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- Why BN must be wary of today’s communists
- Umno fears Nurul, not Azmin
- Not corruption? M’sians are not morons
- Whither PBS without Pairin?
- Lift suspension on Genneva, Bank Negara urged
- Stop the harassment of sports writers
- Agaknya, betul atau tidak?
- Is the Malayan tiger doomed?
- Don’t rush new statutory rape bill, Nazri told
- ‘AES being used to milk profit’
- Budget ‘aiming’ towards GST
- Najib baits Sabah voters with big plans
- Eyes on press freedom after court ruling
- Philippine rebel chief in historic peace trip
- Stop the race game, warns Nazri
- PM: Rancangan besar untuk rakyat Sabah
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- Mahabharata – Bahagian 2
- Can we continue to rely on BN?
- Report lodged over Umno’s RM40m
- 500 party-rock at Bersih concert
- Messi keeps Argentina on course for Brazil
- Djokovic power show seals Shanghai final slot
- Canadian ‘relieved’ after Armstrong report
- Kerjasama dalam Pakatan berpaksi Tahaluf Siyasi
- Webber takes pole in Red Bull lock-out
- All Blacks’ fans angered by sponsorship deal
- Anwar suka menipu rakyat, kata Fadillah
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- Women could save Japan’s economy: IMF’s Lagarde
- Fourteen monks killed in 1611 beatified in Prague
- Hollande speaks out on rights, conflict at Francophone summit
- Shot Pakistani girl still on ventilator
- Japan says may purchase new Europe bailout bonds
- Ahmadinejad to push for Asia cooperation in regional forums
- Italian court to decide on trial for cruise ship disaster
- Australian PM visits Bali bombings ‘ground zero’
- The Iranian director who makes Westerns
- Turkish PM calls for UN reform to tackle Syria crisis
- Qaeda chief urges more protests at anti-Islam film
- IMF, World Bank warn on ‘emergency’ in west Africa
- Chinese political system could ‘blow up’, says US academic
- Nobel for EU praised in European, not British
| Why BN must be wary of today’s communists Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:47 PM PDT FMT LETTER: From Alwyn Lau, via e-mail Dear XYZ, First, let me congratulate you on your efforts to reclaim our two-thirds majority in parliament in GE13. You are playing our cherished race-and-(in)stability card which always shakes people up. Despite the best efforts of some to create peace and harmony, never fear! Remember that as long as people are concerned about rice bowls and share prices, the mere idea of political instability will ensure you the tiger's share of the votes. Also, good job with your handling of Scorpene. Getting that French 'celebrity lawyer' to say a few words was sweet. In future, deploy more global mainstream media personalities to fight local alternative media reports. Now very few people know the truth anymore; and even fewer people care. Remember this principle: If you want to reap indifference, sow confusion. If you want the rakyat to ignore an issue, simply present multiple perspectives on respectable platforms. This way you'll create discussion (which gives that 'air' of intelligence and credibility) but destroy mass conviction (which is your kryptonite – be warned!). I'm concerned, though, about the actions against Suaram. Next time, find or plant the dirt first, then make your move. Having said that, H's photo with the school kids was picture perfect. Keep those coming. Before getting to my main warning, I wish to also give you credit for the DAP 'Christian conspiracy' claim. Send my regards to Nasha. That was a wonderful move! We score points with many Muslims, we score points against DAP and, best of all, we get the Christians fuming over the wrong thing. There is no strategy more effective to get Christians refusing to engage politically than to accuse them of over-engaging in politics! They are so predictable! Always high on their heavenly opium, they will always have trouble mixing 'spirituality' with 'political transformation'. I even read that some Christians, in their 'eternal' wisdom, say it's okay for Christians to be involved in politics, it's okay for preachers to discuss political issues but it's not okay for the sermons to be a place to endorse candidates. What a helpful contradiction! Make sure you remind our churchy friends in the MCA to repeat this at appropriate times. Now to the point of my letter. You may think this is a small matter, but trust me it's potentially huge. I'm talking about our favorite bogeyman: Communism. It's good you're using Red to tar our enemies (and it's only too bad that the best we can do so far is Mat Sabu, but it's a start). It's good that you keep reminding every generation about how our group fought for Independence and helped overcome the 'terrorist' Communist Party of Malaya (of course I'm over-simplifying things but how many Malaysians truly know this country's history?). So, okay, we've kept Communism locked up in the nation's bad books and hurled it every now and then. Splendid. But, look, things are changing. See the occupy movements recently? It wasn't specifically 'Communist' but Marx would've been proud (sorta). For once, a class-based protest was in force, making the rich very uncomfortable. Most importantly, it made the middle-classes shifty, too. This is critical because the middle-class is that 'non-class' which society uses to insulate itself from the truth of Marx's class analysis. On the one hand, middle-class folk are not poor. On the other, they cannot identify fully with the rich. Yet, on another hand (have you been counting hands?), they distance themselves from the poor. Far from being 'proof' that there is no more class-war, the middle-class in fact embodies the anxiety felt by society regarding class. Can you see, therefore, that the middle-class is a 'class struggle' in itself? So when this class starts to worry about a movement (like occupy), it shows that the truth of Marxism is emerging. So whatever you do with the word 'Communism', be careful to avoid linking it to 'inequality', 'poverty', 'greedy businessmen', (or even 'Hindraf’) and so on. Make sure you use connotations like 'terrorist', 'genocide', 'mass hunger', 'Mao' – you get the idea. Whatever you do, you must never connect 'Communism' to 'democracy'. Seriously! This will put us in greater danger than ever before! Because this was precisely what the leaders of the Communist Party of Malaya were trying to do: Give a new meaning to democracy. I'm not asking you to include the following in the schools' syllabus (don't do this!), but we must never forget how we reached where we are: The British had their perspective of democracy. Our beloved forefathers had another idea of democracy. And the communists had their views, too. What eventually happened, in case you forgot, was that our group worked out a deal with the Brits which would a) keep us rich and in power, b) keep the nation at peace, and c) push out the communists. We could have labeled this whatever we want, but it was quite convenient to call it Democracy, Liberty, Independence, blah blah blah (I really don't care). Of course, we had our problems in '69 which, thankfully, were handled well by N's daddy. Really, the way he dealt with the riots I suspect that George Lucas learnt something from him for Revenge of the Sith. Losing control? Simple: Create a national catastrophe, declare an Emergency, grab and consolidate power – superb! The point is, 'democracy' must be whatever we want the nation to understand it to be – or not to be. To maintain control of people, we must control how they think. The bottom line: Be careful of today's breed of communists. Their main weapon is not violence, it's vision. They will try to overthrow governments not by armed struggle, but by struggling for a more direct democracy than what regimes like ours have put in place. By so doing, they will inspire people to re-imagine a more authentic form of democracy, much different from the kind inseparable from business concerns that we have been pushing. These new communists will capture people's hearts not by asking them to blindly follow a leader, but to follow their own desires for self-governance (are we not relieved that even the Opposition has failed to implement local elections?). They also tend to target the poorest or the poor – the least of the least – thus swelling their numbers further. Worse, they're actually suspicious of profit and money. When activists can no longer be bought off, this is dangerous. But when entire masses reject our system of profits and political patronage – this is fatal. Never let this happen! You have been warned. Whilst I expect you to win GE13, we can no longer expect it to be easy. Take stronger measures now! Keep the flames of enterprise and commerce burning or, put simply, keep people greedy for more and more, and you will stay in power! Bind the people to what will feed the system! This way the country, for all time, will remain ours. |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:43 PM PDT
She tells us that she is the proud mother of two cuties and that she is the defection-proof member of parliament for Lembah Pantai. I like that description of herself on her Facebook "defection-proof MP of Lembah Pantai". Huh, what pizzazz! Tell me, Anwar (Ibrahim), how many other defection-proof MPs do you have within PKR? How comforting is it not to have to watch your back constantly? How good does it feel to know that come what may, this Lembah Pantai MP will be on your team unconditionally? Not for money, not for the menteri besar's post or any other post anywhere in your party at state or federal level. But on past performances, she certainly is worthy and deserving of consideration for same. People will ask if her father had prepared her for Lembah Pantai. I know that Anwar prepared her for Lembah Pantai long before she was ready for it. Like Benazir Bhutto and Aung San Suu Kyi, Nurul learnt about politics from an early age simply because it was all around her. She grew up in politics, lived it, she endured it through the darkest hours of her father's political persecution and incarceration and more, and when given the opportunity, she triumphed in Lembah Pantai against all odds. We all have great expectations of her future. But did her father prepare her for what was to come after Lembah Pantai? What is he doing to ensure that she will be able to survive the onslaught Umno now throws her way in its attempts to retake Lembah Pantai at all costs? In a constituency where all of Umno’s available resources, manpower and considerable financial leverage are now being used to woo the voters? Can she keep her hold on a constituency that Umno had decreed "they must win" because winning in Lembah Pantai will take away from PKR and Pakatan Rakyat the jewel in their crown – Nurul. Umno’s main concern Umno has no real interest in taking down Azmin Ali (PKR deputy president), save for a token slap on his wrist whenever he strays too far. Umno knows that given enough rope, Azmin will hang himself. Azmin will self-destruct and take Anwar and PKR down with him. It is Nurul that Umno is now battling against. And how will Umno do battle against Nurul? You cannot fault her work as MP of Lembah Pantai despite having all of Umno’s arsenal arrayed against her to make her work among her constituents almost impossible. There is not a hint of the scandals and innuendos that plague Barisan Nasional MPs in her. She has no money to speak and lives a life within her means. She is the incumbent MP BN fears most – fearless because she has no blemish on her character, honest, accountable, responsible, open and that most perplexing for Umno to deal with – "defection-proof!" However, this general election will be more daunting than the last for Nurul. We have all endured past family "dynasties" that promised much but delivered naught. Najib Tun Razak started with a bang by becoming the youngest MP at 23, then on to being menteri besar of Pahang riding on the coat-tails of Tun Razak’s legacy. But his ascend to ignominy was swift and expected. A failed marriage, now a domineering wife, and he allowed politics to serve his personal agenda rather than have himself served politics. Soon he will end his days in politics with a whimper. Najib, Hishammuddin Hussein and Khairy Jamaludin are all lessons for other aspiring scions that seek to perpetuate lasting political dynasties for no other reasons than that they think they can – and later, much later, we will have to tell them that they can't. Now we have Nurul. If I could fault her, it is because I believe that she loves her father too much to do what she has to do now for herself and for PKR. Too many times in the past PKR has faltered at a time when it should not. Its near-death experience at the 2010 party elections has not been helped by the aftershocks of Azmin’s inept attempts to consolidate his personal power base within PKR at the expense of Khalid Ibrahim (Selangor Menteri Besar), Nurul and Dr Azizah Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (PKR president) – because only these three people stand in his way to greater personal glory in PKR. What is good for Azmin does not equate to what is good for PKR or Pakatan. That much the leaders within DAP and PAS have made known to us. But Anwar prefers to maintain an elegant silence that speaks too loudly to us all of a PKR that is in crisis. If the problems within PKR stay within PKR, good. Unfortunately that problem has begun to affect the battle for Lembah Pantai even as Umno gears up to offer its final solution to the people of Lembah Pantai – vote for RNC – Raja Nong Chik (Zainal Abidin). The challenge for Nurul Let me be precise. RNC has done enough to win nomination from BN to challenge Nurul Izzah in Lembah Pantai. RNC has done enough work among the people in Lembah Pantai to give Nurul Izzah a run for her money. Yes, he has all the resources he needed from Umno to do this. Yes, he is the minister most able to assist the people in Lembah Pantai and yes, he has done whatever he humanely could do to assist them. No, he has not been nominated to stand in Lembah Pantai but he will be come nomination day for the 13th general election. So whither goes Nurul? What help have she had from within PKR for her battle against RNC? Or more to the point, is PKR in any condition to extend any assistance to Nurul given the open sores we see of the continuing attempts by Azmin to tell all and sundry that in a blind PKR, he has one eye. And the one eye is king in the land of the blind! So he thinks! Is it not time that Anwar put his house of cards in order? Or does he think there is still time? Time to allow Azmin to organise PKR into what Azmin wants it to be. He has succeeded in having a PKR without Zaid Ibrahim. Now he wants a PKR without Khalid, Azizah and Nurul? Enough is enough, Anwar. Again I want to tell you of the dangers posed by Azmin. Yes, Azmin sees Nurul as a tigress with the capacity and the will to stand up to him but, at the same time, he sees that this tigress sits and awaits patiently while her father dithers. Azmin, do not think that the tigress is showing respect to you when she sits patiently while you go about the odious business of consolidating your own political interest within PKR at her expense. This is not a family dynasty hungry for power and position that Anwar heads within PKR but nevertheless they are a family – a family with enough talents within them to carry PKR and Pakatan through the 13th general election if required. Do not forget that. I did not hear Nurul urging the people to storm the prison walls when her father was incarcerated. I did not hear Nurul suggesting that anyone is deserving of any post in PKR or Pakatan, what more in the Cabinet if Pakatan takes Putrajaya – not even that her father should be prime minister. I did not hear Nurul talking of reforms within PKR or refocusing PKR's political agenda. What I see is that she has become what we want PKR to be – by the things she does as MP and the example she sets in her work for PKR. Yes, she is a tigress but do not make the mistake to think that she is showing you respect just because she chooses to sit quietly by her father's side. CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist. |
| Not corruption? M’sians are not morons Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:43 PM PDT FMT LETTER: From Stephen Ng, via email Nazri Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said that RM40 million which was channeled to Sabah through Hong Kong was for Umno, not for the Chief Minister. He said there was nothing wrong and the MACC will not conduct its investigation further, claiming that the money was not for personal use, therefore, does not constitute a bribe. When Suaram, which is representing Malaysians as a plaintiff in the Scorpene case which has Najib Tun Razak's name as one who demanded for US$1 billion from the French submarine manufacturer, DCNS, we are told that foreign funds came from George Soros. We also learnt that the Malaysian AIDS Council has also received money from the same source, but no actions was taken against the organisation. Foreign funds have been linked to individuals who have been alleged as trying to topple the government. In the case of Suaram, despite this being a court case in France now, the Malaysian government is going after Suaram. What about Umno receiving the funds through a bank in Hong Kong? Is this not considered a foreign fund? Who is therefore behind the fund? Why is the funding coming from overseas? Is there a hidden hand trying to use Umno to topple Umno? Could it even be a Jewish hand, perhaps? Or what should we make of it? Someone in the country has been stuffing the nation's money outside of the country and transferring it back when it is needed? In billions, if not millions? Or, who could be the donor in this case? A corporate giant that has been given a contract, and in return is channeling the money to Umno from overseas? Does not any of this constitute some form of corruption? I leave it for you to judge Nazri's statement, and Najib's actions against a civil society like Suaram. Come the next general election, you have to decide who to vote for. I’m already fed-up with all the nonsense that our politicians can utter. They are nothing but morons, who think that Malaysians on the average are also morons. |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:41 PM PDT
Now that the proverbial cat is already out of the bag, much speculation and many questions are being raised with regard to PBS's future without him. PBS is facing the stark reality of being a party without the founding giant to lead it. Most political observers would openly admit that PBS' future looked very different without Pairin at the helm. Some may even ask if there is any PBS future to talk about because in the tradition of Sabah's politics, Pairin is PBS and PBS is Pairin, just like Harris (Salleh) was Berjaya and Usno was Mustapha (Harun). The idea of a Pairin-less PBS is, honestly, still "unthinkable". In fact, to talk of PBS without Pairin simply doesn't make sense. This may be a case in which the old adage “nobody is indispensable" will be proven wrong again. The suspense and trepidation gripping PBS now is palpable, even to those who are not in the party. A heap of questions are coming out: What now? Who is going to replace Pairin when he is irreplaceable? What kind of future can PBS talk about, or even imagine, without the big guy? The natural choice for replacement, in accordance with party hierarchy, is Maximus Ongkili. But will Ongkili be able to hold the party together? Will party members be able or willing to make the paradigm shift that Ongkili will surely usher in with his own brand of philosophy, style and strategy? What new, unseen forces will emerge to challenge him and destabilise the party? Or with the uncertainty prevailing on many fronts, will there be a power struggle? Of course, PBS' relevance is not wholly centred on Pairin alone, but also on the outcome of the the national polls. How many seats can PBS retain in the coming election? What if BN's foothold slides further, if not in Sabah, then in the Peninsula? Or what if BN's seats are increased but PBS' seats are significantly reduced? Political misstep? There can also be serious polemics on whether Pairin should have announced his retirement so early. Why did he let the cat out of the bag so long before the GE13 is expected to be held? Wouldn't it have been a lot better to be silent on the issue until after the election is over? Political observers think that whatever politicians, especially the veterans, say or do are well-thought-out strategic moves with subtle gambits, but this is mostly not true. Politicians make mistakes all the time, such as shooting in the dark, putting their foot into their mouths, taking steps into political holes, or worse, explosive mines. In the case of Pairin's decision to announce his retirement at this juncture, one may presume it must have been a calculated, tactical move since Pairin is no greenhorn in politics. But it is not easy to pinpoint what this tactical move could be. What we can see is that it may have been a misstep for several reasons:
Was ‘retirement’ a strategy? One may also believe, or assume positively, that Pairin did it all for the purpose of gaining sympathy votes from his and PBS' constituents. He most likely wants to let them know that this is his last round in the game. He likely wants to make them feel they should give him their support for the last time, as their last respect and final farewell gesture. But this may not necessarily work because there is also the other side of the coin. Many may feel he should retire sooner, thus ushering in a change immediately after the election. Recently, the Keningau Amanah deputy chairman Victor Leonardus had urged Pairin to step down from politics and give the younger generation a chance in the 13th general election, lest he suffers defeat and affect his status as the "huguan siou" (paramount leader). So far only a few senior PBS leaders had reacted to this announcement, perhaps because they are still trying to get their bearings amidst their confusion and sadness. Firstly, it is not something they should support, but not something they should strongly oppose either because of Pairin's age. Pairin is 72 years old. Secondly, it is a bad idea to over-react to it in the media lest the situation is made worse with conflicting statements. Such over-reactions would betray PBS' own fears, instability and weakness. So PBS is clearly in a serious dilemma about it, hence the safest statement: “We still need his leadership” had been said, more out of politeness than anything else. Whether the senior leaders of PBS like it or not, they must face the hard truth that PBS will be without Pairin within four or five years, if not sooner. PBS ideology lost in today’s world It is a strange feeling to try to fathom the depth of such a loss, to imagine the enormity of such a change, or to predict the frightful weight of the void, the emptiness, that is sure to come. And nobody knows exactly what the consequences will be. Of course, the most important question is: will PBS be able to reinvent itself to keep, or increase, the momentum of its struggle? The most believable answer is the often heard vehement "no!” “No political party in the history of Sabah had ever done that. Once the founding leader goes, it is downhill all the way." It's hard to swallow that even with Pairin in the party today, the influence of PBS had waned so much, so imagine what it will be like without him. The party had managed to sustain until today not in spite of Pairin but because of Pairin. So no matter how one looks at it, the prognosis is not good. Many factors in fact had led to this scenario. The party had not done enough to groom new leaders, and some say it had diverted from its original struggle, and attempts to justify its ideologies in recent years seemed to have fallen mostly on deaf ears. But most importantly, time had caught up with PBS, overwhelming it with new ideas. The world has moved on and PBS has been left behind. Window of opportunity for Jeffrey Political ideologies had shifted radically to make many concepts of the 1980s no longer valid. Many groups are seen to have overstayed their welcome, many faces have become too familiar, and old oft-repeated speeches have become bland, tasteless, or plain monotonous. When Pairin announced his plan to retire, he said: "So, people will be happylah!" Was he hinting at his younger brother Jeffrey, who would now have a freer hand in taking over the Keningau parliamentary seat or the Tambunan state assembly seat,which he is contenting in the 13th general election? Maybe the takeover of Keningau will happen a lot sooner than GE14 with rumour mills saying it is very possible Pairin will opt out of the race for the constituency in GE13. Whatever happens it is clear that since Pairin announced his retirement, change had already swept over Keningau and over the whole atmosphere in PBS. Pairin has now suddenly become a lame duck president, assemblyman and MP. |
| Lift suspension on Genneva, Bank Negara urged Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:38 PM PDT
The Genneva Malaysia supporters group said in a statement yesterday that more than 300,000 gold buyers have been affected by the BNM action to suspend the company’s business operations. "We request you to recognise the toll that your actions have taken on our lives. Allow Genneva Malaysia to resume its business operations so that any further impact on our lives and livelihood will be mitigated," they said. The gold buyers want BNM to immediately unfreeze the company’s accounts, return the cheques (taken during the raid) and the hundred grams of gold bars to the owners. "A grace period should be given to Genneva so that it can correct any wrongful action, if any. "Many customers are solely dependent on the hibah [gift] to finance the children's further education, medical care, housing and car instalments and feed their families," said the group which identified itself as Genneva supporters. The group also said that company's integrity has been compromised following the raid as a slew of dignitaries, including the prime minister wife Rosmah Mansor and royalties, used to attend Genneva's functions. The supporters also said the Finance Ministry had confirmed in a letter to Genneva that gold trading is permissible and therefore should not be regulated. On Oct 1, the police, BNM, Companies Commission of Malaysia and Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry jointly conducted a raid on Genneva and its affiliates in the country for various suspected offences. Three other companies, Pageantry Gold Bhd, Caesar Gold Sdn Bhd and Worldwide Far East Bhd, were also raided. The suspected offences being investigated are illegal deposit-taking, money-laundering, tax evasion and avoidance, false description, including misrepresentation and appointment of agents without licence. |
| Stop the harassment of sports writers Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:27 PM PDT FMT LETTER: From V Anbalagan, via e-mail The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) calls on the National Sports Council and national sports associations to stop intimidating sports writers by sending legal notices for publishing unfavourable reports about them. The reporters, just like journalists operating in other beats, are carrying out their public duties to serve their audience, be it readers, viewers or listeners. They carry public interest stories as the development of sports are closely followed by the young and old. The government allocates funds to develop and promote sports events and journalists have the right to expose wrong doings and mismanagement. The NUJ believe sports writers and their media organisations subscribe to fair reporting which includes giving aggrieved parties the right to reply. The practice of sending notice of demand to critical sports writers tantamount to intimidating them from pursuing investigative reporting. We assure sports writers that the NUJ will spring into action, including defend their right to carry out their duties free from harassment. Our call is in response to two former Malay Mail reporters who have been issued letters of demand by the NSC for stories published last year and this year. One of the reports is a subject matter in court now. We have also received feedbacks that reporters occasionally received legal notices but the aggrieved parties did not pursue further like filing legal suits.
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| Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:24 PM PDT SURAT FMT: Dari Afsar, melalui e-mel Bekas Timbalan Presiden PAS, Nasharuddin Mat Isa sekali lagi menggegar dunia politik partinya. Hujahnya bahawa dalam konteks politik hari ini, masalah perpecahan umat Islam sering dilupakan sedangkan ia adalah masalah utama yang perlu diselesaikan terlebih dahulu. Malah, Ahli Parlimen Bachok itu mengingatkan PAS agar tidak mengutamakan kuasa semata-mata sehingga sanggup meletakkan prinsip Islam di tempat kedua. Maka, timbul andaian menyatakan PAS telah lari dari perjuangan asal. Agaknya, ia atau tidak? Sejak wujudnya gerakan penubuhan parti Islam ini sehingga kini, yakni tahun sebelum terbentuknya gabungan parti-parti politik pembangkang, Pakatan Rakyat, PAS dilihat bergerak sendirian terkapai-kapai dalam menjadikan Islam sebagai pegangan utama melalui fokus penubuhan negara Islam dan agenda hudud. Sehingga PAS mendapat restu daripada Majlis Syura untuk bergabung, atas dasar tahiluf siyasi, dengan parti politik yang berlainan ideologi dan fahaman, iaitu PKR dan DAP dengan misi mahu menumbangkan kerajaan Barisan Nasional (BN) seterusnya menawan Putrajaya, dengan satu manifesto bersama – Buku Jingga. Persoalan, mana perginya manifesto asal PAS dalam hala tuju negara Islam dan perlaksanaan hudud? Tidakkah akan wujud satu “perbalahan bersama” antara DAP dan PKR dengan PAS pada masa depan, kerana ideologi teras perjuangan mereka bukan ke -arah perlaksanaan Islam. Jadi, di mana kedudukan PAS dalam soal ini, waima masyarakat Islam kini sedang mula berpecah sedikit demi sedikit dengan pelbagai tafsiran fahaman pluralisme, liberalisme dan “ulama”-isme yang semakin merebak dengan pantas. Mungkin, apa yang dizahirkan oleh Nasharuddin ada asasnya. Dan mungkin ada yang cepat melatah bahawa mengandaikan perkara ini memberi ruang kepada BN untuk terus menghentam PR. Juga mungkin ada yang mudah mengungkapkan bahawa ini pendekatan politik murahan dengan menimbulkan isu khususnya menjelang PRU-13. Maka, sekalian pimpinan PAS turut bersatu untuk menidakkan kerisauan Nasharuddin. Malah, kalau boleh mahu ‘ditendang’ keluar Nasharuddin daripada PAS. Apa, hebat sangatkah Nasharuddin di mata PAs? Sejauh mana penonjolan Nasharuddin memberi impak dan kesan kemaraan sekalian pimpinan PAS yang begitu ghairah berpolitik dalam PR? Sungguhpun segala macam jawapan dapat diberikan, namun ini belum cukup untuk mencari jalan penyelesaian mengenai perpecahan umat Islam. Harus diingat, populasi penduduk Malaysia berjumlah 28.5 juta orang di mana hampir 68% daripadanya adalah kaum Melayu yang beragama Islam, mustahil PAS mampu untuk melaksanakan dasar perjuangannya bersama PR. |
| Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:22 PM PDT FMT LETTER: From MYCAT, via e-mail In February 2010, right before the start of the lunar Year of the Tiger, the Perak Department of Wildlife and National Parks found a dead tiger with its left front paw severed and still caught in the wire snare some distance away from its body in Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve, Perak. It had been trapped for days, taken five bullets including two in its eyes, attacked with poisonous darts and spears fashioned out of hard palm stalks, and left to die a slow, excruciating death. At the time, there seemed to be overwhelming evidence to facilitate a clear conviction - bullets were found at the scene and in the dead tiger; one of the accused when questioned, admitted to killing this animal and others in the past including a tiger and leopard; and the tiger was found close to the snare. It was not about human-wildlife conflict. But yesterday in Perak, the four men who reportedly admitted to the crime were acquitted of killing that tiger. We would like to know what went wrong. MYCAT is extremely disappointed with the verdict. This is another crime against the Malayan tiger that has gone unpunished. It has taken so many years and so much effort to get to where we are today in terms of tiger conservation. It took government and the public 13 years to strengthen the law, two years to realise the internationally acclaimed National Tiger Conservation Action Plan and countless wildlife officers persistently investigating crime to get to this point, only to be let down at the most critical moment. And what a letdown it was! This verdict spells trouble for Malaysia’s fast diminishing wild tiger population. Illegal hunting is the most devastating threat to the tiger and other endangered species, but if time and again we do not convict tiger poachers, there is going to be very little fear or respect for the law. Advances like the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 with its higher penalties and increased joint enforcement patrols between the Malaysian Armed Forces and the Wildlife Department and the establishment of an Environmental Court will have little effect if the final verdict to the admitting poachers comes to this end. Even on occasions when wildlife criminals are convicted and sentenced, the Judiciary merely adopts a 'slap-on-the-wrist' approach. In December 2011, a foreign poacher was fined RM2,500 and in June 2012, another two were jailed for only two months. The enforcement authorities have done their jobs by nabbing these perpetrators. In some instances, they have presented their cases to our Prosecutors to take to court. The weak link in our chain of defence remains the inability to effectively prosecute and secure convictions. Many Investigating Officers are not fully aware of the technicalities of collecting evidence or managing the crime scene, and Prosecuting Officers are also only vaguely familiar with laws pertaining to wildlife and appear unaware of the gravity of such crime. As pointed out by the defence attorney, why were the four men not charged for illegal possession of firearms? MYCAT is also surprised to note, based on news reports, that contradicting evidence was presented in court. Forensic evidence produced seemed both negligible and disputable. MYCAT calls on the Attorney General's Chambers to appeal the decision of the judge. Given the available admissible evidence, a thorough and swift review of the Magistrate's decision is crucial. We believe that justice was not served. |
| Don’t rush new statutory rape bill, Nazri told Posted: 14 Oct 2012 03:23 AM PDT
DAP parliamentarian for Seputeh Teresa Kok said Nazri must first setup a committee that included Attorney-General's Chambers (AG) and Women, Family and Community Development Ministry so that a refined law could be drafted to best resolve the matter. "The committee should consult women’s groups, deputy public prosecutors, social workers, shelter homes and so on to get their opinion," she said at a press conference at the Federal Territories DAP annual convention 2012 today. Kok was commenting on Nazri's statement yesterday that an amendment would be tabled in parliament soon to disallow judges from exercising their discretionary power, under the Criminal Procedure Code 294 (1), to reduce the sentence given to statutory rapists. Nazri had reportedly said that the provision would be added to Section 376 of Penal Code, which prescribes mandatory jail sentences for those convicted of statutory rape. In recent months, the public had raised concerns on judges’ discretionary power after a national bowler and an electrician were allowed to go scot free despite having committed statutory rape against their underaged girlfriends respectively. Koh said she was against the mandatory five year jail term used to be meted out to the statutory rapist before 2006, but added she was also against no punishment. "Nowadays many teenagers have consensual sex, and the trend is increasing. If a 18-year-old guy was brought to jail for five years for having sex with his girl friend, his future will be gone," she said. "In the United States or United Kingdom, the laws are very detailed in those offences. So I think we should make laws to be more refined as well," she said. Meanwhile, the convention attended by 82 participants and 12 observers had passed resolutions to urge the federal government to take stringent measures on the annual budget to prevent leakages; to elevate the status of Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to be answerable to parliament; and to review the Automated Enforcement System, among others. |
| ‘AES being used to milk profit’ Posted: 14 Oct 2012 02:22 AM PDT
Addressing some 100 delegates at the Federal Territories DAP convention, Lim said a New Straits Times report had estimated some 170 million summonses will be issued each year once the system is fully implemented. "Going by this calculation, 170 million summonses, each costing RM300, the federal government and concessionaires stand to collect RM51 billion," he said. He was however quick to add that while RM5 billion should be a more likely figures of fines, it is still a huge sum by any standard. "RM5 billion, and much of it would be given to (concessionaires) ATES Sdn Bhd and Beta Tegap Sdn Bhd. Was there an open tender done?" said Lim who is also the Penang chief minister. He also criticised the system for enriching certain individuals at the expense of sorry traffic offenders, saying that no government would try to gauge profits from traffic summonses. "If we did something wrong, you summon us, no problem. But why when issuing summonses, certain individuals are getting profits…" he said. The charismatic speaker reminded the delegates that under the three-tier system, the companies stand to get RM16 for each of the first five million summonses issued on the first tier; 50% of the balance of the revenue collected for the next RM540 million on second tier; and 7.5% of the revenue after that. Lim also questioned why the concessionaires claimed the installation of 831 cameras would cost a whopping RM600 to RM800 millions, which is RM722,000 and RM962,000 per camera. "Next time we pass by an AES camera, we should check whether it is decorated with gold or diamond, or maybe ring. "Malaysia has broken another world record, to have the world's most expensive camera," he said to a cheering crowd. He urged the transport ministry to swiftly suspend and review the system while calling on the delegates to bring up the issue in their election campaign. "Tell them what for the government is giving you RM500 (under the Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia 2.0), (the government) will get it back after issuing two summonses," he said. |
| Posted: 13 Oct 2012 11:34 PM PDT
Why aren’t the BN MPs debating their own budget? Because it contains a lot of silly things. The question is how is Najib going to implement his last minute add-ins? Take for instance the reduced travel fares meant for senior citizens and those who earn RM2,000 or less a month? How will Najib's people implement that? Will commuters have to carry their pay slips when travelling on buses, trains and airplanes and have them shown to conductors? Or will some people supply buses with card readers which can read MyKads to verify the holders' income? Then there’s a plan to build “affordable” homes which seriously not many people can actually afford because they earn RM3,000 or less a month? Silly ideas don’t you think? I can only assume that the RM1.5 billion allocation was meant only for BR1M? Then there’s Najib’s plan to raise disposable income. Let’s compare Najib with Anwar’s plan to make disposable income. Aiming to implement GST That seems to be his solution to increasing revenue, now that the present tax base has been reduced. Anwar, on the other hand, plans to raise disposable income through fiscal reform measures such as cutting the triple import taxes on foreign-made cars, abolishment of tolls and waiver of student loans. Anwar proposed to raise disposable income through measures that are aimed at plugging leakages that arise as a result of inefficiencies and corruption. The government, which has run a budget deficit every year since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, sees the deficit shrinking on better tax collection and slightly higher economic growth of 4.5-5.5 per cent in 2013 from 4.5-5 per cent this year. And what does better tax collection mean? Where will the increase revenue come from? Well, Petronas contributes up to 45 per cent of the government's revenues for the moment. But what will happen when earnings from Petronas decline? The government says it wants to introduce a GST to widen the revenue base in a country where only about 10 per cent of the workforce pays income taxes and to cut the fuel subsidies that are among Asia's highest. But to do that Najib has said more time is needed to prepare the public for such “unpopular steps”. And how does the government ‘help’ us prepare? By removing subsidies. Soaring prices The price of ikan kembong has settled around RM17 per kilo. The bag of 10kg price has gone up by RM7. The price of beef is around RM24-26 per kilo in certain parts of the country. Aren't all these included in the basket of goods when accounting for the official rate of inflation? All food and beverage using sugar as its ingredient will go up in price. Will the increase in the price of sugar appease the makcik and the small traders selling foodstuffs using sugar as a main ingredient? They know when the price of sugar goes up, the person holding the monopoly on sugar will get richer. And how does this government justify the withdrawal of sugar subsidy which results in sugar price going up? The government claims it is alarmed at the growing incidence of diabetes among Malaysians! Najib's economic minders seemed oblivious to market signals. They keep supporting our economy by intervening believing they can tame market forces. Maybe they learnt economics from Ibrahim Ali (Perkasa). The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but joined DAP earlier this year. He is a FMT columnist. |
| Najib baits Sabah voters with big plans Posted: 13 Oct 2012 11:23 PM PDT
If given BN is given the mandate in the coming general election (GE), the federal and state government will work even harder to develop Sabah which has a vast potential. "I am happy to see the reception and support from the people of Sabah towards Barisan Nasional," he said in his speech during a walkabout session in Kundasang town here. Najib was accompanied by Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan and state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Masidi Manjun. The prime minister who is also the BN chairman urged the people of Sabah to continue their support for BN to ensure continuity in the development of Sabah. In the last election (2008), Sabah BN almost made a clean sweep of all the 25 Parliament and 60 state assembly seats. The only seats that fell to the opposition, namely DAP, were the Kota Kinabalu parliamentary seat and Sri Tanjung (Tawau) state assembly seat. Speaking of his visit to Kundasang, Najib described the serenity of Kundasang, situated at the foot of Mount Kinabalu, as God’s blessing and gift to nature and environment. "Kundasang is a blessed place and a gift from nature. Plant any type of crop and it grows well. There is a delectable and refreshing choice of fresh greens and exotic fruits which grow here and farmers can earn a good income if they put in extra effort," he said. Najib is special Wasli Kandung, 74, a farmer from Kampong Cinta Mata said he was happy to have met a leader whom he had adored. "I have never met a prime minister in person all these years. I have only seen them on television. All our prime minister’s were good but Najib is special because he likes to go down and help the people, not just make empty promises,” he said. "I hope he will continue to rule the country until he is 70." Sagin Belinsai, 72, from Kampong Kouluan near here said he got up at 5.30am to make sure he would not miss an opportunity to see the prime minister in person. Malaysia is fortunate to have a prime minister who has the peoples’ welfare and interest at heart and who always went down to the ground to meet the people, said Sagin. Meanwhile, at 7am this morning, Najib was at the Mount Kinabalu Park here to flag off participants of the 26th Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon. About 700 participants from 28 countries took part in the climbathon that featured the men’s and women’s open category plus the men’s and women’s veteran categories. RM2.98b for Sabah next year He said among the projects were for boosting electricity supply (RM400 million), clean water supply (RM150 million) and building roads to connect rural areas (RM31.3 million). Najib said the Agropolitan Kota Belud-Pitas project would also be developed with an allocation of RM66 million besides public housing projects in Putatan and Sandakan (RM65 million). “Among the other projects are a water treatment plant in Semporna (RM30 million), Tambunan Community College and Teachers Training Institute, Tuaran Campus (RM32 million) and numerous health projects,” he said before a gathering of more than 50,000 people who had turned up for the programme “Promises Fulfilled” event at the Kudat Sports Complex, here. He said the government had also allocated RM3.06 million for the construction of shophouses in Karakit, Pulau Banggi, RM3.5 million for public housing in Jalan Apa, Kudat (RM3.5 million). He also announced that facilities at the Kudat Hospital would be upgraded. The PM also said the government would be distributing 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) to 408,927 households in Sabah including 20,399 in Kudat, not including the singles group aged 21 years and above earning less than RM2,000 a month. “Regardless whether the general election is held this year or next year, this promise will definitely be met besides the building of a 1Malaysia Clinic in Kudat and the Kudat Maju Shopping Centre,” he said, while also suggesting that the Employees Provident Fund office be retained in Kudat. He said all the projects in question were implemented as an ongoing effort to prosper and develop Sabah. Najib not worried “I know I can sleep peacefully tonight, not because of the cool breeze, but because of the strong support from the people here, ” he said at the leader-meets-people event at the Kinabalu National Park here. Najib also concurred with Karanaan and Paginatan state assemblymen Masidi Manjun’s and Ewon Ebin’s statements that the people of Ranau sincerely supported the BN. “If the election were to be held tomorrow, BN would surely win because the support of the people here is as high as Mount Kinabalu,” Najib said. Earlier, the prime minister also attended a closed-door meeting with BN Sabah leaders. - Bernama |
| Eyes on press freedom after court ruling Posted: 13 Oct 2012 11:12 PM PDT
The Kuala Lumpur High Court on Oct 1 ruled in favour of Malaysiakini.com’s challenge against a refusal to issue a publishing licence to the site, which is known for content often highly critical of the government. Najib, who must call elections by mid-2013, has positioned himself as a reformer in a bid to recapture the support of voters who in 2008 handed his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition its worst polls showing ever. In April, he lifted a rule that forced publications to renew their printing permits annually — which gave the government leverage to ensure compliant coverage — but the home ministry still has the power to deny or revoke licences. For this, and other reasons, Malaysia’s opposition has dismissed the reform pledges as window-dressing for the election, and the court ruling could now put pressure on Najib to prove them wrong. The ruling has “opened the floodgates” for newspaper licence applications, said National Union of Journalists general secretary V Anbalagan, adding that trying to control the media was “futile” in the Internet age. “If they are refused permits, they can go to court and create a public issue over freedom of speech. The old business model won’t work for the ruling party anymore,” he told AFP. Opening up the right to newspaper publishing is likely to have major political implications in the multi-ethnic country, Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy. The ruling coalition — dominated by Najib’s Muslim, ethnic Malay party — has wielded press control as a major weapon to help remain in power since 1957, forcing the opposition to turn to the Internet to get its message out. The Barisan Nasional coalition had a virtual monopoly of the press until Internet penetration surged in the past decade. Malaysiakini, launched in 1999, and newer portals which sprang up in recent years, have garnered a following with content including racial injustice and official corruption — issues largely ignored by the government-controlled media. Such sites have remained relatively free — despite occasional raids and bans — due to an official pledge not to censor the Internet, made in the mid-90s to attract foreign investment. However, Malaysiakini wants to put out a newspaper to expand its audience and filed a legal challenge in 2010 after the government rejected the bid. The home ministry can now either approve the application or appeal the ruling. Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said his ministry was deciding whether to appeal. “We will seek an urgent consideration of our application (but) I got a feeling the home minister will drag his decision,” Chandran said, citing the coming elections. Malaysiakini has come under attack from Barisan Nasional leaders and pro-government media who call it an opposition mouthpiece being funded by foreign interests that want to destabilise the multi-ethnic country. Chandran said a licence is unlikely to come through before what are expected to be tough elections between the ruling coalition and resurgent opposition. But observers said granting the permit would allow Najib to shore up his reformist credentials. Masjaliza Hamzah, executive director of the Centre for Independent Journalism, a media watchdog, told AFP there would be little short-term downside for the government as “there are very few players who can afford to publish a newspaper”. “But Najib could win some brownie points if he issues the permit,” she said. - AFP |
| Philippine rebel chief in historic peace trip Posted: 13 Oct 2012 11:03 PM PDT
Murad Ebrahim and other senior figures of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are scheduled to participate in the signing of an accord at the presidential palace on Monday that outlines a roadmap for peace by 2016. The accord, announced by President Benigno Aquino a week ago, has won applause from foreign governments and the United Nations as a rare chance to end a rebellion that has killed an estimated 150,000 people since the 1970s. However rank-and-file soldiers of the 12,000-strong MILF, as well as the groups’s leaders and independent security analysts, have warned that many obstacles could still derail the peace process. Ebrahim, an ageing warrior in his 60s who has spent most of his life in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, will be making his first official trip as MILF leader to Manila and his first visit to the presidential palace. “We feel honoured to be welcomed in Manila, but I must stress this is just the beginning of the peace journey,” Ebrahim’s deputy for political affairs Ghazali Jaafar, who will be accompanying him, told AFP. Speaking by phone from the MILF’s southern headquarters before flying to Manila, Jaafar said Ebrahim “feels relieved” that the roadmap for peace would be signed after 15 years of negotiations. In a statement shortly after Aquino’s announcement on the “framework agreement”, Ebrahim said the deal “lays down the firm foundations of a just and enduring peace formula”. “The forging of the framework agreement, however, does not mean the end of the struggle for it ushers a new and more challenging stage,” he said. Muslim rebel groups have been fighting for full independence or autonomy for four decades in Mindanao, which they consider their ancestral homeland from before Spanish Christians colonised the country in the 1500s. The fighting has mired large parts of resource-rich Mindanao in poverty, and led to the proliferation of unlicensed guns and political warlords who battle over fiefdoms. The estimated four to nine million Muslims are now a minority on Mindanao after years of Catholic immigration, but they insist they should be allowed to govern on their own and control Mindanao, which has fertile farming lands. The MILF is the biggest and most important remaining rebel group, after the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) signed a peace pact with the government in 1996. The peace deal with the MNLF led to the creation of an autonomous region that Aquino said was a “failed experiment” that led to corruption and even more poverty. The document to be signed Monday will outline plans to replace that autonomous region with a new one in which the MILF will hold significant power. Under the framework, the MILF will drop its bid for independence in exchange for autonomy covering several areas on Mindanao island, the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines. The autonomous government will manage its own taxes, as well as have a “just and equitable share” of revenues from natural resources. Its forces would also be disarmed in stages, while the Philippine government will retain powers of defence, as well as foreign and monetary policies. Muslim syariah law will also apply in civil cases involving Muslims, but not criminal cases. A transition panel made up of members from both sides is to draft a “basic law” covering the autonomous region to be passed by the nation’s parliament by 2015. The people living in the proposed autonomous region would then need to ratify it in a plebiscite held before 2016 when Aquino is required by the constitution to stand down. The peace negotiations, which gained momentum after Aquino and Ebrahim met for secret talks in Japan last year, have been held in Malaysia. Malaysian Prime Minister Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will attend Monday’s signing of the peace pact. - AFP |
| Stop the race game, warns Nazri Posted: 13 Oct 2012 10:48 PM PDT
"This is my last warning to all to stop harping on racial and religious issues and I don't want to repeat this again," said Nazri. "As the law minister, I shall ensure that stern action is taken against any quarters that fan racial and religious hatred (among the various races in the country)" he said. He was speaking at a fund raising dinner organised by the Persatuan Kebajikan See Hai Keng Si Trong in Simpang here on Saturday night. The event was attended by leaders from Umno, Gerakan and Pakatan Rakyat, which included Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming. Nazri said that after 55 years of independence, the nation should not be divided along racial or religious lines and the government would not tolerate such hatred to divide the racially united country. The Umno leader also said that all the races in the country were rightful citizens of Malaysia and there should be no racial discrimination by calling the Chinese and Indians as "pendatang" as they have also contributed greatly to the economic growth of the nation. He called all quarters to think as one Malaysian race as propagated by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's slogan of 1Malaysia for the nation to progress towards vision 2020. Nazri also contributed RM100,000 to the Persatuan's fundraising campaign while other political leaders also chipped in with their contributions. Nazri, in his speech, paid glowing recognition to the contributions of the Chinese community who had played a major role in contributing to the fast economic development of Malaysia. He said the two states of Kenya and Uganda in Africa had also attained independences during the same time when Malaysia received her Merdeka but the African states did not progress economically like this nation. He reasoned that had the Chinese community made their presence felt in the two African states, than these states would have progressed economically well like Malaysia. |
| PM: Rancangan besar untuk rakyat Sabah Posted: 13 Oct 2012 09:38 PM PDT
Beliau berkata seandainya Barisan Nasional (BN) mendapat mandat baru pada pilihan raya akan datang, kerajaan persekutuan bersama kerajaan negeri akan bekerja lebih kuat lagi untuk memajukan negeri Sabah yang begitu besar potensinya. "Saya senang hati melihat sambutan dan sokongan padu kepada saya dan Barisan Nasional," katanya ketika menyampaikan ucapan ringkas sempena program tinjauan mesra di Pekan Kundasang, di sini, hari ini. Turut mengiringi beliau ialah Ketua Menteri Datuk Seri Musa Aman, Timbalan Ketua Menteri Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan dan Menteri Pelancongan, Kebudayaan dan Alam Sekitar Datuk Masidi Manjun. Oleh itu, beliau yang juga Pengerusi BN mengajak rakyat Sabah supaya meneruskan sokongan kepada BN demi kesinambungan pembangunan dan masa depan yang cerah. Pada pilihan raya lepas, BN Sabah hampir menyapu bersih kesemua 25 kerusi Parlimen dan 60 kerusi Dewan Undangan Negeri (Dun) dan hanya kalah kepada DAP di kerusi Parlimen Kota Kinabalu dan kerusi Dun Sri Tanjung (Tawau). Menyentuh tinjauan mesra itu, Najib berkata beliau gembira kerana dapat bersalaman dan beramah mesra dengan penduduk kampung di sini. "Saya melihat kawasan Kundasang ini memang Tuhan kurniakan alam semula jadi yang kita boleh manfaatkan … tanam apa sahaja jenis tanaman terutama jenis tanaman makanan, semua menjadi dan memberi kita pendapatan yang begitu baik sekali. "Kalau kita berusaha dengan rajin, Insya-Allah kita dapat rezeki yang baik," katanya. Sementara itu, seorang penjual sayur dari kampung Cinta Mata, Wasli Kandung, n74, berkata beliau begitu gembira dapat bertemu pemimpin besar yang beliau sanjungi selama ini. "Saya tidak pernah melihat Perdana Menteri kita secara bersemuka. Saya hanya nampak melalui televisyen. Semua Perdana Menteri kita bagus tetapi Najib ada sedikit keistimewaan sebab "obintulung" (suka menolong) dan beliau adalah seorang yang benar-benar menepati janji dan tidak suka menabur janji kosong. "Ada pemimpin yang berjanji tapi sampai sekarang rakyat menunggu tapi tiada. Tapi saya lihat Perdana Menteri kita sekarang, apabila dia berjanji, dia benar-benar menunaikan apa yang dia cakap. Misalnya Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M)," katanya. Wasli berkata tidak terlintas di fikirannya akan menerima BR1M dan bantuan-bantuan rakyat yang lain. Beliau berharap dengan kehadiran Perdana Menteri ke Kundasang, salah satu destinasi pelancongan terkenal di Sabah, dan juga terkenal sebagai pengeluar kobis terbesar di Sabah, akan mendapat lebih perhatian oleh kerajaan dan muncul antara kawasan yang maju terutama dalam sektor pertanian. Ditanya kenapa beliau sanggup datang ke Pekan Kundasang untuk bertemu Perdana Menteri, beliau berkata "saya kepingin bersalaman dengan Perdana Menteri". "Saya lihat beliau begitu jujur untuk memajukan negeri kita dan juga Malaysia dan saya harap Tuhan panjangkan umur beliau dan memerintah sehingga 70 tahun. "Sebab itu, saya sanggup berjalan kaki sejauh tiga kilometer semata-mata untuk berjumpa dan bersalam dengan Perdana Menteri," katanya. Seorang lagi penduduk Kundasang, Sagin Belinsai, 72, dari kampong Kouluan berkata beliau amat berbesar hati kerana berpeluang berjumpa dengan Perdana Menteri. "Setelah saya mengetahui Perdana Menteri akan datang ke Kundasang pagi ini, saya bangun awal, seawal 5.30 pagi semata-mata mahu memastikan saya sampai ke Pekan Kundasang lebih awal untuk berjabat tangan dengan Perdana Menteri," katanya ketika ditemui di barisan hadapan orang ramai untuk menyambut ketibaan Perdana Menteri di pekan itu. Beliau berkata, dia tidak mahu melepaskan peluang keemasan untuk berjumpa dengan pemimpin negara itu kerana bukan mudah untuk berjumpa dengan pemimpin terutama Perdana Menteri. Sagin berkata Malaysia beruntung kerana mempunyai seorang pemimpin yang berjiwa rakyat dan sanggup "turun padang" untuk melihat dan mendengar sendiri permasalahan rakyat seterusnya mencari jalan untuk menolong rakyat “macam kami”. - Bernama |
| Projek kubur 80 ekar, kos RM31 juta di Pengerang Posted: 13 Oct 2012 09:35 PM PDT
Bagaimanapun, penduduk kampung membantah dan tidak gembira dengan projek perkuburan mega yang didakwa dibiayai Petronas itu. “Kerja-kerja menambak tanah sudah bermula sejak sebulan lalu tetapi projek ini menimbulkan tanda tanya kepada penduduk kampung ini. “Apa perlunya sebesar ini? Mengapa dibuat di tanah lapang? Kenapa tidak dibuat di atas tanah bukit di kawasan berhampiran,?” tanya ketua cawangan Umno, Isa Sultan yang juga AJK Umno Pengerang. “Kampung lain dapat pembangunan, Kampung Pungai dapat tanah perkuburan.” katanya dengan nada kecewa. Menurut Isa tidak ada keperluan untuk Petronas membina tanah perkuburan seluas 80 ekar kerana tanah kubur sedia seluas dua ekar masih banyak yang kosong. “Sejak seratus tahun, masih banyak kawasan kosong di atas tanah perkuburan ini,” kata beliau lagi. Kampung Pungai tidak terbabit dengan projek petrokimia dan hanya mempunyai kira-kira 200 buah rumah. Isa yang tidak gembira dengan projek perkuran mega itu berkata, sepatutnya tanah perkuburan itu digunakan untuk projek perumahan untuk pemindahan projek RAPID. “Lebih baik tanah kubur dibuat di kawasan bukit di kampung ini juga,” katanya lagi. Isa mendakwa ADUN Tanjung Surat, Datuk Harun Abdullah menyokong bantahan penduduk terhadap projek perkuburan mega itu. Dalam perkembangan berkaitan, Harun berkata, penduduk tempatan tidak membantah projek petrokimia yang akan dibina di Pengerang. “Orang Cina DAP tidak mahu projek itu berjaya kerana ia akan memberi saingan kepada Singapura…Singapura akan terjejas. “Jadi pembangkang menggunakan alasan pencemaran alam sekitar untuk menghasut penduduk tempatan bagi menggalkan projek itu. “Mereka sanggup menggunakan penceramah dari Taiwan untuk tujuan tersebut. Tetapi apa kena mengena Taiwan dengan Pengerang?” tanya |
| 7 strange beauty tricks that work Posted: 13 Oct 2012 08:49 PM PDT
Fade scars with raw potato Fix fake tan mishaps with baking soda Prime oily skin with laxatives Banish greasy locks with flour Whiten your teeth with crunchy vegetables Clean your face with oil Rejuvenate blonde hair with tomato ketchup LINKS |
| Posted: 13 Oct 2012 08:42 PM PDT
Dipendekkan cerita, Bhisma tidak mahu menggauli pasangan adik-beradik Ambika dan Ambalika (balu kepada Vichitravirya) kerana sudah bersumpah untuk mengekalkan keterunaannya. Bhisma lalu memujuk ibu tirinya, Satyavati supaya memujuk Vyasa agar menggauli Ambika dan Ambalika demi untuk memastikan jurai keturunan Kuru dapat diteruskan. Watak Vyasa inilah yang kemudian tampil sebagai penggubah epik Mahabharata yang kini tersebar ke seluruh dunia dan dianggap pula sebagai sebuah kitab suci dalam agama Hindu. Bagaimanapun, Hussain dan Hassan sedar bahawa teks asal yang dipercayai dikarang oleh Vyasa adalah Jaya yang merupakan cerita asas kepada kisah yang kemudian dikembangkan pula oleh Vaisampayana menjadi Bharata. Sebahagian daripada teks Jaya gubahan Vyasa dikenali sebagai Bhagavad Gita dan sehingga kini mampu berdiri sendiri. Keseluruhan teks adalah dialog antara Arjuna dan Dewa Krishna, bapa saudaranya. Semasa Arjuna pergi ke medan perang, Dewa Krishna menawarkan diri menjadi pemandu kereta kuda. Dialog yang berlaku antara Arjuna dan Dewa Krishna sepanjang perang itulah merupakan bab keenam dan diberi judul Bhagavad Gita. Dewa Krishna memberi pelbagai tunjuk ajar, panduan, nasihat, motivasi dan bimbingan kepada Arjuna di medan perang. Memandangkan bab keenam itu mempunyai ciri-ciri yang sempurna sebagai sebuah karya epik, ia diberi judul Bhagavad Gita dan mampu berdiri sendiri sebagai sebuah teks kudus. Sementara itu, seorang pencerita profesional yang dikenali sebagai Ugrasrava Sauti pula dikatakan menggabungkan Jaya dan Bharata, lalu menghasilkan epik yang dikenali sebagai Mahabharata, teks dengan hampir 1.8 juta perkataan dan panjangnya empat kali ganda Ramayana. Berbalik kepada kisah Vyasa yang akur pada permintaan ibu kandungnya, Satyavathi, lelaki itu menjadi bapa kepada Dhritarashtra (dilahirkan oleh Ambika dan buta sejak lahir) dan Pandu (dilahirkan oleh Ambalika dan menghidap penyakit kekurangan sel darah merah). Seorang lagi isterinya, Pinjala pula melahirkan anak yang sempurna bernama Suka. Di kemudian hari, perebutan takhta Kerajaan Hastinapura berlaku antara Yudhisthira (anak Pandu) dan Duryodhana (anak Dhritarashtra). Watak Suka pula akan memainkan peranan penting dalam menyebarkan kisah Mahabharata (Jaya) kepada Raja Parikshit, iaitu cicit Pandu dan cucu Arjuna. Namun, sebelum itu, Hassan dan Hussain tidak sabar untuk mendengar datuk mereka menceritakan bagaimana Vyasa berjaya menghafaz dan menyanyikan epik Jaya yang dipercayai dirakam dalam bentuk tulisan oleh Dewa Ganesha berkepala gajah. – Bersambung minggu depan Uthaya Sankar SB adalah penulis bebas dan kolumnis FMT sejak Januari 2011. |
| Can we continue to rely on BN? Posted: 13 Oct 2012 08:35 PM PDT
He not only blatantly double-speaks, he also applies two sets of laws – one for his Barisan Nasional-Umno cronies and another for others – to suit his and BN-Umno's agenda. Najib also abuses all government law enforcement agencies to intimidate his political rivals. I dread to imagine the might of the full force of the BN law enforcement agencies that will be used to clamp down on the Pakatan Rakyat and its "donors" if the RM40 million had been Pakatan’s. I really wish to see whether Najib will respond the same – by saying that it is unnecessary to reveal the source of RM40 million 'donation' for Sabah Umno – when Pakatan receives similar donations. We are already witnessing how vindictive the BN is towards human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) Suaram. After the BN-controlled Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the police refused to probe the alleged corrupt deals in the multi-billion-ringgit purchase of Scorpene submarines from France, Suaram lodged a complaint with the French authorities. Till today, the MACC still refuses to start a probe into the purchase by the Defence Ministry, then helmed by Najib. Instead, using the Jewish card, all enforcement agencies are now being used to clamp down on Suaram to intimidate its leaders. The BN-government-controlled print and electronic media then ran amok, questioning Suaram's source of foreign funding and donations from, among others, Jewish currency trader George Soros. Mind you, in Malaysia, Jewish or Yahudi in Bahasa Malaysia is sensitive to the majority Muslim populace. BN then even tried to tarnish Pakatan de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's links with Soros. However, when pictures of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad with Soros and leaks of Najib's secret meeting with Soros in the US surfaced in the internet, there were no such amok-like reports in the controlled media. Najib even had the audacity to ask what was wrong for him to meet Soros! Is he insulting the intelligence of Malaysians? Najib's blatant double-speak and arrogance can only be due to Umno's 55-year rule of Malaysia. And he and Umno-diehard supporters and cronies behave and believe Umno and BN are infallible. The BN government's plundering of the country's wealth is believed to have stacked an RM800 billion federal debt, according to Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Muhkriz Mahathir, thereby likely breaching the legislated debt-ceiling. This means we are heading towards the way of Greece – bankruptcy. And, being described by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt countries in the world is cause for concern as it rattles the confidence of both local and foreign investors. Chua Jui Meng is a PKR vice-president and Johor PKR chairman. He is a former MCA vice-president and an ex-BN cabinet member. |
| Report lodged over Umno’s RM40m Posted: 13 Oct 2012 08:18 PM PDT
Among the latest is the youth wing of Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), whose members claimed that the government explanation that the money did not belong to Musa, but Sabah Umno, smacks of a deliberate cover up. Lodging a police report over the matter on Friday, they urged the police to further investigate the origin of the RM40 million. They also questioned the need to smuggle the money out of Hong Kong and businessman Michael Chia’s relationship with Umno. “If there is no connection (between Chia and Umno), why isn’t Umno managing the transaction?” asked the report. Speaking to FMT, SAPP Youth chief Edward Dagul said that the party finds it hard to believe that the Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz has attempted to “swipe away such a serious case with such a simple sentence”. “We are astonished that a federal minister is actually saying that Umno has that amount of money. And why has it got to go through Hong Kong? If it really is just a simple matter of Umno headquarters giving money to Sabah Umno, then why is it smuggled through Hong Kong, what is there to hide? “The other thing is that the story has been out for four years, and suddenly after four years they changed their minds and changed the story. Why didn’t Musa Aman say this in the first place?” “To us it is a cooked up story. It is an afterthought,” said Edward, who also asked whether the contribution was recorded in the Umno financial report if it was really above board. Umno MP lashes out “What is the core business of Umno? It is a contribution from people for political activities. There is no law against anyone contributing money to political parties as long as they are accounted for. “If I had RM1 billion and I like you and I gave you RM2 million, so what? As long as a receipt is given,” he said. “We’ve been very patient in allowing the law to take it’s course. We were very quiet when letting the investigation and now when it is proven that he is innocent, not just by the MACC but also the ICAC, don’t jump and find another angle,” he said. Abdul Rahman said that if opposition parties wanted to cry foul, they should also reveal their source of funding. “Opposition, reveal your sources of income, how much have you collected from your donors. I have seen how Anwar (Ibrahim) in Permatang Pauh by-election threw money around. We (BN) were outnumbered, outspent, we were outmaneuvered in terms of logistics, campaign material, financially. Then, for every one flag we had, they had three,” he said. Asked about the claim by opposition parties that the RM40 million amounted to ‘foreign money’, Abdul Rahman said:” This is ridiculous, they are just having fun accusing Umno of everything.” Last Thursday, Parliament was told that MACC had cleared Musa of graft and money-laundering allegations after finding that the over S$16 million (RM40 million) was not meant for the chief minister’s personal use but for for Sabah Umno liaison body. "It is not for the private use of the the chief minister," Nazri said in a reply to Batu MP Tian Chua. The minister had also said the Attorney-General's Chambers had shelved the matter after finding “no element of corruption” in the case. Caught in 2008 The matter first surfaced in 2008 and was repeatedly raised by whistleblower site Sarawak Report. Earlier this year, Sarawak Report published documents purportedly from the ICAC that showed that a Swiss bank account in the name of a lawyer in Sabah contained some US$30 million (RM92 million) and was allegedly being held for Musa. The report claimed that a paper trail showed that millions in euros, US dollars, Hong Kong and Singapore dollars were channelled from several firms to a number of British Virgin Island companies and subsequently to the Swiss account. The transactions were believed to have been managed by Hong Kong-based timber trader Chia who was later arrested and charged with money laundering after attempting to smuggle S$16 million (RM40 million) back to Malaysia. (On Aug 14, 2008, the businessman, Michael Chia, was caught red-handed at the Hong Kong International Airport with Singapore currency worth RM40 million in his luggage before be could board a flight to Kuala Lumpur)
Musa has denied any link to Chia who, according to media reports, had allegedly told the Hong Kong authorities that the money belonged to Musa. Musa had previously accused Sarawak Report of defaming him, claiming the graft allegations were likely part of a conspiracy by his detractors who wanted to topple Barisan Nasional (BN) in the east Malaysian state. Sarawak Report has linked the monies to timber kickbacks which it said were bound for Musa’s pockets for approving timber licences. |
| 500 party-rock at Bersih concert Posted: 13 Oct 2012 08:03 PM PDT
Clad in yellow, participants began to flock the venue from 4pm for the concert that featured 15 local acts and lasted until 11pm. The event, themed as “Konsert 8T Bersih”, was held by electoral reforms group Bersih 2.0 to remind the authorities about its eight demands, which they claimed remained unfulfilled. Performers were made up of various races, as they belted out music ranging from rock to hip hop, reggae to folk songs, against a gigantic backdrop bearing the eight Bersih demands on the stage. Sabah-based Kadazan rapper Atama certainly knew how to work the crowd as he led them to float their arms on Sumazau rhythms and move their bodies to his fusion music. "If you happy and you know it, say Bersih," he said, changing lyrics of the popular children song. To that the participant replied with a resounding "Bersih". Folk singer Nik Jidan wowed the crowd when he sang: "Asal bukan Umno, kami hidup.", a sentence that was constantly repeated throughout his 5-minute song.
Bersih coalition’s other co-chair S Ambiga then took over the stage with a speech that said the past three Bersih rallies, which attracted a multiracial crowd, have made the prime minister's 1Malaysia slogan a reality. "Malaysia belongs to all of us. We want a clean country, we want a clean election. Bersih rocks! "We rock not just today, but everyday," she said, before reading out the Bersih's eight demands.
When asked about the low crowd turn up later, Ambiga said she was satisfied considering that the weather was not good and there were other events being held. "It's not great number, but good enough. Look, we had a great time. As far as I am concerned, it was a total success," she said. The event ended with Ambiga announcing on stage that they had raised RM13,800 from the concert, and the fund would be channeled to the coalition’s for future activities. |
| Messi keeps Argentina on course for Brazil Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:49 PM PDT  MONTEVIDEO: Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi scored twice as Argentina defeated Uruguay 3-0 on Friday to remain comfortably on course for the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.The victory kept the 1978 and 1986 world champions on top of the nine-nation South American group while continental champions Uruguay remain in the fourth and final automatic qualifying place. Messi grabbed his 11th and 12th goals of the campaign in Mendoza, but the Argentina skipper had to wait until midway through the second half to unlock a tight Uruguay defence. He opened the scoring in the 66th minute when he slid in from a cross by Angel Di Maria with his second goal — and his team’s third — coming eight minutes from time. In between, Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero hit the target, again from good approach work from the tireless Di Maria. Argentina thought they had a fourth goal in the dying minutes but substitute Hernan Barcos’s effort, off a one-two with Messi, was ruled out for offside. The win leaves Argentina with 17 points from eight matches, one ahead of both Colombia and Ecuador who both also won on Friday. Colombia, coached by veteran Argentine Jose Pekerman, moved to 16 points with a 2-0 home win over Paraguay in Barranquilla with both goals coming from prolific Atletico Madrid striker Radamel Falcao. He opened the scoring after 52 minutes and closed out a memorable performance with a second, two minutes from time. “Undoubtedly Paraguay are a strong team, we knew it would be difficult, and in the end we got the goals that gave us the victory,” said Falcao. “But there is still a long way to go to the World Cup finals.” Colombia have now won their last three qualifiers — beating Uruguay 4-0 and Chile 3-1 before Friday’s triumph. Paraguay’s fifth successive defeat left them firmly rooted to the foot of the table. Ecuador also stayed on course for the finals with a 3-1 win over Chile who finished with nine men in Quito. Felipe Caicedo scored twice for Ecuador with a 33rd-minute opener followed by a 56th-minute penalty while Segundo Castillo added the third in stoppage time as Ecuador claimed a fifth successive home win. Chile, who have never won in the Ecuador capital, had taken the lead through a Juan Carlos Paredes own-goal in the 25th minute. Their miserable night was completed by having Pablo Contreras and Arturo Vidal red-carded. In La Paz, Bolivia and Peru fought out a 1-1 draw which did neither side any favours in their faltering campaigns. The top four teams in the South American qualifying tournament will be guaranteed spots in the 2014 finals with the fifth-placed team playing off against the fifth-best side in Asia. - AFP |
| Djokovic power show seals Shanghai final slot Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:47 PM PDT  SHANGHAI: Red-hot Novak Djokovic accelerated his push for the year-end number one ranking on Saturday, dismissing the challenge of Tomas Berdych in a one-sided semi-final at the Shanghai Masters.The Serbian second seed came into the match with an impressive 9-1 lead against the Czech player in head-to-head match-ups and immediately took charge, dominating the contest to win 6-3, 6-4. Yet to drop a set in Shanghai, the Australian Open champion was ruthless, breaking at the first opportunity and repeating the feat as he threatened to run away with the opening set. But Berdych, 27, bidding to reach the elite ATP World Tour Finals in London, slowed his charge, retrieving one break as the five-time Grand Slam champion served for the set and making him work to close it out. A single break in the second set was enough for Djokovic, 25, to progress to a final against either Roger Federer or defending champion Andy Murray. Djokovic faded towards the end of a stellar 2011 but looks fresh as he hunts down Federer at the top of the rankings, looking to add the Shanghai Masters title to the China Open crown he won last weekend. Because of his limp end to last season, Djokovic has relatively few points to defend in the rolling 12-month rankings whereas Federer has more to lose after a successful spell towards the end of 2011. The second semi-final between Federer and defending champion Murray comes after two high-profile duels. The Swiss drew first blood, winning the Wimbledon crown in July but Murray demolished Federer to take Olympic gold before going on to win the US Open. Federer, 31, who will be world number one for a 300th week when the new rankings are issued on Monday, is looking to win a record 22nd Masters title, which would take him one above injured Spaniard Rafael Nadal. There are four positions remaining in the eight-man field for the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals next month, with Berdych currently in sixth spot in the Race to London. Djokovic, Federer, Murray and Nadal have all qualified for the end-of-season showpiece. - AFP |
| Canadian ‘relieved’ after Armstrong report Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:45 PM PDT  MONTREAL: Canadian rider Michael Barry, one of six former Lance Armstrong teammates suspended this week, said Saturday he was relieved at no longer having to live a lie over the doping scandal.Barry, who rode more recently for Team Sky, told AFP from his home in Spain that the sport must now try to move on from the scandal and overcome the pressures that bred the drug-taking culture that have plunged it into crisis. “I feel relieved, because I was living a lie. I’ve done things I’m not proud of and which I regret,” said Barry, whose six-month ban from the US anti-doping authority will have no effect, given that he retired from the sport last month. The 36-year-old, who was previously a support rider for Armstrong’s US Postal Service team, said performance-enhancing drugs were rampant among the top cyclists when he first rose to professional ranks, and he was swept along. “I was part of a generation that dreamed of going professional, but what I saw when I got to that level was far from” the imagined picture, Barry said. “I don’t want a young (cyclist) to have to live what I did,” he added. The road racer said he never actually saw Armstrong – who denies ever taking banned substances – doping: “I’ve heard stories about him, but I never saw anything. I don’t know what he did.” But Barry said he felt it was important to speak out, even if others do not. “Are others going to come forward in the coming weeks? I don’t know. Whatever happens, let’s look to the future, let’s change this culture.” The newly retired racer said that Team Sky, the British pro squad he rode with from 2010 until last month, shows it’s possible. The team is ranked first on the WorldTour. Barry added he hopes to contribute to changing the sport to lessen the pressure on would-be champions. “We need to look at the calendar” set by the International Cycling Union (UCI), “which leaves very little time to rest,” he said. Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France victories after a long investigation by the USADA, which accuses him of being at the heart of “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program” ever seen in sport. His five other former teammates now suspended are Levi Leipheimer, Christian Vande Velde, David Zabriskie, Tom Danielson and George Hincapie. - AFP |
| Kerjasama dalam Pakatan berpaksi Tahaluf Siyasi Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:43 PM PDT
“Pakatan Rakyat adalah satu pemuafakatan politik dalam konsep Tahaluf Siyasi yang diluluskan oleh Majlis Syura Ulama dalam skop hukum Feqah politik Islam,” kata beliau dalam blog rasminya. Menurut Hadi yang juga Ahli Parlimen Marang, PAS adalah Parti Islam yang berpaksi dan berpandukan hukum tertinggi mengikut undang -undang tubuhnya (Perlembagaan). “Pelaksanaannya dikawal oleh Majlis Syura Ulama, sehingga boleh membatalkan segala keputusan dan langkah yang bertentangan dengan ajaran Islam. Maka PAS tidak boleh disamakan dengan Umno,” tegas beliau. Ujarnya, “begitu juga hubungan PAS dengan DAP dan kalangan bukan Islam, sangat berbeza dengan hubungan di antara komponen Barisan Nasional (BN) yang tidak berdasar dan berkonsepkan Islam daripada Al Quran, As-Sunnah, Ijma' Ulama dan Qias. Katanya, PAS bekerjasama dalam titik persamaan menentang kezaliman politik dan pentadbiran negara yang dialami oleh seluruh rakyat. “PAS bekerjasama dalam menentang amalan demokrasi yang tempang, pentadbiran negara yang tempang, pengurusan ekonomi yang penuh dengan penyelewengan, mesyarakat yang jahil dengan kelemahan pendidikan dan undang-undang yang tidak ada kehebatan, hingga menyebabkan krisis moral yang parah dengan kebanjiran maksiat dan jenayah,” tambahnya. Umno yang mewakili Melayu Islam dalam BN mencalarkan Islam dan merosakkan imejnya. Sangat malang bagi sesiapa yang tidak tahumembezakan di antara Islam dan Melayu, seperti Arab yang tidak membezakannya dengan Islam. Islam pernah memperkasakan Arab dan Arab tumbang setelah menjadikan Islam hanya kebanggaan sejarah tanpa amalan yang sempurna, walaupun memiliki kekayaan melempah ruah. Justeru itu, beliau menasihatkan ahli dan penyokong PAS supaya merujuk kepada sumber ilmu Islam yang ada dalam PAS, bukannya belajar melalui media yang bersukan dengan Islam dan berniaga dengan politik. PAS katanya tetap berpegang bahawa politik adalah amanah terbesar daripada Allah. “Bahagialah mereka yang menunaikannya dengan istiqamah dan celakalah mereka yang mengkhianatinya. Pikul amanah ini secara berjamaah jangan berseorang diri dan memencilkan diri. Beliau memetik pesanan Rasulullah S.A.W.: “Sesiapa yang memencilkan diri daripada jamaah akan ditawan syaitan, laksana serigala yang menawan kambing yang terpencil daripada kawanannya." “Maka amat bodoh kalau ditipu oleh syaitan yang dikenali,” ujar beliau. |
| Webber takes pole in Red Bull lock-out Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:43 PM PDT  YEONGAM, (South Korea): Mark Webber pipped his team-mate and reigning champion Sebastian Vettel to the line to grab pole position for Sunday’s Korean Grand Prix, ensuring a front-row lock-out for Red Bull.Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren will be on the second row, alongside Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, who leads the drivers’ championship by four points over Vettel – in South Korea on the back of successive victories. Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus was fifth-fastest, followed by Alonso’s Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa. They were ahead of the Lotus of Romain Grosjean and Nico Hulkenberg of Force India. The Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher rounded out the top 10 at a dry but cool Yeongam. A notable absentee from the top 10 shootout was Jenson Button of McLaren, who bowed out in the second qualifying session, along with the Sauber duo of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi, who was third last week in his native Japan. Vettel was quickest in the final practice and in the first two sessions of qualifying. He appeared set for pole until Webber left it late in the session to steam home in one minute 37.242 seconds, just 0.074 seconds ahead. It was the 200th Formula One pole for Red Bull’s engine supplier Renault and the second Red Bull one-two at the front of the pack in as many weeks. “Very very happy to get the job done,” said Webber, who started on pole at Monaco in May, but only after Schumacher was relegated five places on the grid for an incident in Barcelona. Webber won in Monaco, as he did at the British GP. “It was a reasonable lap,” added the cool-headed Australian, who goes into Sunday’s race fifth in the drivers’ standings with four races to go after this weekend. Mathematically he is still in the title hunt. “It’s been a tricky last few weeks for me,” he reflected, having seen his championship ambitions slowly fade away after finishes of 20th, 11th and ninth in the last three races. “It’s a great place to start the race from. I’m looking to get off the first corner very well, that’s important as there are two long straights after that.” After appearing angry, Vettel said he did not blame an engineer for a mix-up over the team radio that saw him run up against the back of Massa, slowing him down during his last run. “Overall we can be very happy,” he said. “We were quite quick in qualifying sessions one and two.” He added: “I thought that Felipe (Massa) was pitting but I don’t believe that you can blame my lap time on Felipe or traffic in the last sector. “It’s true, it was not an ideal situation but if someone has to take the blame then it is me because I think that pole position was within reach today.” Alonso, who has seen Vettel close his lead at the top of the drivers’ standings to the most slender of margins, said it was “a step forward compared to Japan” — where he went out at the first corner with a puncture. The Spaniard added that his Ferrari needed more pace — something he has said since the start of the season. “We must improve it and I expect to see some updates coming, right from the next race in India” he said. “It’s no surprise to see the Red Bulls on the front row, it’s not by chance they were fastest in Q1 and Q2.” He said of his aim in the race, “It’s very simple – to finish ahead of Vettel.” Mercedes were fined 10,000 euros (US$13,000) for an “unsafe release” after Schumacher was involved in a near-collision with Hamilton in the pit lane. The German seven-time world champion pulled sharply out of the garage, causing the McLaren man to swerve to avoid hitting him. Hamilton, who struggled badly in the first qualifying session, brushed off the incident. “It wasn’t a problem, I just – instead of braking right down – sort of drove around him. So it wasn’t an issue,” he said. “We are not far off,” he added of his chances in Korea. “I’m just happy to get a clear lap.” Hamilton, fourth in the standings and still in with a shout of the championship title, cautioned: “But Red Bull have some serious pace.” - AFP |
| All Blacks’ fans angered by sponsorship deal Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:41 PM PDT  WELLINGTON: All Blacks’ fans have reacted angrily to the New Zealand Rugby Union’s (NZRU) controversial decision to sell commercial space on the front of the world champions’ jersey.The All Blacks’ official Facebook page has been flooded with comments from passionate New Zealanders who object to having the name of US insurance giant AIG splashed across the front of the side’s shirt. Unlike most international sports teams, the All Blacks’ famous black attire has largely been commercial free, apart from the logo of kit supplier adidas and a short-lived deal with a local brewer in the 1990s. But, NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said the tradition was unsustainable and the AIG deal, which will run until mid 2018, would provide a much need increase in cashflow. However, his argument did not hold with purists who called the decision a “disgrace” and “disrespectful”. “One of the things that made the All Blacks so special, put them ahead of every other nation and world number one is the pride in the jersey,” Nathan Hulme posted on Facebook. “Now the NZRU have ruined that and what it stands for, sold out our pride and passion. Right at the heart of the all black jersey.” Peter Armitage added: “Steve Tew hang your head, you are a disgrace to the greatest team the world has ever seen.” Nico de Jong acknowledged the NZRU need to attract funds but not at the expense of the black jersey. “It is part of our kiwi heritage, and by placing a company name on the front I think is completely disrespectful, especially considering it is a foreign company,” he wrote. Other critics targeted the choice of sponsor given that AIG required a $182 billion bailout from the US government at the height of the global financial crisis. “It is so disappointing to see the NZRU choose such an unworthy company to partner with and even worse, give ownership of the black jersey by splashing their tainted brand over where the heart once beat,” wrote Kano Wins. John Copestake said: “You have ruined all the history and class of the black jersey by staining it with AIG on the chest. NZRU you make me sick.” Even players objected to the original proposal, forcing a reduction in the size of the logo and the removal of a white box around it. “When we saw the size of it and the box we thought it was too big for the jersey,” hooker Keven Mealamu revealed. “So it’s nice that they were respectful and able to take the box off and keep it to the size it is now.” But Tew made clear there was no room for any further compromise. “We respect people who decide that it’s not a good idea, but we’re the ones in charge of the legacy at the moment and we’ll make the decisions we need to make,” he said. He added it cost about NZ$100 million ($82 million) to run rugby in New Zealand and significantly more cash was needed for the sport to survive and grow. “It’s a challenge for us, and we need some money.” The All Blacks will wear the new jersey for the first time when they play Australia in Brisbane on October 20. - AFP |
| Anwar suka menipu rakyat, kata Fadillah Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:39 PM PDT
Beliau menjelaskan ini terbukti dengan dakwaan Anwar yang beliau (Fadillah) tidak lama lagi akan menyertai Pakatan Rakyat. “Nampak sangatlah dia tidak ada idea lain sehinggakan saya juga turut diheret sama dalam permainannya,” katanya selepas membuat lawatan ke rumah Haziman Leman di Taman Sri Wangi Matang. Fadillah percaya tindakan Anwar itu akibat beliau sudah tersepit dengan keadaan janji yang gagal dikotakannya sejak pilihan raya umum 2008. Ketua Pemuda Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) itu, yang juga Timbalan Menteri Sains, Teknologi dan Inovasi berkata orang tidak akan hairan dengan permainan politik Anwar itu kerana menurut rekod “menipu itu adalah kebiasaan” bagi beliau. “Dari janji 16 September, dia tidak henti-henti untuk meracuni fikiran orang sehinggakan ada pula pusingan kedua sekarang,” tegasnya. Fadillah memberitahu, orang ramai tidak usah hendak mempercayai kata-kata Ketua Pembangkang itu kerana ia adalah cubaan untuk memecah-belahkan perpaduan Barisan Nasional. “Rakyat kita bijak dan tidak akan mudah tertipu dengan muslihat mereka. Anwar sebenarnya ini sudah terdesak dan tidak laku lagi di kalangan orang ramai,” katanya. |
| Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:35 PM PDT As though lines and wrinkles are not enough to get us all flustered as we age, now comes a new crisis: Teeth. The advancing years affect teeth as much as sun exposure affects skin. Yellow teeth, the appearance of lip lines, receding jaws that make the face drop – all this contribute to a slackened appearance, with hollowed cheeks and even frown lines. For those in the know, dental facelift has been the new mantra. It involves manipulating of veneers where the end product will give you a perfect set of teeth for sure, but it'll also set you back a couple of hundred Ringgit.
Make rinsing a routine. In addition to brushing your teeth twice a day, flossing once a day and seeing your dentist regularly, you should also include rinsing as part of your routine, especially when you've had coffee, tea or any other acidic foods that can affect the enamel. Caffeine from tea and coffee can stain teeth and rinsing helps minimise residue, staining and tooth decay. Or you can just drink water to rinse your mouth straight away.
Schedule a dentist visit. Twice a year is the recommended visits dentists advocate for the average person. More if you have tooth problems. Get your dentist to check the state of your fillings (amalgams) during these visits as fillings done when you were small may be overdue for replacement. Plus, the new generation of fillings, such as white composite, are less sensitive than amalgam-filled tooth and are have better aesthetics. Fresh fillings can also help prevent tooth decay and loss. Get a whitening toothpaste. The old-style bleachers that harm teeth have given way to a new generation of ingredients that help take off stains closer to the teeth surface. They work by oxidising stain molecules with hydrogen peroxide. Long-term use can effect a commendable result. |
| Afghan anti-Taliban leader prefers to go it alone Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:14 PM PDT  PULI ALAM, (Afghanistan): He took up arms after the Taliban killed his mother in a hail of bullets and inspired a local uprising that ousted the insurgents from his area.But Sayed Farhad Akbari, a 32-year-old construction company director, says he has refused to be co-opted into a government-sponsored police programme, branding the authorities corrupt and ineffectual. The interior ministry has arranged funding for 300 new Afghan Local Police (ALP) in Logar province, just south of Kabul and considered key to protecting the capital. And according to both Akbari and a senior provincial police commander, he and his followers have been invited to join up as the government tries to capitalise on the uprising and fill a gaping hole in security. The ALP is a branch of the Afghan National Police, with members intended to act as local security guards. However, the programme has proved controversial with critics including Human Rights Watch likening the force to a militia amid accusations of serious rights abuses and fears over the proliferation of armed groups. Speaking by telephone Akbari, who has two wives and 10 children, said he fought back after a series of Taliban atrocities. They killed seven schoolgirls from his village and closed their school, as well as five members of the same family whose son worked for the government and a local mullah who had called on the insurgents to stop the violence. “They also killed my mother who was travelling from Kabul to Logar with my brother and four other people. They opened fire at their car. All the others were wounded but my mother died,” Akbari, from Kulangar district in central Logar, told AFP. “After that incident I was fed up and angry. I wanted to leave the country but I changed my mind. I thought I should stay and help save my village from the Taliban.” What started as a gathering at a mosque grew until he had the support of 50 villages and 200 armed men, with 2,000 more waiting to join once weapons are available, he said. He claims to have spent $160,000 of his own money to buy guns, cars and motorcycles, and local people have provided fuel, food and drink. The uprising in Logar followed similar anti-Taliban movements in Ghazni and Laghman provinces, but those came amid fears local militia leaders were trying to reassert their authority ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops. Akbari said his group had killed 23 Taliban in three clashes since the uprising started in August, but were simply villagers fighting through necessity. Colonel Mohammad Tahir, a senior police officer in provincial capital Puli Alam, said the same people who joined the uprising were now set to join the ALP programme. “They want to continue their mission but they want help from the government,” he said, adding that the Afghan army and police had already been providing them with ammunition. But Akbari said his group had no desire to join, dismissing the ALP as “not very effective” and claiming they complained of not being paid for several months. “Yes, the government has asked us to join the ALP but we will not. The government is corrupt, they keep freeing the Taliban they arrest. The government has lost its strength and effectiveness,” he said. With the departure of about 30,000 US surge troops in October, the NATO footprint in Afghanistan is shrinking. Lieutenant Colonel James Wright, commander of 1st Squadron (Airborne) 91st Cavalry Regiment, the US force in Logar, said local police were a necessity. “Frankly they’re at the point now where they flat out have to do it. They’ve come to their senses that something is better than nothing,” he said, adding that the Kolangar uprising and the ALP programme were at least seen as “mutually supportive”. “They would either be recruits or help augment what’s going on with it,” he said. But interior ministry spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said: “We have no plans to incorporate the uprisings into the ALP. They are by the people and people are leading it.” NATO is trying to build trust in the government through adviser programmes that target policing and the court system, but when it comes to the release of suspected insurgents Akbari has a point. Of about 70 people detained by NATO and handed over to Afghan investigators in the province over the past six months, only six cases have gone forward to trial, said Navy Lieutenant Anthony Sham, part of a two-man rule of law team based near Puli Alam. There have been no convictions. “There’s a lot of things we see in the Afghan system that we deem as corrupt and sometimes they deem as cultural,” said Sham. “One of the big things we see in Logar is not necessarily payment to get somebody out of jail, but people vouching for each other, somebody in a position of leadership saying, ‘No, this detainee is a good person.’” Having lost faith in the government, Akbari prefers to tackle the Taliban himself, and he said he had heard of three other areas of Logar where people were preparing to rise up. “We are not against Islam, we are against those who misuse Islam for their own benefit and terrorise people,” he said. “The area is now cleared. We are also helping young boys who study and get brainwashed in Taliban madrassas to come and study in our schools.” - AFP |
| Women could save Japan’s economy: IMF’s Lagarde Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:14 PM PDT
Christine Lagarde said Japan’s shrinking and greying workforce, which has left the country struggling to pay welfare bills, could really benefit from an injection of female talent. “Because there is this ageing problem… we believe that women could actually help very much,” Lagarde told reporters in Tokyo, where the IMF is holding its annual meetings. “It’s critically important the world over but it’s particularly important in Japan,” she said, referring to IMF research on the role of women in the country “that indicates that women could actually save Japan”. “Today you have five out of 10 Japanese women out of the job market, as opposed to two out of 10 men,” she said. Lagarde said if there were “better kindergartens and better assistance and cultural acceptance that women can actually do the job, it would be excellent for the Japanese economy”, she said. Despite high levels of education, many women drop out of the workforce when they have children, and social pressures to play the homemaker remain. Japan’s once world-beating economy has spent more than two decades treading water with entrenched deflation and anaemic growth. Lagarde, a former finance minister of her native France, was speaking after Bank of Japan governor Masaaki Shirakawa stressed the importance of raising the labour participation rate of elderly people and women. “If we could succeed in raising the participation rate, then the growth of labour force will be reversed from a negative territory to a positive territory,” he told a seminar. Japan’s population is declining and ageing as young people increasingly put off starting families, seeing them as a crimp on their lifestyles and careers. The slow economy has also discouraged young people from having babies. Japan’s population last year shrank at the fastest rate since comparable records began, dropping by a record 0.2 percent, to an estimated 127,799,000 as of October 1 last year. It is expected to shrink dramatically over the next few decades. The proportion of people over the age of 65 stood at 23.3 percent, an all-time high and the highest percentage in the world, according to a government survey. - AFP |
| Fourteen monks killed in 1611 beatified in Prague Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  PRAGUE: Fourteen monks of the Order of Friars Minor, lynched by an angry crowd in 1611 after coming to then-Protestant Prague to preach Catholicism, were beatified in Prague yesterday.Vicar Frederic Bachstein and his 13 companions were given the honorific of “blessed” in St Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. In a letter, local clerics described the killing as “a memento which, even after four centuries, can help understand more deeply certain historic rifts between the Catholics and Protestants and heal them.” Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree to beatify the Italian, German, Czech, Spanish, French and Dutch monks on May 10 in the first such ceremony to be held in the Prague archdicese. The 14 friars came to the monastery of Our Lady of the Snows in Prague, where nine in ten people were Protestants, in 1604. They were killed on February 15, 1611, when a crowd invaded the monastery at a time of religious clashes in the run-up to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). Before the ceremony, their bones were lifted from their graves in Our Lady of the Snows church in Prague to be analysed by scientists. The beatification process was launched soon after their deaths but was only finished four centuries later, largely for political reasons including the totalitarian Communist rule in former Czechoslovakia from 1948-1989, which banned all churches. “Our brothers came to a destroyed and desecrated place” in 1604, Jeronym Jurka, minister provincial of the order, told reporters this week, adding his order had found the monastery in a similar state after Communism had been toppled 20 years ago. “Like four centuries ago, we live in an environment where we are a minority… and which is no longer hostile but rather indifferent,” he said, referring to the fact that the Czech Republic ranks among Europe’s least religious countries. A 2011 census showed Roman Catholics were the strongest religious group in the Czech Republic with more than a million believers. But almost five million Czechs or half of the population left the religion column empty, while 3.6 million said they were non-believers. - AFP |
| Hollande speaks out on rights, conflict at Francophone summit Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  KHINSHASA: France’s President Francois Hollande stressed human rights and the need to end the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as leaders of French-speaking nations met for a summit yesterday.Only some 15 heads of state of the Francophonie organisation’s 75 member countries were present in the parliament building in Kinshasa alongside their host, DR Congo’s President Joseph Kabila. Hollande, who has angered Kinshasa by saying the situation in DR Congo was unacceptable with regard to rights, democracy and recognition of the opposition, drove the point home in “frank and direct” talks with Kabila just before the summit opened. “Francophonie is not just the French language. Speaking French also means speaking about human rights, because the rights of man were written in French,” he said after other meetings with representatives of the opposition and NGOs, referring to the Universal Declaration drafted by French revolutionaries. A member of Hollande’s entourage said it was “indispensable” that the French leader met privately with Kabila “to deliver a message on human rights”. The situation in DR Congo, where the eastern regions are the theatre of violent rebellions and ethnic conflict, as well as in Mali, where radical Islamists have seized control of the north of the country, were expected to dominate the weekend summit. At the opening of the event, Kabila was greeted with tumultuous applause as he arrived in the chamber, but elsewhere in Kinshasa police clashed with dozens of demonstrators opposed to his regime defying a ban on protests. Kabila spoke about “an unjust war imposed” by outsiders in the east of the country, without specifically mentioning Rwanda, accused by Kinshasa and the United Nations of backing rebels there. “While our people are sparing no effort to improve their lives, negative forces beholden to outside interests have for several months worked to destablise our country in North Kivu province”, on the eastern border with Rwanda, Kabila said to the summit. Hollande had earlier also condemned the “outside attacks” in eastern DR Congo where the Congolese army is combatting several militia groups in the mineral-rich region. He called for renewing and if necessary re-enforcing the UN mission to the country (MONUSCO). Rwandan President Paul Kagame was notably absent from the summit. His country has denied the charges of giving military support to the rebels. The summit also heard a rallying cry Saturday from the secretary general of the Francophonie group for the continent of Africa to “take its rightful place” in the leadership of world organisations, especially the UN Security Council. The 77-year-old former Senegalese president Abdou Diouf called it “a lack of democracy in international relations” that the richest countries decide the future of all, especially the least fortunate. He said in this way “we put the stability and security of the world in danger”. Earlier Saturday in Kinshasa police used tear gas on some stone-throwing protesters, who claim Kabila’s 2011 re-election was riddled with fraud, to break up the banned demonstration. Hollande, however, is expected to meet with the leader of the opposition UPDS party, Etienne Tshisekedi, later Saturday in Kinshasa. The 14th Francophonie summit which runs through Sunday will also likely focus on the future of an organisation that has struggled for relevancy since its creation in 1970. - AFP |
| Shot Pakistani girl still on ventilator Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban remained on a ventilator in hospital yesterday, as people continued to pray for her recovery, the military said.The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who campaigned for the right to an education, has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than US$100,000 for the capture of her attackers. “(The) health condition of Malala continues to remain satisfactory. Her vitals are okay and she is still on ventilator,” the military said in an update. “A board of doctors is continuously monitoring her condition,” it added. Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Malala on Friday, paying tribute to her and two friends who were also wounded when a gunman boarded their school bus on Tuesday and opened fire. “It was not a crime against an individual but a crime against humanity and an attack on our national and social values,” he told reporters, pledging renewed vigour in Pakistan’s struggle with Islamist militancy. Military spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa Friday said the next 36 to 48 hours would be critical for Malala. The attack has sickened Pakistan, where Malala won international prominence with a blog for the BBC that highlighted atrocities under the Taliban who terrorised the Swat valley from 2007 until a 2009 army offensive. Activists say the shooting should be a wake-up call to whose who advocate appeasement with the Taliban, but analysts suspect there will be no seismic shift in a country that has sponsored radical Islam for decades. Schools opened with prayers for Malala on Friday and special prayers were held at mosques across the country for her speedy recovery at the country’s top military hospital in the city of Rawalpindi. - AFP |
| Japan says may purchase new Europe bailout bonds Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  TOKYO: Japan said yesterday it would consider buying bonds issued by Europe’s new permanent bailout fund in a bid to help soothe the eurozone’s crippling debt crisis.“We will consider buying them after carefully reviewing what Europe itself will be doing” on reforms, Finance Minister Koriki Jojima told a press briefing on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s annual meetings in Tokyo. Jojima said he told his French counterpart Pierre Moscovici that Tokyo may scoop up paper issued by the new 500 billion euro (US$650 billion) European Stability Mechanism (ESM) “to help stabilise Europe’s financial system”. The ESM was initially due to enter service on July 1 but became operational this month after it was delayed by a challenge at the German Constitutional Court. Japan, which counts Europe as a major export market, had previously purchased billions of dollars in bonds issued by the ESM’s predecessor emergency fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. - AFP |
| Ahmadinejad to push for Asia cooperation in regional forums Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  TEHRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, current chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, travels next week to Azerbaijan and Kuwait to attend forums on boosting cooperation in Asia, the state-run IRNA news agency reported yesterday.He will attend a summit of the Economic Cooperation Organisation in Baku on Tuesday and outline Iran’s positions on cooperation with member countries, said the head of his international affairs office, Mohammad Reza Forghani. The organisation groups Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad will head to the oil-rich Gulf state of Kuwait to attend the first summit of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue – a 31-strong forum set up in 2002 to promote cooperation and dialogue. Members include Asian countries, as well as Russia, Iran and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council of which Kuwait is part. Ahmadinejad is due to deliver a speech at the summit “to propose means of reinforcing cooperation among Asian nations,” IRNA quoted Forghani as saying. In September, Iran hosted a summit of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement, scoring a point against Western efforts to isolate it over its controversial nuclear activities. But Iran has uneasy relations with both Azerbaijan and Kuwait. Tensions between Iran and mainly Muslim but officially secular Azerbaijan have risen over the past year, with a series of arrests in Baku of attack plot suspects with alleged links to Tehran. On Tuesday, Azerbaijan jailed 22 alleged Islamic radicals – all Azerbaijani citizens – for plotting attacks on the US and Israeli embassies in the ex-Soviet state in collaboration with Iran. In May, Kuwait sentenced to life in prison two Iranians, a Kuwaiti and a stateless man to life for spying for Iran, triggering a condemnation from Tehran which demanded they be released. -AFP |
| Italian court to decide on trial for cruise ship disaster Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  ROME: An Italian court will begin hearings on Monday to determine who could stand trial for a cruise ship disaster that left 32 people dead, amid accusations of safety breaches and fatal delays.Hundreds of lawyers, scientific experts and survivors from the Costa Concordia tragedy in January are expected to attend the hearing in the Tuscan city of Grosseto, not far from where the giant liner lies beached. The ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, five crew members and three managers from ship owner Costa Crociere are under investigation. The court will review expert findings into the crash before ruling on who, if anyone, should stand trial. Schettino, who was described by Italian media as “Italy’s most hated man” in the wake of the January 13 shipwreck, is accused of delaying the evacuation and then abandoning ship before all the 4,229 people on board had been rescued. He was placed under house arrest on the Amalfi coast after the crash, but was released on probation in July and has not been formally charged. The captain could face a multiple manslaughter charge for performing a risky “salute” manoeuvre close to Giglio island where the ship hit rocks and failing to inform the authorities, causing a fatal delay in the ship’s evacuation. The other crew members who could face trial are the ship’s second-in-command, three officers who were on the bridge when the crash happened, and a safety official who told the coastguard the ship had merely suffered a blackout. Experts will present their analysis of data from the ship’s “black box” and other equipment on board, followed by statements from forensic police. Some of the 126 lawyers representing survivors may also take the stand in the closed-door hearing, which is expected to last several days. Schettino, one of the officers and all three Costa executives are likely to be present, according to Italian media reports. Schettino has insisted it was his skilled manoeuvring that stopped the ship from hitting the rocks head on. He also said a “divine hand” had guided him. Madonna, what have I done? The widely mocked captain also denies abandoning ship, insisting that he did not leave it voluntarily but tripped and fell into a life boat. “Madonna, what have I done?”, he was heard to exclaim in leaked audio recordings from the ship’s bridge just seconds after the crash at 9:45 pm. In a panicked call to another officer he asked, “Are we really going down?”, but minutes later gave the order to tell passengers there had been a blackout. “My career as a captain is over,” he told his wife by phone from the listing vessel before finally sending a distress signal at 10:34 pm, and giving the order to abandon ship at 10:58 pm, as passengers scrambled into life boats. Recordings of Schettino’s tense conversation with the coastguard on the night of the tragedy revealed how he refused point blank to return on board, and survivors said he had been sitting on dry land while the ship keeled over. “Get back on board now, for (expletive) sake!” the coastguard is heard shouting. In an interview in July, the captain blamed his crew members, saying he was distracted but someone on the bridge should have spotted the offshore reef. He said he did not “feel like I committed a crime” but asked forgiveness. A pre-trial report, commissioned by the judge and leaked in the Italian press in September, heaps blame on Schettino but also points the finger at Costa Crociere, Europe’s biggest cruise operator, for failing to act promptly. Roberto Ferrarini, Costa’s crisis coordinator who was in contact with Schettino, “did not appear to have the real pulse of the conditions on the ship” despite having all the important information at his disposal, the report found. The order to abandon ship came almost half an hour after Ferrarini was informed, but Costa Crociere has said it was Schettino’s blunder not theirs. The report also said the crew members were unprepared for emergencies – leading to a chaotic and slow evacuation — and language barriers between crew members had meant that crucial orders on and below deck were misunderstood. Survivors have launched legal actions against the ship’s owners in France, Germany and the United States, including a $528-million (400-million-euro) lawsuit in the US state of Florida, home of parent company, Carnival Corporation. The ghostly wreck of the 114,500-tonne luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia is still beached on its side off Giglio island. A salvage team is working to stabilise and refloat the rusting hulk which should be removed by spring. - AFP |
| Australian PM visits Bali bombings ‘ground zero’ Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  KUTA, (Indonesia): Australia’s prime minister paid her respects yesterday to the 202 people who perished a decade ago in the Bali nightclub bombings, visiting a commemorative stone monument on the resort island now covered in flowers, flags and victims’ photos.Friends and families of the dead – many from Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the blasts – have for the past week left tokens of their grief, some breaking down in tears, others looking for closure to an event that changed their lives. “This has been a very emotional 24 hours in Bali,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters after visiting the monument, which stands across from the old Sari Club that Islamists attacked, together with Paddy’s Bar, on October 12, 2002, bringing carnage to Kuta’s party strip. “This is time for us to mark a nation-changing event,” she said. Gillard arrived in Indonesia Thursday night, despite police declaring their highest security alert over an apparent terror threat to Friday’s 10-year anniversary ceremony, which was attended by hundreds of families. Police moved to reassure mourners hours before the ceremony, saying the threat was “not significant” and Gillard said yesterday she had felt no anxiety over the warning. She praised Indonesia for its crackdown on terrorism, which has crippled the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network behind the bombings and several other deadly attacks. “This terror network has been held to account. People have been prosecuted and (the network) has been dismantled.” Friday’s ceremony was attended by hundreds of families, with remarks made by relatives of the victims, Gillard, John Howard -prime minister at the time of the attacks – and Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa. The emotionally charged ceremony was seen as a point of closure for many who have mourned lost loved ones for a decade. But for others 10 years is not long enough. “It (the ceremony) pulled my heartstrings and made me cry, especially hearing from victims’ families,” Australian Jan Laczynski, 45, who was at the Sari Club hours before the attacks that killed five of his Indonesian friends. “Lots of people are talking about it like a good ending to what happened. But for me, it’s not over. I’ll be back here on October 12 next year.” - AFP |
| The Iranian director who makes Westerns Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  SEOUL, (South Korea): Negahdar Jamali is an Iranian filmmaker who has for the past 35 years made American-inspired westerns complete with cowboys and Indians in the deserts surrounding the city of Shiraz.Poor and illiterate, Jamali has nevertheless dedicated his whole life to making more than 50 movies, often in the face of pressure to give up his dream from family and from the society surrounding him. “I had always wished to be an actor,” said Jamali. “However no director would give me a chance. So I decided to become a director to make my own western movies and after a while I fell in love with directing.” He funds the films through working, either wrecking cars at an auto lot with a sledgehammer or by selling costume jewellery from a blanket on the ground. Then he recruits actors from the streets of Shiraz, convincing local market stall holders to donate feathers – sometimes plucked from live chickens — so he can make the Indian costumes that add a degree of authenticity to his decidedly low budget, B-grade productions. Jamali’s story has been told in the documentary “My Name Is Negahdar Jamali And I Make Westerns”, which this week was given its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. “I wish when audiences see my real life in this documentary, they will see me as a good director who can make powerful westerns,” said Jamali in an email to AFP from Shiraz. “I hope producers who watch the movie come to me asking me to make films for them.” Jamali, aged in his 60s, chose not to attend the film festival due to the distance and worries about cultural differences he might face. The documentary was represented at Busan by its director Kamran Heidari. “I found him an inspiration,” said Heidari of Jamali. “There is a level of dedication and professionalism in his work that you cannot find in mainstream cinema.” At one stage in the film, Jamali says he has been obsessed with westerns since he was a boy, counting the late, great director John Ford (“The Searchers”, “Stagecoach”) as an idol. Ford’s films – and his own – are about men who try to “remove the blanket of evil from the land,” said Jamali. While “My Name is Negahdar…” might begin as an oddity it soon evolves into a moving tribute to a man who will let nothing separate him from his art. “I almost fell into the trap of making a social documentary but then I realised that with this film cinema is the only thing that matters,” said Heidari. “It is about a man and his love for cinema and for making cinema. His love for cinema is just so pure. He doesn’t want to make money out of them, he just wants to make these films and he puts everything he has into it,” he said. “It’s inspiring and a lot more honest to just tell his story.” Everyone wants him to succeed While making a production called “The Great Revenge”, Jamali faces mounting bills at home, plus the ire of his wife and young son, and many in the local community who think he should be putting his family’s concerns first. But he labours on, scraping together just enough money to pay his actors and for film stock. He eventually sees the production to its end and places handmade posters around town next to fading images of Iran’s religious leaders. When the film premiered on a wall in a local square, an audience of around 20 gathered on carpets in the dirt. “He makes copies of his films and then hands them out in the community,” said Heidari. “It is a community effort. Everyone wants him to succeed and there is more and more recognition for what he is doing.” Far from trying to stop Jamali’s work — which might be expected given its American nature and recent animosity between the two nations — the local authorities in Shiraz have begun to recognise Jamali’s contribution to the local community. The free DVDs, screenings, and the work he gives to his crew of local “actors” have led to the director being handed some small awards, Heidari said. The fact that the director was illiterate only became apparent halfway through the shooting of the documentary. “He kept that hidden from us,” said Heidari. “He has papers with him to make it look like he is reading from a script but they are just drawings, like that of a child. “But part of his great skill is his ability to improvise as the film is being made.” “The Great Revenge” seems typical of the Jamali oeuvre — Indians attack, cowboys right the perceived wrong. But there is an unbridled joy in its simple delivery. “His enthusiasm for cinema is infectious,” said Heidari, who chose to submit the film to Busan on the advice of respected Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami (“The Wind Will Carry Us”). “Mr Kiarostami thought Busan would be a great place to introduce Jamali to the world.” Heidari said he hopes other festivals around the world will pick up his documentary and said he had plans to help Jamali box up his films into a DVD collection, with the documentary included as part of the package. Crucially, Heidari wanted to bring the filmmaker some attention — something Jamali was happy to accept. “At first I thought I would be prepared to act in this documentary like my other western movies that I had acted in before,” he said. “But afterwards I realised my life is not a movie role. I feel satisfied in the end that people will see this film, and see my real life.” - AFP |
| Turkish PM calls for UN reform to tackle Syria crisis Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  ISTANBUL: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called yesterday for reform to the UN Security Council to allow progress to resolve the Syria crisis which has been held up by veto powers Russia and China.“If we must wait for one or two permanent members, then Syria’s fate is really in great danger,” Erdogan told a conference in Istanbul. Moscow and Beijing, as two of the five permanent members of the Security Council, have so far blocked three draft resolutions backed by Western and Arab countries, accusing them of interference in Syrian affairs. “It’s time to change the structure of international institutions, starting with the UN Security Council,” Erdogan said, calling for “wider, fairer and more effective representation”. “By failing to implement an effective policy towards events in Syria, the Security Council is rapidly losing its legitimacy in the eyes of the oppressed elsewhere in the world,” he charged. He said reform of the council should take into account the growing strength of countries including Turkey, Brazil, India and Indonesia, adding: “The West is no longer the only centre of the world.” Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had separate talks with Arab League chief Nabil El-Arabi on the Syria crisis and the latest developments on the border between the two countries where five Turks were killed by Syrian shelling on October 3, Anatolia news agency said. With rebel fighters in control of large swathes of Syria’s border area, there have been a series of incidents of cross-border fire this month that have sparked retaliatory shelling by NATO member Turkey and heightened UN concern about the potential for escalation. Davutoglu and Arabi also discussed the Syrian opposition which Ankara supports and the interception Wednesday by Turkish fighter aircraft of a Syrian passenger jet which Erdogan said carried an illegal consignment of munitions and Russian military equipment. Yesterday Turkey’s leaders were also to meet international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. During his visit to Istanbul Westerwelle had talks with the leader of the main Syrian opposition alliance, the Syrian National Council, Abdel Basset Sayda. Turkish diplomats said that Brahimi, who has been tasked by the Arab League and United Nations with finding a solution to the Syria crisis, would discuss all aspects of the 19-month conflict with Davutoglu and Turkish President Abdullah Gul. Separately, Erdogan also met Tunisia’s Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem and the leader of one of Libya’s largest political parties, the National Forces Alliance. - AFP |
| Qaeda chief urges more protests at anti-Islam film Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT
In the seven-minute audio, Zawahiri hailed “the honourable people… who stormed the US embassy in Benghazi and those who protested outside the US mission in Cairo where they replaced the US flag with that of Islam and jihad.” The amateurish film depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a thuggish deviant offended many Muslims and sparked anti-US protests in a number of countries that cost several lives and saw mobs set US missions, schools and businesses ablaze. On September 11, the anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Libya’s second city of Benghazi. Zawahiri called on those who protested “to continue to counter the US-Crusader-Zionist attack on Islam and Muslims and urge other Muslims to follow suit.” He condemned the United States “whose laws allow attacks on the Muslim prophet and their holy book (the Koran), in the name of freedom of expression, while charging those who attack Jews with anti-Semitism.” Other affiliated groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have made similar statements on the film “Innocence of Muslims.” - AFP |
| IMF, World Bank warn on ‘emergency’ in west Africa Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT
“We are troubled by the acute humanitarian emergency in the Sahel region where hunger threatens the lives of 19 million people and the stability of the region,” said a statement from the organisations’ joint development committee. “Food security and food price volatility remain persistent threats to development and merit continued attention.” The IMF and World Bank, which are holding annual meetings in Tokyo, called for accelerated efforts to help millions in the vast desert area “permanently escape the cycle of emergency aid”. The Sahel stretches across a swathe of west Africa, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. The warning came amid preparations for an international military intervention aimed at reconquering northern Mali – home to the fabled city of Timbuktu – which was seized by Islamist rebels earlier this year. In March, a military coup in the capital Bamako toppled President Amadou Toumani Toure, with the vast country’s north and east falling to Tuareg rebels and militias linked to Al-Qaeda. This year, more than 18 million people in the region have been hit by a severe food crisis, with some 1.1 million children facing acute malnutrition, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The instability in northern Mali has led 400,000 people to leave their homes, with more than half fleeing into neighbouring countries, straining the infrastructure of already poor western African nations. - AFP |
| Chinese political system could ‘blow up’, says US academic Posted: 13 Oct 2012 06:13 PM PDT  PARIS: China’s top-down political system, under pressure from a growing middle class empowered by wealth and social networks, is likely to “blow up at some point,” US academic Francis Fukuyama told AFP in an interview.“China has always been a country with a big information problem where the emperor can’t figure out what’s going on” at a grassroots level, said Fukuyama, best known for his 1992 book “The End of History and the Last Man,” which argues that liberal democracy is the fulcrum of social evolution. “This is in so many respects exactly the Communist Party’s problem. Because they don’t have a free media, they don’t have local elections, they can’t really judge what their people are thinking,” he said this week, ahead of a conference on geopolitics in Paris. An isolated central Chinese leadership compensates by gathering information through polling and eavesdropping on the nation’s massively used micro-blogging platforms, especially the Twitter-like Sina Weibo, Fukuyama contends. But these same networks are fueling “the growth of a national consciousness that did not exist under the controlled media setting of the Communist regime,” he said. “That is one of the reasons I think that China’s system is going to blow up as some point.” The US academic, based at Stanford University, pointed to the fallout from a crash of China’s showcase high-speed trains in July 2011 that left 40 dead and deeply shocked the the nation. High-level officials sought to bury parts of the twisted wreckage, presumably to impede a thorough investigation as to what caused the accident, but a tsunami of chatter and photos on Weibo forced the government to backtrack. A historically strong central state held in check neither by organized religion nor by civil society has helped China’s leaders engineer spectacular and sustained growth, Fukuyama argues. “You have to credit them with an amazing performance over the last 30 years.” But the absence of genuine rule by law and mechanisms for holding those in power accountable also leaves he country vulnerable to what he calls “the bad emperor” problem, he added. “Up to now, their leadership has been composed of people who lived through the Cultural Revolution, and they do not want to see that repeated. But once they die off there’s no guarantee you won’t get another Mao,” he said. The recent purging of Communist Party boss Bo Xilai on charges of corruption was driven in part by other leaders’ fear of his growing popularity, Fukuyama said. “One of the reasons they felt they had to get rid of him was that he was a charismatic leader… developing a populist base that could blow up the whole system.” The full transcript of the interview can be found at http://blogs.afp.com/geopolitics. - AFP |
| Nobel for EU praised in European, not British Posted: 13 Oct 2012 08:58 AM PDT  PARIS: European newspapers yesterday praised the decision to award this year’s Nobel Peace prize to the EU, with the notable exception of the British press, most of which poured scorn on the decision.“EU have got to be joking!” the Sun tabloid said in a headline, quoting Conservative ex-finance minister Norman Lamont as calling Friday’s prize “ridiculous and absurd”. “Nobel peace prize for idiocy,” declared the right-wing Daily Mail, beside a photo of protesters in Athens dressing as Nazis while demonstrating against EU-imposed austerity as German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited this week. Elsewhere the press reaction was much more favourable, despite several commentators pointing out that the European Union, wracked with debt and deficit and struggling to maintain its coherence, is not currently looking its best. “Good idea, bad laureate,” opined German magazine Der Spiegel. “No one can seriously reproach the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. “That’s the problem, it’s a too-easy decision. It would have been more courageous to highlight someone, Jacques Delors, who embodies what European policy lacks these days,” referring to the French former head of the EU’s executive commission. The Belgian Le Soir, in an editorial entitled “60 years of peace despite the crises”, said that “European citizens, many of whom have reasons to lose hope today, should take this Nobel Prize as a reminder that Europe has up till now been a major player in the progress of democracy”. The Italian centre-right daily La Stampa took a similar view: “The prize comes as a surprise during the most difficult moments of the process of continental integration, as the crisis hits families incessantly… It is finally a concrete recognition of a path which has afforded the continent 67 years without conflict.” For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the European project “is not a project of the past, but remains a mission for the future. The Nobel Peace Prize should restore the courage of Europeans to continue to work towards their common goal.” It was all very different from the attitude taken in the British press where even the left-of-centre Independent used an image of Greek rioters, surrounded by debris and tear gas, on its front cover, with a quote from the Norway-based Nobel committee: “A unique project that replaced war with peace”. The Times dubbed the award “frivolous” and said the European project had turned into “a utopian scheme for remaking the continent of Europe”. Its commentators slammed the rise of the extreme right as well as the debt meltdown. And the conservative Daily Telegraph wrote in an editorial that the decision “prompts, above all, one question: is it too late for Alfred Nobel’s heirs to ask for their money back? “The greatest service it has done is not to diplomacy, but to comedy.” The Financial Times was a lone British voice backing the award, saying it “rightly recognises a historic feat”. Prime Minister David Cameron is under pressure from right-wingers in his Conservative Party to hold a referendum on whether Britain should change its relationship with the EU, or pull out altogether. He has repeatedly said that the crisis afflicting the euro, of which Britain is not a member, is hurting his country’s recession-hit economy. - AFP |
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