PKA chairman: I voted with my conscience
Written by Sharon Tan
Monday, 28 March 2011
The Edge Financial Daily
On March 22, at Lee’s last board meeting as PKA chairman, he was outvoted 5-2 when the board decided not to sue the members of the previous board for failing to execute their fiduciary duties in relation to the PKFZ fiasco.
Lee, whose political career includes three terms as the Subang Jaya assemblyman, says he knew the Transport Minister had not recommended his reappointment as PKA chairman. However, he remains hopeful as he believes his work is not yet complete.
As his tenure draws to an end on March 31, Lee feels that he has tried to correct the PKFZ debacle, which may cost taxpayers RM12.5 billion if it defaults on its borrowings. Under his watch, a forensic audit of the project was initiated, good practices put in place, including a whistleblower policy, and three independent directors appointed to the board of PKA, which had been filled by politicians and civil servants.
Here are excerpts of the interview: Read the rest of this entry »
Enhancing Human Capital Through Education: Revamping Schools and Universities (Cont’d)
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Education on Monday, 28 March 2011, 12:36 pm
by M. Bakri Musa
Chapter 7: Enhancing Human Capital
Enhancing Human Capital Through Education: Revamping Schools and Universities (Cont’d)
There are plenty of ready role models. Malaysia can look to Germany and Switzerland for examples of superior trade and vocational schools. For academic schools, Malaysia could emulate the finest British public or American magnet schools. Local universities could propose model curricula for these academic schools. Similarly, industries could help design specific vocational syllabi. Proton for example, could establish a school to prepare students to be car mechanics and auto body repairers and other skilled workers for the automobile industry.
My proposal calls for the elimination of the current matrikulasi programs. They are expensive and waste valuable resources of the universities. Universities should stick to doing what other institutions cannot do, that is, education at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Read the rest of this entry »
Bible desecration shows puerile insensitivity
by NH Chan
The Malaysian Insider
(loyarburok.com)
March 27, 2011
MARCH 27 — In the Sun on Monday, March 21, 2011 I read with dismay about how insensitive the Barisan Nasional government is of the religion of other people. It reads:
Stamping desecrates Bible, say Christian federation
By Karen Arukesamy
PETALING JAYA: As far as the Christian community is concerned, they will not accept the 35,100 Bahasa Malaysia Bibles after the government imposed new conditions for their release from Port Klang and Kuching port.
Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing said in a statement that the new requirement that the Malay language Bibles are stamped means they have been desecrated [meaning ‘to treat something sacred with violent disrespect’].
He said Christians could not accept the released Bibles which have now been stamped with a serial number, official seal and the words ‘… for the use of Christians only, by order of the Home Ministry’.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander is a well known proverb. So how would the minister feel if someone were to desecrate the Quran? The desecration of the Bible clearly shows that our government does not respect the religions of others in multi-racial Malaysia.
Are the rest of us — who are not born a Muslim because we are not Malays — second class citizens? It certainly looks that way to us who are the rest of the people of this nation. Read the rest of this entry »
UBAH!
Scroll down for latest post.
BN’s fatal screw-up
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Corruption, Energy, Najib Razak, Sarawak on Sunday, 27 March 2011, 3:00 pm
Dean Johns | Mar 23, 11
Malaysiakini
Gleefully following the victories of the people against one government after another in North Africa and the Middle East, I keep recalling that these revolutions were ultimately triggered by the death of just one young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, in Tunisia.
That proved the tipping point, the final straw that raised popular resentment against decades of corruption, repression and injustice to what nuclear scientists call ‘critical mass’, resulting in the chain reaction that’s already blown several regimes away and still threatens a great many others.
So, as a long-time loather of Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional regime, I’ve been closely watching to see if it would succumb to the fall-out of the Arab revolt, or survive to later implode of its own accord.
But now I suspect that the seeds of BN’s destruction have been sown, not by explosive events in the Arab world, but by the ongoing nuclear emergency in earthquake- and tsunami-devastated northern Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
Part IV: Crime – Raw stats or real story?
Posted by Kit in Martin Jalleh, Police on Saturday, 26 March 2011, 5:41 pm
Celebrating Police Day! (4)
By Martin Jalleh
The rakyat was told that the government’s battle against crime showed good results in 2010. Home Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein announced in May 2010 that his Ministry’s success in reducing the crime rate index for the first four months of the year had surpassed the initial target.
Minister in the PM’s Department Senator Idris Jala revealed the results of the National Key Results Area (NKRA) for crime were outstanding for the first quarter and what the police and the ministry had done in that period was totally beyond expectation.
In Oct. 2010 a very elated IGP Ismail Omar proudly declared that police statistics indicated a significant drop in street crime by 38% and in the overall crime index by 16% between January and September.
But strangely, and as was so aptly put by Lim Kit Siang in October, “…up and down the country, ordinary Malaysians do not feel this dividend of fall of crime index in their daily lives as they do not feel comparatively safer in the streets, public places or privacy of their homes…”
In fact Kit Siang’s sentiments were so eloquently echoed by former Deputy Bank Governor Tan Sri Dr. Lin See Yin, in his article “The mystique of national transformation” which appeared online before the year ended:
Read the rest of this entry »
PR leadership must not allow the Carcosa sex tape caper to distract focus from the Sarawak general elections
Posted by Kit in Elections, Pakatan Rakyat, Sarawak on Saturday, 26 March 2011, 4:20 pm
The Pakatan Rakyat leadership must not allow the worst case of gutter politics in Malaysia – the Carcosa sex tape caper targeting Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim – to distract focus from the Sarawak general elections or those behind the latest political conspiracy would have achieved one of their objectives.
With nomination for the Sarawak elections in ten days’ time, it is urgent and imperative to restore public confidence in the Pakatan Rakyat, which had recently come under a bout of adverse publicity particularly in the past fortnight.
The key to the restoration of public confidence in Pakatan Rakyat for the Sarawak general elections is to resolve seat allocations for the Sarawak state general elections without any more delay.
In fact, such negotiations should have been concluded already and not been allowed to be so protracted and inconclusive. Read the rest of this entry »
Part III: Firestorm over fatal police shootings
Posted by Kit in Martin Jalleh, Police on Saturday, 26 March 2011, 3:11 pm
Celebrating Police Day! (3)
By Martin Jalleh
There was deep concern and consternation throughout 2010 over what the public viewed as the growing “shoot-to-kill” culture by the police force or what R. Sivarasa, the MP for Subang, called “a culture of impunity”.
“It means that they feel that they can do as they wish and they won’t be held accountable… they can shoot, kill, and there won’t be any questions asked (or)… any investigations and that they can continue doing so,” he said.
The nationwide concern over the trigger-happy cops of PDRM culminated into public outraged in April with the police “killing” of 14-year old Form III student Aminulrasyid Hamzah about 100 metres from his Shah Alam house.
The callous responses and cavalier attitude of the IGP, Home Minister and the police as they tried to contain the public firestorm caused the public to lose confidence in them and repeatedly call for the IGP to resign.
Respected lawyer Art Harun captured the sentiments of the people so clearly: “Right-minded people of Malaysia regard the killing of Aminulrasyid as symptomatic of lawless totalitarianism.” Read the rest of this entry »
Why are porn video purveyors, pedlars roaming free?
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Crime, Police on Saturday, 26 March 2011, 3:01 pm
by P Ramakrishnan
We have laws to curb the circulation of pornographic material. We have a vigilant police force to raid pornographic outlets and enforce law and order.
We have a judiciary that shows no mercy to those indulging in the sale of pornographic videos to guard the moral sense of the society.
We have a special section in the Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN), which vets publications and bans books and magazines which are explicit in their pornographic contents.
And of course we have Pusat Islam at the federal level and its equivalent at all the state levels who have been moral policing the rakyat.
We prosecute those in possession of pornographic material. We don’t spare those viewing pornographic videos even in the confines of their homes.
Such is our revulsion for pornography that we spare no effort in curbing and controlling pornographic material in all forms – which is very commendable.
This is why Malaysians are flabbergasted that the police have not moved in to take action against a businessman and two politicians who have publicly admitted to the possession of a pornographic video. Read the rest of this entry »
Part II: Burgeoning Brutality by the Men in Blue
Posted by Kit in Martin Jalleh, Police on Saturday, 26 March 2011, 2:42 pm
CELEBRATING “POLICE DAY” (2)
by Martin Jalleh
2010 was yet another year when the police were allowed to continue to operate in an environment of impunity when it came to their excessive methods in relation to arrest, detention and treatment of persons in custody.
Two tragic episodes in the year made the culture of police brutality increasingly obvious and gave further credence to the accusation that Bolehland has become a Police State.
The first was an “open verdict” delivered by a coroner’s court on 25 Oct. 2010 in an inquest to determine the cause of R Gunasegaran’s death in the Sentul police station on 16 July, 2009, a few hours after Teoh Beng Hock’s body was discovered.
In a press statement entitled: “End Police Brutality now” a “deeply concerned” Malaysian Bar commented on the “inability of the coroner to make a definitive finding in this case” in spite of “the strength of the evidence pointing to the culpability of the police”.
The second was the shocking story of K Selvach Santhiran, a key witness who implicated the police in the abovementioned inquest. His lawyer, N Surendran would describe his client’s nightmare as “the continuing descent of the police force into lawlessness”. Read the rest of this entry »
In Sarawak, a Christian groundswell
By Sheridan Mahavera
The Malaysian Insider
Mar 26, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 — When 3,000 Christians turned up for a prayer rally in Kuching this week it sent ripples running through Petrajaya, where gleaming structures house the Sarawak state government that is facing elections next month.
In a Christian-majority state where there has been little in the way of religious tension, the prayer rally was an unusual event.
It was a protest against the establishment which Christians have associated themselves with in the state.
The unhappiness with the Barisan Nasional (BN) government is palpable among Christians all over the country. But for it to be become so apparent in Sarawak is worrying BN politicians even in Putrajaya.
Through conversations with ordinary Christians, church officials and Christian Barisan Nasional supporters, a consensus emerged that though the dispute gnawed at their hearts, it would not tilt election results.
For now.
The prayer rally on March 23 has challenged that conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »
Public confidence in Police Plummeted in 2010
Posted by Kit in Martin Jalleh, Police on Friday, 25 March 2011, 9:06 pm
CELEBRATING “POLICE DAY” (1)
by Martin Jalleh
25th March 2011
Bolehland celebrates the 204th Police Day today. We thank God for each member of the PDRM for risking and putting their lives on the line every day for us and the countless unseen and untold sacrifices they have made.
We would like to believe that the country is at peace because of the police.
Sadly though a review of the performance of the police force last year (2010) indicates the failure of the government’s professed intention of improving the level of public confidence in the country’s police force.
In a four-part series. the reader will be able to see how in 2010, the police
a) aggressively and indiscriminately denied certain citizens the constitutional right to the freedom of speech and assembly b) abused and used arbitrarily the wide powers of arrest and detention
c) acted with impunity and complete disregard for constitutional and judicial safeguards.
d) arrogantly showed their contempt for the rights of the people that resulted in gross abuse of police powers leading to brutality, torture, prolonged detention, shooting, custodial violence and death.
Part I: Police Preferred to Play Politics
In March 2010, then then IGP Musa Hassan’s insisted that “the police did not take into account the political leanings of anyone, including politicians, when conducting their investigation…”
Musa was only fooling himself. There were ample examples in 2010 of the police being blatantly and brazenly biased towards the powers that be. This can be especially seen in the double standards it displayed. Read the rest of this entry »
Who next after Christians, questions non-Muslim interfaith council
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, nation building, Religion on Friday, 25 March 2011, 8:18 pm
By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Mar 25, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — A fever has broken out over Putrajaya’s handling of the Alkitab row that appears to have split multicultural Malaysia into two distinct camps — Muslim and non-Muslim — as the nation readies for crucial polls in Sarawak, its biggest Christian state.
The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) issued a strongly worded statement today accusing the Najib administration of riding roughshod over religions other than Islam when it imposed conditions for the release of 35,000 Malay bibles seized from Port Klang and Kuching.
“This means that the Alkitab (Bahasa Malaysia version) is now considered a restricted item and ‘the Word of God’ has been made subject to the control of man,” it said, citing the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) in the latter’s previous attempt to free the bibles.
CFM is the umbrella body that represents over 90 per cent of churches here.
In a series of news statements that started earlier this month, the Christian organisation denounced the Najib administration for defacing its holy books with the home ministry’s official seal, an act it said amounted to desecration.
“Does our current prime minister wield any authority? And if he does not, who does?” the interfaith council demanded of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“We also vehemently oppose the present line of action being pursued,” it said in solidarity with the Christian community. Read the rest of this entry »
Of political desperados, dingoes and demons
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Martin Jalleh, Najib Razak, Politics on Friday, 25 March 2011, 9:14 am
By Martin Jalleh
The PM and Umno are desperate, very desperate indeed. It has dawned very hard on them that they could soon be driven out of Putrajaya and into political oblivion.
Anwar Ibrahim, the man who has been the drawing and driving force behind the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR), must be destroyed at all cost. Never before has anyone posed such a danger to Umno.
They had tried very hard to do his political career in with a sham sodomy trial but he bounced back even more determined, and with his coalition, dealt them a severe blow in the last general elections.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sordid politics in Malaysia – Hitting below the belt
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Politics on Thursday, 24 March 2011, 5:45 pm
The Economist
Mar 24th 2011
EVER since he ascended the greasy pole, the political career of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has been mortgaged to his private life. He is currently on trial for sodomising a male aide, which he denies, in what has become a virtual rerun of a similar case in 1998, after he was sacked as deputy prime minister. Then he was sent to jail for six years, until an appeal court ruled that his conviction had been unsound.
Now a new scandal has broken out over a video clip that purports to show Mr Anwar having sex—this time with a woman. Mr Anwar has furiously denied that he is the man in the video. (The footage was screened on March 21st to a group of Malaysian reporters, all of whom were required to surrender phones, laptops and recording devices.) A man who refused to identify himself said that the video was a secret recording made at a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur. He explained that he had discovered the recording device after a “prominent politician” asked him to search the hotel room for a missing watch. He said he wanted to show that the “prominent politician”—guess who?—was immoral and “not fit to be a leader”. The man of mystery has since revealed his identity, and that of an accomplice: surprise, surprise, they’re longtime political enemies of Mr Anwar’s.
Read the rest of this entry »
Can IGP Ismail Omar give a categorical assurance that there would be no cover-up in the Carcosa sex tape investigations as happened in 1998 when results of Anwar Ibrahim black-eye police investigations were initially suppressed?
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Crime, Police on Thursday, 24 March 2011, 5:08 pm
The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar should give a categorical assurance that there would be no cover-up in the Carcosa sex tape investigations as happened in 1998 when results of Anwar Ibrahim black-eye police investigations were initially suppressed.
More than a decade after the event, the former Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigations Department chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim, who was the investigation officer in the Anwar “black eye” assault case, revealed that he had right from the beginning found out that it was the then Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Rahim Noor who had committed the offence but this information was initially suppressed and it was only finally forced out publicly in a Royal Commission of Inquiry four months later.
A special police team to investigate into Carcosa sex tape caper lodged by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will not inspire much confidence unless the Inspector-General of Police can give such an assurance as well as explain why the police had been so slow in springing into action following news of the Carcosa sex tape video caper on Monday.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why are sex video trio not charged?
So, those who surmised that the sex video revealed by ‘Datuk T’ was a political ploy have been proven right. The people behind it – three of them – have confessed to it.
They were forced to reveal themselves because PKR’s MP Johari Abdul had earlier spilled the beans on them. It all unravelled like a cheap soap opera.
Former Malacca chief minister Rahim Thamby Chik, businessman Shazryl Eskay Abdullah and Shuib Lazim, treasurer-general of Perkasa, have come out to say they are ‘Datuk T’. And they have the cheek to call for a royal commission of inquiry into the sex video.
In the first place, they have transgressed Section 292 of the Penal Code for possessing and distributing pornographic material. Regardless of who the person in the video is, the trio are culpable. Exposing a politician’s sexual activity does not protect them from the law.
Read the rest of this entry »
Who’s the fool?
Posted by Kit in Religion, Sarawak, Thomas Lee on Thursday, 24 March 2011, 11:12 am
By Thomas Lee
Although the April Fool’s Day is still a week away, a deputy federal minister from Sarawak has already come out with a “foolish” statement.
Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum was reported as saying that the Christians in Sarawak are “foolish” to hold protest prayer vigils against the way the Barisan Nasional regime is violating the rights to freedom of religion with its detention of thousands of copies of the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible, and imposing certain conditions for their release.
Joseph, who calls himself a Christian, has said that if the Christians “come out and say that we want the Bibles, they will get it” and that “If they want to make fools of themselves, we will not respond,” whatever that means.
Joseph, the federal deputy minister for information communication and culture, was commenting critically on a series of prayer vigils that the Sarawak Christians are holding to seek divine help and intervention in facing the constitutional violation of their religious rights.
Read the rest of this entry »
Longing For A Free Mind (Part 3 of 14)
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa on Thursday, 24 March 2011, 11:10 am
The Comfort of the Coconut Shell
[In the first two parts I asserted that for Malaysia to achieve her Vision 2020 aspirations, she needs leaders and citizens with free minds. I likened those without a free mind as frogs underneath a coconut shell.]
We ignore our better sense and willingly believe the mullah despite the donkey braying in our face because our minds are captive to biology, tradition, and the environment, among others.
The North Koreans fervently believe that they live in Paradise because their “Beloved Leader” tells them so. Never mind that they wake up every morning with nothing to look forward to and go to sleep at night on an empty stomach. Malaysian leaders never tire of telling us that they are competent and not corrupt despite the mess the country is in and their luxuriating in their palatial mansions. It does not take a donkey to realize that these leaders could not possibly be “clean” to afford such obscene opulence just on their government pay.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why police not yet arrested “Datuk T” – Datuk Trio of Rahim Thamby Chik, Shazryl Eskay Abdullah and Shuib Lazim – for the crimes of the Sri Carcosa sex tape caper
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Crime, Police on Wednesday, 23 March 2011, 6:05 pm
The mystery of the “Dato T” of the Sri Carcosa sex tape caper has been resolved in 48 hours with the confession by the culprits concerned – former Malacca chief minister and Umno veteran Tan Sri Rahim Thamby Cik, Shazryl Eskay Abdullah and Perkasa’s Shuib Lazim.
In a hurriedly-called press conference, Rahim admitted that “Datuk T” stood for “Datuk Trio” comprising three of them.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had immediately denied that he was the man in the video and had lodged a police report the very next day.
Two questions now uppermost in the minds of all right-thinking Malaysians are:
-
Why police have not yet arrested the trio of “Datuk T”, namely Rahim, Shazryl and Shuib for various crimes including Section 292 of the Penal Code for “publicly exhibiting any obscene or pornographic material” liable to a jail term of three years or Section 5(1) of the Film Censorship Act 2002 where a person is liable to be fined up to RM50,000 or jailed up to five years or both. Do the trio enjoy immunity and impunity for breaches of the law and actions which have brought world-wide shame to the nation? Read the rest of this entry »
