Archive for October 10th, 2007

Lingam Tape – Nazri’s histrionics powerful reason why RCI needed

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, is up to his histrionics again — yesterday claiming that he will ask the Cabinet today to provide protection for the people behind the recording of the Lingam Tape.

This was 48 hours after Nazri had declared “No Source, No Case”, castigated the people behind the Lingam Tape as liars if they dared not come forward to co-operate with the Haidar Inquiry Panel to determine the authenticity of the Lingam Tape on the ground that witnesses and whistleblowers are already fully protected under the various laws of the land, although he subsequently admitted that he had made a mistake when referring to the non-existent Witness Protection Act or Witness Protection Bill.

However, if various laws already provide protection to the maker or makers of the Lingam Tape, why is it necessary for Nazri to ask the Cabinet to provide protection for the people behind the Lingam Tape recording?

Furthermore, why ask the Lingam Tape makers to come forward to co-operate with the Haidar Panel when Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had said that the Panel is not supposed to call witnesses and must rely on the Anti-Corruption Agency and the Police in their deliberations?

At least Nazri has one quality which has so far been absent from other Ministers, the humility – some will say the “temerity” – to admit that he was wrong, although it is not clear what is the wrong of wrongs which Nazri is admitting to, whether in mistakenly claiming that there is a Witness Protection Act or Bill which are non-existing, or mistakenly claiming that the various laws already provide adequate protection for the maker or makers of the Lingam Tape to enable them to surface publicly to give information to establish its authenticity. Read the rest of this entry »

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Petition – Petronas’ corporate responsibility for the violent repression of saffron revolution

Letter

by Daniel Chong

PETITION FOR PETRONAS TO ASSUME CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY IN THE CURRENT CRISIS IN MYANMAR

As you have highlighted in your blog, things are not well in Burma and for me it is not good that the corporations are able to keep silent while the people, NGOs and governments are making all the headlines in the press.

I think Burma is our little version of Afghanistan (important pipelines, warlords, refugees, drugs…) Its unsettling that we the neighbours have adopted a “close one eye” mentality.

Please have a look at this petition I wrote. If you support it, I hope you can make a mention of it in your blog. If not could you forward it to someone who might?

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/20/petition-for-petronas-to-assume-corporate-responsibility-in-its-business-dealing-in-myanmar Read the rest of this entry »

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Transplantation in Malaysia – are we on the right track?

Letters

by FK-506

As motorists on the NKVE scrambled to let pass the police outriders followed by a Perdana with an IJN logo with a host of other ambulances heading towards Subang Airport on Wednesday afternoon, many suspected the heart that 14 year old Tee Hui Yi so badly required after being placed on an ventricular assist device (VAD) for almost 12 months may have finally arrived. And indeed it had as she had her transplant done almost the same night courtesy of an unfortunate 15 year old accident victim who was declared brain dead at Ipoh General Hospital.

The miracle was all the more phenomenal as Tee Hui Yi’s predicament was highlighted only the day before on the front pages of the New Straits Times. Sadly she is said to have suffered a “hyperacute rejection” of her transplanted heart and had a second one put in which IJN happened to get from a patient from JB. Two hearts all in a day for one patient when none was available for almost a year. Miracles and coincidences do happen just like the statue of Virgin Mary crying blood sporadically in various churches around the world on Christmas. Hopefully Tee Hui Yi’s saga will finally end with her recovering fully.

Tee Hui Yi apparently developed viral myocarditis at the age of two and progressed to end stage heart failure. The indication for the expensive bridge to a natural heart in the form of the artificial ventricular assist device was presumably the failure of medical therapy in not being able to maintain her circulation optimally anymore on conservative therapy. In simple terms, for a future, she would need a heart. The VAD was just a stop gap. But in Malaysia this bridge to a heart or for that matter any other organ can be exceptionally long, arduous and occasionally a bridge just too far, leaving in its trail thousands dead on waiting lists. Read the rest of this entry »

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