First and foremost, I would like to congratulate all 17th Intake College of Nursing student nurses on completing their course, especially those who have successfully passed the exams.

Throughout the three and a half years of the course, I have learnt many invaluable things that many other professions would not be able to impart. At the outset, my colleagues and I had no idea on what nursing was all about and we had no clear idea why we joined nursing in the first place.

As semesters passed by, we started to have our own opinions and grew interests. We began to understand the science as well as the arts of nursing care to start with, and realised that nursing touches beyond its original scope.

During our clinical placements, it certainly impacted many of us in many ways, either socially, psychologically or professionally. The thirst for knowledge was also undoubtedly increasing and it made myself more motivated and to develop further.

Now, it has come to an end. Nevertheless, it is just the beginning. Lifelong learning and continuing professional education is no exception to nursing graduates. As technology progresses in the area of health and medicine, nurses have to equip themselves and be one step ahead to face the challenges.

Thus, nurses today must not be complacent and only motivated by incentives such as money and promotion, but also as a personal choice to develop their career.

Hence, I sincerely hope that the Nursing Education centre will develop and spread its wings in offering more courses such as Bachelors Degree and eventually PhD's locally.

Today, we have seen many fresh graduates are still waiting for employment. I certainly look forward to such a long wait too.

However, we must not feel let down by this. What is important for the nation is that, we are part of the country's assets as educated people in giving the best nursing care in the country and we must be ready to prove that.

On behalf of my intake, I would like to express our sincere gratitude and thanks to the lecturers, tutors and staff for believing in us and helping us to achieve our dreams in becoming Professional Registered Nurses. Not forgetting the nurses and doctors nationwide, who have taught us during clinical placements and we certainly owe you our sincere thanks.

To those colleagues who have not made it through, don't give up and you will finally make it! We will be definitely looking forward to our graduation in the upcoming convocation and be readily to serve the nation!

To the 17th intake student nurses, We Made It!

- Sun E
- 17th Intake

Royal Brunei Airlines wishes to thank "Mr Krisflyer Silver" and "Blues in the Sky" for their comments published in BB on 10 December.

We have made our investigations and with regards to "Mr Krisflyer Silver's" comments, the findings are as follows:

1. It is general practice for most airlines to allow, as a privilege, a more flexible boarding time for business class passengers provided this is before the gate closes. Gate closure times are, however, the same for all passengers regardless of class of travel. Nevertheless, there are inevitable times when special circumstances, such as waiting for connecting passengers, may result in a departure delay.

2. Due to a last minute mechanical fault, the aerobridge could not be operated but this is not a common occurrence.

3. As with any other airline, our flights are scheduled in such a way to provide the best possible connections for passengers from all the destinations we serve. Flight slot times are also subject to approvals by the authorities at the destinations we fly to.

4. We take note of the comments raised regarding the volume of the in-flight announcement and have asked our crew to be more vigilant on this. We have also begun to introduce new menus on our medium and long-haul flights in November this year, and this will gradually be introduced on our short-haul flights.

We regret that "Blues in the sky" felt the cleanliness of the cabin did not meet his/her expectations but would like to assure him/her that the cleanliness of the cabin is taken care of separately after each flight by personnel who have the proper equipment to do so. Meanwhile, the safety and comfort of our passengers are the main concerns of our cabin crew.

In both instances, Royal Brunei Airlines regrets that expectations were not met, despite our best efforts. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this in greater detail if the passengers concerned can kindly contact our Customer Relations section directly at 2341 641 or feedback@rba.com.bn.

We appreciate constructive comments and have always found detailed feedback provided directly to us to be most useful in our investigations to resolve any issues and ensure that we are able to meet our customers' expectations.

- Siti Diyana Abdullah
- Head of Corporate Communications
- Royal Brunei Airlines

The letter by "I can't be conned" entitled "Nothing comes free and cheap in this world" (Weekend Borneo Bulletin, 10th December 2005) compelled me to write this response.

I agree with the writer that the victims were so naive to have fallen prey to what, in my book, is a clear-cut scam. However, looking at the staggering number of people who have been conned, I believe we need to look at this matter from a wider perspective.

Why is it so easy for someone to con a large number of people? I can understand if it's just one or two, or even five for that matter. But hundreds? Does this not say something about the socioeconomic conditions here?

Let me put it in a not-so-cryptic way. A day before payday in November, I was driving around in the capital when I saw rows of cars parked alongside the road and a big crowd had gathering outside a building. At first, I thought there was some sort of an emergency but upon a closer look, the "crowd" was apparently a queue for the ATM and it was a really long queue, spilling onto the sidewalk.

In my mind, I was saying to myself that those people must be really strapped for cash to not mind waiting in the long queue. A few days later, I went to one ATM in Gadong and all around the machine, I saw scraps of statements on the floor. I was not intending to be nosey but I could not help but take a look. I saw statements of accounts with balances ranging from BND200 to a mere BND50. And it was just three days after payday.

The point I'm making is this: Bruneians are not so naive. It is the financial situation that they're in that drives them to make such foolish decisions and to believe in what under normal circumstances is a too-hard-to-believe offer.

The recent directives on personal loans may also explain why the number of victims is in the hundreds.

Desperate times have resulted in desperate measures. Unfortunately for the 93 (though I have heard that the actual number is much higher) victims, their desperate measures have landed them in a hot soup.

- NaSk

The morality of men, especially fathers, is deteriorating in the country. The number of cases where fathers molest their children seems to be on the rise.

And unfortunately, the daughters themselves eventually succumb, too, to such approaches. Everybody knows that this is immoral, and leads to "nasab" (family institution) being destroyed, which is sinful. One cannot be ignorant of this, but man tends to forget, and believes that he/she will not be caught.

Even if he/she is caught the current punishment is not harsh enough to scare them, or to deter others from committing the same offence.

If cases of immorality are on the rise, leading to "nasab" being destroyed, countries will face catastrophe. We must not be complacent in allowing such things to happen in our beloved country. And we do not want to see many unlawful children and broken families becoming a common occurrence, do we? Perhaps it is time for the introduction of harsher punishment at least to deter future offenders.

- Worried citizen

Don't we deserve an answer?

What is the real reason behind the discontinuation of Capital FM and Capital Gold? So many listeners have raised the matter but no word or explanation from the concerned authorities.

I was very disappointed when the services were removed. It's even more painful to see concerned authorities keeping a silence on the issue.

Don't we deserve an answer? Please bring the services back for the sake of music lovers.

- Only Capital is good

I have been a subscriber to the eSpeed2 service for the past year and a half. In the beginning, everything worked very well. So well, in fact, that I was almost convinced that everyone was exaggerating when it came to complaints about the horrible service. Until it hit me.

Every time I use a P2P client, I am unable to surf the Internet. Pages simply refuse to load, and I have to close my P2P client before my surfing can resume.

I find this extremely annoying especially since files usually download slowly through P2P networks and people usually leave them running in the background, which I can't.

Two months ago, another more serious problem hit me. Every 10 minutes or so, my Internet connection would disconnect for a few seconds. This will break my direct downloads, disconnect me from IRC, and from online games. Due to this problem, I have been unable to enjoy several online games which I have bought and subscribed to.

I have made many calls and complaints to 121 customer support and they give excuses or make promises to send technicians, which never happens. I find this unacceptable, especially since I have friends in other areas in the Brunei-Muara District and they are not effected by these problems.

When will JTB start improving its services? I have been paying $98 per month, which is much more expensive than most other countries, yet I get such unsatisfactory service.

- kianbung

I read with interest about comments on RBA lately. In this competitive world, particularly the airline industry where we have heard about MAS' recent turmoil, RBA must do something to enhance its reputation.

Having a national airline is like having a precious national asset that we must sustain for the benefit of Bruneians. I hope those constructive comments from readers can be taken into serious consideration by the RBA management.

As mentioned by the readers, small matters can have a significant impact on RBA's credibility and profitability in the longer run.

May I suggest that frontline staff be trained in order to improve their customer service competency level. Since I'm a frequent traveller using RBA and other airlines, I may begin to ignore RBA if these unfortunate experiences by those passengers are not attended to.

Come on, wake up RBA, let's not lose our national pride.

- Z-kajundoh

We still haven't received our last month's allowance. Why is this happening again? This is not new. These kind of delays have happened not once or twice but more than 10 times.

Isn't it strange that we see other students from another colleges receive their allowances but we are struggling with no money? We believe that we are the only students from the college to face this problem. We have no choice but to borrow money from others which is very sad.

Once again, we hope that the authorities would look into this delay and also put an end to this slow service.

- Cashless

I have been following the developments since the Ministry of Finance put a cap on personal loans. I applauded the move but there is another alarming trend that is rapidly developing ... the use of credit cards.

Many people have turned to credit cards as a means of financing since the limit on personal loans came into effect. Banks in Brunei have reported significant growth in the credit card business. However, what most credit card holders may not realise is the interest rate that they are paying is as high as 24 per cent annum.

The banks advertise the interest rate as 2% per month to make it look simple for the customer but there in lies the danger. For banks, credit card is by far the most profitable business compared to housing or personal loans.

Credit cards should be used as a form of convenience instead of carrying a lot of cash while travelling or buying expensive things.

I hope people will think carefully before applying for credit cards because it is worse than getting a personal loan if the intention is to treat it as a loan.

While we individually have to be responsible and spend within our means, banks on their part should also be more responsible in highlighting more prominently the high interest rates and penalties that defaulters face.

I also hope the Ministry of Finance will continue to tighten the rules in lending. Credit cards should be considered as an unsecured financing and part of personal financing.

- A very concerned citizen