Wikileaks

What is Wikileaks? - It is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks. (As stated in Wikipedia)

The recent release of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables is just the latest in a long list of "leaks" published by the secretive site. Wikileaks has established a reputation for publishing sensitive material from governments and other high-profile organisations.

In October 2010, the site released almost 400,000 secret US military logs detailing its operations in Iraq. Before this, the leaked out nearly 90,000 classified military records, which gave an insight into the military strategy in Afghanistan. Not only these, Wikileaks posted a video on its website in April 2010, that shows a US Apache helicopter killing at least 12 people during an attack in Baghdad in 2007.

Wikileaks is operated by an organisation known as the Sunshine Press and claims to be "funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public". Since Wikileaks first appeared on the net, it has faced various legal challenges and it had fought off more than 100 legal challenges successfully.

In 2008, for example, the Swiss bank Julius Baer won a court ruling to block the site after Wikileaks posted "several hundred" documents about its offshore activities. It was eventually overturned.

Above information is extrated from www.bbc.co.uk as reference.

Written By : Chan Jiayi

Branded Goods in SMU

Friends chosen based on the wealth? In this case of SMU, friendship seems to be measured by the amount of branded good you have. To me, this is not acceptable. These people are superficial and do not know what is called true friendship. How can something of the external (eg, chanel bag, LV wallet, iphone4) determine if a person is to be considered as a friend or not?

A friend, should be based on the inside because that is what determines us as a person. Being materialistic and having lots of branded goods cannot be the determining factor when we look for friends. That just shows how rich a person is. It certainly does not mean that he/she is worth is to be a friend.

While it may be good to be able to afford those branded items, this should not be how we seek for friends or determine a friendship. True friends will be able to accept one another, the strength and weakness of each other. One may be rich while the other is not. But what matters most is the heart.

Ask yourself a question today. Have you ever befriend someone just because he/she is looking cool with the latest gadgets or expensive apparels? And if you did, Do you think that there is any value in the friendship you have? It's time to weigh friendship against amount of wealth. If given a choice, would you choose a genuine friend who may be poor or a rich friend who may just be looking for cool friends to hang out with and not care about the inside?

Written By : Chan Jiayi

US diplomat cable leak

The recent hit policy news is regarding the wikileaks, the leak of confidential documents of detailed correspondences between the US State Department and its diplomat missions around the world. Mr Julian Assange was arrested after his website published these documents.

After reading and researching regarding this news, I kept asking myself, are all the confidential or secret documents done by the government are kept safely? I've watched many movies regarding politics & some scenes showed the government saving their confidential documents in the computer with lots of password. I'm not sure whether that is exactly what the government from all over the world did. But if they do, and confident enough that it would not leak, then how come Mr Julian Assange were able to detact those important documents?

This isn't thr fisrt time. There were also the Afghan War document leaks in July, and the Iraq War document leaks in October. Are the government careful enough or just simply careless?
They are many cyber genuises around the world. Saving vey important documents in the computer are not very safe, especially when it is regarding the politics. Even if it is saved in a high tech computer, these genuises will somehow get through it.

This may be the time where all the government from all over the countries to come together & discuss regarding the leaks of their confidential documents. Or else, it may cause conflicts among the countries, & the friendship that they had built will be thrown down the drain.

Branded Goods or True Friends?

Ever wonder whether you should seek a friends that own branded goods such as iphone, itouch or PSP, or simply because of their personalities & characters? Well, it's no harm to have these expensive goods with us, this shows that we're a fortunate. But if we don't have all this, we still can have friends around us. However, this doesn't happen in Singapore Management Universities.

Some of the "rich" students there who own chanel bags, prada shoes, only befriend with the people also own branded and expensive goods. What happen to those who don't have these? They wouldn't think twice to make friend with them. This kind of behaviour is really an embarrasement to them. They may be in the local university, but do take into consideration that there are also foreign students. They may think that local students are immature. They are in the same school. That shows that there are equally smart & intelligent. Owning expensive items doesn't make them extra smart. Their behaviour may be labelled as the "mean girls and boys" in the school.



I'm lucky enough to be in the school with students with no such behaviour. Some of my clique of friends do own itouch, but not me. However, we still good friends. We're together because each of us have our own personalities, & never fail to make each other laugh & smile. They are really my true friends. Always help each other when in need. What's the use of having those expensive items when your friendship with your friends are not sincere? We seek friends not because they're rich or poor, but because we make each other feel that we belong there. :D

Michelle Obama's Visit

As we all know, there was a big story on Michelle's Obama. It was about a handshake that happened during her visit to Indonesia. It made the headlines because, the minister that was once believed as a holy person, who does not shake hands with woman unless they are related, shoke hands with Michelle's Obama. It made uach a controversy because Michelle Obama was the first lady that he shoke hands with and it was caught on video and pictures.

In defending himself, he said that it was Michelle who insisted on shaking hands. From what i saw from the video that was posted, it seems that he gladly held out his hands and shaked her hands.

As we all know, handshakes is somewhat represents acknowledgment and courtesy towards the other party. If we dotn shake their hands bak, it shows that we are being rude to them and they might take that as an insult. In my opinion, the minister shake Michelle's hand is because he doesnt want her to think that he is being impolite and also not wanting to severe ties/bond between the 2 countries. A simple thing could ruin anything. Therefor, maybe he doesnt want to take the risk as it was dangerous.

Michelle Obama however is an American. Americans are open kind of people. They greet each other by shaking hands, hugging and sometime kissing also. Maybe she was too used with the kind of surroundings that she had experienced when she was younger, that made her to do the same thing to the minister.

Lastly, from what i can conclude, Indonesian's should not have made such a big deal out of a handshake. They shld be abit open at some point of time.