Wednesday, August 31, 2011

So! Who Says Only Malaysia Arrest Protesters!


Daryl Hannah arrested in White House oil protest

American actress Daryl Hannah has been arrested in front of the White House along with other environmental protesters who oppose a planned oil pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf Coast.


Hannah was released after paying a $100 fine, following her arrest for failure to obey a lawful order, said US Park Police spokesman Sergeant David Schlosser.

More than 70 people were arrested in the Tar Sands Action protest on Tuesday, which is named after efforts to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project to bring oil sands petroleum from Canada to Texas refineries.Read more.


Tuesday, August 30, 2011

SELAMAT HARI RAYA


TO ALL MALAYSIANS,MY FELLOW MUSLIMS AND EVERYONE WHO VISITS THIS BLOG REGULARLY.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

How to Catch Qaddafi

BY BENJAMIN RUNKLE

History has a strange way of repeating itself, often more quickly than anticipated. Within hours of invading Panama in 1989, U.S. forces had decimated the Panamanian Defense Forces and were greeted as liberators by the long-suffering Panamanian people. Yet the failure to immediately capture Gen. Manuel Noriega, the thuggish, pock-marked Panamanian strongman, dominated perceptions of Operation Just Cause. At the first post-invasion news conference in Washington, reporters asked: "Could we really consider Just Cause successful as long as we did not have Noriega in custody?"

More than a decade later, coalition forces overwhelmed the Iraqi Army and seized Baghdad after a lightning three-week campaign in spring 2003. But the ostensible target of the invasion, dictator Saddam Hussein, disappeared. Despite the initial euphoria of liberation, ordinary Iraqis were plagued by a sense of growing unease and disbelief as graffiti praising Saddam began to emerge in Iraq's so-called Sunni Triangle, bearing messages such as "Saddam is still our leader" and "Saddam the hero will be back." While Noriega was apprehended within two weeks and the feared guerrilla campaign never developed, Saddam evaded coalition forces for eight months, during which time the Sunni insurgency that killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly devastated Iraq coalesced.

Today, Libya's fate may similarly hinge on the apprehension of a deposed dictator. For even as forces loyal to the Western-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) storm Tripoli and attempt to consolidate control, the shadow of missing strongman Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi looms large over the country's future. The head of the NTC's provisional government, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said Wednesday, Aug. 24,"The matter won't come to an end except when he's captured dead or alive" and "we fear mayhem and destruction from him because these are his values, upbringing, and practices." Or as a homemaker in Tripoli told the Wall Street Journal, "A part of me will always fear that he might come back, and until I see him in jail or hanging, that fear will remain."

In other words, capturing Qaddafi is critical to avoiding prolonged civil strife and achieving a strategically acceptable outcome in Libya. Recognizing this fact, the NTC announced a bounty of 2 million Libyan dinars -- approximately $1.35 million -- to anyone who captures the ousted leader and offered amnesty for past crimes to any member of the strongman's inner circle who either captures or kills him.

Given that deploying SEAL Team 6 is not an option, as Barack Obama's administration and Congress are united in their commitment to avoid the deployment of U.S. forces to Libya, what is the most likely way to capture Qaddafi? In my book Wanted Dead or Alive: Manhunts from Geronimo to bin Laden, I recount the history of 11 previous strategic manhunts, examining which factors lead to success or failure in apprehending the targeted individual. I focus on six variables: the level of technology employed (both relative and absolute), troop strength, terrain, human intelligence, indigenous forces, and bilateral assistance.

I found four surprising conclusions. First, although U.S. forces almost always enjoy an edge in technology over their quarry, this advantage is never decisive. Second, troop strength is less important than the presence of reliable indigenous forces. Third, although terrain can influence individual campaigns, there is no single terrain type that predicts success or failure. Finally, more important than physical terrain is human terrain, or the ability to obtain intelligence tips from local populations or support from neighboring states to assist in the strategic manhunt.

Applied to Libya, these lessons suggest several courses of action necessary to apprehending Qaddafi.Read more.


Sand and Singapore

By Luke Hunt

The politics of sand is a dirty business, and there’s plenty of it around – particularly in the tiny island-state of Singapore. Its voracious appetite for constructing mega-buildings and expanding its borders by filling in the sea has led to widespread ecological damage around the region.

Indonesia has complained bitterly about its disappearing islands and banned the export of sand. So has Vietnam. Malaysia uses dealings over sand as a political bargaining chip when negotiating with Singapore, and countries further afield are also thinking twice about selling it sand.

This was the case with Cambodia, which acted on a report by environmental activists Global Witness that was released in May. It has announced that it has ordered a suspension of sand dredging while it assesses alleged damage to fish stocks and the ecology of the Tatai River.

However, all the indications are that private business in Cambodia is thumbing their nose at the government and continuing to dredge the Tatai River. This is despite pleas from impoverished villagers, who live hand to mouth and who have had their livelihoods affected and seen widespread damage to their local environment.

According to the report, Singapore expanded its surface area by 22 percent, from 582 square kilometres in the 1960s to 710 square kilometres in 2008 – and it wants to go much further.

Ho Mak, director of Rivers at the Ministry of Water resources, told The Diplomat the companies dredging the Tatai had been ordered to stop while an environmental impact study is made. Piech Siyon, a provincial director of the Department of Industry, Mines and Energy, insists this has happened.

However, the reports to the contrary are many, something supported by Chum Sok Korb, who told The Diplomat that villagers wanted all sand dredging – big and small – stopped now.

There's no shortage of smugglers in Southeast Asia and the Singapore land developers are well aware of this, prompting accusations by Greenpeace they have launched a ‘war’ for the commodity.Read more.


Friday, August 26, 2011

Well Done Rosmah !

Hantu Laut

At least there is something good coming out from this lady than those who bashed, ridiculed, admonished and rained every possible expletives on her.Rosmah launches humantarian mission to Somalia here.

She was right to ignore her detractors and carry on doing what she wants to do, for herself, for her husband and for her country...... it's her business.

I was expecting MERCY Malaysia to have launched the mission much earlier but it seems they have just sent a needs assessment team to Somalia last night, here.

The United Nations offically declared famine in the country in the middle of July.Most Western aids organisations immediately kicked start their aids mission but the problems are just too huge for individual organisation to handle.Big donations should come from rich countries and corporations.



The British government and individuals have collected more than £50m - 80 times more than Somalia's former colonial masters, the Italians, who officials believe are not pulling their weight.

Oxfam, one of the first few aids organisation in Somalia has brought clean water and sanitation to the famine struck nation in early August.

There is a Chinese proverb that says "
If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap. If you want happiness for a day – go fishing. If you want happiness for a month – get married. If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime – help others"

Rosmah's detractors will have a field day looking for the negatives to ridicule her.


Well done Rosmah!

The Australian: Forensic science in the dock

Hantu Laut

Forensic science and DNA analysis are not yet a perfect science, there are many grey areas and many of the so called experts in Australia are not truly competent to give foolproof analysis of DNA samples let alone our Malaysian expert who had been criticised by the foreign experts.A mistake or carelessness would have sent an innocent man to prison or worse the gallows.

With the ongoing Anwar's sodomy trail the debate on DNA and forensic science is heating up in court with foreign and local experts and solicitors from both sides slugging out in the court room.

Below is a report which incidentally mentioned one of the Australian experts in the Anwar's sodomy trail, the well known and hypercritical Dr Brian McDonald.

Forensic science in the dock

The Australian

BRIAN McDonald knows he has few admirers among the forensic scientists at the nation's DNA testing laboratories. "I am the antichrist as far as forensic science is concerned," he says.

The reason is simple. McDonald, an independent DNA consultant and molecular geneticist, has built a career by finding flaws in the test results some of these laboratories have provided for the justice system.

Of the hundreds of tests for DNA (basic genetic cell material) that have been referred to him by defence lawyers, he says, he has found problems in 30 per cent to 50 per cent of them.

Such a high rate of contested test results is one reason there is growing unease among lawyers that, in some cases, DNA evidence alone is sending people to prison.

DNA analysis, when applied correctly, is widely considered the most reliable form of forensic science. But if the problems picked up by McDonald have also been present in even a small proportion of other DNA tests used in court, there is a risk some people in jail are victims of scientific error.

The growing doubts about the evidence of scientific experts is not confined to DNA analysis.

A debate is raging in academic circles about what some lawyers believe is a lax approach by the courts that is exposing juries to "junk science", opinions presented by so-called experts who are unable to explain the scientific methods that helped them reach their conclusions.

Courts in Queensland and the Northern Territory have drawn the line at accepting evidence from people who claim to be experts in forensic odontology, or matching bite marks.

But a recent article in the Criminal Law Journal has unleashed a barrage of criticism at far more established fields of forensic science as well as new areas such as barefoot morphology, or the identification of people from the weight-bearing patterns left by their feet. The authors of that article, who include David Field, director of Bond University's Centre for Forensic Excellence, call for a new approach from the courts to weed out unreliable forensic evidence.

They have urged the courts, before accepting expert evidence, to insist on being told about the known and potential error rates of each field of forensic science.

To bolster their argument, they cite research last year in the US showing the subjective nature of fingerprint matches.

Years after fingerprint experts had made decisions on certain prints, researchers presented them with the same prints and were startled by what happened.

"Two-thirds of the experts made inconsistent decisions; [that is,] they disagreed with themselves," the journal article says.

The same concerns about lack of rigour have been voiced by University of NSW legal academic Gary Edmond, who is a member of the council of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences.

He says fingerprint analysis, like DNA analysis, is at the the better end of forensic science. But he says in some areas forensic science is "over-reaching and sometimes just poking around in the dark".

When asked to nominate disciplines at the worst end of the spectrum, Edmond names bite-mark matching, photograph comparisons and footprint matching.

Similar concerns arose last year in the US when a report for the National Academy of Sciences recommended that court testimony by experts should be grounded in science and should acknowledge areas of uncertainty.Read more.


Thursday, August 25, 2011

WHY ARE THE JEWS SO POWERFUL AND MUSLIMS SO POWERLESS

Hantu Laut

I have read it before but never crossed my mind to post it on my blog at that time.

It was written in 2009 by a Pakistani freelance columnist. 


Dr Farrukh Saleem propounds the weaknesses of Muslims and Muslim countries (you can access his article by the link below) and why they are lagging behind and why the Jews, the most minute minority of world's population yet the most successful race in the world.

They excelled in all the sciences, from Einstein to Friedman and thousands others they have conquered the sciences and gave mankind the benefits of their knowledge and discoveries.

Back in 2007 when I first started blogging, I wrote an article not exactly showering accolades on the Jews as Farrukh did, but why Muslims and Muslim nations lagged behind the West which brought Farrukh and myself inadvertently to the same crossroad........education or lack of it!

The Middle Eastern Arab countries are living examples of how poor, divided, disorganised and illiterate they are, ruled by despotic regimes that disenfranchised civil liberties and leaders robbing the state coffers for themselves, their families and cronies.The tsunamic "Arab Spring" swept through the region demolishing one regime after another.


Gaddafi's Libya buckled two days ago.Syria would be next.

Absolute monarchy has no place in this modern world. Saudi Arabia, a despotic monarchial regime under Islamic Wahabism would see challenge to the monarchy in a matter of time.

Would the Arab countries see better days. The revolution or for better word the "Arab Spring" was so disorganised there were no clear leaders to take over leaderships. Eygpt is still in the quagmire with the military still in control and democracy still a bridge too far.

Education in Islamic countries is a non-issue and the enigmatic "no compulsion in religion" has turned into "no compulsion in education" and to deadlier ignorance of knowledge and the modern world.

My article: MUSLIM NATIONS:ARE THEY READY TO TAKE ON THE WEST?


Dr Farrukh's article:
WHY ARE THE JEWS SO POWERFUL.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

As Thick As Thieves

Hantu Laut

This lady is probably the most boring speaker I have come across and if I may say, dense and uninspiring, so much so, she has to beg the audience to applaud her.


It's certainly very transparent, you can see through the hand in glove of Bersih, Suaram and Pakatan.







How long does DNA last?

The Guardian

Human DNA has been recovered from a Neanderthal fossil 70,000 years old. That's a record, but there may be plenty of DNA recoverable from a human body 10, 50 or even 150 years after death.

The bodies of the Romanov royal family, executed during the Russian revolution, were identified from DNA comparison in the last decade. US scientists recently confirmed the death of the outlaw Jesse James after they exhumed a disputed corpse. Time, says Mark Thomas, a forensic anthropologist at University College London, is not really the problem, even in the tragic circumstances of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The technique of DNA sampling is less than 20 years old, but has become standard practice the world over. Standards, however, are not quite the same the world over, which may be why a Japanese forensic delegation has announced that it will re-examine all the bodies originally handled by Thai experts, why China has offered to collate the data, why a US team has announced that it will handle the samples from all "foreign-looking" victims, and why the Israeli government sent a 19-member team to help search for Israeli victims.

Both volunteers and resident experts have a host of challenges - stricken relatives, rapidly decaying bodies and damaged infrastructure for a start - but at least time is on their side. DNA is vulnerable. It breaks down in sunlight and water, and there are enzymes that naturally destroy it. But long after death, samples would survive in teeth and bones. Police forensic scientists - often working with only the tiniest samples from a fingerprint or a spatter of saliva - have to worry about the possibility of contamination. But the teams of forensic experts working in Thailand to identify the thousands of victims have no such worries.Read more.

Read all about semen,sperm and DNA specimen here.

All about DNA testing here.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist

HANTU LAUT

While the battle rages in our "Hall Of Justice" on a sodomy case, many Malaysians are still not convinced that a man can enjoy sex with both man and woman.

Some are just very good at hiding it, some throw caution to the wind, couldn't care less and quite open about it.Certainly, better than those gender dysphorias that hide in the closet and live in a state of denial and fool the genders.

So, the finding is that their arousal pattern are not typical of homosexual men, they get best of both worlds.


By DAVID TULLER
Northwestern University have found evidence that at least some men who identify themselves as bisexual are, in fact, sexually aroused by both women and men.

The finding is not likely to surprise bisexuals, who have long asserted that attraction often is not limited to one sex. But for many years the question of bisexuality has bedeviled scientists. A widely publicized study published in 2005, also by researchers at Northwestern, reported that “with respect to sexual arousal and attraction, it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.”

That conclusion outraged bisexual men and women, who said it appeared to support a stereotype of bisexual men as closeted homosexuals.

In the new study, published online in the journal Biological Psychology, the researchers relied on more stringent criteria for selecting participants. To improve their chances of finding men aroused by women as well as men, the researchers recruited subjects from online venues specifically catering to bisexuals.

They also required participants to have had sexual experiences with at least two people of each sex and a romantic relationship of at least three months with at least one person of each sex.

Men in the 2005 study, on the other hand, were recruited through advertisements in gay-oriented and alternative publications and were identified as heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual based on responses to a standard questionnaire.

In both studies, men watched videos of male and female same-sex intimacy while genital sensors monitored their erectile responses. While the first study reported that the bisexuals generally resembled homosexuals in their responses, the new one finds that bisexual men responded to both the male and female videos, while gay and straight men in the study did not.

Both studies also found that bisexuals reported subjective arousal to both sexes, notwithstanding their genital responses. “Someone who is bisexual might say, ‘Well, duh!’” said Allen Rosenthal, the lead author of the new Northwestern study and a doctoral student in psychology at the university. “But this will be validating to a lot of bisexual men who had heard about the earlier work and felt that scientists weren’t getting them.”

The Northwestern study is the second one published this year to report a distinctive pattern of sexual arousal among bisexual men.

In March, a study in Archives of Sexual Behavior reported the results of a different approach to the question. As in the Northwestern study, the researchers showed participants erotic videos of two men and two women and monitored genital as well as subjective arousal. But they also included scenes of a man having sex with both a woman and another man, on the theory that these might appeal to bisexual men.

The researchers — Jerome Cerny, a retired psychology professor at Indiana State University, and Erick Janssen, a senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute — found that bisexual men were more likely than heterosexuals or gay men to experience both genital and subjective arousal while watching these videos.

Dr. Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor at the University of Utah and an expert on sexual orientation, said that the two new studies, taken together, represented a significant step toward demonstrating that bisexual men do have specific arousal patterns.Read more.


Monday, August 22, 2011

Her Orgasms Of Malignant Hatred

Hantu Laut

She is like a spurned lover obsessively wanting revenge for the wrong he has done her.Her fixation for the man is ghastly, tearing him limb from limb, the morbidity appalling, the script murderous and all not for sake of journalism but for her orgasms of malignant hatred
.

......and she wrote:

Finally, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak broke his silence on his wife's alleged purchase of a US$24 million blue diamond ring and that his in-laws from Kazakhstan were part of a Mafia gang with Russian roots. But it may have been better if he had kept quiet after all.


He is now being exposed for using strong-arm tacitics and imagery to whitewash his reputation after top Indonesian newspaper Kompas broke the news on August 4, shocking the region with tales of his family's excesses.

"Did Kompas retract their report and was the apology for misreporting and defaming Najib or was the Kompas editor who interviewed Najib merely apologizing as a matter of courtesy for having embarrassed him when they met. Also, why so coincidental that Najib suddenly granted Kompas the interview. This looks like another ill-advised move, another banana skin," PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle. Read more.

She has been on the same subject umpteen times.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

The Second Fiddle: Fearless Deputy

Hantu Laut

I couldn't agree more with Zaid.There are no two ways about it, there can only be one captain. Members of the cabinet are his crew and should behave like one.Those who tried to undermine him should have the sense of shame and should resign from the ministerial position.

Najib failed to put his foot down not only with his deputy but also his own cousin, the Home Minister, who had equally harmed the administration with his ridiculous political fatwas.Adding to the woes is Minister in the PM department Nazri Aziz who more often than not is more upsetting with his air of arrogance and incredulity.

I have in my previous postings indicated the need for reshuffling the cabinet, but unfortunately, Najib did not do the needful and now the problem has become too entranced.

The trouble with UMNO is the archaic political system where the deputy president of the party by convention would automatically become the deputy prime minister and successor to the prime minister.It begets sycophancy, cronyism and intensive lobbying with the DPM for those waiting for the next gravy train.Anwar Ibrahim was an example of a deputy in a hurry who stumbled and fell flat on his face because No.1 was smarter than he had expected.

I find it very upsetting that he would have made a good prime minister but succumbed to pressures from his subordinates that crippled him from pushing forward his policies.

Running a nation is no different from running a company, there can only be one ultimate boss, the head honcho.

How many of you know who is the deputy president of the US, the DPM of Britain and for that matter the DPM of our next door neighbour, Singapore? They know they can only play second fiddle and stay out of the limelight as deputy.

In the case of Pak Lah it was not Najib who pushed him out, much of the work was done by Tun Mahathir Mohammed and with some help from Muhyiddin.


The Fearless Deputy
Zaid Ibrahim
Aug 18, 2011


Someone asked me if there is a power struggle going on in UMNO right now. I said no, only in the Cabinet. This poser was perhaps brought about by the way Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has skilfully contradicted Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak on several important issues. When the PM promoted the idea of 1Malaysia, the DPM countered with his now notorious statement: “I am Malay first”. It seems the PM didn’t know what to say in reply. Many people know that the PM would have liked Science and Mathematicsto continue to be taught in English (as it should be), but his Deputy, who is also Education Minister, decided otherwise.

Najib recently made another sensible decision to accommodate – or at least to recognise – some of the concerns raised by Bersih. He has decided that a Parliamentary Select Committee should look into the many complaints in the way elections are being conducted in our country. Not surprisingly, his Deputy quickly reminded him that very little was wrong with the process. It just needed a little “tweaking”, Muhyiddin said.

Now this is not the first time that a Minister in the Cabinet has openly challenged a PM in Malaysia. It happened even in the most recent administration before this one: when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was PM (this was soon after the 2008 General Election), Muhyiddin called on him to step down. He used the phrase “peralihan kepimpinan” — change of leadership. And he did so not once but many times. It was a sorry sight to hear Pak Lah telling Muhyiddin “sabar lah”. Be patient.

Muhyiddin was probably emboldened by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, who joined the fray and openly discredited and ridiculed the man he himself had endorsed to lead the country. I believe had Pak Lah reshuffled his cabinet post 2008 to show that the Cabinet was his, he would still be PM today. Sure enough, they took him out soon after.

In the Westminster system of Government, the PM is always the real power. The Cabinet are his advisors. This is why it’s normal for Prime Ministers in other Westminster-based countries to reshuffle their Cabinets whenever they feel that effective government will be compromised without such a change. The Prime Minister is responsible, as head of the ruling party, to make sure that the right policies are implemented. In an ideal situation, the Ministers serve to advise the PM on how these policies should be executed, and they bear responsibility for this.

When there is a charismatic or strong PM, Cabinets can sometimes become overshadowed and individual Ministers might resemble mere “extensions” of the PM’s will. We have seen it here for many years, and Dr Mahathir practised it to perfection. He would not even allow Tun Musa Hitam (the first of his many deputies) to share in the name of the administration: does anyone remember the “2M” Government?

In many ways Dr Mahathir was right. There can be only one captain of the ship. It is not for the PM to agree with his Ministers, but for the Ministers to carry out the vision of the PM in the form of policy. This is why any Minister who disagrees strongly enough with the PM over a particular decision or policy should resign, as I did. This is the convention practised in all Commonwealth countries.Read more.


Saturday, August 20, 2011

Malaysia Gets Press Club

It's been in the planning for decades. And despite being cleverly knocked on the head once by the Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Kuala Lumpur finally has its own Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCM).

The club's first president, Romen Bose of Agence France-Presse, said after the inaugural meeting was held at the Equatorial Hotel that Malaysia was experiencing something of a media renaissance.

‘The idea of a foreign correspondents club in Malaysia isn’t new in that several groups had tried over the years to get one set up, and many had gone as far as having initial meetings and an executive committee drawn up, but were unable to get permission from the authorities.

‘The last time a group of journalists tried to set one up was in 1992 when then AFP bureau chief Mervin Nambiar and a group of very senior correspondents had banded together to push for the club to be set up, but the powers that be refused to allow its formation,’ he said.

Online media is flourishing in this country and challenging a repressed mainstream press. Prime Minister Najib Razak more recently has bowed to media reports and announced an inquiry into alleged electoral irregularities, the source of violent rallies in the capital in early July.

In doing this, he conceded the government’s censorship of an article in The Economist on the Bersih protest rally was ineffective and promised to review his country’s censorship methods.

‘If the international media wants to criticise us, let them. If we need to, we engage them. We give our side of story, and if they have crossed the line, then we have to resort to legal means,’ he said.

Foreign correspondents have traditionally found this country difficult territory in which to operate and are often widely disliked by local journalists who are coerced into toeing a management line while the outsiders are free to report as they see fit. This is largely because newspaper owners require a license to publish that must be renewed each year, resulting in coverage that’s heavily self-censored and primarily used to support government policies.

‘For too long, it was an easy out to say that the foreign media were not reporting the “real story” or were “twisting facts” or were “pro-opposition” when the reality of the matter was that the government newsmakers were unwilling or unable to engage foreign correspondents to provide their side of the story,’ Bose said.

As the paperwork from previous FCC bids languished on the mahogany desks of bureaucrats, one senior journalist was once pulled aside by Mahathir. Dismayed, the then prime minister asked: ‘Why do you want to establish a Foreign Correspondents Club here when if you have any problems you can always come and talk to me personally?’

It possibly never dawned on the leader that such cosy relations between the media and the executive arm of government was considered anathema to foreign journalists, who were also disturbed by the sycophantic relations encouraged by the government and state-linked press.Read more.


The Uncivil Servants

Hantu Laut

Shocking! Civil servants with no civility and respect for the public.Are they qualified to do the job?

Why is there a need to haul up the photographer? Which law has she broken?Is this country China or worse North Korea where such things are not tolerated? Have they never heard of "civil rights"?

Do they know why they are called civil servants and the meaning of the word "civil" ? Lest they forget they are public servants paid by the public to serve the public.

"Saya yang menurut perintah" is a joke, a falsidical paradox, absoletism that should have been dropped and replaced with " Saya yang memerintah." which is exactly what the civil servants think they are, masters not servants.

" Saya yang menurut perintah" is not exactly the same as "I am your obedient servant" a relic of of the colonial administration.

The Malay version is intentionally made ambiguous.It can mean following orders from the top not from the pathetic public.

This is the kind of uncivil behaviour by a few bad apples that's killing the Najib's administration and tarnished the whole civil service
.

Since they have poor public relations such officers should be taken off dealing with the public and given desk jobs.

A civil action against those MCMC officers is justified.



Video below:



Full story here.

Friday, August 19, 2011

London Riots' Racial Blame Game


A former member of parliament, now, running for mayor of Birmingham, writes an anguished account of the riots that have ravaged Britain.

Few British mosques are places of mosaic or minaret. They are not fine buildings from which muezzins call. They are the adapted back rooms or upstairs quarters of working-class Muslims. The carpet I sat on in the Handsworth district of Birmingham on Aug. 10 was woven through with a religious motif, but was threadbare.

I was part of a circle of 20 barefoot men, their palms turned upward in front of their chests, making their dua for two brothers killed in “riots” the night before. The prayers were now led by the murdered men’s uncle, replacing their father, who was ushered away in distress.

Between prayers, the men took sober phone calls, talked mutedly, and sent text messages. A surviving brother, sobbing, wandered in and out. Outside, a crowd of young Kashmiri men milled. Some were in traditional dress, some in suits, most in the universal uniform of American hip-hop.

Fourteen hours earlier, at 1 a.m., the two brothers, along with a third man, had been “protecting their community” on the streets of Birmingham’s multiethnic Winson Green district. The night before had seen attacks on shops and looting in the city center and nearby Soho Road. As trouble seemed, on the second night, to be moving in their direction, Sajad, Haroon, and Abdul were part of a large group “defending” their area. In the chaos, a suspected looter drove his car directly at them. All three were killed. A 32-year-old man was almost immediately arrested on suspicion of murder.

This is my city. I grew up here. I love the place. I sat for nine years in the House of Commons as member of Parliament for the Erdington district of Birmingham. Last year I stood down in order to campaign for, and ultimately to campaign to be, our first directly elected mayor.

As a practicing politician in a city gripped by disorder, I find this article difficult to write. I have privileged access to private situations, afforded to me on the basis that I might help, not so that I can write it up in NEWSWEEK. But telling the story so widely is another unusual privilege. So I take the risk.

From the family of the dead brothers I went to a small, closed meeting of Afro-Caribbean community leaders called by one of the city’s two Muslim M.P.s, Khalid Mahmood. They are frightened. The man arrested on suspicion of the murders was black. Facebook is heavy with young Kashmiris venting fury and threatening reprisals. “We will take three blacks for the three that was took from us” is one message reported by a veteran community activist. She says it is the most scared she has been for 30 years.

Overlaid onto the fear of reprisals is the worry that such threats by themselves will provoke a response from gang-influenced Afro-Caribbean men.

BRITAIN RIOTS

"The rioters are not furious or alienated. They are bored.", Kerim Okten / EPA-Corbis

That would be a massive escalation because, hitherto, this nationwide civil unrest has been largely the work of children. The marauding bands that set London alight and shut down town centers across Britain were made up, unprecedentedly, of often very young teenagers. This has not been an uprising of the dispossessed, the unemployed, or particular ethnic groups, but a violent convulsion of kids on holiday from high school. According to the Metropolitan Police, just under two thirds of those arrested on the second day of the London disturbances were teenagers. Many were 13, 14, 15 years of age. Everyone who saw them was shocked.

“They were just kids, not more than 15,” the owner of a wrecked mobile-phone shop in Birmingham told me while waiting for the police to arrive in the cold light of that Tuesday morning. “The scarf covering his face fell down and I couldn’t believe it—he was so young,” said Miles Weaver, a young academic watching from the window of his city-center apartment as a gang looted a shop in the small hours of Tuesday night.Read more.


Thursday, August 18, 2011

Learning from Britain’s Moral Rot

Posted by Thomas Sowell

The orgies of violent attacks against strangers on the streets — in both England and the United States — are not necessarily just passing episodes. They should be wake-up calls, warning of the continuing degeneration of Western society.

As British doctor and author Theodore Dalrymple said, long before these riots broke out, “the good are afraid of the bad and the bad are afraid of nothing.”

Not only the trends over the years leading up to these riots but also the squeamish responses to them by officials — on both sides of the Atlantic — reveal the moral dry rot that has spread deep into Western societies.

Even when black youth gangs target white strangers on the streets and spew out racial hatred as they batter them and rob them, mayors, police chiefs and the media tiptoe around their racism and many in the media either don’t cover these stories or leave out the race and racism involved.

In England, the government did not call out the troops to squash their riots at the outset. The net result was that young hoodlums got to rampage and loot for hours, while the police struggled to try to contain the violence. Hoodlums returned home with loot from stores with impunity, as well as bringing home with them a contempt for the law and for the rights of other people.

With all the damage that was done by these rioters, both to cities and to the whole fabric of British society, it is very unlikely that most of the people who were arrested will be sentenced to jail. Only 7 percent of people convicted of crime in England are actually put behind bars.Read more

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Najib's Electoral Reform: Damned If You Do,Damned If You Don't!


Hantu Laut

What's the point at the end of the day the opposition Pakatan Rakyat and Bersih would still rebuke and ridicule him.

You can never appease the oppositions with their "kedai kopi" politics and Malaysia's dirty politics on both sides of the political divide.Damned if you do, damned if you don't.



Giving in should not be an option now.
You should have acceded before the Bersih rally.

The politicking is going to get murkier and dirtier as you get nearer D-Day, muddled by your erstwhile comrade-in-arms and his political hopefuls and with not much help from your inertial UMNO leaders who half the time spewed foolish and unintelligible statements.

Malaysia's Najib Calls for Electoral Reform

Image
Najib will clean up the electoral process

Or is it a ploy to buy time?

Apparently bending to widespread criticism of a government crackdown of a July 9 march demanding electoral reform, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said Tuesday that a parliamentary select committee is to be formed as soon as possible to seek to reform the current system.

The announcement appears to answer a central demand of the reform group Bersih, a coalition of good-government organizations backed by opposition parties to clean up the electoral process.

The big question, however, is how soon the select committee will meet, and whether the reform provisions it comes up with – if any – could be put in place before national elections expected to be called late this year or early next. In that, the announcement of the committee carries certain dangers. If the committee is still meeting when the election comes and goes, the decision to create it is likely to be regarded as a public relations gesture.

Wong Chin Huat, one of the leaders of Bersih, told Asia Sentinel that Najib must hold up the polls until the reforms can be implemented.

Bersih itself, in a prepared statement, said it welcomed Najib’s announcement of a bipartisan committee, asking that immediate reforms be carried out before the next state and general elections and that other reforms be put in place within two years after the formation of the committee.

The process is bound to be complicated and subject to possible delay. The Malaysian constitution must be amended after the legislative, policy drafting and enforcement mechanisms are finished, then laws must be put in place by the executive branch to carry out the mandate.

That will require an automated voter registration system. The government has already said it is creating a so-called biometric registration system which would use fingerprints or other biometric data for voter identification. Bersih, however, charges that the system is open to abuse and wants a system in which voters will be marked with indelible ink once they have voted.

The government took a severe beating in the international press after police cracked down on the so-called Bersih 2.0 rally, blocking entrances to Kuala Lumpur, dousing the marchers who got through with water cannons and firing tear gas at them despite the fact that most were determined not to fight back. Nonetheless, anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 marchers got through depending on who was doing the counting. Some 1,700 people were arrested, many for merely appearing in yellow tee-shirts, the Bersih color.

Najib’s international image took a further beating when it was discovered that in an effort to turn around its negative image the government had paid RM86 million in two contracts to a British public relations company to plant favorable interviews and news stories with the international media. The contract was withdrawn abruptly when its existence was exposed by a Sarawak NGO, the Sarawak Report.

Just days ago, Najib was likening the Bersih marchers to the hooded rioters that torched buildings and caused violence in London and other cities. The abrupt about turn is being regarded in Kuala Lumpur as an indication that the government crackdown and attempt to demonize the marchers has backfired badly and hurt Najib’s standing.

The prime minister reportedly is already under fire from members of his own party, particularly those who advocate so-called Ketuanan Melayu, or Malay rights to take precedence over those of the country’s other races. Although some reports had him returning early from an Italian vacation to put down a party rebellion, those reports have been denied. But he clearly has been weakened from the affair.

“The prime minister must have realized that middle Malaysia will not tolerate a government that fanatically makes ‘clean’(Bersih, in Malay language) a dirty word, and losing the middle ground will erode his edge as a moderate leader in the increasingly rough intra-UMNO rivalry,” said Wong Chin Huat.

It is the mechanics of the process that are important. Although the prime minister said the committee would include lawmakers from both the Barisan Nasional, the ruling national coalition, to “discuss all the questions and issued raised about electoral reform so that a mutual agreement could be reached,” Deputy Speaker Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, a member of the United Malays National Organization, told local media that it would take at least year before the committee could finish its work and the reforms, if any, could be implemented. Read more.

Monday, August 15, 2011

The World's Most Miserable Rich Country

The Lap of Luxembourgery

So what if it has the world's highest per capita GDP? A visit to the debt-ridden capital of European complacency.

BY ERIC PAPE | SEPT/OCT 2011

In the dark heart of Europe lies a nation rotten to the core. Renowned as a secret banking haven where North Korean leader Kim Jong Il allegedly squirreled away billions of dollars, its economy is tied to the whims of capricious global money markets. The country's per capita external debt is 84 times that of the debt-ridden United States (some $3.76 million for each man, woman, and child). Democracy is a joke, undermined by a hereditary and unelected head of state who not only can dissolve parliament, but appoints some of its members in the first place. Beleaguered citizens worry about just how sustainable their ever-more-fragile country is, which is no surprise given that foreigners make up 44 percent of the population and the equivalent of another 25 percent invade the country daily just to do its work.

So where is this armpit of the European Union, this cancer of the continent? Greece? The Balkans? Not exactly. Behold the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, population 503,000, a tiny freckle on the map between Belgium, France, and Germany.

Sure, cyclists and hikers might see this bucolic country as a verdant paradise, with its rolling green hills and lush pastures. And bankers may marvel at its spectacular wealth: Luxembourg boasts the world's highest per capita GDP, $108,832 in 2010. But something must be wrong. The miserable Luxembourgers -- who rate lower than all but one other European country on the Happy Planet Index (they're tied with war-torn Sudan!) -- buy more cigarettes and alcohol and have a higher per capita carbon footprint than any other country. And yet their national motto is "We want to remain what we are."

I had to know: Could this hard-partying little duchy hold the secret to the dark forces now tearing apart Europe?

On the cloudless summer day when I arrived, the quiet, well-kept streets of Luxembourg's capital, creatively named Luxembourg City, seemed idyllic enough. The only time I sensed any sort of abyss was when I looked down from the elegant stone Pont Adolphe into the lush, precipitous gorge that cuts through town. An 18-piece military brass band was playing "Come Fly With Me" in the city center as well-dressed white people filtered in and out of luxury chain stores on the edge of the charming old town. In the distance, a row of investment banks glistened in the sun, identically armored with reflective, modern exteriors.

I wandered into a stylish bistro that leaked pulsing rhythms onto the Rue de la Boucherie, the trendiest street in the center of the old town -- the kind of place, the waiter told me, where bankers gather to knock back copious amounts of booze on weekends. A bottle of whiskey in Luxembourg, explained Panagiotis Meidanis, an 18-year-old server with a truncated pompadour, sells for half the price that it does in his native Greece, where people earn a fraction of the local income, especially now. "When we close on weekend nights, they always want more," said Meidanis of his customers. "But for some reason they never get into fights here."

But what did he know? I needed to find a real Luxembourger. Across from the 19th-century Gare de Luxembourg with its art nouveau flourishes, I met with Georges Hausemer, who has published one of the remarkably few novels in the native Lëtzebuergesch language. Hausemer's 1998 novel, Iwwer Waasser (Above Water), is a tale of a broken marriage set in the world of banking that the author describes as a "portrait in miniature" of Luxembourgian society.Read more.


Malaysia:A Reluctant Symbol for Electoral Reform


A Reluctant Symbol for Electoral Reform in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR — Her photograph has been burned by ethnic Malay nationalists, there have been calls to revoke her Malaysian citizenship and she has been threatened, via text message, with death. The movement she leads, Bersih, an alliance of 62 nongovernmental organizations pressing for electoral reform, has been declared illegal, and a demonstration that brought thousands of its followers into the streets of this capital city last month ended with nearly 1,700 arrests.

But having stared down these challenges, Ambiga Sreenevasan, 54, a University of Exeter-educated lawyer and former president of the Malaysian Bar Council, is now being hailed by many here as the “new symbol of civil society’s dissent.”

“She has not been afraid to speak the truth to power,” said Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Center, an independent polling firm in Kuala Lumpur.

Over peppermint tea in a busy cafe recently, Ms. Ambiga squirmed uncomfortably at the attention she had attracted.

“This focus on me is actually ridiculous,” said Ms. Ambiga. “It’s a true citizens’ movement, because the citizens have taken ownership of Bersih.”

The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, or Bersih — “clean” in Malay — got its start in November 2007. Members of the political opposition and civic groups defied restrictions on gatherings of more than five people without a permit and rallied for changes in an election system they said unfairly favored the governing coalition, which has been in power since Malaysia achieved independence in 1957. Read more.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Xenophobic Singaporeans

Hantu Laut

Xenophobia is defined as "fear or hatred of foreigners and strangers"

Xenophobia can manifest in many forms, fear of losing one's identity, fear and hatred for other culture, suspicion and aggression are just some of the irrational fears of a xenophobic person.

The working class Singaporeans are suffering from this malady complaining of losing jobs to foreigners.

Singapore has an open door policy for Chinese from mainland China.They are in coffee shops, in shopping malls, in supermarkets, at gas stations, at construction sites and populating or polluting the much-loved open-air food courts called hawker centers.

Their presence are also felt in five-star hotels.A recent encounter found a Mandarin-speaking maid who could not comprehend a word of English. To add to the woes, Singapore's two bus companies have been hiring drivers from China.

My stay at two major hotels in Singapore late last year confirmed the fear bewailed by Singaporeans.Almost all the housekeeping staffs came from China.


A police report was lodged against a Filipina for what was construed as insults to Singaporeans on remarks she posted on Facebook in defence of PAP Malaysian MP Penny Low admonished by Singaporeans for looking at her cellphone while the national anthem was being played.

Is it a crime to call someone "incompetent"?

A police report has been made against Ms Rachelle Ann Beguia, who incurred the ire of many netizens with her comments on MP Penny Low’s Facebook wall.

Ms Beguia sparked a massive outcry among netizens by posting a series of derogatory comments belittling Singaporeans in her zeal to defend PAP Malaysian MP Penny Low who was under heavy criticisms herself for looking down at her handphone when the National Anthem was played during the National Day Parade.

The National Heart Centre where Ms Beguia is employed as a clerk also said that they will conduct an official enquiry into the “insensitive” comments made by Ms Beguia.

According to the complainant who lodged the report online, he will be meeting the IO (Investigating Officer) today (Aug 12).

Ms Beguia has since apologised for her comments in a Facebook post yesterday (Aug 11) saying:

“I am very sorry for the insensitive comments I have posted earlier. It was a lack of judgement. For those who have been hurt by those comments. I am very sorry once again.”

The latest saga came barely two weeks after another ‘FT” Wang Peng Fei from China was expelled from his school for making racist remarks against Malay ladies in a self-made video clip as social tensions between Singaporeans and foreigners continue to rise due to the PAP’s unthinking and indiscriminate pro-foreigner and mass-immigration policies.

Mr Wang managed to “breeze” out of Singapore right under the police’s nose.

In the meantime, a group of Singaporeans plan to gather at National Heart Centre on Mon 15 Aug 2011 at 12 – 2 pm (lunch hr) dress in black to protest against Ms Rachelle’s comments and to demand that NHC sack Ms Rachelle immediately.

Below is what trigger off the sensitivities of Singaporeans.

Rachelle Ann Beguia: Singaporeans are INCOMPETENT!

In a sign that Singaporeans are losing their dignity in the eyes of foreigners, a Filipino ‘FT’ Rachelle Ann Beguia openly called Singaporeans ‘incompetent’ on the Facebook of PAP MP Penny Low from Malaysia.

Ms Rachelle was responding to a comment posted by a Singaporean on foreigners snatching jobs and flats from Singaporeans to which she replied callously:

“If foreigners can come and snatch your (Singaporean) jobs and flats it only shows one thing…how incompetent you are.”

Her comment appeared to be endorsed by Ms Low as she did not bother to delete it though she had a busy day yesterday deleting comments posted by Singaporeans lampooning her for not respecting the National Anthem.

Ms Rachelle also admitted readily that she is ‘bootlicking’ Ms Low because it ‘benefits’ her. It is not known what assistance Mrs Low is giving Ms Rachelle, if any. Foreigners usually seek PAP MPs’ help in PR and citizenship application or in obtaining social visit passes to bring their entire families to reside in Singapore.

According to information posted on Ms Rachelle’s Facebook, she graduated with a Bachelor in Community Health Service from Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, a University in the Philipines.

She came over to Singapore to study for a diploma in Tourism and Hospitality Management at ERC Institute, a private school.

It was revealed online by a netizen that Ms Rachelle is currently working as a clerk at the Medical Record Office of National Heart Centre. Her manager is Ms Angela Ho who can be contacted at 64367648, email: angela.ho.l.y@nhcs.com.sg

Ms Rachelle’s remarks should not come as a surprise due to the PAP regime’s groveling of foreigners and constant exhortations to Singaporeans to ‘embrace’ them with an ‘open heart’.

During his recent National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong implored Singaporeans not to turn ‘negative’ on foreigners.

Due to the PAP’s pro-foreigner and ultra-liberal immigration policies, the number of foreigners now make up 43 percent of Singapore’s population, up from 14 percent in 1990. Of the remaining 57 percent who are so-called ‘citizens’, an increasing number are born overseas.

It is not known if Ms Rachelle is a Singapore PR or citizen, but no prizes for guessing who she will vote for in GE 2016 if she becomes a new Singapore citizen by then.

With the repressive PAP regime losing support from native Singaporeans, it is following the cue from Malaysia’s UMNO in mass-importing and fast-converting foreigners into instant ‘grateful citizens’ in exchange for their votes.

Read more here.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Bank Bumi Mystery Figure Dies

















The late Lorrain Esme Osman (center)


The man at the center of what was then the world’s biggest bank failure and Asia’s biggest corporate failure takes his secrets to the grave

Was Lorrain Esme Osman the man who ordered the death of Bank Bumiputra auditor Jalil Ibrahim in Hong Kong in 1983? The death on Aug. 8 of Osman, the onetime chairman of Bumiputra Malaysia Finance, makes it ever less likely that the identity of the culprit will be revealed.

But Osman always ranked high on the list of suspects of those behind a murder that sparked the collapse of the Carrian Group, a Hong Kong corporate edifice created by Malaysians but built on bogus accounting, corruption and sheer bravado and which ensnared numerous greedy or gullible international bankers, auditors and lawyers. Carrian was the biggest Asian corporate collapse of that era, seriously blackening the reputations not just of Malaysian companies but the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank – through its investment banking subsidiary Wardley -- and the accounting firm then known as Price Waterhouse, which not only audited Carrian’s dubious accounts, but whose then-senior partner John Marshall was appointed managing director of the major Carrian companies for 18 months before they collapsed.

The Carrian disaster also resulted in the near collapse of BMF’s parent, Bank Bumi, which required nearly US$1 billion in recapitalization by the Malaysian government. It was the biggest bank failure in the world at the time. It is unique for another reason. Despite considerable suspicion of fraud and corrupt payments to officials, the Malaysian government, then headed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, declined to attempt to prosecute any of the bank’s officers or government officials. It was the first major milestone in a culture of impunity that has handicapped Malaysia’s ruling Barisan Nasional ever since.

Lorrain Osman already has a place in history but for a different if related reason. He spent a record seven years on remand in London’s Brixton prison fighting extradition to Hong Kong to face various charges related to BMF and its relationship with Carrian. That he managed to fight for so long against extradition to what was then a British colony with an almost identical judicial system was thanks to apparently limitless access to funds for legal plus friends in high places in Kuala Lumpur and London. Although he was eventually extradited to Hong Kong he only served a few months in jail there because of his period on remand and he left Hong Kong owing a million pounds sterling to the government in legal fees.

For most Malaysians, and in particular Jalil’s widow, the issue was who and what caused him to be murdered. A small-time Malaysian businessman named Mak Foon Than was convicted of the actual murder, which took place at the ultra smart Regent Hotel (now the Intercontinental) on the Kowloon waterfront. Although Mak denied the murder but only confessed to helping dump Jalil’s body in a banana grove, he was convicted. (Mak claimed that a Korean hit man had done the deed but no such person was traced). Mak served his sentence and is now a free man living, apparently prosperously, in Penang. He has always kept his silence – doubtless wisely.

He had no obvious motive for being involved other than as one who performed errands for more important Malaysians. So which important Malaysian was desperate to see Jalil dead? Or was Jalil killed by mistake, the cord around his neck being intended to frighten, not kill?

Osman, who was staying in Hong Kong at the time, was an obvious suspect. Jalil, sent from KL to find out more about what was going on at BMF, was obstructing a big new loan by BMF to parties related to the Carrian group needed in a last-ditch effort to prevent it from going under. Osman was BMF chairman but Jalil insisted on approval from KL. Another was the founder and head of the group, George Tan, also a Malaysian, who was even more desperate for the life-saving cash but had no evident connection to Mak. More distant suspects included the bankers, lawyers and accountants who had taken Carrian kickbacks or made unprofessional judgments for money. One lawyer, a senior partner in Hong Kong’s largest law firm was found dead in his swimming pool with a concrete manhole cover around his neck. This was deemed suicide.Read more.


The Moral Decay Of Our Society

The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom

Peter Oborne

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.Read more.


Thursday, August 11, 2011

London Riots:Of Black Scums and White Trash

Hantu Laut

What should we call the people who ran riot,looting, destroying other people's businesses and properties for the past four days in half-a-dozen British cities?

Do you want to be politically correct and called them protesters like what the BBC and the British media did.

What are they protesting about? Asking for fair and free elections, against racial discrimination or just pure badness, madness and criminality?

A rioter in London poses in front of a burning van

Genuine protesters do not loot, attack the police, torch properties and vehicles.

The West was quick to brand any form of extremism involving Muslims as terrorism.What do they consider those black scums and white trash as? The incendiary attacks on properties and human lives, are they any different from terrorism?

Obviously, the Western type of laissez-faire parenting mixed with the black voodoo culture has muddled the gene pool of offspring mired in badness and indiscipline.

Buildings burn on Tottenham High Road, London after youths protested against the killing of Mark Duggan by armed police in an attempted arrest

Buildings burn on Tottenham High Road, London after youths protested against the killing of Mark Duggan by armed police in an attempted arrest

I have no time for political correctness and indulge in niceties with these monsters, an evil manifestations of its nurture and conditioning.

Are they not thugs,scumbags,hooligans, criminal opportunists and last but not least terrorists? The products of bad parents and bad parenting.

Here, an eleven-year old caught for looting. He was just unlucky there were probably more of his delinquent that got away.Where were the parents of these young punks, were they also involved in rioting and looting?

I am always against any street demonstration, no matter how peaceful the organisers claimed it to be.The London riots are reminders that it takes only one man to start a feeding frenzy.

Ambiga and Bersih beware!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Bersih 2.0: Dirty War of the “clean” crusaders

August 10, 2011

FMT LETTER: From Calvin Sankaran, via e-mail

In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle.

They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

Thus was the advice from one of the Founding Fathers and the 3rd President of the US, Thomas Jefferson.

It is indeed surprising that more than 200 years on, we still find such advice is to be incredibly germane especially so in view of the prevailing poisonous political zeitgeist in the country.

Whether it is the American Tea-Party politico-terrorists or our homegrown pseudo reformers of Bersih 2.0, the ability of unruly mobs of angry zealots to be weapons of political and economic mass destruction and holding a nation hostage remains undiminished.

Bersih, like so many other groups subscribing to political extremism, has a noble aim and helmed by charismatic, internationally respected figurehead in Ambiga Sreenevasan. Bersih’s manifest demand is the amendment of the electoral laws to provide a level playing field to all political parties thus advancing the process of democratisation in Malaysia.

But beyond this wafer thin veneer of credibility everything else about Bersih reeks of political gamesmanship. It is a bitter irony that a coalition which strives for clean politics employs chicanery, deceit, hate mongering propaganda, half truths and lies to mislead people and demonise their opponents.

However, to be fair it must be said that the charge that Pakatan Rakyat leaders had hijacked Bersih to further their political ambitions is wildly inaccurate and completely baseless. For there is hardly a need do so since Pakatan and Ambiga’s Bersih are joined at the hip in an unholy, incestuous relationship.

Surely the former Bar Council president isn’t that naïve to assume that the PR parties are sincerely committed to clean and transparent election process when they themselves don’t practice the said principles for their own party elections.

Unless Ambiga has been a part of NASA’s space mission to Mars over the last few years, she would surely have witnessed the shambolic, scandal-ridden, violence-marred joke that passed for PKR’s version of democratic election.

It is worth noting here that Ambiga had declared the street rally was off and Bersih will be accepting the government’s offer of stadium after her audience with the King. However, Bersih’s real aim was exposed when Ambiga later spurned the offer of Shah Alam Stadium for the rally and stubbornly insisted upon Merdeka Stadium, citing ease of access and convenience.

It wasn’t long, however, when her concerns were proved to be as bogus as Hannah Yeoh’s Anak Malaysia comedy skit. This Lady of Liberty put lives and limbs of supporters in grave danger by urging them to defy the law, the riot police, tear gas and water cannons to march illegally in downtown KL. As such Ambiga and Bersih organisers must be accountable and responsible for the death of one of the participants instead of trying to pin the blame on the police.

That the Emperor Bersih wore no clothes was obvious to everyone except the blinkered legion of PR supporters; the shouts of “Reformasi” and “Takbir” far outnumbering cries for reform during the rally made that abundantly clear.

Within hours of the rally Pakatan cyber army was busy working overtime at their fiction factories and churning out highly edited, emotion-laden (if not terribly clever) videos on YouTube.

Using video imageries from past protests and even including foreign footages, these crusaders of clean elections played dirty by trying to elevate the illegal demonstrators as heroes while depicting the police as brutal thugs.

Even when these videos were exposed as fakes, no Bersih leader came forward to accept the responsibility or apologise for their deceitful, deplorable actions.

One of the Bersih videos that stood out for all the wrong reasons was the over-long clip titled, rather melodramatically as “The Truth That Cannot Be Covered”. Obviously produced by your average DAP cyber troopers next door (the atrocious English subtitles alone a dead giveaway) it was widely circulated via the social network among the Pakatan Kool-Aid drinkers.

This clip was the gold standard in exemplifying and showcasing the PR spinmasters’ level of intelligence and depths of delusion.

Unintentionally funny and laden with more tear-jerking sentimentalism than a dozen Kollywood movies put together, it scored several own goals by exposing the Pakatan supporters’ violent, rowdy behavior during the “peaceful” rally.

The maturity of the Bersih / Pakatan crowd was again amply demonstrated during a debate organised by the Sinar Harian newspaper between Ambiga and a representative from the EC. The debate almost violent when the some of them, unable to accept criticism or satisfied by answers given, had to be physically restrained from assaulting the EC rep. Read more.


Anarchy In The UK:Between a Rock and A Hard Place

Hantu Laut

The rioting is no more confined to London it has spread to other cities.Manchester, Salford, Wolverhampton, Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham with shops being looted and set alight.

A separate crowd in Manchester's Market Street has set fire to a Miss Selfridge shop. They then moved on to damage and loot other stores.

Is David Cameron "between a rock and a hard place" that till now he has not been able to make a sensible decision how to put out this flame of outrage.

If the UK government do not impose curfew in the trouble spots and order the police to shoot (with live ammo) on sight those who broke the law there will be complete anarchy in the UK as seen in Paris some 6 years ago.The one in Paris was better contained as it was only confined to the suburbs and did not touch the city proper.

The Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK"



This the country that want to export and impose its brand of freedom and democracy to the third and developing world.

They prefer to let freedom prevails at the cost of massive destruction to properties and lives of innocent people rather than taking tough measures to protect lives and properties from hordes of scumbags rampaging the streets, looting, burning buildings and cars at will.

Najib did the right thing to take preemptive action against Bersih.

It is a breath of fresh air looking at what is happening in the UK right now.The sight of burning buildings and cars are just too much to ingest.People's homes and businesses being burn down all for the sake of mindless violence.


Malaysians should be relieved the government did right to stop the massive rally from taking place.

Of course, the antagonists and potential troublemakers would not agree.

The Riots Of Paris and London: A Tale Of Two Cities

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With the violence that broke out in London Saturday having spread to other English cities during a third straight night of rioting Monday, it's tempting (and probably portentous) from the comfort of Paris to offer up lessons learned from the nearly three weeks of upheaval that rocked French towns in 2005. Yet while there seem to be certain details common to both those explosions of urban fury, significant differences not only complicate directly comparing events in the U.K. to those that occurred in France nearly six years ago—but also leave the current unrest looking more serious in terms of destruction and consequence. As shocking as the images of burning cars, vandalism, and clashes with police were in 2005, the scenes today from across London inspire an even stronger, awesome fear. Here's why.

The detonators of both uprisings appear to have been similar: first, police involvement in the deaths of local youths in neighborhoods with large populations of visible minorities, followed by the fury — nourished with wider frustrations of discrimination and alienation — that those killings unleashed. And as happened in 2005 France, the initial unrest that broke out Saturday in Tottenham has gradually spread to other areas of London and to two other British cities as young people have embraced the underlying message of social protest and rage—or used them as convenient excuses for running amok. Not insignificantly, the spread of violence in both cases also provoked laments-cum-accusation that over-dramatization and voyeuristic media coverage early on led to “copy-cat” replication of the urban outrage.

From there, however, things seem to get different in important ways--starting with urban geography. The Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois that initially erupted in unrest in Oct. 2005 is just that: one of the many towns hosting huge but decrepit housing projects for increasingly disenfranchised segments of French society. Those large clusters of projects are almost invariably located in relatively remote suburbs ringing most major French cities, sparing France the kinds of intra muros ghetto areas that cities like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles have—or neighborhoods with very large non-white, often economically disadvantaged populations as London does.

(SEE: Pictures of the riots in London.)

In stark contrast to the districts in London now suffering violence, therefore, virtually all unrest that rocked France in 2005 occurred in these project-heavy outlying suburbs. And for all intents and purposes, the nightly clashes in 2005 France were never exported anywhere near the businesses, shops, and primarily white, affluent residents of French city centers. The recurring destruction that stunned wider French society in 2005 essentially involved its most disadvantaged and alienated members wrecking havoc in their own, very remote backyards.

As anyone watching the images of destruction knows, the rioting in the English capital and other cities is now surging right up to the doors of comfortable, middle and upper-middle class homes. The reasons: the sprawling nature of London makes it a much geographically larger and a far more populated city than intramuros Paris. Meanwhile, like France's blighted banlieues, the London neighborhoods now suffering turmoil have heavy immigrant and visible minority populations airing complaints of discrimination, endemic unemployment, and tense relations with police. Yet these populations are part of a wider, mixed residential pool. Indeed, unlike France 2005, the Watts or South Central riots in Los Angeles, or instances of arson and looting in New York's Harlem, objectives of “containment” by officials in reacting to violence those cities are non-starters in London—whose mixed socio-economic-ethnic demographics make the current violence an equal opportunity threat. It numbs the mind to contemplate what kinds of new attacks on multi-culturalism will surge in Britain once the waves of nightly violence subside.


Related article:

The Great Riot of London: The Stakes for David Cameron


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Is Tony Fernandez Buying Trouble?

Hantu Laut

What would be the strike price in the share swap between MAS and AirAsia ? Is the strike price going to be higher or lower than the market price?

The exercise would call for at least 1 Air Asia share for 2 MAS shares but the valuation could be more because Air Asia market share price is more than twice that of MAS. However, it is up to MAS and Air Asia, they can ignore the market price and set a strike price they both agree on.

It was initially rumoured that the cross holding would give Tony Fernandez's Air Asia majority share in MAS which was later refuted by MAS biggest shareholder Khazanah Nasional Bhd, Malaysia's Sovereign wealth fund. Khazanah has 14.06% direct holding and 52.29% indirect holding through wholly owned Penerbangan Malaysia.It appears that even after the exercise Khazanah would still be a majority shareholder in MAS.

The share swap is between MAS and Air Asia not with Tune Air as reported by the Editor of Malaysian Insider here. Tune air would have indirect interest in MAS through Air Asia.If such holdings were of significant size this would make it difficult for either company's shareholders to displace the existing management; if both were majority holdings it would be impossible to vote out either set of directors.

Unless he has control over the policies and major decisions in MAS I can't see the rational of Fernandez buying into MAS if Khazanah still call the shot.The swap, if successful, would also give Khazanah significant share in Air Asia if they have not already own some shares in Air Asia through nominees.It would also give Khazanah significant role in policy matters. However, if two firms cross hold each other, it is difficult to displace the management in one without the consent of the other corporation.Being a shrewd businessman I am sure Fernandez has something under his sleeve that we have yet to see.

MAS string of failures was not due solely to the CEO, the board of directors should take the bigger blame for the mess the airline is in. One should envisage the problem of working with a bunch of bureaucratic civil servants to appreciate the difficult working environment one can be subjected to.Remember the days when nasi lemak cost the airline RM70.00 a plate.Nasi lemak is certainly not gourmet food, you can get better nasi lemak from street vendors for as little as RM2.50.

Political interference has also contributed to some of MAS losses.The few years that MAS made money under Idris Jala was made more out of assets stripping rather than profits from its operations.Even if they did, the profits were insignificant.

Below Singapore Airlines group financial highlights.

Year ended↓ Revenue
(S$m)↓
Expenditure
(S$m)↓
Operating profit
(S$m)↓
Profit before
taxation (S$m)↓


31 March 1999 7,795.9 6,941.5 854.4 1,116.8

31 March 2000 9,018.8 7,850.0 1,168.8 1,463.9

31 March 2001 9,951.3 8,604.6 1,346.7 1,904.7

31 March 2002 9,382.8 8,458.2 924.6 925.6

31 March 2003 10,515.0 9,797.9 717.1 976.8

31 March 2004 9,761.9 9,081.5 680.4 820.9

31 March 2005 12,012.9 10,657.4 1,355.5 1,829.4

31 March 2006 13,341.1 12,127.8 1,213.3 1,662.1

31 March 2007 14,494.4 13,180.0 1,314.4 2,284.6

31 March 2008 15,972.5 13,848.0 2,124.5 2,547.2

31 March 2009 15,996.3 15,092.7 903.6 1,198.6

31 March 2010 12,707.3 12,644.1 63.2 285.5


All those years Singapore Airline were making profits MAS was losing substantially or profited under extraordinary gains while under Jala's management.It's a 5 star airline with 5 star losses.

Jala left in the nick of time when Najib pulled him out of MAS to join his cabinet.Soon after he left, the airline started showing losses again.Obviously, they have no more assets to strip or major asset unbundling, the formula used in the financial restructuring in 2002 after suffering huge losses.The Binafikir formula have a short shelf life, the airline is back in the red.

Would Tony insists to absorb Firefly into Air Asia and MAS to cease selling low fares to its passengers and stay as a full-fledged carrier? I expect these would be some of the conditions thrown at Khazanah if they were to bring Tony to the board of MAS.

Since the deal between MAS and Air Asia is not yet set in concrete anything can happen, negotiation can still break down if Tony doesn't get what he wants.