those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer

The dreaded haze is back, this time with a vengence. I really wonder what the point of the ASEAN agreement on Transboundary Haze and Pollution is... The very nature of the Asian culture means that disagreements and problems take AGES to sort out because everyone is so worried about offending someone else, they take a forever to ARRIVE at the root cause of the problem.
I am sure, if it was a European country, there would be lawsuit after lawsuit, protest after protest, complaint after complaint, and finally, if nothing was done, embargoes. But around here, the 'softly-softly' approach is used, even when it clearly doesn't work.

The haze is caused mainly by low-income subsistence farmers in the rural parts of Indonesia using the stone-age method of 'slash and burn' to clear away old scrubland to make way for cleared forest for farming. This method is banned in most countries, because it is a polluting and short-term solution to a common problem - lack of arable, usable land for farming. These poor farmers have no other alternative than to use this method to continue farming, and indeed surviving. So the blame lies fair and square on the Indonesian Governments doorstep. Those bastards at the top of the heap in that country are bleeding it dry with corruption. And the rot extends right down to the lowest common denominator (or local official) in any part of the archipelago.

You can't even get a passport in Indonesia without bribing someone, and you can have any old age or information on it! Our last maid, when she left us, was 15 years old. Her Indonesian passport said she was 25 when she joined us - 2 years previous! Now, if you can't trust a country's passport, there isn't really anything you CAN trust from that country. It pretty much says it all... But really, I'm not telling anyone anything new here, am I.

All we can do now is, stay indoors, keep the air-con going, minimise outdoor activities and wait for the air to clear. The Malaysian government sounds really upset this time, but like the years gone before, nothing REALLY will change, because they don't want to offend the Indonesians... But I sure as hell would like to.