Tangents: Ignorance Reigns On Merdeka and Malaysia Day

"Sarawak actually gained independence on 22 July 1963, whilst Sabah, interestingly, was declared independent as North Borneo on 31 August 1963! The formation of Malaysia was originally planned for 31 August 1963, to coincide with the independence of Sabah and Singapore, however, it was postponed to 16 September whilst a diplomatic solution was being sought to address opposition to Malaysia's formation by Indonesia and the Philippines".

Mukhriz dan San Miguel Corp - Melayu `ketam batu dlm bakul'?

In response to articles in Malaysian Insider:

Mirzan says San Miguel stake is just business

Mirzan Mahathir appointed director on San Miguel Corp board

11 September 2009

The Editor,

The Malaysian Insider

I read with interest your article about my becoming a director of San Miguel Corporation (“SMC”). As you rightly pointed out, I sit on the board to represent an investment group, Q‐Tech Alliance Holdings Inc., that invested in SMC.

After being in the brewery business for more than 100 years, San Miguel has decided to shift its attention to the infrastructure, public utility and energy requirements of the Philippines.

Since Kirin Holdings of Japan acquired a significant direct ownership stake in the brewery division, this will result in a dramatic change in SMC’s revenue mix, with beverages expected to contribute
less than 15% of total sales by next year. This major diversification move, made possible by our taking over of Kirin’s 20% stake in SMC, starts a new era for San Miguel and is the principal reason for my involvement in the company.

Since the last quarter of 2008, SMC has bought an option to acquire a controlling interest in Petron Corp., the largest Philippine oil refiner which owns 1,400 retail stations, and a substantial equity stake in Manila Electric Co., the largest distribution utility in the Philippines that has a base of over 4.5 million
customers. Both these firms are publicly listed companies with annual revenues of US$4bn (RM 13.9bn) and US$5.6bn (RM19.4bn) respectively. SMC has also announced its intention to venture into the telecommunications industry through their stake in Liberty Telecom Holdings Inc. with Qatar
Telecommunications Co. to initially build a Wi‐Max network and potentially a full‐scale national cellular operation.

The company also recently won in a public auction, two major power plants with a combined generation capacity of 1,600 MW. Unfortunately, certain parties are keen to turn this exciting positive change in
a well‐managed Philippine corporation into an assault on the reputation of my father, even though he has nothing whatsoever to do with my business interests.

I can only provide a rational explanation for my actions and it would be a pity if facts are twisted to gain dubious points from a straightforward business decision. Your article covered the beverage aspects of San Miguel but ignored the company’s recent purchases and strategy moving forward.

As a Malaysian, I am looking forward to assisting San Miguel chart this new course and hopefully, its success will reflect well on our country and people.

Mirzan Mahathir

10 arrested after clashes at UK mosque

An anti-Islam demonstration has resulted in 10 arrests, police in the UK said.

Officers were attacked with bricks and bottles and had to act fast to prevent events from escalating, a police spokeswoman added.

Protesters from the Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) group were greeted by anti-fascist groups and local people when they tried to gather outside Harrow Central Mosque in London yesterday afternoon.

Read more: http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/eycwgbaugboj/rss2/#ixzz0QwR8GdKi

Video

Geng Lembu

"Lagi pula, berdasarkan REKOD, tindakan hanya diambil terhadap pemimpin Hindraf selepas berkali-kali mereka membuat kacau bermula di Masjid Putrajaya, beberapa kali di luar KL dan 2 kali di KL, iaitu selepas berkali-kali mereka menghasut bukan sahaja penganut agama Hindu tetapi masyarakat kaum India dengan tuduhan-tudahn yang palsu, misalnya bahawa kerajaan telah dengan sengaja dan terancang membunuh orang India setiap minggu dan merobohkan kuil setiap dua minggu dan sebagainya. Tuduhan-tuduhan palsu ini menjadi bukti kepada elemen hasutan pemimpin Hindraf dan mereka telah melakukannya berkali-kali dan menggunakan pelbagai media".

YB Zul: Alahai Sang Lembu

YB Zul's take on Sek 23 incident:

"Dimana suara-suara Pak Janggut dan Pak Keris ini apabila Jeff Ooi melabel mereka yang bercita-cita untuk melaksanakan Islam sepenuhnya sebagai ekstremis. Sehingga hari ini Jeff Ooi terus dengan sifat bongkak dan angkuhnya enggan menuntut maaf atas kebiadapannya. Sehingga ke hari ini Jeff Ooi masih bebas, tiada sebarang tindakan pendakwaan diambil terhadap keceluparan beliau. Mengapa Peguam Negara tidak bertindak tegas terhadap Jeff Ooi. Mengapa Jeff Ooi tidak dikenakan pertuduhan dibawah Akta Hasutan, mahupun Seksyen 298A Kanun Kesiksaan?"

"Bukan kita menghalang mereka ber'ibadat. Masih banyak lagi kuil dan tempat 'ibadat yang mereka punyai. Mengikut statistik, dalam negeri Selangor ada 4.3 juta penduduk. Daripada jumlah itu, majoritinya umat Islam sebanyak 2.5 juta dengan masjid hanya sebanyak 259 buah. Sebalik nya masyarakat Budha berjumlah 1.3 juta mempunyai 1,015 tokong. Kaum Hindu pulak, yang berjumlah 647,000 mempunyai 810 kuil berdaftar (ini tidak termasuk kuil yang haram dan tidak berdaftar!). Dan bagi 50,000 penganut Kristian di Selangor, cuba kira berapa jumlah gereja mereka!"

Protes Pembinaan Masjid di Denmark Tanda Kemunduran Pemikiran Mereka

Sekali lagi Denmark mendapat perhatian dunia apabila Parti haluan kanan Danish’s People Party melancarkan kempen membantah pembinaan masjid pertama yang diluluskan oleh Majlis Perbandaran Copenhagen baru-baru ini (Sinar Harian, ruangan Global@Sinar 11 Sept 2009). Katanya, pembinaan masjid ini akan ditaja sepenuhnya oleh pihak Iran yang merupakan “terror regime”. International Civil Liberties Alliance di laman web www.libertiesalliance.org telah melancarkan petisyen online untuk membantah pembinaan masjid pertama di Denmark. Ahli Parlimen Denmark Martin Henriksen pula berkata, sudah tiba masanya Negara Barat meminta supaya Negara-negara Islam meminta maaf kerana kekejaman ke atas wanita, hukum merejam batu dan sebagainya yang dianggap melanggar hak asasi manusia.

Kita juga masih ingat insiden di mana seorang pelukis kartun dari Denmark menimbulkan provokasi besar dengan melakar sebiji bom di dalam serban junjungan besar Nabi Allah Muhammad SAW . Akhbar Jylland-Posten yang memaparkan segmen itu mengeluarkan kenyataan untuk meminta maaf jika terbitan itu menyinggung perasaan umat Islam walaupun tidak salah di sisi undang-undang Denmark.

Pertama sekali, Ahli Parlimen Denmark itu bertanggapan bahawa semua Negara Islam mengamalkan system perundangan yang sama. Ini jelas menunjukkan kemunduran beliau di arena global. Kedua, pihak yang membantah pembinaan masjid itu secara jelas menunjukkan sifat hipokrit orang Barat di Denmark yang melanggar hak asasi manusia dalam menindas kepentingan minoriti di Negara mereka. Ketiga, dana yang disalurkan dari Negara Iran untuk pembinaan masjid pertama di Denmark dianggap dana yang datang dari regim pengganas atau “terror regime”. Ini satu tanggapan yang membinasakan dan sengaja menyimbah petrol ke dalam api untuk memprovokasi umat Islam.

Ini juga menunjukkan bahawa sindrom “Islamophobia” masih nyata dan jelas di kalangan masyarakat Barat secara am, seperti menganggap semua yang berjanggut itu pengganas dan menahan suspek pengganas berdasarkan profil nama dan agama. Penulis berpendapat bahawa bantahan yang keras perlu dibuat oleh Pihak Wisma Putera atas tragedi ini. Di waktu kegawatan ekonomi yang teruk yang melanda Negara-negara Eropah berpunca dari kerakusan Wall Street dengan penjualan “sub prime mortgages”, “derivative speculation” dan spekulasi harga minyak yang melampau oleh penyangak ekonomi menyebabkan ketidakstabilan ekonomi dunia, negara-negara ini terutamanya Denmark perlu sedar bahawa banyak sumber dana untuk menghidupkan semula syarikat-syarikat yang telah menyeleweng wang rakyat datangnya dari negara-negara Islam juga, seperti contoh dana dari Kuwait Investment Authority untuk membela Citi Group sebanyak USD 1B.

Negara-negara Islam juga perlu bijak dalam menangani masalah ini dan janganlah jadikan bantahan di jalan (street protest) sebagai jawapannya. Kita perlu menggunakan kebijaksaan seperti menggunakan kekuatan ekonomi negara Islam dalam menyelesaikan isu ini. Mesej yang penting untuk disampaikan ialah Islam yang mempunyai penganut kira-kira 1 billion tidak mengamalkan dasar keganasan, malah akan membela nasib orang-orang yang tertindas, seperti contoh rakyat Palestin yang setelah lama ditindas oleh pihak Zionis dan baru-baru ini niat regim Zionis untuk membina penempatan haram baru di Tebing Barat, walaupun dikecam oleh PBB. Jika Ahli Parlimen Henriksen dari Denmark ingin membela hak asasi manusia, mulakanlah perjuangan anda di Palestin.

Islamophobia In Denmark (again)

After Copenhagen city council approved the building of Denmark's first mosque, extreme-right Danish People's Party launched a massive campaign against it, citing that the mosque will be funded by "terror funds".

Let's not forget their islamophobic stance when their daily printed a cartoon depicting our great prophet with a bomb in his turban.

Muslims account for 3.5% of the population in the country, with a strength of 200,000.

Here's an excerpt from the petition site to ban all mosque construction:

"Recep Tayyip Erdogan Prime Minister of Turkey publicly read an Islamic poem including the lines: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…” The faithful?

That would be muslims then!

Well let’s blunt their bayonets and hammer their helmets. Sign the SIOE petition Stop all mosque building in Denmark http://www.petitiononline.com/stpmsqdn/petition.html "

Islam: Antara Nas Dan Pendapat Tokoh

For those who argued that we can't question ulama's decisions or opinions:

MStar:
"Sebagai muslim, kita berhak bertanya dan mencari yang lebih tepat sesuai dengan akal yang Allah kurniakan kepada kita. Kita hormati tokoh, tapi dalam masa yang sama kita tidak akan menggadaikan kebenaran. Kita patut bezakan antara nas Allah dan rasulNya, dengan pandangan tokoh yang mungkin betul, mungkin salah, mungkin patut disemak semula, mungkin juga melepasi batasan keperluan dan kemunasabah untuk umat.

Disebabkan tidak memahami hal inilah, umat Islam pening kepala dengan pandangan tokoh-tokoh agama hari ini yang bermacam-macam. Jika ulama itu berniaga, mungkin dipengaruhi urusan bisnes, yang politik mungkin dipengaruhi urusan politiknya. Begitulah seterusnya. Jalan keluar, kita menyemak alasan dan hujah setiap mereka dan bertanya: adakah ini daripada Allah dan rasulNya, atau tuan ‘rasa-rasa’ sahaja?!."

Darah Tuah: Gugurkan Kaum Dan Agama

"Perlembagaan Malaysia hanya menyebutkan secara khusus / mengiktiraf lima sahaja kaum di negara ini iaitu (1) Orang Asli (Perkara 160), (2) Melayu (Perkara 160), (3) Bumiputera Sarawak [Perkara 161A (6) (a) & (7)], (4) Bumiputera Sabah [Perkara 161A (6) (b)] dan (5) kaum-kaum lain".

"Apa yang sebenar berlaku ialah tahap toleransi antara kaum semakin terhakis dan yang wujud ialah uneasy racial co-existence. Justeru bagaimana pula pengguguran ‘kaum’ dan ‘agama’ ini boleh menyelesaikan masalah sebesar gunung Kinabalu itu? Dijangka kerajaan akan ditomahkan sebagai tidak bersedia ‘menggenggam bara api sehingga jadi arang’, jika syor tersebut dilaksanakan juga."

"Tidak ada lagi hak istimewa untuk orang Melayu/Bumiputera kerana tiada lagi “kaum Melayu/Bumiputera”? Semua bahasa menjadi Bahasa Kebangsaan seperti di Singapura? Semua agama adalah agama rasmi? Institusi Raja-raja Melayu dihapuskan kerana sudah tidak ada lagi orang Melayu di negara ini? Adakah ulterior motive mereka yang sebenar ialah hendak menjadikan negara ini sebuah republik?"

"Apabila agama Islam, Melayu dan Bumiputera tidak lagi diiktiraf dalam mana-mana dokumen rasmi, bagaimanakah hendak melaksanakan peruntukan-peruntukan dalam Perlembagaan yang berkaitan dengannya seperti Perkara 3 (agama Islam), 38 (Majlis Raja-Raja), 39 (Kuasa pemerintah)), 89 (Tanah rezab orang Melayu), 90 (Tanah adat di Negeri Sembilan & tanah di Trengganu), 152 (Bahasa Kebangsaan), 153 (Hak istimewa orang Melayu), 160 (Tafsiran Orang Asli & Melayu) dan 161A (Kedudukan istimewa Bumiputera Sabah & Sarawak)?"

"Bukankah mereka yang mengsyorkan ini sebenarnya tidak ikhlas dan barking at the wrong tree? Jika mereka benar-benar ikhlas hendak mewujudkan perpaduan kaum dengan menghapuskan pengenalan kaum dan membasmi polirisasi kaum maka punca utama perkauman iaitu sekolah pelbagai aliran hendaklah dihapuskan segera dan digantikan dengan sistem satu aliran sekolah kebangsaan untuk semua."

Economist on Graduates Earnings

Economist: "In America the lifetime gross earnings of male graduates are, on average, nearly $370,000 higher than those of non-graduates, comfortably repaying the pricey investment in a university education (female graduates earn an extra $229,000)."

Let This Be A Lesson For Those Who Are Complacent

Brutally similar to local scenery, 2-1/2 years to the next general election, 2 months to party constitutional amendments. Other than that, nothing revolutionizing to win hearts and minds.

Economist: A landslide victory for the DPJ in Japan

The victors have an emotive name for it: seiken kotai, or regime change. It came in brutal fashion on Sunday August 30th when Japan, Asia’s richest democracy, dumped the party that has ruled it for almost all of the last 53 years and gave a huge win to one that until recently had little idea of how it would govern.

In a historic result, unofficial results showed that the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), a leftist grouping of ruling-party renegades, social democrats and socialists, was heading for a landslide. It is led by Yukio Hatoyama, a mild-mannered career politician likely to be the next prime minister. He promises a government less beholden to the powerful civil service, wants to temper the free market and is keen to dole out cash to the disadvantaged in the economically stagnant and ageing country. He declined to name a cabinet until he is confirmed as prime minister in a special session of the lower house, or Diet. That may be within the next two weeks.

Jubilant cries of Banzai! echoed around the DPJ’s victorious campaign offices. NHK, the public broadcaster, said the party had won 308 seats in the Diet, with almost all the seats counted, as polls had largely predicted. The DPJ hopes to forge a coalition with two minor parties that would give it a two-thirds majority, enabling it to force through legislation. But the three parties do not see eye to eye on all issues, which means plenty of haggling will be needed. The DPJ already holds the upper house.

For the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) there was no disguising its anguish, as discredited heavyweight after heavyweight fell, often to young, telegenic DPJ novices shrewdly drafted in as giant-killers. Taro Aso, the visibly shaken prime minister, conceded defeat, describing the result as “very severe”. When he dissolved parliament in July to hold the elections, the LDP held 300 seats. NHK’s count showed it had won 119 seats so far, almost the same as the puny number the DPJ held before the elections.

The raw numbers, however dramatic, only partly tell of the upheaval this could mean for Japanese politics. The LDP has had its hands on almost every lever of power for more than half a century; even when it briefly lost office in 1993, it regained it within 11 months because the forces assembled against it fell apart.

During much of its tenure, it held power because it helped deliver rising prosperity to a country that had only recently endured the ignominy of second-world-war defeat and American occupation. After taking office in 1955, it turned Japan into one of America’s firmest cold-war allies.

But as Japan’s economic miracle faded, and the country sank into a deflationary funk in the 1990s, the LDP clung onto power largely thanks to an entrenched system of patronage and lavish use of the pork barrel. It used public funds or access to Japan’s vast pool of private savings to launch public-works projects that for its last two decades in power kept its grass-roots supporters, such as farmers and construction workers, loyal.

None of that spending generated a sustainable recovery, however, nor did reforms by Junichiro Koizumi, a political one-off who revived the LDP’s fortunes during the last election in 2005, but whose followers, known as “Koizumi’s children”, were crushed by the DPJ this time round. Instead Japan has become saddled with a debt projected to rise to twice the country’s ¥497 trillion ($5.3 trillion) GDP, and it remains dangerously dependent on its large exporters. Figures released in the closing days of the campaign showed unemployment, exacerbated by the global financial slump, hit a record 5.7% in July. Deflation has also re-emerged; consumer prices fell 2.2% in July from a year earlier.

The LDP’s failure to improve people’s lives was one of the twin pillars of the DPJ’s successful campaign. The other was the LDP’s complicity with an all-encompassing bureaucracy that has been guilty of staggering incompetence recently, not least by losing millions of personal-pension records in 2007. The public has also been vexed by the practice of rewarding top civil servants with plum jobs at firms they formerly supervised. The DPJ has vowed to stamp out that policy.

But how well it can fulfill its manifesto pledges—repeated with worthy insistence on the campaign trail—will depend on many factors. Firstly, it may need to reach some sort of accommodation with civil-service mandarins, because only a handful of its most senior members have experience at cabinet level. Its spending proposals are largely to be funded by cutting waste from government spending; that is always easier to promise than to deliver.

Meanwhile, Japan’s economy is still poised precariously between recovery and renewed slump. If the recovery fails to materialise, it will not necessarily be the DPJ’s fault. But it will be the first test of its administrative competence in a country that is crying out for good leadership.

Besides naming a cabinet, Mr Hatoyama, who has appeared to flip-flop on sensitive issues such as Japan’s occasionally subordinate relationship with America, is soon likely to have to step onto the world stage. He hopes to travel to New York in September for the UN general assembly, and will probably meet Barack Obama on that trip.

But as he sets out to introduce a new era of political openness and accountability to Japan, he will be dogged by a thorny question that was already being put to him as he cautiously claimed victory on Sunday night. That is the position of Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ’s former leader, who orchestrated this remarkable election victory and is a master manipulator eminently capable of pulling Mr Hatoyama’s strings.

So far, the new leader has ducked the question. But Japan, for all that it will celebrate dealing the LDP a punishment it has long deserved, will want an answer. Otherwise its people may fear they have replaced one dark force with another.

ISA by Tan Sri Sanusi Junid

......"Siapakah sebenarnya yang anti ISA? Ada lima kelompok yang menentang ISA, iaitu:
a. Bekas tahanan-tahanan di bawah ISA,
b. Anggota keluarga kepada banduan ISA,
c. Orang yang takut ditahan kerana keghairahannya berpolitik sehingga didapati bersalah di bawah ISA,
d. Orang yang sering mendengar dakyah menentang ISA tanpa mendengar hujah sebaliknya, dan
e. Orang yang mengikut arus kerana persekitaran yang ternampak menentang ISA"..........

Era Baru: 2 Ogos Genaplah 35 Tahun Kepergian Tun Dr Ismail

..........."Sebagai Timbalan Presiden UMNO, beliau sangat prihatin tentang keadaan UMNO dan apabila perwakilan UMNO semakin bertambah setiap tahun dan tidak ada dewan yang menampung kehadiran ahli-ahli di Perhimpunan Agung sehingga terpaksa diadakan di The Dragon Court, Hotel Merlin yang kecil dan sempit, maka Tun Dr Ismail telah meminta Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah untuk mencari sebidang tanah untuk tujuan mendirikan bangunan UMNO sendiri.

Ekoran dari itu, jawatankuasa bangunan telah dibentuk dan dipengerusikan sendiri oleh beliau dan timbalannya ialah Tun Hussein Onn. Begitu tegas pendiriannya sehingga sanggup berkata yang UMNO tidak akan mengambil seinci pun tanah kerajaan untuk mendirikan bangunan sebaliknya UMNO telah membeli sebidang tanah melalui usaha Tengku Razaleigh yang memikul tanggungjawab seperti yang diamanahkan kepadanya oleh Tun Dr Ismail. Tengku Razaleigh menyifatkan Tun Dr Ismail yang beliau kenal baik dan rapai sebagai "a real Malaysian and a pillar of strength during that period". Ada juga yang menyifatkannya seperti "Rock of Gibraltar".

Apabila Tun Dr Ismail mengetahui tentang penyakit yang sangat berbahaya yang dihadapi oleh Tun Razak dan dalam keadaan kesihatan beliau sendiri yang membimbangkan rakyat dan negara, Tun Dr Ismail telah melahirkan perasaannya pada 30 Mac 1970 dengan kata-kata seperti ini; "with Tun Razak a doomed man, my heart operation became vitally important not only to myself and my family, but to the whole nation. Between the Tunku, Tun Razak and myself on the one hand, and all the other politicians on the other, there was a wide gap in leadership. With Tunku past his prime, Tun Razak a doomed man although unknown to the nation, everything seemed to depend on me"......

More By-Elections

More distractions from the other side to divert attention from real issues:

'Letak jawatan jika tak mampu berkhidmat'
Ogos 21, 09 9:35am
Pengerusi Perhubungan Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Selangor Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim menasihatkan ADUN Pelabuhan Klang Badrul Hisham Abdullah supaya melepaskan jawatannya jika tidak mampu berkhidmat untuk rakyat.

Beliau berkata langkah meletakkan jawatan adalah yang terbaik sekiranya sudah tidak mampu berkhidmat kepada rakyat kerana PKR tidak akan mensia-siakan amanah yang telah diberikan oleh rakyat.

Nut Graph: PAS tunjuk belang

By Shanon Shah:

"MENURUT Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi, Ketua Pemuda PAS, konsert Michael Learns to Rock pada 5 Sept 2009 kelak "akan membawa umat leka dan lalai malah merosakkan moral dan akhlak mereka". Daripada ayat ini saja, saya sudah boleh agak yang tidak ada sesiapa pun dalam Pemuda PAS yang pernah mendengar lagu Michael Learns to Rock.

Bagi saya, Michael Learns to Rock adalah kumpulan muzik yang paling membosankan di dunia. Bila saya terdengar lagu mereka berkumandang di pasar raya atau restoran, saya akan keluar dari tempat-tempat sedih ini. Bila lagu mereka diputarkan di radio atau televisyen, saya akan matikan bunyi dengan serta-merta. Ya, kalau saya ditahan dalam lokap, satu kaedah yang paling berkesan untuk mendera saya ialah dengan memaksa saya mendengar lagu Michael Learns to Rock. The Actor? Sleeping Child? 25 Minutes? Bunuhlah saya, bunuh saya sekarang".