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Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Student demonstrations planned for 9th November
National debts: the screw, screwing and screwed
Lembu Punya Susu Tetapi Siapa Yang Sapu?
Chairman Isa and the listing of Felda Global Ventures-surat dari pembaca
The True Cause of America’s Troubles
Elections 1990: Irregularities on the electoral rolls
Hit With Big Withdrawals, Fed Sells Assets, Borrows Cash
Pakatan Rakyat Sokong Protes Jika PRU Dipanggil Sebelum Syor Panel Khas
VIDEO : PKR leaders, NGO refused entry at Feedlot Project managed by Shahrizat's family?
PPSMI and the Malaysian education malaise
Bahasa Inggeris wajib dipertingkatkan - tetapi PPSMI bukan penyelesaiannya
Sean Murray’s Kuching Construction Connection – Expose
Self cannibalization: the latest political tool to win at all costs
Mission schools: cheated by the system they trusted
PPSMI: The Language of Politics
Saya tidak percaya DS Rosmah membeli belah di David Jones. It's a low class shopping mall for her

Student demonstrations planned for 9th November

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 10:38 PM PST

There is fear among many that the demonstration could descend into the same violence as was seen last year, when some protesters assaulted Conservative Party HQ at Millbank Tower, smashed police vehicles and defaced the area around Parliament Square. Others worry that the police response may be too heavy-handed, following reports that the Metropolitan Police are prepared to deploy officers armed with rubber bullets and the ongoing scandal surrounding police agents provocateurs in activist organisations.

Your reporting and images could determine how the demonstration is reported. Help Demotix make sure that the truth, rather than speculation and hearsay, informs the conversation about the protest. And before you go, make sure that you inform yourself as much as possible about what's planned for the day. We've included some links below to help you get started.

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 10:00 PM PST

Malaysia's growing national debt is a matter of concern for many but it also baffles many. We know the amount is huge but what exactly caused it and what it is really about. What will happen to us if the debt becomes unmanageable?

APA ITU NATIONAL DEBT?

I dwelled into Ministry of Finance's Q2 2011 report for some answers.

If a person spends more than he earns every year, he will owe a lot of money to a lot of people. Our national debts go on the same principle but just a little bigger in scale and consequence.

The BN administration has spent more than the taxes collected (and they collect a lot – company tax, personal tax, service tax, sales tax, customs, petroleum tax etc). If expenses is more than government income, then the government will issue bonds to local and foreign lenders.

In a nut shell, annual deficits are mainly due to

* the oversized and under-delivering civil service,

* huge subsidies on petrol (which I would blame it on a certain individual's misplaced emphasis on developing national car over public transportation system) ;

and

* unchecked waste of tax money over stuff like project overruns (PKFTZ, Istana Negara , fantastic by election budgets, crazy defense spending etc) and routine expenses (read the AG's report and sob).

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/3/nation/9829248&sec=nation

"MACC: No graft involved in purchase of binoculars"

From finance ministry's website, the debt is getting bigger and bigger.

So the amount of repayment we have to pay is also getting bigger and bigger.

MALAYSIA IS FULL OF CASH AND DEBTS

On page 129 of the MOF report, it read,

"Federal Government gross borrowings are projected to increase significantly in 2011 mainly on account of higher redemptions, loan repayments and deficit financing requirements. Given the ample liquidity in the financial system, the Government will continue to source its borrowing from domestic sources"

Basically the mumble jumbo above means – government is going to borrow more money because they have to

1) pay back old loans and

2) pay for more wastage of funds.

Since Malaysia has a lot of cash (you might yell 'where got?" read on….), the government will take more of those funds from local sources instead of asking from foreigners who are more demanding & powerful creditors.

Further down below on the same page, the report stated that

"Total gross borrowings for the year are expected to amount to RM96.6 billion. Of this, RM90.2 billion or 93.3% constitute domestic borrowings while RM6.4 billon is from external source. Of the gross borrowings, RM51 billion is for repayments of existing debts while the balance, RM45.6 billion will be used to finance the deficit."

Basically it means that Najib's MOF will increase total debts by another 1/6; more than half of the new debt is to pay old debt, and even though we have not cleared the old debts, the government is going to pile up some more debts.

So the question where is the "ample liquidity in the financial system" comes from?

If you look at the debt trend, the borrowings from foreigners goes up and down, meaning the foreigners do get paid back but when you look at the Hutang Persekutuan Dalam Negeri, the figures only go one way – which is higher and higher, meaning the rakyat who are supposed to be diutamakan really did not get paid. We as rakyat have no way to tell the BN administration to pay us back like a foreign creditor.

So really we are lending more and more to the fellow who recently propose to change the tax laws to say IRB can charge us any amount of tax the IRB thinks we should be paying*. And we cannot take those bureaucrats to court to dispute them.

*(I am talking about the proposed S107D of the Income Tax Act. You might get a lower court to rule this section as unconstitutional but the government can always appeal all the way to federal court)

We also gadai away........

Foreigners enjoy security over Malaysians bonds they subscribe, take a look at this recently issued USD2billion debt on Islamic finance principle of Wakala:

Wakala principle roughly means that the borrower can fix a percentage of "profits" to the lenders, anything on top of that return, goes to the borrower as his/her profit/incentive/reward.

Note that in order to borrow from foreigners, the kerajaan has gadai some schools and a renounced medical institution, so next time when you pay your fees, the higher fees is explained by the need to pay "profits" and "incentives" to both borrowers and lenders.

Note that the Finance Ministry's report, which read more like a "high five myself" advertisement, celebrate us borrowing more and more. Something does not feel right here. Who feels proud to have bigger debts?

Lembu Punya Susu Tetapi Siapa Yang Sapu?

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 07:19 PM PST

According to a Malaysiakini report by Hazlan Zakaria:

The husband and children of a federal minister, who are shareholders and board members in the controversial National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), went on an expensive overseas trip on company funds.

"In the company's operations cost for 2009, RM827,578 was listed as being spent by company directors as entertainment allowance to go on an overseas trip. This includes credit card bills and other claims.

"This is one of the unnecessary expenses which should not have been charged to the company," PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli told reporters at a press conference in Parliament House today.

Rafizi said this was according to the company's audited accounts filed with the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM).

"This is despite the company running losses, a total of RM7 million when it started in 2008, and another RM11 million in the red for 2009," he added.

If one divides this amount with the roughly 1,600 heads of cattle slaughtered by NFC in 2009, it would mean that the trip costs RM511 per cow.

Bear in mind that this troubled project being funded with public funds.

In the report, PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli recounted how the firm's cost per head of cattle that it imports mainly from Australia, kept for 100 days and then slaughtered for beef, amounted to nearly RM4,500 per animal. In Malaysia it is RM2,500 per head of cattle so he pointed out that the cost was 22 times above the estimated production cost projected by the Veterinary Department for the project.

The report went on to say:

Such rising costs, he said, was made worse by questionable financial conduct such as the engagement of National Livestock and Meat Corp (NLMC), a company "dormant" since 2007, as the "marketing agent" for NFC and which was given a loan of RM81 million by the Feedlot scheme operator.

NFC is supposed to handle its own marketing, if initial plans in its pilot plan were to be adhered to.

Adding concern to the tale, Rafizi claimed further, is the fact that the "dormant" company is also owned, via a complex corporate structure, by same federal minister's husband and children team that manage and owns NFC.

He added, the same family also owned Real Food Company Sdn Bhd, which bought beef from NFC at a discounted price for their boutique restaurant Meatworks, a subsidy scheme which he claimed saw over RM2 million in discounts in one year alone.

'No longer a going concern'

"In my view as an auditor this company is no longer a going concern," Rafizi said, explaining that the business viability of the feedlot company is in question.

"It may bungkus (fold up) within one or two years," he concluded.

Party secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution, who joined Rafizi at the press conference, expressed worry that the project will be another public funds sinkhole.

"We ask the government, can the RM250 million loan be recovered? Or will it be like Indah Water Konsortium, Perwaja Steel and PKFZ?" asked the Machang MP.

To this Rafizi quipped, "From a management accounting perspective, we may never see those funds again, they are gone just like the projects named by the sec-gen".

Rafizi claimed that the funds have been diverted to various companies like NLMC, set up as associates and client companies to NFC.

The party claimed that this is an example of how public funds are misused by well-connected individuals to fund their pet projects, which they later siphoned out, killing the host public-funded project and making a tidy profit at the public's expense.

"There is a possibility that the loan may soon be cancelled, on account of the feedlot farm being a failure," Rafizi warned.

NFC came to national prominence recently after its allegedly sorry state of affairs were pin-pointed by the Auditor-General's Report and was picked upon by the opposition as the poster-boy project of abuse of influence and conflict of interest in award of public funds.

This latest round of attacks by PKR follows government answers in parliament in defence of the controversial project.

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 12:36 AM PST

Campurtangan beliau dalam Koperasi Permodalan Felda bakal memberikan imej tidak baik, dianggap campur tangan politik kerajaan dalam sebuah koperasi yang aman dan berjaya serta bakal dibantah Jawatankuasa Koperasi Antarabangsa (www.ica.coop/al-ica) yang turut dianggotai oleh Angkasa. Difahamkan beberapa lembaga pengarah Jawatankuasa Koperasi Antarabangsa dari EU dan Afrika akan mengadakan kenyataan bantahan dalam hal ini tidak lama lagi. Berdasarkan potensi perkara ini bakal memburukkan imej negara dan menjejaskan peti undi Felda di Parlimen Bera (sekurang-kurangnya 14 peti undi Felda terlibat di bawah Parlimen Bera) Dato Seri Ismail Sabri akan terus mengambil pendirian berdiam diri dan tidak akan menyokong usaha Isa Samad merampas kuasa Pengerusi Koperasi Felda walaupun Isa Samad menjaja nama PM Najib ke sana ke mari

PerjanjianPajakan di antara Felda Global Ventures dan FELDA yang disorokkan dari diketahui warga Felda sekalian jelas menyatakan pajakan tanah terlibat adalah:

· Tanah-tanahperladangan Felda yang diuruskan Felda Plantation berjumlah 360,000 hektar DAN;

· Tanah-tanah sedia ada Felda (Additional Existing Land) yang telah dibenarkan kerajaan negeri untuk dibangunkan. Contohnya tanah Felda sendiri digunakanFelda dan peneroka untuk tujuan pertanian, perniagaan, sukan, perumahan generasi kedua, resort-resort Felda, serta tanah di mana penyelidikan. Dalam perjanjian itu menyebut bahawa jika tanah tersebut sudah mendapat geran,ia akan diberikankepada Felda Global Venture secara automatik dan jika belum diberikan geran akan diserahkan kepada Felda Global secara 3 tahun secara penyambungan automatik sehingga 99 tahun. Jika peneroka-peneroka pada masa ini ada mengadakan aktiviti perniagaan, pertanian atau sosial di tanah Felda yang akan diambil alih Felda Global Venture, bersedialah untuk membayar sewa atau dirampas kembali tanah-tanah tersebut oleh Felda Global Venture bagi aktiviti yang mereka anggap lebih menguntungkan kepada kroni Isa Samad dan Sabri Ahmad

· Tanah-tanah masa hadapan (Future land) yang bakal dibeli FELDA akan diserahkan kepada Felda Global Venture

JIKA ISA SAMAD DAN SABRI AHMAD MENAFIKAN PERKARA INI, SEBAIK-BAIKNYA TUAN-PUAN PENEROKA MEMINTA ISA SAMAD DAN SABRI AHMAD MEMINTA DITUNJUKKAN DAHULU SURAT PERJANJIAN PAJAKAN DI ANTARA FELDA DAN FELDA GLOBAL VENTURES SEBELUM PAJAKAN DIMULAKAN PADA 1.01.2012. JIKA ENGGAN, DISARANKAN TUAN-PUAN MENYAMAN FELDA DARI MEMBUAT KEPUTUSAN MERUGIKAN MASA HADAPAN PENEROKA DAN ANAK-ANAK DAN MEMOHON INJUKSI MAHKAMAH BAGI MENGHALANG TINDAKAN PAJAKAN INI DILAKUKAN TANPA SURAT PAJAKAN INI DITELITI DAN MENDAPATKAN PERSETUJUAN SEMUA PENEROKA MELALUI SEBUAH REFERENDUM

Struktur Pra-Penyenaraian Felda Global Venture telah direka khusus bagi menipu rakyat terutamanya peneroka dan kakitangan Felda. Struktur Penyenaraian dimaksudkan adalah:
Koperasi permodalan Felda akan menguasai 60% ekwiti FGV manakala Felda akan menguasai 40% ekwiti.

READ MORE HERE

The True Cause of America’s Troubles

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 12:30 AM PST

Are you puzzled why the real income of American households has just suffered its worst plunge in recorded history — despite the so-called "recovery" of 2009-2011?

Do you want to know why it now takes 40.5 weeks for the average unemployed worker to find a new job — also the worst in recorded history?

And are you flabbergasted by the utter failure of the U.S. Congress to do anything about trillion-dollar federal deficits for years to come?

Then, let me tell you precisely what's causing this mess.

The fundamental source of the nation's troubles is DEBTS that are far larger and more destructive than Washington admits.

Indeed, the U.S. government is covering up the magnitude of the nation's debt disasters with three major deceptions:

Debt Deception #1
Washington Excludes the Massive
Debts of Federal Government Agencies

"As long as the government's debt burden is under 100 percent of GDP," they say, "we can handle it. It's only when it surpasses the 100 percent threshold that we'll be in danger."

True or false?

Let's look at the numbers:

• U.S. GDP is $14.6 trillion. And …

• According to the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds, U.S. Treasury debts outstanding are $9.7 trillion.

• So that means the debts are well under the 100 percent danger threshold, right?

Wrong! The authorities conveniently ignore a massive $7.6 trillion of additional government debts that have piled up on the books of U.S. government agencies, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These agencies were created by the U.S. government, have always been controlled by the U.S. government, and now, after the federal bailouts of the last debt crisis, are even owned by the U.S. government.

How in the world anyone could possibly exclude their debts from the U.S. government's books is beyond me. And yet that's precisely what Washington does.

Add those debts to the government's total burden … and guess what! Instead of $9.7 trillion in federal government debts outstanding, the actual total comes to $17.3 trillion — a whopping 118.3 percent of GDP!

Posted: 06 Nov 2011 08:08 PM PST

A condition for elections to be fair is that the electoral rolls containing the list of people eligible to vote must be clean. Numerous complaints concerning the electoral rolls used for the General Elections held on 20-21 October, however, put to question how clean the rolls were.

Some complain that though they had registered during the voter registration exercise in March, their names could not be found on the official lists of electors used during polling. These omissions deprived countless eligible voters of their right to choose representatives for Parliament and State Assemblies.

Slightly more mystifying was the problem of 'phantom voters'. For instance, an Indian lady from Ampang, Selangor received four voting cards (informing voters where they should go to vote) that were sent to her house bearing messages to vote Barisan; the curious thing was that the cards were addressed to Malay names though no one with such names had lived in the house for the 21 years she had been there. There are many other reports of people registered as electors with a certain address though these persons do not actually live there.

These 'phantom' include a list of 17 names registered as living at the address of a factory in Penang.

The existence of phantom voters on the rolls was one of the grounds for which Haji Sulaiman bin Kamaruddin sought an order from the High Court to instruct the Election Commission to rectify the rolls for the parliamentary constituency of Sepang and the Selangor State Assembly seats of Dengkil, Sg. Pelek and Batu Laut. The judge threw out the application, ruling that the matter had to be first brought to the attention of the Election Commission and Haji Sulaiman had not done so. However, in his judgment Mr. Justice Datuk Wira Wan Yahya Pawan Teh said "the facts in the case (are) startling".

Posted: 06 Nov 2011 03:33 PM PST

The Fed was apparently forced to take extraordinary measures to fund these withdrawals. These included the outright sale of nearly $24 billion in its Treasury note and bond holdings from the System Open Market Account. As a result, the Fed's System Open Market Account (SOMA) fell to $2.611 trillion, some $43 billion below the Fed's stated target of $2.654 trillion. Prior to this week, it had not strayed from by more than $7 billion since June. The Fed's action was not only a direct contradiction of its stated policy, but it was done without warning or explanation. It ran counter to Bernanke's penchant for telegraphing every important move the Fed makes so that the banking/speculating organizations can front-run it.

The Fed took another unusual and virtually unprecedented action to fund these massive withdrawals. It borrowed $43 billion from foreign central banks (FCBs) through Reverse Repurchase Agreements (revese repos, or RRPs).

Posted: 06 Nov 2011 05:30 AM PST

Semalam, Solidariti Anak Muda Malaysia (SAMM) dan Pergerakan Kebebasan Sivil Malaysia (MCLM) memberi perdana menteri kata dua bahawa pihaknya akan mengadakan protes mirip Bersih 2.0 jika membubarkan Parlimen sebelum pembaharuan pilihan raya dikuatkuasakan.

Beberapa pemimpin Pakatan Rakyat (PR) hari ini melahirkan sokongan dengan pelan itu dan mahu Najib, yang juga Pengersusi Barisan Nasional (BN) menunaikan janjinya.

Pemimpin-pemimpin PR yang dihubungi berkata perdana menteri harus membolehkan jawatankuasa pilihan khas, yang beliau telah bentuk, menyelesaikan fungsi mereka dalam tempoh enam bulan dan melaksanakan syor-syor yang dibuat sebelum pilihan raya umum ke-13.

Naib Presiden PKR Nurul Izzah Anwar memberitahu The Malaysia Insider, partinya akan memberi sokongan kepada satu lagi protes jika perlu.

"Saya percaya rakyat menunggu bukti janji-janji pembaharuan yang dibawa oleh perdana menteri," kata Ahli Parlimen Lembah Pantai ini dalam kenyataan menerusi SMS.

Tegas Nurul Izzah, oleh kerana isu-isu pembaharuan pilihan raya berkaitan dengan perhimpunan Bersih 2.0, perlu ada gelombang ketiga.

Najib dan imej pembaharuan beliau berhadapan dengan kritikan banyak pihak termasuk media antarabangsa ekoran tindakan keras pentadbirannya menangani perhimpunan Bersih 2.0 pada 9 Julai lalu.

Dalam pada itu, Pengarah Jabatan Pilihan Raya PAS Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli juga berkata, partinya akan menyokong pendirian PR bagi memastikan pilihan raya umum ke-13 hanya akan dipanggil selepas pembaharuan pilihan raya dilaksanakan.

"Pada pandangan parti-parti, sepatutnya tidak ada pilihan raya sehingga pembaharuan dilaksanakan.

Posted: 05 Nov 2011 12:05 AM PDT

Some the pictures as seen on the video:

Just LOOK where are the cattle supposed to have been reared:

NO cattle or animals CAN BE SEEN.

Watch the video and read at: http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2011/11/video-pkr-leaders-ngo-refused-entry-at.html

PPSMI and the Malaysian education malaise

Posted: 04 Nov 2011 06:37 PM PDT

What worries me is that the Malaysian education system is too fragmented to the point that it now mirrors Astro programming.

And, what do I mean by that?

It is disturbing to see that Malaysian children are being shafted into different directions in the name of seeking quality education, culture and/or just plain, affordability.

Parents who perceive that the quality of education in national schools (sekolah kebangsaan) have deteriorated precipitously have been sending their children to national-type Chinese schools or international schools.

Other parents who doubt the quality of national schools have been sending their children to private schools using the national syllabus.

Parents who believe that their children need to maintain their perceived "cultural identity" have been sending their children to Mandarin-medium or Tamil-medium schools. Let's not forget that there was also a time when Malay parents would send their children to Malay-medium schools with the same intent.

Parents who believe that their children should be at the apex of society with a fighting chance of being entrenched as the elite of Malaysian society and/or be competitive at a global level, have been sending their children to international schools based in Malaysia!!!!

That's what I mean by the Astro-programming parallel.

And, I believe this to be the major issue.

This is the pink elephant in the room that the Minister of Education and the Cabinet has chosen to ignore.

Granted that this issue is a delicate and complex one, someone still has to address the issue.

Or, maybe this is the precise point.

It is NOT a political issue because no one, on either side of the Parliamentary divide, be they Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, have bothered to deal with the matter.

Yet, everyone who has school-going children and anyone who has undergone any of the education routes I have outlined above should know or recall, the educational anomaly that exists in Malaysia.

Who amongst the political leaders of contemporary Malaysia has the courage to raise this issue? Who dares to bell this cat?

No one.

All we have are parochial and chauvinistic gallery-pandering politicians and educationists who champion their own little causes.

Will no one stand for the Malaysian nation?

Posted: 04 Nov 2011 06:25 PM PDT

Muhyidin telah mengambil keputusan dan meminta sokongan dari kabinet dan Parlimen untuk kembali kepada mengajar Matematik dan Sains dalam Bahasa Malaysia. Apabila isu ini masih menjadi perbahasan kita tidak terlepas dari bertanya, kenapa sudah 54 tahun merdeka isu medium pengajaran dalam bahasa apa ini masih tidak terlerai.

Mahathir berkata Najib boleh menyekat implimentasi pengajaran dalam Bahasa Malaysia ini kerana beliau (Najib) adalah Perdana Menteri. Najib sendiri adalah seorang pemimpin yang sebenarnya masih mahukan pembelajaran sains dan matametik ini dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

Tetapi Najib tidak berapa berani untuk meminta Muhyiddin untuk membatalkan hasrat beliau (Muhyidin) untuk tidak meneruskan pembelajaran Sains dan Metamatik dalam Bahasa Malaysia.

Ada berita yang sampai kepada saya yang Najib telah berpesan melalui seorang yang berpengaruh supaya meminta Muhyidin untuk meneruskan pembelajaran kedua-dua mata pelajaran itu dalam Bahasa Ingeris, kerana Najib tidak berani untuk membuat teguran terhadap Muhyidin. Malahan Muhyidin semalam telah membuat kenyataan yang DS Najib telah bersetuju untuk perlaksanaan pembelajaran subjek sains dan matematik kembali menggunakan Bahasa Malaysia.

Hakikatnya Najib dan Muhyidin sangat berbeza dalam isu PPSMI ini tetapi Muhyiddin telah mengambil sikap bertegas untuk kembali kepada pengajaran dalam Bahasa Malaysia ini kerana sentimen ini menguatkan beliau di kalangan ahli-ahli UMNO. Muhyidin mengambil sikap kemelayuan yang kuat dalam isu ini. Muhyiddin telah memberitahu media yang tindakan PAGE untuk mendesak Muhyidin menimbangkan saranan mereka untuk meneruskan pembelajaran dalam Bahasa Inggeris lagi tidak akan di layan.

Muhyidin mendapat markah tambahan di kalangan ahli-ahli UMNO tetapi Muhyiddin lupa yang UMNO itu sendiri sudah kehilangan markah yang banyak dalam menghadapi isu ini. Popular di kalangan ahli UMNO tidak semestinya popular dari pandangan orang ramai dan rakyat jelata. UMNO itu sendiri sedang menghadapi masalah untuk mengembalikan keyakinan rakyat terhadap parti itu.

Saya tidak lagi berkeupayaan untuk menentukan sikap dalam isu ini kerana isu ini terlalu komplikated dan amat payah untuk memberikan pandangan secara konklusif. Tetapi yang jelas Muhyidin tidak berkeyakinan dengan apa yang telah di dasarkan oleh Dr Mahathir dahulu untuk memperkuatkan penggunaan Bahasa Inggeris dengan pembelajaran matemetik dan sains dalam bahasa Inggeris kerana Bahasa Inggeris itu adalah bahasa antarabangsa.

Saya secara peribadi tidak begitu berkeyakinan yang PPSMI akan membina kekuatan pelajar-pelajar dalam berbahasa Inggeris kerana matematik dan sains itu merupakan subjek yang kuantitatif yang tidak boleh membantu murid-murid atau pelajar kita untuk memperkuatkan penguasaan mereka dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

Saya berpendapat kalau benar kerajaan ingin melihat Bahasa Inggeris di kuasai oleh pelajar-pelajar kita kerajaan patut menjadikan English 111 dalam peringkat SPM di wajibkan kerana subjek English 111 itu akan memaksa pelajar mengambil subjek English Literature sekali gus akan memperkuatkan penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris dengan lebih jelas di kalangan lepasan sekolah menengah negara kita.

Bahasa ini akan hanya menjadi kuat jika kita belajar dan mempraktikannya secara praktikal (bertutur dan menulis) dan mengajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris dalam subjek matematik itu tidak mencukupi untuk seorang pelajar itu menguasai bahasa itu.

Sesuatu bahasa itu termasuk Bahasa Inggeris akan hanya boleh di majukan jika kerajaan memberikan penekanan kepada satu subjek ini iaitu subjek English 111 ini kerana ianya akan memberikan penekanan terhadap nahu dan 'pronounciation' sekali dan benar-benar Bahasa Inggeris yang betul.

Kita sepatutnya mengambil jalan yang tengah dengan memberikan pembelajaran dalam Bahasa Malaysia untuk kemajuan bahasa kebangsaan kita dan menekankan murid-murid untuk belajar Bahasa Inggeris secara khususnya dan lengkap melalui English 111 itu.

Memberikan peluang untuk murid-murid mengambil subjek English Literature di peringkat tingkatan 5 akan menjadikan murid itu memahami Bahasa Inggeris dan sekali gus melengkapkan mereka dengan Bahasa Inggeris yang betul dan bukan setakat bercakap inggeris semata-mata tetapi berbahasa inggeris yang sebenarnya.

Setidak-tidaknya dijadikan subjek English 111 itu di peringkat tingkatan 5 sebagai option yang digalakan kepada mereka yang serius untuk menguasai bahasa antarabangsa itu. Penekanan bukan sahaja setakat memperkuatkan Bahasa Inggeris tetapi juga bahasa-bahasa ilmu yang lain seperti bahasa jepun, mandarin dan yang lain-lain.

Saya bersetuju supaya medium persekolahan dinegara kita ini di dalam bahasa kebangsaan. Dalam 'obsession' kita untuk menguasai bahasa lain kita tidak boleh membiarkan bahasa kita sendiri tidak terbina. Bahasa jepun menjadi bahasa antarabangsa kerana sikap patriotik orang jepun untuk memperkayakan bahasa mereka.

Bahasa mereka maju bukan dicapai dalam sekelip mata. Bahasa mereka maju kerana perjuangan bangsanya memperkayakan bahasa mereka sejak ratusan tahun dahulu. Maka kita juga berkewajipan untuk membina bahasa kebangsaan kita terus menerus sehingga bila-bila; dari satu generasi ke generasi yang seterusnya.

Dalam isu PPSMI ini saya membuat 'conclusion', yang bahasa Inggeris tidak akan berjaya diperkayakan jika diteruskan pengajarannya dalam dua subjek ini malahan ia akan membantutkan usaha untuk membina bahasa kebangsaan kita. 'It will be neither or there'.

Posted: 04 Nov 2011 02:34 AM PDT

The RM380 million luxury hotel and office complex was announced at the end of last year as a key initiative on the site, which has been designated by the State Government as a 'Special Development Area' and is being touted as the new Central Business District for the capital.

CMS Land Sdn Bhd, a joint subsidiary of the largely Taib family-owned company CMS and the State Government, acquired ownership of the entire 240 acres of development land on the Isthmus, after it was alienated from local title-holders through a series of controversial forced purchases, in the late 1990s.

Isthmus kuching 'Ripe for development' – the whole area just outside Kuching has been turned over to the Taib family firm CMS in a 'joint venture' with the state

If that was not favouritism enough, the company has now been granted numerous incentives to build through the injection of huge sums of public money into the area.

CMS Land has officially estimated that the project has a "gross development value of RM2.8 billion"!

However, we can demonstrate that this latest major construction project on the site is actually being driven forward by a mysterious off-shore company, run by an inner-circle of Taib's immediate family.

The controlling share in the Joint Venture, which is situated on 10 acres provided by CMS Land, belongs to a company called Premier Cottage Sdn Bhd. The Director of that company is Sean Murray, along with Taib's other daughter Hanifah and his favoured sister-in-law, Gertie Chong. However, the sole shareholder of Premier Cottage is an off-shore company, Pioneer City Enterprises Limited, which supplies no profile or country address, despite having been awarded a significant public project.

The planned Kuching Tower - projected to be the tallest building in Sarawak

This is not the first time that the Murrays have claimed a stake in the Isthmus. Their company City Gate Corporation (part of the Sakto Group based in Ottawa) also snaffled a $110 million dollar contract to design the much talked about Kuching Tower, together with another company called ZW Group.

ZW Group, interestingly, shares the same address as the Ottawa-based Aberdeen Project Facilitators Inc, who were formally awarded the management of the Kuching Tower project back in 2006.

The Director of Aberdeen Project Facilitators and the Project Manager of ZW both happen to be one Thady Murray.

Thady Murray also acts as the President of City Gate Corporation and is one of the many members of Sean Murray's family, who work out of the Sakto/City Gate Headquarters in their Preston Tower building, Ottawa!

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:41 PM PDT

Anthony Loke reveals yet again elector roll irregularities"

On the right: if all complaints are raised, fee of RM8,320 is payable. More waste of money, it seems.

On line version here:

From an inspection of the recently released 2011 Q3 supplementary electors roll, Anthony Loke, the MP for Rasah, discovered that:

· 110 voters were transferred into Temiang state constituency , bearing addresses of 16 vacant houses in Taman Bukit Zamrud, Seremban

· Some of the vacant houses have "for sale/rent" signs hanging at the gate

· 6 females and 1 male were transferred to address no. 126, Taman Bukit Zamrud . Apart from one aged around the twenties, the rest were more than 50 years old. Among the 7, 2 were taken from Paroi, 2 from Jempol and 1 from Senawang

· Majority of the transferred voters are Indians, with some Chinese as well.

The above makes interesting reading.

Obviously this is not the work of Pakatan Rakyat. The motive is obvious, moving voters into one of Pakatan's constituency as signs of a snap election reaches fever pitch.

Mission schools: cheated by the system they trusted

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:34 PM PDT

"A Senior Physician" in a letter to Malaysia Today concerning Assunta Hospital, blames church leaders for allowing mission schools to have deteriorated under government hands. He is too harsh on the church. The source of the deterioration lies in the rapacious, dishonest and corrupt politicians that have been elected to power for 40 years, and an electorate willing to put their trust in men and women of no honour.

In his letter, he said:

" … the Bishop and the Catholic mission may not know anything about this state of affairs. They usually leave it to the trustees while they concentrate on getting donations for the hospital. Church leaders and the clergy live a life of prayer and a belief that God will take care of their problems.

This may explain what happened to the Catholic schools. They used to be premier schools for the whole country. It was not only a source of pride to the Catholic mission, it could have been a method to influence the minds of future leaders of the country. Unfortunately the church never moved with the times and the political changes that swept across the country. Now schools such as SFI, SJI and SXI are relics of a grand past and lie almost forgotten and decaying where they once stood."

The open question was then whether the Brothers and Sisters who taught and administered the mission schools would follow along and become absorbed into the teaching service, so that they could continue to teach and be in charge of the administration of the schools.That is hardly the case. Mission schools were incorporated into the Malaysian educational system after much debate. The essence of the matter at that time (in the 1960s) was, in my recollection, that the church agreed after much discussion to allow the schools to become sekolah jenis kebangsaan — but retaining ownership and not transferring the land and the buildings to the government — in order to receive government financial support.

It was eventually decided that the Brothers and the Sister would not join the education service, but would remain on the Board of Governors of the schools and thus supervise the administration of the schools this way. One factor would have been to obviate any potential church-state conflict.

Over the years members of the La Salle Brothers and the Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus have agonised over that decision, as their schools steadily decayed in standing, suffered abuse and desecration, and became political tools, notwithstanding that many Malaysian leaders and members of royal houses were themselves educated at mission schools of the 1950s-70s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWlSYZyzg-I&feature=player_embedded

To my mind, the church relied on two factors in making the decision to let the government run their schools and to stay out of the education system:

• They trusted the honesty and goodwill of the Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Raman, that the schools would be cared for, and that the government in all sincerity, merely wished to relieve the church of the financial burden

• They trusted in a system of government that seemed to be based on democratic principle and one that would honour promises made.

They were wrong to trust any one individual. Politicians come and go. They were naive to believe the succeeding politicians would honour the word of another.

It should have been possible to put trust in the system. Institutions of the system and the civil service that goes with them, remain while politicians come and go. They are designed to be a bulwark of the common citizen against the dishonest politician.

PPSMI: The Language of Politics

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:26 PM PDT

With Muhyiddin Yassin slamming the door shut on PPSMI, the debate continues to rage on within both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat alike. PKR comes out to support the abolishment, whereas the DAP wants to give parents the choice.

PAGE, the English rights action group is submitting 7,000 petitions in favour of the teaching of maths and science in English to the Prime Minister. Gerakan is also whispering that they would prefer that parents have the choice. How did we get into this place in the beginning?

The implementation of PPSMI created controversy back in 2003, but if one were to gauge the results of the 2004 General Elections which swept Barisan Nasional back to power with the biggest majority in their history, there is little evidence to suggest that the implementation of this policy was detrimental.

After a while, we hear praise for the government policy being forward thinking from different sections of the society. The mainstream media also ran pieces about English competency amongst teachers, and how many had struggled to cope with the teaching of the subjects in English. Obviously, this did not reflect well on the federal government, who then spent millions on books, training courses and computer software to train the teachers to become competent.

I strongly suspect that the decision to reverse the policy to teach maths and science in English is based more on the fact that the teachers did not want to make the additional effort to learn English, rather than poor results, especially in the rural areas. At times, one hears stories as to how children who can speak better English than their teachers would proceed to torment and taunt them for their poor command of the language.

Malaysian parents are by-and-large extremely concerned about their children's education, in order for their children to secure their future, both socially and financially. We had the Education Ministry boast of the best UPSR results in history not too long ago, but obviously dissatisfied, the government has decided that teaching maths and science in Malay once again would further raise the standards.

With the General Election fast approaching, the Deputy Prime Minister is obviously intent to prevent what are traditional Barisan strongholds fall to the Opposition. He has cleverly observed that because heritage and pride are something deeply emotional, he waves the flag of "I'm Malay first, Malaysian second" despite this being in direct contradiction with Najib's 1Malaysia. Therefore touting the fact that he is a nationalist and defender of the race, he gets rid of PPSMI to raise up the Malay language once again.

Saya tidak percaya DS Rosmah membeli belah di David Jones. It's a low class shopping mall for her

Posted: 03 Nov 2011 05:28 PM PDT

'Apparently' cerita ini di buat oleh sebuah akhbar berpengaruh di Western Australia dan Najib menafikannya melalui twitter beliau dan beliau berkata ini adalah fitnah yang sengaja di ada-adakan oleh akhbar tersebut.

Najib juga menafikan berita yang isteri kesayangan beliau Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor membeli intan berlian di Australia dan isteri beliau tidak pun pergi ke pusat membeli belah itu. Saya pun hendak juga tahu bagaimana akhbar tersebut tahu jumlah AUD60000 itu telah dibelanjakan oleh anak perempuan Najib.

Saya tidak tahu samada perkara ini benar atau pun tidak kerana saya tidak mengikuti perkembangan isu ini. Tetapi saya di minta untuk mengulas tentang isu yang di bawa oleh akhbar Western Australia ini.

Saya tidak berminat sebenarnya untuk mengulas kerana membeli belah secara besar-besar ini adalah satu persepsi yang sinonim dengan DS Rosmah ini dan saya tidak langsung mahu mengambil tahu tentang isu ini lagi. Kalau DS Rosmah dan anak perempuan beliau membeli belah sekali pun itu tidak menghairankan lagi bagi rakyat negara ini.

Saya tidak menjangka yang anak DS Rosmah boleh membelanjakan sejumlah wang yang begitu kecil di tempat yang dikatakan anak beliau membeli belah itu. Pusat membeli belah David Jones itu tidak lah sehebat pusat membeli belah di New York kerana tempat itu hanya lah pusat membeli belah yang biasa sahaja.

Kalau pun keluarga Najib hendak membeli belah mereka tidak akan membuat shopping di tempat itu. Pusat membeli belah itu tidak sampai 'standard compliance' bagi Rosmah atau anak beliau itu. Saya tidak percaya Rosmah atau anak beliau akan membelanjakan wang di sana kerana tempat itu tidak setaraf dengan kemampuan berbelanja untuk keluarga ini.

Tempat itu hanya untuk orang seperti kita membeli belah sahaja…tempat kita hendak membeli sepasang dua stokings, coli-coli dan seluar dalam dan panty wanita sahaja. Rosmah dan anak beliau tidak akan masuk kedalam pusat membeli belah yang tidak ada 'standard' itu. Saya yakin itu merupakan fitnah atau akhbar tersebut tidak tahu yang tempat membeli belah itu bukan setaraf dengan tempat-tempat DS Rosmah membeli belah.

Saya berpendapat untuk mempercayai Rosmah boleh pergi ke tempat shopping itu memang satu perkara yang mustahil. AUD 60,000 bukan jumlah untuk dikaitkan dengan DS Rosmah. Itu terlalu kecil bagi ahli keluarga ini.

READ MORE HERE

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Selasa, 8 November 2011

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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