Moon Walk:A Tribute to Michael Jackson

Hantu Laut

Although, I am not a big fan of Michael Jackson, there is no doubt he was a very talented young man and has contributed immensely to popular music.He has been the aspiration of many of today's successful pop singers.He has bridged the divide of the colour segment of the music industry. He would stay just as popular in life as well as in death.

1958-2009

The good die young they say and Michael Jackson went to meet his creator earlier than expected.His sudden death came as a shock and reverberated throughout the world.

The video below is a tribute to his immense contribution to the world of pop music.



May Allah bless his soul.

Shameless Malaysians,Disgrace To The Nation

Hantu Laut

Tales from the heart of darkness.These are horror stories of abusive employers mostly in West Malaysia that physically abused their maids bringing shame to the nation.

She [the employer's wife] then threw boiling water on me... She took the iron out of my hand and pressed it against my breasts

Nirmala Bonat

Treating maids like slaves,using physical force and not paying salaries have become commonplace causing big embarrassment to the country and reflecting the uncivilised and appalling manner of some Malaysian employer.There are just too many cases to make it exception to the rules, it has become the rule. Another new case was reported here. More shameless act here.

Physical abuse from Chinese employers and payment problems from Malay employers. Bad publicity for the country.Things have gone so bad that the Indonesian government have to ban Indonesian maids from going to Malaysia to work.

Singapore government have dealt with the problem more effectively than Malaysia.Severe punishment including long prison sentence for those who physically abused their maids had put a stop to this disgraceful act.

I was shocked when I read about Indonesian maids in West Malaysia were not given weekly day offs and our government not putting its foot down on the matter instead preferring to listen to crap excuses from employers that maids if given day-off would cause social problems.The biggest shock came from an interview some years ago with former Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad who said Indonesia maids should not be given day-off. Excuse, just too many of them around.Social problem? Idiot!

Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan where life is a bigger rat race and people working much harder than their West Malaysians counterparts, Sundays are compulsory day-off for maids.The practice in West Malaysia is shocking and shameful act of a civilised nation.In Sabah our maids can take off every Sundays.

For that matter Sabahans and Sarawakians appears more humane and civilised, maid abuse is unheard of in the two states.As far back as I can stretch my memory there have not been any case of maid abuse in Sabah or Sarawak reported in the media.

The Malaysian government should stop dragging its feet and address the problems before majority of Malaysians become abominable slave masters.Laws should be passed to protect these poor souls and severely punish the perpetrator.

Read what one moron has to say about giving maid a day-off here.

"It would only lead to more problems as the maids would have more time to cavort with their boyfriends," said former Customs Officers Association (Perbekas) president Datuk Abdul Rahman Manan.

"As it is, employers constantly have to worry if their maids are going to run off with their belongings while they are at work or worse," he said after handing over a memorandum protesting the proposal to the deputy prime minister's special officer Feris Omar.

We just think they should not be left to roam around on their own," he said.

Any right-minded person wouldn't dare make such stupid and outrageous statement.Wonder where this 'orang utan' came from.Utter disgrace.If your maid is not good, sack her, moron! If it is not within your means, you have no right to employ a maid and you have no right to keep her in bondage just because you have paid some rotten employment agency a fee to get her.If the maid steals from you there are laws in this country to take care of that.

Thank goodness this swine fever does not exist where I came from. We treat our maids as human.We even treat our animals as humans.

Watching The Lord of the Rings in Tehran

By A TIME Reporter in Tehran Wednesday, Jun. 24, 2009

Left, Elijah Wood in a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

On June 23, Iranian security forces, reportedly using live ammunition, clashed with protesters numbering in the hundreds in the area of the country's parliament in Tehran. At the same time, there were indications that a behind-the-scenes struggle was intensifying in the corridors of power even as the government continued its campaign to quiet the populace through propaganda and entertainment. A resident of the capital, who asked for anonymity, sent TIME the following report:

In normal times, Iranian television usually treats its viewers to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. But these are not normal times, so it's been two or three such movies a day. It's part of the push to keep people at home and off the streets, to keep us busy, to get us out of the regime's hair. The message is "Don't worry, be happy." Channel Two is putting on a Lord of the Rings marathon as part of the government's efforts to restore peace.

Lots of people, adults and kids, are watching in the room with me. On the screen, Gandalf the Grey returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, his face hidden behind a halo. Someone blurts out, "Imam zaman e?!" (Is it the Imam?!) It is a reference, of course, to the white-bearded Ayatullah Khomeini, who is respectfully called Imam Khomeini. But "Imam" is at the same time a title of the Mahdi, a messianic figure that Muslims believe will come to save true believers from powerful evildoers at the time of the apocalypse. Isn't that our predicament?

I wonder which official picked this film, starting to suspect, even hope, that there is a subversive soul manning the controls at seda va sima, central broadcasting. It is way too easy to find political meaning in the film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life. There are themes that seem to allude to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the candidate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims to have defeated: the unwanted quest and the risking of life in pursuit of an unanticipated destiny. Could he be Boromir, the imperfect warrior who is heroic at the end, dying to defend humanity? Didn't Mousavi talk about being ready for martyrdom? (See pictures of Neda Agha-Soltan, the Iranian opposition's martyr of choice.)

And listen: there is the sly reference to Ahmadinejad. Iranian films are dubbed very expertly. So listen to the Farsi word they use for hobbit and dwarf: kootoole, little person. Kootoole, of course, was and is the term used in many of the chants out on the street against the diminutive President.

In the eye of the beholder in Tehran, the movie is transformed into an Iranian epic. When Gandalf's white steed strides into the frame, local viewers see Rakhsh, the mythical horse of the Rostam, the great champion of the Shahnameh, the thousand-year-old national epic. "Bah, bah ... Rakhsh! Rakhsham amad!" someone says in awe.

At the moment, the ancient Treebeard bears Pippin through the forest, and the hobbit asks, "And whose side are you on?" Those of us watching already know the answer: Mousavi! Treebeard is decked in green, after all.

That's as much as we can see of an opposition viewpoint on TV. The news has a droning sameness, the official message being "politics is a nasty business, but now it's over." At least nothing is really being hidden anymore. Except for that first night, Saturday the 20th of June, the broadcasts have not shied away from the violence. But they've found a way to turn it inside out, make it about the protesters and not what has happened. When they want to make a point, they lay it on, 10 minutes, sometimes close to 15. As a friend says, "This is not news. It's interpretation." (Read about the opposition's options in Iran.)

TV reporters interview regular folk on the streets and in the parks for very much the same sound bites. Khastekonande, says one person, describing the protests as "getting old." Says another: "I'm a businessman. For my business to succeed, I need for there to be calm." "We just wanna make some bread, take care of our lives and our business." "The ones who are rioting aren't of the people. I don't think that they're part of the people." "It's been several days that I haven't been able to bring my son and daughter to the park because of the violence." And so on. (See pictures of the turbulent aftermath of Iran's presidential election.)

And so we're glued to the trilogy. We are riveted. A child in the room loudly predicts that Lord of the Rings will put an end to the nightly shouts, that people will not take to the rooftops and windows because this film will keep them occupied. Besides, there is a worrisome rumor going around that the Basij are marking the doorways of those households that continue to call out "Allah Akbar!" at night, a reverse Passover.

The child goes on to report that the kids on his school "service" (the long Toyota vans that act as school buses for Tehran's students) have been chanting, "Pas rai e ma koojast?! Pas rai e ma koojast?!" (Then where is our vote?! Then where is our vote?!) I ask what the driver is doing while all this goes on and the kid tells me that the driver honks along. Honk honk-honk-honk! Pas rai e ma koojast?! Honk honk-honk-honk!

But the child is wrong about the evening shouts. Suddenly they begin, as a low roll from the park. Then they quickly build upward. "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!" No way. We rush to the window. They have continued night after night, beginning at 10 and continuing for 30 minutes. Each time I've lost faith, I've been wrong. Iranians are proving to be a sturdier lot than I have given them credit for, much mightier even than the formidable kootoole who stand in their way.Read more..

Unity Talk, Not Over Yet:Cracks in Malaysia's Opposition Coalition

Hantu Laut

The unity talk between PAS and UMNO will be kept in abeyance for now.It is not over yet.It will come back.UMNO still have a comfortable four years to try break up the makeshift coalition.

Among the three, PAS is the most uncomfortable partner and had sudden realization that if Pakatan should win the next general election, PAS would be a junior partner and the diminution of Malay political power.The splitting of the Malay votes between PAS and UMNO would assure that.

UMNO with greater Malay support would be out in the cold and PAS playing second or third fiddle in the coalition. A grim picture that Hadi and Nasharuddin visualised hence the proposal for a unity government.

The most severe test will come, if they do last that long, in the distribution of seats among the three for the next general elections.Anwar Ibrahim will insist on majority of seats to be given to PKR to make it the most senior partner and assure him the prime minister position.PAS would want the same majority of seats that would fulfill their dream of a path to eventually making the nation more Islamic in outlook.DAP would become the biggest winner taking almost all non-Malay seats in Peninsula Malaysia wiping out MCA and Gerakan.

There is no Bangsa Malaysia, a Pakatan sale gimmick.The people would still vote on racial line and a new government that will be an exact replica of the current one but led by a non-Malay dominant party.

The air of distrust among members of the coalition will re-surface and fulfill UMNO's dream.

Cracks in Malaysia's Opposition Coalition
Despite continuing to win by-elections, organizational difficulties abound.

Written by Our Correspondent

Monday, 22 June 2009

Asia Sentinel

The forces that have held Malaysia's unwieldy Pakatan Rakyat coalition together for the last 15 months appear to be fraying, with the opposition coalition foundering on the ethnic and philosophical differences between the constituent parties.

The coalition is made up of the urban largely ethnic Malay Parti Keadilan Rakyat, the rural fundamentalist Islamic Parti Islam se-Malaysia and the mostly Chinese Democratic Action Party. About all that has held the three together was a desire to oust the ruling Barisan Nasional from its 50-year hold on power.

"There are inherent differences not only within the coalition itself but most of all within Parti Keadilan," says one source. "Keadilan itself is made up of three disparate groups — ex-UMNO types, ex-Abim (Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement, from which Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim sprang before he joined the United Malays National Organisation in the 1980s) and various non-government organizations.

"This underscores a major failing," the source says. "Anwar is a great orator, a guy capable of inspiring people, but a poor organizer. He hasn't been doing a good job in holding together Keadilan, let alone Pakatan Rakyat. Not surprisingly, because Anwar isn't working on minimizing the inherent differences, there is a palpable sense of drift in both Keadilan and Pakatan Rakyat."

Given these problems new Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has moved aggressively to try to woo back enough opposition members to reclaim some of the five states lost to the Pakatan Rakyat in the March 2008 national elections. The same election cost the ruling coalition its two-thirds majority in the parliament.

There have been continuing indications that the coalition was troubled. But the biggest one appeared two weeks ago when Hadi Awang and Nasharuddin Mat Isa, the president and deputy president of PAS, respectively, after the party's annual general meeting openly mused about a unity coalition with UMNO. Then, last week, PAS's spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, agreed in principle with the idea of unity talks, as long as they centered on Islamic issues. Ultimately, after a meeting on Monday, the Pakatan coalition agreed to stay together and for PAS to reject any contacts with UMNO. PAS leaders called UMNO un-Islamic. But that doesn't mean the strains won't continue.

Ever since the 2008 elections, the country's politics have been fracturing. The once almost monolithic Malay vote, which UMNO could count on without any concerns, has eroded badly, with UMNO now taking hardly more than half, as ethnic Malays, disillusioned with corruption, have fled to the urban PKR as well as in large numbers to PAS despite its fundamentalist Islamic roots and traditionally rural northeastern base.

That has created tensions within PAS itself, as the so-called Terengganu faction of rural fundamentalists have seen their power eroded by the more moderate urban Malay rank and file. It appears to be those tensions that have driven Hadi and Nashruddin into thinking of a coalition with UMNO to preserve Malay power.

For Pakatan, the defection of PAS could be an enormous problem, although leaders are trying to put a good spin on a bad situation.

"I think a split is possible though it would be quite a dramatic solution," says a top Pakatan source. "Personally I think this isn't a bad idea because I think those who split will be deeply punished in an election. I think if there was a constituency that was being contested by PAS linked to UMNO vs. Pakatan, the people would vote for Pakatan. I think if there was a constituency within PAS aligned to Pakatan versus UMNO and the Barisan, people would stick with the Pakatan faction. A small group of Pakatan and PAS leaders discussed this last week, and we felt that in the current climate, if PAS did do a deal with UMNO they would not come out of that unscathed."

The fissures, thoguh, are real. Ethnic Malays in opposition find themselves growing irritated with the Democratic Action Party, which has been moving aggressively to assert Chinese prerogatives. In addition, Anwar has from the start called for the abolition of Malay privilege under the New Economic Policy, an affirmative action program guaranteeing ethnic Malays a wide range of educational and other benefits.

There is also an element in PAS, a source says, which is extremely concerned about the issue of Malay rights. Others, particularly the Terengganu faction, believe they could be bigger players in a PAS-UMNO government than in one led by Anwar, especially given Anwar's advocacy of greater rights for non-Muslims and more personal, political and religious freedom.Read more....