Sunday, July 31, 2011

All Survived:Miracles Do Happen













GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Flight 523 from New York had just touched down and passengers were applauding the pilot's landing in the South American country Saturday when something suddenly went wrong.

The Boeing 737-800 slid off the end of a rainy runway, crashed through a chain-link fence and broke in half just short of a deep ravine. Yet all 163 people on board survived.

Officials were starting to probe the cause of the crash even as they marveled at the lack of fatalities.

"We must be the luckiest country and luckiest set of people in the world to escape so lightly," said Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy, who said more than 30 people were taken to the hospital. Only three of those had to be admitted for a broken leg, bumps, cuts and bruises.

The Caribbean Airlines plane had left John F. Kennedy International Airport Friday evening and made a stop in Trinidad before landing in Guyana. The airline said it was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members.

Geeta Ramsingh, 41, of Philadelphia, recalled how applause at the arrival quickly "turned to screams."

"The plane sped up as if attempting to take off again. It is then that I smelled gas in the cabin and people started to shout and holler," she said.

When the plane crumpled to a stop, Ramsingh said she hopped onto the wing and then onto the dirt road outside the runway fence.

"A fellow who was trying to escape as well mistakenly jumped on my back and that is why my knees are bruised," she said. "So I am in pain, but very thankful to be alive."

Nobody had yet showed up to rescue her, "but a taxi driver appeared from nowhere and charged me $20 to take me to the terminal. I had to pay, but in times of emergencies, you don't charge people for a ride," she said, sitting on a chair in the arrival area surrounded by relatives. She was returning to her native country for only the second time in 30 years.Read more.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Ad Nauseam:A Family Of Liars

Hantu Laut

The blatant lies continued in spite of a video clearly showing Tian Chua counting 1, 2, 3 and leading the charge towards the police.

PKR Subang MP R Sivarasa explained that Tian Chua was running away from the police rather than attacking them during an incident at an underpass at KL Sentral.

“Police seem to be focusing on Tian Chua running out of the underpass, trying to suggest that he was charging at the police and therefore they fired tear gas. But the videos show that that’s a complete lie,” said Sivarasa.

Story here.

Watch the video and judge for yourself who is the liar.



Shame on you Sivarasa!

The lies have reached ad nauseam.Disgusting and intolerable.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Murdering Anwar: More Lies And Fantasies
















Hantu Laut.

You don't have to know forensic science to tell another blatant lie by Pakatan leaders.Look at the wound on the face of the man in the picture purportedly to be Anwar's bodyguard. Does it look like it was a direct horizontal hit?A direct shot would have smashed his face and would have left a circular bloody mark on his face.The wound clearly shows the canister was fired at 45 degrees trajectory and landed on his face.The deep gash on his face means only part of the canister touched his face not the full brunt as claimed by Pakatan leaders.He could also have fell down and hurt himself.

The wound speaks volume of blatant and venomous lies by Pakatan leaders accusing the police of wanting to kill Anwar. Most right-minded people would have run away when they saw the canister coming.Why did Anwar and his bodyguard stayed where they were without trying to flee?

Tear gas canister do not travel the speed of a bullet, you have plenty of time to get away.All I can say it was probably another theatrical act for public display.

Anwar was not hit directly by the tear gas canister how could he suffered a bruise on his head and a cut on his leg, here? Could that be the result of a scuffle when every one panicked and trying to escape the tear gas.

A story here what Bersih is all about.It's all about the revival of Anwar.Malaysian electoral system may not be that perfect but the claim by Ambiga and Pakatan of unfair and unclean polls are ridiculous.

Maybe, we should blame the British for leaving such a faulty system behind, which, incidentally is still being used in Britain.

Below is the results of the UK 2005 General Elections.

Seats
This table indicates those parties with over one seat, Great Britain only
Seats % Votes % Votes
Labour Party 355 56.5 36.1 9,552,436
Conservative Party 198 31.5 33.2 8,782,192
Liberal Democrats 62 9.9 22.6 5,985,454
Scottish National Party 6 1.0 1.6 412,267
Plaid Cymru 3 0.5 0.7 174,838
Others 4 0.6 5.7 1,523,716
628

26,430,908

The Labour Party only had 36.1% of the total votes but 56.5% of the total seats.The Conservative and all other parties put together had 63.9% of the votes but only 43.5% of the seats.

The people of Britain have not gone on to the streets demanding that the unfair system be changed.The difference between them and us, they respect and love their heritage, Malaysians are easily fooled.

If there are enough people determined to change the government, change will come, with or without Bersih instigating people to go on the streets to demand a free and fair elections.The problem is, Pakatan Rakyat could not convince enough Malaysians to vote them as the Federal government.The same thing would happen in the 13th General Elections.They will again fail to capture Putrajaya and back to the same blame game repetitiously claiming they were cheated.

Let's take the state of Kelantan. PAS has been there in power for almost 22 years, why can't the BN cheat to get Kelantan back? It was obvious, unshakeable voters, was the reason the BN could not topple PAS in Kelantan.Should we also accuse PAS of cheating?

There is no perfect system.The oppositions want the EC to introduce indelible ink to stop what they purportedly called double voting. Not sure whether such cheating have actually taken place in the past or just a figment of some one's imagination or just the opposition's smear campaign against the BN to gain political mileage.No case has been brought to court to show the legitimacy of this allegation.

Do the BN have enough machinery to carry out the arduous task of arranging voters for double voting and what percentage of voters involved in this scam? The opposition has not been able to show any evidence other than their rabble-rousing rhetoric.

Have the opposition ever considered the possibility of the indelible ink being misused or abused, forcibly applied on voters to stop them from voting? I am sure such infraction can occur if a party or candidate is desperate to win at any cost.

The video below shows the police firing of tear gas at the Bersih's rally.



What do you see, were they shooting straight at the mob or at about 30-45 degrees into the air?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Bersih/Pakatan's Lies,Untruths And Fantasies

Hantu Laut

Is Bersih really apolitical, truly representing the rakyat, or fronting the opposition Pakatan Rakyat?

Take a look at the photos and video below and see for yourself whether you, as citizen of this country, believe in what Amiga and Pakatan leaders claimed and the actual motive of Bersih.

Why is she always surrounded by Pakatan leaders?

The video below shows how Pakatan leaders lied through their teeth that the police shot tear gas and water cannon at the crowd unprovoked.

See who lead the charge at the police. Was it not Anwar's lieutenant, the master forger Tian Chua.

Who are the liars the police or Pakatan leaders?

Vote for Pakatan and you be voting for a bunch of liars.



Here, a nasty Malaysian lady with another pack of lies and a deadly grudge trying to link the RM15 billion yacht to Najib or Taib.

I was the first to ridicule the price tag in my posting " British Trash".The boat maker has confirmed it was a fake and there was no such boat.

Only idiots would believe anyone would build a pleasure yacht with such price tag.





























Here and here, the nasty Pommy
with her pack of lies and endless crusade against the Malaysian government and leaders.It's obvious someone is paying her for the smear campaign and political grandstanding for the benefits of the opposition.

If you don't speak English you can't belong in Britain

Malaysians who can't speak the national language take a leaf out of this story.

By David Green

8:13PM BST 27 Jul 2011

When the last Labour government introduced a requirement that immigrants who wished to marry a British citizen must learn English before coming to live here, it struck most people as a perfectly reasonable expectation. But that requirement is now being challenged in the High Court on two grounds. First, it is said to be racially discriminatory, because it impacts disproportionately on certain ethnic groups; and second, under the European Convention on Human Rights, it is said to obstruct the right to family life.

The case has been brought by Rashida Chapti, who wishes to bring her husband to the UK from India. Her barrister claims that the language requirement contravenes Article 8, the right to family life, and Article 12, the right to marry. Mrs Chapti is reported to have travelled back and forth between India and Leicester for about 15 years, but now wishes to settle here with her husband.

The Labour government planned to bring the requirement into force in July 2011, but it was brought forward to November 2010 by the Coalition. When Theresa May, the Home Secretary, announced her plans, she said: “I believe being able to speak English should be a pre-requisite for anyone who wants to settle here. The new English requirement for spouses will help promote integration, remove cultural barriers and protect public services.”

The requirement is not too exacting. Applicants will have to demonstrate English at “A1 level”, which requires them to demonstrate a basic command of conversational English, currently the same as the level required for skilled workers who have been offered a job in the UK. Similar expectations apply to immigrants seeking work throughout the EU. Since 2006, France has tightened up its rules. Anyone without a job, and especially if they lack scarce skills, must go through the French consulate in their home country. They have to prepare a petition showing why they should be allowed in. If they can’t speak French they have little chance.

Australia requires applicants for work visas to have “vocational English”, which means they must be able to read, write, understand and speak English well enough to hold down a job. Applicants may be required to take an independent test of proficiency. Canada requires proficiency in either English or French, and also requires applicants to take a language test from an approved agency.Read more.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Transformer: The Rise Of Asri And Wahabism.

Hantu Laut

Dr Asri is probably the most level minded ulama than most that I have come across.He is on my blog roll and I occasionally read his blog.It's heart-rending that he is being branded as terrorist.

The government as shown bad judgement by branding him as terrorist.

Just because someone does not agree with you it does not make him a terrorist.Being critical of the government does not make you a terrorist.To change a government in a democratic process does not make you a terrorist.

At one time, UMNO tried to woo him to join the party but failed to convince him. Since he spoke against some of the policies of the government and against UMNO leaders he has suddenly transformed into a terrorist.Maybe, someone should do a movie on him "TRANSFORMER: THE RISE OF ASRI AND WAHABISM"



Al Qaeda is a terrorist organisation comprising only Muslims, does it make all Muslims terrorists? The recent bloodbath in Oslo, Norway by a Christian terrorist who hates Islam killing scores of his own people, does it make all Christians as terrorists?

Although, I don't agree with some of its practices, Wahhabism is mainstream Islam and should be allowed to be practised freely.The government have also banned Shia in this country which is one of the two main branches of Islam.

Malaysia may be the only Muslim country that ban the other branch of Islam.Why? I am not sure. The government has not given comprehensive explanation for the ban.

In the old days Muslims were allowed to differ in opinions, that is why we have two main branches, Sunni and Shia and many sub-branches derived from different imams (madhhab).Since then no Islamic scholars dared to bring changes for the good of the religion.Doing so would be branded a deviant or worse, a death penalty.

What next? Are the government going to ban other Madhhab (Schools Of Jurisprudence) and will only allow the imam subscribed and practised by the majority........ to be the only type of Islam legal in this country?

We have Hanifi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali, which of the four imams is recognised by the government?

I do not agree with the government labelling of Prof Madya Dr Asri Zainal Abidin as terrorist.

Simply calling someone a terrorist is not on.The government has full responsibility to give detailed explanation to the people on why he is labelled as terrorist.

It makes one wonder who is the real terrorist here?

Read:

Back to the Middle Ages

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It's The New Mayor, Stupid!

Hantu Laut















Sunset at Tg.Aru Beach


I am not a friend of the former mayor nor the new mayor.What I am putting here is honest-to-goodness talk about the worsening state of affairs at Tg.Aru Beach, Kota Kinabalu.

I fully agree with the article here on the state of neglect of the beach by DBKK.

It has become worse with the present south westerly wind that brought and deposited debris from the water on to the beach.It has also become worse since the new mayor took over.This beach is only about 3 kilometres long yet the Mayor found it difficult to clean up.

Eyes behold the amount of garbage strewn the full stretch of the beach making it looking more like a rubbish dump rather than a beach.

In the past DBKK used to send workers to clean up the beach quite regularly.Below are photos I took about two years ago of DBKK workers cleaning up the beach.

















They even dug into the sand to remove shallowly buried plastic bags.It is now history.It is now left to nature to take its own course.

There have been cases of mugging and every Sundays hordes of "Mat Rempit" would be on their "Cap chai" terrorising beach goers and endangering children playing on the beach.They came in a big group so no one dare to stop them from doing their dangerous stunts on the beach.














It's about time DBKK wakes up and the police step in and nap these monkeys.

What did the Oslo killer want?

Posted By Blake Hounshell


I have just finished reading through what appears to be the 1,518-page manifesto and handbook of the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Norwegian history.

The manifesto, bylined by someone calling himself Andrew Berwick, is entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" and was posted on Stormfront.org, a white supremacist website, and discovered by American blogger Kevin I. Slaughter. [UPDATE: Norwegian TV has confirmed that the author is indeed the Oslo shooter, according to the New York Times.]

In it, "Berwick" declares himself a "Justiciar Knight Commander," a leading member of a "re-founded" Knights Templar group formed at an April 2002 meeting in London. He claims the founding group has 9 members, whom he does not name, and that three other sympathizers were not able to attend the original meeting.

"Our purpose," the document reads, is to "seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda."

In grim, apocalyptic language, it advocates attacks on "traitors" across Europe who are supposedly enabling a Muslim takeover of the continent.

"[W]e should… not exceed (per 2010) aprox. 45 000 dead and 1 million wounded cultural Marxists/multiculturalists in Western Europe," the author writes. "The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come."

The manifesto also provides detailed instructions for everything from making a bomb to raising funds to preparing physically and mentally for what the author describes as a coming three-stage "civil war" between patriotic nationalists and "multiculturalists" who are, wittingly or not, destroying European civilization.

Filled with hateful rantings against Muslims -- whom the author claims are on a trajectory to take over Europe and erase its culture patrimony -- the writing bears a great resemblence to online comments attributed to Anders Breivik, 32, the confessed architect of a massacre that has so far claimed nearly 100 lives.

The author also claims to be Norwegian, and says that English is not his native language. And at the bottom of the document are several pictures of Breivick in different outfits, including the frogman costume pictured above.

Most suggestive of all, perhaps, is the detailed diary the author kept of his 82-day attempt to secretly build a fertilizer bomb while hiding out at a farm purchased explicitly for that purpose -- chronicling his attempts to construct a device that would kill as many people as possible.

Here's his entry from June 13, when he had his first successful detonation:Read more.

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Maid's Tale

“Hello? Housekeeping.”

The maid hovered in the suite’s large living room, just inside the entrance. The 32-year-old Guinean, an employee of the Sofitel hotel, had been told by a room-service waiter that room 2806 was now free for cleaning, “Hello? Housekeeping,” the maid called out again. No reply. The door to the bedroom, to her left, was open, and she could see part of the bed. She glanced around the living room for luggage, saw none. “Hello? Housekeeping.” Then a naked man with white hair suddenly appeared, as if out of nowhere.

That’s how Nafissatou Diallo describes the start of the explosive incident on Saturday, May 14, that would forever change her life—and that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and, until that moment, the man tipped to be the next president of France. Now the woman known universally as the “DSK maid” has broken her public silence for the first time, talking for more than three hours with NEWSWEEK at the office of her attorneys, Thompson Wigdor, on New York City’s Fifth Avenue.

“Nafi” Diallo is not glamorous. Her light-brown skin is pitted with what look like faint acne scars, and her dark hair is hennaed, straightened, and worn flat to her head, but she has a womanly, statuesque figure. When her face is in repose, there is an opaque melancholy to it. Working at the Sofitel for the last three years, with its security and stability, was clearly the best job she’d ever hoped to have, after years braiding hair and working in a friend’s store in the Bronx as a newcomer from Guinea in 2003.

Diallo cannot read or write in any language; she has few “close friends,” she says, and some of the men she has spent time with, whom she does not call fiancés or boyfriends, but “just friends,” appear to have taken advantage of her. One, now in a federal detention center in Arizona awaiting deportation after a drug conviction, won her confidence—and, she says, access to her bank accounts—by giving her fake designer bags: “Six or seven of them,” she says. “They weren’t very good.” Her face goes almost blank. “He was my friend that I trust—that I used to trust,” she says.

Some of Diallo’s most upbeat moments in the interview came when she recounted the small promotions and credits available at the Sofitel for a job done well. She was supposed to clean 14 rooms a day for a wage of $25 an hour plus tips, according to her union. It’s an achievement, Diallo said, to get a whole floor of your own because it saves the time wasted going up and down in the elevator to clean random individual rooms. Another maid had gone on maternity leave in April, Diallo said, and she’d gotten the 28th floor. “I keep that floor,” said Diallo. “I never had a floor before.” When every door has a “Do Not Disturb” notice, maids save precious minutes by going to the hall closet and quickly refilling their cleaning carts with soap, towels, and other amenities. Diallo’s eyes lit up talking about the routine and about her colleagues. “We worked as a team,” she said. “I loved the job. I liked the people. All different countries, American, African, and Chinese. But we were the same there.”

Occasionally as Diallo talked, she wept, and there were moments when the tears seemed forced. Almost all questions about her past in West Africa were met with vague responses. She was reluctant to talk about her father, an imam who ran a Quranic school out of the family home in rural Guinea. Her husband died of “an illness,” she said. So did a daughter who was 3 or 4 months old—she wasn’t sure. Diallo was raped by two soldiers who arrested her for a curfew violation at night in Conakry, the Guinean capital. When they had finished with her, they released her the next morning, she said, but made her clean up the scene of the assault. At first she said she couldn’t recall what year that happened, but later she said it was 2001. Diallo had managed to get her surviving daughter, now 15, out of Africa and to the United States “for a better life,” she said. But precisely how that happened was not a subject she or her lawyers would explore. Again, her eyes stared downward, welling with tears.

When Diallo reached the point of her alleged assault in the Sofitel, however, her account was vivid and compelling. As she told NEWSWEEK, she had used up a lot of time waiting for guests to check out of room 2820 before she cleaned it. Then she saw the room-service waiter taking the tray out of 2806, one of the hotel’s presidential suites. The waiter said it was empty. But still she decided to check. This is her account.

“Hello? Housekeeping.” Diallo looked around the living room. She was standing facing the bedroom in the small entrance hall when the naked man with white hair appeared.

“Oh, my God,” said Diallo. “I’m so sorry.” And she turned to leave. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he said. But he was like “a crazy man to me.” He clutched at her breasts. He slammed the door of the suite.

Diallo is about 5 feet 10, considerably taller than Strauss-Kahn, and she has a sturdy build. “You’re beautiful,” Strauss-Kahn told her, wrestling her toward the bedroom. “I said, ‘Sir, stop this. I don’t want to lose my job,’” Diallo told NEWSWEEK. “He said, ‘You’re not going to lose your job.’” An ugly incident with a guest—any guest—could threaten everything Diallo had worked for. “I don’t look at him. I was so afraid. I didn’t expect anyone in the room.”

“He pulls me hard to the bed,” she said. He tried to put his penis in her mouth, she said, and as she told the story she tightened her lips and turned her face from side to side to show how she resisted. “I push him. I get up. I wanted to scare him. I said, ‘Look, there is my supervisor right there.’” But the man said there was nobody out there, and nobody was going to hear. Read more.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

AirAsia Moves Corporate HQ from KL to Jakarta

Hantu Laut

I envisaged this would happen and have written here the possibility of Air Asia moving its hub to Singapore.Never crossed my mind it would be Jakarta.

I have also warned that Air Asia has become too big to ignore and our stupid politicians in power and bureaucratic civil servants did exactly that.They even make life difficult for domestic investors let alone foreign investors.Bad policies over the years have driven away FDI and close to a trillion ringgit capital flight by both domestic and foreign investors.

If they have any sense of shame they should either close down MAS or give it to Tony Fernandez to manage.The airline is again losing money.

Big blow for Malaysia and bigger blow for Najib.

Maybe, this government deserves to lose.

Putting regional office in Indonesia is a blow for Prime Minister Najib.

With all the troubles he has had over the last two months, the confirmation Friday that AirAsia, arguably Malaysia’s most vibrant private company, is moving its headquarters out of the country to Indonesia is one more blow.

Tony Fernandes, AirAsia’s group chief executive, confirmed the decision in Tokyo Thursday, saying the move is an effort to upgrade his company’s image as a regional Southeast Asian airline rather than just a Malaysian carrier.

“I don't know whether Najib has been told or not,” said a business associate of Fernandes in Kuala Lumpur. “But why should Tony care? There are solid business reasons for moving to Jakarta.”

Najib has been on a whirlwind trip to foreign capitals to try and mend the country’s image in the wake of a violent police crackdown on peaceful marchers seeking to present a petition to the country’s king on July 9, asking for election reform. In a throwback to the 1980s, Malaysian censors blacked out details of a report about the march carried in The Economist.

That was followed on July 23 with the results of a royal commission of inquiry that concluded that a young aide to an opposition politician had been hounded so badly during a marathon interrogation over office spending that he threw himself out of a window and killed himself.

Then on Friday, immigration officials took William Bourdon, the leader of a team seeking to ferret out the details of a massive scandal involving defense procurement, off a plane in Kuala Lumpur, held him for several hours and ordered him deported via a flight back to Paris.

Fernandes characterized the move of the headquarters as a simple business decision to take advantage of Indonesia’s vastly larger economy and population, which is nearly 10 times that of Malaysia’s, although Malaysian annual per-capita gross domestic product of US$14,700 by purchasing power parity is much higher currently than Indonesia’s at US$4,200. The size of the country, however, meant that the Indonesian economy was estimated by the CIA Factbook for 2010 at US$1.03 trillion against Malaysia’s US$414.4 billion.

AirAsia’s decision to move the headquarters is a serious negative propaganda blow for Najib’s 1Malaysia Plan, an intensive effort to lure foreign direct investment to Malaysia. In September 2010, the Malaysian government announced ambitious plans to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment in an effort to move the country out of the so-called middle income trap, and double per capita income to push Malaysia into the ranks of developed nations by 2020.

AirAsia may well be the only Malaysian company besides the state-owned energy giant Petronas to have made an international impact – and Petronas does it by advertising intensively during Formula 1 races and by sponsoring a car – which Fernandes does as well. Launched in 2002 as a regional no-frills carrier with just two planes, AirAsia now flies 93 planes all over Asia. In addition, a long-haul service, AirAsia X, flies to Europe, Japan and Korea. The company earlier ordered 300 Airbus A320neos.to expand its routes across Asia and beyond.

It isn’t just the publicity damage. In the past 10 years, according to a report by the news agency Reuters, private companies invested just RM535 billion (US$172.4 billion), according to official data. Malaysia’s private investment rate of about 10 percent of GDP is among the lowest in Asia and a third of what it was before the 1998 Asian financial crisis. The government, according to Reuters, contributes around half the investment in Malaysia.

In addition, Malaysia has long been plagued by capital flight, which has been generally regarded as an indication of lack of faith in the country on the part of its businessmen, although in Malaysia’s case the bulk may well be from stolen timber leaving the country from Sarawak and Sabah. Nonetheless, the US-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity estimated in a 2010 report that as much as RM888 billion (US$298.3 billion at current exchange rates) had left the country between 2000 and 2008. Illicit financial flows generally involve the transfer of money earned through illegal activities such as corruption, transactions involving contraband goods, criminal activities and efforts to shelter wealth from tax authorities.

AirAsia said the move is a bid to take advantage of access to the Asean secretariat, which is based in Jakarta, in advance of an open skies agreement expected to go into effect in 2015 and which is designed to lower barriers for air travel between the region’s capitals. Read more.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

French Lawyer Detained And Deported


Hantu Laut


THIS GUY IS WAY OUT OF LINE.DOES INVESTIGATION INCLUDES GIVING TALK TO A FEW HUNDRED PEOPLE IN MALAYSIA.IT STINKS HIGH OF POLITICS.


THE GOVERNMENT WAS RIGHT TO KICK HIM OUT.


Leader of a team investigating kickbacks to Malaysian and French politicians is taken off a plane at KLIA

William Bourdon, the leader of a Paris-based team investigating allegations of massive kickbacks to Malaysian and French officials in the US$1 billion sale of submarines to Malaysia, was taken off a plane Friday at Kuala Lumpur International Airport by Malaysian immigration officials and later ordered out of the country.

Later in the day, Bourdon emailed reporters in Kuala Lumpur to say he was to be put aboard a 11:30 p.m. plane for Paris the same night, cutting short his visit short to the country .

“Everything is okay. I am so sorry to leave my friends; we fly tonight for Paris. Keep in touch, take care and have courage,” the lawyer said in an email to Malaysiakini reporter Susan Loone.

The detention and deportation is a major embarrassment that internationalizes the controversy just at a time when Prime Minister NajibTun Razak has been seeking to repair the country's overseaxs image with visits to European dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth and the Pope.

Malaysia has taken a major battering over the past month, first with a violent crackdown on peaceful marchers seeking to present a petition to the country’s king asking for election reform. In a seeming throwback to the 1980s. After that, censors blacked out details of a report about the march carried in The Economist, hardly a rdical publication. That was followed Thursaday with the results of a royal commission of inquiry that concluded that a young aide to an opposition politician had been hounded so badly during interrogation over office spending that he threw himself out of a window and killed himself.

The detention of a lawyer seeking to ferret out details of a massive huge involving defense procurement certainly isn’t going to help. Bourdon was flying into Kuala Lumpur after speaking to hundreds of people in Penang at a fundraiser to continue the investigation of the submarine transaction. Earlier, in an interview before he left for Kuala Lumpur, Bourdon told Asia Sentinel that French police had made what he called substantial progress in procuring the details of the submarine transaction and that he hoped to have access to them in September.

The allegations of kickbacks have surrounded the sale of the submarines virtually since the transaction was completed in 2002. However, the case, which could have the potential to bring down the Malaysian government, has been kept under wraps by a government apparently anxious to protect the man who engineered the transaction – then-Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak, now Malaysia’s prime minister. The case involves the payment of €114 million in “commissions” to Perimekar Sdn. Bhd., a company wholly owned by Abdul Razak Baginda, then a well-wired security consultant and one of Najib’s best friends. Read more.

Friday, July 22, 2011

The Political Circus

Hantu Laut

The RCI (Royal Commission of Inquiry) concluded that Teoh Beng Hock committed suicide as a result of aggressive and continuous interrogation by the MACC.Story here.

The family of Teoh Beng Hock rejected the verdict and is now requesting a judicial review,in all probability, advised by the family lawyer who also happened to be a prominent opposition politician.

“The RCI is an inferior tribunal in law and any decision made by an inferior tribunal is reviewable by the High Court.” Karpal, who is also DAP chairman, said he is studying the RCI report “line by line” to decide on the next course of action, which will be made known early next week.

They condemned the RCI as an inferior tribunal when they were the ones who demanded for it.

How do you deal with these kind of people, they twist and turn to their fancies, not showing concern for the bereaved family but for their own political mileage.

First they rejected the inquest and asked for RCI, which the government eventually agreed and allowed it to take place.Now, they are not happy with the verdict and want to carry on the crusade at the expense of the Teo's family for the benefits of politics.......Pakatan politics!

Enough is enough, the government should not allow these political opportunists to capitalise on a dead man's family misery to gain political mileage.

The government should close the case and take appropriate action against the MACC officers instrumental for the death of Teo.

From the finding of the RCI it is obvious those officers have a case to answer.

Teoh Beng Hock's RCI report - English (pdf download)


Malaysian Graft Probers Caused Political Aide's Suicide

Aide hounded to death, royal commission finds

Opposition party political aide Teoh Beng Hock, whose death in Kuala Lumpur two years ago ignited suspicion that he had been murdered by Anti-Corruption Commission officers, was actually hounded to his death, a Royal Commission of Inquiry announced Thursday.

The suicide death of the then-30 year-old Teoh, who was engaged to be married to his pregnant girlfriend, set off a firestorm in Malaysia’s minority Chinese community. He was found dead on July 16, 2009, on the fifth floor of a building next to the MACC headquarters after being questioned overnight at the Selangor MACC headquarters. He is believed to thrown himself out of a window of the MACC building after being granted a break from questioning.

A second death in April of a 56-year-old customs assistant director named Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed, who was said to have thrown himself out of a third-floor window of the MACC headquarters, has raised more concerns about the agency’s interrogation techniques.

Teoh was called into the MACC headquarters in the middle of the night to be interrogated as a material witness into alleged irregularities in the disbursement of Selangor government funds by his employer, Assemblyman Ean Yong Hian Wah. As it turned out, Ean was later cleared of any charges of wrongdoing.

An autopsy ordered by the opposition to be performed by the flamboyant Thai pathologist, Porntip Rojanasunand, concluded that the aide had been murdered. Porntip’s autopsy was discarded by the royal commission as erroneous, however. And although the royal commission finding supports government officials’ explanation of the tragedy, the inquiry determined that the suicide was the result of continuous and aggressive questioning by MACC officials.

Three MACC officers were found to have continuously used interrogation tactics that were agresif dan tidak wajar (aggressive, inappropriate) and therefore in violation of the regulations, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Aziz told a press conference in the Parliament building in Kuala Lumpur Thursday. The three officers are former Selangor investigations unit head Hishammudin Hashim, investigation officer Mohd Anuar Ismail and assistant superintendent Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus.

“The MACC conducted investigations following information that a Selangor executive councillor and assemblyperson was involved in false allocation claims for his own party interest,” Nazri told reporters. “Teoh was supposed to be the key witness for MACC which investigated the allegation involving the DAP executive councilor. MACC's investigation mounted pressure on Teoh to make a confession as evidence.”

The MACC officials did not intend to cause Teoh’s death, Nazri said. "He felt pressured and stressed as a result of continuous interrogation techniques." Nazri said that "appropriate action will be taken against those officers involved who went against MACC procedure based on the rules and laws already in place."

The commissioners' conclusion that Teoh had committed suicide was strengthened by psychiatric findings by forensic psychiatrist Paul Edward Mullen, who was engaged by the Bar Council that Teoh was "weak in character."

"Having considered all the evidence in its entirety, we found that Teoh was driven to commit suicide by the aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous interrogation to which he was subjected by certain officers of the MACC who were involved in the ongoing operation by the Selangor MACC on the night of the 15th and into the morning of the 16th," the report concluded.

Nazri said the commissioners, who were unanimous in their decision, have recommended that MACC's interrogation procedures be reviewed.

He added that the government is saddened by the incident that took Teoh's life and gave a commitment that appropriate action will be taken against the officers who had flaunted the procedures. He also urged interested parties, including Teoh's family, to put an end to the “episode” with the report out in public.

Besides concluding the circumstances surrounding Teoh's death, the RCI panel was also entrusted to look into MACC's interrogation procedures. It was recommended that the anti-graft authority review its entrance qualifications, upgrade infrastructure and public facilities and revamp its training schemes. Read more.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

British Trash !

Hantu Laut

The mind-boggling price tag is too good to be true.Which Malaysian has RM15 billion net worth let alone buy a RM15 billion yacht?

Even Robert Kwok, the richest man in Malaysia is only worth US$12.5 billion, which at today's exchange rate would be roughly RM37 billion.Being a very prudent businessman would he spend half his fortune on a yacht, a fast depreciating asset?

Below, the 10 richest men in Malaysia.











Which one of the above is mad enough to blow RM15 billion on a yacht?

Whatever you read on "Forbes Riches Of Malaysia" or the world are mostly paper worth, in another word they are "unrealised wealth".These wealth are based on what is known publicly such as stocks,bonds and other tangible assets minus his debts.That would be his net worth.

A man could be richer than what is known publicly if his private holdings are kept secret.

A good example is Daim Zainuddin, whom most people know is very very rich but no one can evaluate his wealth.His private holdings are not opened to the public.

The most expensive ocean liner is the Royal Caribbean’s "Oasis Of The Seas" which only cost US1.24 billion and is 1,180 feet long, and carry 6360 passengers. It’s the most expensive ship in history, and it’s longer, wider and taller than the largest ocean liner ever built, (Cunard’s QM II), 43 per cent larger in size than the world’s largest cruise ship, (Freedom of the Seas) and remarkably, bigger than any military ship ever built, aircraft carriers included.

The Oasis of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship which cost over £810million to construct, is shown during sea trials

Oasis of the Seas


Would you expect anything better from junk journalism?


The reporter need to have his head examined.

Read the story below.


One hull of a price tag: Luxury yacht that would make even Roman Abramovich jealous sells for £3bn

By Ted Thornhill


Talk about splashing out – an anonymous Malaysian businessman has spent £3billion on a yacht made from solid gold and platinum.

The History Supreme was assembled using a staggering 100,000kg of the precious metals.

They were used throughout the boat, from the base of the vessel – which is wrapped in solid gold – to the deck, dining area, rails and anchor.

Expensive: If you want one of these Stuart Hughes luxury yachts, you can wave goodbye to £3billion

Expensive: If you want one of these Stuart Hughes luxury yachts, you can wave goodbye to £3billion

The hefty price tag is also the result of an amazingly luxurious master bedroom. It’s adorned with platinum and has a wall feature made from meteoric stone and a genuine T-Rex dinosaur bone.

It's enough to make even Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich turn a distinct shade of green.

He has a £300m yacht called Eclipse that comes complete with two swimming pools, a gym and a submarine - but it's missing the all-important platinum and gold adornments.

The History Supreme is the handiwork of Liverpool-based jeweller Stuart Hughes, who took three years to complete it.

It represents one of the 39-year-old’s more extravagant projects, and this is a man who specialises in turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Luxury: The History Supreme's bedroom is covered in platinum and the odd prehistoric artefact

Luxury: The History Supreme's bedroom is covered in platinum and the odd prehistoric artefact

He started his bespoke upgrade service in 2002 with his wife Katherine and has since applied his golden touch to all sorts of objects.

His Aquavista Panoramic Wall Aquarium, for instance, is made from 68kg of 24ct gold and is yours for a cool £3million.

Then there’s Mr Hughes’ iPhone 4, worth a mind-blowing £5m.

Gold standard: The boat is covered in precious metals - even the anchor has been given a special makeover

Gold standard: The boat is covered in precious metals - even the anchor has been given a special makeover

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Malaysia's Sub Scandal Resurfaces

French prosecutors edge closer to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak

The noose could be tightening on one of Malaysia’s greatest military procurement scandals, the US$1 billion purchase of French-built Scorpène submarines commissioned by then-Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak in 2002.

The latest developments come at a time when Najib, as prime minister, has been touring Europe, meeting with Queen Elizabeth and Pope Benedict XVI in an effort to repair an image battered by an ugly crackdown on July 9 against tens of thousands of protesters asking for reforms of Malaysia's electoral system, which is regarded as rigged to keep the ruling national coalitoin in power.

The scandal allegedly involves French politicians, the giant state-owned DCNS defense contractor and politicians and military procurement units across the world. The scandal netted a company owned by Najib’s close friend Abdul Razak Baginda, €114 million in “commissions,” according to testimony in Malaysia’s Parliament. Some of the money is rumored to have been kicked back to French and Malaysian politicians.

French investigators have been poring over DCNS records for months in connection with the larger scandal. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has declined to investigate the scandal, maintaining that the giant commission was payment for legitimate services.

“It is likely that in September we should have access to the first police conclusions from all the investigations that have taken place over the last 18 months,” Paris-based lawyer William Bourdon told Asia Sentinel Tuesday. “We know that the police seem to have obtained quite crucial documents.”

Bourdon, the leader of a team of lawyers investigating the case, is to visit Kuala Lumpur on July 20 to confer with Suaram, the NGO that has filed a complaint with French authorities over the scandal. The question in France is whether under French law an NGO can act as a complainant. That will be decided in coming days by a French judge, Bourdon said. He added that he is confident that he will succeed.

For years, Malaysian authorities have been trying to keep the scandal under the carpet. The matter broke into the open in 2006, however, with the gruesome murder of Mongolian translator and party girl Altantuya Shaariibuu, who had served as a translator for part of the submarine deal. She had been shot in the head and her body was blown up with military explosives, Her last words, according to a confession by one of her killers, was that she was pregnant. The fact that her body was blown up has led to suspicions that the killers were trying to hide evidence of who the father might be.

The French prosecutors are not expected to investigate Altantuya’s death as such. Instead, they are following the case on the basis that it is illegal to pay or take kickbacks in France. If the €114 million is found to be a kickback, the French prosecutors can act, Bourdon said.

According to Altantuya’s final letter, which was found in a hotel room after her death, she was supposed to have received a US$500,000 fee for her work. After a whirlwind courtship in which she was given thousands of dollars and whisked off to Paris and other destinations by Razak Baginda, who is married, according to testimony, Altantuya was jilted by and ended up in front of his Kuala Lumpur house, calling him a “bastard” and demanding that he come out to face her.

Shortly after that, a sedan full of Malaysian police officers pulled up and took her away. She was never seen alive again. In the letter left behind at her death, she said she had been blackmailing Razak Baginda, at that time a well-connected political analyst.

Two of Najib’s bodyguards have been convicted and sentenced to death for her murder. Abdul Razak Baginda was acquitted in a trial seemingly held to make sure top government officials’ names would not come out. He fled to the UK and has not been back to Malaysia since.

French investigators have been going through the state-owned DCN's records for months. In France, the scandal has major implications. Tied to the global sales of weaponry have been deaths and scandal not only in Malaysia but in Pakistan, Taiwan and France itself. Allegations of kickbacks being examined by French prosecutors go clear up to former French President Jacques Chirac, former Prime Ministers Dominique de Villipin and Edouard Balladur and the country’s current president, Nicholas Sarkozy in addition to an unknown number current and former French defense executives. Military procurement officials in Taiwan, India, Chile and Brazil may be involved, in addition to Malaysia.

Lawyers for the families of 11 French engineers killed in a 2002 bomb attack in Karachi were quoted in April as saying they would file a manslaughter suit against Chirac, allegedly because he cancelled a bribe to Pakistani military officials in the sale of three Agosta 90-class submarines to that country’s navy. Sarkozy was Minister of the Budget when the government sold the subs, built by the French defense giant DCN (later known as DCNS) to Pakistan for a reported US$950 million.

Prosecutors allege that Pakistani politicians and military officials and middlemen received large “commissions” with as much as €2 million in kickbacks routed back to Paris to fund Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential campaign against Chirac. As budget minister, Sarkozy would have authorized the financial elements of the submarine sale. At the time he was the spokesman for Balladur’s presidential campaign and, according to French media, has been accused of establishing two Luxemburg companies to handle the kickbacks.

It is alleged that when Chirac was re-elected, the president canceled the bribes to the Pakistanis, which resulted in the revenge attack on a vehicle in which the French engineers and at least three Pakistanis were riding. For years, the Pakistanis blamed the attack on fundamentalist Islamic militants, including Al Qaeda.

L'affaire Karachi, as it is widely known in France, has been called the most explosive corruption investigation in recent French history. It may well be far bigger than just the unpaid bribes to the Pakistanis. Executives of DCNS embarked on a global marketing drive to sell the diesel-electric Scorpène-class subs, a new design. They peddled two to the Chilean Navy in 1997, breaking into a market previously dominated by HDN of Germany. Read more.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Nationalism Rules

BY STEPHEN M. WALT

What's the most powerful political force in the world? Some of you might say it's the bond market. Others might nominate the resurgence of religion or the advance of democracy or human rights. Or maybe it's digital technology, as symbolized by the Internet and all that comes with it. Or perhaps you think it's nuclear weapons and the manifold effects they have had on how states think about security and the use of force.

Those are all worthy nominees (no doubt readers here will have their own favorites), but my personal choice for the Strongest Force in the World would be nationalism. The belief that humanity is comprised of many different cultures -- i.e., groups that share a common language, symbols, and a narrative about their past (invariably self-serving and full of myths) -- and that those groups ought to have their own state has been an overwhelmingly powerful force in the world over the past two centuries.

It was nationalism that cemented most of the European powers in the modern era, turning them from dynastic states into nation-states, and it was the spread of nationalist ideology that helped destroy the British, French, Ottoman, Dutch, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian/Soviet empires. Nationalism is the main reason the United Nations had fifty-one members immediately after its founding in 1945 and has nearly 200 members today. It is why the Zionists wanted a state for the Jewish people and why Palestinians want a state of their own today. It is what enabled the Vietnamese to defeat both the French and the American armies during the Cold War. It is also why Kurds and Chechens still aspire to statehood; why Scots have pressed for greater autonomy within the United Kingdom, and it is why we now have a Republic of South Sudan.

Understanding the power of nationalism also tells you a lot about what is happening today in the European Union. During the Cold War, European integration flourished because it took place inside the hot-house bubble provided by American protection. Today, however, the United States is losing interest in European security, the Europeans themselves face few external threats, and the EU project itself has expanded too far and badly overreached by creating an ill-advised monetary union. What we are seeing today, therefore, is a gradual renationalization of European foreign policy, fueled in part by incompatible economic preferences and in part by recurring fears that local (i.e., national) identities are being threatened. When Danes worry about Islam, Catalans demand autonomy, Flemish and Walloons contend in Belgium, Germans refuse to bail out Greeks, and nobody wants to let Turkey into the EU, you are watching nationalism at work.

The power of nationalism is easy for realists to appreciate and understand, as my sometime collaborator John Mearsheimer makes clear in an important new paper. Nations -- because they operate in a competitive and sometimes dangerous world -- seek to preserve their identities and cultural values. In many cases, the best way for them to do that is to have their own state, because ethnic or national groups that lack their own state are usually more vulnerable to conquest, absorption, and assimilation.Read more.

Monday, July 18, 2011

PAS Barks Louder Than Its Bite

Hantu Laut

I have, in my past postings, raised the question of the incompatibility of DAP and PAS, which, needless to say, is fraught with moral ambiguity.This marriage of convenience is destined for the rocks, sooner or later.

Can theocracy and secularism sleep in the same bed?

If you don't have the fortitude to rule the roost to push through your agenda, don't even try, it makes you a laughing stock and reflect on your weaknesses.If you can't fight them join them.


PAS should drop its Islamic badge so as not to confuse the Muslims in this country.


The controversy over the state-enforced entertainment ban during Ramadan in Kedah imposed by the PAS led state government has become a thorny issue with coalition partner DAP, demanding that the state government withdraw the ban immediately.The Kedah Mentri Besar Azizan Abdul Razak issued a strongly-worded statement that the state government would not withdraw the ban.

Obviously, the mentri besar has no balls to stand by his words and the irony is DAP has only 1 assemblyman in the Kedah state assembly and yet DAP has such powerful voice over policy matters.

This is not the first time PAS gave in to DAP demands.In 2009 PAS imposed a ban on the sales of beer in convenience stores in Muslim majority areas.MBSA officers unlawfully seized beer from a 7-Eleven store in Section 8.PAS Commissioner Datuk Hassan Ali lashed out at his executive council colleague Ronnie Liu for reprimanding MBSA officers conducting the raid.

What happened next?

PAS, the lame duck, with intervention from MB Khalid Ibrahim, gave in to DAP demands. The ban was scrapped.

PAS barks louder than its bite, have no balls to defend its position.

It takes just one twit from DAP publicity chief Tony Pua asking his party to pull out of the coalition Pakatan Rakyat that gave PAS leaders the cold feet.The blanket ban was withdrawn and to save face PAS agree with DAP to confine the ban to Muslims only.

It is now clear both PKR and PAS are lame ducks, it is DAP that call the shots.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A global culture to fight extremism

Why do transnational extremist organizations succeed where democratic movements have a harder time taking hold? Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist extremist, asks for new grassroots stories and global social activism to spread democracy in the face of nationalism and xenophobia. A powerful talk from TEDGlobal 2011.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Shame On You Sarawak Report

Hantu Laut

Only suckers would read and believe this blog with a penchant for prevarication,fabrication and blatant lies.

Only this blog reported Najib was snubbed by the the British PM, no British mainstream media or blogs carry such story. Of course, the pro-opposition blogs and news portal joyfully picked up the fabricated story from Sarawak Report.

The writer whom I presumed is the pesky lady with an axe to grin against Malaysia did not realised that it was the British PM David Cameron that invited Najib to visit Britain.How so can a host of his stature snubbed a state guest invited personally by him? Obviously, the writer, whoever he or she may be, is a pathetic liar.The headline is a slap on the British PM's face not Najib.It reflects the British PM as uncouth and unstatesmanlike.

pm 29

Najib Snubbed By UK PM?!

The flash crowd that turned up to boo Najib’s event at Mansion House (the official residence of the City of London’s Mayor) was larger than yesterday’s outside Downing Street. They had been joined by Amnesty International, who have spoken out about the treatment of the Bersih demonstrators at the weekend. Amnesty commands considerable respect in the UK. The Malaysian [...] Read more.

Obviously, not only it is a blatant lie, but also bad choice of word.

SNUB = rebuff, ignore, or spurn disdainfully - an act of showing disdain or a lack of cordiality by rebuffing or ignoring someone or something


Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron greets Malaysia's Prime Minister, <span class=Najib Razak, outside 10 Downing Street in central London" title="Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron greets Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, outside 10 Downing Street in central London" class="vlz" height="522" width="512">

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (L) greets Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, outside 10 Downing Street in central London


LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 14:  Foreign Secretary William Hague (R) greets Malaysian Prime Minister <span class=Najib Razak (C) on July 14, 2011 in Whitehall, London. The Malaysian Prime Minister is on a four day official visit to the UK and has met his British..." class="DL-photo DL-photo-inside" height="296" width="439">

Britain's Queen Elizabeth greets Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, during an audience at Buckingham Palace in central London
With Queen Elizabeth.

With all the evidence above do you see Najib being snubbed? Only the foolhardy Clare Rewcastle Brown and Sarawak Report dare to lie to serve their own political agenda and that of the oppositions.

There was no genocide in Malaysia, no reason for Britain to rebuff Najib.

What Najib did to stop an illegal rally was nothing compared to George Bush and Tony Blair, both have killed more innocent people and are still roaming free.These two war criminals should have been apprehended and tried for crimes against humanity.

Body of Lies

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Malaysia's Winter Of Discontent

Malaysians of all walks of political life were conducting a cost/benefit analysis in the aftermath of last weekend’s rally, which turned ugly amid baton charges, tear gassing and the arrests of almost 1,700 people.

Prime Minister Najib Razak had initially attempted to play down the protest by Bersih, which means ‘clean’ in Malay, calling for free and fair elections. But he changed his tune after Amnesty described the crackdown as the worst case of suppression seen in this country in years.

Speaking at a government function Sunday, Najib — widely expected to call an early election later this year or early next — lashed out at opposition-backed protesters, complaining they were trying to paint a picture of Malaysia as a repressive state.

‘They said they wanted to hold a peaceful rally. If the police had not monitored it, it would not have been peaceful,’ the prime minister said.

New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, also denounced the arrests, saying, ‘this is a maelstrom of the Malaysian authorities own making.’

Police were deployed under what they called ‘Operation Erase Bersih.’ They sealed off key roads, dispatched water cannons and then opened fire with tear gas as crowds formed and attempted to march towards the iconic Merdeka Stadium. Stampedes followed, and the crowds dispersed into smaller groups and taunted riot police armed with batons, guns and shields. Baton chargers followed.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was injured after police fired tear gas canisters into a tunnel. Another politician, Khalid Samad of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, was injured when police also fired a tear gas canister, at his neck.

The protesters, however, remained defiant.

Some wore yellow shirts. Most, fearing arrest, decided not to wear the colour synonymous with the movement. One man was dragged and kicked from outside the Chinese Maternity Hospital. Tear gas was then fired into the neighbouring grounds of Tung Shing Hospital where protesters had sought shelter.

Malaysia’s sometimes less than friendly neighbour Indonesia said it had warned its citizens to stay away from protest points, but that there was no need to evacuate its citizens and that it was confident that Malaysian authorities would handle the situation wisely.

It was almost a diplomatic faux pas.

Speaking on Sunday, Anwar said: ‘We will have to pursue – in parliament and outside of parliament – free and fair elections, even by rallying unless they change the electoral vote.’ He added that there was no confidence left in the government.

Crowd estimates vary widely, but tens of thousands certainly marched, the culmination of weeks of intense pressure on Najib's coalition to make election laws fairer and more transparent.

Opposition leaders have long accused Najib’s ruling United Malays National Organization of relying on fraud to maintain its 54-year hold on power. The government, however, insists the current electoral policies are fair.

Marimuthu Manogaran, an opposition politician for the Democratic Action Party, said protesters wanted curbs that would make electoral fraud more difficult, including closer monitoring of postal votes, and increased access to media outlets during campaigning. He also said the ruling party shouldn’t be entitled to the use of government assets like helicopters and other services when contesting elections.

‘Despite the police presence and oppression, I see there’s a large presence of people on the ground in the streets of Kuala Lumpur and what is very interesting is I see a large number of them are comprised of youths. Young people coming out there to demand their rights for electoral reform and I think that is a good sign for Malaysia.

‘We are used to this tear gas and this chemically laced water from before, but I think a lot of young people have not been exposed to it before and they are getting it for the first time now,’ he said.

This was the second such rally organised by Bersih. The first, in 2007, resulted in an estimated 50,000 people taking to the streets of the capital before they were also dispersed by riot police armed with water cannons and tear gas. That rally was partly credited for record gains by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat in the 2008 elections when the opposition pact was swept to power in five states and won 82 parliamentary seats at the national level.

As a result, UMNO lost its cherished two-thirds majority and Prime Minster Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was forced out of office by a party coup, making way for Najib, who has promised the party faithful to win back UMNO’s pre-eminent status with the electorate.

Speculation of an early election, which Najib has declined to quash, has persisted ever since, with observers arguing Najib is particularly keen on his own electoral mandate. If he can win back the two-thirds majority this would also allow him to repeal archaic laws that favour native Malays in business.Read more.

Wayang!

Hantu Laut

"And to be perfectly fair, the cops and FRU in my area showed admirable restraint. They saw that people were not doing anything more than chanting and nobody was harming anyone so they just stood there and left everyone to do their thing" From Marina Mahathir's Blog.

Read her full story here.

Obviously, Anwar Ibrahim was the only opposition leader targeted by the police.He was injured and now need to use a neck brace.He should sue the police and the government for the severe injury inflicted on him.

Watch the video.



PAS President Hadi Awang has a different story to tell.Thanking the police for their exemplary conduct during the rally.

Maybe, the video was dubbed, voiced over ? Najib's detractors would surely believe it, the same as the sex video, conspiracy against Anwar.

Watch the video below.






Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Bush Era Torture Probe Urged

Written by John Berthelsen
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Image
Put down that suitcase, George, we aren't going anywhere

Fear of arrest appears to be deterring top administration officials from venturing overseas

The top members of the administration of former US President George W Bush have considerable reason not to venture outside the United States, according to a new report issued today by the Washington, DC-based Human Rights Watch, which declares that "overwhelming evidence" exists of torture of prisoners by the Bush administration. It also says the Obama administration has failed to meet its commitments under the Convention Against Torture to investigate the allegations.

It is probably doubtful that the Obama administration will do any such thing. But the report opens up an interesting new dimension that applies to top Bush officials: it might not be wise for them to leave US borders because they could be arrested for war crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction.


It appears that the former officials are aware of the danger. Bush himself cancelled a trip to Switzerland in February where alleged victims of torture were waiting to ambush him with a criminal complaint. Few others have ventured outside the US, although former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did attend a ceremony in Prague earlier this month to name a street after the late President Ronald Reagan and made it without being arrested.


The Bush administration, in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York and the near destruction of the Pentagon in Washington, DC, authorized a flurry of highly controversial measures aimed at forcing detainees to give them information. Many of the measures have been criticized by human rights organizations for years although Bush administration figures have defended them, saying that was the only way they could gather intelligence on the movements of such Al Qaeda figures as Osama Bin Laden. Some detainees appear to have actually been killed by interrogators.


The 107-page report, titled
Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatments of Detainees, singles out Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet, for ordering practices such as waterboarding, the use of secret overseas CIA prisons, and the transfer of detainees to countries where they were tortured.

Although the odds that Attorney General Eric Holder would initiate such an investigation are extremely low, Human Rights Watch said, "If the US government does not pursue credible criminal investigations, other countries should prosecute US officials involved in crimes against detainees in accordance with international law."


That raises interesting questions for a long list of former US government officials including, according to the report, Rice, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, the former counsel to the president and later attorney general; Jay Bybee, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel, David Addington, counsel to Cheney, William J. Haynes II, the Department of Defense general counsel, and John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general in the legal counsel?s office. All played a role in crafting the legal advice that allowed for such practices as waterboarding, in which those being interrogated are made to believe they are drowning, as well as "rendition" of prisoners to hidden CIA prisons where they could be tortured out of the sight of human rights organizations, and other controversial practices.


Arrest of government officials outside their home countries became a reality in 1998 when the onetime Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations in Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon despite the fact that Pinochet had been granted amnesty in Chile itself. He was arrested in London six days later while on a visit to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and finally released by the British government in March 2000.


It was the first time European judges had applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former heads of state despite local amnesty laws. The principle had been relatively obscure until the Pinochet arrest. Originally formulated to govern crimes involving piracy and slave-running, it was used against fugitive Nazis after World War II. In brief, it allows any state to prosecute individuals who are believed to have committed certain international crimes, even if the prosecuting state has no link to the crime in question other than "the bonds of common humanity."


At first the law was used only against relatively low-ranking war criminals fleeing prosecution from atrocities in the Balkans, Ruanda and other places. It had never been used against a head of state until Pinochet was arrested in the UK.


That arrest "changed everything," Diane F. Orentlicher, professor of international law and director of the War Crimes Research Office at Washington College of Law in Washington, DC in a 2003 paper. "It was a moment when international law seemed to plunge forward rather than advance at its more usual lumbering pace. Indeed, the case transformed the landscape of international law and practice in respect to universal jurisdiction."
Read more.