NCER: Who benefits more – Sime Darby or farmers?

 Agrobusiness/GM food, Corporate agenda, Development issues, Malaysian finance/business, Marginalised groups, Poverty  1 Response »
Jul 302007
 

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]

Watch out for the BN ad agencies’ election media blitz

 Malaysian elections, Media  1 Response »
Jul 292007
 

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]

Unable to access Malaysia Today; Keng Yaik warns bloggers

 Human rights, Media  12 Responses »
Jul 272007
 

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]

How The Star watered down my water article

 Corporate agenda, Development issues, Human rights, Media, Neo-liberal economics  6 Responses »
Jul 262007
 

When I was invited by The Star to write a piece on water in June, I hesitated. Knowing how steeped The Star was in promoting corporate interests, I wondered whether the article I would write would emerge unscathed (without cuts). My concerns were not unfounded. When I submitted my completed article, the first thing The Star editor asked me was whether he could drop the bit about YTL Corp. No reason given. I was dumbfounded. What I had said about YTL was public knowledge and had even been reported in the business press. I was disappointed but reluctantly agreed, as I thought three lines wouldn’t make much difference to the overall thrust and tone of my article. In fact, it wasn’t the most critical of articles; it was rather tame, I thought. Still, I wanted to get the message across that corporations were attempting to profit from water and that [Read more]

Minimum wage more effective than NEP equity targets

 Corporate agenda, Development issues, Malaysian finance/business, Marginalised groups, Neo-liberal economics, Poverty, Workers' rights  No Responses »
Jul 232007
 

As we all know, the two main prongs of the New Economic Policy are to wipe out poverty across the board and to restructure society so that no one ethnic group is stereotyped with a particular occupation – which in effect largely meant lifting the bumiputera community above the poverty line and into the ranks of the middle class. Now, wouldn’t it be great if there was a policy measure that could kill both these “birds” with one stone? Well, there is – but it is the one measure that the government is loathe to introduce and has dismissed out of hand. It is a minimum wage for all workers. A minimum wage would do wonders to reduce the poverty rate. Low-income workers would have to be paid wages that are above the poverty line. In fact, a minimum wage would be a far more effective tool in redistributing income [Read more]

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