Archive for July 15th, 2010

5-in-1 price hike: Fuel, sugar and gas up

Malaysiakini | 15 Jul, 10 6:19pm

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration has taken a politically risky manoeuvre by raising prices of three types of fossil fuels, sugar and cooking gas.

Both RON95 and RON97 grade petrol and diesel prices will be raised by RM0.05 per litre, while liquified petroluem gas (LPG) will be raised by RM0.10 per kilogramme.

Sugar prices will be raised by RM0.25 per kg.

All price increases will take effect from midnight tonight.
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A year on, MACC tries to appease Beng Hock’s family

By Debra Chong | The Malaysian Insider
July 15, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — In a move to placate Teoh Beng Hock’s family ahead of his one-year death anniversary tomorrow, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohamed pledged today not to “cover up” the actions of anyone who maybe found involved in causing the DAP political aide’s death.

“The MACC will not compromise or cover up the actions of any culprit or anyone found potentially involved in the death of Teoh Beng Hock,” the nation’s top graft fighter said today in a brief statement addressed to the Teohs.

The statement was issued only in Chinese.

The 30-year-old political secretary to Selangor state councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was found dead last year on a 5th-floor corridor at Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam, nine floors below the MACC’s Selangor headquarters.
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Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #23

by Bakri Musa

Chapter 4: Modern Model States

The Asian Miracle – South Korea

In the 1950’s, the Filipino government was sending community development officers to the Republic of Korea (ROK) to help the Koreans recover from the devastations of war. Today, the two Asian nations could not be more different in the quality of life of their people.

The Economist noted that in 1964 Zambia had a per capita GDP twice that of South Korea, but by 1999 the Korean figures had rocketed to over 27 times that of Zambia’s. South Korea is now among the top twelve trading nations. Its upward trajectory was briefly interrupted by the Asian economic crisis of 1997, but it is now back on track.

No one would have predicted back in the 1950’s that this Asian nation would be a model of success that it is today. Indeed the first half of the last century had not been kind to South Korea. Yet it succeeded, and did so by flouting every conceivable rule of modern developmental economics. It unabashedly adopted central planning, complete with Soviet-style Five Year Plans and with the state assuming a dominant role in business and the economy generally. The state directed major investment decisions and allocated scant resources, including credit. It was not shy in strategically intervening in the economy when it deemed necessary. South Korea’s strategy had been labeled “guided capitalism.” Read the rest of this entry »

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