Incumbents Zahid Hamidi, Shafie Apdal and Hishammuddin Hussein are in the lead in the Umno party elections today for the three posts of vice-president, according to unofficial results cited by Utusan.
Zahid – 185
Shafie – 174
Hisham – 100
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Mukhriz – 91
Isa Samad – 8
Ali Rustam – 7
(1.40am, 20 October – results from 188 out of 191 divisions)
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Final results:
Zahid – 188
Shafie – 177
Hisham – 101
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Mukhriz – 93
Berita Kampus, the USM communications lab newspaper, was temporarily held back yesterday after a farewell profile on highly regarded media lecturer Dr Mustafa K Anuar appeared. For some reason, the School of Communication had a change of heart and released the newspaper yesterday evening just as the news was beginning to spread on social media.
The political gymnastics continue. According to the Borneo Post, Najib has broken his silence over the ‘Allah’ controversy and has declared that the court decision is not applicable to East Malaysia, the region considered to be the “fixed deposit” of the BN.
Over the past few years, many Malaysians have realised what business journal Forbes has now articulated: Malaysia’s economy, complete with high property prices, low interest rates, rising federal government and household indebtedness, shows all the signs of a classic credit and property bubble. When is it going to pop?
The government says it wants to remove subsidies. But what about the subsidies enjoyed by the super-rich corporate elites and their corporations – soft loans, incentives, ever lower corporate tax rates, lop-sided concessions, pioneer status tax breaks, capital allowances, tax deductions, etc?
Hot on the heels of plans for a theme park and golf resort in Batu Kawan, comes another plan for a 40-acre “international-class” “Penang Designer Village” that would include a mall tenanted by “first-tier luxury international brands retailing branded items at discounted prices”.
One thing that many people do not realise is that East Malaysian indigenous and Orang Asli Christians constitute 60 per cent of the church in Malaysia and many of them use Bahasa Malaysia.
This is a CFM statement reacting to the Court of Appeal’s decision to bar the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Malay-language pullout of the Catholic Herald weekly in Malaysia:
Singapore is bidding to have its 183-acre Botanic Garden listed as a Unesco heritage site. How does our expanded Penang Botanic Garden, 590 acres including surrounding hills, compare to this, considering the damage and neglect it experienced in recent years?
Social media users are reporting that the flash floods that hit Teluk Kumbar in southern Penang island this morning are unprecedented.
Kampung Suluk, Teluk Kumbar, Bayan Lepas – Photograph: Kay Rassidi
A protest against the TPP agreement, which many feel will promote the interests of large transnational corporations, took place at KLCC this afternoon.
Update: Just heard that the Penang state government and MPPP have now issued a stop order to all watersports operators in Batu Ferringhi starting tomorrow. All activities are banned.
A woman from Saudi Arabia fell to her death while parasailing as she prepared to land at Batu Ferringhi late yesterday evening – and this is set to raise questions about how parasailing is regulated in the country.
You have sufficient resources under your control to make virtually all of the improvements which are necessary over the course of the next two years, if you concentrate above all on the management of the transportation assets you already have in place, as opposed to doing as in the past, namely spending large sums on new construction projects to solve your problems. The priority at this point is not to expand supply of unnecessary infrastructure. But rather to manage and use it better. The Transportation Master Plan provides a number of useful guidelines for how to do this.
The acidification of our oceans due to carbon emissions is at its highest level in 300m years and has emerged as a major threat to marine life. Another reason why we must move away from fossil fuels and reduce emissions – instead of building more infrastructure for cars.
More than 5,000 people were massacred in Penang under “a purge through cleansing” by Japanese forces during World War II and their bodies buried in mass graves including the site of the Rifle Range flats, Bukit Dumbar, Batu Ferringhi and Coombe Hill (the site of the former Teachers’ Training College/the present Recsam premises). A National Geographic team interviews World War II survivors and local historians.
Was the chief of the Japanese police garrison in Butterworth, Suzuki, the “hippy” executioner, ever based at the occupied British garrison in Batu Maung, now the site of the Penang War Museum?
Prof Eric Britton says to Penang:
