A year after GE13, Malaysia remains in a political rut
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 8:25 am
by Sheridan Mahavera
The Malaysian Insider
May 03, 2014
As the country marks one year after arguably the most fiercely fought general election, The Malaysian Insider takes a step back to look at how the country has come since then. In this first part, we look at what has changed since then and if we are better off under the second Barisan Nasional administration of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
One year after winning an even smaller majority and his first personal mandate, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional (BN) find themselves in the same position as before GE13 – running a country divided by race and religion, and a majority dissatisfied with the ruling government.
Islamic fundamentalists want the Shariah criminal law, hudud, which prescribes amputation for theft; racial friction remains as right-wing groups stoke issues; inflation spiked to 3.5% in March; while three out of five people surveyed are against a 6% consumption tax due April 2015.
Loss-making flag carrier Malaysia Airlines has mysteriously lost a Boeing 777-200ER with 239 on board without any trace after a hunt that now enters its 57th day after days of confusion over its location. It has yet to be found.
Political scientist Dr Wong Chin Huat has described the atmosphere of the past year after the May 5 general elections as being the same as the first four years when Najib took over in 2009 from predecessor Tun Abdullah Badawi who quit over BN’s historic loss of the two-thirds parliamentary super-majority in Election 2008.
“The Najib government in the year after May 5 is characterised by both active suppression of dissents and minorities and passive failure in governance.
“(This is) represented by the persecution of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders and marginalisation of non-Muslims, and its failure in managing the MH370 crisis,” Wong told The Malaysian Insider. Read the rest of this entry »
Guan Eng: Seah a resolute defender of the underdog
Posted by Kit in DAP, Parliament on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 7:46 am
Malaysiakini
May 2, 2014
Deceased Teluk Intan MP Seah Leong Peng was a true party loyalist who had stood by the DAP in its darkest days since he became a member in 1995, said secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.
Lim said Seah had stood by the DAP whether from crushing electoral reverses or from the mindless persecution and prosecution of party leaders by the BN “totalitarian” government.
“He was an idealist and a fighter, who refused to bow down to threats and a determined defender of the underdog in his 19 years with the party and 15 years as a wakil rakyat,” the Penang chief minister added.
Seah, 48, died of cancer yesterday after he was diagnosed of the sickness in February. Read the rest of this entry »
GLC dominance disproves Dr M’s claim of non-Malay stranglehold, says DAP MP
Posted by Kit in Brain drain, DAP, Mahathir, NEP on Friday, 2 May 2014, 3:58 pm
by Joseph Sipalan
The Malay Mail Online
May 2, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, May 2 ― The economic dominance of government-linked corporations (GLCs) negates Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s assertion of a non-Malay monopoly over the country’s wealth, a DAP MP said yesterday.
Swatting aside Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed’s claims of Chinese dominion over the country’s wealth and Indian command of its professions to justify pro-Bumiputera affirmative action, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong argued that GLCs masked the community’s true control on the economy.
“Look at most of the private hospitals, any of the big ones you can name. Take Subang Jaya Medical Centre, that is owned by Sime Darby,” he said, referring to the now renamed Sime Darby Medical Centre.
“Prince Court, which is the country’s most expensive hospital, is owned by Petronas. Pantai hospital and Gleneagles are owned by Kazanah through its subsidiaries.
Sime Darby and Petronas are both state-owned corporations while Khazanah Nasional is state asset manager; these and other GLC’s come under the control of the government headed by Malay nationalist party Umno.
A steadily growing force since the Mahathir administration, GLCs such as Khazanah Nasional, Sime Darby and DRB-Hicom have amassed overflowing war chests and built networks that far surpass that which smaller firms and start-ups can muster.
Putrajaya estimates that firms linked to it employ around 5 per cent of the national workforce, and hold 36 per cent market capitalisation of Bursa Malaysia and 54 per cent of the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) respectively. Read the rest of this entry »
Not a good day to be a Malaysian as the world wakes up to critical and adverse media headlines that nobody noticed MH 370 was missing for 17 minutes and no search was launched for another four hours
Today is not a good day to be a Malaysian as the world wakes up to critical and adverse media headlines on the Malaysian preliminary report on the missing MH370 Boeing 777-200 completing its eighth week of vanishing into the air with 239 passengers and crew on board without leaving any wreckage or clue as to what had happened on the fateful morning of March 8.
All over the world, the media splashed the shocking headlines of the admission from the first Malaysian official report that nobody noticed that Flight MH370 was missing for 17 minutes and no search was launched for another four hours.
Instead of answering the many questions that have been raised in the past eight weeks of the MH 370 disaster, both the preliminary report and the statement by the Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, accompanying it have only provoked more questions.
Firstly, the five-page preliminary report on the missing MH 370 had been described as “scant at best” in contrast to the preliminary report into Air France 447 which was released one month after the plane disappeared and which was 128 pages long, while a preliminary report into the Qantas engine explosion over Singapore in 2010 was more than 40 pages with diagrams and charts. Read the rest of this entry »
Investigation Finds 17-Minute Delay in Reporting Missing Plane
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and MICHAEL FORSYTHE
New York Times
1st May 2014
HONG KONG — Seventeen minutes passed after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from civilian radar screens before air traffic controllers in Vietnam and Malaysia raised any concerns about it, according to a Malaysian government report released on Thursday that described confusion and miscommunication in the hours that followed.
The details of delays and miscues came in a preliminary report by Malaysia’s chief inspector of air accidents on the investigation into the missing jet, which left only tantalizing clues to its likely whereabouts that were not recognized or understood for days after it disappeared on March 8. Experts eventually concluded that the plane must have fallen into the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia, thousands of miles from its planned route to Beijing over the Gulf of Thailand, where searchers initially wasted crucial days on a fruitless hunt. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370: Compilation of Bizarre Conspiracy Theories – Aliens, Pilot Suicide, Rapper Pitbull’s Prediction, Bermuda Triangle, and More Mind-Boggling Ideas
International Business Times
Thursday, May 1, 2014
The question still remains – will the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ever be found? A number of conspiracy theories with capricious notches of reputation regarding the disappearance of Malaysia Ailrines Flight MH370 have spread online ever since the jetliner went missing on March 8. Some people have rich imagination to propose such mind-boggling ideas and suggest the most enduring conspiracy theories about the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Here, we round up the most controversial theories that had beleaguered the search for the missing jetliner. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370: Malaysia report indicates plane flew route to avoid detection
By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney
Telegraph
01 May 2014
Map released as part of government findings on flight disappearance suggest it deliberately evaded military radars
Malaysia on Thursday released a preliminary report on the missing Flight MH370 which confirmed that the plane avoided flying over land after an unexplained westward turn and flew along a route apparently designed to prevent it being detected by military radars.
Releasing its first findings on the aviation mystery, the Malaysian government provided a detailed map showing the flight’s unusual path after it disappeared from the screens of air traffic controllers on March 8.
The map indicated that the plane did not – as previously believed – follow a series of predetermined navigational waypoints but instead flew directly above the Strait of Malacca and then turned again and travelled south above seas for about seven hours before crashing in the Indian Ocean. This route would have ensured the plane avoided flying over Indonesian territory – thereby reducing the risk of detection – though it may have passed over the northern tip of Sumatra.
David Learmount, an aviation expert, said the route suggested the aircraft was trying to evade detection and to ensure it was not tracked or targeted by the Indonesian air force. Read the rest of this entry »
British marine archaeologist claims to have found flight MH370 3,000 miles from the search zone after spotting debris painted in the colours of Malaysia Airlines
Tim Akers believes he has discovered MH370 debris off the coast of Vietnam
He says satellite images appear to show tail, wings and other debris
Claims it is more likely plane crashed in South China Sea than Indian ocean
Authorities have been searching for aircraft off coast of Western Australia
Mr Akers had previously been studying Australian waters off Perth for years in search for remains of lost WWII ship – the HMAS Sydney
It comes as airline boss tells relatives of passengers onboard MH370 to go home and wait for further news
By JAMES RUSH and RICHARD SHEARS
Daily Mail
1 May 2014
A British marine archaeologist claims to have found the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 more than 3,000 miles from where authorities are currently searching.
Tim Akers, 56, had been studying Australian waters off Perth for years in a search for the remains of the country’s lost WWII ship – the HMAS Sydney.
The search for the vessel was in the same waters that are believed to contain the missing flight MH370 off the coast of Western Australia.
British marine archaeologist Tim Akers believes he has discovered debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 more than 3,000 miles from where everyone has been looking
A massive search operation involving satellites, aircraft, ships and sophisticated underwater equipment capable of scouring the ocean floor has failed to turn up any trace of the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8.
But Mr Akers, of North Yorkshire now thinks he might have discovered where the flight, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went down after it went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
He claims to have identified what he believes is part of the tail of the jet off the coast of Vietnam – just around 1,000 miles from where the plane took off.
His findings appear to support reports this week from a US former pilot Michael Hoebel, from New York, who believes he found the wreckage of the flight off the coast of Thailand. Read the rest of this entry »
First official report into missing MH370 reveals nobody noticed the plane was missing for 17 minutes and no search was launched for another four hours
Five-page report details last known moments of doomed jet on March 8
It was released by Malaysian government in response to families’ anger
Document reveals first query about whereabouts was at 1.38am local time
But a rescue team was only alerted four hours later at 5.30am
Report recommends new worldwide standard of real-time plane tracking
Search is being scaled down and family help centres will close next week
By DAN BLOOM
Daily Mail
1 May 2014
Air traffic controllers did not notice Flight 370 was missing until 17 minutes after it vanished from radar, an official report has confirmed.
And they did not dispatch a rescue team until almost four hours later – despite contacting staff in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The first official report on the plane’s disappearance was released by the Malaysian government today after politicians came under intense pressure from passengers’ families.
Written almost a month ago and dated April 9, the preliminary report has already been sent to the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
It was meant to stay confidential but Malaysian Prime Minister bowed to demands of families who complained the government had not done enough.
The report confirms the plane disappeared from Malaysian radar at 1.21 am on March 8 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, and no trace of it has been found since. Read the rest of this entry »
Wee Ka Siong has finally asked the right question although he is still quite blur about the answer – that MCA cannot say “No” to UMNO because of the latter’s hegemony in Barisan Nasional while DAP and PAS can say “No” to each other as Pakatan Rakyat is a coalition of equals
Posted by Kit in Islam, MCA, Pakatan Rakyat, UMNO on Thursday, 1 May 2014, 1:35 pm
MCA Deputy President, Datuk Dr. Wee Ka Siong has finally asked the right question although he is still quite blur about the answer.
Yesterday, Wee posed the question to me why I dare not say “No” to PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang but want MCA to say “No” to UMNO on the issue of hudud.
The answer which Wee is too blind to see or accept is that MCA cannot say “No” to UMNO because of UMNO’s hegemony in Barisan Nasional while DAP and PAS can say “No” to each other as Pakatan Rakyat is a coalition of equals.
Wee must belong to the infinitesimally small group of Malaysian politicians who do not know that the DAP has said “No” to Hadi and the PAS leaders about implementation of hudud as it is against the secular Malaysian Constitution and inappropriate for a modern, multi-racial and multi-religious nation like Malaysia.
This is why hudud is not part of the Pakatan Rakyat agenda or common policy platform, and is only the policy programme of PAS and which could undermine or even destroy the Pakatan Rakyat coalition if this agenda is pursued in utter disregard of the sensitivities, principles and objectives of the other Pakatan Rakyat parties. Read the rest of this entry »
Hudud has no place in present constitutional structure, say legal experts
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Islam on Thursday, 1 May 2014, 11:50 am
by V. Anbalagan
The Malaysian Insider
May 01, 2014
Hudud can be enforced in Malaysia only after a new constitution is drawn up to make the nation an Islamic state, constitutional law experts said.
They said the 1957 Merdeka constitution declared that Malaysia was a secular state and Islamic criminal law cannot co-exist with other federal penal legislation.
The lawyers said a legal challenge could be mounted even if the constitution was amended to implement hudud as this would amount to causing irreparable damage to the basic structure of the supreme law.
Furthermore, they said any attempt to introduce a private member’s bill to implement hudud in Kelantan could be legally challenged for going against the constitution. Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. begins to back away from soaring MH370 search costs
by Matt Siegel
The Globe and Mail
Apr. 30 2014
SYDNEY — Reuters
With the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 entering a new, much longer phase, the countries involved must decide how much they are prepared to spend on the operation and what they stand to lose if they hold back.
The search is already set to be the most costly in aviation history and spending will rise significantly as underwater drones focus on a larger area of the seabed that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Monday could take six to eight months to search.
But despite U.S. President Barack Obama publicly promising to commit more assets, the United States appears keen to begin passing on the costs of providing sophisticated sonar equipment that will form the backbone of the expanded hunt.
That means Australia, China and Malaysia – the countries most closely involved in the operation – look set to bear the financial and logistical burden of a potentially lengthy and expensive search.
“We’re already at tens of millions. Is it worth hundreds of millions?” a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters last week. “I don’t know. That’s for them to decide.” Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysian universities not among world’s top ‘young’ institutions, global survey shows
Posted by Kit in Education, university on Thursday, 1 May 2014, 7:42 am
by Elizabeth Zachariah
The Malaysian Insider
MAY 01, 2014
Malaysian public universities have once again failed to measure up to higher learning institutions around the world, this time being left out of the latest ranking of the annual Times Higher Education (THE) Top 100 Universities under 50 years old.
Four Asian universities are ranked among the top 10 of the world’s young universities, including South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology which took the top spot, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (3), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (4) and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (5).
Malaysia, however, failed to get on the list for the second year running. In the first rankings list in 2012, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was ranked 98th.
This is despite Putrajaya’s claim that Malaysia has one of the best education systems in the world – better than United States, Britain and Germany. Read the rest of this entry »
PAS penentu masa depan Pakatan Rakyat?
Posted by Kit in Islam, Pakatan Rakyat, PAS on Wednesday, 30 April 2014, 4:45 pm
Wan Hamidi Hamid
The Malaysian Insider
April 30, 2014
Sejak penubuhannya pada 1951, PAS tidak pernah putus asa dalam perjuangan politiknya. Ramai pemimpinnya menjadi mangsa kezaliman pemerintah Perikatan dan kemudiannya Barisan Nasional.
Namun, selepas setiap ketika kezaliman dan kekejaman dirasai, seolah-olah ada pemimpin PAS yang lupa dengan apa yang pimpinan Umno lakukan terhadap parti mereka.
Tetapi ramai lagi ahli-ahli PAS yang tidak lupa dengan kelicikan politik Umno. Read the rest of this entry »
Biggest MCA charade in 65-year party history – threatening to mobilise thousands of people and even to surround Parliament to oppose hudud but it could not mobilise one person, the MCA President, to say “No” to Najib
Malaysians are watching the roll-out of the biggest MCA charade in its 65-year party history – MCA threatening to mobilise thousands of people and even to surround Parliament to oppose hudud but it could not mobilise one person, the MCA President himself, to say “No” to the Prime Minister and UMNO President Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the issue.
Based on a very misleading and incorrect translation of the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council statement on hudud on Sept. 28, 2011, the MCA had launched an aggressive but dishonest nation-wide campaign against the DAP which has ended up as the biggest MCA charade in its 65-year party history.
It is sad to watch such a MCA charade – for it has only succeeded in relentlessly and mercilessly exposing Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and the MCA leaders as political leaders without conviction, principles and scruples, which was why the MCA was roundly rejected by the Malaysian electorate in the 13th general elections last May and reduced to a “7-11” political party in Malaysia.
Liow and the current MCA leadership are now under a stringent test – are they prepared to tell Najib that they are not prepared to return to the Barisan Nasional Cabinet and Government until and unless the consensus principle is restored to the Barisan Nasional, and Najib retract his unilateral and arbitrary announcement last Thursday that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud? Read the rest of this entry »
Obama’s Visit: Any Value and Is Anyone Listening?
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, nation building on Wednesday, 30 April 2014, 12:11 pm
Koon Yew Yin
30.4.2014
President Obama has come and gone. His visit to KL has generated much feedback. Analysts concerned with the political direction of the country have been especially disappointed with his refusal to meet the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. It was like him visiting Myanmar and refusing to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.
One commentator, Dennis Ignatius, has called this decision “an astonishing betrayal by a country that has often portrayed itself as a world champion of democracy and human rights. It sends an unmistakable signal to corrupt and abusive governments everywhere that disrespect for human rights and the curtailing of democratic governance will be overlooked in exchange for pro-American policies.”
The critic noted that surely the US leader is not “unaware of what is going on in Malaysia – the corruption and abuse of power, the tainted elections, the harassment and jailing of opposition leaders, the racial and religious incitement, the intolerance of dissent, the narrowing of our democratic space.”
In one sense, I share the above view of the critic who incidentally is not any ordinary Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »
Putrajaya still seen as corrupt, as people sceptical of government’s anti-graft efforts
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Najib Razak on Tuesday, 29 April 2014, 7:41 pm
by Elizabeth Zachariah
The Malaysian Insider
April 29, 2014
Most Malaysians are sceptical of Putrajaya’s efforts to eradicate corruption and practise integrity despite its efforts to pursue such an agenda, an analyst told a forum today.
Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) chief executive officer Wan Saiful Wan Jan (pic) said most people were convinced that corruption and abuse of power were still a critical issue in Malaysia despite the government’s initiatives to work on them.
“Corruption is still an issue. So, despite the government’s initiatives, people still feel the country is corrupt.
“There is great scepticism of how serious the government is in pursuing this,” he said at a forum on integrity at the Malaysian Institute of Integrity in Kuala Lumpur.
He said the high level of scepticism of the government’s efforts indicated that it was because there were no real efforts to actually eradicate corruption within the government and its departments and agencies.
“It is just like when the government talked about moderation and set up the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), which is a very good initiative to take the moderation agenda to an international level,” Wan Saiful said, referring to the think tank mooted by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Karpal’s last thoughts on hudud, sedition act and ties in Pakatan
Posted by Kit in Constitution, DAP, Islam, Pakatan Rakyat on Tuesday, 29 April 2014, 5:08 pm
The Malaysian Insider
APRIL 29, 2014
LATEST UPDATE: APRIL 29, 2014 04:59 PM
In one of his last interviews before his sudden death in an auto accident on April 17, Karpal Singh spoke to DAP mouthpiece The Rocket on matters close to his heart and his political struggle, including the hudud, the Sedition Act that he was charged with, and inter-party relations with PAS and PKR.
Karpal’s (pic) interview, which is available on The Rocket’s website and its April edition, is reproduced with permission.
Q: You have been frank about issues close to your heart and never hold back in taking a strong stand on issues that other DAP leaders don’t dare to vocalise. Why?
I have been elected by my constituents and it is my duty as an elected member of parliament to speak the views of the people. As long as one abides by the law and is in line with democratic principles under which we operate, no leader should be afraid to air his views.
It would be a sad day for DAP if we hold back just so we don’t get into trouble. It won’t be in the interest of the party or the country. I articulate certain things and issues that are close to the hearts of the people I represent, not just a party stance per se. Of course the party stance is also in line with the constitution.
Read the rest of this entry »
MH370 Wreckage Found: U.S. Pilot Claims to Discover Wreckage of Missing Aircraft – Find Out Where is it?
By jaskiran kaur | April 29, 2014
International Business Times
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has recently announced the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has “entered a new phase,” focusing on larger area of the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, an American pilot claimed he has found wreckage of the missing airline. After 52 days of the search mission, Michael Hoebel, a pilot from New York, believed he has found the wreckage site of missing jet, Daily Mail reported.
The 60-year-old pilot reportedly spent hours scrutinizing satellite images made available to the general public by the Web site TomNod.com, before he concluded MH370 was lying underneath the Indian Ocean. He noted he has discovered the outline of the jetliner at the bottom of the ocean, off the northeast coast of Malaysia. The area was west of Songkhla in Thailand.
If debris lying at the bottom of the Indian Ocean were verified to be the missing Boeing 777, then it appeared to be in one piece, as per the image that was taken few days after the alleged crash.
The New York pilot informed his hometown news channel WIVB about his discovery. Read the rest of this entry »
Liow Tiong Lai should stop blowing “hot air” if he is not prepared to issue an ultimatum to Najib that he and MCA would not return to Cabinet unless the Prime Minister gives solemn undertaking to uphold secular Malaysian constitution with no hudud laws for the country
Posted by Kit in Islam, MCA, nation building on Tuesday, 29 April 2014, 1:17 pm
MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai should stop blowing “hot air” if he is not prepared to issue an ultimatum to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that he and MCA would not return to the Barisan Nasional Cabinet and Government unless and until the Najib administration gives a solemn undertaking to uphold the secular Malaysian Constitution with no hudud laws for the country.
It is pointless of Liow going on a nation-wide road show to meet thousands of “MCA grassroots leaders and leaders from Chinese guilds and associations” breathing “fire and brimstone” and threatening to unleash thousands of MCA Youth members throughout the country, including surrounding Parliament when it reconvenes in June, over a PAS proposal to table a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament for the implementation of hudud in Kelantan when the MCA President dare not say “No”, loudly and clearly, to the Prime Minister who had said a few days ago that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud?
Was Liow and the MCA leadership consulted before Najib made the policy change and announcement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud, which not only violates the fundamental principles and features of the secular 1957 Merdeka Constitution but goes against the struggles, memory and heritage of the nation’s founding fathers in UMNO, MCA and MIC, whether Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin or Tun V. T. Sambanthan?
Or had Liow given his personal, if not party, agreement to Najib’s new policy announcement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud?
Malaysians are entitled to know – was the MCA President ever consulted and whether he had given his consent, whether personally and privately or as MCA President, to Najib’s announcement? Read the rest of this entry »
