Archive for August 8th, 2011

Betulkah pemastautin diberi hak mengundi?

— Aspan Alias
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 08, 2011

8 OGOS — Isu besar yang hangat diperkatakan hari ini ialah isu pendatang asing yang menjadi pemastautin telah diberikan kerakyatan dan terus diberikan hak mengundi.

Ahli-ahli Parlimen pembangkang telah menghantar surat hari ini untuk mendesak persidangan Parlimen tergempar dipanggil untuk membincangkan isu seramai 1,600 orang pemastautin tetap yang dikatakan diberikan kerakyatan penuh untuk memudahkan mereka menjadi pengundi semasa pilihan raya umum yang akan datang.

Jika isu ini benar ia merupakan isu yang sangat besar dan merbahayakan negara serta Sistem Raja Berpelembagaan Negara kita. Kita sedang menghadapi masalah besar di Sabah tentang isu ini dan kita masih lagi tidak mahu belajar dari kesilapan ini semata-mata kerana ingin mempertahankan kuasa yang kita anggap sudah sampai ketepian itu.

Isu pendatang asing menjadi pengundi ini memang telah lama kita dengar malahan ada di antara rakan saya sendiri pernah di tahan kerana dituduh mengeluarkan kad pengenalan palsu untuk kegunaan dalam pilihan raya. Jika apa yang dituduh ini benar ianya serupalah seperti memanggil orang luar untuk membantu memerangi bangsa dan rakyat kita sendiri. Read the rest of this entry »

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BN eyeing 25 winnable seats to regain Penang

Athi Shankar
Free Malaysia Today
August 8, 2011

GEORGE TOWN: Confidence is running high in Penang Barisan Nasional (BN) camp nowadays.

If the intelligence reports are anything to go by, BN should win enough state seats in the next general election to wrest the Penang government from Pakatan Rakyat.

It is learnt that the intelligence reports have identified at least 25 constituencies as winnable seats for BN – 15 on the mainland and 10 on the island. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bursa bleeds another RM31b in global carnage

By Yow Hong Chieh
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 08, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 8 — Malaysian stocks continued tumbling today with an estimated RM31 billion in value shed from Bursa Malaysia, as jittery investors spooked by concerns about the global economic outlook continued to dump shares.

After the sustained sell-off today, sparked by concerns over Standard & Poor’s downgrading of the United States’ credit rating and Europe’s persistent debt woes, the KL share market is down an estimated RM65 billion in value from last Monday.

Losers overwhelmed gainers 1,051 to 67 today while the broad-based Emas index shed 2.39 per cent to settle at 10,227.95 — a five-month low.

The benchmark FBMKLCI slipped 1.8 per cent to 1496.99, also a five-month low. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tambatuon dam: A question of need

By Dr Edwin Bosi

Suddenly Malaysia is concerned about food security. In Sabah, food security is been used to justify for the construction of a controversial multi-million ringgit Tambatuon dam in the district of Kota Belud. But Malaysia’s quest for 100% self sufficient in rice appears to be bleaker by the day. Under the 5th Malaysia Plan (1986-90), there was plan to achieve 80-85% self sufficient involving eight areas covering 220,000 hectares of land. The plan then was to achieve 70% to 90% by 2010 for West Malaysia, from 30% to 70% in Sabah and from 50% to 70% in Sarawak by 2010. We are now in 2011 and our reliance on imported rice is not getting less. It is much cheaper to import than to grow rice, it seems.

The inflation is biting hard and with the high cost of “everything” nothing will be produce cheaply. The subsidies that benefited the less fortunate are been withdrawn. The peoples’ income remains stagnant and as prices of commodities ran wild many will be drawn into the poor-income bracket soon. The people in poverty will soon fill into the abject poverty bracket. I wish not to say about those in abject poverty and what the future is in store for them. The millions of non-tax paying illegal immigrants are now legalised and will add more burden to the State. It will be a long journey in a dark tunnel for genuine Sabahans whose natural resource-rich State is now the poorest in Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »

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Who killed Teoh Beng Hock?

The burden of proving that Teoh’s death was an accident lies on those who had held him at the MACC

By N H Chan

Recently (see my article “If you put the cart before the horse” or “Cart and Horse” depending on where you have read it), I wrote about the unfounded conclusion of a befuddled Royal Commission of Inquiry that Teoh Beng Hock was driven to suicide while he was in the custody of the MACC.

One still wonders how such a conclusion could ever have been reached by the RCI without any evidence to support it whatsoever! Such evidence requires the opinion of an expert – which is a relevant fact under section 45 of the Evidence Act – to say that Teoh was driven to suicide as a direct consequence of the third degree method of interrogation inflicted on him by the police while he was in the custody of the MACC. It is because the finding of the RCI that Teoh was driven to suicide was unsupported by any evidence that we all realized how silly had been those judges who sat on the Royal commission. Those three judges have since become the laughing stock of the nation! Read the rest of this entry »

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Goldman Sachs cuts Malaysia’s GDP forecast

By Yow Hong Chieh
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 08, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 8 — Malaysia’s exposure to global markets, especially in Europe and the United States, as well as its budget deficit, is likely to hamper economic growth until next year, with international investment bank Goldman Sachs downgrading today its GDP forecast for the country.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional (BN) government is expected to face more pressure on the economic front after Goldman Sachs downgraded Malaysia’s GDP forecast for this year and the next.

Goldman Sachs’s downgrade was sparked by concerns that the tightening US budget will limit export growth in Asia over the next 12 months.

The investment bank revised its forecast for the national economy to five per cent from 5.4 per cent for this full year and similarly cut next year’s GDP growth projection to 5.2 per cent from 5.6 per cent previously. Read the rest of this entry »

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How unprincipled and low can you go, Chua Soi Lek, as MCA President?

Any Malaysian given three answers to the question: Who made the allegation that DAP wants to create a “little China” in Malaysia would invariably name Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian and UMNO although not necessarily in the same order.

Nobody would have named the MCA let alone the MCA President, Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek as it is so wild, absurd and irresponsible a charge no sane or reasonable person would make.

One could disagree with Chua Soi Lek to date but so far he has kept to certain standards in his public statements and speeches.

But Chua Soi Lek’s allegation in Kota Kinabalu yesterday that DAP wants to create a “little China” in Malaysia must rank as among the most despicable and dastardly of lies in Malaysian politics designed to help UMNO ultras to scare Malay voters. Read the rest of this entry »

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The world is watching

by R. Nadeswaran
The Sun
Posted 7 August 2011 – 07:43pm

READERS will remember that in the past, this columnist had refused to touch on race, religion and politics. Today, an intrepid step is being taken to address an issue which has tarnished the name of the country. The actions of a few have embarrassed all Malaysians, especially our leaders who exemplify moderation, tolerance and restraint. The many words of our founding fathers and their successors appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, selfish individuals are defying the government in their zest to impose their own beliefs and values without any consideration whatsoever.

In May, I was sitting in the audience and applauded after the prime minister gave a resounding talk on Islam and moderation at Oxford. Quoting the Torah, the Bible and the Quran, he explained Malaysia’s success in embracing multi-cultures and multi-religions. Two weeks later, watching the royal wedding on television at a street party, I gladly pointed out to English friends the presence of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the Raja Permaisuri at Westminster Abbey. Read the rest of this entry »

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Islamization of Education

by Bakri Musa
Chapter 9: Islam in Malay Life
Reform in Islam

There was a time when religion did not have any role in the Malaysian education system. Public schools were completely secular. There were some Christian missionary schools during colonial times, but they did not attract many Malay pupils. Malay parents were fearful that their children would be converted, a not unreasonable anxiety given the proselytizing fervor of those early missionaries. Following independence, religion was still kept out of the schools. There were Islamic schools but these were private, small, and mainly in rural areas. They catered exclusively to children of poor villagers. Their mission too was equally modest: teaching the basic rituals of Islam. Typically they were the one-teacher schools, the madrasah. Not much was expected and not much was delivered. I briefly attended one of them.

In light of the 9-11 attacks, there is much attention paid to the goings-on in these madrasah. They are less educational institutions and more indoctrination centers. They breed the kind of fanatical adherents to the faith – rigid and intolerant – that are the bane of so many Muslim societies. Read the rest of this entry »

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