This replaces Koperasi Permodalan Felda’s (KPF) initial proposed role.

KPF has about 220,000 members, of which 112,635 are Felda settlers and the rest employees and children of settlers.

Felda chairman Mohd Isa Abdul Samad said the action by eight Felda settlers to block KPF’s participation in FGVH’s proposed listing with interim injunction barring any transfer of shares to FGVH, has blocked the participation of other KPF members.

“With KPF effectively out of the picture, other KPF members will not be able to participate in the proposed listing of what would have been one of the largest producers of crude palm oil in the world,” he told reporters ahead of a briefing session with the settlers.

He said the proposed listing of FGVH, however, would proceed as planned.

Felda settlers, via KPF, hold 51% stake in Felda Holdings Bhd (FHB) and FGVH 49%.

Prior to the proposed setting up of SPV, the proceeds from the proposed listing and potential profits would be channelled via KPF.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Ahmad Maslan had earlier said KPF would be the single largest shareholder of FGVH with a 37% stake.

Minority view

Following the injunction, KPF’s extraordinary general meeting today was cancelled for the second time.

“I want to be very clear that Felda wants KPF to participate in the proposed listing, but it is unfortunate that this small group, influenced by the National Felda Settlers Children’s Association (Anak), has chosen this path.

“We are disappointed at their repeated attempts to force their minority view against the wishes of the majority of hard-working KPF members and block its members from this opportunity,” he said.

Felda, the statutory body under the Prime Minister’s Department, has a 100% stake in FGVH.

Meanwhile, Isa reiterated that none of the settlers’ land would be touched for the proposed listing.

In addition, their holdings in KPF would remain as they are, he said.

-Bernama

Also read:

Felda: Najib must explain ex-aide’s role

Youth and Sports Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek said stern and proper action should be taken against those found guilty to prove to the world that Malaysia was serious in such matters.

He said the action and punishment imposed should also reflect transparency in Malaysia, which has always acted firmly against the use of banned substances among athletes in the country.

“I hope MAU will not consider it as a small matter because the world will see Malaysia as a country that is not transparent and does not act firmly towards eliminating the use of banned substances among athletes,” he told reporters after launching the 1Felda Youth-friendly Carnival, here today.

He said if MAU failed to handle the issue properly, it would put Malaysia in bad light in world sports.

According to Shabery, he had written several letters but so far there had been no response from MAU over the issue.

However, he said he did not want to interfere.

“I hope the independent committee will be able to get to the bottom of the matter. If it involves the athlete, MAU should act but if it is because of the association, maybe the Sports Commissioner will have to step in,” he said.

- Bernama

Justice Low Hop Bing, chairing a three-member panel, reduced Wong’s jail term from five years to 17 and a half months jail.

The panel, also comprising Court of Appeal judges KN Segara and Azahar Mohamed, held that the 17 months and 15 days jail term which Wong has served from Sept 7, 2010 until today would serve the interests of justice.

The court allowed Wong’s appeal to set aside a Shah Alam High Court’s decision in enhancing his jail term from six months imposed by the magistrate’s court on him to five years jail.

“The appellant (Wong) would walk out this court today a free man in view of the custodial sentence he served,” Low said.

Low said the High Court, in enhancing the jail term on Wong, had erroneously considered certain facts such as the squeezing of the 95 boa constrictor snakes into a small bag, thereby torturing the snakes.

He said the High Court judge had also erroneously considered two venomous rhinocerous viper snakes (found in Wong’s bag) but were not stated in the charge against Wong and also the fact that Wong was greedy in profit making.

Low said the charge against Wong was one of exporting the 95 boa constrictor snakes without a permit, therefore any other considerations would be outside the ambit of the charge which warranted the Court of Appeal’s intervention.

He added that the High Court did not make any reference to Wong’s guilty plea.

“It is trite law that Wong’s plea of guilt is a mitigating factor. It is trite law that the fact Wong was the first offender is another mitigating factor,” he said.

The panel also affirmed the High Court’s decision in setting aside the RM190,000 fine imposed on Wong by the Sepang Sessions Court as it was beyond the ceiling of RM10,000 which the Sessions Court could legally impose.

On Jan 24 last year, the 53-year-old trader obtained leave from the Court of Appeal to appeal against the decision of the High Court on Nov 4 last year, which had enhanced his jail term from six months to five years.

On Sept 6, last year, the Sepang magistrate’s court sentenced Wong to six months’ jail and fined him RM190,000 after the Penangite pleaded guilty to illegally exporting the endangered species without a permit at the KL International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang at 8.50pm on Aug 26, last year.

Wong was in KLIA on transit from Penang to Jakarta when the snakes were found in his suitcase.

The High Court imposed the five-year jail term on Wong after allowing the prosecution’s appeal for a heavier sentence. The court, however, set aside the RM190,000 fine.

Wong was represented by lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah while Deputy Public Prosecutor Manoj Kurup appeared for the prosecution.

Bernama

Its Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti said the establishment of a Malaysian bank in Sudan would also boost investment in the African country.

“Malaysia is a very important partner of Sudan. We’re pushing for a stronger cooperation with this country,” he told the media after a bilateral meeting with his Malaysian counterpart, Anifah Aman here, today.

The Sudanese minister expressed hope that more Sudanese students could further their studies at Malaysian institutions of higher learning.

Ali Ahmed, who arrived on Monday for a four-day offical visit, called on Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak yesterday.

His visit to Malaysia reciprocated the one made by Anifah to Sudan in July last year.

In a statement issued after today’s meeting, Anifah said they discussed the possibility of holding the second Malaysia-Sudan Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) later this year.

“Both sides feel that it’s timely to convene the meeting, as the first JCM was held back in June 2002,” he said.

Anifah said the meeting today featured an overview of Malaysia-Sudan ties as well as discussions on their economic and trade relations, investment by Petronas, cooperation in education, cooperation and the halal industry, involvement in the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme as well as regional and multilateral issues of common interest.

Both delegations were pleased with the rebound in trade volume of US$94.3 million in 2011 from US$89.1 million in 2010.

Anifah said there were 2,873 students from Sudan in Malaysia, and hoped that more Sudanese would pursue their studies here.

“Malaysia has assured Sudan that it would remain a reliable friend and partner,” he added.

- Bernama

There are lingering concerns over how the waste will be managed and this has become a pressing matter as the controversial project in Gebeng has been granted a “conditional” Temporary Operating License (TOL) by AELB and the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (Mosti) in early February.

AELB listed five conditions, some of which concerns the disposal of radioactive waste, which Lynas must adhere to. This includes returning the waste back to its country of origin – Australia- if the need arises.

To the chagrin of its detractors, the Australian company, Lynas, has yet to put forth a clear plan for its radioactive waste in LAMP.

To make matters worse, the Australian government reiterated that it will not allow the “importation and storage of other countries’ radioactive waste”.

Fuziah today said that AELB is inserting conditions that are impossible to meet even at international standards, leaving Malaysia in a difficult position to deal with this waste.

She quoted the example of UN’s Basel Convention signed in 1989 and came into force in 1992. The convention concerns the movement of hazardous material and waste across national boundaries.

It does not cover radioactive waste but this list can be expanded if laws in either the exporting or importing country consider radioactive waste as hazardous.

Both Australia and Malaysia have ratified the Convention in 1992 and 1993 respectively.

“The Basel convention states that any radioactive material which you bring out of the country must be returned to the country of origin. But the Basel Convention does not cover radioactive waste.

“And now that the Australian government has repeated that they will not take back the radioactive waste. Even if that (sending back the waste) is the worse case scenario, we (Malaysia) are still stuck (because of Australia’s rejection and the Convention’s terms),” said Fuziah.

She added that AELB has refused to acknowledge this and is inserting conditions that cannot be met to pacify the public.

Previously, FMT reported that AELB director-general Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan was unaware that Australia has refused the return of radioactive waste.

He assured that Lynas has numerous back-up plans in place and therefore did not foresee any problems. He also said that AELB was awaiting a letter of undertaking from Lynas regarding the matter.

Meanwhile, Fuziah said that the lawsuit against Lynas will be heard on Feb 28.

The lawsuit was filed by 10 local residents, who accused Lynas of ignoring their fears of health and environmental repercussions.

Government sets up monitoring unit

In another development, the government announced that an independent monitoring unit will be formed to undertake a construction audit at the Lynas’ refinery plant in Gebeng.

This is to ensure compliance to all standards imposed by the appropriate and relevant professional bodies, the government said through a joint ministerial statement by four ministers whose portfolios are directly associated with Lynas’ application to set up and operate the plant.

A condition imposed by the AELB on Lynas is for the submission of details of the plans and location of a proposed permanent disposal facility that will manage the residue, if any, generated by the factory. The submission must be made within 10 months from the date the TOL is issued.

“This requirement must be complied with regardless of any alternative proposal Lynas may make for the management or disposal of the factory residue (e.g. recycling, conversion into products that can be sold, etc.),” the joint ministerial statement said.

The statement was issued by International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamad; Science and Technology Minister Maximus Johnity Ongkili; Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Douglas Uggah Embas; and Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai.

“Any Permanent Disposal Facility (PDF) proposed by Lynas shall be located remotely and away from populated areas.

“All residue and waste water shall be fully treated meeting stipulated standards prior to discharge. There will be zero discharge of industrial waste water,” the statement said.

It added that the government will continue to engage in a transparent and open manner.

Also read:

Lynas ‘devil’ waiting at every doorstep

Gov’t fails to learn from Bkt Merah tragedy

Myanmarese asylum seeker Patrick Sang claimed that local employers didn’t want to go through the trouble of registering this group with the Immigration Department.

“Since the news of the major crackdowns and accompanying measures, many of the refugees and asylum seekers and their families have been fired by their bosses.”

“They lost their jobs…because employers didn’t register them under the 6P programme,” he told reporters today at Tenaganita’s office.

Sang was referring to the government’s 6P amnesty programme which started last June to legalise illegal foreign workers.

Thus far, only 379,020 illegal foreign workers have been legalised by the Immigration Department.

One million undocumented individuals, however, have either no work permits or have seen them rejected thus far.

A total of 94,856 migrants have been deported to their home countries since the programme’s inception.

Refugees and asylum seekers at risk

Some have speculated that the programme, which has been extended to April 10, will see a crackdown on migrant workers who have not yet been legalised by the government.

Refugees and asylum seekers are especially at risk, as they are not recognised as such in Malaysia. Instead, they are classified by the government as undocumented individuals.

They are especially concerned with the federal government boasting a four-million-enforcement-agent deployment against illegals after programme’s deadline.

This, according to Sang, was a very real fear for asylum seekers like him who face detention and deportation.

“It seem like there’s going to be huge crackdown (after April 10). Why don’t they just postpone the crackdown? If they want to exercise it, do it after all the refugees and asylum seekers are recognised.”

“If the registration for the refugee does not take place before April 10, all the refugees and asylum seekers are going to be in big trouble.”

“It heightens our fear. (If they register us) we don’t have to live with this fear daily,” he said.

Even a registration in March for nearly 100,000 refugees would be too late, Sang added. He said that it would take two or three months to fully register and legalise an individual.

Tenaganita executive director Irene Fernandez called for an immediate halt on the impending crackdown on migrants and refugees.

She also asked for migrant and refugee detainees to be released, as well as the government to stop deporting them.

Criticising the 6P programme, Fernandez said that a systematic plan was needed to address the “structural flaws” in the country’s migration system.

Difahamkan, taklimat antara Isa dan sebahagian pemegang saham diadakan di Dewan Perdana Felda di Kuala Lumpur petang tadi susulan pembatalan Mesyuarat Agung Khas (EGM) KPF pada saat-saat akhir yang sepatutnya dijadual berlangsung hari ini.

Menurut Presiden Persatuan Anak Peneroka Felda Kebangsaan (Anak) Mazlan Aliman, insiden itu terjadi apabila soalan yang dikemukakan salah seorang pemegang saham daripada Felda Sendayan di Negeri Sembilan itu gagal dijawab dengan baik oleh Isa.

Katanya, semasa sesi dialog generasi kedua Felda yang berumur dalam lingkungan 50-an itu bangkit bertanyakan Isa mengenai jaminan yang akan diperoleh pemegang saham KPF jika ia disenaraikan dalam Bursa Malaysia.

Namun, menurut Mazlan jawapan yang diberikan Isa hanyalah “Perdana Menteri akan bagi jaminan”.

Isa Samad angkuh

“Lelaki itu tidak berpuas hati dengan jawapan Isa kemudian bertanya lagi kalau Najib lepas ni tak jadi Perdana Menteri dan digantikan dengan orang lain, kalau berlaku masalah dalam KPF siapa yang nak bertanggungjawab?

“Isa kemudiannya menjawab ‘kalau awak tak percaya Najib sila keluar daripada dewan’,” kata Mazlan ketika dihubungi.

Menurut Mazlan, lelaki yang menetap di Felda lebih 50 tahun dan memiliki saham KPF melebihi RM250,000 itu kemudiannya dibawa keluar oleh polis bantuan dalam keadaan dimalukan dan disaksikan pemegang saham yang lain.

Mengulas mengena kejadian terbabit, Mazlan berkata tindakan Isa itu adalah tidak wajar dan tidak profesional memandangkan beliau sendiri yang mahukan dialog itu dijalankan.

“Hasil dialog petang tadi menunjukkan kecenderungan peneroka yang hadir memihak kepada peneroka yang dihalau itu.

“Namun Isa sebagai bekas Menteri Besar Negeri Sembilan itu menggambarkan sikap pemimpin yang angkuh, ego dan tidak boleh terima teguran,” katanya yang turut kesal dengan kejadian itu.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) closed 3.26 points, or 0.208%, lower at 1,560.52, after opening 0.04 point higher at 1,563.82.

The key index moved within 1,558.94 and 1,565.25 points throughout the day.

Jupiter Securities head of research, Pong Teng Siew, said selected plantation and banking counters were down but gains in some blue-chips like Maybank Petronas Chemicals, Telekom, RHB Capital helped lift the key index to finish slightly above the 1,560-point level.

“The local bourse also saw losses in second-liners on profit-taking,” he told Bernama today.

Pong said the investor sentiment now was affected by the pressure on oil prices due to tensions in Iran and this has dampened the manufacturing, transport and consumers sectors.

The increase in oil prices may result in brittle economic growth for the regional economies, he said.

The Finance Index fell 2.029 points to 13,949.99, Plantation Index dipped 79.229 points to 8,666.20 and the Industrial Index lost 16.26 points to 2,892.04.

The FBM Emas Index declined 36.17 points to 10,819.64 and the FBM 70 Index decreased 60.641 points to 12,264.60.

The FBM Ace Index climbed 24.73 points to 4,805.24.

Losers led gainers by 541 to 302 while 298 counters were unchanged, 349 untraded and 19 others were suspended.

Among active counters, The Media Shoppe was down half sen to 11 sen, Green Ocean fell 2.5 sen to 30 sen, IFCA MSC added one sen to 14.5 sen while Green Packet-Warrant rose 4.5 sen to 25 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank increased one sen to RM8.71, Sime Darby was unchanged at RM9.64, RHB Capital gained 23 sen to RM7.78 and Telekom rose 10 sen to RM5.03.

Total turnover advanced to 2.230 billion shares worth RM1.937 billion from 1.894 billion shares worth RM1.747 billion yesterday.

Volume on the Main Market rose to 1.187 billion units valued at RM1.766 billion from 1.132 billion units valued at RM1.619 billion yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE Market increased to 892.206 million shares worth RM149.281 million from 607.166 million shares worth RM104.633 million previously.

Warrants declined to 148.847 million units valued at RM20.979 million from 149.570 million units valued at RM21.818 million yesterday.

Consumer products accounted for 106.515 million shares traded on the main market, industrial products 199.938 million, construction 61.426 million, trade and services 396.533 million, technology 138.631 million, infrastructure 42.766 million, finance 66.568 million, hotels 1.597 million, properties 134.638 million, plantations 24.650 million, mining 18,000, REITs 2.323 million and closed/fund 15,000.

-Bernama

Standard Chartered Plc has been hired to run the sale of stakes in about a dozen power plants in Malaysia, South Asia, Egypt and the Middle East with a net generating capacity of nearly 4,000 megawatts (MW), the sources said.

The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Ananda Krishnan owns his power assets through Tanjong Energy Group, which, according to Tanjong’s website, owns and operates eight power plants and has investments in five power plants in Malaysia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates with a total net generating capacity of 3,951 MW.

Standard Chartered and Tanjong declined to comment.

- Reuters

Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim menyifatkan dakwaan itu tidak konstruktif dan melemahkan peranan kedua-dua badan agama negeri itu.

Katanya dakwaan Hasan Ali dan kumpulan badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) itu juga tidak disertakan dengan sebarang bukti dan memberi implikasi buruk kepada keharmonian masyarakat majmuk di negeri ini.

“Dakwaan ini juga tidak konstruktif kerana ianya semata-mata mahu melemahkan peranan Mais dan Jais dan akhirnya memberi kesan terhadap Sultan Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah selaku ketua agama Islam di mana Tuanku telah melakukan usaha terbaik dan bersungguh-sungguh untuk memartabatkan agama Islam .

“Oleh yang demikian, adalah amat penting untuk Jais dan Mais menjalankan siasatan terperinci terhadap dakwaan ini dan bertindak untuk keadilan bagi semua pihak.

“Kerajaan negeri juga akan berbincang dengan Mais dan Jais jika dakwaan tanpa bukti ini boleh dibiarkan berterusan,” katanya dalam sidang media selepas mempengerusikan mesyuarat mingguan exco di sini hari ini.

Khalid merujuk kepada kenyataan Hasan Ali sebelum ini yang melibatkan tiga perkara iaitu: kitab Injil berkuasa solar (solar-powered talking bible), mubaligh Kristian berpakaian jubah memasuki masjid serta minum dan mandi air suci.

Abdul Khalid berkata walaupun kerajaan negeri Pakatan Rakyat bersikap terbuka dan tidak menyekat mana-mana individu atau NGO bersuara berhubung hal itu, namun penggunaan premis bagi sebarang aktiviti ceramah yang boleh menimbulkan ketegangan adalah tidak disokong.

“Walaupun Kerajaan Negeri mengambil sikap terbuka, kita tidak akan menyokong penggunaan premis kita untuk sebarang aktiviti yang boleh memecah-belahkan masyarakat.

“Jika dakwaan yang dibuat boleh menimbulkan ketegangan, maka kita perlu fikirkan tindakan yang sesuai untuk menegakkan keadilan dan kebenaran untuk semua,” katanya.

Hasan Ali, kini Presiden sebuah NGO dikenali sebagai Jalur Tiga (Jati) dalam majlis pelancarannya di sini semalam berkata pihaknya akan mendedahkan video eksklusif pengakuan individu yang dimurtadkan kepada umum dalam masa terdekat.

Mara chairman Idris Jusoh said the aim was to produce credible and successful petty traders and entrepreneurs.

“UK Dinamik is a government effort to increase the income of petty traders and entrepreneurs, and is one of Mara’s mechanisms to create Bumiputera wealth,” he told reporters after opening a UK Dinamik seminar here today.

Present was Terengganu Mara director Abdullah Mohamad.

“We are aware and have received many complaints from petty traders who are facing problems to gain access to capital, obtain business premises and so on,” Idris said.

Through the UK Dinamik programme, Mara saw possible collaborations with various parties including non-governmental organisations and traders associations, he said.

UK Dinamik provides loans of not more than RM10,000 and the entrepreneur needs to pay back the loan in two years.

Meanwhile, Idris said Mara approved 5,435 business financing applications worth RM440 million last year.

Abdullah said RM1.05 million had been allocated to Terengganu Mara for the UK Dinamik programme involving 135 petty traders.

Last year, he said, Mara Terengganu approved business loans to 362 entrepreneurs totaling RM30.9 million.

- Bernama

At a press conference organised ahead of Himpunan Hijau 2.0, the nationwide anti-Lynas rally this Sunday, the groups said that the severe repercussions of the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) has made it a national issue.

A nuclear physicist and the Green Coalition Party committee member, Ahmad Bungsu Hamid Tuah, said that Malaysians outside Kuantan were in for a bad shock if they thought they were safe just because they lived outside the LAMP postcode.

“When the Chernobyl disaster took place the radioactive particles were carried by the wind all the way to Scotland,” he stated. “The rainwater that was infused with those particles fell onto grazing fields and the sheep ended up being polluted.”

“These same particles at the huge toxic dumps in Gebeng will also be carried by the South China Sea winds and monsoon rains across West Malaysia. So don’t think you’re safe just because you don’t live in Kuantan.”

Ahmad Bungsu, who has worked on projects involving radioactive waste management and toxic waste disposal systems in America, also said that the nuclear radiation from LAMP was no different from that in the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters.

In fact, he added, the radiation expelled by LAMP would exceed the levels of Fukushima. On top of that, he claimed that the cost of decommissioning the plant 60 years later would be five times the cost of building it.

“I challenge any Barisan Nasional (BN) politician to an open debate on Lynas,” Ahmad Bungsu said. “I have already issued this challenge to the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) but it has yet to respond.”

‘Blatant abuse of power’

Meanwhile, Himpunan Hijau public relations steering committee member, Clement Chin, predicted an exodus from Gebeng to Kuala Lumpur when Lynas fires up its RM2.5 billion rare earth plant.

According to him, the property market in Gebeng has already been hit with banks turning down loan applications for houses within 2km of LAMP.

“The AELB’s approval of Lynas’ temporary operating licence (TOL) on Feb 1 has resigned the 700 residents there to the fact that Lynas will commence operations,” Chin said.

“Himpunan Hijau is everyone’s platform to prevent Gebeng and Kuantan from becoming inhabitable. If Lynas is allowed to operate, then the door is open to more such plants in the future.”

The People’s Party of Malaysia (PRM) and the National Indian Advancement Team (NIAT) both trained their guns at the government for its “irresponsibility” over the issue.

PRM’s central committee member, Zulkarnain Abdullah, reminded BN to learn from the 2008 election before the next election is called or be ready to trade places with Pakatan Rakyat.

NIAT’s chairman, Thasleem Ibrahim, meanwhile, flayed government media owners for masking the truth about Lynas. He pointed out that today’s media conference was the first to be attended by the Tamil media.

“Only one of four people outside Kuantan have actually heard of the issue,” he stated. “This is blatant abuse of power and the mainstream media has to play a role in speaking the truth about Lynas.

“Are we going to welcome the devil that is waiting to kill us slowly but surely?

“Perhaps it is also time we called upon our international network connections to speak out on the issue seeing that the local community is still asleep.”

The Himpunan Hijau 2.0 rallies outside Kuantan will take place in Kuala Lumpur (Maju Junction), Penang (Speakers’ Square), Perak (Bukit Merah) and Sabah (Tanjung Aru beach) on Sunday.

The organisers have urged participants to don green clothing and have followed in the footsteps of Bersih 2.0 in suggesting that green be worn every Sunday hereon.

Also read:

Gov’t fails to learn from Bkt Merah tragedy

Tenaganita – a migrant worker NGO – president Irene Fernandez made this claim today, adding that the recruitment of these Bangladeshis may start in June.

“We’ve heard from sources in Bangladesh that sometime this June, there will be a new recruitment taking place, (bringing in) Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia, (to work) particularly in the Felda schemes,” she told reporters at Tenaganita’s office.

Fernandez asked why the government appeared to tolerate this apparent recruitment when it still had one million undocumented workers, many without any work permits, to deal with.

“Our concern here is that we still have one million workers to be regularised (though they have been) registered under the biometric system.”

“Why can’t we provide employment to these one million migrant workers instead of obtaining new recruitment?” she asked.

Citing the Home Ministry, she said that only 379,020 out of the total of 1.3 million undocumented migrant workers had been legalised by the government.

The remaining one million, she said, either had no work permits or had their permits rejected by the Immigration Department.

In June last year, the government started its 6P amnesty programme to register and legalise illegal foreign workers already in the country.

With the large number of workers still not yet settled by the Immigration Department, the Home Ministry has decided to extend its Jan 10 amnesty deadline to April 10.

It is expected that a crackdown against undocumented migrant workers will commence after this date is up.

According to the Home Ministry, 94,856 migrants have been deported back to their home countries thus far.

The French government now says women’s marital status shouldn’t matter, at least when it comes to this country’s far-reaching bureaucracy.

A new circular from the prime minister’s office orders officials to phase out the use of “mademoiselle” on administrative documents.

Until now, a woman has been required to identify herself as a married “madame” or an unmarried “mademoiselle” on everything from tax forms to insurance claims and voting cards. France offers no neutral option like the English “Ms”.

Men don’t face this issue: Their only option is “monsieur”, married or not.

Feminist groups have been pushing for the abolition of the “mademoiselle” option for months and hailed today’s circular.

-Agencies

The Malaysia Today editor alleged today that the contracts were given to I-Bhd founder Lim Kim Hong who helped Khalid finance his purchase of Guthrie shares in 1994 as a way to repay his debt.

Khalid initially bought 5% of Guthrie for RM125 million, according to The Asian Wall Street Journal on June 17, 1994.

Raja Petra said, to partly fund this purchase, Khalid borrowed about RM66 million from Bank Islam, which later sued Khalid for recovery of the unpaid loan.

The rest was financed by Lim, said the blogger, who claimed that PKR deputy president Azmin Ali had disclosed the information.

The blogger alleged that ties between Khalid and Azmin had become further strained as the latter was “pissed big time” and a “showdown” was imminent.

“According to Azmin, Lim funded Khalid and now, as pay back, Lim is being given lucrative jobs in Selangor… these jobs run into the billions and Azmin is pissed big time,” he said.

The relationship between Azmin and Khalid had also been on rocky ground in the past, forcing PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim to step in.

PAS wants Khalid removed?

It was understood that Azmin had eyed the menteri besar post and was unhappy that Khalid was picked by Anwar instead.

The contention was that the post was a political one and Azmin felt that Khalid was not a good politician and had failed to keep the various factions in the party’s Selangor chapter united.

The removal of Khalid and the promotion of Azmin as the party’s Selangor chief strengthened this perception, observers said.

Meanwhile, Raja Petra said Anwar himself had criticised Khalid when the opposition leader met the blogger in London in 2010.

“I can believe this because this was exactly what Anwar told me… In fact, Anwar was even more blunt in his criticism of the menteri besar. He said that Khalid was stubborn and had a huge ego and would not listen to advice,” he added.

The blogger also claimed that the PAS leadership was now lobbying PKR to remove Khalid from his post should Pakatan retain Selangor in the upcoming national polls.

“PAS leaders in Selangor know about this but they don’t dare raise the matter for the sake of Pakatan solidarity… but they are quietly lobbying in the background for PKR to drop Khalid in the next election lest this matter becomes an election issue,” he said.

Also read:

A Tale of Two Tan Sris

This new method, they claimed, used the legal means of creating “divisions” (Belah Bahagi) to move voters illegally into a different voting constituency.

There are fears that these additions will be to the benefit of the Barisan Nasional as this practice was allegedly rampant in Pakatan Rakyat-held Selangor.

PKR vice president Fuziah Salleh revealed this at a press conference today when highlighting EC’s “illegal gerrymandering” in the Subang parliamentary constituency.

According to the Election’s Act 1958, divisions were conducted in order to make marginal changes concerning the voter’s state constituency.

The division method is usually used to consolidate dispersed voters into voting districts. One voting district must have a maximum of 3,850 people and one polling station.

However, according to the law, the movement of these voters must be made within the same state constituency.

Fuziah today highlighted several cases in the Subang constituency where the division method was used to shift voters from their state constituency to another constituency.

In one case highlighted, there were seven voters who were registered in the Kota Damansara state constituency in the 2008 electoral roll but were moved to Bukit Lanjan state constituency in the 2010 electoral roll.

“There are cases where the movements have caused some voters to shift to a new parliamentary constituency as well,” she said.

She highlighted a few cases where voters were registered under the Kelana Jaya parliamentary constituency in 2008 but were registered under the Subang parliamentary constituency in 2010 electoral roll.

“The EC is using legal provisions to do illegal things,” she said.

Furthermore, she added that the EC can only conduct divisions once the delineation exercise is announced.

Increase of voters in Subang

The EC has denied rumours of on-going delineation exercise adding that it will only take place after the 13th general election, expected to be held anytime soon.

Fuziah, who is also the Kuantan MP, said that this was merely the tip of the iceberg and PKR will reveal more in a series of exposes.

She also raised doubts over the dubious 35 percent rise of voters in the Subang constituency since 2007.

She said the additions were inexplicable as voters appeared “from nowhere” into the gazetted electoral roll.

“The number of voters (in Subang) as of the third quarter of 2011 was 110,614.

“When the list is made public, there is usually an objection period. So, rationally speaking, the 110,614 is the maximum voters (in Subang, after the third quarter),” she said.

But the gazetted electoral roll according to the third quarter, stated that (Subang constituency) contained 113,978 voters, 3,000 more than the previous list.

“Where did the extra 3,364 voters come from,” she asked.

She said that the division method could be used to explain this irregularity.

She added that all the information was gathered when the electoral roll was scanned thoroughly.

Fuziah said the matter will be brought up to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) overseeing electoral reforms.

Also at the press conference today was Subang MP R Sivarasa, who said he will take EC’s alleged abuse of power to the MACC next week.

Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamarudin in his posting on the matter yesterday claimed that the person close to Najib was likely to cash in on FGVH’s public listing.

PAS vice-president Mahfuz Omar said Putrajaya had yet to explain the allegation – also raised by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim – despite the rising anger over the proposal to list FGVH.

The Pokok Sena MP alleged that the Omar-linked Ethos Consultancy’s involvement indicated Putrajaya’s premeditated plan to exploit FGVH’s public listing with complete disregard for the settlers’ welfare.

“The move was done without prior consultation with the stakeholders and it was done without the consent of the Kooperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF),” he told FMT, referring to the rushed emergency meeting held by the body on Jan 5.

The meeting resulted in the appointment of Umno man Isa Samad as KPF chairman.

Settlers protesting against FGHV’s listing saw it as Putrajaya’s way of forcing KPF’s consent with regard to the move.

“Is there something that we don’t know when it comes to the the involvement of someone like Omar in this issue?

“Is this proof that the listing proposal is aimed at serving the interests of some people? Najib must explain,” said Mahfuz.

‘Settlers will be shortchanged’

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Felda matters Ahmad Maslan said the listing would make FGVH a blue chip company in global plantations.

However, the proposal met with opposition from the PAS-aligned National Association of Settlers (Anak), which claimed that the listing would shortchange some 200,000 settlers in Felda schemes across the nation.

Under the listing proposal, settlers would swap their 5% stake in Felda Holdings — which made RM760 million last year — for a 61% stake in FGVH.

Protesters, however, scored a minor victory following a temporary court order issued yesterday blocking the transfer of shares from the co-operative to the Felda’s investment arm.

Omar’s involvement was first raised by Anwar last year.

The PKR de facto leader had demanded disclosure on the fees paid to Ethos for its appointment as consultant.

He also asked how a firm like Ethos, with no expertise in the agriculture industry had been appointed as consultant to Felda’s commercial arm whose international subsidiaries lost some RM500 million up to 2010.

Najib’s fingerprints

PKR vice-president Tian Chua meanwhile said Ong’s presence in Felda through Ethos was a clear sign of “Najib’s fingerprints” in the deal.

The Batu MP echoed Mahfuz’s views that this showed Putrajaya never had any intention to consult settlers on the decision. He said Omar’s involvement showed Najib wanted full control.

“We can see to what extend he (Najib) wants his people controlling the deal just shows how much he wants to cash in on this,” he told FMT, adding that the prime minister must clarify the matter.

Omar, who is also an independent, non-executive director at Petronas, is the co-founder of Ethos, a management and strategic consulting firm.

Raja Petra, in his posting yesterday, also said that Omar advises Najib on his corporate moves and has been doing so even back in the days when Najib was still just the deputy prime minister.

“Omar Mustapha Ong is a member of Khairy Jamaluddin’s ‘Fourth Floor Boys’, the team that helped Abdullah Ahmad Badawi run the country when he was the prime minister. They not only ran the country. They ran it into the ground,” he added.

Also read:

Gabungan peneroka bantah FGVH diurus orang luar

Toru Hashimoto, a lawyer and TV celebrity-turned politician, was quick to add when he made that widely publicised remark last year that a Hitler-style dictatorship was neither desirable nor possible given Japan’s democratic checks and balances.

But the call for strong leadership from the charismatic mayor, whom some believe has ambitions to be Japan’s next premier, is resonating with voters frustrated by years of political deadlock that has kept the country from tackling the deep-rooted problems of a fast-ageing society.

Rising voter support for the boyish-faced Hashimoto, 42, who was elected as mayor of the major western city of Osaka last year after serving three years as governor of the broader region, mirrors the sagging fortunes of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

Noda’s ratings have sunk below 30% in the short time since he became Japan’s sixth premier in five years last September.

In sharp contrast, more than double that number expressed hopes for Hashimoto’s new party in a weekend poll.

It is hard to judge whether Hashimoto’s Ishin no Kai party, now starting a search for national candidates, can win substantial clout in Parliament in an election that must be held in 2013 but is likely to come sooner.

Experts say his party has a chance. Even if the party falls short of a lower house majority, it could form the core of a new ruling bloc if neither the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) nor its rival Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), wins.

“A lot of ‘floating voters’ who get captivated by the latest flavour could vote for Hashimoto. It’s a way of sticking their finger in the eyes of the established parties,” said Gerry Curtis, a Columbia University political science professor.

Others, though, say Hashimoto may just end up as the latest outsider to fade after a flurry of media and voter attention.

“Even if his party finishes third… if they (the LDP or DPJ) can form a majority without Ishin no Kai, they will,” said Chuo University political science professor Steven Reed.

“There are a lot of policies he is demanding that neither wants to swallow.”

Political hopefuls have been tapping into frustration with mainstream parties for decades, sometimes shaking things up before institutional inertia reasserted itself.

The LDP’s soundbite-savvy Junichiro Koizumi was propelled to the top job in 2001 by a groundswell of support for his calls to break the grip of vested interests, serving a rare five-year term during which he cleaned up bank’s bad loans, deregulated the labour market and privatised the giant postal system.

Public disappointment

Three years after Koizumi stepped down, voters fed up with LDP backsliding and lured by the DPJ’s promises of change handed the novice party a huge victory.

But the DPJ now faces the same problem, the public disappointed by its struggle to tackle a mountainous legacy of policy problems including debt equal to twice the US$5 trillion economy while slipping back into some of the LDP’s old habits, including changing prime ministers every year.

“The reason Koizumi won huge victories was his pledge to break up vested interests,” said economist Tatsuo Hatta, who serves on a government advisory panel on energy policy.

“The message from voters is loud and clear.”

Hashimoto is playing coy about whether he would run for Parliament, a necessary step if he wants to be premier.

But his party is finalising its national platform and Hashimoto has made clear that agreement with it will be a litmus test for candidates seeking his backing.

The document is being called the “Eight-point plan written on a ship” after a reformist blueprint written by 19th century samurai Ryoma Sakamoto, a popular historical figure who played a leading role in overthrowing Japan’s feudal government.

Sticking with that theme, the party’s name means “Restoration Group”, a deliberate reference to the 1868 Meiji Restoration that opened Japan to the outside world and began a process of modernisation.

The party’s main demands include the direct election of the prime minister and reform or abolition of Parliament’s upper house which has become the stumbling block for new laws passed by the lower chamber and is blamed by many for Japan’s political stalemate.

Both changes, though, need hard-to-enact constitutional amendments.

Hashimoto wants to scale back the government’s role to diplomacy, defence and macroeconomic policies while giving the regions more independence, a stance echoed by many other local politicians as well the small Your Party, created in 2009 by former LDP lawmaker Yoshimi Watanabe, now a Hashimoto ally.

Some insiders say Watanabe, like Hashimoto a proponent of business-friendly policies, could become a proxy candidate for premier if the popular mayor doesn’t run for Parliament himself.

Hashimoto has also adopted an anti-nuclear, anti-utility stance that echoes public wariness about atomic energy and anger at politically powerful utilities after the March Fukushima nuclear accident, the world’s worst in 25 years.

His stance already appears to be stiffening the resolve of Trade Minister Yukio Edano to take a tough line with the Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co over how much control it will have to hand the government in return for a massive bailout with taxpayers’ money.

“They (Edano and the DPJ) are really scared and have every reason to be scared of Hashimoto,” Curtis said.

Moda’s government is also revamping Japan’s energy policy to cut reliance on nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear crisis triggered by the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

‘Hashism’

The prime minister’s main policy focus, however, is a battle to enact bills to double Japan’s five percent sales tax in two stages by October 2015 to fund ballooning social welfare costs.

On this, Hashimoto has yet to make his position clear. Some worry his populist, right-leaning views could create an opening for a nationalist resurgence in Japan, a concern that has prompted critics to dub his style “Hashism”.

“He comes across as a leader who doesn’t believe in pluralism. That is shown in his approach to institutional reform (which is that) anything that is obstructive to the chief executive of local government needs to be abolished,” said Sophia University political science professor Koichi Nakano.

Hashimoto has also tangled with the leftist teachers’ union over members’ refusal to stand for the national anthem, still associated by some with Japan’s wartime militarism, a stand that will likely attract ultraconservative voters.

Fans say he’s Japan’s last chance, the sort of risk-taker the country desperately needs.

Others, however, see chaos at worst and more deadlock at best if Hashimoto’s party and its allies seek a key role in a new ruling bloc while the two biggest parties jostle and maybe even split.

“What we would have to look forward to is a long period of instability and ineffectual government,” Curtis said.

-Reuters

Beliau didakwa memfitnah anggota polis berkenaan dan keluarga mereka di Bukit Kepong, dalam satu ceramah di Tasek Gelugor Ogos tahun lepas.

Hakim Mohd Amin Firdaus Abdullah dalam membuat keputusan itu juga menolak permohonan pihak pembelaan untuk menangguhkan kes bicara itu sehingga rayuan dikemukakan di Mahkamah Rayuan.

Hakim itu memerintahkan perbicaraan kes itu diteruskan di Mahkamah Sesyen, Butterworth.

Mohamad Sabu, 57, atau lebih dikenali sebagai Mat Sabu, memohon mengetepikan pertuduhan itu pada Januari lepas.

Pada 21 September tahun lepas, Mohamad Sabu dari Guar Petai, Tasek Gelugor, mengaku tidak bersalah di Mahkamah Sesyen, Butterworth dan meminta dibicarakan.

Pertuduhan berkenaan mengikut Seksyen 500 Kanun Keseksaan membawa hukuman penjara dua tahun atau denda atau kedua-duanya sekali, jika sabit kesalahan.

Beliau didakwa memfitnah anggota polis berkenaan dan keluarga mereka yang mempertahankan diri dalam serangan pengganas komunis di Balai Polis Bukit Kepong pada 23 Februari 1950, dengan mengetahui bahawa tohmahan yang dibuat akan merosakkan nama baik anggota polis dan keluarga mereka.

Mohamad Sabu didakwa melakukan kesalahan itu dalam ucapan kepada orang ramai pada 10 malam hingga 12 tengah malam 23 Ogos tahun lepas di hadapan Pusat Asuhan Tadika Islam Al-Fahmi, Markas Tarbiyah PAS, Padang Menora, Tasek Gelugor.

Sementara itu, peguam yang mewakili Mat Sabu, Muhammed Hanipa Maidin ketika ditemui pemberita berkata pihaknya akan memfailkan rayuan ke atas keputusan Mahkamah Tinggi itu.

Pendakwaan dikendalikan oleh Timbalan Pendakwa Raya, Suhaimi Ibrahim dan Yusaini Amer Abd Karim.

- Bernama

“Well, if SUPP’s Wong Soon Koh dares to take up the challenge, we can debate. DAP is ever ready to engage in a debate with him,” said DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen.

He was asked to respond to remarks made by Wong who welcomed that debates should be extended to Sarawak in order to enlighten the public.

Chong, who is the Kota Sentosa assemblyman, said: “But it will be more meaningful if we can debate with Taib’s Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) rather than with SUPP.”

“SUPP has no standing or power to make any policy decision. So should there be any debate, I think we want to debate with someone who has the power to make decisions. SUPP is in the government for decorative purposes only.

“What is the point of having a debate with someone who cannot make a decision on behalf of the Barisan Nasional coalition?” he asked.

That is why, Chong said, SUPP would rather take on Taib and urged Wong as a state minister to convince the CM to engage in a debate with DAP.

On Tuesday, Wong, who is second finance minister and state minister for local government and community development, said that Sarawak welcomed political debates like the one between MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

“I think it is good to have it in Sarawak too to help enlighten the community on vital and current issues and policies affecting them. It is part of the educational process for the public,” he said.

Unconditional invitation extended

In Sibu, DAP chairman Wong Ho Leng sent an invitation to Wong and SUPP president Peter Chin for a debate.

Ho Leng was supposed to debate with Daniel Ngieng of the SUPP Sibu branch but it was called off due to the state election in April.

“Now that the state election is over, let us return to the debate. I challenge SUPP Sibu branch chairman Wong Soon Koh to it, and I extend the invitation to Peter Chin too,” he said.

Giving SUPP an unconditional invitation, Ho Leng said that SUPP was free to choose any topic including flood issues that concerned the people of Sibu.

“We can have it through the Astro channel too or even through TV1, TV2 or TV3. We can talk on any topic, and let the people be the judge,” he added.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.3%, having climbed 14% so far this year to rank among top asset performers.

The euro edged back from two-week highs reached after the Greek deal was announced yesterday.

“If you look at how much the equity market had already moved year to date, you’d expect the market to take a bit of a breather,” said Markus Rosgen, head of Asia strategy at Citigroup in Hong Kong. “Equity markets had run up quite quickly and strongly. A break is something that wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Investors are undecided whether they should buy more or wait for a pullback,” Rosgen said, adding markets were a bit overbought technically but valuations remained attractive.

Hong Kong shares fell 0.6% and Shanghai shares dropped 0.2%, with losses increasing slightly after HSBC released its China flash PMI.

The PMI showed the factory sector shrinking for the fourth month in a row.

Japan’s Nikkei average inched up 0.2% to 9,477.6, but struggled for further upside momentum as investors used 9,500 as a trigger point to take profits on a 7.5% rise so far in 2012.

“Market sentiment continues to be positive, supported by US data and the agreement in Greece, but we are at a level that requires some adjustment,” said Yumi Nishimura, senior technical analyst at Daiwa Securities.

The euro was changing hands at US$1.3220 and struggling to make headway after slipping from near two-week highs of US$1.3293 yesterday after the Greek bailout deal was clinched.

The 130 billion-euro bailout averted an imminent Greek default, but kept intact the long-term risk of a messy default and regional contagion given deep-rooted mistrust over Athens’ commitment to harsh reforms.

“Even assuming the new Greek programme proceeds as planned, the Greek crisis is far from over,” HSBC said in a report, noting the economy was in its fifth year of recession.

“Even the revised debt sustainability analysis looks optimistic and remember that Greece will still be subject to quarterly reviews, which could well mean that we are back to worrying about whether Greece will get the next tranche of funds by the summer,” it said.

Oil new concern

European stocks fell yesterday as investors cashed in on recent rises, while US stocks gave up early gains on concerns surging oil prices would hurt the economy and doubts about Greece’s future.

Oil fell in Asia after scaling nine-month highs yesterday on relief at Greece’s bailout news and moves by top Asian consumers – China, India and Japan – to cut crude purchases from Iran.

US crude futures for April dropped 44 US cents to US$105.81 a barrel. The March contract, which expired yesterday, settled at US$105.84 per barrel, the highest settlement for the front-month contract in more than nine months.

Brent crude for April delivery fell 0.4% to US$121.19 after settling yesterday at a nine-month high.

Australian shares fell partly due to concerns that rising oil prices would hurt global growth and so undermine demand for the country’s commodities.

However, Citigroup’s Rosgen said the rise in oil prices was partly indicative of a stronger-than-expected world economy and they do not pose a risk to growth at current levels.

While central bank liquidity measures are partly blamed for fuelling a rise in commodity and energy prices, they had supported lower-rated euro zone sovereign debt markets, keeping bond yields of struggling Italy and Spain on a downtrend.

In credit markets, a pause in risk taking pushed spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index wider by three basis points today.

- Reuters

According to yesterday’s Negeri Sembilan edition of Sinar Harian, the state assemblyman for Sungai Lui was offended by the “P” word, now that a young man has used it to deface his Facebook.

But he was not blushing when he brandished the same word in November 2009 and April 2011 in the August hall of the state assembly. FMT reported both incidents.

Commenting on the Sinar Harian interview with Zainal Abidin, Port Dickson state assemblymen M Ravi of PKR said he had it coming.

“I’m not condoning the young man’s action,” he told FMT, “I’m just saying I believe in the law of karma. What you do unto others comes back at you.”

Ravi was in fact the target of Zainal Abidin’s P-word abuse in 2009. In the midst of a heated argument about broken promises made to estate workers, he yelled out the word as a substitute for Ravi’s name and made the motion of hurling a bottle at him.

In the second incident, he used it to insult DAP’s Teo Kok Seong, the state assemblyman for Bahau, during an argument about policies that affect race relations. Ravi got into the fray again, saying his use of the P-word humiliated Indians and women.

Zainal Abidin told Sinar Harian he would have taken legal action over the outrage in his Facebook if the culprit had not openly apologised.

Ravi said the Umno man had no moral ground to stand on to criticise the young man.

“Probably the youth read about his behaviour in the state assembly,” he said. “I would advise Zainal Abidin to stop seeking cheap publicity. If you can humiliate people with vulgar words, then you have to be able to take the same medicine.”

Justice Rohana Yusuf dismissed the application, saying the matter was academic as the 23-year-old Hamza had already been deported.

Hamza was detained by the Malaysian authorities on Feb 9 at the KLIA while the former was in transit heading to New Zealand.

Hamza was said to be fleeing from Saudi authorities after Muslim clerics in the kingdom were angered by his tweets which were deemed an insult to Prophet Muhammad.

Although he had deleted and apologised over the matter, the Saudi government insisted on charging Hamza for blasphemy under its strict Islamic laws.

Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) coordinator Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, who filed the writ of habeas corpus, said although Hamza was no longer in Malaysia, the matter involved the legality of his deportation while he was in the country.

“And all Justice Rohana said was since the body (Hamza) is no longer here, it’s an academic exercise,” said Fadiah.

The human rights lawyer also referred to Rohana’s judgment as the court’s way to abdicate itself from its constitutional duty.

“The court failed to uphold the rule of law and the constitutional safeguard by way of a habeas corpus,” she said.

Also read:

‘No immigration report of deportation’

A missed opportunity for M’sia to embed human rights

The rare diamond was found at Rio Tinto’s Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia’s East Kimberly region.

Estimated to be worth millions, it has been named the Argyle Pink Jubilee, and is being cut and polished in Perth.

It will be sold later this year after being shown around the world, including in New York and Hong Kong.

The process of polishing and cutting, which began in Perth on Tuesday, is expected to take about 10 days. The diamond will then be graded by a team of international experts.

More than 90% of the pink diamonds in the world come from the Argyle mine, a Rio Tinto statement said.

The Argyle Pink Jubilee is a light pink diamond, the company said. It is similar in colour to The Williamson Pink – the diamond found in Tanzania that Queen Elizabeth II received as a wedding gift and which was subsequently set into a brooch for her coronation.

A Rio Tinto spokesperson said that a diamond of this calibre was ”unprecedented”.

”It has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone and we may never see one like this again,” said Argyle Pink Diamonds Manager Josephine Johnson.

In 2010, a rare 24.78-carat “fancy intense pink” diamond was sold for a record-breaking $46 million (£29m), the highest price ever paid for a jewel, to a well-known British dealer at an auction in Geneva.

That diamond had been in a private collection for 60 years.

-Agencies

Launched today, the study also found a sharp divide between advanced economies and the developing world in cloud readiness, with many developing countries showing the most room for improvement to integrate themselves into the global cloud market.

The study also found that although developed nations are more “cloud-ready” than developing economies, obstacles remained in many of these developed economies, due to the lack of alignment in the legal and regulatory environments.

Additionally, in order to capture the full economic potential of the cloud, all governments need to better harmonise their policies to facilitate the flow of data across borders.

The BSA Global Cloud Scorecard establishes a first-of-its-kind ranking of countries’ readiness to drive the growth of a globally integrated cloud marketplace.

The study benchmarks the cloud readiness of 24 economies that together account for 80% of the global ICT market.

It assesses laws and regulations in seven areas, namely, data privacy, cybersecurity, cybercrime, intellectual property, technology interoperability and legal harmonization, free trade, and IT infrastructure.

The top five rankings for markets with the most robust cloud policies went to Japan, Australia, Germany, the United States, and France.

Commenting on the report, BSA president and chief executive officer, Robert Holleyman, said the true benefits of cloud computing come with scale.

“In a global economy, you should be able to get the technology you need for personal or business use from servers located anywhere in the world.

“But that requires laws and regulations that let data flow easily across borders. Right now, too many countries have too many different rules standing in the way of the kind of trade in digital services we really need,” he added.

Roger Somerville, BSA’s senior director for government and policy, Asia Pacific, said: “Many economies in Asia still have substantial work ahead to address issues involving infrastructure, promoting cloud computing across borders, permitting voluntary, industry-led standards and further improving existing laws and regulations to enhance their cloud preparedness.”

Nevertheless, he said the future looks bright for most Asian economies, as they have already started to recognise the vast potential gains in fully embracing the cloud.

“A healthy national market for cloud computing does not necessarily translate into one that is attuned to the laws of other countries in a way that lets data flow smoothly across borders.

“Countries that wall themselves off are doing real harm,” he added.

-Bernama

Saya selaku rakyat biasa di Malaysia yang indah dan permai ini ingin mencadangkan beberapa perkara yang difikirkan oleh saya mampu meningkatkan tahap sistem pendidikan dan penyampaian pelajaran kepada semua kelompok pelajar rendah dan menengah.

1 Guru-guru di sekolah diberikan ruang secara luas untuk melaksanakan tugas hakiki mereka di dalam bilik darjah/kelas/padang/makmal dan sebagainya. Guru-guru jangan sesekali dibebankan dengan kerja-kerja pentadbiran yang sehingga pada satu tahap menenggelamkan peranan asal guru untuk mengajar.

2 Sistem pentadbiran sekolah direvolusikan dengan membawa masuk/melantik baru Pegawai dari skim pentadbiran untuk melaksanakan kerja-kerja pentadbiran di sekolah. Dengan ini, guru akan mampu fokus sepenuhnya kepada tugas hakiki mereka iaitu mengajar. Selain itu, perubahan dalam sistem ini juga akan mewujudkan peluang pekerjaan baru dan sekaligus mengurangkan masalah pengangguran negara.

3 Selain daripada itu, bagi mengelakkan berlakunya tugas-tugas mengulang dan membebankan. Sepatutnya diwujudkan dua bentuk skim perkhidmatan guru. Pertama, skim guru akademik dan kedua skim guru ko-kurikulum. Guru akademik akan memberikan fokus sepenuhnya kepada usaha mengajar di dalam kelas, membuat kajian kendiri untuk meningkatkan teknik pengajaran dan meningkatkan keupayaan akademik pelajar/murid.

4 Bagi guru ko-kurikulum pula, mereka akan memberikan fokus kepada persatuan-persatuan kelab-kelab, acara-acara sukan, seni dan yang berkaitan dengan aktiviti ko-kurikulum. Guru kelompok ini bertanggungjawab meningkatkan keupayaan penglibatan aktif pelajar di dalam ko-kurikulum, merangka pelan aktiviti yang lebih komprehensif dan mewujudkan keseimbangan di dalam fokus hidup dan masa depan pelajar/murid.

5 Untuk itu, perkara perubahan di dalam skim perkhidmatan guru ini boleh dimulakan di maktab/institusi latihan guru/universiti di mana pengkhususan adalah dibahagi kepada dua iaitu pilihan untuk menjadi guru akademik atau guru ko-kurikulum.

6 Selepas bakal guru membuat pilihan, modul fokus kepada subjek/aktiviti ko-kurikulum akan diterapkan melalui pilihan yang ditentukan sendiri. Dengan perubahan ini, kita akan dapat meningkatkan bilangan guru pakar dalam bidang akademik dan ko-kurikulum secara fokus dan menyeluruh dan kesan baiknya sudah pasti dirasai oleh pelajar/murid. Sekaligus mampu membantu memberikan masa depan lebih baik untuk negara.

7 Konsep pengasingan pelajar pandai dan kurang pandai hendaklah dihentikan. Seharusnya sesuatu kelas itu perlu ada keseimbangan, daya saing yang sihat dan keterbukaan dalam proses menerima dan memberi ilmu.

8 Konsep kelas sains untuk pelajar bijak dan kelas sastera untuk pelajar kurang bijak juga perlu dihentikan dengan serta-merta. Pihak berkaitan perlu faham bahawa, Sains dan Sastera adalah dua cabang ilmu berbeza, jadi mengaitkan kedua-dua cabang ilmu ini dengan tahap kepandaian seseorang pelajar adalah salah sama sekali. Pelajar boleh menjadi bijak dan menguasai aspek sesuatu cabang ilmu jika mereka mempunyai minat yang mendalam dan usaha yang berterusan terhadap sesuatu ilmu, bukan dengan cara memaksa pelajar mempelajari aliran yang mereka tidak gemari.

9 Di sini, bagi memastikan pelajar belajar aliran yang digemari, dicadangkan satu ujian kecenderungan secara bertulis dan temuduga dijalankan. Penilaian sebegini penting dan perlu dijalankan sebaik sahaja pelajar tamat belajar di Darjah 6. Ujian kecenderungan ini juga perlu dinilai bersekali dengan tahap kelayakan akademik pelajar bagi memastikan pelajar tidak secara sesuka hati membuat pilihan tanpa melihat kepada keupayaan diri terlebih dahulu.

10 Penilaian akademik berasaskan peperiksaan semata-mata adalah satu konsep penilaian yang rigid dan tidak mampu menilai secara keseluruhan aspek pencapaian pelajar. Oleh itu dicadangkan diwujudkan satu penilaian berterusan untuk semua subjek dengan aspek permarkahan boleh dipecahkan kepada dua sama ada 50:50, 60:40 atau 70:30 bergantung kepada kesesuaian subjek dan keadaan semasa. Penilaian keseluruhan begini akan memberikan guru dan pelajar peluang untuk membuktikan keupayaan diri dalam tempoh yang lebih panjang.

11 Akhir sekali, dicadangkan Sekolah Berasrama Penuh seperti Sekolah-Sekolah Sains dan MRSM diluaskan kepada bidang-bidang bukan sains seperti ilmu kemanusiaan, sosiologi, sejarah, kajian budaya, etnik dan kenegaraan demi mewujudkan masyarakat masa hadapan yang lebih matang berfikir dan menambah kesesuaian dalam usaha meningkatkan keupayaan modal insan negara.

In the partnership, Proton customers will enjoy 4G connectivity as a new value-added standard feature which will tap into Yes’ 4G mobile Internet network that currently covers over 65% of the country’s populated area.

Proton Group managing director Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir said this innovation, the first endeavour in Proton’s rebranding exercise, opens a new spectrum of possibilities and offers customers speed, mobility, comfort and greater productivity while on the road.

“We have been working with YTL for about a year and signed an agreement last year. Today is one small step. Following this, we are trying to work together to integrate more features embedded in the car,” he told reporters after the launching ceremony.

He said this initiative would make the Proton brand much more attractive and add income to the company. The cost impact of the new Proton 4G Internet car would be very minimal to its customers as providing quality and affordable cars is the objective, Syed Zainal said, adding that Proton has negotiated a good package with YTL.

Yes is the only wireless network operator in Malaysia to offer seamless 4G connectivity along the full 960 km stretch of the North-South Expressway and a large portion of the East-Coast Expressway.

Up to five mobile devices can be connected to the car’s micro wireless network at any one time.

- Bernama

“The simple truth is that I cannot continue to serve as foreign minister if I don’t have Prime Minister Gillard’s support,” he said in a late night press conference in Washington broadcast live in Australia.

“I therefore believe the only honorable course of action is for me to resign.”

Australia’s Labor government has been torn by speculation about whether Rudd, who Gillard suddenly ousted as a prime minister in mid-2010 but who remains hugely popular, would mount a bid to return to the top job.

The globe-trotting diplomat said he would head back to Australia this week and make a full statement on his future before parliament resumes on Monday.

“In recent days  (Simon) Crean and a number of other faceless men have publicly attacked my integrity and therefore my fitness to serve as a minister in the government,” he said, referring to the former Labor leader.

“When challenged today on these attacks Prime Minister Gillard chose not to repudiate them. I can only reluctantly conclude that she therefore shares these views.”

Reports earlier Wednesday said Gillard was so confident she has the support of Labor MPs she will call a leadership ballot on Tuesday.

They said that if Rudd loses, he would immediately be sacked as foreign minister by Gillard and moved to the backbench.

-AFP

Gabungan itu, kata Timbalan Presiden Datuk Abdullah Abu Bakar menentang sebarang tindakan memberikan FGVHB kepada orang luar berdasarkan hubungan politik.

Abdullah memberitahu beliau telah diberi penerangan oleh Presiden FGVHB, Datuk Sabri Ahmad  mengenai syarikat yang akan menguruskannya setelah disenaraikan kelak.

“Sabri memberitahu FGVHB akan diuruskan oleh syarikat tempatan dan juga dari luar negara. Beliau menyebut nama syarikat berkenaan tetapi kita tunggu perkembangan terbaru.

“Tetapi kita mahu lebih banyak maklumat lagi. Hak peneroka dalam FGVHB perlu dijelaskan lagi,” kata beliau.

Ketika ditanya adakah Ethos Consulting akan dilantik menguruskan FGVHB, Abdullah berkata, Sabri tidak menyebut syarikat itu.

Desas desus bertiup kencang, Ethos Consulting, yang seorang rakan kongsinya adalah bekas pegawai khas Perdana Menteri Najib Tun Razak, Mustapha Omar Ong akan dilantik sebagai perunding FGVHB.

Timbalan Presiden GWPF berkata, pihaknya telah bertemu Perdana Menteri Najib dan Timbalan Menteri Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Ahmad Maslan supaya mengutamakan pengurusan FGVHB kepada cerdik pandai anak peneroka.

‘Jangan perlekeh anak Felda’

Abdullah mendakwa, pihak luar tidak mempunyai semangat Felda dan mungkin mengutamakan kepentingan lain.

“Peneroka tidak mahu lagi orang luar menguruskan Felda,  cukuplah dengan apa yang berlaku sekarang.

“Memberikan orang luar menguruskan Felda, seperti menghina anak peneroka Felda. Jangan lupa ramai  peneroka yang berjaya. Dua orang menjadi ketua setiausaha kementerian, dua orang setiausaha kerajaan negeri, ahli parlimen, Adun, tokoh korporat dan sebagainya.

“Jangan perlekehkan anak Felda,” kata Abdullah lagi.

Abdullah berkata, adalah tidak bijak memberikan FGVHB kepada individu atau syarikat semata-mata mempunyai hubungan rapat dengan kepimpinan negara.

“Beri kepada individu atau syarikat yang layak, yang ada kemahiran dan kemahiran. Tidak mengapa rapat dengan pemimpin tetapi layak dan berpengalaman.

“Jangan beri kepada orang yang ada kepentingan peribadi dengan pemimpin negara jangan dilantik,” kata beliau.

Turut baca:

Felda: Najib must explain ex-aide’s role

Total smartphone sales in 2011 reached 472 million units and accounted for 31 percent of all mobile devices sales, up 58 percent from 2010.
Smartphone volumes during the quarter rose due to record sales of Apple iPhones. As a result, Apple became the third-largest mobile phone vendor in the world, overtaking LG.

Apple also became the world’s top smartphone vendor, with a market share of 23.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, and the top smartphone vendor for 2011 as a whole, with a 19 percent market share.

“Western Europe and North America led most of the smartphone growth for Apple during the fourth quarter of 2011,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.“

In Western Europe the spike in iPhone sales in the fourth quarter saved the overall smartphone market after two consecutive quarters of slow sales.

”The quarter saw Samsung and Apple cement their positions further at the top of the market as their brands and new products clearly stood out.LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Research In Motion (RIM) again recorded disappointing results as they struggled to improve volumes and profits significantly.

These vendors were also exposed to a much stronger threat from the midrange and low end of the smartphone market as ZTE and Huawei continued to gain share during the quarter.

Worldwide mobile device sales to end-users totaled 476.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 5.4 percent increase from the same period in 2010.

In 2011 as a whole, end users bought 1.8 billion units, an 11.1 percent increase from 2010.

“Expectations for 2012 are for the overall market to grow by about 7 percent, while smartphone growth is expected to slow to around 39 percent,” said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, Nokia’s mobile phone sales numbered 111.7 million units, an 8.7-percent decrease from last year. ”Samsung closed the gap with Nokia in overall market share,” said Cozza.

“Samsung profited from strong smartphone sales of 34 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The troubled economic environment in Europe and Nokia’s weakened brand status posed challenges that were hard to overcome in just one quarter.

However, Nokia proved its ability to execute and deliver on time with its new Lumia 710 and 800 handsets.

Nokia will have to continue to offer aggressive prices to encourage communications service providers (CSPs) to add its products to portfolios currently dominated by Android-based devices.”

Apple had an exceptional fourth quarter, selling 35.5 million smartphones to end users, a 121.4 percent increase year on year.

Apple’s continued attention to channel management helped it take full advantage of the strong quarter to further close the gap with Samsung, which saw some inventory build up for its smartphone range.

Apple’s strong performance will continue into the first quarter of 2012 as availability of the iPhone 4S widens.

However, since Apple will not benefit from delayed purchases as it did in the fourth quarter of 2011, Gartner analysts expect its sales to decline quarter-on-quarter.

After Apple, ZTE and Huawei were the fastest-growing vendors in the fourth quarter of 2011.

“These vendors expanded their market reach and kept on improving the user experience of their Android devices,” said Cozza.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, ZTE moved into fourth place in the global handset market.

ZTE posted a strong smartphone sales increase of 71 percent sequentially.

The company was able to extend its portfolio to three CSPs in its home market and benefited from consumers’ interest in low-cost smartphones.

Huawei moved ahead of LG in the Android marketplace to become a top-four Android manufacturer, thanks to strong smartphone growth in the quarter.

Huawei has made significant progress in moving to its own-branded devices, and it has continued to expand its portfolio into higher tiers as its tries to build more iconic products.

RIM dropped to the No. 7 spot in the fourth quarter of 2011, with a 10.7-percent decline.

RIM’s delay with its BlackBerry 10 platform will further impair its ability to retain users.

However, RIM’s biggest challenge is still to expand the developer base around its ecosystem and convince developers to work and innovate with BlackBerry 10. NEWSBYTES.PH

-Agencies

In her verdict, Judge Ainul Shahrin Mohamad said the prosecution had successfully proven beyond reasonable doubt that the 16 had participated in the illegal assembly.

All were sentenced to one day of jail and fined RM2,000 each.

Ainul, however, allowed a stay of execution of the imprisonment pending an appeal.

Present at the court today were PKR vice presidents Nurul Izzah Anwar and Tian Chua, Suaram coordinator E Nalini and Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary-general S Arutchelvan.

The judge also issued arrest warrants against three of the defendants, Norazam Sakib, Syaza Muaz Shaharuddin and Mohamad Sukri Mohammed Sirat for being absent today without valid reason.

The 16 defendants were among the many hundreds detained near Masjid Negara for being involved in an anti-ISA demostration in August 2009.

The detainees were then held at the Cheras police training camp before being moved to the Bukit Jalil police station.

At a press conference later, the defendants lead counsel Ahmad Zamri Khuzaimi said the verdict was a political prosecution against those who were fighting for their rights.

“The sentence is against the government’s plan to abolish ISA and the amendment made to Section 27 of the Police Act recently which no longer requires a police permit for an assembly,” said Zamri.

PKR supreme council member Latheefa Koya said the sentence lacked judicial discretion.

“The 16 people spend three days in prison under remand. She (the judge) should have taken that into consideration,”said Latheefa.

Alhtough the sentence was at a minimum, Latheefa said the court should not have criminalised them as their activities were no longer considered an offence under the new Peaceful Assembly Act.

“Instead of treating them as heroes, the court had criminalised their actions instead,” she said.

Both cases portray how Rosmah and Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil who has been implicated in the misappropriation of funds allotted to the NFCorp no longer have the nation’s and the rakyat’s interest at heart.

While Shahrizat refuses to “surrender” gracefully and bid adieu to politics, Rosmah on the other hand refuses to stare reality in the face and admit that she has done nothing to help the people of this country, by virtue of her being the prime minister’s wife.

When the Penan women of Sarawak pleaded with Rosmah to help rescue them from the lecherous timber loggers, this self-proclaimed ‘first lady of Malaysia” conveniently ignored their pleas.

Perhaps the rapes on the Penan women and girls by the timber loggers in the forests of Sarawak have not ceased. Does it bother Rosmah?

Yet, the Perth-based Curtin Universty found it befitting to award Rosmah the honorary PhD award. University vice-chancellor Jeanette Hacket said the nominees to Curtin’s awards – including Rosmah’s were “considered on their own merits”.

Hacket said the flak arising from the awarding of the doctorate to Rosmah on Feb 11 did not change Curtin’s opinion of the PM’s wife.

This move by Curtin University has left both its past graduates and women activists fuming; Rosmah they say is no deserving recipient of the award.

Rosmah, while trying to hide her embarrassment, told her detractors: “I don’t want to handle personal petty issues. It is all out of frustration. It is all out of… I don’t know. Maybe jealousy.”

Rosmah and Shahrizat ‘victims’ of selfishness

Commenting on the brickbats coming her way vis-a-vis the Curtin University award, Rosmah said that her critics were being petty and that their criticisms had created an unhealthy culture that is not beneficial for Malaysia.

Like Shahrizat, the premier’s wife refuses to accept reality that the condemnation were valid. After all, why accept an award when you know you did nothing to deserve it?

Or was accepting the award yet another glamorous recognition Rosmah cannot do without, her way of telling one and all just how hard she has “worked” for the community?

Senator Shahrizat meanwhile is resolute that come what may, she is not about to quit both her ministerial and her Wanita Umno chief positions. But why the reluctance to do so?

Does Madame senator sincerely believe she can effectively serve the rakyat or maybe it is all about serving her own interests?

As a women, family and community minister, she made it worse when Shahrizat publicly ridiculed PKR’s strategic director Mohd Rafizi Ramli as being “soft”. To harp on one’s sexual orientation and ridicule them is not how a women, family and community development minister behaves.

To resent both the public and political pressure now facing her is a mistake Shahrizat can ill afford to make. The verdict is clear – the rakyat has lost their trust or ‘nambikei” as Najib puts it in her.

In her desperation to secure her political career, Shahrizat will stoop to any level necessary; but why the self-sabotage when from former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s “concern” for Shahrizat to not cling on to her positions is worth every penny.

Rosmah and Shahrizat a shame to womenfolk

The actions of both Rosmah and Shahrizat are nothing but dishonourable. While Rosmah keeps rubbishing all criticisms against her as acts of “jealousy”, she cannot go on denying truth that she has since 2008 after husband Najib assumed the country’s leadership done nothing but empty the coffers of the nation.

Take Rosmah’s ambitious Permata programme. It was afforded a funding of RM1.1 billion which was pocketed from the tax payers’. The allocation was meant for the establishment of pre-schools including those in Sarawak.

As far as PKR national women vice-president Voon Shiak Ni is concerned, Rosmah has not shown any results from her work to set-up pre-schools in Sarawak.

“We are not jealous of her receiving the award. We have no objection to honorary awards given to deserving ones. “She should have declined the award or should have deferred the conferment of the doctorate degree from Curtin University.

“It is not the time for her as she has not shown that there are results from her work to set up pre-schools in rural Sarawak, even though she has been allocated RM1.1 billion to do so,” Voon was quoted as saying.

Voon recalled Rosmah’s visit to Kuching two years ago when the PKR women had presented her with a memorandum highlighting issues which included the rape of Penan women and children in Sarawak.

“We also included issues on the need to improve education and health (standards) of the Penan community. Unfortunately, none (of these issues) has seen any improvement or remedial action taken,” Voon had said.

‘VVIP’ reality check in order

The fact that Rosmah has not “lifted a finger” to assist women non-governmental organisations in Sarawak speaks laud and clear as to just how much of an humanitarian effort the premier’s wife has been putting in since 2008.

A disappointed Voon made no bones when she said: “For two years, she (Rosmah) has not lifted a finger yet to even response to us or to give assistance to the women non-governmental organisations (NGOs) here for them to help what is necessary for women and children which was brought up to her.

“We wish to tell her this. Set up pre-schools within the settlements of the Penans and the others in the interior of Sarawak immediately to ensure that these rural children have equal opportunity for early childhood education.

“Then the conferment of the doctorate will have been earned.

“We are brave to say this because it is within our personal knowledge that what was demanded by the people in Sarawak is not noted by Rosmah yet.”

A sad day for the women of this country when the premier’s wife is devoid of compassion and empathy in reaching out to them during their moments of distress.

Likewise, a lamentable day for the women of Malaysia when their flamboyant minister in charge of women, family and community affairs starts drawing daggers all for the sake of her political survival.

Both these instances bring home the message that it does not take much to win the popularity game but it definitely takes a lifetime to win the rakyat’s trust and this is where Rosmah and Shahrizat cannot claim any credit for.

Jeswan Kaur is a freelance writer and a FMT columnist.

The airline is expected to submit a fresh flight schedule to the DGCA which had asked it to come up with a “realistic” schedule which can be operated by 28 out of its 64 aircraft.

DGCA chief E K Bharat Bhushan would meet civil aviation minister Ajit Singh today to brief him about the discussions he had with the Kingfisher top brass yesterday and the airline’s plan to restore its schedule over the next few days.

Among the flights cancelled this morning were 14 from Mumbai and two from Delhi.

Reports said the airlines was partially restoring its operations from Kolkata especially flights from there to the Northeast. All operations from Kolkata were shut down from Friday night.

The DGCA chief had yesterday said that the airlines will have to file a new schedule instead of a truncated one in the next 24 hours.

The cash-strapped carrier, facing the wrath of Income Tax authorities which has frozen its bank accounts, was operating only 28 of its 64 planes, leading to large-scale disruption of its schedule.

At least 40 flights were cancelled across its national network yesterday.

-Agencies

I refer to the report, Dr M ‘assaulted’ judicial independence, says Bar Council’, carried in Malaysia-Today (Feb 22). Council president Lim Chee Wee said the 1988 amendment to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution had effectively tampered with the judiciary’s independence, forcing the courts to be subservient to the executive arm of government.

Lim added: “The Malaysian Bar has consistently held the view that Dr Mahathir Mohamed had with Machiavellian ruthlessness assaulted the once great Malaysian judicial institution.”

If the above is true, then I would say that the Bar Council is always there to stand up for justice. I commend them. However, I wish the bar council could closely look around and see if all is right in its own backyard. How many lawyers are truly fighting for justice in Malaysia? There are thousands of them practicing and many are there strictly for self enrichment.

This they do by all kinds of foul techniques. I have come to know of senior judges masquerading as senior lawyers and who charge clients ridiculous fees as if the courts belong to them, and not based on how and what the judges decide. These are lawyers who take up multi million ringgit suits and after some time would frighten their clients, telling them they would lose and therefore should agree to an out of court settlement against the interest of their clients.

They have no qualms about dumping their clients. They would just to take your case, act as if they are angels sent from heaven and would then whine and dance around you to show how much they prayed to their Gods only to take up your case. Then they would start off with a reasonable fee. As you progress, along comes their devilish instincts. They would call you up at odd times and send you messages as if there is something most urgent.

The lawyer would demand you see him urgently. When you make your way to the office, he would remind you to come with your cheque book. On arrival he would have no qualms to let you know that the case has become very serious and you have to pay much higher fees. The fees can be something like 1000% higher than what was agreed upon.

He would have no remorse about the ridiculous charges. The poor client would have no recourse either to discharge his services or to agree to this blackmail. The lawyer just dosen’t care as he has already collected his fees upfront from the client. What happened to all his morals and uprightness and his God-fearing way of life. It’s all thrown out the window or it never existed at all. It was just a drama created to win your attention.

Another crime being committed by lawyers are on the costs ordered by the courts. I must ask the Bar Council and the chief judge to confirm in no uncertain terms if the costs are ordered for the benefit of the lawyer or the client. Let me state here in no uncertain terms that the costs are meant for the client and not for his lawyer.

Yet inspite of this lawyers, both seniors and juniors would make it vehemently clear that the costs are meant for the lawyers and not for the client. They will not hesitate to use vulgar words on you if you request for the costs and would even threaten to discharge you in all future hearings.

This is how uncouth many of the lawyers are. I wonder if the Bar Council is aware of this unless it’s their lawyers who have been doing this on the quiet. Their explanation is this. How do you expect me to maintain my Mercedes and my BMW if there are clients like you.

Costs are meant for the client and not for their own safe keeping. This is their famous quote ‘you can’t eat the cake at the same time keep it too. Everyone knows the truth but many do not want to end up changing lawyers as the next one could end up the same or even worse. This is an urgent matter that must be tackled by the Bar Council and the chief justice.

There has to be a law enacted to prevent this crime committed by lawyers. It must be announced to the public that costs are to be paid in the name of the litigant and never in the name of thr legal firm, and any violation of this would lead to the immediate cancellation of the Practicing License and an appropriate jail term. Some lawyers may team up with opposing lawyers and make you lose the case and share what ever the losses suffered by the client.

I have come across lawyers who are most selfish and demand that the client take them out for dinners and drinks and would expect you to pick up the tab. You can take him out a 100 times and yet he would expect you to pay all the hundred times. Some go to courts reeking of alcohol and they care a dam for anybody.

To them they function better when they are under the influence of alcohol. Some are free with uncouth language and they seem not to care if it is uttered in front of their staff or clients’ family members. Their intention is to embarrass you so that you will remain silent  and let them do what they want. You are not to suggest or to give your opinion even on your own case. They claim they are more knowledgeable then us as they have read the case up.

They could be wrong but it matters none to them. Even some lady lawyers use obscene language like there is no tomorrow. It can be quite disgusting but that is the real situation and I’m saying this in all honesty. Some lawyers can be extremely disgusting when it comes to paying bills. They even refuse to pay their bills and if you ask why they will be daring enough to threaten you that they will sue your pants off.

It is time our Malaysian consumers of legal services should know their rights and stop the daylight robberies. The Bar Council must come clean on this. Some of the lawyers would have their winnings in court cases as published in newspapers and would pin up all these write ups in their waiting rooms and would use them as grist to threaten you that they are so good to attack you if you question them.

I have come to a point that I would not ever want  a lawyer as a customer at my place. I would rather find an excuse to avoid him or her and send them elsewhere. Nevertheless, in the interest of the Malaysian public the Bar Council and concerned bodies must and should take corrective steps. Many lawyers even take up cases and collect upfront fees but disappear soon after as they are too lazy to go to the courts.

Some have no offices of their own and would see clients in coffee shops or even in their own cars. When cases come up they will refuse to go to courts and when we call them up they will refuse to take the calls and finally they will have their numbers disconnected and their offices closed for good. Where to look for them no body knows. It is strange that some lawyers act like criminals and their only intention is to cheat you of your money.

I know of some who have been disbarred but who introduce themselves as lawyers and who carry name cards of  some other law firm with false telephone numbers. Yet they will not hesitate to collect legal fees and when we call up we realise he is not working for them but was a former staff and the monies paid would be lost. Many lawyers are giving the profession a bad name and and unless immediate steps are taken to correct this, the profession would lose the trust of the public.

Also read:

Dr M ‘assaulted’ judicial independence, says Bar Council’

The 23-year-old picked up two awards – including the prestigious British album of the year – to add to the six Grammys she won in Los Angeles, cementing her status as one of Britain’s most successful pop exports in years.

Adele – whose career was threatened last year by a throat illness – claimed British female solo artist and best album for “21,” which topped the charts in Britain and the United States.

Accepting the best album gong, she said: “Nothing makes me prouder than coming home with six Grammys and then coming home and winning British album of the year.

“I’m so proud to be British and to be flying the flag.”

The singer also thanked her record company “for letting me be the kind of artist that I’ve always wanted to be,” and her fans. “No one’s ever made me feel like I have to be any different, so thank you very much,” she added.

However, her global chart-topper “Rolling at the Deep” was beaten to best single by British boy band One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful.”

The home-town winner sang her hit song in front of a packed 02 Arena, only her second performance since undergoing surgery to cure her throat condition.

Fans were shocked to read a post-Grammys interview in which the soul diva said she was taking five years off to “be in love and be happy.” But the singer later laughed this off.

Writing in her personal blog shortly afterwards, she said: “I’ve a few days off now, and then it’s the Brit Awards here at home and then I’m straight into the studio. BOYYAHH! 5 years? More like 5 days!”

It was also a successful night for folk-inspired singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran, who won best British male and British breakthrough, and for Coldplay, who were named best British group for a record third time.

US singer Bruno Mars topped the best international male category, while compatriots Foo Fighters picked up the best international group.

Barbadian superstar Rihanna – who was awarded best international female – was among the performers along with former Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher and Coldplay.

Veteran four-piece Blur brought the ceremony to a close with breezy renditions of 1990s indie classics “Girls and Boys,” “Song 2″ and “Parklife.”

- AFP

So it is something of a surprise that the former Australian skipper, who scored just 18 runs in five games in the ongoing Tri-series against India and Sri Lanka, failed to spot the selectors’ axe swinging at him.

Ponting, the second-most prolific scorer in the format after Sachin Tendulkar, said Monday’s decision to drop him from Australia’s one-day international side had come out of the blue but that he accepted his ODI career was over.

The axe fell a day after Ponting, standing in as skipper for the injured Michael Clarke, led Australia to an emphatic 110-run win over India in Brisbane to regain top spot in the triangular one-day tournament.

Darting around the field to chop off singles and cajole his team mates into wrapping up victory quickly, the spry 37-year-old appeared in no hurry to call time on a career of 375 one-day matches and three World Cup victories.

Despite the praise lavished on him by selectors as a brilliant fielder and mentor to the next generation in a re-building team, his 165th win as captain could not gloss over his fifth consecutive failure with the bat.

Ponting had been bowled over when chief selector John Inverarity delivered the decision but the defiant Tasmanian quickly regained his composure and is now focused on keeping his test career alive.

“I’ve got no bitterness at all as to what’s happened,” said Ponting, who will return to the domestic Sheffield Shield competition to prepare for Australia’s tour of West Indies.

“I’m still firmly of the belief that I’ve got a lot to offer any cricket team that I play with, any team I’m a part of.

“Did the thought of (retirement) come into my mind? The thing that I thought about most yesterday was just how I was going to manage my time and to be well prepared to play every test match I play for the rest of my career.

“That obviously, now with no one-day international cricket, that becomes a little bit more difficult for me, but there are other players around Australia at the moment who play test cricket only.”

A poor run of form at test level coming into the Australian summer had the knives out for Ponting, who merely gritted his teeth and got on with the job of crushing India as the hosts charged to 4-0 whitewash in the test series.

Ponting blasted 544 runs at an average of 108 for the series, but appeared strangely out-of-sorts from the start of the one-day tournament.

His coach Mickey Arthur, also a selector, said he was “jaded” and in need of a rest and warned him to make runs in his final match against India.

Ponting brushed off notions that fatigue after a long summer of cricket had taken its toll, saying his body was fine and that it was his mind that had failed to keep pace.

Despite being denied the chance to choose the manner of his exit, or even play a farewell ODI in front of home fans in Hobart against Sri Lanka on Friday, Ponting was philosophical as he addressed reporters, relaxed and looking dapper in a sports jacket and white shirt.

“Of course I felt there was still room in the team (for me),” he said, smiling. “But when you don’t make runs in five consecutive games you understand that there’s an opportunity for selectors to leave you out.”

Their decision was unanimous, according to panel chief Inverarity, meaning Clarke and Arthur both had a hand in pushing him towards the exit.

For all the raging debate in Australia about his place in the side in recent months, it is unlikely to be a popular decision.

“Ricky Pontings Omission from the National 1 Day side is an outrage!” former Australia Open Matthew Hayden said on his Twitter site.

While the decision to drop him will not sit well with Ponting, he may well respect the selectors’ cold-blooded execution, having been nurtured in a succession of champion teams and carrying on their culture of winning, at all costs, into his time as captain.

“Everyone understands where they sit now in the Australian cricket team,” said Ponting, who smashed 30 ODI centuries, including an unbeaten 140 against India in the final of the 2003 World Cup to win Australia a second successive trophy.

“I think in international sport, if you’re not performing for a short period of time now you’re a chance to be left out of the side.

“And that’s the way it should be.” (Editing by Peter Rutherford; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

-Reuters

Her family was out of money, riddled in debt and her father was suffering from gout. Back then, Suzy (now 31) had no other choice. She is a transgender.

Because of her sexuality, no “normal” company would hire her. She would remain jobless since she left school.

“Yes (it was my choice to become a sex worker)…I had to take care of my family,” the shy Suzy, told FMT. “I had to take care of our debts. My father is sick. He has gout. It was very difficult to find a job.”

After a short stint as a sex worker, Suzy was taken in by the HIV/Aids NGO Women & Health Association of Kuala Lumpur (WAKE) in 2006.

She would eventually become an outreach worker there, handing out condoms and lubricants to sex workers, as well as giving counsel to HIV-infected people.

Safe sex and HIV prevention were some of the topics she would tell her 377 “clients” from time to time.

But in a few days, Suzy (and many other HIV-outreach workers like her) will lose her job. She faces the prospect of selling herself on the streets again.

This is because the money for these NGOs, allocated to them from the Health Ministry, has been cut.

In early January this year, the ministry supposedly cut a large portion of its yearly funds to the Malaysian Aids Council (MAC).

The MAC acts as an umbrella body to several HIV-treatment NGOs across the country, distributing the ministry’s approved funds since 2006.

This year however, it has left several of these NGOs out of the loop, forcing some of them to sack their workers.

No reason given

Suzy’s manager Muhammad Daruz told FMT that the ministry did not give a reason why it stopped approving funds for WAKE’s HIV prevention work, even though it had been steadily funding them since 2007.

“Every year, we submit our proposal (for the funds), but this year we’ve been told that it was not approved…There was no reason. It was not approved, and that’s it,” he said.

According to Muhammad, the cut funds meant that he had to see many of his people go by the end of February.

“If we have no funding, how are we going to pay them?..Of course (we’re not happy), they’ve been with us (for so long), but (now) they won’t have any income,” he added.

But the biggest losers from this change, Muhammad said, were the thousands HIV/Aids-infected clients, who had no one to turn to because of this money cut.

These included Malaysia’s sex workers, transgenders, drug users and children born with the deadly virus.

NGOs claim that there as many as 91,362 cases of HIV infections in Malaysia, as well as over 60,000 sex workers.

The cut funds came as a shock to many of the NGOs, who felt that the government’s support and funds in recent years has helped to curb HIV infections.

In a March 2010 media report, Deputy Health Minister Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin was quoyed as saying that Malaysia had seen a drop in HIV cases, as compared to a decade before.

According to the MAC’s website, Malaysia recorded 3,652 HIV cases in 2010. In 2001, the number of cases that year was 5,938.

Johor HIV-outreach worker Ita (not her real name) feared the worst with the government supposedly cutting these funds.

Speaking on her work at Intan Life Zone (her NGO), Ita warned that the HIV virus could spread if there was no money for these outreach workers.

“We need to help (the HIV-infected), and we need the budget for it. We’re not a business, and we can’t earn back the money for this every month.”

“If we can’t run the NGO, we cannot give (clean) needles to (drug users),” she said, adding that many drug users tended to share needles.

Ita said that this might cause the HIV virus to spread amongst drug users, and in worst-case scenarios, on to their wives and children.

She also defended her NGO’s work, saying that it was not encouraging drug use, but keeping the HIV pandemic in check.

Seeking a meeting

Malaysian Aids Council president Mohd Zaman Khan told FMT that the ministry’s funds this year fell short of previous years.

He also confirmed that not all the NGOs had been affected by the cut. “Some, not all…The budget (for 2012) has been approved, but has been short of what we asked for.”

“We were told of the amount, and they (ministry) told us some of the project was approved and (some) were not approved.”

“Of course we don’t expect (a lot) to be given. We expected a cut, but we did not expect such a cut that tends to affect our ability on the ground,” he said.

Zaman was however reluctant to disclose how much this cut, or the total approved budget was.

Nevertheless, he told FMT that the MAC had – very soon after it saw the cut- sent a letter to Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai asking for a meeting on the matter “as soon as possible”.

He added that some NGOs did not seem to record a good performance, whilst others did not submit reports back to the MAC for the ministry to check.

Even so, Zaman said that he would consider bringing up the matter with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak if the meeting with the ministry did not end satisfactorily.

When contacted, the ministry was unavailable for comment.

After a minute’s effort to face his siblings, Anywar’s head slumps onto his chest and his emaciated body is gripped by convulsions.

Anywar is one of more than 3,000 children in northern Uganda who are suffering from a debilitating mystery ailment known as nodding disease, which has touched almost every family in the village of Tumangu.

For several years, scientists have tried and failed to determine the cause of the illness, which locals say has killed hundreds of youngsters.

What they do know is that the disease affects only children and gradually devastates its victims through debilitating seizures, stunted growth, wasted limbs, mental disabilities and sometimes starvation.

Anywar’s mother, Rugina Abwoyo, has already lost one son, named Watmon, to the disease in 2010. Now she says she can do little but watch on helplessly as another child slips away.

“Before he was walking and running like other children, but now someone always has to stay home to look after him,” Abwoyo told AFP. “The disease is terrible – it does not let him drink or eat by himself.”

Walking along footpaths cut through the sorghum plantations, Joe Otto, a volunteer health worker, explains how nodding disease has ravaged Tumangu, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of the capital Kampala.

“There are 780 people living in this village and we have 97 cases of the disease. It has affected almost every family,” Otto, 54, told AFP.

Grim acceptance

Whenever sporadic deliveries of medicine arrive at the local health centre several kilometres away, Otto pedals his bicycle to fetch the drugs. But he knows that they only offer a short-term solution.

“We are giving out drugs for epilepsy, like carbamazepine, but this disease is different from epilepsy,” Otto said.

Instead, as the disease has torn through their community, local residents have moved from fear to a grim acceptance, Otto says.

“We started saying that the patient who had died was the one who had been cured, because finally they were at rest from this painful disease,” Otto said.

‘We hope that our youngest can be saved’

Scientists are trying to find a cure: since 2010, researchers ranging from epidemiologists to environmental experts, neurologists, toxicologists and psychiatrists have carried out a range of tests.

Investigations have looked at possible links between the disease and everything from a parasite that causes river blindness, to malnutrition and the after-effects of a civil war that ravaged northern Uganda for decades.

“We looked at all this, but unfortunately we were not able to pinpoint any significant contributing or risk factors,” said Miriam Nanyunja, disease control and prevention officer at the World Health Organisation in Kampala.

“The search for the causative agent is still ongoing,” she added.

Emergency response

Often the results have thrown up more questions than answers. Scientists do not know if the disease is linked to similar outbreaks in neighbouring South Sudan and Tanzania.

Efforts continue to understand if the disease is still spreading or has peaked – and why it is seems confined only to certain communities.

Last month, after pressure from lawmakers from affected areas, Uganda’s health ministry produced an emergency response plan to try to identify and control the disease.

However, Nanyunja says that while the search for the cause and a possible cure goes on, for now, doctors can only focus on trying to alleviate the symptoms.

“There are many diseases that we continue to treat symptomatically, without knowing the exact cause,” Nanyunja said.

But for Patrick Anywar, any attempts to curb or cure the disease may come too late.

“We are hoping that the doctors work very hard to get the cure for this disease,” his mother Abwoyo says.

“There is no future for us as so many children have already been affected, but we hope that our youngest can be saved.”

- AFP

Globally, franchises are the business of choice among entrepreneurs, as the business model develops quickly. Among popular business franchises are McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

Fast-food companies reap bountiful profits by successfully spreading their business networks to all corners of the world.

Not many Malaysian franchises have made it overseas. However, some have managed to spread their wings outside, namely Langkawii Crystaal, Marrybrown Fried Chicken, Nelson’s and Sugar Bun.

To date, 587 franchises are registered in Malaysia, 69% of them local franchises.

The government pays special focus on the development of local franchises in the bid to help local entrepreneurs progress through the system.

To establish a support infrastructure, the government has introduced various initiatives to plan, implement, develop and supervise, as well as to provide financial aid.

The 1998 Franchise Act was also amended to ensure healthy and controlled development of the industry.

Benefits of a franchise

A franchise is a right granted to an individual or group to market a company’s goods or services using the brand name, model and business operation of the company within a certain location and time.

In other words, a franchise is business sharing between a brand owner or service (franchisor) and an investor (franchisee).

The franchisor provides the product or service and a business system while the franchisee prepares resources in terms of funding, human resource and continuous effort to ensure business viability.

For franchisors, franchising is an alternative way to expand a business through third-party investment.

Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said franchising is advantageous, as a company’s business and branding can be widened by a third party who invests in resources such as capital, time and energy.

“A franchisee will manage a business better than an employee because they have direct interest in the business,” he said.

The business risks faced by a franchisee are less than with conventional businesses, as the public already knows the brand and its reputation. The operation system is also set and systematic, while the franchisor ensures this by continuous monitoring.

Master Plan

According to Ismail Sabri, the country’s franchise industry is at a remarkable stage, giving birth to many famous brand names that have managed to penetrate international markets. However, the local industry has yet to fully explore the franchise opportunities available.

“Because of that, the government believes that a comprehensive plan is vital in providing a direction to concentrate all roles, effort and implementation in the development of the national franchise industry,” he said.

The effort to formulate a strategy and action plan to underline the programmes and initiatives involved has resulted in the creation of the National Franchise Development Master Plan (PIPFN) 2012-2016.

Ismail Sabri said PIPFN was to ensure that all strata of society – big businessmen, petty traders or up-and-coming entrepreneurs – are given the chance to go into franchising.
PIPFN is also aimed at expanding the focus from traditional sectors (food and beverage, clothing, beauty and health) to new sectors under the New Economic Model and the 10th Malaysia Plan – such as education, green products and services, health-tourism, as well as syariah-compliant products and services in order to penetrate the Middle Eastern markets and Muslim countries, as well as other potential markets.

PIPFN involves various target groups, such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), youth, women, the disabled, pensioners and many more.

For example, community franchising and group micro-franchising have been created as a pilot project to introduce micro-franchising to low-income groups as well as rural communities.

“PIPFN has outlined three phases to help develop the franchise industry by making Malaysia the franchise centre of Southeast Asia, and by penetrating Middle Eastern countries in 2020,” he said.

Phase One, from 2012 to 2014, involves building up franchise participants and

the development of the franchise framework.

Phase Two, from 2015 through 2016, involves efforts towards a stronger and more dynamic domestic industry, in line with the PIPFN vision.

Phase 3, 2017 through 2020, concentrates on turning Malaysia into a franchise centre.

Government programmes

To ensure the franchise industry remains competitive, the government has planned several development programmes to aid franchise entrepreneurs and businessmen. The Franchisor Development Programme is implemented through the Local Franchise Development Programme (PPFT) and the Franchise Business Aid Fund (DBPF).

PPFT offers a platform to change conventional businesses to a systematic franchise that is ready to expand.

Through the programme, local entrepreneurs with businesses that have franchise potential can convert their conventional business to a franchise.

This can be done by appointing a qualified franchise consultant to guide participants through the process, such as work documentation and procedures, opening a prototype outlet and hiring a franchisee.

The cost of the consultation is borne by the programme.

The DBPF is an incentive to encourage local entrepreneurs to convert their businesses into franchises.

Ismail Sabri said the fund allows qualified franchises to receive loans of up to 90%, for a maximum amount of RM100,000.

The government is also running several franchise promotions to help expand a franchise. Local promotions include the community franchise initiative to promote microfranchising, so that more people will get involved with franchise businesses under RM50,000.

Overseas promotions include providing facilities for local franchises to join international expos in countries identified as target markets, such as Indonesia, China and Middle Eastern countries.

The effort to bring local franchises overseas has yielded good results, with more Malaysian franchises opening overseas. For example, kopitiams are more popular in Indonesia.

Brand names such as Old Town White Coffee and Bangi Kopitiam are more popular in Jakarta and Surabaya, with several existing outlets and many more coming up.

Agencies supporting franchises

The Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry, through Akademi Perbadanan Nasional Bhd (PNS), also provide training for franchisors, franchisees, franchisee consultants and the public on franchise businesses.

PNS is responsible for providing funding, support and consultancy services for franchise businesses.

The Malaysian Franchise Association (MFA), a non-governmental organisation, is also cooperating with the government to develop the local franchise industry.

MFA members often act as mediator between the franchise industry and the government.

More information on the franchise industry can be found on www.kpdnkk.gov.my or www.franchisemdtcc.gov.my.

-Bernama

Kata Menteri Besar Kelantan itu, pendirian PAS ialah menyokong perjuangan rakyat Palestin yang dihina di bumi sendiri.

“Terserahlah kepada Datuk Seri Anwar untuk menerima pendirian PAS ini,” kata Mursyidul Am PAS  dalam kenyataan hari ini.

Anwar menemui Nik Aziz di Kuala Lumpur semalam bagi menjelaskan kenyataannya yang didakwa menyokong Israel sebagaimana dilaporkan  akhbar Wall Street Journal Januari lalu.

Pada pertemuan itu, Nik Aziz ditemani oleh Ketua Penerangan PAS Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man.

Ia berlangsung dalam suasana harmoni dan  Anwar telah menjelaskan kesemua isu yang telah berbangkit.

Majlis Syura Ulama

“Memahami penjelasan Anwar, di sini saya mengulangi pendirian PAS sebagaimana diputuskan oleh Majlis Syura Ulama iaitu PAS sekali-kali tidak mengiktiraf negara haram Israel.

“Bagi saya, pendirian PAS adalah wajar kerana kewujudan negara haram Israel merupakan suatu kezaliman, tanpa peri kemanusiaan dan menafikan hak umat Islam, malah merampas hak seluruh rakyat Palestin.

“Tambahan pula, tindakan penguasa Israel yang tidak habis-habis menzalimi dan membunuh rakyat Palestin, termasuk kanak-kanak, wanita dan orang tua.

“Justeru, adalah haram menerima kewujudan negara Israel yang haram,” tambah Nik Aziz.

Nik Aziz berkata, Anwar mungkin  datang setelah mengetahui keputusan Majlis Syura Ulama PAS minggu lepas yang menggesa beliau menarik balik kenyataan dalam Wall Street Journal itu yang difahami sebagai menyokong Israel.

Majlis Syura Ulama’ juga menggesa, sekiranya kenyataan itu dilaporkan secara salah atau membawa maksud yang berbeza, maka beliau dinasihatkan agar mengambil tindakan undang-undang dengan menyaman Wall Street Journal bagi membersihkan nama.

Perhimpunan Hari Belia Negara 2012 yang dijadualkan mulai 23 Mei depan di Putrajaya.

Menterinya, Dato’ Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek berkata peningkatan sekali ganda kehadiran belia berbanding satu juta tahun lalu akan dikumpulkan sepanjang lima hari perhimpunan itu.

“Kira-kira 500 program atau acara disediakan termasuk memaparkan penglibatan belia dalam bidang sukan dan rekreasi, seni budaya,

kemahiran dan kepimpinan, teknologi maklumat dan keusahawanan, kerohanian dan jati diri serta penerokaan bidang baru.

“Malah saya percaya perhimpunan ini kelak akan menjadi medan kepada belia-belia khasnya dari Sarawak dan Sabah untuk mempromosikan aktiviti berkaitan pelancongan sukan dan ekopelancongan kepada belia-belia dari Semenanjung untuk datang ke negeri masing-masing,” katanya dalam sidang media di sini semalam.

Penyertaan golongan berkenaan di peringkat antarabangsa turut diperluas bagi program kali ini.

Golongan belia dari Korea Selatan, Jepun, negara Komanwel serta Asia telah menyatakan persetujuan untuk turut serta dalam pelbagai acara.

Selain itu, Jabatan Belia dan Sukan negeri serta Majlis Belia diberi peluang mempamerkan keunikan kreativiti belia negeri masing-masing sepanjang program tersebut.

Peluang masih dibuka kepada semua belia sama ada secara individu, kumpulan atau kelab serta sektor korporat bagi menyertai program itu.

Dalam perkembangan lain, Ahli Parlimen Kemaman itu juga memberitahu kementeriannya bersedia untuk memberi kebenaran kepada masyarakat umum bagi menggunakan kemudahan yang disediakan di Pusat Kecemerlangan Akuatik dekat sini.

Bagaimanapun katanya, pusat yang dibina dengan kos RM36 juta tersebut hanya akan dibuka kepada orang ramai selepas adanya persetujuan berhubung yuran masuk serta jadual diputuskan kelak.

“Kita akan bincang perkara ini kerana kita tidak mahu kerja-kerja penyelenggaraan tidak dapat dilakukan jika tiadanya peruntukan bagi tujuan itu kelak,” ujarnya.

“Bai’ah bermakna kita ‘swear loyalty’ (sumpah taat setia) kepada pemimpin yang manusia biasa dan boleh buat benda yang salah…bahkan kita dapati banyak pemimpin PAS yang buat salah daripada segi agama,” katanya.

Katanya seseorang Muslim hanya perlu tunduk kepada Allah SWT dan mengiktiraf Nabi Muhammad SAW sebagai pesuruh Allah.

Dr Mahathir mengulas laporan akhbar hari ini bahawa Presiden PAS Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang berkata setiap calon PAS yang bertanding dalam pilihan raya diwajibkan berbai’ah, satu bentuk pengakuan yang lebih besar dan berat daripada bersumpah dan sesiapa yang melanggarnya “akan celaka dunia dan akhirat”.

“Tidak ada perlu Bai’ah kepada sesiapa…bukan pun Nabi, jadi nak bai’ah buat apa?” kata Dr Mahathir pada sidang media selepas menyampaikan syarahan perdana “Transformasi Minda Penyelidik Muda” anjuran Persatuan Pascasiswazah Fakulti Sains Gunaan, Universiti Teknologi MARA di sini hari ini.

Dr Mahathir berkata PAS cuba mengongkong pemikiran para penyokongnya dengan tidak membenarkan mereka menerima pendapat- pendapat yang berlainan daripada parti itu kerana itu mereka mengamalkan bai’ah di dalam parti itu.

Amalan antarabangsa

Mengenai kenyataan Ketua Pembangkang Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim bahawa beliau tidak akan menyaman The Wall Street Journal, Dr Mahathir berkata Anwar memang menyokong Israel.

“Jadi Nik Aziz (Mursyidul Am PAS Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat) nak cuba pertahan dia kononnya soalnya kenapa kerajaan Malaysia benarkan kapal Israel masuk pelabuhan?

“Ya, itu adalah satu amalan antarabangsa. Kita kalau nak ada sekatan kita mungkin melanggar undang-undang antarabangsa,” katanya.

Dr Mahathir berkata Malaysia tidak boleh menyokong Israel sama sekali kerana negara itu ditubuhkan daripada tanah yang dirampas daripada hak orang lain dan ini bukan satu perkara yang betul.

“Walaupun dunia mengiktiraf Israel, ia pula cukup ganas dan membelakangkan undang-undang antarabangsa seperti membuat sekatan ke atas Gaza di Palestin.

“Inikah manusia yang patut kita jaga keselamatan dia? Orang patut jaga dia daripada serang orang lain, bukan jaga keselamatan dia,” katanya.

Beliau berkata beribu rakyat Palestin ditahan di dalam penjara di Israel, kebanyakannya tanpa bicara dan ia merupakan satu rejim yang cukup zalim.

Rejim Zionis Israel perlu ditukar

Jika Amerika Syarikat hendak menukar rejim pemerintahan sesebuah negara, rejim Zionis Israel perlu ditukar dahulu, katanya.

Mengenai pelancaran badan bukan kerajaan JATI semalam, beliau berkata Presidennya Datuk Dr Hasan Mohamed Ali berkata JATI bukan sebuah parti politik tetapi beliau sepatutnya menerangkan apakah matlamat JATI seperti perjuangannya dalam memperjuangkan Islam.

Bagaimanapun, beliau berkata: “Saya tidak suka lebih banyak parti lagi ditubuhkan, ia memecah-belahkan orang Melayu yang sudahpun berpecah kepada tiga, kini mereka berpecah kepada empat, lima, enam sehingga menjadi minoriti”.

Ditanya mengenai kerajaan perpaduan Umno bersama PAS, beliau  berkata:

“Kita dah buat dulu kita masukkan PAS dalam Barisan Nasional (BN) tapi dia bukan  memperjuangkan BN dia cuma memperkembangkan pengaruh dia sahaja semasa jadi menteri dan sebagainya.

“Jadi tak ada keikhlasan untuk bekerjasama sebab itu kita berpecah dan sekarang ni mereka tidak suka nak bekerjasama dengan Umno, mereka nak kerjasama dengan DAP hingga sanggup gugur bahasa nak dirikan negara Islam pasal nak kerjasama dengan DAP…itulah PAS.”

Beliau berkata apa yang membimbangkan ialah bangsa Melayu masih lagi kaum termiskin di Malaysia dan jika ia terus berpecah menjadi lemah, harta mereka akan jatuh ke tangan orang lain.

- Bernama

Pacquiao said he called Mayweather personally to try to broker a deal for a world championship fight and thought they had an agreement until Mayweather brought up the pay per view.

Mayweather said he would give Pacquiao a $40 million lump-sum payment if Pacquiao agreed to let Mayweather keep the pay per view earnings for himself.

“It was embarrassing to me,” Pacquiao said Tuesday. “He was trying to take advantage of me. It is clear he didn’t want to fight.”

Some experts have estimated that the pay per view could be around $160 million.

Pacquiao and Mayweather have tried several times to get a contract signed but it has been scuttled for a variety of reasons, including disagreements over blood testing and the share of the purse.

“I called Floyd and told him that we need to make this fight happen,” Pacquiao said at The Beverly Hills Hotel. “I said he could have whatever he wants, blood testing, 50/50 split and he said ‘Oh, well. I will give you what you want.’ Then he mentioned the pay per view.”

For now, Pacquiao and the unbeaten Mayweather have lined up other opponents with speculation that the mega fight could happen later in the year if it comes off at all.

Pacquiao is scheduled to face American Timothy Bradley on June 9 at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for Pacman’s World Boxing Organization welterweight belt.

Mayweather is set to fight Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto on May 5 for Cotto’s World Boxing Association super welterweight title at the same venue.

Paquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said they are not taking Bradley lightly but it is hard not to get excited about a possible upcoming mega fight against Mayweather.

“If both (Pacquiao and Mayweather) come off with good wins it will be a step in the right direction,” Roach said Tuesday. “That is the match everyone in the world wants to see.”

Bradley was one of several fighters in the mix as a possible Pacquiao opponent after Mayweather fell through.

Bradley boasts a record of 28-0 with 12 knockouts. Pacquiao, 54-3-2 with 38 knockouts, hasn’t lost since March 2005 and is considered the best pound-for-pound boxer on the planet.

But Pacquiao was less than dominant as he struggled to a majority points decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in November.

Bradley and Pacquiao kicked off their promotional tour Tuesday at The Beverly Hills Hotel. They smiled as they posed for photos together and Pacquiao then lightheartedly borrowed a camera and took pictures of Bradley in his boxing pose.

Joking aside, Roach said he expects Pacquiao to be ready to knock Bradley out.

“I don’t want him to be compassionate,” Roach said. “I want him to knock people out. Manny can’t be a nice guy and try to touch gloves in the ring with him.”

Roach said Bradley is more than just a replacement fighter and that they want to hand him the first loss of his career while he is in his prime.

“It is nice to fight a fighter who is undefeated and not worried about losing that 0 on his record,” Roach said.

Bradley, of Palm Springs, California, is coming off an eight-round knockout victory over ex-world champ Joel Casamayor.

The 28-year-old Bradley said he plans to take the fight to Pacquiao. He won’t make the same mistakes as recent Pacquiao opponents Joshua Clottey and Shane Moseley who were booed because they talked a good fight but didn’t back it up once they got in the ring with eight division world champion Pacquiao.

“They were older and older boxers don’t take chances like young fighters do,” Bradley said.

“I don’t have a lot of miles on me like Manny. If I am going out then I am going out flaming. He is going to have to knock me out. Manny is going to have to kill me to stop me.”

Pacquiao will travel to New York for another news conference Thursday then fly back to the Philippines where he is a member of Congress.

Pacquiao has also divested himself of some bad habits, selling a casino he owned and getting rid of the roosters he kept for cock fighting in his native Philippines.

“Manny got a lot of distractions out of his life,” Roach said. “He sold all his cocks for fighting, doesn’t gamble, doesn’t drink and he and his wife are getting along.”

-AFP

The scandalous manner the Penang state government had sold 103 acres of super-prime land at Bayan Mutiara to a private developer has enraged public opinion in Penang and led to numerous NGOs and politicians demanding for a full and detailed explanation on the deal.

However, instead of taking the democratic and responsible course of action and put his over-hyped CAT principles in practice, CM Lim Guan Eng has shockingly opted go on offensive and attempt to attack and silence the critics.

Many Penangites are appalled at Guan Eng’s display of unbridled rage, utter contempt and arrogance to the calls for accountability and transparency. Such high-handed behaviour and “the CM knows best” mindset reflects poorly upon his leadership style and his administration.

Instead of providing full details, the CM has once again resorted to spin-doctoring by dispensing and flooding the media with even more half-truths and lies to confuse and mislead the public. Despite Guan Eng’s denials, many questions still remain open. In fact more disturbing details have emerged since my last letter on this matter.

Issue 1: Why did PDC sell the Bayan Mutiara land to a private developer? Penang ’s most precious asset is its land bank and the lack of it is often cited as the main reason for sky-high prices of houses in the state. By transferring public assets at ridiculously low price to private interests, Guan Eng is prioritising short term gains for himself and his party over the long term interests of the state and the future generations.

Issue 2:  Why develop Bayan Mutiara land for high-end property development when the most urgent need of Penangites today is affordable housing? Why not allow PDC to build affordable houses for the poor and middle-class Penangites at the same location instead of allowing private developer to build million-ringgit super condos and offices for the ultra-rich foreigners?

Issue 3: The excuse by Guan Eng that the state needed the money to finance its RM500 million “Affordable Housing Fund” is utterly illogical. Firstly the state is sitting upon a huge cash pile (thanks to the previous administration) so there is absolutely no need to resort to selling public assets to raise money.  Secondly the land at Bandar Cassia for state’s Affordable Housing Project belongs to PDC.

As such state only needs to finance the construction cost of the houses. Even if the state doesn’t want to dip into its own coffers, as an accountant Guan Eng surely should know that the financial institutions would be more than happy to provide bridging loans as in the case of private sector housing projects. Such poor decision only highlights Guan Eng’s ability as poor accountant and an incompetent leader.

Issue 4: Guan Eng claims that the project was awarded via an open tender process. This is indeed a blatant lie since it is clearly indicated in Guan Eng’s own statements that it was an RFP (Request For Proposal). There is indeed a big difference between the two and Guan Eng is trying to mislead Malaysians into believing that an Open Tender is the same as RFP. Ivory’s own statements’ to Bursa also mentioned that the final price was arrived after negotiating with the state government.

Issue 5: The Penang CM claimed that the cut-rate price of RM240 psf as above market rate and he even quoted the real price to be below RM150 psf. However, there have been previous cases where land had exchanged hands at prices up to RM474 psf. If a private seller is able to fetch almost double the price of Bayan Mutiara sale via direct negotiation, then it can be only surmised that Guan Eng’s administration is totally inept. Surely Ivory is not stupid to pay RM240 psf if the real market value is only RM150 psf. In fact, Ivory can just hang on the land for a few years and then sell it at huge profit due to rapid appreciation of land prices.

Issue 6: The RFP for the project was poorly thought-out and lacked in professionalism. For example the RFP required the bidders to have a minimum of RM50 million in paid-up capital even though the land itself was worth at least RM1 billion. It is illogical to expect a company with such limited capital able to undertake a huge mega project. That Ivory had entered into a joint venture with Dijaya Corporation to develop the land clearly highlights this point

It was also reported that the original RFP was recalled and the bidders were requested to re-submit their bids for a second time. Such lack of professionalism is symptomatic of the poor management skills of this administration.

Issue 7:  In response to criticisms, Guan Eng claimed that Ivory is required to build affordable house, schools and places of worship under the terms of agreement. Can Guan Eng disclose the detailed of the agreement and design to show these claims are real and not another lie to protect him and his administration?  Ivory’s numerous statements to press and Bursa makes no reference to such requirements.

Issue 8: Under the terms of contract, the developer is required to pay the state the first installment of RM109 million upon the execution of purchase agreement. However, without informing the public, the state has stealthy agreed to postpone the first installment not once but twice. In fact it was revealed that up to now, PDC has only received a paltry RM20 million from the developer.

Can Guan Eng explain why PDC allowed Ivory to pay in seven installments over five years when the usual industry practice is either cash at the execution of the agreement or over a period of a few months? This effectively means PDC is functioning as the banker for Ivory. Can the CM also explain why state had been over-generous in agreeing for postponements of payments?

Issue 9: Can the state government explain why the land belonging to PDC has the mysterious Chief Minister, Inc. (CMI) as registered title holder? What is the role of CMI in land sale and why is it necessary to have a third-party (CMI) to get involve in this deal? Was there a commission paid to CMI for “facilitating” the deal?

In the 16th century, pirates roaming high seas carried “letters of marquee” issued by governments which allowed them to piratise foreign ships of their valuable cargoes. In Penang today, it appears that private companies are being allowed to rob, plunder and strip Penang of its most prized assets using modern day equivalent of ‘letters of marquee” called “RFP and Open Tender” issued by the DAP-led state government.

Severe birth defects, eight leukemia cases over five years in a community of 11,000, tears and anguish of the poor people from a largely shoe-making community – these are not news headlines. Neither is it the plot of a movie.

These are the consequences of carelessly allowing the Asian Rare Earth factory to be built in Bukit Merah, Perak in 1982. When Mitsubishi Chemical started operating its rare earth factory, the villagers complained of choking sensation, pungent smell, coughs and colds.

The community also saw a sharp rise in the cases of infant deaths, congenital disease, leukemia and lead poisoning. While US$100 million is estimated to be the clean-up cost of the factory and dump site, the largest in the rare earth industry, it has not wiped out the memories and heartache of the villagers who lost their children and loved ones.

But 30 years later, the government has again allowed a rare earth factory to be set-up by Lynas Corporation Ltd in Gebeng, Kuantan. This means the government has waved the green flag with full knowledge of the possible consequences and deadly effects.

The Lynas Advanced Material project will produce 20,000 tones of radioactive waste, which is 10 times more than the Asian Rare Earth factory in Bukit Merah.

This is typical of the Malaysian government. It operates on the “we would never learn from tragedies” mode – be it landslides, haze or the setting-up of a factory which could claim lives, lead to birth defects and see severe lead poisoning. The government simply does not care.

What makes me sick is the rhetoric of the ruling leaders who have jumped on the bandwagon to parrot prime minister Najib Tun Razak’s assurance that the factory is safe.

International Trade and Industry minister Mustapa Mohamed said its policy would be based on laws, policies and the decision of the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB). Its about time the learned minister acknowledges that the lives of millions of people cannot be based on procedures.

A gas called radon

Exposure to radiation, immaterial of the levels, is unsafe. Both Lynas and the AELB say the exposure to radiation would be low. This cannot be accepted as radiation levels build up according to the volume of waste piled together.

Both Lynas and AELB have agreed that the rare earth factory would produce thorium, a waste by-product from the plant’s operations.

And while they have stressed that thorium is low in radiation, any prolonged exposure to radiation levels is hazardous.

Let us do a check list here:

1. Why didn’t Lynas set-up the rare earth plant near its source of extraction in Western Australia as it would have saved a huge amount of money in shipping costs?

2. Why didn’t Lynas obtain an approval from the authorities in Western Australia to set-up the plant?

3. Could the authorities in Western Australia be concerned about the possible radiation leaks, health hazards, birth defects, lead poisoning and other complications?

4. Shouldn’t this in itself raise a red flag with the Malaysian authorities?

5. Is the RM700 million in foreign investment more important to the Malaysian government than the lives of its citizens?

Can we, as a safety measure, re-locate residents close to the Lynas rare earth factory to a safer place? No we cannot because when the ore containing the rare earth is crushed to remove the thorium it releases a gas called radon.

And radon can travel thousands of miles and like what public safety expert Dr T Jayabalan says – “you are not protected anywhere in Malaysia because the wind will blow it across the nation”.

In a recent development the Australian government reiterated that it will not accept responsibility for any waste material produced by Lynas, although one of the five conditions attached to the recent approval of its temporary operating license is that it must take full responsibility for waste management from its plant including returning the waste to the source, if necessary.

In an official statement to FMT, the Western Australian Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Norman Moore, asserted that “Australia does not support the importation and storage of other countries’ radioactive waste”.

But in a media briefing last week, AELB director-general, Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan, gave his assurance that the board would insist on a letter of undertaking from Lynas Australia that it would adhere to this condition.

Lack of transparency

This, once again, proves that the government and Lynas have not been transparent in the nitty gritty details involving the plant’s operations and procedures.

On its Facebook, Lynas has said that the plant would cause zero radiation exposure and it remains committed to its core values of creating a safe environment for all.

If Lynas could not convince the authorities in Western Australia, why should we be convinced by this public relations exercise?

In 1985, a team of eight men – a shoe maker, pensioner, crane-operator, cancer patient, welder, general worker, barber and tractor driver – sued the Asian Rare Earth factory.

Thousands walked from Bukit Merah to the High Court in Ipoh. After years of struggle, the factory was shut down and decommissioned. It’s inspiring to note that a community of uneducated, poor people could take on a giant corporation and clinch victory.

In the same spirit I pledge solidarity with all the protesters who would turn up in Kuantan on Sunday to demand the shutting down of the Lynas rare earth plant.

Charles Santiago is DAP’s MP for Klang.

Wasn’t our prime minister Najib Abdul Razak comfy, comfy, on stage with the immoral MCA president Chua Soi Lek when officiating at the worthless Lim-Chua Debate?

The debate achieved nothing, other than to confirm the rowdy and gangster-like MCA audience. Surprisingly, DAP supporters at the debate were restrained and well-behaved.

Since, I find the debate worthless, I’m turning my attention to Najib’s presence. Why?
Is he a true Muslim? If so, why is he so supportive of zina Chua?

Does Najib not know the Quran, Islamic Law and Hudud? I’m not a Muslim and I know very little of the Quran and the religion. I’m just observing and using common sense.

Committing zina means committing adultery. And, this much I know – that committing adultery is forbidden in Islam.

All I can conclude is that there are bad Muslims and good Muslims. Likewise, there are also bad Christians and Buddhists, and, good Christians and Buddhists, who should be guided by their faith.

So, will I also be wrong to say that there are Umno Malays, PKR Malays, PAS Malays and DAP Malays? They all have different political ideals, and possibly different levels of understanding and practice of their religion.

Chua’s bootlickers and cronies will argue that their immoral leader is not a Muslim, so zina cannot be applied? What about Malaysia’s Penal Code 377 on committing unnatural sex?

Is Penal Code 377 still valid or just preserved as a tool for those in power (read Barisan Nasional) to use against political rivals?

If former deputy prime minister and current Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim can be charged, why not Chua?

Yes, Chua admitted to his illicit sexual behaviour in 2008? Does that mean that anyone who admits to committing a crime covered by the Penal Code can be forgiven and need not be charged?

That was in 2008. We are now in 2012. There is ample evidence to charge but why are the police and Attorney-General’s Chambers not acting?

Have the police closed the case with its standard NFA (No Further Action)? Is it that difficult to charge Chua?

Why is the BN government, led by an Umno Malay condoning zina and unashamedly associating with an immoral man in public? Just unbelieveable!

Likewise, the infamous Cowgate scandal also clearly displays BN-Umno’s high tolerance of alleged corruption by their own kind.

If it involved a non-BN politician, no matter how small the amount, you will be picked up for interrogation and possibly end up dead – like DAP’s Teoh Beng Hock and Selangor Customs assistant director Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamed who possibly knew too much about the dirt in Customs and was ready to spill the beans on the higher-ups.

And what about all the women MCA members who support Chua? Do they consent to their husband engaging in extra marital affairs? If not, why are they still in MCA supporting an adulterer president?

It has suddenly dawned on me that Malaysia is in serious trouble – socially, economically and politically – because the majority of Malaysians seem to condone immorality by continuously re-electing the same type of immoral politicians to lead them.

The ‘debate’ was billed as the finale of a full-day forum titled , ‘Malaysian Chinese at the Political Crossroads’, which began with a keynote address by Prime Minister Najib and included well known DAP, Gerakan, MCA and SUPP leaders. They spoke on Chinese education and challenges facing the Chinese.

At the finale, the ‘debaters’ were supposed to speak on this proposition, ‘The two party system is becoming a two race system’. Clearly it wasn’t a debate, because it wasn’t clear who was to propose and who was to oppose.

Apparently we are to read ‘alliance’ when we see ‘party’, since the competition to form the next federal government is really between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, two alliances, each comprised of race-based and multi-racial parties

So, it’s unclear why both the ‘debaters’ were Chinese, why the ‘debate’ was in Chinese, and why the number ‘two’ was included in the proposition, twice.  As one ‘debater’ (Lim) pointed out, the debate should really have been between the leaders of Barisan and Pakatan.

One ‘debater’ was Chua Soi Lek, leader of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and key performer in a famous video featuring extra-marital sex.  The other ‘debater’ was Lim Guan Eng, who has been on the wrong side of prison due to selective prosecution by Umno-BN, and now leads the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the government of Penang state.

Chua and Lim said they agreed beforehand that they would ‘debate professionally,’ and not attempt to ‘win.’  As you may have deduced by now, I put ‘debate’ in quotes because a debate is supposed to be made up of speeches for and against a proposition, to enable the audience to decide who ‘wins.’  This was not a debate.

I have zero command of Chinese, so all I know of the ‘debate’ is what I have read in English news reports.  I make no apology for this piece, for a person in an elected office is a servant of all Malaysians, not just of one race.

The luck of the draw resulted in Chua being first to speak.  Chua therefore set the tone of the debate.  Like all politicians, Chua danced around the topic, though he does seem to have made it explicit that Umno is the dominant partner in it’s relationship with MCA: Chua said it’s unrealistic for Malaysians to expect that a non-Bumiputera can lead any state government other than Penang.

Also, the ‘debate’ provided more fuel for the misconception that DAP is a Chinese party.  What is it about Karpal Singh or Tunku Abdul Aziz that makes people think they are Chinese?

From Chua, I got a strong sense of the bankruptcy of the MCA.  He thinks we want (1) Prosperity: high income for all; (2) A non-Islamic state: minimising the risk of hudud implementation; (3) Zero street demonstrations: assuring the nation we have equal access to justice (Chua must’ve been sleeping during the Altantunya, Ambiga, Anwar, Datuk T, EO6, Lingam and PKFZ events); (4) To accept Umno’s primacy: Chua says non-Malays can’t lead, except in Penang.

Chua is clearly delusional: it is Umno-BN that won’t approve non-Muslim building projects, but is generous towards Muslim projects.  It is Mahathir, demigod of UMNO-BN, who claimed Malaysia is an Islamic state.  It is Umno-BN that is riddled with corruption, the number one issue in Malaysia.  It is Pakatan Rakyat who say it’s okay for Christians to continue calling God Allah, consistent with practices in the Middle Eastern Muslim heartlands and in Indonesia.

Lim focused on (1) Corruption: how transparency in Penang has resulted in state income being sufficient to fund state expenditure; (2) Accountability of leaders: DAP office-bearers have declared their assets; (3) Malay supremacy: the astonishing fact that only MCA leaders have been ‘nabbed’ in relation to PKFZ, and even a former MCA leader saying MCA only got Umno’s breadcrumbs; (4)Justice: through a veiled reference to the MACC/Teoh Beng Hock debacle.

Lim is more in touch with the aspirations of Malaysians.  However, I was disappointed, for I expected Lim to be more multi-racial.  I expected him to challenge his audience – whether DAP or MCA supporters – to think more like Malaysians.  I expected Lim to act more like a great leader, not just like Chua.

I consider this the best description of a great leader:

“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” [Rosalynn Carter]

I didn’t see much evidence of that kind of leadership in Lim.  I am disappointed.

Mostly, I’m disappointed because they still won’t grab the bull by the horns and wrestle with it.  Our problem is race-based politics, race-based education, race-based benefits.  Who will prod and drag us through these crossroads?

Do we have a two race system: constitutionally defined Malays and birth-document defined Chinese?  If we do, is it because we don’t have mixed-race groups where politicians can drum up support?

What about electoral constituencies which give more weight to some races?  What about the hurdles in the way of those who marry across races?  What about our much-meddled-with education system – and Biro Tata Negara – which have created a society which looks at everything through racial lenses? What about the fact that we still have to fill in ‘race’ in most private and public sector forms?

It wasn’t debate. It was a debacle. It wasn’t a finale.It was an anti-climax.

Now with the Oscars all set to pop out of envelopes, it is quite possible that the 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from a variety of disciplines will choose winners who are not the favourites of either the critics’ community or the public.

So, here I am, a film critic, daring to guess who could be reading out the victory speeches.

Of all the nine movies in the Best Picture category, I loved Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist. It is in beautiful black and white.

The Artist is a charming, old world story of love and disappointment, not just among people, but also between cinema and those who create it. Marvellously weaving into its narrative the silent era in Hollywood, The Artist conveys the angst and exhilaration that come with sound – shown especially in one brilliant scene. A glass is placed on a table with a thud, which tells us that sound has arrived. Can anything be more powerful than this?

When cinema begins to talk, many stars go on the blink. Men really handsome and women extraordinarily beautiful are found unsuitable for the talkie, because their voices are either too screechy or rough. Or, their diction and style of delivering lines are just not up to the mark.

One of the celebrated stars of the silent movies is George Valentine, portrayed elegantly by Jean Dujardin, who goes through the whole gamut of emotions – from elation, which he experiences as a big-time actor in the silent days, to disillusionment when the Hollywood studio bosses reject him as sound comes on.

Clooney to win big?

Although, Dujardin is wonderful, the Oscar for the Best Actor may well seek out George Clooney in The Descendants.

As Matt King, a lawyer and land baron in Honolulu, Clooney is dramatically different from many of the characters he has essayed till now. Trying to reconnect with his two wayward daughters after his adulterous wife slips into a coma following a skiing accident, Clooney’s King is thrilling to watch.

Clooney was nominated earlier for his Up in the Air (2010) and Michael Clayton (2008), but, well, he is miles ahead in The Descendants. He is just superb – as the helpless father tortured by the thought of a cheating wife and unloving daughters.

I hope Clooney strikes the Oscar this time.

As far as the Best Actress goes, few have attracted the kind of attention Meryl Streep has. She has been nominated 17 times and has won twice — Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1980 and Best Actress for Sophie’s Choice in 1983.

In The Iron Lady that Streep has got the nod this time, she plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. And critics have not stopped raving. Me as well.

The biopic, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, follows the divisive Thatcher through the highs and lows in her life and career, including her tenure as Britain’s first lady.

Fairfax film critic Tom Ryan termed Streep’s performance as The Iron Lady “truly extraordinary”. He added: “There’ll be no need for the other contenders for best actress at the forthcoming Oscars to do anything more than applaud”.

Still, the question is will the huge Academy clap with the critics.

Gautaman Bhaskaran is a Chennai-India based author, columnist and film critic, who has been watching the Oscars for years. He is an FMT columnist and can be contacted at gautamab@hotmail.com.