A matter of choice

— Clive Kessler
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 17, 2013

Late last week, an interesting rejoinder was offered to my two-part retrospective account of GE13, Malaysia’s recent national elections “GE13: What happened? And what now?” (The Malaysian Insider, June 12 and 13).

A news and political commentary site that goes by the name “The Choice” published a critique of my analysis, and of my attitude and approach, entitled “An Artful Exercise in Pseudo-Intellectual Spin”).

It can be read at: http://www.thechoice.my/top-stories/64889-an-artful-exercise-in-pseudo-intellectual-spin#sthash.du76qoeY.uxfs and reading it is without doubt a worthwhile use of time and mind.

It is no “cheap shot”.

In its own way, it takes what I had to say very seriously. Somebody clearly thought my GE13 review worth the effort of a serious response.

And it is quite exquisitely written. By someone who evidently enjoys a wonderful “native-speaker” command of the English language — and the benefits of a far better education and apprenticeship in this kind of writing than I myself ever had.

It does not come from the pen of any amateur. Continue reading “A matter of choice”

Najib’s denial syndrome claiming that he only lost in the “war of perception” in 13GE will condemn his “national reconciliation” plan to failure and a recipe for the resounding defeat of UMNO/BN in the 14GE

The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s denial syndrome in his luncheon talk to Malaysian students in Indonesia at the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta yesterday that the Barisan Nasional had won the GE13 but it lost in the “war of perception” will condemn his “national reconciliation” plan to failure and a recipe for the resounding defeat of UMNO/BN in the 14GE.

Najib said Barisan had carried out many transformations in terms of delivery over the last four years and had validly won the GE 13, but it lost in the war of perception because of the slander and lies churned out by the Opposition through the alternative media, which many people believed in more than the truth provided by the mainstream media.

Najib said: “For the next general election, Barisan must equip itself well to fight the war of perception”.

Is Najib promising more Umno/BN lies and falsehoods on the cyberspace in the next five years, despite the abject failure of the 10,000 UMNO/BN cybertroopers trained in a series of nation-wide 1Malaysia Social Media Conventions involving hundreds of millions of ringgit of public funds in the run up to the 13GE?

I am no apologist for the alternative media, but is Najib prepared to establish an independent commission of inquiry to ascertain why the mainstream media have lost all credibility and authority ceding the ground to the alternative media?
Continue reading “Najib’s denial syndrome claiming that he only lost in the “war of perception” in 13GE will condemn his “national reconciliation” plan to failure and a recipe for the resounding defeat of UMNO/BN in the 14GE”

What’s wrong for a Malay to join DAP?

Malaysiakini | 9:58AM Jun 16, 2013

YOURSAY ‘Why is Umno afraid of Malays holding important posts in DAP? Or is it that only Umno can speak on behalf of the Malays?’

UiTM VC denies calling Lim’s aide ‘pengkhianat’

Ynwa: Only indolent people cannot accept the rise of Pakatan Rakyat and DAP. Without the opposition, we would all be paying more taxes as there would have been even more corruption and mismanagement.

We need to compete with the rest of the world and not among the various races in Malaysia, and this is what DAP and Lim Kit Siang’s new political secretary Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud are propagating. Keep it up Dyana, you are my heroine.

Jaguh: People like Dyana are those who have a brain, compared to those who condemn her. She has seen the ‘light’ and without coaxing/hesitation, has joined the fight for justice, equality and meritocracy. And by the way, she is not alone.

Anonymous_5fb: What’s wrong for a Malay to join DAP? Is there a law that forbids a Malay from joining DAP?
Continue reading “What’s wrong for a Malay to join DAP?”

Call on Najib to put his War on Crime as top Cabinet agenda on Wednesday to ensure the police are not totally helpless in the latest rampage by criminals, including new-fangled mass armed robbery of owners/customers of restaurants and eateries

The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared a “War against Crime” when he launched Pemandu’s United Against Crime Day at the KLCC Park in Kuala Lumpur the previous Saturday on 8th June, but it has turned into a nightmarish week for Malaysians with criminals going on a rampage including the new-fangled mass armed robbery of owners and customers of restaurants and eateries.

The headlines given by the BN-owned/controlled media, like “Criminals beware: Its War” and “All-out fight against crime” (Sunday Star 9.6.2013) turned into ashes when it was the criminals who declared war last weekend starting with a group of about 10 parang-wielding men in crash helmets who held up the owner and several customers who were having early-morning supper at Simmei Seafood and Steamboat restaurant at Taman Taynton View in Cheras and got away with RM20,000 in cash and valuables.

This new criminal phenomenon has been repeated in the past week with similar crimes of mass armed gang robberies of customers and owners at open restaurants and eateries in Kepong, Cheras, Kajang and Petaling Jaya, transmitting a new fear of crime throughout the country that it is not safe in Malaysia to be eating out at restaurants and eateries!

The following comment last night on my blog in response to my statement “Police should not be super-efficient to arrest peaceful Malaysians, including women and child while utterly helpless at worsening crime situation with new fear among Malaysians – not safe eating out in restaurants and public eateries” reflected both the severity and gravity of this scourge: Continue reading “Call on Najib to put his War on Crime as top Cabinet agenda on Wednesday to ensure the police are not totally helpless in the latest rampage by criminals, including new-fangled mass armed robbery of owners/customers of restaurants and eateries”

Analysis: Iran moderate’s poll triumph is mandate for change

By Marcus George
Reuters
DUBAI | Sat Jun 15, 2013 11:51pm IST

(Reuters) – Iranian voters weary of years of economic isolation and tightening political restrictions threw down a blunt demand for change on Saturday by handing a moderate cleric a landslide victory in a presidential election.

Having waited throughout Friday night and most of Saturday, millions of Iranians at home and abroad greeted Hassan Rohani’s victory with a mix of euphoria and relief that eight years under hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were finally over.

That Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator, trounced hardline “Principlist” rivals most loyal to the theocratic system and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Friday’s contest left many in the Islamic Republic in shock.

A second surprise was that the country’s first presidential poll since a disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad in 2009 appeared to be free and fair.

His victory goes some way to repairing the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, badly damaged four years ago when the disputed poll led to mass unrest. And it may herald an increase in political space for the sort of reformist groups which bore the brunt of the security crackdown that ended the disturbances. Continue reading “Analysis: Iran moderate’s poll triumph is mandate for change”

UiTM VC denies calling Lim’s aide ‘pengkhianat’

By Aidila Razak | 3:32PM Jun 14, 2013
Malaysiakini

UiTM vice-chancellor Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar has denied calling Lim Kit Siang’s new political secretary Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud a “traitor to her race and to UiTM” on Twitter.

Contacted by Malaysiakini this afternoon, Sahol (left) said it was beneath him to respond to such things.

“I don’t engage in that way. I am a senior professor. I don’t go down to that level. Even if Malaysiakini asks me questions I don’t respond,” he said.

Sahol said he could not have posted the contentious tweet as he was in a lecture with the chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa when it was posted using the @datosahol Twitter handle about 1.40pm today.
Continue reading “UiTM VC denies calling Lim’s aide ‘pengkhianat’”

Which is which, Datuk Mary Yap?

— BH Toh
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 15, 2013

JUNE 15 — One of the earliest statement made by Datuk Mary Yap upon her appintment as Deputy Education Minister was “I believe that one of my roles at the ministry will be to ensure the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 is well-implemented”

Today, she was reported saying “the shelving of the policy to teach Mathematics and Science in English is only temporary.”

What a puzzling surprise! I do not recall reading or hearing any such statement from PM, DPM, Education Minister or Ministry ever they made the decision to abolish PPSMI. I am very certain because I have been following this issue closely as my son was almost a direct casualty of this decision made in 2009. Just to be extra sure, I even spent the afternoon googling but found zero articles that reported so – nothing from either the online or printed medias.

To top it all, this “temporary” was also not specified anywhere in the Malaysian Education Blueprint!

So, which is which, Datuk Mary? Continue reading “Which is which, Datuk Mary Yap?”

Rohani Leads in Early Iran Results

By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Wall Street Journal
June 15, 2013.

BEIRUT—Iran’s preliminary election results show that the candidate backed by the opposition and reformist political factions, Hassan Rohani, is leading in polls by a landslide, giving a decisive victory to Iranians calling for change.

Mr. Rohani has 51.76% of the estimated 12 million counted votes, with the second runner up, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, scoring only 15.78%, according to official preliminary results announced by the Interior Ministry.

Mr. Rohani needs 50% plus one vote to win the presidency and if early results are an indication, the election might not go to a runoff as predicted.

Conservative candidates did poorly in vote counts so far, especially the candidates perceived to be the closest to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, ranked fourth and Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister, was fifth. Mohsen Rezaei, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, who made the economy his top campaign issue, ranked third. The votes for all three men are below 13% so far.

Iran analysts and media pundits say if Mr. Rohani wins with a large margin, it should serve as wake-up call for Mr. Khamenei and his circle of conservative advisers that their hard-line policies ranging from the standoff over the nuclear issue to the dire state of the economy have been rejected by the majority of the population. Continue reading “Rohani Leads in Early Iran Results”

Police should not be super-efficient to arrest peaceful Malaysians, including women and child while utterly helpless at worsening crime situation with new fear among Malaysians – not safe eating out in restaurants and public eateries

The police arrest of 16 participants of the peaceful Black 505 flashmob at the Sogo shopping centre vicinity in Kuala Lumpur, including women and one child, has raised many questions about the role of the police in ensuring public peace and order as well as upholding human rights which are not complimentary to the police force.

The first question is whether it is not possible for the police to ensure public peace and order as well as uphold human rights without having to arrest the 16 people, including women and a child – bearing in mind Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s boast of wanting to make Malaysia the world’s best democracy?

The second question is whether the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is now cracking the whip in the Barisan Nasional government as it is only yesterday that he urged the government to be “tough and not to give face” to the Opposition which he alleged to “continue to insult the nation’s democratic system”?

Last Saturday, Najib launched a highly-publicised war against crime, and the most powerful critique is not that it came four years too late, resulting in crime becoming the number one worry among Malaysians, exceeding their concern about bread-and-butter issues, but that it marked a new fear of crime among Malaysians.

This is the mass armed gang robbery of shop owners and customers at restaurants and eateries, starting with an open air steamboat restaurant in Cheras by a group of 10 persons armed with parangs and iron rods who robbed more than RM20,000 from the owner and patrons, which has been followed up by a spate of similar crimes of mass armed gang robberies at open restaurants in Kepong, Cheras, Kajang and Petaling Jaya in the past few nights.

Crime in Malaysia seems to have reached a level where criminals are not afraid of the police anymore. Continue reading “Police should not be super-efficient to arrest peaceful Malaysians, including women and child while utterly helpless at worsening crime situation with new fear among Malaysians – not safe eating out in restaurants and public eateries”

Time to lead, Mr PM

By THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
June 15, 2013

COMMENT June 15 – The time for feeling sorry, betrayed and wallowing in self-pity is over.

With a new mandate from the Malaysian electorate and a 44-seat advantage over Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in Parliament, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak should be energised, selling his vision of the future to Malaysians daily and getting on with the job of governing this diverse nation.

After all, isn’t this what he has craved for since taking over from Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in April 2009: his own mandate? Instead, six weeks after the polls, visitors to Putrajaya still paint a picture of a leadership still wondering why the sought-after two-thirds majority was not attained; of a leadership still talking about betrayal by Chinese voters and of a leadership mulling what was not achieved instead what has been gained.

Of course, it is wonderful to own a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Besides bragging rights, allowing for Constitutional amendments in the House, winning two-thirds of the 222 parliamentary seats would have made Najib invincible in Umno.

But let us face the reality here: This is not the Malaysia of the Mahathir era. This is a country where every election will be contested, where the Opposition is packed with solid and charismatic politicians, where a more educated electorate is demanding something more than the Barisan Nasional (BN) formula of developmental politics and where the monopoly of information and news no longer lies with the Government. Continue reading “Time to lead, Mr PM”

Najib likely to face leadership challenge

by Bridget Welsh
Malaysiakini
Jun 14, 2013

COMMENT One month after GE13, attention has turned to the Umno election. Rumours are already circulating about possible challengers to the ruling party’s No 1 post. While the Black 505 rallies continue to mobilise protest against the May 5 general election that many recognise as seriously flawed, the dominant political party is myopically focused on its party polls and who will lead the party after October.

The flurry of activity in recent weeks – from the call to make Umno more inclusive ethnically to the pleas for the return of the 2,000 delegates as electors (rather than 146,500 members) are all part of the now intensifying internal Umno political jockeying.

All eyes are on the contest for the top leadership position, especially given that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak performed poorer electorally compared to his predecessor and did not fully deliver on his promise of winning back Selangor and a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

More and more calls are being made to keep the two top positions uncontested. In Umno, however, the real politics is happening behind the scenes. The grassroots are mobilising for the first stage of the party electoral process – the divisional polls.

Despite the public rhetoric, current conditions point to a competitive contest, in which if conditions do not radically change, Najib will likely face a credible and substantive challenge to his position. Continue reading “Najib likely to face leadership challenge”

Lost for the last half century: Will it be the same for the next five years?

— Ahmad Mustapha Hassan
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 13, 2013

JUNE 13 — We left a path that we had created to travel forth to achieve what we had desired when this blessed motherland of ours was freed from the colonial yoke in1957. Now in order for us presently to go forward, we need to reflect whether we had moved in the right direction or had we wandered away from what our founding fathers wanted to achieve.

As the Malay proverb goes “Sesat di hujung jalan, balek ka pangkal jalan”, meaning that if we have lost our way, then we just have to go back to where we started the journey.

But of course, we have to know whether we have indeed lost our way. We had been travelling for over half a century and we have to ascertain whether we have achieved anything at all.

In the first place, why did we clamour for independence or did we? A certain section of the people did organise themselves for that struggle but they were crippled by the British. As for the rest, they were simply caught up in the wave of nationalism that was engulfing all the countries still under colonial rule, after the Pacific war. Continue reading “Lost for the last half century: Will it be the same for the next five years?”

MACC should explain why no disciplinary action taken against Mohd Nadzri when Teoh Beng Hock RCI Report made adverse comments about Nadzri’s role in Beng Hock’s mysterious death

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has urged the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) to remove Mohd Nadzri Ibrahim, its sole investigator, from investigating death-in-custody cases.

This is MACC’s response to the query by two DAP MPs, Zairil Khir Johari (Bukit Bendera) and Steven Sim Chee Keong (Bukit Mertajam) whether EAIC’s integrity would be in doubt if Mohd Nadzri was the MACC officer who was part of the MACC probe causing the mysterious death of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock at Selangor MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009.

A MACC statement issued late last night said:

“SPRM does not want any SPRM officers linked to any controversies, whether it involves SPRM itself or the EAIC.

“In this matter, SPRM wishes to stress that Mohd Nadzri Ibrahim, an SPRM officer who was seconded to the EAIC since more than a year ago, is an officer who has always conducted his duties professionally.

“Like SPRM, SPRM is confident that the EAIC, which is an independent commission, would also want to ensure justice for all parties involved in the issue of deaths in custody.”

This is meaningless bureaucratic gobbledygook designed to confuse rather than to illuminate the public, just because the government agency concerned has got embarrassing things to hide from the people.
Continue reading “MACC should explain why no disciplinary action taken against Mohd Nadzri when Teoh Beng Hock RCI Report made adverse comments about Nadzri’s role in Beng Hock’s mysterious death”

Najib should get tough with racists like Mahathir and Utusan Malaysia seeking to destroy the message of peace and moderation with their ceaseless and reckless racist lies and falsehoods

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has urged the government to no longer be soft towards the opposition “who continue to insult the nation’s democratic system”, declaring “We need to be a bit tough, and not give them face”.

If the time has come for the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to be tough and to stop “giving face”, it is to racists like Mahathir and Utusan Malaysia who have been seeking to destroy the message of peace and moderation with their ceaseless and reckless racist lies and falsehoods.

New Straits Times today carried a page headline: “Najib tells tour bikers to relay moderation message”, where the Prime Minister expressed hope that the “1Malaysia World Endurance Ride 2013” high-powered motor-cycle tour team would spread the message of peace and moderation to the world on behalf of Malaysia.

The question that immediately begs answer is why for the past 40 days since the May 5 general elections results, Najib had allowed racists like Mahathir and Utusan Malaysia both immunity and impunity to escalate their racist campaign of lies and falsehoods to engender racial distrust, hatred and conflict, completely against Najib’s signature policy of 1Malaysia as well as over five decades of Malaysian nation-building? Continue reading “Najib should get tough with racists like Mahathir and Utusan Malaysia seeking to destroy the message of peace and moderation with their ceaseless and reckless racist lies and falsehoods”

We need our police to be human again

— May Chee
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 13, 2013

JUNE 13 — Ours is supposed to be the time of humanism, yet many have died in custody. Some went for supper, their last. They never made it home. God must have cried an ocean when He saw the police stapling Dharmendran’s ears. How could one creation of His torture another, just as precious in His eyes?

Would anyone dare to surrender himself to the police now, for whatever reason? Would anyone dare to walk into a police station now, for whatever reason? I’d think twice!

It isn’t bad enough that we cannot trust them to arrest the alarming crime rate in the nation. Precious lives are now lost in their hands. That, too, after being tortured! How can this be? What kind of people are being enlisted into the PDRM? What does it take to be a policeman, here in Malaysia? Continue reading “We need our police to be human again”

GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 2)

— Clive Kessler
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 13, 2013

JUNE 13 — The first part of this commentary analysed the paradoxical outcome of GE13. It traced how the election of a reduced Barisan Nasional (BN) presence and increased opposition numbers in Parliament has amplified, not diminished, Umno’s power — here meaning specifically its power within the nation’s government and over the formation of national policy. It then examined the nature of the election campaign that yielded this paradoxical outcome.

A rejection of Perkasa?

GE13 was a less than explicit, and often inchoate, engagement, or contestation, between two rival views of the Malaysian nation, of what it is and where it was, or might be, headed.

On the one side, Umno/BN, and especially in its appeals to its own power base in the core Malay electorate, maintained incessantly that the country is and has always been tanah Melayu — Malay land and the land of the Malays — and that the country’s defining Malay identity would now have to be upheld by a reaffirmation and, if necessary, even an expansion beyond previously existing understandings of what that characterisation as tanah Melayu might mean.

On the other side, the Pakatan Rakyat coalition stuck to the terms of the agreement binding together its three partners. In a less than fully worked-out way they insisted that Malaysia was, or must become, a land of and for all Malaysians, and was now ready to do so. Or at least to make a common start on that journey — that quest for a shared future based upon a new national understanding and, under the existing Constitution, a new principled foundation.

That was the choice that was placed on offer to the voters. If it was the campaign that was waged by Umno/BN that won the day, can it be said that the overall election result represented a rejection of Perkasa by the nation, especially the Malay electorate?

Hardly. That is simply not so.

Yes, two Perkasa men who received Umno/BN backing were defeated. But 88 Umno candidates won. And that is more important, that is what matters.

They won on the “Malays in danger, Islam under threat” campaign waged in the Malay media that, as its main election effort, Umno directed at the nation’s Malay voters.

The Perkasa position is in effect, as some put it, “Malays on top, now and forever. That is Malaysia, love it or leave it!”

It is a hard, uncompromising position. But that, too, if in slightly more polite and modulated terms, was the essence of the Umno campaign that was projected daily, with ever increasing determination and with increasingly disquieting effect, by Utusan and its media consociates to the ever more fearful Malay voters in the rural heartlands.

Two outright, upfront card-carrying Perkasa candidates lost, even though they enjoyed Umno support.

But Umno ran, and won handsomely upon, a campaign which can simply be described as “Perkasa Mild”. A Perkasa-type campaign detached from the perhaps dubious or extreme reputation of Perkasa itself. A Perkasa-line not, like the original, angry but one for the somewhat more polite and genteel, and for those gripped by a fearful, and artfully cultivated, collective cultural and political anxiety.

A Perkasa line, it might perhaps be said, for those who might hesitate, not out of fear but even out of basic decency and in good conscience, to be publicly identified with Perkasa.

On the contrary. Perkasa, they might well feel, may be extremists. But Umno is mainstream. And if that is what Umno is saying, if that is the campaign that it is running, well, that line and that campaign, being Umno’s, cannot be extreme. That, for some, was the psychology of supporting “Perkasa Mild”. Continue reading “GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 2)”

Zahid should take leave as Home Minister until two cases causing major embarrassment to the BN government had been settled

Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi should go on leave as Home Minister until two cases causing major embarrassment to the Barisan Nasional government had been settled.

Firstly, the case where Zahid was accused of causing hurt to Amir Abdullah Bazli in January 2006.

I agree with the former Kuala Lumpur CID director Mat Zain Ismail who said in a recent Open Letter that the fact that the Appeal Court had in a civil action unanimously ordered Zahid to answer the charges by Amir Abdullah means that Amir’s accusation is solid, raising the question why the police had failed to take action against Zahid for his offence of hurting Amir.

Mat Zain had rightly said in his Open Letter:

“PDRM will not be able to convince the people that it is acting fairly and adhering to the law if it fails to haul Zahid to court, especially when its former chief (former IGP Tan Sri Rahim Noor) was charged for the same offence.

“In fact, PDRM will lose moral ground as it cannot justify taking action against any lawbreaker, if it cannot even take action against its own Minister who has been judged a criminal by the courts.”

Continue reading “Zahid should take leave as Home Minister until two cases causing major embarrassment to the BN government had been settled”

GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 1)

By Clive Kessler | JUNE 12, 2013
The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 12 ― In a brief commentary elsewhere (“Malaysia’s election result — no surprise to the knowledgeable,” Asian Currents, June 2013), I have noted one paradoxical but hugely important consequence of Malaysia’s recent national elections held on 5 May.

A paradox: anomalous domination

The remarkable, perhaps “counter-intuitive”, fact is that, while the election result itself ― namely, a fairly close but nonetheless comfortable victory of the Umno-centred Barisan Nasional side over the Pakatan Rakyat opposition ― came as no great surprise, that unremarkable result nonetheless had one quite surprising, even paradoxical, consequence.

From GE13 an electorally weakened Umno emerged politically even more dominant than it had been before. While still embattled in the broader political arena, Umno was delivered a dominant position within the parliament, ruling coalition and government.

By bestowing it with that now dominant parliamentary position, GE13 had delivered into Umno’s hands an ascendancy over the governing BN coalition, government policy, Parliament’s agenda and parliamentary process, and thereby over national political life ― over the nation’s affairs and direction ― of a quite unprecedented and perhaps irresistible kind.
Continue reading “GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 1)”

12 Questions about the biggest corporate catastrophe in nation’s 56-year history – the RM2.34 billion UEM-Renong deal in 1997 – which still cry out for answer after 16 years

The mega-billion-ringgit suit filed by Umno-created tycoon Tan Sri Halim Saad against the government three days before the 13GE Nomination Day on April 20, 2013 to demand full settlement of an over RM2 billion deal that forced him to relinquish his controlling stake in Renong Bhd more than a decade ago has re-opened questions about the nations’ biggest corporate catastrophe in the nation’s 56-year history.

This was the RM2.34 billion UEM-Renong deal in 1997 which precipitated the biggest crash in the Kuala Lumpur stockmarket in the 1997 financial crisis, causing the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index to fall by 19.58 per cent, from 667.29 to 536.62 points in three days, wiping out RM70 billion of the investors’ funds in the stock exchange.

In his mega-billion-ringgit suit, Halim, once the sole corporate nominee of the ruling Umno, was offered RM1.3 billion in cash and property as well as control of a private waste management company, roughly valued at RM2 billion, in exchange for his disposal of Renong in the 2001 agreement.

But Halim had since only received RM165 million despite giving up his business empire and will be demanding the remainder.

The Edge Malaysia reported that Halim attempted to pressure the government into full settlement, but in 2010, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad told him the agreement would not be honoured.

The Edge Malaysia article wrote: “Halim held numerous meetings with Dr Mahathir — even after the latter quit as premier in November 2003 — and Nor Mohamed to push for a full settlement but he was repeatedly fobbed off.
Continue reading “12 Questions about the biggest corporate catastrophe in nation’s 56-year history – the RM2.34 billion UEM-Renong deal in 1997 – which still cry out for answer after 16 years”

What Malaysians want is not an empty “declaration of war against crime”, the most “political” IGP and most “political” Home Minister, but a new and serious culture of “zero tolerance to crime” at all levels of government

The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared a war on crime three days ago, late by four years and a resounding vindication of the verdict of the 13GE on May 5 expressing grave voter dissatisfaction and displeasure at the failure of the four-year Najib premiership to deal with the problem of crime and the fear of crime.

It is no use the Barisan Nasional and police leadership claiming that the crime rate has been coming down under the Government Transformation Programme when over the past four years the spectre of the fear of crime have been hounding and haunting Malaysians.

There is no public confidence in the police statistics about crime reduction so long as Malaysians avoid lodging police reports even though they are victims of crime because of the hassle as well as the futility of lodging police reports.

As a result, contrary of police statistics, Malaysians are convinced that the crime rate and the fear of crime have been increasing by leaps and bounds in the past few years.

Najib’s declaration of war against crime suffered bodily blows by recent blatant and flagrant incidence of crime. Continue reading “What Malaysians want is not an empty “declaration of war against crime”, the most “political” IGP and most “political” Home Minister, but a new and serious culture of “zero tolerance to crime” at all levels of government”