Day: December 6, 2014

Hamzah Nazari
The Rakyat Post
Dec 6, 2014

Malays have now acquired a new sense of political awareness. And it’s causing alarm bells within the Umno establishment, said Raub MP Datuk Mohamad Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. — TRP file pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6, 2014: Vocal Raub MP Datuk Mohamad Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz has, in his blog Sakmongkol AK47, questioned the Umno political party’s role as a guardian of ethnic Malays.

“That idea, dear readers, is a blatant lie that has been shoved down our throats for a long time, by the Umno bourgeois elite. It is the Great Lie that all right thinking Malaysian must expose.

“That idea, that notion of a supra entity guarding our interests, flies against the concept of the free man that we are,” wrote Mohamad Ariff Sabri.

He claimed that those guarding rights were not political parties but instead people collectively acting through a government, pursuing their collective legitimate interests and rights. Continue reading “Is Umno the true guardian of Malay rights?”

On this day 24 years ago, Malaysia’s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman passed away at the age of 87.

If Tunku is still alive today, instead of being the “happiest” Prime Minister which had been his greatest wish, he would have been the “unhappiest” Malaysian in the country.

Together with the third Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn, Tunku’s efforts to form UMNO Malaysia when UMNO was deregistered in 1988, was sabotaged and quashed by the then Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir who set up his own UMNO Baru which Tunku refused to join, questioning its legitimacy and integrity to his last breath.

Tunku would have been horrified at the proceedings of the recent UMNO Baru General Assembly where race-baiting and religious incitement based on the primordial politics of fear, hate and lies were given free rein, with delegates made to believe that after 57 years of UMNO government and six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays are under siege and Islam under threat, causing one delegate to declare that Malays have become “slaves in our own land”, another to call for the use of “1 Melayu” instead of “1 Malaysia slogan”, while a third to demand that UMNO elect MCA, Gerakan and MIC leaders into the Barisan Nasional supreme council. Continue reading “If Tunku is alive today, instead of being the “happiest Prime Minister” he would be the “unhappiest Malaysian””

By Lucky Star
Malaysiakini

Part 1: Has 30pct bumi equity target been achieved?

COMMENT At the initial stage of the New Economic Policy, privatised entity and government-linked companies (GLCs) were almost non-existent.

Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the main institution through which the federal government controls GLCs, only came into existence in 1993. Therefore, before 1990, the exclusion of government shareholding owned by Khazanah was a non-issue.

But, when the privatisation policy was vigorously implemented after the publication of the ‘Privatisation Master Plan’ in 1991, the exclusion of government shareholding in privatised entities and GLCs had a significant distorting effect on equity ownership by ethnic group.

Musa Hitam, in an exclusive interview in August 2014 with the Malaysian Insider said, “But the government does not take GLCs into account when they point out that the present bumiputera equity ownership is 24 percent. We are deluding ourselves by continuously pointing a finger at the Chinese.” As a former deputy prime minister and chairperson of a GLC, Musa definitely knew what he was talking about.

For the purpose of showing bumiputera equity ownership, government data are divided into three categories of bumiputera, namely:

1) Bumiputera individuals
2) Bumiputera institutions
3) Bumiputera trust agencies
Continue reading “Major flaw in computing bumi equity target”

By Little Stars
Malaysiakini

COMMENT At the outset, we wish to make it abundantly clear that we fully support the New Economic Policy (NEP) objective of eradicating poverty irrespective of race and we completely agree with the 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target.

In a multiracial country, social engineering using affirmative action to uplift the economic status of a lagging community is necessary. We do not doubt the noble intention of the founding fathers of NEP and we believe the objectives can be achieved if right policies are formulated and implemented.

Government in any part of the world is usually quick to claim credit for any success. However, in the case of Malaysia, with regard to the achievement of 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target, the government seemed to be more inclined to declare “failure”.
Continue reading “Has 30pct bumi equity target been achieved?”

The Malay Mail Online
Dec 5, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today the findings of the royal commission set up in 2012 to investigate the abnormal spike in Sabah’s foreigner population was not only “farcical”, but had also failed to bring to book the real culprits behind the problem.

The Opposition Leader noted that the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report released Wednesday had placed the blame squarely on errant civil service runners for what he described as the “biggest illegal immigrant scandal” in Malaysian history since independence.

Anwar said the report, which was 366 pages long, contained mere “meaningless” texts that saw all government agencies and departments completely exonerated of any culpability in the scandal, which has now resulted in nearly 30 per cent of Sabah’s 3.12 million population made up of foreigners.

“The masterminds and the real culprits responsible for the nefarious importation into Sabah of illegal immigrants from southern Philippines and Indonesia are completely off the hook,” he said.

“Even more glaring is the utter failure to mention the role of the National Security Council as well as the Prime Minister’s Department, let alone attribute any blame on them, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence to that effect,” he added. Continue reading “‘Farcical’ Sabah RCI let Projek IC masterminds off the hook, Anwar says”

By Zurairi AR and Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
The Malay Mail Online
December 6, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 ― As more youths migrate to urban areas, Umno can no longer blame its waning support on federal opposition pact Pakatan Rakyat (PR), analysts said when weighing in on the recent call for “rejuvenation” by the ruling party’s youth wing.

Instead, the failure to capture the support has been the result of the 65-year-old party’s disconnect with the younger set of voters compared to the pull PR has over youths or urbanites, they suggested.

“Any party that wishes to garner support from urban areas, or youths who have migrated to cities, must transform themselves,” Prof Dr Jayum Jawan, a political analyst with the National Professor Council, told Malay Mail Online in a recent phone interview.

“They should know the ‘taste’ of the urbanites, the youths. They have to understand the aspirations of the youths. Not for the youths to understand the parties instead.”

Jayum suggested that while PR component parties may not be empathetic towards the demographic, they at least understand the “lingo” of the youths.

“They dance to the youths’ rhythms. They try following their ‘taste’, their way of talking. Their tone fits with the youths. Umno should be like that as well, why can’t it?” Jayum asked.

According to the Universiti Putra Malaysia lecturer, it is “unscientific” and an “indefensible argument” to assume tha youths will automatically flock to PR just because they migrate to urban areas.

Prof Dr Shamsul Adabi Mamat, a political science lecturer with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, claimed that while majority of young urbanites might vote for PR, it is however far from a lost cause for Umno. Continue reading “Umno abandoning youths, not the other way round, analysts say”

By Kim Quek
Malaysiakini
Dec 5, 2014

COMMENT The royal commission of inquiry (RCI) report exonerating the Barisan Nasional (BN) government of responsibility in the gargantuan illegal immigrant calamity in Sabah must have stunned, shocked and disgusted many who had been eagerly looking forward to this RCI report for some relief and justice.

The RCI, instead, attributes the entire blame on errant civil servants who have carried out such illegal activities for profit.

Who on earth could have believed such blatant whitewash when an influx of Muslim illegal immigrants from southern Philippines and Indonesia over a sustained period of decades has caused Sabah’s population to explode to five times its 1970 numbers (3 times the growth rate of other states)?

Also the fact that monumental evidences have been produced both before and during the hearing of the RCI of the massive conversion of these illegals into voters (popularly known as phantom voters) to rob the original Sabahans of their sovereignty?

Have our defence forces, police, immigration department, national registration department (NRD) and the entire cabinet under the BN government been in deep slumber all these decades while millions of foreigners swarmed over Sabah until they outnumbered the original inhabitants who were impoverished in the process?

Could a few corrupt civil servants motivated by greed have engineered and achieved such a fantastic feat that has drastically and illegally altered the demographic and power balance of such a huge state without a powerful command from the top hierarchy of the government? Continue reading “Post-Sabah RCI, the merry-go-round goes on”

By Andy Mukherjee
Reuters
December 3, 2014

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Just when Malaysia was beginning to plug the holes in its public finances, the prospect of a sharp reduction in oil revenue is threatening to undermine fiscal progress and weaken the currency.

Petronas is playing spoiler. The state energy company recently warned that its contribution to the government’s exchequer – in the form of dividends, taxes and royalties – could slide 37 percent next year from an estimated 68 billion ringgit ($20 billion) in 2014.

Such a shortfall in the main source of government’s oil-and-gas revenue would easily exceed 2 percent of GDP. That would wipe out the 1.7 percent of GDP in annual savings the government hopes to achieve by scrapping domestic fuel subsidies from Dec. 1.

The fiscal hit could be even larger if oil prices next year remain below the $75 a barrel on which Petronas based its forecast. That would threaten the government’s target of reducing the budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP, from an estimated 3.5 percent this year.

The finance ministry is refusing to give up on the 2015 target just yet. It may hope that Petronas can be persuaded to make a less drastic cut in its dividend payment. Continue reading “Oil slide threatens Malaysia’s fiscal progress”

BBC News
5 December 2014

A German man has been jailed for three years and nine months for joining Islamic State (IS) militants, in the first trial of its kind in Germany.

A court in Frankfurt convicted Kreshnik Berisha of membership of a foreign terrorist organisation.

Berisha avoided the heaviest sentence of 10 years after admitting he spent six months with IS in Syria last year.

German authorities believe more than 500 German citizens have travelled to fight for IS in Iraq and Syria.

The domestic intelligence agency estimates that 60 have died there in combat or suicide attacks, and 180 have returned to Germany, according to the AFP news agency. Continue reading “Germany jails Islamic State jihadist Kreshnik Berisha”