Archive for category International
All Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, should perform their national duty to strengthen political stability and national unity in plural Malaysia in the forthcoming six state polls
Posted by Kit in Elections, International, nation building on Friday, 30 June 2023
I have been influenced by two personalities.
The six state general elections in August a test for Malaysians to show that we want Malaysians to be world champions again and not to degenerate to be a failed, divided, rogue, and kleptocratic state
Posted by Kit in Elections, International on Sunday, 11 June 2023
Yesterday, I was at the Dataran Pahlawan Negara in Putrajaya to attend the Trooping the Colours ceremony where the Yang di Pertuan Agong inspected the guard of honour.
Heart-rending to see United States Government doing nothing to end the carnage from Covid-19 epidemic which has registered more than a million Covid-19 cases and killed another 10,000 Americans since US Election Day on Nov. 3
Posted by Kit in COVID-19, International on Thursday, 12 November 2020
It is heart-rending to see the United States Government doing nothing to end the carnage from the Covid-19 epidemic which has registered more than a million Covid-19 cases and killed another 10,000 Americans since US Presidential Election Day on November 3.
It is a staggering abdication of leadership and responsibility that as the Covid-19 epidemic in the United States rages nation-wide, there is a vacuum of leadership in the US government, as Donald Trump disappeared inside the White House ensconced with his family and advisers on how to win an election already declared lost. Read the rest of this entry »
The marvel is not that Joe Biden won, but that Donald Trump nearly won!
Posted by Kit in COVID-19, Fake News, International on Sunday, 8 November 2020
(Tatal ke bawah untuk kenyataan versi BM)
After four nail-biting days, which nearly turned the US Presidential Election Day into an Election Week, Joe Biden has been confirmed to have crossed the magic figure of 270 US Electoral College votes to become the 46th President of the United States.
The marvel is not that Joe Biden won, but that Donald Trump nearly won!
It is a testimony of the power of disinformation and fake news in the era of information that despite ignoring over 10 million Covid-19 cases and nearly a quarter of a million of Covid-19 fatalities in the United States in the 10-month-old epidemic – almost five times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam war – and painting a false picture in the final days of the campaign that the United States was “turning the corner” in the Covid-19 epidemic when it was raging to a new high registering a record daily increase of 132,540 Covid-19 infections on Nov. 6, Trump was nearly re-elected President of the Unites States.
Malaysia should offer our firefighters’ help in the Australian bushfire crisis
Posted by Kit in environment, International on Sunday, 5 January 2020
Malaysia should offer our firefighters’ help in the Australian bushfire crisis, which will be in the spirit of good neighbourliness.
Australia is facing an unprecedented bushfire crisis, which is reported to be entering a dangerous new phase with high temperatures and strong winds set to exacerbate the already devastating fire conditions across the country.
There are fears a number of still-raging blazes could merge to create “monster infernos” in Victoria and New South Wales.
Call for an international inquiry into Morsi’s death, whether he had been denied basic medical care while in prison
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, International on Tuesday, 18 June 2019
Seruan untuk penyiasatan antarabangsa ke atas kematian Morsi, sama ada beliau telah dinafikan hak rawatan asas semasa di penjara
Saya menyeru supaya diadakan satu siasatan antarabangsa bersama untuk menyiasat perihal pemergian bekas Presiden Mesir Mohamad Morsi semasa perbicaraan mahkamah beliau, untuk menyiasat sama ada presiden Mesir yang pertama yang dilantik secara berdemokratik ini telah dinafikan hak rawatan asas semasa berada di dalam penjara.
Komuniti antarabangsa mestilah memastikan kerajaan Mesir bertanggungjawab ke atas kematian ini jika satu penyiasatan antarabangsa yang saksama, menyeluruh, dan telus mendapati kematian ini disebabkan oleh kegagalan pihak berkuasa untuk memberikan rawatan yang sewajarnya kepada Morsi.
Laporan daripada Human Rights Watch yang dikeluarkan dua tahun lepas mendakwa Morsi menerima layanan yang kejam dan tidak berperikemanusiaan sepanjang di dalam tahanan.
Laporan tersebut mendedahkan keadaan teruk yang menyebabkan Morsi mengalami kesusutan berat badan, pitam, dan koma diabetik.
Amnesty International juga telah menyeru supaya siasatan diadakan mengenai kematian mengejut Morsi dan keadaan yang dihadapi beliau di dalam penjara.
Siasatan hak asasi antarabangsa ini mestilah menyiasat pelbagai laporan yang telah dikeluarkan dalam tahun-tahun yang lepas yang membutirkan penganiayaan dan seksaaan yang dihadapi Morsi di dalam penjara, selain daripada dakwaan daripada anaknya sendiri, Ahmad, tentang bagaimana kesihatan ayahnya yang merosot teruk sejak dipenjarakan, dan bagaimana keadaan ini diabaikan oleh pihak berkuasa Mesir.
(Kenyataan Media Ahli Parlimen DAP Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang di Gelang Patah pada hari Selasa 18 Jun 2019) Read the rest of this entry »
How Yemen became the most wretched place on earth
Posted by Kit in International, Middle East/Africa on Sunday, 3 December 2017
Economist
Nov 30th 2017 | ADEN, HODEIDA AND SANA’A
A report from a conflict zone the world ignores
ALONG the road from the port city of Hodeida to Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, rugged mountains rise sharply from a coastal plain, then level off, giving way to a raised plateau. Old stone farmhouses overlook terraced fields, fed by mountain rains. To the south are lush forests, where baboons and wildcats live. Yemen’s vast deserts spread to the east. The diversity of the landscape is breathtaking. But amid all this natural beauty, there is misery.
Yemen was the poorest country in the Middle East even before the outbreak of war in 2014 between Houthi rebels and government forces. The conflict has heaped devastation upon poverty. Since fighting began Yemen has suffered the biggest cholera outbreak in modern history and is on the brink of the harshest famine the world has seen for decades. The conflict has shattered the water, education and health systems. The UN says that it is the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis. Three-quarters of the population of 28m need help.
The war in Yemen, and looming humanitarian catastrophe, has gone largely unnoticed beyond its borders. The fighting is rooted in old conflicts and now involves many groups, sucking in Yemen’s neighbours. But no single force has emerged that is strong enough or competent enough to hold the entire country together, making the prospects for peace dim. Read the rest of this entry »
The war the world ignores
Posted by Kit in International, Middle East/Africa on Sunday, 3 December 2017
Economist (Leader)
Nov 30th 2017
How—and why—to end the war in Yemen
A pointless conflict has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world
YEMEN lost the title of Arabia Felix, or “Fortunate Arabia”, long ago. It has suffered civil wars, tribalism, jihadist violence and appalling poverty. But none of this compares with the misery being inflicted on the country today by the war between a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis, a Shia militia backed by Iran.
The UN reckons three-quarters of Yemen’s 28m people need some kind of humanitarian aid. Mounting rubbish, failing sewerage and wrecked water supplies have led to the worst cholera outbreak in recent history. The country is on the brink of famine. The economy has crumbled, leaving people with impossible choices. Each day the al-Thawra hospital in Hodeida must decide which of the life-saving equipment to run with what little fuel it has.
Perhaps the worst of it is that much of the world seems unperturbed (see Briefing), calloused by the years of bloodshed in Syria and other parts of the Middle East, and despairing of its ability to effect change. To be cynical, Yemen is farther away from Europe than Syria is; its wretched people do not, on the whole, wash up in the West seeking asylum. Read the rest of this entry »
The Saudi Purge Isn’t Just a Power Grab
Posted by Kit in Corruption, International, Islam on Thursday, 9 November 2017
By Peter Waldman and Glen Carey
Bloomberg
November 9, 2017
It’s a go-for-broke upheaval. The question now, for hopeful investors, is whether the crown prince follows his corruption crackdown by opening up an economy dominated by plutocrats and royal cronies.
It makes sense to be cynical about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ostensible crackdown on corruption in Saudi Arabia.
Among the 11 princes, 4 ministers, and dozens of well-known businessmen arrested were some of the 32-year-old’s last potential rivals to the Saudi throne.
The move also smacks of an asset snatch. Police nabbed 3 of the Arab world’s 10 richest men, including investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire best known for rescuing Citicorp in 1991 and making big bets on Apple Inc. and 21st Century Fox Inc.
But was it only a Machiavellian power play? Or is this the start of a dramatic, go-for-broke attempt to transform a country that’s resisted change for decades? Read the rest of this entry »
Attention: Saudi Prince in a Hurry
Posted by Kit in Corruption, International on Wednesday, 8 November 2017
Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
NOV. 7, 2017
To understand the upheaval that is taking place in Saudi Arabia today, you have to start with the most important political fact about that country: The dominant shaping political force there for the past four decades has not been Islamism, fundamentalism, liberalism, capitalism or ISISism.
It has been Alzheimer’s.
The country’s current king is 81 years old. He replaced a king who died at 90, who replaced a king who died at 84. It’s not that none of them introduced reforms. It’s that at a time when the world has been experiencing so much high-speed change in technology, education and globalization, these successive Saudi monarchs thought that reforming their country at 10 miles an hour was fast enough — and high oil prices covered for that slow pace. Read the rest of this entry »
Saudi mass arrests jolt markets but many see overdue swoop on corruption
Posted by Kit in Corruption, International on Wednesday, 8 November 2017
Katie Paul, Stephen Kalin
Reuters
8th November 2017
RIYADH (Reuters) – All major Gulf stock markets slid on Tuesday on jitters about Saudi Arabia’s sweeping anti-graft purge, a campaign seen by critics as a populist power grab but by ordinary Saudis as an overdue attack on the sleaze of a moneyed ultra-elite.
U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed the crackdown, saying some of those arrested have been “milking” Saudi Arabia for years, but some Western officials expressed unease about the possible reaction in Riyadh’s opaque tribal and royal politics.
Authorities detained dozens of top Saudis including billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in a move widely seen as an attempt by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to neuter any opposition to his lightening ascent to the pinnacle of power.
Admirers see it as an assault on the endemic theft of public funds in the world’s top oil exporter, an absolute monarchy where the state and the ruling family are intertwined. Read the rest of this entry »
I will return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam, says crown prince
Posted by Kit in International, Islam on Thursday, 26 October 2017
Martin Chulov in Riyadh
Guardian
Tuesday 24 October 2017
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has vowed to return the country to “moderate Islam” and asked for global support to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and lures investors.
In an interview with the Guardian, the powerful heir to the Saudi throne said the ultra-conservative state had been “not normal” for the past 30 years, blaming rigid doctrines that have governed society in a reaction to the Iranian revolution, which successive leaders “didn’t know how to deal with”.
Expanding on comments he made at an investment conference at which he announced the launch of an ambitious $500bn (£381bn) independent economic zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, Prince Mohammed said: “We are a G20 country. One of the biggest world economies. We’re in the middle of three continents. Changing Saudi Arabia for the better means helping the region and changing the world. So this is what we are trying to do here. And we hope we get support from everyone.
“What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn’t know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it.” Read the rest of this entry »
Anifah’s verbal pyrotechnics hide a terribly weak case and reinforces why he must explain reasons for Malaysia’s diplomatic setback in losing 50 votes in UN failing to get elected to UNHRC
Posted by Kit in International on Monday, 23 October 2017
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman’s verbal pyrotechnics hide a terribly weak case and reinforces the case why he must explain the reasons for Malaysia’s diplomatic setback in losing 50 votes in the United Nations failing to get elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the new year.
In accordance with paragraph 7 of General Assembly resolution 60/251 the UNHRC shall consist of 47 Member States, which shall be elected directly and individually by secret ballot by the majority of the members of the General Assembly.
The membership shall be based on equitable geographical distribution, and seats shall be distributed as follows among regional groups: Read the rest of this entry »
Anifah should explain why Malaysia’s international reputation and human rights standing plunged so precipitately under Najib’s premiership as to lose 50 votes as compared to 2010 resulting in defeat for election to UN Human Rights Council
Posted by Kit in Corruption, International on Friday, 20 October 2017
The so-called “rebuttal” of the Foreign Minister, Datuk Seri Anifah Aman to the statement by the DAP MP for Kluang, Liew Chin Tong, asking for an explanation why Malaysia lost its bid for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council could be dismissed just as all “bluff and bluster signifying nothing”, as it completely failed to address Chin Tong’s question which is asked by all thinking Malaysians.
It is in fact another sad example of the atrocious English of Malaysia’s Cabinet Ministers.
Anifah should explain why Malaysia’s international reputation and human rights standing plunged so precipitately under Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s premiership as to lose 50 votes when compared to Malaysia’s second attempt to be elected to the UN Human Rights Council in 2010, when Malaysia secured 179 votes as compared to the measly 129 votes this time. Read the rest of this entry »
To Malaysia’s eternal shame, we are singled out and named in the new book “The Corruption Cure” as the nation which the United States government is combatting in the fight against global kleptocracy
Posted by Kit in Corruption, International, Najib Razak on Friday, 13 October 2017
It is to Malaysia’s eternal shame that we are singled out and named in the new book, “The Corruption Cure” by Robert Rotberg as the nation which the United States government is combatting in the fight against global kleptocracy.
This is to be found in Page 288 of the book, which reads:
“Under President Obama and his two attorneys general, the U.S. has intensified its attack on corporate, sovereign wealth fund, and individual corruption because it is wrong, but also because the Department of Justice believes that such corruption is a major cause of global instability, a severe hindrance to economic development everywhere, a major creator of poverty, and a critical abuse of national social contracts. Funds pilfered abroad – as in the Malaysian government sovereign wealth fund case, where more than $3 billion was misappropriated – also distorts real estate markets and the overall American economy (witness Miami and New York). For all those reasons and more, corruption is a ‘threat to American national security’”.
Reading this paragraph, I find it most ironical and indignant that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak could speak about Malaysia strengthening the American economy when he visited US President Donald Trump at the White House on Sept. 12.
Read the rest of this entry »
Aung San Suu Kyi must end her silence and speak up for justice and human rights for the Rohingyas and protect them from ethnic cleansing
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, International on Friday, 8 September 2017
During the 15 of the 21 years from 1989 to 2010 when she became one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, I have issued countless statements espousing her freedom and her cause for democracy and human rights in Myanmar.
It is heart-breaking to watch her silence and failure to speak up and end the violence, horrors and human rights violations perpetrated on the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.
I fully endorse the call by another Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu who have come out of retirement to issue a heart-felt letter to Aung San Suu Kyi, calling on her to end the violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. Read the rest of this entry »
Parliament should adopt an all-party emergency motion tomorrow to condemn North Korea’s “hostage terrorism” and to call on North Korea regime to immediately revoke the ban on Malaysians from leaving North Korea
Posted by Kit in International on Tuesday, 7 March 2017
Parliament should adopt an all-party emergency motion tomorrow to condemn North Korea’s “hostage terrorism” and to call on the North Korean regime to immediately revoke the ban on Malaysians from leaving North Korea.
When I issued a statement on 17th February to ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi to explain why security at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) was so lax that it could become playground for foreign agents to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, 46, I had not expected to hit the bull’s eye.
The events of the subsequent fortnight showed that without the knowledge of the Malaysian authorities, Malaysia had in fact long been the “playground” of North Korean secret agents and assassins to the extent that they could carry out the dastardly assassination of Kim Jong Nam by the use of one of the world’s deadliest nerve agents VX, which is among the most dangerous chemicals ever created by man and classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction. Read the rest of this entry »
Donald Trump Is Spreading Racism — Not Fighting Terrorism
Posted by Kit in International on Saturday, 4 February 2017
Daniel Benjamin
TIME
3.2.2017
IDEAS
Benjamin was Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department and is director of The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College
Counterterrorism may seem like a complicated, murky business. But practitioners agree on a few simple rules. Among them:
1. Be clear about who threatens you, and target them. Casting your net too widely creates new enemies.
2. Build strong alliances. Terrorism is a global problem that requires a global solution; you need capable, like-minded partners to collaborate on intelligence, law enforcement and military operations.
3. Counter and undermine your enemies’ narrative. Don’t confirm it.
4. Don’t drive away moderates; winning them over is key to defeating your enemies.
And, 5. Show efficiency and competence. Those qualities bolster deterrence. Read the rest of this entry »
POLL FINDS MAJORITY DISAPPROVE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDERS
Posted by Kit in International on Friday, 3 February 2017
BY MICHELE GORMAN
Newsweek
2/2/17
Disapproval of Trump’s recent executive orders ranged from 55 percent to 60 percent.
All three of President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders have earned majority disapproval ratings among Americans, according to a new Gallup poll released Thursday afternoon.
Arguably the most controversial order came on January 27, when Trump banned Syrian refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. Since then, Americans in cities from coast to coast have gathered in airports and streets to protest the ban, while the White House defends the president’s actions. Even some fellow Republicans have publicly criticized the ban. Read the rest of this entry »
Jewish people give Muslims key to their synagogue after town’s mosque burns down
Posted by Kit in International, Islam, Religion on Thursday, 2 February 2017
Jon Sharman
Independent
2nd Feb 2017
Donations to rebuild the Islamic centre are adding up
Jewish people in a small Texas city handed Muslim worshippers the keys to their synagogue after the town’s only mosque was destroyed in a fire.
The Victoria Islamic Centre burned down on Saturday and had previously been burgled — the cause is being investigated by federal officials.
But the town’s Muslim population will not be without a place to worship while their building is reconstructed, thanks to their Jewish neighbours. Read the rest of this entry »
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