Archive for May, 2014
In open letter, MH370 passenger’s husband asks Malaysia for transparency, apology
The Malaysian Insider
May 07, 2014
Putrajaya must be transparent about the circumstances that led to flight MH70 vanishing two months ago, and should apologise for shortcomings in the search for the missing plane, the husband of one of the passengers wrote in an open letter to the prime minister.
K. S. Narendran, whose wife Chandrika Sharma was on the Malaysia Airlines plane with 238 other people, said the families have lost their loved ones but Malaysia had lost its credibility in the search for the Boeing 777-200ER.
“Perhaps the most serious casualty second only to the loss of the plane is the severely impaired credibility of your Government and the airline’s handling of the crisis.
“The skimpy Preliminary Report released to the public this week, supposedly based on your guidelines does little to enhance your government’s commitment to transparency, and therefore only adds fuel to doubts, suspicion and speculations,” he wrote in an email to Datuk Seri Najib Razak dated May 4, 2014. Read the rest of this entry »
Liow should act on Chua’s advice, requisition a BN Supreme Council meeting where UMNO will be outvoted by 1 – 12 on implementation of hudud
Posted by Kit in Islam, MCA, Najib Razak on Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Two days ago, I gave the MCA Deputy President Datuk Dr. Wee Kee Siong a free double advice: Don’t tell a bare-faced lie and don’t be caught immediately with such downright dishonesty.
This was when Ka Siong tried to rebut my statement in Batu Pahat on Sunday that the MCA President, Liow Tiong Lai had missed a “golden opportunity” to say “No” in front of the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that MCA cannot accept Najib’s earlier unilateral and arbitrary announcement in Alor Star that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.
This was because what Najib said was not the original Barisan Nasional stand, and furthermore, violates an important BN principle that any change of Barisan Nasional policy must be the result of the consensus of all component parties and not unilaterally and arbitrarily by any one party, even if it is UMNO.
As I told Ka Siong, what Najib said was never the Barisan Nasional Federal Government’s stand, even going back to the UMNO, MCA and MIC founders like Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin and Tun V.T. Sambanthan as they were very clear that hudud was inconsistent with the secular 1957 constitution and would never say like Najib that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.
Now I am offering the MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai two additional free advice – don’t distort other people’s statement and to be “caught” immediately. Read the rest of this entry »
Najib must take a clear stand – whether he is with the moderates or the extremists, whether he is for 1Malaysia or the very antithesis of 1Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Law & Order, Najib Razak, Sabah on Wednesday, 7 May 2014
On 5th May 2014, the first anniversary of the 13th General Elections, Malaysians were torn by grave disillusionment with the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for a year of failed policies and the dire prospect of a break-up of Pakatan Rakyat over hudud law.
The next day, the beginning of the second year of Najib’s second administration as Prime Minister could not have started on a more ominous note, heralding that Malaysia is heading for a new dark age where all the grandiloquent pledges and slogans of 1Malaysia, World’s Best Democracy and Government Transformation Programme would be consigned to the dustbins of history and replaced by undemocratic, repressive, unjust and draconian rule.
In the morning, the PR/DAP MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok was charged in Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court with sedition over her Chinese New Year “Onederful Malaysia” video, a 11-minute clip lampooning and criticising various failures of government policies.
It is supreme irony that one of the five criticisms in her video alleged to be seditious was about the security situation in East Sabah especially after the abduction of the Taiwan tourist in an island resort off Semporna in November last year – as on the morning that Teresa was charged, news were received of another abduction of a Chinese national in a nearby island off Lahad Datu at about 2.45 a.m. the same day!
Teresa was telling the truth, but telling the truth has become sedition in Najib’s Malaysia as the Prime Minister has forgotten his promises to repeal the draconian and colonial Sedition Act. Read the rest of this entry »
Stopping those who spew hate in the name of religion
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Law & Order, Religion on Wednesday, 7 May 2014
COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
May 07, 2014
If there are any police officials still interested in being honest brokers and if the rule of law means anything anymore in Malaysia, a whole clutch of speakers at yesterday’s seminar on the Allah word and Christianity should be arrested and charged with sedition.
In some other countries, they would be charged with hate crimes because hate is what they were trying to make Malaysians do. Hate Christians and hate Malaysians of the Christian faith. Read the rest of this entry »
Karpal was anti-hudud, but never anti-Islam, says PAS lawmaker
by Looi Sue-Chern
The Malaysian Insider
MAY 06, 2014
A PAS leader yesterday sought to heal the tension between DAP and the Islamist party over the hudud issue when he said that the late Karpal Singh, although strongly opposed to hudud, was never anti-Islam.
Speaking at a memorial service for the late Karpal at the Han Chiang High School in Penang last night, PAS lawmaker Datuk Dr Mujahid Yusuf Rawa said the former DAP chairman always stood by his principles in objecting to the implementation of hudud and the setting up of an Islamic state.
“But he (Karpal) was never a man who was anti-Islam,” Mujahid said. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s so hard to say good-bye, Karpal
— P Ramakrishnan
The Malay Mail Online
MAY 6, 2014
MAY 6 — The passing of Karpal had a shattering effect on me. It was, as it were, we had lost our hope. Such was the immense loss that we suffered.
On the day of Karpal’s funeral, I wanted to bid him farewell in my own personal and special way.
This is the outpouring of a grieving heart.
This was my good-bye to him:
My dear Karpal,
It is difficult to accept that you are no longer with us. For more than four decades you were part of the landscape of this nation and very much a part of our lives.
Today you are no more!
It is well-known that you were highly respected and greatly admired, but we did not know that you were also loved so deeply. It took everyone by surprise. There was no way to know this; there was no indication; there was no expression of this affection in the past.
While you were alive, there was no means or reason to measure the people’s affection for you. In your death, we discovered that there was so much undeclared love for you. The out-pouring of affection for you was simply incredible and astonishing. Their affinity for you was totally overwhelming, dear Karpal. Read the rest of this entry »
Projected Flight Path of MH370 Mistaken? Authorities Not Sure if Data Analysis was Correct
By Gopi Chandra Kharel
International Business Times
May 6, 2014
The projected flight trajectory of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, shown by an arc, could have been a mistake. (Photo: Australian Maritime Safety Authority)
It appears that the authorities are not sure if the data gathered in the nearly two-month hunt for the missing Malaysia jet, which projected the likely flight trajectory of MH370 shown by an arc, was a correct analysis after all.
An international panel of experts is in the process of re-examining all data gathered so far, in order to be sure if the international team has been looking for the missing plane in the right place, officials said on Tuesday.
Senior officials from Malaysia, Australia and China met in the Australian capital to discuss the next move in search for MH370, after two months of intense efforts in the southern Indian Ocean yielded no tangible results. The meeting hashed out details of plans for another search operation that could take up to a year to complete and will cost about A$60million – an amount that has raised quite a few eyebrows.
Now that the authorities are not even sure if the search operation thus far for the missing MH370 plane was taking place in the right place, it is likely to raise further questions from the family members of the passengers aboard, as well as the public. Read the rest of this entry »
Europe draws up tougher black box rules after MH370 mystery
BY TIM HEPHER PARIS
Reuters
May 6, 2014
(Reuters) – European safety officials on Tuesday proposed tougher rules for ‘black box’ flight recorders in the strongest regulatory reaction yet to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it would propose increasing the recording time on cockpit voice recorders to 20 hours from two to make it easier to understand plane accidents and prevent vital evidence being overwritten.
Newly published proposals would also bring into force recommendations made by French crash investigators after the loss of an Air France jet in the Atlantic in 2009, but which remain bogged down in talks among regulators.
These include the addition of a new pinger frequency making it easier to locate the recording devices under water, where lower frequencies travel further. Read the rest of this entry »
Missing MH370: Only ‘Handful’ of Subs Capable of Hunting Jet
by Henry Austin
NBC News
6th May 2014
Only “a handful” of commercial vehicles can search the depths of the southern Indian Ocean in the area that is believed to be the final resting place of missing Flight MH370, an expert said Tuesday.
Officials announced Monday that all of the data compiled in the hunt for the Boeing 777 will be re-examined to make sure the right area is being scoured as part of a new $55-million phase of the operation.
Capt. John Noble, the former general manager of the International Salvage Union, told NBC News that it made sense to narrow down the search area as much as possible.
“You’d be lucky if there was a handful of vehicles that can to go to the sort depths of the ocean that we are talking about here because they simply don’t make them,” Noble said. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370: Hope transcends frustration in quest to bring families closure
By David Molko, CNN
May 6, 2014
“I’m an engineer, so we don’t talk emotions too much.” Those were the words of Capt. Mark Matthews of the U.S. Navy shortly after the Australian Defense vessel Ocean Shield had discovered a series of pings in the southern Indian Ocean.Perhaps he didn’t want to discuss his feelings. But he had a twinkle in his eye, a bit of what he called “cautious optimism.” I’ve seen that same glimmer shining through on the faces of dozens of others involved in the arduous search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It’s been there through each new lead, and even through some of the setbacks.
The search for the missing Boeing 777 has gone on for eight weeks now. We’ve all had to learn a new technical language: from Inmarsat satellite data and the “Doppler Effect,” to the TPL-25 and Bluefin-21. We’ve heard countless theories about where the plane might have gone and who might have been flying it.
Both the science and the science fiction have, at times, almost drowned out what this search is about at its core: solving the mystery of what happened to the 239 men, women, and children who were on board MH370. Read the rest of this entry »
‘She dedicated and sacrificed life to Karpal’
Susan Loone
Malaysiakin
May 6, 2014
Being the loyal and devoted wife, she stood in his shadows all these years without public recognition and appreciation.
But last night’s memorial for the late Karpal Singh at the Han Chiang College Hall, Penang, saw tribute paid to his widow, Gurmit Kaur, who sat amid the 1,000 odd crowd at the event.
“This woman dedicated and sacrificed her whole life to Karpal for years in silence, standing steadfastly behind her husband as he went about his work, contributing to the nation,” said her second son, Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo.
“This woman is my mother, let’s give her a big round of applause, it is not easy, not easy at all to do what she had done,” he added, as the crowd clapped loudly in her honour. Read the rest of this entry »
Karpal Singh – Will for Justice
by Liew Chin Tong
fz.com
May 05, 2014
The funeral rites for Karpal Singh ended with family members scattering his ashes in the sea off Green Hall, Penang, but the national soul-searching to understand his legacy and to commemorate it has just begun.
The massive outpouring of grief, especially at the funeral on April 20, 2014, for a statesman who had actually never held executive power was indeed unprecedented. Karpal’s legacies as a human rights lawyer and a staunch defender of constitutional democracy, and his leadership in DAP will be remembered, studied and perhaps critiqued.
The cruel attempt that was ongoing when Karpal died, to disqualify him as MP and even to jail him, will continue to haunt the ruling party with his image as victim and martyr “sealed” with his demise. Karpal’s perseverance against physical disability will also continue to inspire many, and hopefully his tragic accident on the highway will help the push for better transportation. Read the rest of this entry »
A Malaysia where all Malaysians are equal, that’s the perfect tribute to Karpal, says Gobind
by Looi Sue-Chern
The Malaysian Insider
May 06, 2014
The greatest tribute Malaysians could give to the late Karpal Singh would be to build a new Malaysia where everyone will be treated fairly and equally. That was the message at the last leg of a series of tributes for the Bukit Gelugor MP which coincided with the first anniversary of GE13.
Karpal’s son Gobind Singh Deo yesterday urged the people to remember his father’s fighting spirit and see his dreams realised with a new government in Putrajaya in the next general election.
“What is important is to remember how he lived because he was a man who fought for us and this country, believing that this country can change one day… a Malaysia where all Malaysians are equal and treated fairly by our government.
“If there was darkness, Karpal was the light. If there was weakness, it was him who gave us strength.
“But now that he is no longer with us, are we going to back down now because Karpal is no longer with us? Do we stop our fight because he is no longer here with us? Or do we remember the fighting spirit that the Tiger of Jelutong has left behind?” he said at the memorial held in Penang last night at the Hanchiang High School’s Lim Lean Teng hall. Read the rest of this entry »
Winning GE13 convincingly, by jailing political foes a year later?
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Parliament on Tuesday, 6 May 2014
COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
MAY 05, 2014
One year after the Barisan Nasional (BN) won the 13th general election (GE13) with fewer votes and fewer seats, more lawmakers from the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) find themselves at the wrong end of the law and risking jail time.
Tomorrow, Seputeh MP Teresa Kok will be charged with sedition, weeks after the late Karpal Singh was convicted of the same charge.
Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim faces the possibility of jail for a second sodomy conviction while his PKR party colleague Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is expected to charged again under the Peaceful Assembly Act.
Just two weeks ago, the Court of Appeal had declared Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act – which criminalises the failure to give 10-day notice before a gathering – to be unconstitutional.
And in July 2012, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that the Sedition Act will be repealed and replaced by a National Harmony Act. That has yet to take place and instead, more people have been charged with sedition. Read the rest of this entry »
Pakatan can’t sustain strong GE13 win in next polls due to internal strife, disagreements, forum told
Posted by Kit in DAP, Islam, Pakatan Rakyat, PAS on Tuesday, 6 May 2014
BY ANISAH SHUKRY
The Malaysian Insider
MAY 06, 2014
Election 2013 could be the last strong win by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) as the issue of hudud, internal party conflicts and a lack of effort to court rural voters will hurt its chances in the next general election, a forum was told last night.
Speaking at the “GE 14: Will there be another political tsunami?” forum, panellists Liew Chin Tong, Wan Hamidi Hamid and Hishamuddin Rais noted that in the past year since the May 5 polls, the opposition pact had gained little ground in their dream to capture Putrajaya despite winning more seats in the 13th general election.
Liew said the hudud issue had worsened PR’s chances of triggering a political tsunami in the next election, and urged its Islamist ally PAS to review its priorities.
“Hudud was a strategy for PAS to affirm its Islamic identity. But does it remain a relevant strategy, or are we just trapping ourselves behind this one single theme? What is our priority? Hudud, or economic justice?” the Kluang MP said at the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. Read the rest of this entry »
Double advice to Ka Siong – don’t tell a bare-faced lie and don’t be caught immediately for such downright dishonesty
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Islam, MCA on Monday, 5 May 2014
Let me give a double advice to the MCA deputy president Wee Ka Siong: Don’t tell a bare-faced lie and don’t be caught immediately with such downright dishonesty.
Ka Siong committed both sins today when he rebutted my media conference statement in Batu Pahat yesterday that the MCA President, Liow Tiong Lai had missed a “golden opportunity” to say “No” to the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak who had attended the launch of the MCA’s “Stronger Together” programme at Tunku Abdul Rahman University College in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that MCA cannot accept Najib’s unilateral and arbitrary announcement in Alor Star last Thursday that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.
This was because what Najib said was not the original Barisan Nasional stand, and furthermore, violates an important BN principle that any change of Barisan Nasional policy must be the result of the consensus of all component parties and not unilaterally and arbitrarily by any one party, even if it is UMNO.
Ka Siong should know better than anyone that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government’s stand, even going back to the UMNO, MCA and MIC founders like Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin and Tun V.T. Sambanthan was that hudud was inconsistent with the secular 1957 constitution. Read the rest of this entry »
On first anniversary of 13GE, Malaysians torn by grave disillusionment with Najib for a year of failed policies and the dire prospect of a break-up of Pakatan Rakyat over hudud law
Posted by Kit in Islam, Najib Razak, nation building, Pakatan Rakyat on Sunday, 4 May 2014
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the 13th General Elections where Malaysians had hoped to see a change of federal government in Putrajaya for the first time in the 56-year history of the nation.
Unfortunately, although Pakatan Rakyat secured the support of the majority of the national electorate, with 52% of the national voters voting for PR, Barisan Nasional continued to occupy the citadels of power in Putrajaya because of unfair electoral practices, gerrymandering and unfair redelineation of electoral constituencies.
The past one year has brought greater disillusionment to the people who wanted to see political change to bring Malaysia back to the pursuit of the Malaysian Dream for all Malaysians by bringing the country back to the tracks of justice, the rule of law, democracy, good governance, excellence and prosperity which Malaysia had strayed from for more than 40 years.
The latest global survey on the average broadband speed is another index to highlight the continued regression and retrogression of Malaysia instead of progress way ahead in the forefront in th world in various aspects of national achievements. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia on US watch list for limitations on religious freedom
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Religion on Sunday, 4 May 2014
BY ELIZABETH ZACHARIAH
The Malaysian Insider
May 03, 2014
Malaysia has been placed on a watch list by an advisory body of the United States government over concerns about its limitation on freedom of religion, putting it on a par with countries like Afghanistan, Cuba, Indonesia, Laos, Russia and Turkey.
In its 2014 annual report, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) placed Malaysia on Tier 2, one level down from Tier 1 (countries of particular concern) which lists countries like Myanmar, China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan, among others.
“USCIRF found that the intertwining of religion, ethnicity, and politics in Malaysia complicate religious freedom protections for religious minorities and non-Sunni Muslims,” the commission said in the report.
USCIRF is an independent US government advisory body that monitors religious freedom worldwide and makes policy recommendations to the American president, the secretary of state and Congress. Read the rest of this entry »
In MH370 search, incompetence, lost time
By Bill Palmer
CNN
May 2, 2014
(CNN) — If we were hoping that the finally released — but month-old — preliminary report on the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 would help explain what happened, we were mostly disappointed.
But the report, issued Thursday and dated April 9, does add new insights on snafus in crucial communication between air traffic control centers and Malaysia Airlines on the morning Flight 370 disappeared. They are disturbing — and put the competence of the airline’s operations center in question.
Indeed the brevity of the report (five pages) seems to show a Malaysian Ministry of Transport still interested in sharing as little information as possible, especially when compared with the extensive detail in preliminary reports from other accidents, such as the loss of Air France Flight 447 in June 2009.
What we do learn from this new report is that the airline told controllers — who were already looking for Flight 370 — that everything was normal, delaying the realization that the plane was many hundreds of miles from where it was thought to be, and any attempts at finding it.
In fact, it would be three hours and 52 minutes between the time that the controller in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, reported to air traffic control in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that Flight 370 had not contacted him as instructed, and the time that the Kuala Lumpur rescue center was activated. Read the rest of this entry »
Hudud’s practical problems: The non-Muslim witness, state boundaries and the Constitution
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Islam, PAS on Sunday, 4 May 2014
by Boo Su-Lyn and Joseph Sipalan
The Malay Mail Online
MAY 4, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — Even if PAS wins Parliament’s nod for its hudud bid, lawyers say the Islamist party will face even greater hurdles when the controversial law is implemented in Kelantan.
They said not only does the Islamic penal code run contrary to the Federal Constitution, it would also have limited reach in that it could not prescribe punishment on criminals who flee the state’s borders.
To complicate things further, the Shariah Court cannot compel a non-Muslim witness to testify before it and cannot cite them for perjury or contempt of court as its jurisdiction only covers Muslims, they said.
“It’s unworkable because non-Muslims will not be subject to those provisions, which means your witnesses, your accomplices who are non-Muslims, will not appear in those cases,” Malaysian Bar president Christopher Leong told The Malay Mail Online.
“It’s non-compellable. I don’t have to answer your questions, let alone attend court,” he added. Read the rest of this entry »
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