Gripevine

EVEN if they die many times over, it would not be enough." This is what a survivor of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that plunged the country into its darkest era ever, said when two senior members of the regime were sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday, Aug 7, 2014, for crimes against humanity more than 30 years ago. Naturally its scant justice, for Khieu Samphan is 83 and Nuon Chea, 88. Pol Pot the main leader of the Khmer Rouge died in the jungles of Cambodia in 1998. As I write this, many former Khmer Rouge commanders are still free and will likely never be brought to justice. In 2009, I went to Siem Reap with a group of friends to view the iconic Angkor Wat. The initial plan was to spend four days and three nights in the tourist hub, but after some deliberation, we decided that a trip to Cambodia would not be complete without taking in all of its history, so we took a ferry to Phnom Penh to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. I have never shared the photos f...

WHEN you're a guide dog in Malaysia, being able to walk into a mall and not get kicked out is a big deal indeed. In fact it is such an achievement that it would warrant some amount of media coverage which it did. Breakthrough for the blind as guide dog is allowed into mall Lashawn however has been creating history ever since he landed in Malaysia. For starters this professionally trained Labrador is the first-ever guide dog for the visually impaired permitted into the country. Can you believe it? After all these years of economic progress, having the world's tallest building and what not, and we did not even have something as basic as trained guide dogs for the disabled. Lashawn and his master Stevens Chan the CEO and founder of Dialogue in the Dark (DID) as well as Save Ones Sight Mission Bhd (SOS Mission) and Malaysia Glaucoma Society are out to change all that through the "Dogs for Sight" campaign. DID ( www.did.my ) is committed to bridging the ...