Malaysians feeling safer?

By John Sebastian
November 18, 2010
Malaysian Insider

NOV 18 — Another survey has appeared to say that people are now feeling safer and that fear of becoming victims of crime has dropped slightly for the December 2009 to May 2010 period.

Right. It doesn’t take into account the four burglary cases in a guarded cul-de-sac in Bandar Sri Damansara earlier this week.

It doesn’t take into account the brazen day-light robberies and burglaries in Kota Damansara these past few months.

And that it took the police more than a few hours to turn up just to brush the crime scene for finger prints.
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Royalty Extraordinaire

by Dr. Lim Teck Ghee
CPI Asia

With their front page headlines highlighting developments on the massive Sime loss, readers of the country’s two main English papers may not have noticed the news report of the speech by Raja Zarith Sofiah Sultan Idris Shah, the consort of the Sultan of Johor, which was buried in the inner pages.

The occasion of the speech was a conference on ‘Voices of Peace, Conscience and Reason’ held on Nov 16 in Kuala Lumpur. The prime mover of the meeting in which I participated as a panelist was PCORE, a group that is representative of Malaysians who embrace and share the notion of peace as the way forward to achieve unity and integration.

Credit must go to the PCORE leadership for bringing together a diverse mix of young and older people from different backgrounds to voice their frank concerns on current issues and developments in the country.
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Beng Hock support group seeks 100,000 signatures

by Aidila Razak
Malaysiakini
Nov 18, 10

The Malaysians for Beng Hock support group, set up following the death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock last year, is seeking 100,000 signatures in the next three months to push for the setting-up of a royal commission.

This is because they believe that the inquest, for which final submissions will be made on Dec 10, has not managed to answer questions surrounding the 30-year-old’s mysterious death.

To date, more than 5,000 signatures have been collected after drives at two events held in the past month, said organiser Ng Yap Hwa. Continue reading “Beng Hock support group seeks 100,000 signatures”

Ex-servicemen launch broadside at Zahid Hamidi

By Joseph Sipalan
Nov 18, 10

When Admiral (rtd) K Thanabalasingam ascended to the position of the nation’s first ever local chief of Navy,it would have never crossed his mind that his loyalty to the country would be questioned.

Having spearheaded the navy’s mission to protect Malaysia from numerous threats that arose in the 1960s-1970s period, the former naval chief spoke in disbelief at Defence Minister Zahid Hamid’s recent statement that patriotism among non-Malays was “not strong enough” for being reluctant to sign up with the Armed Forces.

“I don’t understand how such a statement came about… I’ve been through a lot, and I don’t care who says it, it hurts me. I am a Malaysian born and bred, and I intend to die here,” Thanabalasingam (left) said when contacted by Malaysiakini.
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The tragic case of a lunch meal: Revisiting corporal punishment in schools

By Shazeera Ahmad Zawawi (loyarburok.com)
November 18, 2010

NOV 18 — On November 5, a mother complained to the Sarawak Education Department that her son was caned by his teacher for bringing pork to school. As you notice (of which I hope you do), I did not mention the religious or ethnic background of the boy at all. There are two reasons why I left out those layers of fact.

First, I felt sick with how recently our statesmen, bureaucrats or politicians are missing the plot to this sad incident. The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, for example, called for an investigation of the boy’s religious status before conclusions can be drawn on why he was caned. Our independent parliamentarian, Zulkifli Nordin, utilised this issue against PAS and got into an unnecessary argument with Dr Zulkefly Ahmad, another parliamentarian from the Islamic party. Apparently, the righteous fight and egoistical call to defend Islam trumps a poor child’s “wrong” selection of lunch meal.
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