The Good.

1. HSBC (Brunei) is NOT exiting any markets in Asia. This news came to a surprise after there were some comments in relation to HSBC in Brunei in a recent media which has not been substantiated. Hence, HSBC Brunei is here to clarify that HSBC Brunei will continue its commitment to Brunei Darussalam.

HSBC’s presence in Brunei has been significant and they will continue to invest and grow in Asia as evidenced by their strong financial performance in 2011. HSBC Brunei have a strong market position and they have worked tirelessly with the Government, regulators and customers.

Do look forward exciting new campaigns from Retail Banking and Wealth Management and exclusive Corporate Banking and Global Markets events. HSBC – World’s Local Bank.

2. Great buzz from Social Deal. It has been finalized; www.SocialDeal.com.bn is officially giving out an iPad2 16GB (with Krusell Case + Screen Protector) & 3x 750GB PQi HDDs (sponsored by Cooltones/3g.com.bn). Aside from that, stand to win 10x QQeStore Vouchers worth B$10 each, 10x Easi/Bmobile Recharge cards worth B$10 each, 10x SocialDeal Credits worth B$10 each! All you have to do is ‘Subscribe & Register’ with them for FREE OF CHARGE @ http://socialdeal.com.bn/customer/account/create/ & wait for the instructional mail to hit your mailbox on 15th March!

SocialDeal Brunei, throughout its 8 months’ operation has surprisingly saved Bruneians over B$100,000+ in value through some 3400+ coupon experiences! Not to mention the tonnes of great stuffs we get to see, do & taste in Brunei with them at knockdown pricings. From Japanese Food, Thai Food, Ladies Deals, Fitness Deals, they never failed to amaze the public with the great savings they offer by utilizing the people’s group power!

Now they’re giving out even more with their FREE registration & subscription campaign in association with Cooltones/3g.com.bn’s sponsorship & support! So what are you waiting for?! I’d say join them now!

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2. A successful BGIC 2012. As usual, International School of Brunei have successfully turn Borneo Global Issues Conference into a rewarding experience for the participants – almost 300 students of them. More than 3/4 of the participation were from local schools and the newbies have certainly gained a lot from the conference.

As reported in The Brunei Times, most students were pretty quiet until the final two days where the momentum picked up and they were involved in the changing the “resolution”. I hope next year ISB are willing to increase the number of participants due to the huge demand. It was great to see Hugh Evans from Down Under who has inspired students to be a role model in volunteerism. Thumbs up to ISB for bringing a “huge sense of community” to Brunei. Awesome!!

Students were so active and involved during BGIC 2012 which was held at the ICC recently

3. iPads to local schools? This was brought up at the #LegCo8 yesterday by the Minister of Education. Based on Borneo Bulletin’s article today, the Ministry of Education will spend a whooping BND 6 million for schools to use as educational tools. This was highlighted under the e-Hijrah programme.. Interesting…

It seems that iPad is the favourable tablet as compared to Galaxy Tab and other tablets. The presence of technology will definitely changed the perspective of students and I hope this can spur more ideas from them. Thumbs up to the Ministry of Education for this great news.

The question is will it be iPad or iPad 2 or the new iPad. This is also good news to AV Electronics if the Ministry were to appoint them for distribution purposes 🙂

4. Aspire One with HDMI. The stock just arrived yesterday at Concepts Computer and this will surely be a big hit in Brunei because the latest Ace Aspire Netbook has HDMI output as well as bluetooth. The price is also below $500 and Concepts Computer have plenty of stock. Now computers are so cheap which makes it affordable especially for students.

Check out the latest Acer Aspire One at Concepts Computer

5. Samsung SII for $300??? Now that’s a great deal. Though I’m no iPhone user but this is an awesome package not to be missed. Of course, there are terms and conditions but all you have to do is subscribe to b.mobile. Furthermore, you will be given 2 X EPL tickets where you can catch the famous EPL players this coming April. So do check out at b.mobile’s outlet for this great package!!

6. Brunei’s historic achievement in football. Brunei U-21 made history last Friday to become Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy 2012 champions since the inaugural of the tournament. This is perhaps the best performance from our Brunei team after the 99′ performance in the Malaysia Cup. The unknown U-21s have now become the superstars of Brunei and they even got an overwhelming response from “Meet the fan” session at Times Square last Sunday.

The victory has definitely put Brunei on the football scene regionally and now the pressure will be on Brunei to continue that momentum. Kudos also to the management and the coaches for guiding and mentoring the U-21s to another level. It was mentioned that they will be having celebrations in other districts – Tutong, Kuala Belait and Temburong.

The Brunei U-21 did a spectacular job throughout the tournament and their journey was supported by the 20,000 strong supporters throughout the tournament. Awesome feeling!!!

7. The emergence of Handball. Yesterday was history in the making as Brunei has another sport that has been inducted and accepted which is handball. It was the official launch of Brunei Handball Federation officiated by HRH Prince Sufri Bolkiah yesterday at the Indoor Stadium. This is another sports to look forward to. More updates soon on the official launch.

These guys were there to do a demo on Handball. I hope to see this sport picking up in popularity.

8. Awesome participation from SCB “Run for a Reason”. To date, there are more than 2,700 who have signed up for Standard Chartered Bank’s “Run for a Reason”. Apparently, the fun run and the 5k runs are still available but the 10K and 21K have limited slots left. I have signed up for the 5K and I can’t wait for the actual day.

The closing date for registration is 18th March 2012 and you can register at scbruneihalfmarathon.com online. For your info, there have been great participation from 11 countries as well. So this isn’t just a run for the locals. The race is just less than four weeks away.. Exciting!!

9. DSTcard going the extra mile. DST have signed up with Reebonz and MAS Wings where customers can enjoy better discounts with under DST loyalty card program. The signing ceremony took place last week and I shall update you further on the deals done between respective parties. For your info, Reebonz is an exclusive online shopping destination offering premier brands especially for the ladies and by using DSTcard, you will be entitled to a 5% discount for any first time purchase.

The signing ceremony took place recently between Reebonz, MASwings and DST at The Empire Hotel

10. Instagram on Android? Apparently this is true and and it claims that the Android app is better than the current iPhone. Interesting…. Though the team didn’t elaborate on what’s the difference so far and right now, the Android app is under private beta.

Did you know there are 27 million users of instagram which is almost doubled the 15 million users it had in December 2011. Amazing!!! I remember my friends who are Android users signed up for the copied version of instagram – “mytubo” but that the flame didn’t last long. So it’s great to see instagram developers allowing this to be made available on Androids and that would mean more “likes” on my pictures *LOL*

Instagram on Android coming soon

11. Rising entrepreneurs receiving funds. I’m so excited because my friend has been awarded a LEAP grant from Brunei Economic Development Board. For your info, the LEAP Grant is an initiative by BEDB to provide funds to entrepreneurs who are creating their own prototype which will be then used for their businesses, let it be service or product. The idea of the funds is to make life easier for them to make their ideas into reality.

Of course, this is no easy process to receive the grant. A lot of procedures were taken into account. More than 20 submitted their applications. 15 were shortlisted to present but only 7 were chosen as the third batch of LEAP grant recipients. Vincent Cheong, CEO of BEDB, congratulated the 7 new recipients and he gave some words of encouragement to them and he said the selection process wasn’t easy at all. It’s good to see BEDB helping start-up companies and let’s hope this can further entice more entrepreneurs in the making 😀

Vincent Cheong (back row, 2nd from right) with the seven recipients of the LEAP grant scheme and associates from BEDB

12. DPMM FC unbeaten run continues. A gritty performance by DPMM FC last Sunday. Though I did expect the crowd not to be as packed as the HBT tournament as there’s a fee involved. The stadium was half full and the cheers were still pretty loud. Mind you the S.League matches in Singapore don’t have a huge crowd as ours.

DPMM FC wasn’t as clinical as they could have scored at least four goals against Albirex if it wasn’t for the heroics of the Japanese keeper. The visitors came to Hassanal Bolkiah, boasting three wins out of three games and DPMM FC ended their winning streak with goals coming from Subhi and Rodrigo. DPMM FC will play bottom team Geylang FC this Friday, 16th March at the National Stadium.

DPMM FC celebrated the winning goal while Rodrigo held the Brunei flag. I was wondering where he placed the flag in the first place. Image by Hayatdee

13. Panna KO is back!!! This was a super hit last year in Brunei and good job for TelBru in organising this tournament. Last year, it drew great participation as well as the crowd who came to watch the Panna KO. The main event will take place at Times Square, The Mall from 30th March to 1st April. So do register from 7th March to 24th March 2012. Go to their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/TelBruPannaKO or call their Panna KO Hotline at 232 2100 (office hours). The grand prize – XBOX 360 Kinect.

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The Bad.

1. Poor management of gate control. This is related to HBT2012. This is still lingering in people’s mind. Those who have queued or waited for hours and their successful attempts on grabbing the HBT tickets served no purpose. Why? Because loads of ticket holders ended up being locked out from the stadium due to the full capacity of the stadium.

You can see people waving their tickets and even those with invitations (at covered areas) were not being entertained. By 6:45pm, the gates were closed to prevent overcrowding and I have to say it’s a wise move not to allow more people entering that stadium regardless because of safety issues. But this is really a sad case where ticketing could have been carried out systematically.

I feel sorry for those guys waiting at the gate only to know that they have no chance of entering the stadium despite holding legitimate tickets

2. Roundabout with traffic lights?? I just posted this issue up on instagram, Facebook and Twitter this morning and they have been many responses on the idea of having traffic lights installed for traffic control at the Gadong/Kiulap Roundabout. The responses, as usual, are pretty mixed. Some are in favour, some are not.

Will traffic lights make it difficult for traffic flow? Well, I know for one that it will make it difficult for the inner lane drivers to get out of the lane due to a slow or controlled traffic flow. This is already tricky for the Berakas roundabout which only have two lanes. It will be interesting to see how the traffic flow will be once this comes in place. In my opinion, I’m not in favour of having traffic lights.

The cones were not a popular choice for educating motorists on usage of the Gadong/Kiulap roundabout. So they are planning on installing traffic lights instead.. Fail or unfail?

3. Property ownership. Back in 2009, it was all good. PRs and foreigners were able to own land or property. This time, it was a different story. The “power of attorney” is being abolished by the Government which makes ownership of property difficult or impossible to foreigners. This is a bad sign for Brunei in terms of bringing in more foreign investment to Brunei.

Such move was brought up during the #LegCo8 and these have caused a major uproar among some businessmen/women. This will surely have an impact in the Brunei economy and in my opinion, if the government wants to attract foreign investment, this might not be a considerable move. I hope for a more favourable resolution for PRs and foreigners.

The Ugly.

 1. Disrespecting National Anthems. I was there to witness the appalling behaviour by our own people during the semi-finals of the Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy 2012. People were mocking and making fun of Myanmar’s National Anthem during the semi-final match between Brunei and Myanmar. I felt so ashamed to experience such sight. I felt sorry for the Myanmar supporters who were backing their football team.

Such behaviour should not be tolerated and I hope the organisers can look into this matter seriously. In fact, the emcee did highlight prior to the finals to show respect during National Anthems and it was a great sight that both Brunei and Indonesia exchanged claps after their respective National Anthems were sung.

2. Water bottle wars (and hooliganism). Need I say more. This is a difficult moment for RUs and the police officers. One thing is that they were outnumbered among the hundreds of unhappy supporters. It doesn’t matter who started the bottle wars but both parties who were involved need to be dealt with by the authorities. There’s no room for violent conduct and I understand their frustrations but it shouldn’t resort to acts of hooliganism.

This is something that it’s gonna be tough to educate especially for those with rage and full of angst. I can’t imagine a match between Malaysia and Indonesia. I hope more stern actions or steps will be taken in the near future to eradicate this problem. Football is suppose to unite nations and bring harmony.

The exchanging of bottles happened between the borders of Brunei and Indonesia supporters. The commotion also happened where people were throwing water bottles from the top end of the stadium to supporters outside the stadium.

3. Public toilets reflect Brunei’s progress? I like this quote from Anakbrunei’s tweet – “The best way to gauge the state of a country is to look at the state of the public toilets”. Well it wasn’t his quote but it was sourced as anonymous. I believe this can be a true reflection depending on your perspective. The public toilets have been appalling to say the least and a few weeks ago, the Brunei Tourism Board did some inspection on the public toilets and gave some grading as well.

There are a few hidden messages in that quote alone and I won’t go into details. I just leave it to you guys to have your own interpretation. By the way, the CEO of Brunei Tourism wasn’t impressed with the conditions of the public toilets located in town. I’m not too sure if any steps have been taken to improve the conditions of the toilets. This could be a worrying matter because I dislike dirty toilets. Period!!!

This is taken at BSB Waterfront. Image courtesy of Aziz Idris

Another turn off at public toilets. Image courtesy of Aziz Idris

4. DVD vendors facing extinction? Ok, these rumours have occurred and hence you will see tons of DVD vendors selling at ridiculous prices. Some at $1, some at 50 cents and pirated Blu-ray ones will go at $3. Now what this fall in the “ugly” is because Brunei has been well known for a dumping ground for pirated goods.

Furthermore, it’s not a crime to buy pirated softwares or DVD for personal use. Hence this culture of buying pirated stuff is seen as accepted in our society. Today’s paper, I came across an article where enforcers are giving a limited time period for the vendors to clear off their pirated CDs. So that clearly explains why these retailers are in a way doing a clearance sale. Let’s see if this is a temporary move as it has been the case in previous years.

Because of the warning, lots of DVD vendors are slashing their prices to attract more sales and customers before the D-Day (or will it not happen eventually?)

5. Suicide cases. I heard of the sad news through Twitter yesterday. One thing that I found in common is that all of them were foreigners. Why is this so? Such cases are hard to determine on the motive of the suicide attempts. A huge question mark also remains on the employers who hired them. These cases are unpredictable too. So far, in the last nine months, they have been 4 suicide cases, all foreigners. Hmmmm..

6. Forgers are sad people. This was one of the main reasons why ticket holders were locked out of the stadium during the Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy final. Apparently hundreds of the ticket holders have fake ones where some did a great job in scanning and printing them out. The entrance of the gates were monitored by police officers and ushers but they won’t have a fair idea if it’s genuine or fake. So it’s hard to blame the officers at the gate due to the lack of communication or information given to them.

My suggestion is to improve the ticketing system and perhaps put a value or price on the tickets which I think is a fair move (Please cast your votes on the poll I posted for HBT). This will eliminate the huge surge of crowd especially the fact that Brunei appeared both in the sem-final and final. Let this be a learning lesson for all and I hope those culprits will think twice of duplicating legitimate tickets or passes.

The bigger size ticket in the image is fake. The ushers failed to notice the fake and the genuine tickets of HBT 2012.

7. Boys vs Girls? A few bitter words from both coaches during the interview after the victory of DPMM FC 2-1 over Albirex Niigata FC. Coach Simunic was upset that the fouls were left unpunished and he claimed that his players were physically challenged by the visitors which caused some minor injuries to some of the players. Simunic joked, “We were playing football. They were playing rugby”. I believed that if DPMM FC were to draw or lose, the coach would have used the referee as a focal point.

Albirex Niigata’s Team Manager Koh Mui Tee was unimpressed with Simunic’s views. He retaliated by saying, “I would like to say his players played like girls. They way they fell down. It was disgraceful. Brunei is a difficult place to come to. A win is a bonus, a draw is good and a loss is nothing to be ashamed of.”

The war of words between two coaches – Simunic of DPMM FC and Koh Mui Tee of Albirex Niigata