THE JOURNAL

Childbirth and Postpartum Psychosis

2011-12-06T07:34:00.001+08:00

Having a baby issupposed to be one of the happiest times of your life. But for some women,childbirth can be the trigger that causes them to temporarily 'lose theirminds'.

Everyyear, about 1,000 women in the UKsuffer from what is called postpartum psychosis. Most of them will need severalweeks in hospital to help them recover but, because of the stigma of mentalillness, it is not often talked about.

WhenI gave birth to my baby daughter Ettie, I was absolutely elated. But thiselation soon turned into a form of mania - non-stop talking, an inability tosleep, an exhausting energy - all of which were unnatural and unsustainable.

Ibecame very irritable, suffering from extreme mood swings and hallucinations. Iwas admitted to a psychiatric hospital for several weeks.

That period in my life was not one I discussedreadily with anyone. It was so far from most people's experience of newmotherhood and because of the stigma of mental illness that exists in oursociety, I felt slightly ashamed.

Wouldpeople want to associate with a "crazy person"? Might they think Iwas "a bad mother"?

Ittook me a few years to get over that feeling and it is only recently that Ihave had the opportunity to meet other women who have also suffered frompostpartum or puerperal psychosis.

Sharingstories was a liberating experience and prompted us to become involved in aWellcome-funded project to publicise the illness and tackle the stigma thathinders recovery.

Theproject is called Unravelling Eve. It was conceived by artist Joan Molloy, anartist and mother of two whose work has focused on themes of family, memory andtime.

Ihelped to run a workshop where Joan met a group of women who had all hadpostpartum psychosis, to hear what the experience had been like for them.

Forthe first time, these women were able to talk about the terrible impact of theillness.

Tracyspoke of her terrifying hallucinations: "I thought I'd given birth to theanti-Christ and my child, I believed, had little devils living inside hisstomach which would come out at night and dance around my kitchen floor."

Some spoke of suicidal thoughts and beingconvinced that their babies would be better off without them.

Forsome it also took a long while to get better. "I felt like a zombie for atleast a year or two", says Ceri. "I can't remember how long I was onanti-psychotics for - obviously the drugs saved my life, but my goodness theytake a while to recover from."

Withtreatment each of these women recovered, but it was a life-changing experiencefor them all.

Sowhy does it happen to some new mothers?

Joanand I went to see Dr Ian Jones of Cardiff University, a perinatalpsychiatrist and expert on the condition.

Heexplained: "When we're talking about postpartum psychosis, we're talkingabout some of the most severe episodes of illness we see in psychiatry."

"Theseare women who very quickly after childbirth have an episode triggered that mayinvolve lots of different mood symptoms.

"Theyoften have psychotic symptoms, delusions, believing things that aren't true, orhallucinations... seeing things or hearing things when nothing's there."

Tragically,if the symptoms are not recognised in time, in rare cases this can result insuicide or, very rarely, infanticide.

Thecauses of postpartum psychosis are unclear, though we do know that geneticfactors are important. You are more likely to have postpartum psychosis if aclose relative has had it.

Changesin hormone levels and disrupted sleep patterns may also be involved.

Moreresearch is needed, so we have set up a new charity called Action on PostpartumPsychosis (APP) to raise awareness and support women and their partners whofeel isolated.

Formany women with postpartum psychosis there is no warning, but if you havebipolar disorder you are at considerably greater risk, so it is wise to findout about postpartum psychosis and prepare yourself just in case.

Due to a shortage of specialist beds, manywomen will have to be admitted to a general psychiatric hospital, usuallywithout their baby.

Butsome parts of the country are lucky enough to have specialist mother and babyunits where women can keep their newborns with them for the weeks or months ittakes to recover.

Wevisited the oldest of these, the Channi Kumar Unit at the BethlemRoyal Hospital,south London.

Theysupport the mother in developing a relationship with her infant in order toreduce the impact of the illness on the child.

Mothersand babies can stay together or the mothers can stay on their own with agradual reintroduction to their babies on the ward.

Theaverage length of inpatient treatment is eight to 12 weeks, and staff encouragethe involvement of fathers or partners in the treatment process.

Perinatalpsychiatrist Dr Trudi Seneviratne says their aim is to prepare mothers for alasting return to the community.

"Oneof the joys of working in a unit like this is that women do get better",she says. BBC.

George Michael shelves UK shows due to pneumonia

2011-11-27T08:09:00.003+08:00

Singer George Michael has cancelled the remaining dates of his tour because of ill health, his publicist has confirmed.

The 48-year-old was admitted to hospital in Vienna on Monday and is being treated for "severe" pneumonia.

His publicist added that the singer is "responding to treatment and slowly improving".

Discussions are under way about rescheduling the remaining 14 dates that have been put off.

The star's spokeswoman said in a statement: "George Michael is ill with pneumonia and any other speculation regarding his illness is unfounded and untrue.

"He is receiving excellent medical care, he is responding to treatment and slowly improving.

"To ensure his complete well-being, George Michael's doctors have advised that he cannot perform the rest of his Symphonica tour and that he instead takes a full and complete rest."

The former Wham! singer kicked off his European tour in Prague in August.

It was originally meant to include 47 concerts. He was due to bring the tour to the UK on Saturday, with dates continuing until 19 December.

Professor Dr Christoph Zielinski and Professor Dr Thomas Staudinger of the Vienna hospital where the musician is being treated said: "George Michael has severe community acquired pneumonia and is being treated as an inpatient.

"His condition has stabilised and he is responding to treatment.

"From the current point of view, the time until recovery cannot be estimated, but he will not be able to perform the rest of the tour. Besides medical treatment, complete rest and peace and quiet are mandatory."

In October, a viral infection caused Michael to pull out of a show at the Royal Albert Hall in London, following advice from doctors. BBC.

Taylor Swift wins big at American Music Awards

2011-11-22T06:02:00.001+08:00

Country sensation Taylor Swift came up the big winner at the American Music Awards yesterday, claiming three trophies including the top honour, artist of the year.

She tied for most wins with British singer Adele, who also earned three trophies for female pop artist, best album with smash hit “21” and top adult contemporary performer.

But Adele, who came into the awards show as the most-nominated singer with four nods, lost artist of the year to Swift, who seemed genuinely surprised by the upset victory.

“This is one of the craziest things that has ever happened to me,” Swift said. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to say. I did not think this was going to happen.”

Along with year’s top artist, Swift claimed AMA trophies for favourite female country artist for the second straight year, and she nabbed best country album with her “Speak Now”.

Adele, who is recovering from vocal cord surgery, was not on hand to accept her awards.

Rapper Nicki Minaj was the night’s other big winner with two AMAs in the rap or hip-hop category: favourite artist and best album for her “Pink Friday.”

Minaj opened the show singing her smash hit single “Super Bass” in a metallic outfit that had two large speakers on her bottom, and after winning best hip-hop album for “Pink Friday” was overcome with emotion.

“This one could actually make me cry,” Minaj said onstage before wiping away tears. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Elsewhere, the AMA awards were split among numerous acts.

Rounding out the country awards with Swift were Blake Shelton for best male artist and Lady Antebellum best group.

Maroon 5 picked up the honour for best pop or rock group behind current hit “Moves Like Jagger,” and Bruno Mars rounded out the pop category with an AMA trophy for best male artist.

Among R&B acts, Rihanna grabbed best album with “Loud,” winning over ex-boyfriend Chris Brown and his “F.A.M.E.” Usher was named favourite R&B male artist and Beyonce best female.

Finally, the Foo Fighters earned top alternative rock band, Jennifer Lopez was the top Latin artist, and Casting Crowns won for best contemporary inspirational act.

While awards are the major focus, the show brings out top acts to perform. Lopez put on two crowd-pleasing acts, one solo and the other with Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am.

Justin Bieber with his holiday song “Under the Mistletoe,” had fans singing in the audience, and Enrique Iglesias with his anthem “I Like How it Feels” had them hopping to the beat.

Marc Anthony and Pitbull also rocked the crowd, and the show ended with LMFAO singing from their “Party Rock” album, dancing with Bieber, and stripping to their underwear.

The AMA awards is among the most widely watched of the annual US musical honours at the end of each year. Next up on the list of key honours are Grammy nominations, which will be announced on November 30. — Reuters

AOL + Huffington Post = disaster?

2011-02-08T09:36:00.001+08:00

Arianna Huffington is selling Huffington Post to AOL. Photograph: AP/Mark Lennihan

by Emily Bell, guardian.co.uk

If a company is to enjoy success in the world of media in general, and content creation in particular, then two ingredients have to be present. One is a strong culture and the other is scale. It explains the success of any number of brands – News Corporation, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Financial Times – in the recent difficult past.

For companies that have scale but lack a culture, or vice versa, the obvious yet so often disastrous solution is to merge. Nothing creates greater comedic value or destroys actual monetary value quicker than trying to acquire a culture in pursuit of scale and getting the whole thing wrong.

This is why AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post is causing such intense media interest. It is not the $315m price tag, or the query over whether content businesses have a future, it is really the thought of Arianna Huffington, the Madonna of new media, striding into the AOL boardroom, where many unfairly imagine there are still shovels in the corner. AOL is not only a competitor for the world's uncoolest media brand, but is also to corporate mergers what George W Bush is to US foreign policy.

Tim Armstrong, who joined AOL as chief executive from Google in 2009, wants both the culture and the growth. He has to try to destroy the memory of AOL's two most infamous mergers – first with Time Warner in 2000 and then with social networking platform Bebo in 2008. If there were a competition for worst media mergers in history, these could happily expect to place one and two without any serious competition. Armstrong has been on a content-expanding rampage of late, first investing tens of millions of dollars in Patch.com, a hyperlocal network of low-cost sites, which now has 800 centres, and then a foray into buying high-profile blogs including TechCrunch last September and now the Huffington Post.

A terrifying leaked document entitled The AOL Way pinged round the US media business last week containing the company's "secret sauce" for success in creating journalism for the internet. Quintessentially that seemed to be increasing the number of pieces writers produced, for less money. "Scaled content production" is the rather sobering term for this. It does not look like a set of numbers that Arianna Huffington would feel very at home delivering, although the strategy of Huffington Post, which is all Big Politics on the left hand side of the site and Kim Kardashian on the right, is much closer to AOL's own strategy than one might immediately think. Indeed, Huffington achieved a miracle for web publishing in 2005, by getting high-profile contributors to write for nothing, through a mixture of charm and brand association. One can imagine now, with the money for their labours residing with AOL, that bargain will abruptly come to an end.

Part of Huffington Post's success was its vibrance and its position outside the establishment. It has now not only joined an establishment, but joined one where most people feel about as close to the brand as they do to Walmart.

One has to wonder in this context what is in it for Arianna Huffington (apart of course from a substantial part of the $300m)? What Huffington Post delivered her was a perfect platform for high-profile politicking and talking about her interests, which are wide ranging. The daily grind of editorial wrangling within a large corporate entity is a million miles from the start-up loft of Huffington Post's early days and the next phase of development carries none of the fun and much more of the risk than the early days.

A rather troubling aspect of the whole episode has been the baffling message, repeated by Huffington in an editorial on the site today, that this merger is "1 + 1 = 11". One hopes that this does not mean, for the sake of the HuffPo staff and the AOL shareholders, that the deal is quite literally nonsense.

> Airport scanners may violate laws, says British rights commission

2010-02-17T02:26:00.001+08:00

The use of full-body scanners at British airports may breach human rights laws, the country’s equality commission said today, potentially undermining the latest weapon against terrorism.

The new technology has been hurriedly introduced at London’s Heathrow airport and Manchester airport in northern England after a botched attempt to bomb a US-bound passenger aircraft from Amsterdam on Christmas Day.

Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is alleged to have boarded a US aircraft on Dec 25 with explosives hidden undetected in his underwear.

The full-body scanners, which see through clothes to produce an image of the whole body, might have detected the explosives, experts have said.

Rights campaigners have said they fear an invasion of privacy and disproportionate scrutiny of Muslim travellers.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the scanners might be breaking discrimination and privacy laws, and it had “serious doubts that the decision to roll this (body scanning) out in all UK airports complies with the law.”

The commission said one of the chief concerns was over how people would be selected for the scans.

In a letter to Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis, the EHRC expressed concern “about the apparent absence of safeguards to ensure the body scanners are operated in a lawful, fair and non-discriminatory manner.”

The Transport Department said it was committed to ensuring that all security measures are used legally, proportionately and in a non-discriminatory way.

It said it was “absolutely clear that those passengers who are randomly selected for screening will not be chosen because of any personal characteristics,” and that it had published an interim code of practice which addressed privacy concerns. — Reuters.

From Malaysian Insider.

> Y chromosome evolving fast

2010-01-14T13:53:00.001+08:00

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON – Women may think of men as primitive, but new research indicates that the Y chromosome — the thing that makes a man male — is evolving far faster than the rest of the human genetic code.

A new study comparing the Y chromosomes from humans and chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives, show that they are about 30 percent different. That is far greater than the 2 percent difference between the rest of the human genetic code and that of the chimp's, according to a study appearing online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

These changes occurred in the last 6 million years or so, relatively recently when it comes to evolution.

"The Y chromosome appears to be the most rapidly evolving of the human chromosomes," said study co-author Dr. David Page, director of the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge and a professor of biology at MIT. "It's an almost ongoing churning of gene reconstruction. It's like a house that's constantly being rebuilt."

Before men get too impressed with themselves, lead author Jennifer Hughes offers some words of caution: Just because the Y chromosome, which determines gender, is evolving at a speedy rate it doesn't necessarily mean men themselves are more evolved.

Researchers took the most detailed examination of the Y chromosome, which females do not have, of both humans and chimps and found entire sections dramatically different. There were even entire genes on the human Y chromosome that weren't on the chimp, said Hughes, also of the Whitehead Institute.

The two-year research took twice as long as expected because of the evolutionary changes found, Hughes said.

There is a bit of a proviso to the comparison to other chromosomes. While all human and chimp chromosomes have been mapped, only two chimp chromosomes have been examined in great detail: Y and chromosome 21. Yet, there's still enough known to make the claim that the Y is the speediest evolver, Hughes and Page said.

Until recently the Y chromosome was considered the Rodney Dangerfield of genetics, especially because it had fewer genes than other chromosomes. A few years ago some researchers even suggested that the Y chromosome was shrinking so that in 50,000 years it would just disappear — and so would men.

"The story is not as cut and dried as many would have liked to predict," Hughes said.

"It's kind of fun to say that men are going to die out, but the science is proving — now that we've got data — that that's not true at all."

Page agreed. "The Y chromosome has many more tricks up its sleeve than it was given credit for," he said.

There are a couple of reasons Page and Hughes cite for Y being such an evolutionary powerhouse. One is that it stands alone and isn't part of a pair like 44 other chromosomes. So when there are mutations there's no matching chromosome to recombine and essentially cover up the change, Hughes said. Because women have two X chromosomes, the X chromosome doesn't have this situation.

Another reason has to do with the nature of mating. When female chimps are in heat, they mate frequently and with many partners, so there is an evolutionary pressure on the male to produce the most and best sperm to propagate his genes, Page said.

To test this out, Hughes said she hopes to soon examine the Y chromosomes of a rhesus macaque, which is fairly promiscuous, and the marmoset, which is more monogamous than early humans probably were.

Outside scientists praised the study.

"Wow," said R. Scott Hawley, a genetics researcher at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City. "That result is astounding."

"The Y chromosome clearly has the strength and tenacity to fight back," said Hawley, who wasn't part of the research. "I certainly think the Y chromosome has taken a bad rap for a long time with people doing maps showing areas for channel surfing."

> Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-01T04:20:00.000+08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010 It was a memorable 2009.Wishing 2010 will be fabulous.

New Year gives what one receives

Make not much of what you're missing

Happiness ought not seem daunting

In your heart is all you need

As you are is as you will

Sure of winds that wish you well.

> The Fury of the Sea

2009-12-28T10:10:00.002+08:00

People across Asia paused Saturday to observe the fifth anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2004 that killed up to 230,000 people in about a dozen countries.

The devastating December 26 tsunami destroyed entire coastal communities, decimated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches, sweeping away everyone and everything in its path.

Brief memorials were held in mosques throughout the region beside mass graves, and at seaside resorts and communities on the rim of the Indian Ocean.

The tsunami was triggered by an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 that struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Over the next seven hours, a wall of water reached across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal areas as far away as East Africa.

In a coincidence, a strong earthquake struck Indonesia on Saturday just before 6 p.m. local time (0857 UTC). The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, was centered in the Banda Sea region off the Tanimbar Islands. A tsunami warning was not issued by authorities, and there were no immediate reports of injury or serious damage.

In the 2004 tsunami some locations reported waves of nine meters or more on the shoreline. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and Thailand sustained massive damage.

Tens of thousands were reported dead or missing in Sri Lanka and India, a large number of them on the Indian Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory. The low-lying island country of Maldives reported more than 100 casualties and immense economic damage. Several thousand tourists vacationing in the region also were reported dead or missing.

The lack of food, clean water and medical treatment extended the list of casualties.

Long-term environmental damage was severe as well, with villages, tourist resorts, farmland and fishing grounds demolished or inundated with debris, bodies and plant-killing salt water - Voice of America.

> Christmas Greetings

2009-12-24T14:47:00.004+08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone !

> Congress passes Guantanamo bill

2009-10-21T11:15:00.000+08:00

The US Senate has voted to continue to allow Guantanamo inmates to be tried on US soil, removing a hurdle as the Obama administration seeks to close the camp.

The measure, which was passed by the House last week, permits Guantanamo detainees to be brought to the US only in order to face trial in US courts.

Those cleared cannot remain in the US. The bill - passed 79-19 by the Senate - largely mirrors existing restrictions.

It will now go to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

Mr Obama has set a 22 January 2010 deadline for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, where more than 220 inmates are still held.

While some will be tried on US soil, others could be sent to abroad or face military tribunals.

Republican concerns

The legislation passed by Congress on Tuesday removes one of the many legal, diplomatic and political obstacles to the closing of the Guantanamo detention centre.

Under its terms, Congress must be provided with a detailed assessment of the security risk involved before a detainee can be brought to the US.

The administration must also give 15 days' notice of any transfer.

Some Republicans have objected to plans to hold Guantanamo detainees in US prisons, arguing that they do not deserve the protections afforded under US law.

"There is too much at stake to grant the unprecedented benefit of our legal system's complex procedural safeguards to foreign nationals who were captured outside the United States during a time of war," said Senator Saxby Chambliss during the debate.

Correspondents say the legislation will be considered a victory for President Obama.

Under its terms, those convicted will not be able to serve their sentences in US prisons, and those cleared will not be allowed to remain on US soil, even when no other country will accept them.

The matter is to be decided by future legislation or by the Supreme Court - which has begun hearing an appeal by a group of Chinese ethnic Uighurs, who were cleared while being held at Guantanamo.

Their lawyers argue that they should be allowed to resettle in the US rather than China, where as ethnic Muslim Uighurs they would be subjected to persecution.

> Surprised, humbled Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-10T02:48:00.002+08:00

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to build momentum behind his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor, and planned to travel to Oslo to accept the prize.

"I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize," he said. "I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century."

Many observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline and has yet to yield concrete achievements in peacemaking.

Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly counter-terror strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.

Obama said he was working to end the war in Iraq and "to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies" in Afghanistan.

Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said their choice could be seen as an early vote of confidence in Obama intended to build global support for his policies. They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change.

Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama."

"And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament," she told The Associated Press in a rare interview. Members of the Nobel peace committee usually speak only through its chairman.

The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts but Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than past winners'. The Nobel committee acknowledged that they may not bear fruit at all.

"Some people say, and I understand it, isn't it premature? Too early? Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now," Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. "It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us."

In Europe and much of the world Obama is lionized for bringing the United States closer to mainstream global thinking on issues like climate change and multilateralism. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.

At home, the picture is more complicated. Obama is often criticized as he attempts to carry out his agenda — drawing fire over a host of issues from government spending to health care to the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

U.S. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele contended that Obama won the prize as a result of his "star power" rather than meaningful accomplishments.

"The real question Americans are asking is, 'What has President Obama actually accomplished?'" Steele said.

Drawing criticism from some on the left, Obama has been slow to bring troops home from Iraq and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012.

In Afghanistan, he is seriously considering ramping up the number of U.S. troops on the ground and asking for help from others, too.

"I don't think Obama deserves this. I don't know who's making all these decisions. The prize should go to someone who has done something for peace and humanity," said Ahmad Shabir, 18-year-old student in Kabul. "Since he is the president, I don't see any change in U.S. strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Obama has said that battling climate change is a priority. But the U.S. seems likely to head into crucial international negotiations set for Copenhagen in December with Obama-backed legislation still stalled in Congress.

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the prize in 1983, questioned whether Obama deserved it now.

"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," Walesa said.

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the committee has a leftist slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties. Jagland said the decision to honor Obama was unanimous.

The identity of the person who nominated Obama will not be made public unless that person steps forward. The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize.

The award appeared to be at least partly a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Those who were in support of Bush in his belief in war solving problems, on rearmament, and that nuclear weapons play an important role ... probably won't be happy," said Valle, the Nobel Committee member.

Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919. Wilson received the prize for his role in founding the League of Nations, the hopeful but ultimately failed precursor to the contemporary United Nations.

The Nobel committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.

Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.

In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The United States now has about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.

But there has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.

Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

"He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts," ElBaradei said.

Obama also has attempted to restart stalled talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but just a day after Obama hosted the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a freeze.

"I look forward to working closely with you in the years ahead to advance peace," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a message of congratulations to Obama.

In the Gaza Strip, leaders of the radical Hamas movement said they had heard Obama's speeches seeking better relations with the Islamic world but had not been moved.

"We are in need of actions, not sayings," Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "If there is no fundamental and true change in American policies toward the acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people, I think this prize won't move us forward or backward."

Obama was to meet with his top advisers on the Afghan war on Friday to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there enters its ninth year.

Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan earlier this year and has continued the use of unmanned drones for attacks on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area.

A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan has condemned President Barack Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, saying the American president had only escalated the war by sending more troops.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi accused Obama "of having the blood of the Afghan people on his hands."

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

Nominators for the prize include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.

The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.

Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's rights activist, among others.

by KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers.

Associated Press writers Ian MacDougall in Oslo, Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Celean Jacobson in Johannesburg, George Jahn in Vienna, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

> 'Thief shouting thief' over Buah Pala

2009-09-24T10:21:00.001+08:00

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng today lashed out at Gerakan state chief Teng Hock Nan and accused him and Barisan Nasional of 'selling out' the Kampung Buah Pala villagers.

In a hard-hitting statement, he asked why Teng has not repented by apologising for his part in selling the land at such cheap rates without consulting the villagers?

Lim urged Teng and BN to provide proof or stop their "shocking lies" that the Pakatan Rakyat government finalised the village land deal and sold Kampung Buah Pala to Koperasi Pegawai Pegawai Kanan Kerajaan Pulau Pinang (Koperasi).

"No amount of false reports by their 'character assassins' will convince Penangnites that BN and the Gerakan government did not rob the villagers of their land," he said.

'Thief shouting thief'

Lim said the declassification of exco minutes on July 7, 2009 showed that the BN state government under then chief minister and Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon were principally culpable for alienating the land twice to Koperasi in exco meetings on Aug 8, 2004 and June 8, 2005 without consulting the villagers.

"The land was alienated by BN at a ridiculously low land premium of RM10 per square feet (when the market rate then was at least RM50 psf) with unanimous support from all MCA, Gerakan, Umno and MIC state exco members including Teng.

"Teng never repented and apologised... and he is now blaming the Pakatan state government of robbing the villagers of their land, a classic case of 'the thief shouting thief'," he added.

After losing their land, Lim said the BN "land robbers" treated the villagers as illegal squatters with no rights to own their land.

The exco minutes showed that BN offered a RM75,000 flat unit to Kampung Buah Pala villagers.

Unlike BN, Lim said his state government treated them as landowners who were allowed to stay by the original British landlord nearly 150 years ago.

He said the Pakatan state government worked hard to compel the developer to offer a double-storey terrace house with 99 years lease to the residents worth RM600,000.

This successful compensation is widely recognised as the best in Malaysian history, he added.

'There's nothing we could do'

Lim explained that once the decision of the BN state exco was conveyed by approval letters for land alienation and development orders sent out to Koperasi and the developer, the state government was legally bound.

"There is nothing the new government can do. This was also affirmed by the Federal Court decision. The order for eviction and demolition was issued to the developer and not initiated by the state government," he added.

Lim challenged BN to deny that they had issued numerous letters of eviction to the villagers when they were in power.

In contrast, he said, the new state government never issued a single letter of eviction.

"Similarly until now BN or Teng cannot show prove that I promised that I would return the land back to the villagers during the general election as I did not even campaign there," he added.

On the same note, Lim asked: "If BN And Gerakan are so innocent, why is it that Koh (former CM) dare not take up his own challenge of an open public debate with me on national television?"

Lim said the only solution to saving Kampung Buah Pala was to forcibly acquire the land.

"However this would cost the state more than RM100 million, a sum 1.5 million Penangnites can not afford for 24 houses in Kampung Buah Pala.

"Unless of course Teng can write the cheque for the acquisition to redeem and atone for BN's mistake, which he has still not done so," he added - Malaysiakini.

> SIS files revision against Kartika's whipping

2009-09-20T11:38:00.003+08:00

Sisters in Islam yesterday filed an application to the Syariah High Court in Kuantan asking for a revision and a stay of execution against Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno's whipping sentence.

“As an advocacy group working on women's rights in Islam, SIS is acting in the public interest so as to resolve the controversies and to provide clarity on this issue,” said SIS executive director Dr Hamidah Marican.

Kartika, 32, was arrested at a hotel nightclub and sentenced to six strokes of the cane two month ago in a rare prosecution of religious laws that ban alcohol for Muslims.

Her insistence that she was ready to face her punishment and would not appeal threw the government and religious authorities into a spin as they attempted to carry out the sentence on a woman for the first time.

Last month, as the mother-of-two was detained ahead of the thrashing, she was abruptly released and the punishment is now being held back until after Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

Hamidah also expressed concern that the Pahang Religious Department intended to execute the sentence on Kartika without any prior notice despite newspaper reports that the state chief syarie judge has also filed for a revision of Kartika's sentence

“Since Kartika's case has generated much public concern, nationally and internationally, the insistence on executing the sentence when legal avenues for revision and clarification have not been exhausted shows an utter disregard of a matter of great public and international interest,” said Hamidah.

“SIS urges the authorities to refrain from executing the sentence on Kartika until all legal and other avenues have been exhausted.”

Kartika: Leave me alone

Kartika, who refused to file an appeal against the sentence, had on Wednesday issued a statement that she wanted be left alone and that the caning to proceed.

According to her, too many individuals had tried to press her into filing for a revision of the sentence.

“As such, I give notice that I do not want to be disturbed by any individuals, politicians, government organisations and non-governmental organisations...," she said.

Kartika was fined RM5,000 and and sentenced to six strokes of the rotan by the Kuantan Syariah High Court on July 20 after pleading guilty to drinking alochol at a hotel in Cherating on July 11, 2008.

On Aug 24, the caning was postponed by Pahang Syariah High Court judge Abdul Rahman Yunus out of respect for the month of Ramadan - Malaysiakini.

> Penan rape: Protest held in front of PM's office

2009-09-17T03:19:00.002+08:00

Yip Ai Tsin

Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) today staged a picket outside the Prime Minister's office in Putrajaya alleging that the government lacked commitment to resolve the plight of the Penan women and girls who were raped by loggers.

Shortly after singing "Negaraku" to commemorate "Hari Malaysia", the group was told to disperse by a group of 15 police personnel who threatened to arrest them for illegal assembly.

The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), which comprises five Malaysian women's rights groups, Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC) and Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) wants the government to:

1) make public the current status of the police criminal investigation of the sexual abuse cases and allocate adequate resources for the investigation as well as the prosecution of the perpetrators;

2) conduct an investigation into the activities of the logging companies identified in the cases of sexual abuse as well as other companies with commercial interests in the Orang Asal native customary rights lands , with a view to uncover and stop violations of human rights;

3) provide support for the survivors of sexual abuse in the form of financial aid, healthcare, education and counselling for the individuals concerned and their families;

4) take steps to ensure that survivors of sexual violence among isolated or rural indigenous communities such as the Penan are able to obtain legal redress by making the justice system more accessible to women from these communities, eradicating corruption among the police force and disseminating easy-to-understand information on their rights and the law;

5) abide by its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child;

6) fully incorporate the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into federal and state legislation and policies, and not to act in any manner inconsistent with the rights protected therein.

Implement task force

JAG also demanded that the government immediately implement the recommendations of the task force and closely monitor their implementation.

While noting that Malaysia voted for the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, JAG said that the Department of Orang Asli Affairs director-general continue to have the power to displace Orang Asli communities from reserve lands and award compensation for the displacement at his/her discretion, without the communities' free, prior and informed consent.

(The declaration affirmed indigenous community's right not to be forcibly removed from their lands or territories, and the right to participate in decision-making.)

"Sabahan and Sarawakian indigenous people continue to find themselves having to take, often at tremendous risk and very little financial support, case after case native customary land rights to court.

"The communities are all still waiting for justice. They have been met by stone-walling, summary dismissals of their concerns, false allegations of foreign intervention, and a seeming lack of interest by the authorities on meeting their obligations to protect, fulfill and promote human rights in this country," said JAG in a statement.

Orang Asli activist Jenita Engi (right) urged the government to take heed and resolve the matter as justice has been eluding the Penan people for a long time.

Also present was PKR Wanita chief Zuraida Kamaruddin (left) who described the report prepared by Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil as inadequate as it did not lay out action against the culprits and measures to ensure the safety of the Penan women.

"We wonder why is Shahrizat keeping quiet and beating around the bush in this matter. We are even more surprised with Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu for doubting the Penans and blaming the NGOs for making up stories," she said.

Instead of protecting the Penans, BN's Sarawak state government is more bent in safeguarding the interest of the logging companies, she added.

"Clearly, self-serving Shahrizat is in cahoots with them," she said.

Report finally made public

Last year, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development set up a task force, comprising ministry officials and women NGO representatives, to investigate allegations of sexual abuse against Penan women and girls in Sarawak.

Its report was released earlier this week and listed at least eight cases of sexual abuse of Penan girls and women by logging camp workers. The report said several of the victims were schoolgirls as young as 10.

Local NGOs claim these documented cases were only a small fraction of the total number of cases of sexual abuse.

Allegations first surfaced on the Bruno Manser Foundation website last year - Malaysiakini.

> Tony Fernandes takes 1 Malaysia into Formula One

2009-09-16T03:06:00.002+08:00

Formula One’s governing body today named Lotus as the 13th team for the 2010 championship. The new outfit will be led by Tony Fernandes of Malaysia, it was announced here.

In Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak also confirmed the news and said the team will be known as the 1 Malaysia Formula One team, although Reuters quotes the FIA as calling the new outfit the Lotus F1 team.

According to Reuters, the new team is a partnership between the Malaysian government and a consortium of Malaysian entrepreneurs.

The FIA said the team principal will be leading Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes. The 45-year-old set up Asian budget airline Air Asia and, with a net worth of US$220 million (RM770.57 million), is Malaysia’s 15th richest man, according to Forbes Malaysia 2009 rich list.

Investors in the new team are Air Asia co-founders Datuk Kamarudin Meranun and Fernandes as well as SM Nasarudin SM Nasimuddin of Naza.

Technical director Mike Gascoyne has more than 20 years of experience in Formula One having previously performed the same role for the Force India, Toyota, Renault and Jordan Formula One teams.

As part of its application to compete in the 2010 championship, the Lotus team agreed an engine supply deal with Cosworth.

The team will initially be based in Norfolk, some 10 miles from the Lotus Cars factory in Eastern England.

The team’s future design, manufacturing and technical centre will be purpose built at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit, the FIA statement said.

1Malaysia is Najib’s platform for uniting Malaysians irrespective of ethnicity and creating a performance based culture.

The concept has gotten mixed reviews as some have praised its objectives while others have criticised its vagueness, which Najib says is deliberate.

The Malaysian government has gone on overdrive to promote 1Malaysia via billboards and song competitions.

Najib declined to disclose the amount that the public-private initiative will cost.

He added however that the government’s investment will be via proton.

Lotus, one of the most successful and glorious names from Formula One’s past, will return next year replacing BMW-Sauber as the 13th entry on the starting grid.

The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement that, after due diligence and an intensive selection process, it had chosen Lotus.

“The cars will be made in Malaysia, by Malaysians,” the Malaysian government said in a separate statement.

The vacancy arose after BMW announced that they were withdrawing at the end of the season, following a path already trodden by Japan’s Honda.

The FIA said BMW-Sauber, who are still seeking a buyer, had been given a reserve slot to fill any vacancy that might occur between now and the start of the 2010 championship.

“The team will announce its two drivers by October 31, 2009. Currently six local and international drivers have been selected,” the Malaysian government said.

Three teams had been on the FIA shortlist for the 13th slot: Lotus, a BMW-Sauber entry to be renamed under eventual new ownership and Spain’s Epsilon Euskadi.

The original Lotus won seven Formula One constructors’ titles and six drivers’ crowns between 1963 and 1978 under the inspirational leadership of the late Colin Chapman, one of the most innovative engineers in the sport.

Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982 and the company slid into administration in 1994 after giving the late Brazilian Ayrton Senna his first victory in 1985.

British great Jim Clark spent his entire F1 career with Lotus, winning two titles. The team’s other champions include compatriot Graham Hill, Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi and American Mario Andretti.

In 1970 the team’s Austrian driver Jochen Rindt became the sport’s only posthumous champion.

The right to the Lotus F1 name was acquired by David Hunt, brother of the 1976 champion James, while the British-based car company was bought by Malaysian state-owned Proton - The Malaysian Insider.

> Jeffrey: Time to recognise Sabah, S'wak as equal partners

2009-09-15T10:26:00.002+08:00

by Leong Sai Ho

Jeffrey Kitingan says this is the right time for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to recognize the equal partnership and status of Sabah and Sarawak and correct the deviation from the original concept of Malaysia.

“This year is the most appropriate year for the government to declare Sept. 16 as national public holiday, if they are really serious about 1Malaysia,” he told the Malaysian Mirror in an exclusive interview here.

He says this is also a favourable time to recall the contributions of our leaders in the formation of Malaysia and hold seminars, symposiums and exhibitions on the history of Malaysia’s formation.

“The true history, not the manipulated history,” he stresses, adding that such activities should be organised and held nation-wide.

“In this way,” he explains, “We can talk about Malaysia through the exhibitions to all Malaysians, especially the young who could get to know and appreciate the concept of a true Malaysian federation.”

Restore special rights

Jeffrey, a younger brother of Joseph Pairin Kitingan, president of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and a deputy chief minister in the state Cabinet, believes this is an appropriate time for the prime minister to recognise the equal partnership and status of Sabah and Sarawak.

“Our prime minister could do so by restoring the special rights and status of Sabah and Sarawak to differentiate them from other states in the peninsula. Now we have been down graded.

“If he can do this, he will be recognised as a prime minister who restored dignity to the people of Sabah and Sarawak and complied with the true spirit of the Malaysia Agreement,” he exhorts.

That, he adds, would be a great gift to the founding fathers from the two states and to the future generations of Malaysians.

Touching further on the significance of Malaysia Day celebrated on Sept 16, the day in 1963 when the Malaysian Federation was formed with Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya as partners in nationhood.

“It should be a national day, a public holiday. When we talk about 1Malaysia, what is it if not Malaysia?

“We should accord due importance and acceptance to it as Malaysia Day, the day we became one nation, a day when Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya came together.”

No relations to Aug 31

He says that if we want to celebrate on Aug. 31, then it should be celebrated as Independence Day separately for the Malayan states there.

“Their independence year was 1957 and ours is 1963. So we cannot use 1957 as the basis for National Day celebration, since Sabah and Sarawak have no relations to it.”

Jeffrey asserts, “If you insist in doing that, you are saying there is no Malaysia, only Malaya. That would mean that Sabah and Sarawak are just an appendix or colony.”

It seemed to him that no one at the federal level is listening to this issue. At the same time, he feels that Sabah and Sarawak leaders (in the government) have no determination to pursue the matter, get the necessary attention and get this issue resolved.

“So, this renders meaningless the BN concept of cooperation and power sharing. I am glad to see that the Pakatan Rakyat government has started recognizing Sept 16 as a significant date for national union by having that day declared as a public holiday.”

He said this has been done in some states (that are under the control of PR) like Penang and Selangor.

Jeffrey’s sentiments on Malaysia Day have been echoed by other leaders in Sabah. Among them is Eric Majimbun, Member of Parliament for Sepanggar, and a deputy president of Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP).

He told the Malaysian Mirror in a separate interview that Sept 16 should be officially recognised by the government and is also calling for it to be declared a national public holiday.

“By doing so our young Malaysians would know that Malaysia was formed by four nations, Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya. This means we are not one of 13 states in Malaysia. We are equal partners of the three components of the federation.

“Our young ones think that we are just one of the 13 states in Malaysia because they regard Aug. 31 1957 as Merdeka, five years of difference,”

Majimbun says that in terms of development, this is also the yardstick we look at.

“So, development is also different. We are far behind in development, especially in infrastructure and in agriculture. We may think we are at par with the other states in plantations, but they are all from outside and not locals. This is the problem we face.”

In the case of Sabah, Sept 16 is a public holiday by virtue of the fact that it is a day on which the Yang di-Pertua Negeri (Head of State) celebrates his official birthday.

'Malaysia Day Countdown'

Meanwhile, the United Sabah Dusun Association (Usda) has organised a “Malaysia Day Countdown” at Padang Selupuh in Tuaran beginning at 8pm on Sept. 15.

Its president, Kalakau Untol, has called on Sabahans “who envisage changes in politics and the system of governance” to attend the function.

“This is an opportunity not to be missed, especially the younger generation to know events of history that brought about Sabah’s involvement in the formation of Malaysia and also the consequences of being in the Federation since Sept 16, 1963.”

He says among leaders invited to speak at that function are: MP for Tuaran, Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing, who is also deputy president of Upko; Dr Jeffrey Kitingan; former senator Karim Ghani from Umno Sabah; and Haji Ansari Abdullah, another leader from PKR Sabah.

Kalakau said in his statement announcing the event that the people of Sabah, especially the younger generation, “must not forget” that Sabah together with Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya formed a new federation called Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963.

Singapore, however, pulled out in August 1965 - Malaysian Mirror.

> Get set for a Pakatan surprise in Bagan Pinang

2009-09-15T08:41:00.002+08:00

by Rahmah Ghazali

The Bagan Pinang Umno stronghold holds no fear for Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim as he believes that Pakatan Rakyat will emerge triumphant in that state constituency's upcoming by-election.

"God willing, with the people's support, we will pull a surprise," said Anwar from his PKR headquarters in Tropicana, Damansara after chairing a Pakatan leadership council meeting today.

Expressing his concern over the Election Commission's selection of dates, he lamented that on seats considered a Barisan Nasional stronghold, polls would be held over the weekend.

"And on seats within our stronghold, polls would be held during the weekdays," said Anwar (left), who is PKR de-facto leader.

EC chief Abdul Aziz Yusof had this morning announced that Oct 3 (Saturday) has been picked for nominations with Oct 11 (Sunday) set for the polls.

Anwar also said that PKR and DAP will provide a strong support for the PAS candidate throughout the by-election campaign period.

This is the ninth by-election since the 12th general election in March last year.

The seat fell vacant following the death of incumbent BN assemblyperson Azman Mohammad Noor, on Sept 4, from blood infection.

In the general election in March 2008, Azman defeated PAS' Ramli Ismail with a majority of 2,333 votes. He polled 6,430 votes against Ramli's 4,097.

Kit Siang: It is an uphill battle

Describing the fight against arch-rivals BN as an "uphill battle", DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang however said it is up to the voters to "demonstrate their desire for change in this sea of by-elections".

Meanwhile, PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali admitted that Pakatan, and PAS especially will face a "quite different situation" this time around as Bagan Pinang constituency has a huge number of postal voters.

"Although it is usual for the postal votes to be in favour of BN, we hope they would use their intelligence by voting for Pakatan, allowing us the opportunity to prove our ability," said Mustapha.

There are 13,664 voters in Bagan Pinang, of which 9,060 are ordinary voters with the remainder of 4,604 being postal voters. The postal voters large number is due to the several army camps located in the constituency.

PKR man to stand as independent

Meanwhile, several hours after Pakatan leaders spoke about springing a surprise in Bagan Pinang, a local level PKR leader threw his name to the hat as a potential independent candidate.

Kota Lukut PKR division committee member Shahrudin Abdul Hamid today said he was going to contest for the state seat, providing for a potential three-cornered fight between himself as an independent, BN and PAS.

Shahrudin, 52, a former aide to PKR's Teluk Kemang MP Kamarul Baharin, said he wanted to contest to promote the tourism industry in Port Dickson.

"Here tourism is important. I want to play my role in uplifting the facilities here. Presently I don't see anyone doing that," he told Malaysiakini today.

The former Umno man is involved in events management - Malaysiakini.

> Subra says his loss was due to money politics

2009-09-13T05:57:00.002+08:00

S Subramaniam, who lost in his bid to regain the MIC deputy president's post, attributed vote buying as largely contributing to his defeat.

He said, money was openly given, a minimum of RM300 to each delegate.

"It was very disappointing. I did not expect (the loss)," he told reporters.

Asked whether he would join another party or form a new political party, or what his next move would possibly be, the once long-time deputy president said: "I will take some time to think about it (next move).

Asked to comment on the possible disciplinary action against him as he had been referred to the disciplinary board for making a statement on party elections held in 1977, Subramaniam said he was not bothered about it.

"I will know what to do," he said.

Meanwhile, many of Subramaniam's supporters were in tears. They vented their anger by shouting that money politics was the cause of the defeat and urged him to join other parties.

Another deputy presidential candidate, S Sothinathan, said he accepted the defeat.

"Despite what the prime minister said this morning... delegates made their decision and nothing has changed," he lamented - Malaysiakini.

> Palanivel is Deputy President of MIC

2009-09-13T05:50:00.001+08:00

Incumbent G Palanivel retained the MIC deputy president post by fighting off a strong challenge from rivals S Subramaniam and S Sothinathan.

Palanivel (left) garnered 629 votes against former deputy president Subramaniam, 547, and former vice-president Sothinathan, 280. His margin of majority was rather slim - 82 votes.

All three candidates endorsed by MIC president S Samy Vellu have also been elected to the three vice-president posts in today's party polls.

Human Resources Minister Dr S Subramaniam was the top vote getter with 1,260 votes, while deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department SK Devamany came second with 1,122 votes and Federal Territories deputy minister M Saravanan joining the other two with 1,030 votes.

It is also learnt that most of Samy Vellu's men have won the lion's share of the 23 seats in the party's central working committee.

Samy Vellu feeling 'much better'

A visibly distraught Sothinathan said he accepted the verdict from the 1,469 party delegates.

"Even after what the prime minister had said today, they don't change. What can I do? Everybody knows the situation. The public know but still..."

Meanwhile, Subramanian supporters looked dejected and there appeared to be an air of disbelief among them.

Some expressed anger, saying that MIC would never change and that they might as well support the Pakatan Rakyat opposition.

MIC supremo Samy Vellu, when asked how he felt, laughed and said: "Much better... much better."

A close aide of had earlier told Malaysiakini that the party boss visited a temple just before the elections to 'invoke the armies of Hanuman' (monkey god) to help his team win.

Subra mobbed by dejected supporters

In an immediate reaction, Subramaniam said he accepted the decision of the delegates although he was disappointed.

He however expressed surprise that the delegates had failed to heed Najib's advice this morning.

"I don't know if they did not understand it or refused to listen but they have decided and I shall accept their decision," he said.

He was mobbed by his somber supporters as he came out of the counting room. He urged his supporters to remain calm and leave peacefully.

Subramaniam also said that he needed some time to think about what he would do next. He also refused to comment if he will be leaving MIC for another party or form a new party.

"Give me some time. I will answer all these later," he said.

He blamed his defeat on money politics by the president's team.

"So much of money was given. They did not stop giving," he lamented.

KP Samy: We'll form a new party

Some of Subramaniam's supporters were in tears after the unofficial results indicated his defeat.

A few blamed Sothinathan for splitting the votes and playing the spoiler in the deputy president race, while others were angry with Samy Vellu for orchestrating their leader's defeat.

While Subramaniam is silent about his future in MIC, many his loyalists said their man's political future lies outside the party that had rejected him today.

Subramaniam left the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) where the MIC 63rd AGM is being held before the official results were announced.

A highly emotional KP Samy, who is a staunch supporter of Subramaniam, vowed to leave MIC.

"We will form a new party and teach these people a lesson. We will tell the PM not to rely on this fellow (Samy Vellu)," he said.

Jubilant Samy sings

After the election commission steering committee head K Vijayanathan announced the results, a jubilant Samy Vellu thanked the delegates and broke out into a song.

A few minutes later, he returned to the microphone and asked for the music to be turned down in the hall.

The president then thanked the media representatives and called on the delegates to give them a resounding applause.

Samy Vellu also argued that there had been changes in the party line-up.

"They wanted changes and I have made them. About 18 out of the 23 CWC members are new. All three vice-presidents are new.

"The deputy president is only three years old while the president is 73-years-old," he quipped.

"I will take care of them, train them, so that they can run a strong party."

Following this, Palanivel thanked the delegates for voting him. Responding to a question, he denied that the election has caused fissures in the party.

"There is no split in the party. The party is united."

Balloting lasted three hours

Earlier today, the 1,469 MIC delegates took three hours to complete their voting in what is considered as the most tense and most watched polls in the party's 63-year history.

According to Vijayanathan, who is also MIC secretary-general, there were 54 polling booths and 28 ballot boxes.

The balloting, which kicked off at 1pm, came to a close at 4pm.

The ballot boxes were taken to Bilik Pangkor, on the third floor of the PWTC, for the counting of votes.

At 4.25pm, the contestants emerged from the main conference hall.

Subramaniam was greeted with a resounding applause while the reception was a little muted for his key rival, Palanivel. Some of Subramanian's supporters shouted "give change a chance".

However, most of the delegates have decided to back their long-time president, who has led the party for 33 years, and his men.

OFFICIAL RESULTS

Deputy president

G Palanivel* - 629

S Subramaniam - 547

S Sothinathan - 280

Vice-president (3 posts)

Dr S Subramaniam - 1,260

SK Devamany - 1,122

M Saravanan - 1,030

S Balakrishnan - 471

VKK Teagarajan - 220

P Subramaniam - 215

P Mariayee - 61

* Incumbent. Those in bold are MIC president S Samy Vellu's men.

Central Working Committee (23 seats)

1. KR Partiban

2. M Asojan

3. VS Mogan

4. RA Ragu Moorthi

5. S Murugesan

6. M Devandran

7. A Saktivel

8. Randhir Singh

9. Jaspal Singh

10. KRA Naidu

11. K Ganeson

12. S Ananthan

13. MM Samy

14. SP Manikavasagam

15. M Paanjamoorthy

16. AGaneson

17. VK Suppiah

18. S Ganesan

19. KP Samy

20. SS Rajagopal

21. N Ravisandaran

22. P Palaniappan

23. Madhu Marimuthu

- Malaysiakini.

> Here comes the next MIC President

2009-09-09T02:20:00.007+08:00

by R.K.Anand

The debonair politician looks dashing in a crimson shirt as he strides into the finely decorated living room of his lavish bungalow in Petaling Jaya for another interview.

As the clock ticks down for the MIC elections, one of the party's most recognisable faces is being hounded by the media of all languages.

While his critics may accuse him of numerous misdeeds, one thing that even they cannot deny is that the man ages gracefully. And although S Subramaniam turns 65 next month, the father of three does not look a day over 50.

During a casual chat with journalists, Subramaniam quipped that his youthful appearance may also be a sore point for his political nemesis, MIC president S Samy Vellu.

"That is why he tells people that I go around like a mapillai (bridegroom)."

Whether or not there are superficial differences between the two, one thing is for certain. Their political differences is legendary.

For nearly three decades, the president has tried every trick in the book to make him disappear, but Subramaniam always reappears.

When Subramaniam lost in the 2006 deputy presidential elections, Samy Vellu thought he had finally vanquished his foe. Two years later, the 2008 general election returned Subramaniam to the forefront of politics.

And come Saturday, he will attempt to reclaim his No 2 post in the party and realise his dream of helming MIC.

Four-cornered fight

While the incumbent G Palanivel is embroiled in a three-way battle, Subramaniam said he sees himself and to a certain extent the third challenger S Sothinathan as being in a four-way fight.

Why? Because "the biggest campaigner happens to be Samy Vellu."

The MIC president has openly endorsed Palanivel and has been urging the some 1,400 party delegates to cast their ballots in favour of his line-up to ensure stability.

So as far as Subramaniam is concerned, this is actually shaping out to be a battle for the top post itself.

"The president is battling me. He is the one who has come into the fray. The president is getting involved so deeply, so it must be seen as almost a contest for the presidency. It is his team, endorsed team, official team. What does it mean?

"My time is taken up to respond, reply and explain to the delegates these unfounded allegations that are being made by the president."

Given the recent developments, Subramaniam said he sometimes regrets not taking on Samy Vellu for the presidency but claimed that it was not fear which stopped him.

"Because now he is behaving like a candidate (for No. 2). I wish I had contested against him and had the opportunity to tell where he had not performed and where he went wrong.

"He is not a candidate, he is trying to be one. He is campaigning against me. It was not fear. I made it (the decision not to contest against him) in the interest of the party.

"Many urged me to contest, but I said 'No' because the party was weak (after the general election) and I did not want to cause any problems in terms of the strength of the party."

'There is no feud'

Subramaniam also denied that he has an axe to grind with the president, saying it is the latter who is always picking a fight.

"There is no feud. As far as I am concerned, I am not starting a feud. But of course the president is trying hard to draw me into a war of words and all sorts of controversies. But I am prepared to face him anytime, anywhere."

Despite the obstacles, Subramaniam, whose clarion call is 'Change for the Better' is confident of winning this election and possibly even becoming the next president.

"I have a very strong response from the delegates, because they are interested in seeing change, a change for the better in MIC.

"This is a critical election. The delegates must choose the right person, not only as deputy president but in the event he (the president) steps down, (the elected candidate) takes over the leadership."

While Samy Vellu is toying with the idea of staying on for a few more years, Subramaniam wants him to stick to his promise.

"He said on the day he was elected (in March) that he will retire after the deputy presidency is filled. I hope as a leader, he will keep his word."

Commenting on the president's reluctance to bid farewell just yet, he said: "Probably he thinks 30 years (as president) is not enough... he continues to claim that his services are required... some say he wants to put his son (Vel Paari) in a proper place (in the party before retiring)."

Although Samy Vellu has acknowledged the need for changes and has embarked on a re-branding of the party, Subramaniam however to a "arge extent" agreed with the view that for any transformation to be effective, the president has to step down.

And when asked if this means the president should throw in the towel, he replied: "I hope he has the heart to do it. That is the reality on the ground."

On whether Samy Vellu will be receptive of his victory, Subramaniam stressed that the former has no other choice but to accept the decision of the delegates.

"It is not the president's wish to accept or not accept, It is the delegates who decide and it is the (party) constitution that is binding on everybody."

'I've never dabbled in caste politics'

Subramaniam also vehemently denied that he has exploited caste organisations, which he terms as social organisations, for his political advancement.

On this issue, he challenged the president to a debate to prove this allegation.

"I dare him to say this in the debate he challenged (me to) and I accepted. Fix it quickly. Because I have never dealt with any social organisations for my political success.

"He is probably the user (of caste politics)... he is probably is the user and that's why he thinks others are doing it."

As for money politics, Subramaniam said nobody has accused him of attempting to buy votes from the delegates.

"I have not heard any accusations against me... I don't have the evidence (that others are doing it). But I hear that some money is being handed over..."

On why the delegates should choose him, the veteran MIC leader argued that he has the best experience among the contestants to ensure that the party is ushered along the right track.

Furthermore, he said he carries no baggage.

"I have never amassed any wealth. I have nothing to worry about. The community knows all this."

Responding to the speculation that Sothinathan's bid for the deputy presidency is an orchestration to break his votes, he said: "Many people have told me that. Many people have asked me that. I really don't know what is going on between Samy Vellu, Sothinathan and Palanivel."

"As I see it, my votes cannot be split. It will be a solid vote. Sothi (right) cannot split my votes."

Subramaniam also explained that the change he is espousing relates to transformation for the betterment of the party and not otherwise.

"When I talk about change, it is to change for the better. Change alone is not good enough because you can change for the worse. So if they (the delegates) elect me, it will be a change for the better.

"I will liberalise the party further. I will (provide) greater freedom for members to express their views. Whether I agree or disagree (with the views), I will hear them out.

"Basically, the change must be something where party members are given new hope, aspirations and direction. The party must be a united and strong party."

Should Subramaniam not succeed in his bid, will he quit politics?

He replied firmly: "The question does not arise that I will not succeed. As of now, I am confident that I will succeed." - Malaysiakini.

> Damning PKFZ report singles out Kong Choy

2009-09-08T08:52:00.000+08:00

A confidential report by a government-appointed task force probing one of Malaysia’s biggest financial scandals has identified serious breaches on the part of several government officials, including a former minister.

The breaches led to billions of dollars in losses at a tottering state-owned transhipment hub, the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ).

The yet-to-be-released report, which will be discussed at the weekly Cabinet meeting tomorrow, singles out former transport minister Chan Kong Choy; Madam O.C. Phang, the former general manager of the Port Klang Authority; and board directors of the port agency, for not carrying out their duties with adequate care.

The findings of the special task force, which were read by The Straits Times, also finger Barisan Nasional MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, the main shareholder of private company Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd which carried out the construction of PKFZ.

Tiong has been named as one of the “possible conspirators” in a scheme that exposed the government to huge financial losses stemming from the failed PKFZ development venture.

The report by the special task force, headed by senior Malaysian lawyer Vinayak Pradhan, will add to the long list of disclosures of alleged criminal wrongdoings and mismanagement that has forced the government to bail out the project. The government also had to stand by debts estimated to be in excess of RM10 billion.

Already, the police have frozen the accounts held by Kuala Dimensi with funds of roughly RM140 million as a result of their own investigation into the scandal.

Government politicians who reviewed the findings said the report will pile pressure on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s administration to act against those responsible for the huge losses.

But that route could prove tricky for the Premier because it will force the government to come down hard on political warlords within its own ruling coalition, such as Tiong. He is an MP from Sarawak and head of the Barisan Nasional’s backbenchers club.

“Depending on how deep you want to probe, this scandal goes to the heart of government because payments for the project came from state agencies and had to be approved by the Transport and Finance ministries,” said a senior government official familiar with developments around PKFZ.

The free trade zone project began as a joint-venture between Port Klang Authority (PKA) and the promoters of the Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone (Jafza) in 1999, to attract foreign investment and promote the main Malaysian port of Port Klang.

The land from the project belonged to Kuala Dimensi, which had acquired it in the 1990s for RM96 million or roughly RM3 per sq ft.

But under mysterious circumstances, the PKA, led by then general manager O.C. Phang, moved to buy the land from Kuala Dimensi in 2002 for RM1 billion, or roughly RM25 per sq ft.

Equally mysterious was the PKA’s decision to award Kuala Dimensi sole rights to develop the free trade zone without an open tender.

To fund the development, Kuala Dimensi raised funds through the issue of bonds that were backed by so-called “letters of comfort” from Malaysia’s Transport Ministry.

The PKFZ project has since been saddled by cost overruns and mismanagement, leaving it to the government to stand guarantee on its loans and bonds issued to fund the project. – The Straits Times

> McDonalds vs McCurry: Court wants questions rephrased

2009-09-08T05:31:00.001+08:00

The Federal Court adjourned to tomorrow the hearing of an application by McDonald's Corporation for leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal's findings over the usage of the prefix "Mc" to enable McDonald's to rephrase the questions on the point of law.

Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Arifin Zakaria, who led the panel with Federal Court judges Datuk Wira Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff and Datuk James Foong, today ordered counsel S.F. Wong, representing McDonald's, to rephrase the questions based on the findings of the Court of Appeal.

Arifin said the court was not clear on the questions raised by Wong, and this was supported by counsel Sri Dev Nair, who appeared for McCurry Restaurant (KL) Sdn Bhd, a local Indian food outlet, that some of the questions posed in Wong's submission yesterday had not been raised in the Court of Appeal judgment.

McDonald's filed an application for leave to appeal after it lost its exclusivity to the usage of the prefix "Mc" when the Court of Appeal allowed McCurry Restaurant, whose outlet is located off Jalan Ipoh in Kuala Lumpur, to use "Mc" in its business signage on April 29.

The Court of Appeal ruled that it was wrong to assume that McDonald's had a monopoly in the use of the prefix "Mc" on a signage or in the conduct of business, and the irresistible inference to be drawn from the totality of the evidence is that McCurry's Restaurant signboard would not result in reasonable persons associating McCurry Restaurant with the McDonald's mark.

In reversing the High Court's decision, it also held that the McCurry Restaurant signboard was different from McDonald's and none of the food items on the menu card served at McCurry Restaurant carried the prefix "Mc", unlike the items of food available at McDonald's.

On Sept 7, 2006, the Kuala Lumpur High Court held that McDonald's had the exclusive right to the prefix "Mc" and ordered McCurry Restaurant to pay damages to McDonald's Corporation, the proprietor of the McDonald's chain of restaurants.

McDonald's, in its statement of claim, said it created the prefix "Mc" as a trademark and that with the usage of the prefix, together with the word "Curry", McCurry Restaurant, formerly known as Restoran Penang Curry House (KL) Sdn Bhd, had misrepresented itself as being associated with McDonald's business.

McCurry Restaurant, in its defence, contended that McDonald's could not claim monopoly or exclusive rights to the use of the prefix "Mc", as that prefix was extensively used around the world as surnames, particularly by people of Scottish origin -- Bernama.

> Kit Siang wants former ministers probed over PKFZ

2009-09-07T08:29:00.000+08:00

DAP's Lim Kit Siang urged the government today to investigate Cabinet-level abuses of power in relation to the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ).

Calling it the mother of all scandals, he expressed concern that a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) probe appeared to be leaning towards putting the blame for cost overruns on poor management, with former Port Klang Authority chairman Datin Paduka OC Phang being singled out.

"It (PAC) is not prepared to probe to a higher level to ascertain the extent of ministerial or Cabinet responsibility," he said in a statement today.

The current Cabinet, he said, should establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry to conduct a "no-holds barred" probe into the scandal.

"This is to unearth all the abuses of power and criminal breach of trust even at ministerial level, right from the beginning of the project."

Lim's remarks come as the PKFZ project has taken centre stage in the ongoing factional fighting within MCA.

MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat, who is also transport minister, has been facing accusations levelled at him by the PKFZ contractor Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) after the company was blamed for the cost overruns by a special task force.

KDSB boss Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, who is also BN backbenchers' club chairman, has alleged Ong took RM10 million in cash from him, which Ong has disputed but the allegation is being used against him in his party battle with rival Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

While KDSB was under probe, Ong also took free rides on the company's private jets, suggesting he had cozy ties with the company that was facing a probe from his ministry.

But Ong is now trying to portray himself as a man who is determined to expose all wrongdoings in the PKFZ project.

Lim appeared to suggest today, however, that Ong should push harder to investigate the previous Cabinets and his predecessors in the Transport Ministry.

A previous BN Cabinet, Lim said, had taken the decision in July 2007 on a RM4.6 billion bail-out of PKFZ by giving retrospective approval for the four illegal Letters of Support issued by the two former Transport Ministers, Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik and Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy.

"What is needed is a no-holds-barred inquiry into the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal to unearth all the abuses of power and criminal breach of trust not just at the PKA and PKFZ levels, but all the way to ministerial and Cabinet stages right from the beginning of the sorry saga of the PKFZ scandal a decade ago when the PKFZ proposal was first mooted with Liong Sik as the Transport Minister under the premiership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad," Lim said.

Ong briefed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak last week on the PKFZ probe. During the same meeting it was also announced that KDSB's bank accounts had been frozen.

Najib said the Cabinet would discuss the PKFZ scandal this Wednesday and decide on the next course of action - The Malaysian Insider.

> Malaysiakini: Don't be cowed by it.

2009-09-05T09:06:00.000+08:00

The Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), now parked under Rais Yatim's Ministry of Information, Communications & Culture, has asked independent news portal Malaysiakini to remove two 'provocative' videos, including the footage of the controversial cow-head protest, from its website.

The affected videos are:

Temple demo: Residents march with cow’s head

Hisham: Don’t blame cow head protesters

"These videos contain offensive contents with the intent to annoy any person, especially Indians," said Abdul Halim Ahmad, MCMC's monitoring and enforcement division senior acting director, in a letter dated Sept 3.

"This is an offence under Section 211/233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998," added MCMC.

Under the communication and multimedia law, any individual found guilty of publishing content "which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person" is liable to a fine of up to RM50,000 or a jail sentence.

Editor: Our intention was not to offend

Commenting on MCMC's request, Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan said both the videos are news events which are of public interest.

"Our intent in putting up the videos was not to 'annoy' anyone, but to do our job as journalists to draw attention to the protest and to ensure action is taken so that incidents like this will not happen again in Malaysia."

Gan said that there was no plan for Malaysiakini to take down the videos and the news website was seeking legal advice on the matter.

Late this afternoon, MCMC made an appointment with Gan for his statement to be recorded at the Malaysiakini office in Bangsar Utama tomorrow.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS... Through the lens that tells no lies, we came to know the message of this cow-head lesson. To Malaysiakini, just don't be cowed by it - Screenshots.

> Cowhead: What the rakyat say ...

2009-09-02T09:16:00.001+08:00

'If 1Malaysia is our end goal, then the intolerant racists who are trying to divide the very multicultural foundations our nation is built upon should be punished and shamed.'

Hisham to meet Section 23 residents.

Lucia: The protestors were already clearly in the wrong and ought to be arrested immediately by police but police kept delaying and now they want to meet the home minister?

What kind of double standard is this from the police and the home minister? It is 2malaysia, not 1Malaysia - one standard for the opposition and another for the ruling coalition

Dr Jacob George: It would be foolish for a minister to meet the residents when police investigations are continuing!

This incident was telecast around the world and we are being watched by others to see if we have several sets of laws operating in the country - one for the opposition, another for the ruling party.

The home minister being a lawyer knows no one is above the law just as well as he knows that laws have been broken in this case. There are to date over 52 police reports. It is his call whether our nation's laws are ridiculed by others for alleged selective prosecution or bartered for political expediency!

Changeagent: This is the time for S Samy Vellu to stand up and show leadership on behalf of all Indians in this country. Go on Samy, stand up to your Umno contemporaries and tell them that their hypocrisy and double standards will not be tolerated.

If 1Malaysia is our end goal, then the intolerant racists who are trying to divide the very multicultural foundations our nation is built upon should be punished and shamed.

Samy, if you remain quiet on this, then we would hypothesise that you are not man enough to confront Umno and don't really care about the Indian race as much as you would like us to believe.

Kenny: If the police take no action against the cow head protesters, the public can infer who is behind the protest. Which party is above sedition laws in this country?

Tmf: Dear Minister, entertain those perpetrators of racial and religious provocations as long as you like. The world is watching and our reputation as a tolerant multi-racial and multi-cultural country is fast going down the drain. 'Once the leaders do not behave as they preach, the people are not going to believe them anymore.' - Yasmin Ahmad

Habib Rak: What a shame. Despite black-and-white proof and inflammatory statements caught on tape and broadcast, the police are 'still investigating'. And to top it all, the home minister is prepared to meet the culprits!

Azaman bin Abu Bakar: The question is: should the minister meet them when police investigations are ongoing? Would it not compromise the situation, and set a precedent?

Selvendera: As a Hindu, I'm not offended by the cow head but I'm very offended by the home minister's double standard - Malaysiakini.

> Opposition Slammed For Attempting To Convene Assembly Sitting

2009-09-02T08:59:00.001+08:00

Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has slammed the the opposition parties in Perak for attempting to convene a state legislative assembly sitting on Wednesday.

He said that the opposition parties wanted to split the people by trying to turn Perak politics topsy-turvy despite the fact that the people had already accepted the Barisan Nasional's (BN) rule in the state.

He said that the opposition pact of DAP, PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat was trying to disrupt the state's administration as it was clear that the BN government, led by Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir, was accepted by the people.

"They have no locus standi to call for a state legislative assembly sitting as the former speaker no longer holds any post," he told reporters after attending a reception for orphans organised by the Perak Umno Youth at the Perak menteri besar's residence on Monday night.

Last week, former speaker V. Sivakumar, who is Tronoh assemblyman, issued a notice informing assemblymen that there would be a state assembly sitting on Wednesday.

Speakar Datuk R. Ganesan had asked all assemblymen to disregard the notice.

Khairy said that Perak opposition parties were becoming desperate as efforts by Dr Zambry to bring changes to the state had brought about positive momentum for the BN.

He said that political chaos which the opposition parties bent on creating was not helpful to the people who wanted to see stability in the state.

Meanwhile, Perak Umno Youth condemned Sivakumar's action, saying the opposition was no longer in power in the state.

Its chief, Maslin Shah Razman, said the opposition parties had lost their majority in the state assembly and that their latest antics showed that they were desperate after realising that the BN state government was administering the state well.

"They are running out of issues and are now seeking cheap publicity," he said - mySinchew.

> Cow head - Hisham issues stern warning

2009-09-01T14:04:00.001+08:00

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today issued a stern warning to any group which resorted to actions that could jeopardise public order and national security.

He was referring to the demonstration by residents on Friday against the building of a Hindu temple in Section 23, Shah Alam.

He stressed that in issues involving race and religion, the government would not bow to pressure and would not hesitate to act against those who refused to heed to such a warning.

"If such incidents are not curbed, they could result in prolonged communal tension and conflict, and I see this (temple) issue as a very sensitive issue," he said in a statement Sunday.

Hishammuddin said although there were calls for him to invoke the Internal Security Act in addressing the issue, the Act would only be used as a last resort or in a situation which could harm national security.

"I also wish to state that there are other laws that can be used in such a case," he added.

On postings in the Internet that incited the Indians, he said the police, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and the Attorney-General were taking action as agreed by him together with Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz.

On the claim by Shah Alam member of parliament Khalid Samad that the police were colluding with Umno over the (temple) issue, Hishammuddin said it was a very serious allegation and aimed at discrediting the police force - Bernama/Mysinchew.

> Some lessons Malaysia can learn from Tony Fernandes

2009-08-31T08:32:00.003+08:00

The weaker growth wrought by the global financial crisis means that Malaysia's economy will need to expand at a frenetic 8 per cent per year over the next decade if the country is to achieve its vision of being a developed nation by 2020, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak revealed last week.

Given that in the past decade only twice has gross domestic product (GDP) growth breached 6 per cent, this is going to be well-nigh impossible.

Although committed to the vision mooted by former premier Tun D Mahathir Mohamad in the early 1990s, Najib has observed a need to “redefine, recalibrate the timeline” of how to “get there”.

Malaysia's gross national income per capita is about US$7,000 (RM24,500) — some US$5,000 short of an advanced economy — and US$10,000 less than the projected growth of US$17,000 per capita these economies would enjoy by 2020. With rival developing economies already proving to be tougher and hungrier competitors, “getting there” will be challenging — a fact Najib acknowledged in a keynote address at the inaugural meeting of the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) last week.

“Economically, Malaysia is under pressure on all fronts. Our rules remain overly cumbersome and, in certain sectors, restrictive.” It was not Malaysia's choice to change, he said, but it had “no choice but to change”.

NEAC is the latest think-tank comprising foreign and local personalities to advise the government on how to effect Malaysia's transition into a high-income economy.

Najib has, of course, made some brave changes, earlier this year liberalising 27 sub-sectors and instituting more market-friendly measures.

Even so, bolder out-of-the box reforms are needed to convince investors that its domestic economy warrants a second look when neighbouring ones are so much larger and more vibrant.

As many have observed, better integrating the local economy with Asean as well as China and India would provide stronger growth, given the combined 3.5-billion-strong market for Malaysian goods and services. Why else would Australia and New Zealand want into the regional trading bloc?

Locally and perhaps regionally, no one has better latched on to the integration concept or capitalised on it as craftily as Datuk Tony Fernandes. In seven short years, Asia's budget travel pioneer has transformed AirAsia into arguably the country's best- known brand. Given its increasing brand recognition in the region, it could conceivably be true of Asean as well. Even in the emerging super-economies of China and India, the brand is not an unknown entity.

In expanding his company, Fernandes leveraged on two inherent strengths to great advantage: Malaysia's geographical position on the global map, and a multi-racial and relatively cosmopolitan workforce, which helped when it came to getting a toehold in new markets.

The country hasn't availed itself of these distinct advantages as adroitly. Culturally, Malaysia's three main races — Malays, Chinese and Indians — have a distinct advantage when it comes to dealing with their counterparts in the Middle East, China and India.

In Asia, where relationships are prized, this could spell the difference between success and failure.

By phasing itself out of the markets so as not to crowd out the private sector and small businesses, the government would afford savvy businessmen and entrepreneurs more room to manoeuvre. Undoubtedly, some of these entrepreneurs could teach it a thing or two about economic integration.

They might also be able to offer pointers on racial integration. AirAsia's crew, for example, are as diverse as they come, comprising Asean citizens, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Iranians, Iraqis, South Americans and Europeans.

Their differences notwithstanding, the company has managed to instil in them a sense of pride, unity and commitment.

Still grappling with unnecessary racial and religious tensions more than half a century after independence, Malaysia could do worse than to listen to some of its corporate chieftains on how to extract the best out of their workforce and to forge a consensus so that everyone wins - Business Times Singapore / The Malaysian Insider.

> The political costs of caning Kartika

2009-08-28T10:11:00.000+08:00

by Farish A. Noor

Malaysia has long tried to cultivate the image of being a moderate Muslim state that can serve as a model for others. Particularly in the wake of the attacks on the United States in September 2001, successive prime ministers have worked hard to ensure that Malaysia would remain on the list of moderate Muslim states that could serve as the bridge between the Western and Muslim worlds.

Today, that image stands to take a significant pounding, thanks to a relatively isolated incident that has managed to grab headlines worldwide: A Malay-Muslim woman by the name of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno is set to be caned for the offence of drinking alcohol in public. Kartika's case has bedevilled lawmakers of Malaysia for the simple reason that nobody seems to know what to do about it.

Kartika was found guilty of drinking beer in Pahang. The religious authorities in the state found her guilty of committing a syariah offence, and she was fined and sentenced to six strokes of the cane. Kartika herself pleaded guilty to the charges. But what baffles many observers is that the former model said she was prepared to be caned, and what is more, to be caned in public.

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has asked if Malaysia would celebrate its independence day (on Aug 31) with the caning of a Muslim woman. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has himself asked Kartika to appeal against her sentence. Needless to say, the case has brought Malaysia to the world's attention for all the wrong reasons.

The problem that this case poses for Malaysia is complex. For a start, Kartika's case was handled by the Syariah Court of Pahang, raising the question of whether the federal government can intervene to save her.

Adding to the confusion is the problematic and complicated relationship between religion and politics in the country. The borderline between Islam and politics has grown increasingly blurred after three decades of state-driven Islamisation. The enfeebled ruling Umno is now trying its best to defend its own Islamic credentials in the face of the opposition PAS. At the same time, Umno would not like to gain the same reputation as the Taliban of Afghanistan.

PAS in turn is likewise split in its conscience, between moderates who wish to push the democratisation agenda and conservatives who want more Islamisation. Already in Selangor, where PAS came into power as part of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition, moral policing has been introduced by the conservative PAS leader Datuk Hasan Ali, who has called for religious functionaries to arrest Muslims who go against Islamic law.

PAS conservatives may feel that their electoral gains have given them the green light to further Islamise the country. They have thus called for a ban on the sale of alcohol and music concerts. But in the wider context of international politics, Malaysia is looking more and more like a parochial state where books are banned and people are whipped for doing things that would be regarded as perfectly normal elsewhere.

Malaysia's conservative Islamists, their religious convictions notwithstanding, do not seem to understand why the international community is upset with the idea of a woman being caned for drinking a pint. Perak Mufti Harussani Zakaria, for instance, has wondered why a fuss should be made over a woman receiving six lashes when, in his opinion, she should be receiving 80 lashes.

It is this sense of disconnect that adds a surreal air to the goings-on in Malaysia today. The government is concerned that failure to enact Islamic law will compromise its standing in the eyes of conservative Muslims in the country. But to have Kartika caned would jeopardise the country's image internationally. Like it or not, Malaysia still depends on trade with the developed Western world, not Afghanistan.

This, then, is the dilemma that Malaysia faces at the moment, and there seems little consensus on how to proceed. Kartika's caning has been postponed for now. One thing, however, is certain: The costs of caning Kartika are simply too high. Should Malaysia cane her, it would have jumped one rung up the Islamisation ladder. After that, there may be no turning back - Straits Times / The Malaysian Insider.

> MACC under arson attack

2009-08-21T05:38:00.002+08:00

The Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission came under attack from unknown persons when a vehicle belonging to the commission was torched early today.

Six Molotov cocktails were thrown at the two-month old Klang MACC office early this morning, destroying a four-wheel-drive vehicle belonging to the Selangor MACC.

The attack was confirmed by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Aziz when he mentioned it in his speech while presenting the Excellence Awards to MACC officers at Putrajaya today

Eye-witnesses said that MACC officers only realised the damage to the vehicle when they reported to work this morning.

The vehicle, a gold coloured Nissan X-Trail, is usually used by the MACC officers while on duty.

A police report has been lodged over the arson attack and Klang police chief ACP Mohamad Mat Yusop said the incident happened at about 2 to 3am but there were no witnesses.

"Police believe the assailants had scaled down the slope behind the building and thrown the Molotov cocktails from outside the fence. The impact of the attack damaged a portion of the vehicle," he was quoted by Bernama.

He added that the attack was the first of its kind at the office and believed the incident was linked to political aide Teoh Beng Hock's death at the Selangor MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16.

The Klang MACC office started operations two months ago but has not been officially opened due to bad publicity received by the commission after Teoh's death.

Underworld connections obvious

Attending a press conference in Putrajaya later, Nazri did not rule out "underworld connection" to the arson attack.

He said that it was well known that the Selangor MACC was investigating claims that some state exco members had links with the underworld, as alleged by Wangsa Maju PKR MP Wee Choo Keong.

"If there was no investigation on the underworld links, this would never have happened. This goes to show what Wee had suggested exists," said Nazri.

"Such attacks are usually done by cowards...and samseng (gangsters) only," he added.

Meanwhile, MACC chief Ahmad Said Hamdan who was also present in the press conference confirmed that four Molotov cocktails have been thrown at the branch office and it "was enough to burn the whole building".

He said only one official vehicle was damaged badly.

The attack was a threat to scare off his officers, he added.

"But this will not deter us from performing our duty," he said.

MACC Advisory Panel member Robert Phang has condemned the attack and asked for patience from everyone for the commission to put its house in order.

"This is not our culture. Let's not take that path. This is what differentiates Malaysia from so many other countries. Agree to disagree," he told Malaysiakini in Kota Kinabalu - Malaysiakini.

> Peat fires add to haze over Sabah, Sarawak

2009-08-12T06:07:00.002+08:00

Air quality in six areas continues to be 'unhealthy' in Sabah and Sarawak as the haze from local and external sources takes its toll.

As at 5pm yesterday, the Air Pollution Index (API) readings remained among the worst in Sri Aman (108), Sibu (175), Samarahan (148), Sarikei (133), Miri (140) and Kuching (105).

Smog from Kalimantan continues to plague Sabah and Sarawak as satellite imagery from Asean Secretariat's HazeOnline monitoring site reveals.

However, rain in recent days appears to have cleared much of the haze over Peninsular Malaysia, with 20 areas recorded in the 'good' category of the API.

Most areas in the peninsula registered readings in the low 60s and 50s, especially in the north where Universiti Sains Malaysia had the lowest at 23.

Kuala Selangor and Muar had a 'moderate' reading of 88 and 94 respectively.

Air quality is deemed 'unhealthy' at readings of 101-200, 'very unhealthy' from 201-300 and 'hazardous' if above 300. A reading of 0-50 is deemed 'good' and from 51-100 as 'moderate'.

Battling peat fires

Local Government Minister Kong Cho Ha told Star that some 600 fire officers have been deployed to Sarawak to help control peat fires over an area of 566ha.

“Main towns like Sibu, Miri and Kuching are experiencing 'unhealthy' air quality due to fires mainly in a neighbouring country, but there are also fires in Sarawak that are worsening the problem,” he was quoted as saying.

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, meanwhile, said burning is a common practice in land clearing activities, and that the ministry needs time to come up with an appropriate solution.

Deputy Minister Joseph Kurup told Bernama that the ministry will impose a fine on those involved in open burning, which contributes to unhealthy air quality and haze in the region.

Recently, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Douglas Uggah Embas was unable to do an aerial survey of hotspots in Sarawak as his flight was grounded due to poor visibility.

Status quo on haze

Earlier in the day, as of the 11am reading, the Air Pollution Index (API) maintained its steady downward trend in continuing to ease things for Malaysians both in the peninsular and Sabah and Sarawak.

The recent rainy spells have helped to clear up the worst of the haze.

The number of 'unhealthy' areas went down from six to two, the worst API today recorded in Miri and Sibu, with a reading of 184 and 113 respectively.

However, Miri actually showed an increase from yesterday's reading of 140, idling dangerously close to 'very unhealthy.'

'Good' classified areas went up to 23 from yesterday's 20. The north of the peninsula still leads with better air quality with Universiti Sains Malaysia having the lowest API of 27.

The 5 pm API readings also remained status quo with Miri (185) and Sibu (104) remaining the two 'unhealthy' areas - Malaysiakini.

> Alcohol ban: Where's the logic, PAS?

2009-08-05T23:01:00.003+08:00

by Yip Ai Tsin

Dismay was the immediate reaction to Selangor PAS' proposed blanket ban on the sale of alcohol in Muslim-majority areas in the state, as stakeholders questioned the need for such a drastic measure.

Consumers Association of Subang and Shah Alam, Selangor president Jacob George stressed that the state government should not “legalise people's culture, drinking habits and lifestyle”.

"There is a larger, deeper, sinister and more clandestine agenda surrounding this whole issue. This is the beginning of a long line of drastic measures that will wreak havoc," he claimed when contacted today.

"It is beer today. Soon they might disallow food that is not halal and restrict the sale of houses in non-Malay areas," he said.

He also questioned PAS' definition of "Muslim-majority areas" and the rationale of targeting outlets like 7-11, a franchise of convenience stores.

"I challenge PAS to pick on big hotels (in) Shah Alam as they serve liquor and alcoholic beverages there.”

Yesterday, Selangor PAS commissioner Hassan Ali had urged Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim to finalise the guidelines regulating the sale of beer in Muslim-majority areas as soon as possible.

'Lawful right to trade'

Guinness Anchor Bhd managing director Charles Ireland said that any kind of ban or restriction is not the right solution to the predicament.

"We believe that self-regulation and education is the best way forward. A blanket or partial ban, or having restricted hours is not the right way to address the issue at hand," he said in a statement.

"Actions like the recent beer raid in Shah Alam, which impact on businesses' lawful right to trade, make an already difficult business environment even more difficult.

"We think that the rights of the alcohol producers, retailers and consumers to go about their own business should also be respected.” - Malaysiakini.

> Human shield confronts sledgehammers

2009-08-05T02:42:00.003+08:00

by Low Chia Ming

A human chain stood in the way of about 50 members of a demolition team who were supposed to tear down Kampung Buah Pala today.

Both sides stood down after the demolition exercise was subsequently called off following discussions between villagers and developer Nusmetro Ventures (P) Sdn Bhd.

At about 11am, the situation became tensed after a demolition team arrived, armed with hardhats, crowbars and sledgehammers.

Upon noticing their presence, some 300 male villagers formed the human shield and began chanting slogans.

More than 100 police personnel stood watch. The police later brought representatives from the developers and villagers into a police van for discussions.

After a brief negotiation, the workers left and villagers breathed a sigh a relief.

Court hearing

The workers had come despite Deputy Chief Minister P Ramasamy visiting the village earlier this morning and reassuring residents that no demolition would take place.

According to the agreement reached in the police van, developer Nusmetro would not proceed with the destruction of the 23 houses until after a Federal Court hearing on the status of the land.

The villagers have filed an appeal against the Court of Appeal's decision which ruled in favour of the developer.

In the decision, the appellate court overturned an earlier High Court decision, which favoured the villagers, and issued an eviction order effective June 11.

But the state government has since negotiated with the developer to hold off the demolition.

The Federal Court will hear the appeal on Aug 18.

Balik Pulau MP Yusmadi Yusof said since the villagers have obtained a date from the court, the developers have agreed to wait for the hearing to conclude.

"All parties have agreed to respect the court process. The villagers have always used legal and peaceful means," he said.

He said the developer's workers might not have known about this and were about to perform the demolition today.

Villagers in tears

As early as 8.30am today, scores of women and children formed a second human barricade at the main entrance to the village.

Ramasamy's appearance at about 9am did not seem to relieve the villagers of their anxiety.

He had told them that the developers would not be taking any action today and the state government would hold a meeting with villagers at 7pm tonight.

Despite this, the villagers, many of whom were in tears, pleaded with Ramasamy to persuade Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to purchase the land from the developers.

At one point, an elderly villager was so overcome by despair that he knelt in front of Ramasamy, who quickly lifted the man up.

Other than the disgruntled villagers, Ramasamy also had to face several MIC Youth members at the scene who jeered at him - Malaysiakini.

> Landowner to tear down Kg Buah Pala tomorrow

2009-08-03T05:54:00.001+08:00

The Penang Government Officers Cooperative, the sole owner of the land in Kampung Buah Pala in Bukit Gelugor here, remains firm in its decision to demolish houses in the village tomorrow.

Its chairman, Abdul Razak Mansor, said they would instruct developer Nusmetro Ventures (P) Sdn Bhd (Nusmetro) to obey the Federal Court decision, which has granted ownership of the land to the cooperative.

“We are not cruel, but our decision to demolish the village still stands because the court has decided the land is ours,” he said when contacted by Bernama here today.

He said any talks regarding relocating residents within the area as suggested by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng would only be done after the houses were demolished.

“The cooperative will not entertain any requests from the state government to negotiate on the matter until the houses are torn down.

“Discussions on whether residents can stay in part of the land will also be carried out once the area is vacated,” he said.

Abdul Razak stressed that the cooperative would not sell or hand over the land to any other party, adding that they would not hesitate to take legal action against the state government if it tried to prevent the developer from carrying out work in the area.

“Whatever happens, our decision is final and we will not give this land to anyone in the interest of the cooperative’s members,” he said.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 individuals from various NGOs nationwide are expected to congregate in Kampung Buah Pala tomorrow to defend the village from being demolished.

The village’s residents association chairman M.Sugumaran said half of them had arrived in Penang yesterday to offer support to the residents.

He said an agreement was reached during a meeting between Chief Minister Lim Guang and residents yesterday that they would continue to stay there until discussions with the developer ended.

In the meeting, he said, Lim had promised to talk with the developer to find a solution, among others allowing the residents to share the area with the developers.

Meanwhile, Penang police chief Datuk Ayub Yaakob said police were monitoring the situation and advised the public and the villagers not to create chaos in the area - Bernama.

> Kg Buah Pala: A way out of the impasse

2009-07-31T02:36:00.000+08:00

by Hafiz Yatim, Malaysiakini.

The Penang government only has to read the fine print on a document issued by the state land office to bring the Kampung Buah Pala saga not just to a close, but to happy ending for affected residents.

Lawyer and Petaling Jaya city councillor Derek Fernandez said the state government can take back the land, based on a caveat in the 99-year lease document issued by the land registrar.

The document states that the plot is to be specifically used for housing and that the deed "cannot be transferred, mortgaged, pawned, sub-let or used as a business instrument".

"These means that the developer cannot operate via a joint venture," said Fernandez.

"If the Penang government re-acquires the land, they only need to pay back land premium as to what is actually paid by the cooperatives," he said.

The lease, registered on March 27, 2008 and effective up to March 26, 2107, was issued to Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Negeri Pulau Pinang Bhd.

The Penang government changed on March 8 after the general election, with the defeat of Barisan Nasional in the state. The Pakatan Rakyat coalition then assumed office under the stewardship of Lim Guan Eng of DAP.

Developer Nusmetro Venture (P) Sdn Bhd entered the picture on April 14, 2008, based on transaction details on the document.

"I have discovered a serious weakness in the landowner Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Negeri Pulau Pinang Bhd and Nusmetro's claim on the land.

"It is issued with restriction 'tanah yang diberi milik ini tidak boleh dipindah milik, cagar, pajak, pajakan kecil atau sebarang bentuk urusniaga (the land cannot be transferred, mortgaged, pawned, sub-let or used as a business instrument.)

"This restriction reduces the cooperatives to an end-user as it can build houses for members only. It cannot enter into a joint venture to develop the land or sell units to third party," he added.

He said that his assumption was based on the fact that the Penang government did not approve any transaction or development in relation to the land after the title was issued.

Fernandez said if the Penang government had not given any approval for the project, then Kampung Buah Pala is saved.

Developer has no claim over loss

The lawyer also said the developer cannot claim loss of market value or gross development loss as the land cannot be developed in the first place.

"It (the land) has no commercial value without the state consent to develop it. Hence, with this it can be easily acquired back by the Penang government," the Petaling Jaya councillor said.

He argued that in fact, the cooperatives should give back the land to the Penang government as it is duty bound to comply with state government policy as it is made up of officers of the state.

"The state could give them some other asset to replace this property. The developer in this case has no rights as there cannot be joint venture enforced without the state government's approval because of the restrictions," he said.

Fernandez also said the co-operatives should not have been involved in any business dealings in the first place due to restrictions imposed.

The restriction on the title, Fernandez said, makes the cooperatives the end-user only, as there should not be any purchaser or buyer.

He also debunked the caveat obtained by Nusmetro as according to him it only showed that the developer was laying claim over the land.

He added that the caveat itself was illegal based on a judgment delivered by Justice Mahadev Shankar in the case of Goo Hee Sing vs Will Raja and Anor.

Chief Minister Lim had previously stated that the state government has yet to give approval on the project.

"If that is the case, the land cannot be developed without the new government's approval so they (developer Nusmetro) cannot claim loss of market value or gross development value," added Fernandez.

Project is unlawful

He said that to acquire the land, the state government only needed to pay back the premium or what was actually paid by the cooperative society to the government.

"Therefore the state government can stop the demolition by issuing an acquisition notice under the Land Acquisition Act.

"It is my opinion that in the event the Pakatan government did not approve any development as they claimed, the project is unlawful in law because of these restrictions in the document.

Former Petaling Jaya councillor A Thiruvenggedam meanwhile has challenged Penang Chief Minister Lim to set the record straight on whether his government had approved any development projects with the land when it took over the reigns.

"Lim has been putting the blame on BN and also declassifying confidential documents to prove the point that it was BN's fault.

"He (Lim) should stop in this blame game and set the record straight," he added.

(With additional reporting by K Pragalath)

> High Chaparral: 'Solution meet' on Saturday

2009-07-30T00:56:00.000+08:00

The state government will meet residents of Kampung Buah Pala on Saturday to find a solution to the land problem.

The meeting at Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak (Komtar) at 2.30pm will be attended by Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and state exco members, said Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy.

"We will find a solution to the problem and hope to discuss it with residents," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

The state government would also present a proposal by Kampung Buah Pala project developer Nusmetro Ventures (P) Sdn Bhd.

"We hope to receive the draft proposal today or tomorrow so that we can study it," he said.

Ramasamy however said that the meeting on Saturday will not involve the project developer.

Controversy erupted when the state government sold the 2.6 hectare land to Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Pulau Pinang Bhd which later appointed Nusmetro Ventures as project developer.

Nusmetro Ventures then obtained a court order demanding Kampung Buah Pala residents to vacate the land by Aug 3.

Ramasamy said if the proposal was not acceptable to residents, the state government would withdraw its approval for a housing project.

Why did MIC keep quiet in 2007?

On the statement by MIC president S Samy Vellu that the party was willing to pay RM3.2 million to settle the issue, he said it has to be discussed with the developer and koperasi as the land did not belong to the state government.

"If MIC wants to settle the issue by buying the Kampung Buah Pala land, they can talk to the developer and koperasi but RM3.2mil will not be enough as the price has since increased to about RM150mil," he said.

Meanwhile, DAP questioned MIC's 'political game' by attempting to portray themselves as the champions in this issue.

"If MIC was really interested in safeguarding the land, then it should have done so in 2007 when MIC exco member P Subbayah sat on the Penang BN panel which approved to sell the land to Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Pulau Pinang (KPKPP)," said the party's labour chief A Sivanesan.

"If MIC had truly wanted to champion the rights of the residents then it should have done so in 2007 when the sale of the land went through. Now MIC is catching the tail-end of the problem and trying to solve it by putting the blame on the state government," he said - Malaysiakini.

> 'Cash is ready' Samy slams 'hypocrite' CM

2009-07-29T05:58:00.004+08:00

MIC president S Samy Vellu today took Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to task over the Kampung Buah Pala land issue.

Disappointed that Lim had accused MIC of 'bluffing' about willing to pay the RM3.2 million premium for the land, the president said he was surprised that the DAP secretary-general would make such a remark.

"I respected him (Lim) as a young dynamic person. It is unfortunate that he (Lim) can say anything that suits his purpose for the moment and being willy nilly when the table turns," he said.

"We have to see what Lim had to say about Bukit Cina in Melaka and compare with what he is doing with Kampung Buah Pala," he added in a statement.

DAP had resolved the Bukit Cina issue in 1984 and Lim was quoted as saying that it showed the party's priority in preserving important culture and heritage over development projects for the sake of private gain.

"What we are seeing is hypocrisy in Lim's words," said Samy Vellu.

Premium deposited with lawyers

Meanwhile, the MIC president said the party will deposit the RM3.2 million premium for the return of the affected land with the party's lawyers.

He said when the Penang government was ready to hand over the land to the Kampung Buah Pala villagers, the payment would be made by the party's lawyers to the state government.

"I have instructed MIC lawyers to write to the state government and chief minister to get the land matter cleared. The lawyers would transmit the money when the land is approved," he said.

Samy Vellu said in any land deal, the money would only be paid after the land has been transacted or the documents for the transactions were ready.

"Here, we have a chief minister telling us to pay first and then let's talk," he said.

Just like DAP in 1984, Samy Vellu said MIC also wanted to save Kampung Buah Pala to preserve the Indian culture and heritage.

He urged the state government not to take the people for a ride as the land was transferred during Lim's time as chief minister and not by the previous state government.

"It is your government which took the premium. You could have stopped it if you had the least sympathy for the Indians in Kampung Buah Pala," he added - Malaysiakini.

> Kampung Buah Pala: Guan Eng orders stop to project

2009-07-26T03:11:00.001+08:00

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng today ordered the Penang Municipal Council (MPPP) to withdraw the development approval given to Nusmetro (P) Sdn Bhd to develop Kampung Buah Pala in Bukit Gelugor.

He said he was invoking his authority as the chief minister to revoke the decision made by the previous administration.

He said the current administration was not involved in the project, and that if the developer still wanted to proceed with the project, it must take into account the social aspects of the residents.

Speaking to reporters after launching the green building index forum organised by the northern chapter of the Malaysian Institute of Architects today, he said although the developer had the right to demolish the houses of residents, it cannot develop the land.

"If the developer wants to continue with the project, it must find a solution that will benefit all those involved, including the villagers," he said.

He said although the Federal Court's decision was in favour of the developer, it was not an excuse to neglect the residents.

The Kampung Buah Pala issue created a controversy when 23 families refused to vacate their homes although the Federal Court had dismissed their appeal to remain there.

The villagers urged the state government to intervene, claiming that several Pakatan leaders had promised to help them during the campaign for the last general election.

The land is owned by the Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Negeri Pulau Pinang Berhad and will be developed for a housing project.

The developer and land owner cannot be reached for comment - Bernama.

> Asia watches long solar eclipse

2009-07-23T05:45:00.009+08:00

People in Asia have seen the longest total solar eclipse this century, with large areas of India and China plunged into darkness.

Amateur stargazers and scientists travelled far to see the eclipse, which lasted six minutes and 39 seconds at its maximum point.

The eclipse could first be seen early on Wednesday in eastern India.

It then moved east across India, Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Japan and the Pacific.

The eclipse first became total over India at 0053GMT, and was last visible from land at Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific nation of Kiribati. It ended at 0418GMT.

Elsewhere, a partial eclipse was visible across much of Asia.

Mixed blessing

In India, millions gathered in open spaces from the west coast to the northern plains, with clouds parting in some cities at dawn - just before the total eclipse.

AT THE SCENE

Sanjoy Majumder, BBC News

As we flew up high above the monsoon clouds over eastern India, the pilot counted down the minutes and dimmed the cabin lights.

Then as the passengers sucked in their breath and exclaimed, the shadow of the moon travelled ever so slowly across the face of the sun until is was completely obscure - a darkened orb with the sun's white crown visible in a perfect circle.

Around us the sky was pitch dark and the galaxy glittered in all its glory. It was, as one passenger put it later, an emotional and breathtaking moment.

'A night to remember'

But thick clouds and an overcast sky obscured the view at the Indian village of Taregna, "epicentre" of the eclipse, says our correspondent in the area.

Many of the thousands of people who gathered there to watch the eclipse left the village disappointed.

"We were apprehensive of this cloudy weather but it was still a unique experience with morning turning into night for more than three minutes," scientist Amitabh Pande told the Associated Press news agency.

Some enthusiasts in India were on board a special chartered flight for a close-up view of the eclipse.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder, who was on the flight, said that from a vantage point of 41,000ft (12,500m), it was a celestial spectacle like few others.

Among the passengers were a man who was witnessing it for the eighth time, scientists, amateur astronomers and children.

In India and Nepal, where it is considered auspicious to watch the eclipse while immersed in holy water, crowds gathered at rivers or ponds, including tens of thousands of people at Varanasi on the Ganges.

"We have come here because our elders told us this is the best time to improve our afterlife," said Bhailal Sharma, a villager who had travelled to Varanasi from central India.

The event in Varanasi was marred, however, when a woman was killed and several others injured in a stampede on the river banks, police said.

For others, the eclipse was seen to be a bad omen.

In Nepal, authorities shut all schools for the day to avoid exposing students to any ill-effects, says the BBC's Joanna Jolly in Kathmandu.

Some parents in Delhi kept their children from attending school at breakfast because of a Hindu belief that it is inauspicious to prepare food during an eclipse, while pregnant women were advised to stay inside due to a belief that the eclipse could harm a foetus.

"My mother and aunts have called and told me stay in a darkened room with the curtains closed, lie in bed and chant prayers," said Krati Jain, a software worker in Delhi who is expecting her first child.

Authorities in China, where an eclipse was a bad omen in ancient culture, reassured the public that services would run normally.

In the east of the country, heavy cloud or rain obscured it.

Pollution was also a barrier, with thick smog in Beijing blotting out the sky.

The last total eclipse, in August 2008, lasted two minutes and 27 seconds.

Alphonse Sterling, a Nasa astrophysicist who followed the latest eclipse from China, said scientists were hoping data from it would help explain solar flares and other structures of the sun and why they erupt.

"We'll have to wait a few hundred years for another opportunity to observe a solar eclipse that lasts this long, so it's a very special opportunity," Shao Zhenyi, an astronomer at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory in China told the Associated Press.

Solar eclipses allow scientists to see the gases surrounding the sun, or its corona.
Solar scientist Lucie Green, from University College London, was aboard an American cruise ship heading for the point near the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, where the axis of the Moon's shadow passed closest to Earth.

"The [Sun's] corona has a temperature of 2 million degrees but we don't know why it is so hot," she said.

"What we are going to look for are waves in the corona.

"The waves might be producing the energy that heats the corona. That would mean we understand another piece of the science of the Sun."

The next total solar eclipse will occur on 11 July, 2010. It will be visible in a narrow corridor over the southern hemisphere, from the southern Pacific Ocean to Argentina - BBC.

> Another man lays claim to Hindraf

2009-07-16T10:03:00.001+08:00

by Baradan Kuppusamy

K. Vasantha Kumar, 36, is the odd man out among the six leaders of Hindraf.

Not only is he not a lawyer unlike the others he is also the person in the deep shadows of Hindraf.

Even as an ISA detainee he was eclipsed by other leaders like P. Uthayakumar.

But now he is coming out in the open, laying claim to Hindraf and trying to make a career speaking out for the Indian community.

Unlike Uthayakumar who is keen on starting a political party, Vasantha Kumar is forming an Indian-based NGO, another organisation in a crowded field, to speak up for the community.

He has also lined up 12 new leaders who will be identified at a function in Kajang on July 25.

“Hindraf is a non-political and independent NGO and should remain as one. Nobody can claim to manage or lead Hindraf,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Vasantha Kumar said in 2007 he and several others applied to the Registrar of Societies to registered Hindraf as a society but the registrar rejected the application.

“Then I and two others registered Hindraf Enterprise with the Registrar of Companies and it was accepted,” he said, justifying why others like Uthayakumar cannot claim to lead Hindraf.

“The two persons left the company, leaving me the sole proprietor of Hindraf Enterprise,” Vasantha Kumar said, adding that subsequently the Registrar of Companies de-registered Hindraf Enterprises.

“My lawyers are taking action to revive Hindraf Enterprise,” he said.

Vasantha Kumar denied the new organisation would further split the Indian community even though there are now nearly a dozen political parties and NGOs claiming to speak for its interest.

“Many of them claim to speak up for the Indian community but they all have their own agendas,” he said.

A graduate in management and marketing from Universiti Utara Malaysia, Vasantha Kumar worked with Citibank, RHB Bank and MBSB as a mortgage recovery officer before his involvement with Hindraf.

He claimed that Pakatan Rakyat had failed the people by not fulfilling the many promises it made during the election and cited the Kampung Buah Pala issue in Penang as an example.

He also said that Barisan Nasional was no better.

“Barisan is more aware of Indian issues now and is offering help but what they are giving is inadequate. They should have given these assistance 20 or 30 years ago,” he said, adding his organisation, whose name he declined to reveal as yet, would raise Indian issues to persuade the government of the day to address them.

He said the government should have a separate allocation each year to help the Indian community in the yearly budget.

“We are neither with Pakatan nor Barisan but will pressure both for help,” he said while pledging his group would eschew street demonstrations.

“We will organise pressure and demand in a peaceful manner,” he said.

With his announcement, there are now three organisations which have emerged out of the banned Hindraf movement — Uthayakumar’s Parti Hak Asasi Manusia or PAHAM, Makkal Sakthi Malaysia Party led by former Hindraf national co-coordinator R.S. Thanenthiran and Vasantha Kumar’s proposed NGO - The Malaysian Insider.

> Kg Buah Pala: Villagers to file fresh writ to claim ownership

2009-07-10T12:07:00.001+08:00

by Athi Shankar

The 'High Chaparral' Kampung Buah Pala villagers will file a fresh writ at the Penang High Court next week to stake claim of ownership over the village, which they claim to have resided in for nearly 200 years.

Darshan Singh Khaira, their lawyer, said he will file the writ under common law principles of adverse possession, equity and legitimate expectation.

When asked to explain the writ's contents, Darshan (right) said the villagers would base their argument on the fact that they had stayed in the village for years without giving recognition to any other ownership.

Darshan said the villagers had occupied the land uninterupted for more than 12 years after it was given to them by their colonial estate master Helen Margaret Brown.

According to him, there were many case law precedents to back the villagers' claim of ownership.

He said the villagers would also apply for a stay of execution of the writ of possession dated June 2 issued to them by the proposed developer Nusmetro Venture (P) Sdn Bhd.

Declassified documents handed over

The developer issued the writ after the villagers lost their appeal at the Federal Court last month.

Kampung Buah Pala villagers had sought to set aside an earlier Court of Appeal decision favouring the land owner, Koperasi Pegawai Pegawai Kanan Kerajaan Pulau Pinang, and Nusmetro.

The villagers face eviction from Kampung Buah Pala after Aug 2.

Kampung Buah Pala is famously known as 'Tamil High Chaparral' by locals due to its cowherds, cattles, goats and Tamil traditional way of life.

Today, the state government handed over several declassified documents pertaining to the land deal to the village committee assistant secretary C Tharmaraj.

Darshan praised Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng for releasing the documents.

Lim was notified of transaction

According the documents, the cooperative society had paid RM2.247 million on March 14, 2008 - a week after Lim had become the chief minister.

The land was transferred by the state government to the cooperative society on March 27, 19 days after Pakatan Rakyat captured the Penang government in the March 8 general election.

Tharmaraj alleged that on March 16, the villagers were informed by their then lawyer Cecil Rajendra that Lim had been notified about the land transaction.

He said Cecil Rajendra had ask Lim to scrutinise the transaction and that there was a pending court case on the village land.

“Lim now claims that he didn't know anything about the transaction. Lim should stop blaming the previous administration on the issue. He is partly to be blamed for allowing the transaction,” he said.

The declassified documents contained the chronology of the previous BN executive council decisions made on the Kampung Buah Pala land deals.

We'll meet Lim if he's sincere

Lim has said that the document proved that former Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon and his Umno, MCA, MIC and Gerakan cohorts had robbed the villagers of their land without consulting them.

Tharmaraj said that the Kampung Buah Pala Residents Association would be the villagers' sole voice and Darshan their legal representative.

Yesterday the villagers did not attend a proposed meeting with Lim (left) when they were refused to be accompanied by Darshan.

Tharmaraj said the villagers would welcome Lim wholeheartedly to the village if he sincerely wanted to have a 'heart to heart talk' with them.

Darshan called on Lim's government to testify during the court hearing on the villagers' impending writ of ownership claim.

“If the state government can admit in court that the deals were fraudulent, then it need not pay a single cent to reacquire the land since the deal would be nullified.

“It will end the villagers' predicament once for all if the state government can do that,” he said - Malaysiakini.

> Reviewing our outdated Acts

2009-07-10T08:52:00.001+08:00

by C Celestine

A special committee has been set up under the Prime Minister's Department to review outdated Acts.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohamed Nazri Aziz said most of these Acts existing between 1948 and 1952 during British rule imposed outdated sentences.

"For example, four Selangor Umno Youth members were recently fined RM1,000 each under an old Act for preventing Karpal Singh (Member of Parliament for Bukit Gelugor) from entering Parliament. The fine is rather small by present standards.

"The court could not pass a stiffer penalty as the provision of the Act was such," Nazri told reporters after closing the family day of the Chenderoh chapter of the Malaysian Ex-servicemen Association.

Headed by Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Liew Vui Keong and aided by the Attorney General's Chamber, Nazri said the committee would advise whether the laws needed to be amended with regard to offences and penalties.

While Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein brought to the Prime Minister's Department attention some Acts dating back over 60 years, the public would like to know about Suhakam’s report to Parliament submitted in April 2001 listing such Acts needing reform.

Fear and distrust of authority

These powerful laws were passed with clear intentions considered necessary to keep social and political order at a specific point in time said Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Fellow Ooi Kee Beng.

The laws were established amidst the Emergency during a global Cold War, the significance of events of those days should be seen in that light.

Malaysia, he believes, has an overkill of such laws. “We have too many of them, which puts the country mentally in a perpetual state of crisis. Fear and distrust of authority becomes part of our political culture,” he added.

The laws he was referring to and mentioned by the Ministers are:

* The Constitution (Amendment) Act 1971 specifically Articles 152, 153 and 181 and Part III permitting Parliament to pass legislation limiting dissent with regard to provisions pertaining to the social contract.

(The social contract was a quid pro quo agreement between Malay and non-Malay citizens, for non-Malay citizenship at Independence, symbols of Malay authority such as the Malay monarchy became national symbols and head of Islam for the Muslim nation and Malays granted economic privileges as natives of Malaya and the region.)

* With this new power, Parliament amended the Sedition Act 1948, (Amendment) 1971. The new restriction applied to Members of Parliament overruling part of Parliamentary privilege at the same time.

* Article 159, which governs Constitutional amendments, was to entrench "sensitive" Constitutional provisions. Any changes to "sensitive" portions of the Constitution would have to pass the Conference of Rulers, a body comprising the monarchs of the Malay states.

* The Internal Security Act, 1960, which permits detention without trial was amended to stress "intercommunal harmony".

* The others are The Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime Ordinance (EO) 1969, Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, Universities and University Colleges Act 1971, Police Act 1967and Official Secrets Act 1972, (Amendment 1986).

Mechanism for review and amendment

Ooi believed laws become unnecessary because times change and situations evolve. There is a mechanism for review and amendment of laws in our legal system, he said.

If people can govern themselves without being policed, then laws and enforcement agencies would be unnecessary but it is not the impression given as seen in road rage.

The danger, he pointed out, lies in the fact the government was too dependent on these laws and used them as a short cut in law enforcement leading easily to accusations of political abuse.

Citing global terrorism as a reason to reactivate these laws allows a chance to control and manipulate society to rule without dissent.

“One of the aims of global terrorism, today, is to destroy complacency in society. When we react and reactivate harsh laws to protect ourselves, we very quickly accomplish exactly what the terrorists want,” he said.

A competent police force aided by an independent judiciary minimises the need for draconian laws.

Ooi opined that because of these laws, Malaysia remains in a state of tension and fear without realising its full potential, Fear means stand-offs and an avoidance of dialogue between different groups and the government.

“We get defensive, we play safe, we avoid sensitive issues, we pretend we are more sensitive than we actually are and we play tit-for-tat with other groups. We do not trust the government, the courts and the police. We do not believe we can go beyond these stand-offs” he added.

Umno leaders ignorant of facts of history

One of the issues touching on legal principles and values such as human rights is Chin Peng's request to return. He explained it should be based on legal considerations such as the conditions of the peace treaty between the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and the Mahathir government based on humanitarian grounds.

Director at the Centre for Policy Initiative, Dr Lim Teck Ghee, reminded Malaysians that British academicians studying that period conceded the CPM was an anti-colonial and nationalist force.

However, at the Baling Talks of 1955, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj turned down Chin Peng's request for the CPM to be recognized legally. This could be due to Chin Peng not agreeing to "the detention" of his people as a condition for an amnesty among other things.

“It is the present government including Umno leaders’ ignorance of facts of history that lead them to engage in a distortion of it.

“ A reason for the current ruling establishment's 'amnesia' on that important period of our formative history was the CPM included many non-Chinese members and sympathisers and it posed a threat to the established political supremacy at that time,” Lim said.

As stipulated by the Haadyai Agreement, within a year after the Dec 2, 1989 signing of the agreement, Chin Peng notified the government of his intention to return to reside in his country of birth.

He complied with the terms and conditions of the Haadyai Peace Agreement but to date the government has not met its obligations.

Challenging International law

The government's refusal to grant Chin Peng residence violates Malaysia's obligations under the terms of the Haadyai Peace Agreement and obligations under the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights according to the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL).

Recently Chin Peng, 83, sought a High Court order to allow him to return to Malaysia which was turned down.

One must remember Chin Peng was born in Dindings, then a part of the Straits Settlements. Special citizenship rules applied to such persons following Merdeka.

Former Inspector-General of Police Hanif Omar said Chin Peng was not allowed to return to Malaysia because he had never been a citizen of the country.

Hanif said that "Chin Peng was not a citizen of Malaya. He was born in Dindings, Perak, which was then a settlement ceded to the British. So, he became a British subject.

"When Perak was no longer under the British administration, the Malays in Dindings became subjects of the Sultan of Perak but Chin Peng, no longer a British subject, became stateless.

"People say we could accept Shamsiah Fakeh and other former Malay communist leaders so why can't we accept him (Chin Peng)? (The answer is) because he is not a subject of the sultan."

Nationalists or betrayers of the nation?

Chin Peng was awarded the Order of the British Empire (Military) for fighting the Japanese and leading the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) in resisting Japanese occupation of Malaya.

He was supported by a group of Malay anti-establishment leaders. “We see again the urgent need to separate the version put out by politically-driven polemic and propaganda from that which may be deducted from historical facts,” said Lim.

The recent barrage of this issue elicited response from prominent people such as Information, Communications and Culture Minister Dr Rais Yatim who reminded society especially the young to not look at communism as something that was noble and had values.

"Actually the communists in the country were betrayers, killers and they will be remembered as such.

"We have to look back at history and remind people the country became independent and prosperous not through communism and the communists were traitors," he added.

Lim in turn questioned: “Why is the government afraid of permitting open discussion of the alternative versions to the official history?”

These attempts at intellectual repression may work with the controlled mass media but Malaysians can now easily access the electronic media, to decide for themselves the true role of Chin Peng in Malaysian history, he added.

CPM may have been provoked into retaliation

The CPM upon the British re-establishing themselves in Malaya was motivated to insist on freedom from colonial rule, he stressed.

“There was an ideological ferment against colonial rule not only in Malaysia but in many other parts of Asia. There were other factors besides the deep sense of nationalism and abhorrence of colonial rule.”

Many in the CPM were driven by the fact they lost family members as a result of the Japanese regime and by their disappointment with British rule.

Of equal importance was although the CPM was predominantly Chinese in membership, it was a heterogeneous group embracing Malaysians from different communities, classes and strata of society.

Armed struggle or peaceful negotiations was long and hotly debated by the leadership, rank and file and its sympathisers. This gives the impression the CPM may have been provoked into retaliation when its members were ambushed or attacked by then government forces.

Chin Peng should be allowed to return along the principles and spirit of the Haadyai Accord, Lim urged.

These laws were identified by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) Law Reform Committee as needing reform in 2001. Declining to state the specific provisions in the Acts, all then chairman Musa Hitam would say was they were relevant to the human rights issue - Malaysian Mirror.

> AirAsia launches low-cost courier service

2009-07-10T06:14:00.000+08:00

Budget carrier AirAsia today launched "Redbox", an express courier service it says will be 50 percent cheaper than its rivals.

AirAsia founder Tony Fernandes said the new venture would expand the low-cost carrier's non-airline revenue and help protect it from future oil-price spikes.

"There is a huge untapped consumer market. I don't think many individuals use courier services," he told a news conference.

Fernandes said the Malaysian courier industry was worth RM500 million annually and that he intended to capture RM30 million of that in the first year, a goal he said was "easily achievable."

The company is billing Redbox - named after the airline's signature colour - as the world's first low-cost courier service.

"It will build strong revenue, and bring costs down for business so they can be more efficient," Fernandes said.

Currently, 12 percent of AirAsia's revenue is from ancillary services like food sold on planes, and Fernandes is aiming to boost that figure to 20 percent within the next few years.

AirAsia is partnering with Mail Boxes Etc, which will provide collection points for packages, and technology consulting firm DMSBT, which will establish an Internet service to track individual shipments.

Transport firm DHL will convey cargo to and from the airport.

Redbox will initially operate only within Malaysia, and next year extend to AirAsia's 65 destinations in Australia, Britain, China, India and Southeast Asia - AFP.

> High Chaparral: No lawyer, no face-off with CM

2009-07-09T00:31:00.000+08:00

by Athi Shankar

The anticipated meeting between the Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Kampung Buah Pala residents ended even before it could start.

The villagers walked out of the state secretariat in Komtar after the chief minister insisted that they could not be represented by their lawyer Darshan Singh Khaira at the proposed meeting at 11am.

Bukit Gelugor parliamentarian Karpal Singh had arranged the meeting to find an amicable solution to resolve the escalating crisis.

It is learnt that the villagers had set the condition that they be represented by Darshan.

When some 20 villagers led by Kampung Buah Pala residents' association chairperson M Sugumaran arrived at Komtar's third floor at 10.30am, they were asked by Seri Delima assemblyperson RSN Rayer to accept the 'no lawyers' condition.

Rayer also insisted that the villagers should be represented by five association committee members during the meeting with Lim.

When the villagers insisted that they wanted Darshan Singh to be present, Rayer refused to budge.

The villagers then walked out.

Association assistant secretary C Tharmaraj accused the chief minister of pulling a political stunt to impress Penangites that he is working overtime to resolve the crisis.

"Why did he deny us our fundamental right to have legal representation at the meeting?" he asked.

Rayer, however, managed to persuade one resident - named as Saravanan - to accompany him to the meeting.

Despite vehement objections by the others, Saravanan went to the chief minister's office at Level 28. What transpired is not known.

CM says lawyer was present

Speaking to reporters later, Lim claimed that the residents' 'lawyer' Cecil Rajendra had been present.

However this was immediately dismissed by Sugumaran who said that Rajendra is not their lawyer.

Sugumaran admitted that Rajendra had represented the villagers in the High Court in their case against the developer. However they had subsequently engaged different lawyers to represent them in the two higher courts.

"It's funny to hear that the chief minister knows who our lawyer is, but how can Lim claim that Rajendra represents us? We have now appointed Darshan Singh to represent us, not anyone else."

Darshan Singh said he is surprised that Rajendra is still acting as the residents' lawyer.

"This was done without the knowledge and authorisation of the villagers," he said.

State to file for review

At the press conference, Lim said the state government is looking into invoking provisions of the National Land Code (NLC) to stop the developer from demolishing the houses in the village.

But he said the state government must first face the complications arising from the court order which is in favour of the developer.

Nusmetro Venture (P) Sdn Bhd had obtained a Federal Court ruling on June 24 to evict the villagers. Based on this, the developer had issued writ of vacant possession on July 2 to the villagers.

Lim said the state government would have to study the legal repercussions of using the NLC provisions, adding that the state authorities will seek a High Court review on the matter. Malaysiakini.

> Government scraps teaching of maths and science in English

2009-07-09T00:15:00.000+08:00

The government today decided to end the policy of teaching mathematics and science in English or PPSMI in both primary and secondary schools effective from 2012.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in an announcement today, said the two subjects will be taught in Bahasa Melayu in national schools and Tamil and Chinese for vernacular schools.

The Education Minister added that the changes would not affect Form Six and matriculation programmes.

"The government made the decision after studying closely research on PPSMI that shows that PPSMI could not be implemented as expected," Muhyiddin told a special press conference here.

He said the decision was fair and made carefully after witnessing the implementation in the first six years after its introduction.

He also denied that the decision to scrap the policy was politically motivated.

"This decision is not political, we made the decision not for political mileage. What is Manek Urai compared to the future of our children," said Muhyiddin.

He however denied that the PPSMI policy had failed.

"I wouldn't say it was a complete failure, but it did not achieve what it was supposed to achieve," he said.

Introduced in 2003, the policy has been heavily criticised by Chinese educationists and Malay-language activists, but a recent survey by the independent Merdeka Center showed that 58 per cent of 1,060 voters interviewed supported the policy.

Muhyiddin had admitted in Parliament last month that students had not shown significant improvement in the two subjects over the past six years.

But he said today the intention of the policy, which is to improve English language proficiency among Malaysian students, will continue to be upheld.

The measures to be introduced include recruiting some 14,000 new English language teachers. Currently there are more than 30,000 English teachers nationwide.

Muhyiddin also said the lesson duration for English language would also be doubled for lower primary students to 120 minutes a week, while for upper primary it would be increased from 90 minutes to 120 minutes a week.

For secondary students, the duration will be increased from 200 minutes to 280 minutes a week - The Malaysian Insider.

> Pakatan Rakyat gearing up for state election in Perak

2009-07-08T05:41:00.002+08:00

by Kong See Hoh

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is gearing up for a state election in Perak which it believes will be held very soon.

According to a report in Oriental Daily News, PR is dead sure that the Perak state assembly will be dissolved soon based on the latest political developments in the state and the belief the Barisan Nasional (BN) is worried that the repercussions from its power grab earlier in the year would affect its performance in the next general election if the "hiccups" in Perak is not resolved.

PR top leaders said reliable BN sources revealed that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak has agreed in principle to seek the dissolution of the Perak state assembly but the Sultan will make final decision on the matter.

The report said PR, at its council meeting on Monday, discussed preparations for a state election, including on the strategies to be adopted to endear itself to the people.

It said the coalition believed that the most democratic way to elect a government is to allow the people to exercise their wisdom and make an informed choice.

It is understood that PR, which comprises Parti Keadilan Rakyat, PAS and DAP, is expected to come up its election manifesto soon.

Perak PR has also set up several committees to mobilise members of component parties at short notices.

It is also learnt that PR will also pick their shadow village heads for some 140 new villages to take care of problems faced by villagers.

Perak PKR deputy chief Chan Lih Kang, who was among those who attended the PR council meeting, told Oriental that the coalition has all these while believed that BN will call for an election in Perak and that it is just a matter of time that the assembly is dissolved.

He was mum about what was discussed at the meeting but stressed that the abattoir issue in Kedah has not affected Perak PR - theSun.

> MJ's daughter, Paris says 'The best father ever'.

2009-07-08T04:10:00.000+08:00

> Pakatan presents a united front

2009-07-01T08:54:00.000+08:00

by Adib Zalkapli

It’s ironic: talk of a unity government almost tore them apart but last night Pakatan Rakyat (PR) held a public rally which was for all intents and purposes a show of unity.

Thousands of people attended the rally MBPJ's stadium in Kelana Jaya and heard Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang and Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim speak of their commitment to PR.

PAS’s Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and Nasharudin Mat Isa did not attend the rally.

“Tonight we prove the Umno media wrong; the Pakatan Rakyat remains united,” said Opposition Leader Anwar referring to media reports promoting the Umno-PAS unity government idea.

Despite the opposition coalition’s success in solving the internal problem caused by some PAS leaders’ insistence on holding unity talks with Umno, PR has come under pressure from Barisan Nasional (BN).

Last weekend, the prime minister announced a new merit-based government scholarship that attempts to curb the discontent of the Chinese community which has complained of being consistently sidelined by the Public Service Department in the awarding of scholarships.

And yesterday the government dropped the 30 per cent Bumiputera equity requirement for Malaysian firms seeking public listing.

These liberalisation measures appear to be similar to the PR’s reform agenda but Anwar last night insisted that the BN has yet to institute what he called real reforms, which includes eradicating corruption, promoted by the federal opposition.

“PR’s policy is to ensure that every Malaysian, the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians have equal place in the country,” said Anwar.

The Permatang Pauh MP who is facing his second sodomy trial in a decade also reiterated the party’s stand on the Malay language and mother tongue education in an attempt to pressure the government into abolishing the use of English as a medium of instruction for the teaching of science and mathematics, a policy introduced in 2003 which has attracted criticism from both Malay nationalists and Chinese educationists - The Malaysian Insider.

> RoS to determine PPP Presidency

2009-06-01T02:05:00.000+08:00

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is to meet the Registrar of Societies (RoS) tomorrow or on 2 June to find who the legitimate president of the People's Progressive Party (PPP) is.

He said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, just before flying off to South Korea today, had asked him to meet the ROS to find out whether Datuk M Kayveas or Senator Datuk T Murugiah was the president.

Najib is scheduled to open the PPP general assembly on 7 June and "if we do not have a decision (on who the PPP president is), we do not know whether he will attend the meeting," Muhyiddin told reporters after attending a religious ceramah (talk) organised by the Pagoh Umno Division, here.

Muhyiddin, who is Umno deputy president and Pagoh Member of Parliament, said Murugiah handed him a letter claiming he was the PPP president when the latter met him at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang, Selangor, where Najib flew off to South Korea to attend the Asean-South Korea Commemorative Summit.

The PPP leadership crisis erupted after Murugiah, who was sacked by the party's disciplinary board for allegedly tarnishing the good name of the party, claimed he had been elected the president at an extraordinary general meeting convened by a section of party members 24 May in Putrajaya.

However, when the PPP nominations for the post of president closed yesterday, Kayveas was said to have been returned unopposed as president for a fourth five-year term.

Asked whether the leadership crisis in the PPP, a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN), tarnished the BN's image, Muhyiddin said crises in any component party should be resolved swiftly to maintain the coalition's image.

He said it was important for the component parties to avoid differences of opinion among them and resolve crises swiftly at a time when the BN was restoring its image.

"The BN must be seen as a strong and stable coalition," he said - Bernama.

> Aminah's threat to discredit PKR - a dud

2009-05-29T06:16:00.001+08:00

The latest threat by independent candidate in the Penanti by-election Aminah Abdullah’s to "expose" an incident that allegedly discredited the PKR turned out to be a dud when she produced another secret voice recording - of a senior party leader scolding her at a meeting.

The 56-year-old former Penang PKR Wanita chief who quit the party in 2007 had called for a press conference today to "reveal" the incident that she had earlier hinted at involving the conduct of Penang PKR chief Datuk Zahrain Mohd Hashim at "a hotel in Nibong Tebal".

When queried by reporters, however, she admitted that the incident was not scandalous but had just damaged her integrity.

Zahrain had apparently scolded her in front of other PKR Wanita division chiefs and several party leaders, admonishing her for not performing her job.

"If Zahrain does not explain himself about the incident, he should resign from the party," she told reporters at her operations centre in Simpang Tiga Kubang Ulu.

Displaying a CD of the audio recording, she said, "The recording was made when we were at a party seminar in Nibong Tebal," she said, adding that the incident was one of the reasons she left the party in 2007.

Not contented with this latest "expose", Aminah said she would reveal yet another "big surprise", but declined to give details, saying she would reveal it when the time is right.

Aminah had on Monday (May 25) produced an audio recording she had secretly taken of a lunchtime conversation with two PKR members that she claimed bore proof she was offered inducement to abort her election bid.

The revelation had prompted an investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and a report to be lodged with the Election Commission.

The recording showed one of the duo, Cheah Kah Peng and Peter Lim Eng Nam, suggesting that she may be compensated for her expenses for the by-election, which he husband Mohd Rofi Osman put as RM80,000, if she aborts.

The duo later said they were invited by Aminah for lunch at her house, and just had a jovial, casual conversation with them, not realising that they were being taped - theSun.

> Sri Lanka protest in Kuala Lumpur

2009-05-25T09:44:00.002+08:00

Hear our own brethren on the issue.

> Police raid DAP HQ

2009-05-24T10:18:00.001+08:00

The police today raided the DAP headquarters in Petaling Jaya in search of documents believed to be related to the arrest of 16 party activists in Ampang on Thursday night.

The raid, which took place at 6.25pm, was carried out by a team of 11 police officers. They left at 7.30pm.

The police had brought one of those arrested, Ulu Selangor councillor Ooi Leng Heng, 34, along with them in the raid.

Ooi, who is also DAP Youth's political education bureau director, was seen in handcuffs and dressed in the standard orange lock-up uniform.

In the one-hour raid, the police confiscated Ooi's computer monitor, keyboard, headphone, a number of CDs and a CPU (central processing unit).

According to witnesses, the cops did not show any search warrant.

An outraged Nga Kor Ming, who is DAP parliamentarian for Taiping, lambasted the raid.

"This is the first time in DAP's 42-year history that police have raided our HQ," he fumed.

Investigated under PPPA

Sixteen people were arrested at the DAP Teratai service centre for holding a candlelight vigil.

Those arrested, including Teratai state assemblyperson Jenice Lee, have been held over the past two days at the Pandan Indah police lock-up to facilitate investigation.

It is learnt that they are being probed for illegal assembly as well as Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (PPPA).

At the candlelight vigil, DAP had distributed a two-page leaflet titled ‘507 Detik Hitam dalam Sejarah Demokrasi Malaysia!’ (507 - A Black Moment in Malaysia’s History of Democracy).

Under the PPPA, the police could charge them for publishing an illegal document or for spreading false news.

At a press conference, DAP Puchong parliamentarian Gobind Singh slammed the police for not producing a warrant, although this is a requirement under Section 16 of the PPPA.

“This is a clear cut case of invasion of privacy and trespass,” said Gobind, who is head of the party’s legal bureau.

Also at the press conference, DAP central committee member Teresa Kok said that the raid and detention of the 16 was a “scare tactic” by the police to pre-empt any future candlelight vigils.

“They are intentionally prolonging the detention of the people, putting additional charges (other than illegal assembly) just to discourage people from attending,” said Kok, who is Seputeh MP and Kinrara state assemblyperson.

Meanwhile, DAP chairperson and Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai said that the candlelight vigil outside his office in Cheras would still proceed tonight at 9pm tonight - Malaysiakini.

> Egypt to begin controversial pig slaughter

2009-05-03T00:48:00.001+08:00

Egypt is to begin a controversial slaughter of the nation's 250,000 pigs in earnest today, despite the WHO saying there was no evidence the animals were transmitting swine flu to humans.

Cairo governor Abdel Halim Wazir told the state news agency Mena that the government will begin slaughtering an estimated 60,000 pigs raised by rubbish collectors in a shanty town in Egypt's sprawling capital.

Egypt announced on Wednesday that it will slaughter the nation's entire pig population after an outbreak of swine flu in other countries, even though no cases have been detected in Egypt.

The move has been widely criticised, with the UN World Health Organisation saying there was no evidence that pigs were transmitting the virus to humans.

However, UN agencies are still trying to find out if the virus behind a human pandemic alert is circulating in pigs in Mexico, warning that ongoing swine infection could "worsen" the risk to human health.

As such, possible restrictions on the movement and trade of swine livestock have not been ruled out, the WHO and Food and Agriculture Organisation in a food safety report today.

Egyptian officials say the slaughter is a general health measure.

Wazir has said the slain pigs will be frozen and the offal burnt in furnaces at the slaughterhouses.

"We're at stage five, the matter is now human not animal," health ministry spokesman Abdelrahman Shahine told AFP on Thursday, after the WHO raised its alert level over the flu, now called influenza A(H1N1).

"The authorities took advantage of the situation to resolve the question of disorderly pig rearing in Egypt," he said.

Pigs eaten by Coptic Christian minority

The pigs mostly belong to and are eaten by members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority and are reared by rubbish collectors in Cairo's shantytowns.

Wazir said on Friday that 70 pigs were confiscated from owners in the Batn el-Baqar slum of Cairo and slaughtered, and the sites disinfected and destroyed.

The government has said it would compensate pig owners, but a man who lost his herd told AFP he received nothing.

"They did not give us anything. Riot police came and government workers came and took the pigs," said Ayman Saed, a resident of Batn el-Baqar who owned 30 pigs.

"We went with them to the slaughterhouse, and they said take the carcasses. I left everything there because I didn't know what do with them," he said.

The rubbish collectors say the cull will affect their business and wipe out a crucial source of income. They use the pigs to dispose of organic waste and sell off some their herds once a year.

At least one clash was reported north of Cairo on Wednesday, with farmers throwing stones at veterinary officials who had come to take away their pigs.

Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza has defended the measure, inviting the FAO, which criticised the cull, to "come and see for itself the conditions at any pig farm in Egypt."

The agriculture ministry's head of infectious diseases Saber Abdel Aziz Galal said the government would eventually set up farms with imported pigs.

"Within two years the pigs will return, but we need first to build new farms," he said - Malaysiakini.

> Tsvangirai says government is broke

2009-05-02T01:24:00.001+08:00

Zimbabwe’s new unity government is broke and cannot meet union demands for higher wages, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said today.

Addressing a May Day rally, Tsvangirai said the government he formed with President Robert Mugabe in February to try to end a political and economic crisis that has brought Zimbabwe to ruin would maintain the current monthly salary of US$100 (RM360) that it is paying its workers.

“This government is broke, and we are only able to pay the US$100 allowance, but when things improve, we want this allowance to graduate into a proper salary,” he said. “For now, everyone, all of us, including President Mugabe, is getting US$100”.

Tsvangirai, a fiery former trade union chief, pleaded with Zimbabwe’s Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to give the new government time to fix the economy before pressing its demands for a minimum wage of US$454.

“We have been in office for less than three months. I plead with you to please give us time,” he said. “Your demands must be realistic, taking into account that your government is broke and that industry has not been performing.”

Earlier, ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo told thousands of cheering workers at the rally that the labour movement would call national strikes and protests to press its case.

“If this is not met, the workers are going onto the streets,” Matombo said, without giving any deadline.

Tsvangirai said although Mugabe was not an easy person to work with, both his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the veteran president’s ZANU-PF wanted the government to succeed in repairing the economy and achieving peace and stability.

“We have our arguments, our quarrels but we want this country to succeed,” he added.

On the wage demands, he said: “You know we would want to pay ... but this has to be a process and we are working to resuscitate the economy.”

The government has appealed for billions of dollars from the West to help revive Zimbabwe’s shattered economy, but Western donors such as Britain want to see further progress in implementing a power-sharing agreement before considering any large-scale aid.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who held talks in London on Thursday with Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Africa Minister Mark Malloch-Brown, said his country was receiving US$400 million in credit lines from African states to revive its ailing industry.

Although the funds from African states may help, Zimbabwe is in dire need of aid from Western donors, who have demanded broad economic and political reforms, including ending a new wave of farm invasions targeting the few remaining white farmers.

Mugabe, 85, Zimbabwe’s ruler since independence from Britain in 1980, says the southern African country’s economy has been sabotaged by “racist” enemies of his seizures of white farms for landless blacks – Reuters.

> China develops sensitive test kit for swine flu

2009-05-01T02:07:00.000+08:00

The world's most populous nation said Thursday it has not detected cases of swine flu and announced that its scientists have developed a sensitive and quick diagnostic test as the global alert was raised to imminent pandemic level.

China is drawing on its experience in battling previous Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian flu in confronting the latest scare that has caused over 150 deaths in Mexico, one fatality in the United States and a rising number of infections in more and more countries.

Health Minister Chen Zhu expressed confidence that China, with its 1.3 billion population, would be able to battle the mutant strain.

"We should prepare for the worst but make efforts to improve the situation. One thing is certain for China and the entire mankind, we are far more capable of dealing with this kind of public emergency than the SARS epidemic," he told a media briefing which was delayed due to a meeting chaired by President Hu Jintao which discussed the matter.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has increased the global warning from Phase 4 to the second highest Phase 5, a signal to all countries to immediately activate pandemic contingeny plans.

Chen said that with the help of WHO and U.S. disease experts, local scientists on Thursday morning successfully produced a sensitive diagnostic test which would be issued to all centres for disease control nationwide.

China has also requested for samples of the virus from the World Health Organisation and relevant governments for the development of a vaccine, he added.

Thermal camera checks had been stepped up at all entry and exit points in the country and the government was increasing its stockpile of anti-viral medicines.

Chen said China had stopped imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and several states in the U.S and a special channel for arrivals from Mexico had been set up.

Shanghai is the only city in China's mainland that has a direct air route to and from Mexico.

Chen said hygiene tips would be distributed to the public including discouraging open spitting, washing hands frequently and stay home if they have fever - Bernama.

> N.H. Chan: An inconvenient judge

2009-04-30T09:22:00.002+08:00

Chan tells why he feels compelled to speak out — Picture by Choo Choy May

By Debra Chong

Chan Nyarn Hoi lives in a modest two-storey semi-detached house in a quiet lane near the state stadium in Perak with his wife, a dog and seven large Japanese carp.

At 74 years old and with ruddy smooth cheeks under a full head of snowy white hair, few would connect him to the acerbic, no-nonsense former judge Datuk N.H. Chan, who has in the last couple of months done the unthinkable: fire away missives at judges who have trampled on the Federal Constitution in deciding issues related to the power grab in Perak. His lengthy articles have reminded Malaysians of a time gone by when towering individuals sat on the Bench and simplified the Perak constitutional crisis for the common man.

Still seething over the events that transpired in Perak and decisions of the apex court, he says that if Malaysians are upset with the state of the judiciary and think that the present crop of judges are not up to the mark, they should exercise the power of their vote to change the state of affairs in the country.

Born in Ipoh on March 27, 1935, Chan was admitted to the Bar in 1961. He was a lawyer for almost two decades before becoming a High Court judge and moving to Kuala Lumpur.

He was among the first batch of High Court judges to be elevated to the Court of Appeal, set up in 1994 to act as an intermediate court between the High Court and the apex court.

Chan's first book, “Judging the Judges”, was published in 2007 and is a collection of his articles for the Perak Bar. Only 1,000 copies were published.

His second book, “How to Judge the Judges”, is expected to come out some time in the middle of the year. The final draft has just been sent to the publishers. They wanted him to include the Perak saga as well, but because it is ongoing, he had to draw a line somewhere. He has included some information in the epilogue.

In an exclusive interview, the former judge, who was recommended to the Bench by none other than Sultan Azlan Shah, the Sultan of Perak and a central figure in the present crisis, tells The Malaysian Insider why he feels compelled to speak out.

Q: Unlike many former judges, you have been very vocal in your criticisms against the judiciary. What drives you?

A: In the first place, I am not against the judiciary. I am sure there are some good judges around, only they have not manifested themselves in the present constitutional, should I say, crisis in Perak.

I expected James Foong JCA (as he then was, he is now a Federal Court judge) to do the right thing but he failed to do that. I suppose it takes great courage for a Court of Appeal judge who sat as a winger in the Federal Court to give a dissenting judgment.

Now, back to your question. When I became a judge I had to be true to my calling which is to know that the essence of justice is fair trial and the duty of the judge is to administer it according to law.

Lord Devlin in his book “The Judge”, wrote on page 4: “...impartiality and the appearance of it are the supreme judicial virtues. It is the verdict that matters, and if it is incorrupt, it is acceptable. To be incorrupt it must bear the stamp of a fair trial.”

And at page 85 he said: “The first — ought one to say the whole — duty of the judge is to administer justice according to law.”

Back to page 3, the book said: “What is the function of the judge? Professor Jaffe has a phrase for it — 'the disinterested application of known law' (Jaffe in his book “English and American Judges as Lawmakers”, page 13)”

This means that the judge's only duty is to do justice in the disinterested application of known law. Known law means basic law and the term includes both common law and statute law.

The judge who gives the right judgment but does not appear to be impartial is useless to the judicial process. After that, the judge's whole duty or function is to decide the case according to law on the admissible evidence before him.

And what do you call a judge who does not administer justice according to law? A renegade judge? So now you know why I am so vocal when I admonish the errant judges who did not apply unambiguous law as it stands.

Q: You have been especially blunt in your views over the issues in Perak. Why so?

A: You mean for calling a spade a spade? What do you call a judge who doesn't follow or apply easy to understand and unambiguous statute law as it stands?

Like Article 72(1) of the Federal Constitution which says: “The validity of any proceedings in the Legislative Assembly of any State shall not be questioned in any court”.

This law applies to all members of the legislative assembly — it does not matter if you are DAP or PKR or MCA or Barisan Nasional or any political party. Even a child could understand the plain meaning of the words. We do not need the Federal Court to interpret (meaning “explain the meaning of”) the words for us. Nor do we need any law professor from Singapore to tell us Malaysians that the courts should have the power of judicial review over what has transpired in Parliament or a Legislative Assembly.

There is separation of powers between the Legislature and the Judiciary of this country. We all know that one can apply to the courts for a judicial review over executive actions. But there is no such thing as judicial review over what transpired in the legislature — if there is such a thing then we can have judicial review over the passing into law of certain Acts of Parliament that we don't like — like the ISA.

A long time ago when I was a High Court judge, I have sentenced many criminals to death without qualms. But personally I am against the death sentence because it is barbaric. But as a judge I must apply the law as it is.

To quote Lord Denning: “It is their [the judges] duty to administer and apply the law of the land. If they should divert it or depart from it — and do so knowingly — they themselves would be guilty of a misuse of power.”

I would never dream of doing such a thing.

Q: Why did you choose to air your views so publicly? I'm trying to understand why you got involved.

A: I'm only an outsider and I don't care. But when everybody is missing the point and all that — and some of them have not even read the Perak Constitution, I thought I better explain why the people are angry.

Q: Why do you think the people are angry?

A: Do you know why the Perakians were up in uproar against the Sultan of Perak?

It's because, as any lawyer will tell you, especially as he was Lord President before, that before you make a decision, you cannot see the parties. If you want to meet any of the parties, both of them must be present. You never do so by seeing one and then making a decision. The moment you do that, to the losing side or to any observer will think you have been influenced. So it's the impression that counts.

They were angry with the Sultan because they can sense it in their bones that it is wrong to make a decision to see the other side first.

Q: Is the Sultan morally wrong or legally wrong?

A: If the Sultan had executive powers to rule, it is legally wrong, so they could apply for judicial review of the Sultan's decision. But I pointed out in my first article he has no executive power to rule because he is not an executive monarch, he is a constitutional monarch. What he did was morally wrong.

Q: You must have seen many things during your time as a judge. What is wrong with Malaysia’s justice system? What can be done to correct it? And what’s stopping the necessary changes from taking place?

A: I don't think there is anything wrong with our judicial system. It is the players that we should be concerned with — if we get the right people on the Bench, that is, those people who are not interested in power — because power corrupts, those fair-minded individuals who would administer justice according to law, then we will have a judiciary to be proud of.

We used to have that at one time. And if the general public think that the present crop of errant judges are not up to the mark, then the remedy is to use the power of the vote to change the present state of things.

At the general election of 1906 the common people of England toppled the Conservative Government of the day because they were unhappy with the decision of the House of Lords in the Taff Vale case which had virtually put an end to trade unions six years earlier.

That case had immense political consequences. At the general election of 1906 the opposition pledged complete immunity for trade unions.

Lord Denning said in his book “Landmarks in the Law”, page 121: “The result of the general election was like an earthquake. ... It was a sweeping victory for the trade unions. Parliament immediately passed the Trade Disputes Act 1906. It is probably the most important Act ever put into the Statute Book. It reversed all the judicial decisions against trade unions. The Taff Vale case was overruled. No trade union could thereafter be sued for damages for any wrongs done by its members. Its funds were unassailable.”

There is a well known Spanish proverb which says, “He who goes with wolves learns to howl.” So that if the electorate don't trust the judges they tend to put the blame on the government who put the judges there.

Q: Many ordinary Malaysians today feel powerless to affect positive changes to the institution of the judiciary because they lack legal knowledge. Do you agree with this view? How do you think they can work to bring about the change they want?

A: I think the real problem is this. In most cases when you read about a court decision in the newspapers, the judgment of the court is expressed in such a way that the average reader will not know if the judge is right. So invariably, we assume that the judge must be right.

I do realise the problem, so I thought I should try to explain the issue in simple language so that everyone will be able to judge for himself whether the judge is doing the right thing or not.

Lord Denning was famous for explaining difficult law in such a way that any lay reader can understand it. Now that they know how to judge the judges by reading my articles, they could, if they thought they have been short-changed by the judges, do the same thing as was done by the electorate in 1906 England. They have the power to change the government of the day by their vote in the next general election.

The opposition, in order to get the people's vote, could pledge to undo all the wrongs done to the community by the judges. They could pledge that if they were given the mandate of the people to form the next government, they would pass an Act of Parliament to overrule such unjust decisions of the Federal Court such as Adorna Properties vs Boonsorm Boonyanit, the Asean Security Mills, PP vs Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as well as all the decisions of the Federal Court pertaining to the Perak constitutional crisis which were not decided according to law — where the court had blatantly refused to apply Article 72 of the Federal Constitution.

They could also pledge to remove the errant judges from office. This is how it could be done.

In “What Next in the Law”, Lord Denning said, page 319: “Parliament is supreme. Every law enacted by Parliament must be obeyed to the letter. No matter how unreasonable or unjust it may be, nevertheless, the judges have no option. They must apply the statute as it stands.”

Yet the errant judges, especially the five in the Federal Court, have refused to apply Article 72 of the Federal Constitution as it stands.

In his book, “The Judiciary in Malaysia” (Asia Pacific Publications Sdn Bhd, 1994) the then Chief Justice of Malaysia Tun Abdul Hamid Omar said, page 88: “... the provisions dealing with the removal of judges in pursuance of an address in Parliament … was modified to provide for a special tribunal to be established for the removal of judges.”

That is incorrect. Actually Article 125(3) of the Federal Constitution only applies to judges of the Federal Court.

At the time of the fracas between the then Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1988, Article 125(3) of the Federal Constitution provides for the removal of judges of the Federal Court on the ground of “misbehaviour or of inability”.

Article 125(3) and (4) reads:

“125(3) If the Prime Minister, or the Lord President after consulting the Prime Minister, represents to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong that a judge of the Federal Court ought to be removed on the ground of misbehaviour or on the ground of inability, from infirmity of body or mind or any other cause, properly to discharge the functions of his office, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall appoint a tribunal in accordance with Clause (4) and refer the representation to it; and may on the recommendation of the tribunal remove the judge from office.

“125(4) The said tribunal shall consist of not less than 5 persons who hold or have held office as a judge of the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal or a High Court or, if it appears to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong expedient to make such appointment, persons who hold or have held equivalent office in any other part of the Commonwealth, and shall be presided over by the member first in the following order, namely, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, the President and the Chief Judges according to their precedence among themselves, and other members according to the order of their appointment to an office qualifying them for membership (the older coming before the younger of two members with appointments of the same date).”

The book “The Judiciary in Malaysia” said — this part is significant so do pay special attention to it — page 89: “Until the recent amendment in 1994, the grounds for the removal of a judge was 'misbehaviour or of inability', The Constitution (Amendment) Act 1994, however, substituted for the word 'misbehaviour', the words 'any breach of any provision of the code of ethics prescribed under Clause 3A...'. The effect of this amendment is that, besides the inability, either from infirmity of body or mind, or any other cause, properly to discharge the functions of his office, a judge may be removed if he has breached the code of ethics prescribed for judges.

“Article 125(3A) provides that the code of ethics shall be observed by every judge, be it, the judge of the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal or the High Court.”

This is what Section 2 of the Judges' Code of Ethics 1994 says:

“2(1) This Code of Ethics shall apply to a judge throughout the period of his service.

“2(2) The breach of any provision of this Code of Ethics may constitute a ground for the removal of a judge from office.”

So now we all know that any serving judge could be removed from office for a breach of any provision of the Judges' Code of Ethics 1994.

Section 3(1)(d) is the provision in the Code of Ethics to apply against the errant judges. It reads: A judge shall not conduct himself dishonestly or in such a manner as to bring the Judiciary into disrepute or to bring discredit thereto”.

I think the words in Section 3(1)(d) are clear enough — we all know what they mean. So that if a judge brings the judiciary into disrepute or discredit, as the errant judges have done by not administering justice according to law, they could be removed from office under this provision. It's a bit harsh, but it can be done - The Malaysian Insider.

> Of cancelled flight to Mexico

2009-04-30T02:53:00.006+08:00

A stand at Gatwick airport says flight, TOM 95, to Cancun, the popular Mexican resort town is cancelled. Wasn't Mexico that first reported 'swine flu' ?

> MB vs MB case back to High Court

2009-04-29T03:28:00.001+08:00

The Federal Court today sent back the 'MB versus MB' case to the Kuala Lumpur High Court for the second time, after dismissing Perak Menteri Besar Zambry Abd Kadir's application for a fastrack hearing to consider constitutional issues.

The apex court allowed the preliminary objection raised by ousted menteri besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin's counsel Sulaiman Abdullah.

In his ruling, Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff said this was an unanimous decision by the five- member panel.

"We upheld the preliminary objection. We agree that disputed facts exist between the affidavits (filed by Mohd Nizar and the state legal advisor Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid on their meeting with Sultan Azlan Shah). Hence, we will remit back the case to the High Court for the case to be heard.

"No order is made as to costs," he said.

When asked further by Sulaiman, Alauddin said the court decided this matter based on the preliminary objection and not the merits to Zambry's application.

The other judges were Chief Judge of Malaya Arifin Zakaria and Federal Court judges Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin, Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusof and James Foong.

The facts being disputed was whether Mohd Nizar had told the Sultan of Perak that he no longer commanded the confidence of the state legislative assembly and asked for its dissolution based on Article 16 (6) of the Perak constitution as stated in Ahmad Kamal's affidavit.

Mohd Nizar denied such matters in his conversation with the ruler. He stated in his affidavit that his meeting with the ruler was to seek a dissolution following the political deadlock i.e. 28 Pakatan Rakyat assemblypersons and 28 BN assemblypersons, following the alleged resignation of the three assemblypersons.

The Kuala Lumpur case has been fixed for hearing on May 4, to hear an application by Mohd Nizar to cross-examine Ahmad Kamal.

On March 23, the apex court had for the first time set aside the Court of Appeal's decision and returned the constitutional questions to determine the legitimacy of the Perak menteri besar back to the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

Zambry's application

Zambry had on April 21, submitted a notice of motion to the Federal Court, where he sought a quick resolution of the political impasse in Perak, by taking the matter directly to the apex court for it to declare him the rightful menteri besar.

Naming Mohd Nizar as respondent, Zambry posed several constitutional questions for the interpretation of the apex court based on Article 63 of the Perak Constitution to interpret:

(a) Whether Sultan Azlan Shah had the right not to accede to Mohd Nizar's request for the dissolution of the Perak assembly, when he (Mohd Nizar) ceased to command the confidence of the majority of the assembly;

(b) When the sultan declined to accede to Mohd Nizar's request, whether it was tantamount to the resignations of Mohd Nizar and his state exco members; and

(c) Whether when Mohd Nizar refused to tender his resignation, the sultan had the right to appoint Zambry pursuant to Article 16(2) of the Perak constitution after the sultan was satisfied that he (Zambry) commanded the confidence of the assembly.

Earlier in the day, the court also disallowed Mohd Nizar's application for a nine-member panel to resolve the issues brought by Zambry. This comes after a five-member panel chaired by Alauddin appeared before the court.

On the preliminary objection, Sulaiman said the apex court should have decided on the principles of res judicata (matter already judged) following the March 23 decision to remit the case to the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

Sulaiman's objection

The senior counsel submitted that although the application made by the Attorney-General's Chambers was based on Section 84 of the Courts of Judicature Act, Article 63 of the Perak constitution was also referred.

"Furthermore there is also questions on the disputed facts between Mohd Nizar's affidavit and that by Ahmad Kamal. This matter has yet to be heard and the apex court cannot entertain Zambry's application," he said.

Senior lawyer Cecil Abraham for Zambry argued that on March 23, questions were solely on Section 84 of the CJA.

Furthermore, Abraham said the apex court could hear the application as it would not involve the Kuala Lumpur High Court matter, and would be based on the Sultan of Perak's decree (letter of appointment) to Zambry.

Meanwhile, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail who was present at today's proceedings commented that the chambers respected the decision.

"We have successfully applied to be an intervener and would assist the court," he said - Malaysiakini.

> Mansor to be named PKR candidate

2009-04-27T23:42:00.002+08:00

Penang PKR deputy chief Dr Mansor Othman is expected to be named as the party's candidate for the upcoming Penanti by-election on May 31 in Penang.

Mansor, 56, is a former university lecturer and student leader. He also served as Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's political secretary during his tenure as deputy premier.

It is learnt that the announcement will be made by Anwar tomorrow night in Penanti.

Party insiders said that Mansor is now almost certain to be the party's candidate after he was not chosen as PKR's nominee as a senator by the state assembly today.

That position went to PKR state secretary Mustafa Kamil, who was approved by the Penang state assembly as a senator from PKR.

If selected, Mansor, largely seen as Anwar's favourite candidate for the Penanti by-election, would also assume the vacant deputy chief minister post if he wins the by-election.

"As it stands, Mansor is the PKR candidate for Penanti barring any last minute accident," said a source close to Mansor.

Defeated narrowly in 2008

In the 2008 general election, Mansor contested for the Pulau Betong state seat but lost by 294 votes to Umno's Muhammad Farid Saad.

He was Anwar's original choice to be the state deputy chief minister but had to forgo it to Mohamad Fairus Khairuddin as a result of this defeat.

Penanti will be the sixth by-election since the March 8 general election, five of which were snatched by Pakatan Rakyat.

The coming battle for the state seat - located under the Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency - is also expected to be won by Pakatan.

However, Barisan Nasional has yet to decide if it will contest. The decision will be made by the Umno political bureau soon.

Permatang Pauh is considered the fortress of Anwar who is the incumbent parliamentarian there.

The Penanti seat fell vacant following the resignation of former Penang deputy chief minister I Mohamad Fairus - Malaysiakini.

> Selangor MB sues MACC

2009-04-27T23:38:00.002+08:00

Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim filed a defamation suit today against the Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission (MACC), its chief commissioner Ahmad Said Hamdan and the government.

Khalid filed the suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court registry at 2.45pm.

The Bandar Tun Razak MP claimed that Ahmad Said and the MACC had issued defamatory statements which resulted in the New Straits Times report titled 'Khalid in hot water over car and cows'.

The menteri besar claimed that the statements meant that he was dishonest in his private and official capacity, guilty of corrupt practices, untrustworthy and an unfit politician.

It also meant that he is unfit to hold public office, unprincipled, committed a criminal offence which is punishable by imprisonment, unethical and abused his position.

Khalid also claimed that the defendants had 'crossed the lines of common decency' by making such an allegation.

He contended that the claims by Ahmad Said were baseless, reckless and made with gross negligence to tarnish his reputation.

He claimed that the MACC chief had acted beyond his powers to make such derogatory statements.

Khalid alleged that the statements were a distortion of the truth, made out of malice and in bad faith, and resulted in public hatred, ridicule, scorn and alienation. It has also affected his public image.

Reputation has been tarnished

He also claimed that as a person holding the public office as menteri besar, his reputation had been tarnished.

Following this, Khalid said he suffered distress, anxiety and embarrassment therefore entitling him for exemplary and aggravated damages.

The Selangor menteri besar also claimed that Ahmad Said and MACC should have known that the commission only possessed investigatory powers and the attorney-general has the powers to prosecute.

Khalid also claimed that the statement made by deputy chief commissioner Abu Kasim Mohamed to justify his superior was wrong and misconceived.

He also claimed that the defendants had failed to respond to his lawyers’ demands for an explanation and a demand for a retraction made on two occasions on Feb 26 and March 19.

He is seeking compensatory and aggravated damages, along with exemplary, general and special damages.

Khalid is also seeking an injunction to restrain the defendants from repeating, uttering, speaking and writing the alleged defamatory words - Malaysiakini.

> Chennai talks to decide Hindraf's future

2009-04-27T23:07:00.001+08:00

A meeting of top Hindraf leaders will be convened in Chennai, India this weekend in a last ditch effort to save the movement from splitting up.

Over a dozen top leaders are likely to attend the meeting, said Hindraf chairman P. Waythamoorthy.

“The meeting will iron out differences and chart a new course for the movement,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Hindraf was banned by the government last October as an “extremist” organisation but is very much alive among the Tamil working class.

Among key leaders expected to attend the meeting are original founding chairman P. Waythamoorthy, national co-coordinator R. S. Thanenthiran, Kapar and Teluk Intan MPs S. Manikavasagam and M. Manohar respectively and PKR Indian leader and Hindraf co-coordinator S. Jayathas, who is hoping to attend despite undergoing dialysis.

“This is a key meeting for us. We hope to settle all our major differences once and for all,” Thanenthiran told Malaysian Insider.

“We have to chart a new course for Hindraf or it will become irrelevant,” he said.

The key issue is whether to transform Hindraf into a full fledged political party — a line pushed by Thanenthiran who feels Hindraf has been taken for a ride by opposition political parties like PKR and especially the DAP.

“If we want to remain credible and fight for Indian rights the best option is to form into a political party and get the best from anybody for the Indians,” Thanenthiran said.

“This is the best option open to us,” he said adding by allowing others to ride on it Hindraf had only gained “peanuts.”

“Most of our basic problems — socio-economic neglect, poverty and marginalisation remain unresolved,” he said.

However Waythamoorthy told The Malaysian Insider that Hindraf must remain apolitical and reorganise into a powerful and independent pressure group to gain benefits.

“We are friendly to opposition political ties but beyond that we are apolitical,” he said. “I will push for this case at the meeting.”

He is keeping his options open however and is also willing to open a dialogue with the Barisan Nasional especially with prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to resolve Indian plight.

He is keen to meet Najib put forward to him the movement’s 18-point demand including the need to convert all 543 Tamil schools in the country into fully-aided schools. Currently half are partially-aided leaving them in ramshackle conditions.

Kapar MP and other PKR leaders however will urge Hindraf to stay as a political pressure group and not transform into a political party.

“There is simply no place for another Indian based political party in the country,” he told The Malaysian Insider. “PKR is the vehicle for all Malaysians… we are the future.”

He said he and others would strongly oppose any arguments to form another Indian political party.

“We are already heavily fragmented and another Indian political party is meaningless and will fragment the community even more,” he said urging Indians to join PKR - The Malaysian Insider.

> Pakatan forms shadow cabinet committees

2009-04-27T23:02:00.000+08:00

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will set up shadow cabinet committees instead of the customary practice in Britain of matching one opposition lawmaker to pass criticism and offer alternative policies to one specific government ministry.

The Malaysian Insider understands that instead of appointing individual shadow ministers, PR will have committees of between eight and 15 MPs monitoring the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration. This was decided at a senior leadership meeting during the weekend.

By forming the committees, PR appears to be avoiding the sensitive issue of announcing who among their leaders would be appointed to key positions in the event they ever take federal power.

While supporters of a two-party system may applaud this step, they will also have to accept that it may not look like what they had expected and that raises questions over PR's preparedness to take federal power.

The Malaysian Insider understands each committee will be led by three co-chairs representing PKR, PAS and DAP and one MP can sit in up to three committees of his or her choice.

When parliament is in session, the speaker will be informed that PR would like the shadow committee members to be given priority to speak on their respective topics which will afford them an opportunity to shine in the subject matter.

However, the committee concept also raises questions over the PR's readiness to be an alternative to the current federal government.

James Chin, a political analyst at Monash University Malaysia says the effort to shadow the government is worthwhile but sees drawbacks to the committee concept.

"A shadow cabinet is one way to tell people that you are a government in waiting and that you have got the people to take over the various ministries ... (but) you can't appoint a committee to be a minister," he told The Malaysian Insider.

"If they want to do it, they should do it one-to-one, not by committee. That is the proper way."

He adds that a cabinet committee will likely function more as a review committee that merely reviews the government's actions.

PR's shadow committee members will unfortunately also have to struggle with many constraints its counterparts in BN do not. They will not have government allocations for research budgets or staff, nor will they have the resources of the civil service at their disposal.

It is also not an officially recognised position, unlike in some countries. It is understood that the lack of resources is part of the reason for the formation of a committee as it will allow the workload to be shared.

While not ideal, the shadow committee will give the MPs a chance to shine in parliament although whether they are up to the task of writing policy papers will remain to be seen..

Selangor Speaker Teng Chang Khim believes that PR does not need a shadow cabinet to prove it is a viable alternative to BN.

The four-term assemblyman said the Selangor executive councillors were all doing well without the benefit of being shadow councillors while in the opposition.

“In fact, I can say they are doing even better than the previous administration,” he said.

Teng, who had previously served as opposition leader for two terms, said a shadow cabinet was just one of the ways, but not necessarily the best way, for the opposition to keep the Government in check.

The shadow committee may lead to unnecessary controversy, he added, because it will allow Barisan MPs to question the committees on issues such as the Islamic state or hudud.

Teng said while the coalition had reached a consensus that party policies and Pakatan policies are two different issues, he foresees that Barisan Nasional will view such differences as inconsistencies and will exploit them - The Malaysian Insider.

> Nizar to challenge Article 63 of Perak Constitution

2009-04-27T22:51:00.002+08:00

Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin today filed a notice of motion to obtain a court declaration that Article 63 of the Perak State Constitution null and void for being in conflict with the Federal Constitution.

Nizar, 52, filed the notice through legal firm Messrs Leong & Tan at the Federal Court Registry here and named Government of Perak, Government of Malaysia and Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir as respondents.

In the application, he said the 1996 amendment to Article 63 which gave jurisdiction to the Federal Court to hear constitutional issues regarding the Perak political crisis was in conflict with Article 4(3) and 4(4) of the Federal Constitution.

He said the State Legislative Assembly did not have the authority to make the amendment.

"Any amendment to Article 63 after Independence is supposed to be made through Article 162(1) of the Federal Constitution because the Federal Court's jurisdiction can only be given by Parliament, not the State Legislative Assembly," he said.

He also requested for the proceedings to determine who is the legitimate Perak Menteri Besar, scheduled to be held at the Federal Court tomorrow, to be deferred pending the disposal of this application - Bernama

> Call off State Assembly sitting: Kit Siang

2009-04-27T00:06:00.000+08:00

Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir should call off the Perak State Assembly meeting set for May 7 as it is improperly convened, DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said today.

"Zambry should call off the State Assembly meeting as it is improperly convened against Najib's public stand that the Perak Assembly cannot meet until the court has ruled that BN is the legal government in Perak," said Lim, pointing out that the court has yet to decide on the matter.

"As the court has not made any decision that the BN is the legal government in Perak, the May 7 State Assembly should be called off until there is a judicial decision," he said.

Lim also condemned the sudden pressure that Zambry was placing on the Federal Court to come to a speedy decision in his favour.

"On 21 April, Zambry filed an urgent application to the Federal Court for a declaration that he is the lawful Mentri Besar, and he now expects such a declaration to be made by the Federal Court on April 28. For two and a half months, Zambry did not move the Federal Court for such a declaration," said Lim.

"Does Zambry think he belongs to a special category of persons who is privileged to short circuit the whole process of the administration of justice?" he asked.

"Even with such a Federal Court decision on Tuesday, Zambry can only properly convene his first State Assembly meeting with the requisite notice of 14 days to all State Assembly members- which means the earliest Zambry can convene a proper Perak State Assembly meeting will be May 13," said Lim - theSun.

>Selangor to clean-up Klang River

2009-04-26T23:59:00.000+08:00

The Selangor government will embark on a massive exercise to clean up the Klang river beginning June.

Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said different sectors of the 120km-long river would be divided among schools, NGOs and other community groups, including state agencies.

"It is our collective responsibility to keep our rivers clean," he said after officiating Earth Day celebrations at the Kota Damansara Community Forest Park.

He said the cleaning up of the Klang river could take a few years to complete.

"Besides beautifying Selangor, the cleaning up process will also reduce flooding in the Klang valley," said Khalid.

"The state government is also building water retention areas to control the flow of water from the sea to the land and vice-versa."

On another note, Khalid said the forest park in Kota Damansara will be gazetted as a forest reserve within three months.

He said the forest park would be ‘given’ to the people of Kota Damansara because they have put a lot of effort into rehabilitating and preserving the forest in their place.

"We want this forest to be an example to other folks in the state on how they can also play a role in the conservation of mother nature," he said.

The community forest park is an effort by Kota Damansara residents to conserve and protect the forest, which is the last portion left of the Sungai Buloh forest reserve.

The forest, with a size of 857 acres, is home to abundant flora and fauna, including a lake.

A 650m trail through the forest was built recently for joggers - theSun.

> On conversion and religion of children

2009-04-25T10:23:00.002+08:00

by Malik Imtiaz Sarwar

THE media reports that the Cabinet has decided that children of marriages where one spouse subsequently embraces Islam would remain in the faith that the parents had agreed on at the time of marriage.

The Cabinet has also appeared to decide that the civil courts are to dissolve such marriages.

These decisions are welcome ones.

They indicate willingness on the part of the administration to deal with issues that have for some time now been studiously avoided, a state of affairs that had prompted the establishment of the coalition of NGOs calling itself “Article 11” and its “Equal Protection For All” campaign in 2006.

The decisions also indicate the policy position of the current administration, one that on its face appears to adhere to the constitutional guarantees of equality and the right of parents to choose the religion of their children.

The Constitution guarantees the right of a parent to decide the religious instruction of a minor child. The Constitution provides that words in the singular are to be understood to include the plural, parent being “parents”.

By virtue of this and the guarantee against discrimination on grounds of gender, it is clear that the intention was to vest guardianship rights in both parents.

This is reinforced by Federal law. I am, however, uncertain as to how this policy position is to translate into practice as the Cabinet has little or no direct power in this regard. Religion is a matter for the State and not the Federal government; each State has exclusive authority over the administration of Islam within the boundaries of that State.

This would include matters of conversion of children and the jurisdiction of the syariah courts, both of which are matters in respect of which the State legislative assembly has the competence to enact laws.

Though the Constitution itself lends support to the policy position of the Cabinet, and as such could be invoked to reign in those State agencies involved in these matters, the question of whether there has been a transgressing of limits is one for the courts.

The courts have, however, in recent years handed down decision after decision that have undermined the constitutional framework and entrenched as principle the very matters that the Cabinet now wishes to address.

In 2004, the High Court in Shamala Sathiyaseelan ruled that the converting husband had a right to convert the children into Islam without the consent of the wife.

The court also ruled that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the wife’s application to challenge the legitimacy of the conversion.

Accepting that the wife was without recourse for not being able to move the syariah court as a non-Muslim, the court counseled her to seek the assistance of the Majlis Agama.

This is a scenario that the majority decision of the Federal Court reinforced in the Lina Joy case in 2007. In the same vein, a majority bench of the Federal Court in Subashini Rajasingam concluded in 2008 that either parent could convert a child of the marriage into Islam.

It ignored the non-discrimination guarantee as well as the interpretation provision for words in the singular and focused on the word “parent”, interpreting it to mean “parent” in the singular.

The majority also decided that the Muslim party was free to commence proceedings in the syariah court even though the non-Muslim party was entitled to seek dissolution and maintenance and custody orders in the High Court.

These decisions and others like them stand in the way of the Cabinet implementing its policy position.

It is ironic that the decisions noted above were largely the result of ill-conceived and shortsighted positions taken by the Attorney- General’s Chambers on these matters, positions that sought to denude the High Court of jurisdiction to allow for the preservation of an unjust status quo.

To move forward, the Cabinet must therefore take the bull by the horns. I assume that the Cabinet made its decisions based on advice from the Attorney-General.

It is therefore imperative that the Attorney- General articulates his revised position on these issues in the courts as soon as possible.

The Shamala case comes before the Court of Appeal on Monday and he should apply to intervene to make the necessary points.

Being matters of great constitutional significance that are clearly in the public interest, they warrant his involvement - The Malay Mail.

● Malik Imtiaz Sarwar is president of the National Human Rights Society (HAKAM) and blogs as ‘Disquiet’ at www.malikimtiaz.blogspot.com.

> Court grants leave to review word 'Allah' in Herald

2009-04-25T02:04:00.000+08:00

The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur was given leave by the High Court today to quash the Home Ministry's decision prohibiting the use of the word "Allah" in the Herald Catholic Weekly.

Archbishop Murphy Nicholas Xavier Pakiam was also granted leave to apply for nine declarations, including to declare that the decision of Home Ministry and the government of Malaysia was illegal and ultra vires the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

According to Bernama, his counsel, S Selvarajah, told reporters that Justice Lau Bee Lan granted the leave under Order 53 of the Rules of the High Court in chambers.

Senior federal counsel Suzana Atan, for the ministry and government, did not object to the application.

Lau also fixed May 28 to hear the application for a stay of the Home Ministry's decision.

On Feb 16, this year, Murphy, as publisher of the Herald, filed for a judicial review to quash the decision of the respondents dated Jan 7, 2009 that the applicant's publication permit for the period Jan 1, 2009 until Dec 31, 2009, is subject to the condition that he be prohibited from using the word "Allah" in the Herald.

Seven declarations

The other seven declarations sought are:

1. That the applicant has the constitutional right to use the word "Allah" in the Herald in the exercise of his right that other religions other than Islam may be practised in peace.

2. That Article 3(1) of the Federal Constitution does not empower the respondents to prohibit the applicant from using the word "Allah" in the Herald.

3. That the applicant has the constitutional right to use the word "Allah" in the weekly in the exercise of his right to freedom of speech and expression.

4. That the applicant has the constitutional right to use the word "Allah" in the Herald in the exercise of his freedom of religion which includes the right to manage its own religious affairs.

5. That the applicant has the constitutional right to use the word "Allah" in the Herald in the exercise his right in respect of education of the Catholic congregation in the Christian religion.

6. That the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 does not authorise the respondents to prohibit the applicant from using the word "Allah" in the Herald and

7. That the word "Allah" is not exclusive to the religion of Islam - Malaysiakini.

> Humpty Dumpty and Mohd Nazri

2009-04-24T07:41:00.003+08:00

by NH Chan

When a judge is plainly wrong, especially when he claims to interpret the obvious, it is not wrong for any right thinking member of the public to criticise him.

In New Sunday Times, there appears this astonishing remark (because it is erroneous in law) which was attributed to a minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

According to the report, Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz (left) has hit out at Perak DAP chief Ngeh Koo Ham for questioning a Federal Court ruling pertaining to Perak.

Nazri said Ngeh should not question the court's decision that Perak state assembly speaker V Sivakumar did not have the power to suspend Menteri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir and six BN state executive council members from attending the state assembly sittings.

“‘There was no question of the judiciary interfering in the legislature as claimed by Ngeh as the courts were the best place to seek interpretation of the constitution or law,’ he told reporters,” said the report.

“Nazri said the law did not intend to equip a speaker of a legislative assembly with unrestricted authority.”

Everyone knows that Ngeh (right) was talking about Article 72 (1) of the Federal Constitution which states, “The validity of any proceedings in the Legislative Assembly of any State shall not be questioned in any court.”

But what the minister was saying is that "the courts were the best place to seek interpretation of the constitution".

Now I ask Malaysiakini readers, do you, as a member of the general public, need a judge to interpret Article 72 (1)?

However, when the judges were asked to interpret clause 1 of Article 72, as we have recently observed, they have blatantly refused to apply the constitutional provision as it stands. We know that the words mean what they say.

According to the dictionary, the word “interpret” means “explain the meaning of”. I don't think we need the Federal Court or any court to explain the meaning of Article 72 to us - the meaning is plain enough for ordinary Malaysians to understand.

‘It means what I choose it to mean’

No one in his right senses would attempt to interpret the obvious meaning of the words in Article 72 (1), unless he wants to say the words mean something else as Humpty Dumpty did in Lewis Carrol’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’.

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'."Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument’," Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything.

Then, like Humpty Dumpty, Nazri made this amazingly naive statement: "The law - meaning Article 72 (1) - did not intend to equip a speaker of a legislative assembly with unrestricted authority."

But that was not the point of what Ngeh said. So what if the speaker was wrong on what he did or said or ordered in the legislative assembly?

The supreme law of the land says that "the validity of any proceeedings in the Legislative Assembly of any State shall not be questioned in any court".

This could only mean that all differences which occured in the legislative assembly could only be resolved by the assembly, within the assembly itself.

The validity of any proceedings in the assembly is beyond the reach of the courts - so said the Constitution of Malaysia.

The "law" does not mean, as the minister wanted it to mean, that it "did not intend to equip a speaker of a legislative assembly with unrestricted authority".

Like Alice, the general public were too much puzzled by such a naive remark.

Judges do not fear criticism

Anyway, why should a judge be afraid of criticism of his judgment if he has done nothing wrong and he is only doing his duty to administer justice according to law?

Judges do not fear criticism, nor do they resent it.

In the Privy Council case of Ambard v Attorney-General for Trinidad and Tobago, this was what

Lord Atkin said:

“The path of criticism is a public way: the wrong-headed are permitted to err therein, provided that members of the public abstain from imputing improper motives to those taking part in the administration of justice, and are genuinely exercising a right of criticism, and not acting in malice or attempting to impair the administration of justice, they are immune.

“Justice is not a cloistered virtue: she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of ordinary men."

NH CHAN is a former Court of Appeal judge famous for his ‘All is not well in the House of Denmark’ comment regarding judicial corruption. He was then referring to High Court’s commercial division which was located in Wisma Denmark, Kuala Lumpur. The quote is based on Shakespeare’s ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’. He now lives in Ipoh - Malaysiakini.

> Busy day in Court for Nizar

2009-04-24T02:30:00.002+08:00

The High Court here today allowed Attorney-General (AG) Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail to intervene in Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin’s suit challenging the legitimacy of Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir’s appointment as Perak mentri besar.

Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz Abd Rahim, in his oral decision, said the AG, as the guardian of the public interest, should be allowed to intervene as the issue was of public importance and public interest.

He also said that the issue involved interpretation of Article 16 of the Perak Constitution which is similar to Article 43 of the Federal Constitution.

“Of course the court can invite the AG as a friend of court, but after considering the main issue here, it is my view to allow the AG to intervene and to help the court, more so when the issue here is a novel one.

One mentri besar is appointed and the other one has not resigned,” said Abdul Aziz who is the third judge to hear the application after the Federal Court sent it back to the High Court.

The first judge was Judicial Commissioner Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof who recused himself while the second judge, Lau Bee Lan, had referred the matter to the Federal Court for determination of constitutional isssues.

Earlier, senior federal counsel Datuk Kamaluddin Md Said submitted that the AG should be allowed to intervene as the application for judicial review required the interpretation of the Perak Constitution which would also affect other state constitutions with similar provisions.

Sulaiman Abdullah, counsel for Mohammad Nizar, objected on the ground that the AG had failed to show any necessity for him to intervene in the proceeding.

“This is a Perak matter. The actual situation here is that the applicant (Mohammad Nizar) and the respondent (Zambry) are both claiming to be the mentri besar. There is no direct involvement of the federal government in this issue.

The judge also fixed May 4 to hear the application by Mohammad Nizar to cross-examine Perak legal advisor Datuk Kamal Md Shahid on the statement which he claimed was inconsistent with Mohammad Nizar’s statement in the affidavit filed in the suit.

OBJECTION TO ZAMBRY APPLICATION

Late yesterday, Nizar filed an objection to Zambry’s application for the Federal Court to declare him the legitimate mentri besar.

Nizar made the objection through an affidavit in reply filed at the court’s registry here through legal firm Messrs Leong & Tan.

In the affidavit, Nizar said among others that the questions suggested by Zambry for the court to decide could not solve the political impasse.

He said the issues, whether the post of mentri besar could and/or had been vacated in the situation where the mentri besar wished, and had advised for the dissolution of the State Legislative Assembly under several circumstances including the absence of a motion of no confidence being passed and adopted in and by the Assembly against the mentri besar, could still not be answered.

He said, the questions suggested by Zambry for the court to decide were irrelevant to his judicial review application and it would not resolve the contentious issues in the application.

Nizar is also challenging the validity of Article 63 of the Perak State Constitution which was used to refer the matter to the Federal Court.

He said the Federal Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the Article 63 application because the term “Supreme Court” in Article 63 did not refer to the apex court in the Federation of Malay States because the apex court at that time was the Privy Council.

Nizar said he did not dispute the prerogative of the Sultan of Perak which was enshrined in Article 16(2) and/or Article 36(2). He said, the Sultan of Perak’s prerogative did not arise at all in his judicial review application.

Zambry filed the application to refer three legal questions regarding the interpretation of Article 16(2) and 16(6) according to Article 63 of the Perak State Constitution.

In his notice of motion, Zambry said that if the Federal Court decided in his favour regarding the three questions, the court should declare that on Feb 6, 2009, he had been properly appointed as Perak Mentri Besar.

The Federal Court has fixed Tuesday to hear the notice of motion application.

Nizar filed the judicial review application at the High Court to challenge Zambry's appointment as the legitimate mentri besar.

Nizar argued that according to the Perak State Constitution, he was the legitimate mentri besar because he had advised the Sultan to dissolve the State Legislative Assembly, did not resign and no motion of no confidence had been passed against him in the Assembly.

The High Court will hear the judicial review application on May 5 and 6 - Bernama.

> RPK: Why I’m not in court today

2009-04-23T14:34:00.000+08:00

After two ISA detentions, I do not plan to allow them to get me so easily the third time around. I also refuse to face treason charges that will result in me being sent to the gallows. I love my life and wish to remain alive a few years longer if possible.

I wish to explain why I am not going to be present in court today, 23rd April 2009. Firstly, it involves my recent dispute with the Selangor Palace. This dispute was due to my open letter to the Perak Menteri Besar, Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin, which I wrote on 2nd March 2009 in response to the ongoing Perak Constitutional Crisis. My family said I had acted in a treasonous manner and they wanted me to issue a public apology to the Sultan of Perak.

I refused to comply with my family’s demand and instead wrote two articles condemning the Perak Palace for violating the Federal Constitution of Malaysia and for ignoring the wishes of the rakyat. My opinion is no different from that of N.H. Chan, the former Court of Appeal judge.

The Sultan of Selangor was very angry and that triggered a conflict between our two families. My family told me I had brought shame to the family name and they demanded that I attend a family meeting to discuss the matter. However, I did not attend that family meeting and this aggravated the situation.

My family then gave me an ultimatum. I was to either make that public apology or else my family would insert an advertisement in the mainstream newspapers practically distancing itself from me, which could be interpreted as disowning me. My response to that was, and in accordance with the normal action to be taken against a member of the kerabat who durhaka, I went into exile outside Selangor. As a matter of fact, I even missed two recent family funerals, as I could not and would not step foot in Selangor ever again.

It has to be noted that this has always been the punishment for any member of the Selangor Royal Family who is considered durhaka since the beginning of the Selangor Sultanate more than 250 years ago. My grandfather, Sultan Musa, was in fact subjected to that same punishment and it is the only punishment befitting a member of the Selangor Royal Family who has courted the displeasure of the Palace.

This means, in short, I can no longer attend the court hearing as the same is heard in Petaling Jaya, which is invariably within the state of Selangor.

The second reason is as follows:

In September 2008, I was detained under the Internal Security Act for what I was alleged to have written regarding the Altantuya murder and the alleged links to those who walk in the corridors of power. However, I am already facing trial on sedition and criminal defamation charges in this court as well as in the Kuala Lumpur court.

Now, my ISA detention in September 2008 was for the same crime as what I have been charged in this court (sedition) and in the Kuala Lumpur court (criminal defamation). This means I am being punished twice for the same crime and the law does not provide for one to be punished twice for the same crime.

No doubt, in November 2008, the Shah Alam court ruled my detention illegal and subsequently ordered my release. Nevertheless, the government is appealing this decision, giving a clear indication that it wants me back in Kamunting whereby I will face punishment without trial on top of the two trials I am being made to face — which, as I said, are for those same crimes.

The events of late do not give me any confidence that I will get a fair trial. Even if the Petaling Jaya court acquits me, they can still appeal the decision of the court like what they are doing with the Shah Alam court’s decision to free me from ISA detention. And the manner the Federal Court conducted itself during the recent ISA appeal hearing is very troubling indeed and borders on unprofessional conduct.

Finally, my open letter to Nizar Jamaluddin has been classified as treason and the government wants to charge me for treason. The fact that no such law exists will not stop them as they can use the "waging war against the King" law that they used against some of the Al Maunah members, which resulted in them being hanged in the Sungai Buloh Prison in October 2006.

Many of my friends have spotted police vehicles parked outside their house. Others have noticed police officers loitering in front of their residence while some have been summoned to Bukit Aman for interrogation. The police want them to reveal where I am currently residing.

Why are the police looking for me? Two months ago, the Federal Court was in a hurry to hear the appeal against my release from ISA detention. After impatiently rejecting all our applications and refusing to allow us time to file the necessary papers, the court suddenly went cold and nothing was heard from it since.

This got me very suspicious. I did some checking and have reason to believe that a new detention order has been issued and that is why the police are looking for me. If I were to turn up in court today I would never be allowed to leave. The police would immediately detain me and send me to Kamunting and this time I shall not be so fortunate as to see freedom in two months like in the last two occasions.

Those are the reasons I am not in court today. I shall, however, attend the court hearing when the situation permits, i.e., I am no longer to be charged for treason and I get an assurance from the powers-that-be that the government’s appeal against my ISA release is withdrawn forthwith and that no new detention order has been issued. After all, if the Razak Baginda acquittal was not appealed upon, why am I being treated differently? — Malaysia Today

> Government rules on children’s conversion

2009-04-23T14:26:00.001+08:00

The government moved today to soothe uneasiness over Islamic conversion of minors when it decided that children should be raised in the faith of their parents while they were married even if one spouse becomes a Muslim.

The Cabinet decided this yesterday amid simmering tension over a case of three Indian children converted to Islam by their father without the mother’s consent.

K. Patmanathan, 40, had converted to Islam without the knowledge of his wife, Indira Ghandi, who claimed her husband also converted their children — aged one, 11 and 12 years — without her consent.

Indira said she was now living in fear of losing her children as her husband was seeking custody through the Syariah Court.

There has been an increase in the number of cases in which Islamic conversions have been used as a tool to gain custody of children in divorces among non-Muslims couples - The Malaysian Insider.

> Gobind to challenge suspension in court

2009-04-23T01:23:00.001+08:00

Suspended Puchong member of parliament Gobind Singh will be filing a suit tomorrow against Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia over his 12-month suspension.

The suit will be filed at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, said Gobind's father Karpal Singh.

The legal action follows a decision last week by the Federal Court in allowing a challenge by BN's Perak Menteri Besar Zambry Abd Kadir and his exco members against their suspension from the Perak assembly by assembly speaker.

"The Perak case has opened up a precedent for the matter (suspension) to be taken to the Federal Court," said Karpal, also the Bukit Gelugor member of parliament.

Gobind's action, when filed tomorrow, will be the first of its kind taken against a decision made by a Dewan Rakyat speaker.

Last month, Gobind was suspended without any allowances and benefits following his outburst in the House against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

The debutant parliamentarian had allegedly linked Najib with the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu, and called him a "murderer" in the process.

The decision by the Federal Court last week was unprecedented as it allowed the judiciary to get involved in a decision-making process of the legislature.

Perak speaker V Sivakumar had suspended Zambry for 18 months and his six exco members for 12 months for causing contempt to the House by assuming the post of menteri besar and exco members.

Will the court rule the same?

In backing Gobind's move to file the judicial review, DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said the one-year suspension was a "blatant case of abuse" of Barisan Nasional majority in Parliament.

He added that Gobind was subjected to double jeopardy with a very harsh second punishment although he had earlier been punished by the deputy speaker Ronald Kiandee with a one-day suspension.

He also said that DAP had originally not planned to subject Pandikar's decision to a court review as "we hold to the doctrine of separation of powers among the executive, legislature and judiciary".

He said the party believed in upholding the federal constitution which clearly stated that the validity of any proceedings in Parliament or any committee shall not be questioned in any court.

However he said all that changed with the Federal Court decision last week on the Perak matter.

"The Federal Court has created a precedent which would justify the legal challenge of the unjust and oppressive one-year suspension of Gobind as MP without parliamentary pay and privileges.

"Or is the Federal Court going to be guilty of selective and discriminatory justice?" he asked in a statement - Malaysiakini.

> Karpal wants sedition charge thrown out

2009-04-23T00:57:00.002+08:00

DAP chairman Karpal Singh, charged with making seditious statements against the Sultan of Perak, today claimed the prosecution’s case against him is flawed and should be thrown out of court.

The wheelchair-bound veteran lawyer, who represented himself in the High Court today, denied the charge that he had committed sedition against Sultan Azlan Shah during a press conference here in early February over the ruler’s actions at the height of the Perak crisis.

Citing Section 5 of the Sedition Act 1948, Karpal argued the prosecution had failed to get a proper written consent, a document that is required under the law in order to try him for sedition.

He said the written consent provided by the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail is “defective” because it did not detail the specific words he had allegedly said in his press conference which are allegedly seditious in nature.

Karpal also said the written consent should have detailed the exact nature of the sedition against him, and pointed out in his case it referred to a provision in Section 3(1)(a) which states: “to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against any Ruler or against any government”.

However, the prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Kamaluddin Md Said, argued the law did not require the specifics of the seditious words to be laid out in the written consent.

“This is just a consent to prosecute. How can more particulars be written in the consent than in the charge? This is absurd,” he pointed out.

But Karpal was adamant. Using the analogy of the chicken and egg situation, where the written consent was the egg and the charge the chicken, he stressed that the written consent is the prerequisite to the charge and must come first.

“It didn’t say what the seditious words were. They should have done it first before they go to the charge,” Karpal told reporters later.

“The idea of Section 5 is not to have frivolous prosecution,” the Bukit Gelugor MP said.

“Under Section 32(a) of the Sedition Act, it is not a seditious tendency if I point out to the Ruler he is mistaken. I’m telling him, I think you’re wrong because it’s unconstitutional,” he added.

He noted the Attorney General must think and act thoroughly before choosing to bring such serious charges against a person.

Karpal, who is presently out on a bail of RM2,000, wants the court to discharge the case against him.

But as he also pointed out to reporters, the matter can be what he called a “DNA” or “discharge not amounting to an acquittal”.

“They can charge me again if they want,” he said.

High Court judicial commissioner, Azman Abdullah, has fixed next Wednesday to announce his decision.

Karpal was charged with sedition on March 17 for saying Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin's removal as Perak mentri besar by Sultan Azlan Shah could be questioned in a court of law.

The veteran lawyer-politician was charged at the Sessions Court here before Judge Mohamad Sekeri Mamat under Section 4(1)(b) of the Sedition Act 1946.

Karpal is further accused of several other seditious statements related to the entire Perak constitutional crisis which began two months ago.

He is accused of committing the crime during a press conference at his law firm here on February 6.

A partial transcript of the press conference, which formed the basis for the charge, was read out in open court.

Among the underlined statements, supposedly seditious, are:

“With that ruling of the federal court which has stood the test of time for 32 years beyond a pale of a doubt, the Sultan of Perak has contravened Article 16(6) of the Constitutions of the State of Perak,” referring to a 1977 Federal Court decision that the King had acted beyond his authority in confirming three detention orders under the Emergency Ordinance.

“Clearly the Sultan of Perak cannot invoke his powers under Article 16(1) which states [His Royal Highness shall appoint an Executive Council] to appoint a Barisan Nasional Executive Council with a new Menteri Besar and a new government. The Government of a Menteri Besar Dato’ Haji Nizar bin Jamaluddin still had constitutional supremacy and legitimacy. The actions of the Sultan of Perak are clearly, premature.”

Karpal pleaded not guilty.

This is Karpal’s second sedition charge. His first was in January 2000, for supposedly making seditious statements on arsenic poisoning during the corruption trial of sacked deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

But the prosecution later dropped the charge against him and he walked out a free man.

If found guilty this time, Karpal can be fined up to RM5,000 and could spend up to three years behind bars - The Malaysian Insider.

> Court rejects CM's bid

2009-04-22T00:18:00.003+08:00

The High Court here today dismissed an application by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman and three others seeking to declare that the Kudat Thean Hou Charitable Foundation of which former chief minister Tan Sri Chong Kah Kiat is the chairman, is illegal.

In her ruling, Judicial Commissioner Yew Jen Kie said whether Chong had a locus standi in the suit regarding the construction of a Mazu statue in Kudat and whether the Kudat Thean Hou Charitable Foundation was illegal, could only be determined through evidence adduced in the trial.

Leading counsel for the applicants Datuk Mohammad Shafee Abdullah applied for a stay of proceeding in order to appeal to overturn the High Court's decision.

However, Chong's counsel Ansari Abdullah asked for a dismissal of the application and resume trial, which began since Jan 12, until the court of appeal was in favour of the applicants.

But Mohammad Shafee stressed that should the trial resume, it would be a waste of time and money and therefore, asked for an interim stay of proceeding pending the applicants' application at the court of appeal to which Yew rejected.

On April 18, the court heard the application to strike out the suit by Chong, Sabah's 13th Chief Minister (2001), who alleged that Musa and three others abused their power over the Mazu project.

They contended that Chong did not have a locus standi in the suit since the Kudat Thean Hou Charitable Foundation had not been registered with the Registrar of Societies (ROS) and, therefore, did not have the legality to challenge the decision to withdraw the approval given by the Kudat Town Board to the foundation, to construct an 88-foot Mazu statue.

Mohammad Shafee insisted the foundation be registered with ROS as it was a statutory requirement, including registering it under a Trustee Incorporated.

Ansari said the foundation is a private trust in which Chong acts as a trustee and not as a member.

According to Ansari, there is no statutory requirement that one must register a Trust under the Trustees Act or the Trustees Incorporation Ordinance, unless they wished to do so - Bernama.

> Panel of Economic Experts formed

2009-04-21T00:18:00.001+08:00

A panel of economic advisers have been appointed by the Selangor Government to formulate and implement policy in line with the stimulus package which was announced recently.

The nine-member panel – comprising professionals from various fields including economists, lawyers, academics and accountants – will provide strategic advice and input to the state, in line with the stimulus package.

The experts have been appointed for two years to help the state implement short and long-term economic goals, including the use of resources to ensure all projects are successful.

The panel will be supported by a secretariat to coordinate and ease cooperation with the state government.

As part of the implementation process the state is expected to hold special briefings for issues affecting each portfolio of state executive councillors.

The meetings will be held by the state economic planning unit every Friday.

Meetings will also be held with members of parliament and state assemblymen to gain input and generate ideas.

Public hearings will also be held to get feedback from experts and the public - The Malaysian Insider.

> On the Separation of Powers

2009-04-19T09:37:00.002+08:00

Perak’s political imbroglio has more twists and turns than the Sungai Perak that meanders lazily through the silver state and is getting murkier by the minute as lawyers say the recent Federal Court’s decisions have not cleared the matter.

PAS legal advisor Mohamed Hanipa Maidin and other lawyers dispute media reports that say Barisan Nasional now has an “undisputed majority” in the Perak state assembly.

The banner headlines came following the Federal Court’s recent declaration that Speaker V. Sivakumar’s suspension of Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Zambry Abd Kadir and his six executive councillors was null and void.

Coupled with the apex court’s earlier ruling that it is the Election Commission (EC) and not the speaker that decides an electoral vacancy, many are concluding that BN now leads 31-28.

“The truth is that out of 10 court orders sought by Zambry and his six exco members, only two orders were granted by the Federal Court. I dare to say that these two orders are ineffective and inconsequential in nature. They are not, in any manner, capable of reining in the speaker’s power,” Hanipa wrote in his column in The Malaysian Insider today.

Other lawyers agree, saying it is either a very lazy analysis, or an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses and perhaps even a rewriting of history.

It is important to put the record straight, even if in the end, it does not matter, given the way BN are obviously going to force their way through.

The fact is that all 10 assemblymen in question are not out of the woods yet, and in the case of Zambry and his exco, they are still without the right to attend the assembly.

Putting aside the arguments of how fair, legal or justiceable the Federal Court decisions were, and assuming them to be legitimate rulings, they do not mean that any of the 10 assemblymen in question are guaranteed a seat in the hastily called for May 7 sitting.

In the case of the three turncoat assemblymen who were declared to have resigned by Sivakumar, the Federal Court only ruled that the EC decides on a vacancy.

But Pakatan Rakyat can still ask the court to decide if the EC’s decision was right or wrong.

Granted, until it files such a suit, the three will claim that there is no reason they should not be considered members of the House.

So fine, BN can place 24 assemblymen in the assembly on May 7.

But in the case of the seven exco, which is the actual decider of majority, it is clear that they do not yet have legitimate licence to enter the assembly. Just because the Federal Court decided that the suspension by the speaker was invalid does not mean that they can just waltz into the assembly.

Firstly, as several legal experts have opined, the decision was only a declaration and not a mandamus or injunction, which are court orders that force a party to do or refrain from doing something or a certiorari, which quashes an earlier decision or action.

This means that the court’s decision is merely an opinion or interpretation of the law, not an enforcible call to action on the speaker.

Secondly, it must be noted that only two declarations sought by the applicants were granted, which were to declare the suspensions for Zambry and also his exco, null and void.

The most pointed omission was the application to declare that Zambry and his exco have the right to attend and take part in all assembly meetings.

That the court did not rule definitely on this implies that it either does not know the answer to this or that the seven still, in fact, cannot attend.

This is linked to the most solid argument so far for PR, that the tree assembly of March 3, has so far not been established as invalid.

During the course of the Federal Court hearing, both legal teams had argued as to whether the speaker’s decision could be considered as part of assembly proceedings, since it took place outside the assembly and concerned the acceptance of appointments to the exco, which also took place outside the assembly.

But under the rain tree, the 27 PR assemblymen unanimously adopted the suspension of the entire exco, thereby making it part of assembly proceedings. As speaker, Sivakumar cannot cast a vote.

So while the speaker’s suspension of the seven may not stand, who is to say the suspension by the assembly will not?

Legally speaking, the score now stands at 28-24 in PR’s favour. That’s for the record, even if it makes no difference to BN.

Meanwhile, Penang-based social pressure group Aliran has asked Chief Justice Tan Sri Zaki Azmi to order the Federal Court to review its decision concerning the suspension of Zambry and his six executive councillors.

“The CJ cannot remain unconcerned and unperturbed over what has taken place. He has to play his role as the guardian of the judiciary and salvage its reputation and restore people’s confidence in the rule of law,” Aliran president P. Ramakrishnan said in a statement.

“The decision of the Federal Court was termed as ‘a perverse judgment’ by none other than the much respected and highly regarded N.H. Chan, a former Court of Appeal judge. To the ordinary Malaysians it was a scandalous judgment that had discredited the five judges and tarnished the judiciary beyond repair,” he said.

Ramakrishan quoted Chan’s arguments that provisions within Article 72 of the Federal Constitution confer certain rights and immunity to safeguard the sanctity of the Legislative Assembly, which are spelt out very clearly.

“There is no ambiguity in what has been stated. Even laypersons have no difficulty in understanding these provisions,” he said.

Under Article 72, the privileges of Legislative Assembly are as follows:-

(1) The validity of any proceedings in the State Assembly of any State shall not be questioned in any court.

(2) No person shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him when taking part in proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of any State or of any committee thereof.

(3) No person shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything published by or under the authority of the Legislative Assembly of any State.

“These five judges are responsible if Malaysians continue to be cynical and skeptical about our judiciary. And we have to wonder how many brave and honest judges are left in the judiciary who will respect the Federal Constitution and remain true to their conscience in delivering justice,” Ramakrishnan said - The Malaysian Insider.

> ISA and Criminal Justice System

2009-04-19T03:26:00.000+08:00

Proponents of the Internal Security Act justify their viewpoint by reference to the need for law to enable the authorities to deal with threats to national security.

In principle, there is nothing objectionable with that position.

As I explain below, the Federal Constitution allows for the enacting of laws to that end.

The shape these laws take, however, depends on the nature of the threat to be addressed and the measures needed for that purpose.

These features inform any discussion concerning the relevance, if at all, of laws that allow for detention without trial under our constitutional framework.

There is no general power in Parliament to validly enact laws that contravene the fundamental liberties guaranteed under the Constitution.

That is why the Criminal Procedure Code has crystallised in the form it has, obliging the police to produce an arrested person before a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest.

If the police want to keep that person in custody without charging him or her for a further period of time to allow for further investigation, they have to convince a magistrate of the need for this extension.

Where the offence being investigated is punishable by death or with imprisonment of more than 14 years, the magistrate can order a further detention of up to seven days with it being open to the police to seek a further seven days thereafter.

Where the offence is punishable with imprisonment of less than 14 years, the maximum period of further detention is seven days, in stages of four and three days respectively.

The rationale is that the individual being investigated should be charged as soon as possible or be let go, the thinking being that if after that many days as is permitted the police have got no basis to charge, then continued detention is not justifiable.

The individual can be rearrested subsequently if more evidence surfaces and then charged, but unless and until that occurs, he is entitled to liberty.

If charged, the accused then has the benefit of all the safeguards of the criminal justice system – the most important of which is a trial.

That is what the guarantee against the denial of life and liberty “save in accordance with law” means.

There is however a constitutionally entrenched exception to this general rule.

Parliament can enact laws that circumvent the guarantees of liberty and associated guarantees to deal with the threat of action by a substantial body of persons that aims to destabilise the nation or undermine democracy.

The ISA was enacted using this exceptional power.

The “substantial body of persons” concerned was the communist insurgent army whose actions had led to concerns about the security of the nation and its way of life.

That is what made its enacting valid; it was a necessary means to disenfranchising the insurgents and preventing them from regrouping.

The criminal justice system might have impeded efforts to deal with the insurgents effectively.

We tend to overlook the obvious truth that solutions must be crafted to suit the problems they are intended to solve.

The ISA was designed to a particular end.

It was never intended to define the upper limits of executive action where national security was concerned.

It was never meant to be the yardstick.

There is no difficulty with invoking the criminal justice system to deal with individuals who are not affiliated to a larger body of persons, be they terrorists or the organisers of demonstrations or socio-political bloggers, no matter how convenient preventive detention may be.

This is not a matter of preference; it is the law.

If a crime has been committed, let the accused be tried.

If no crime has been committed, then there is no basis for circumventing constitutional freedoms unless the nation itself is threatened.

For those who fear the uncertain, an anti-terror legislation will allow us to deal with actual national security concerns effectively.

This law could be of a hybrid nature, applying general principles of criminal law for those acts of terrorism that do not fall within the constitutional exception but at the same time, allowing for exceptional steps to be taken where the terrorism concerned does.

The aim of these exceptional steps should be to deal with a clear and present danger and not to substitute criminal due process with executive whimsy.

Detention periods should as such be of very limited duration; if a crime has been committed, there should be a trial, and be made subject to strict judicial scrutiny.

This would encourage less sloppy policing and lead to greater security.

Do we really need the ISA?

With the range of more effective options available to us in this day and age, I do not think so - The Malay Mail.

> Judicial review to avert injustice to Perak

2009-04-17T02:12:00.000+08:00

The Federal Court appeared to have erred when it ruled on April 9 that the Election Commission (EC) could overrule the Perak speaker's acceptance of resignations in the state assembly.

The court's decision was in response to an urgent application by three assemblypersons who wanted a declaration whether it was the EC or the speaker who had the final say over their disputed resignations.

The speaker had earlier accepted their resignations based on their pre-signed letters to this effect, but they – Jamaluddin Radzi, Osman Jailu and Hee Yit Foong – claimed that their resignations were invalid.

The court's error appears to have sprung from a misinterpretation of the Perak State Constitution, Article XXXVI, Clause (5), which states: "A casual vacancy shall be filled within 60 days from the date on which it is established by the Election Commission that there is a vacancy."

The main purpose of this clause is actually to stipulate that (a) a vacancy must be filled when it arises and (b) it must be filled within 60 days.

The words “from the date on which it is established by the Election Commission that there is a vacancy” is actually intended more for the purpose of defining the period of 60 days rather than for empowering the EC to be the final arbiter as to whether a resignation in the legislature is valid or invalid. If it is the latter, it would have been so stated in unambiguous language.

When the court says, "The Election Commission is the rightful entity to establish if there was a casual vacancy in the Perak state legislature", it does not really address the issue. The crux is not whether the EC establishes a vacancy - for that is obvious as without a vacancy you can’t have a by-election - but how it establishes a vacancy.

A vacancy is established when there is a resignation. But who receives the resignation? Surely, it is the speaker. If there is an argument over a resignation, which authority should deal with it? Surely, it is also the speaker, failing which, it is the assembly.

EC cannot poke its nose

Can the EC poke its nose into the mechanism through which such matters are resolved in the legislature? Surely not, for that would amount to an intrusion into the autonomy of the legislature and a violation of the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of power.

Such privileges of the legislature are clearly guaranteed under the Federal Constitution, Article 71, clause 1, which states: "The validity of any proceeding in the Legislative Assembly of any State shall not be questioned in any court."

If even the judiciary cannot meddle into the affairs of the legislature, can the Election Commission do that?

So, when the speaker, who acts on behalf of the assembly, notifies the EC that an assemblyperson has resigned, the job of EC is pure and simple – declare that a vacancy exists and arrange for a by-election within 60 days.

It is the height of absurdity for the EC to brush the speaker’s notification aside, just because the assemblyperson concerned sends in a letter disputing the validity of his resignation, as happened in the case of Jamuluddin and Osman when EC declared their respective seats as not vacant on Feb 4, 2009.

The present Federal Court ruling allowing the EC to override the state legislature has not only undermined the autonomy and independence of all state assemblies, but will also open a dangerous gateway for EC to encroach into the sacrosanct preserve of the nation’s supreme body – Parliament.

This judgment being from the nation’s highest court, it will stand as precedent to guide future judgments in all courts on this issue and it therefore amounts to a distortion to our constitutions.

The immediate impact of this judgment on the current political impasse in Perak is serious, as it will unjustly and unconstitutionally alter the balance of power in favour of Barisan Nasional once the assembly is convened, which is expected to be imminent.

It is therefore imperative that an urgent application be made for a judicial review now to rectify this constitutional distortion to avert imminent injustice in the Perak assembly as well as to protect all legislatures including parliament from undue interference from the EC in the future - The Malaysian Insider.

> Anwar - What's up?

2009-04-17T01:50:00.001+08:00

One swallow does not a summer make. So Lim Guan Eng not getting the heads-up from Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim over the Penanti assemblyman's resignation today should not hint that Pakatan Rakyat has any internal differences or leaders who keep secrets from each other.

After all, the two parties and PAS agreed not to contest each other in Election 2008 to given the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition a run for the money despite half-hearted alliances made earlier in 1990 and 1999.

Against all odds, the now-christened Pakatan Rakyat scored a historic and unprecendented triumph by capturing four states and now 82 out of the 222 seats in the parliament. Five by-elections later and losing only one, Pakatan Rakyat is almost as firm a coalition as Barisan Nasional has been since 1974.

But the indecision over replacing Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin as Penang deputy chief minister I has taken a long time with all blame squarely in Anwar's court. Twice in a week, Lim has had to bear with stinging remarks about being Anwar's puppet when delaying the appointment with just a choice of two PKR assemblymen.

Despite having the prerogative to name his deputy without referring to anyone, Lim has taken pains to get Anwar to decide the person knowing full well any of the two assemblymen will not take the post without the PKR de facto leader's nod. The DAP leader hinted as much yesterday when asking Anwar to confirm if he will force a by-election in Penanti to decide the replacement.

PKR's decision today to put in Fairus' letter resigning from the Penanti state seat gave Lim the answer. But Lim was away in Singapore and apparently was not informed earlier of Fairus' resignation letter.

Sources said Lim is also fulminating as the letter is apparently dated March 19, two days before Fairus wrote a letter to let go of his deputy chief minister I and state executive councillor positions to fight off corruption allegations.

And as late as last week, Anwar had also assured everyone that Fairus was to remain as Penanti assemblyman until the next general elections.

But today's events show that Anwar has kept his cards close to his chest, even from his own partners and allies in the Pakatan Rakyat. His actions will leave a sour taste in the alliance that is seeking to topple the Barisan Nasional government. For PKR is the fulcrum that has brought two disparate parties together - the secular DAP and the Islamist PAS - in Pakatan Rakyat.

It did the same in 1999 when the trio formed Barisan Alternatif but DAP left after disagreements over PAS' Islamic state concept. Today, all three have agreed to stick to one line of 'Ketuanan Rakyat' but such politicking to name a senior government official could cause a crack to an otherwise smooth partnership.

In delaying to name a deputy chief minister, both Lim and Anwar have been seen to indecisive. In not informing his allies first that Fairus has tendered his resignation from the state seat, Anwar is seen as secretive and suspicious.

No partnership needs such secrets. Not one that has been pushing for transparency in all aspects of governance in Malaysia.

After all, the Pakatan Rakyat government in Penang has put competency, accountability and transparency or CAT as its cornerstone of administration.

It should also be Anwar and PKR's mantra if they want Pakatan Rakyat to continue getting stronger as the days go by - The Malaysian Insider.

> Judges elevated, history made

2009-04-16T00:47:00.001+08:00

History has been created in judicial circles - for the first time, the Bar Council was consulted in the elevation of judges to the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal.

Today's elevation saw the most senior member in the Court of Appeal Justice Gopal Sri Ram being elevated with two others to the Federal Court. Five others were promoted to the Court of Appeal, the country’s second-highest court.

Bar Council president Ragunath Kesavan expressed appreciation over having been consulted by the judiciary, especially Chief Justice (CJ) Zaki Azmi.

"We had two meetings with the CJ prior to today's appointment and we are glad that our suggestion and emphasis that the promotion based on the judges’ merit has been taken into serious consideration," he said.

"Following this, we (the Bar Council) are happy with the appointment of these judges to the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal."

Ragunath described it as a good start to judicial reform, following on from the recent passage of the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2009 (JAC). It provides for the Bar’s views to be considered.

In addition to Gopal, the judges elevated to the apex court from the Court of Appeal are former solicitor-general Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff and James Foong Cheng Yuen.

Gopal (right) is well known for delivering no-nonsense judgments as an appellate judge and also for his controversial comments in the Metramac case, although these were removed when the matter came up on appeal at the Federal Court.

The new Court of Appeal judges are Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus, Ramly Ali, Kang Hwee Gee, Jeffry Tan Kok Wha and Azhar @ Izhar Ma'ah.

Mohd Hishamudin is one of the most senior High Court judges. He delivered the landmark judgment that awarded former Internal Security Act detainee Abdul Malek Hussin RM2.5 million in damages for the detention.

Ramly and Kang specialise in hearing commercial litigation cases.

Zaki, during the elevation ceremony, said the appointments were made based on merit “to improve the respect given to the courts”.

He is confident that the judges will continue to meet the highest standard expected of the judiciary.

"Parties want to be fairly heard. Our trust is put in you to maintain public confidence," he said, noting that clients have high expectations of speedy and efficient disposal of cases.

"With the shortage of judges, even working at full speed, we have been unable to overtake the number of appeals filed."

‘Let’s work closely’

The chief justice called on the Malaysian Bar to work closely with the judiciary in expediting the disposal of cases.

He commended the Court of Appeal for having disposed of 987 cases up to April 9 this year, although this was largely due to applicants losing interest in proceeding with their appeals.

Zaki singled out Gopal, Justice Md Raus Sharif and Sulong Matjeraie for having helped to dispose of the cases.

"Of course efficiency plays an important role in speedy disposal of cases. With your appointment to the two levels of appellate courts, I hope efficiency will continue to improve and hence (lead to) speedier disposals of appeals."

In the past, lawyers had often been blamed for the huge backlogs of cases due to applications for adjournment of their cases.

Ragunath said the Bar Council will work closely with the judiciary. Over the past year, the frequency of meetings had been higher that the total over the last 10 years.

He said the Bar also wants to see Malaysia becoming a centre for arbitration but that this would require “a strong and independent judiciary and [...] support staff".

Ragunath said Zaki has been receptive to the council’s proposals to improve the judiciary by increasing the number of judges, finding better ways for judges to compile case notes with the use of computers, and increasing support staff like interpreters and clerks.

The judiciary, he added, could further look into the emerging area of Islamic finance, as there are many Islamic banks in the country - Malaysiakini.