Via Brand New Malaysian:

A seasoned journalist with 20 years experience told me that Zainuddin will not take blogs, especially those that are seen to be ‘agenda’ driven like mine, lightly. Nevermind the fact that I have been a corporate citizen who contributes in the highest tax bracket and write mainly in the hope of sharing my thoughts on how people decide my life should be lived, and what sort of Malaysia my children will inherit. […]

What I do know is that if Group Editors of major newspaper groups can be subjected to treatment such as this, webloggers — gaining popularity and credence lately — will be intolerable to the right honourable minister. Under those circumstances, I wonder what will happen behind ‘closed doors’?

Via Screenshots:

With ZAM aged 66, he will still stick around at least until the time the present government expires in 2009. Let’s allow him sufficient rope to hang or glorify himself with his deeds. The court of public opinion will hold session. But let him decide on his legacy as the twilight years set in. […]

"To all bloggers, my advice is to stay your course. Don’t be a pawn. Rather, you should be the ones pushing the pawns on the chessboard — for the larger good.

To this blogger, the message is simple: We must becareful.

Via NST:

International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz today took a swipe at her detractors, saying they will bear the consequences if what they say about her is not true.

"Even if they talk until they foam at the mouth, if God says you stay, you stay," she said, apparently referring to the fact that she had kept her job in the Cabinet reshuffle.

Hail Queen Rafidah as one among the God’s choice but watch out, you might have been cursed till you foam at the mouth.

Since Tuesday, cabinet reshuffle remains one of the most-written topics by fellow journalists and most-appealing news to Malaysians, who are concerned about the new cabinet line-up of the Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

However, when five Burmese bodies were dragged out of a small lake in Selayang this week, it did not merit a single mention in the media.

To top the woe, the "unreported mystery" was first picked up by BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur Jonathan Kent, enough to stir a negative image onto the nation.

(SOURCE: BBC, 16 February 2006)

None of which leaves anyone any clearer about why five bodies turned up in a short space of time in a small lake on the fringes of the capital.

Still, Malaysians are certainly worried about crime and blame much of it on foreign workers. The economy may rely on them but there is limited tolerance for immigrants, illegal or even legal.

And five foreigners can turn up dead in one small area and it does not merit a single mention anywhere in the Malaysian press. Nor did reports widely circulated last year that two migrants died after being struck by a Rela truck, also in Selayang.

From time to time there the deaths of migrants workers does make the news, but it is written small, on the inside pages.

Unreported due to their immigrant status?

Before we indulge ourselves deep down with human rights issues, let’s come back to the root and admit that: All life is equal.

Bursa Malaysia CEO Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said Proton Holdings Bhd has made sufficient disclosures regarding its sales of 51 percent stake in MV Agusta for one euro.

"They (Proton) have not triggered any of the provisions that requires them to get the shareholders’ approval." […]

"As such, Bursa Malaysia does not require more disclosures at the moment."

On Monday, Proton’s adviser Tun Mahathir Mohamad and Proton’s ex-CEO Tengku Mahaleel Tengku Ariff repeated their call to Proton, urging them to make more disclosures regarding the sale.

We must be left wondered whether the duo will enlight us with something anew, however with Tun around, rest assured that things will never be the same.

Watch out.

[UPDATED VERSION] Last Sunday (Feb 12), public had complained to the station that there were problems with the Menora Tunnel in Jelapang.

Works Minister S. Samy Vellu was furious and was quoted as saying that he won’t answer any complaint that was made through television station and asked public to call his mobile phone instead, in which the number was shown on screen by Buletin Utama, TV3.

Yesterday, he said since his mobile phone number was made public, he had received about 2,600 SMS of which about 200 were about the cracks on the Middle Ring Road II (MRR2), about 1,000 were congratulatory messages and the remaining were normal complaints.

"I have trouble sleeping until 4am. This morning, I received 130 SMS."

So now, Samy Vellu has to swallow his own words and asked the public to lodge their complaints to a 24-hour public complaints bureau, instead of calling his super-memory phone which can receive up to 2,600 SMS.

His famous last words:

"The ministry does not want problems which arose in the implementation of the Eighth Malaysia Plan to recur."

Are we Malaysians a bunch of people with Permanent Head Damage (PHD) in the eyes of Works Minister?

Starting from tomorrow (17 Feb), Malaysiar Airlines (MAS) will offer five million seats to international destinations, with discount of up to 70%.

This is the first virtual fair to be organised by MAS, with the slogan "GREAT DEALS, SO EASY TO BOOK".

And this time there will be no packed venues, jams or queues. Just fabulous airfares which you can book online, via our call centres or at participating travel agents.

At the time I blog about this, the offer must be tempting enough to slow down access to the website, even before the launching of real-time booking.

To counter the MAS offer, budget airlines AirAsia is offering a promotion called "Everyday Low Fare Day" to 32 destinations from Kuala Lumpur. Booking period starts from Wednesday till Feb 28 for travel between March 10 and April 15 and this is the first time AirAsia is making such an offer during a school holiday period.

Either way, we from another end must be laughing all the way.

Read the rest of this entry »

For years the outside world had been criticising China for its control of the Internet, now the Beijing Government is hitting back.

Deputy chief of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office Liu Zhengrong condemned western criticism of China’s internet censorship smacked of double standards and said no one had been arrested just for writing online content.
However, the "confession" is not true as in 2003, a man had been arrested and was sentenced to eight years jail for voicing dissent over the internet.

In 2004, more than 47,000 net cafes were shut down for breaking a strict series of guidelines that govern where they can be sited, what services they can offer and how they must monitor what customers do, which according to head of the internet freedom desk at Reporters Without Borders Julien Pain, leads to a lot of self-censorship and a willingness by private firms to co-operate with government monitoring of what people do online.

"The intention is to clear the web of subversive material," he said.

The monitoring of comments posted in chat rooms and on bulletin boards is quite aggressive, said Mr Pain.

Now, he said, thanks to automatic censoring systems undesirable postings only last a few minutes.

Feeling unhappy over the mishandling of media and information, a group of former senior Community party officials, who including an ex-aide to Mao Zedong, have launched a scathing attack.

However, search engines in China help worsened the situation, in which Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for "divulging state secrets" and Microsoft was critisized for sensoring what bloggers write.

But, no matter how amazing the Great Firewall is, the holes are out there. The Chinese people find a hack and workaround or an entirely new way of communicating through SMS and blogs.

All the while, we’re talking about China, however we can’t overlook the fact that, a similar wave is likely to hit us in Malaysia soon too.

We must becareful.

The general perception among the public towards the new cabinet line-up announced by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yesterday, is a let-down.

The Star’s Deputy EIC Wong Chun Wai equalled the new list with realpolitik, based on practical rather than ideological considerations.

Even for the Prime Minister, with all the powers vested in him, it was clear that he did not have a complete free hand. It was a list which was influenced by political and even geographical factors, taking into account representation from the states.

Besides Umno, he had to consider representation from the 14 component parties of Barisan Nasional, whose leaders had made recommendations. […]

Still, the line-up has been decided and for Abdullah, people will always have flaws. But where government policies are concerned, Pak Lah will have to make sure that there are as few flaws as possible. These political considerations would certainly have been taken into account when Abdullah drew up the list. Other talented leaders could have been included, but this is realpolitik.

NST’s Group Editor Brendan Pereira said Pak Lah putting his reputation on the line and called upon us to face it, for whatever reasons one can think of.

Every Prime Minister operates within certain constraints when selecting his Cabinet. By convention, he has to include the head of component parties, even if some of them have been around forever. For political considerations, he has to include some members who will do the grunt work — not only will they be aggressive in their respective ministeries but they will be his enforcers on the ground.

For sentimental reasons, he may have included some politicians who have been with him through thick and thin. Three names come to mind — Azmi Khalid, Radzi Sheikh Ahmad and Aziz Samsuddin.

For practical reasons, he stuck with several veterans. If it ain’t broke, don’t change it. Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar and Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Muhyiddin Yassin fall into this category. The PM views their portfolios as too important to be given to greenhorns.

As for this blogger, I’d like to echo the sentiment of social activist Lee Lam Thye, who hopes the Cabinet members will be performance oriented. 

"They must be conscious of the people’s expectations as at the end of the day, people expect the Cabinet ministers to look into issues and perform accordingly."

But, am I being too realistic or too unrealistic? There is only a very fine line in between.

Thailand Prime Minsiter Thaksin Shinawatra is in hot soup.

Last month, Thaksin sold his family’s stake of 49% stake in in Shin Corp to the Singaporean government’s investment arm, Temasek Holdings and avoided paying capital gains tax, resulted in the deal was heavily critisized in the Thai press.

Due to widespread criticism and repeated rallies from public calling him to go, he relented and offered a concession to his critics by saying he might hold a referendum to amend the constituition.

"I welcome the call for constitutional changes, but I have to ask for the public’s approval."

However, before the inception of the said referendum, Thailand’s Constitutional Court has agreed to consider a petition alleging Thaksin has violated conflict of interest laws, where the court has been asked to investigate whether Thaksin was still involved in a telecoms giant when his family sold its stake.

A group of 28 senators who alleged that he was still the de-facto owner of Shin Corp and had introduced policies which benefited the business.

(SOURCE: BBC, 14 February 2009)

But in Malaysia, things like this get off scot free.

That’s the difference.

Bad News: The Government has suspended Guangming Daily for two weeks, starting from February 16 to March 1, for publishing a photo depicting caricatures on Prophet Mohammad which Muslims considered blasphemous.

Good News: The suspension will only affect the evening edition of Guangming Daily.

Yesterday, two senior editors Ye Ning and Siew Nyoke Chow from Penang-based Guangming Daily handed over to Internal Security Ministry officials yesterday a letter explaining the paper’s use of a news agency photo.