Penang issues that need clarification
An email landed in my email inbox and from the looks of it, the Penang state government needs to clarify a number of issues including land conversions: has the state government converted any land from leasehold to freehold so far?
In particular, was approval given in June to PDC Heritage (51 per cent owned by YTL) to convert its prime seafront land from leasehold to freehold status? Was the Penang State Assembly really misled, as the NST alleges (see here and here)?
Perak Pakatan convention heralds 2-coalition era
The inaugural convention of the Pakatan Rakyat in Perak, held in Ipoh yesterday, has officially ushered in a new era of two-coalition politics.
Photo by Kinta Kid (Photo story at Kinta Chronicles)
Perhaps because of the furnace of trials and tribulations the Perak Pakatan was plunged in, its parties are said to have emerged welded together in greater solidarity. A manifesto was drawn up and debated upon.
Photo by Kinta Kid (Photo story at Kinta Chronicles)
Perhaps because of the furnace of trials and tribulations the Perak Pakatan was plunged in, its parties are said to have emerged welded together in greater solidarity. A manifesto was drawn up and debated upon.
Iraq Occupation: What has it accomplished?
What has the US-led Invasion and Occupation of Iraq really achieved? What have the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of American troops really accomplished?
If you ask me, a lot of people made a lot of money out of this military adventure – that’s what it has accomplished. Yes, war is all about Big Business for a few: the oil price rockets up, military budgets are pumped up, weapons sales soar, strategic oil pipelines are laid, funds for dubious “reconstruction” are siphoned off and a few favoured corporations reap huge profits for their well-connected share-holders.
Leila Fadel of McClatchy reports:
I couldn’t understand what thousands of American soldiers had died for and why hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had been killed. I didn’t see a budding democracy in an Iraqi government that was more like Saddam Hussein’s every day. I didn’t see a land long divided by sect, ethnicity, tribe and class beginning to grow into a united nation.
Feeling the heat: Not just PKR but Ong, Koh too
While the front pages of the newspapers today are all about Badrul Hisham quitting PKR and how PKR is supposedly on the verge of a meltdown, BN component parties too are feeling the heat.
In particular, MCA president Ong Tee Keat and Gerakan chief Koh Tsu Koon have been under pressure to call it a day. The latest broadside came not from opposition ranks but from a BN back-bencher in Parliament yesterday. (Did he receive the green light from the top?)
Kg Tg Tokong villagers: Fulfil Razak’s promise
Kg Tanjung Tokong villagers are appealing to Prime Minister Najib Razak to fulfil his father’s promise for their village.
Razak’s vision as reported in The Straits Echo, 11 April 1972 – Photo by Anil
During a visit to the village in 1972 accompanied by Dr Lim Chong Eu, then premier Abdul Razak told villagers that he understood that they were “not the owners of the land” but only “temporary residents” of the 200-year-old settlement. Nevertheless, he was reported as saying, the government planned to make them settle there permanently.
Razak’s vision as reported in The Straits Echo, 11 April 1972 – Photo by Anil
During a visit to the village in 1972 accompanied by Dr Lim Chong Eu, then premier Abdul Razak told villagers that he understood that they were “not the owners of the land” but only “temporary residents” of the 200-year-old settlement. Nevertheless, he was reported as saying, the government planned to make them settle there permanently.
Perak Pakatan reps hindered, pushed, dragged
Why did the authorities hinder Pakatan reps – and drag one of them – as they entered the Perak State Assembly yesterday? So that they could forcibly remove the Speaker’s attire from Sivakumar?
Images from the Perak State Assembly
Chaos and confusion was the (dis)order of the day at the Perak State Assembly this morning. Check out Aliran President P Ramakrishnan’s view here.
Drama at the Perak State Assembly – Photos by Kinta Kid and Jong
LIVE: Seeing double at Perak State Assembly
Two Mentris Besar, two Speakers, two assembly sessions, two sets of rules. Only in OneMalaysia.
All calm ahead of Perak assembly sitting
2142: An Ipoh resident reports just 12 hours ahead of what could be an eventful Perak State Assembly sitting:
I have just returned from a (look-see around) Ipoh town and the Perak SUK area. And my, oh my, unbelievable(!), the whole place is as quiet and peaceful as ever! So different from 7 May “BlackMalaysia” day.
RM50m ‘white elephant’ in the making?
For the coming financial year (2010), the Penang Municipal Council is projecting a budget deficit of RM40 million based on revenue collection of RM230 million, two thirds of which come from taxes. Over the last year, the council should be commended for making extra effort to collect arrears from various parties…
It is therefore strange that the Council plans to blow RM30 million in capital expenditure in its 2010 Budget on a new convention centre project. This centre will be located within the premises of the Penang International Sports Arena (Pisa) at a spot where the present fountains are. It is believed that a further RM20 million will be allocated in the 2011 financial year.
Now, Pisa as everyone knows is an under-utilised white elephant, saddled with expenditure – hardly the most productive asset in Penang. So where is the logic in building another convention centre next to it? And how is it going to affect the already ailing Pisa, which is owned by the Council and managed by a private firm, Penevents (formerly owned by the PDC until a management buyout)?
Now, water taxis – but no transport masterplan?
It appears that the federal government is going ahead with a RM50 million plan to introduce water taxis and build more jetties in Penang Island and on the mainland.
Najib approved the conceptual plan in July. A month earlier, this blog had suggested that the Penang Port look into emulating Bangkok’s river buses along the Chao Phraya River.
But the devil is in the details. Now they are talking about allowing private firms to run the water taxi service. In the first phase, they want to target foreign tourists. The public would be targeted only in phase three. This is so unlike the low-cost river buses in Bangkok, where the passengers are mainly locals and the fares are low (apart from the separate cruise boats catering for the tourists). Public transport works best when the fares are affordable (even if it means government subsidies for an essential service) – but you can’t have affordable fares if you have private firms hoping to make huge profits.
Meanwhile, all the various parties appear to be doing their own thing. You have the bridge firms (federal) working on the second bridge, Penang Port working on the ferries and water taxis, Rapid Penang (federal) upgrading the bus service, the Penang state government reportedly looking into monorail, a proposal to revive the Penang Outer Ring Road on the cards, the aerorail proposal, and the new Penang Transport Council probably not being consulted on some of these projects. What a jolly rojak!
Official dedication of memorial to James Logan
The James Logan memorial was officially dedicated on 20 October 2009 in front of the High Court building in Penang.
Photos by Anil and Logan family
Some Penang residents might know James Logan as a colonial-era lawyer (who took up the cause of the underdog against officialdom) and newspaper proprietor. Few, however, realise that he was also a brilliant geologist who coined the term Indonesia. James and his brother Abraham are buried at the same spot in the Protestant Cemetery nearby.
Among those involved in the dedication were “the doyen of the Penang Bar” Lim Kean Chye, High Court Judge John Louis O’Hara, representatives of the Penang Bar, the new Penang Heritage Trust president Khoo Salma Nasution and other heritage activists.
The last three photos in the slideshow above are of Abraham’s grandson, Robert A Logan (1900-1994), who was head of the English College in Johor Bahru.
Twist, shake and laugh with the Aliran Singers
The Aliran Singers had a whole lot of fun with their musical spoofs of Malaysian politics at the Aliran dinner last night in front of some 600 diners at the Moral Uplifting Hall in Penang.
The Aliran Singers and Pete Teo entertain diners – Photos by Wartawan Rasmi Laman Reformasi and L Lai
Guest star Pete Teo of 15Malaysia fame added glitter to the event with his ballads and rock number.
Second privatisation wave: Now that’s scary…
I was paying only casual attention while Najib droned on over the radio when tabling his Budget in Parliament yesterday.
But my ears pricked up when he mentioned a “second wave of privatisation”.
The Bernama headline says it all: ‘Companies Under MOF Inc And Other Viable Agencies To Be Privatise’ (sic).
Why only the viable agencies? Is this going to be more of “privatisation of profits and socialisation of losses” – at the expense of the Malaysian public?
The first thing that crossed my mind was: which cash cow is going to be handed over to which crony now? Don’t tell me they are going ahead with plans to privatise cash cow Plus Expressways Bhd, which is owned by Khazanah (24 per cent directly and 40 per cent indirectly).
Sarawak’s “cure for cancer”
Don’t believe it?
Then what do you make of this report published in that oracle of truth, the Borneo Post?
State’s very own cure for cancer A herbal compound for cancer treatment could soon be mass-produced by Sarawak. Ministry of Planning and Resource Management deputy permanent secretary Datu Len Talif Salleh said the state had so far raised 300,000 seedlings of the herbal plant that contains the needed ingredient. Full report here.Len adds that the ministry is currently working together with the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre and the private sector to develop the herbal planting sector into another major revenue source for the state.
Pas EGM to weed out “problematic” leaders?
Nik Aziz now wants an EGM so that “problematic” Pas leaders, who have been largely blamed for the party’s Bagan Pinang setback, can be ousted.
It’s not a moment too soon. These problematic leaders have certainly damaged the party’s image.
25 bungalows on Penang Turf Club site
The Penang Turf Club is to build 25 bungalows in a RM30 million project which it hopes will generate close to RM2 million annually in rental income.
The bungalows will be built on 5.6 acres of land on the fringe of the racecourse.
Presumably this is on the same land which the Koh administration scandalously rezoned from recreational land to new or mixed development land – which was eventually slated for Patrick Lim’s outrageous Penang Global City Centre project.
I just wonder what was stopping the Penang local government from re-zoning it back to recreational land use after the PGCC project failed to take off.
Another public space lost?
Something is happening in front of the Dewan Sri Pinang on the quiet. Why is it that we seem to be losing many of our public spaces?
Palm trees are chopped down and fencing sprouts up instead: Another open space lost? – Photos by Anil
It so happens that this is the same area where the Abolish ISA candlelight vigils were held in September and October 2008. Perhaps the local government can tell us what is going on here.
Check out the photo below taken just over a year ago and compare and contrast.
Palm trees are chopped down and fencing sprouts up instead: Another open space lost? – Photos by Anil
It so happens that this is the same area where the Abolish ISA candlelight vigils were held in September and October 2008. Perhaps the local government can tell us what is going on here.
Check out the photo below taken just over a year ago and compare and contrast.
Mara college’s expensive laptops
Some might consider RM4,000 or RM5,000 for a laptop to be a bit pricey – but what do you think of RM42,320 for a laptop?
That’s what Kolej Kemahiran Tinggi Mara Balik Pulau in Penang reportedly paid for Acer laptops.
It’s a boy!
It turns out that an earlier mid-air medical emergency caused the delay in departure of the Air Asia flight from Kuching to Penang last night.
The plane, on an earlier flight from Penang to Kuching, was forced to divert to KLIA after a woman on board went into labour, according to a passenger.