Senior Citizen’s Outrage: Open Letter To Sharizat

By
Orang Lama Malaysian

Open letter to Sharizat

Sent: Tue, 3 August, 2010 12:55:42

Many senior citizens are outraged by your uncalled for comments about the RM100 given to them by the Penang state government in appreciation of their contributions to the development of Penang.

Your comments indicate how uncultured you are, totally unbefitting of a cabinet minister. You said you are ashamed and offered your sympathies to Penang’s senior citizens because they are worth — according to your absurd calculation — less than RM10 a month in the eyes of the state government.

Can I ask you how much a senior citizen was worth when the BN ruled Penang? Absolutely nothing, Yes Nothing at all.

You went on to say that you thank God that there is a federal government and a Barisan Nasional government to take care of the people’s welfare without which the poor in Penang will be starving. Yes, the BN government looked after the people of Penang so well that on 8 March 2008, they kicked the BN of Penang!

As a senior citizen, let me tell you this. It is not the money that matters. It is the thought, the appreciation and the caring attitude of  the state government that senior citizens value most.

Did you say that the BN government looks after the people’s welfare? Let us examine the BN’s track record. The NEP has been in existence for almost 40 years and during this period about 1 trillion ringgit was allocated supposedly to help Malays through ASN, ASB and numerous other government programmes involving many government agencies.

Umnoputras hijacked the NEP and by masquerading as champions of the Malays siphoned off a sizeable amount of the funds to enrich themselves, their  families and their cronies. These Umnoputras live in palatial houses and live opulent lifestyles. Look at the posh cars they and their cronies drive and the designer clothes they wear while the poor Malays continue to languish in poverty, even after 52 years of Umno’s total dominance in Malaysian politics. How much have these Umnoputras, their families and cronies invested in high-end properties overseas? How much of the loot is stashed away in overseas banks?

A Morgan Stanley analyst estimated that between 1984 and 2003, RM360 billion was siphoned off by Umnoputras and their cronies. The Auditor-General’s Report bears ample testimony to the plunder of the nation’s wealth.

After more than 52 years of Merdeka, many kampungs do not have basic amenities like piped water and electricity while Umnoputras are wallowing  in wealth and luxury. No wonder the income differential in the Malay community is the highest among all ethnic groups in Asia.

You were defeated in the last elections and came into the cabinet through  the backdoor. We are ashamed of you No wonder Rafidah poured scorn on you. As minister of Women, Family and Community Development, you did little to  genuinely empower Malaysian women, especially Muslim women whose problems — marriage, divorce, custody of children, alimony, property rights etc, etc have remained unresolved. Your failures in this regard are well documented by women NGOs and Sisters in Islam.

You had the audacity to offer your sympathies to the senior citizens of  Penang. Let me tell you this:

Shut your face, honey. Guan Eng is making money (for Penang, of course), unlike you and the rest of Umno gang.

My advice to you is this:

Don’t open your mouth to make a bloody fool of yourself.  Do us a favour; disappear from the political scene.

Stop monkeying around.

Orang Lama Malaysian

                This entry was posted on Friday, 13 August 2010, 11:16 am and is filed under
Penang Government
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Stop the violent trend!

By
Thomas Lee

The live M-16 bullet that was sent together with a threatening note to DAP national publicity chief Tony Pua yesterday (Wednesday 11 August 2010) is not simply a cowardly intimidation against the Petaling Jaya Utara MP, but a dastardly dangerous threat to the whole peace-loving citizenry of the country.

The bullet and the note were mailed to Tony’s service centre in Damansara Utama in Petaling on the afternoon of Wednesday 11 August 2010.

The note said: “Tony Pua Kiam Wee. You are so brave? What do you want now? You better watch out. We know about your family, your house, your office, your car.”

One of the MP’s assistants has lodged a report at the Damansara police station. Tony also gave a statement to the police on the matter.

Tony told a press conference later that the threat was possibly related to his suggestion to the Selangor state government to do away with bumiputera discounts for luxury homes costing over RM500,000 each and for upmarket commercial property in the state, to improve competitiveness and restore investor confidence.

Tony said this at a forum on the Selangor economy last month, but he also said that the 7% discounts enjoyed by Malays and other bumiputeras should be retained for homes costing below RM500,000 each.

The evil death threat against Tony is not the first received by DAP leaders in recent time. In 2008, DAP national chairman Karpal Singh received a 9mm live bullet and a threatening note at his office. The then DAP national publicity chief Teresa Kok’s family home was also attacked in 2008 with petrol bomb. The petrol bomb did not explode, but an accompanying note warned the Selangor senior state executive councillor that she and her family would be burnt to death.

Such despicable cowardly actions are done by people who are obviously evil, malicious, malevolent, demented, and perhaps even mad.

It is even possible that these violent and dangerous maniacs are used by unprincipled and unscrupulous political rivals of the DAP to daunt, discourage and dishearten its leaders, and to sabotage and destabilize the party by creating fear, uncertainty and incertitude among its members and supporters. This is surely very plausible and possible, in view of growing influence and impact of the DAP among the people, including even the Malays.

It surely is a very sad day for our country that, instead of growing towards a more civilized stage of socio-political, cultural, and moral development to become a more advanced civilized society, we have people adopting, expounding and promoting a barbarous culture of racialist and violent politics in our midst.

Tony, for example, was apparently threatened because he had suggested the abrogation of discounts for luxury houses costing more than RM500,000 for bumiputeras.

Note that Tony does not advocate the abolition of special rights and priviledges of the bumiputeras or the annulment of the affirmative policies and programmes for them when he suggested that discounts for luxury homes costing more than half a million ringgit each be rescinded in favour of spreading the subvention on the basis of basic economic needs, rather than a blanket subsidy discount grant which could be abused by the rich and powerful.

Any sensible and honest person would agree that those who could afford luxury homes costing more than half a million ringgit would certainly not be dire need for financial assistance.

In an egalitarian society like our, where the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities, it is certainly right and proper to have affirmative policies and programmes to assist those in our midst who may be disadvantaged by reasons of historical circumstance and economic deprivation.

No one, including Tony, I am sure, would disagree on this. And the non-bumiputera citizens of this country have never questioned or challlenged Article 153 of the Federal Constitution which provides for the protection of the special position of the bumiputeras.

However, when certain members of the disadvantaged group become rich and powerful, then it is their duty and privilege to offer assistance to those in their community who have yet to achieve the quality of life and lifestye that they are now enjoying. They should not join in competing for the subsidy discounts, but should instead allow the discounts to be used to benefit those less fortunate than them.

Tony is not wrong per se to make his suggestion, and his proposal does not invalidate or vitiates the affirmative policies and programmes the federal government has formulated and implemented to uplift the quality of life and lifestyle of the general bumiputera community.

The sending of the live M-16 bullet to threaten Tony and his family members is certainly a dastardly act which should be condemned by all right-thinking and peace-loving people of Malaysia.

Any decent and decorous person with basic moral principles will not simply tolerate and condone such lunatic behaviours and actions, and it is time we stand up visibly and vocally to demand that the authorities concerned should view such threats very seriously and spare no effort in bringing the culprits to justice.

I trust our police will act without fear or favour to bring the culprit to book, even if he happens to be a powerful politician or works for one.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 13 August 2010, 11:52 am and is filed under
Crime
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


IMF wants gov’t to take ‘decisive’ action on NEM

AFP

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Malaysia to take “decisive” action on reforms under a model programme aimed at revamping a controversial four-decade-old affirmative action policy.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced in March a ‘New Economic Model’ or NEM, aimed at reforming elements of the policy favouring the country’s majority ethnic Malays in a bid to boost economic competitiveness.

Details of the reform programme, including its timing, have not been announced yet.

The Washington-based IMF said yesterday it was looking forward to the NEM’s rollout.

In a report after annual consultations between the IMF executive board and the Malaysian government, the fund acknowledged the “ambitious vision” of Najib’s administration for a far-reaching economic transformation over the longer term.

The board of directors “agreed that the comprehensive structural reform agenda, at the heart of the New Economic Model, holds out promise of faster and inclusive growth,” the report said.

“Directors looked forward to a decisive effort and sustained momentum in implementing this agenda,” it said.

They also called for an “effective communication strategy” to forge “broad public support” for these efforts.

“Further gradual liberalisation of product and labour markets will help exploit policy complementarities, encourage private investment and harness the benefits of reform,” the report said.

Najib, who came to office last year, said the New Economic Model was designed to boost growth, create a high-quality workforce, and attract badly needed foreign investment.

The model also aims to stem Malaysia’s ‘brain drain’ with measures to retain skilled professionals, and make markets more competitive by phasing out price controls and subsidies.

The affirmative action policy which hands Malays privileges in housing, education and business has been criticised as uncompetitive and improperly benefiting the elites.

Opposition from right-wing groups

Under the planned changes to the policy, the government will seek to raise the income levels of all disadvantaged groups, rather than focusing solely on ethnic Malays, the dominant ethnic group in the Southeast Asian nation.

Najib’s reforms face opposition from conservative Malay rights groups.

The country has sizeable ethnic Indian and Chinese minorities, who mostly deserted Najib’s ruling coalition in the 2008 general election.

The IMF also said that Malaysia’s near-term growth prospects were favourable.

The economy was projected to expand by 6.7 percent in 2010 but growth is expected to moderate to 5.3 percent in 2011, the IMF report said.

It also said that IMF staff felt Malaysia’s ringgit currency appeared to be “weaker than its equilibrium level in real effective terms.”

The IMF executive board, according to the report, agreed with the Malaysian authorities’ view that a stronger ringgit could boost over time the role of domestic demand as a growth driver and promote a shift toward higher-value added industries.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 August 2010, 7:16 pm and is filed under
Economics
,
NEP
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


TBH death – if truth not out, then let new govt establish it1

Tweets :

“What is d institutional responsibility n culpability of MACC 4d death of TeohBengHock n what mechanism is available 2investigate it?”

August 13, 2010 11:45 PM

This question I posed @TBH death anniversary memorial Kajang If BN govt cannot bring out truth TBH death then it must b done by a new govt!

August 13, 2010 11:52 PM

Kajang TBH memorial endorsed if  truth is not out, then TBH will b among top 10 issues of 13th GeneralElections 2gether w #aminurashid kugan

August 14, 2010 12:02 AM

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 August 2010, 12:47 am and is filed under
Teoh Beng Hock
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The Battle for Putrajaya

By
Thomas Lee

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng has announced three promises that the Pakatan Rakyat would implement if the alternative coalition comes to power after the next general election.

The promises are (1) abolishing the controversial saman ekor (postal summons) scheme; (2) providing an annual ex-gratia of RM1,000 to each senior citizen aged 60 and above; and (3) providing free wi-fi or wireless broadband service throughout the country.

According to Guan Eng, the DAP central executive committee had agreed during its meeting on Thursday 12 August 2010 to issue a directive to all party leaders to publicise the three promises during all political functions.

He said the three promises proposed by the DAP had been accepted by its Pakatan Rakyat partners, and would duly be implemented should the alternative coalition win the Battle of Putrajaya at the next general election.

“These are the three policy initiatives that will bring benefit to the people that we are confident will be carried out by the Pakatan Rakyat should we win Putrajaya. We do not just want to harp on the corrupt practices of the Barisan Nasional, but also want to talk about what we can do for the people,” Lim told a press conference at the party headquarters in Petaling Jaya.

On the controversial saman ekor scheme, Guan Eng said that blacklisting vehicle owners was not only unfair but actually a violation of the principles of natural justice, and should be declared an illegal practice.

On the annual ex-gratia for senior citizens, Guan Eng said it would be a practical way of showing recognition and appreciation to them for their contribution to the country.

He said the exercise would merely cost the federal government RM2.1 billion annually, and “what is RM2.1 billion when the country squanders RM28 billion annually to corruption”.

Regarding the provision of free wi-fi service throughout the country, Guan Eng said the move is part of the impetus to take the nation to greater heights in the fast-changing world scenario.

“We must innovate and only when you do that, you are racing to the top. If not, you are racing to the bottom,” he said.

The three policy initiatives proposed by the DAP certainly deserve the support and endorsement of the people.

However, we should take an indepth look at each of these three promises and, perhaps, offer some inputs to augment and enhance their benefits and advantages.

First, the controversial saman ekor scheme. It is a blacklisting system which bars traffic offenders who fail to pay their summonses from renewing their licences and road tax.

Currently, more than 650,000 traffic offenders are being blacklisted, indicating the seriousness of the traffic situation in the country, especially that of speeding motorists.

This is reflected in the horror reports we often read in the newspapers and see in television, particularly during the festive balik kampung periods, of tragic road accidents when even whole families are wiped out, with many others suffering the loss of limbs.

No doubt, Guan Eng is right in saying that the saman ekor scheme is unfair and a violation of the rights of the vehicle owners, and should be done away with.

Nevertheless, the main issue is not simply the issuing of saman ekor per se, but the very critical matter of irresponsible speeding motorists who are often the cause of the loss of lives and limbs on the highways.

Abolishing the saman ekor scheme will protect the rights of drivers who should remain innocent until proven guilty, but how do we prevent motorists from speeding and driving recklessly? How do we curb those irresponsible lethal speeding drivers who are the cause of tragic fatal road crashes?

The saman ekor is meant to serve as a deterrent to deter and dissuade motorists from speeding, which is obviously a very critical problem on the Malaysian roads.

In abrogating the saman ekor scheme, the Pakatan Rakyat should come out with a feasible and viable option to resolve the sempiternal problem of thoughtless and foolhardy drivers on the Malaysian highways.

I have one suggestion which may sound bizarre, perhaps even weird and uncanny, but logically sensible and practical.

My outlandish suggestion is that to require all imported and locally-made vehicles to have engines which allow only a maximum speed of, say, 150kph.

I simply cannot comprehend why vehicles are built with speed limit of up to 250kph when they are not allow to travel beyond 120kph.

Making it mandatory to have vehicle engines capped at a speed limit of 150kph will resolve once and for all the perennial problem of speeding on the highways.

On the issue of an annual ex-gratia for senior citizens, instead of giving each RM1,000 a year, I want the Pakatan Rakyat to consider abolishing personal income for all senior citizens 60 and above, even if they are still in employ. Those earning less than RM36,000 a year should be given a cost-of-living allowance (COLA) of at least RM250 to RM500 a month. Senior citizens who have contributed to Sosco during their working life should be given free medical treatments, with Sosco footing the bills.

Senior citizens who have their own business or companies will not be qualified for these privileges.

Regarding the provision of free wi-fi service throughout the country, the Pakatan Rakyat should also consider abolishing tax on computers, especially laptops, and, perhaps, even offer financial subsidies for students from poor families to buy laptops.

If the Pakatan Rakyat is prepared to pledge that these people-friendly policies will be implemented if it takes over the federal government, then I am sure it will be able to mobilize massive support for the Battle of Putrajaya.

But, first it must get its acts together, and treat the invisible wounds from the civil war within the coalition, especially the PKR, with the same circumspect vigilance that is given to physical injuries displayed publicly, ala the knock out Khalid drama, the Tian Chua boycott Sin Chew fiasco, the Tee Boon Hock scandal, etc.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 August 2010, 5:30 am and is filed under
DAP
,
Pakatan Rakyat
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Is NEM a pipe dream?

Breaking Views

The Malaysian Insider

August 15, 2010

AUG 15 — Tun Abdul Razak Hussein could never have imagined that his brainchild, the New Economic Policy (NEP), would ever split the country.

That it has 40 years after coming into being. Meant to eradicate poverty among all Malaysians and uplift the Bumiputeras who were economically backward then, it is now seen as the sacrosanct right of every Malay.

Especially the corporate ones who fear losing their tranche of Approved Permits (APs), shares and government contracts.

The NEP’s great defender today is Datuk Ibrahim Ali, the diminutive Perkasa chief with lofty ambitions of keeping privileges as Malay rights. With him, to a certain extent, is Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who argues the policy is needed until the Malays reach their targets.

Left unsaid is that 22 years of the 40 years of the NEP, which officially ended in 1990, was under Dr Mahathir’s helm and shadow. He brought Malaysia, and Malaysians especially the Malays, kicking and screaming into the 21st century but that wasn’t enough to hit targets set under the NEP.

Except for a few tycoons and AP holders. And government-linked-companies (GLCs) that crowd out the small-time Bumiputera and other Malaysian entrepreneurs hoping to get a slice of the Malaysian economic pie.

Tun Abdul Razak’s banker son Datuk Seri Nazir has argued that the present-day NEP affirmative action policies are a bastardised version of his father’s vision for the country. His elder brother, Datuk Seri Najib, is currently the prime minister who has proposed the “promising” New Economic Model (NEM), as described by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the past week.

But the NEM remains on paper, scraps of which announced but yet to be implemented. The IMF is hoping it will be executed soon for Malaysia needs the reforms. The MCA is asking for a swift implementation. The DAP is wondering whether it remains a “trial balloon” or will it actually ever be implemented?

These are questions only Najib can answer.

He has opened both the economic congresses organised by Ibrahim’s Perkasa, which is hell-bent opposed to parts of the NEM, and that by MCA, which wants the reforms to ensure equity for all Malaysians, particularly the non-Bumiputeras.

Ibrahim today criticised both Nazir and MCA for what came out of the Chinese Economic Congress a day earlier, which unfortunately was not read by the Bumiputera demographic because Umno-owned and controlled newspaper Mingguan Malaysia and Berita Minggu did not deem fit to publish it as news.

The Umno president does himself no credit if those who argue for his policies do not get airtime or space in the Umno-owned press. Only voices that defend the NEP get heard and that will reinforce the community’s view that the out-dated policy should remain in place.

Nazir is right, the NEP has been bastardised beyond recognition of its founder Abdul Razak. He never had a chance to see how the NEP ever turned out.

Najib has a choice of seeing through the NEM but only if he defends and nurtures it despite criticisms that it won’t benefit one community. Like the early days of the NEP, the NEM must be seen to benefit all Malaysians for all time.

Otherwise, Najib will share a worse fate than his father. The NEM will be stillborn. Because no one, not even the man who thought of it, defended it before it can be implemented.

Does Najib want the NEM to be a pipe dream? Only he can determine its future.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 August 2010, 11:21 pm and is filed under
DAP
,
MCA
,
Najib Razak
,
NEP
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Is the New Economic Model (NEM) a myth or a reality – is it still at  “trial balloon” stage?

Recently news headlines on the New Economic Model (NEM) have suddenly dominated the media like “IMF asks Malaysia to take ‘decisive‘ action on reforms” and “Najib tells Chinese to lead reforms under NEM, 10MP” in the past 24 hours.

References to NEM appears to have come into vogue again, coming out from the shadows from where it had been banished when the Tenth Malaysia Plan  was unveiled in June in Parliament.

These beg the question whether the New Economic Model, announced by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on 30th March this year is a myth or reality.

The NEM has been described  as one of the four critical pillars of Najib’s National Transformation of Malaysia, representing the ambitious Economic Transformation Programme to transform Malaysia by 2020 into a developed, competitive and high income economy with inclusivity and sustainability.

The fourth pillar, the Tenth Malaysia Plan, which was adopted by Parliament in early July, is to operationalise the NEM in the five years from 2011-2015.

However, strident objections from rightwing extremist groups  to the NEM, particularly to its biggest idea to begin the dismantling the New Economic Policy (NEP) with the implementation of transparent and market-friendly affirmative action, which will transition from ethnic considerations to emphasize the lower-income 40% of households have led to Najib distancing and even dissociating himself from the NEM.

This was why before he presented the Tenth Malaysia Plan in Parliament in early June which is to operationalise the NEM,  Najib made the shocking statement that the NEM is not the Government’s “final stand” but merely the “trial balloons” of a group of experts from the global market’s perspective.

Is this why when the DAP National Publicity Secretary and MP for PJ Utara, Tony  Pua made the proposal for the removal of bumiputera discounts for luxury homes and commercial property to improve competitiveness and restore investor confidence while retaining the seven per cent discounts enjoyed by Malays and other bumiputeras for homes below RM500,000 – which is fully in line with the Biggest Idea in the NEM for needs-based affirmative action policies  – Najib’s Umno Cabinet Ministers were  in the front line among Tony’s critics and detractors.

The time has come for Najib to declare unequivocally whether the NEM with its Biggest Idea to replace ethnic considerations with needs-based affirmative action policies is still a myth or reality – whether it is still at the level of “trial balloons” or whether it has the full and commitment of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 August 2010, 12:04 pm and is filed under
Economics
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The IMF Report Card on Malaysia

Commentary

by
Observer

Background

The IMF, under Article IV of its Articles of Agreement, holds bilateral discussions annually with its Member countries. These discussions are in the nature of a review of member country economic policies, recent economic developments, IMF staff assessments of prospects and the presentation of policy recommendations. A report is then prepared for presentation to the Fund’s Executive Board of Directors. At the conclusion of the Board Discussion, a Public Information Notice (PIN) is released together with the full report.  The Article IV consultation with Malaysia for 2010 took place in May/June of this year and following Board consideration, the PIN and the Report were released on August 13th 2010.

In its customary approach, these IMF documents are highly nuanced and attempt to convey the Fund’s views in measured and balanced tones in order to minimize possible disagreements with the country in question. They err on the side of caution and down play differences and criticisms of policies. The 2010 Malaysia report needs to be read in that context. It is remarkable that the report questions past policies, takes a somewhat critical and skeptical view of many current government policies and expresses open disagreement in certain instances. The report also exposes the dithering and inability of the Government to take firm measures in pursuit of its own announced policy reforms. This brief analysis attempts to highlight and bring to the fore a number of issues that in the view of the Fund reflect on the Government’s capacity to take on the task of implementing its modest reform agenda.

Key Issues

The report begins by observing that there has been broad agreement in the past between the authorities and the Fund on desirable policies—a prudent fiscal stance, reforms of government linked companies, measures to improve the investment climate, flexibility in monetary and exchange rate management, and further steps to strengthen Malaysia’s financial system. The report goes to note: “
Views have differed, however, on the pace of reform. The authorities have favored a more gradual approach, perhaps better attuned to political realities and implementation constraints.
” These statements represent a fairly open criticism of the Government and its credibility in pursuing reforms. They also seem to question the commitment of the Government to follow through on the policy agenda contained in the NEM issued in March of this year.

As the report indicates, the key focus of the consultations were on the policy requirements to support the recovery and the priorities for structural reforms over the medium term. On the issue of Fiscal Policy, the Fund argued that “budgetary gains would prove transitory, however, if the broader agenda of fiscal reforms remains unfinished. In particular, subsidy reform and the introduction of the goods and service tax should not be delayed.” It is worthy of note that the Government acknowledged that these were high priorities but that a broad consensus on implementation modalities was still being forged. This stance reveals that the Government has a weak hand and is divided.

A similar divide between the Government and the Fund was discernable concerning Structural Reforms. While the Fund saw signs of a renewed political commitment to push reforms, the Report expressed the view that molding the necessary social consensus would require time.

On
Exchange rate
 policies, the Fund took the view that the Ringgit was in real effective terms weaker than its estimated equilibrium level. The report openly points out that the “
authorities disagree with this assessment
”. The Fund for its part argues “
……..a stronger ringgit in real effective terms could facilitate over time the implementation of the economic transformation program by contributing to higher real incomes for households, greater capital deepening, faster productivity gains, and demand shifts in favor of services.
” It should be observed that this represents a rather stark and open disagreement between the two parties.

The report points to a rethinking of the development strategy as Malaysia stands at the crossroads with the old  economic model having lost the ability to drive the country forward and to free Malaysia from the middle-income trap where it is now stuck. The report notes the recent steps announced by the Government – the 1Malaysia program, the Government Transformation Program, the Economic Transformation Program built on the New Economic Model, (NEM) and the Tenth Malaysia Plan, (10MP). It is most significant that the report goes on to state: “
Development policies have been dressed in rhetoric before but the sense of urgency seems higher now than in the past.
” This is a rather remarkable and blunt statement and points to a question about the credibility of the Government.

Recent Performance

While acknowledging the recovery in growth terms in the last three quarters, the Fund projects a rate of growth of  about 7 percent for the current year but a tapering off in 2011. The report is pessimistic about a pronounced recovery in private investment, given still unused capacity.  Capital expenditure of public enterprises is expected to pick up. Thus, the prognosis is for government induced investment rather than the private sector providing the impetus for growth. These trends are indicative of the fact that public investment is likely to be the dominant factor as in the past.

The Fund observes that equity prices (stock market) have show an increase of 5 percent in the current year, a performance far below other regional markets, reflecting Malaysia’s weaker capital inflows and shallower correction in the sell-off. The Fund report points to net capital outflows throughout the year. Portfolio inflows picked up in the second half of 2009, but outward FDI and ?other investments swamped the uptick. The Report also refers to the fact that both FDI and portfolio flows have been negative in net terms for many years reflecting underlying trends—the expansion abroad of Malaysian businesses, trade financing flows, and the recycling of current account surpluses. The report makes the point that over the last few years net FDI outflows have grown, as a result of limited opportunities for domestic investment by, as well as growing investment abroad by Malaysian companies seeking economies of scale, a regional exposure (e.g., in telecom), or supplies of natural resources (oil and gas field or land for plantations). The main drivers were sustained current account surpluses, a revival of trade credit from Malaysian exporters to importers overseas, and an increased willingness of the private sector to place funds abroad. In brief, these observations point to the emergence of a weak domestic investment climate. While the report does not detail the causes for this weakening, it is clear that much of it can be linked to policy failures. The term “capital flight” is not used in the report but it is not hard to draw conclusions from the report that this indeed has taken place on a significant scale.

The report goes on to mention the fact that the nation’s external reserves fell from RM 126 billion in mid 2008 to RM 88 billion in March of 2008. By June of this year, reserves at recovered to RM 95 billion. By way of elaboration the report alludes to the fact that these gyrations in reserve levels could be attributed to interventions in the foreign exchange markets by Bank Negara and the capital flight that has taken place.

Looking ahead, the report makes the following comment: “
The outlook for the medium term depends on the scope and speed of the government’s own economic transformation program
”.  Further comments in the report suggest that the Fund does not have much confidence in full and speedy implementation of reform measures. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Fund sees the external imbalance reflecting impediments to investment and high precautionary savings, which current policies address only partially.

The report suggests that achieving the Government’s target of doubling per capita income over the decade will depend on private domestic demand. A revival of private investment should compensate for a roll back of public projects, an enhancement in social welfare and new domestic business opportunities to curb capital flight. The report indicates that Government officials countered by suggesting that they saw encouraging signs of a renewed political commitment to drive the reform agenda but hedged this by cautioning that grass-root support was still being harnessed. These reservations indicate that there is still no full commitment to embark on a reform agenda.

The Fund’s report deals with the current fiscal situation at some length. While acknowledging that the 2010 Budget took steps to push back the deficit from 7 percent in 2009 to 5.5 percent in 2010, the Report is critical of the scope of the measures taken. These are skewed to the expenditure side, with economies expected from improved procurement as well as cuts in discretionary spending and transfers. From the tone of the report, the Fund appears to be skeptical that these measures will be adequate. The report notes that the long?delayed
goods and service tax
 (GST) announced several years ago has yet to be enacted.  Rather pointedly the report notes that the GST is intended to broaden—and stabilize—the tax base by replacing two existing taxes in a revenue neutral fashion. The report also refers to the fact that tax holidays represent a very large drain on the budget, estimated at about half of total tax revenues.

The report makes the following pointed criticisms of Government fiscal policies:

“
Fiscal risks in Malaysia have grown over the years
. Policy has been pro-cyclical in good times, setting the stage for unprecedented deficits when budget support was necessary during the crisis. Increased dependence on oil revenue further undermines the public finances.”

“
Consolidation is needed to reconstitute room for maneuver and forestall market concerns
”.

“Budgetary gains will prove transitory, however, if the broader agenda of fiscal reforms remains unfinished.”

 “
Savings can be achieved by rationalizing subsidies and tax structures
. Political realities suggest that subsidy reform needs to be gradual but sustained. The sooner it starts the better. The broad approach under consideration—centered on periodic reductions of key subsidies with compensatory cash transfers to the most vulnerable groups—seems broadly appropriate, provided that reform fatigue does not set in.”

In addition to the above, the report recommends that
Malaysia should strengthen its budget framework along three dimensions
, namely a)  an indicative consolidation path along which the deficit is brought back to more manageable levels. This approach could cast budget decisions in a starker multi-year perspective and provide discipline; b) budget documents incorporate a
statement of fiscal risks
 to assess vulnerabilities surrounding budget outcomes and c) budget decisions could emphasize the evolution of the
non?oil balance
 and be benchmarked against a framework that links spending to an equitable drawdown of oil wealth.

These recommendations are designed to provide greater transparency and accountability and also to move towards more prudent use of non-renewable national assets.

Fund Views on the NEM and the 10 Five Year Plan

The Fund’s report acknowledges that the NEM report suggests a sea-change in the attitude toward comprehensive structural reforms. That said, it goes on to state “
It sets up a stark choice for Malaysians and their political leadership, a choice between muddling through in a business-as-usual mode and going for a historical transformation of the economy………. The agenda is daunting and will require difficult trade-offs, given the tight fiscal envelope
”. This statement is unambiguous and expresses a degree of skepticism about the ability and willingness on the part of the Government to persist with the implementation of the reform agenda.

The Fund has also called for a stronger ringgit over the medium term as this will help achieve the objectives of the NEM and the 10MP. The Fund argues that an appreciated ringgit in real effective terms will over time facilitate the implementation of the authorities’ economic transformation program and contribute to higher real incomes for households, greater capital deepening, faster productivity gains, and demand shifts in favor of services. The Fund report also observes that structural rigidities have contributed to the imbalance between national savings over investment. The report goes on to note: “
Moreover, there is no feasible reorientation of the policy mix in the near term (toward a more expansionary fiscal stance and a more restrictive monetary policy) that could speed up the external adjustment without compromising domestic stability—or potentially triggering speculative inflows.
”

The report in the concluding section returns to the fiscal picture and warns that budgetary gains will prove transitory, if a broader agenda of fiscal reforms remains unfinished. It stresses that poorly targeted and distortionary fuel subsidies should be phased out sooner rather than later, and the introduction of a goods and service tax should not be unduly delayed.

The concluding part of the report states: “
The structural reform agenda is daunting and will require difficult trade-offs, given the tight fiscal envelope. Yet, hard choices seem unavoidable to lift productivity growth and living standards. Accordingly, implementation will need to be calibrated to political realities. Acting at a measured pace on a broad front is probably the best way to exploit policy complementarities and harness the benefits of reform. However, careful communication will be needed to sustain the adjustment and pre-empt reform fatigue.
”

Concluding Remarks

The IMF’s report on the Article IV consultations is a remarkable document in that it is not couched in the normal diplomatic niceties. The analysis and assessments are sharp and pointed. Furthermore, the tone of the report conveys a degree of skepticism about the seriousness with which the commitments contained in the NEM and the 10th Malaysia Five Year Plan are likely to be pursued. The report lays out in rather stark terms the underlying structural imbalances that exist and makes the case for addressing these daunting challenges in a systematic manner. It spells out in clear terms the needed policy changes in the fiscal field, exchange rate policies and monetary policy. It makes the case for reform of the subsidy program now in place. Although the report does not directly touch on the issue of affirmative action policies which have long driven Malaysian economic policies, the underlying message is clear. By endorsing the NEM, the report implicitly calls for a fresh start that rejects the distorting elements of the NEP.

The Executive Board of the IMF stressed that a sound and sustained fiscal adjustment is necessary to put the public debt ratio on a downward path and encouraged the authorities to follow the indicative deficit path proposed in the Tenth Malaysia Plan. Directors looked for a decisive effort and sustained momentum in implementing this agenda.

The IMF has flashed the yellow card and warned the Government on the need to remove imbalances and distortions. It is now up to the Government to act boldly and introduce reform measures that it has announced but which are being held back because of opposition from vested interest groups, PERKASA and its allies in particular. The 2011 Budget to be announced in October offers an opportunity. The issue is: will there be a new start or will the nation be subjected to the same old rhetoric?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 August 2010, 3:59 pm and is filed under
Economics
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


For The Love of Allah, And Only for That!

Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya

By
M. Bakri Musa

During this Ramadan, like all previous ones, mosques will be full of worshipers and the treasuries of Muslim charities will be flooded with generous donations.  This is true of my little Muslim community here in the southern tip of Silicon Valley, California, as well as in the heart of Islam, Mecca.

            In my community, praise be to Allah, we have no difficulty finding sponsors for our weekly community iftar (breaking of the fast).  We have also conveniently made our annual fundraising event, “Feeding of the Soul,” during Ramadan.  As my folks back in the old kampong would say, we are mengambil kesempatan durian runtuh (taking advantage of the durian season).

            However, as my young Imam Ilyas observed in his Friday sermon, this heightened spirituality and generosity during Ramadan, while certainly praiseworthy, would be more so if we could extend them throughout the year.

             Ramadan holds a special reverence for Muslims.  It is the month in which the Quran was first revealed to our Prophet Muhammad, May the Blessings of Allah be upon Him.  That should be reason enough to hold the month in high esteem.

             We are also told that prayers and other spiritual deeds offered during Ramadan would carry “forty times more reward” than at any other time.  And on the special “Night of Power (Lailatul Qadar), said to be one of the odd nights of the last ten days of Ramadan, those deeds are “better than that of a thousand months!”

             Muslims presumably need this further assurance for the month’s special place!

             I have difficulty when religious deeds, or indeed any good deeds for that matter, are reduced to the simplistic accumulation of “brownie points.”  In this case, the collecting of merit points, Boy Scout style, to be later redeemed presumably at the Gates of Heaven.

             I am reminded of this eloquent prayer of the eighth century Muslim hazrat (saint), Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya:

             O God! If I worship Thee for fear of Hell, then burn me in Hell

            And if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, then exclude me from there.

            But if I worship Thee for Thine own sake,

            Then grudge me not Your Everlasting Beauty!

            Her prayer brought back fond memories of my late grandfather, Haji Salam bin Tachik.  Yes, his name – Salam – was a reflection of him, a man at peace with himself.  Whenever he was offered an odd job by a neighbor, he would promise to give his best, and then sealed it with a handshake uttering, “Kerana Allah” (because of Allah).

            And he did his best and gave all he had.  I would often criticize him for expending so much effort that was way out of proportion to what he would be paid.  He was not at all perturbed by my carping.  Instead he would reply, “Grandson, I did it not to please the man in the hope that he would give more work or better pay in the future, but because I had made a promise to Allah.”

            Kerana Allah, he would repeatedly remind me.  He did not say that he was worried of “sinning” and fearing God’s wrath if he were to cheat his employer by doing a less-than-satisfactory job.  His love of Allah was enough for him to give his best and to avoid deeds that would earn His wrath.  That was what kept him on the “straight path.”

             I remind myself of my grandfather’s simple lesson and Rabi’a’s moving prayer this Ramadan whenever I am called to tend upon yet another indigent patient.  What with the present trying economic times, there are plenty of such patients.  And as per my Imam’s advice, I have tried to live through my grandfather’s creed throughout the year.

             There are plenty of generous deeds being done in Malaysia and elsewhere during Ramadan.  Many are high profile events like elaborate iftars in fancy restaurants and generous donations to the disadvantaged.  Let us hope that those are done for the sake of Allah, and only for His sake, in the spirit of Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya, and be continued outside of Ramadan, as per my Imam’s sermon.

Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya

 Rabi’a was the fourth (hence her name) daughter of a poor family.  They were robbed while traveling in a caravan and she ended up being sold as a slave to a cruel master.

            She spent her evenings praying after her chores were done.  One night her master was awakened by the sound of her prayer lamenting the fact that she was unable to carry out His command as she was enslaved.  Her prayer so affected her owner that he felt ashamed and sacrilegious in keeping a slave, and offered instead to be her slave and her be the mistress of the manor.

             She instead opted for her freedom, which she spent meditating and learning.  And learn she did, and in her own unique way.  She was not all impressed with the superficialities of the faith or the mindless rituals of its followers.  Despite being a woman and single, her fame spread.

             It was said that when she undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Ka’aba was so enthralled with her pending arrival that it moved halfway to meet her!  Now to have the Ka’aba come to you and not the other way around is highly symbolic in the Islamic scheme of things.  It is of course a less lofty version of the hadith theme that if Muhammad (pbuh) would not come to the mountain, then it would come to him!

             Rabi’a however was not in the least impressed or enthralled by the gesture, and was reported to have retorted, “It is the Lord of the house whom I need; what have I to do with the house?  I need to meet with Him Who said, ‘Who approaches Me by a span’s length, I will approach him by the length of a cubit.’  The Ka’aba which I see has no power over me; what joy does the beauty of the Ka’aba bring to me?”

             She rightly separated and was not confused by the object of veneration from the subject.  Some would say that hers was the height of arrogance; to me, putting things in perspective!  It is not the Ka’aba that Muslims should be praying to, rather Allah.

             In misogynist medieval Arabic culture, Rabi’a stood out as a shining light and an exemplary teacher.  Teachers would do well to heed her maxim:  “You call yourself a teacher; therefore learn!”  She also stood out in many other ways.  In a faith and culture that frankly abhor celibacy and non-marriage, Rabia’ remained single and celibate.  She was, in the tradition of nuns, already ‘married’ to God.  Meaning, fully and exclusively devoted to Allah!

             Legend has it that she was found one day running on the streets of Basra carrying a torch in one hand and a pail of water in the other.  When asked what she was doing, she replied, “I want to put out the fires of Hell and burn down the rewards of Paradise.  They block the way to God.  I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God.”  Hence her famous prayer!

             Unfortunately today religion, in particular Islam of the official Malaysian variety, is simplistically reduced to a series of dos and don’ts, as well as the accompanying mindset of garnering reward and avoiding punishment.  The intrinsic value and satisfaction of doing good, and the avoidance of evil for its own (meaning, Allah’s) sake, are lost.

             Rabi’a’s concept of “Divine love” (For the love of God), also found in other faiths, was her guiding principle.  God should be loved for His own sake, not out of fear of Hell or the promise of Heaven, as beautifully encapsulated in her prayer.  Indeed such primordial emotions as fear and sublime ones like hope can be like a veil, hindrance to the full vision of Allah.

             This Ramadan as we fast, pray, give zakat, and do all the meritorious deeds Allah has commanded us to do, let us do so not in the promise of the reward of Heaven, or the fear that we would end up in Hell should we fail to do them, but for the love of Allah, and only for that.  Nor should we do good merely for public recognition and rewards, rather for its own sake – kerana Allah.

             For me, this Ramadan is also a time to remember and relive the lesson my grandfather taught me so well some 50 years ago.  May the soul of Haji Salam bin Tachik rest in peace!

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 August 2010, 11:10 am and is filed under
Bakri Musa
,
Islam
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Is new Medical Act responsible for dumped babies?

Letter

by
Rudolf Tiller

IS NEW MEDICAL ACT RESPONSIBLE FOR DUMPED BABIES?

The frequency of babies/ fetuses found dumped at doorsteps, garbage dumps, drains, rivers, some killed blatantly and buried, or flushed down toilets have been on the rise over the last two to three years. Media reports suggest that the incidences reported are just the tip of the iceberg.

Shahrizat has claimed more support be given to single mothers. A lawyer apparently by profession, her latest outrageous outburst has now been to reprehensibly execute the parents. Ali Rustam has this novel idea that special schools be built only for teenaged mothers but soon after decided that an expedient scheme would be to actually reduce the matrimonial age to a minor 15 years. Rosmah on the other hand, appears totally lost and doesn’t seem to know actually what to do. But at least she has not come out with some of the ludicrous propositions suggested by Shahrizat or Ali Rustam.

Illicit sex and pregnancies have been on the rise for some time now wreaking social havoc especially to Malay families. With free pornography on the internet, aided further by some rather whacky Malay tabloids and our politicians setting poor examples by bombarding our kids daily on TV with sodomy cases, sexual escapades by politicians  – a foreigner will think this is the norm in our country. In a climate such as this, teachers, despite their best efforts, cannot help if kids end up thinking that sex and immorality are OK.  Coupled with poor discipline, teenage pregnancies and gangsterism are now established problems in schools.

Malaysia faced a somewhat similar problem in the 1970s when the same social problems cropped up during the “Minah Karan” era when Free Trade Zones comprising of Electronic and Semiconductor companies sprouted up all over the country. Although previous Health Director Generals knew about these problems, they realized that acting on them would introduce other social problems. To avoid stepping into uncharted territory, they condoned abortions until our education system, counseling and improved socio-economic environment reduced the incidence of unwanted pregnancies.

Parents, boyfriends, husbands, wives, victims, etc would visit their doctors discretely who would then arrange for an abortion although abortions are technically illegal in this country unlike in Singapore where abortion is legal on socio-medical grounds and the legal time limit for abortion there is 24 weeks into pregnancy. Singapore further does not define an age limit of consent for the procedure. However ttoday, with the new media and the immoral antics of many of our leaders, Malaysia is facing another tsunami of unwanted pregnancies.

The silent utilization of abortion as a means to curb unwanted pregnancies until a long term solution is found may have changed however, when in 2006 both Chua Soi Lek and the Health DG Ismail Merican, rushed through  parliament an Act called the Private Healthcare Services and Facilities Act (PHFSA). Reports of the rise in dumped babies coincide with the passing of this Act. The MOH set up departments to apprehend doctors or clinics carrying out abortions. They even sent matrons to look for equipment used in clinics doing abortions.  The ramifications have been far reaching. End result. Now no GP or even gynecologist want to do any abortions in their clinics. Some GPs have in fact flatly told their receptionists to not even entertain patients coming in with unwanted pregnancies.

The Health Ministry run Malaysian Medical Council compounded matters further when in 2007 it struck off UMNO’s own Penawar state assemblyman Dr Mohd Azam Rauzan disallowing him from practicing medicine because he apparently went beyond the call of his medical duties to help a fellow constituent by issuing a birth certificate to a patient who wanted to give her child out for adoption when she knew she did not have the means to care for the child as a mother. The Health DG and MMC without looking into the social circumstances were judgmental in striking off Azam stating it was “to protect the public and the profession”. Short sighted decisions can have serious long term complications. And this is one of them.

Our Social Welfare, Adoption agencies and Syariah bureaucrats virtually make it impossible for a teenage kid to even approach them, let alone help these kids. They look at these kids as social deviants – an evil to society, as untouchables and bind them even further with more red tape.  Even Sharizat says they should be hung like murderers. They need help. Where are they expected to go? They go sometimes to their doctors.

Under the circumstances Azam broke the law to help a teenage pregnant mother in good faith by issuing a birth certificate so that the parents can be named and the newborn eventually provided for. And what did the government do to him?  He was not only dumped by UMNO but also lost his livelihood as a doctor. Shahrizat, Ali Rustam and Rosmah, the MCA, Gerakan, etc need to look into their own backyard and at their Little Napoleans before they start pointing fingers at others or asking our Universities to “research” the problem.

The primary causes of these lost unmarried teenagers appear obvious. Declining social responsibility coupled with a pathetic education system that doesn’t inculcate proper values seem to be getting both school kids and young parents into trouble. Malaysia, thanks to Shahrizat’s and Ali Rustam’s globally reported “solutions” is in danger of being viewed as a banana republic having a runaway promiscuous teenage problem with no answers to its “dumped babies” problem. Actually there are.

The true solution lies in instilling good values in children by parents, teachers and this country’s leaders – aided by a strong education system. If these qualities are not there, teenage pregnancies will boom. Internet pornography is here to stay. There are even sex scenes in Astro itself to sway a young mind.  Children need to be educated, cultured, given guidance and protected. But despite all these checks and balances, teenage pregnancies can happen. If you don’t want abortion as an interim solution, the country must have an alternate solution. Marrying them off at 15 is not one of them. We cannot step back to the Stone Ages nor employ primitive edicts to deal with these problems. The family, as a unit, in this country is more important now then at anytime during its existence and we need to cultivate that.

As an analogy, in the battle to eradicate malaria, you must first focus on preventive measures in killing the vector, the Anopheles mosquito, not on developing expensive vaccines nor building even more expensive ICUs to cater for the complications of the disease. Similarly, Malaysia must focus on preventing teenage pregnancies by better education and counseling, not hanging the parents. From a healthcare point of view, it would be prudent that Malaysia rope in a wise Health DG from Preventive Healthcare instead of righteous clinical specialists. This problem of dumped babies is in part a problem created by our current medical autocrats. Rosmah, would do well to start her research there.

RUDOLF TILLER

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 August 2010, 10:58 am and is filed under
Health
,
Social
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Malaysia’s eight-year consecutive omission from World’s Top 500 Universities Ranking 2010

For the eighth year in succession, Malaysia has been left out of the World’s Top 500 Universities ranking in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s “Academic Ranking of World Universities ARWU 2010” released yesterday.

This is the latest proof that the long-talked about higher education reform based on meritocracy and academic excellence is not making much headway.

It underlines the economic and nation-building crisis confronting Malaysia and the warning of the New Economic Model (NEM) that the “human capital situation in Malaysia is reaching a critical stage” because “We are not developing talent and what we have is leaving”.

Singapore has two, Taiwan four, New Zealand five, Hong Kong and Israel seven each, South Korea ten, Australia 17, China 22 and Japan 25 among the 106 Asia-Pacific universities in the lastest 500 World Top Universities ranking, which is dominated by US universities Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford and MIT occupying the top four places followed by Cambridge University in fifth place.

Among the Asia-Pacific leaders in the ranking are: Tokyo (20th), Kyoto (24th), Australian National University (59th), Melbourne (62nd), Jerusalem (72nd), Osaka (75th), Nagoya (79th), Tohoku (84th), Sydney (92nd) and National Taiwan, Singapore, Seoul, Tel Aviv, Queensland, Western Australia, Tokyo Institute of Technology (all seven in the 101-150 category).

When will Malaysia be represented in the Shanghai Jian Tong University’s annual ranking of 500 Top Universities to demonstrate that Malaysia, which had an internationally-recognised premier university in the first decade of Independence half a century ago, has finally redeemed our international academic reputation?

A statement by the Higher Education Minister Datuk Khalid Nordin on the failure of a single university in Malaysia to get recognized by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s annual  Top 500 Universities Ranking would be in order as to what Malaysians can expect to look forward in his higher education reform programme.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 August 2010, 2:53 pm and is filed under
Education
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.                You can
leave a response
, or
trackback
 from your own site.


Patriotism, Mr Mayor, is not in flying a flag

By
Thomas Lee

Ipoh Mayor Datuk Roshidi Hashim has issued a ruling to all shops and business premises in the city to fly the Jalur Gemilang on National Day on 31 August and the state flag during the Sultan of Perak’s birthday on 19 April if their want their business licences renewed.

Roshidi said those who failed to comply with the ruling would also be compounded or blacklisted.

According to Roshidi, the new ruling is part of the effort by the Ipoh City Council to inculcate patriotism among city folks, especially the business communities.

This is another of those nincompoop rulings by a smart-aleck Little Napoleon using blackmail arm-twisting tactics to enforce a gimmick found only in countries ruled by authoritarian dictatorial governments such as Nazi Germany or the Japanese Imperial Administration during War World Two.

In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler imposed a ruling that all business establishments, offices, institutions and private homes must fly the Nazi flag as part of the effort to inculcate loyalty and patriotism in the Third Reich among the German population.

During the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, all premises, both shops and residential houses, were forced to fly the Nissh?ki, the national flag of Japan, whether or not they loved Japan or its Emperor.

And taking the obviously illogical Ipoh City Council ruling, which only a dunce could think of, to its logical conclusion, then the Road Transport Department should also impose a ruling making it mandatory that all vehicles must fly the Jalur Gemilang or their registration will not be renewed. This will ensure (sic) that all drivers are loyal and patriotic.

The English word patriot has its root in the ancient Greek word patriots which means simply “fellow countryman”. In the 6th century, its Latin form patriota also simply mean “fellow countryman”. The abstract noun “patriotism” in the English language first appeared in the early 18th century.

Those who have studied the ancient Greek life, thoughts, history and culture will know and understand that “patriotism” in the Greek society comprised notions concerning language, religion, ethics, law, and commitment to the common good, rather than merely absolute identification with the state or what the Greeks called “polis”.

The famous Greek philosopher Socrates has been recorded as saying that patriotism does not require one to agree with and accept everything his country does. Rather, he said, a patriotic and loyal citizen would actually promote critical and analytical questioning in a quest to make his country the best it possibly can be and become.

In other word, a real patriotic and loyal citizen is not one who flies the Jalur Gemilang on their cars, shouts patriotic slogans, sing patriotic songs, paint their houses or vehicles with the Jalur Gemilang, bake cakes with designs of the Jalur Gemilang. All these are shallow, superficial and meaningless wild gesticulations.

A true loyal patriotic citizen is one who really loves his country, and is devoted and dedicated to ensure that the ideals of truth, rule of law, equality, justice and fairness will flourish among fellow citizens, irrespective of origin, colour, creed, gender, culture, or class. Such a true loyal patriotic citizen will stand up and speak out, without fear and favour, and be counted in the war against any injustice, corruption, discrimination, and irregularities in the administration of the country.

It is not just flying a flag, shouting slogans, and singing patriotic songs that make one a loyal patriotic citizen. Those who think that by enforcing such a ruling like flying the Jalur Gemilang will inculcate patriotism among the people are imbecile with real shallow thinking, not fit to be in a position of leadership.

Is any such shallow supercilious civil servant authorized to impose such a imperious and peremptory condition for doing business or getting a licence to trade? Note that such a ruling directly infringes on the fundamental human and constitutional right of the citizens to do business without hindrance, encumbrance and discrimination.

Instead of promoting patriotism among the people, such preposterous, ridiculous, and ludicrous ruling, with the unjust and unconstitutional condition that permits to trade will be withheld if the Jalur Gemilang is not flown in the business premises or shops, will result in deep resentment among the people. When the Japanese Imperial Army forced all building owners to fly the Nissh?ki, and to bow to very Japanese the people come across, did it create any love for Japan? Ask your grandfathers or grandmothers.

Patriotism cannot be enacted by legislation or demanded by force. Patriotism, like respect, can only be cultivated by winning the hearts and minds of the people.

Patriotism, Mr Mayor, is not in flying a flag.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 August 2010, 6:43 pm and is filed under
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


If Najib’s 1Malaysia is to have real meaning, Siti Inshah should not only be removed from the education service, there should be no place in civil service for other Siti Inshahs

In the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election in August 2008, the Bukit Bendera Umno chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail referred to the Malaysian Chinese as pendatang, orang tumpang and totally untrustworthy Malaysians.

In February this year, the special officer to the Prime Minister, Datuk Nasir Safar labeled Indians and Chinese in Malaysia as “pendatang”, and added insult to injury in declaring that “Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese especially women came to sell their bodies”.

Last Thursday, at the launch of the Merdeka celebrations of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Kulai, the school principal Hajah Siti Inshah binti Mansor said: “Pelajar-pelajar Cina tidak diperlukan dan boleh balik ke China ataupun Sekolah Foon Yew. Bagi pelajar India, tali sembahyang yang diikat di pergelangan tangan dan leher pelajar nampak seakan anjing dan hanya anjing akan mengikat seperti itu.”

The severest disciplinary action must be taken against Siti Inshah, who is clearly unfit to be in the education service of a multi-racial society like Malaysia let alone a school principal – going against the very precepts of the 1Malaysia policy enunciated by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak since April last year.

But what defies the imagination is that Siti Inshah could make such a derogatory, offensive, insensitive and racist statement at an occasion to launch the school’s National Day  celebrations.

The theme of this year’s Merdeka celebrations is “1Malaysia Transforms the Nation”.

But how meaningful is Najib’s 1Malaysia when school principals like Siti Inshah could show utter contempt for Malaysia’s most important and richest asset – a model of ethnic, cultural and biological diversity?

The Ahmad Ismail-Nasir Safar-Siti Inshah incidents are a collective indictment of the failure of the processs of  Malaysian nation-building 53 years after Merdeka, bearing testimony as to how apt was the theme of the recent speech of Umno veteran, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah – “We were once Malaysians!”

As Razaleigh rightly reminisced, the heroes of schoolchildren in the 1970s were Soh Chin Aun, R. Arumugam, Isa Bakar, Santokh Singh, James Wong and Mokhtar Dahari – rising completely above race.

The Ahmad Ismail-Nasir Safar-Siti Inshah incidents would have been completely unthinkable in the early decades of national independence as nobody would have thought it possible that a school principal would make the derogatory, offensive,  insensitive and racist statements like the one that was made in the Kulai secondary school last Thursday.

What has gone wrong with Malaysian nation-building, 53 years after Merdeka and 47 years after the formation of Malaysia?

This is what should concern the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

It is clear that the Ahmad Ismail-Nasir Safar-Siti Inshah episodes are not isolated incidents but reflects a deeper national malady contributed no doubt by the communal brain-washings perpetrated by Biro Tata Negara over the decades.

If Najib’s 1Malaysia policy is to have real meaning,  Siti Inshah should not only be removed from the education service, there should be no place in the public service for other Siti Inshahs.

This is a task the Cabinet tomorrow should put on top of its agenda. Are the Barisan Nasional Ministers equal to the challenge?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 12:56 pm and is filed under
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


NDM-1 – is it the death knell for medical tourism?

Letters

THE MEDICAL SENTINEL

Medical tourism, long ostracized as an evil third world nations with limited health-care resources should not be dabbling in, may have finally met its fatal match. Last week, the British based, Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal reported the emergence of highly resistant bacteria carrying a new gene termed New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) and specifically associated it with medical tourism as the bacteria seems to have originated in patients frequenting India and Pakistan for procedures such as cosmetic  and transplant surgery. NDM-1 is actually an enzyme that is produced by bacteria. The ability of bacteria to produce NDM-1 is apparently the result of mobile genes that can readily jump from various different bacterial populations allowing them to incorporate these special genes into their chromosomes.

The danger of NDM-1 is that it can fight against most known antibiotics known to man, thereby rendering the human species defenseless against these superbugs. It was first discovered in December 2009 by Yong and associates who described them in a Swedish national who fell ill with an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection that he acquired in India. The infection was unsuccessfully treated in a New Delhi hospital and after the patient’s repatriation to Sweden, the gene was identified there.

The two key authors of the Lancet paper, Karthikeyan Kumarasamy and Timothy Walsh attribute the new strain as a result of antibiotic abuse and global travel. In particular, the resistant bacteria appear to have evolved in third world nations where usage of antibiotics is poorly supervised. Further in countries like China, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Mexico and even perhaps Malaysia all fingers appear to point to patients themselves who tend to shop around for doctors hoping for that miracle antibiotic that will cure their infection and in the process help genes like NDM -1 to evolve. Walsh pointedly, in his article anointed the blame to India and Pakistan and to medical tourism, although his postgraduate student and lead author, Kumarasamy, originally from the Medical College of Madras and now based at Cardiff appeared to want to distance himself from these inferences to avoid embarrassing his native India.

Indian medical authorities themselves are in a state of denial, ignoring the clear evidence that points to NDM-1’s origin in Indian private hospitals. The Indian medical community is up in arms for even naming the gene after the nation’s capital New Delhi, although the norm in microbiology has always been that new genes be named after the place of origin. Indian authorities are variously describing the clear impact of the Lancet article as a ‘conspiracy’ and an attack on the country’s lucrative medical tourism industry. However they are on thin ice as it turns out, that not only two of the authors were from India’s Apollo Hospital, long seen as the bastion of Indian medical tourism but in fact they had already been pre-warned by Dr K. Abdul Ghafur, himself a consultant in infectious diseases at the Apollo Hospital, Chennai.

Ghafur, in a signed article titled “An obituary-Death of Antibiotics” in the Journal of Association of Indian Physicians (JAPI) in March this year was already complaining about the Indian approach to tackling NDM-1. He observed: “The easiest way of tackling the superbug problem is to use the notorious ostrich strategy, which denies the existence of the problem – stop looking for these bugs, stop looking for the hidden resistance mechanisms and closing your eyes even if you find them”. Let’s hope Malaysia will not adopt similar strategies. The same issue of JAPI carried a study by Dr P. Deshpande from Hinduja National Hospital, Mumbai, reporting the isolation of 22 NDM-1 producing bacteria in just three months. “If a single hospital can isolate such a significant number of bacteria with a new resistance gene in a short period of time, the data from all Indian hospitals, if available would potentially be more interesting and shocking than the human genome project data,” Ghafur wrote.

Walsh in his Lancet article himself concludes that bacteria with NDM-1 are highly resistant to many antibiotic classes and potentially herald the end of treatment with the main antibiotic classes for the treatment of infections. He further quotes Ghafur again who highlighted the widespread non-prescription use of antibiotics in India and predicts that the NDM-1 problem is likely to get substantially worse in the foreseeable future. Even more disturbing is that most of the Indian isolates from Chennai and Haryana were from community-acquired infections, suggesting that NDM-1 is widespread in the environment.

Given the historical links between India and the UK, it was unsurprising that the UK is the first western country to register the widespread presence of NDM-1-positive bacteria. However, it is not the only country affected. In addition to the first isolate from Sweden, a NDM-1-positive isolate was recovered from a patient who was an Australian resident of Indian origin and had visited Punjab in late 2009. These conclusions make one ponder if NDM-1 already exists in the many Malaysian patients who frequent India for medical treatment, the many Indonesian patients who frequent Malaysia for treatment and the many Malaysian patients who frequent Singapore for their medical therapy.

Several of the UK source patients had undergone elective, including cosmetic surgery while visiting India or Pakistan. India also provides cosmetic surgery for other Europeans and Americans, and NDM-1 will likely spread worldwide. Walsh cautions the calls in the popular press for UK patients to opt for corrective surgery in India with the aim of saving the NHS money. Such a proposal might ultimately cost the NHS substantially more than the short-term saving and he has strongly advised against such proposals. The potential for wider international spread of producers and for NDM-1-encoding plasmids to become endemic worldwide, are clear and frightening.

Following the Lancet article, the UK’s Guardian, in their ominously titled article, “Are you ready for a world without antibiotics?” warn that in the very near future, we’re going to have to learn to live without them once again. The era of antibiotics is coming to a close and the post-antibiotic apocalypse is within sight. Since antibiotics are generally for short term use, Big Pharma has shown little enthusiasm in developing new antibiotics as there is just not much money in it.

The implications of a world without antibiotics are wide. A lot of modern medicine would become impossible if the ability to treat infections is lost. This is especially so in transplant and cancer surgery. Surgery will be thrown back to the pre Fleming era of 1928 when penicillin was discovered. Apart from NDM 1-producing bacteria, an enzyme called KPC has spread in the US (and in Israel and Greece) which also gives bacteria resistance to the carbapenems, the most powerful group of antibiotics we (once) had.

So the game now is to keep bacteria at bay. Hygiene is an obvious weapon. Better cleaning, hand gels and stern warnings to staff and public alike have helped reduce infection rates in hospitals. Beyond that, there is a real need to conserve those antibiotics we have. Walsh’s report shows that the battle to control the emergence of antibiotic-resistant superbugs through appropriate use of antibiotics must be fought at an international level. It illustrates the importance of considering health issues as a world issue – how antibiotics are prescribed and controlled in one part of the world can very rapidly have consequences elsewhere. What happens when antibiotics don’t work? The Guardian has listed the following:

Transplant surgery becomes virtually impossible.

Removing a burst appendix becomes a dangerous operation once again.

Pneumonia becomes once more “the old man’s friend”.

Gonorrhea becomes hard to treat.

Tuberculosis becomes incurable

Malaysia which is still grappling with problems like dengue and worse still the re-emergence of “old” diseases like malaria, TB and leptospirosis, the Lancet report cannot have come at worser time. Malaysia’s nationalized but understaffed healthcare system is already lacking experienced personnel in almost every field of medicine. A world without effective antibiotics will not only sound the death knell for medical tourism right from Singapore through Malacca and Penang, but our hospitals and ICUs can potentially be flooded with patients afflicted with serious infections with surgery or any invasive procedure being virtually impossible to perform. It also highlights what a fragile world we actually live in. It may not necessarily take a tsunami, massive earthquake or a giant meteor to wipe out the human race. It may only require a single gene – like the NDM-1.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 10:20 am and is filed under
Health
,
Letters
,
Tourism
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


TBH inquest – Porntip sure not suicide

Otw 2ShahAlam 4TeohBengHock inquest mired by controversy over last-minute appearance of yr-long TBH note. Porntip 2testify after 2nd autopsy

08/18/2010 08:48 AM

Air of expectancy in ct. Waiting 4coroner’s apprnce. Porntip here. Also Karpal Gobind MalikImtiaz TBH fmly members. Porntip shd open inquest

08/18/2010 09:25 AM

Coroner enters court 2start today’s inquest proceeding

08/18/2010 09:28 AM

Porntip recalled 2witness box.

08/18/2010 09:31 AM

Porntip again takes oath. Examined by MalekImtiaz counsel 4 Selangor govt

08/18/2010 09:33 AM

Porntip referred 2her testimony of 21st Oct lastyr, abt TBH’s wounds which looked like from beatings n not compatible from fall from heigh

08/18/2010 09:38 AM

And her conclusion tt probability of TBH’s death from homicide 80% suicide 20% but needed re-autopsy 2b sure. She confirmed.

08/18/2010 09:42 AM

Porntip being questioned on 2nd autopsy of TBH.

08/18/2010 09:44 AM

Porntip’s conclusion from 2nd TBH autopsy: body well-preserved in the area of the bone. Body sufficiently preserved to arrive at conclusion

08/18/2010 09:52 AM

Neck haemorhage but ruled out manual strangulation appeared 2b caused by direct hit by blunt object with bigger force or weight

08/18/2010 10:03 AM

Porntip does not rule out tt TBH may have lost consciousness in the fall

08/18/2010 10:08 AM

P of opinion TBH unconscious during fall as there is no pathology to show he was conscious

08/18/2010 10:15 AM

P disagreed w British pathologist Peters on cause of neck wound n tt TBH was conscious n had tried 2break fall landing on feet. Gave grounds

08/18/2010 10:25 AM

P – having examined body in a second autopsy she is sure it is not a case of suicide

08/18/2010 10:46 AM

Malek finishes n Gobind takes over questioning.

08/18/2010 10:51 AM

Asked by Gobind, P said if a note is found accompanying death police must examine DNA n fingerprint n not just handwriting.

08/18/2010 10:55 AM

MACC counsel Razak attacked Porntip saying she graduated from Mahidol University Thailand which is not recognised in Msia. She said Mahidol is top5 in Asia

08/18/2010 11:07 AM

Razak accused Porntip of speculation taking sides which drew her response she is not testifying 4Selangor or Msian govts but for the dead.

08/18/2010 11:14 AM

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 1:17 pm and is filed under
Teoh Beng Hock
,
Twitter
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The racial time-bomb is ticking fast

by
Thomas Lee

Racism continues to rear its ugly head, more than half a century after our country gained in its independence in 1957.

The latest fiasco involves the principal of a school in Johor who has been reported to have said that Chinese students can return to China, and that the prayer strings worn by the Indian students are like a dog leash.

A total of 17 police reports have been lodged by parents against the nonchalant female school head who is rumoured to have some influential political connection.

According to some parents who had lodged police reports, the school head had made the pejorative and derogative comments during the launching of the school’s Merdeka celebrations on Thursday 12 August 2010.

She was quoted as saying that “Chinese students are not needed here and can return to China or Foon Yew school. For the Indian students, the prayer string tied around their neck and wrist makes them look like dogs because only dogs are tied like that.”

Such offensive, insensitive and racist remarks can only be made by a rude and uncouth person, who is described in Bahasa Malaysia as kurang ajar. And it is simply incredible and beyond comprehension that such a shallow, insecure, and blockhead person could be appointed a school principal.

The school head’s verbal racist assault on the students is not the only ugly racism incident in recent time

Few weeks ago, certain school heads flexed their Little Napoleon muscles to close or ban the formation of non-Muslim religious clubs and societies in their schools.

During the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election in 2008, Penang’s Bukit Bendera Umno chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail referred to the Chinese Malaysians as “pendatang” or immigrants. Following a massive public outcry over his remarks, Ahmad was suspended by Umno for three years, but the suspension was lifted just a year later in December 2009.

In February 2010, Datuk Nasir Safar, the special officer to the prime minister, said at a 1-Malaysia seminar that “Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese especially women came to sell their bodies”. Although there was widespread demand that Nasir be punished for his scornfully abusive, offensive and seditious remarks, no action was taken against him.

The most shocking thing is that, instead of censuring Nasir for his obviously seditious remarks, the federal government, through Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, told Parliament in June 2010 that it lacked proof that Nasir meant to incite racial ill-will, based on Section 3(1) of the Sedition Act, despite his unilateral and unequivocal labelling of Chinese and Indians as ‘pendatangs’ and reference to Chinese women as ‘prostitutes’.

In Decmeber 2009, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz himself has condemned and castigated the Umno-owned newspaper Utusan Malaysia for its racist propaganda, saying that the newspaper must accept that Malaysia is a multi-racial country.

Over the last few years, the Utusan Malaysia has been running daily stories and comments that have provoked and incited debates and disputes on racial matters.

The Utusan is well-known as a mouthpiece for Umno ultra-nationalists and a tool for promoting the Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) policy.

And, don’t forget the controversial Biro Tata Negara (BTN) or National Civics Bureau courses which Nazri admitted were racist. Those in the alternative coalition Pakatan Rakyat have also claimed that the BTN propagated political indoctrination.

Then there is the “Allah” controversy, which, whether or not we recognize or admit it, has been turned into a racial-religious issue, although fundamentally it is a human right and constitutional matter.

Then we have the ultra-Malay group Perkasa led by Datuk Ibrahim Ali, and finds support from luminaries such as former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, which has been in the forefront of championing Malay rights.

Associated with Perkasa is another ultra-Malay group Majlis Perundingan Melayu or the Malay Consultative Council which has also been very vocal in the arena of racial polemic.

And in reaction to these bigoted groups, some idiots from a certain political party want to form a Chinese Perkasa to counter-challenge their form of racial fanaticism with its own form of racial fanaticism. Sometime I wonder how such witless foolish people, with such gullible and naïve character, are elected to leadership positions in their party.

We can observe and note that those playing racial political card are obstinately convinced of the superiority or correctness of their own views and opinions, and are deeply prejudiced against those who hold different opinions, particularly those of other races.

Certainly, the racial time-bomb is ticking fast and set to explore anytime soon if nothing is done now to arrest the fanatical racial trend. The most severe action must be taken against those who instigate, provoke, and incite racial discontentment.

Appropriate actions, including sacking and jail term, must be taken fast against those like the Johor school head and other racially bias civil servants who are clearly unfit to be in the government administration of a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-lingual society like ours.

The racial time-bomb is ticking fast!

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 5:30 am and is filed under
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


BN party backs boss on ‘Umno bad for 1M’sia’ stand

Free Malaysia Today
Thu, 19 Aug 2010

By
Dominic Legeh

PENAMPANG: Barisan Nasional component party Upko is standing by its president Bernard Dompok, who was labelled as irresponsible by Sabah Umno.

Upko secretary-general Wilfred Madius Tangau said it was unfortunate that Sabah Umno liaison deputy chairman Salleh Said Keruak could not read the “pulse of the people” well.

He was commenting on Dompok’s remark that Umno was a hindrance to the promotion of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s 1Malaysia concept, which he said was spot on.

“The fact is, this burning question is not in the mind of Dompok alone, but is a pertinent question in the mind of the grassroots including those of BN component party leaders. We support fully what our president has courageously stated publicly,” he said in a press statement.

Tangau, who called Salleh, a former Sabah chief minister, as his “friend”, presumed that the Sabah Umno liaison deputy chief did not get the true picture of the issue.

“It is unfortunate that my friend Salleh has not correctly understood what my president was trying to say last Sunday, regarding Upko’s fears for the 1Malaysia concept,” he said.

Dompok, who spoke to the media after an Upko convention in Penampang on Sunday, said: “Najib has a good plan for the country, 1Malaysia, People First, Performance Now.”

“What I am afraid of is this, will he be allowed by his party and those NGOs surrounding his party to do the task that he feels is good for the country? That is the burning question in my head”.

On Tuesday, Salleh described the remark as irresponsible and said that Dompok should not question whether Umno understood the true meaning or spirit of the 1Malaysia concept.

‘Is that irresponsible, or simply a fact?’

But Tangau said: “As a friend, I now ask Salleh, is that an irresponsible statement? Or is that a statement of fact?”

“Isn’t it a fact that a certain NGO vehemently opposed some of the recommendations of the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP) in the form of the New Economic Model (NEM) to the extent that the work of Amirsham Aziz, the chairman of the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) has been stalled? And now the programme formulations of the NEM has been given to Pemandu under Idris Jala?” he added.

He said even elder statesman Dr Mahatir Mohamed had said that the 1Malaysia concept needed further explanation.

Tangau said that as a senior leader of his party, Salleh should ponder over these facts, cut out the emotion and begin working harmoniously with the rest of the BN team members.

On Salleh’s contention that it is “normal” for Umno leaders to publicly demand to contest the parliamentary seats of Kota Kinabalu, Putatan and Ranau as well as the state constituencies of Tanjung Kapor and Merotai, Tangau said Upko begs to differ.

“Upko thinks that such a demand is “abnormal” and smacks of arrogance. Imagine a Malay-based component party demanding to contest in the Chinese dominated opposition held parliamentary constituency of Kota Kinabalu? Isn’t that abnormal?” he asked.

He stressed that Upko was not showing displeasure because Umno made known publicly that it was interested in seats allocated to Upko as alleged by former Sabah Progressive Party member Raymond Tan who has since switched to Gerakan.

Tangau said Upko was more concerned about the dent to the BN image created by such reckless demands by Umno which had damaged the power sharing concept, a core BN principle.

”Mahathir once assured Upko in as speech that Umno will never contest more than half of the state and parliamentary constituencies in Sabah as a mark of commitment to the BN concept of formal power sharing, harmonious politics and loyalty to friends in BN. But today all those assurances are not adhered to.

“Not only (does) Umno contest more than half of (the) seats but they are asking for more,” he added.

Was there a ‘Projek IC’?

On the issue of illegal immigrants, Tangau said Upko was glad that Umno also wanted this issue resolved as stated by Salleh.

”That being the case, I humbly ask Salleh to advise the state government to begin the process by determining the future of the estimated 57,000 to 84,000 IMM13 document holders.

“For how long will the documents be renewed? Did the state government ever consent to any of the IMM13 holders to be given Permanent Resident status?” he asked.

Tangau also wanted to know if there was “any move to resolve the future of the so called UNHCR settlsments in Kg.Boronuon, Telipok, Skim Penempatan in Kinarut, Lahad Datu, Sandakan and so on?”

Could “the state government begin to explain to the people the extraordinary increase in the population of Sabah? Was there really a Projek IC as alleged by a former Umno leader from Lahad Datu by the name of M.D Mutalib?”

Upko, he said, welcomed the “millions of ringgit spent on security forces and high-tech equipment along our coastlines for the purpose of surveillance, but obviously the millions spent have not met with the desired results. Why?”

On the RM2 billion gas pipeline from Kimanis to Bintulu, Tangau said that Dompok had requested former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to scrap it, which the latter initially agreed but the Cabinet backtracked later .

Dompok nevertheless insisted that national oil company, Petronas, should use the gas to generate electricity for Sabah as well as to feed the petrochemical plant and only the leftover gas be piped to Bintulu, he said.

“Finally I have this to tell Salleh: As a friend it is unfortunate that we have to reply to each other in this manner in the media because unlike the BN supreme council meeting, the Sabah BN liaison committee has not set the meeting schedule as directed by the BN secretary general,” he said.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 August 2010, 10:38 pm and is filed under
Sabah
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


DAP supports Anwar’s call for proof of allegation of the existence of an alternate constitution to replace the current one to erase special rights of the Malays and the position of Islam as the official religion

DAP supports the call by Parliamentary Opposition Leader and Ketua Umum PKR Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for proof of the allegation of the existence of an alternate constitution to replace the current one to erase special rights of the Malays and the position of Islam as the official religion.

This allegation by the Perak Mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria is a very serious and inflammable one and should not be made without proof.

This allegation has already been the basis of a very alarmist front-page Utusan Malaysia headline “Elak perang besar” on Tuesday and an incendiary article entitled “Benar, ‘perang besar’ boleh berlaku di Malaysia” yesterday.

DAP leaders had never heard or known of such an alternate constitution.

Any such an alleged alternative constitution could not have emanated from Pakatan Rakyat as the component parties of  PKR, PAS and DAP had reaffirmed commitment to the fundamental principles of the Malaysian Constitution in a common platform last December.

What should be the cause of concern to all, including potential investors whether local or foreign, is the resort to “May 13” talk or threat in political discourses, including by Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, even during the Merdeka Month celebrations this year. As far as I can remember, the spectre of May 13 had had never been invoked  by previous Deputy Prime Ministers in the past four decades.

All sane, rational and responsible political leaders from whatever complexion deplore any “May 13” threat or talk, for are united in wanting to  ensure  that there is no possibility of another “May 13” let alone “perang besar” than May 13 in the country!

The escalation of race politics when the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is proclaiming his 1Malaysia policy and during the Merdeka Month celebration raises disturbing questions whether Najib is serious about the 1Malaysia slogan or whether he is really in full charge of his administration.

At the rate things are escalating, someone will be lodging a police report for sedition against Najib for unveiling the New Economic Model (NEM) on March 31 for its proposal for the fifth SRI (Strategic ‘Reform Initiative), viz: a transparent and market-friendly affirmative action.

NEM proposed inclusiveness as the second goal and key component – fostering equal and fair economic opportunities where affirmative action will consider all ethnic groups fairly and equally as long as they are in the low income 40% of households.

NEM wants affirmative action programmes to be based on “market-friendly and market-based criteria together taking into consideration the needs and merits of the applicants”.

When police reports of sedition are lodged because proposals are made fully in line with the NEM proposals, something has gone very wrong not only with Malaysian politics but with the entire process of nation-building.

This is a matter which warrants the serious attention of all political leaders and the Malaysian citizenry.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 August 2010, 2:07 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Constitution
,
DAP
,
Najib Razak
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


E-census error – how can it happen?

Letter by
Chuah Siew Eng

Dear Editor,

I wish to draw to the attention of the public of a possible glitch in the e-census. An answer I clicked for the category “religion” revealed to be different in the PDF copy I printed. Thinking I may have made a mistake, I reviewed my answers and confirmed that it was not my error. When I sought an explanation, the supervisor of the census takers for my area confirmed receiving another complaint over the same problem two weeks ago, adding that she had reported the problem to the Statistics Department. If that were true, why wasn’t it corrected for a whole two weeks? How many more people would have unwittingly assumed the computerised process would record their answers faithfully, as I almost did were it not for a note at the final page prompting a PDF check before submitting the form?

While my problem was eventually rectified (I received a polite call from the Department asking me to try the e-census again and this time it recorded what I inserted), I wonder whether it has been truly corrected in a fresh form.

So, although this comes at a cost to my privacy, I would like to call on others who are planning to use the e-census to try an experiment without submitting their form – click “no religion” under the category “religion” and see whether you get the same answer in the PDF. Originally, mine recorded it as “other religion”. I have not received any satisfactory explanation from the Statistics Department how such a mistake could have been allowed in the first place, and why nothing was done although another complaint has been lodged earlier. This casts serious doubts on the integrity of the census undertaking for which citizens are asked to be honest in giving their details – yet whether the authorities are capable of accepting the truths revealed appears questionable.

Yours sincerely,

Chuah Siew Eng

Kuala Lumpur

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 August 2010, 10:38 am and is filed under
IT
,
Social
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.