Just give me a little respect Today is "Respect for the Aged Day" in Japan. Now if they would only do that in the places I frequent.. Don't expect much activity from your Japanese partners today - Stock market closed - business closed.

The sun is shinin' and the birds are chirpin' in downtown Bangkok this morning - and it's not only from Buddha's firmanent... New Thailand government figures released today shows the Thai economy growing at 5.1% for the second quarter - exceeding expectations. It's pretty hard to argue that Thailand cannot yet again boast the most positive feel in all of South East Asia.

Defying the popular perception amongst my erstwhile colleagues that no-one actually reads the Rat's ravings, my latest feature item published on the eve of the anniversary of Al Qaeda attacks on America - "The message the world forgot: Reflections on 9/11" resulted in not a few attacks on the Rat person himself via the ol' Rat email. I've been called a "consistent" anti-American, disrepectable (sic), and out of touch.. Well, it's not the first time...

As well as reinforcing my comments in that article on the inhumanity of the act itself, and that no disrespect to the memory of the 1,000's of innocents who perished, I stand by my key point that that memory is best served by clearly focusing on the cause of the attacks rather than obfuscating it with nationalism and the restoration of national pride. After one year, it is well past time to get over the shock and look beneath the surface and pain.

Indeed, subsequently personages far more visible than yours truly have popped up to express similar concerns. These have included the Canadian Prime Minister, who referred to increasing disparaties in poverty world wide on the anniversary, veteran US broadcaster Walter Conkrite, who mentioned on Larry King's US chat show that the gap between rich and poor is clearly unsustainable, and Malaysian PM Mahathir, who on Thursday stated that until Western countries started treating the cause rather than symptom "terrorist attacks will continue". All modesty aside, my comments on the medical analogies and Dr Mahathir were reinforced by the man himself.