Ling Liong Sik and the Most Inspiring Good News Story of the Year Is...

Hantu Laut

I might have to stop writing my own article the next week or so to recharge my batteries which has sank to the danger (red) zone the past few weeks. Writer's block, if you may, but I think it's more an overdose of local politics that have stymied my epinephrine hormone to keep on ranting and bantering about Malaysian politics. Even God got bored after the seventh day of creation.He stopped.

I have also stopped posting anything on Anwar Ibrahim.He used to be darling of the Yanks and the Jews now he is chewing gum for munching by the Western press.You love him or hate him, Anwar will always be news.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Malaysian politics had become excruciatingly boring and absurd.

If there is a story that should win the Pulitzer or Booker's prize it would be the recent arrest of Ling Liong Sik for corruption.What was his crime?.........misleading the Malaysian cabinet on the price of land for the corrupt-laden PKFZ.

Has he the intention to cheat for personal gains? That answer will come later.In the meantime, we must show we mean business, I mean Najib mean business.......war on corruptions and this time the fish is the biggest in the history of the nation, not less than a Tun.

There seem to be some similarity, except the last one was a Tan Sri and he got off scot free and I remember Mahathir said "You see, I told you he is not corrupted"

The question is, can one man duped the prime minister and the whole cabinet including the AG (Attorney General) when they have at their disposal all the instruments of government to counter check Ling's recommendation on the price of the land?

Why didn't former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad who also happened to be the Finance Minister then show good governance by assigning government valuer to value the land for comparison purposes.The cabinet approved Ling's recommendation. Did it not make the PM and his cabinet complicit in the affair?

Many of Mahathir's cabinet members are still members of the cabinet under Najib.Are they going to be happy to be called a bunch of fools or should they say they were shit sacred of Mahathir then.

Nazri may have an angle to this.

Najib and the BN may have unknowingly put in the last nail in the BN's coffin.The Allah issue with the DPM breathing fire at MCA and the arrest of Ling may be the straw that broke the camel's back, the final exodus of Chinese support for the BN.

MCA is out on the limb.Seen as a lapdog.

Beware! An MCA/DAP cooperation may be in the offing.

I will be posting articles and stories from other sources which I think of interest to the general public from now own till I get tired of it.

Below is an interesting note on the only thing we love about Chinese products.......cheap !....... and the deadly human price paid for making them.

And the Most Inspiring Good News Story of the Year Is...

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Johann Hari

Columnist, London Independent

At first, this isn't going to sound like a good news story, never mind one of the most inspiring stories in the world today. But trust me: it is.

Yan Li spent his life tweaking tiny bolts, on a production line, for the gadgets that make our lives zing and bling. He might have pushed a crucial component of the laptop I am writing this article on, or the mobile phone that will interrupt your reading of it. He was a typical 27-year old worker at the gigantic Foxconn factory in Shenzen, Southern China, which manufactures iPads and Playstations and mobile phone batteries.

Li was known to the company by his ID number: F3839667. He stood at a whirring line all day, every day, making the same tiny mechanical motion with his wrist, for 20 pence an hour. According to his family, sometimes his shifts lasted for 24 hours; sometimes they stretched to 35. If he had tried to form a free trade union to change these practices, he would have been imprisoned for twelve years. On the night of May 27th, after yet another marathon-shift, Li dropped dead.

Deaths from overwork are so common in Chinese factories they have a word for it: guolaosi. China Daily estimates 600,000 people are killed this way every year, mostly making goods for us. Li had never experienced any health problems, his family says, until he started this work schedule; Foxconn say he died of asthma and his death had nothing to do with them. The night Li died, yet another Foxconn worker committed suicide -- the tenth this year.

For two decades now, you and I have shopped until Chinese workers dropped. Business has bragged about the joys of the China Price. They have been less keen for us to see the Human Price. KYE Systems Corp run a typical factory in Donguan in southern mainland China, and one of their biggest clients is Microsoft - so in 2009 the US National Labour Committee sent Chinese investigators undercover there. On the first day a teenage worker whispered to them: "We are like prisoners here."

The staff work and live in giant factory-cities that they almost never leave. Each room sleeps ten workers, and each dorm houses 5000. There are no showers; they are given a sponge to clean themselves with. A typical shift begins at 7.45am and ends at 10.55pm. Workers must report to their stations fifteen minutes ahead of schedule for a military-style drill: "Everybody, attention! Face left! Face right!" Once they begin, they are strictly forbidden from talking, listening to music, or going to the toilet. Anybody who breaks this rule is screamed at and made to clean the toilets as punishment. Then it's back to the dorm.

It's the human equivalent to battery farming. One worker said: "My job is to put rubber pads on the base of each computer mouse... This is a mind-numbing job. I am basically repeating the same motion over and over for over twelve hours a day." At a nearby Meitai factory, which made keyboards for Microsoft, a worker said: "We're really livestock and shouldn't be called workers." They are even banned from making their own food, or having sex. They live off the gruel and slop they are required to buy from the canteen, except on Fridays, when they are given a small chicken leg and foot, "to symbolize their improving life."

Even as their work has propelled China towards being a super-power, these workers got less and less. Wages as a proportion of GDP fell in China every single year from 1983 to 2005.

They can be treated this way because of a very specific kind of politics that has prevailed in China for two decades now. Very rich people are allowed to form into organizations -- corporations -- to ruthlessly advance their interests, but the rest of the population is forbidden by the secret police from banding together to create organizations to protect theirs. The political practices of Maoism were neatly transferred from communism to corporations: both regard human beings as dispensable instruments only there to serve economic ends.

We'll never know the names of all the people who paid with their limbs, their lungs, or their lives for the goodies in my home and yours. Here's just one: think of him as the Unknown Worker, standing for them all. Liu Pan was a 17 year old operating a machine that made cards and cardboard that were sold on to big name Western corporations, including Disney. When he tried to clear its jammed machinery, he got pulled into it. His sister said: "When we got his body, his whole head was crushed. We couldn't even see his eyes."

So you might be thinking -- was it a cruel joke to bill this as a good news story? Not at all. An epic rebellion has now begun in China against this abuse -- and it is beginning to succeed. Across 126,000 Chinese factories, workers have refused to live like this any more. Wildcat unions have sprung up, organized by text message, demanding higher wages, a humane work environment, and the right to organize freely. Millions of young workers across the country are blockading their factories and chanting "there are no human rights here!" and "we want freedom!" The suicides were a rebellion of despair; this is a rebellion of hope.

Last year, the Chinese dictatorship was so panicked by the widespread uprisings that they prepared an extraordinary step forward. They drafted a new labor law that would allow workers to form and elect their own trade unions. It would plant seeds of democracy across China's workplaces. Western corporations lobbied very hard against it, saying it would create a "negative investment environment" - by which they mean smaller profits. Western governments obediently backed the corporations and opposed freedom and democracy for Chinese workers. So the law was whittled down and democracy stripped out.

It wasn't enough. This year Chinese workers have risen even harder to demand a fair share of the prosperity they create. Now company after company is making massive concessions: pay rises of over 60 percent are being conceded. Even more crucially, officials in Guandong province, the manufacturing heartland of the country, have announced they are seriously considering allowing workers to elect their own representatives to carry out collective bargaining after all.

Just like last time, Western corporations and governments are lobbying frantically against this -- and to keep the millions of Yan Lis stuck at their assembly lines into the 35th hour. Read more.

Malaysia Cabinet Said Port Klang Loans Were Legal

Written by Our Correspondent

Thursday, 05 August 2010

Exhaustive secret 2007 cabinet memo details approval of billions in loans for ill-starred port project Malaysia's cabinet, according to a secret June 22, 2007 memorandum, retroactively approved the legality of billions of ringgit in supposedly illegal loans for the increased cost of development at the scandal-scarred Port Klang Free Zone for which a top Malaysian Chinese Association nonetheless has been charged with fraud. Some websites first uploaded the memo, which Asia Sentinel obtained in translation, as the scandal grew in proportion starting last August. The memorandum is marked "Rahsia" or "Secret." Since cabinet documents come under Malaysia's stiff Official Security Act, passed in 1972, which allows for imprisonment up to 14 years for violating the statute, they have taken it down. Ling Liong Sik, the 67-year-old former head of the MCA who retired in 2003, has been charged with deceiving the Malaysian cabinet in 2003 over the affair. Ling pleaded not guilty and was freed on RM1 million ringgit bail. Four other individuals have been arrested as well. In addition, sources in Kuala Lumpur say, Ling's successor as transport minister, Chan Kong Choy, an MCA deputy president, was at the center of issuing guarantee letters for bonds for the company building the massive port project before he left office in 2008, despite the fact that cabinet approval was required. There has been no indication yet that he would be charged, although sources in the United Malays National Organization, the leading component of the ruling national coalition, say others may well be pulled in. Certainly, the 2007 cabinet memo is clear on Ling's actions, but appears to go along with them retrospectively: "To finance development projects, bonds issued by Special Purpose Companies (Special Purpose Vehicle) which was created by [Kuala Dimensi, the entity given authority over the project]," the memo says. "The bonds have been given AAA rating and attracted the attention of many investors. It is because the previous YB Minister of Transport [Ling] issued a letter of support saying the government will at all times ensure that Port Klang Authority will meet all its obligations according to the duration and number of loans set." The memorandum indicates that the cabinet knew most of the details about the vast cost overruns, giving a detailed description of the overages on Kuala Dimensi's part, which catapulted from RM 1.088 billion (US$343.05 million) RM 4.63 billion during the course of the project. The port, whose ultimate cost could dwarf any of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's previous projects, was conceptualized by Mahathir as a multi-modal development modeled on the Jebal Ali free zone in Dubai , presumably capable of rivaling Singapore, whose efficiency and organizational expertise make it Southeast Asia's regional shipping hub: "PFKZ has planned to attract foreign investors to Malaysia, to enhance national competitiveness and to make Port Klang as the main load in the region. This project will be a major catalyst in the development of economic activities and development in Pulau Indah," the memorandum says. However, Port Klang, hundreds of kilometers up Malaysia's west coast, is now being rivaled by the Iskandar Development Authority, better situated geographically, next to Singapore itself. Unfortunately, in addition to the other problems, as Asia Sentinel reported on Aug. 24 and Nov. 27, 2009, the free zone project appears to have turned into a massive scandal, with politicians of all stripes helping themselves to vast amounts of money through artificially inflated land prices, contacts for surveyors and a myriad of other methods. While the prevailing impression in Kuala Lumpur is that the country's leaders knew little or nothing about the port's development, the secret memo gives the impression that it was closely watched by top government leaders: "A series of Cabinet meetings have been held since 1999 to consider the implementation of the project PKFZ especially in terms of land acquisition issues and financial allocations," the memo says. "The Ministry of Finance and the Department of the Attorney General have raised concerns about the financial need to be borne by the government and the status of land prices and land ownership issues involved with the project. "On October 2, 2002, the Cabinet agreed to the purchase of land in Klang for PKFZ after having been informed that the project is viable without government financial assistance and legal issues of land had been settled. A review by the Department of the Attorney General regarding the issue of land acquisition was also presented." After a lengthy description of the situation, the report concludes: "The Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister and the Ministry of Transport have no objection to the proposed retrospective approval for the increased cost of development projects PKFZ, Pulau Indah, Selangor and the provision of soft loans to the Port Klang Authority and the government guarantee in relation to the issuance of bonds by Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Ltd." Significantly, the legality of the retroactive guarantee appears to have been approved by the attorney general, Abdul Ghani Patail as well: "The Department of the Attorney General has no such objections to the proposed terms of paragraph 19 of the Memorandum." Ultimately, the guarantee of the RM4.63 billion led to potential liability to the Malaysian government of nearly triple that amount – RM12.45 billion if the Port Klang Authority defaults – which a report the port authority's own directors say is inevitable because the port can't generate enough revenue to meet the obligations. Read more.

KL ministers make us angry – MP

by Nancy Lai

August 5, 2010, Thursday

KOTA KINABALU: Federal ministers should refrain from making statements that hurt the feelings of Sabahans, Putatan member of parliament Datuk Dr Marcus Mojigoh said.They should also not generalize problems in Sabah with those in Peninsular Malaysia or Sarawak, he added.

Speaking at the signing of the Collective Agreement (CA) between Corporate Dynamics and the Sabah Water Industry Employees Union (KPPIAS) for its unionized employees yesterday, Marcus stressed that the situation in Sabah was different from that in Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia.

Taking for example the statement by Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam on the government considering the possibility of employing illegal immigrants as foreign workers to meet the high demand from employers, Marcus said that solution would not be appropriate for Sabah.

Marcus, who is also the Corporate Dynamics chairman, pointed out that the illegal immigrant problem was a perennial one for the state and the people here were already upset with the government for being unable to fully resolve it.

“Sabahans want the government to resolve the issue because the number of illegal immigrants in the state is growing. That is why the illegal immigrant issue is very sensitive to Sabahans who deem it a priority issue,” he said.

“We cannot generalise the issues in Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak with Sabah because the scenario is different. It is simply not right to say that the government wants to legalise illegal foreign workers so that they can work in the country,” he stressed.

According to Marcus, both SHAREDA and the Federation of Sabah Manufaturers (FSM) were in support of the proposal but this was because locals were not interested to work in their sectors.

“If they ask me whether I agree with the statement to legalize illegal immigrant employees, my answer is no,” Marcus said, adding that what Subramanian said was his personal opinion and did not reflect how leaders in Sabah felt about the issue.

Marcus also appealed to federal ministers visiting Sabah not to make statements that would make it difficult for state leaders to explain to the people.

“They should instead bring in lots of allocation to resolve the perennial problems in the state, like the presence of illegal immigrants and the insufficient water as well as electricity supply.

“They don’t understand the situation in Sabah. How can they say illegals are not a priority? This type of statement angers the rakyat and makes it difficult for leaders in Sabah.

“I am very angry with this kind of statements,” Marcus added.

Source:Borneo Post

Hantu Laut

I would look at it the other way.

Some Federal ministers are not fit to be there.These irritating cocky know it all smart alecs think they are clever at making smart sounding speeches. They are not. The shallowness of some of their statements other than that concerning Sabah are equally much to be desired.

Some bloggers in Peninsula Malaysia are much smarter than some of our federal ministers who 'can't even string two sentences properly let alone say it' (a quote from the Book of Raj)

Sorry, mates! Sabahans think you are just plain stupid, flexing your muscles to intimidate just because you think you are on a higher pedestal.

We have plenty of illegals in Sabah and we have no objection for Mr Subramaniam to take them for employment in Peninsula Malaysia.That would at least help lessen the burden and adverse impact of these aliens on our society. Let us import our labour through the proper channel.

You can have them lock, stock and barrel, after all your minister in the PM's Department Idris Jala who had shown the extent of his intellectual capacity by confirming Najib's policy loud and clear that the illegal problems in Sabah is not a priority and a non issue as far as the Federal government is concerned.

Even if it is not, why don't you just shut up and keep it to yourself instead of embarrassing the prime minister.Now, that you have said it, it would be ammo for the oppositions in the next GE.

You see, stupefying power is not necessary the best policy and can make one look stupid.

The Sand Smugglers

Singapore's business-friendly climate has seen the country grow by leaps and bounds -- literally. But it's all based on a murky, billion-dollar illegal trade in sand.

BY CHRIS MILTON | AUGUST 4, 2010

The causeway linking Singapore to the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula is normally clogged with cars and trucks making the short international journey, but things got particularly bad on Feb. 1, when traffic came to a grinding halt. Thirty-seven trucks were abandoned where they stood on the Malaysian side, just yards away from a customs checkpoint, their drivers having simply walked away. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that they were carrying an illegal substance -- but not drugs, illegal migrants, or precious jewels. They were carrying sand.

Singapore's economy quite literally rests upon maintaining a huge and continuous supply of sand -- and smuggling has become a multibillion-dollar trade, driving a huge web of corruption and theft in a country renowned for honest business practices and corporal punishment.

The tiny island nation, one of the 20 smallest states in the world, has enjoyed a phenomenal economic boom since the 1980s. In the space of only 30 years its population has doubled and its GDP has exploded by more than 1,000 percent (making it now the wealthiest country in Asia). Singapore's economic success is largely based upon the phenomenal growth in its services industry. The country has taken advantage of two factors: its ability to process silicon for use in microchips and electronics, and its positioning as a regional business hub within Asia, connecting industrial leaders and business executives from across the continent.

But the boom times have come at a cost. The country has, quite literally, run out of space. Since Singapore's independence in the 1960s, its land area has grown from 581.5 to 710 square kilometers. By 2030, the country plans to expand by another 70 square kilometers. That would see Singapore's land area grow 30 percent from its original size, giving it the same area as New York City.

This added girth requires dumping a mind-boggling quantity of sand into the ocean, in what is known as land reclamation projects. To reclaim 1 square kilometer of land from the sea, up to 37.5 million cubic meters of sand are needed -- the equivalent of filling three and a half Empire State Buildings. Singapore's main airport is built almost entirely on reclaimed land, and one of the largest recent projects is the aptly named Marina Bay Sands project, a five-star hotel and casino on Singapore's shoreline whose major investors include the owners of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.

There are two types of sand generally used for land reclamation projects: sea sand, which is dumped into the ocean as filler, and river sand, which has a far finer granularity and is a central ingredient in concrete, which Singapore uses in vast quantities to fuel its monumental building program.

Although Singapore is itself an island nation, it ran out of its own sand many decades ago. Today the entire island consists of urban areas or protected-environment sanctuaries. This shortage has fueled a massive industry, worth at least $1 billion between 1998 and 2008. And it's only growing: In 2008 alone, according to its own figures, Singapore imported more than $273 million worth of sand, more than any other country in the world. But these numbers -- which account for only the legal trade in sand -- are only the tip of the iceberg.

This insatiable need for sand has created a slew of problems not often associated with this by-the-book country, which is rated by Transparency International as the third-least corrupt country in the world, behind only Denmark and New Zealand. In recent months, however, a number of illegal sand excavation activities have been traced back to Singaporean companies. Whether this smuggled sand entered Singapore through government collusion or willful ignorance is hard to ascertain, but questions are increasingly being asked about how much officials really know about the quantity and provenance of sand imports.

Until recently, the vast majority of it has come from right next door: Malaysia, which lies less than half a mile away across the Singapore Strait. And that's odd, as Malaysia has had a blanket ban on the export of river and sea sand for more than 10 years, since it discovered that materials for its own land reclamation projects were being illegally diverted to Singapore.

There are no hard figures regarding the extent of the illegal trade between Malaysia and Singapore. The best official figures available come from the United Nations' Comtrade database, which lists countries' declared trade figures for a variety of commodities. But even a cursory comparison of its data shows that something is drastically amiss. For example, in 2008, Singapore declared it had imported only 3 million tons of sand from Malaysia -- yet Malaysia's figures show that a staggering 133 million tons of sand were reportedly exported to Singapore despite the 10-year blanket ban.

It's hard to say whether either figure is accurate, but it's clear that vast quantities of Malaysian sand are being smuggled into Singapore. A recent report by the Malaysian civil servants union estimates that 41 percent of Malaysia's officials are involved in some form of corruption. Mohamad Khir Toyo, the former governor of Malaysia's most prosperous state, Selangor, has even insinuated that his successor is allowing the illegal trade to continue unhindered. "Sand is being stolen every day, and not a single lorry has been seized and no one has been charged," he said in May. "I suspect certain leaders from a certain party … are protecting the culprits."

In June, an investigation by the Malaysian newspaper the Star blew the lid off the sand smuggling trade. The paper's reporters followed a Malaysian dredging company working on the Johor River, about 50 miles inland from the Singapore Strait. The company had won a transport license by claiming it was shipping extracted sand internally, to the Malaysian ports of Tanjung Pelepas or Danga Bay. The shortest route to the destination, however, took ships through Singaporean waters. Once the sand was extracted, the barges sailed downriver to the Malaysia-Singapore border and passed through customs. The barges never made it to the claimed destination -- they simply stopped at the Singaporean jetty of Pulau Punggol Timur, presented freshly forged paperwork, and unloaded their cargo.

The newspaper estimates that around 3 million cubic meters of river sand have followed this route since 2007, making smugglers a cool profit of $77.8 million. Understandably, the Malaysian government is not pleased, having been deprived of $11.5 million in tax revenues. But the million-dollar question is how such massive shipments are able to reach Singapore without anyone being the wiser. For its part, the Singaporean government flatly denies that it condones the import of illegal sand.

"The documentation that sand suppliers are required to show include licenses to dredge or extract sand at specific sand locations in the source countries, draft survey reports, and bill of loadings," K. Senbagavalli, a spokeswoman at the Singaporean Ministry of National Development, said in an interview. "[We verify with] sand concession holders of source countries regularly that the documentation provided by the sand suppliers is authentic and accurate.... To date, the sand vendors have all been able to provide valid documented evidences of clearance from the source countries."

But this oversight depends on reliable paperwork -- and reliable officials -- throughout the supply chain. If corruption is as rife as it appears to be within Malaysia, the documents are not worth the paper they're printed on.

Although the black market Malaysian trade appears to be thriving, Singapore's addiction requires far more sand than one country can provide. And Indonesia, a vast and sprawling archipelago of more than 17,000 islands (the nearest of which to Singapore lies about six miles to the southeast), has jumped headlong into the breach. Many of Indonesia's islands that lie within easy reach of Singapore have few or no inhabitants -- and Singapore has taken advantage of this geography, going so far as to wipe some places entirely off the map.

Rapacious exploitation, which saw up to 77 percent of the world's sand dredgers operating in seas between Indonesia and Singapore, soon took its toll. By 1999, some islands had been mined so extensively that plans were being drawn up for sea walls to protect inland citizens from rapid erosion and rising seas. In 2003, Nipah island, which lies on the Singapore-Indonesia border, disappeared completely under the waves, "with only 3 to 4 palms trees visible to mark the island's location," according to the local NGO Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia.

Indonesia's export figures show that, in the five years before 2002, it shipped at least 150 million tons of sea sand to Singapore in total. But the black market probably accounts for at least double this figure: In 2003, smugglers excavated and shipped an estimated 300 million cubic meters of sand, worth $2.5 billion. In 2007, following Malaysia's lead, the Indonesian parliament issued a blanket ban on sea sand exports. It was completely ignored, even by the Indonesian government. Over the past five years, a further 24 islands are believed to have disappeared under the waves. Even if officials were serious about stamping out the trade, it's simply too easy to steal sand from Indonesia's thousands of miles of unguarded coastlines. All any would-be thief has to do is pick a remote spot where large and loud dredging equipment won't be easily spotted and work quickly under the cover of darkness. They can return to Singapore safely within a matter of hours and, using forged documents, unload the cargo.

And yet Singaporean officials still profess ignorance. Beyond the enormous variance in official import-export figures, there's simply no getting around the fact that Singapore's land mass has grown by leaps and bounds -- so the landfill is certainly coming from somewhere. Thus far, they've managed to escape the repercussions for a willing complicity in this trade by feigning surprise at bogus paperwork. For the time being, the trade is making all players happy and rich.

Singapore is poised for a bright future: It is booming economically and has positioned itself as a world leader in urban sustainability. But to fulfill that promise, however, it must first swallow an unpalatable truth -- that its prosperity has come at the cost of it neighbors' corruption and environmental destruction. Size isn't everything; the country's sterling reputation is now at stake.

Source:FP