Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Slashed over hanging of BN flag, banner
- Ex-ISA detainee Yazid held under security laws
- Asia at heart of matchfixing, ex-FIFA man says
- Bumburing’s men slam Yong for ‘attacks’
- Produce new evidence, Karpal tells Deepak
- MCA: Liew’s predictions on Johor cocky
- Shahrizat blows it for Umno in S’wak?
- UMNO leader 'shows the money' - piles of it - at event
- Berjasa: Third force for Malay voters?
| Slashed over hanging of BN flag, banner Posted: 06 Feb 2013 10:21 PM PST
(NST) - A 31-year-old man was slashed on the back of the head after a quarrel over the placing of a political party flag and banner at Kampung Batu 5 1/2, Jalan Bendang Nyior here, yesterday. Mohd Dasuki Yusoff said he had scouted for a place to hang a Barisan Nasional flag and banner at a bridge, near his village, at 6:45pm when a car with three occupants in it stopped.
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| Ex-ISA detainee Yazid held under security laws Posted: 06 Feb 2013 08:48 PM PST Bukit Aman says that three people were arrested for allegedly recruiting others for terror activities. (FMT) - Ex-ISA detainee Yazid Sufaat was today arrested under the new security laws for alleged terrorism. Two others were held with him. The trio become the first persons to be arrested under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, the law which replaced the preventive law, the Internal Security Act. A team of police officers from Bukit Aman made the arrests. Bukit Aman said in a statement that the three were involved in recruiting others for terror activities. It did not release the names of the detainees. Human rights watchdog Suaram, however, identified Yazid and his worker Mohd Hilmi Ahsin as those being detained. It did not mention anything about the third arrest. Suaram said Yazid and Mohd Hilmi were arrested at about 12.30pm today at the Jalan Duta High Court canteen. The canteen was operated by Yazid's wife. It added that the arresting officers had said that they were being arrested for "promoting terrorism". No other details are available. Yazid was previously held under the ISA in December 2001 following a crackdown on terrorism activities here after the al-Qaeda attacks on the US Twin Towers in New York earlier that year. He was released in December 2008. Suaram also stated that Yazid was taken to his house in Taman Bukit Ampang where the police conducted a thorough check. It is unclear if they took anything from Yazid's house. Under the new security law, Yazid and the two others can be detained for 48 hours, after which they should be allowed access to their lawyers. It is not known where Yazid and the other two were held. Suaram, meanwhile, criticised the detention of the trio under the new law, stating that everyone had a legal right to be brought to the court within 24 hours after the arrest.
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| Asia at heart of matchfixing, ex-FIFA man says Posted: 06 Feb 2013 03:39 PM PST (Reuters) - SINGAPORE: Gambling houses in Southeast Asia form the foundation for organised crime gangs to generate huge profits from sports match-fixing, according to Chris Eaton, ex-FIFA head of security and director of Qatar's International Centre for Sport Security. European police shone a spotlight on the region on Monday when they announced a Singapore-based syndicate had directed match-fixing for at least 380 football games in Europe alone, making at least 8 million euros (7 million pounds). The number paled in comparison to the gang's profiteering in Asia, Eaton told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It's infinitesimal compared to what was made in the Asian market. You can probably multiply that by a hundred," he said. The known cases of match-fixing occurred mostly in the West, but the real profits for the syndicates were in Southeast Asia, where the size of the gambling market completely dwarfed that of Europe. The region's lax regulation coupled with the sheer scale of the betting market made it far more attractive to people wanting to manipulate it, such as those accused of match-fixing by Europol. Gone were the movie images of people entering smoke-filled rooms with bags of money and betting slips. Today's gambling institutions most closely resembled international finance, with its banking, derivative trading and commodities trading, according to Eaton, a former Interpol operations manager. "It's all done with algorithms and machines, almost like any commodity house in the US or London. The three largest houses each transact US$2 billion a week – a hell of a lot of money." To put this into perspective, Eaton said this sum could purchase four international-standard hospitals or pay for a thousand police officers for a year. Although recent match-fixing scandals have struck South Korea, China and Italy, corruption in football has long been a global problem. Eaton believes the real facilitator of this is the opportunity it provides to commit betting fraud and the susceptibility of the Southeast Asian betting market, where most betting fraud is committed. Lack of will "If you don't focus on betting fraud, then you won't be able to properly address sport corruption. Sport corruption is borne of betting fraud – it's a cycle" he said. "It could just as well be betting on tiddlywinks, or on flies crawling up a wall." Eaton said that, instead of governments and agencies targeting betting, they targeted corruption in the sport itself, which was simply a means to an end. "There's no will to regulate gambling houses in Southeast Asia. There's a lack of commitment. Their responsibility isn't just to attract business but to properly regulate business," said Eaton. "This is bigger than Coca-Cola, which is a trillion a year. This is a global economy, a growing global economy, and it needs to be regulated and supervised, and governments aren't doing this." Italy was one of the major targets of the match-fixers identified by European police forces, despite having what Eaton considers to be one of the best gambling regulators in Europe. The international nature of the betting frauds meant the Italian authorities' supervision ultimately amounted to little when deterring corruption in sport. Eaton estimates that 30 percent of all gambling on sports in Italy goes through registered Italian bookmakers. The other 70 percent is unregistered, often channelled through Southeast Asian websites. "If they focused on transparency in gambling houses in Southeast Asia, being able to see who did what, when and how, this alone would have a major effect on addressing the issues of sport corruption," he said. "You have under-regulated, grey-area gambling where the regulators are not really serious, transparency rules are not to best practice and government oversight is almost non-existent." This "grey area" gambling lies between legal betting and "black area" gambling, which Eaton identifies as illegal, cash-based betting with a trusted clientele known to the bookmakers. Biggest concern The grey gambling market's lack of oversight undermined the efforts of countries such as South Korea, where 41 players from its K-League were banned for life by FIFA for match-fixing, and authorities have allied with sports agencies and police to combat the corruption. "The grey-area betting businesses, particularly out of Manila, are the biggest concern to us. We don't know enough about them and the government has an under-regulated environment," said Eaton. "It's almost impossible to measure how they do business and what weaknesses they have that allow organised crime to take advantage of them." The three largest gambling houses in Asia, IBCBET, SBOBET and 188BET, are all in Manila in the Philippines. Eaton describes their operations as "very opaque" and said what was known of them came purely from talking to people familiar with their workings, as there was no government record. Their huge profits made them ideal for exploitation by organised crime syndicates. These online businesses operated as an exchange, rather than a traditional risk-taking bookmakers which would bet against the gambler themselves. Instead they took a commission and farmed out the bets to bookmakers around the world, seeking to make slightly more than a one percent turnover, according to Eaton. "They're turning over so much money the organised crime is almost invisible to them," he said. Because the bookmakers were the ones taking on the risk, there was little incentive for the Manila-based exchanges to work against match-fixing. The match-fixers were also able to exploit the gambling house system by writing computer programs to place hundreds of bets at the house's maximum limit in a matter of seconds, mostly while the rigged matches were still being played. Typically this occurred late in the game, to lessen the odds of alerting the gambling house to the fraud. "These are very sophisticated frauds. They're not very easy to disguise, so the fixers have to time it in such a way as to get it past the houses," said Eaton. Eaton believes that until governments and authorities work to close these lucrative channels of profit for organised crime, match-fixing will continue to be a global problem for all sports.
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| Bumburing’s men slam Yong for ‘attacks’ Posted: 06 Feb 2013 03:34 PM PST Wilfred Bumburing's group has accused SAPP of being on 'sabotage' mode. Joseph Bingkasan, FMT KOTA KINABALU: Pakatan Rakyat ally Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) is irked by accusation that its leader Wilfred Bumburing and Beaufort MP Lajim Ukin who helms another Anwar Ibrahim friendly grouping – Pakatan Perubahan Sabah – are bribing Anwar for seats in the coming general election. Lashing out at SAPP president Yong Teck Lee, APS said it was an insult and a poor reflection of Yong who was once held in high respect for pulling his party out of the BN coalition in 2008. Said APS information chief Lesaya Sorudim: "What Yong had uttered is an insult not just to Bumburing and Lajim but to the people of Sabah, the majority of whom are now coming together in support of these two leaders." Yong accused the two former Barisan Nasional MPs who quit the ruling coalition in July last year of "kow-towing" to Kuala Lumpur-based opposition parties in order to be Pakatan candidates. The accusation published in a local newspaper yesterday has infuriated APS, who believe Yong is sabotaging the opposition's chances in the coming election. APS, which comprises mainly native leaders, said the criticism by Yong is an insult to the Kadazandusun and Murut (KDM) community who are looking up to the two leaders as their flag-bearers for political and social reforms in Sabah. "Can anyone in their right frame of mind ever imagine Bumburing and Lajim disembarking from an airplane in KLIA armed with a bucket load of tiger prawns or lobsters or even a bundle of bird nests under their armpit purportedly to be given to some leaders in Kuala Lumpur in order to be chosen as candidates? "Could anyone have ever imagined that SAPP, which gained so much popularity and respect when it first left BN, would now resort to such low-level political mindset?" Sorudim asked. Yong claimed that the two leaders were bringing those goodies for their "political master" whenever they travelled to Kuala Lumpur. "Speaking of Bumburing, let me remind Yong that if ever it was the desire of Bumburing that he only wants to be a candidate, it would have been better for him to remain in BN because being the deputy president of a BN component then, he had every opportunity to make himself as one of the BN candidates. "After all being an incumbent [MP], he is the best person to retain the Tuaran parliamentary seat for BN," Sorudim told FMT. 'SAPP's politically short-sighted' "Yong's statement and accusation only goes to show how politically short-sighted SAPP is and how it is deprived of any issue to portray itself as an alternative to BN," he added. Sorudim said he was surprised that Yong, instead of attacking BN and Umno, chose to attack his fellow Sabahan opposition leaders. "This only goes to prove that SAPP's ultimate objective is to gain political power for itself."
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| Produce new evidence, Karpal tells Deepak Posted: 06 Feb 2013 03:28 PM PST The lawyer-politician says that the carpet businessman must provide his evidence to the authorities so that the police can reopen the Altatntuya's murder case. G Vinod, FMT New evidence must be produced to help the police reopen investigation on the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, said DAP chairman Karpal Singh. "Carpet dealer Deepak Jaikishan must come forward with the evidence. Tell us what you have," said the lawyer-politician. Yesterday, former Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan said that the police must reopen Altantuya's case if there is new evidence found pertaining to the murder. In December, Deepak alleged that the prime minister's wife, Rosmah Mansor had sought his help in getting private investigator P Balasubramaniam to retract his first statutory declaration which implicated the premier's family in Altantuya's death. The businessman also claimed that the prime minister's brother, Nazim Razak, had helped him to seal a deal with Balasubramaniam. Deepak is slated to approach the Attorney-General Chambers, to request protection under Whistleblower Act 2010 and Witness Protection Act 2009 before making further expose. On providing legal protection to Deepak, Karpal said,"Protection must be given to him, especially since this is a high profile case." On related matter, PKR vice president N Surendran said that the police should reopen the investigation as there are two men sentenced to death for Altantuya's murder. "There is no statute of limitation for murder cases. We must prevent a miscarriage of justice by looking at the new evidence," he said. In 2009, two police officers, Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar and Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri were sentenced to death by the High Court for murdering Altantuya. They have since filed an appeal against the verdict. Trial date is yet to be fixed.
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| MCA: Liew’s predictions on Johor cocky Posted: 06 Feb 2013 03:17 PM PST
Labis MP Chua Tee Yong says the DAP's crystal-balling a possible win in Johor will not be taken seriously by BN. Anisah Shukry, FMT DAP's predictions of a possible win in Johor based on the support of 35% Malay, 80% Chinese and 50% Indian voters is "arrogant" and "presumptuous", a BN state leader said today. Johor, the birthplace of Umno and considered Barisan Nasional's last bastion, has been under the control of the ruling coalition since Independence. While Pakatan barely made a dent in 2008, winning just one federal and six states out of 26 and 56 seats respectively, DAP's Liew Chin Tong said that Johor could "fall like dominoes" in the 13th general election. Responding to this, Labis MP Chua Tee Yong, said: "It is worrying that DAP has assumed that the Chinese and Indians in Johor have no choice but to support PKR and DAP. "They assume that they will garner 50% of the Indian votes and at least 65% of the Chinese votes. This is very arrogant of them." Liew, who is Bukit Bendera MP, had listed several possible post-election scenarios in Johor, assuming Indian support for Pakatan was consistent at 50%:
But Chua, who is also Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, said that as long as the votes were not announced, no one could say for sure whether BN or Pakatan would win. 'BN doesn't make assumptions' He also refused to say if there was a possibility BN could actually lose to Pakatan in Johor, stressing that he did not dare make any assumptions. "Unlike Pakatan, we don't assume. That's why we still continue to work to gain the votes and confidence of the people," said Chua.
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| Shahrizat blows it for Umno in S’wak? Posted: 06 Feb 2013 03:13 PM PST Umno wanita chief Sharizat Abdul Jalil's arrogance and ignorance has made her a laughing stock in Sarawak. Joseph Tawie, FMT KUCHING: If former Umno Women, Family and Community Development 's Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil had been observant, she'd have noticed the incredulous looks on the faces of the crowd when she recently warned Sarawakians to be 'wary' of peninsular-based opposition leaders who stoke racial and religious issues. Here was a minister, who seemed oblivious to the fact that it was her bosses in Umno who had fine-tuned the art of stoking and perpetuating racial and religious disharmony in their bid to stay in power. "If you talk about propagating racial politics and religious issues, Umno is the worst. "As Umno Wanita chief, she should be the last person to tell the people of Sarawak what to do about racial and religious unity," said Sarawak PKR vice chairman See Chee How. See, who is also Batu Lintang assemblyman, said peninsular leaders such as Shahrizat should know that Sarawak is above race and religion. "Here we don't play politics with race and religion. It is not difficult for her to find out that there are no such things as racial and religious issues here. "And this is because in Sarawak there is no Umno," said See. See was alluding to shocking testimonies of witnesses in the ongoing Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry which revealed the extent peninsular Umno-BN leaders and their agents in Sabah went – following its entry into Sabah – to nuetralise the Christian community and consolidate their vote-banks by offering citizenships-for-votes to illegal immigrants who were Muslims. Sarawakians have been closely monitoring the unravellings of the RCI and former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's admission of guilt as well his counter claim that Tunku Abdul Rahman had done the same by giving away citizenships to a million aliens at the time. He had also reportedly called for an RCI on this. Shahrizat, who was handpicked by Mahathir into his cabinet, bloomed under Mahathir's guidance and thinking. Currently Umno women's chief and national Barisan Nasional chairperson, she was in Kuching in connection with the launching of 'program Gagasan Aspirasi Wanita' last weekend. During the launch, she told the crowd that the opposition would make all kinds of election promises but that most of them would be lies.
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| UMNO leader 'shows the money' - piles of it - at event Posted: 06 Feb 2013 12:28 PM PST
(Harakah Daily) - "This money is proof to residents that I, as the Tanah Merah UMNO chief, have the financial means to help the locals in the estates," said Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz. A Kelantan UMNO branch chief's act of arranging piles of cash during a ceramah programme has taken one step further the well-known cash-for-votes campaign practised by Barisan Nasional.
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| Berjasa: Third force for Malay voters? Posted: 06 Feb 2013 12:19 PM PST
(fz.com) - BERJASA, the party which rose from the "ashes" of the 1977 Kelantan Emergency before finding itself eclipsed after the 1990 polls, is set to resurface and contest the next general election. Sources say an official announcement will be made "very soon" – possibly on Friday. The party, which has been "quiet" for a long time, had first expressed its intention to take part in GE13 last March when talk was rife that polling would be held then. But their "announcement" last year did not get much attention in the media. But this time, it is said Malay/Muslim-based Berjasa is "ready to offer itself as the third force" and could provide the platform for individuals who want to take the plunge into the political arena but do not have a party for backing. The party has always portrayed itself as "a cross between Umno's nationalism stance and PAS' Islamic belief". Perhaps that would "appeal" to the likes of former PAS leaders Datuk Hasan Ali and Nasharudin Mat Isa – don't forget that Berjasa is a PAS breakaway. Or would former Umno man and current Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali be interested? It is not known how many members the party has at present or its reach nationwide. Hence, on its own it is not expected to cause a huge impact on the political landscape of the country. But it could be a different scenario should the party form a pact with other political entities. Berjasa will eye Malay/Muslim constituencies. That's a given so to speak. Its entry into the political arena will see a further split in Malay votes. Berjasa or Barisan Jemaah Islamiah Se-Malaysia was formed in 1977 following a political crisis in Kelantan, which led to a declaration of emergency in the state. And it played a big role in toppling the then Kelantan PAS state government. Since Merdeka Kelantan has always been ruled by PAS. And when the party joined the BN in 1973 it was agreed that Kelantan remain a PAS stronghold, with Umno having a "share" in the PAS dominated government. Thus the Kelantan Menteri Besar then was the late Datuk Mohammad Nasir from PAS. The party then was led by Datuk Asri Muda. Soon after, PAS-Umno rivalry intensified in Kelantan. Menteri Besar Datuk Mohammad Nasir, despite being a PAS man, was seen to be "siding" with Umno and frequently defied party instructions. Irritated, annoyed and angry even, PAS demanded his resignation. Mohammad Nasir refused and was later sacked from PAS but he remained menteri besar. A "no confidence" motion against the MB was tabled in the state assembly and carried by the 20 PAS assembly members. The 13 representatives from Umno and one from MCA walked out in protest. Mohammad Nasir's response was to call for the dissolution of the state assembly. A legal impasse ensued. Followers of Mohammad Nasir held demonstrations in the streets of Kota Baru, expressing their support for him. Violence and looting were reported. The federal government headed by Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn rushed an emergency bill in parliament which was passed. A state of emergency was declared and curfew imposed in the Kelantan state capital, Kota Baru. PAS was thrown out of the BN. Three months later, the federal government called for a snap election in Kelantan. Held on March 11, 1978, the election saw the participation of PAS, Umno and a third party formed earlier by Mohammad Nasir. It was named Berjasa. Read more at: http://fz.com/content/berjasa-third-force-malay-voters |
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