The private residence where the Prime Minister recuperates from his recent illness, officially said to be bronchitis, is in Crony-built Country Heights. The last time I passed that area it was in Kajang. He had bought a house there when Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew built the exclusive residence enclave to the allegedly highest exacting standards of country homes in the United States. It was a good buy when you got in at the ground floor, a mere RM300,000; today, with the movers and shakers all wanting in be where the Prime Minister has a home, you would have to pay at least ten times more. The Prime Minister, whose partiality to this gentleman is well known that international conferences are held in hotels he controls, however, stays in Sungei Besi, Bolehland's inviolately accurate newsmedia tells me. As far as I can find out, the prime minister does not have a home in Sungei Besi; it is unlikely he would want a private residence in a still undesirable area for men of wealth or power.

When you move into a house, what is the most important utility that must first be ready? The present government thinks it should either be the living room, to entertain visitors, or the kitchen, to cook the food that is the envy of the neighborhood, or the bedroom to relax in after a day's tomfoolery. I would opt for the smallest room in the house. One can entertain, eat or sleep anywhere, but can one do without the toilet? The government believes it can, so we now queue for water and keep the smallest room smelly. The government runs into trouble for its misguided policy of insisting that an industrialised future in our worldview could be ensured by running down essential services. The United States, industrialised as she is, is also the world's largest exporter of agriculture products. Australia relies on her industrialised present but it is her agriculture products that brings home her bacon, as does Argentina. Cuba withstood three-and-a-half decades of US-imposed isolation because her people had enough food to eat. India did not become a power to watch until her food surpluses strengthened her worldview. With no change evident, it is perhaps time to hold our breaths as we descend into the realms of the nether world of the lower rungs of The Third World. But 1,000 Daim Zainuddins then cannot equal one Indonesian maid, let alone a thousand of her.

But this does not explain the Sabah government's indifference. (Nor for that matter, the Sarawak government's. Whatever happened to those haze experts that the chief minister, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, chartered a plane to collect from the United States on the day there was a haze emergency in the state last year?) Why does Sabah government ignore the emergency, possibly its worst since Malaysia Day in 1963? Since the National Front in Sabah surely expect to return to office in the coming elections soon, why then this indifference?

France, China and Russia, permanent members of the UN Security Council, are at odds with the other two, the United States and Great Britain, over plans to bomb Iraq over Baghdad's refusal to allow the UN team inspect the Iraqi presidential sites. President Boris Yeltsin even raised the spectre of a world war if the US continued to bully Iraq into submission. The pressure to bomb Iraq began amidst investigations into President Clinton's alleged sexual proclivities, in which so much of what is known is allegations and unproven assertions than fact.

Mr Malott makes assertions that is music to Bolehland's ears because the US suffers from an unintended boomerang from the financial crisis in Asia. It is necessary now for the US to be seen actively supportive of countries in the Asia Pacific; otherwise, there would be more unemployed back home. The old adage that what one gains on the swings one loses on the roundabout comes home to roost in the United States. Every US ambassador would be making statements, which are buttressed by recent visits by high ranking US present and former officials -- the former US secretary of state, Mr George Schultz, is due in ten days -- like Mr Malott's, but only in Bolehland, secure under the coconut shell, would go to town with it. But his comments has as much relevance to the situation in Bolehland as that of the Ougadougou ambassador's comments on the United States.

I resist the temptation to extrapolate (another of those favourite words of those who make it their living) the information to make a generalised statement of what Malaysians think ... you know, like a Gallop Poll, when 1,347 Ougadougans are polled on whether they would like Genghis Khan as the next president of the United States of Ougadougou, and 675 said they did, it would say with certainty that more than 50 per cent of Ougadougans would want that. My poll is confined to those people only, and does not refer to their uncles, aunts, grandfathers, let alone their respective communities. But then I echoes Mark Twain's memorable "statistics, damned statistics, and lies".

The Malaysian works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is out to bat for DIMS, even urging the consortium to withdraw in favour of DIMS and suggesting that Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro, even if they joined hands for the project, would be no match for the likes of DIMS which has "strategic alliances" -- whatever that means -- with leading software companies from the United States. DIMS ebullient chief executive, Mr Dharan, roots incessantly for a "strategic linkage" -- whatever that means -- between our yet unbuilt Multimedia Super Corridor with Chennai's yet unbuilt IT Park. Now, all that Reliance and L&T could promise is to link the Chennai Park to Silicon Valley; only DIMS can link CITP to MSC. Besides, Reliance and L&T should know, if they do not already, that the cutting edge of worldwide computer technology is situated outside Kuala Lumpur.

Like rats jumping off a sinking ship, Malaysian federal and state leaders will not miss an opportunity to leave the country at a moment's notice. Crisis or no crisis. The prime minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, is off gallivanting again tomorrow. to Cuba, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. And like the pied piper of Hamelin, his will be accompanied by the usual entourage of Bolehland business men, posing for yet another photograph with the prime minister to adorn their offices to "attest" to their closeness. The chief minister of Malacca, Dato' Abu Zahar Ismail, leaves today on a visit to the United States, Canada and Britain. His excuse for leaving now: Dr Mahathir had approved it. Once approval is given, it would be a shame not to use it. Besides, he may not give the approval the next time. That would be a trip wasted. So, the trip goes on, he insists.

The news from Sarawak is hedged by rumours. The most recurring one is that the project is delayed by two years; that instead of coming onstream in 2003, it would now be 2005. Another is that another Tan Sri would take over as chairman of the Bakun Hydroelectric Dam project. Fourth, that Renong or another company of that size would take a more active role in the Bakun project. Fifth, that the present Bakun Hydroelectric Dam is scheduled to receive a Doctorate of Philosophy from a university in the United States. Mysterious are the ways of Bolehland.

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