptations, tastefully and beautifully. Sometime, a single song will be performed in several style – jazz and Arabic, pop & blues, and so on; and they’re performed cohesively and smoothly. I know creative works when I see one, and I enjoyed plenty of them in the event. It was a rare experience of sensory overload.

Kiai Kanjeng based their works on Islam. Therefore, many of their songs have chants / prayers in arabic / indonesian / english. The music serves as mood setters, and I must confess that it works. I got goosebumps many times during their 4 hours of performance.
Sometimes it also makes it fun – I’ll be interested to see if anyone else can make “Everything I do, I do it for you” (Brian Adams) into a religious song, and perform it in such a tasteful way
Do prepare to be surprised over and over again – for example, at one moment the melody of “Silent Night” started. A friend of us who is a Christian evangelist stood up in joy and anticipation. No luck though, Cak Nun is not crossing that line – shalawat (praises for prophet Muhammad) was heard instead, with the melody of Silent Night. It seems that he’s being cheeky and creative at the same time

The musicians skills are also quite impressive. Most of them handle more than one music instruments, with some handling as many as four. They bring life to the performance, slow and mesmerising at some times; fast, clean, and powerful at other times, and clearly enjoying it the whole time.

It’s even more impressive when I read the booklet that was given at the show.
Apparently, many of them are not musicians by trade. They’re teacher, civil servant, self-employed businessman, housewife, medic, etc. And not a single one in the group consider themselves as a musician. They see music as a tool to connect with other people. In their own words, music meant to be a way, not a destination.

I think it’s quite a brilliant idea, when executed properly (which seems to be the case here).
Music is the human’s universal language. I can even use it to communicate with my babies.

Upon more reading, I found out that they’ve travelled all over Indonesia. They played their music, soothing the restless masses, and then talk with them regarding their problems, and enlighten them. Their music becomes a powerful tool, connecting them too all sorts of people; from the poor to the rich, from the grass root to the elites.

Cak Nun (Emha Ainun Nadjib) himself is a well-known humanist figure. He was among the ones who stand in front at the time of “Reformasi” – people’s movement to replace the bloody dictatorship who has ruled Indonesia for decades. “Cak” is a loving calling to a brother, and Cak Nun actually does not like to be called “kiai” (a guru / a master in religious matters).
He seems to be an intelligent and unique person, and it definitely shows in his music.

“Kiai Kanjeng” is actually the name of the gamelan being used in their performance. Basically, it’s a Javanese custom that once a gamelan crafter has finished crafting a gamelan, then the creation is named. Gamelan Kiai Kanjeng is a special breed of gamelan. It’s based on their diatonic scale, but with only a limited number of notes chose. Even so, it’s been used successfully in their various music style.

At the moment, they should have left London and now should be heading towards Manchester for their next show. I wish them the best.