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Lingam tape – Anwar’s explosive video clip on Judiciary Compromised

Anwar Ibrahim has produced an explosive video clip on Judiciary Compromised which has set off reverberations in the Palace of Justice, the corridors of power, offices and homes in the country as well as internationally.

The time for reckoning for the restoration of a truly independent judiciary and a just rule of law cannot be put off any longer.

Malaysiakini has carried the transcript of the conversation between lawyer V.K. Lingam with Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz sometime in 2002, as recorded in the videoclip, viz:

“The CJ said he is relative to now Agong, so he wants to stay on to 68, so, Tengku Adnan, I told Tengku Adnan, yesterday I had a meeting with him.

He said PM is already very angry with him, he said no problem he is going to make you acting err.. confirm your position as PCA, working very hard then working very hard to get Tan Sri Mokhtar as CJM.

Ah, we just keep it confidential. I am working very hard on it. Then there is a letter, according to Tengku, I am going to see him tomorrow, there is a letter sent to CJ, I mean Tan Sri Dzaiddin, that Datuk Heliliah, Datuk Ramli, Datuk Ramli and Datuk Ma’roop be made judges, and he rejected Dr Andrew Chui and apa itu Zainuddin Ismail lah. Because Zainuddin Ismail condemned your appointment and Tan Sri Mokhtar’s appointment.

And then you also, you seems to wrote a letter for the remaining five be confirmed as judges. As per our memo I discuss with Tun Eusoff Chin and we sent the same memo to PM.

I just want to get a copy letter that that has been done. Continue reading “Lingam tape – Anwar’s explosive video clip on Judiciary Compromised”

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2nd Kong Choy scandal – suspend RM450-RM500 million e-Kesihatan middlemen rent-seeking scam

The week-long controversy over the e-kesihatan scheme has created more doubts and confusion, with the public presented with a plethora of conflicting accounts while the Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy emerged from the controversy in a very sorry and worst possible light.

From the present RM10 payment for renewal of public service vehicle (PSV), goods driving licence (GDL) and conductor licence (KON) holders, the Road Transport Department is to introduce a new mandatory health screening scheme beginning on Oct. 1 which would cost RM80 a year for a million commercial drivers.

In the latest revised figures in the Sun today, Datuk Nordin Yahaya, the executive director of Supremme Systems Sdn. Bhd, the concessionaire awarded the monopoly for this scheme, claims that of the RM80, the company gets RM8 and Pos Malaysia RM2, while RM10 is for operating costs, RM35 go to the doctors and RM25 to laboratories.

Only three days earlier on Sunday, Nordin had given different breakdowns — i.e. doctors paid between RM35 and RM45, laboratories between RM25 and RM35, Post Malaysia RM2 and Supreme Systems Sdn. Bhd between RM8 and RM10.

These figures have been disputed by the Koperasi Doktor Malaysia Bhd chairman Dr. J. S. Deo who said that the laboratory tests for the e-Kesihatan screening cost less than RM7, and not between RM25 and RM35 as claimed by Nordin earlier. Continue reading “2nd Kong Choy scandal – suspend RM450-RM500 million e-Kesihatan middlemen rent-seeking scam”

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Campus elections – Mustapha should announce “hands-off” policy and scrap secret mission of VCs/DVCs

On Monday, the Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapha Mohamed said each public university will decide on the suitable rules and requirements for the upcoming student elections.

He said: “We are open to ideas and suggestions but there are all kinds of proposals so the universities themselves should be the ones looking into them.”

I call on Mustapha to take the first bold step to give meaning and substance to the National Higher Education Action Plan 2007-2010 to start the long journey to make Malaysia a world leader in higher education by sending a clear message to all Vice Chancellors to hold free and fair campus elections in public universities and to respect and accept the election results.

Mustapha should publicly declare that as Higher Education Minister, he would not be partisan and would not take sides with any candidate or group of candidates contesting in the campus polls, and that he would fully accept the verdict of the campus elections regardless of who wins or loses, so long as the campus elections are held in a free and fair manner.

He should announce a “hands-off” policy to ensure a vibrant, critical and creative student campus and scrap the secret agenda of Vice Chancellors and deputies to ensure victory of the compliant “pro-establishment” student groups.

In this manner, university students would be given a good grounding and experience in the holding of an honest, free and fair elections and not be exposed instead in their first voting experience to all the shenanigans, manipulation and abuses of of rigged polls.

One important reason why Malaysian public universities had been on a downward plunge as centres of academic excellence is because it has been drummed into the Vice Chancellors and their deputies that it is more important for their career future that they deliver campus elections to pro-establishment student groups rather than ensuring that the universities achieve international recognition as world-class universities as receiving top rankings in world tables, such as the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University annual listing of top world universities.

This is why it is so shocking to read the statement by the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) vice chancellor Nik Mustapha R. Abdullah justifying the Mat Rempit arrogance and highhandedness of the UPM campus security in seizing the laptop, mobile phone, MP3 player and 10 other items valued at RM6,000 from first-year UPM timber technology student Yee Yang Yang during a spot check of his hostel room on Friday night and questioning him about his involvement in student politics. Continue reading “Campus elections – Mustapha should announce “hands-off” policy and scrap secret mission of VCs/DVCs”

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Belgium in Tatters: Call the UN, quick!

By Farish A. Noor

It seems that the state of Belgium has been without a government for more than a hundred days now; as the Belgians seem unable to decide on their future and settle upon a collective identity that can be shared by all. Divided between the more prosperous Flemish north and the less well-to-do French-speaking Walloon south, the country seems almost a textbook case of communitarianism run rampant and sectarian divisions tearing apart the nation-state. On both sides of the ethnic-cultural-linguistic fence right-wing ethno-nationalist politicians take to the soapbox to bemoan the ills of the country and to lay the blame at the feet of their neighbours next door.

As an aside, the minorities of Belgium must be relieved that for once the stereotype of the evil nefarious foreigner is not being brought to the fore as the root of all that is wrong in the country. No, here the problem does not seem to be the dreaded Turk, Arab or Asian around the corner, but rather those familiar but different Walloons and Flemish down the road!

Now if Belgium was located elsewhere on the map, we would probably have heard calls for UN intervention by this point. For as we all know by now sectarian divisions anywhere else — be it in Africa, Asia or Latin America often enough warrants some form of international military intervention, ostensibly to save the natives from themselves. But after all, is this not a case of a nation-building programme falling to pieces before our very eyes,
with communal sentiments and parochial loyalties to race and culture being fanned in the public domain? Yet perhaps one of the most ironic twists to the story of Belgium today is the fact that the divisive politics we see in the country at the moment was also a rather noxious export that was taken as far as Africa by the Belgium government in the past.

Divisive politics should not be something alien to the Belgians by now, for Belgium’s colonial policies abroad have always been predicated on the logic of divide and rule anyway. The most noteworthy example here is the case of Rwanda and Burundi, of course: Two African nations that were first annexed by Germany and then taken over by Belgium in 1916. Continue reading “Belgium in Tatters: Call the UN, quick!”