Malaysia’s Disastrous Capital Flight
Asia Sentinel
by Our Correspondent
11 JANUARY 2010
Money leaves the country on an unprecedented scale
Churches are not the only thing to have been going up in flames in Malaysia. Take a look at the nation’s foreign exchange reserves. They fell by close to 25 percent during 2009 according to investment bank UBS even though the country continued to run a huge surplus on the current account of its balance of payments.
Says UBS: “Question: which Asian country had the biggest FX losses in 2009?” The answer is Malaysia and by a very large margin; we estimate that official reserves fell by well more than one quarter on a valuation-adjusted basis”. It describes the situation as “bizarre” and contrasts Malaysia with other countries with large current account surpluses – Thailand, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong – which have seen their reserves increase – as should be expected.
In short there has been an exodus of money from Malaysia on a scale which surpasses that which occurred during the Asian crisis. Nor is this just a mirage. The decline is also reflected in a sudden decline in base money supply – even while, thanks to Bank Negara, broader M2 has continued to grow modestly. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Allah’ allowed in East M’sia
by Phyllis Wong and Francis Chan | Borneo Post
January 15, 2010, Friday
Nazri says govt recognises two states’ traditional usage of word
KUALA LUMPUR: The word ‘Allah’ is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah because the government accepts that the natives in these two states have traditionally been using it in their prayers and religious services and the Muslims there are accustomed to this practice.
This was stated by Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, in an exclusive interview with the KTS stable of dailies The Borneo Post, Oriental Daily and Utusan Borneo at his office here yesterday.
“Christians in Sarawak and Sabah need not worry over this issue because it is a common tradition there. I have been to an Iban church service and I heard the word ‘Allah’ used there,” he said.
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Pornthip did not leak info
Posted by Kit in Court, Teoh Beng Hock, Twitter on Friday, 15 January 2010, 11:42 am
Inquest adjourned 4half hour 4karpal 2submit precedents on law of contempt
01/15/2010 11:23 AM
Razak apologised but Karpal said apology only go to mitigation n court must commit Razak 4contempt Karpal said Razak’s apology insincere
01/15/2010 10:58 AM
Karpal said in insulting another counsel n all Malaysians in wheelchair Razak had committed contempt in the face of the court
01/15/2010 10:49 AM
Blowup in ct over Macc counsel Razak’s offensive insult agnst Karpal when saying: I can sit down but Karpal cannot stand up.
01/15/2010 10:46 AM
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Why Muhyiddin go to UK to urge the return of the “best brains” while completely blind, unconcerned and insensitive to the loss of “best brains” to neighbouring Singapore or the 300,000 Malaysians who emigrated since last general election?
Posted by Kit in Education, Muhyiddin Yassin on Friday, 15 January 2010, 8:52 am
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin went to London to urge the “best brains” working abroad to return home and drive the country’s new economic model, but he had been thunderously silent in the past five days at the news from across the causeway that two Malaysians topped the 2009 Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education (Ordinary Level) Examination.
The question Muhyiddin must answer is why go all the way to the United Kingdom to urge the return of the “best brains” while he is completely blind, unconcerned and insensitive to the loss of the “best brains” to neighbouring Singapore or the 300,000 Malaysians who emigrated since last general election?
On Monday, it was reported in Singapore that Lai Kai Rou, 16, from Selangor, emerged tops in the island republic, scoring 10A1s. She studied at CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School (SNGS) which also topped Singapore schools with 14 of the 42 island-republic’s best scorers being its students, scoring 9 A1s.
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AlJazeera programme on “Allah” controversy
Posted by Kit in nation building, Religion on Thursday, 14 January 2010, 11:18 am
The AlJazeera programme on the “Allah” controversy:
Abu Kassim cannot have a more disastrous start as second MACC Chief Commissioner if his first priority is to restore public confidence in the MACC and the national anti-corruption campaign
Posted by Kit in Corruption on Thursday, 14 January 2010, 10:43 am
Datuk Abu Kassim Mohamed cannot have a more disastrous start as the second Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Chief Commissioner if his first priority is to restore public confidence in the MACC and the national anti-corruption campaign which had plunged 33 rankings in 15 years from No. 23 in 1995 to No. 56 in 2009 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.
The MACC had ended its first year with lower public confidence than when it started, fulfilling the worst fears of former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Abdullah had warned at the belated launching of MACC on 24th February last year that the MACC should not end up as just pretty window-dressing of its predecessor the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).
The then Prime Minister had admitted the public perception of the ACA as “not being independent, of being a toothless tiger, of practicing selective enforcement, being late in taking action and not being professional in its investigations has damaged its image and credibility”.
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Newsy.com on the “Allah” controversy
Newsy.com video, which analyzes and synthesizes news coverage from multiple sources, has produced the following video summarizing different media coverage of the Allah controversy:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/war-of-words-in-malaysian-allah-dispute
Newsy.com says:
“The video summarizes this ongoing tension and the more recent controversies, showing a few different opinions on what the Malaysian government should do. There are those who view the term as a purely Muslim word and other who see this as a merely a language difference. Many just want to stop further disagreements and see the country unified/”
Hishammuddin is too truculent and controversial an Umno leader to be a good and professional Home Minister to inspire confidence of all Malaysians that he will not use his ministerial powers for party political ends
Posted by Kit in Law & Order, UMNO on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 1:55 pm
“KDN akan ambil tindakan ke atas Anwar – Jika sengaja guna isu agama perkauman berhubung insiden serangan gereja” is the Utusan Malaysia headline today, whose real casualty is public confidence in Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein as a good and effective Home Minister who could resolve the crisis caused by attacks on places of worship and church arson tarnishing Malaysia’s international reputation as an international example of inter-religious harmony, peace and goodwill.
Hishammuddin is too truculent and controversial an Umno leader to be a good and professional Home Minister to inspire confidence of all Malaysians that he will not use his ministerial powers for party political ends.
Why is Hishammuddin talking about action against Anwar when he has not been able to take any action in the past five days against anyone for the spate of attacks on places of worship, whether church, surau or Sikh temple which have placed at risk billions of ringgit which might otherwise benefit Malaysia in the form of foreign investment, tourism and educational opportunities?
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Is Lagu Johor Illegal and Promoting Racial Hatred?
Letter by Karamchan Naidu
I am a Johor boy. Studied there all my life. Every week for the past 12 years of my primary and secondary schooling I used to sing the Lagu Johor at the school assembly.
The song is as follows;
Allah peliharakan Sultan
‘Nugrahkan dia segala kehormatan
Sihat dan ria, kekal dan makmur
Luaskan kuasa, menaungkan kami
Rakyat dipimpini berzaman lagi
Dengan Merdeka bersatu hati
Allah berkati Johor
Allah selamatkan Sultan.
Praying for peace is not enough!
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman, Religion on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 10:59 am
By Azly Rahman
There is a Buddhist lesson in how we ought to perceive Malaysia’s emerging style of terrorism.
When one is bleeding after being shot by an arrow, the first step is not to look for the culprit that shot the arrow and pondering why was it shot but to pull out the arrow from the victim’s body and to quickly put a stop to the bleeding. This is what Siddharta Gautama would teach as crisis intervention.
Malaysians might never know who carried out the series of church bombings, nor what organisations are behind them, and if there is a higher order involved in the long-term planning of terror.
Postmodern debates will be a tedious exercise on whether this or that name of a Universal God can be copyrighted or whether a pastor or an archbishop can be pushed to the ground or physically attacked for using the forbidden name of the Universal God during their sermons.
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“Allah” issue: Who started it?
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
12 Jan 10 | The Nut Graph
LEST we forget, the source of the Allah controversy that resulted in churches, and a Catholic school, being torched and threatened did not begin on the streets. It did not begin with narrow-minded and ignorant Muslim pressure groups threatening to spill blood to assert their sole right to use “Allah”.
Lest we forget, it began with the 1986 government ban on the use by non-Muslims of the word “Allah”, and three others — “solat”, “Kaabah” and “Baitullah”. That’s the Barisan Nasional (BN) government we are talking about, the one that Umno leads.
Hence, lest we forget, the issue of non-Muslims using the word “Allah” would not be an issue at all in Malaysia if the Umno-led government had, to begin with, respected the legitimate rights of other faith communities. The “Allah” issue would not have spiraled into, to quote a friend, suburban terrorism — and it is terrorism when violence and intimidation are used towards achieving one’s goals — if the Home Ministry had not acted to deny the rights of non-Muslim citizens in the first place.
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Use of ‘Allah’ could cause confusion among Malay Muslims and encourage religious conversion, which is illegal in Malaysia is a political gimmick by UMNO
Posted by Kit in Dr. Chen Man Hin, Religion, UMNO on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 9:25 am
By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life adviser
THE CLAIM BY THE HOME MINISTRY SECRETARY GENERAL MAHMOOD ADAM TO FOREIGN DIGNITARIES THAT THE USE OF ALLAH BY CHRISTIANS COULD CAUSE CONFUSION AMONG MUSLIMS IN MALAYSIA AND ENCOURAGE RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS, WHICH IS ILLEGAL IN MALAYSIA, HAS DAMAGED THE REPUTATION, INTEGRITY AND SINCERITY OF MALAYSIAN MUSLIMS.
Most Malaysian muslims, including Anwar Ibrahim and Hadi Awang will not share the sentiments of the Home Ministry official. Malaysian muslims and christians have been living together for several centuries, in relative peace and harmony, and have progressed and prospered.
In a plural religious society, minor frictions may exist, but these were kept to a minimum by inter-faith dialogues. However,there exist underlying fears that the muslims might want to islamise the country and suspicion that christians might want to convert muslims to their faith.
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Hishammuddin, don’t gloat as damage is not just door of a church, but the priceless religious harmony and national unity and billions of ringgit in lost investment, tourism and Malaysia as an international educational hub
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, nation building, Religion on Tuesday, 12 January 2010, 2:38 pm
The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should not gloat that “the situation is under control” when he said yesterday that “since last night there had been no serious incidents” and that “the only damage I was informed of is to the door of the church (Sidang Injil Borneo church in Seremban)”.
Hishammuddin should know that the damage to the country from the spate of church attacks and arsons in the past few days cannot be dismissed and reduced to just the door of a church, when the casualty is the priceless religious harmony and national unity in the country and the billions of ringgit in lost investments, tourism and Malaysia as an international educational hub with the country losing its place of distinction as a multi-religious country which had been able to maintain an incident-free record in inter-religious conflict.
In the past five days, Malaysia had been in the international news for all the wrong reasons.
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Najib should do what Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman would have done instinctively in such a situation – to convene and preside over an inter-religious roundtable to end the religious dispute over the “Allah” controversy
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Religion on Monday, 11 January 2010, 12:36 pm
At 9.43 am I received the following SMS from DAP MP for Rasah and Negri Sembilan State Assembly Opposition Leader Anthony Loke:
“Another church attack in Seremban. SIB Seremban church. Door was damaged. I am at the scene now.”
This was followed by other SMS from him on the latest dastardly and cowardly sacrilege, viz:
“The name of the church – Siding Injil Borneo. They have BM service. This is the church mentioned by Wong Chun Wai, the fastest growing church in Malaysia.”
“Idris Jala belongs to this church.”
“The church is located less than 1km from the Seremban IPD”
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It Happened Under Your Watch, Najib!
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Najib Razak on Monday, 11 January 2010, 11:11 am
“Don’t point the fingers at UMNO or anyone else,” so declared an angry Najib Razak, responding to a question on last Friday’s bombing of a church. It was pathetic to see him react thus, a body language that bespoke of a sinister kid whose bag of malicious tricks finally exploded in his face.
Najib would like us to believe that those acts of arson were spontaneous combustion. What a pathetic attempt at extricating himself from the ugly and dangerous mess he helped create! His performance was more to convince himself, for he could not possibly convince us.
Here he was after pouring the gasoline feigning surprise when someone finally lit a match. It was Najib who only the day before the incident declared that “Muslim groups were free to protest and express their views about the ‘Allah’ issue.” Just in case that message did not register, he added that the authorities would not stop groups from gathering at mosques and protesting there. Najib’s cousin and Home Minister, Hishammuddin, echoed the same sentiments.
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Najib and Hishammuddin should apologise for their irresponsible, insensitive and maladroit handling of the “Allah” controversy
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Religion on Sunday, 10 January 2010, 2:04 pm
The announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of a RM500,000 allocation to the Metro Tabernacle Church in Desa Melawati to help it to relocate to new premises in Batu Caves after experiencing the worst case of a series of church arson in the past few days is commendable and a step in the right direction but it cannot undo the grave damage whether to nation building or to Malaysia’s international reputation as the best location for foreign investment, tourism or educational opportunities.
The claim by Najib that his 1Malaysia slogan is not affected by the spate of church arson attacks only demonstrates the seriousness of the denial syndrome of the Najib premiership even before the end of his first year as Prime Minister.
When Najib visited New York end of November to attract American investors and boost trade and investment ties between Malaysia and the United States, he was dogged by Malaysia’s adverse international image, not only by our endemic crime rate but also controversies over moral policing and religious disputes.
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Najib 1 Malaysia fails once again
Posted by Kit in Dr. Chen Man Hin, Najib Razak, Religion on Saturday, 9 January 2010, 11:53 am
By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life adviser
UMNO LED OPPOSITION TO THE USE OF ALLAH BY CHRISTIANS IN MALAYSIA, IS AGAINST WORLD MUSLIM OPINION AND WILL BACKFIRE ON THE PROMOTION OF 1 MALAYSIA REFORMS OF THE PRIME MINISTER.
PM Najib open support for UMNO’s retrogressive stand against the use of Allah by Christians, shows that his 1 Malaysia so called reforms for a multicultural society with religious freedom will once again fail to deliver his promises to the people.
Firstly, the majority of world muslims, including muslim Arabs, muslim Africans, muslim Indonesians, and muslim Malaysians have no problem with the use of Allah by christians living amidst them for centuries.
So why is the Home ministry objecting to the use of Allah by christians in Malaysia.
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Church bombings the work of demons
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman, Religion on Saturday, 9 January 2010, 11:19 am
By Azly Rahman
Peace, mercy, and blessings to all Malaysians.
My heart goes to those affected by the recent bombings. Today’s ‘World Briefing’ section of The New York Times carried the news.
The three attacks on the churches are terrorist attacks by definition. Thus begin a rough period of turmoil ahead beginning with the blowing up of the French-speaking Mongolian translator for Malaysia’s arms dealings. Violence, Machiavellian-styled will be the order of the day — we have entered a period of the emergence of demons and demolition. I hope these are not the work of those out to create chaos; in view that the current regime is losing power and seriously challenged by the growing strength of the emergent alternative government. The ends justify the means. Violence is the means and the end as well. While physical violence is the means to cling on to power, structural or the unseen/hidden/structural violence is the goal of the State.
We are entering “into interesting times,” as Mao Zedong would say. You and I are part of the game – in the Malaysian matrix of complexities.
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Have no fear, Christians will not retaliate
Posted by Kit in Law & Order, Religion on Saturday, 9 January 2010, 10:50 am
COMMENT
By Thomas Lee
Following the cowardly, contemptuous and condemnable attacks on several churches in the Klang Valley by some obviously fanatically and foolhardy persons, Police Tan Sri Musa Hasan has ordered all state police chiefs to organise patrols to monitor mosques and churches as “we do not want any untoward incidents happening at the mosques or churches.”
It is certainly commendable of the IGP to order the beefing-up of security around the places of worship in view of the perceived and real threats of such detestable and destablising by persons of deranged and destructive character and conduct.
However, I can say behalf of my fellow Christian believers that none of us will take any violent revenge or retaliatory action on people who abuse or prosecute us unreasonably without any just and fair causes.
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Call on Malaysians – including religious bodies, political parties, NGOs – not to take part in demonstrations over the “Allah” controversy to avoid the trap of irresponsible political desperadoes out to exploit, manipulate the politicize the issue
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak on Saturday, 9 January 2010, 9:31 am
Just before I come on stage, I received the following SMS which I believe represents the views of Malaysians inside this Hall and outside in the country:
“UMNO, esp Najib & Hishammuddin must bear full responsibility for d churches burning incidents since they failed to address d Allah issue properly, allowing people to demonstrate, thus causing it to escalate & spin out of proportion”.
Let me ask you by a show of hands whether you agree with this SMS. (Almost unanimous spontaneous show of hands from the close to a thousand-people crowd in support of the SMS).
The year 2009 ended badly for Malaysia despite having a new Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak with his new “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” slogan with setbacks on all the major priority KPIs and NKRAs, viz:
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