Ahad, 6 Januari 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News


God’s voice on earth

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 03:01 PM PST

Hence the Church and the Crown had to work in tandem. The Crown drew its legitimacy from the Church (which recognised the king as God's representative) while the Church got its powers at the pleasure of the Crown. It was a convenient joint venture of two corrupt systems that existed mainly to oppress and suppress the people.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

In the past, until about 500 years or so ago, the 'common people' in Christendom did not interpret religion themselves. That is because religion was communicated in a language that the masses did not speak. Hence they needed 'middlemen' to help interpret religion. And these middlemen would in interpret religion in a 'politically correct' manner.

Then, by the late 1400s to early 1500s, religion began to be communicated in the people's mother tongue. The English read religion in English, the Germans in German, and so on. This reduced the need for middlemen and made them redundant. And people began to realise that the middlemen had been taking the people for a ride and were 'tailoring' religious decrees (fatwah) to suit the political agenda of the powers-that-be.

For example, for Catholics, divorce was not allowed. However, if the king wanted to take on a new wife then the religious authorities could always declare that the king's first marriage was null and void. Hence he need not divorce his first wife to marry his second wife since his first wife was not really his wife in the first place. The first wife no longer exists so the second wife becomes the first wife.

Then, when he wants to get rid of his second (but now first) wife to marry his third (but now second) wife, he can declare that she has committed treason against God's representative on earth and hence by offending the king she has offended God and can, therefore, be put to death. Then, on the day they execute his second (but considered first) wife, he can go marry his third (but considered second) wife.

Religious decrees or fatwah have been a very useful political tool for Christendom. The Church and the Crown shared power. Hence rules need to be laid down that serve both the Church and the Crown. When the Church ignores the Crown then the Crown will act against the Church and the Church would lose its powers and status.

Hence the Church and the Crown had to work in tandem. The Crown drew its legitimacy from the Church (which recognised the king as God's representative) while the Church got its powers at the pleasure of the Crown. It was a convenient joint venture of two corrupt systems that existed mainly to oppress and suppress the people.

That was up to about 500 years ago in Christendom. Since then, especially around 200 years ago, the people got rid of this menace called the Church and later even the menace called the Crown. Hence the two biggest exploiters and oppressors of the people were removed. Today, many people go to church only three times in their life -- when they are christened, when they marry (if they have a church wedding), and when they die (unless they get blown up in Iraq or Afghanistan). Other than that they go to the pubs.

As I said, that was up to about 500 years ago in Christendom. In Islamdom, they still have not got rid of the 'Church' and in many countries the 'Crown' as well. And that is why is some Muslim countries we still have monarchs who are the head of religion. And we also still have religious authorities that pass decrees or fatwah.

Basically, many Muslim countries are still hundreds of years behind Christendom. Hence those who live in such countries suffer what the people in Christendom suffered up to about 200 to 500 years ago. And that is why we still read news reports such as the two below from NST (regarding dogs) and Hakarah (regarding fatwah or decrees).

The religious authorities tell us what we can and cannot believe in plus what we can and cannot do. They interpret what is and is not allowed. And we are compelled to follow these rulings or face arrest and punishment.

But is this really what God stipulated? This is what the religious authorities say God has stipulated. Can we disagree with this? We cannot disagree with this. Can we interpret things our own way? We cannot interpret things our own way. They will interpret it for us.

You will notice one thing, though. Most times they will quote the Hadith when they pass rulings or decrees. But why quote the Hadith and not the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam? That is because the Qur'an is 'silent' on many issues so if they quote the Qur'an then they will not be able to support what they say. Hence they need to quote the Hadith.

What if you do not accept the Hadith? You cannot. You must accept the Hadith. If you reject the Hadith then you are a deviant and can be arrested and punished.

What if you follow a certain sect of Islam that does not recognise the Hadith or it recognises a different set of Hadith and not the ones that you recognise? You cannot. You can only follow the sect of Islam that the government says you can follow and if you follow another sect of Islam then you can get arrested and punished.

Basically, Islam, today, is where Christianity was 500 or 200 years ago. However, while Christendom has reformed and has allowed freedom of choice, Islamdom does not allow freedom of choice. The religious authorities in Islamdom decide what you can and cannot do and there are no two ways about it.

Hence, while the Qur'an does not say that dogs are not allowed (in fact, there is a verse that allows dogs to be used for hunting and game procured from hunting is halal to eat), because they use the Hadith and not the Qur'an to make their rulings, most Malays will not keep dogs.

And note that I said 'Malays' and not 'Muslims'.

*******************************************

Islam allows blind to use dogs

EYES AND EARS: There is no issue in using the services of trained dogs, says Perlis mufti

(NST) - There is no rule in Islam which prohibits the use of service dogs to guide the blind, said Perlis mufti Dr Juanda Jaya.

"Using the services of guide dogs which are well trained is allowed in the religion, including the Syafie mazhab, which is subscribed to by Muslims in the country.

"There is no issue on using service dogs for various purposes like hunting, guarding and as guiding dogs," he told the New Straits Times, yesterday.

Considered as one of the most sought after service dogs, guide dogs are trained from young to act as eyes and ears for the blind.

Guide dogs are also trained to improve the mobility of the blind and have been proven to help them lead independent lives.

On why blind Muslims in the country do not consider having guide dogs, Juanda said there was confusion on the exact ruling and status of dogs in the religion.

"People need to learn to differentiate between religion and culture in order to make decisions in their lives and to not follow blindly what others say about rulings in Islam."

Fatwa Council president Tan Sri Dr Abdul Shukor Husni said there was no specific fatwa issued for guide dogs for the blind.

"It is mainly because we didn't receive any enquiry or requests from the affected community to consider a fatwa on guide dogs.

"If there is a request and we see a present need for the issuance of a fatwa on guide dogs, we will have a meeting to discuss this issue thoroughly," said Shukor, while calling for Muslims who are concerned about the issue to come forward.

In 2008, the United Kingdom's Muslim Law (Syariah) Council issued a fatwa stating that "a blind person, in the light of syariah law, will be allowed to keep a guide dog to help him and if required to take him to the mosque for his prayers".

Then, 18-year-old Mohammed Abraar Khatri, who lost his sight because of a degenerative disease the same year, championed the rights of Muslims to use the services of guide dogs with help from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the Muslim Council of Britain.

His guide dog, named Vargo, accompanied Mohammed to school, outings and to the mosque.

A special compartment was set up within the mosque compound to let the dog stay while Mohammed went to pray.

Perak mufti Tan Sri Dr Harussani Zakaria said Muslims were allowed to keep dogs if they were trained to be guard dogs, to watch over the garden (kebun) or to be seeing-eye dogs.

"It is said in a hadith that the angels do not like the barking of dogs and will not enter a house in which a dog is kept. But that does not mean that we cannot keep them for certain purposes."

"We are permitted to keep them, as long as they are not kept in the house, and we have to sertu if we touch them when they are wet."

Sertu, he said, is the act of washing the skin with water six times and with a mixture of water and earth once.

It is often mistaken for the term samak, which is the act of cleaning an animal's skin with rough materials such as sand or ashes.

*******************************************

Tidak boleh buat fatwa berdasar andaian – Mufti

(Harakah Daily) - Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan tidak boleh mengeluarkan sesuatu fatwa hanya berdasarkan andaian atau laporan akhbar semata-mata.

Mufti Pulau Pinang, Datuk Seri Hassan Ahmad berkata, dalam menyelesaikan isu yang disebut sebagai 'Amanat Haji Hadi', Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan perlu bersemuka dengan Presiden PAS itu sendiri.

"Ia mesti mengikut prosedur. Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi perlu dijemput untuk berbincang dan bagi mendapatkan penjelasan. Ia tidak boleh diselesaikan mengikut andaian," katanya dipetik Sinar Harian Online.

Semalam,  Datuk Seri Tuan Guru Abdul Hadi berkata, sejak 31 tahun lalu, beliau langsung tidak pernah menerima apa-apa surat atau dipanggil untuk memberi keterangan kepada Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan berhubung petikan ucapannya yang dibuat di Banggol Peradong, Terengganu, 31 tahun yang lalu yang kemudian dipopularkan pihak tertentu sebagai 'amanat' itu.

Katanya, tindakan itu tidak adil bagi dirinya kerana tidak diberi peluang menjelaskan perkara sebenar berhubung polemik itu sehingga kini.

Sebelum ini hanya Majlis Fatwa Negeri Melaka, yang mengeluarkan fatwa berhubung amanat itu yang diwartakan pada tahun 2002.

Sebaliknya tiada fatwa khusus di peringkat Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan berhubung perkara itu.

Mengulas fatwa yang dikeluarkan di peringkat negeri itu, Hassan berkata, Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan tidak boleh bergantung kepada fatwa yang dikeluarkan oleh majlis fatwa di peringkat negeri.

Kuasa mengeluarkan fatwa, katanya, adalah kuasa negeri dan fatwa yang dikeluarkan oleh Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan tidak semestinya satu keputusan mutlak kerana kuasa agama kekal di bawah kuasa negeri.

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 20)

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 06:01 PM PST

Haji Hamid and I discussed this matter and it was agreed that if the police do arrest and charge Dr Wan Azizah then I would have to admit that I had, in fact, smuggled Anwar's blood, urine, hair and fingernail samples into Australia. Then the Melbourne pathologist office can make their test results official. This would save Dr Wan Azizah from the charge of making a false police report but I would instead face the risk of being charged for smuggling.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Anwar's trial is halted by arsenic claim

(The Independent, UK, 11 September 1999) - Malaysia politician Anwar Ibrahim is being poisoned with arsenic by the authorities while in prison, his lawyer said yesterday at the trial of the former deputy prime minister on sodomy charges.

Karpal Singh said secret tests on Anwar's urine proved that the politician, who is already serving six years for corruption, has an alarming level of arsenic in his body. "I suspect some people in high places, in all likelihood, are responsible for his condition," Mr Singh said. "The family and Anwar Ibrahim are alarmed. He is in jeopardy of his life."

The trial was adjourned by Judge Ariffin Jaka, who ordered that Anwar, 52, be taken to hospital for tests. Later, Mr Singh showed a report said to be from an Australian pathology lab, indicating the urine sample tested had 77 times more arsenic than normal human urine.

Anwar's relatives somehow obtained a urine sample and smuggled it out last month using a false name, Mr Singh said. The lab report carried the name Subramaniam and an age of 59.

Before the hearing was adjourned indefinitely, prosecutors said there was no proof that Anwar was being poisoned in prison. Arsenic could have entered his body through food given to him by family and friends in court, the Attorney General, Mohtar Abdullah, said

Anwar flew into a rage at that, pounding the wooden railing of the dock and stamping his feet. "Fed by my wife! I was poisoned by Azizah!" he shrieked ironically, referring to his wife, who heads an opposition party that has vowed to end the government's 18-year rule.

Anwar is accused of sodomising his former family driver. He says the sex and corruption charges are part of a political conspiracy to end his challenge to the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad. He faces up to 20 more years in prison if convicted of sodomy.

Anwar was arrested on 20 September last year, 18 days after the Prime Minister fired him. He was beaten on the night of his arrest by the police chief of Malaysia.

When the judge asked Anwar how he felt, he said: "I am generally all right, I am not feeling any pain, but certainly I am not my usual self." Anwar said he had lost weight and hair, symptoms he connected to arsenic poisoning. His wife later said he lost 9kg (19lb) this year.

"This is attempted murder," said Azizah. "I'm very alarmed, very frightened, to learn that his life is in danger."

The Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said that he had ordered an immediate investigation.

Anwar Ibrahim (R) smiles as he arrives at hospital under guard in Kuala Lumpur September 10. Anwar was taken to the hospital on Friday after his lawyer Karpal Singh said a pathologist in Australia had found arsenic in Anwar's urine.

Anwar Ibrahim, second from left, is welcomed by staff of National University Hospital on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur as he arrives for his medical test Friday, Sept. 10, 1999.

Anwar Ibrahim, center, waves to his supporters as he was discharged from National University Hospital where he was admitted to be checked for possible arsenic poisoning, Monday, Oct. 4, 1999 in Kuala Lumpur.

*********************************************

I can't quite remember the exact day in August 1999 it was, but I know it was a Friday and before the 10th of September 1999, the day the arsenic poisoning of Anwar Ibrahim issue exploded.

I remember it was a Friday because I had just returned from my Friday prayers when I received a phone call from Anwar's MCKK classmate, Haji Hamid Rashid, who was also my 'boss'.

I was then working in the R&D division of Parti Keadilan Nasional (now called Parti Keadilan Rakyat or PKR), basically a psychological-warfare (psywar) unit to handle the Internet media war long before the advent of Blogs or new portals such as Malaysiakini.

At that time there were only 280,000 Internet subscribers in Malaysia compared to 15 million or so today. Nevertheless, we saw the importance of the Internet long before Umno realised it in 2008 and we decided to get in from the ground floor because he who is first 'controls the market', so to speak.

Haji Hamid's phone call was rather strange. Normally he would drop in to the PKR office at Phileo Damansara -- a building owned by Anwar crony, Datuk Ravi Dharan, one-time Samy Vellu crony who made millions as a Barisan Nasional stooge -- and we would hold our discussions in a special 'bug-proof' room.

Haji Hamid never considered the phone a safe medium of discussion as the powers-that-be can listen in on whatever we discuss. Hence that phone call was most unusual. And the discussion was even stranger.

"No names!" said Haji Hamid. "Meet me now at the PJ Hilton car park. No further explanation."

I jumped onto my motorcycle, a Yamaha Virago, and rushed to the PJ Hilton. I arrived there in less than 15 minutes, parked my bike, and hung around. There was no sign of Haji Hamid so I thought that maybe I was early.

After waiting for about 10 minutes or so my phone rang and Haji Hamid said, "Turn and face the highway." I was facing the PJ Hilton, expecting Haji Hamid to come from there. I turned to face the highway as instructed and I saw someone hiding behind one of the pillars of the flyover. He signalled to me to come over.

I walked over and as I got closer I could see that it was Haji Hamid. Apparently he had arrived before me but he wanted to monitor me before showing himself lest I was followed.

Haji Hamid then explained that Anwar had been poisoned with arsenic. They had secretly taken some of Anwar's blood, urine, hair and fingernail samples and had sent them to the Melbourne for testing under the name of Subramaniam and the tests proved that Anwar had a high level of arsenic in his system.

They then tried to send a second set of samples, this time in Anwar's name, but the Malaysian police had found out and had intercepted and confiscated them before they could leave the country.

Now Anwar was under close monitoring so no one could get to him for another set of samples. However, what the police did not know is there was a third set of samples. But these cannot be sent through the normal channels because the police were monitoring all the courier companies. Hence they needed to be smuggled out.

Haji Hamid explained that none of Anwar's family dared smuggle the samples out because the minute they try to leave the country they will be stopped and subjected to a 100% check. Haji Hamid wanted me to help find someone who can act as a smuggler.

I told Haji Hamid it would be too risky to trust someone else to do this job and that I had better do it myself.

We walked in to the PJ Hilton and asked the concierge to check flights to Melbourne, Australia. The earliest available flight was Monday. Haji Hamid told the concierge to make the flight booking, who asked me the name of the passenger. Haji Hamid pointed to me and the concierge replied, "Raja Petra, right?"

Haji Hamid went pale. Haji Hamid told the concierge to hold on and he pulled me aside. "He knows who you are," Haji Hamid said. "It's too dangerous. We need to abort."

I assured Haji Hamid that he had nothing to worry about. Clearly the concierge was one of us since he knows who I am. Reluctantly Haji Hamid agreed to proceed but he cautioned me that if I got caught I was on my own. I assured Haji Hamid that he would not get dragged into this if I got caught.

The flight booking for Monday was done and we went back to the car park. Haji Hamid then handed me a polystyrene box with a sealed container submerged in dry ice inside it. "Put this in the fridge until your flight on Monday night," he told me. "But do not break the seal."

I went home and emptied the fridge in my bedroom and placed the sealed box inside it. "What the hell are you doing?" my wife Marina asked. I explained to Marina what was going on. "You are storing Anwar's piss in my fridge?" she asked.

"Well, look at it this way," I replied, "one day when Anwar becomes Prime Minister and when he complains that I piss him off we can remind him that when he was in prison we were the trustee to his piss. Hence we have every right to piss him off."

On Monday night Marina drove me to the airport and I tried to look as cool as I could when I checked in. "Any luggage?" they asked me. "Only this box, which I will hand carry," I replied.

I walked through the security check and immigration clearance. They X-rayed the box and allowed it through. There was also no 'red flag' on my passport. I breathed a long sigh of relief as I walked onto the plane and sat down. My last two days were filled with visions of getting stopped or arrested but it was plain sailing with no hiccups.

I arrived at Melbourne airport and phoned the number that Haji Hamid had given me. The man at the other end asked me my name and said he would call me back in a few minutes. He then called up Haji Hamid to verify my identity and then called me back with instructions on where I was supposed to go.

I jumped into a taxi and headed for the place. The person I had spoken to earlier, one of Anwar's Malaysian lawyers, was waiting outside the gate. He then escorted me in and told me he is not allowed to touch the box I was carrying.

We went to the pathologist's office where a local Australian lawyer was waiting. They asked me to place the box on the table and then took photographs of the box from all angles. The Australian lawyer then inspected the seal and confirmed that it had not been broken or tampered with.

In the presence of both the Malaysian and Australian lawyers, they broke the seal and removed the contents from the box. I waited while they did a test on the samples and confirmed that there was indeed a high level of arsenic.

Nevertheless, the test would have to be 'off the record'. This was because not only were the samples smuggled out of Malaysia but they were also smuggled into Australia, which was a crime. The only way they could make the test official would be if I were to declare that I had smuggled them into Australia. But that would mean I would also be admitting that I had committed a crime and would have to face arrest.

The rest of the story is in The Independent news report of 11th September 1999 (above).

When this issue exploded on 10th September 1999, the Malaysian police interrogated Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who had made a police report on the matter, and threatened to arrest and charge her for the crime of making a false police report.

Haji Hamid and I discussed this matter and it was agreed that if the police do arrest and charge Dr Wan Azizah then I would have to admit that I had, in fact, smuggled Anwar's blood, urine, hair and fingernail samples into Australia. Then the Melbourne pathologist office can make their test results official. This would save Dr Wan Azizah from the charge of making a false police report but I would instead face the risk of being charged for smuggling.  

Fortunately the Malaysian police did not carry through with their threat of arresting and charging Dr Wan Azizah for the crime of making a false police report and I was spared the agony of having to face a charge of smuggling. I hear that the Australian government does not take too kindly to those caught smuggling human tissue samples into Australia.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 1)

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 2) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 3) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 4) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 5) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 6) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 7) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 8) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 9) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 10) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 11)  

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 12) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 13) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 14) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 15) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 16) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 17) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 18) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 19) 

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 19)

Posted: 01 Jan 2013 05:44 PM PST

I was totally sold on the idea, so much so that a couple of years later I joined the Iranians in Mekah to protest against America and the Saudi government, the stooge of the Americans. My commitment to Islam, PAS and the Islamic State was absolute. And Anwar was going to lead this Islamic Revolution of Malaysia and turn Malaysia into the Islamic Republic of Malaysia.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Some say that Anwar Ibrahim and I have a love-hate relationship. I suppose this is true in some ways. It is probably because after 'travelling the same road' for 50 years since 1963, so to speak, there are many things about each other that we can no longer tolerate.

Back in the 1960s, when we were in the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), Anwar demonstrated strong anti-British tendencies. This, of course, irritated me like hell because I always felt more British than Malay. Hence I took very personal his anti-British rhetoric.

You see; I was the only 'Mat Salleh' in MCKK at that time so I considered Anwar's anti-British stand as a personal attack. And the fact that Anwar's classmates (who were three years my senior) threw stale bread at me and shouted "Hoi, Mat Salleh sesat!" made it even worse, even though Anwar did tell them, "Janganlah kacau dia."

And that is one reason why just two and half years later, halfway through form three, I left MCKK to join the Victoria Institution (VI). I felt I had no place in a 'Malay school'. I hated the MCKK and was very happy when, in form three, I transferred to the VI and was able to surround myself with non-Malay friends.

That ended my relationship with the MCKK and hence with Anwar Ibrahim as well.

In 1974, my family moved to Kuala Terengganu. Family then meant my wife and one-year-old daughter, Suraya. Later my mother-in-law joined us and stayed with us till the day she died. She converted to Islam just before she died and was buried in Masjid Kolam, Kuala Ibai, Kuala Terengganu.

1974 was the same year that Anwar was detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA). We talked about it, of course, but his detention never bothered me. In fact, I felt that they should not only detain him but they should throw away the key as well. After all, Anwar was the one who used to whack the British ten years before that back in 1964 when we were in the MCKK (I was in 'The Big School' in form 2 and he was in form 5 when I first heard him speak).

We must remember that Anwar was the President of the Muslim students association or Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM). He was also the President of University Malaya's Malay language association or Persatuan Bahasa Melayu Universiti Malaya (PBMUM). Furthermore, he was one of the founding members of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia or Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM).

I used to live in Bangsar, not far from the University Malaya, and I would go to see the demonstrations that they organised. I would take photographs of these demonstrations (I still have the photos, all black and white, though). I also saw all the English language signboards and road signs that they vandalised by painting them over with red paint.

Therefore, as far as I was concerned, Anwar was an anti-British, Malay supremacist racist. I heard him talk and I saw him in action at those demonstrations. He deserved what he got and the government should keep him locked up for a very, very long time.

About 20 months later, Anwar was released from detention. He then took over the leadership of ABIM and started campaigning against Umno and the government. A year or so later, as I had written many times, I 'discovered' Islam and became a 'Born Again' Muslim.

I soon began to attend the ceramah or rallies organised by PAS. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution of Iran rocked the world and I got dragged in to 'political Islam'. I strongly believed that Islam is not a religion but a way of life or adeen. And this adeen involves the setting up of an Islamic system of government a la Iran.

Anwar attended some of those PAS ceramah as a guest speaker and I was mesmerised by what he said. Man, could he talk! Back in the early 1960s he would 'talk bad' about the British. By the late 1970s he was whacking Umno and Barisan Nasional and was espousing the virtues of Islam and an Islamic State.

I was totally sold on the idea, so much so that a couple of years later I joined the Iranians in Mekah to protest against America and the Saudi government, the stooge of the Americans. My commitment to Islam, PAS and the Islamic State was absolute. And Anwar was going to lead this Islamic Revolution of Malaysia and turn Malaysia into the Islamic Republic of Malaysia.

And this cannot be achieved by mere rhetoric. It has to be a bloody revolution. People must die, thousands of people, like in Iran.

I was so bold as to even declare to an Umno man, Dr Zakaria, in a gathering at the Sultan of Terengganu's palace, that we must line up all the Umno people against a wall and shoot them dead.

Dr Zakaria was flabbergasted. He shook his head and walked away. The head of ITM Dungun, Ibrahim, who was standing beside us, pulled me away and whispered to me that I should be careful with what I say. That type of talk can get me sent to Kamunting.

What is Kamunting? Nothing! We are talking about blood flowing on the streets. We are talking about shooting dead 20,000 corrupt people like they did in Iran. We will burn down Kamunting together with the Prime Minister's house, then Hussein Onn, of course.

Then, in 1981, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over as Prime Minister. Soon after that Anwar 'abandoned the cause' and joined Umno. We were walking around in a daze like a cucaracha sprayed with Shelltox or, as the Malays would say, macam anak ayam hilang emak ayam.

Not long after that I went to Mekah to find peace with myself. I needed to contemplate where our so-called Islamic Revolution was now heading with the loss of our 'Imam Khomeini of Malaysia'. I now felt only hatred for Anwar and my new perjuangan was to see the destruction of this traitor to our cause named Anwar Ibrahim, and his boss, Dr Mahathir.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 1)

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 2) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 3) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 4) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 5) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 6) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 7) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 8) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 9) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 10) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 11)  

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 12) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 13) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 14) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 15) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 16) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 17) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 18) 

 

Seeing is believing

Posted: 30 Dec 2012 05:27 PM PST

Note one thing: your perception is influenced by your values and standards. It is not about what the other person is. It is about what you are. If you think drinking is bad then your perception of someone who drinks would be bad. If you think that capitalism is bad then your perception of a capitalist would be bad. If you think that fundamentalism is bad then your perception of a fundamentalist Muslim would be bad.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

And Malaysia's 2012 Word of the Year is ...

Perception.

That is what a Malaysian is told this year when reporting a robbery or a snatch theft and believing that this means crime is on the rise in what has been one of the safest countries in Southeast Asia.

That is what a Malaysian is told this year when complaining about rising graft or rising cost of living and thinking that the country is sinking through global indices in what is supposedly an Asian tiger of a nation.

Perception. The reality, according to the authorities, is that statistics this year shows that crime in Malaysia has dipped. Graft in Malaysia has also dipped and the authorities are going after those in the private sector now.

And the economy is rising, so that means more money in the pocket. Not only that, the government has been dishing one-off cash handouts of RM500 to households earning up to RM3,000 a month.

Yet, how many cases of robberies and snatch theft have we heard that occur in urban areas, especially near traffic lights? Is it a case of being more aware because of social media, as some authorities claim, despite official statistics showing a drop in crime?

How about living costs outstripping wages? How do you try to fathom a nation with an annual five per cent economic expansion and a policy of subsidising food and fuel that still needs to give cash handouts?

And the cheek to tell someone who has been robbed, or having to pay a bribe or pay more for groceries that it is just their perception that it is getting worse is just putting salt to the wound.

It is too easy to blame social media for such tales to turn viral. It is too easy to tell people to be more careful and take steps to be more vigilant and complain about corrupt practices and profiteering.

Also too easy to just announce policies and initiatives without ensuring they are implemented to the letter. Putting more boots on the ground, going after the big fish in corruption cases and targeting subsidies to specific demographics rather than an elephant gun spray of goodies for news headlines.

To be fair, Putrajaya has been taking action. There is a raft of policies and laws in place to cut crime, reduce graft and living costs. But the efforts do not seem to bear fruit as fast as they have been promised or implemented.

And this is where the word "perception" can bite the authorities or the government of the day.

The perception that it isn't doing enough or doing things fast enough to make a difference.

There are a slew of projects under various abbreviations but the change isn't being felt because it takes time for housing projects to finish or industries to rise and people to get better paying jobs.

Therein lies the irony, that nothing is as instant as perception.

Jahabar Sadiq, The Malaysian Insider

****************************************

Yes, what Jahabar Sadiq wrote today in his editorial in The Malaysian Insider is very true. Everything in life is about perception -- and more so when it comes to politics. Politics is built on perception.

The perception that Communism is bad and Capitalism is good is what we grew up with. So, if we want to frighten someone, all we need to do is accuse him or her of being a Communist and he/she will back off and tone down.

My question would be: so what if I am a Communist? What is wrong with being a Communist? If I declare that I am a Communist that is as good as declaring that I am a Pariah because the perception is that those who are Communists are Pariahs. Hence if someone accuses me of being a Communist I would deny it even if I do believe in Communism because Communists are outcasts.

Do you believe in God? Many people do. But not all humans believe in God. It is estimated that only about half of humankind believe in God. But less than 10% of the people will openly admit that they do not believe in God. And this is because the perception is if you do not believe in God then you cannot be a good person. Hence, to avoid being labelled as a bad person, you will never admit that you do not believe in God although in reality you do not believe in God.

Do you know that 30 years ago back in the 1980s Mercedes Benz started assembling its S Class in Malaysia? This is because Malaysians used to buy (I do not know whether they still do) the most number of S Class models per capita in the world. Hence Malaysia was the only other country outside Germany that assembled the S Class.

To Malaysians, if you drive the S Class Mercedes Benz or the 7 series BMW then the perception would be you have arrived. You have made it. You are successful. Maybe your liabilities exceed your assets, which means you are technically bankrupt, but the car you drive gives people the perception that you are successful so everyone wants to do business with you.

There is also the perception that if we change the government, meaning we kick out Barisan Nasional, Malaysia would be a better place to live. Foreigners who come to Malaysia for the first time and who see the way Malaysians behave would probably never come to that conclusion. For example, seeing the way Malaysians drive is evidence enough that Malaysians are inconsiderate, rude, arrogant, only care about themselves, and much more.

Malaysians are absolutely ill bred and uncultured. Hence changing the government will not make Malaysia a better place.  It may help to reduce corruption slightly but not eliminate it totally. But it will never make Malaysia a better place.

A better country is not just subject to the government it has. It is very dependent on the people in that country. England changed its system of government more than 400 years ago back in 1649. It kicked out its monarch and turned England into a republic.

Did that make England a better place? The people were still the same. The mentality was still the same. The people never changed. Hence, while they may have changed the government, the country did not become a better place. Therefore the perception that by changing the government the country becomes a better place is a fallacy if the people themselves refuse to change.

And what perception do you get from this statement I just made? Your perception would be therefore I am saying DO NOT change the government. Is this what I said? This is the perception you get although this is not what I said.

And why do you get this perception? You get this perception because you refuse to admit that the fault with the country lies with its people. You want to believe that what is wrong with the country is someone else's fault, not your own fault. Hence you put the blame on the government. If not then you will have to admit that it is your own fault.

This is due to a disease called denial syndrome. Most Malaysians suffer from this disease. It is a disease where you blame others for what went wrong rather than admit that what went wrong is your fault.

Most Muslims will say that Islam suffers from a perception problem. Islam is a victim of bad publicity. And they will blame the western media for this. The western media is giving the perception that 'Islam is the new Communism'. And since Communism is the Pariah therefore Islam would also be perceived as the Pariah.

But it is not Islam that is at fault, Muslims will say. It is the fault of a minority of Muslims who have given Islam a bad name. This minority has dragged Islam through the mud. The majority of Muslims are not like that. But the western media is giving the perception that it is Islam and not a minority of Muslims that is bad.

However, that is not the perception that the non-Muslims have. Most non-Muslims perceive Islam as a bad religion. The fruit of a poisonous tree would be poisonous, they will argue. Hence it is Islam itself and not just a handful of Muslims who is at fault.

So, is Islam the victim of negative perception that has given the religion a bad image? Or is Islam itself fundamentally flawed? The answer depends on whether you are a Muslim or not and hence how you perceive Islam is subject to this crucial point.

We perceive PERKASA as a racist organisation. We do not perceive Dong Zong and Hindraf as also racist organisations. Why is that? PERKASA fights for Islam and the Malay language. Dong Zong fights for Chinese education and the Chinese language. Hindraf fights for the Tamils and Hinduism. So why are not all three organisations classified as racist organisations? Why is only PERKASA a racist organisation but not the others?

Barisan Nasional is a racist party. Pakatan Rakyat is not a racist party. Has Pakatan Rakyat agreed to remove Islam as the official religion of Malaysia? Has Pakatan Rakyat agreed to remove the Malay language as the official language of Malaysia? Why do we even need an official religion and official language when other democracies all over the world do not have official religions and official languages?

Education Ministers have always been Malay. Why is that? In a democracy where meritocracy should prevail the abilities and not the race of that person should be the deciding factor.

Can Pakatan Rakyat announce that it would appoint a Chinese as the Education Minister? Why not? Why can't a Chinese become the Education Minister and why can't Pakatan Rakyat agree to this and make a public announcement on the matter?

In fact, why can't we have a non-politician as an Education Minister? Can we give that job to one of the leading academicians? We want the best education system. We do not want education to be used as a political tool and to brainwash Malaysians.

The problem with Malaysia is the mentality and attitude of its people. Changing the government will not help if the mindset of the people remain the same. Hence we need to do a massive overhaul of our education system. And we can't trust a politician to do this.

Yes, it is all about perception. And the perception is that everything involving the government is bad while everything involving the opposition is good. And PERKASA supports the government so it is bad. Dong Zong and Hindraf support the opposition so they are good.

What if Dong Zong and Hindraf announce that they will support anyone who agrees to their agenda? And what if Pakatan Rakyat disagrees with their agenda while Barisan Nasional agrees to it? And since their agenda is what matters Dong Zong and Hindraf now support Barisan Nasional and they announce so. Would Dong Zong and Hindraf still be considered good or are they now just like PERKASA, a racist organisation? What will your perception of Dong Zong and Hindraf be?

Note one thing: your perception is influenced by your values and standards. It is not about what the other person is. It is about what you are. If you think drinking is bad then your perception of someone who drinks would be bad. If you think that capitalism is bad then your perception of a capitalist would be bad. If you think that fundamentalism is bad then your perception of a fundamentalist Muslim would be bad.

Whether something or someone is good or bad is not about whether it is really good or bad but about your interpretation of good and bad. If I perceive all religions as bad then I would have a very low opinion of religionists. Religionists, however, would perceive me as a Godless person and someone who cannot be trusted.

And if I support Hindraf on it latest stand that it will not support either Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat unless they support Hindraf's agenda how would you perceive me? Am I a true democrat who fights for the oppressed minority or am I a traitor to the cause? The question is: which cause are you using to come to this conclusion, Hindraf's cause or your own cause?

Yes, your perception is guided by your interest. You will have a good perception of someone when it suits your agenda and you will have a bad perception of that person when it conflicts with your agenda. Perceptions are not real. And that is why most of you perceive that you are going to heaven because you are following the true and correct religion. And is this not why Malaysians are fighting over who has the right to use the word 'Allah'?

 

My response to Alan Yeap of Taiwan

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 12:06 AM PST

So you see, you must suffer some loss of reputation or have suffered a financial loss by what I said about you. But if what I said has nothing to do with you but was about someone else and you suffered nothing from what I said how could you sue me? What is your locus standi? And what has the political party you support or do not support got to do with this?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

EDITOR: Many of you were not born yet in 1957 and yet you make so much noise about Article 153. Why apply different standards for different people?

RPK, do you realize how consistently inconsistent you really are? By the way, May 13 tragedy happened in 1969 and not 1957.

I remember reading your article on this tragedy and that you yourself interviewed Tunku Abdul Rahman in person. You got your article published in Harakah and this was repeated in your blog not too long ago when you were the RPK that people looked up to.

I have to honestly say that I don't know what Article 153 is. I assume it to be the May 13 tragedy.

EDITOR: You can't simply sue The Edge. You need locus standi and must prove you have been personally injured. Why are Pakatan supporters so stupid? Janganlah buka mulut kalau jahil. Malulah!

RPK, you were once an avid supporter of Pakatan and even risked your own safety canvassing and helping them win handsomely. You even got sent to Kamunting for that cause. I won't repeat your last two phrases. It sounds too …… demeaning.

****************************************************

That was Alan Yeap's comment, which he posted from the Shangri La Far Eastern Plaza Hotel in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

First of all, when someone accuses me of being consistently inconsistent, he or she has to be specific and offer some examples. I may be accused of being cheong hei (longwinded), but at least there is no confusion as to what I am trying to say.

If I were to say that the DAP leaders are not sincere, that would be a sweeping and very vague statement. Such an allegation would need examples to support what I say. In what way are they insincere and what is it they have done and/or said to give me the impression that they are insincere? To make a sweeping and vague statement is just not acceptable. That, sometimes, is the advantage of being cheong hei. You go into details and throw in a lot of examples to support whatever statement you make.

Thus, where is my inconsistency? Did I say yesterday that Islam is the best religion and today I say that Islam is the worse religion? That would be inconsistent for sure. So give me your examples.

Alan Yeap said that May 13 occurred in 1969 and not in 1957. I don't know why Alan Yeap is telling me something that I already know. The whole of Malaysia knows it was in 1969. After all, I am not only a student of history but I have written many articles about May 13. Hence I know that May 13 was in 1969 and not in 1957. And I never said that May 13 was in 1957. So I do not know what gave Alan Yeap the impression that I said it was in 1957 and not in 1969.

As for the second part of Alan Yeap's comment, I said something else and he responded with something totally unrelated to what I said. What has what he said got to do with what I said?

Alan Yeap challenged Khairy Jamaluddin to sue The Edge. Why are the Pakatan Rakyat supporters asking this person and that person to sue this, that or the other? You scream about freedom of speech and how Barisan Nasional and the government do not respect freedom of speech. And then you ask people to sue other people to stifle freedom of speech.

You have to decide whether you do want freedom of speech or not. You can't keep asking people to sue other people every time they give their opinion. Now, if they slander you that is another thing. If they say you cheated your company or you had an affair with your secretary and this is not true then you have every right to sue them. But you can't sue people for expressing their opinion.

I don't think that giving out ang paus in white envelopes during Chinese New Year is bad luck or that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. That is my opinion. But do you sue me just because that is my opinion and because I expressed my opinion?

I can even say that I think you are silly for believing in such things but that is still not grounds to sue me. What if I were to say that I do not believe that God exists and I am of the opinion that all those people who believe in such nonsense are silly people? Can you sue me for that?

Slander is one thing. That hurts you and you can sue me if I lied. But my opinion is my opinion and you can't sue me for that. Can I sue you because you said that all those who do not accept Christ will never go to heaven and only those who accept Christ will be saved and will get to see heaven? You have just insinuated that I will be going to hell and you have hurt my feelings. But is that grounds enough for me to sue you?

You cannot scream about wanting freedom of speech/opinion/expression and at the same time threaten to sue everyone when they express any opinion that differ from yours. And to sue someone you must have locus standi and whatever was said must have hurt you personally. This has nothing to do with whether you support Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional.

Can you sue me if I were to say that the Japanese committed a lot of atrocities in Nanjing during WWII? First of all, it was true. Secondly, are you Japanese and are you personally hurt by my statement? Has your reputation suffered or did you suffer financial loss because of my statement regarding the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing?

So you see, you must suffer some loss of reputation or have suffered a financial loss by what I said about you. But if what I said has nothing to do with you but was about someone else and you suffered nothing from what I said how could you sue me? What is your locus standi? And what has the political party you support or do not support got to do with this?

Finally, I do not know how long Alan Yeap has been living in Taiwan but it must have been for quite some time since he does not know what Article 153 is. Or is Alan Yeap Taiwanese rather than Malaysian and that is why he does not know what Article 153 is?

Anyway, my response was specifically regarding those people who say that Khairy should not talk about May 13 since it happened in 1969 and he was not born yet then (he was born in 1976). In that case can I comment about things that happened during WWII since I was born in 1950? And what about those who were born after Merdeka in 1957 and yet make comments about Article 153? Do they have a right to talk about a matter that happened before they were born?

Those are the issues. The first issue is about suing someone who gives his or her opinion and the second issue is about telling someone not to comment about something that happened before he or she was born. Tony Pua was born in 1972 and Hannah Yeoh in 1979. Going by the standards we apply for Khairy, Tony and Hannah also have to stop talking about a lot of things. After all, all these things they are talking about happened before they were born.

But then this 'don't talk about something that happened before you were born' is only a rule for Umno people and does not apply to opposition people. And when I point this out they respond with: do you no longer support the opposition? What shallow thinking and narrow-minded mentality?

Wrong is wrong and should not be only wrong for those who are pro-government but right for those who are anti-government. Why can't these people understand something so simple and so basic?

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 18)

Posted: 23 Dec 2012 05:02 PM PST

If Syed Hamid had accepted the court's decision and had left me alone then my move to the UK would have been delayed, at least by more than a year or even two years. But because he wanted me back in Kamunting he left me no choice but to leave the country earlier than planned. And because of that Marina's cancer had been detected probably two years earlier than it would have.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

We would like to believe that we are masters of our own destiny. Sure, there is such a thing called fate. But we would like to believe that we decide our own fate. Man proposes but God disposes is seldom a concept that we think about until after the event. And even then we always look at external events that influenced these changes to blame for that failure.

Are there such things called silver linings in dark clouds? I suppose those who believe in blessings would categorise it as a blessing in disguise. But why must blessings come in disguise? Why can't blessings come dressed in labels so that we can recognise them when they arrive rather than much later down the road long after the event?

We all have dreams. Those who no longer dream are those who have died, said the late Tun Abdul Ghafar Baba, one time Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. As long as we breathe we will still dream, explained the Tun. Hence to dream is what spurs us. The day we stop dreaming is the day we stop living, figure of speech, of course.

My dream was to ride my motorcycle from Malaysia to the UK. That never happened. I plotted and I planned, but God is the greatest plotter of all, as the Qur'an says. Hence whatever we say must always be tempered with the phrase Insha Allah (God willing or if God wills it) lest we tempt fate. Don't the English always say 'touch wood' to avoid the mischief by the devil of the trees that humankind worshipped in the days before 'Holy Books and 'Abrahamic Faiths'?

My father died, I had to seek employment to support myself, I got married, my first child Raja Suraya arrived, all within a space of two years to make that bike ride from Kuala Lumpur to London a dream that would never come true. Maybe I would still do it one day. Maybe I will still live my dream. But that would have to wait. It would now no longer be what I do before I begin my life. It would have to be something I do before I end my life. It would be what I do once I retire.

And so my wife, Marina, and I planned that retirement. But how would I interpret 'retirement'? I suppose retirement would be something that I stop doing. It would be a change of lifestyle of sorts. I would no longer do what I am doing now. I would stop doing what I am doing and do nothing. And then I would fill that empty space with something new.

But when should I retire and what do I do to fill in that time of retirement? Marina and I discussed it many times and for quite some time. This was during the height of the Reformasi days. Retirement would be when I reached 60. And that would, therefore, be after 2010. And when I retire we would move to England, buy a second hand Mini Cooper, and then tour Europe.

Okay, this is not quite riding my motorcycle from Malaysia to the UK. But that was my dream when I was still just 20. At 60, dreams have to be modified slightly. It was no longer just about me but would include Marina as well. And at 60 my bones were no longer what they used to be when I was 20. Hence driving my Mini Cooper all over Europe may be less taxing on my body than riding a motorcycle from Kuala Lumpur to London. And I doubt sitting on the back seat of a motorcycle for almost 10,000 miles would have been Marina's idea of fun.

The groundwork for our eventual move to the UK was laid in December 2001 soon after my first ISA detention that same year when we relocated two of our sons to Manchester. Three years later, in November 2004, soon after Malaysia Today was launched, Marina and I made a trip to Manchester together with our youngest, Raja Sara, to see how the boys were getting on. Were they happy in the UK? Would they like to stay on or would they like to return to Malaysia? Could our youngest join them later to continue her education in the UK?

It was decided that the move to the UK was viable after all. The children were okay with living in the UK and we found that life in Manchester was tolerable enough as a life of retirement. Another three years later, in 2007, we bought a family home in Manchester. There was no turning back now. Come 2010, when I reach 60, we would pack our bags and build a new life for ourselves in Manchester.

The following year, in 2008, I was detained under the ISA a second time. My sons wanted to return to Malaysia but Marina told them to stay on. The detention will not be forever. Probably in two years time, by 2010, I would be released. We would then join the family in Manchester.

I was, however, released earlier. After only two months the court declared my detention illegal and ordered my release. The Minister, Syed Hamid Albar, an old friend of 30 years, was outraged. They tried appealing my release and when that appeared to go awry Syed Hamid signed a new Detention Order and wanted to detain me a third time.

This time I was not going to get off so easily. Syed Hamid realised his mistake and he was not going to make that same mistake again. He was going to make sure that the new Detention Order was airtight so that no court would find any loopholes to order my release. And that was when Marina decided that enough is enough and demanded that I leave the country.

It was a week of confrontation and negotiation. Marina finally gave me an ultimatum. Either I leave the country or else she was going to leave me. She had had enough of driving up to Kamunting every Saturday to visit me. She was going to leave Malaysia with or without me.

Finally I relented. We were going to leave in or soon after 2010 anyway. 2009 was only a year or two earlier than planned. What difference does one year make? We left on a Saturday night and by Sunday we were across the border. On Monday, the police arrived at my house to detain me. We had made it with just 24 hours to spare. Our information was spot on and we got out in the nick of time.

It took a month to sort out our papers so that we could travel to the UK. Finally, in March 2009, we arrived in Manchester. It was now time to settle down into a British way of life. We registered with the NI and NHS and also registered as a voter. We needed an identity, as we were still a non-entity.

The NHS sent us letters to go in for a medical examination. For women of a certain age they also offer to do a test for breast cancer. Marina ignored the first letter she received, as she did the second letter. By the third letter I persuaded her to go in for the test since it is free anyway. If not they might keep sending her letters until she responded.

We drove to the place and they did the test. They then sent Marina another letter asking her to go in for a more thorough test. They suspected she might have breast cancer after all. My blood ran cold. I knew what breast cancer can do to a woman. I have lost enough friends and family members to that scourge to know.

Further tests proved that Marina did, in fact, have breast cancer. But it was still within stage one-stage two. Hence the chance for recovery was good. They would need to remove the cancer through surgery and thereafter put her under radiotherapy treatment. She would also require five years of medication, which would cost a bomb in Malaysia but was free in the UK.

We met the surgeon who told us that it was lucky that they had detected the cancer early. Hence Marina's chances of recovery were greatly enhanced. It was still stage one-stage two. If it had gone to stage three, or worse, then the chances of recovery reduces drastically.

If Syed Hamid had accepted the court's decision and had left me alone then my move to the UK would have been delayed, at least by more than a year or even two years. But because he wanted me back in Kamunting he left me no choice but to leave the country earlier than planned. And because of that Marina's cancer had been detected probably two years earlier than it would have.

Cancer is about early detection. If you must get cancer then better you know early because it increases your chances of survival. As fate would have it, Marina's cancer was detected early because we were forced to bring forward our plan to retire more than a year or two years earlier than planned.

Yes, man proposes but God disposes. We can dream but not always do our dreams come true. My first dream to ride my motorcycle from Malaysia to the UK never came true. My second dream to retire in or soon after 2010 and then move to the UK once I am 60 also did not come true. Instead, it happened earlier, soon after I turned 58. But it was not one of choice. It was what I was forced to do.

On hindsight, Syed Hamid did me a favour. If he had left me alone I would have done nothing. But if I had done nothing would that have meant by the time they detected Marina's cancer two years later it would have been too late? I suppose that is what fate is all about. You never know. You can only talk about blessings in disguise. You can only talk about silver linings in dark clouds. As they say: the Lord moves in mysterious ways.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 1)

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 2) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 3) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 4) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 5) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 6) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 7) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 8) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 9) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 10) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 11)  

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 12) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 13) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 14) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 15) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 16) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 17) 

 

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News


Privatisation of Government Land: Ways of Skinning the Cat

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 01:02 PM PST

A Kadir Jasin

THERE are many ways to skin a cat, so goes an English saying. Since a fair number of today's political bigwigs are English educated, some spending many years in England, I believe they know its meaning.

I believe that the cat refers not to our lovable tabbies at home but to the big cats that the colonials loved to hunt – the tigers, lions, leopards, cheetahs and jaguars.

So when the government granted the privatisation of a 223.33-acre military land in Bukit Raja, Selangor, to a little-known private company, Awan Megah Sdn Bhd, which belongs to the Selangor Wanita Umno chief, Raja Ropiaah Raja Abdullah, turned into a mischief, it appears that it had not skinned the cat the right way.

And its silence on the vicious allegations that the family of the Prime Minister, Mohd Najib Abdul Razak, was involved with carpet dealer, Deepak Jaikishan, is deafening.

The spat between the Umno bigwig and Jaikishan, who claimed ownership of the land, saw the ghost of murdered Altantuya Shaariibuu and the second statutory declaration by the mysterious PI Bala being brought to live just as the general is around the corner.

In the process, carpet trader sued his business partner Raja Ropiah (which he recently claimed had been withdrawn) and published an online book about the deal in which dragged members of Mohd Najib's immediate family into the cesspool -- something that the opposition loves to embrace and the Barisan Nasional could not afford as the GE looms.

The sad thing is, the iconic Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) had been dragged in as well or, more appropriately, had been used solve the problem of the smelly carcass of the badly skinned big cat.

Its property development arm, Boustead Holdings Berhad, had stepped in to by the land and the concession that goes with it for a combined price tag of RM160 million.

I would not dare claim to know much about land appropriation and property development. But when I was briefly involved (as a junior partner) in the management buyout (MBO) of the New Straits Times Press Berhad (NSTP) and Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Berhad (TV3) back in the early 1990s, we were involved in the privatisation of the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station land that is today known as KL Sentral via the Bursa Malaysia-listed property developer, the Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad. Today, MRCB is owned by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and KL Sentral has become the showpiece of urban renewal. (I left NSTP and severed all relationship with MRCB/NSTP/TV3 groups in 2000).

Better Ways Of Privatising Government Land

There are certainly other better ways of privatising the Bukit Raja land and, for that matter, all military and government-owned landed properties. I have seen companies offering better terms for military land. For instance, from the outset they roped in the LTAT by forming or prosing to form joint venture companies in which the LTAT is the majority shareholder. The private sector companies that made these proposals are reputable Bursa Malaysia-listed companies.

In one case that I came across, a Bursa Malaysia-listed property developer proposed to acquire a piece of Ministry of Defence land and replace it with a piece of land of equal size elsewhere and build on it whatever is required by Mindef.

It also pledged to build a military enclave on the privatised site whereby serving and retired military personnel would be offered special discounts to buy houses and apartments.

But they were not always successful. People linked to political parties or have access to the inner circles were more likely to receive the privatisation and they would then sell the projects to developers for quick profits.

In the case of the Bukit Raja land, it was sold to Boustead. If indeed Boustead had been eyeing the land since 2005, as it was reported telling Bursa Malaysia, it should have made the bit itself instead of buying it from a vendor.

The moral of the story is, you either skin the big cat well or you will get scratched. In the worse case scenario, the dying cat may bite off your head.

READ MORE HERE

 

Graft, financial waste definitely wrong, be it RM30k or RM100m

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 12:49 PM PST

Jahabar Sadiq, The Malaysian Insider

The RM30,000 bribe to muzzle a complainant in a sexual harassment case in Penang has hit the headlines, reinforcing the point that no one in Malaysia should accept or tolerate corruption and any financial misconduct in the country.

So, while it is refreshing and laudatory to see mainstream newspapers reporting the Penang case that involves a civil servant and a political aide, questions remain why the local media is silent on the RM100 million National Defence Education Centre (Puspahanas).

Why are they wasting so much ink over RM30,000 and not a drop for the project which has seen government land being swapped and sold but no building in plain sight in Putrajaya.

Is RM100 million just change compared to the raft of multi-billion ringgit federal projects? But RM30,000 is a lot and makes news because it involves a political aide from the federal opposition?

What is the greater crime here? A company with no track record gets a RM100 million construction job in 2005 and is paid with three parcels of government land worth RM72.5 million and RM27 million cash. 

This company, which is Selangor Wanita Umno chief Senator Raja Datuk Ropiaah Abdullah's (picture) Awan Megah (M) Sdn Bhd, failed to build Puspahanas by 2011 but got to sell the land last month to a unit of public-listed Boustead Holdings Bhd, which is majority owned by army pension fund Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT).

Yet no one in government or the local media have raised a hue or cry about a facility that has yet to be completed? Or question how the Boustead unit can buy land which is apparently locked to Raja Ropiaah's firm that she had to work out complicated deals to fund her project.

By all means, expose corruption as little as the one that one that cost Teoh Beng Hock's life in 2009. And the latest one in Penang. Peg and assume reports that show Pakatan Rakyat (PR) also contains elements who are corrupt and not above to dirty tricks.

But go for the big fish too. How can anyone close their eye to the most daylight of robberies, a company that gets away with more money than the cost of the building it never built?

How can the Ministry of Defence keep quiet about this? How can the Ministry of Finance not say a word?

Public land is swapped for a prestigious national project but nothing gets done and everyone is as silent as the Puspahanas worksite.

The Barisan Nasional (BN) government has put eradicating graft as a top priority by beefing up the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and setting up more anti-graft courts.

READ MORE HERE

 

SUPP feels the heat over ‘unaccounted’ RM11 bil

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 12:33 PM PST

Sarawak United Peoples' Party (SUPP), hoping to redeem itself in the general election, must explain the secrecy behind the 'missing' RM11 bill from the state coffers.

Joseph Tawie, FMT

KUCHING: Sarawak DAP's flogging of the 'missing' RM11 billion from seven years of the state budget has got rival Sarawak United Peoples' Party (SUPP) all hot and furious.

Demanding that DAP 'show proof', SUPP Youth secretary-general Wilfred Yap said: "If the RM11 billion had indeed gone into a black hole as alleged, then that would amount to a criminal breach of trust, corruption, corrupt practice and abuse of power.

"DAP is being very irresponsible to the public at large in its intention to try to create or paint a picture of corrupt practice or abuse of power by the Sarawak government.

"They should produce evidence to either the police or MACC for investigation. Otherwise DAP should stop and refrain from manipulating and confusing the public just for votes."

Yap was reacting to opposition DAP's flush of flyers on the issue. Tens of thousand of copies of the flyers printed in English, Chinese and Malay have been distributed in Kuching, Bau, Serian and Sri Aman.

According to the flyer, launched late last week, since 2006, more than RM11.373 billion which was about 50% of the state development expenditure of RM23.281 billion, have gone into a 'black hole'.

The flyer and its content is now posing a major threat to SUPP which is aiming to redeem itself in the 13th general election after a disastrous outing in the state polls.

In a statement today, Yap who is tipped to contest the Stampin seat, challenged the opposition to name those responsible for the alleged malpractice.

"The figures quoted are from accounts of the Sarawak government which had already been audited by the National Audit Department.

"Any accountant worth two cents would understand that there is no such thing as itemisation of each individual grant or allocation to approved agencies or itemisation of each individual item of expenditure of approved agencies from the grant or allocation.

"The approved agencies have already been referred to as corporations, companies or organisations which had been approved to promote the economic, social or educational development in the state.

"It is also clear that the approved agencies are in turn audited by qualified accountants both from the public and private sectors. The lumps sum figure does not mean that it had gone into a black hole," he said adding that the issue might undermine his chances of retaining the seat.

DAP's rebuttal

Reacting to Yap's statement, Sarawak DAP secretary general Chong Chieng Jen urged Yap to do his homework before shooting his mouth.

"If Yap does not how to read the budgets or where to find them, I can show him. He can fix a time with me so that I can bring him to the State Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) where there are stacks of budgets in the DUN library," said Chong, who is the Kota Sentosa assemblyman.

READ MORE HERE

 

Government aid to be paid out between January and March

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 11:55 AM PST

http://starstorage.blob.core.windows.net/archives/2011/12/11/nation/n_3aid.jpg 

(Bernama) - Payment of various aid announced in the 2013 Budget would be held between January and March, said Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah.

He said this included the 1Malaysia People's Aid 2.0 (BR1M 2.0), Early Schooling Special Assistance, 1Malaysia Book Voucher and 1Malaysia Contribution for Veterans Without Pension (SVTB1M).

"In January, we will focus on schooling aid that involves schools nationwide. The BR1M 2.0 will be paid in February.

"We will then give out RM1,000 to veterans without pension, and this will be organised by the defence ministry through the Ex-Servicemen's Association," he told reporters here today.

He said distribution of 1Malaysia Book Vouchers to university students and Form Six students was expected in March.

However, Ahmad Husni said there might be some payment after the set period as a result of various factors.

"March is not the final date for payment. For example, some BR1M payment may be late because of late applications.

"We want payments to be made, according to each institution such as schools, with students enrolling in January, so we want to ensure payment is made then.

"University students begin in March, so payment should be done during that time," he added.

 

'Political tsunami' has ended under Najib's leadership

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 11:53 AM PST

http://mynewshub.my/eng/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Najib-Urges1.jpg 

(Bernama) - The 'political tsunami' of 2008 came to an end when the Barisan Nasional (BN)-led government under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak carried out various changes to look after the lot of Malaysians.

Umno information chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan said, the demise of the 'political tsunami' was based on 10 things carried out by the prime minister.

 
They included promises honoured, transformation, justice for all, turning Malaysia into a developed and high performance nation, prioritising the people and being outstanding on the world stage.
 
"Datuk Seri Najib has indeed, stopped the 'political tsunami'. In 2008, we were worried of the 'political tsunami', but in 2013, I am confident it has ended," said Ahmad after the 'A Morning With The People' programme at the Karentina Housing Programme in Batak Rabit here today.
 
He described Najib's achievements since he became prime minister as "excellent" because he gave new enthusiasm and confidence to face the coming general election.
 
In this regard, Ahmad was confident the BN would win at the 13th general election, including in Teluk Intan, when the people of various races were getting more confident of the prime minister's reforms.
 
"The confidence is not based on theory but in going down to the field. I have been going down to the field for many years.
 
"I see the people like us, they come to our programmes and listen to our explanations. All these indicate that the 'political tsunami' has ended," he said.


 

The ABC of Public Trust and Accountability.

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 11:48 AM PST

http://dinmerican.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/zairil-khir-johari.jpg?w=545 

Let us teach UMNO people some ABC. How to conduct oneself in a transparent manner and show people we are committed to the principle of accountability. The UMNO people are going to town ridiculing DAP for making an error in counting the votes for Zairil K Johari and coming out in the open, owning up to the mistake. They would rather keep people in the dark, stealing from the country, making stupid statements when caught. 
 
sakmongkol AK47 
A party coming out in the open showing all that its committed to the principle of transparency and more important on accountability is demeaned because of that?  clearly then, it means transparency and accountability do not exist in UMNO's vocabulary. Deceit and irresponsibility are.
 
What would UMNO do? Use mistakes to defraud people? It's better to keep and hide things from people? It's better not to answer or even pretend not to know, the whereabouts of Puspahanas? Where is that damn thing? The government is not answering despite having given the leeching lady RM27 million of taxpayers' money. Is Raja Ropiaah milking money on behalf of UMNO?
 
It's better to keep quiet and hide from people the whereabouts of the RM207 billion or whatever amount paid by Japan to some 30,000 death railway conscripted laborers? UMNO supports and condones silence and hiding malpractices such as the RM500 million commission earned by middlemen in the purchase of malfunctioning submarines. Or defrauding the people into believing that the proposed west coast expressway breaks new ground in the way piratization privatization is made? Whether the new west coast expressway of 223km costs RM31 million or RM 22 million per kilometer, people want to know what kind of stones and premix go into the building of the road? Why can't JKR do it and make it toll free too? JKR can make it at probably a fraction of the cost. I am told by some JKR engineers, maybe at RM2.5 billion, much lesser than the soft loan given by UMNO to the contracting company. Are the bridges made of gold?  People want to know how could a person associated with failure to pay debts owning to the Selangor government and having a company with a dismal business record can get the award for the highway?
 

 

Syrian regime faking news to the world

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 11:35 AM PST

http://web1.globalpost.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/half-column/iraq_dead_children_syria_fake_2012-11-09.jpg

After a massacre in the Syrian town of Houla in May, news sites scrambled to find photos to run with their stories. Marco di Lauro, a photographer for Getty, was shocked to find his 2003 image, taken in Iraq, posted under the headline, "Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows." A Syrian activist had circulated the photo. And the BBC ran with it. 

(Global Post) - Don't get fooled again. Here are the most popular dubious videos and images being passed around by the Assad regime and the opposition

Videos posted to the internet have played a key propaganda role in Syria's bloody civil war. The footage typically shows brutal attacks, beatings and mass executions. Many clips show rows of dead women and children.

But are these videos reliable?  

Last month, a fighter in Aleppo handed a reporter his cell phone, shaking his head in disbelief. "Assad, Assad," he said.

On the screen was a video of someone beheading a prisoner with a chainsaw. It had been circulating in Syria for at least a year. The footage itself is very real, but it is five years old, and was shot in Mexico. Drug lords carried out the crime. The video has been used by rebels in conflicts all over the world.

The sham videos can have very real effects, creating sympathy for one side or the other. Last week, the United Nations accused the rebels of war crimes, based on a YouTube video of fighters executing prisoners. This type of atrocity makes intervention less appealing to the West.

While that video appears to have been real, many other bogus ones have found their way onto major television networks in the United States and beyond, and are spread widely by social media. It's not uncommon for the two sides to use the same footage to make opposite claims.

Here is a look at some of the most widely seen — fake or misrepresented — footage and images being used by both sides of the Syrian conflict. 

Read more and view the videos at: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/121109/fake-syria-videos-images

 

I have, with great sadness and much anger, watched our nation become a nation governed by these ...

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 11:27 AM PST

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqeJudjXrujrUlT6UTOYuykLSHVuks9GCoqJ6y6sOgyiD7M1Y_dxC0wYBFU0d-x01bQBjL8uxEpiulEw_9NYYOHsXKZF3v8VzGkosDXcUG865XirBwoZ1HXOtIgLLskebs-xZgYzCqDls/s1600/images-1.jpeg 

It pains me so that these thieves and robbers are in the main, Malays. Some are Bugis, some Jawa, some Mamaks  and various nuances of ethnicity in between ….but in truth they are all coloured by the same ethnic brush….Malays.

steadyaku47

A person who steals secretly is a thief.  One who seizes something from you by force is a robber. Now imagine if you can that these thieves and robbers have no feelings of remorse or guilt, no sense of responsibility or conscience or shame in doing what they do and certainly not limited by legal or moral encumbrances. There you have it my friends, these are the very people we now have the misfortune to have as our leaders in government. This UMNO led Barisan Nasional government!


While you and I are encumbered by our conscience and concern for the welfare of others, no such encumbrances inhibit them. They crave power and money. Wealth and influence. And they are now in government able to do these things and anything else without limitations or concern for the well being of any one else but themselves!

I have, with great sadness and much anger, watched our nation become a nation governed by these thieves and robbers in the guise of Barisan Nasional politicians who steals not always secretly but always steals albeit without any legal encumbrances for they are in government! This UMNO led Barisan Nasional government!

It pains me so that these thieves and robbers are in the main, Malays. Some are Bugis, some Jawa, some Mamaks  and various nuances of ethnicity in between ….but in truth they are all coloured by the same ethnic brush….Malays.

There will be many who will say that thieves can also be found amongst the Chinese, the Indians and the people of East Malaysia. True but that will be a burden that these races will have to carry for themselves.

I am burdened, as I am sure other Malays will be, that these herd of thieves and robbers have long ago announced themselves to be our champions in our attempts to better our lot amongst others whose history started many thousand of years before ours. The Chinese and the Indians have a rich history of culture and traditions that dates back many thousand of years. We Malays are the new kids on the block in need of all the assistance we can get! 

These Malay politicians who are thieves and robbers have announced to all who will listen that they are the ones who have won Ketuanan Melayu for the Malays – a political concept emphasizing Malay pre-eminence over any others who call Malaysia their home. They further boasts that through UMNO, the Malays have dominated politically for over half a century.
     
If all this is true: That the Malays dominated politically for over half a century.  That the Malays have Ketuanan Melayu. That the Malays have 9 Sultans and the same number of Menteri Besars -  why then are the robbers and the thieves in UMNO today facing the 13th general elections with the real possibility of defeat staring them right in their face?

For sure this is not the certainty of defeat but the possibility of defeat – but nevertheless it is a possibility that cannot be ignored. Why has this happen?
These Malay political leaders in UMNO who are also thieves and robbers, tells us that Ketuanan Melayu is a work in progress. Our battered economy is a work in progress. Racial integration is a work in progress. After over 50 years of UMNO dominated government everything they do is a work in progress requiring more time to complete – at least another term in Government -  which is why the tell us that we must return them to government after the 13th general election. For of course, their plundering and pillaging of our country's wealth is also a work in progress!

Of course Rome was not built in a day….but half a century is still not enough for UMNO to do its work of making Ketuanan Melayu a reality? Why? What part of Ketuanan Melayu still needs work?

Have UMNO been able to unite the Malays after 55 years in government? No! I am against UMNO. Anwar Ibrahim is against UMNO. There are enough Malays today who are against UMNO to make UMNO talk about internal reforms to make themself more relevant to the aspirations of these Malays. Our aspiration is to stop money politics and corruption in UMNO – but that is all UMNO do, TALK!   

Have UMNO been able to unite the various races in a non-communal UMNO? No! Racial politics is alive and well within the coalition that UMNO leads –the Barisan Nasional. Divide and rule using race and religion is the order of the day for UMNO!
     
The NEP (New Economic Policy) was meant to re-engineer the wealth of our society. Education, business opportunities and employment were all tools to be used to make the NEP a reality. Poverty was to be eradicated amongst all our people regardless of race - instead it was used and abused by UMNO for the financial gains of its leaders.

FELDA, RISDA, Ali Baba, Nepotism, Negotiated Tenders, Bumiputra Status, Cronyism, an IGP shot dead, corruption in the timber industry from Pahang to Sabah and Sarawak – these are all manifestations of what a government of thieves and robbers can and did do to our beloved Malaysia.
 
Bank Bumiputra is no more! There is no more work to be done there! Bank Bumiputra drowned under a debt of RM2.5 billion! And with the murder of BMF'S internal auditor Jalil Ibrahim, we lost our innocence to the vagaries of big business!  

I have, with great sadness and much anger, watched our nation become a nation governed by these thieves and robbers in the guise of Barisan Nasional politicians who steals not always secretly but always steals albeit without any legal encumbrances for they are in government!

To date there have been other 'Bank Bumiputra's'! All of them magnificent failures of epic financial proportions. Each bigger than the other! Each accompanied by the systematic plundering and pillaging of our nations wealth by UMNO thieves and robbers! And then that unique traditions thought of by these thieves and robbers to cover their tracks while making themselves more money – the bailout! And none made this into an art form more than Mahathir! And none profited more greatly from a bailout than his own children! 

Read more at: http://steadyaku-steadyaku-husseinhamid.blogspot.com/2013/01/i-have-with-great-sadness-and-much.html 

The Hole: An Unexpected Journey

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 11:22 AM PST

By "Eye of Rakyat"

In a hole lives a monster.
Not just any other monster.

This evil monster catches unsuspecting motorists, sending many to their doom almost everyday
And there are hundreds and thousands of these evil monsters in as many holes in as many roads in the tiny kingdom of Malaysia.

And with the dark, looming clouds and daily tunderstorms, these dark monsters have multiplied alarmingly.

The "Eye of Doom" lurks in the shadows, especially in the darkest nights, where the stars do not shine, causing many travellers to fall victim.

Does the common and helpless rakyat stand any chance?

I ask my fellow drivers and motorists, "Would you be interested in joining me for an adventure?"

They reply "Would you guarantee me making it home alive or in one piece?" 

I say "Maybe".

With "The One Ring that Rules Them All"

I hope that a band of heroes would be formed to find and vanquish these evil monsters.

However, we need a One Ring that rules them all.

The rakyat should be able to obtain this number and ring it if they spot any evil monsters lurking in these holes.

The band of heroes would be sent to defeat these monsters immediately and close their holes for eternity.
Only then, can lasting peace be found for the "Fellowship of the Travellers" 

 

The ‘third party’ whom Rafizi Ramli spoke about

Posted: 06 Jan 2013 12:00 AM PST

So Rafizi did not lie, and neither did Deepak. Rafizi admitted that Deepak did not give him any documents, as what Deepak claims. And that is because the documents came from Datuk Ravi, Anwar's Shaman, the man who decides on auspicious dates for Anwar to make his moves, although 16th September 2008 did not quite happen the way it was supposed to have gone.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Four years ago, on 1st January 2009, Malaysia Today published a story regarding Datuk Ravi Dharan, which was lifted from The Malaysian Insider. Unfortunately, not many people took much notice of this story. Hence we are publishing it again, which you can read below.

Now, recently, Rafizi Ramli spoke about a 'third party' giving him some documents regarding the alleged RM13 million jewellery that Deepak Jaikishan was supposed to have bought for First Lady Rosmah Mansor. Rafizi never named this third party, though, who is Datuk Ravi Dharan.

If you refer to Deepak's latest interview of a month ago, which is on Youtube (SEE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWgqWpYRIw), he mentioned that he is related to Datuk Ravi by marriage and was, in fact, introduced to Anwar Ibrahim through Datuk Ravi.

Datuk Ravi has been acting as the secret 'adviser' of Anwar since way back before the party was formed in 1999. In fact, the party headquarters at Phileo Damansara is owned by Datuk Ravi -- a man who made his millions through Samy Vellu in the days when he was a Barisan Nasional crony-businessman.

Datuk Ravi, who has a panel of bomohs (witch doctors) on his payroll, is in a way Anwar's 'spiritual adviser'. He advises Anwar on 'auspicious' dates (based on feedback from the bomohs). And one such auspicious date was 16th September 2008, the day Anwar was supposed to have taken over the federal government.

Within PKR circles Datuk Ravi is known as 'Shaman' and the PKR leaders know that Anwar will never embark on anything unless first armed with advise from Datuk Ravi's bomohs.

And what Rafizi refused to mention is that Datuk Ravi is the man who gave him the documents and hence what Deepak said is true -- that he never met Rafizi or gave him any documents.

Datuk Ravi is on the Malaysian government's 'watch list'. The Malaysian government suspects that Datuk Ravi, who has links to the very top in the Indonesian government, is instrumental in the 'bad blood' between the Indonesia and Malaysian governments that seems to have become worse of late.

So Rafizi did not lie, and neither did Deepak. Rafizi admitted that Deepak did not give him any documents, as what Deepak claims. And that is because the documents came from Datuk Ravi, Anwar's Shaman, the man who decides on auspicious dates for Anwar to make his moves, although 16th September 2008 did not quite happen the way it was supposed to have gone.

******************************************************

As Hindraf spat worsens, a new Anwar ally emerges

First published in Malaysia Today on 1st January 2009

When the bushfire of Indian dissatisfaction in the PKR threatened to turn into an inferno, party supremo Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, holidaying in the Middle East, called from Dubai and urged a man he trusted to investigate what was really going on, how big it was and why it was happening.

Shadowy businessman Datuk Ravi Dharan (picture above), chairman of the Daya group of companies, has always been in the shadows of the PKR, serving only Anwar before and after the March 8 polls and during the run-up to the abortive September 16th plan to topple the Barisan Nasional government via defections.

He was close to Anwar when the latter was the finance minister and like other tycoons in Anwar's circle, he suffered after Anwar was sacked and jailed in 1998.

Ravi, 59, went abroad and soon settled down in Indonesia where he has interests in several areas, including coal mining in Kalimantan.

Raja Petra Kamarudin, Datuk Ravi and Gus Dur

However, unlike Anwar's other former friend Datuk K.S. Nallakaruppan, Ravi remained loyal to the former and was a big supporter — personally and financially — of the opposition leader during the March 8 general election campaign.

Anwar has now become worried that Indian dissatisfaction with his party, centred on the resignation of Kapar MP S. Manikavasagam as the party's Selangor deputy chief, will flare up, and he has sought out Ravi to quell the rebellion.

This will be the political coming out for Ravi who had always remained in the shadows.

It is significant that Anwar did not task any of the more senior party leaders such as deputy president Dr Syed Husin Ali, vice-president S. Sivarasa, seen as the nominal Indian head of the party, Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, Selangor exco member Dr Xavier Jeyakumar or even PKR Padang Serai MP M. Gobalakrishnan.

"It was to Ravi that Anwar turned too," said a PKR insider, adding that Anwar was worried that a "hidden hand" was manipulating the "rebellion" and splitting the party especially in light of speculation reported in online news website Malaysiakini that PKR rebels together with Hindraf leader P. Uthayakumar and chairman P. Waythamoorthy were in alliance with MIC rebels to oust embattled MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu.

Manikavasagam's relationship with Sivarasa and Dr Xavier and possibly Khalid, whom he has accused of betraying the people's trust by not fulfilling election promises, is now beyond repair, PKR insiders said.

Under these circumstances Anwar relied on Ravi as a trusted ally, in the same role once played by Nallakaruppan before their dramatic falling out, to help contain or extinguish the Manikavasagam fire.

Ravi attended a meeting of over 100 Indian supporters of Hindraf/Makkal Sakthi yesterday that discussed the problems raised by Manikavasagam and former PKR deputy secretary-general P. Jenapala.

Datuk Ravi settling the 'Indian problem'

Both Manikavasagam and Jenapala also attended the closed-door meeting.

"Ravi listened carefully, watched their body language and never uttered a single word," said a PKR supporter who attended the meeting.

Later at the press conference Ravi moved in to take charge, admitting there were differences over issues among the PKR leaders. "This is a democratic process, we meet, we discuss, tell our differences and we seek consensus," Ravi told The Malaysian Insider after the meeting.

"We all have one aim — to make Anwar prime minister — and until then we should remain committed and united," said Ravi.

Datuk Ravi's aim, to make Anwar Ibrahim the Prime Minister

He was worried PKR's political enemies would exploit the differences.

"We should not give them that opportunity," he told the people gathered. "I don't think there is a hidden hand behind the open airing of differences in PKR."

The meeting resolved that Manikavasagam and others would meet Anwar on his return and lay their unhappiness at his feet for a resolution of the differences.

Nevertheless the discontent is too fundamental to be resolved without upsetting the PKR's delicate racial balance.

The animosity between Manikavasagam and the rest of the PKR Indian leadership cannot be ignored.

The others — Sivarasa, Dr Xavier, Khalid and others — control Selangor PKR and are big names in the PKR setup although at the Makkal Sakthi grassroots level they are lightweights compared with Manikavasagam.

While Manikavasagam sees himself as a Makkal Sakthi founder, he accepts Uthayakumar and Waythamoorthy as his real mentors, and he also has the highest regards for Anwar.

It is left to Anwar to see how best to balance the demands of the big names in the PKR who are all for sacking Manikavasagam and satisfying the Makkal Sakthi grassroots who have adopted PKR as their new political home but want a bigger slice of the largesse.

What Ravi recommends to Anwar will play a crucial role in the balancing act.

 

PKR says will help Deepak expose deals

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 07:35 PM PST

PKR's Rafizi Ramli said Deepak (left) handed several documents to a PKR leader, which eventually arrived in his hands. 

Zurairi AR, The Malaysian Insider

Despite doubts, PKR's Rafizi Ramli says he will back Deepak Jaikishan to expose the truth in controversial projects, in the public's interest.

The well-connected carpet dealer is back in the spotlight over a lucrative land deal that involved Wanita Umno chief Senator Datuk Raja Ropiaah Abdullah's firm, the armed forces pension fund for a military project—all of which had gone sour.

"Most importantly, this is not about political mileage, this is public interest," Rafizi told The Malaysian Insider in a recent interview.

"Our interest is just one.

"We don't want the RM160 million from the army's pension fund used for this," the PKR strategy chief said, referring to the Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) land deal.

The under-pressure Deepak had called for politicians to help him in his moment of need, which he described as akin to facing "a thunderstorm and 350 km/h typhoon".

The controversial businessman had earlier criticised Rafizi for revealing bank transaction records between him and two jewellery suppliers amounting to US$4 million (RM12.15 million), accusing the PKR strategy director of using him for political mileage.

Deepak has denied the documents were his. He also denied meeting Rafizi to hand over the papers as alleged.

Rafizi maintains that it was Deepak who handed the documents in question to a PKR leader, which eventually arrived in his hands.

He said PKR was initially reluctant to help when Deepak first approached them, fearing a backlash if the party were accused of conspiring to entrap its political foes.

"He wanted us to champion his cause but we didn't want to," Rafizi said.

According to Rafizi, PKR only decided to stand by Deepak after government investment fund LTAT was found to be implicated in Deepak's accusations.

"It was tricky for us. If there were photos of (PKR leaders) sitting together with Deepak, then people would say that we were planning a conspiracy.

"Now that he has told to the world that we have nothing to do with it, that's fine," Rafizi added.

Rafizi said he has informed Deepak through a third party that PKR is willing to sit down with the businessman and hear what he has to say.

He also said Deepak had met party advisor, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim once, when the businessman pleaded through a mutual friend for legal assistance.

Deepak had told reporters he met Anwar the night before his court suit against Raja Ropiaah for allegedly cheating him in the Bukit Raja land sale.

He was subsequently represented by PKR lawyers R Sivarasa and N Surendran in the case, before he decided to throw the case without consulting his counsel, said Rafizi.

Deepak's lawsuit against Putrajaya for an alleged breach of agreement over land in Bukit Raja, Selangor was withdrawn on the same day LTAT-owned Boustead Holdings Bhd reported it bought an 80 per cent stake in Astacanggih for RM30 million.

Raja Ropiaah has mainatained her silence about her company Awan Megah Sdn Bhd's failure to build the RM100 million National Defence Education Centre.

 

Can we just have the truth?

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 06:52 PM PST

Although the 'loss' of this RM207 billion is a good election issue and very favourable to the opposition, the opposition faces the danger that if this allegation is, in fact, true and if the government were to release information or documents to prove that Anwar had a hand in the matter or had knowledge of what happened to the money and yet he chose to remain silent then this issue could backfire badly on the opposition.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Ex-Health Minister Chua Jui Meng has raised a very pertinent point in his letter/statement published in Free Malaysia Today (which you can read below). What happened to the RM207 billion that Japan paid Malaysia back in the 1990s?

As what Lim Kit Siang, the Opposition Leader in Parliament in the 1990s said, both the Finance Minister as well as the Prime Minister need to be accountable for any wrongdoings and transgressions.

This statement is consistent with the call by the opposition that Tun Daim Zainuddin, the one-time Finance Minister of Malaysia, should be held accountable for wrongdoings and transgressions during his watch and he can't just wash his hands and shift the blame solely to the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

As what Lim Kit Siang said in Parliament in 1994, Anwar Ibrahim, the Finance Minister from 1991 to 1998, has to be accountable for whatever happened during his watch. Prior to that, from 1984 to 1991, Tun Daim was the Finance Minister and was reappointed Finance Minister in 1998 after Anwar was sacked.

Hence three people would be privy to what happened to the RM207 billion -- Dr Mahathir, Daim and Anwar. Hence, also, one of these three people must explain what happened to this RM207 billion.

The question of who authorised the 'mismanagement' of this money is one issue. The more important question is: does any of the three -- Dr Mahathir, Daim and Anwar -- have knowledge about the matter?

Anwar can settle this easily by stating that he has absolutely no knowledge of this matter or, if he does, that the money was 'hijacked' at the behest of Dr Mahathir and that the matter was totally beyond his control although he was the Finance Minister.

Although the 'loss' of this RM207 billion is a good election issue and very favourable to the opposition, the opposition faces the danger that if this allegation is, in fact, true and if the government were to release information or documents to prove that Anwar had a hand in the matter or had knowledge of what happened to the money and yet he chose to remain silent then this issue could backfire badly on the opposition.

From my dealings with the Finance Ministry since 1977 -- soon after Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah became the Finance Minister in 1976 -- I am aware that the Finance Ministry has certain autonomy and has been known to override the wishes of the Prime Minister. Maybe Ku Li can confirm this because he knows what I am talking about (and he was once the President of the Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry).

I remember back in the days when I was a central committee member of the Malay Chamber of Commerce and we had a meeting with Dr Mahathir to complain about Bank Negara. We felt that certain policies of Bank Negara were not favourable to the Bumiputera businessmen and actually dampened the investment climate.

Dr Mahathir replied that the Bank Negara Governor then, who was Dr Mahathir's brother-in-law, never listens to him and reports to the Finance Minister and not to the Prime Minister. Hence the PM was having a big 'headache' with Bank Negara. Dr Mahathir then suggested we meet up with the Finance Minister and try to get them to make Bank Negara more receptive to the Malay Chamber of Commerce.

In one meeting we had with the Secretary General of the Finance Ministry, the Sec-Gen related the story of a meeting he and the Governor had with Dr Mahathir where the Governor 'scolded' the Prime Minister regarding certain policies that were not favourable to the country.

My personal experience in dealing with the Prime Minister's Department, the Finance Ministry, and Bank Negara, back in the 1980s was that each unit was very protective of its turf and they were very careful about infringing each other's territory.

In the many meetings we had in the late 1980s to thrash out the Tabung Pemulihan Usahawan (TPU), it was clear that Bank Negara was quite independent of the Prime Minister's Department (by virtue of the 'strength' of the Governor) and the Finance Ministry would override certain things that the Prime Minister wanted.

In one meeting that we had with the Prime Minister where we raised certain displeasures concerning government policies, Dr Mahathir was exasperated and told us to go meet the Finance Minister because this was a Finance Ministry decision and he cannot interfere in the matter.

I am speaking from my 20 years experience in dealing with the government as a businessman and central committee member of the Malay Chamber of Commerce. Our frustration was about after meeting the Prime Minister and getting him to agree to a certain matter, the Finance Minister would not 'play ball'. We had to, again, try to get the Finance Minister to agree to what we wanted although the Prime Minister had already agreed to the matter.

Our experience with Tun Daim was even worse. While Anwar was a politician and would be more diplomatic in how he handled us, Tun Daim, who was not a politician, would tell us that if the Prime Minister had agreed to it then ask the PM to approve it because he refuses to do so.

In one meeting we had with Tun Daim, he pulled out a letter from his drawer and waved it in front of us. "This is my pre-signed and undated resignation letter," he told us. "If the PM is not happy with me he can have my resignation."

That was a clear message that the Finance Minister decides and he will not take instructions from the Prime Minister and if the PM is not happy with that he (Tun Daim) is prepared to resign. We even met the Prime Minister to complain about this but Dr Mahathir told us that we had to sort it out with Tun Daim.

In another meeting that we had with Tun Daim where we raised a certain issue and told him that Dr Mahathir does not agree to what we want, Tun Daim phoned Dr Mahathir in front of us and told the PM that he has agreed to what the Malay Chamber of Commerce wanted. Tun Daim overrode Dr Mahathir and not the other way around.

In one meeting that we had with Anwar, who was by then the Finance Minister, Anwar phoned Tun Daim in our presence to ask Tun Daim to inform Dr Mahathir that he has agreed to what we wanted.

From my personal experience, the relationship of the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Economic Adviser to the government, and Bank Negara Governor, was a very complicated relationship and we never knew at each point of time who we should be talking to if we wanted things done.

One thing that was very clear, though, was that each was the boss of his own turf. And Chua Jui Meng and Anwar Ibrahim both know this and hence should go public on this so that Malaysians can get to the truth of the matter because RM207 billion is a lot of money and the truth should not remain hidden.

*******************************************

Who hijacked the Death Railway money?

The money - RM207 billion - is believed to have been transferred by the Japanese government to Malaysia in the 1990s. What has happened to it?

By Chua Jui Meng, Free Malaysia Today

Is Dr Mahathir Mohamad going to take the same "silence is golden" stand as Najib Tun Razak and his infamous diamond-loving wife Rosmah Mansor when cornered by an issue?

The revelation by the Japanese Embassy that it had paid compensation to the Malaysian government for families of victims of the so-called "Death Railway" project in the 1940s is shocking.

The sum of RM207 billion or whatever the amount must be revealed by Mahathir. He was close to the Japanese government and corporate sector when he promoted his Look East Policy aimed at enhancing trade with Japan.

The money, believed to be amounting to RM207 billion, was meant to be distributed to some 30,000 Malaysians who had been recruited as forced labourers by the Japanese to build the Thai-Burma rail link.

This means each affected family is entitled to receive between RM2.8 million and RM3 million as compensation.

The stinking part of the Umno-led Barisan Nasional federal government is that the public is today unaware of the compensation payment by the Japanese.

We would have thought Mahathir would have brought the money back from Japan in triumph, like a victorious Roman general.

Umno would have organised a huge gathering of the victims or their families and distributed the money. No, it was all covered in secrecy.

National probe needed

The money rightfully belongs to the victims of the "Death Railway" project and their families and to rob them is despicable.

The money is believed to have been transferred by the Japanese government to Malaysia in the 1990s. This means it happened during Mahathir's 22-year reign.

Who then has hijacked or stolen the money?

It is no small sum and surely Mahathir cannot expect us to accept his infamous "I cannot remember" or "I am unaware of such compensation money from Japan"?

This time, Malaysians cannot accept his "selective loss of memory" or "selective amnesia".

Whoever stole the money from the 30,000 dead Malaysians is/are worse than animals, hitting the depths of greed.

The government must immediately set up a national probe team to track down the thief/thieves to recover the money and for prosecution.

Surely there are paper trails, beginning with the transfer/s from the Japanese to the Malaysian government.

Meanwhile, Japan can do further justice to the 30,000 Malaysian forced labourers who died in the "Death Railway" project by revealing their identities so that their families are traced.

Ultimate danger

And, as for Mahathir who said five years of Pakatan Rakyat-rule is dangerous because BN will have no chance to return to power, I say, "Good riddance". After 55 years of misrule, it is time to retire Umno permanently.

With mounting and rising federal debts at RM620 billion or 74% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), meaning the BN is operating way above the 55% federal debt ceiling, that is more dangerous to Malaysians and the country.

If, for some reason, our oil wells suddenly run dry, we will immediately be deemed a bankrupt nation and untold misery would befall all Malaysians.

Also, a point to show why Pakatan is more dependable is that the financial management of the Pakatan states, debuting in 2008, has been acknowledged by the Auditor-General as more superior than the states governed by the BN.

And Mahathir's silence over reports of his allegedly US$44 billion (more than RM132 billion) in accumulated wealth is even more dangerous.

And with him now seemingly trying to engineer his son, Mukhriz, to rise as prime minister by or before the 14th general election, it is the ultimate danger for Malaysians and Malaysia.

 

Pakatan talks over ‘Allah’ issue

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 05:02 PM PST

(The Star) - The on-off Pakatan Rakyat meeting to discuss Lim Guan Eng's controversial "Allah" statement is on again, this time scheduled for Tuesday.

PKR Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin confirmed that the top leadership of the Opposition coalition would discuss the controversy sparked by the DAP secretary-general's recent reference to it.

"The Pakatan leadership is schedule to meet at PKR's head office this Jan 8 to discuss and resolve the matter," he said after attending the Pakatan Youth secretariat meeting here yesterday.

Shamsul refused to elaborate, only saying that the Pakatan youth leadership would take its cue from the outcome of the leadership's meeting next week.

DAP publicity chief Tony Pua confirmed the issue would be brought up during the Pakatan monthly leadership meeting.

Controversy over the "Allah" word cropped up when Lim, in his recent Christmas message, urged the Federal Government to allow Christians to use the word in their Malay version of the Bible.

Lim's message caused an uproar among Muslims, while some Muslim NGOs held protests in front of his Penang office last month.

PAS also hit out at Lim, stating firmly that the word "Allah" should not be used by Christians to refer to God; as it would only lead to confusion for both Muslims and Christians.

On Dec 27, Anwar conceded that an urgent meeting to discuss the matter was needed to resolve the issue, although discussions were held by the Pakatan leadership when the controversy surfaced in 2010.

On a separate issue, PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi described RTM's decision to scrap a proposed forum, to allow its president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang to explain his infidel' label against Umno and its supporters, as a political ploy just when the general election is about to be held.

He chided Umno's claim that the National Fatwa Council had issued an edict against Hadi's 1981 message (amanat Haji Hadi), saying that only the Malacca Fatwa Council had done so.

 

Abdul Hadi pertahankan amanatnya

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 04:57 PM PST

(The Malaysian Insider) - Presiden PAS Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang mempertahankan ucapannya lebih 30 tahun lalu yang digelar sebagai "Amanat Haji Hadi" akan tetapi mahu diberikan peluang untuk menjelaskannya melalui siaran langsung televisyen untuk memulihkan keadaan.

"(Menteri Penerangan, Komunikasi dan Kebudayaan, Datuk Seri Rais (Yatim) tak nak bagi peluang (kepadanya menjelaskan perkara itu melalui siaran langsung RTM dan TV3).

"Itu hak dia, tetapi saya tetap dengan pendirian saya, supaya masyarakat berlaku adil kepada semua pihak. Hanya cara (memberi penjelasan melalui siaran langsung) itu boleh memulihkan keadaan, kerana kita (PAS) tiada media. Biar rakyat tahu dan jangan dengar sebelah pihak.

"Biar mereka nilai betul atau tidak. Televisyen perlu siarkan satu jam ucapan saya. Amanat itu pentingkan?" katanya dipetik dari portal berbahasa Melayu, Sinar Harian Online

Selain itu, Abdul Hadi (gambar) menjelaskan beliau tidak pernah melabelkan ucapan dan kenyataan yang dibuat di Kampung Dong Perada pada 7 April, 1981 itu sebagai Amanat Haji Hadi. 

"Saya tidak berikan nama amanat, tetapi orang lain yang berikan nama amanat. Mereka petik ucapan saya dan bentang dalam Dun (Dewan Undangan Negeri).

"Saya akui ia memang ucapan saya, tetapi mereka (pihak berkuasa) hanya senyap selepas itu. Itu ceritanya. Kenapa mereka tidak hujah pada masa itu, tetapi 30 tahun kemudian?" kata Ahli Parlimen Marang yang juga Adun Rhu Rendang.

Presiden PAS itu menyanggah kenyataan Rais yang memutuskan tidak akan melaksanakan cadangan untuk mengadakan forum bagi membincangkan Amanat Haji Hadi menerusi RTM sedangkan sebelum itu mengeluarkan kenyataan berbeza.

Abdul Hadi turut mengkritik Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan kerana mengatakan ucapannya di Kampung Banggol Peradong pada tahun 1981 itu bercanggah dengan ajaran Islam.

"Saya tidak menerima apa-apa surat daripada Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan (mengenai perkara itu) dan saya cabar mereka (membuktikan mereka ada menghantar kepada beliau surat mengenainya).

READ MORE HERE

 

NGOs not told to keep info on discussion with EC ‘confidential’

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 04:40 PM PST

(The Star) - Two of the 16 NGOs involved in a discussion with the Election Commission (EC) on their role as observers in the coming general election said they were never told the content was confidential.

Merdeka Centre director Ibrahim Suffian (picture) and Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) president Datuk Paul Low said they did not remember being told not to disclose the information to others.

However, they also said their organisations had not leaked any information shared during the discussion.

"On my part, I respected the contents of the discussion by not making it public knowledge," said Ibrahim yesterday.

The EC had said some NGOs revealed information on the discussions to a political party despite being told multiple times that the contents were confidential.

EC deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar had said informing a political party on the issues raised during the discussion showed the NGOs lacked impartiality.

Low said TI-M had remained silent.

"Throughout our discussions with the commission, we had decided that until the time we received official accreditation as observers, we would be silent," he said.

 

Kementerian jawab fitnah terbaru Anwar...

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 03:32 PM PST

(Agenda Daily) - Kementerian Perusahaan Perladangan dan Komoditi merujuk kepada kenyataan media Ketua Pembangkang, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim pada Khamis lalu, yang menyentuh antara lain penurunan harga komoditi sawit dan getah pada tahun 2012 dan kesannya kepada pendapatan pengusaha tanaman terutamanya kepada pekebun kecil.

Di samping itu, kenyataan media tersebut juga mencadangkan beberapa langkah bagi membantu pengusaha tanaman sawit dan getah termasuk penubuhan Tabung Kebajikan Komoditi Negara dengan sumbangan sebanyak RM100 juta setahun untuk membantu keluarga pekebun kecil yang terjejas akibat penurunan harga kedua-dua komoditi ini.

Pada amnya, harga komoditi sawit adalah dipengaruhi oleh penawaran minyak sayuran lain dan permintaan di negara-negara pengimport utama seperti China, Kesatuan Eropah, Pakistan, Amerika Syarikat dan India. Pada tahun 2012, kelima-lima negara berkenaan telah menyumbang kepada 60 peratus daripada jumlah eksport sawit negara.

Sejak suku tahun ketiga tahun 2012, penurunan dalam pengeluaran domestik seperti di China dan pertumbuhan ekonomi yang lembap di Kesatuan Eropah mempunyai kesan langsung ke atas pengimportan produk-produk sawit Malaysia.

Dalam kes getah, ekonomi dunia yang merudum telah menjejaskan permintaan getah asli untuk menghasilkan produk-produk siap berasaskan getah. Negara-negara pengimport utama getah asli pada tahun 2012 adalah China, Kesatuan Eropah dan Amerika Syarikat yang menyumbang kepada 70 peratus daripada jumlah eksport getah asli negara.

Dalam kes minyak sawit, nilai eksport pada tahun 2011 adalah sebanyak RM83.4 bilion dengan purata harga minyak sawit mentah (crude palm oil – CPO) sebanyak RM3,219 setan.

Bagaimanapun, disebabkan oleh permintaan yang lembap di negara-negara pengimport utama, harga purata CPO bagi tempoh Januari hingga November 2012 adalah RM2,844 setan dengan nilai eksport sebanyak RM65.9 bilion.

Memandangkan kepada permintaan yang lembap di pasaran luar negara, kerajaan telah mengambil beberapa langkah bagi memperkukuhkan harga CPO. Ini dicerminkan dengan kenaikan harga CPO dari RM2,065 setan pada bulan Oktober 2012 kepada RM2,235 setan pada 3 Januari 2013. Langkah-langkah yang telah diambil termasuk:

i.  mempercepatkan pelaksanaan Program B5 (adunan 5 peratus metil ester sawit dengan diesel) ke seluruh negara, menggalakkan penggunaan biobahan api berasaskan sawit sehingga 10 peratus di sektor-sektor lain dan menggunakan minyak sawit di loji-loji janakuasa elektrik terutamanya di Sabah.

Langkah memperluaskan Program B5 di seluruh negara akan membolehkan penggunaan domestik sehingga 500,000 tan minyak sawit setahun. Langkah ini akan menambahkan beban Kerajaan dari segi penyediaan subsidi sebanyak RM371 juta setahun, di samping menyediakan peruntukan kewangan sebanyak RM300 juta bagi membina depot-depot adunan;

ii.    penyediaan peruntukan sebanyak RM100 juta untuk tujuan menebang pokok-pokok sawit yang berusia melebihi 25 tahun di bawah Skim Insentif Tanam Semula (SITS) sawit. Di bawah program ini, Kerajaan akan menyediakan insentif sebanyak RM1,000 sehektar kepada peneroka Felda, skim-skim Kerajaan dan estet.

Langkah ini dijangka dapat mengurangkan bekalan CPO di pasaran tempatan sebanyak 350,000 tan setahun yang akan memperkukuhkan harga CPO. Di samping itu, langkah ini akan dapat mengurangkan stok dan menyumbang kepada peningkatan produktiviti sawit negara dalam jangka masa panjang; dan

iii.    bantuan tanam semula sawit kepada pekebun kecil yang mempunyai keluasan ladang sawit kurang daripada 40.46 hektar sebanyak RM7,500 sehektar di Semenanjung Malaysia dan RM9,000 sehektar di Sabah dan Sarawak. Bantuan ini termasuk kos penebangan pokok dan tanam semula.

Di bawah program ini, kerajaan memperuntukkan RM300.2 juta bagi tahun 2012 dan RM432.8 juta bagi tahun 2013. Bagi mengurangkan kebergantungan industri sawit terhadap tenaga buruh terutamanya buruh asing, Kementerian menggalakkan langkah-langkah mekanisasi seperti penggunaan penuai bermotor sawit jenama Cantas.

Hasil kajian yang dijalankan mendapati penggunaan Cantas dapat meningkatkan produktiviti penuai melebihi 90 peratus iaitu dari 1.4 tan tandan/hari kepada 2.7 tan tandan/hari. Bagi
menggalakkan penggunaan Cantas, Kementeriaan menyediakan insentif pembelian Cantas sebanyak RM1,000 bagi setiap unit.

Di samping itu, melalui penyelidikan dan pembangunan, terdapat jentera lain dan pengangkutan dalam ladang yang telah dihasilkan seperti Roller Picker (pengutip buah lerai), Grabber (pemungut tandan buah sawit automatik), dan Super Crawler dan Beluga (pengangkutan buah sawit di ladang yang lebih efisien untuk kawasan yang sukar seperti di kawasan tanah gambut).

Dalam hal ini, insentif pengecualian dari duti import dan cukai jualan untuk mesin dan kelengkapan perladangan juga disediakan. Aktiviti mekanisasi dijangka dapat mengurangkan kebergantungan kepada tenaga buruh secara berperingkat, sekaligus meningkatkan produktiviti pekerja.

Selain itu, sektor perladangan sawit juga telah mempelbagaikan sumber tenaga buruh dengan meluluskan pengambilan buruh asing dari Bangladesh. Ini akan mengurangkan kebergantungan terhadap buruh asing dari Indonesia.

Bagi menggalakkan industri sawit menceburi dalam penghasilan produk-produk nilai tambah dan meningkatkan penggunaan minyak sawit dalam negara, kerajaan telah memperuntukkan RM202.1 juta pada tahun 2013 yang disediakan dalam bentuk geran.

READ MORE HERE

 

Indian Voters Kingmakers Once Again

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 10:32 AM PST

http://hindraf.org/images/dr%20paraman%20article/semenanjung.jpg 

Currently just relying on the Malay and Chinese support is not going to be enough either. PR will still require the support of the Indian voters at levels similar to which it had in the 2008 GE. The 99.5% geographical distribution of Indian voters in the bread and butter states of Peninsular Malaysia, gives it added strength in the collective voting strength in the next General Election. 

Paraman Subramaniam 

165 out of the 222 Parliamentary seats in Malaysia lie in Peninsular Malaysia. This translates to 75% of all seats. Focusing valuable resources and campaign time on Sabah and Sarawak may be necessary but it cannot be done at the expense of Peninsular Malaysia. First of all Sarawak state elections is already over. PR's influence on East Malaysia is not as strong as it is on Peninsular Malaysia. The city/town seats are winnable but the interiors are impenetrable, not just logistically but also due to poor Internet/alternative media coverage. Polling agents and counting agents from PR in these areas are also minimal. The elections in these areas are literally at the mercy of the heavyweight BN machinery on elections day. The internal politics within these states are complicated and they do view politicians from Peninsular Malaysia with suspicion. 

The 9 states in Peninsular Malaysia (Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor, W.P, N.S, Malacca, Johor and Pahang) contain 140 Parliamentary seats which is 85% of all Parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia. In fact these states in total consist of almost 2/3rd of all Parliamentary seats in Malaysia hence the term "bread and butter states" is best applicable. A strong showing of PR in these bread and butter states will draw all victors/political parties post GE like a magnet towards PR, especially those from East Malaysia. It is as simple as that. Moreover PR's potential nadir strength also lies in these bread and butter states.

99.5% of the more than 950k Indian voters reside in these states (as of June 30, 2012). Indians average around 7% of total voters in Malaysia but in these bread and butter states the Indians average 10% in number as far as voters are concerned. There are MORE than 70 Parliamentary (50%) constituencies in these 'bread and butter states' that have Indian voter strength of greater than 10%. Out of these there are 11 Parliamentary seats that have more than 20% Indian voter

The table below is data obtained up to Dec 31, 2011

States In Malaysia 

Percentage of Indian Voters
No of Indian Voters 

Total Number of Voters 

Negeri Sembilan 

14.75% 

77,560 

525,986 

Selangor 

14.06% 

267,655 

1,904,008 

Perak 

11.60% 

157,898 

1,361,001 

Penang 

10.49% 

85,162 

811,750 

Wilayah Persekutuan 

10.46% 

80,906 

773,757 

Kedah 

6.67% 

66,333 

994,352 

Johor 

6.39% 

97,542 

1,525,444 

Melaka 

6.24% 

26,403 

423,070 

Pahang 

4.72% 

33,293 

705,446 

Perlis 

0.73% 

979 

132,725 

Kelantan 

0.22% 

1,921 

872,614 

Terengganu 

0.30% 

1,810 

611,583 

Sarawak 

0.00% 



1,024,240 

Sabah 

0.00% 



931,292 

Total 

7.14% 

897,462 

12,597,268 

 
Both NS and Selangor consists of more than 14% Indian voters. NS has the highest percentage of Indian voters in a state (14.75%). Selangor however has the highest number of Indian voters in a state. Selangor has 12 Parliamentary and 29 ADUN seats that consist of Indian voter population above their state average of 14%. Where else NS has 6 parliamentary and 15 ADUN seats, and Perak 11 Parliamentary and 9 ADUN seats above their state average of 14% and 12% respectively.

selangor

Selangor new voters from 2008 up to Dec 31 2011, show that almost 50k new Indians voters have registered to vote. This accounts to almost half of the new Chinese voters and also almost 1/3 of new Malay voters in Selangor. 25% of the 200k new Indian voters are concentrated in Selangor.

perak

Remarkably Indians have also registered the highest percentage rise per race in new voter registration since 2008 in all the bread and butter states. Selangor registering a 22.40% rise with Perak and NS recording 16.03% and 16.82% rise respectively since 2008. Malacca has recorded a 45.91% increase in new Indian voters. For comparison sake Selangor only registered a 5-6% rise in new Indian voter registration during the period between 2004 and 2007. 

dun selangor

It is apparent that there has been a lot of new Indian voter awareness and enlightenment of their political plight and strength. This spike in new Indian voter registration can be attributed to Hindraf's emergence as the front leader in the Malaysian Indian political landscape and dynamics since 2007.

dun selangor 2

The 15/38 Hindraf project appears to have also contributed to this rise in new Indian voter registration. Hindraf has paid paramount importance in voter registration as well as responsibility as a voter to the Indian community as a means to increase its political weight in the arena of Malaysian politics so that political solutions of the marginalized Indians problems can be expedited.

dun n9

BN has for decades ignored these problems and allowed the marginalized Indians issues now to tilt towards critical point. PR's emphasis on Indian representatives as versus Indian representation has not given these critical issues its due importance. For these reasons Hindraf has filled this vacuum of Indian leadership with their selfless sacrifices. 
dun perak

PR feels that it could be able to win comfortably in the next GE with just relying on predominantly strong Malay and Chinese support. However there have been accusations and suspicions that BN is aiming to sabotage this by the introduction and injection of phantom/foreign voters together with dubious voters into the Electoral roll.

 new voters

Looking at the alarming rise and exponential growth in new voters, especially the Bumiputra voters in numbers, particularly in key constituencies that appear to be too close to call, these suspicions may have some justification. The exponential growth of new voters since 2008 is 1 : 1.8 : 5.32 : 6.5 : 8.39 is staggering! (N/p 2012 data is only up to June 30th 2012 and has been estimated to at least double 651,006 to give a 8.39% increase)

It is interesting to note that in 2008 and 2009, PR was leading BN in registering new voters. In 2010 BN had caught up with PR in registering new voters and subsequently has overtaken PR in 2011 and 2012. This also reflects in the abnormal spike in new voters from 2010 onwards. 

sel

It has been common knowledge that BN's primary aim in the next GE is to secure a 2/3rd majority in Parliament and to win back the rich state of Selangor. BN is also feverishly working behind the scenes to prove that the outcome of the results in the next GE will show that PR has lost a big majority of the Malay support as this will be tantamount to pulling the life support system of the PR coalition. It is also rumored that Dr Mahathir's expertise is being sought and is still influential behind the scenes as well as calling the shots in the BN's election machinery.

new voter seln9

Dr Mahathir has in the past been accused to have  orchestrated Sabah's 'Project M' where thousands of Filipino Muslims were given Malaysian citizenship's so that they could vote in favour of UMNO and dilute the predominantly Christian majority voters influence in the state of Sabah. During Dr Mahathir's era also, hundreds of thousands of Malaysian born Indians were denied their citizenship's in Malaysia rendering them stateless and having no voting rights at all. In the 1999 hotly contested GE, Dr Mahathir's plan of calling the GE early had nullified Anwar Ibrahim's supporters numbering 650k who had newly registered to vote, disqualifying them to vote on a technicality of not registering 6 months before the GE.

newjun 2012

Reflecting on all these factors there appears to show a certain pattern developing in the current period leading to the next GE. 

1) Dr Mahathir's involvement.

2) Abnormal spike in new voters especially Bumiputra voters in constituencies    that are too close to call.

3) Allegations of foreigners are being made voters.

4) The potential of at least another 650k new dubious registered voters being added into the Electoral roll between the period July 1st to Dec 31st 2012, which will be too late for PR to check. This will deliver the technical knockout blow to PR's chances of taking over Putrajaya.

pekan

It must be noted that phantom/foreign voters are suspected to have been added into the Malay category of the Electoral roll as this will dilute the PR's Malay voters. Pekan (Najib) has had a 26.39% rise and Sembrong (Hishamudin) a whopping 34.86% rise in new Malay voters.

increase voter

DSAI himself appears to be repeating the same mistake of his 1998/1999 Reformasi movement where he then mainly focused on the Malay supporters which proved on the hindsight to be insufficient for him to win. Currently just relying on the Malay and Chinese support is not going to be enough either. PR will still require the support of the Indian voters at levels similar to which it had in the 2008 GE. The 99.5% geographical distribution of Indian voters in the bread and butter states of Peninsular Malaysia, gives it added strength in the collective voting strength in the next General Election. Currently there are no Indian leaders in this country who can muster that kind of overwhelming Indian support towards PR other than HINDRAF. HINDRAF can not only rally the Indian support but more importantly make them to turn up to vote on elections day. Delaying attempts to forge a coalition and corporation with the well oiled election machinery of HINDRAF is tantamount to shooting PR's own two feet.

crowd2511
synergy

MIC claims to have almost half of the Indian voters (400k) secured (Malay Mail 15/10/12). PR is estimated to command anywhere between 30-50% of the Indian voters support. However there appears to be a significant difference in the value of both these opposing camps Indian support. MIC Indian voters support is traditionally in rural areas and in the outskirts of cities where else PR's Indian support is in the cities. PR is expected to face stiff opposition in the rural areas and outskirts of cities and as such their lack in Indian support in these areas will be costly.

PR will require the SYNERGY of all the 3 major races in one direction against BN to topple the 55 year regime.

 

Exco member’s aide arrested in anti-graft sting

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 10:30 AM PST

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rasuah-300x243.jpg 

(The Star) - The aide is an office bearer of the Permatang Pauh PKR division and is now a coordinator for Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in the constituency.

The aide of a Penang state exco member has been arrested in an anti-graft sting.

The man, in his 50s, and two others were arrested for allegedly offering a bribe and abuse of power over a sexual harassment case.

They were alleged to have given RM30,000 to a woman as an inducement for her to drop a sexual harassment complaint on a top civil servant.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission director of investigations Datuk Mustafar Ali confirmed the arrest but declined to elaborate.

The woman, a clerk, had earlier complained that her former employer had sexually harassed her. The civil servant was produced in court to be charged several months ago.

The civil servant then sought the help from his friend, the political secretary. The latter then contacted the woman.

A source familiar with the investigations said that the woman lodged a report with the commission which mounted a sting operation late on the night of Jan 3 at a restaurant in Seberang Jaya.

At the meeting with the woman, three of them allegedly dropped off the hush money to her.

It was only after the money changed hands and the woman was forced to sign a document promising not to continue with the court case, that anti-graft officers moved in.

"They were arrested on the spot at about 11.30pm," said the source.

The source added that the three were held for about 24 hours after they were first arrested. They have since been released on bail.

The aide is an office bearer of the Permatang Pauh PKR division and is now a coordinator for Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in the constituency.

He is also said to be a powerful figure in the Penanti state constituency.

The three are likely to be charged in court once the commission wraps up its investigations.

 

Raja Ropiaah, NFC issues hurting Wanita Umno and BN, analysts say

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 10:28 AM PST

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/images/uploads/01/ropiah0106.jpg 

(The Malaysian Insider) - Scandals engulfing top Wanita Umno leaders are undermining the backbone of the ruling party and will affect  Barisan Nasional (BN)'s chances in Election 2013, say analysts.

The latest scandal is a lucrative land deal for a defence studies facility that has yet to be built by Selangor Wanita Umno chief Senator Datuk Raja Ropiaah Abdullah's firm, nearly a year after the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal cost her boss Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil her senatorship and a Cabinet post.

"Issues that are raised by the Opposition can undeniably affect Wanita Umno's image, and we know that Umno's strong support comes from the women's wing," Universiti Utara Malaysia's (UUM) lecturer Dr Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani told The Malaysian Insider.

"So, it is up to Wanita Umno to change to menangkis tohmahan (dispel these accusations)," he said of the wing whose members have been effective in canvassing votes for BN.

Azizuddin said as many outside the party are watching Wanita Umno, the movement must change to ensure that they are seen to be clean and free from scandals that could hurt BN's chances in this year's general election.

"It's all up to them," Azizuddin repeated.

Raja Ropiaah has kept mum about her company Awan Megah Sdn Bhd's failure to build the RM100 million National Defence Education Centre (Puspahanas) in Putrajaya despite selling the government land that was swapped for the construction cost.

Read more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/raja-ropiaah-nfc-issues-hurting-wanita-umno-and-bn-analysts-say/ 

 

MACC: Facebooking during office hours a form of graft

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 10:22 AM PST

http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/court-ruling-tn1-300x300.jpg 

(The Star) - Civil servants and staff of government-linked companies (GLCs) surfing social media or engaging in personal matters during working hours may be categorised as having committed corruption, said the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

"For instance, if a person spends three hours during his or her stipulated working hours for personal tasks, it can be deemed a form of corruption as the Government trusts and pays its employees to fully utilise the working period to complete tasks relating to the respective jobscope," said MACC deputy chief commissioner Datuk Sutinah Sutan.

This also applied to those who surfed Facebook or other forms of social media, as such actions could be considered as straying from their job specifications, she said after witnessing the signing of the corporate integrity pledge by Kumpulan Melaka Berhad (KMB) at a hotel here yesterday.

KMB is the first state government agency to sign the pledge aimed at creating a business environment free from corruption and upholding anti-graft principles.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam was the guest of honour at the event.

Sutinah said the act of engaging in other personal tasks during work hours could be considered as contravening the employment contract and culprits could face disciplinary action if initiated by respective disciplinary boards.

She noted that although such offences were not covered under the MACC Act, the commission could advise the disciplinary board on the types of actions to be meted out against errant staff of such government departments and GLCs.

Meanwhile, Sutinah confirmed that the commission had started screening general election candidates following the request from both Barisan Nasional and the Opposition.

Meanwhile, Cuepacs president Datuk Omar Osman urged civil servants to give priority to their duties during working hours.

"While social media is a good way to encourage people to be more tech-savvy and updated on current affairs, civil servants should dedicate their work hours to their respective ministry, department or agency," he said.

He also proposed a proper mechanism to define what websites, if surfed by a civil servant during working hours, could be considered straying from their job specifications.

"There should be clear guidelines, not only for the workers to understand what actions can be penalised, but also for the disciplinary committee to determine what is within the job scope and what is not," he said.

 

Christians are hurting in the religious divide -- STAR

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 10:19 AM PST

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/ae159/Malaysia-Today/DanielJohnJambun.jpg 

Leaders involved in the debates on religion in Malaysia should stop behaving as if the Christians have no feelings and no rights as Malaysians, said State Reform Party (STAR) here.
 
Daniel John Jambun 
 
In a statement, STAR Deputy Chairman, Daniel John Jambun said it's high time Christians came forward and assert their rights as Malaysians in matters concerning their faith.
 
"It is ridiculous that many non-Christian leaders are talking about various religious issues as if the Christians are emotionally dead about matters affecting their religious rights," Jambun said. "There is longstanding assumption among politicians at the national level that no matter what you say about the Christians, they wouldn't dare respond to assert their rights. It's high time this is stopped."
 
He said it is a clear case of condescending, taking for granted and outright bullying for Muslim leaders to oppose the use of "Allah," to prohibit or control the distribution of the Indonesian Alkitab, to arrest non-Muslims in khlawat cases, and to proclaims fatwahs (decrees) affecting the non-Muslims.
 
"Now the situation is reaching a critical level with PAS insisting on the implementation of hudud in the whole of the country and to turnMalaysia into a theocracy," Jambun asserted. "The government should make a strong stance and treat these inflammatory religious proclamations as seditious and threat to public peace and national harmony.
 
"Initially, hudud was just for Kelantan and there was assurance it wouldn't affect non-Muslims. But we all know that the implementation of hudud will defitnitely affect all Malaysians because as a people, we interact and there will be circumstances in which non-Muslims will be entangled into the draconian syariah law.
 
"The Muslims and non-Muslims people of Sabah who have lived in harmony before PAS' came into the picture, are now being rattled by religious issues raised by PAS and Perkasa. The fact that the people of Sabah had been assured of religious freedom in Malaysia as documented by the Keningau Oath Stone, is now meaningless. The Christians in Sabah here now feel they are being harassed and denied their rights."
 
Jambun assured he has no intention to interfere in Islamic affairs, but just to express the feeling of numerous people who have called him to voice out their grievance over the "spiritual colonialization" by PAS and the bullying of Christians by some insensitive political leaders. He said he respects everyone's rights to their beliefs and religious practices but such respect and rights should also be accorded to Christians as well.

 

Buried Christian Empire Casts New Light on Early Islam

Posted: 05 Jan 2013 04:43 AM PST

FUDZAIL

The "crowned man" relief found in Zafar, Yemen is seen as evidence that there was a Christian empire in the region before Islam took hold.

Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

The commandment "Make yourself no graven image" has long been strictly followed in the Arab world. There are very few statues of the caliphs and ancient kings of the region. The pagan gods in the desert were usually worshipped in an "aniconic" way, that is, as beings without form.
Muhammad had a beard, but there are no portraits of him.
But now a narcissistic work of human self-portrayal has turned up in Yemen. It is a figure, chiseled in stone, which apparently stems from the era of the Prophet.

Paul Yule, an archeologist from the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, has studied the relief, which is 1.70 meters (5'7") tall, in Zafar, some 930 kilometers (581 miles) south of Mecca. It depicts a man with chains of jewelry, curls and spherical eyes. Yule dates the image to the time around 530 AD.

The German archeologist excavated sites in the rocky highlands of Yemen, an occupation that turned quite dangerous recently because of political circumstances in the country. On his last mission, Yule lost 8 kilograms (18 lbs.) and his equipment was confiscated.

Nevertheless, he is pleased, because he was able to bring notes, bits of debris and bones back to Heidelberg. Yule has concluded that Zafar was the center of an Arab tribal confederation, a realm that was two million square kilometers (about 772,000 square miles) large and exerted its influence all the way to Mecca.

Even more astonishing is his conclusion that kings who invoked the Bible lived in the highland settlement. The "crowned man" depicted on the relief was also a Christian.

Conquerers from Ancient Ethiopia

Yule has analyzed the mysterious, robed figure in a report for the academic journal Antiquity. He is barefoot, which is typical of Coptic saints. He is holding a bundle of twigs, a symbol of peace, in his left hand. There is a crossbar on his staff, giving it the appearance of a cross. In addition, he is wearing a crown on his head like the ones worn by the Christian rulers of ancient Ethiopia.

All of this suggests that the man with a strange, round face is a descendant of the conquerors from Africa who succeeded in making one of the boldest landing operations in ancient times.

In 525 AD, the Negus, or king, of Aksum dispatched a fleet across the Red Sea. Soldiers and fighting elephants were ferried across the water to the East on un-tarred, raft-like ships to spread the gospel. In the ensuing decades, his army captured large parts of Arabia.

The first spearhead was targeted at the capital Zafar. Like a fortress in the sky, the town was perched on an extinct volcano, at an altitude of 2,800 meters (9,184 feet) above sea level. Its walls, riddled with towers and alarm bells, were four-and-a-half kilometers long. About 25,000 people lived in Zafar.

According to Yule, between the 3rd and the 5th century the confederation managed to complete a "meteoric rise" and become a superpower. Its merchants traded in sandalwood from Ceylon and valerian from Persia. The state controlled the port of Aden, where the ships of spice traders from India docked. Frankincense, which was made in Arabia, was also traded. It was a place of luxury. Yule found wine amphorae, the remains of precious fish condiments and palaces decorated with sphinxes and lions.

A Peaceful Multi-Cultural Community

The social structure in Zafar also appeared to be unique. The city had a large Jewish community, as evidenced by a seal with a Torah niche. Hebrew inscriptions were discovered. Zafar's residents also included Christians, who built a church there in 354 AD. Arabs who worshipped old idols lived in the alleys.
But this peaceful, multicultural community soon came to an end, as tensions began to mount in the 5th century, and Arabia was transformed into a front.

The Byzantine Empire, bristling with weapons, operated in the west, and its vassals kept making inroads toward the desert. They were accompanied by Christian missionaries, who brought the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to the shepherds on the edge of the Rub' al Khali, the sand desert that makes up much of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula.

These Sacred Heart imperialists confronted the Persian realm of the Sassanids, with its archers and armies of bearded soldiers clad in heavy metal armor. The Jews, who lived by the tens of thousands in the oases, were to some extent aligned with this power.

It was a confrontation between east and west, and everyone was forced to choose a side.
This also applied to Zafar. To stop the advance of Christianity, individual Arab kings initially converted to Judaism. The entire ruling class of the realm eventually followed suit. From then on, people were given names like Yehuda and Yussuf.

Then they took up arms. In approximately 520 AD, they attacked the Christian colony of Najran, where there were churches and monasteries. Countless Christians were slaughtered. The shocking news traveled all the way to Europe.

A 'Puppet King'

Now the spiral of violence began turning more rapidly. The furious Byzantines and their allies from Africa were out for revenge. Kaleb, the Aksumite king of Ethiopia (who wore gold jewelry in his hair and had himself driven around in an elephant carriage) went on the counter-offensive.

If the sources are correct, his first naval maneuver was a miserable failure. In 525 AD, with the help of additional warships provided by the Byzantines, he successfully completed the crossing to the other side of the Red Sea.

The relief of the "crowned man" from Zafar was apparently created during this period of invasion. Yule interprets it as a representation of the Christian "puppet king" of the Ethiopians.

The invaders continued their attacks. Southern Arabia's holy warrior, Abraha, had taken control of large areas before long. He even attempted to free bishops being held prisoner by the Persian enemy in Nisibis (in modern-day Turkey), some 2,500 kilometers away.

The man embarked on a religious crusade at the same time. He rebuilt the churches that had been destroyed in Najran, and he had new ones built in Marib and Aden.

His most beautiful church was in Sanaa. It had gilded doors and a throne made of ebony and ivory. In the morning, the rays of the sun shone through an alabaster panel in the dome. The Byzantines supported the project, sending craftsmen, marble and mosaics.

The result was an architectural miracle, the likes of which all of Arabia had never seen before.

READ MORE HERE

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 20)

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 06:01 PM PST

Haji Hamid and I discussed this matter and it was agreed that if the police do arrest and charge Dr Wan Azizah then I would have to admit that I had, in fact, smuggled Anwar's blood, urine, hair and fingernail samples into Australia. Then the Melbourne pathologist office can make their test results official. This would save Dr Wan Azizah from the charge of making a false police report but I would instead face the risk of being charged for smuggling.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Anwar's trial is halted by arsenic claim

(The Independent, UK, 11 September 1999) - Malaysia politician Anwar Ibrahim is being poisoned with arsenic by the authorities while in prison, his lawyer said yesterday at the trial of the former deputy prime minister on sodomy charges.

Karpal Singh said secret tests on Anwar's urine proved that the politician, who is already serving six years for corruption, has an alarming level of arsenic in his body. "I suspect some people in high places, in all likelihood, are responsible for his condition," Mr Singh said. "The family and Anwar Ibrahim are alarmed. He is in jeopardy of his life."

The trial was adjourned by Judge Ariffin Jaka, who ordered that Anwar, 52, be taken to hospital for tests. Later, Mr Singh showed a report said to be from an Australian pathology lab, indicating the urine sample tested had 77 times more arsenic than normal human urine.

Anwar's relatives somehow obtained a urine sample and smuggled it out last month using a false name, Mr Singh said. The lab report carried the name Subramaniam and an age of 59.

Before the hearing was adjourned indefinitely, prosecutors said there was no proof that Anwar was being poisoned in prison. Arsenic could have entered his body through food given to him by family and friends in court, the Attorney General, Mohtar Abdullah, said

Anwar flew into a rage at that, pounding the wooden railing of the dock and stamping his feet. "Fed by my wife! I was poisoned by Azizah!" he shrieked ironically, referring to his wife, who heads an opposition party that has vowed to end the government's 18-year rule.

Anwar is accused of sodomising his former family driver. He says the sex and corruption charges are part of a political conspiracy to end his challenge to the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad. He faces up to 20 more years in prison if convicted of sodomy.

Anwar was arrested on 20 September last year, 18 days after the Prime Minister fired him. He was beaten on the night of his arrest by the police chief of Malaysia.

When the judge asked Anwar how he felt, he said: "I am generally all right, I am not feeling any pain, but certainly I am not my usual self." Anwar said he had lost weight and hair, symptoms he connected to arsenic poisoning. His wife later said he lost 9kg (19lb) this year.

"This is attempted murder," said Azizah. "I'm very alarmed, very frightened, to learn that his life is in danger."

The Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said that he had ordered an immediate investigation.

Anwar Ibrahim (R) smiles as he arrives at hospital under guard in Kuala Lumpur September 10. Anwar was taken to the hospital on Friday after his lawyer Karpal Singh said a pathologist in Australia had found arsenic in Anwar's urine.

Anwar Ibrahim, second from left, is welcomed by staff of National University Hospital on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur as he arrives for his medical test Friday, Sept. 10, 1999.

Anwar Ibrahim, center, waves to his supporters as he was discharged from National University Hospital where he was admitted to be checked for possible arsenic poisoning, Monday, Oct. 4, 1999 in Kuala Lumpur.

*********************************************

I can't quite remember the exact day in August 1999 it was, but I know it was a Friday and before the 10th of September 1999, the day the arsenic poisoning of Anwar Ibrahim issue exploded.

I remember it was a Friday because I had just returned from my Friday prayers when I received a phone call from Anwar's MCKK classmate, Haji Hamid Rashid, who was also my 'boss'.

I was then working in the R&D division of Parti Keadilan Nasional (now called Parti Keadilan Rakyat or PKR), basically a psychological-warfare (psywar) unit to handle the Internet media war long before the advent of Blogs or new portals such as Malaysiakini.

At that time there were only 280,000 Internet subscribers in Malaysia compared to 15 million or so today. Nevertheless, we saw the importance of the Internet long before Umno realised it in 2008 and we decided to get in from the ground floor because he who is first 'controls the market', so to speak.

Haji Hamid's phone call was rather strange. Normally he would drop in to the PKR office at Phileo Damansara -- a building owned by Anwar crony, Datuk Ravi Dharan, one-time Samy Vellu crony who made millions as a Barisan Nasional stooge -- and we would hold our discussions in a special 'bug-proof' room.

Haji Hamid never considered the phone a safe medium of discussion as the powers-that-be can listen in on whatever we discuss. Hence that phone call was most unusual. And the discussion was even stranger.

"No names!" said Haji Hamid. "Meet me now at the PJ Hilton car park. No further explanation."

I jumped onto my motorcycle, a Yamaha Virago, and rushed to the PJ Hilton. I arrived there in less than 15 minutes, parked my bike, and hung around. There was no sign of Haji Hamid so I thought that maybe I was early.

After waiting for about 10 minutes or so my phone rang and Haji Hamid said, "Turn and face the highway." I was facing the PJ Hilton, expecting Haji Hamid to come from there. I turned to face the highway as instructed and I saw someone hiding behind one of the pillars of the flyover. He signalled to me to come over.

I walked over and as I got closer I could see that it was Haji Hamid. Apparently he had arrived before me but he wanted to monitor me before showing himself lest I was followed.

Haji Hamid then explained that Anwar had been poisoned with arsenic. They had secretly taken some of Anwar's blood, urine, hair and fingernail samples and had sent them to the Melbourne for testing under the name of Subramaniam and the tests proved that Anwar had a high level of arsenic in his system.

They then tried to send a second set of samples, this time in Anwar's name, but the Malaysian police had found out and had intercepted and confiscated them before they could leave the country.

Now Anwar was under close monitoring so no one could get to him for another set of samples. However, what the police did not know is there was a third set of samples. But these cannot be sent through the normal channels because the police were monitoring all the courier companies. Hence they needed to be smuggled out.

Haji Hamid explained that none of Anwar's family dared smuggle the samples out because the minute they try to leave the country they will be stopped and subjected to a 100% check. Haji Hamid wanted me to help find someone who can act as a smuggler.

I told Haji Hamid it would be too risky to trust someone else to do this job and that I had better do it myself.

We walked in to the PJ Hilton and asked the concierge to check flights to Melbourne, Australia. The earliest available flight was Monday. Haji Hamid told the concierge to make the flight booking, who asked me the name of the passenger. Haji Hamid pointed to me and the concierge replied, "Raja Petra, right?"

Haji Hamid went pale. Haji Hamid told the concierge to hold on and he pulled me aside. "He knows who you are," Haji Hamid said. "It's too dangerous. We need to abort."

I assured Haji Hamid that he had nothing to worry about. Clearly the concierge was one of us since he knows who I am. Reluctantly Haji Hamid agreed to proceed but he cautioned me that if I got caught I was on my own. I assured Haji Hamid that he would not get dragged into this if I got caught.

The flight booking for Monday was done and we went back to the car park. Haji Hamid then handed me a polystyrene box with a sealed container submerged in dry ice inside it. "Put this in the fridge until your flight on Monday night," he told me. "But do not break the seal."

I went home and emptied the fridge in my bedroom and placed the sealed box inside it. "What the hell are you doing?" my wife Marina asked. I explained to Marina what was going on. "You are storing Anwar's piss in my fridge?" she asked.

"Well, look at it this way," I replied, "one day when Anwar becomes Prime Minister and when he complains that I piss him off we can remind him that when he was in prison we were the trustee to his piss. Hence we have every right to piss him off."

On Monday night Marina drove me to the airport and I tried to look as cool as I could when I checked in. "Any luggage?" they asked me. "Only this box, which I will hand carry," I replied.

I walked through the security check and immigration clearance. They X-rayed the box and allowed it through. There was also no 'red flag' on my passport. I breathed a long sigh of relief as I walked onto the plane and sat down. My last two days were filled with visions of getting stopped or arrested but it was plain sailing with no hiccups.

I arrived at Melbourne airport and phoned the number that Haji Hamid had given me. The man at the other end asked me my name and said he would call me back in a few minutes. He then called up Haji Hamid to verify my identity and then called me back with instructions on where I was supposed to go.

I jumped into a taxi and headed for the place. The person I had spoken to earlier, one of Anwar's Malaysian lawyers, was waiting outside the gate. He then escorted me in and told me he is not allowed to touch the box I was carrying.

We went to the pathologist's office where a local Australian lawyer was waiting. They asked me to place the box on the table and then took photographs of the box from all angles. The Australian lawyer then inspected the seal and confirmed that it had not been broken or tampered with.

In the presence of both the Malaysian and Australian lawyers, they broke the seal and removed the contents from the box. I waited while they did a test on the samples and confirmed that there was indeed a high level of arsenic.

Nevertheless, the test would have to be 'off the record'. This was because not only were the samples smuggled out of Malaysia but they were also smuggled into Australia, which was a crime. The only way they could make the test official would be if I were to declare that I had smuggled them into Australia. But that would mean I would also be admitting that I had committed a crime and would have to face arrest.

The rest of the story is in The Independent news report of 11th September 1999 (above).

When this issue exploded on 10th September 1999, the Malaysian police interrogated Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who had made a police report on the matter, and threatened to arrest and charge her for the crime of making a false police report.

Haji Hamid and I discussed this matter and it was agreed that if the police do arrest and charge Dr Wan Azizah then I would have to admit that I had, in fact, smuggled Anwar's blood, urine, hair and fingernail samples into Australia. Then the Melbourne pathologist office can make their test results official. This would save Dr Wan Azizah from the charge of making a false police report but I would instead face the risk of being charged for smuggling.  

Fortunately the Malaysian police did not carry through with their threat of arresting and charging Dr Wan Azizah for the crime of making a false police report and I was spared the agony of having to face a charge of smuggling. I hear that the Australian government does not take too kindly to those caught smuggling human tissue samples into Australia.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 1)

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 2) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 3) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 4) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 5) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 6) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 7) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 8) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 9) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 10) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 11)  

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 12) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 13) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 14) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 15) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 16) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 17) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 18) 

The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 19) 

 

DAP Vote Scandal Getting Worse : Where Are The Ballots?

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 05:08 PM PST

OutSyed The Box

Folks the DAP's party voting scandal is getting worse. 

Now they are blaming it on Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet.  This is the most stupid thing anyone can say. 

For the DAP's information, in 2012 Microsoft's revenue was RM220 Billion. 1.0 billion computers in the world are running Microsoft software. (That is about 90% of all computers in the world)  And the DAP now blames Microsoft for their failure to tally up 1,800 votes? 

Yesterday the DAP election director, the guy in charge of tallying up the election results said something even more strange. Here is the news report :
So lets tabulate this :

  • DAP election director has resigned. 
  • Gag order has been imposed. 
  • Dont know what has happened to the manually recorded vote tabulation. 
  • Dont know what has happened to the ballot papers. 
  • No recount of votes.
  • This is Ubah Rocket Style.

Here is an extra large picture of Pooi Weng Kong :


I blew up the picture so that everyone can see exactly what Pooi Weng Kong looks like. 

Please dont come and tell me that this fellow in the picture is a Malay guy ok. If you think this guy in the picture is a Malay, then go and have your eyes checked. Muka China, rambut China, mata China, hidung China, warna kulit China - so dont come and tell me that this guy is a Malay. 

When asked what has happened to the manually recorded vote tabulation, Pooi Weng Kong the DAP's election director said  "the matter was beyond him now"

I say kawan, what type of answer is that?  Where are the ballot papers? Where are the manually recorded tally sheets? This only raises another question : Has all the evidence been destroyed already? 

Asked about a recount, Lim Guan Eng just declined to comment.  

You mean the DAP does not even follow normal procedures? If there is any dispute or controversy in vote counting, the immediate thing to do is to recount the ballots. Apa susah sangat? 

Because you have already said that there was a technical glitch in Microsoft Excel's Spreadsheet. Please dont say that you have now corrected the situation by using the same Microsoft Excel ! That would be dua kali bodoh.

READ MORE HERE

 

Malayan-based parties too greedy to wallop state seats

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:57 PM PST

Isn't the 165 parliamentary seats (out of 222) lumped together in the whole of Malaya good enough for PKR and PR to contest that they must contest Sabah's mere 25 and Sarawak's 31 parliamentary seats?

Daniel John Jambun

It disturbs us in Star when certain opposition leaders here keep on mentioning in their speeches that STAR is splittng the opposition votes and in the process help return Barisan Nasional in the coming general election.

To some of the simple-minded people this could be very misleading, but a deeper look at things, the finger would point that it is the Malaya-based political parties that are truly splitting the votes in Sabah and Sarawak as they are too greedy of wanting to wallop even the smallest number of seats in Sabah and Sarawak.

When Malaysia Federation was formed in 1963, it was an agreement that our seats, both state and parliamentary seats in our own state should be our safeguard that those representatives elected are to be Sabah and Sarawak genuine voices especially in Parliament.

But what short of safeguards Sabah and Sarawak can have if even our small number of seats are being taken and contested by parties from outside East Malaysia? It is obvious that these Sabahans reps would listen to their leaders who are from Peninsular. Just look at UMNO reps from Sabah.

We want to push away Umno from Sabah but why must these Malayan and their Sabahan proxies and stooges here insist we replace Umno with yet another Malayan political parties say Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR)?

Yeah it is their democratic right but why is PKR-led Pakatan Rakyat too greedy? Isn't the about 400 state seats in the 11 states of Peninsular a huge number already for them to have a one-to-one fight with Umno?

Isn't the 165 parliamentary seats (out of 222) lumped together in the whole of Malaya good enough for PKR and PR to contest that they must contest Sabah's mere 25 and Sarawak's 31 parliamentary seats?

We Sabahans must really ponder on this facts. Do we really want a change that is real? Or will we allow another outsider organisations to rule over us? 

 

All’s quiet at Tamil school with only two pupils

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:45 PM PST

Three's company: (From left) S. Kishare Kumar teaching his students Sharvin and Shavatha at SJK (T) Sungai Papan in Pengerang.

Three's company: (From left) S. Kishare Kumar teaching his students Sharvin and Shavatha at SJK (T) Sungai Papan in Pengerang.

(The Star) - PENGERANG: The start of a new year is usually the busiest and noisiest for any school but in SJK (T) Ladang Sungai Papan, there is only silence in its hall.

Its Parent-Teacher Association chairman L. Krishnasamy is now pinning his hopes on the Petronas Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project to boost the school's fortune.

The school, located in the middle of an oil palm plantation, currently has only two pupils in Year Six, outnumbered by the school staff comprising a principal, two teachers, two security guards and two gardeners.

Its Parent-Teacher Association chairman L. Krishnasamy, who runs a sundry shop in the estate, said student numbers had been dwindling since the other estate workers started migrating to the bigger towns of Ulu Tiram and Pasir Gudang.

"For the past few years, there has been no new student enrolled for Year One," he said, adding that the school was equipped with classrooms, an office and even a resource centre.

Fretting about the school's future by year-end when it would no longer have any pupil, Krishnasamy, who has been the PTA chairman for the past decade, said there used to be over a hundred Indian families living there in the 1960s and 1970s.

"Now, only a dozen people are left and most of the rubber has been replaced with oil palm. Most of the workers here are also Indonesians," he said, adding that the nearest Tamil school was 45km away in Kota Tinggi.

However, Krishnasamy is upbeat that the opening of the RAPID project here over the next few year will see pupils trickling in.

"There will surely be many people who will move here. We can be an option for those who intend to send their children to Tamil schools," he said.

As for pupils Sharvin Raj and N. Shavatha, they do not mind being the only ones studying in the school.

"We enjoy each other's company," said Sharvin, whose father, R. Ravichandran, is the school principal for the past two years.

 

Taiwanese gamblers bet on cancer patients

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:36 PM PST

(The Star) - PUNTERS in Taiwan are wagering on a macabre game to predict the date when terminally ill cancer patients die, reported China Press.

The punters, with bets running up to NT$100mil (RM10mil), included the patients' family members and even the doctors.

Those who wished to participate in the game had to pay a membership fee of NT$2,000 (RM200) to the bookies, who would visit hospitals to seek permission from the patients' family.

The bookies would then take the gamblers to the hospital on their next visit to observe the patients.

According to the rules, the bookies win if the cancer patients die within a month. However, if they die between one and six months after the bets were placed, the gamblers would be paid three times their wager.

It was reported that more than 10 gaming houses, set up by senior citizens' clubs, had mushroomed in Taizhong city.

 

Muslims urged to be brave and firm in defending Islam

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:30 PM PST

(Bernama) - Muslims in the country must be brave, firm and strong in facing challenges from parties which endeavour to interfere with the position of Islam as the official religion. 

Dewan Negara president Tan Sri Abu Zahar Ujang (picture) said the threats and attempts to weaken Islam in Malaysia had never subsided including the attempt of late to deny Islam as the religion of the federation by those with vested interest.

"Recently, there are those in Malaysian society who refute Islam's position as enshrined in Article 3 of the Federal Constitution. 

"They only regard Islam as an official religion, and its position that is lower than the constitution. This thinking has spread, and, if not corrected, will become a big problem for our country," he said in his speech when opening a seminar "Upholding Islam, The National Religion" (Semaian) at Pusat Islam here today. 

He said Muslims in the country must realise that the threat towards Islam came in many forms, including the latest, the demand to use the term Allah, which was raised again in the Malay version of the Bible, was a clear effort to weaken Islam in the country.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng in his Christmas message on his blog recently urged the Federal Government headed by Barisan Nasional to allow the use of the term Allah in the Malay version of the Bible.

 

How the boardroom clinched Deepak deal

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:25 PM PST

The most puzzling question in the RM30 million settlement with carpetman Deepak Jaikishan is why didn't Boustead Holdings Bhd buy 100% shares in Astacanggih? 

Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz, FMT

Why can't the group of army veterans see the documents related to the purchase of Astacanggih Sdn Bhd and land from Awan Megah (M) Sdn Bhd? After all, the legal requirement is that the documents related to the purchases should be made available for public inspection for three months from the date Boustead Holdings Bhd (BHB) announced the deals.

But that didn't happen, did it?

Anway, what I found puzzling was this. BHB can buy out Astacanggih (an 80% stake) but cannot do the same with Awan Megah. If it takes over Awan Megah, wouldn't that lead to taking over the privatisation project (National Defence Education Centre or Puspahanas)?

If that was the case, the company (Awan Megah) should be in distress as it had neither the intention nor capacity to build the RM100 million Puspahanas. It's embroiled in a lot of problems.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just buy out the two proxies fronting for Raja Ropiaah Abdullah, the owner of Awan Megah?

Let us do a little bit of detective work concerning BHB asking its son-company (grandson to Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera or LTAT) to buy Astacanggih and buy off Deepak Jaikishan. Some people called it outright bribery which seems to be in line with how Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak manages the country.

Let me suggest to you what may have happened in the "war room" or bunker of the BHB board of directors, many of whom are former generals (who never went to war).

It was an emergency meeting and must have given the retired generals a surreal sense that they were at war – having to make a quick decision.

Luckily they were qualified generals and not dullards.

The BHB directors consented to its son-company, its wholly-owned unit, Bakti Wira Development Sdn Bhd (Company No. 276338-M) to enter into an agreement on Dec 20, 2012, to acquire 16,000,000 ordinary shares of RM1 each in Astacanggih Sdn Bhd (Company No. 767577-W). This represented 80% of the issued and paid-up share capital of Astacanggih.

This was meant to pay back that pesky Hindustan hero (Deepak Jaikishan), author of "The Black Rose".

So Boustead now has a new adopted son, Astacanggih.

Astacanggih and Bakti Wira then entered into an agreement with Awan Megah (Company No. 184720-W) to acquire a total of 200 acres of freehold land in Klang, Selangor.

They entered into such agreement on Dec 27, 2012. The purchase price of RM30 milion was arrived at on a willing-seller and willing-buyer basis, the managers told the generals.

Astacanggih shares were originally held by Deepak and Prestige Dimension Sdn Bhd and other minority shareholders who were the vendors in the acquisition of shares.

The other original shareholder of Astacanggih is Putra Nazrain Adril Abdul Jalil who holds four million or 20% shares in Astacanggih.

Who is Astacanggih?

Astacanggih is a private limited company incorporated in Malaysia and operating from its address given as 25-5-16 (5.16, 5th Floor), Plaza Prima, 4½ Mile, Jalan Klang Lama, 58000 Kuala Lumpur. It is an investment holding company with an issued and paid-up share capital of RM20 million divided into 20,000,000 ordinary shares of RM1 each.

But the managers have not explained one crucial thing. Why not buy 100% of Astacanggih? More importantly, why buy Astacanggih? Of what relevance is Astancaggih? What is the strategic relevance of Astancanggih?

The generals did not ask and the managers doing the briefing did not tell. Here we had "consenting" adults.

Then, the generals were told of the matter concerning the purchase of 200 acres of land from Awan Megah.

The generals screamed, because they already had 700 acres in Bukit Raja area which was not developed.

The 200 acre land in question were some vacant freehold lots with some abandoned oil palm trees. The land lots were:

  • an area measuring 96.825 acres within the land held under H.S.(D) 28188 PT 220 Mukim of Kapar, District of Kelang, State of Selangor;
  • an area measuring 81.085 acres within the land held under H.S.(D) 28187 PT 216 Mukim of Kapar, District of Kelang, State of Selangor; and
  • an area measuring 22.09 acres within the land held under H.S.(D) 22220 Lot 1158 Mukim of Bukit Raja, District of Petaling, State of Selangor.

The managers said "we are paying a total of RM130 million cash. We assure you generals, the purchase price on the land, like the price on Astacanggih, was arrived at on a willing-seller and willing-buyer basis".

They added that their lawyers had assured them that the land was acquired free from all charges, liens and encumbrances. But it was subject to whatever restrictions in interest and conditions of title, whether expressed or implied in the separate titles to the lands for the purpose of developing them.

The last portion of the explanation made some generals dizzy and some of them demanded some whisky to be brought in.

Who is Putra Nazrain?

But one sober ex-general asked: Who in the hell is Awan Megah?

And so the point-man explained that Awan Megah is a private limited company incorporated in Malaysia and having its registered address at 25-1, Jalan PJU 1/42A, Block F2, Dataran Prima, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

The directors of Awan Megah are Putra Nazrain Adril bin Abdul Jalil and Raja Rabiatun Aduah binti Raja Abdullah.

So Putra Nazrain was a shareholder in Astacanggih and Awang Megah.

The purchase of Awan Megah is of some importance to us, the managers said.

Awan Megah has a contract with the Defence Ministry to build the RM100 million Puspahanas and we have asked our lawyers to demand some conditions "precedent" from Awan Megah, they explained to the generals.

What in blue blazes are "conditions precedent", shouted one of the now intoxicated ex-generals.

Matters that must be sorted out first before we make complete payment, the managers replied.

Well, the real owner behind Awan Megah is a close friend to the prime minister and his missus. Moreover, we are sure that because we have bought the lands, our generals here can prevail upon the Defence Minister to help too.

We have asked Awan Megah to complete the signing of a privatisation agreement between Awan Megah and the government of Malaysia and Syarikat Tanah dan Harta Sdn Bhd. That's for the construction of the Puspahanas.

Just in case Astancanggih does indeed have a binding agreement with Awan Megah, we have asked Awan Megah to make sure that the approval from the relevant authorities for the transfer of the lands to Astacanggih be obtained.

READ MORE HERE

 

DAP: Talibans without turbans

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:17 PM PST

Hear Hannah Yeoh extolling the religious and ethical virtues of the DAP vis-à-vis the "morally bankrupt and low-class" BN/Umno. Read the unending volley of sneering condemnations by Tony Pua, the self proclaimed economic expert, on the inferiority of Malaysia's mainly Malay Muslim civil servants, government leaders, police, military, economic performance, weapon systems, universities and education system.

FMT LETTER: From Calvin Sankaran, via e-mail

In his book, 'The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters',  Professor BR Myers challenges the prevailing conventional wisdom amongst the academia that the Hermit Kingdom is a hard-line Stalinist communist state was founded on twin principles of Marxism and Confucianism.

In his brilliantly-written book, Myers observes that most "academics, think-tank analysts and other Pyongyang watchers have neglected to study the worldview of the military-first regime and instead choose to make sense of Juche Thought, a sham doctrine with no bearing on Pyongyang's policy-making."

Prof Myers' central theme is that North Korea's guiding ideology is a race-based nationalism derived from Japanese fascism, rather than any form of Communism. He summarises core principle of this ideology as follows: The Korean people are too pure blooded, and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader.

As I read Professor Myer's book, a staggering revelation dawned on me – of the uncanny parallels between this bellicose pariah state and another race-first organisation that is closer to home – the DAP. The similarities between North Korea and DAP are numerous and encompass the entire spectrum of politics – ideology, world-view, policies, party propaganda tactics, governance and even leadership style.

Both of these entities are dynastical, father and son dictatorships despite their professed adherence to social democratic ideology. In reality neither is even remotely socialist nor democratic despite the regularly held show elections and lofty sloganeering.

Just like Kim Dynasty up North, the Lim Dynasty rules DAP with an iron fist. If the Korean spin doctors mythologise the Kim family and accord them with superhuman powers, the DAP mythmakers similarly elevate the Lims to tokongs and demigods.

Party leaders are relentlessly portrayed as intellectual Titans and of possessing Saint-like morality while their opponents are derided as bottom-feeding pond scum.  Listen to the endless triumphalism and chest-thumping of Lim Guan Eng on his and his party's managerial and moral superiority in ruling Penang over the "racist, inept, corrupt and immoral" BN/Umno.

Hear Hannah Yeoh extolling the religious and ethical virtues of the DAP vis-à-vis the "morally bankrupt and low-class" BN/Umno. Read the unending volley of sneering condemnations by Tony Pua, the self proclaimed economic expert, on the inferiority of Malaysia's mainly Malay Muslim civil servants, government leaders, police, military, economic performance, weapon systems, universities and education system.

Racism forms the central tenet of DAP's doctrine and electoral vote-winning strategy. Taking a leaf out of the Koreans' playbook, the party positions itself as the courageous defender of Chinese Malaysians against the marauding mobs of Malay Muslims who are intent upon seizing their wealth and brutally snatch their cultural and language rights.

Like their Kimchi-loving Korean comrades, DAP's racist message and intentions have been carefully camouflaged and couched in noble-sounding, lofty, jazzed-up and ultimately empty slogans like "Malaysian Malaysia", "Middle Malaysia" and "Bangsa Malaysia".

Over the last several decades the party has been engaging in a ceaseless racial agitprop to tear the Malaysian social fabric apart by using highly emotive ethnic issues such as the NEP, the quota system, vernacular education, etc.

Lately the party has ventured into newer territories and has taken on an expanded role – as the vanguard-in-chief of the Christian Talibans – an increasingly vocal, assertive and powerful group with its sacred epicenter located in Subang Jaya.

READ MORE HERE

 

DAP covering up ‘schoolboy error’

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:13 PM PST

The party says the recount of the party elections was a schoolboy error and was a technical glitch.

Athi Shankar, FMT

It looks like the DAP is practicing double standard. They screwed up in the counting of the Dec 15 party elections. But they just brushed it aside as a technical glitch.

If this had happened to a Barisan Nasional party , DAP would have been screaming 'election fraud and money politics'

As far as DAP is concerned this 'technical glitch' does not affect the party's credibility or integrity.

Nor does it undermine secretary general and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's  CAT slogan – competency, accountability and transparency.

Due to this technical "schoolboy" error, candidate Zairil Khir Johari who initially received 305 votes, had suddenly garnered 803 votes.

Now the latest vote count puts Zairil in 20th elected position of CEC.

Vincent Wu Him Ven, who was initially elected to CEC with 1,202 votes, has now only 669 votes and is in 26th position.

But he has been re-appointed into the CEC as a co-opted member.

Zairil, fast emerging parachute Malay politician in the DAP, is Lim's political secretary and state-sponsored research body, Penang Institute, chief executive officer.

In its Thursday report, portal RoketKini.com played down the issue claiming that the "schoolboy" error would not affect many of 20 elected positions of CEC.

Some grassroots members are not happy with the recount and say the party had allegedly violated the law by amending the election results to accommodate Zairil.

They are now plan to submit a resolution to the CEC to declare the party polls as null and void, and hold fresh election for office bearers.

Members also want to know why it took so long to admit that the counting was flawed as the secretary general knew about the mistake the very next day.

 

DAP: Election fiasco an embarrassment

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:03 PM PST

Party chairman Karpal Singh dismissed talk that the technical glitch was a way to bring in a elected Malay CEC member.

Athi Shankar, FMT

National chairman Karpal Singh was frank that the technical glitch that caused miscalculations of party election results at the 16th DAP National Congress in Penang on Dec 15 was a "bona fide error."

He said such electoral technical glitch was unprecedented in DAP's history and expressed hopes it would not recur in future.

He however, dismissed criticisms that the fiasco had undermined the party credibility and that DAP was no longer qualified to criticise the Election Commission.

"It was unwarranted criticisms … party credibility is intact.It was a bona fide error, an honest mistake.

"But of course I admit it was a political embarrassment to us.We accept it," Karpal told reporters at his office.

Despite mounting criticisms against the party over the fiasco, Karpal said the public would eventually understand that the DAP had "made right the wrong" and was open about it.

"The CEC unanimously supported the decision to reveal the issue publicly.No CEC members objected and no one wanted to keep it away from the public eye," said the Bukit Gelugor MP.

Due to the technical "schoolboy" error, candidate Zairil Khir Johari who initially received 305 votes in the contest for 20 elected positions in the central executive committee (CEC) has now garnered 803 votes.

The latest count put him in the automatic 20th elected position of CEC, the DAP's supreme decision-making body.

Vincent Wu Him Ven, who was initially elected to CEC at joint 5th position with 1,202 votes, has now only 669 votes and is in 26th position.

But he has been re-appointed into the CEC as a co-opted member.

Zairil is party secretary general and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's political secretary.

He is also the state-sponsored research body, Penang Institute, chief executive officer.

Karpal dismissed cynical views that the the "technical glitch" was a leadership manipulation to bring in Zairil as an elected Malay CEC member.

"There was no sinister motive attributed to the error.It's not a way to bring in an elected Malay member into the CEC … not the reason," clarified Karpal.

READ MORE HERE

 

No permit yet for Pakatan rally

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 04:00 PM PST

Pakatan Youth wants to hold the rally at Stadium Merdeka but so far the stadium management have not responded

Leven Woon, FMT

The management of Stadium Merdeka has yet to give permission for Pakatan Rakyat's Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat rally. The rally is scheduled to be held at the stadium on Jan 12.

PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawai said they have filed an application with  the stadium authority but have not received an answer so far.

"Hence, the Pakatan Secretariat would submit a memorandum to the stadium authority on Monday to press for the permit," he said at a press conference after the Pakatan Youth meeting today.

He said the government had before this criticised them for staging street demonstrations and asked them to move to stadium.

"Now we are requesting for stadium, and if they failed to give us the permit, they lied," he said.

Nasrudin also said the Pakatan Youth has yet to draft a back up plan because they want the rally to be held at  the stadium.

The rally was to show the peoples dissatisfaction over clean and fair elections, anti-rare earths and listing of Felda Global Ventures Berhad.

Spearheaded by PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu, the rally is scheduled to begin at 2pm on Saturday.

Nasrudin said the Pakatan Youth hopes to  attract 100,000 youths to the rally and would conduct a nationwide pre-rally road shows beginning next Tuesday.

The entourage would travel to Kluang, Johor on Tuesday, followed by Larut, Perak (Jan 9), Gombak, Selangor (Jan 10) and Petaling Jaya, Selangor (Jan 11).

Meanwhile, the Pakatan Youth would also stage a mass gathering of youths on Feb 2.

Nasrudin said the opposition pact would touch on economics, politics, social and cultural and education.


49,000 youngest drop-outs?

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 03:35 PM PST

You, in the government, will be called a 'pariah regime' if this is not done for those children. The implications of not having those children schooled will be devastating; a reaffirmation of the vicious cycle of poverty, alienation, dehumanisation, and the fast-track way to build Malaysia's prison-industrial complex. These children are already 'drop-outs' even before they enter schools!

A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE

Dr Azly Rahman

If it is indeed true, as recently reported by Malaysiakini that 49,000 'stateless children'

are not going to school because they do not have identity cards, then something must be done to immediately address this issue of fundamental human rights. They must be allowed to go to school by any means necessary as the government resolves the issue of their 'stateless parents'.

This ruling regime will be committing an act of the worst form of mental slavery should these children not be allowed to have the basic education and the right to be intelligent. If, as alleged, this regime can grant identity cards to newly-arrived immigrants in prepration for the coming elections, we must insist it to be able to do this for these children.

You, in the government, will be called a 'pariah regime' if this is not done for those children. The implications of not having those children schooled will be devastating; a reaffirmation of the vicious cycle of poverty, alienation, dehumanisation, and the fast-track way to build Malaysia's prison-industrial complex. These children are already 'drop-outs' even before they enter schools!

What is wrong with our education system when we are now seeing a ruder apartheid-isation of schools? We continue to see the growth of a hideous class and caste structure in schools, from smart schools for the children of the rich to 'pariah schools' for the children of the abject poor. And now in the case of the 'children of stateless parents', we even have no schools for children of the abyss of the underclass, especially Malaysians of Tamil origin.

What a criminal act we have been doing since these years of independence - children of the rich paying tens of thousands of ringgit per semester for the best private schools to get to the best slots in college and best jobs in society through the best connections, yet thousands are not allowed in schools because of some 'colonial legacy'.

We need to radically restructure the way we look at human beings, design education policies to be just and equitable, and to have a common school system to help children have common dreams... as Malaysians and nothing less.

Amidst the niceties of the rhetoric of educational reform and progress designed merely by a poor understanding of systemic change, we are creating a dystopia - of a future in which the 99 percent of society will one day overthrow the one percent after they learn what hegemony means and know what rights they have to social, educational, and cultural justice.

Lifeboat mentality

We have designed a school system based on the 'lifeboat mentality' and 'gunboat diplomacy' - a philosophy of "to each his own". Hence, there are schools well-funded and those not funded at all. Ultimately, we will see more of society with both lifeboat and gunboat mentality wrapped in one.

Each child has the rights to get access to good teachers, technology, techniques, and tender-loving care in schools, regardless of race, religion, national origin, or even if they have no identity cards. Until the age of 18, these rights must be honored in order for the very fundamental goals of education for human freedom, development, and gainable and sustainable employment to be achieved. This must begin with the philosophy of education that we base our practice upon.

Race-based politics in Malaysia has been so pervasive that we have forgotten what education should mean, even though the language of humanism and systemic change in our educational blueprints is laced with niceties of the means and ends of education.

Outside of the rhetoric of a 'world-classism', if we deconstruct the meaning of education in a hyper-modern county such as Malaysia, we see the nature of humans being viewed as cogs in the wheels of capital or human machinery in a system of corrupt crypto-crony capitalism that preys on cheap professional and manual labor produced through schooling as means of social reproduction.

This is a continuation of what the British imperialists did in the kangani and kanchu system, facilitated by the Malay monarchy. The history of Malaya is a history of the exploitation of human beings written in a vainglorious way to mask the oppression of those enslaved by the feudal and neo-feudal class.

It is hoped that education, in its progressive evolution in our times, be framed in a newer understanding of what it should take to put the child at the center of learning and for the school to be a place to cultivate and to be a ground for democratic participation.

It should be a place for a child to develop his/her fullest potential and be free from being discriminated for any reason. It should help a child's growth as a cultural and social being who will use scientific thinking to become good citizens imbued with ethics and critical sensibility.

I hope we look at the plight of the 49,000 children of 'stateless parents' with a simple logic: that as long as they are on our soil, they have the right to an education, to be treated with all the rights and privileges as a child ready to learn, and will be given education until they turn 18 while this issue of 'statelessness' is resolved.

Failure to do this will mean another level of success in creating a truly world-class Malaysian prison-industrial complex, rivaling the United States of America.

I am sure this is not what we want to see - a continuation of the lifeboat mentality aided by race-based gunboat diplomacy!

**********************************

OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article/writing is mine,
the comments are strictly, respectfully, and responsibly yours;
present them rationally, clearly,  politely, and ethically.

 

AND - VOTE WISELY!

https://www.facebook.com/#!/azly.rahman

http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/

 

The meaning of God and the freedom of religion

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 11:37 AM PST

https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/1549689037/got-faith_t_-_Copy2.jpg 

If a faith can be destroyed, it must be a faith in lies. A faith that is really a faith in truth is never afraid of being destroyed; it cannot because truth cannot be destroyed. Only lies are afraid of being broken, only lies need protection. Truth in itself is self-evident. So if you have some faith which is just a lie, it makes you secure.

freedom 

The meaning of God and the existence of God are issues of great importance in relation to the freedom of religion. For this simply discussion, it might be better to come to some understanding as to what we understand by the term "God" without applying etymology. Generally speaking we have: 

First meaning, according to Rev. Prof. Frederick Copleston: presume to mean – provisionally at least - a supreme personal being – distinct from the world and creator of the world, such a being actually exists, and that His existence can be proved philosophically.

The Christian God is a personal God. This does not mean that God is a human being, but that God has "personality" and the capability of both relationships with other personal beings. In his debate with Father Copleston, Bertrand Russell accepted this definition although his position is that of agnosticism. The keyword is "personal being".

Second meaning, according to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh or Osho: God is not a person, God is the totality of all that is. The whole creative energy of existence is God. God is not the creator; rather, God is the creative force, the very creation itself. 

For the New Age Movement (NAM), the second meaning of God is more appropriate. New Agers practice a non-judgmental attitude toward error and falsehood. They believe that everyone's path is their own choosing and that it is all from God. So they could never say someone or something was wrong. Nature is indifferent to our values, and can only be understood by ignoring our notions of good and bad. Thus it is appropriate to assume that God is impersonal. The keyword is "creative force".

Third meaning, when Prophet Muhammad was asked by his contemporaries about Allah; the answer came directly from Allah Himself in the form of a short chapter of the Qur'an, which reads: "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Say (O Muhammad), He is God, the One God, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, nor has been begotten, and equal to Him is not anyone". 

Is Allah personal or impersonal in Islam? Islamic description of Allah is unknowable and above comprehension, only adjectival words are allowed. It is considered blasphemous to "presume" that one can know Allah intimately or claim any sort of close, personal fellowship with him, thus it is safe to assume that Allah is impersonal. The keyword is "unknowable".

Four questions are posed based on the principle of four-cornered negation in Indian Philosophy:

Is God personal?

Is God impersonal?

Is God both personal and impersonal?

Is God neither personal nor impersonal?

Sanjaya (6th. B. C.), the best known sceptic during his time would not only not say a definite "Yes" to any question, but would also not give a definite "No". That is God cannot be directly expressed, but only as the negation of negation.  

In any religion, God cannot be both personal and impersonal because the former will be first and foremost, in order for God to be impersonal, God must be personal first. This is an a posteriori justification and it is very difficult to imagine God's eternalness if impersonal God came first. For God, the transition from impersonal to personal is meaningless, for example, humans are created from earth, humans are personal being but earth is not. Either personal God or impersonal God had created humans from earth. Humans are not God, but it is meaningful for personified humans to create impersonal objects such as cars, ships, computers etc. Then who created God? We leave this question as it leads to an infinite regression.

                              -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9

The zero in the arithmetical series of numbers above is an indeterminate quantity and to say minus zero or plus zero makes no difference, but it is still a number. If it is not positive or negative, we cannot say it is both positive and negative because positive and negative are opposite and cannot be attributed to the same number. So if God is neither personal nor impersonal, the metaphysical conception of emptiness or nihilism came into play and thus God does not exist or God could possibly had been invented by humans.

The way science inquires and progresses is exactly the way of man's inner search to find the truth and becomes a lab unto himself. The Buddha could not find any God within himself or outside after searching to the very core of his being, thus Buddhists do not believe in God, instead they talk about Nirvana. Buddha's religion is based in an inner benediction, in an inner blessing – it has nothing to do with fear, especially of God. Buddha says that it is not because of fear that should you be moral, but because of understanding.

The coming of a super mind, a perfect being or messiah who will lead us into a long awaited era of universal peace, love and joy is being anticipated by all religion - the Hindu Avatar, the Al Mahdi of the Muslims, the Jewish Messiah, the Buddhist Maitreya, or the second coming of Christ. Are they all point to the same being that is soon to come or are they different? So which God, revelation or teaching is true, real or right? 

The most contentious issue is the formation of theocratic state which put the question of whether God is personal, impersonal or not existing untenable. With the formation and implementation of theocratic state by force, some adherents might reject religious pluralism which claims that all religions are equally true and equally good. They also accept that only their religion possesses the perfect and complete revelation.  This is the recipe for invitation to war when each side claimed to have the mandate from God and why freedom of religion is so important as Bertrand Russell asserts:

"When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, they know that neither is infallible. But when two theologians differ, since there is no criteria to which either can appeal, there is nothing for it but mutual hatred and an open or covert appeal to force."

Many unaltered verses in the Qu'ran did mention about fighting the infidels. The Qur'an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force or perhaps other subtle ways to convert the unbelievers to Islam and to punish or kill anyone who leaves Islam. According to the principle of abrogation, "Let there be no compulsion in religion" is being abrogated by the later texts "Verses of the sword" to compel conversion of the infidel by armed violence which historically Islam's preferred method. At its core, Islam is a religious mission to all humanity and Muslims are religiously obliged to disseminate the Islamic faith throughout the world. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Saudi religious and political leaders, in the process of extending their condolences to President Bush, also extended an invitation to him to convert to Islam.

Realistical, authentical or ethical questions aside, the above paragraph is only comprehensible if God is personal, God's command is His personal command and not His will, intention or desire. Humans must believe that they are able to fly before working on building an aeroplane. A human who only will could never take to the sky or change the world. The emphasis is on why we want to believe before doing the correct things. Similarly, only personal God has the prerogative to choose a different mode to reveal the Qu'ran through Jibril as compared to how the Torah is revealed to Moses and the Bible by Jesus. Thus, it is also understandable and sensible when Pope Urban II orders the first Crusade to take back Christian lands from Muslim invaders since he is the representative of personal God on earth.

The essence of worship in Islam is the feeling of gratitude towards Allah. The feeling of gratitude is so important that a non-believer is called a kafir or an infidel, which means one who denies the truth and also one who is ungrateful. This essence of worship is comprehensible only if God is personal and knowable as He is able to grant us our wishes, as only personal God can wills before any yields, otherwise it is similar to the worshiping the water, rock or tree believed to contain unknowable divine character of the natural world as practiced in paganism. 

Let's compare God to gravitational force to distinguish personal and impersonal God. Impersonal God can never grant us our wishes. Take for example, a man who worships gravitational force a million times, he will still die a million times if he jumped a million times from a hundred storey building without a parachute; unless a personal God commanded some angels to save him from crashing. So men do not pray and will not be grateful to all these existing forces but they have to do some study to understand them. These existing forces will not reveal its formula or theories to us by worshiping them but it is for us to use scientific approach and experiments to realize them.

But Islamic understanding is more on "textual and orthodox consensus" rather than philosophical construct as we see in the case of the short term success of the Mu'tazilite theology based on reason and rational thought. The adherents of the Mu'tazilite school are best known for their assertion that because of the perfect unity and eternal nature of Allah, the Qu'ran must therefore had been created, as it could not be co-eternal with God. This created two possibilities, on the one hand, distinguishing the Divine attributes (living, powerful, generous, speech) from the Divine essence (God's oneness) with the former subordinate to the latter and on the other end, those who were against the Mu'tazilite insisted that the attributes of God were real beings that eternally subsist in God. 

Ahmad ibn Hanbal is remembered as the exemplary defender of hadith, opposed the metaphorical interpretation of the Qu'ran and Sunna as they should be accepted as reality without engaging in any hermeneutical extension. Eschatological images (punishment in hell) are not metaphorical but real and anthropomorphic language (God's throne, hands, eyes) is simply to be accepted, "without asking how." In the end the traditional-minded ulama emerged stronger and independent than ever and the Caliph Mutawwakil reversed course and embraced the viewpoint of the more traditional religious scholars. One faith and works problem is as such: Muslims should not but do perform the outward works identified with Islam without the inner conviction of faith, but was it also possible to have faith apart from works? The Mu'tazilites compromised and came close to the eventual "orthodox" solution to the problem of faith and works that arises.

Religion that affects people at three intertwined levels – personal, social and political - should be separated because the power of religion based political supremacy and the eventual risk of corruption over people's personal and social life had brought untold suffering throughout the history of mankind. Some religious people are motivated by their political interests first and find a religious rationale to suit the occasion; this is a danger to those who would like to live peacefully in a pluralistic world. Osho, who claims to teach religiousness and agrees that religion and politics should remain separate, has this to say about God, truth and spirituality:

The purpose of life is life itself. Life cannot be understood. You can live it – that is the only understanding there. If you understand what life is, you will never ask what God is. 

When I say this table exist, it is meaningful because the table can go out of existence: we can destroy it. But when I say God exists it is meaningless, because God cannot go out of existence and cannot be destroyed. Existence is meaningful only if nonexistence is possible. If nonexistence is impossible, existence is meaningless.

God is beyond both: matter and mind. You cannot know God unless you become God himself. If I say "I can know God without becoming God," you are saying something impossible. Because of this, Christianity and Mohammedanism both think that to say that you can become God is sacrilegious, profane, irreligious; it doesn't show respect. The Mohammedan attitude about it has been so stubborn that it killed Mansur al-Hallaj and other Sufi mystics because they declared that they were God. Unless you enter him, and become one with him, how can you know him? You can just move around and around him. But whatsoever you come to know is just information that is gathered from without, it is not direct knowledge.

Reality cannot be known by the outer senses – the outer senses interpret reality as matter. Reality cannot be known through the inner senses – the inner senses interpret reality as mind. Reality can be known only when you have taken a jump into reality itself, without any mediators; when you have lost your mind and when you have lost your meditation also. 

The authentic religion does not teach you to worship. The authentic religion teaches you to discover your immortality, to discover the god within you. Death is defeated only by those who are ready to die any moment, to accept death without any reluctance.

Truth, by its very nature, cannot be organized. To organized truth, or to kill it, mean the same thing. The first thing an organized establishment do is to kill its own esoteric part, because the esoteric group is always a disturbance, a heresy. 

A  true religion will not require faith from you. A true religion will require experience. It will not ask you to drop your doubt, it will help you to sharpen your doubt so that you can inquire to the very end. The true religion will help you find your truth. Mohammed's truth is Mohammed's truth; it cannot be yours just by becoming a Mohammedan. 

Neither can the pope, the religious leaders convince anybody that for God's sake you have to kill. Strange … because God has created everybody. Whomsoever you are killings you are killing God's creation. If it is true that god created the world, then there should be no war – it is one family, there should be no nations. 

All wars are irreligious. Many more people have been killed in the name of religion than in any other name. It has nothing to do with religions, just the ego. Whatsoever is yours has to be the best in the world. Whatsoever is others' cannot be the best, cannot be allowed to be the best in the world.

There would be no good and no bad because goodness and badness are human distinctions, mental distinctions. If there were no human beings on earth, would there be any flower that was ugly or any flower that was beautiful? There would only be flowers flowering; the distinction would not be there. Existence exists with no beginning and no end, but with many changes.

Religions are against sex because that is the only way to make you unhappy, guilty, afraid. Once you are afraid, you can be manipulated. Remember this fundamental rule: make a person afraid if you want to dominate him. First make him afraid. If he is afraid, you can dominate him. If he is not afraid, why and how can you dominate him? There are two things which make people very much afraid – one is death and the other is sex.

Faith is blind in a different sense because it has its own way of seeing. It is not seeing through reason, it is seeing through the heart. Truth cannot be uttered, the moment you utter it, it becomes a lie. Truth cannot be said. The moment you say it, it is almost part of a dream now; no longer truth.

Religion can be an opium, so can communism – anything that gives hope for the future, in this world or in another world; anything that helps you to sacrifice your present for something that helps to feed your ego.

If a faith can be destroyed, it must be a faith in lies. A faith that is really a faith in truth is never afraid of being destroyed; it cannot because truth cannot be destroyed. Only lies are afraid of being broken, only lies need protection. Truth in itself is self-evident. So if you have some faith which is just a lie, it makes you secure.

Prayer does the same thing, and priests do the same thing – they make you more adjusted. Meditation is a science. It is not going to help you in adjustment, it is going to help you in transformation.

You cannot seek truth. You can find it, but you cannot seek it. The very seeking is the hindrance. All objects are worldly because "seeking" is the world. So you cannot seek anything non-worldly. The moment you seek, it becomes the world. If you seek God, your God is part of the world. You are the truth just here and now, it is not something to be achieved in the future. 

A child is pure because there is no mind. And the moment knowledge comes, division enters. You begin to divide between what is good and what is bad. You cannot create order on the world. When you try to create order you create disorder. Religion always divide you into two: the evil and the divine. If someone really follows them, he will come to conclude that the moment you destroy the devil, God is destroyed.

Whatsoever you know about "God" is through "tolds" - the parents, the society, the culture. It is your conditioning. And now you have got a concept about God and you are trying to understand that word. "God" is not a word. The word God is not God. The word is simply a word, in itself empty and meaningless. If you really want to know what God is, you will have to drop the word and drop the mind and move into no-mind. Love will bring you closer to it than thinking.

If you don't believe in any God, you may not be irreligious, because God is not basic to religion. Non ego is basic to religion. And even if you believe in God, with an egoist mind you are irreligious. With a non egoistic mind there is no need to believe in a God. You fall into the divine automatically.

Whenever you are silent, the ego is not. Whenever your mind is restless, the ego is there. That's why we cannot love, because with the ego, love is impossible. Love, meditation, God, they all require one thing – the ego must not be there. Jesus is right in saying that God is love, because both phenomena happen only when the ego is not. If you know love, there is no need to know God – you have known him already. 

As a result of  these "powerful" teachings like the one above by Osho, New Age practices have made their way into almost every area of different culture and religion, and leaders of monotheistic religion are very unhappy. They accused the New Age practices as satanic and quoted religious scriptures to justify their position, such as; in the original lie, Satan questions God's word and authority and claims that through the acquisition of secret or gnostic wisdom, man can be enlightened and can be like God. The most important contentious question/issue is whether man has the freedom and right to choose between Gnosticism (teaching that esoteric or divine knowledge could be gained directly by oneself) or  Scripturalism (strict compliance to the literal interpretation of the religious books presided by  intermediaries).   

In Sai Baba's example, there were video evidence that he performed magical tricks rather than miracles. Subsequently, his organized exoteric group would prevent people from bringing video camera into the ashram. In this case, the New Agers position  would be a non-judgmental and they see the magic tricks as a technique to draw people towards religiousness.  They also view that Prophet Muhammad uses the sword as a technique during his time, if he doesn't, he would probably had been killed by the sword of others. But if the freedom to choose and practice any religion is denied, don't be fooled by the notion that the New Agers would sit quietly, I believe they too can be "corrupted" to become merciless and probably become the most brutal and savage killers. Lest I forgot, this freedom includes the liberty to choose to become an atheist. 

Before it turns endless, I would like to end my "quoted from various sources" article with questions for my readers to ponder and seek answers:

Is Satan personal, impersonal, unknowable or better not to know?

If God is Almighty, why didn't He destroy all the Satan once and for all?

Did Buddhism influence early Christianity as researchers claimed to have found proof of the existence of manuscripts in India and Tibet that support the belief that Christ was in India during this time in his life? 

Is it true according to Prof. Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University that Islam does not prevent or kill anyone who leaves the Islamic faith however the killings had been confused with political treason?

Is Allah the same as the God of the Bible? From a scholarly Christian perspective, see here http://www.studytoanswer.net/myths_ch3.html why Allah is not the same as the God of the Bible. 

Why Allah is the God who is to be served and in contrast Jesus is the God who came to serve?

How to understand the fact that we only have access to the will of Allah and the revelation is not a revelation of Allah, but the revelation of his will?

Why Christianity overemphasizing faith/love and forsaking the law and why Islam integrated both law and faith/love?

Is it true that the God of the Bible is love, whereas Allah's primary characteristic is power? 

Could it be possible that Allah's power leads to fatalism rather than obedience from the security for the believer?

Why there is a contrasting fact that the God of the Bible wants to be known in the context of His personal predestination while Allah does not want to be known? 

Why Jesus will descend in a Buddhist fashion, dressed in yellow robes with his head anointed according to the Hadith? Why not in white or black burqa?

Is it true according to Ibn Warraq in his book "Why I am not a Muslim" that the Islamic Allah is the end result of theological evolution and concoction from pagan pre-Islamic religious systems in the Middle east?

Is it true according to Ibn Warraq again, there were numerous words of foreign origin in the Qu'ran and the Arabs Arabicized them, for example the word "Koran" itself comes from the Syriac, and Prophet Muhammad evidently got it from Christian sources?

 

Red faces over ‘1314’ mistake

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 11:34 AM PST

http://starstorage.blob.core.windows.net/archives/2013/1/5/nation/cec-dap-voting-n30.jpg 

DAP leaders say it is a computing glitch but some have described the shocking revisions to DAP election results three weeks after the polls as Ubah Rocket Style.

The biggest irony of course is that this is the party that has been trying to tell the Election Commission how to do its job. The folk in the Election Commission are probably having the last laugh now.

Joceline Tan, The Star 

AIYOOOOOO! How can?" That was the SMS reaction of one DAP MP after learning of his party's election fiasco.

"It's what I would call a perception disaster," the DAP MP said when contacted.

The blunder in the party's election result has left DAP leaders red-faced and many of its members angry and astounded.

Another DAP figure described it as a "joke". Nothing like this, he said, had ever happened in the party, where the winner was actually the loser and the loser is now the winner.

"I believe it was a genuine mistake but I feel sad," he said.

On Thursday, the DAP said a "technical glitch" had caused errors in the result of the party election which took place on Dec 15.

The mistake apparently occurred during a cut-and-paste job after the results were tabulated.

The party's election returning officer Pooi Weng Keong said that grassroots worker Vincent Wu, who had won the sixth spot in the 20-member central executive committee (CEC) did not actually win. Instead, the party's new Malay star Zairil Khir Johari had managed to squeeze into the 20th spot and was the winner.

Wu had only received 669 votes and not 1,202 as previously reported. As such, he had dropped to No. 26 in the new results. Zairil who was reported to have received 305 votes earlier actually got 803 votes under the new results.

The Cantonese-speaking members in the party are calling the event "1314" because the mistake was announced in the year 2013, in the first month and on the fourth day. In Cantonese, "1314" means "one survives, another dies".

Some party members are upset that the party has taken three weeks to correct the situation. In the meantime, they said Umno had a field day bashing the party for not electing a Malay into the CEC because of the mistake.

Pooi detected the mistake a day after the election and immediately notified secretary-general Lim Guan Eng. It was then decided that its latest recruit Ong Kian Ming lead an internal audit. Sources said the whole thing was kept under wraps because the party was unsure how to handle it.

When the outcome of the audit was presented to the CEC, a discussion was held on the impact of going public with it.

One view was that the results had been announced, there was no challenge to it and they should let sleeping dogs lie. But the CEC decided that they had to come clean and own up to the mistake because something so sensational was bound to leak.

One party leader then insisted on a gag order on who could speak on the issue but was over-ruled.

However, party leaders have been unwilling to speak on the record about this because it is simply too embarrassing. No matter how they talk around it, the fact remains that it was a big-time bungle in prime-time politics.

As one party official admitted: "Our party members will accept what happened but people outside must think we are stupid.

"If we can't even manage a simple election, how can we convince them that we can run the country?"

The Star got wind of the matter when some DAP politicians tweeted about it on Thursday evening. It was so incredible that some journalists initially thought it was a hoax. It was only after a string of calls to verify the news and checking the party website that the journalists were convinced.

The biggest irony of course is that this is the party that has been trying to tell the Election Commission how to do its job. The folk in the Election Commission are probably having the last laugh now.

Read more at: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2013/1/5/nation/12536201&sec=nation 

 

The Story Behind Ngeh Koo Ham and Nga Kor Ming Corruption Scandal

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 11:30 AM PST

http://1sya.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/n_1nizar.jpg 

Actually what Kit Siang said is true where no matter how corrupted is DAP leaders proven to be the public will just shut their eyes on them.

Shen Yee Aun 

After Mac 2008 , Pakatan Rakyat had successfully captured the state of Perak where DAP won 18 seats , PKR 7 and PAS 6 . At first they get a shock where they never expected that a Tsunami politics will happen and because of this they never really plan the allocation of position before they capture Perak. So the question of who is the Menteri Besar of Perak was never a question in Pakatan Rakyat before the General Election. Only after they won they are in deep dilemma where DAP itself won the seat more than both PAS and PKR added up and yet since they do not have any Malay candidate therefore it is unlikely to have a non – Malay Menteri Besar from DAP.

Then ,   DAP Quickly call for a  Central Executive Committee, at its emergency meeting in Penang on Sunday, 9th March 2008 and in their meeting their finalize that the Menteri Besar should either be DAP Ngeh Koo Ham or Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi from PKR. On the 10th of Mac , PAS top leadership secretly send their people to meet up with both Nga Kor Ming and Ngeh Koo Ham to lobby for a PAS State Assemblyman to be the Menteri Besar. PAS knew the weakness of PKR in Pakatan Rakyat where they are the weakest political party in PR in terms of grassroots and even the quality of their candidate. They saw a light to politically bring up their man in the state of Perak to further expand their Islamic agenda.

PAS is a very sincere political party that hardly look for money benefit and willing to sacrifice money for their religious cause. PAS top strategist advice the negotiator to use money as a trade for a Menteri Besar position with the powerful lions in Perak ( Nga Kor Ming and Ngeh Koo Ham ). Since the only resources PAS is having after Mac 2008 is only Kelantan dan Kedah but it very hard to close a deal from the Kedah Menteri Besar Azizan. So , PAS top leaders secretly seek Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz to award a back door close deal logging investment worth RM 30 million to both Ngeh and Nga to lobby for a PAS State Assemblyman to be the Menteri Besar. PAS spiritual agree where according to him he is willing to do anything as long as it for an Islamic cause. So both Ngeh Koo Ham and Nga Kor Ming secretly close the deal with PAS representative without the consent from both top DAP and PKR leadership. They plot a way for Nizar to be the Menteri Besar of Perak to by pass PKR Malay State Assemblyman that won 1 seat extra more than PAS.

Later on , Kit Siang call DAP to boycott the Nizar ( PAS ) as the Menteri Besar of Perak in his press conference and also in his blog writings

DAP is prepared to accept DAP chairman and Assemblyman for Sitiawan Ngeh Koo Ham or PKR Behrang Assemblyman Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi as Perak Mentri Besar.

As the appointment of PAS Assemblyman for Pasir Panjang Mohamad Nizar Jamaludin as Perak Mentri Besar representing the third and smallest political party in the proposed coalition has not received the mandate of the CEC, DAP Perak Assemblymen will stay away from the swearing-in ceremony for Perak Mentri Besar scheduled tomorrow. http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2008/03/12/no-dap-cec-mandate-for-pas-menteri-besar-in-perak/comment-page-19/

Both Ngeh Koo Ham and Nga Kor Ming silently stay away from this battle and let Kit Siang fought against Nizar. Earlier , nobody in DAP or PKR ever know that there is already a secret deal between Ngeh and Nga with PAS leaders. They just silently plot a way for it to happen and since they are more powerful than Lim Kit Siang in Perak therefore they do have their ways to make it happen.

On 17 Mac , Nizar from PAS successfully became the Menteri Besar of Perak with the help from Ngeh and Nga from DAP. After that , both Ngeh and Nga continue to expand their power and political base in DAP . They knew the facts that Lim Kit Siang is already too old to be in DAP for a long time and the arrogant Lim Guan Eng will need to step down as the Secretary General of DAP after his 3rd term. They are young and time is with them. They became so powerful that Kulasegaran a previous Vice Chairman and National Leader in DAP even loses his power in Perak.

Lim Kit Siang is not happy with the latest development and strength of both the nepotism Ngeh Koo Ham and Nga Kor Ming.  It will be a threat to the Lim Dynasty influence and power in DAP. Therefore , he hand over Nga Kor Ming wife tailoring contract to UMNO to play it. Another corruption of DAP leaders in Perak. It is a sign of pre emptive strike and a sign of warning from Lim Kit Siang to both Ngeh and Nga to slow down in whatever they are doing in DAP to expand their power. When that happens DAP DC call up Nga Kor Ming for investigation. According to DAP internal sources , the DC will let Nga Kor Ming off if he start to behave and stop expanding his political strength. Being a smart politician Nga Kor Ming just agree with it and that is why DAP DC conclude to let him off.

But then the young Nga Kor Ming is a very combative politician. He will never surrender to sure threat. That is why he took even more step further to cut off Lim Kit Siang right hand man in Perak ( Kulasegaran ) right after this incident to send back another message to Lim Kit Siang that he is the real warlord in Perak. A revenge strike happen when Nga Kor Ming uses his influence in DAP to dig out list of DAP Selangor corruption that is related to Lim Kit Siang camp ( Teresa Kok , Teo Nie Ching , Ronnie Liu , Lim Lip Eng ). He secretly leak out this news to MCA top leadership to play up the issue and the battle will be seem from MCA side but politically it is impossible for MCA to know if all this sources , details and news is not from DAP internally.

Read more at: http://1sya.com/?p=4287 

 

EC slams NGOs for revealing info on discussions

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 11:28 AM PST

http://www.mole.my/sites/default/files/images/mole-spr-wan-ahmad-wan-omar.jpg 

(The Star)The Election Com­mission (EC) has blasted certain non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for providing a political party with information on their discussions.

Its deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar described this as unethical and a clear breach of the confidentality that both the EC and the NGOs, which would be monitoring the general election, had agreed on.

"We have met three times and the representatives agreed with the stipulated conditions. If they did not agree with the conditions, why not raise the matter during the meetings?

"Why must they go behind us and run to a political party to voice their dissatisfaction?" he told The Star yesterday.

Informing a political party on issues raised during these meetings, said Wan Ahmad, showed that the NGOs were not impartial – a vital "must have" criterion if they wanted to be objective in monitoring the elections.

"The NGOs can be perceived as a political informer. This is clearly a breach of confidentiality that each of the NGOs involved is aware of. The EC had impressed on them many times that the discussions were confidential.

"They are being unethical. We also want to find out who among them is the one with a 'big mouth'," said an upset Wan Ahmad.

The EC, he clarified, had identified 16 NGOs to be given observer status during the elections but they were yet to be accredited.

"The plan was for the commission to have a ceremony to hand over the accreditations and allow the NGOs to tell the press their work plan," he said.

PKR secretary-general Datuk Saifuddin Nasution Ismail had earlier been quoted in an online portal as saying that the EC's conditions for bodies monitoring the elections did not reflect transparency and fairness as they included barring observers from the counting of ballots.

Dismissing this claim, Wan Ahmad insisted that observers would be allowed in the counting area but that their number would have to be capped due to space constraints.

He added that this was in line with international standard operating procedure.

"Ballot counting is an important election process. How can we not allow them to observe this? But we cannot allow too many of them because of space.

"Agents of candidates will also be present to closely monitor this," said Wan Ahmad.

"I do not know whether the NGOs involved do not understand us or that the political party has twisted the issue."

Tear gas decision at Bersih called for, says top cop

Posted: 04 Jan 2013 11:27 AM PST

http://www.lawyersforliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/09-FRU-tear-gas.jpg 

(The Star) - City police chief DCP Datuk Mohmad Salleh said the decision to release tear gas during the Bersih rally last year was the right course of action but admitted his officers could have exercised more care.

"Although I did not give the instructions to fire tear gas on the day, I stand by the decision. It was the right thing to do, given that the situation was turning ugly.

"However, looking at the injuries some participants allegedly sustained from the canisters, I think the officers could have been more careful when firing," he said yesterday during Suhakam's inquiry into the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28.

Mohmad was the last of 49 witnesses who testified in front of the panel comprising Suhakam vice-chairman Datuk Dr Khaw Lake Tee and commissioner Detta Samen.

He also explained that while he was in charge, he had been based at the operations centre in the KL police contingent headquarters.

"My team monitored the situation via real-time video feed, and had kept in touch with officers on the ground through walkie-talkies.

"I did not interfere with the instructions they were receiving until the commotion, after which I issued an order via walkie-talkie to all officers to retreat immediately," he said.

Mohmad added that most of the instructions on the day had come from then Dang Wangi OCPD Asst Comm Zulkarnain Abdul Rahman, including the order to fire the tear gas.

On a related matter, Mohmad told the panel that some changes had been made in police training after Bersih.

"In accordance with the spirit of the Peaceful Assembly Act, we are training police officers to understand the difference between a riot and an assembly and how to act based on the situation."

The panel will hear submissions from the inquiry's observers on Jan 10, before listing its recommendations.

 

Is DAP bowing to Malay interests?

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 07:14 PM PST

The DAP has rectified its party election results and a Malay candidate has been elected to the powerful central executive committee. 

Leven Woon, FMT

The DAP has rectified its party election results of Dec 15 and suspicion is rife that the party is pandering to Malay interests.

In the election, not one of the eight Malay candidates were voted into the central executive committee (CEC).

But last night the party announced it rectified the results and Zairil Khir Johari, a protégé of secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, secured the number 20 spot.

This puts Zairil in the powerful 20-seat CEC and being the sole Malay candidate who was elected to the top post.

In the recount, Zairil secured a place in CEC by garnering 803 votes. On the other hand, DAP grassroots member Vincent Wu, who initially shared the fifth spot with Anthony Loke at 1,202 votes, actually garnered 669 votes and is in 26th position.

Deputy president Tan Kok Wai secured the sixth spot following the changes.

Several quarters are asking why the delay in the recount as the party had known the error a day after the party polls on Dec 15.

The party election returning officer, Pooi Weng Keong, said the error was caused by technical glitches when transferring the tabulated results using Microsoft Excels.

He said he had reported the mistake to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng a day after the party polls, but the latter instructed that the correct results be made public after an internal audit and verified by external auditors.

However, former Selangor DAP leader Tan Tuan Tat believed that the timing of such an announcement might be the party's ploy to divert public attention from an alleged land scandal involving Perak DAP leader Ngeh Koo Ham.

Poor management skill

The allegations first surfaced during Perak State Legislative Assembly sitting on Dec 21 in which Ngeh was accused of receiving more than 4,000 acres of a land from PAS-led Kelantan government as an inducement to appoint PAS assemblyman Nizar Jamaluddin as menteri besar after the 2008 general election.

"Don't forget after the central executive committee election, only the issue of Ngeh Koo Ham cropped up.

"The issue has been punishing, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was done to divert attention," he said.

He also said the party should have conducted fresh elections in the wake of such major error.

"It's definitely a big no-no for them to make such a mistake for a major event like party elections. It proves that their management skill is not up to par yet," he said.

The party's poll results was criticised by various quarters as its members failed to elect any of the eight Malay candidates to the CEC, despite the party's claims that it is a multiracial party.

Meanwhile, Klang DAP secretary Lee Fu Haw asked why the party did not immediately inform about the error to the delegates who were still at the party convention.

"You could have announced it first and gone for the auditing later. The delay is puzzling to many of us ," he said.

He, however, said he didn't think the rectifications were cooked up.

READ MORE HERE

 

Zairil is an elected CEC member in DAP: Is this a mishap of miscalculation or calculated ...

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 05:26 PM PST

K. Fernandez

It has now been confirmed that 30-year old Zairil Khir Johari's numbering was switched with Vincent Wu Him Ven. This draws further flak and speculation to two burdening questions whether the elections in DAP totality is fraudulent and if Zairil's new 'election results' is a political manoeuvre.

Both seem relevant because Zairil came under fire because of his age and dual appointment as political secretary to Lim Guan Eng and the high paying Penang Economy Institute job that the latter holds.

Lim Guan Eng came to his rescue by saying that Zairil Khir Johari has a Masters and that his father was the first Minister of Education in Malaysia. Doubts about his paternal linkages have already come under speculation and his tertiary achievements do not justify Lim Guan Eng's claims.

'I sincerely apologise to all the DAP members and congress delegates for the mistakes made in the tabulation process' said officer for the election Pooi Weng Keong. Zairil Khir Johari recently demanded that the election commission resign because of vote buying, and many are waiting for his statement on DAP's vote counting stint.

Rest assured Datuk Ambiga will not seek a Bersih in DAP though the party does not practice clean and fair elections.

 

Time to set up a Ministry of Minority Affairs

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:51 PM PST

minority-report

Dr. Lim Teck Ghee, CPI

As we begin a new year, a rash of old issues and challenges confront the country. Chief amongst them are racial and religious tensions and a rising sense of marginalization and alienation among our minority communities while at the same time the majority community feels threatened and insecure.

Many of these problems are deeply entrenched. Their effects are no longer confined to a small part of our body politic or emerge as isolated and unconnected events. They have infiltrated into all sectors of society and cast a shadow in the life of every Malaysian – in our everyday thought processes, in our consciousness and in our actions.

The problems that are associated with the ethnic and religious divide between Malays and non-Malays and between Muslims and non-Muslims will not be resolved quickly. There is no magical remedy.

Many of these problems stem from our seriously weakened social cohesion and the growing disunity that our nation has experienced during the past four decades. The intangible but potent glue of harmony, sense of community and commitment to realizing the common good that binds countries and their people together has long broken down in Malaysia.

The start of a new year is a good time to spend pondering on how to recover this spirit of lost social cohesion and to focus on what can be done to rebuild it.

Addressing the plight of small minorities

The sense of alienation and marginalization is most palpable among Indian, Orang Asli and other small minority communities. Although some members of these groups can make their way up the socio-economic ladder with their own resources, nonetheless many of the rest are wallowing in poverty and deprivation. They will require a special helping hand if they are able to ever escape from the straitjacket of impoverishment and stagnation.

As the race-oriented New Economic Policy is jettisoned in place of a new national policy paradigm based on need and not race, how do we ensure that these groups –which have badly lagged behind other communities in every single important indicator of development and wellbeing – do not lose out again in the implementation of the New Economic Model during the next decade?

How do we guarantee that poor and needy members of small minority communities will be scrupulously and fairly targeted for assistance and do not disappear or are lost sight of in our national agenda of development that will be inevitably dominated by the concerns of the dominant Malay, and to some extent, the Chinese community?

To undo the negative impact of decades of government neglect and discrimination against the smaller minority communities as well as to steer a new path for social cohesion and social justice that will embrace all Malaysians, it may be necessary to establish a new Ministry that can mobilize and lead future efforts in the public sector aimed at improving the life prospects of downtrodden minority Malaysians.

Hindraf's blueprint

Two months ago, to mark the fifth anniversary of the movement's rally in KLCC on Nov 25, 2007 – the event which precipitated a new dawn of political consciousness in Malaysia – Hindraf unveiled a blueprint proposing solutions to overcome the plight of ethnic Indian community, especially the 800,000 displaced estate workers and 350,000 stateless Indians.

Towards the end of the blueprint document is a proposal to establish a Ministry of Minority Affairs that would plan and execute development efforts to address the educational, housing, resettlement and employment needs of marginalized Indians.

This proposal to set up an entirely new Ministry may seem like an inappropriate one, coming at a time when the efficiency and efficacy of a bloated civil service has come under severe public scrutiny and censure.

However, it is in my view worthy of serious consideration by the Barisan and Pakatan parties, whichever coalition comes to power in the coming elections.

Justification for the new Ministry

The justification for establishing an entirely new Ministry devoted to the smaller minorities is compelling. Numerous studies have established that relations between and within communities suffer when people lack work and endure hardship, debt, low esteem, poor skills and bad living conditions. These basic necessities of life are the foundations of a strong social fabric but are lacking for many in the smaller minority communities.

Also, unlike the Malay and Chinese communities that dominate our public and private sectors, Malaysia's small minority communities lack the resources and clout to compete for the opportunities ostensibly available to all stakeholders in our economy and society.

Already marginalized, when left to fend for themselves in the future, they are likely to fall further behind as the competition for scarce resources becomes more intense.

How much will it cost?

During the past ten Malaysia Development Plans, a total sum of over one trillion ringgit was spent. Little of this development expenditure was committed towards or trickled down to the smaller minorities (see table).

READ MORE HERE

 

LTAT: No army funds used in Boustead deal

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:37 PM PST

Chua Sue-Ann, fz.com

Army savings fund Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) has defended the recent acquisitions by its subsidiary Boustead Holdings Bhd as a commercially sound decision that does not utilise any army funds.

In a statement today, Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) chairman Admiral (Retired) Tan Sri Mohd Anwar Mohd Nor maintained that Boustead's corporate exercise was based on commercial reasons and not other considerations.

LTAT's statement was issued to assuage public criticism over moves by Boustead's wholly-owned subsidiary Bakti Wira Development Sdn Bhd to buy an 80% stake in Astacanggih Sdn Bhd for RM30 million.
 
After the share purchase, Bakti Wira and Astacanggih will then purchase 200 acres of land in Bukit Raja, Klang for RM130 million from Awan Megah (M) Sdn Bhd, a company owned by Selangor Wanita Umno chief Raja Datuk Ropiaah Raja Abdullah.
 
Mohd Anwar also stressed that LTAT was not involved in the purchase of the 80% stake in Astacanggih, a company controlled by controversial businessman Deepak Jaikishan, even though LTAT holds a 60.7% stake in Boustead.
 
Mohd Anwar also sought to clarify that LTAT's funds were not used in these two contentious transactions, as alleged by the opposition and some veteran servicemen.
 
According to Mohd Anwar, Boustead would fund its share purchase of Astacanggih by using profits generated from previous property development projects.
 
Astacanggih meanwhile will take on borrowings to fund the acquisition and development of the Bukit Raja land since Astacanggih currently has no borrowings, Mohd Anwar said.
 
Retired Royal Malaysian Air Force general Datuk Abdul Hadi Abdul Khatab had earlier called on the army generals sitting on LTAT's board to speak out against the contentious deals.
 
Abdul Hadi, who heads PKR's security committee, had also alleged that the RM160 million deal was merely for "private gain" and does not benefit current and former servicemen contributing to the fund.
 
Mohd Anwar said that LTAT will closely monitor all its investments, including its stake in Boustead, to ensure that it brings the best returns for LTAT's contributors who are members of the Malaysian armed forces.
 
"LTAT has full faith that the land development project by Boustead will be as successful as Boustead's other projects while being able to provide affordable housing for servicemen," Mohd Anwar said.
 
Mohd Anwar also said the transactions will help expand Boustead's landbank and bring profits for Boustead in the long term.
 
Boustead has pointed out that the deal will enable it to expand its existing landbank in Klang since Awan Megah's 200-acre parcel was adjacent to Boustead and LTAT's 700 acres in that area.

 

Bar to look into Tan Sri lawyer’s possible misconduct

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:28 PM PST

We will act regardless of the personalities involved, says its president Lim Chee Wee.

Lisa J. Ariffin, FMT

The Bar Council today assured that it would make all necessary enquiries to ascertain the identity of the lawyers involved in the drafting of private investigator P Balasubramaniam's second statutory declaration (SD).

Its chairman, Lim Chee Wee, today said that the Malaysian Bar will act in accordance with due process regardless of the personalities or circumstances.

He said this in a statement in light of recent allegations by carpet trader Deepak Jaikishan that a 'Tan Sri' lawyer and his son had been involved in the preparation of the second SD.

The second SD has since reversed an earlier one Balasubramaniam had signed, which implicated Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in the 2006 murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.

"If there is cogent evidence to suggest professional misconduct, we will not hesitate to lodge a complaint with the Advocates and Solicitors Disciplinary Board [ASDB] and prosecute the complaint," Lim said.

He said it will then be the responsibility of the ASDB to adjudicate the matter and to mete out appropriate disciplinary punishment.

He urged anyone with compelling evidence of professional misconduct in this matter to submit a complaint with the ASDB.

"We are prepared to render assistance to any would-be complainant, in having his or her complaint properly directed to the ASDB," Lim said.

"We urge those who have knowledge in this matter to be less hesitant, and more forthright," he added.

He stressed the seriousness of the matter, saying it could not "be resolved on an indulgence of surmise, conjecture or deductions [simple or otherwise)".

"To do so would be to sacrifice due process [including natural justice] at the altar of expediency or convenience," he said.

"This would ultimately compromise the proper determination of the matter."

In a previous report, the Tan Sri lawyer was revealed to be Cecil Abraham, who sits on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) panel.

In exposing the lawyer's identity, former member of MACC advisory panel, Robert Phang, urged Abraham to come forward and verify the claims.

However, Balasubramaniam's lawyer, Americk Singh Sidhu, stressed that Abraham was a "barrister of the highest integrity" and maintained that it was "unthinkable" for Abraham to have been involved in the preparation of the second SD.

He also claimed that Balasubramaniam was forced to sign the second SD because of threats to the safety of his wife and children.

READ MORE HERE

 

Why can’t Rosli have his say in court?

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:22 PM PST

Din Merican

Please see the news report below from The New Straits Times on the Court allowing the Attorney-General's Chambers ('A-GC') to expunge several questions in Lawyer Rosli Dahlan's witness statements. The mainstream media is so quick to report whenever the A-GC scores a point against him. But they will black out any news of his success and victories against the A-GC or the government.

My readers will remember that in 2007 just one day before Hari Raya AidilFitri, Lawyer  Rosli was brutalised by the MACC before being dragged into court on a trumped up charge by the MACC under instructions of A-G Gani Patail.

Even then, Lawyer Rosli had informed Judge SM Komathy that this was a conspiracy to smear his name and humiliate him (see the NST report of that time) and swore that he would fight the charge to show his innocence.

He then launched this RM50 million law suit for criminal conspiracy, wrongful arrest, assault and defamation against the most powerful UMNO-owned newspaper, Utusan Malaysia, the MACC, the Government and various MACC officers whom he called the 'rogues in government". That is the case that is coming to trial only now, after considerable lapse of time. Why? Because the A-G and the MACC want to punish him.

In retaliation, the MACC dragged the criminal case against Lawyer Rosli for over 5 years. Over that period, Dato Ramli Yusuff was acquitted by the various courts. Despite that, the MACC pursued the case against Laywer Rosli. When he was acquitted, A-G Gani Patail directed that an appeal should be made. Then on August 2, 2012, Lawyer Rosli filed an explosive affidavit disclosing how the MACC Director of Prosecution, Dato Razak Musa tried to coax himi to drop his RM50 million lawsuit.

Lawyer Rosli's affidavit also exhibited a Statutory Declaration by Tan Sri Robert Phang who exposed that the MACC Chief Commissioner, Dato Seri Abu Kassim, had admitted that there was no case against Rosli but A-G Gani Patail would not allow the case to be dropped.

 So, just when his RM50 million trial is about to start, the A-GC commences filing all kinds of applications to block a fair trial. Gani Patail wants the trial to be conducted the way he wants it, and not the way it should be. They want to dictate how Lawyer Rosli can present his evidence. They want the trial to be on their turf and according to their rules. Basically, they want it all their way no matter what.

And as you know, that means it would not be a level playing field. It is like a boxing match where one boxer is asked to wear a heavily padded gloves with mouthpiece or face protector but the other boxer is allowed to put on a knuckle duster and wears a full padded suit like an American football player.

Is that a fair fight? Of course not!

Thus, the NST report below came as no surprise to me when technicalities, by calling Lawyer Rosli's witness testimonies as "hearsay and irrelevant evidence", are being used to prevent his side of the  story from being told in open court. Some of my legal eagle friends are perplexed that the Judge could rule that the Rosli's evidence in his witness statement was not pleaded in his statement of claim.

 They tell me that the court document called a "pleading" which is a Statement of Claim is supposed to just state the brief facts of the claim and not the evidence or the law. The evidence will be presented when the witness like Rosli comes to court and tells his story by way of witness testimony. And yet, Rosli is prevented from doing this. What is wrong, Judge?

Preventing Rosli from telling his story by ruling that it is irrelevant even before he has the chance of saying it reminds me of the late Judge Augustine Paul who kept ruling "Irrelevant" against Counsel Christopher Fernando during Anwar Ibrahim's trial. In the end, the Good Lord rendered Augustine Paul irrelevant by burying him six feet underground.

If I didn't know Lawyer Rosli  better, I would have told him not to be wasting his time fighting for lost causes. He is better off joining the ranks of the UMNO cronies. He can then sit comfortably and reap the fruits of being an UMNOputra lawyer. Even the non-Malay Tan Sri lawyer who prepared the false PI Bala's second  SD knows how to play ball.

But not this resolute Lawyer Rosli. Many think that either he is too idealistic or he is just a plain fool by hoping to vindicate his name through the courts. Many have said that after Lawyer Rosli was acquitted in 2011 and the A-G made a last minute withdrawal of the criminal appeal against him, Lawyer Rosli should have just walked away quietly and continue with his life peacefully. But he persisted.

So the predictable thing would happen now. They will tire Lawyer Rosli down, make him incur astronomical legal costs, drag the case, make technical objections to delay the case as they are doing now, and after all that, they will still not allow Lawyer Rosli to take the witness stand and tell his side of the story. And Malaysians will never know what  Lawyer Rosli is going to say in court.  That is pretty obvious to us.

I tried to call Rosli after reading the NST news, but he did not answer. I called him again countless times even as I am writing this piece, but my calls kept going to his voice mail. I can understand that Lawyer Rosli may be feeling very down. He must be tired by the hurdles and obstacles that are placed before him to frustrate his attempt to vindicate himself and seek accountability from those who have wronged him. I feel sorry for him.

But I know Rosli well enough to know that when he wakes up tomorrow, he will say Lawan Tetap Lawan!

READ MORE HERE

 

Anwar fails to strike out charges against him in Bersih 3.0 case

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:56 PM PST

(The Star) - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Friday failed in his bid to strike out charges against him for allegedly violating a court order by taking part in the Bersih 3.0 rally.

Sessions Court judge Mahmud Abdullah allowed a preliminary objection by the prosecution against the striking out application by Anwar.

In his ruling Friday, he held that the Sessions Court had no jurisdiction to revise or review or make any declaration that the prohibitory order issued by Magistrate Zaki Ashraf Zubir prohibiting any assembly at Dataran Merdeka was invalid.

"The Subordinate Courts Act does not give revisionary and declaratory jurisdiction to the Sessions Court. The Sessions Court is bound by the Act," he said.

Anwar's lawyer Ramkarpal Singh said that he would appeal against the court ruling and file his notice of appeal at the High Court by Monday.

Ramkarpal said that Anwar's application challenging the constitutionality of the charge under Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 was set to continue to be heard at the High Court on Jan 11.

The court then set Feb 28 for mention.

 

Robert Phang files RM100mil defamation suit against ex IGP Musa Hassan

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:52 PM PST

(The Star) - Tan Sri Robert Phang has filed a RM100mil-defamation suit against former IGP Tan Sri Musa Hassan.

The suit was filed at the Shah Alam High Court registry on Friday through the firm Messrs S.N. Nair & Partners.

Phang claimed Musa uttered defamatory words at a press conference held by MyWatch which implied he was a dishonest, untrustworthy, unethical and a corrupt person.

He claimed Musa's words were pre-meditated to tarnish his image.

Phang is claiming compensatory and aggravated, exemplary damages, and other costs and relief deemed fit by the court.

 

 

DAP admits counting error left Zairil out of CEC

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:43 PM PST

Syed Jaymal Zahiid, The Malaysian Insider

The DAP was forced to admit last night it botched up the vote count at its polls last month that saw Zairil Khir Johari shut out of the opposition party's highest leadership council despite a push to appear more racially-inclusive.

Newcomer Zairil — one of the handful of Malay representatives out of a total 68 candidates vying for 20 seats in the DAP's central executive committee (CEC) — made the cut as an elected member after an audit of the December 15 polls showed it had wrongly chalked up the tabulation process.

"The error was discovered after the congress and I then notified the DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng. 

"Lim immediately instructed that the correct results must be made public subject to an internal audit," Pooi Weng Keong, the returning officer for the 16th DAP National Congress, told a news conference last night after its CEC meeting.

The party also conducted audits of the recount, carried out within the DAP by its election strategist Ong Kian Ming and externally by TCMK Associated Chartered Accountants.

National publicity chief Tony Pua told reporters the party immediately held a recount, which showed Zairil had won enough votes to be elected to the CEC.

He maintained the second tallying process made a slight difference to the overall outcome of the elections.

The Chinese-dominated DAP had been attacked by former vice-chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim who alleged that Malays had no place in the party.

Zairil, the son of former education minister, the late Tan Sri Khir Johari, won the last seat in the CEC contest with 803 votes. 

The 28-year-old was appointed to the CEC, as assistant national publicity secretary, after failing to be elected the first time around — a move described by the party's critics and political foes as a damage-control exercise. 

The political secretary to Lim, who is also Penang chief minister, said last night the recount validated his belief in the DAP as a party that stood for transparency and trust in the younger generation.

He added that only political foes had looked at the party's polls from a racial perspective. 

"It was made a big deal by others," Zairil said last night.

The CEC now has two Malay representatives, the other being Senator Dr Ariffin SM Omar who was appointed as party vice chairman.

 

Surendran – a man whose facts do not figure

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:38 PM PST

FMT LETTER: From PM Sivalingam, via e-mail

PKR Vice-President N Surendran is probably well-versed with the law but is woefully ignorant when it comes to mathematics. His numbers simply do not add up and his facts do not figure.

For instance, he has repeatedly claimed that there are 300,000 stateless Indians in the country. He arrived at that figure not by the use of any credible study but by mere unsupported guesswork.

When he organised a rally at Putrajaya recently ostensibly to champion the cause of stateless Indians, only a mere 300 showed up, that too with a lot of Indian national who are workers in Malaysia hoping to get Malaysian citizenship.  Whatever happened to the remaining 299,700?

He clearly failed for good in his attempt to demonise the government when his rally turned out a mega flop, what more when his political mentor and bosses from Pakatan Rakyat, including Anwar Ibrahim, failed to rally behind him.

Incidentally, we may not have forgotten that Hindraf's deposed leader P Uthayakumar had once claimed that there were 450,000 stateless Indians. Between Uthayakumar and Surendran, the figure dropped by 150,000. Were they phantom numbers to shore up dwindling numbers of their political supporters?

On the other hand, the government under Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak went on record to quash Surendran's claims by producing actual results. They have worked hard done to search for Indians with documentation problems and bring them forward to register and successfully granted citizenship and other documentations to more than 6,500 Indians.

The remaining cases received through their MyDaftar campaign are still being processed, and the numbers is a far, far cry from 300,000. Now, having failed to steal the spotlight over the so-called 300,000 stateless Indians, Surendran claims that 49,000 children of stateless persons cannot attend school because they do not have birth certificates. He claims these figures were culled from census data and population statistics.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was reported to have said that children without valid personal identification papers could still have access to education as long as they fulfilled the Education Ministry's circular dated March 11, 2009.

It states a child without personal documents can register at a government school or a government-aided school if one of his or her parents is a Malaysian citizen. This is in line with Malaysia's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Children, which states that stateless children have a right to basic education.

There is no reason therefore for any child born in Malaysia to be denied education. Will Surendran show the proof that there are 49,000 children who are unable to attend school? Can he bring at least 10% of them to the JPN or to the Ministry of Education and assist them to attend school?

In all likelihood, Surendran, being Anwar's parachuted 'Indian' leader in PKR, will sneakily evade this challenge by coming out with lame and pathetic excuses.

"I will only show the proof to the Prime Minister", "Whether there are 49,000 stateless children or not, the number is not important, be serious to solve the issue", "Umno and BN must stop its racist policy by denying citizenship to immigrant races" bla bla bla… These are some whining dialogues of Surendran that we are sick and tired of hearing.

In effect, today, the issue of lack of documentation among Indians and other races in Malaysia doesn't seem to be a serious issue given that the government is already attending to it more seriously to ensure deserving individuals gets their rightful citizenship.

It only seems like people like Surendran are the problem, problem because he has no other issues to fight on, to capitalise on and to fool the people. It is time for Surendran to stop, yes, I repeat, to stop politicising issues on citizenship for his selfish political ambition.

Wise people will judge you not based on how frequently you shout about this matter, but how many people you have actually helped solve their woes. So Surendran, stop making use of people for your advantage and get your facts and figures right before you decide on another circus of yours!

 

SNAP’s sec-gen quits over ‘BN leanings’

Posted: 03 Jan 2013 03:33 PM PST

The latest resignation could trigger a major exodus from Sarawak National Party, pushing the party further into political doldrums. 

Joseph Tawie, FMT

KUCHING: Speculations that Sarawak Nasional Party (SNAP) will return to Barisan Nasional were confirmed with the resignation of its secretary-general Frankie Nyumboi.

Nyumboi cited "major differences" with SNAP president Stanley Jugol as the reason for his resignation adding that he did not want to be with a party that 'betrayed' its members.

In a text message to FMT, Nyumboi said: "I have relinquished my post as secretary-general and have informed the president on Nov 30, 2012 via SMS at about 5.00 pm.

"I do not agree with his direction to rejoin BN and the manner he had made the decision does not take into account the feelings and desire of members at large.

"I do not want to be a party to a decision which betrays the general members' aspirations," he said, who is also the party's elected vice-president.

Nyumboi, who was appointed in January last year as secretary-general, said SNAP was putting itself in a very insignificant position by adopting to be BN-friendly or 'leaning towards' BN.

"Grassroots members have lost their trust and hope in the party and lately its image diminished significantly with its loud silence on political issues and the goings-on in the political scene. Perhaps this is just to appease (BN masters)," he said.

With regard to his intention to contest the Mas Gading seat, Nyumboi said that it is still on unless the party refuses to endorse him.

Under such circumstance, he foresees a "new scenario" emerging. He however declined to explain what the "new scenario" would be.

The SNAP national council is scheduled to meet on Jan 16 to decide Nyumboi's resignation among others but the later knows his appointment as secretary-general will not be renewed.

SNAP in BN?

Nyumboi's resignation is expected to trigger mass resignations by those who disagree with the top leadership's decision to return to the BN fold and their resignations may send SNAP further into the abyss of political doldrums.

SNAP was deregistered in November 2002 after an unresolved party leadership crisis which also resulted in the formation of Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).

Even though the party's deregistration was reversed by the Court of Appeal in June 2010, SNAP's membership in BN remains a mystery.

It had never been sacked from BN nor quit the BN.

READ MORE HERE:  http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2013/01/04/snaps-sec-gen-quits-over-bn-leanings/

 

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net
 

Malaysia Today Online

Copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved