Day: January 17, 2014

Malaysiakini | 4:40PM Jan 16, 2014

Despite sitting on the hot seat as Penang’s chief minister since 2008, Lim Guan Eng said, “Life is meant to be fun.”

Lim said the most important thing for an artist is to have its critics and the public to participate in his or her art and “have fun”.

“That is what makes art meaningful,” he said at a press conference to support Lithunian artist Ernest Zachaveric’s solo show ‘Art is Rubbish/Rubbish is Art’ tomorrow.

“Even in serious works, the basic essence is to have fun. So don’t take life so seriously. We can take a different view. Life is meant to be fun,” Lim said, obviously in a good mood.
Continue reading “Life is meant to be fun, says Guan Eng”

The allegation by former MCA President and former Transport Minister, Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik that he was “wrongly accused” and charged of corruption in the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal even before the Attorney-General’s Chambers had obtained sufficient evidence reinforces my call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to get to the bottom of the RM12.5 billion “mother of all scandals”.

In an interview yesterday, Ling, who was acquitted last October, of all charges of corruption in connection with the PKFZ scandal, revealed that he is writing a book about his PKFZ “trials and tribulations” and had decided on the title of the book: “How Low Can You Go”.

Ling said that due to his bad experience, his confidence in the country’s judicial system was shaken.

Ling sounds very self-serving and even hypocritical as he must bear full responsibility for the state of the system of justice in Malaysia today, as he was part of the Mahathir government which precipitated the judicial crisis in 1988 when the then Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and two Supreme Court judges, Tan Sri Wan Suleiman Pawanteh and Datuk George Seah were arbitrarily and unconstitutionally sacked. Malaysia has never yet recovered from that judicial crisis 26 years ago. Continue reading “Liong Sik’s allegation reinforces my call for RCI to get to the bottom of the RM12.5 billion “mother of all scandals””

NEWS ANALYSIS BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
January 16, 2014

Wow. The Umno members who rallied and tried to ring a fence round Datuk Seri Najib Razak to save him from further public ridicule over his ‘kangkung’ remarks, are incensed.

So incensed that it took a few days for them to feel “offended” enough to vent their anger against Machang Lubuk assemblyman Lee Khai Loon for allegedly making fun of their party president.

Everything about Umno these days is stage-managed and contrived. Even their anger.

On Sunday, Najib said that the government was never praised when the prices of goods went down. As an example, he noted that the price of kangkung had dropped. His speech at an event was uploaded onto YouTube and drew stinging criticism from netizens, with many pointing out the silliness of the PM using the cost of a vegetable which grew wildly by the road side as an example of government intervention.

For more than four days, Najib has been lampooned by a lot of Malaysians. Privately, even his partymen have been speaking about the PM’s growing ability to say the wrong things. To be fair, the kangkung line was a throwaway line that would have been glossed over under normal circumstances. Continue reading “Umno’s misplaced anger over kangkung jokes”