If you thought Malaysia’s press freedom ranking was already bad, think again.
Singapore has surpassed Malaysia in the latest RSF global ranking for 2010. Singapore! Now Singapore may have made great strides in terms of material progress but press freedom is not exactly its forte.
Singapore is now ranked 136th (133rd in 2009) – ahead of Malaysia’s 141st (131st in 2009). That’s about the same as our football Fifa ranking of 144th place! What else do you expect when even a cartoonist can be arrested?
The ‘democratic’ nation of Brunei, at 142nd, is now breathing down our necks.
Can we look forward to more affordable housing in Penang?
The Penang Chief Minister has announced a Penang Housing Board Bill – “next State Assembly by Housing Exco Wong Hon Wai,” tweeted Kit Siang last night.
No approval has been given so far for a high-rise condominium project on the green stretch opposite Shamrock Beach in Batu Feringghi.
But residents are worried that the council may eventually approve the project. Following howls of protest, the project was scaled down from 37 storeys to 22 storeys.
Since about a year back, the Botanic Garden has been regularly invaded by wild boars, according to a source.
These wild boars have destroyed most of the aroids (common name for members of the Araceae family of plants) in the Aroid Walk and the lawns.
Civil society groups under the umbrella of Penang Forum 3 are inviting the public to participate in elections on 14 November to determine their nominees to serve as MPPP and MPSP councillors in 2011.
These pilot elections are a small first step in the journey towards the full restoration of local council elections in the future. Although many shortcomings in the process leading up to 14 November will inevitably crop up (given the constraints Penang Forum is operating under), the aim is to get the public used to the idea of having elections at the municipal council level.
Not all ‘NGOs’ are public interest groups. Groups such as Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers and the various Chambers of Commerce are more like lobby groups representing the interests of their members.
On the other hand, the civil society groups that are under the Penang Forum (such as Suaram, Aliran, Sembang-Sembang, PHT, and Malaysian Nature Society) advocate issues that are of concern to the wider public i.e. public interest issues.
Penang is to follow Selangor and introduce a Freedom of Information Act.
The Bill will be tabled in the Penang State Assembly next week. This was announced by the Penang Chief Minister at a DAP fund-raising dinner tonight, according to a tweet by Lim Kit Siang.
Deputy CM Ramasamy headed the committee that drafted the Bill.
This move is to be welcomed, of course – but we should hold back on the standing ovation until we examine the contents of the Bill.
The Rajang River water level reportedly has dropped after flooding began at the Bakun Dam. Already the express boat between Kapit and Belaga has been suspended. Rajang River water level drops - Photo credit: Borneo Post
Will Kapit now be cut off from vital river transport? What about the area’s future water and energy supply?
Now this might or might not be the solution to overcoming bottlenecks that reduce the speed of buses. But it does show the sort of thinking and creativity that others are already putting in to improve public transport.
How about us? Can we think beyond highway tolls and Protons?
For the past couple of days, I have been going in and out of a global conference in Penang on forests, biodiversity, community rights and indigenous peoples organised by Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific.
The theme “Ecological equity: Sharing the stories, reclaiming our rights” couldn’t have been more timely. Listening to the heart-rending stories from indigenous representative and activists from places such as Philippines, Uganda and Bolivia, I realised that the indigenous groups in Sarawak who are struggling to protect their native customary rights land are not alone.
Now, here’s a multiple choice question on Najib’s plan to build a new mega-tower by 2015 that would dwarf the Petronas Twin Towers.The floor of a classroom collapsed in Alor Setar on 13 Oct, injuring 11. The building had been renovated in 2007 but The Star reported sources as saying the contractor did not remove the original wooden flooring but only placed a layer of cement over it - Photo credit: The Star.
Why do we need the proposed RM5 billion 100-storey Warisan Merdeka Tower (to be built by Permodalan Nasional Berhad)?
A. We have a serious shortage of commercial space in the Klang Valley. Plus the boys could do with more contracts.
B. We have a healthy fiscal surplus and we don’t know what to do with all that spare cash. RM5 billion is petty cash-lah. Huh? Fiscal deficit? What fiscal deficit? Nah, cannot be.
C. No major earthquake will ever strike our country.
D. Najib’s tower has to be higher than Mahathir’s Twin Towers. And we have excellent public transport to ensure congestion is minimal. Besides, we could call it a super-duper ‘zero-carbon’ green tower.
E. Because Malaysia Boleh! “The most important thing is that we can do it. Why should we hold back?” as Ng Yen Yen puts it. A tower is more important for the rakyat. They will be so proud.
F. I don’t know. I give up. You tell me.
The miners in Chile may have been miraculously rescued, but there are ghosts in that country that linger after the repression of the Pinochet years. Chile, after all, has its own Sept 11.
This is the hidden story that the mainstream media have not reported:
The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile and the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile’s gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, on average, 39 fatal accidents every year in Chile’s privatised mines. The San Jose mine, where the men work, became so unsafe in 2007 it had to be closed – but not for long. On 30 July last, a labour department report warned again of “serious safety deficiencies ”, but the minister took no action. Six days later, the men were entombed.
Of late, Gamuda-MMC has been mentioned in connection with the RM36b MRT project for Klang Valley – the biggest mega project so far. But why has an MRT proposal been put forward when the national public transport policy is not yet ready?
The thing is, the Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) has just been formed. And one of its first tasks is to come up with an integrated national public transport policy, followed by regional public transport policies. Spad is now working on the national policy in parallel with the regional policy for the Greater KL/Klang Valley area.
in the aftermath of the Rajang River logjam, this image of the Sarawak edition of The Star says it all. ‘Overlogged’. No prizes for figuring out who is responsible. Overlogged: The cover of yesterday's Sarawak edition of The Star
So far, as at 12.40pm, two of the 33 miners trapped underground in Chile for 69 days have been rescued.
The Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera, has publicly given thanks to God, describing the rescue as a miracle.
Watch live BBC video footage of the Chilean miners being rescued here.
On the surface, the DAP appears to have stitched a peace formula to unite rival factions in Perak after a recent flare-up.The faces say it all - Photo by Kinta Kid
In 2002, the government bailed out two privately run LRT systems, which had run into financial difficulties, at a cost of over RM8 billion. That cost of that heavy bailout burden has resulted in the subsequently formed government-owned Prasarana now struggling to repay its bonds.
The takeover of the Star LRT system cost RM3 billion, according to a national financial accounting committee report. Star was owned by EPF, Lembaga Tabung Haji, LTAT, KWAP and private firms such as KLTG Assets, AIA Co Ltd, STLR Sdn Bhd, Apfin Investment, Trustees of Shell Malaysia Retirement Fund and Trustees of Shell Sarawak and Sabah Retirement Benefit Fund.
Greedy speculators, developers and even valuers, facilitated by easy credit from financial institutions, are inflating a property bubble. But the state is reluctant to intervene effectively, erroneously leaving it to market forces to find an equilibrium.
But there is no equilibrium nor sanity in the market. Property prices are getting ridiculous.
Don’t take my word for it. Some choice comments from national House-buyers Association honorary vice-president Goh Seng Toh as reported in The Star:
“Prices of houses, like everything else, will go up at reasonable inflationary trends, but it should not be at the rate we are experiencing now.
“Greed and the market are driving up the prices. For every piece of land, developers want to maximise profits, and there is no social responsibility.”… (Sorry, Goh, social responsibility is something they don’t understand.)
No, this is not the Yangtze River or the clogged Three Gorges Dam. It’s our very own Rajang River near Sibu in Sarawak.
Well done, Taib Mahmud. Well done, corporate boys.
Act of God? I don’t think so. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the cause of this disaster: land clearing, logging and heavy rain especially in the Balleh and Balui river basins. The result: massive flooding, erosion of river banks and landslides that churned out driftwood and logs. Who issued the logging licences and allowed the land to be cleared? Who do you think?
