Ceritera 5.0

Salam, Hari ini punya cerita bertajuk Ceritera 5.0

New York

Salam dari New York

Sudah dua bulan setengah berhijrah ke New York tetapi separuh nyawa tinggal di Putrajaya. Tidak sabar menunggu November.

Nobel Banquet

Nobel Banquet: the feast of feasts
Published: 10 Dec 07 10:16 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.se/9358/

Serving a banquet to nearly 1,400 people is no mean feat, and when the event is the Nobel Banquet, the stakes are high. Charlotte West goes behind the scenes at the grandest event in Sweden's calendar.
A feast fit for a king would be an exaggerated description of just about any meal, no matter how palatable, with the exception of the annual Nobel Banquet. The weeklong blitz climaxes on Monday with the feast of feasts – arguably one of the grandest dinners in the world. The whole event is shrouded in mystery, and the menu is top secret until the almost 1,400 guests are seated at the banquet in the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall at 7 p.m. on Monday, December 10th.
The composition of this year's menu is the result of the combined culinary prowess of chefs Krister Dahl, head of the Swedish Culinary Team, and Magnus Johansson, proprietor of the Xoko dessert cafe in Stockholm. This will be Johansson's sixth year of providing the Nobel dessert.
Last year, the eight Nobel laureates – and 1,240 other guests celebrating the memory of Alfred Nobel – enjoyed a spread featuring mosaic of salmon and scallops, herb-baked saddle of lamb and pineapple parfait. Of the 2007 menu, however, those involved remain silent. “It will be good. Really exquisite tastes,” was all the tight-lipped Dahl would tell newspaper Göteborgs-Posten. “We have prepared everything for the Nobel Committee four times, and it has obviously been approved,” he said. Simplicty, Dahl said, was the key to success. “It's about creating a functional menu, which should be relatively easy to make, and then everything must be served quickly,” he said. “It's a really big secret,” Linda Johansson of Xoko told The Local.
Whatever the delicacies turn out to be, they have been designed around a Scandinavian-related theme and are sure to whet the appetite – and keep the 30 chefs and 200 servers on their toes. There are tables to set and food to buy. According to the Nobel Foundation, one year the shopping list for the banquet consisted of 2,692 pigeon breasts, 475 lobster tails, 100 kilos of potatoes, 70 liters of sweet and sour raspberry vinegar sauce, 67 kilos of Jerusalem artichokes, 53 kilos of Philadelphia cheese, and 45 kilos of lightly smoked salmon, among other ingredients. With so many cooks in the kitchen, Ulf Östenius, General Manager of Stadshuskällaren restaurant, must run a tight ship. Östenius, along with Chef de Cuisine Gunnar Eriksson, is the man charged with the small task of making sure the logistics of Nobel Banquet go according to plan – something which is not to be taken for granted. In an interview with the City of Stockholm, Östenius said that one year the main course was some kind of poultry that had been pre-cooked. It was supposed to be warmed up in the oven right as the electricity went out. They had to begin again with new raw ingredients, but nevertheless managed to make it appear seamless. Another year, there was a panic because one of the laureates suddenly haunched over the table, but it turned out he had simply fallen asleep. Despite the stories about near-disasters, Östenius somehow manages to coordinate his team of 200 and still make the entire production seem effortless.
On the morning of the feast, more than 7,000 porcelain pieces, 5,000 glasses and 10,000 pieces of silverware must be meticulously laid out on the 470 metres of linen that adorns the banquet's 65 tables. And while expectant guests anticipate their royal meal, it takes six minutes from the time the waiters begin the procession down the steps until everyone has been served. The king is served first, immediately followed by the queen. The menu is decided upon months in advance. In August and September, the chefs prepare sample menus and present them to the Nobel Committee for tasting.
Linda Johansson of Xoko told The Local that they presented three different dessert options to the Nobel Committee, which then chose the final selection. The good news is that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to get the red-carpet culinary treatment. As of Tuesday, December 11th, you can order the Nobel menu at Stadshuskällaren, also located in the Stockholm City Hall. Unfortunately, the restaurant will only be serving the three-course meal to groups of 20 or more until January 7th, when the 2007 Nobel menu will become standard fare.
The only exception is December 31st, where you can book a table to celebrate New Year's Eve Nobel-style. Stadshuskällaren also offers every Nobel menu served since 1901 for groups of eight or more. Reservations must be booked one week ahead. Xoko will also serve the Nobel dessert, including for takeaway, beginning on Tuesday. As an added bonus, they will also serve the entire Nobel spread on Wed-Saturday nights this week. But call quickly, as a representative of the cafe said there are only a few spots left.
Charlotte West (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

Nobel Prize winner 2007 Al-Gore

Nobel laureate Gore sees hope in "people power"
By John Acher and Wojciech Moskwa

OSLO (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore said on Sunday he was optimistic that a growing "people-power" movement would push the world's leaders to take action to stop global warming.
The former U.S. vice president likened the campaign to the ban-the-bomb movement of past decades, and urged leaders at a U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, to issue a mandate for a strong treaty to curb greenhouse gases.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore gestures as he speaks to the media during a news conference in Oslo December 9, 2007. (REUTERS/Ints Kalnins)Gore, who shared the 2007 peace prize with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for raising awareness and advancing climate science, will receive the prize in Oslo on Monday with the IPCC's chairman Rajendra Pachauri. The prize was announced in October.
"I have one reason for being optimistic, and that is that I see throughout my own country, the United States of America, and throughout the world the rising of the world's first people-power movement on a global basis," he said.
Gore pointed to an international grassroots nuclear-freeze movement which helped push U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to sign arms controls deals in the late 1980s, and said the climate campaign was even broader.
Gore and Pachauri will travel from Oslo to Bali where governments are meeting to try to launch negotiations towards an environmental treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012.
"It is my great hope that the meeting in Bali will result in a strong mandate empowering the world to move forward quickly to a meaningful treaty," Gore said.
CIVILISATION THREAT
Gore, whose Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" called for immediate action on the environment, urged for curbs on carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for global warming.
"The engines of our great global civilisation are now pouring 70 million tonnes of global warming pollution into (the atmosphere) every single day. It is having the consequences long predicted by the scientific community," he said.
"It is now abundantly clear that we cannot continue this process," he said.
Pachauri, seated next to Gore at Oslo's Nobel Institute under ceilings adorned with white peace doves, urged world leaders to consider tough steps to tackle global warming.
"If we were to carry out this stringent mitigation, one of the scenarios that we have assessed clearly shows that we have a window of nearly seven years," Pachauri said. "That means by 2015 we will have to see that emissions of greenhouse gases peak no later than that year and start declining thereafter."
"The time for doubting the science is over. What we need now is action," said Pachauri, an Indian who is head of a body of around 2,500 climate scientists from more than 130 nations.
Referring to U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and said "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," Gore said: "In the same way, CO2 increases anywhere are a threat to the future of civilisation everywhere."
Copyright © 2007 Reuters

Dimana kita??

Finland stays top of global class
BBC NEWS Dec5 2007

South Korean academic results are flying highFinland and South Korea remain among the superpowers of education, according to a major international study.
The three-yearly Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) shows that the two countries are in the top five for reading and maths.
South Korea has made rapid progress since 2000, says the report - with its pupils improving by the equivalent of a whole school year.
The rankings are based on tests taken by 15-year-olds in 57 countries.
Finland, a consistent top performer in international education surveys, also came top of the science league table, published last week.
The survey, gathered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also highlights the improvements in Poland.
READING TOP 10
S. Korea
Finland
Hong Kong
Canada
New Zealand
Ireland
Australia
Liechtenstein
Poland
Sweden
Source: Pisa/OECD
Rankings in full
The rankings for reading, based on tests taken in 2006, show that Poland is ninth placed, among a group of leading countries identified as significantly above average.
The latest findings also show the extent of global competition in education - with the northern European countries now challenged by and overtaken by Asian rivals, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.
South Korea has continued to strengthen its position - after a remarkable rise in achievement against international competitors.
In the 1960s, the OECD says South Korea's national wealth was similar to Afghanistan's.
MATHS TOP 10
Taiwan
Finland
Hong Kong
S.Korea
Netherlands
Switzerland
Canada
Macao-China
Liechtenstein
Japan
Source: Pisa/OECD
Rankings in full
But a sustained drive in education has seen it rise to the upper ranks in international education leagues - both in subject scores and in completion rates in secondary school.
As with Finland, there has been an emphasis in South Korea on education as a key to economic success and the "knowledge economy".
The OECD also highlights improvements in maths scores from teenagers in Mexico and Greece.
The UK has shown a downward turn in its standing - leaving the top 10 for both maths and reading despite an increase in spending on education.
It has joined other major European countries such as Germany and France in a group with "average" standards for maths and reading.
And the report says that overall the industrialised OECD countries have not seen improvements to match extra investment.
It says that between 1995 and 2004, OECD countries increased education spending by 39% on average, but that in response "learning outcomes have generally remained flat".

p/s tepat ke laporan ni??

Cabaran

Duta berani redah demo 1,000 aktivis anti-Malaysia
29-11-2007 08:01:59 PM
Oleh MOHD NASIR YUSOFF

JAKARTA: Duta Besar Malaysia ke Indonesia Datuk Zainal Abidin Mohamed Zain memerlukan hanya tiga minit untuk menyuraikan demonstrasi anti-Malaysia, yang sebelum itu berkobar-kobar dan kononnya akan berlangsung satu tindakan nekat di hadapan kedutaan di sini pagi ini.
Lebih 1,000 pendemonstrasi anti-Malaysia daripada kalangan aktivis kebudayaan Reog Ponorogo, yang diapi-apikan semangat anti-Malaysia oleh pelbagai laporan media massa yang menuduh Malaysia telah mengambil dan mengakui berhak terhadap kesenian itu, akhirnya menyuraikan diri selepas mendengar penjelasan itu.
"Saya jelaskan di sini bahawa kerajaan Malaysia tidak pernah mengakui tarian Reog itu berasal dari Malaysia walaupun tarian itu ada di Johor dan Selangor," katanya dengan menggunakan alat pembesar suara.
Lebih 3,000 penari Reog sebelum ini dikhabarkan bakal berdemonstrasi sehingga hampir semua stesen televisyen Indonesia berminat menyiarkannya secara langsung. (foto Associated Press)
Kira-kira 150 tahun lalu, rakyat dari Indonesia yang berhijrah ke Malaysia membawa kebudayaannya dan ia dipraktikkan oleh anak cucu mereka di sana sehingga hari ini, katanya dari atas pentas yang berupa sebuah kenderaan yang digunakan oleh pemimpin demonstrasi itu.
Setelah penjelasan yang menggunakan hanya kira-kira 50 patah perkataan sahaja itu, Zainal Abidin terus turun dari pentas itu dan kembali meneruskan tugas di pejabatnya, meninggalkan para pendemonstrasi itu terdiam seperti terpukau.
Akhirnya, sedikit demi sedikit mereka bergegas meninggalkan Jalan Rasuna Said yang sesak di hadapan kedutaan dan tiada satu pun lagi antara puluhan topeng singa Reog itu yang galak menari-nari dengan garang seperti kira-kira sejam sebelumnya.
Beberapa hari sebelum ini, heboh disebarkan khabar bahawa lebih 3,000 Reog (topeng singa berupa beruk) akan berdemonstrasi anti-Malaysia sehinggakan hampir semua stesen televisyen Indonesia membawa van siaran luar mereka bagi menyiarkannya secara langsung peristiwa itu.
Namun, tidak satu pun media massa dalam talian dan televisyen yang meliputi demonstrasi itu melaporkan aspek kecekapan diplomasi Zainal Abidin yang tampil dengan tenang menamatkan demonstrasi itu tanpa sebarang insiden buruk.
Kerana menjangkakan demonstrasi itu akan melibatkan tindakan keras dan kasar, ratusan polis Indonesia telah dikerah berkawal dan pagar dawai tajam anti-perusuh telah dipasang di hadapan pintu masuk ke kedutaan.
Sebelum keluar bertemu pendemonstrasi itu, Zainal Abidin bersetuju menerima beberapa orang wakil mereka di pejabat beliau.
Bercakap kepada Bernama selepas itu, Zainal Abidin berkata terlalu banyak tuduhan jahat dilemparkan terhadap Malaysia sejak kebelakangan ini dengan banyaknya laporan media dan perbincangan di laman web tempatan kononnya Malaysia telah mencuri pelbagai seni dan budaya Indonesia dan mengakui berhak ke atasnya.
"Entah dari mana timbulnya tuduhan kononnya Malaysia juga telah mempaten semua bentuk seni dan budaya itu termasuk batik dan lagu," katanya yang menjelaskan bahawa semua tuduhan itu tidak benar.
Duta Besar itu sendiri telah berkali-kali mengulangi penjelasan tersebut kepada media massa tetapi tuduhan demi tuduhan terus berlaku sehingga beliau berpendapat ada elemen jahat yang ingin merenggangkan hubungan akrab Malaysia dengan Indonesia dengan mengeksploitasikan seni dan budaya.
Eksploitasi seni dan budaya dilakukan oleh elemen jahat ini kerana ia merupakan isu warisan yang dibanggakan oleh rakyat Indonesia dan sangat sensitif di jiwa mereka serta dapat pula dengan mudah digunakan untuk membakar sentimen anti-Malaysia, jelasnya. BERNAMA