Police order PJ Abolish ISA vigil participants to disperse

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Police ordered the participants of an Abolish ISA vigil at the Civic Centre in PJ to disperse minutes after the event had started. The vigil began at around 8.15pm but about five minutes later the OCPD of PJ ordered the participants to disperse. “The authorities care a lot for the safety of the rakyat,” reports Rakyat@work, tongue in cheek. “They sent more than two police personnel for every vigil participant.” Blog reader Adeline reports:
We came late to the vigil and saw only FRU and police personnel rather than ‘vigilers’. Met some ‘vigilers’ at the adjacent car park and was informed the gathering had dispersed. The main road leading to the MBPJ building was blocked off as we approached. There were at least four Black Marias parked at the main road shoulder. Pure police intimidation. Feel so incomplete without my Sunday Mesra Raykat. We must meet more often!
Adds delCapo:
We actually managed to burn some candles, had one full speech and one short interrupted speech and a round of Negaraku before dispersing peacefully. Still… it was a case of harrassment, intimidation and violation of the rakyat’s rights.
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Israeli women’s groups oppose war in Gaza

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A Jewish-Arab peace song. Of course, lasting peace needs to be built on justice for all A coalition of women’s groups in Israel has called for an end to the bombing and war in Gaza. The Coalition of Women for Peace “brings together independent women and 10 feminist peace organisations who work relentlessly for peace and justice. Founded in November 2000, after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the Coalition today is a leading voice in the peace movement” in Israel.
Women’s organisations declaration against the war in Gaza 2009-01-01 We women’s peace organizations from a broad spectrum of political views demand an end to the bombing and other tools of death, and call for the immediate start of deliberations to talk peace and not make war. The dance of death and destruction must come to an end. We demand that war no longer be an option, nor violence a strategy, nor killing an alternative. The society we want is one in which every individual can lead a life of security – personal, economic, and social.
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Three elected reps among 21 arrested at anti-war vigil

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Twenty one people were arrested at an anti-war vigil held in Dataran Merdeka in KL tonight. The event was attended by some 200 people. More were arriving when police made the arrests at 8.45pm. Among them were Klang MP Charles Santiago, Kuala Langat MP Abdullah Sani (PKR), Selangor state assembly member Dr Nasir Hashim and PSM secretary general Arutchelvan. When contacted just before 11.00pm, Charles said he had been released on police bail and he expected the rest to be released one by one. Over in Penang, a similar anti-war vigil, attended by over 100 activists and concerned Malaysians, took place without incident. Police, however, kept a close eye and snapped lots of pictures as usual.
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Latest Herald out – minus Malay supplement

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herald The latest issue of the Herald – minus the Malay-languange supplement

heraldkdn0002 The KDN letter to the Herald, prohibiting the use of Malay until the court decides whether the paper can use the term “Allah”. (This letter was published at the bottom of the front page of the latest Herald.) The ban was later reversed – but will the paper continue using the term “Allah” pending the court decision?

KDN says it never prohibited Bahasa in Herald…

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… but the latest Herald edition just out this weekend comes without the usual eight-page Malay supplement. And that’s thanks to a Home Ministry (KDN) letter at the end of last year, prohibiting the paper from publishing in Malay until the court decides if it can use the term “Allah”. A subsequent KDN letter reversed the ban – but still left a couple of conditions intact – after the Archbishop had sent a letter to the Home Ministry, giving it seven days to think about the ban. Wonder if all this back-tracking has anything to do with the by-election in Kuala Terengganu. The Malay supplement is expected to resume next week – but will the Church drop the use of the term “Allah” pending a court decision on the matter, as the KDN would like? This report from The Star today:
Govt not against ‘Herald’ publishing in BM PETALING JAYA: The Home Ministry has never prohibited the use of Bahasa Malaysia in the Roman Catholic Church’s publication Herald. “The Ministry is only against the use of the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God.
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The 4 Nov raid on Gaza

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This is one aspect of the current situation in Gaza, Palestine, that was not adequately covered by much of the mainstream media. It helps explain why the ceasefire, which had held for four and a half months, unravelled. The death toll in Gaza now stands at 771, including 189 children and 58 women.
US-MIDEAST: Media Eyeless in Gaza at Key Moment By Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (IPS) – Consumed by coverage of the Nov. 4 presidential election, U.S. mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end of the ceasefire between the two sides and set the stage for the current round of bloodletting. While the major U.S. news wire Associated Press (AP) reported that the attack, in which six members of Hamas’s military wing were killed by Israeli ground forces, threatened the ceasefire, its report was carried by only a handful of small newspapers around the country.
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Mysterious mass fish deaths along Rajang River

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How did these fish die along a stretch of the Rajang River? The NREB should check on the siltation levels in the river. Have the levels increased after heavy rains or storms? Was there a  sudden mud-flow which could have covered the fish gills with mud and silt or stirred up other sedimentation? If so, what caused the heavier siltation or mud flow?
The Borneo Post Online – http://www.theborneopost.com – NREB investigating cause of dead fish Posted By rajlira On 6th January 2009 @ 10:00 In Local KUCHING: The Natural Resources and Environmental Board (NREB) yesterday began investi-gating the cause behind the huge number of dead fish floating in the Rajang River between Long Murum in Upper Belaga and Kapit. NREB Controller Dr Penguang Manggil said in a phone interview the investigation was expected to take “a few days”. He stressed it was still too early to determine the cause of the problem. “At the moment, we can’t pinpoint (the cause) and nobody can tell what exactly is the cause until an investigation is carried out.” Penguang explained that the investigation would include taking water samples from the river for analysis.
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Anti-war candlelight vigils on Sat night

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“Last night I had the strangest dream” Candle light vigils in solidarity with victims of war in the Middle East and elsewhere will be held in major cities on Saturday night, 10 January. It is being organised by the Anti-War Coalition/Gabungan Anti-Perang (GAP) Penang Time: 8.30pm Venue: In front of Dewan Sri Pinang Contact persons: Chon Kai 019-5669518; Kris 016-3337678 Other vigils are expected to be held in JB, Ipoh and KL.

George Town: Heritage conservation for whom?

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Himanshu Bhatt, writing in theSun, worries that George Town’s traditional residents are being forced out by boutique hotels, pubs and restaurants. Whatever happened to the Heritage Master Plan, which stresses the importance of preserving the living culture and traditional trades of the historical city, he wonders.
All brick and no soul by Himanshu Bhatt IN NOVEMBER 1999, I was covering the general elections as a reporter for theSun, when I watched Lim Kit Siang campaign vigorously on a small lorry parked in the compound of the 19th century Khoo Kongsi – the grandest Chinese clan enclave in the country. Surveying the audience before him, the DAP secretary-general exhorted the enclave’s residents on the ills of the impending Rent Control Act repeal, which was threatening to displace them from their inner-city homes in George Town. If Lim were to visit the Khoo Kongsi today, he would find that none of the residents he had preached to that night are still around. They were all told to leave once the repeal was made effective.
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Govt lifts ban on Herald’s Malay supplement, but…

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The government has reversed its short-lived ban on the Herald’s Malay language supplement – but the weekly Catholic tabloid will still not be able to use the term “Allah” pending a court decision on the matter. The decision was verbally conveyed by the Home Ministry to the Catholic Church today and a letter is expected to reach the Church tomorrow. But three other conditions are likely to remain:
  • a ban on the use of three other terms that are also used in Islam;
  • a ban on the sale of the paper outside church premises (which is unnecessary as the paper is only sold or distributed in churches across the country); and
  • a requirement that the front page should indicate that the paper is for non-Muslims only (which is again redundant as the paper is sold only in churches, and the masthead already indicates that it is a Catholic weekly.
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A RM38 billion bridge from Malacca to Sumatra?

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It’s the silly season again.

The takeover of IJN (thankfully aborted).

The proposed Sime Darby-Air Asia airport in Negri Sembilan.

Not to be left out, the Malacca government has suggested a fanciful RM38 billion 52km bridge from Malacca to Sumatra.

The bridge proposal is of course a resurrection of the old Mahathir administration’s ‘brainwave’ of a Malaysia-Sumatra bridge, which was fortunately scrapped with the onset of the East Asian financial crisis in 1997.

If I remember correctly, the estimated cost mentioned back then was RM60 billion?

These guys don’t know the meaning of sustainable transport and global warming, much less ‘opportunity cost’.  At least Najib is smart enough to say the ferry service is sufficient. He says a feasibility study is needed first to evaluate this “bright” idea.

Says blog reader Ganesh:

Look at this brilliant idea. Only BN can think of it. The people here are suffering … and we want to spend RM38 billion on a bridge? With RM38 billion, we can lift every poor person in Malaysia to middle-class level.

This report from the NST:

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Aborted IJN takeover a victory for People Power

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Sime Darby’s decision to call off its takeover of the government-owned National Heart Institute (IJN) is a stunning victory for People Power. The rakyat have spoken. Ordinary people, through their vocal opposition to the proposal, have defeated a plan put forward by the largest oil palm plantation firm in the world, which is also one of Malaysia’s most powerful conglomerates. In a poll on this blog of over 800 respondents, 96 per cent of you were against the takeover, reflecting widespread public opposition to the move.
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Petrol price down; electricity tariffs still the same

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The crude oil price is now close to US$50 per barrel. The price of natural gas has plunged since July 2008. Coal, which at one time was US$192/tonne, is now hovering around US$80/tonne. Earlier when the prices were soaring, Tenaga Nasional hiked its electricity tariffs on 1 July 2008. The electricity tariff hike was to cover the gas price increase and to partially offset the rise in coal prices, which had also gone up 170% since 2007, said the TNB chief back then. Now that fuel prices have fallen, blog reader Desmond is wondering why TNB hasn’t reduced its rates.
When the fuel price went up, Tenaga said their cost had gone up and it hiked the electricity tariff. Now petrol and gas prices have dropped and even fuel oil and transport costs, shipping charges for coal delivery, and the price of coal itself has gone down in the world markets but why is the Tenaga electricity tariff still so high when it should have gone down as well? Something is not right here.
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High-rise hotels in world heritage zone to proceed

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Sigh…. good luck to George Town and its heritage conservation. Looks as if the state government has already made up its mind to give the green light to the four projects. Why am I not surprised. The state government says these hotels are needed to stave off the recession. But it forgets that tourism is a major revenue earner for Penang, and visitors don’t come to George Town to check out its boutique hotels. Rather, they are drawn to the historical character of the place. Once that is gone, George Town becomes just like any other city in this region. This excerpt from a Business Times report:
Penang hotel projects on, Unesco guidelines awaited By Marina Emmanuel marinae@nstp.com.my Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday said the state authorities and affected developers are awaiting guidelines from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on whether any changes should be made to the project plans. “The developers fully understand that legally, the projects can still proceed, although Unesco needs to state if any modifications are needed. Penang needs these projects (investments) to offset the oncoming economic recession,” he told a press conference at his office in George Town.
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Rocket fire into Israel: Lull until 4 Nov 2008

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rocket-hitsMuch has been said about the home-made Qassam rockets fired into Israel in the same way that the United States cited WMD before its illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is a chart that was drawn up by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center. It was removed from the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the eve of the ground invasion and replaced with an almost illegible graph in which the labels obscure the data, according to Jim Holstun and Joanna Tinker in the Electronic Intifada.
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Massacre! Israeli forces shell UN school in refugee camp

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gaza Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse. Now they are shelling UN schools. Israeli forces have shelled another UN school in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp. Three artillery shells landed in the perimeter of the school, killing some 30 displaced people who were sheltering there and injuring 55. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, has been using UN schools to shelter some of the 15,000 Gazans who had fled their home following the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The massacre is reminiscent of the Israeli shelling in 1996 of a UN compound in Qana, southern Lebanon, which killed 106 civilians. John Ging, the UNRWA Director of Operations in Gaza, stressed that all UN schools in Gaza are clearly marked, flying the UN flag, and that the organisation has provided the GPS coordinates of all of its installations in the area to Israel. “Those who were in the school were all families seeking refuge,” the UN News Centre quoted him as saying. Over 640 people have been killed so far in Gaza. This report from the Ma’an News Agency website, one of the most browsed in Palestine:
Date: 06 / 01 / 2009  Time:  17:04 Updated 18:07 Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli forces killed at least 42 Palestinians at a UN school that was sheltering displaced people in Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the northern Gaza Strip late on Tuesday afternoon, medical officials confirmed to Ma’an.
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K Terengganu by-election: The old numbers game

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Yesterday I heard on the radio news (one of the Astro channels, I think) that the BN had 30,000 supporters accompanying their candidate on nomination day. The Pas candidate could just muster 15,000 supporters, the newscaster said. But Raja Petra, who is predicting a Pas win by a majority of 5,000 votes, warns us:
Whatever the mainstream newspapers reported today, don’t you believe it! PAS saw a crowd of 30,000 to 40,000 supporters. And the crowd was wall-to-wall — from the Stadium Negeri, where the nomination papers were filed, right up to the old penyu round-a-bout, where the penyu no longer lives. Most importantly, the crowd was mostly local folks and their dressing, sarong just below the knee, and Terengganu slang was so distinct there was no doubt about them being locals. I mean, only locals would shout “Hancur, hancur…….hancur bee eng” and “Menang, menang……menang Pakatang.”
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Funeral tents attacked; emergency calls refused in Gaza

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Funeral tents have been attacked in Gaza, hospital premises shelled, a high-rise building housing international media fired at by an Apache helicopter, medical teams prevented from responding to 80 per cent of emergency calls… and of course, the rising death toll of civilians, including women and children. And all the while, the Palestinians are being steadily dispossessed from their rapidly shrinking homeland. Will this madness never stop? Sharon, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, reports from Gaza:
There have been two separate reports about Israeli attacks on funeral tents. We are trying to confirm deaths and injuries for one. The second of the funerals attacked was medic Arafa’s yesterday afternoon; 5 people were injured. We have also had reports that in the Zaytoun area two days ago, Israeli soliders rounded up a group of people into two houses; women and children into one, men into the other, where they were kept for two days. Then this morning at 11am Israeli forces shelled the houses. We have heard the number of deaths as between 7 and 20. One was a seven year old boy whose father was interviewed on TV while holding his body. We are trying to find out further details. It is getting very hard to keep up with this insanity.
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Heroic former judge Azmi Kamaruddin passes away…

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Former Supreme Court Judge Azmi Kamaruddin passed away last night at the age of 75. He will forever be remembered for standing up, along with his colleagues, in defence of the Judiciary when its independence was under severe assault in 1988 during the Mahathir administration. Azmi was one of five Supreme Court Judges – the others were George Seah, Wan Hamzah Mohd Salleh, the late Eusoffe Abdolcadeer and the late Wan Suleiman Pawanteh – who tried to stop the removal of Tun Salleh Abas, who had been suspended as Lord President. These five shone like a beacon of justice at a time when the judiciary was shrouded in darkness.
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Just change it?: Before and after GE12

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Blog reader LTH shares with us his thoughts about the Pakatan’s apparent lack of enthusiasm regarding local democracy. As recent events have shown, it isn’t impossible to restore local democracy – with or without the Election Commission’s or federal assistance or legal reforms. All that is needed to get the ball rolling is the political will and sincerety to fulfil campaign promises:
During GE12,
  • “We will return to the people local council elections!” was part of the PR manifesto;
  • And this is how they promised: “Just change it!”
After GE12,
  • “There are legal problems to untangle, you know; we can’t just change it!”
  • “We’ll need to move the whole SPR machinery over, will cost many millions, I tell you!”
  • “We tried in Parliament, you saw us, didn’t you?” (note: knowing full well it was an exercise in futility)
Haha, after 1 January 2009, the Gunung Rapat people have become such an embarrassment to PR:
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