Selangor DAP tells PAS to stop anti-gaming talk
Posted by Kit in DAP, Pakatan Rakyat, PAS, Religion on Monday, 7 March 2011, 7:34 pm
By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Mar 06, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — Selangor DAP chief Teresa Kok warned political ally PAS to stop pushing for all Pakatan Rakyat (PR) states to adopt Kelantan’s controversial gaming ban for fear of losing non-Muslim votes in the coming general election.
“If PAS pushes this further, it’s not going to help them win more Malay votes and it might cost them non-Malay votes,” she told The Malaysian Insider today.
Kok was weighing in behind DAP national chairman Karpal Singh who had yesterday criticised the Kelantan government for enforcing a state law which, he said, had denied the rights of its non-Muslim citizens. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a sham! It’s a show! It’s a Shame – it’s our Sick Economy!
Posted by Kit in Martin Jalleh on Monday, 7 March 2011, 7:03 pm
By Martin Jalleh
· “The present PM has made some helpful gestures towards liberalising the economy…These initiatives, however, must do more than skim the surface of what must be done. (7 January 2010)
· “Malaysia is a sham democracy, one which existed only in name but grievously compromised in substance, reality and fact… Reforms could not be expected from the incumbents in power.” (8 February 2010)
· “Our economy has stagnated. Productivity remains low. We now lag our regional competitors in the quality of our people, when we were once leaders in the developing world.” (23 March 2010)
~ Tengku Razaleigh, former Finance Minister and veteran leader of Umno
Below is a glance at the sad and scandalous scenario of how the country’s once strong economy has fallen sick with the government putting up a big show (performance now!) of economic reforms in 2010 – full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
1. Flight in capital
Read the rest of this entry »
Why Chua Soi Lek dare not declare that Ling and Chan were innocent and that they are victims of selective prosecution by Attorney-General?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, MCA, PKFZ on Sunday, 6 March 2011, 5:23 pm
Just saw the unusual Merlimau and Kerdau double by-election polling day statement by MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek, which is reported by The Malaysian Insider under the headline “Dr. Chua: Kit Siang using PKFZ as vote bait”.
Congratulations! The MCA President has issued a statement which even MCA leaders and members don’t believe, let alone the Malaysian people at large.
I am not interested in trading accusations.
What is obvious is that Chua continues to avoid the issues raised by the corruption charges preferred against the former No. 1 and No. 2 of MCA when they were Transport Ministers in connection with the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal, including:
Firstly, why the MCA President dare not declare that the MCA and in particular the MCA leadership are convinced that the two former top MCA leaders were innocent of the corruption charges made against Ling and Chan in connection with the PKFZ scandal?
Secondly, why he dare not declare that Ling and Chan are victims of selective prosecution by the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Gani Patail, when no other political personalities particularly from UMNO, have been charged for the same PKFZ scandal? Read the rest of this entry »
Fools No More, They’re Breaking Out
Posted by Kit in university on Saturday, 5 March 2011, 4:52 pm
By Kee Thuan Chye
MALAYSIAN university students must surely realize that they have more power now than they have ever had in the last four decades. This accounts for their robust participation in politics in recent days. Not only in university campuses, but also in the public sphere.
Suppressed for so long by the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA), introduced in 1971 because the ruling party feared the rise of student activism, today’s students are breaking out.
The political landscape that emerged from the March 8 phenomenon has no doubt been an encouraging factor. Inspired by the aspiration of a more politically aware rakyat demanding greater democracy, students have been challenging university and government authorities by taking part in political activities they are banned from doing so by the draconian UUCA. Read the rest of this entry »
Why no protest by CSL at Ling and Chan being singled out for corruption charges in connection with RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal without any Umno personality being charged?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, MCA, PKFZ on Friday, 4 March 2011, 2:48 pm
Many questions are swirling in the minds of Malaysians over the corruption charges against former MCA President, Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik and former MCA Deputy President, Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy in connection with the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal which do not enhance public confidence in the independence, professionalism and integrity of the Attorney-General, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the judiciary.
Firstly, why the MCA President Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek endorsed the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail’s prosecution of Ling and Chan as Chua had publicly said after Chan was charged in court on Monday that “anyone who had committed an offence in the eyes of the Attorney-General’s Chamber should face the music”.
It is no secret that there is considerable questioning, not only among the general public but particularly at all levels of the MCA leadership and membership, why the two former Transport Ministers who were MCA No. 1 and 2 had been singled out for corruption charges for the PKFZ scandal when there has not been a single prosecution against any Umno personality. Read the rest of this entry »
NEP overwhelming Najib’s reforms, say reports
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, NEP on Friday, 4 March 2011, 12:02 pm
By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
March 04, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 — New York-based business newspapers took aim at the Najib administration’s reform policies today, claiming that a “phony war on affirmative action” has failed to overcome pessimism in the local market.
The Wall Street Journal said in an opinion article that the government’s failure to speed up economic reforms while racial tensions increase have slowed productivity as the country labours under the legacy of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
“The risk now is that political parties representing the three races will be steered by extremist groups that exacerbate conflict for their own gain,” the Wall Street Journal said today. Read the rest of this entry »
Emergency MCA GA to decide whether MCA should make public apology for producing MCA President /Deputy President charged for the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?
The assertion by the MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek that there was no reason to apologise for the two top MCA leaders who were Transport Ministers, Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik and Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy as whatever happened was the personal conduct of the leaders concerned and his strident denial that “MCA is a cheating party” have raised eyebrows nation-wide, even in Barisan Nasional parties including his own MCA!
Firstly, let me clarify that I had not asked Chua as MCA President to apologise over Ling and Chan on the ground that they were guilty of “grand corruption” as their trials have not even started – and I go along with the legal maxim that a person is innocent unless found guilty by the courts.
I had however asked Chua whether as MCA President he would apologise to Umno, Barisan Nasional and all Malaysians for producing a MCA President and MCA Deputy President who are charged in court for corruption in the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal based on Chua’s own comments as published by the Star on Tuesday (1.3.11), viz:
Dr Chua said anyone who had committed an offence in the eyes of the Attorney-General’s Chamber should face the music.
“This shows that the Government is fair because it doesn’t just go after the small fish but also the big fish,” he said.
Since Chua as MCA President fully supported the Attorney-General’s prosecution of the two top MCA leaders for corruption in the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal, isn’t his next logical and responsible action (regardless of the outcome of the trials) should be to make a national apology for a MCA President and MCA Deputy President being charged for corruption in the PKFZ scandal when they were Transport Ministers? Read the rest of this entry »
An impossible dream for the MCA?
By Thomas Lee
MySinchew.com
2011-03-02
Both MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek and party secretary-general Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha have declared that the party has regained the support of Chinese community, and would do well in the next general election.
They claim that the Barisan Nasional victory in several recent by-elections in constituencies with considerable number of Chinese voters is an indication of the Chinese community support for the MCA.
How substantial is the claim?
An objective look at the roller-coaster history of the MCA will give some clues on whether or not such a claim for the current situation is justifiable, plausible and credible. Read the rest of this entry »
Ex-judge Shaikh Daud should not have compromised his stature by allowing himself to be dragooned by BN propagandists to run down Teoh Beng Hock’s family and lawyers
Posted by Kit in Teoh Beng Hock on Wednesday, 2 March 2011, 4:36 pm
Former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Shaikh Daud Ismail should not have compromised his stature by allowing himself to be dragooned by Barisan Nasional propagandists to run down Teoh Beng Hock’s family and lawyers for the family’s decision to withdraw from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Teoh’s mysterious death at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Shah Alam in July 2009.
Another example of such a media blitzkrieg was the comment by the Universiti Teknologi Mara Assoc Prof of Law Datuk Halim Sidek.
I agree with the advice yesterday by the DAP National Chairman Karpal Singh to Halim that he should “in future demonstrate maturity by checking his facts before making public statements” so as “to set a good example to would-be lawyers under his charge”.
It is most unbecoming of a former judge of the Court of Appeal to make the baseless allegation that Teoh’s family had shown “clear disrespect” to the Yang di Pertuan Agong by pulling out of the Royal Commission of Inquiry.
Read the rest of this entry »
CSL and MCA leadership should declare whether they believe in Ling and Chan’s innocence or that both were “political scapegoats” for Umno
Posted by Kit in Corruption, MCA, PKFZ on Wednesday, 2 March 2011, 1:41 pm
The MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek and the MCA leadership should declare their stand – whether they believe that former MCA President Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik and former MCA Deputy President Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy are innocent of the corruption charges which have been preferred against them when they were Transport Minister in connection with the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal or that both were “political scapegoats” for Umno.
Ling and Chan have made infamous Malaysian history for being the first two Cabinet Ministers to be charged for “grand corruption” in misleading the Cabinet in September/November 2002 (Ling’s charge) and the Prime Minister in February 2004, October 2005 and March 2006 (Chan’s charges).
Two of Ling’s contemporaries as Cabinet Ministers in 2002 are still MPs although backbenchers – Datuk Ong Ka Ting who was then the Minister for Housing and Local Government and Datuk Fong Chan Onn, then the Minister for Human Resources. Read the rest of this entry »
When Change Beckons
NB: This article was first published in the March 2011 issue of The Rocket.
“A new star rises in the eastern sky – a star of freedom for yet another Asian people. A new hope comes into being, a dream long cherished now materialises. It is freedom for the Malayan people and once this torch of freedom is lit let us hold it up high so that all around us will glow with radiant happiness. Let freedom be secured for all the law-abiding people. There shall be freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of want, freedom of association, freedom of assembly and freedom of movement.” – Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, 1957
The aspirations above were cast 54 years ago by the buoyant father of a fledgling nation. Were he alive today he would undoubtedly lament over the fact that we, his children, have collectively failed to live up to his ideals of nationhood. The torch that he lit is now all but extinguished.
Over the last five and a half decades, every basic tenet aforementioned has been compromised for the sake of political and economic expediency by a government intent on maintaining their stranglehold on power. But what’s worse, we let it happen.
Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, It Could Happen Here – Why Saudi Arabia is ripe for revolution
Posted by Kit in Middle East/Africa on Tuesday, 1 March 2011, 7:13 pm
BY MADAWI AL-RASHEED | FEBRUARY 28, 2011
Foreign Policy.com
In the age of Arab revolutions, will Saudis dare to honor Facebook calls for anti-government demonstrations on March 11? Will they protest at one of Jeddah’s main roundabouts? Or will they start in Qatif, the eastern region where a substantial Shiite majority has had more experience in real protest? Will Riyadh remain cocooned in its cloak of pomp and power, hidden from public gaze in its mighty sand castles?
Saudi Arabia is ripe for change. Despite its image as a fabulously wealthy realm with a quiescent, apolitical population, it has similar economic, demographic, social, and political conditions as those prevailing in its neighboring Arab countries. There is no reason to believe Saudis are immune to the protest fever sweeping the region.
Saudi Arabia is indeed wealthy, but most of its young population cannot find jobs in either the public or private sector. The expansion of its $430 billion economy has benefited a substantial section of the entrepreneurial elite — particularly those well connected with the ruling family — but has failed to produce jobs for thousands of college graduates every year. This same elite has resisted employing expensive Saudis and contributed to the rise in local unemployment by hiring foreign labor. Rising oil prices since 2003 and the expansion of state investment in education, infrastructure, and welfare, meanwhile, have produced an explosive economy of desires. Read the rest of this entry »
Is CSL going to apologise for producing a MCA President and MCA Deputy President who betrayed the trust of the people and country as Transport Minister in the RM12.5b PKFZ “grand corruption”?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, MCA, PKFZ on Tuesday, 1 March 2011, 3:47 pm
MCA President Datuk Dr. Chua Soi Lek astounded Malaysians and the world with his smug reaction to the corruption charges against a second MCA Minister yesterday – former MCA Deputy President and former Transport Minister Tan Sri Chong Kong Choy – in connection with the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) “scandal of scandals”.
Chua said Chan’s court case will not affect MCA. He said when a person was charged in court, it did not mean he was guilty.
He said: “We should let the legal process take its course.”
Chua’s comments raise many intriguing questions. Has the MCA President been given an assurance by the “higher-up” that Chan was not guilty of three charges of corruption laid against him yesterday for which a RM1 million bail was posted – and that the former MCA Deputy President would be cleared in the trial, most likely after the next general elections?
Or has Chua any good reason to believe that the corruption charges against Chan as well as the corruption charges made previously against former MCA President and former Transport Minister Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik were just “a political charade” and that the charges would be quashed with the duo declared innocent after the next general elections? Read the rest of this entry »
London protesters want Taib’s assets frozen
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Sarawak on Tuesday, 1 March 2011, 12:56 pm
Mar 1, 11
Malaysiakini
Some 20 protesters comprising Malaysians and foreigners have staged a ‘Stop Timber Corruption’ demonstration in the British capital to highlight alleged abuses of long-serving Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.
The demonstration, organised yesterday by NGO Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), was held outside a property company controlled by the Taib family, Ridgeford Properties Ltd, in central London.
It was led by Clare Rewcastle Brown, the sister-in-law of former British premier Gordon Brown, and Sarawak native Peter John Jaban. Read the rest of this entry »
History’s shifting sands
Posted by Kit in Middle East/Africa on Monday, 28 February 2011, 7:05 pm
The revolutions sweeping the Arab world indicate a tectonic shift in the global balance of people power
by Mark LeVine
Aljazeera
26 Feb 2011
For decades, even centuries, the peoples of the Arab world have been told by Europeans and, later, Americans that their societies were stagnant and backward. According to Lord Cromer, author of the 1908 pseudo-history Modern Egypt, their progress was “arrested” by the very fact of their being Muslim, by virtue of which their minds were as “strange” to that of a modern Western man “as would be the mind of an inhabitant of Saturn”.
The only hope of reshaping their minds towards a more earthly disposition was to accept Western tutelage, supervision, and even rule “until such time as they [we]re able to stand alone,” in the words of the League of Nations’ Mandate. Whether it was Napoleon claiming fraternité with Egyptians in fin-de-18e-siècle Cairo or George W. Bush claiming similar amity with Iraqis two centuries later, the message, and the means of delivering it, have been consistent.
Ever since Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, the great Egyptian chronicler of the French invasion of Egypt, brilliantly dissected Napoleon’s epistle to Egyptians, the peoples of the Middle East have seen through the Western protestations of benevolence and altruism to the naked self-interest that has always laid at the heart of great power politics. But the hypocrisy behind Western policies never stopped millions of people across the region from admiring and fighting for the ideals of freedom, progress and democracy they promised.
Even with the rise of a swaggeringly belligerent American foreign policy after September 11 on the one hand, and of China as a viable economic alternative to US global dominance on the other, the US’ melting pot democracy and seemingly endless potential for renewal and growth offered a model for the future. Read the rest of this entry »
Dying in two different ways
Posted by Kit in environment, Foreign on Monday, 28 February 2011, 12:43 pm
by Goh Keat Peng
In the news this week, we are numbed by reports of the death of hundreds of human beings not unlike ourselves. Some of these our fellow human beings were going about quietly in their everyday life in a city that is not only beautiful in myriads of ways but also ordinary like many other cities of the world. At 12.51 pm on February 21, 2011 an earthquake struck and to date, 147 have being confirmed dead, with still 200 people missing.
What do we, can we, say? For all these many years, that city like so many others in the human world was functioning normally with few if any extraordinary event ever happening. Then this thing happens and loved ones, colleagues and neighbours are taken from this life in a twinkle of an eye leaving behind heartache, anguish and bewilderment. Even those who are left without loss of loved ones face months if not years of rubble- physical and emotional- to cope with. Normalcy and routine as one resumes one’s life under these circumstances is not possible for a while. Read the rest of this entry »
U.N. votes to impose sanction on Gaddafi
Posted by Kit in Middle East/Africa on Sunday, 27 February 2011, 4:40 pm
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 27, 2011
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday night to impose military and financial sanctions against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and his inner circle and to refer his regime’s crackdown on protesters to a war crimes tribunal for an investigation of possible crimes against humanity.
The move came as President Obama for the first time called on Gaddafi to step down, deepening the Libyan leader’s international isolation as he struggles to contain a revolt that threatens his 41-year rule. It also marked the first U.S. vote in support of a Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court, which the United States has not joined.
Speaking by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama said that “when a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now,” according to a White House account of the conversation. The statement brings U.S. policy in line with the position that European leaders adopted several days ago.
Obama had taken a more cautious approach, in part because he feared that hundreds of Americans in Tripoli could be in danger if he called for regime change. Those diplomats and other citizens have now been evacuated.
In a statement Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. would work with others to provide humanitarian assistance to Libyans in need. “We will continue to look at the full range of options to hold the Libyan government accountable and support the Libyan people,” she said. “Moammar Gaddafi has lost the confidence of his people and he should go without further bloodshed and violence.” Read the rest of this entry »
The destiny of this pageant lies in the Kingdom of Oil
Posted by Kit in Articles, Middle East/Africa on Sunday, 27 February 2011, 12:34 am
by Robert Fisk
Independent.co.uk
Saturday, 26 February 2011
The Middle East earthquake of the past five weeks has been the most tumultuous, shattering, mind-numbing experience in the history of the region since the fall of the Ottoman empire. For once, “shock and awe” was the right description.
The docile, supine, unregenerative, cringing Arabs of Orientalism have transformed themselves into fighters for the freedom, liberty and dignity which we Westerners have always assumed it was our unique role to play in the world. One after another, our satraps are falling, and the people we paid them to control are making their own history – our right to meddle in their affairs (which we will, of course, continue to exercise) has been diminished for ever.
The tectonic plates continue to shift, with tragic, brave – even blackly humorous – results. Countless are the Arab potentates who always claimed they wanted democracy in the Middle East. King Bashar of Syria is to improve public servants’ pay. King Bouteflika of Algeria has suddenly abandoned the country’s state of emergency. King Hamad of Bahrain has opened the doors of his prisons. King Bashir of Sudan will not stand for president again. King Abdullah of Jordan is studying the idea of a constitutional monarchy. And al-Qa’ida are, well, rather silent. Read the rest of this entry »
Sarawak BN may fall like Berlin Wall, says British anti-Taib crusader
By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
February 26, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 — Barisan Nasional (BN) has held on to power in Sarawak through intimidation, but could still fall just like the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall, said the sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who has turned into an internet and radio crusader against Tan Sri Taib Mahmud’s administration.
Clare Rewcastle Brown, who operates radio station Radio Free Sarawak and blog Sarawak Report from Covent Garden in London, told The Malaysian Insider that “every person I have spoken to is scared of the fact that the BN government will know how they vote.”
But she said that even though voters “face naked threats that BN will withdraw vital services from longhouses that vote against them,” the tide of opinion can subtly change and “wash away the foundations of power without anybody quite realising.”
“The collapse of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall took the world by surprise and almost happened overnight,” she said, recalling her experience as a reporter with Sky TV when the wall fell in 1989.
“I remember the shock of it all, as the grip of communist power had seemed so immovable for so long,” said the 51-year-old investigative journalist who began her career with the BBC World Service in 1983. Read the rest of this entry »
Saluting a True Malaysian Son
by Koon Yew Yin
(Speech on the occasion of Perak DAP celebration of Lim Kit Siang’s 70th birthday in Ipoh at Tropicana Grand Ballroom on 25th Feb. 2011 after presenting a RM100,000 donation to Perak DAP to restore a legitimate and popularly elected government in the state )
Let me begin by thanking the DAP for its invitation to me to celebrate the occasion of Saudara Lim Kit Siang’s 70th birthday, and for this honour to say a few words to this distinguished audience.
Firstly, it is only right that we are gathered here to pay tribute to a giant of a politician, Saudara Lim Kit Siang. In my mind, there are two key people who have been responsible for this turning point that we have reached in our country’s politics.
One is of course Saudara Anwar Ibrahim who has been the glue in bringing the DAP, PAS and PKR together in Pakatan Rakyat to challenge the political hegemony of BN and UMNO and in galvanizing the electoral vote for the opposition. The Government has launched a ridiculous campaign to harass and destroy him by a fictitious charge but I am sure Anwar will prevail and will continue his struggle for a better Malaysia.
The second hero in Malaysian politics – someone who has put his heart and soul into transforming Malaysia, and who has paid the price for standing up for the ideals of parliamentary democracy – is Saudara Lim. This is a truly towering Malaysian who has stood unwavering on behalf of justice, truth and equality for over 40 years in the public arena. Many young Malaysians may not be aware that for standing up for our basic freedoms, Saudara Lim was put in detention on two occasions under the ISA, the first time for 17 months in 1969 and the second time under Operation Lallang in 1987, when Kit Siang and his son Guan Eng were detained for another 18 months, together with five other DAP leaders. Read the rest of this entry »
