Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has launched the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) masterplan. The masterplan was designed by Sime Darby although the project will be implemented by a regional coordinating authority. But Sime Darby is not a disinterested party. It is eyeing the seed market and planning to produce patented “mother seed” for 10 popular crops, which it wants to sell, along with fertilisers, to the farmers. Not only that, it will buy the farmers’ produce, process it and market it via Tesco (in which Sime Darby has a 30 per cent stake). When I contacted Jeyakumar Devaraj for comment, he told me, “It boggles the imagination that the government has come to the stage of contracting out the planning for poverty alleviation to a corporation whose primary aim is to maximise profits for shareholders.” He said that smaller farmers could end up being pushed out or turned into agricultural [Read more]
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine, a pensioner, received an unusual phone call from a woman he didn’t know. From the way he described it, it sounded like someone from a market research agency was trying to gauge public opinion and sentiment. The woman asked him if it was okay if she took 20 minutes to ask a few questions. Among the questions: What do you think of the Northern Corridor Economic Region plan? Are you happy with your recent pension increment? (He replied no, he still finds it hard to cope with the rising cost of living.) What do you think of Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh’s performance? Who do you think would make a suitable successor? What do you think of Keadilan? What do you think of Anwar? Would you be comfortable with Pas ruling the country? Do you think Visit Malaysia Year will help [Read more]
What’s going on? I am unable to access Malaysia Today, the website that has shaken up Malaysia, from up here in Penang at 7.30 pm today. It’s been like that for a few hours now. (It was back online when I checked at 10.45 pm – but downloading pages inside is still kinda slow.) Meanwhile, I caught Minister Lim Keng Yaik, wearing his Multimedia portfolio hat, on the 8 pm news issuing a stern, blustering warning to bloggers. I didn’t quite catch what he was warning them about, but he looked suitably serious. It all looks ominous enough. Anyway, Mustafa and I have released a statement on the implications of the interrogation of Malaysia Today webmaster Raja Petra: Charter 2000-Aliran is deeply disturbed by recent developments that could restrict the space for freedom of expression over the Internet and curb the democratic right of bloggers to air their opinions. It [Read more]
