Mohd Khusrin Munawi has reported for duty even though he was bottom of the list of candidates that the Selangor state government preferred for the position of State Secretary.
Only in 1Malaysia. You have to thank the BN federal government for not consulting the state government. After witnessing the role played by the State Secretary in Perak, people could be forgiven for worrying about the future of democracy in Selangor.
People are still talking about the PM’s aide asking the church to remove religious symbols at the Christmas tea party to which the PM and opposition leaders were invited.
In today’s Malaysian Insider, Utusan’s Ridhuan Tee has chipped in with his idiotic two cents’ worth. (I don’t know why people pay attention to what he says. If he is worried about the widespread visibility of Christmas decorations in shopping malls and other retail outlets, then it might comfort him to know that many Christians are just as concerned about the widespread secular commercialisation of this occasion. What would Jesus make of all this?) Meanwhile, a priest phoned me just now to find out what exactly had happened. One Christian emailed, was critical not only of the PM’s aide but of the Church itself: the big question, he wanted to know, was did the Archbishop agree to the aide’s demands/instructions/advice? What concessions, if any, were actually made?
The Christmas party is an annual event organised by the Christian Federation of Malaysia, an ecumenical umbrella body representing the main Protestant, Oriental Orthodox, Evangelical and Catholic churches in the country. This year, it was the turn of the Catholic Church to play host and so it was held at the residence of Catholic Archbishop Murphy Pakiam – or more precisely at the car park of the premises – where the issue of religious symbols didn’t arise in the first place.
Happy New Year, folks! Here’s to a cleaner, greener, more democratic, accountable and socially just Penang and Malaysia. Cheers! Let’s work together to realise this dream.
And let’s protect our planet too. It’s the only one we have. You will be pleased to hear that Italy has announced a complete ban from 1 January on shops and supermarkets handing out plastic bags to their customers – the first country in the European Union to do so. (See Telegraph report here.) Earlier in August, Mexico announced a similar ban (as reported in the BBC here).
So Penang is in good company. Here are a few photos of George Town by night for you to enjoy:
Good to see efforts being made to spruce up Penang.
The ban on free plastic bags is the right way to go.
Swiftlet breeding will soon be banned from the heritage zone. In the interim period, 32 new or unregistered breeders will have to move out by 1 January 2011. The remaining 78, who are registered breeders, will be given three years to relocate. See theSun report here.
Meanwhile, theSun also reports that the state government plans to restructure the Batu Feringghi ‘cowboy town’ zone, where most of the retail outlets and beach operators have been unlicensed for several decades. In the first phase, massage parlours and reflexology operators on the beach will be relocated to gazebos. Enforcement action against quad bike operators and horse-riding on the beach has started. Water sports activities may be relocated to areas within safety buoys.
Auckland is bringing back trams to its heritage quarter after an absence of more than half a century.
The proposed tram stops will be integrated with future bus stops.
The city’s original trams ran from 1902 to 1956. Their removal in 1956 has now been described as a “terrible mistake”. See this report in the Auckland Trains website.
Syed Shahir and his team have been defeated in the MTUC elections today.
I spoke to a veteran unionist to find out the implications of the result. “It’s a black day for the workers’ movement,” he lamented.
He described the new set of top leaders as generally pro-establishment. “We will have to sit down and find out how to react to the leadership change.”
Now this news item is disturbing. Catholic church officials were reportedly told to remove religious symbols before Najib attended the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur’s Christmas Day tea party.
See a Malaysian Insider report here.
A church source, however, told me the party was held in the grounds of the archbishop’s residence which is normally used as a car park for neighbouring offices during the week, and thus religious symbols were not an issue.
But the requests or instructions from the PM’s aide(s) reflect the reality of Najib’s 1Malaysia in everyday life.
It seems that plastic makers are saying they are going to distribute 150,000 free plastic bags next year to counter the Penang state government’s ‘no free plastic bags’ policy.
The news was published all over the Chinese-language media on Sunday. See a Guang Ming report here.
Let’s take a poll to see what kind of support the state has for its policy.
[poll id=”60″]
The Penang state government has asked NGOs to back its policy. Here is a response from an anti-plastic bags activist:
I am not sure whether the state government has a strategy to counter the plastic manufacturers who had been attacking the Penang State government since it first started the no plastic bags campaign.
More and more American cities are turning to light rail trains at street level to reduce congestion in cities.
From a cost-benefit perspective, these systems make good sense. They can complement the bus service and transform the image of public transport, making it more attractive to more commuters.
Check out this NPR article:
It’s hard to find a city in America that isn’t planning, proposing, studying or actually building a light rail system. Cities as diverse as Dallas, Seattle and Washington, D.C., all see light rail as part of their future — a way to reshape their development.
I wonder how many of our local councils can achieve this level of transparency.A billboard in Auckland - Photo courtesy of S H Tan
We still have a long way to go. Even in the CAT land of Penang, the MPPP (the council for Penang Island) still does not put up its annual budget on its website for public view. It only has the annual accounts.
Now what do you make of this? Proton’s wholly owned subsidiary Group Lotus plc is tying up with the Renault F1 team.
We should learn the lessons from Honda, Toyota and BMW quitting Formula One. See this BBC report:
Toyota has confirmed that it is pulling out of Formula 1 racing after posting its worst financial loss.
The world’s largest car manufacturer will concentrate on its core business.
Toyota president Akio Toyoda said the Japanese team had no option but to pull out citing “the current severe economic realities” affecting the world.
The team failed to win any of the 139 races it entered after making its F1 debut in 2002 but was fifth in the 2009 constructors’ championship.
Toyota’s withdrawal leaves the sport with no Japanese team after Honda left F1 at the start of the 2009 season. They become the third manufacturer to quit the sport in the last 11 months after BMW announced it was leaving in July.
Apart from this, if we are serious about curbing climate change, preserving depleting oil reserves and promoting green technology and public transport, an oil-guzzling motor racing sport may not be the most appropriate choice for a GLC to be involved in.
Cables released by Wikileaks have exposed United State diplomatic efforts to strongly back the corporate push for GM crops to be accepted in Europe and elsewhere.
Not only that, the US diplomats under the Bush administration recommended retaliatory action against a list of ‘targets’ in Europe for failing to embrace GMOs. In a leaked cable, US Ambassador to France Craig Stapleton wrote:
Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory.
“Guess how many students scored straight As in the PMR exams?” I asked a relative while reading yesterday’s newspaper.
“Twenty?” came the reply.
I laughed.
“Why? Hundreds-ah?”
“No, over 30,000,” I said.
Actually, 30,836 to be precise. With so many ‘geniuses’ running around in the country, it is surprising we are in the state we are in.
Kugan, Aminulrasyid … and now Chia Buang Hing. Another reminder why we need an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission – to look into complaints such as this.
Look what Santa pulled out of his sack – again – for Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary! The well-connected tycoon, the eighth wealthiest Malaysian with a net worth of RM5.3 billion according to Forbes, has reportedly landed Penang Port, days after his MMC, along with Gamuda, was awarded the job of KL MRT project delivery partner.
See Insider report here. The news is made public at a time when most Malaysians are in holiday mode and soon after MCA president Chua Soi Lek was appointed as chairman of Penang Port Commission. The chairman of Penang Port Sdn Bhd is Hilmi Yahaya, a Penang state assembly member from Umno. Redza Rafiq Abd Razak,a PPSB director, is the head of the Umno Cyberjaya Centre branch and Chief Executive of The Northern Corridor Implementation Authority
Appallingly, the port has not been handed over to the Penang state government to manage. The federal government had already spent about a billion ringgit of public funds in upgrading the port areas in Penang. Now, it looks as if even the iconic Penang ferries will also fall into private hands.
The larger issue, apart from handing over public assets to well-connected individials/firms, is the scourge of privatisation (at what valuation?), which undermines the spirit of public service and community solidarity.
[poll id=”59″]
It’s time for people to come out and defend the work of Wikileaks. Many governments are often afraid that people might find out the ugly truth about what they are actually doing.
Award-winning journalist John Pilger interviews Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and discusses the hidden, almost permanent state of war that most people do not see.
Among the Wikileaks disclosures in the video-clip (part six): watch the Apache gunship cockpit video footage showing how Reuters news reporters/cameramen in Iraq are gunned down on the streets. And the reaction? “Nice.” And look at how those who try to remove the bodies and save the critically wounded are treated. These are war crimes.
Below are parts six and seven of a seven-part series of the ‘War You Don’t See’.
Some 700,000 have signed a global petition by Avaaz.org to defend Wikileaks. The organisers are targeting one million signatures.
[poll id=”58″]
These must be tough times for the New Straits Times. Promoters on a roadshow in Penang over the weekend latched on to a novel idea to try and stem the paper’s flagging circulation.A promoter plastered with newspaper stands motionless while his colleague pretends to read a giant cutout of the NST (with nothing inside)
The promoters above were spotted at lunch-time at the entrance to the Batu Lanchang market hawker centre. They said this was part of a roadshow and their next stop was Queensbay Mall.
According to audited circulation figures, daily sales of the New Straits Times had plunged from 139,468 (for the year ending June 2006) to 111,158 (in the six months ending December 2009).
Karpal receives a rousing reception from a largely Muslim audience while Anwar announces that Pakatan parties have agreed that Pas should represent the alliance in the Tenang by-election. Live updates from the Pakatan national convention at the Dewan Millennium in Kepala Batas attended by more than 3,500 people.Standing ovation: Karpal immediately after the convention this evening after touching on the thorny Islamic state issue
The BN government wants to build two nuclear power plants by 2022. But the nuclear option just doesn’t make sense.
The costs and the risks are too high. Imagine, we can’t even resolve ceiling leaks in Parliament!
How much will these plants cost? Who will profit or benefit from the construction? And will Putrajaya be considered as a site for these plants so that the PM and his Cabinet can gaze with pride at them everyday? After all, they love these huge projects, don’t they? Putrajaya itself was a mega project.
See this Bernama report:
Malaysia Plans To Establish Two 1,000MW Nuclear Power Plants
By Alan Ting and Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 19 (Bernama) — Malaysia plans to build two nuclear power plants that will generate 1,000 megawatts each with the first plant ready for operation in 2021 and the second plant, a year later, as part of the overall long-term plan to balance energy supply.
