Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Penang: Getting back its mojo
- More International Condemnation of Taib Mahmud
- Muzium Negara
- Putrajaya ditches FBC Media as image experts after exposé
- Zulkifli Noordin cabar Anwar
- Explain Tajuddin Ramli ‘bailout’, TI-M chief tells Putrajaya
- Malaysian PR Move Backfires
- WIKILEAKS: PM ABDULLAH REGROUPS, REAFFIRMS UMNO ELECTION PLAN
- Read my lips: 'arah' means 'advice'
- A desperate porno MCA president
- 31 OGOS HARI MALAPETAKA
- MALAPETAKA – SURAT KEPADA BANI MELAYU
- Plug the Evaporation of Our Money
- Tajuddin Ramli’s cases pushed to Sept 29, Umno lawyer stays mum
- The Mas-AirAsia deal - part 1
- Bila Amanah mahu tunjuk belangnya?
- Ban non-drinkers from driving
- Jeyakumar: Detention was horrible
- Putrajaya directs GLCs, Danaharta to drop all claims against Tajuddin Ramli
- Voter Registration - Kuching
- Of Jais, Malay Supremacy and Mamak’s curse
- Hishammuddin compromises Malaysia’s national security by his blind acceptance of 800 boat ...
- Questions raised over RM388m govt complex
- Workers to ‘sweat’ to reduce govt power bills
- Mat Zain claims A-G interfered with forensic experts
- As economic crisis hits, election to be delayed - Dzulkefly
- Listen to the Voice for Electoral Reforms
- It’s time for us to stop the rot
- ‘Mystery’ shrouded deal to save AirAsia?
- Living costs soaring globally, but Najib vows help to Malaysians
- Kepimpinan UMNO peringkat bahagian wajib bersatu - Najib
- British rioters the spawn of a bankrupt ruling elite
- Militant groups fuel the fires
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose!
- Tiada lagi elaun perpindahan bagi Cikgu !
- Reply to “The Religious Front”
- ‘Sodomy II attacks increased after Sept 16 coup bid’
- Voter Registration
- Unsolicited and free insight on BN's options
- Government working hard to address cost of living problem
- Chinese honour (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)
- Cabinet member, Najib’s aides are ‘non-heterosexual’, says leaked US cable
- Jais alleges bid to convert Muslims at dinner
- Islam does not need crutches - Asri
- Waran tangkap terhadap 12 individu Muslim
- Panic on the streets of London
- Zaid: Raid is against Federal Constitution
- London riots
- Bursa bloodbath gives Najib pause on polls
- The Religious Front
| Posted: 11 Aug 2011 11:46 AM PDT By The Economist Adapted to the national stage, such policies could transform the way that the Malaysian federal government conducts business. Mr Eng says that the savings he has made by ending the "old systems of patronage" allow him to spend money on new social programmes instead, such as modest handouts for the elderly. These policies are popular, and the assault on corruption pleases foreign investors. Little wonder, then, that Penang has become a political weathervane as much as a lesson in economic development. IF YOU are going to have a heart attack, have it in Penang. So one might think, to the see the hospitals in George Town, the capital of this north-western Malaysian state. Patients are flocking in. Ted Mohr, the head of the venerable Penang Adventist Hospital says that he will admit 70,000 medical tourists this year. The hospital specialises in heart procedures and it will perform roughly 23,000 of them this year, including 550 open-heart operations. Such is the demand that the hospital is doubling its number of beds. Mr Mohr gives two main reasons for Penang's success with the coronary crowd. First, it is relatively cheap. Open-heart surgery that would set you back $100,000 in America costs only about $10,000 in Penang. Second, Penang's hospitals are as well-equipped as many in the West. The combination of low cost and high technology is the main reason why industries across the state of Penang, made up of the original island and a larger bit of the mainland, are prospering again after more than a decade of decline. Their revival is important to Malaysia's economy—Penang and the surrounding region account for 21% of the country's GDP. But the renaissance could also have important political consequences for the country. Since 2008 Penang has been one of only four states (out of 13) run by an opposition party. If its politicians can claim the credit for the recent success, that should greatly help the opposition in the next general election, expected within the year. Penang was founded as a free port by the British in 1786. Occupying a position between India and East Asia, the island drew merchants and middlemen keen to make their fortunes. Chinese, Indians, Armenians, Arabs and more all traded alongside each other. With its racial and religious mix, and dedication to the pursuit of free trade, Penang was in many ways the first custom-made city of globalisation. The island's fortunes sank as it lost business to its arch-rival, Singapore. In the post-colonial period Penang fell victim to the rise of nationalism. The region's freshly minted republics chose to develop their own ports. Penang enjoyed a revival during the 1970s with the setting-up of Malaysia's first free-trade zone (a "free port" by another name); this attracted big names in electronics, like Intel and Bosch, which built some of the first offshore assembly lines. But this boom was founded on cheap labour, and as Malaysia became richer other emerging economies, such as China and Vietnam, drew the assembly work away. To recover its prosperity, Penang has sought to reinvent itself. With the rise of India and China, Penang's location again looks very handy to foreign companies as a place to invest, as in the 18th century. It is relatively close to both big markets—yet offers advantages that trump Asia's giants'. Penang's own "Silicon Valley" companies know that the rule of law in Malaysia gives them the sort of protection for patents and intellectual property they would not enjoy in China, and an ease of doing business that they could not find in India. Wages are higher than they were, but no more so nowadays than on the Chinese seaboard. The federal government has also spent liberally on bridges and the airport, making Penang better connected to the rest of Asia. And old George Town has been smartened up, which helps to bring in foreigners to live, work—and have surgery. The result is another boom. Last year more investment poured into the state than any other in Malaysia. Scores of new electronics firms have swooped in to join the pioneers, along with an expanding cluster of 20 or so medical-device manufacturers. Crucially, most of the new jobs are in research and development rather than assembly. An American chip-designer, Altera, has a new facility with 1,100 workers in Penang, 800 of them engineers. Its head says that almost all the engineers are locals—which is good for Malaysia. Whom to thank? When the Democratic Action Party won the state's legislative assembly three years ago, it became the first opposition party to triumph in Penang in more than 40 years. The victory presented a direct challenge to the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition that has ruled the country continuously since independence in 1957. Penang's new leader, Lim Guan Eng, says that the federal government has an "ambivalent" attitude towards him, cutting off some funding but not undermining his authority. "They don't want us to get any credit, but they can't afford to see us fail". The revival of Penang was already under way in 2008, but Mr Eng's new policies have helped it along. He has become the first governor in Malaysia to open up all state tenders to competition. This has entailed dismantling the special preferences for ethnic Malays that have underpinned the BN's rule since the early 1970s. That was when the Malay majority institutionalised affirmative action for themselves, to the disadvantage of ethnic Chinese (a majority in Penang), who were perceived to have got unduly rich. Mr Eng claims that by reforming the system he has ended the cronyism and corruption that wasted money under previous regimes. Adapted to the national stage, such policies could transform the way that the Malaysian federal government conducts business. Mr Eng says that the savings he has made by ending the "old systems of patronage" allow him to spend money on new social programmes instead, such as modest handouts for the elderly. These policies are popular, and the assault on corruption pleases foreign investors. Little wonder, then, that Penang has become a political weathervane as much as a lesson in economic development. |
| More International Condemnation of Taib Mahmud Posted: 11 Aug 2011 11:42 AM PDT By Sarawak Report The UK's most respected and established Environmental magazine, The Ecologist, has this week turned its attention to Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, with a major investigative article about his record in Sarawak. In a devastating analysis it outlines Taib's corruption and his lies about what has happened to the Borneo jungle and its people. Even more significantly, on the eve of the MoCS Red March, it writes about a discernible change in the mood in Sarawak and speaks of real hope of change. This is not least because Taib's decades of self-interested destruction and plunder have been well and truly exposed.
International reputation in tatters Taib is the man who earlier this year commissioned the discredited FBC Media to come in and do something for his international reputation. The $5 million dollar contract was supposed to get the Chief Minister and his policies positive publicity across global TV stations, international forums and blogs. Amongst other things FBC Media launched a new site Sarawak Report(s) and placed articles in New Ledger, an online right-wing site in the US, which focused on undermining the investigations about corruption in our own blog, the real Sarawak Report. These articles attempted to paint Sarawak Report as being run by 'wild left-wingers', instead of professional journalists, purely because of the Editor's family connection with the former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. So, it will be doubly disheartening for Taib that not only has his dirty contract with FBC Media been exposed and shown to have entailed a large number of illegal activities on the part of that company, but that his latest critics in the Ecologist are distinctly linked to the Conservative Party instead. The Ecologist is owned and run by the long-time environmental campaigner Zac Goldsmith. Zac is an ex-Etonian, Conservative MP and belongs to an extremely wealthy family of businessmen. So no chance of using wild lefty accusations this time! The truth is that all independent, onlookers, whatever their political connections, can only be appalled at the greed and theft that has been perpetrated by Taib upon his own land and his own people.
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| Posted: 11 Aug 2011 11:06 AM PDT By John Doe It's one thing not-to-know. It's quite another thing to pretend-to-know, and pretend "educate" the masses. I am referring to Muzium Negara. Yes, the newly renovated Muzium which cost the Taxpayers Millions of Dollars. I deliberately stopped there, during my very recent visit to Malaysia. I was aghast at some of the exhibits. This message goes out to En. Kamarul Baharin A. Kasim. Your Muzium may look pretty today, but sorely lacks any credibility whatsoever. The Devil is in the details. So, here's my "Satanic Verse" to you. The very first exhibit displays Pangaea. Do you not know that discussing Pangaea is a subservient attack on the Koran? All Judaeo-Christian-Islamic "Holy Books" state that the World is merely 6,000 odd years old. The Pangaea date starts at the 250million year mark. Is your Arithmetic so bad not to know the difference? Are you a closet Atheist? No? Why not show the entire Human Family Tree while you're at it then? Why just an Orang Utan? Afraid to lose your job? Hankering for a Datukship? Fat chance !! Next, behind the exhibit of the Human Evolution model, is Perak Man. Yes. The one which spent years n Japan, because Malaysians were deemed unfit to do any real study on real research work. Perak Man is the flagship of Zuraina Majid's career. However, she fails to explain why Perak man is older than Adam and Hawa (Eve). Perak Man is touted to be 10,500 years old. This makes him circa 4,000 years older than Adam and Eve. Strange isn't it? Alright, "I believe, therefore it's true". Do you really know what any discussion on Pangaea really means? Why isn't Niah Man (actually Woman) on display as well? She is 40,000 years old, and deserves a far more important spot than Perak Man. I know ! It's because she was discovered by Tom Harrison, and NOT Zuraina Majid. That's why! Also important to note, that Niah Woman is 34,000 years older than Adam and Eve. You want old? Go no further than the island of Jowo. The homeland of Java-Man (and most Peninsular "malays"). He is 1.8 million years old !! In fact, he is 1.7999 million years older than Adam and Eve. To be precise, he is the oldest homo erectus found in Southeast Asia. Not important? Alright... What about Peking Man? He is also much older than Adam and Eve; at least by 125,000 years. Zuraina, synchronize Evolution, Cambrian, Paleozoic, Paleolithic, and the stone tools from Kg Temelong which you claim is close to 200,000 years old with the 6,000 History as provided in the Koran, Biblios, and the Torah. Are you a closet Atheist too? Should Jais pay you a visit? What now? you provide all those dates, but claim to be a Muslim? Does your left hand not know what your right is doing? Hear Ye, UMNO, strip Zuraina of her titles, and relinquish her job, and dissolve the Archaeology department, if you are a True Muslim. She is subserviently promoting Evolution !! Earth is NOT 13.5 billion years old. It is merely 6,000 years, as per what the Holy Books say it is ! Alright, "I believe, therefore it's true". If you want to do an evolution display, then do it right. Not half baked, like the one which you have on display. What will you tell people next? That Adam and Eve are Malay? Or that Adam and Eve started UMNO? It gets worse... believe me. The display of Painted-Cave at Niah suggests that Adam and Eve were also cavemen. They also fail to detail that the boats used to bury the dead are also found in Lao, Thailand, West Sumatera, as well as in Burma, thus, providing ample evidence of such migration, thus, completely diluting the "pendatang" name-tag. Oh, and by the way, the life-size model is so wrong, if compared to the actual painted cave behind The West Cave. Consult Tun Ipoi Datan at the Kuching Muzium if you need help with this. Also, where are the wooden boats for burial? They are completely missing from your depiction. Adam and Eve were Cavemen. Therefore, God also looked like a caveman. The rest of the spicy details, I will reserve for my book. And yes, I do have pictures. In fact, I have more than 40,000 pictures collected over the past 4 years. Alas, only 600 will make it for publication. Another down-played display, is the Dongsong Drum, originating from North Vietnam. Malaysia found more than 200 of such drums, most of them complete, but on display is one pathetic cover. Where are the rest of the 199 Vietnamese Drums? Wanna look at Singapore's HUGE drum collection from all over Southeast Asia? Where are the more than 200 Dong-Song Drums found in Malaysia? Little is known, that the Dong-Song Drums are actually proof that the Vietnamese had arrived in Malaysia from over 3,000 years ago, and along with them, brought their craft. Speaking of the Vietnamese, the Stone-Slab Grave from Perak (replica, also in front of Taiping Muzium) is so strikingly similar to the Hmong graves found in abundance all over Indochina. The "tripod bowl" found in Kodiang, Kedah is also typical, of the thousands found in Ban Kao, of western Thailand, in the Kanchanaburi Province. This again, clearly shows that the Thais were all over Malaya before UMNO was born. Wanna see maps which tag the Peninsular as "Tanah Siam"? The transcript of the Lembah Bujang exhibit is also very interesting. It translates as "Early Malay Kingships" Early Malay Kingships existed before the 14th Century. Amongst the well-known are the Langkasuka, and Kedah. Based on Chinese records, Langkasuka existed before the 2nd Century, based in Patanni..." and so on. Here's the bait and switch. They specifically mentioned "Chinese Records". And this was from BEFORE the 2nd Century. How is this even possible if the Chinese were not here? Did the Chinese just read the Twitter or Facebook writings of the malays? For the Chinese to write about Lembah Bujang, they had to have been here since then. Plain and simple. Pendatang? Alright, now that 400,000 have left, UMNO is begging them to come back. What on earth for? To continue to burn their Churches, and mock that they worship King Kong? Muzium Negara states that the Chinese were here since the 2nd Century? The display on Malacca is another pathetic one. As I've mentioned before, and firmly maintain, that Malacca sorely lacks any credible empirical evidence. Some blogger had suggested that a Chinese Collar and and Indian knife in someone's private collection is proof of Malacca. "I believe, therefore, its true". Sure. Whatever... "I believe, and therefore, it's true..." Well, consider this. If alongside the above items, & 4 coins in moderate condition, provide the only evidence for an Empire, then, the evidence for this alleged "Great Empire" is pretty lame! Well, ok, you also have Tun Lanang's writing, which is 200 years after-the-fact. However, if I wrote, and then buried the following sentence; "Najib is a Mongolian Murderer, and likes to screw her in the ass", and someone dug it up 700 years later, does finding the document make it true? Alright, bad example.... pass. In fact, since the last article, how many of you have visited Pulau Besar in the straits of Malacca? There are over 1,000 Hindu graves there. Could not they be empirical evidence of Malacca? I see, you mean that it would severely distort the "History" (read as "blatant lies") which UMNO wants you to study. What if those graves are reserved for Royalty? What if the original Sultans were in fact Raja's, as in Maharaja's, and remained Hindu throughout their lives. Poor people cannot afford lavish graves. These 1,000 graves are not of ordinary people. They are certainly of the rich. Go see it for yourself, and post pictures alongside your thoughts. In fact, there are far more items in any single tiny site of little-known Beruas than the Great & Magnificent Malacca. Look at them yourself in Muzium Negara, or at the Beruas Muzium, if you have the time. The Beruas Muzium is right across the street from the Beruas Police Station; nested on a small hillock. Still on Malacca, the "pseudo Hologram" map below attempts show that Malacca was the centre of Southeast Asia. I present to you, the famous Magellan map, which clearly shows how he completely skipped Malacca, as if it either never existed, nor had heard of. Magellan's Map puts Malacca on the furthest possible corners, and summarily does NOT go there at all. Muzium Negara launches scud missiles at Malacca with their very own map on display at Muzium Negara. It is absurd to note that Islam "originated" from Malacca !! Seeing this HUGE Map on display almost made me puke on the Dummies. This was the most absurd map in Muzium Negara. Here's the sequence of events, for the sadly uninitiated: 1) Islam was brought to this area by the Gujerati. 2) It landed in Pasai in the 9th Century 3) It was then brought to Champa in the 10th Century. 4) The Cham people brought Islam to Peninsular Malaysia in the 11th Century. 5) It was spread to Brunei by the 11th and 12th Century, and then, onward to the Philippines. 6) It was also spread from Aceh to Sumatera Barat in the 11th and 12th Century. 7) Later, it went southwards to Celebes Island. All this happened before Malacca was "born". And if all these locations were already Muslim, what significance is Malacca's spread? It's like teaching fish to swim. What crap is this map showing? Jais Police who went to Dangdut in neighboring countries? Well, Muzium Negara did get one, and only one detail right. It was the spread of Islam from Malacca to the Semarang area. That was because Malacca partnered with Chek Kok Poh, the then Sultan of the "Chinese-Muslim Demak Empire" to attack and conquer north-central Jowo. The rest, pure unadulterated crap. It is shameful to see such blatant lies. What will they think of next? That the Prophet Muhammad (saw) was a Malay who went to Medina? Gosh !! This is as lame as TBH strangled himself, and then his dead body decided to jump out of the 14th floor window. I quote Tun Dr Pornthip, "Are you a real Lawyer?" I call your attention to this wall of maps. There are 7 on display here. If Muzium Negara had a Map pre-dating the British which labelled the Peninsular as "Tanah Melayu", I'm damned sure that they would have put it on display already. Sadly, there is none. Is there a single Map which pre-dates the British with "Tanah Melayu"? Now another exhibit, titled "Figurehead of Royal Boat". And that figurehead is a Chinese Dragon. This is impressive !! Are they trying to tell us that The Muslim Royalty has no qualms about putting the head of a Naga on their Royal Boat? Mind you, that this is merely "more than a century old", as the inscription plainly states. What happened to "I will CHOP your f**king China-Kui Head off"? Dragon Heads on Royal Boats? On a more sinister note, I am openly questioning why the Muzium Negara decides to place Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor in the "Penjajah Section" ? Is this some unspoken subtlety here? Does he know something which we do not? After all, we all know that the Johore Royal Line is NOT of the Malaccan Line. They are Pendatangs from Sulawesi, called the Bugis. Is En. Kamarul Baharin A. Kasim as secret Jewish conspirator then? or maybe a hired hand of Apco? Maybe he even has two MyKads, or three... who knows?
Wanna speak about blatant error? Go no further than the display on the Japanese attack on Malaysia during WWll. The picture show Aircraft Carriers, Zero-Sen planes bombing, just like a scene from Pearl Harbour. The truth of the matter was, they used bicycles, and invaded Malaysia in a mere 10 days. There were no aircraft carriers, no bombs, no air-raids. None! Just good "ole' basikal". Long Live "Ketuanan Jepang" !! Newspaper headlines "Japanese BMX Squad invades Malaysia like a hot knife to butter". As a result, the 4 northern states became part of Thailand once again. Anyone from there can tell you that they had to raise both the Japanese and Thai Flag, and sing both national anthems, instead of Mamula Moon, err, I mean Terang Bulan, err, I mean Negaraku. (all available on Youtube) One more exhibit; the Duit Emas. I don't know who you "malays" paid this Golden Tree to, but it was surely not to "the King of Siam in Bangkok since the 14th Century". My "malay" friends, you have been completely suckered. You see, in the 14th Century, Bangkok was not even founded yet. In fact, it was not founded until the year 1768. Just then, like now, no one really knows where Malaysian Tax-Payers Money really goes. Lastly, it was definitely NOT symbol of friendship, but it was Tax money paid to the Thais. You see, Malaya belonged to Thailand. All of the Peninsular, including Singapore; then known as Temasik. And this was Tax Money paid to Ayodthaya. This Tax Money had to be paid, or else the Thais would come and kill the leaders. Think of it as "Protection Money". Malaya, clearly belonged to the Thais. And so did Kota Gelanggi. Btw, anyone has an update of the 30ft Buddha statue they found there? The next problem is this. If this began in the 14th Century, Malacca was not yet in existence yet either, then how come Malacca is always taught as the origins of Malaysia? Was Adam and Eve from Malacca? And further proof that there existed Kingdoms before Malacca is in the Batu Bersurat Terengganu, which is circa 300 years older than Malacca. And, similar stones comes from the Kingdom of Champa in Central Vietnam. This further reinforces the fact that Islam came from Champa to the Peninsular, and NOT Malacca, as per what local Pseudo-Historians claim it to be. "Malaysian are really like Mushrooms. Always kept in the dark, and continuously fed shit." (and you can quote me on that) I'll end this short piece with a picture, to illustrate how confused UMNO really is... As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words. BTW, this is image is not 'photoshopped'. Please pay 20 sen to see this yourself. It's behind the fire engine, on the rear-side of Muzium Negara, up a short flight of stairs. |
| Putrajaya ditches FBC Media as image experts after exposé Posted: 11 Aug 2011 11:01 AM PDT By Jahabar Sadiq, The Malaysian Insider Putrajaya has now ended its contract with British publicity firm FBC Media after an embarrassing exposé last week revealed Malaysian leaders routinely appeared in paid-for interviews on global television programmes. The Malaysian Insider understands that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) terminated FBC Media's contract in the past week, just months after another public relations firm, APCO Worldwide from the United States, met an ignominious end for alleged links to Israel. "The contract with FBC Media is over. PMO has enough people to handle publicity locally and abroad," a source told The Malaysian Insider.FBC Media's dealings with the Malaysian government came to light after supplementary supply Bills showed vast payments made for a "Global Strategic Communications Campaign". The records showed that between 2008 and 2009, RM57.7 million was paid by the Prime Minister's Office to FBC Media for the campaign. Despite FBC Media's contract, veteran newspaper editor Datuk A. Kadir Jasin's also revealed that Putrajaya has some 11 press aides working for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak against the three who served Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his 22 years in power. FBC Media has also been linked to Najib's predecessor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, who apparently paid US$5 million (RM15 million) for public relations services that included television programmes and professional bloggers to burnish his image before the April 16 state polls. Global broadcasters have been scrambling to contain potential damage after the allegations of impropriety surfaced following the expose by whistleblower Sarawak Report, which linked the interviews and other programmes produced by FBC Media as having been paid millions of ringgit by the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition to shine its international image. US-based broadcaster CNN denied last week it was paid to interview Najib during his visit to London last month but questions remain about the role played by its anchor John Defterios after the latter's FBC Media programme "World Business" was axed early this month by rival network CNBC. The spotlight is on the relationship between FBC Media — the British publicity firm led by media giant Alan Friedman with Defterios still listed as its group president — and broadcasters like CNBC, CNN and the BBC. As a result of the allegations, the BBC has also said it will suspend programmes produced by FBC Media and investigate the company. Influential Washington-based news website Politico.com said FBC Media is listed in lobbying reports as having paid tens of thousands of dollars to Washington-based lobbying firm APCO in recent years to lobby on behalf of the Malaysian government. CNN's denial comes on the heels of rival CNBC's decision to drop its flagship show "World Business", which has similarly been alleged to have been paid to feature Najib in its prime-time news slots last month after his administration cracked down on a civil rally pushing for cleaner and more honest elections. Both interviews were conducted by Defterios which has raised eyebrows over his appearance on the rival channels as well as questions over a conflict of interest to his unclear ties with FBC Media.
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| Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:08 AM PDT
(Utusan Malaysia) - Ahli Parlimen Kulim Bandar Baharu, Zulkifli Noordin mencabar Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim dan peguam bela Karpal Singh agar memanggilnya ke mahkamah sebagai saksi bagi memberi keterangan berhubung kes liwat membabitkan Ketua Pembangkang itu. Zulkifli berkata, beliau adalah saksi yang relevan untuk memberi keterangan kerana mempunyai maklumat berhubung apa yang berlaku pada hari Mohd. Saiful Bukhari Azlan membuat laporan polis kerana mendakwa telah diliwat Anwar dan juga beberapa maklumat lain berhubung kes itu. Sambil mempersoalkan tindakan Anwar yang mahu memanggil Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak dan isteri, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor sebagai saksi kes liwatnya itu, Zulkifli hairan mengapa Anwar tidak memanggil beberapa individu lain yang lebih relevan untuk berbuat demikian, sebaliknya mengaitkan Perdana Menteri dan isterinya dalam kes itu. Katanya, antara mereka yang boleh menjadi saksi bagi kes itu ialah bekas Setiausaha Sulit Anwar, Rahimi Osman dan Anuar Shaari, bekas Ketua Angkatan Muda Keadilan, Senator Mohamad Ezam Mohd. Noor, isteri Anwar sendiri, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail dan Ahli Parlimen Wangsa Maju, Wee Choo Keong. "Kenapa kami saksi-saksi yang relevan ini langsung tidak dipanggil oleh Anwar, sedangkan kami yang tahu sedikit sebanyak, malah ada yang terlibat secara langsung. Kenapa Najib dan Rosmah yang langsung tak ada kena-mengena dengan kes liwat ini hendak dipanggil sebagai saksi?" kata Zulkifli dalam blog http://zul4kulim.blogspot.com. Katanya, banyak perkara yang boleh diceritakan kepada mahkamah sekiranya beliau dipanggil sebagai saksi untuk kes itu, termasuklah bagaimana keadaan Anwar apabila mendapat maklumat Mohd. Saiful telah membuat laporan polis kerana diliwat Anwar. "Teman akan ceritakan macam mana Anwar pada hari Saiful membuat laporan polis itu. Teman tidak akan lupa tarikh 28 Jun 2008 itu, masih segar dalam ingatan teman. "Teman juga nak ceritakan kepada mahkamah apa yang dibincang malam itu. Bagaimana Rahimi dibawa datang ke Quality Inn Hotel malam itu? Apa yang dia disuruh buat oleh beberapa orang tertentu pada malam itu, siapa orang tertentu itu dan apa peranan Choo Keong pada malam itu?" katanya. Zulkifli berkata, Najib dan Rosmah tidak perlu melayan Anwar sekiranya sapina dikeluarkan terhadap mereka untuk menjadi saksi kes tersebut sebaliknya memohon supaya ia dibatalkan sahaja. Katanya, tindakan Anwar memanggil Najib dan Rosmah bukan untuk pembelaan alibi sebaliknya mempunyai tujuan lain. Beliau berkata, Anwar akan mencari jalan untuk menangguhkan kes itu sehingga Pilihan Raya Umum Ke-13 kerana mahu bertanding dan berharap untuk menang pada pilihan raya itu.
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| Explain Tajuddin Ramli ‘bailout’, TI-M chief tells Putrajaya Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:57 AM PDT
(The Malaysian Insider) - Transparency-International Malaysia (TI-M) president Datuk Paul Low questioned the Najib administration's decision to settle all out-of-court suits between government-linked-companies (GLCs) and Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli, saying today Putrajaya has a duty to protect the public's interest. He was responding to The Malaysian Insider's report earlier today, citing de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz's directive to all GLCs, including Danaharta and Malaysian Airlines (MAS), to drop all claims against Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's poster boy for Bumiputera entrepreneurs as the Ministry of Finance (MOF) has agreed to settle the payment. "When they say settle something, exactly what does it mean? Nobody knows how it's to be settled or how much, on what basis and justification? Is the government paying on behalf of the GLCs? Is it a bailout? Who are parties involved? "Who instructed Nazri? Was it the Finance Ministry, the Cabinet or the prime minister? We don't know," Low told The Malaysian Insider when contacted. He reminded the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) federal government that it was accountable for spending taxpayers' money. He said the government could not simply step into a legal dispute that involved a public-listed company, even if it had government ties; and added the government must show how the country and the public benefitted from such a decision. "This arrangement does not reflect well on the government. In good governance, the buck stops at the CEO, or the board of directors. The government has to answer," he added. The head of the local anti-graft watchdog urged Putrajaya to come clean on the decision, noting that it was a "test of good governance" for the ruling political coalition.
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| Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:44 AM PDT
Government effort to plant stories tarnishes major TV networks worldwide Taib, who has served as Sarawak's chief minister for three decades, said he would step down after state elections earlier this year. Reportedly, both Najib and former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad have urged him to leave office. However, after his party won the state elections, he reportedly is balking at stepping down. Asia Sentinel The Malaysian government and Sarawak state Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud have been spending millions of dollars to plant favorable stories on some the world's most influential television news networks, according to a Sarawak-based NGO.
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| WIKILEAKS: PM ABDULLAH REGROUPS, REAFFIRMS UMNO ELECTION PLAN Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT
Beginning September 22, Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's camp circulated two streams of rumor in what - in the absence of more information - appears to be a continuation of psychological warfare against UMNO and the National Front (BN) government. On September 22, Anwar advisor Khalid Jaafar whispered to us during a reception at the Ambassador's Residence that Anwar would meet the King on September 23 to discuss the parliamentary majority that Anwar alleges he now has and the formation of a new government. THE CORRIDORS OF POWER Raja Petra Kamarudin
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KUALA LUMPUR 000847
SIPDIS
FOR EAP, EAP/MTS AND INR
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2028 TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINR, MARR, KDEM, MY SUBJECT: PM ABDULLAH REGROUPS, REAFFIRMS UMNO ELECTION PLAN
REF: A. KUALA LUMPUR 833 - SEPT 18 SETBACK B. KUALA LUMPUR 821 - ABDULLAH TAKES DEFENSE MINISTRY C. KUALA LUMPUR 815 - SEPT 16 ANTI-CLIMAX D. KUALA LUMPUR 810 - UPROAR OVER ISA
Classified By: Political Section Chief Mark D. Clark, reason 1.4 (b and d).
Summary and Comment 1. (C) Embattled Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi claimed support from state-level officials of his ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) for his re-nomination as party president, in an effort to bounce back after some national UMNO leaders on September 18 urged the PM not to contest in the December party poll. Subsequently, Abdullah again affirmed his commitment to seek reelection together with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, while other senior UMNO leaders reiterated calls for Abdullah to step down. On September 22, Anwar's camp spread news that the Opposition leader would meet the King the following day; we have no information to suggest such a meeting took place. PM Abdullah said reports that he was in indirect talks with Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim over a transfer of power were "rubbish;" Anwar also issued a public denial and advocated caution. 2. (C) Comment: Rapidly approaching the Muslim holiday period beginning October 1-2, and the October 9 start of the party's divisional meetings, the UMNO leadership crisis remains critical and unresolved. Reports of Anwar Ibrahim meeting the King or opening up a third-party channel to negotiate with PM Abdullah do not appear credible. Anwar's most recent pronouncements sound a cautious tone and avoid setting deadlines for bringing down Abdullah's government, and it is unclear how far Anwar Ibrahim can push his agenda before the end of September. End Summary and Comment. Abdullah Claims State-Level Backing 3. (SBU) PM Abdullah traveled to Perak and Kelantan states and held meetings with some UMNO state-level leaders over the September 20-21 weekend in an attempt to regroup support for his re-nomination as UMNO president following his setback in the heated UMNO Supreme Council meeting on September 18. (Note: Some prominent UMNO national leaders during the September 18 meeting reportedly warned Abdullah he would not get sufficient nominations from the UMNO party divisions and urged him not to seek reelection in the December party polls, ref A. End Note.) On September 23, Abdullah held a late night meeting with the UMNO liaison chiefs from nine states, with Johor, Sabah and Teraengganu not represented (along with Sarawak, which does not have an UMNO branch). Following the meeting, a senior aide to Abdullah told reporters that the Prime Minister had received the strong endorsement of the party's state chiefs for his transition plan, which involves PM Abdullah and DPM Najib's reelection in December, and transfer of power from Abdullah to Najib by June 2010. Other UMNO participants in the meeting noted a "unanimous" decision in favor of the 2010 transition plan. 4. (C) Comment: By going to the state level, and reporting strong endorsement from state leaders, Abdullah sought to counter criticism from national leaders that he would not receive sufficient backing for his reelection. State liaison chiefs are appointed by the party president -- Abdullah -- and thus largely beholden to him, but they also exercise important political power among their respective state's party divisions. End Comment. 5. (SBU) After remaining awkwardly quiet on September 19, the Prime Minister's spin machine operating through the mainstream media and some on-line news portals, like The Malaysian Insider, started up again on September 20. Reporting from government sources and associated commentary reaffirmed that Abdullah was moving ahead with the joint ticket with Najib, and that the transition plan remained on track and was not likely to be derailed. Open UMNO Split Continues 6. (SBU) As Abdullah reaffirmed his transition plan and intention to seek reelection, senior UMNO leaders Muhyiddin Yassin and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah adamantly stuck to their positions that Abdullah should step down by December. On September 23, Razaleigh issued a lengthy condemnation of UMNO's undemocratic power politics and the party's failure to reform: "We cannot afford to allow these disturbing trends to play out their destructive course while we suffer a de facto leadership vacuum..." (full text forwarded to EAP/MTS). DPM Najib, who departs the evening of September 24 for the UN General Assembly, largely avoided comment, feeding local perceptions that he is attempting to keep some room open to receive party nominations for president, possibly with Muhyiddin as his number two. Former Prime Minister Mahathir continued his attacks against Abdullah, and heaped blame on Najib for facilitating Abdullah's continuation in office. Opposition Rumors; Anwar's Caution 7. (C) Beginning September 22, Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's camp circulated two streams of rumor in what - in the absence of more information - appears to be a continuation of psychological warfare against UMNO and the National Front (BN) government. On September 22, Anwar advisor Khalid Jaafar whispered to us during a reception at the Ambassador's Residence that Anwar would meet the King on September 23 to discuss the parliamentary majority that Anwar alleges he now has and the formation of a new government. Other rumors of Anwar meeting with the King and other Royals persist in Kuala Lumpur. 8. (C) On September 23, Tian Chua, Anwar's information chief, publicly announced that the Opposition had opened negotiations with Prime Minister Abdullah through a third-party channel. PM Abdullah immediately dismissed this claim, calling it "rubbish." Anwar later issued a statement referring to Tian Chua's remarks as "misinformed." Avoiding setting any new deadlines for toppling the government, Anwar in his statement said, "We will proceed cautiously towards our goals and we agree neither to be provoked into hasty action nor to take an irresponsible approach that would lead to instability and greater uncertainty in the country." (Comment: Earlier on September 23, the GOM confirmed two years detention without trial under the Internal Security Act for controversial blogger Raja Petra, septel. Opposition leaders continue to tell us that they seek to avoid creating a pretext for the government to arrest them under the ISA. End Comment.) RAPSON
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| Read my lips: 'arah' means 'advice' Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT
First read the Malaysiakini news report below. Then read the copy of the 'surat arahan' or 'advisory letter' below it that Nazri is talking about. 'Arah' may mean 'directive' or 'instruct' to those of you who do not speak Bahasa Malaysia well enough. But it means 'advice' to those like Ministers who do. This is what we call 'lost in translation'. NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
Nazri: I didn't instruct the GLCs, I only advised them Hafiz Yatim, Malaysiakini Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Abdul Aziz has admitted that he sent a letter to government-linked companies (GLCs) on Aug 8 over a settlement with former Malaysia Airlines chairperson Tajudin Ramli, but denied instructing them to drop their suits against the tycoon. Nazri said he made the move in his capacity as de facto law minister, and it came on the heels of moves by Tajudin over the past several months to come to a settlement with the government over the companies' suits against him. It was therefore not compulsory for the companies to settle their suit, but it was conveyed to them that it was advisable, given the possible scenarios the new situation had presented, said Nazri. The alternative was for the GLCs to further slug it out with Tajudin, without a guarantee as to when it would be resolved. "Tajudin had been in contact with us for the past six months, proposing a settlement. "I wrote to the GLCs after gaining approval from Second Finance Minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah, and as a law minister to the effect, as this case has been going on for so long - six years," Nazri told Malaysiakini when contacted. He said it was "not necessary" for the GLCs to follow his advice, as it was up to them to decide based on what they deemed to be in their best interests. "If they feel they can win, they can continue with fighting the suit. As a legal entity, they have the right to make their own decisions. "I only wrote to them to remind them Tajudin had approached (the government) with a view to settle, and I merely asked them to look into it," he said. The minister said further that the court cases could drag on without an assurance of victory for any party. "Let's say this case goes into trial, it will take another five to six years and on appeal. It may (even) take another 10 years. We do not know whether the suit will go our way or in favour of Tajudin. Hence, that is why the out-of-court settlement was proposed. "However, if we settle, it must not be at an additional cost to the government. We do not want a payout," he said, admitting that some of the GLCs, like MAS, were in a bad shape. Earlier today, former deputy prime minister-turned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim questioned Nazri's actions in writing to the GLCs. Instructions to GLCs to drop their legal suits should come from the finance ministry, not Nazri, said Anwar. Some GLCs upset It is learnt several GLCs had disapproved of a settlement as some of them had already obtained summary judgments against Tajudin, who some said had provided a weak defence. Some familiar with the case said such a move would not go well with the principle of corporate governance as GLCs were still public limited companies. The law requires the board of directors of these companies to decide. It is not for someone outside the company to issue directives, and some even questioned how someone could direct a company to withdraw lawful suits. It is learnt that Tajudin took loans from several financial institutions, totalling in excess of RM1 billion, which some alleged he was not able to repay when he took over MAS, resulting in the on-going suits. Asked about this, Nazri said the GLCs have to look at the context that they were faced with counter-suits by Tajudin. On the surface, the minister pointed out, when you get a summary judgment it means you win without a trial and that is just on the surface. "However, on appeal it may go for a full trial and there is no way of telling who will be victorious. But I stress, it is upto the GLCs," he said. Nazri also explained that the matter came before Federal Court judge Justice Md Raus Sharif today, who was upset that the case had taken so long. Raus is the managing judge for the commercial division. That is why, Nazri said, there was this proposed settlement. "If nothing can be worked out by Sept 29, which is supposed to be the last date, the matter may go for a full trial," he said, adding that between now and then, the parties concerned could discuss the matter. Not afraid of skeletons in closet? Asked whether the suggestion for a settlement was because the government was afraid of skeletons coming out of the closet if it were to go into full trial as there was a potential number of former VVIPs being involved, Nazri denied such a notion. "Actually, we (the government) are not afraid if the case goes for trial," he said, without elaborating further. In Tajudin's counter-claim, he alleged that he had been instructed by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad to take over MAS and this was against his will. His defence is mainly about doing national service and that there was a conspiracy to get him to fail. Nazri's letter comes on the heels of questionable actions taken by the minister and government, such as the replacement of lawyers who had been involved in the case for the past five or six years. It is learnt four to five well-known legal firms acting on behalf of the GLCs in their suits against Tajudin and on the counter-claims he filed have been replaced by the Putrajaya-based law firm of Hafarizam Wan & Aisha Mubarak, which is well known among legal circles to be aligned to Umno. According to sources, some of the GLCs are not happy that Hafarizam Wan & Aisha Mubarak had called them up and showed them the letter, directing them to transfer all files to that firm. "Never in history has there been a case where lawyers direct their clients to appoint them," a senior lawyer said.
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| A desperate porno MCA president Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:31 AM PDT
By Lee Kee MCA's porno president Dr Chua Soi Lek may not be fielded as a candidate for Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general election. The indications are there and this is why he is getting desperate and easily agitated, resulting in his current "scolding spree". MCA insiders in the know pointed out that Chua was perturbed and frustrated by the appointment of MIC president Senator G. Palanivel as a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department. "It hurt his ego and pride. As president of BN's second largest coalition party, he should have also been appointed," said the party insider. The insider said the Chinese community's contiuous fall in support for the MCA and Chua's immoral image had made him a liability to the BN. On the MCA's candidature issue, the desperate Chua even got his henchmen in Sabak Bernam MCA to fire the salvo, calling for him to be fielded as a BN candidate in the 13th General Election (GE13). It was reported by the vernacular Chinese newspapers that Chua could not respond positively to reporters' question whether he would be fielded as a BN candidate in Labis. This happened at a recent Hungry Ghost Festival Dinner in Kepong where he had, in his speech, boasted that if he was given the chance to contest in Labis (his son Tee Yong is the current MP), he would win it hands down. After BN's Tenang by-election (Tenang is a state seat in Labis) victory in January, Chua had proclaimed that there was a 45% swing in Chinese votes to BN compared with the 2008 general election result. However, an in-depth study by the authorities later revealed that the Chinese support for MCA and BN had dipped to about 18%. This was despite the fact that many voters did not turn up to cast their ballots due to the floods and evacuation. "Those are angry voters and are likely to be pro-Opposition," said the MCA insider. However, the insider said Chua was now relying on his "ace" by leveraging on his strong Johor relations with deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin to ensure that he did not miss the boat in GE13.
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| Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:16 AM PDT DARI JELEBU Semenjak 31 Ogos 1957 anak semua bangsa di Tanah Melayu telah hidup dalam kesangsaraan. Dasar 'ketuanan Melayu' telah membawa Malapetaka kepada Tanah Melayu. Justeru, 31 Ogos adalah hari untuk memperingati kesampaian Malapetaka itu. Hishamuddin Rais BANGUN DAN LAWAN Pada 31 Ogos 1957 Tanah Melayu pula menerima Malapetaka. Ini terjadi apabila British meninggalkan kuasa pentabiran kepada United Malays National Organistion. Semenjak 31 Ogos 1957 anak semua bangsa di Tanah Melayu telah hidup dalam kesangsaraan. Dasar 'ketuanan Melayu' telah membawa Malapetaka kepada Tanah Melayu. Justeru, 31 Ogos adalah hari untuk memperingati kesampaian Malapetaka itu. Pada bulan Ogos tahun 2011 ini saya akan cuba membawa para pembaca untuk memahami konsep dan intipati Malapetaka ini. Memahami Malapetaka 31 Ogos ini amat penting. Jika kita tidak tahu dari mana kita datang maka kita juga tidak akan tahu arah mana yang hendak kita tuju. Dari sejarah Tanah Melayu, kita diberi tahu bahawa pada 20 Jun 1948 British telah mengistiharkan apa yang dipanggil 'darurat'. Untuk saya, darurat ini macam kita dalam kereta tetiba merasa sakit perut yang amat sangat. Maka kita berhenti dan mencari tandas. Kerana tidak berjumpa tandas maka kita terberak dalam belukar di tepi jalan. Kerana tidak ada sumber air maka kita dedat dengan daun. Apa yang saya kesahkan ini ialah suasana darurat. Tetapi pada tahun 1948 dahulu - tidak ada seorang pun warga Tanah Melayu yang dalam darurat. Tidak ada sesiapa yang hendak terberak di tepi jalan. Apa yang berlaku ialah kuasa kolonial British telah di serang oleh Tentera Pembebasan Rakyat Malaya di bawah pimpinan Parti Komunis Malaya. Gerakan bersenjata ini bertujuan menghalau penjajah British dari Tanah Melayu. Dengan licik Britsih telah mengalihkan perjuangan untuk mendapat kemerdekaan ini kepada 'darurat. Tidak ada apa darurat. Yang hendak terberak di tepi jalan kerana diserang oleh Tentera Pembebasan Rakyat Malaya ialah soldadu upahan British. Soldadu upahan inilah yang sedang dalam darurat. Berjuang mengangkat senjata ini telah membuka lanskap politik baru ke Tanah Melayu. Kuasa kolonial yang dianggap gagah dan lengkap bersenjata kini telah diserang oleh gerila Tentera Pembebasan Rakyat Malaya. Kuasa kolonial British amat memerlukan bumi Tanah Melayu kerana dari bumi kita ini terdapat kekayaan bijeh dan getah. Punca ekonomi inilah yang ingin dipertahankan oleh penjajah. Politik ialah ekonomi. Memiliki kuasa politik memiliki punca ekonomi. Justeru penjajah British bertahan kerana lombong bijeh dan ladang getah. Serangan bersenjata dari gerila pembebasan ini menjadikan kuasa kolonial terus berdarurat. Akhirnya British merancang satu strateji baru. Jika terus menjajah maka perjuangan bersenjata yang dipimpin oleh Parti Komunis Malaya ini akan merebak luas. Tuntutan untuk merdeka akan merebak untuk menjadi ajenda anak semua bangsa. Keadaan sedemikian amat bahaya untuk British. Justeru, British memerlukan budak suruhan yang baik sebagai ganti sebelum mengundur. Dengan licik dan terancang British telah memasang dua ekor kuda. Saekor kuda bernama Onn Jaafar dan saekor lagi bernama Tunku Abdul Rahman. Seperti di Iraq hari ini kuasa kolonial Amerika memasang lebih dari saekor kuda. Ada kuda bernama Nouri al-Maliki, ada Jalal Talabani dan ada Tariq al-Hashmi. Kuasa kolonial berkulit puteh sedar dengan memasang beberapa ekor kuda mereka akan dapat mencari barua yang setia. Terlalu ramai anak tanah jajahan yang bersedia untuk menjadi budak suruhan dan mengikut kata tuan kolonial. Taktik British dan kuasa kolonial cukup senang - siapa yang dapat membuktikan yang mereka lebih setia kepada tuan penjajah maka sosok itu akan dinobatkan. Inilah taktik kuasa kolonial dalam percaturan reapolitik. Ianya berlaku dahulu dan sedang dijalankan sekarang. Di Tanah Melayu kuasa kolonial British telah memilih United Malay National Organsiation untuk menjadi barua mereka. Parti Kebangasan Melayu Muda, AWAS, API, Hisbul Musliamin, Parti Komunis Malaya - adalah parti-parti yang menentang British. Parti-parti ini mengangkat senjata menentang British. Parti ini akan membawa merdeka tetapi amat bahaya untuk kepentingan British. Ini berbeza dengan United Malay National Organisation yang bekerjasama dan menjadi barua British. Buktinya apa yang saya tulis ini cukup jelas. Pada bulan Ogos ini cuba baca - tak perlu beli - akhbar milik United Malaya National Organisation. Akan penuh dengan dengan kesah melawan komunis. Inilah apa yang saya katakan Malapetaka. Ketika anak semua bangsa bangun melawan penjajah British, United Malay National Organisation diupah oleh British untuk menentang dan melawan orang yang menentang British. Orang angkat senjata lawan Britsih gerombolan ini angat senjata lawan orang yang lawan British. Inilah kerja barua. Inilah Malapetaka yang saya maksudkan. Kita akan muntah taik setiap tahun apabila melihat Bukit Kepong dikaca tv. Memang betul ada serangan ke rumah pasong Bukit Kepong. Memang betul polis yang diserang ketika itu adalah polis Melayu. Tetapi polis Melayu ini adalah polis upahan British. Kerana mereka Melayu tidak semestinya apa yang mereka lakukan baik dan betul. Melayu bukan bermakna betul. Ada Melayu barua dan ada Melayu nasionalis. Anak muda hari ini juga wajib diberitahu bahawa serangan Bukit Kepong itu dipimpin oleh Mat Indera. Mat Indera ialah seorang nasionalis kiri Melayu. Ini tidak terdapat dalam filem Bukit Kepong kerana United Malay National Organisation tidak mahu rakyat Malaysia tahu bahawa ada Melayu yang berani angkat senjata melawan British. Dan dalam Parti Komunis Malaya amat ramai ahlinya, kadernya dan pucuk pimpinan terdiri dari orang Melayu. Read more at: http://tukartiub.blogspot.com/2011/08/apa-dia-malapetka-31-ogos.html |
| MALAPETAKA – SURAT KEPADA BANI MELAYU Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:12 AM PDT DARI JELEBU Tidakkah kamu sedar hutan balak dan bukit bukau yang telah kamu ratakan adalah kampong and halamana aku. Tidak kah kamu memiliki perasaan apabila kamu menjarah dan merampok balak dihutan kamu telah merosakkan alam yang berbilion tahun tersusun rapi dalam satu rantaian kehidupan yang bagitu harmoni. Hishamuddin Rais Dua puluh penduduk di Kampung Seberang Star, dekat Gua Musang kerugian teruk apabila kebun getah dan pisang seluas 2.4 hektar musnah diserang sekumpulan 12 ekor gajah liar sejak dua minggu lepas. Kancil dan napoh telah bersuara. Harimau dan rusa telah berkata-kata. Enggang di pucuk nan tinggi dan kubong di batang kepala semuanya ingin menyatakan rasa tidak puasa hati mereka. Hendaklah kamu sedari wahai Bani Melayu, yang hidup dalam hutan belantara bukan hanya orang hutan sahaja. Musang dan buaya, lotong dan kera - kami telah sebulat suara untuk memberi ingatan tentang Malapetaka. Sebelum senapang itu melepaskan tembakan. Sebelum das besi panas itu singgah ke atas tengkok aku. Sebelum aku mati di racun. Sebelum kaki aku kau rantai dengan jerat. Sebelum Bani Gajah pupus dari bumi ini, biar aku surahkan rasa hati kami. Sedarlah kamu wahai Bani Melayu bahawa bumi ini bukan hak milik kamu sahaja. Sedarlah kamu wahai Bani Melayu bahawa bumi ini milik semua. Sesiapa yang yang bernafas , sesiapa yang berbunyi dan bersuara adalah tanda pemilik hak yang sama. Dari unggas, mawas, cikah dan kura-kura – semua meminjam bumi ini untuk hidup sementara. Adalah telah kami perhatikan semenjak Tuan Orang Puteh lari meninggalkan bumi ini pada 31 Ogos 1957 dahulu, kamu Bani Melayu telah membawa Malapetaka yang maha sangat. Kamu telah menjadi penganas. Kamu telah merosakkan bumi ini seolah-olah bumi ini adalah milik kamu sahaja. Wahai Bani Melayu, apakah kamu tidak sedar atau sengaja tidak mahu sedar bahawa bumi ini untuk kita semua kongsi melintas. Apakah susah sangat untuk kamu menerima hakikat bahawa bumi ini hanya pinjaman. Kemanakah perginya akal dan fikrah kamu sehingga kamu terus membawa Malapetaka ini. Biar aku surahkan disini bahawa kami yang tinggal di dalam hutan telah lama merasakan Malapetaka ini. Saban hari tanda tanda Malapetka semakin meluas dan semakin jelas. Lalu aku dalam surat ini ingin menyedarkan agar kamu tidak hanyut terkapai-kapai akibat Malapetaka yang akan sampai. Tidak kah kamu tahu bahawa sebelum kamu berada di bumi ini kamilah Bani yang terawal berkelana di bumi ini. Berbilion tahun sebelum kamu sampai ke sini aku dan Bani Hutan telah berkeliaran bebas di sini. Kami berkelana tanpa ganguan. Kami berkelana tanpa sekatan. Kami berkelana bebas. Biar aku catatkan disini satu persatu keganasan yang telah kamu lakukan. Hendaknya apabila telah aku tuliskan ini maka terbukalah hati kamu yang selama ini telah menjadi bagitu kotor dan busuk. Kamu telah dan sedang menjarah hutan belantara ini tanpa perancangan tanpa peraturan. Tidak kah kamu rujuk apa yang telah ditulis dalam penjanjian kami dengan Orang Puteh dahulu. Perjanjian Hutan Belantara yang tertulis dalam Perlembagaan itu tidak kamu ambil peduli. Tidak pula kamu beri tahu kepada anak cucu cicit kamu tentang adanya tertulis Satu Perjanjian. Telah ditulis: bahawa setiap batang balak yang kamu tebang maka kamu juga diwajibkan menanam anak balak itu kembali. Tidak kamu ajar dan didik cucu cicit kamu tentang perjanjian ini. Kamu pura pura tak tahu dan tidak merujuk kepada apa apa buku. Kamu bagitu angkuh dengan kuasa dan kudrat kamu. Lalu kamu tolak runtuh bukit dan gunung ganang. Lalu kamu landaikan bumi ini agar kereta yang kamu naiki dapat meluncur laju. Satu demi satu kerabat pokok hilang dari muka bumi. Satu demi satu kerabat ulat dan kerabat unggas hilang untuk selama-lamanya. Satu demi satu Bani Rumput dan Bani Lalang hilang. Kamu dengan angkuh telah mentafsirkan Bani Hutan sebagai benda untuk buruan. Lalu kami diburu dan dihalau. Lalu kami di jerat dan di tembak. Lalu kami ditangkap dan diracun. Kami dimasukkan ke dalam kurungan. Kami pun dijadikan barang peniagaan. Kamu menjual tiket untuk menayangkan kami kepada anak cucu cicit kamu. Kau menjadikan Bani Hutan barang pemainan untuk menghibur hati hati kamu yang masam kulam. Tidakkah kamu sedar hutan balak dan bukit bukau yang telah kamu ratakan adalah kampong and halamana aku. Tidak kah kamu memiliki perasaan apabila kamu menjarah dan merampok balak dihutan kamu telah merosakkan alam yang berbilion tahun tersusun rapi dalam satu rantaian kehidupan yang bagitu harmoni. Tidak kan kamu sedar bahawa alam ini diikat dengan hukum dan hakam. Alam ini sujud kepada hukum Yang Maha Esa. Alam semesta kita ini bergerak diatas syarat dan aturan yang tertulis semanjak kun fiyakun. Wahai Bani Melayu, biar aku surahkan disini agar dapat kamu memahami tentang rantai kehidupan yang aku katakan ini. Biar aku contohkan disini akan hukum alam yang menjadi bumi ini dengan nyata. Ketika musim durian sampai maka kami Bani Gajah pun akan berkenduri berkendara. Setiap durian yang kami telan adalah tanda kesyukuran kami kepada hutan. Lalu kami merayau jauh berbatu batu. Di lereng lereng bukit kami berakan biji biji durian yang kemudiannya menetas, membesar dan berbuah kembali. Tanpa Bani Gajah, kamu Bani Melayu tidak akan kenal durian dan tempoyak. Read more at: http://tukartiub.blogspot.com/2011/08/satu-lagi-malapetaka.html |
| Plug the Evaporation of Our Money Posted: 10 Aug 2011 09:12 PM PDT By Masterwordsmiith Five years ago, when Najib was the DPM, he said Malaysians should change their lifestyle and adapt to the inevitable fuel price increase. He remarked that Malaysians should be more prudent in their spending and ensuring no wastage. Five years down the road, we still read about excesses while coping with subsidy cuts, increased prices of goods and services coupled with the shrinking ringgit while we lament our almost weightless wallets. According to a recent FMT report, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's household electricity bill was RM160,000 and water bill RM66,000 a month. This is not as shocking as other items of expenditure. |
| Tajuddin Ramli’s cases pushed to Sept 29, Umno lawyer stays mum Posted: 10 Aug 2011 07:02 PM PDT
(The Malaysian Insider) - The slew of multi-million ringgit suits and counter-suits involving Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli and government-linked companies (GLCs) has been postponed to September 29 following a controversial directive from Putrajaya for all parties to settle out of court. Umno lawyer Datuk Hafarizam Harun has declined to discuss the issue although the Putrajaya directive by de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz mentioned that the former will represent all the GLCs. "In meeting (Sibu). Let it fizzle down 1st before we talk ... Sorry. Tqvm," he replied via text message this morning. Hafarizam also declined to confirm or deny if his firm was involved in the federal government deal, but pointed out that the name of his firm was misspelled. "I'm only guided by what is written in The Malaysian Insider," Hafarizam said later, before adding: "For this, I've to remain non-committal. Hope you understand. Let the lawyers acting for the GLCS and Tajuddin Ramli sort it out first. Anything I say now will have an impact". The Malaysian Insider reported this morning that Putrajaya has directed all GLCs, including Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and the national debt restructuring company Danaharta, to cease all civil suits against Tajuddin (picture), the former chairman of the national carrier and protégé of Tun Daim Zainuddin. Nazri, a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said the Ministry of Finance (MOF) had agreed to settle all outstanding claims against Tajuddin, a poster boy of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's plan to groom Bumiputera entrepreneurs. "This is to inform you that the government of Malaysia and the Finance Ministry have agreed to settle all civil claims against Tan Sri Datuk Tajuddin Ramli and others to be withdrawn immediately in view of the fact that the government and the Finance Ministry have agreed that the said cases will be settled out of court. "For your information, the government has given me the mandate to act for the government in this matter," Nazri said in the letter sighted by The Malaysian Insider. But the minister made no mention of the terms of settlement with Tajuddin.
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| Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:54 PM PDT
SAKMONGKOL AK47 Done or no done deal, we will continue to offer looking at the deal from different angles. What are the issues over this deal? One commentator sarcastically said, TF would say poodah to all that I have written. Hopefully he will also say that to those others who write critically too about this deal. But, hello Friend, TF is not Tamil. Try sending him Deepavali card if you would. He would instead say, sorry, I am not Tamil. Look at the share swap? TF got so many shares of MAS right? He parted with so many shares of AA to Khazanah no? What has happened? MAS shares rose in value meaning the shares TF has increased in value. The boy who managed MAS for a short time gets 11 million MAS shares and he is rewarded for bad-managing MAS. What has been produced at this deal? Immediate improvement in the services of MAS? A renewed sense of commercial evangelism by which TF is famous for? Some say it as snakoil-salemanship. Doesn't matter because it works for him personally. On the PROMISE of MAS getting TF Midas's touch, he has made over RM 30m. Those with AA shares got lesser value for the shares including Khazanah. So what do you feel about the whole thing? You will feel that MAS is being made a tool in a vast corporate game exercise masterminded by a few using an asset owned by Malaysians held in trust by those boys at Khazanah. You could almost feel you have been had. You represent thus the people who feel violated. The shares and assets held in trust are held for what purpose? Let's not beat around the bush- there is an unspoken truth that the shares are held in trust for a wider social and political purpose. So that value can be added on the shares in the pursuit of social and political adjustments. Chief among these- adjusting wealth distribution on behalf of Bumiputeras. Two, these corporate games are being played by a few well connected individuals. The benefits (mostly immediate and short term) accrue to them. The full impact only to be felt years later and borne eventually by the government and taxpayers. All this point to the incompetence of the government at managing wealth generating national assets. Sure, everyone is parroting what Fernandes said at a forum on ETP - that government gets out of business. We have been saying that all along too, except that TF is saying it with capacity. In any case, I fully agree with that portion of his take. So let's begin by dismantling the very organization that throws its weight around as a government- khazanah itself. If there is a new government next time, let's put as priority, the agenda of dismantling Khazanah. Khazanah is left holding shares that have gone down in price. Net, TF wins. But what about the minority shareholders holding the balls shares of AA? The lady boss at Bursa Saham needs to investigate whether substantial blocks of MAS shares changed hands before the deal was announced. Does the share swap entail AA assuming a new nationality? Does AA now become a 'Malaysian airlines' so that it acquires previously unavailable landing and flying rights? If it has changed effectively and since landing and flying rights are attached to an airline's nationality, AA has effectively gotten rights that are enjoyed by MAS. So MAS is arm-twisted into giving up more concessions. AA got what Asia-X has been clamoring all this time. That makes the deal having all the ingredients of being much manipulated and not fair especially to MAS. You twist and turn, ending up by giving up more by MAS. Now where is the reason for being angry? You feel angry because the government itself is played out and looking stupid. Very sorry if you insist this is a debate about bumi non bumi, tamil non Tamil. It isn't. It's about transparency and probity in the treatment of assets belonging to this nation. If MAS were an entirely private company, we will say - serve you right, you have been a laggard and therefore you deserve to be outmaneuvered by TF. AA has got a leaner management team, its nimble and all that. We wouldn't bat an eyelid because it's purely an affair between private business entities. The issues here are about MAS and Khazanah. The issues with MAS center on its management. It's not led by a keen entrepreneurial mind. But why are we confining ourselves to just around the talent in AA to prop up MAS? We want to insist MAS and AA remain two separate entities so that there is competition. TF and his gang can do whatever they want with AA.
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| Bila Amanah mahu tunjuk belangnya? Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:44 PM PDT
Apakah Ku Li dengan Amanahnya akan memulakan gerakan bagi menggantikan pimpinan Perdana Menteri Najib yang dirasakan sebagai ketua kerajaan dan kerajaan Malaysia yang paling bermasalah dan lemah sejak merdeka? Itulah yang ditunggu dan hendak diperhatikannya. Subky Latif, Harakah Daily SUDAH dua minggu Tengku Razaleigh melancarkan penubuhan Angkatan Amanah Merdeka atau Amanah, namun belum diketahui apa kegiatan dan rancangannya.
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| Posted: 10 Aug 2011 05:40 PM PDT
Those British who came out to riot over the last few days came out with intent to riot, loot and plunder. They had no intentions to hold a peaceful demonstration. They were not concerned about loss of life or damage to property. They intentionally wanted to damage property. It was part of the plan. NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin About 3,000 people die a year on the roads of Britain, a country with a population of about 72 million. About 6,000 people die a year on the roads of Malaysia, a country with a population of about 27 million (now just touched 28 million). Compare the two statistics above and it will be clear that it is more dangerous to drive or ride on Malaysian roads than on British roads. So, Malaysia should ban cars and motorcycles from Malaysian roads. Then less Malaysians will die every year. The number of drink-driving deaths in Britain is about 400 a year. That comes to about 1.4% of the total road accident fatalities. This means 98.6% of deaths on British roads are caused by drivers/bikers who DO NOT drink. And this also means people who DO NOT drink should be banned from driving/riding. Then less Britons will die every year. Only three people died in the last few days of riots in the UK (due to a hit-and-run incident rather than due to the riot proper). Only one person died in the BERSIH march of 9th July 2011 (due to a heart attack). So riots and demonstrations are safer than driving or riding a motorbike. This is because, over the last ten years, 30,000 people died on British roads and 60,000 on Malaysian roads. Over the last 30 years you can triple those figures because the statistics are basically consistent from year to year. So we should encourage people to stop driving/riding and start rioting instead. The statistics prove that less people will die if they riot rather than drive/ride. This sounds like a stupid argument, does it not? Well, no more stupid that the argument by the Deputy IGP regarding his comparison between the UK riots and the BERSIH march of 9th July 2011. Those Malaysians who came out to demonstrate on 9th July 2011 came out with intent to demonstrate, not to riot. They were determined to demonstrate peacefully with no loss of life or damage to property. Those British who came out to riot over the last few days came out with intent to riot, loot and plunder. They had no intentions to hold a peaceful demonstration. They were not concerned about loss of life or damage to property. They intentionally wanted to damage property. It was part of the plan. How can the government and police compare BERSIH to what happened in the UK? There were two different motives here. The BERSIH march was a political statement. There was no political statement in the UK riots. It was all about plundering, looting, robbing and stealing. No, we can't compare BERSIH to the UK riots. This would be like banning drivers/bikers who do not drink and only allowing drunks on the road because drinking and driving causes only 1.4% of traffic accident deaths. Did not the Malays oppose the Malayan Union that the British were trying to impose on Malaya through a street demonstration? And was it not because of this demonstration that the British abandoned the plan for the Malayan Union and instead the Federation of Malaya was formed? So, street demonstrations are not all bad. If street demonstrations are held for the purpose of delivering a political message, like opposing the Malayan Union, then it is good. But in the UK this was not a street demonstration. It was not about a political statement. It was a riot. It was about plundering, robbing, looting and stealing. That was the intent from the very beginning. On the second matter below -- the complaint by Ahmad Syauqey Abdul Ghani about human rights abuses in prison -- what is he talking about? This is normal. This is what all of us have to endure in prison. Why only now complain when we have had to suffer this for a long, long time? Yes, now they know what it is like in prison or under detention. We are no longer treated as humans in there. We are treated like animals. In fact, you would not even treat animals the way humans are treated behind those high walls and barb-wired fences. Welcome to the real world. ************************************ DIGP's statement shows his 'ignorance', says Nurul (Malaysiakini) -- Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar hit out at deputy IGP Khalid Abu Bakar for saying that the Bersih electoral reform rally, if allowed to proceed unimpeded, will lead to the same rioting as now taking place on London streets. "That statement only serves to showcase his ignorance," Nurul Izzah told reporters when met outside the Petaling Jaya district police headquarters today. In a posting on his Facebook page last night, Khalid Abu Bakar had said the ongoing riots in London and other major cities in Britain are evidence of the "nightmares" that can be prevented by avoiding street protests. "Alhamdullilah, we are able to avoid these scary and tragic scenes from erupting here in our beloved country. "Street protest should always be avoided as we will never know what it can turn into. Peace loving Malaysian will understand. The right to assemble must always be balanced with public order," read his post. Nurul Izzah added that she cannot accept such statements from the senior police officer and asked him to "check his facts first before opening his mouth next time". She pointed out that the root cause of the London riots was discontent because of government budget cuts and high unemployment in the riot hit areas. This, she claimed, is different from the mainly middle class Bersih supporters who were not as inclined to such excesses. 'Riots may be our future if we fail to reform' However, the Lembah Pantai MP said one similarity between the situation in UK and Malaysia is the failure to reform an economic system that promotes the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. While Malaysia is not as worse off as the UK, she warned "that this is our future if we fail to reform". Police had declared the July 9 Bersih 2.0 rally illegal and outlawed the electoral reform movement itself and cracked down hard on anyone even suspected of supporting or wanting to attend the rally. Police claimed it was only keeping public order and did so to prevent chaos, though this was disputed by Bersih organisers who had pledged a peaceful march. There was no recorded incident of looting or widespread property damage during the rally, with most damage seemingly resulting from tear gas and chemical laced water used by police. ************************************* Kelantan prison detainees forced to strip naked (Malaysiakini) -- A former training director for election watchdog Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) has complained of human rights abuses during his almost two-week-long detention at the Pengkalan Chepa Prison in Kelantan. Ahmad Syauqey Abdul Ghani said he and 113 other prisoners were ordered to strip in front of one another on June 23, the day he was sent to the prison. "I was scared and confused, along with the other detainees who also had to strip naked. It was very embarrassing. "We were ordered to strip in stages, 10 to 20 prisoners at a time... the situation, with more than a hundred naked men, was horrible, embarrassing and inhumane," Ahmad Syauqey said. Ahmad Syauqey, who has made several sketches to describe his time in detention, said the prison was overcrowded and stuffy. "Ten other prisoners and I were ordered into a cell at the quarantine block. The size of the cell was 6ft by 12ft. "We had to squeeze against one another to fit in, and some of us had to put our legs on the walls, as there was no space to lie down. Many of us could not sleep due to the heat and over-crowding," he said. Ahmad Syauqey also said that the unhygienic conditions made it very difficult for Muslims to conduct their prayers properly. The quarantine block is exclusively for detainees who have been remanded and are awaiting trial or bail. Among other complaints he had are: 1. No proper facilities for Muslims to pray;2. Only two pails of water for 10 to 12 prisoners to share for toilet use; 3. Prisoners were told to defecate in front of other prisoners; and 4. Prisoners were caned on their feet as punishment for 'wrongdoing'. Ahmad Syauqey has since lodged a report on his ill-treatment at the Kota Baru police station and plans to file a complaint with Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), besides the email he has already sent. When contacted, Pengkalan Chepa Prison director Husni Johari said an investigation was under way. "For now, we will not be commenting as an investigation is already under way. It will be completed as soon as possible," Husni said. Ahmad Syauqey was arrested on June 20 under Section 186 of the Penal Code for obstructing a public officer and under Section 90 of the Police Act for behaving indecently in a police station. He was remanded and sent to the Pengkalan Chepa Prison and was freed on July 5, after bail was posted in a magistrate's court in Bachok. His case is fixed for Nov 2 and 16 respectively for hearing. |
| Jeyakumar: Detention was horrible Posted: 10 Aug 2011 04:19 PM PDT
The PSM leader recalls his 28-day ordeal and speaks about his party's plans for the next election and its relationship with Pakatan Rakyat. (Free Malaysia Today) - Despite the grassroots popularity that he and his party enjoy, Dr Michael D Jeyakumar does not want Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) to scramble for seats to contest in the coming general election. "It is important for the opposition to be united," he told FMT. "We do not want to split votes or cause three-cornered fights. We also don't want to be the cause of any fights within the opposition." He said PSM fully supported Pakatan Rakyat when it came to fighting Barisan Nasional (BN). But he added that this did not mean it agreed with all of the opposition alliance's policies. "For example, when it comes to trade agreements, some opposition parties are always enthusiastic, but PSM feels we should be more discerning." The Sungai Siput MP also spoke about his recent 28-day incarceration at the Batu Caves detention centre, describing it as "horrible". "Nobody beat us up," he clarified, "but being deprived of freedom, being unsure as to when they'd release us or allow us to see our families, not being allowed reading material, wondering who they'd arrest next… It was horrible." During the detention, the police allowed his family to visit him only three times, and each of those visits lasted only about 15 minutes. Jeyakumar was one of the six detainees who became known collectively as EO6. They were arrested on June 25 with 24 other PSM members and remanded for seven days, accused of trying to wage war against the King and to revive communism. Upon their release from remand on July 2, police rearrested the six under the Emergency Ordinance (EO), which allows for the detention of suspects for up to 60 days. The public quickly rallied around them, making heavy use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to voice disapproval of the government action. A shock Jeyakumar said he and his fellow detainees were interrogated daily during their incarceration and he found the process "frustrating" because the police were apparently not interested in finding out the truth. They seemed more interested in making the detention serve as a warning to anti-BN groups, he added. The six are now facing charges under the Internal Security Act and the Societies Act. They are accused of supporting an illegal society – Bersih 2.0 – and disseminating propaganda on its behalf. Jeyakumar called this turn of events "quite a shock" and said the bail set – RM8,000 – was punitive, considering PSM's lack of financial resources. He accused the government of trying to scare the people from voicing out dissenting opinions. "Making us a scapegoat just stemmed from wanting to repress the public," he said. "A sensible government would have engaged us instead of using scare tactics." During their detention, the EO6 were separated from each other. Jeyakumar said a normal day started with fingers of light creeping through a frosted glass window high above his head. "It was very warm," he said. Breakfast was a bun and teh-O. This was followed by a visit to the medical assistant, who would check his blood pressure and other vital signs. He would then be cuffed and blindfolded and interrogated about Bersih 2.0, PSM's funding and its alleged links to communist parties. "They didn't want to listen," said Jeyakumar. "They just wanted to try and make links." A brief lunch of rice, vegetables and meat would follow, after which questioning would usually begin again. He was interrogated for between three and six hours a day.
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| Putrajaya directs GLCs, Danaharta to drop all claims against Tajuddin Ramli Posted: 10 Aug 2011 03:34 PM PDT
By Leslie Lau, The Malaysian Insider Putrajaya has directed all government-linked companies, including Malaysia Airlines and the national debt restructuring company Danaharta, to cease all civil suits against Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli, the former chairman of the national carrier and protege of Tun Daim Zainuddin, according to documents obtained by The Malaysian Insider. In a letter sent this month to the GLCs and Danaharta by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, the GLCs and Danaharta were informed that the Finance Ministry had agreed to settle all outstanding civil suits against Tajuddin, a poster boy of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's plan to groom Bumiputera entrepreneurs. "This is to inform you that the government of Malaysia and the Finance Ministry has agreed to settle all civil claims against Tan Sri Dato Tajuddin Ramli and others to be withdrawn immediately in view of the fact that the government and the Finance Ministry have agreed that the said cases will be settled out of court. "For your information the government has given me the mandate to act for the government in this matter," Nazri said in the letter sighted by The Malaysian Insider. At least one government agency is expected to withdraw its claims against Tajudin in court today. Nazri's letter also directs the lawyers acting for the GLCs and Danaharta to hand over their cases to the firm of Hasfarizam Wan and Aisha Mubarak, a known Umno lawyer. But the minister made no mention of the terms of settlement with Tajuddin. Tajuddin was a protege of Daim, the close friend of Dr Mahathir and ex-finance minister who was the architect of the now discredited policy of nurturing a class of Malay corporate captains on government largesse. Individuals such as Tajuddin, Tan Sri Halim Saad and others flew high in the 1990s but their true mettle was tested during the Asian financial crisis. Nearly all of them fared poorly. The Najib government's move to settle all outstanding claims against Tajuddin appears to be an attempt to wipe the slate clean in a financial saga that goes back decades to the height of Dr Mahathir's administration. First police report in 2002 MAS had first lodged a police report against Tajuddin in 2002 for allegedly causing the flag carrier to suffer losses in excess of RM8 billion. Tajuddin was the executive chairman of the airline from 1994 to 2001. According to a report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), a major contributor to the record losses under Tajuddin was the relocation of MAS's cargo operation in Amsterdam and Frankfurt to a single hub in Hahn, Germany, where the airline was forced to enter into a disadvantageous aircraft lease contract with a company, which was later linked to Tajuddin's family. The new cargo hub operation had caused MAS to suffer losses of between RM10 million and RM16 million a month before the project was terminated after the government regained control of MAS in 2001. The termination resulted in a RM300 million arbitration claim against MAS by the company. MAS has had a turbulent past decade after the government bought back the airline from the former corporate high-flyer at RM8 per share or about double the market price at the time. The airline was at the time saddled with a debt reported to be RM9.5 billion.
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| Posted: 10 Aug 2011 03:30 PM PDT DAP Socialist Youth Kuching will organise a voters registration this weekend at : 13/08/11 (SATURDAY) - Voters Registration at Kuching Festival from 6:00pm - 9:30pm 14/08/11 (SUNDAY) - Lundu Ramadhan Bazaar ( Person to contact Lau Wee Ming - 016-8742231) Satok Ramadhan Bazaar with Angkatan Muda Keadilan at 4.00 pm - 6.30pm For more information, please contact Andrew Sim at 016-8799606 or Awang Saifeluddin at 016-8899149 |
| Of Jais, Malay Supremacy and Mamak’s curse Posted: 10 Aug 2011 03:26 PM PDT By Truthbespoken So Jais indeed does have the liberty to intrude into any public gathering of its choice without warrant under section 4 of the Non-Islamic Religions Enactment 1988. What type of law is this?Could it be based on suspicions alone? And why is there the presence of the police force? Without first ascertaining whether Jais's intention is right or wrong or whether its action is politically motivated or genuinely legitimate, why is the police so super efficient in protectingJais each time Jais is there to disrupt such parties and gatherings? Is there an unspoken and unholy alliance between Jais and the police? Could it be coincidental that both parties are from the Ketuanan Melayu type of establishments? Their high-handed actions smell foul on Malaysians as they do not subscribe to normal human decency values and approach. The situations are demeaning and lean towards police-protected harassment of decent citizens. It is gangsterism by religious zealots! Can anyone say that Jais is never wrong with its arbitrary actions? Jais is not God! Jais can be faulted. If it is perceived to be willfully creating public disorder, and its action wrong in approach and intention, why should those responsible not be arrested? Can the Ketuanan Melayu-victimised groups, the people, then conduct a citizen's arrest on them in response to the senseless intrusion? Is that why the police is always there to protect Jais? Hell, tell us where common human social justice is if we are not even allowed to hold fund gatherings in peace for the needy within the confines of private premises! Why must theKetuanan types have to use race and religious excuses so frequently to intimidate, separate and dominate fellow Malaysians? Why must these people continue to remain so weak in mind and psyche as to have that urge to frequently impose threats and force on others to show their predominance? What's the actual cause of such blatant arrogance? Again, the answer is, curse befalls upon that old Mamak! It was he who had introduced and expanded on this divisive and harmful Ketuanan Melayu concept in the country! Race and religion were, and still are, the tools of these willful politicians to expand on their personal interest and greedy agendas by making use of weaklings and fools from all those Ketuananagencies set up by them to do their bidding! Now that Malaysia has become so divided by race and religion, no thanks to Mamak again, there will be no harmony in the country! Malaysia will continue to suffer a prolonged absence of determination to move forward as a united nation. It is unfortunate those aforesaid Ketuanansimpletons and foot-soldiers may never be able comprehend the enormous detrimental effects of the Mamak's evil spell after supporting and implementing his willful agenda for so long! TheseKetuanan types, from BTN, Jais, and several others, all irresponsibly making use of racial and religious factors, are likely to remain for sometime to continue with their insistence on Malay Nationalism over Malaysian Nationalism in multi-racial and multi-cultural Malaysia! They will always place race interest before national interest! In other words, Malaysia will continue to remain a country without a soul, a Malaysian National Soul, that is, until the Ketuanan types are released from the Mamak's curse! I trust there is no other country in the world which is not proud or do not practice her country's nationalism! Only Malaysia is being cursed into such a strange and untenable social situation. Sigh... Malaysians are truly in a dire need of a new government to break that Mamak curse!
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| Hishammuddin compromises Malaysia’s national security by his blind acceptance of 800 boat ... Posted: 10 Aug 2011 03:18 PM PDT By Teresa Kok Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein's callous support of the refugee swap between Malaysia and Australia is appalling in his attitude towards human life as a mere commodity that can be traded for money, even as he jeopardizes Malaysia's national security. (Source: Malaysia prepared to receive asylum seekers from Australia as part of deal http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/8/10/nation/9267202&sec=nation) This refugee swap will see Malaysia exchange 4000 UNHCR-recognised refugees for 800 boat people sent by Australia, for which the Malaysia government will reportedly receive RM900 million. This exchange of money between nations for human lives is vulgar and is but a form of state-sanctioned human trafficking which I condemn unreservedly. Hishammuddin's blind acceptance of the 800 boat people who are effectively Australia's "rejects" puts Malaysia's national security at risk. These 800 boat people who are newly-arrived in Australia would not have been screened by UNHCR, thus they are likely not genuine refugees at all. They can come from any and all countries. Their backgrounds, language ability, work skills are unclear and dubious. Hishammuddin hasn't got a clue who he is welcoming onto our shores. Since the 800 were arrested attempting to enter Australia through illegal means, it is possible that they may have criminal backgrounds and links to underground syndicates. According to statements made by the Australian Government, these 800 will be allowed to move freely in Malaysia and be able to work as well. By allowing these 800 to enter Malaysia, Hishammuddin is inviting problems into our home. In contrast to the 800, the 4,000 currently in Malaysia should be allowed to remain in Malaysia instead of being displaced yet again and shunted off to Australia because they are genuine refugees who have been screened by UNHCR. Most of them are Burmese refugees who have been in Malaysia for one to two decades. Many have had their children born in Malaysia, which makes Malaysia the only country their children have ever known. These refugees have grown accustomed to the local environment and formed social ties within themselves and with some Malaysians. Many have learnt to communicate in Bahasa Malaysia and English. Cancel the agreement and let the 4000 refugees live and work in Malaysia I urge the Malaysian Government to call off the agreement with the Australian Government, recognise the refugee status of these 4,000 and allow them to enter the Malaysia's job market to alleviate the worker shortage in Malaysia. The Labour Department has reported that there are 60,000 jobs waiting to be filled right now in Selangor alone. Some industrialists have found it a challenge to open or expand their business in Malaysia due to shortage of workers. Therefore, allowing these refugees to work would be beneficial for both our Malaysian economy as well as for the refugees. It will allow the refugees the opportunity to earn an income and provide them with a sense of human dignity, in contrast to their current statelessness. The UNHCR, Pakatan Rakyat MPs and I have repeatedly proposed this mutually-beneficial arrangement to the Malaysian Government but our proposal has fallen onto deaf ears. Furthermore, I have no faith whatsoever in Prime Minister Najib's statement that the 800 boat people being deported to Malaysia "will be treated with dignity and respect and in accordance with human rights standards" because until today, Malaysia has not established a comprehensive national legal and administrative framework for the protection of refugees despite having been a refugee-destination country since the Vietnam War. In addition, Malaysia has an appalling track record of whipping undocumented migrants as punishment and forcing them to live in inhumane conditions while in detention. Malaysian Federal Government refuses to provide details of agreement I was in Australia on a Selangor State Government investment promotion mission from 25 July to 1 August 2011. Every single day, I saw news of this refugee swap being heavily reported in the Australian newspapers, radio and television. The Australian Government has had to do much explanation to so many concerned and vocal Australians and organizations regarding the details of this deal, and rightly so. In contrast, the Malaysian Government has kept mum on the details of the agreement, intentionally leaving Malaysians in the dark on with many unanswered questions. 1. Why should Malaysia send away 4000 UNHCR-recognised refugees when refugees should be given asylum and protection? 2. How can Malaysia promise that the human rights of the 800 boat people will be respected when Malaysia remains in denial of its appalling track record in the treatment of undocumented migrants? 3. Most of all, what do Malaysians get in return for accepting 800 boat people of unknown and dubious background onto our land? Is the Malaysian Government not creating a potential security time-bomb for all Malaysians for the short-term gain of RM900 million? The Malaysian Government has the duty to make public the content of the agreement in the interest of national security and yet there has been so little transparency and accountability. Hishammuddin Hussein has a lot to answer for.
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| Questions raised over RM388m govt complex Posted: 10 Aug 2011 03:14 PM PDT By Queville To, FMT KOTA KINABALU: The state government has been urged to explain the urgency and lack of transparency in awarding a RM388 million contract to build a Sabah State Administrative Centre (Phase 1) at Likas Bay. Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) information chief Chong Pit Fah said this was only appropriate since Sabah, which has been declared the poorest state in the country, has more pressing matters to solve. "What real benefit does it bring to the rakyat of Sabah? Certainly the funds of such magnitude could be put to better use to eradicate poverty and to improve the infrastructure in the state, rather than for a lavish office for the ministers," he said. The decision to go ahead with the mega project has raised questions over the true financial status of the state government given that it had issued a RM544 million bond in 2009 to raise capital for the Sabah Development Bank, a clear testimony that the government was cash-strapped. The state Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition government under Chief Minister Musa Aman has however claimed it has RM2 billion in reserves. According to local Chinese vernacular newspapers, Assistant Local Government and Housing Minister, Edward Yong has also questioned the timing of the project. Chong agreed with the assistant minister's assessment. "Why now? Is it because this project is being used to channel political funds for the BN?" he asked in a statement issued here yesterday. He said the state government should be more prudent in spending public money. |
| Workers to ‘sweat’ to reduce govt power bills Posted: 10 Aug 2011 02:57 PM PDT By Syed Jaymal Zahiid, FMT PUTRAJAYA: The government is seeking to slash its hefty power bills by reducing the use air conditioners in all its buildings. It is also mulling to stretch the policy to the private sector. Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Peter Chin Fah Kui today said the move would see the government's utility costs slashed in an estimated four to seven percent for every degree of temperature reduced from the total amount spent on air-conditioning in federal buildings. Roughly about 40% of Putrajaya's electricity bill goes to air-conditioning, revealed Chin further. |
| Mat Zain claims A-G interfered with forensic experts Posted: 10 Aug 2011 02:00 PM PDT
By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim has continued his attacks on Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, claiming today that the Attorney-General has caused the public to lose faith in government inquests and inquiries due to his alleged interference in testimony made by forensic experts.
The former city criminal investigation chief said today that Dr Abdul Rahman Yusof, the forensic expert in former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's black-eye probe that Mat Zain had headed, "was willing to prepare three false reports according to orders by Gani Patail." "We cannot blame the public if they have lost confidence in government pathology and forensic experts... ridiculing and abusing their opinions in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest and royal commission of inquiry (RCI) and also the inquest of Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamad," he wrote in an open letter to the Inspector-General of Police. Doubts have been raised over testimony by experts from government hospitals and the Chemistry Department in the recent cases of Teoh and Ahmad Sarbaini, a former DAP aide and senior Customs officer respectively, who both plunged to their deaths at different Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) offices. Early this year, a coroner's inquest into Teoh's death had returned an open verdict ruling out both suicide and homicide some 18 months after his fatal fall at the Selangor MACC office. The Najib administration was forced to form an RCI, which also found that Teoh had committed suicide. Mat Zain said today that Dr Abdul Rahman had prepared three "expert reports", all of which contradicted one other "without making any physical examination on the patient." "This means Dr Abdul Rahman prepared those reports using his imagination and based on just photos and reports of other experts, without any discussing with them or the investigating officer of the case," he wrote. He claimed the first and second reports had been presented to the RCI on Anwar's assault, but that the first report later "disappeared" when the final report was presented to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. "Maybe Gani Patail or Dr Abdul Rahman themselves can explain this disappearance given that they both are interested parties in this report," he said. Mat Zain also called on police chief Tan Sri Ismail Omar to open investigations into this case since the police force has said it is investigating false reports of police brutality in the July 9 Bersih rally. He added that "various parties (including himself), the loudest being the Bar Council, are also pressing for authorities to take action against MACC officers who gave false testimony" in the Teoh Beng Hock RCI.
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| As economic crisis hits, election to be delayed - Dzulkefly Posted: 10 Aug 2011 01:52 PM PDT
(Harakah Daily) - Prime Minister Najib Razak will delay the 13th general election due to current global economic turmoil, according to PAS's Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad. "I find it hard to accept that Najib will be bold enough to hold snap elections in September. The global demand will shrink and the national growth will also be affected as a result. So, I am confident that prime minister will not call for general election this year," he said. |
| Listen to the Voice for Electoral Reforms Posted: 10 Aug 2011 01:27 PM PDT By Meo-Net MEO-Net, an election observation group, call upon the Federal and Sarawak state government to take seriously the main message of electoral reform to be brought up by the Walk for Democracy, organized by the Movement for Change (Sarawak) on August 13th at Kuching's Waterfront area. The election administration of Sarawak and the country need a complete overhaul to maintain the legitimacy of the governments elected from the elections. From our observation of the Sibu by-election on May 16 2010, and the 10th Sarawak state elections on April 16th 2011 there are ample indisputable evidences of electoral frauds and mal-administration which caused the election conduct to deviate far from the requirement of the election laws as well as regional norms. The legitimacy issue is exacerbated by the lowest voter registration in Sarawak, especially its interior, among all states in the country, which lower the base of representation for the polling conducted. The evidences we have collected on the election mal-administration and frauds are as follow: Firstly while the Returning Officers have been briefed by the Election Commission Chairman Abdul Aziz on March 23rd, to stay away from the candidates and campaigning politicians we found most RO's had clearly violated the rule of neutrality in this regard. To cite as an example, SAO Jeffrey Jalong, an appointed RO for Telang Usan, was often seen to accompany the PBB chief in campaign functions in Ulu Baram during the state elections. Secondly despite the reported warning from the State Secretary Mohamad Morshidi bin Abdul Ghani, reported on May 5th 2011, that he will penalize civil servants who were involved in political campaigns, most State and Federal civil servants were reportedly mobilized at the constituencies involved to provide services, give away gifts and provide programs and platforms for political campaign activities. The worst case of such abuse of civil servants is the threat by politicians to the government paid community leaders that the community risk losing development if they don't vote for the ruling party. Example, most recently this was done by Michael Manyin Jawong, reportedly on Aug 30th, to Bidayuh community leaders. All elections should be a competition between political parties, where the government departments should stay away from party campaigns, and all governments should provide developments to all communities based on need and merit rather than who they voted. Thirdly there is no enforcement against offences identified by the Election Offenses Act 1954, chiefly on vote buying. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had through its spokespersons on numerous occasions, disclaim their responsibility to enforce the Election Offenses Act 1954. Instead they claim that they are only mandated to enforce the Anti-Corruption Act 1997. This was confirmed in an interview by MEO-Net with Kuching MACC office on April 11th 2011. There cannot be a fair competition of any kind should there be no referee to enforce the regulations on all participants. Without enforcement of commonly agreed regulations to ensure integrity of the competition, the results will be open to disputes. Fourthly, the level of vote buying, partly arising from the lack of enforcement as mentioned above had been rampant in the elections. Numerous incidents confirmed the pervasiveness of vote buying. Immediately after the Sibu by-election, 100 Ibans congregated in front of a SUPP party office in Sibu to claim their unpaid payment for voting BN. In Selangau, the chief of Kuching Long House admitted that he received Rm10,000 from the campaigners of the BN candidate from Tamin. On both occasions the politicians admitted that payments were made, but tried to justify them as payment for campaigning work, contrary to the admission of the voters involved. Based on the level of payment to the individual voters concerned, the payment, if reflected in their mandatory campaigning expenses account, would have exceeded the legally allowed campaigning expenses. It should be noted that such dubious payments to voters are no where allowed in our regional neighbours, as they are deemed to be evidence enough to disqualify the candidates caught committing such offense. Fifthly, the inaccessibility of the tax-payer supported media to all candidates make it practically impossible for the voters to make fully-informed decisions, an essential requirement for free and fair elections. This monopoly and abuse of tax-payers supported public media is particularly damaging to the election administration as a free election demand that the information about all candidates and parties be accessible to all the voters. Compromising this mean that the process is unfairly herding voters towards making a choice based on restricted information of the choices available. This is unacceptable in all electoral democracies. Sixthly, the level of enfranchisement of the Sarawakians are appallingly low, in fact at the lowest among all states in Malaysia. In many interior areas surveyed by MEO-Net, the registration of eligible citizens as voters is less than half. Exmaple, of the 22 000 residents of Batang Ai, only 7000 are registered. Yet the voting rates have been low due to big sections of the voters being denied their Constitutionally guaranteed voting right. This include the big number of voters, estimated at between 100 000-200 000 (10-20% of Sarawak's electorate), who are not able to come home from West Malaysia to cast their votes. Worse,they are not allowed to cast their vote by postal vote, despite the fact that the EC do possess the discretionary power to allow this under sub-regulation (3)(1)(f) in the Elections (Postal Voting) Regulation There are more evidences and documentation of mal-administration of elections in the 10th Sarawak state elections which will be released through the soon-to-be published final report of the election observation mission of MEO-Net to the Sarawak state elections. On account of these evidences of mal-administration which jar with regional standards and get away due to non-enforcement of local election laws, MEO-Net calls upon the Federal and State government of Sarawak to take actions within its power to make amend on all the issues brought up by the Walk for Democracy and all other election watch groups. Further to this we call upon the police to provide full cooperation to the organizer of the Walk for Democracy so that they can exercise their freedom of assembly and freedom of speech on Aug 13th. The police should learn from their poor handling of the Bersih rally which tarnished the police and the country's image locally and internationally.
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| It’s time for us to stop the rot Posted: 10 Aug 2011 01:13 PM PDT (The Star) - Five push one equals four. Mix A with B, then disturb the solution. Don't get it? Replace "push" (tolak) with "subtract" and "disturb" (kacau) with "stir". That's how far English has deteriorated in schools. And that is just scratching the surface. Hence, the Deputy Prime Minister's recent call for solutions to the poor mastery of English among students despite 13 years of learning it in school is a cry after the hearts of many. It's been the perennial lament of parents, institutions of learning, employers – and teachers. We have all seen, heard and suffered the decline of English proficiency for years now, three decades to be precise – after the switching of the medium of instruction from Bahasa Malaysia to English. Countless proposals, blueprints and programmes, including flip-flop policies, have been implemented to rectify the problem but the malignancy seems to have spread far and wide. Is it too late to get our act together and put our money where our mouth is? Is the Government – and politicians – willing to put our children's English proficiency ahead of our insecurity about our national language Bahasa Malaysia and mother tongue? We must strive to keep politics out of the classroom, though we know it is easier said than done. We need proficient teachers to build the students' language foundation at primary level and develop it further at secondary level. Unfortunately, we have a huge cohort of English teachers who themselves need lessons, what more teach. Are they to blame? No, they are the products of our policy change and the adoption of the Communi-cative English syllabus which stresses that it's fine as long as the "meaning comes through". We need to keep and reward teachers who are skilled and can make the difference so that the vicious cycle doesn't keep repeating. The rot has to stop or our low proficiency students will continue to beget low proficiency teachers. Singapore, on the other hand, works to attract some of its best brains into the teaching profession by paying them competitive salaries and keeping them through incentives like fast track promotions, leadership allowances, performance-based bonus and work attachments. As for our exam-oriented society, our students need to be challenged. Make it compulsory to pass English to obtain the SPM certificate – as is the case for Bahasa Malaysia – and they'll flock to tuition centres for extra classes. It works with Bahasa, it'll work with English. Students in rural schools who do not see the economic value of English in securing jobs or fear using the language need to be tackled differently. Unfortunately, the Government has largely adopted a one size fits all policy, which holds back the high achievers to prevent the gap from growing too wide between them and the laggards. The PPSMI is a case in point. Give autonomy to schools to teach the subjects in English if their teachers are proficient and the students capable. Why make everyone learn Maths and Science in Bahasa to keep the rural schools on the same page? Be innovative, allow bilingualism for as long as it takes for schools to find their respective levels. There is no need to rush the weak, but instead, let the proficient move forward, not backwards. Perhaps, the Government should consider holding a referendum on whether we should bring back English-medium schools – a place where unity thrived. Let parents and other stakeholders have a bigger say in their children's education. Be less prescriptive, allow schools to decide if there should be more contact time or teaching periods for English in the timetable. Send the best teachers to schools where they are sorely needed, instead of assigning three Guru Cemerlang for English to a premier school! There are many factors that contribute to our low proficiency but we should stop using piecemeal measures. It's time to get down to the serious business of making our schoolchildren masters of the English language. |
| ‘Mystery’ shrouded deal to save AirAsia? Posted: 10 Aug 2011 12:58 PM PDT By Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz, FMT The boss of Khazanah Nasional says that the MAS-AirAsia deal is, among other things, "not a bail-out" of MAS. Well, we have questions for him. Firstly, why was this deal worked out in the first place? Why AirAsia? Isn't AirAsia operating at some 40 times its price earning (PE) ratio? Looking at its numbers and the fundamentals, the high PE could mean that AirAsia stocks are overpriced. That may mean some boys are cooking up the numbers to set up the market and make killings. Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said MAS "can learn" from AirAsia on ways to cut costs. Does that mean all those damned exercise carried out by former MAS chief Idris Jala wasn't enough? Why don't we learn from Singapore Airlines or Qatar Airlines? Oh… we want to learn from our home-grown talent will be the likely answer. Commissions, commissions So what can we learn from AirAsia? Let's look at the home-grown talent's (AirAsia) records. As of the first quarter of 2011, AirAsia debts amounted to RM7.7 billion with cash balances amounting to RM1.7 billion. This part doesn't require teaching for MAS. Its executives are renowned masters. Let's see further. In August 2010, AirAsia announced a deferment of its proposed aircraft purchases but sometime in June 2011 it reversed its decision and proceeded to place an order for an additional 200 new aircraft at the Paris Air Show. No big deal, we can order as many as we want. Possibly the commissions earned from the purchases dwarfed the one earned from the Scorpene submarines. As of March 31, 2011 (first quarter report), AirAsia's capital commitments stood at RM19 billion. With the latest announcement, an additional RM54 billion will be added as capital commitments. The proposed capital commitments of about RM74 billion will be spread over a 15-year period ending 2026. In other words, AirAsia has to increase its earnings to an average of RM5 billion per annum to meet its future dues. From 2006 to 2010, AirAsia's revenue grew by ten-fold from RM110 million to roughly RM1.1 billion. This is an average growth of RM 200 million per annum. Now how will it reach RM5 billion? This, we will see in the coming months when AirAsia rationalises all its routes and what not. AirAsia's cash reserves rose six-fold from approximately RM300 million to RM1.7 billion. But its debts skyrocketed from RM1.05 billion in 2006 to RM7.7 billion in 2010, an increase of 700%. Surely this looks like a debt burden that is spiralling out of control. Scheming Fernandes This AirAsia-MAS deal is signed, sealed and delivered at an onerous and ominous time. The world economy, including Asia's, will be heading into another maelstrom and air travel will invariably be hit. So what can be done? One, AirAsia can cancel orders but contract penalties will be onerous. AirAsia wouldn't want to pay penalties, would it? The debt with Malaysia Airports Bhd (MAB) too, it dragged on for what seemed to be forever. That option is no go. But then why would anyone want to forfeit commissions (from the purchase of new planes)? Also, AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes is probably thinking along what economist John Keynes said: "When you are a big borrower, the banks are scared of you." So as a big borrower, Fernandes feels that size does matter after all! He thinks it will shield him from foreclosure as banks will be wary of bearing heavy losses! But also, a sizeable chunk of those loans are being held by Malaysian banks and in the worst-case scenario, the government and the taxpayers will have to pick the tab to avert a financial meltdown cascading down the AirAsia slope. Now let's take a look at MAS, currently the whipping boy but which is instrumental to further the game being played by Khazanah boss Azman Mokhtar and gang. MAS has a paid-up capital of RM3.384 billion and has a fixed asset value of RM8.4 billion. Its net asset is at RM 6.962 billion, where cash constitutes RM 2.086 billion. Compare that to the position of AirAsia, which we have pointed out above. AirAsia has borrowings of up to RM7.7 billion and its cash position is RM1.7 billion. In an earlier article, we pointed out that AirAsia has a record of being a bad debtor. It once owed MAB over RM65 million and whenever actions were taken against them, AirAsia would run to their chief counsel, former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. |
| Living costs soaring globally, but Najib vows help to Malaysians Posted: 10 Aug 2011 12:49 PM PDT
By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider Datuk Seri Najib Razak has told Malaysians to "face the fact" that rising cost of living is a global trend as the country continues to grapple with surging inflation. Although the prime minister promised to help ease the burden of rising prices on the public, he said "Malaysians must face the fact that world prices are unlikely to return to the levels of five years ago." "We are not the only ones faced with this problem, and we are certainly not the worst affected. We will devise the best strategies to ease the rakyat's burden while managing the country's economic development," he wrote on his blog in the 1 Malaysia website. Promising to continue subsidies which are already among the highest in the world, Najib said that Budget 2012, to be tabled in October, would focus on managing inflation as per the administration's new National Key Results Area on cost of living. "The government will continue to provide subsidies for daily travel, meals and health bills," he wrote. Public concern over price hikes has been heightened further as Putrajaya raised the price of fuel, sugar and electricity in June, a move it said was necessary to avoid the subsidy bill from doubling to RM21 billion. The Najib administration has committed itself to trim 2009's two-decade high budget deficit of 7 per cent but is under pressure to contain inflation which hit a two-year peak in March of 3 per cent before continuing to rise to 3.5 per cent in June.
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| Kepimpinan UMNO peringkat bahagian wajib bersatu - Najib Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:10 AM PDT ASPAN ALIAS Najib telah mengingatkan pimpinan Bahagian-Bahagian supaya bersatu dan melaksanakan tugas parti secara bersatu bagi menghadapi pilihanraya yang mendebarkan yang akan tiba beberapa bulan sahaja lagi. Najib mengingatkan pemimpin-pemimpin bahagian-bahagian ini semasa majlis berbuka puasa dengan sahabat-sahabat semalam. Apa yang dikatakan oleh Najib itu semuanya benar kerana tanpa perpaduan di kalangan pimpinan bahagian UMNO dan BN akan menghadapi jalan sukar untuk memenangi pilihanraya nanti. Itu adalah asas kekuatan sesuatu parti apabila menghadapi pilihanraya nanti. Perpecahan diperingkat akar umbi pasti akan membawa bencana kepada UMNO.
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| British rioters the spawn of a bankrupt ruling elite Posted: 10 Aug 2011 06:03 AM PDT
THE riots in London and elsewhere in Britain are a backhanded tribute to the long-term intellectual torpor, moral cowardice, incompetence and careerist opportunism of the British political and intellectual class. British youth leads the Western world in almost all aspects of social pathology, from teenage pregnancy to drug taking, from drunkenness to violent criminality. There is no form of bad behaviour that our version of the welfare state has not sought out and subsidised. Theodore Dalrymple, The Australian They have somehow managed not to notice what has long been apparent to anyone who has taken a short walk with his eyes open down any frequented British street: that a considerable proportion of the country's young population (a proportion that is declining) is ugly, aggressive, vicious, badly educated, uncouth and criminally inclined. Unfortunately, while it is totally lacking in self-respect, it is full of self-esteem: that is to say, it believes itself entitled to a high standard of living, and other things, without any effort on its own part. Consider for a moment the following: although youth unemployment in Britain is very high, that is to say about 20 per cent of those aged under 25, the country has had to import young foreign labour for a long time, even for unskilled work in the service sector. The reasons for this seeming paradox are obvious to anyone who knows young Britons as I do. No sensible employer in a service industry would choose a young Briton if he could have a young Pole; the young Pole is not only likely to have a good work ethic and refined manners, he is likely to be able to add up and -- most humiliating of all -- to speak better English than the Briton, at least if by that we mean the standard variety of the language. He may not be more fluent but his English will be more correct and his accent easier to understand. This is not an exaggeration. After compulsory education (or perhaps I should say intermittent attendance at school) up to the age of 16 costing $80,000 a head, about one-quarter of British children cannot read with facility or do simple arithmetic. It makes you proud to be a British taxpayer. I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty, from my experience as a doctor in one of the areas in which a police station has just been burned down, that half of those rioting would reply to the question, "Can you do arithmetic?" by answering, "What is arithmetic?" British youth leads the Western world in almost all aspects of social pathology, from teenage pregnancy to drug taking, from drunkenness to violent criminality. There is no form of bad behaviour that our version of the welfare state has not sought out and subsidised. British children are much likelier to have a television in their bedroom than a father living at home. One-third of them never eat a meal at a table with another member of their household -- family is not the word for the social arrangements of the people in the areas from which the rioters mainly come. They are therefore radically unsocialised and deeply egotistical, viewing relations with other human beings in the same way as Lenin: Who whom, who does what to whom. By the time they grow up, they are destined not only for unemployment but unemployability. For young women in much of Britain, dependence does not mean dependence on the government: that, for them, is independence. Dependence means any kind of reliance on the men who have impregnated them who, of course, regard their own subventions from the state as pocket money, to be supplemented by a little light trafficking. (According to his brother, Mark Duggan, the man whose death at the hands of the probably incompetent police allegedly sparked the riots, "was involved in things", which things being delicately left to the imagination of his interlocutor.) Relatively poor as the rioting sector of society is, it nevertheless possesses all the electronic equipment necessary for the prosecution of the main business of life; that is to say, entertainment by popular culture. And what a culture British popular culture is! Perhaps Amy Winehouse was its finest flower and its truest representative in her militant and ideological vulgarity, her stupid taste, her vile personal conduct and preposterous self-pity. Her sordid life was a long bath in vomitus, literal and metaphorical, for which the exercise of her very minor talent was no excuse or explanation. Yet not a peep of dissent from our intelllectual class was heard after her near canonisation after her death, that class having long had the backbone of a mollusc. Criminality is scarcely repressed any more in Britain. The last lord chief justice but two thought that burglary was a minor offence, not worthy of imprisonment, and the next chief justice agreed with him. By the age of 12, an ordinary slum-dweller has learned he has nothing to fear from the law and the only people to fear are those who are stronger or more ruthless than he. Punishments are derisory; the police are simultaneously bullying but ineffectual and incompetent, increasingly dressed in paraphernalia that makes them look more like the occupiers of Afghanistan than the force imagined by Robert Peel. The people who most fear our police are the innocent. Of course, none of this reduces the personal responsibility of the rioters. But the riots are a manifestation of a society in full decomposition, of a people with neither leaders nor followers but composed only of egotists.
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| Militant groups fuel the fires Posted: 10 Aug 2011 05:57 AM PDT
THE media coverage of the British riots and the political response reveals an inexcusable incomprehension of the internal forces that are destroying Western societies. Central to this strategy is the rapid mobilisation of agents provocateurs such as the Black Bloc cadre, with their dark clothing, hoodies, ski masks, scarfs and helmets, who appear rapidly at such incidents to initiate violence and property destruction. Merv Bendle, The Australian It would be laughable, if it weren't so serious, to hear the cliches about poverty, racism, police victimisation and budget cuts cited as the causes of this violence and criminality, as if this narrative of oppression explains or excuses the wilful self-destruction of these urban communities. The dismissal of the rioters and looters as criminals is also lazy and short-sighted. Such violence is increasingly common in Western societies as their social structure slowly disintegrates. And it particularly reflects the volatile situation that exists among the urban underclass in large cities that have suffered de-industrialisation in the past 50 years and now house various marginalised and alienated communities of unemployed people of various ethnicities, many of whom survive on welfare and come from families that have not been in the mainstream workforce for generations. This situation has occurred also because of a failure of governance in Western societies, illustrated above all by the impotence of the police and the legal system, as most of those apprehended will escape with minor if any penalties. However, these riots and their rapid escalation are not spontaneous but reflect the co-ordinated efforts of self-styled revolutionary groups determined to incite and escalate outbreaks into urban insurrections. Central to this strategy is the rapid mobilisation of agents provocateurs such as the Black Bloc cadre, with their dark clothing, hoodies, ski masks, scarfs and helmets, who appear rapidly at such incidents to initiate violence and property destruction. The police and media are only now noticing their highly co-ordinated activities in Britain, despite their high profile in demonstrations against globalisation. At this stage, these groups don't aspire to lead a revolution, but the riots serve two functions. First, they confirm their radical theoretical analysis of Western society, which makes the urban underclass central to their revolutionary strategy. Second, the riots are seen as playing a vital role in the radicalisation and empowerment of this underclass, which learns how to organise and that it has little to fear from the police or the state. Western society is doomed, rotting from within, according to such groups and the post-Marxist revolutionary theory that is pervasive on the radical Left, especially within the anarchist, anti-globalisation and radical environmental movements. According to this perspective, the squalor and alienation of the urban underclass constitutes a "pre-revolutionary condition" that can be exploited by an organised revolutionary elite to mobilise a mass uprising. A representative manifesto of this militant tendency, The Coming Insurrection, attributed mysteriously to "The Invisible Committee", was published in French in 2007 and in English in 2009. The Invisible Committee sees itself as a successor to ultra-left terrorist groups of the 1970s and 80s, including the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Weathermen and the Red Brigades. The Coming Insurrection sees Western civilisation in apocalyptic terms. The West is "clinically dead [and] kept alive [only] by all sorts of life-support machines that spread a peculiar plague into the planet's atmosphere". Consequently, "what we're facing is not the crisis of a society but the extinction of a civilisation . . . its clinical death". What is required is "to decide for the death of civilisation, then to work out how it will happen". All that is needed is the "decision that will rid us of the corpse", and that decision is to join the coming insurrection and launch direct action against the system. The book identifies components of a rapidly emerging revolutionary situation in Western societies: the global financial crisis and high-profile crimes and scandals associated with the rich and powerful; climate change and escalating environmental destruction; the alienation of youth, the failure of the educational system and widespread unemployment; political corruption, incompetence and inertia; urban degradation, irreversible demographic changes, anti-migration sentiment and ethnic conflict; the accelerating collapse of the welfare state; and spreading social chaos in many countries. It sees these factors as components of a systemic crisis that will overwhelm liberal democracies. Central to this insurrection will be an alienated generation that "has known nothing but economic, financial, social and ecological crisis". "Everyone agrees," it begins, "it's about to explode." Suitably led, this force will exploit "the truly revolutionary potentiality of the present" to implement "a new idea of communism", conceived as "the matrix of a meticulous, audacious assault on domination", led by alienated youth, marginalised groups such as European Muslims and the radicalised underclass. In the face of this revolt, "the future has no future". The front line will be the metropolis, "one of the most vulnerable human arrangements that has ever existed" and susceptible to a "brutal shutting down of borders . . . a sudden interruption of supply lines [and] organised blockades of the axes of communication", so that "the whole facade crumbles [as it] can no longer mask the scenes of carnage haunting it from morning to night". The Coming Insurrection and others like it showcase the tradition of radical extremism shaped by prominent post-Marxist theorists such as Michel Foucault and Antonio Negri, who was imprisoned on serious terrorism charges but still was allowed to publish a series of radical diatribes against the West -- Empire (2000), Multitude (2004) and Commonwealth (2009) -- all extremely influential in radical circles and academe. According to these books, the US is at the top of a global capitalist "Empire", assisted by NATO, the G8, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation and similar agents of oppression and exploitation. Beneath them is the economic oligarchy of multinational corporations and subservient nation-states such as Britain or Australia. All of these are targets of direct action, sabotage, terrorism and so on, along the lines detailed in The Coming Insurrection. The objective is to achieve "true democracy" as exemplified by the UN and international non-governmental agencies such as Greenpeace, parliamentary democracy being a sham that perpetuates capitalism. The British riots provide fertile ground for the promotion of this ideology and we are making a great mistake if we ignore the role played by these highly motivated militant groups. Merv Bendle is senior lecturer in history and communications at James Cook University.
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| Posted: 09 Aug 2011 11:35 PM PDT By Masterwordsmith The poor performance of MAS in the last two quarters was a matter of concern to many. Then came the explosive announcement that Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia will swap shares in a deal which will see Tan Sri Tony Fernandes become the single biggest shareholder. The deal was apparently stealthily sealed after negotiations that stretched for about a year. Many are alarmed over this development which poses serious concerns that Air Asia can dominate MAS thereby reducing competition between the two to the detriment of end-users. In the long run, this could lead to a virtual monopoly of the domestic airline industry. In such a scenario, we will be exposed to the risks and concerns associated with such a monopoly bearing in mind that other cronies and political power brokers could be lurking in the shadows. When Singapore joined Malaysia in 1963, it shared Malaysia's common currency. Later on, Singapore was expelled, became independent in 1965 and lost its monetary union. In 1967 Singapore established a Board of Commissioners of Currency and released its own notes called the orchid. The orchid is now known as the dollar (SGD). Today, the exchange rate is RM2.5: SIN$1. So why merge MAS and Air Asia when we should be talking about the poor performance of MAS? South of the border, a premium airline is raking in money while in our own homeground, the opposite is happening!! Why can't MAS stay afloat despite the many injections over the years? (Read Is Mas Still EMAS?)
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| Tiada lagi elaun perpindahan bagi Cikgu ! Posted: 09 Aug 2011 09:02 PM PDT Oleh Che'gu Bard Banyak pendedahan pembaziran wang negara telah didedahkan. Dari ketirisan dalam perbagai sektor dan perbagai peringkat hinggalah kepada pembaziran Keluarga Perdana Menteri Malaysia itu sendiri. Namun rakyat dibawah terus diarah berjimat. Terbaru che'GuBard mendapat email dari teman-teman yang pernah sama sepengajian yang masih berkhidmat sebagai pendidik. Mereka mengeluh kerana meremenerima perbagai tekanan. Sudahlah perbagai peruntukan untuk sekolah dipotong. Ketika dikhabarkan RM111 juta diperuntukan untuk program PERMATA milik Imelda Rosmah tetapi sekolah bantuan penuh kerajaan yang sepatutnya menjadi tempat utama pendidikan rakyat telah dipotong perbagai peruntukan dan diarahkan berjimat. klik untuk membaca lanjut http://chegubard.blogspot.com/2011/08/tiada-lagi-elaun-perpindahan-bagi-cikgu.html |
| Reply to “The Religious Front” Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:59 PM PDT By AsamLaksa Firstly I agree with batsman that religion and politics mix. I have no trouble with that even as I am a strong supporter of separation of religion and the state. In fact I don't think any Malaysian will deny that religion and politics mix. What I disagree with is the over simplistic view of the author. UMNO has no qualms mixing politics with religion and so was PAS at one time with the Islamic State agenda. The author has not really explained the shift in PAS politics towards the Erdogan-like faction. Is the author intentionally not telling the whole story with his constant anti-secularist stand? PAS wants to widen its appeal in Malaysia. It wants to move out of the rural Malay heartland strongholds. As a party with aspirations to run the federal government it has to raise capable leaders who have the political savvy, knowledge and skills. A hardline Islamic stance will deter many, including many Muslims. Thus a younger generation of better educated leaders with a wider world view. The effect of this is greater acceptance by non-Muslims and educated Malays. The downside is that PAS erodes its position as the traditional conservative defender of Islam. You can't please them all. The balance of religious influence in Malaysia is heavily slanted against all other religions besides Islam. The Christians would be very naïve indeed to not know that religion and politics do mix as they can see examples of this throughout the world such as in the Philippines and Indonesia. The question is that what are they going to do about it? Following the similar model of UMNO style Islamic politics will make things worse because it would give UMNO a real face to their made up fears of a threat towards the Islamic position in Malaysia. So the Christians have to tread carefully. There has been more recent action by Christians who urge their believers to vote against BN and the spinmeisters in UMNO have portrayed this as an attempt to unseat Islam as the top faith in Malaysia. So I doubt that the non-Islamic faiths are leaving their struggle on the shoulders of the secularists but rather that more overt politicking by them will make matters worse by inciting further UMNO sponsored hate and breaking down inter-faith cohesion even among themselves. There is no need for other faith based political parties. So where does the (much disliked by the author) so called secularists come in? They don't appear at all! You see just recognising that politics and religion do mix or insisting that politics and religion don't mix does not solve the problem. This is where the author falls flat because he does not appear to have the slightest idea of what to do next. Sure the non-Muslims can be sensitive to PAS' problems but PAS has to take action to remedy any wrongs be it making JAIS a more professional outfit and be consistent in speech and actions. I would urge JAIS to seriously investigate, obtain irrefutable evidence and charge lawbreakers in court for consistency and not just play politics and public opinion. In realpolitik terms, fair enough non-Muslims must be sensitive to Muslims and everyone else. It does not help that Muslims appear insensitive to non-Muslims. And the non-Muslims are basically fed up with it and I think PAS knows this too. I doubt that other religions reject politics in Malaysia. I suspect they are repressed and this JAIS raid is the usual attempt to show who is boss by their lack of consultation and consensus. This can only happen when there are laws and state instruments that allow such actions. As long as we have this status quo, the Muslims will always feel superior and will never come to the table with other faiths as equals. In truth many Malaysian Muslims do not want to be equals; thus this never ending conflict. Now the secularist has no problem with considering all religions as equal but the religionist cannot. In a truly secular state, there will be no automatic state support for JAIS. JAIS would only be supported for positive religious activities in line with the doctrine of freedom of religion which means no more raids which are negative conduct. But that is very far off from the current religiously polarised Malaysia of Islam vs the rest and a bloody nightmare for many Muslims. It is interesting to note that mixing of politics and religion are more likely to take place in more backward areas as can be seen in the Bible belt in the USA. Just like in the USA, this problem will not go away and you cannot please everyone. The best bet for PAS and PR for that matter is to balance the harms and benefits towards the direction of their coalition and the sentiments of their supporters. UMNO may monopolise the support from hardline Muslims and it is the job of the others to reduce the numbers of the hardliners. I would like to see batsman taking more action by telling the misguided Muslims to perhaps be more sensitive to non-Muslims rather than defending an unprincipled status quo. |
| ‘Sodomy II attacks increased after Sept 16 coup bid’ Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:59 PM PDT
The US expects another dirty round of judicial exploitation by the ruling coalition to kill off Anwar Ibrahim. (Free Malaysia Today) - Washington believed the intense attack on Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim while facing his Sodomy II trial escalated out of fear over his Sept 16 attempt to wrest federal power through mass defections. A leak diplomatic cable by whistleblower site WikiLeaks – published in Malaysia Today today – also showed that the US expected another dirty round of judicial exploitation by the ruling coalition to kill off the PKR leader's political career as Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak would want his nemesis wiped out. "Senior Malaysian authorities were very aggressive in handling the present case during the initial period of June-September 2008, but, coinciding with the passing of Anwar's deadline to bring down the government through parliamentary cross-overs, have since taken a more measured 'rule-of-law' approach in public. "The authorities have not taken all the legal and extra-legal measures available to them, for example, to challenge Anwar's bail provisions or resolve an earlier impasse regarding the court venue," political counsellor with the Malaysian US Embassy, Mark D Clark, was quoted as saying. Anwar is currently in the docks for the second time in 10 years for allegedly sodomising his aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008 just months after the opposition scored significant gains in the March 8 polls the same year. He claimed openly that the charges were trumped up and were engineered by Najib, who was deputy prime minister at the time, and wife Rosmah Mansor – an allegation they denied. Anwar's defence lawyers have asked the court to grant them rights to interview the two but both said they will not do it unless subpoenaed. Clark said in the cable that the court would likely favour Najib and Rosmah and not force them to face Anwar's lawyers. 'Conviction is the desired outcome' The leaked cable further stated that it concurred with the view that conviction would see Anwar, now in his mid-60s, "killed off" while Najib would make it pass as a "normal law enforcement matter". It also said that indications of political interference and manipulation in the present case (Sodomy II) are compelling.
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| Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:57 PM PDT Come register as a voter this weekend and next weekend at Rumah Anak Bangsa Malaysia (RABM) from 2-4pm. Details below: Date: 13-14 August (Saturday & Sunday)Time: 1-4 pm Venue: If you're already a registered voter, you can drive all your friends and family who are not yet a voter to RABM this weekend! |
| Unsolicited and free insight on BN's options Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:54 PM PDT By J. Di' Lovrenciear These past three years since, BN has been fast sliding down the road of political survival. Hence today it is very evident that BN has gone on the defensive with the 'opposition' coalition party trenching into an offensive advantage. Why? The problem is the leaders and power brokers within the BN army have been operating from an out-dated mindset for far too long. They failed to grasp the revolution taking place within societies with Malaysia being no exception in this globalizing and networked society. Civil society, through the liberating technologies of the new-age millennium, has increasingly harnessed the power of democratic governance. Our leaders have failed to take cognizance of the fact that society is "being changed from arborial beings, rooted in time and space, to rhizomic nomads who daily wonder at will without necessarily moving (their) bodies at all" (Mark Poster, 1990). When governments and leaders fail to recognize and accept the fast changing landscape of socio-political fundamentals, the civil societies pour into the streets. Their action cannot be curtailed by the age-old tested and proven means of threats, arrests, punishment and absolute controls. The more you take as prisoners and kill, the more will rise like a tidal wave. Time remains the defining factor. Our leaders and their ill informed advisors need to know that what we are witnessing around the world today is the advantages of "cybernations evolving … people sharing an interest, exchanging information and possibly arranging to meet with one another … on a global basis (providing) the distant village dweller the opportunity to make contact with any person, anywhere in the world" (Rolf Jensen, 1999). And throughout the history of humanity, we have ample attestation to prove that when people come together systems fall apart, and resurrect a new framework to help propel that society onward. BN had the disadvantage of a comfort zone for far too long. Whether it will be able to restructure itself to face the already changing Malaysian society is the million-ringgit question. Given BN's political warfare tactics, it appears that transformation is quiet unlikely within its own yard. For as long as it continues to keep reinforcing itself with the justifications, admonishments and smear tactics of race, religion and sex, it is bound to sink even further. BN leaders (past and current) continue to live in a self-denial mode. They keep clamoring that the 'opposition' with its "pack of lies" is hurting BN and misleading people. This clearly tells us that BN is blinded to the truth about the networked society. In today's environment even a doctor knows that he or she cannot anymore just tell the patient to follow instructions. The doctor is matched and challenged by the patient's access to knowledge and practice and insists in a participatory role on the route to recovery. BN leaders must accept the fact that there is an awakening within civil society. That society is no more caught within the limitations of the Penny Press of a by-gone era where psy-war could move societies according to the whims and fancies of power brokers. Even media moguls today are rudely being awakened to this changed information landscape in the world. It appears that there are only two options left for BN as the country suspiciously creeps to its impending 13th general election. One, is for BN to accept the fact that it does not anymore have the privilege of time and resources to do a through spring cleaning of its entire framework of entrenched political mindset and untenable political SOPs. And in doing so, prepare the ground work to return to power as a shining star of hope in the 14th general election. But most people know this would be a hard-to-swallow pill of salvation for BN because it may never rise again as the in-coming winning political party may go on a killing spree in its attempt to bring back all stashed-away wealth for the benefit of civil society's growth and empowerment. Then the other alternative is for BN to seek a sincere act of contrition. This will demand that BN goes into overdrive mode to purge its party of all misdeeds and bring to book in a transparent and without fear or favor manner all those who have thrived on crimes of misappropriation and corruption. That will call for intense and courageous shake up strictly starting from the very top and going right down to the grass root levels. It would necessarily demand reviewing and enforcing all Royal Commission recommendations of the past; addressing the judiciary; the police and related enforcement bodies; and review and repeal of laws that hint a protection of power brokers but vilify the ordinary civil society. Now to do so, BN need not engage exorbitant external consultants. The middle path to accountable, transparent and justified governance is clearly plotted in the road map of Vision 2020. Hence for as long as BN hollers all kinds of accusations and throws cry-baby tantrums at the opposition party leaders and accuses and admonishes citizens while counting on the large sector of rural electorates, BN is destined to make a dangerous fall down the ravine of political obsolescence. So stop blaming your opposition enemies. Stop slamming labels of 'ungrateful public' on citizens' foreheads. Stop raising alarm bells of laws that will come crushing on the 'enemies' of BN. Stop devising and remote-managing race and religious fueled political war strategies. As the late John Denvor sang, indeed "The times have changed". Either BN changes with the times or sinks like a stone. If it changes and embraces the aspirations of civil society it has every reason to celebrate. If BN takes the old and expired political route of acting tough, branding its opponents as enemies and not embrasing them as collaborators, then BN leaders must only blame themselves for their half-a-century dinasour political party's demise. The very fact that citizens are expressing their concerns over BN's governance is already a hopeful signal that they are still giving that last straw to the leaders and power brokers of BN to transform before God and man. But when all else fails, civil society will join the world of peaceful protestors. That is the dictum of true democracy and rising civil liberties on this planet earth. J. Di' Lovrenciear |
| Government working hard to address cost of living problem Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:47 PM PDT
A lesson learned from the UK riots (Bernama) -- The government will work hard to ensure that the problem faced by the people with regard to the cost of living could be tackled in the wake of the challenging global condition, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. The Prime Minister said it was the responsibility of the government to do whatever was best in tackling the rising costs and find ways of reducing its effects on the people.
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| Chinese honour (UPDATED with Chinese Translation) Posted: 09 Aug 2011 07:59 PM PDT
It is very difficult, I know, for some of you to comprehend that the triads had honour and code of ethics. But then I am talking about the triads of the 1960s, 50 years or so ago. Times have changed, though. Even the politicians of the 1960s had honour. Today, the politicians are worse than criminals. The politicians, today, would not meet the high standards of honour that the triads of the 1960s had. NO HOLDS BARRED
I learned about 'Chinese honour' from the streets of Kuala Lumpur. This was back in the 1960s, before May 13. The streets I am talking about are Petaling Street, Sultan Street, etc. Basically, this is what the tourists would call Kuala Lumpur's 'Chinatown'. I was no older than those kids who rioted all over London and in Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Leicester, Birmingham, Croydon, etc., over the last few days. In fact, I was exactly that age, in my teens. That was me back in my 'younger' days. My 'street name' then was 'Chap Chong Kia'. I 'found' my first girlfriend in Petaling Street. She and her sister sold sugarcane in front of the Rex cinema. The problem is she spoke not a word of English or Bahasa and my Chinese was a rojak-mix of Hokkien, Cantonese and Hainanese and confined to street lingo like ta sei, pinto ley, niamah, fai ti chow, and so on. Invariably, our 'dates' in the Malaysia Snack Bar, across the road from the Rex cinema, had to be held in the presence of an interpreter. There was no way my 'girlfriend' and I could communicate without the assistance of this interpreter -- and until today I still don't know whether the exchanges of communication between us were a true translation of what transpired or whether my interpreter 'sabotaged' me and translated the opposite of what we said. Anyway, 'Uncle Lee' can tell you how I won the 'competition' to win her heart. Well, let's face it, I was better looking than Uncle Lee so certainly he would have had to lose out to me. Nevertheless, the relationship did not last because of the absence of intellectual discourse between us. Yes, you probably would have suspected by now that I was 'jalan' with the Long Fu Thong, the triad that controlled that part of Kuala Lumpur. I was far from a 'Tiger General' and certainly not one of the 'soldiers' -- so I was spared the task of having to engage in any gang wars. But the streets of Kuala Lumpur were a scary place back in the days prior to May 13. Many a time I had to run for cover as parangs 'flew' and blood spattered the streets. I always believed that those who fight and run away live to fight another day. So I ran like the devil was on my tail. And that is why I am still around to tell my tale. I admit that I lost many friends. But that is the price we have to pay for our association with the triads. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Some died in a hail of bullets. Some got 'chopped' to death, the 'traditional' punishment for being on the 'wrong side' of the street ('salah jalan', as we would say then). But all this was accepted as an 'occupational hazard' and we just shrugged off these loses and moved on. Eventually, we all grew up and grew out of all this. We were kids and this was what kids did back in the 1960s prior to May 13. But we learned a very important lesson. And that lesson was there is honour amongst thieves. In fact, there was more honour amongst triad members then, than you would find amongst 'honourable' people like politicians and leaders today. We respected 'authority'. We had a very strict code of ethics that you broke only on pain of death. Punishment was swift and brutal and you would always pay for your crime of breaching the code of ethics and of having no honour. It is very difficult, I know, for some of you to comprehend that the triads had honour and code of ethics. But then I am talking about the triads of the 1960s, 50 years or so ago. Times have changed, though. Even the politicians of the 1960s had honour. Today, the politicians are worse than criminals. The politicians, today, would not meet the high standards of honour that the triads of the 1960s had. We were not criminals, as such. We did not rob, steal, sell drugs, or beat up defenceless people. We were the enforcers. We kept the peace. We kept the streets that we 'controlled' safe from crime so that honest and decent people could live their lives and conduct their business unhindered. The residents and shopkeepers did not shun or defile us. They welcomed our presence because they knew we did what the police could never do -- we ensured their safety. (In fact, the people feared the police but did not fear the triads). Whenever any new business opened up the owner would seek us out to request 'protection'. They were at liberty to decide whether they needed protection or not. There was no compulsion but once they offered to join the protection 'scheme' their premises were 'off-limits'. No one would dare 'violate' these premises. To do so would mean death. It was a good system back in the 1960s. It was how things worked then. Everyone was happy and the police did not have to worry about crime on the streets. All the police could do was to arrest the perpetrators. The triads, however, made sure that crime is eliminated through the elimination of the criminals. As I always said: you eradicate the plague by killing the rats. This was more or less how matters were resolved on the streets of Kuala Lumpur 50 years or so ago. Yes, enforcement of the law was swift and brutal. You disturb the peace and you die. You can't run riot and burn shops and houses and beat up innocent and defenceless people -- like what is now happening all over the UK. In fact, you still can't do that in the Chinatown areas of the cities in the UK. It can happen in white, black or 'brown' parts of the cities in the UK, but not in the Chinatown areas. Try and the punishment would be swift and brutal. Do I sound nostalgic? I suppose I am. The Malaysian Chinese of today are not the Chinese I knew back in the 1960s. The Chinese of today have no honour. They do not understand things such as code of ethics. They have no scruples. There is no longer any camaraderie. What has happened to the Malaysian Chinese? Last weekend, I went to the funeral of a local Chinese leader from Liverpool (see photos below). That suddenly brought back fond memories of the Kuala Lumpur of 50 years ago. It appears like the Chinese in the UK -- those from London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, etc. -- still retain the honour and code of ethics that we once knew back in Kuala Lumpur in the 1960s. Yes, that's right. I think you know what I am talking about and whom I am talking about. The camaraderie and brotherhood amongst the Chinese here is very strong indeed. Brothers look after brothers. Brothers do not sell out brothers. Malaysian Chinese should make a trip here and learn a thing or two from the UK Chinese. Those in their 60s and 70s would probably recognise this as Kuala Lumpur back in the days when they were still teenagers. My respect for the Malaysian Chinese honour and code of ethics of the 1960s knew no bounds. It is very difficult to feel the same way about the Malaysian Chinese of today. They will sell their own mother for the right price. Look at DAP. DAP leaders are badmouthing and sabotaging fellow DAP leaders. In the 1960s, these types of Chinese would 'disappear' without a trace. They would be executed and their bodies dumped into one of the many mining pools surrounding Kuala Lumpur. Maybe it is time to bring back the old Chinese honour and code of ethics. Maybe it is time that the triad laws are, again, enforced and those treacherous DAP leaders with no honour and code of ethics be made to suffer a swift and brutal punishment. Maybe only then will the DAP Chinese leaders understand what honour and code of ethics mean.
Translated into Chinese at: http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-post_9685.html |
| Cabinet member, Najib’s aides are ‘non-heterosexual’, says leaked US cable Posted: 09 Aug 2011 05:32 PM PDT
(The Malaysian Insider) - A recent Cabinet member and some of Datuk Seri Najib Razak's senior aides would have found themselves under investigation for homosexual "behaviour" if the government were on a morals campaign, according to a leaked United States diplomatic cable. The cable to Washington from the US embassy here cited the "non-heterosexual behaviour" of an unnamed Cabinet member and Najib aides in its primer for State Department officials to understand the alleged political act of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's Sodomy II prosecution. "Anwar's prosecution is not part of a morals campaign. The GOM does not aggressively target non-heterosexual behaviour; if it did so, a recent cabinet minister, senior staff associated with PM Najib and other prominent citizens linked to the government also would find themselves under investigation," US Ambassador James R Keith said in the diplomatic note to Washington that was leaked by whistleblower site Wikileaks through the Malaysia Today website. The cable did not name the Cabinet minister or Najib's aides. But Ambassador Keith pointed out that the facts of the case against Anwar made it clear that the prosecution was foremost a political act against the Opposition Leader. "The Malaysian government does not aggressively prosecute cases of sodomy; we find record of some 55 cases since 1991, or an average of 3 per year. The vast majority of such cases involve adults assaulting minors," Keith wrote. Keith also reiterated a long held view of the US government that Anwar's original Sodomy prosecution 1999 had been grossly manipulated by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He also pointed out that "keeping in mind Najib and Anwar remain bitter enemies, it is striking that Najib met personally with the complainant Saiful prior to the police report." The US ambassador also noted the involvement of senior politicians in the case as well as the leakage of information. "From the very early stages, the senior-most officials in the government, including then PM Abdullah, current PM Najib, cabinet ministers, the AGO and national police chief (the latter two having played important roles in Anwar's 1998-1999 flawed trials) and officials of the ruling Umno party have been intimately involved in decisions regarding the case, according to Embassy contacts and publicly available sources. "Senior government leaders provided law enforcement information on the case to leaders of Anwar's coalition partner, the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), in an unsuccessful attempt to split PAS from the opposition. A recent internet report claims that the government has provided some government-directed press editors with a 'sneak preview' of evidence against Anwar." The cable appears to have been written in 2009 just before Anwar's trial started. Anwar is currently facing sodomy charges for the second time in his life. He was charged with sodomy and corruption in 1998 after he was sacked from the Cabinet, and was later convicted and jailed for both offences. He was freed in September 2004 and later resurrected his political career by winning back his Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat in a by-election in 2008, which had been held in the interim by his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. He later led the loose pact of PKR, the DAP and PAS to a historic sweep of five states and 82 parliamentary seats in Election 2008.
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| Jais alleges bid to convert Muslims at dinner Posted: 09 Aug 2011 05:11 PM PDT
(The Malaysian Insider) - Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) is investigating the organisers of a thanksgiving dinner held on church premises last week for attempting to convert Muslims. Lim Heng Seng, lawyer for 10 of the 12 Muslims present at the "1Malaysia Muhibbah Fundraising Dinner" at Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC), said the department confirmed this in a letter sent today. "Jais informed that they are investigating a case involving the offence of persuading, influencing or inciting a Muslim to change his faith under section 4 of the Non-Islamic Religions Enactment 1988," he said in a statement today, clarifying his client's absence from turning up at the Jais office. Section 4 of the enactment makes it an offence for a person to "persuade, influence or incite" a Muslim to be inclined to any non-Islamic religion, become a follower or member of a non-Islamic religion or forsake or disfavour Islam. Those found guilty of the offence face a jail term not more than one year or a fine of RM10,000 or both. Jais had been responding to a letter from Lim enquiring into the legal provision under which his clients were being asked to report to the state religious authority for "pre-counselling sessions". Jais enforcement officers raided the fundraising dinner last Wednesday night without a warrant after receiving an unspecified complaint, bringing with them a team of policemen.
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| Islam does not need crutches - Asri Posted: 09 Aug 2011 05:02 PM PDT
(Harakah Daily) - Muslim scholar Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin said Islam was built upon reason and sound argument, and as such did not need to prove its truth through enforcement agencies. In further remarks following the Selangor Islamic Religious Department's presence at a church dinner function over complaints that there were attempts at propagating Christianity to Muslim guests there, Asri told news portal Malaysiakini that the truth of Islam can be shown using sound arguments and not through preventive enforcement actions to stop Muslims from being influenced by non-Muslims.
On the other hand, Muslims should naturally be able to exert their influence on adherents of other religions, he said.
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| Waran tangkap terhadap 12 individu Muslim Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:53 PM PDT
Jais telah menyerahkan surat serta menelefon individu-individu terlibat dan mereka sepatutnya memberi keterangan semalam namun gagal berbuat demikian. (Free Malaysia Today) - Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais) akan mengeluarkan waran tangkap ke atas 12 individu Muslim kerana gagal hadir memberi keterangan bagi membantu siasatan berhubung pemeriksaan terhadap Gereja Methodist Damansara Utama (DUMC), Seksyen 13 di sini. Penolong Pengarah Bahagian Siasatan dan Penguatkuasaan Jais, Sharom Maarof, berkata pihaknya akan mengeluarkan waran tangkap terhadap mereka dalam tempoh terdekat ini. Jais telah menyerahkan surat serta menelefon individu-individu terlibat dan mereka sepatutnya memberi keterangan semalam namun gagal berbuat demikian. Tindakan itu katanya diambil selepas mereka enggan memberikan kerjasama walaupun pihaknya sudah menyerahkan surat termasuk menelefon untuk hadir. "Jais akan memohon waran tangkap dalam tempoh 24 jam daripada Mahkamah Syariah selepas surat dikeluarkan hari ini (semalam). Sepatutnya mereka hadir membantu siasatan, tetapi seorang pun tiada," katanya. Pada 3 Ogos lalu, Jais menyerbu gereja DUMC selepas mendapat maklumat ramai orang Islam menghadiri majlis di gereja berkenaan.
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| Panic on the streets of London Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:48 PM PDT
PENNY RED I'm huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight. This is the third consecutive night of rioting in London, and the disorder has now spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. Politicians and police officers who only hours ago were making stony-faced statements about criminality are now simply begging the young people of Britain's inner cities to go home. Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match. How the hell did this happen? And what are we going to do now? In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who is watching Croydon burn down on the BBC right now. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder 'mindless, mindless'. Nick Clegg denounced it as 'needless, opportunistic theft and violence'. Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron – who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable." The violence on the streets is being dismissed as 'pure criminality,' as the work of a 'violent minority', as 'opportunism.' This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart. Months of conjecture will follow these riots. Already, the internet is teeming with racist vitriol and wild speculation. The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don't know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything: "Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?" "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you." Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ''' There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they're paying attention now.
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| Zaid: Raid is against Federal Constitution Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:43 PM PDT
The Kita president defends the right of Muslims to religious freedom which he says is enshrined under Article 11. (Free Malaysia Today) - Kita president Zaid Ibrahim said the controversial church raid by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) would not have taken place had Article 11 of the Federal Constitution been upheld. More than 30 police and JAIS officers stormed a thanksgiving dinner at the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) premises last Wednesday. The authorities claimed they had received a complaint that Christians were attempting to convert the 12 Muslims present at the dinner that night. Until today, no evidence or details of the complaint had been made public. Zaid however pointed out that the true essence of Article 11 forbade proselytising to Muslims but acknowledged a Muslim's right to religious freedom. "Kita believes that this freedom belongs to everyone – Muslims and non-Muslims – and is a fundamental right of every human being," he said in a statement today. "We believe it is cruel for anyone to be forced to accept a religious belief or faith that he or she in all good conscience has renounced or refuses to believe in." The lawyer-turned-politician warned of similar raids in other parts of the country and of more Muslims being punished for exercising their freedom to believe. "There will be more confusion and an escalating war of attrition among religious communities," he predicted. "State laws will continue empowering officers to make arrests and raid premises so that they can make sure Muslims are not in the company of evangelical Christians." Zaid rapped JAIS of being too duty-bound in preventing Muslims from exercising their right to convert instead of understanding what "lies inside the heart of Muslims". "JAIS is simply happy to punish and imprison someone like Kamariah Ali (a follower of Ayah Pin) and regard her as a deviant Muslim," he said. "It does not matter what her true beliefs are, just as it does not matter if she is happy with the faith." Silence from the Pakatan camp The former PKR supreme council member also said that the Pakatan Rakyat component parties would not support the true meaning of Article 11 for different reasons. PAS, he said, would not step up because of its belief that freedom of choice would give a "lesser" Muslim the opportunity to deviate from the faith. He added that PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim would not risk his chances of becoming prime minister while DAP would be concerned about losing votes and Penang. "That explains why the great defenders of freedom in Pakatan had to issue a gag order. Don't address sensitive issues, is what they seem to be saying… get to Putrajaya first," he said.
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| Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:14 PM PDT
ART HARUN I have been rather sarcastically asked on Twitter such questions as, "you support freedom of assembly, you want Malaysians to riot like the Londoners?". Another twitterati asked me, "Art, you support the riots in London?". Frankly, I am amused to my bone by such questions. I am amused because the attempts at justifying the banning of public rallies in Malaysia by referring to the riotous behaviour of some others displays a certain degree of shallowness, if not lack of intelligence. We all have freedom as human beings. There is no restriction on what we eat, for example. But eating without limitations, both in term of quantity and quality of the food, could harm our health. Do the majority of us eat until we harm ourselves? Granted, there are people who eat without a thought to their calorie intake; fat contents and the attendant harmful effects of the food. The point is there are also people who exercise their freedom to eat in a responsible manner. So, may I ask, shall the State pass laws to restrict our freedom to eat just because some people eat until they die? Think about it. Some people are simply yobs and thugs. These people did not rally or attend a demonstration as an exercise of their freedom to assemble. They are not pursuing any valid or legitimate cause. They are just there to create trouble. Some are just there to loot. Some to look for a victim to rape. That's the difference. If anybody fails to see the difference, then I dare say he or she is blinkered and is all too eager to justify the unjustifiable by drawing a misconceived comparison. The Tottenham riot apparently started from several peaceful rallies. Those rallies took place because the people wanted to show their anger against the police who had allegedly shot a guy by the name of Mark Duggan in a mini-cab. The police said he was a gangster and he shot at the police when he was stopped. So the police shot him dead. The people got angry with the police and they started a peaceful rally. We can surely learn a thing or two from this story. Firstly, in modern democracies, police killings are frowned upon by the society. In the US for example, there is an automatic inquiry into every case of discharge of arm or killing by the police. This is different from the inquest. The function of the inquest is to determine how the deceased died. It makes findings of facts but not of guilt or the lack of it. The inquiry however requires the officer to justify his or her shooting or killing. Compare that to Malaysia. Our police kills even those who drive without license! Those who panic upon seeing a road block and tried to evade it are also shot at sometimes. Once in a while, we would have news of the police shooting dead not one, but four or five people who are suspected rapists, robbers or gang members. In other cases our police would storm into houses and shoot even a pregnant lady. Those who drive off despite being asked to stop would be shot at without hesitation and any regard for the safety of the passengers in the vehicle. Normal and healthy people die in police custody. There was one who died frothing in his mouth. I wouldn't say that our police acts with impunity. But the fact is as members of the public, we do not have a clue whether all these shootings and killings could firstly, be avoided and secondly, are necessary. We do not even know whether there were several other options available to the police to apprehend all these suspected bad people and whether the police has availed themselves of all those options before opening fire and kill that person. In the UK, obviously the public take these matters seriously. One guy is shot and it caused a riot! How about here? Well, before the age if the internet, we wouldn't even know about the killings. The newspaper and TV3 or RTM would set out the news with pictures of parangs and old pistols allegedly recovered from the deceased. Thanks to the internet, nowadays we become more and more aware. The Aminul Rasyid killing is a case in point. He was only 14. His only offences were probably driving without a license; he did not stop after being ordered to do so and driving fast and recklessly while fleeing the police. He was killed! In the UK, the whole government could have gone down if that had happened there. Over here, we just made noise. The police officer would be charged for some offences. Then we forget.
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| Bursa bloodbath gives Najib pause on polls Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:59 AM PDT By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider With some RM91 billion slashed from the stock market in two days, Datuk Seri Najib Razak faces yet another global financial meltdown ahead of general elections — due in less than two years. Although the prime minister was said to be mulling snap polls as early as the end of the year, politicians and analysts say that economic factors are now firmly out of his hands, with him hanging on to his Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) projects only for a rebound next year. "These projects are his only defence against the storm clouds on the horizon," said Jupiter Securities research head Pong Teng Siew, stating that Najib will only go to the ballot boxes after the ETP bites. Among the projects that will kick off this year is the country's most expensive infrastructure project, the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) while Bandar Malaysia, the massive development at the Sungei Besi air base will start once the Royal Malaysian Air Force move out after November 30. Pong also said the forecast this year will remain at 4 per cent or lower unless these projects kick in, despite the economy rebounding with a 7.2 per cent growth last year after skidding to a recession when the economy dipped 1.1 per cent in 2009. But DAP's Tony Pua, one of the opposition's top economic spokespersons, said that Najib is "hamstrung" as he heads into the pre-election period. "In the last two years, he has been able to rely on high oil prices to bankroll public spending but that is not going to happen this time as the global slowdown will hit oil prices and our exports. "This is Najib's worst nightmare. The perfect storm is brewing and he can only hope to wait it out," the Petaling Jaya Utara MP said. Bursa Malaysia began bleeding on Friday after the United States debt rating was downgraded, causing stock exchanges to tumble globally as confidence faltered ahead of a potential double-dip recession. Putrajaya is also tightening its belt after the country's deficit hit a two-decade record of 7 per cent in 2009, forcing it to take a razor to fuel, electricity and sugar subsidies to prevent the subsidy bill from doubling to RM21 billion this year. But inflation has continued to rise after hitting a two-year high of 3 per cent in March with the consumer price index sitting at 3.5 per cent in June.
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| Posted: 09 Aug 2011 08:55 AM PDT By batsman The political struggle must necessarily be engaged on many fronts, not just on the internet. It is on the religious front that the opposition PR coalition suffers one of its greatest weaknesses. The recent JAIS raid on a Christian fund raising dinner exposes serious wounds which even now some people refuse to see or acknowledge. They are in deepest denial. UMNO has no qualms about mixing politics with religion. Any inconsistencies in UMNO's brand of politics with religion is glossed over with brute force of power, wealth and arrogance. Here, brainy internet bloggers have less impact with their reasoning and clever arguments than they think. On the other hand, PAS has trouble trying to mix politics with religion and it is beginning to show. This means PAS has not found a stable equilibrium in its brand of politics with religion. PAS's struggle has not matured sufficiently for it to sit comfortably with its secular coalitions partners in the PR. It is not as if circumstances and conditions that exist in Turkey also exist in Malaysia to the same degree as well. Added to this difficulty, all the non-Muslim religious organizations refuse to engage in politics under the ideology and world view that politics and religion must be separate. It does not take a brainy person to see that if UMNO has no problems mixing politics with religion and all the rest of non-Muslim organizations refuse to engage in politics, where the advantage lies. At this stage, under the special circumstances of Malaysian politics, it makes good sense for all non-Muslim organizations to be especially sensitive to PAS's problems, in order to achieve some sort of balance in an equally matched 2 party political system. Without this sympathy, there will be no equally matched struggle on the religious front of politics in Malaysia. UMNO will be supreme on this front. Non-Muslim religious organizations therefore cannot reject politics even if they wish to. By doing so, they will be foisting the problem on to the shoulders of the secularists to fight the political struggle while they concentrate on "saving souls". Therefore even a seemingly innocuous invitation by Christians to Muslims to dinner can have enormous political impact. By refusing to acknowledge this in the hope of separating politics from religion is an act of deepest denial. This is exactly the situation that will cause friction between PAS and the secularists. Such a situation means that non-religious organizations in Malaysia will be in deepest denial. In PAS, the friendly struggle between the Erdogans and the conservatives reflect the situation in the Muslim community itself. This struggle is ongoing and has no definite result. It would be unreasonable to expect PAS to mature beyond what the community is able to support. It would therefore seem that if the non-Muslim communities leave the political struggle to the secularists, it must necessarily be treated as a long term thing with changes in the mindsets of Malaysians expected to occur only very slowly. Malaysia cannot change beyond small increments at this stage. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that in the short term, the political struggle on the religious front will be overwhelmingly dominated by UMNO. With this realization, the follow up realization that the PR will most probably not be able to form the next government of Malaysia is also quite a reasonable one. It would seem that brainy RPK has already come to this conclusion, which is why he thinks the next best thing is for Ku Li to be the next Prime Minister of Malaysia. Unfortunately, as usual, he is being whacked mercilessly for being a non-conformist – maybe for being a little wishy-washy too. heeheehee. |
'Rethink Islamic education'
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