Day: October 24, 2013

At the Pakatan Rakyat media conference in Sungai Limau Dalam close to midnight on Monday after the announcement of Mohd Azam Samat as the PAS and Pakatan Rakyat candidate for the Sungai Limau by-election, I urged all contending parties and candidates to make the by-election a model of clean, honest and decent politics by ensuring that there is no campaign of lies and falsehoods, character-assassination or the corruption of money politics.

I must express my great disappointment and disapproval that my call for clean, honest and decent by-election campaign in Sungai Limau had been violated on the very first day of the by-election campaign yesterday.

As reported today by Malaysiakini reporter Susan Loone in “UMNO bids to undermine PAS’ Islamic credentials”, in small, targeted ceramah groups last night, UMNO and Barisan Nasional campaigners sought to win the hearts of the 93 per cent Malay Muslim voters in Sg Limau by invoking the dastardly lie that the DAP plans to form a Christian State in Malaysia. Continue reading “Call on UMNO to end its campaign of lies and falsehoods in Sg Limau by-election”

PERTANYAAN DEWAN RAKYAT

TUAN LIM KIT SIANG minta PERDANA MENTERI menyatakan berapakah jumlah nilai ekuiti yang diperuntukkan untuk Bumiputera setakat hari ini, nilai yang masih tinggal dalam tangan Bumiputera, dan bagaimana program sedemikian boleh membantu rakyat Bumiputera biasa.

JAWAPAN: YB SENATOR DATO’ SRI ABDUL WAHID OMAR. MENTERI DI JABATAN PERDANA MENTERI

Tuan Yang di-Pertua,

Untuk makluman Ahli Yang Berhormat, Kerajaan telah menggunakan beberapa pendekatan untuk meningkatkan pemilikan ekuiti Bumiputera. Antara lain, termasuk peruntukan saham khas kepada Bumiputera bagi syarikat yang akan disenaraikan di Bursa Malaysia, lanya dilaksanakan oleh Kementerian Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri (MITI). Ringkasan penyertaan Bumiputera dalam pasaran saham melalui peruntukan saham khas ini adalah seperti dalam jadual di bawah:

TAHUN	JUMLAH TAWARAN SAHAM KHAS (UNIT)	NILAI (RM)	TAWARAN KESELURUHAN IPO (UNIT)	PERATUSAN TAWARAN SAHAM KHAS BUMIPUTERA (%)
2013*	1,204,717,700	2,324,592,915	17,146,814,329	7.0
2012	1,552,878,400	5,127,533,410	7,537,722,900	20.6
2011	826,612,300	1,913,479,398	5,640,376,813	14.7
2010	1,505,157,900	5,918,993,850	7,892,390,280	19.1

*sehingga September 2013

Di samping itu, terdapat juga Skim Amanah Saham yang dilaksanakan oleh Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) yang telah berjaya meningkatkan pegangan ekuiti Bumiputera dalam pasaran modal. Sehingga 31 Disember 2012, pegangan pelaburan Bumiputera di bawah Skim Amanah Bumiputera bernilai RM110.3 bilion. PNB turut menawarkan unit pelaburan kepada rakyat Malaysia melalui beberapa skim seperti Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 (ASW2020), Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) dan Iain-lain.
Continue reading “Berapakan jumlah nilai ekuiti yang diperuntukkan untuk Bumiputera, nilai yang masih dalam pegangan dan bagaimana boleh membantu rakyat Bumiputera biasa?”

by Elizabeth Zachariah
The Malaysian Insider
October 24, 2013

Malaysia will be a better place if politicians “stop politicising religion and academic matters” and leave both issues to the relevant parties to decide, says ex-Perlis mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin.

“People are confused. If they (politicians) had, from the beginning, followed this principle, then Malaysia will not be in this position,” he told The Malaysian Insider, referring to the chorus of criticism the country has been receiving following the Allah decision.

Last week, a three-man Court of Appeal bench unanimously overturned the 2009 Kuala Lumpur High Court ruling that allowed the Catholic Church to use the word “Allah” in its weekly publication, Herald.

Muslim scholars and clerics worldwide have criticised the ban, pointing out that the word predates Islam and was a word that meant God in Arabic.

Asri, a 42-year-old Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) associate professor and known to supporters as the “voice of reason” and to critics as a “promoter of liberalism”, is one of those who had condemned the ban on Allah for non-Muslims.

He had previously said that as long as the word Allah was used to refer to “the Most Supreme Being”, the non-Muslims could use the word.

“So actually it is a non-issue. Muslims believe in one God. So how can we say your God is different from mine?” he had said before.

In an interview with The Malaysian Insider recently, Asri said it is ridiculous if they say the word is exclusive to Muslims.

“Civilisations that practised tolerance prospered and stayed as a society much longer than those that did not.” Continue reading “Asri, the voice of reason, urges politicians to steer clear of religion”

By Kee Thuan Chye
Yahoo! News
24.10.2013

Hahahaha! So the story now is that some policemen lost their guns while they were taking a pee, izzit? And this was revealed in Parliament by the guy who has just been elected Umno vice-president!

Did the guns drop into the toilet bowl and got flushed down?

Well, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi did not provide the gory details when he was giving his written answer in Parliament to a question raised by Opposition MP Tian Chua about the Auditor-General’s having reported that the police lost 44 loaded firearms between 2010 and 2012.

However, Zahid did also reveal that some guns were lost when cops got mugged. Woh! Cops getting mugged? Imagine that! If cops can get mugged, what hope is there for ordinary people?

Cops are crime-busters. They are supposed to apprehend muggers. How do they get mugged instead? Are they not fit to be cops? How did they get hired in the first place? Is that why crime is on the rise? Continue reading “Police Reputation Going Down the Toilet?”

Stuart Grudgings
Malaysiakini/Reuters
Oct 23, 2013

Malaysia’s self-styled image as a global leader of moderate Islam has been undermined by a court ruling that only Muslims can use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God, with a growing number of Muslim scholars and commentators condemning the decision.

A Malaysian court ruled last week that the word was “not an integral part of the faith in Christianity”, overturning a previous ruling that allowed a Malay-language Roman Catholic newspaper to use the word.

Since then, confusion has reigned over the interpretation of the ruling, with government ministers, lawyers and Muslim authorities giving widely diverging views on its scope.

Critics of the decision have said it casts a chill on religious rights in Muslim-majority Malaysia, which has substantial minorities of ethnic Chinese and Indians.

Commentators in some countries that practice Islam more strictly than Malaysia have condemned the ruling, arguing that the word ‘Allah’ has been used by different faiths for centuries. Continue reading “‘Allah’ curbs hurting M’sia’s moderate Muslim image”