Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Najib to decide which SPM top scorers will get 1MDB grants
- Dr M: Karpal the biggest winner in PAS polls
- Umno-MCA seat tussle begins ahead of polls
- Use your head, Perkasa man told
- DAP insists on overseas scholarships for all SPM aces
- Subsidy flip-flops sign of deeper problems, say economists
- Fight for religious rights but reject extremism, Anwar says
- PKR eyes Pakatan-SAPP alliance in Sabah
- Perak mufti supports Obedient Wives Club
| Najib to decide which SPM top scorers will get 1MDB grants Posted: 07 Jun 2011 12:54 AM PDT
(The Star) - Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will decide on the successful SPM top scorers who will be given 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) grants upon his return from Kazakhstan. "I will decide on this matter when I return," he told Malaysian reporters yesterday during his official visit to Kazakhstan. In Kuala Lumpur, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said 1MDB is offering 500 scholarships to 8A+ scorers in the SPM examination this year to study in public and private academic institutions in the country. About 300 of the scholarships will be given to bumiputras. "Priority will be given to 8A+ achievers who failed to get a Public Service Department (PSD) scholarship," Bernama reported him as saying after chairing a 1MDB scholarship meeting of Barisan Nasional representatives at Parliament House yesterday. Nazri said conditions would be relaxed for bumiputra applicants from Sabah and Sarawak, with consideration given to 6A+ and 5A+ scorers. The income of their parents and the location of their schooling areas would also count towards their qualification. "For those in Sabah and Sarawak, we have agreed to relax academic conditions. Bumiputras in the peninsula have to comply with pre-conditions on academic achievements and parents' income," he added. Nazri said scholarship holders at public academic institutions would receive RM7,500 a year for critical and non-critical courses. Those at private academic institutions would receive RM15,000 a year for critical courses, and RM7,500 a year for non-critical courses, he added. Nazri also said the Government was taking action against 145 PSD scholarship holders who had failed to return to Malaysia to serve from 2000 until May 31 this year. "Action has been taken against 195 others," he said. Most of the scholarship holders who defaulted were medical and engineering students pursuing courses in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States. Of the 145 defaulting scholars now, 97 are in medicine and 26 in engineering, he said. Nazri added that 160 cases had been settled, with the scholarship holders returning home or making loan repayments. He also said the Government would have to review the PSD financing policy to take into consideration problems they have faced. Meanwhile, MCA Youth chief Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong said that 1MDB scholarship offer would provide an avenue to the SPM leavers to pursue their higher education despite failing to land PSD scholarships. "We welcome the effort by 1MDB to assist the students," he said yesterday. Dr Wee said the MCA had submitted a list of SPM scorers based on the criteria agreed to by all parties to Nazri in Putrajaya yesterday.
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| Dr M: Karpal the biggest winner in PAS polls Posted: 06 Jun 2011 06:53 PM PDT
(The Malaysian Insider) - Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today that the DAP's Karpal Singh is the actual winner in last weekend's PAS elections because he claimed the party had abandoned its Islamic principles. Dr Mahathir added that PAS's new push for a welfare state was proof that the Islamist party had abandoned its fight for an Islamic state. The former prime minister accused PAS of forsaking its struggle to implement Islamic and hudud laws just to appease its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition partner DAP. "The person who won big did not attend the muktamar and is not even a PAS member. That person is Karpal Singh... his fight against PAS's plans to build an Islamic state which would have enforced hudud law has been achieved," he wrote in a blog posting today. "PAS no longer has to cross over Karpal's dead body, nor does Karpal have to die... He is not even dead and PAS has made its struggle for an Islamic state a matter of secondary importance, now that PAS will be fighting for a welfare state instead," said Dr Mahathir, in reference to Karpal's famous line "Over my dead body". The DAP chairman has been firmly opposed towards PAS's Islamic state concept, and has maintained that it went against the Federal Constitution and that Malaysia is a secular state, with Islam as the official religion. PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang recently declared the party will not work with Umno in a unity government as the ruling party was ruled by self-interest, saying that PAS would work towards a welfare state that is fair to all if it took power. His policy speech signalled a change in direction that gave an advantage to professionals seeking places in the party's central working committee. During the weekend's PAS polls, the party's conservatives in the ulama faction, who prefer to link up with Umno, were edged out in the contest for top leadership posts by a group of progressive leaders led by the new deputy president Mohamad Sabu. The vice-presidential line-up of Salahuddin Ayub, Datuk Husam Musa and Datuk Mahfuz Omar was also from the professionals or Erdogan camp, who favour co-operation with PR allies rather than seek unity with Umno.
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| Umno-MCA seat tussle begins ahead of polls Posted: 06 Jun 2011 06:02 PM PDT (The Malaysian Insider) - A battle over seats allocation has erupted between Barisan Nasional's Umno and MCA ahead of the next general election, suggesting the Chinese party may be edged out from its traditional seats. In a statement today, MCA treasurer-general Datuk Seri Tan Chai Ho said he was upset Wangsa Maju Umno leaders had openly staked their claim over the division's parliamentary seat, which MCA usually contests and lost for the first time in Election 2008. He scolded Umno for making its intentions public and urged all Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties to keep such matters internal. "I would like to point out that all issues related to BN in the coming general elections must be decided on by the BN supreme council and processed in the spirit of BN whereby the views of all party members are looked into so as to find the perfect balance. "Therefore, the unnecessary attention paid to this issue by the media is not healthy and should be ignored," said Tan. He also agreed that the coming polls will likely see BN and MCA "pushed against the wall" and reiterated his hope that all seat negotiations or grouses be aired within internal channels. "Simply speaking out to the media without proper thinking can do serious damage to BN's work preparation and morale in the elections thus leading to unnecessary disputes and discords as well as creating drifters who seek to take advantage of BN only," he warned. Wangsa Maju is viewed as a hot seat for MCA, whose candidate Yew Teong Look lost to former PKR MP Wee Choo Keong by a narrow margin of only 150 votes during Elections 2008.
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| Use your head, Perkasa man told Posted: 06 Jun 2011 04:58 PM PDT
Gerakan's Baljit Singh says Syed Hassan must decide whether his organisation is for or against the Federal Constitution. (Free Malaysia Today) - A Perkasa leader's recent statement in the scholarship row has provoked questions about his ability to make reasoned arguments. A Gerakan leader said Syed Hassan Syed Ali, the far right Malay group's secretary general, was not using his head when he suggested that the government deny scholarships to non-Malays who do not complete their education in national schools. Baljit Singh, who heads Penang Gerakan's Legal and Human Rights Bureau, said Perkasa must decide whether it was for or against the Federal Constitution, which accepts vernacular schools as part of the national education system. Perkasa has often claimed that its fight for Malay rights is a fight to defend the constitution. "If Perkasa is so patriotic in protecting the Federal Constitution, it should also protect vernacular education," Baljit said. A spokesman for the Malaysian Indian Forum, M Arivananthan, said Syed Hassan lacked knowledge about vernacular education and why some parents chose it for their children. He said some Indians and Chinese preferred mother-tongue education for academic as well cultural reasons. "Non-Malays were just asking for what they were entitled to and not questioning anybody's rights or privileges" when they called for fairness in scholarship distribution, Arivananthan said in a media statement.
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| DAP insists on overseas scholarships for all SPM aces Posted: 06 Jun 2011 01:15 PM PDT By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal, The Malaysian Insider KUALA LUMPUR, June 7- All SPM top scorers should get overseas Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships instead of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) grants if Malaysia wants to retain the country's human talent, DAP has said. Putrajaya announced yesterday that 500 special education grants would be disbursed by 1MDB to rejected applicants to study locally. The categories (annual): Scholarships to public universities (RM7,500), scholarships for critical courses in private universities (RM15,000), and grants for non-critical courses (RM7,500). "This pledge to award overseas scholarships equally to all top students is necessary to win Malaysia's future by escaping the middle-income trap to become a high-income economy with USD15,000 per capita income...Malaysia would be sending a wrong message if we reward mediocrity instead of excellence, do not have a level-playing field that is fair to the best and brightest and allow the brain drain to continue," said DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng in a statement today. Lim repeated his call for the Najib administration to make public the results of those who were awarded overseas scholarships, and accused Barisan Nasional (BN) for failing to uphold transparency and accountability by not doing so. The Penang Chief Minister said that MCA was trying to "distract" attention by attacking his administration for not having enough money to provide scholarships to top students in the state, in response to MCA's claims yesterday that Penang had vast wealth to spend on overseas scholarships because Penang came out top in investments with RM 12.2 billion in 2010.
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| Subsidy flip-flops sign of deeper problems, say economists Posted: 06 Jun 2011 01:12 PM PDT
(The Malaysian Insider) - KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — Economists perceive the Najib administration as prone to backtracking on policies, with political concerns trumping the need for economic reform. In a scathing commentary published today by the Singapore Straits Times, the government's dithering over subsidy cuts for energy and basic consumer goods was criticised by regional economists who are stirring a wider debate over the country's long-term economic prospects. The Straits Times said the big question being asked now was whether resource-rich Malaysia had fallen out of step with the global environment. Putrajaya's subsidy flip-flops, the newspaper said, were putting a spotlight on deeper woes, while the country's competitiveness continued to be hurt by state intervention. In recent months, Malaysia has gone back and forth on its intention to cut the large subsidy bill. The government backed down recently from raising petrol prices before eventually deciding to raise electricity tariffs by seven per cent beginning this month. Putrajaya announced a 7.1 per cent hike in electricity tariffs in an effort to trim a subsidy bill that would otherwise double to RM21 billion this year, promising that the hike would not affect three-quarters of domestic users. Power prices will rise by as much as 2.3 sen per kWh in areas taking TNB's supply, a potential source of public anger just ahead of snap polls expected within a year. The Straits Times reported today the arguments by economists that decades of state intervention that sought to meld free market practices with an ambitious social agenda to restructure the country's multi-ethnic society in favour of politically dominant Malays had sapped Malaysia of its competitive edge as a destination for foreign investment. They also told the Straits Times that the government's experiment with state command capitalism had created an economy burdened by subsidies, tariff protection and licences that benefit powerful vested interest groups. "The government is reluctant to take tough measures because of the political impact on the public and the vested interest (groups) it could hurt," Centennial Group regional strategist Manu Bhaskaran told the Singapore paper. "But the reality is that there are no easy options." The Straits Times pointed out that the Malaysian economy was at a crucial crossroads. "Malaysia needs bold action because the regional economic environment is changing rapidly, and the breathing space is shrinking," World Bank economist Philip Schellekens says in a recent interview. Malaysia's exports continue to face low-cost competition from regional rivals Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, while Najib's ambition to transform Malaysia into a high-income economy is heavily reliant on foreign investment.
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| Fight for religious rights but reject extremism, Anwar says Posted: 06 Jun 2011 10:37 AM PDT By Melissa Chi, The Malaysian Insider PETALING JAYA, June 7 — Defend religious rights protected under the Constitution but stay away from extremism, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim told religious leaders last night. The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) de facto chief met leaders of the inter-faith group Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Taoism (MCCBCHST) at The Club here, yesterday to discuss current issues. "To the Muslim representatives and representatives of the Buddhist religion, Christians, Hindus and others, we would like to reiterate our commitment to defend the principle of the supremacy of religious life enshrined in Article 3, under the Constitution. "On that note, we also want to challenge the tendency of some to suggest extremism within their faiths without regard to the sensitivity of Muslims in this country," he said in a statement after having a closed-door dialogue with them. In addition to leaders from the non-Muslim faith council and the Opposition leader, PKR President Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as well as several other PKR leaders, and the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) President Haris Ibrahim, attended the dialogue. Anwar was tight-lipped about the agenda of the meeting before it started but had only said that it would be related to current issues and the narrow-thinking of some Malaysians. "Islam is a religion which upholds the principles of justice, peace loving, respecting the rights of its followers and the rights of followers of other religions to practice their faith. The main principles of sharia, known as sharia 'maqasid' conclude that it is a priority to protect religion, life, lineage, 'aqal', property and dignity. "So based on the accurate understanding of Islam, there needs to be a comprehensive appreciation of religion by Muslims to ensure a way of life with integrity. Muslims who want to fulfill the purpose of mercy and justice as it is, are often advisable to reject oppression, corruption and all forms of abuse. Thus it is not surprising that many of the Muslims are upset with the attitude of Umno leaders and the inconsistencies of its controlled media in appreciating the religion. What's more corruption and abuse of power is still widespread," he said. Prior to the meeting, Anwar said he hoped to come up with an action plan following the meeting, but did not elaborate in his statement sent out later. "More recently, some Umno leaders and the party-owned media tried to undermine the peacefulness between religions in Malaysia with a sharp racial rhetoric, the shallow and not based on Islamic principles of justice, as recommended.
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| PKR eyes Pakatan-SAPP alliance in Sabah Posted: 06 Jun 2011 10:35 AM PDT By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — With an eye to the next general election, Sabah Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is actively moving towards forging a formal alliance with local opposition party SAPP, hoping to break Barisan Nasional's (BN) stranglehold over the east Malaysian state. PR believes a pact with the active SAPP (Sabah Progressive Party), helmed by former chief minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee, will be crucial to boost the opposition's chances against BN when elections are called. The Malaysian Insider understands that Sabah PKR, under the leadership of party president Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, has formed a "negotiation team" to lead the merger discussions with SAPP. It is believed the members include Libaran PKR division chief Ahmad Thamrin Jaini, Papar PKR chief Datuk James Ghani, Tenom PKR chief Datuk Halik Zaman, Kota Kinabalu PKR chief Christina Liew, Tawau PKR division chief Datuk Kong Hong Ming, Sabah PKR Youth chief Jafery Jomion and PKR deputy secretary-general and Penampang division chief Darell Leiking, all of whom currently sits on the special presidential committee that leads PKR's Sabah chapter. Other members on the team are ex-BN man and former federal deputy minister Datuk Kalakau Untol and PKR supreme council member Datuk Roland Chia. A party insider confirmed with The Malaysian Insider that the committee members will meet today to appoint a chairman before discussions are initiated with PR's Sabah parties about the merger. Once an agreement is reached in Sabah PR, the insider added, negotiations with SAPP will start. But if the Sarawak polls were any indication, such political cooperation could turn tricky, largely due to a likely clash in views between the peninsular-based PR pact and SAPP, whose struggles centre on promoting autonomy for Sabahans. SAPP's Yong has already grown testy over the proposal following a small fallout with DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang last week when the latter purportedly issued an ultimatum to the party, saying it must form a formal pact and not merely a political friendship. When contacted yesterday, Sabah DAP chief Jimmy Wong stood by Lim's ultimatum, saying it was issued with no malice intended. SAPP, said Wong, must become a PR "blood brother" and not merely a friend or relative to the pact. "We are openly inviting them to join us but you cannot just forge cooperation without joining us as a formal partner, a blood brother. If you merely become a friend or relative, you can abandon us when we are down. Win or lose, sink or swim, we must stay together as a pact. And we must do it now," he said. Despite the tiff however, DAP and PKR have both openly indicated their intentions and the urgency to push for such an alliance while SAPP has stayed non-committal thus far.
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| Perak mufti supports Obedient Wives Club Posted: 06 Jun 2011 09:53 AM PDT
(The Star) - Perak mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria has given his backing to the Obedient Wives Club, which offers "sex lessons" to help women keep their husbands. Harussani, who recently banned the poco poco dance in Perak, said women needed to be reminded of their roles and responsibilities to their husbands. "The younger generation is too absorbed in cultures that are not their own. Wives must be very obedient to their husbands. "However, in Islam, the wife can go against her husband if what he does is not according to the religion," he said, calling for more such clubs to be set up throughout the country as a way to counter social ills. He was responding to a statement by club vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamad that a husband who was kept happy in the bedroom would have no reason to stray, seek out prostitutes or indulge in other social vices. The club had also offered sex lessons to help wives "serve their husbands better than a first-class prostitute". However, Johor Islamic Council advisor Datuk Nooh Gadut said the use of the term "first-class prostitute" was extreme, adding that marriages in Islam should not be just for sex but for, among others, love. The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), which includes the Women's Aid Organisation, Sisters in Islam and Women's Centre for Change, said the club's principles were narrow-minded, degrading, and an insult to women around the world. JAG spokesman Maria Chin Abdullah said Malaysian women had contributed enormously to society and that the latest development was a setback in progress. "It is degrading to ask another individual in this case, a woman to wait on another person hand and foot. Our group is fighting for gender equality but the club is looking to degrade women even more. "To objectify women as mere sex objects to satisfy their husbands' lust is simply unacceptable. "I hope more men can speak out against the club's outrageous stand," she told The Star yesterday. Social activist Pang Khee Teik said women should realise that they were not only "doing it" for their husbands but for themselves as well. "We must remember there are people with little or no sex drive. Any campaign by the club must not pressure women into feeling guilty about it," said Pang, who is also the co-founder of annual sexuality rights festival that advocates equal sexual rights for all.
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