Three USM students detained for distributing leaflets
2330: Freed! The students have now been released. “The campus authorities probably realised that they would have as much difficulty in trying to justify the action against students for distributing leaflets as the cops did when they tried to detain under-age cyclists,” says one political observer.
2300: Three USM students were detained at 9.15pm while they were distributing leaflets in the campus. The three were bundled into a van apparently without any explanation and taken to the campus’ security department.
The leaflets provided an introduction to the “Pro-Mahasiswa” group and a bit of publicity about the group’s appointment to meet the USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor tomorrow. The students are believed to be preparing for campus elections expected to be held soon and are seeking free and fair campus elections.
Bundling students into a van? Is this the way an “apex university” handles students’ affairs? Do they think they can rise up the THES global rankings this way?
Perak village head election a step in the right direction
Democracy is here to stay, whether our politicians are ready for it or not.
It was interesting to see the reaction of the Pakatan government in Perak to the election of a village head. They did not seem to be too happy with it.
Congrats to PKR’s Gopeng MP Lee Boon Chye for pushing this through.
And now Selangor might reportedly follow suit with a pilot election for a village head later this year.
Gaza’s hospitals stretched beyond breaking point
Hospitals in Gaza, already facing a crippling shortage of medical supplies and equipment, are struggling to cope with the rising number of casualities, many of them civilians. Television footage shows every inch of space – even the floors – in certain hospitals being used for the treatment emergency cases. In one scene, medics are seen pumping the chest of a man lying on the floor in between two beds.
It doesn’t help that the earlier siege had blocked essential medical supplies into Gaza. National Public Radio asked United Nations Relief and Works Agency rep Chris Gunness how Gaza’s hospitals were coping:
Very, very badly. Because, don’t forget, in the months that preceded this military operation, the hospitals in Gaza and actually at many aid organizations were starved of essential life-saving drugs. So, even without this offensive, they were stretched to breaking point. Now, with the number of people coming into these hospitals, they are stretched frankly to breaking point. And reports in the hospitals say that basically, if you are in a life threatening condition you may be seen, but if your foot has been blown off, or you’ve lost a limb and you’re not going to die, then it’s most unlikely that you will actually be seen… Well, the onslaught continues. I don’t know if you will have heard or seen the pictures overnight from Gaza, but we’ve got very large scale bombardments of areas, you know, the most densely populated – one of the most densely populated parts of this planet. And you know, it’s fine for politicians in Israel and elsewhere to say well, we’re doing what we can to limit civilian casualties, but imagine if someone decided there would be an aerial bombardment of say, Manhattan, or any inner city in America. And someone said, oh and by the way we’re trying very hard to limit civilian casualties. Most Americans I know would simply laugh and say that’s absurd. Well, that’s the situation we’re facing in Gaza. There is this bombardment and we get this rhetorical promise to try and keep civilians safe, but frankly it’s very difficult to make any sense of that, given the scale of the bombardment in this very densely populated part of the world.Canadian human rights activist Eva Bartlett reports live from Gaza:
In the haze of dust and smoke from the latest F-16 strike, a family self-evacuates. The dispatcher at the Jabaliya Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) receives call after call from terrified residents fleeing their homes. It’s a new year, a new Nakba, and an old scene; Israel is bombarding Gaza once again and the world is standing idly by, sitting on a fence very different from the electrified border fence encaging Gaza, or the separation wall dividing and ghettoizing the West Bank. The world sits on the fence, justifying Israel’s massacre of a civilian population already dying from the siege.
Huge anti-war protest in Tel Aviv as Israel invades Gaza
An anti-war protester carries the Israeli flag Photo by Rachel Avnery, Gush Shalom
Some 10,000 Israelis took part in a huge anti-war march, a one-mile procession from Rabin Square to Cinematheque Square in the heart of Tel Aviv last night at the same time that the Israeli military began a bloody ground offensive in Gaza. Organisers were surprised at the turnout as only a thousand had taken part in a similar rally the last time the Israeli military launched a ground offensive against Lebanon.
Last night’s anti-war protest was organised by about 20 Israeli groups including the Women’s Coalition for Peace, Anarchists Against the Wall, Gush Shalom, Hadash, the Alternative Information Centre and New Profile. About a thousand Arab Israelis joined in. Protesters carried a giant banner, which read in Hebrew, Arabic and English: “Stop Killing! Stop the Siege! Stop the occupation!”
The peace marchers were later harassed by reactionary right wing forces, according to a report by Gush Shalom:A letter to all concerned Malaysians
Here’s a message from the folks in Aliran to all of you:
Dear fellow Malaysians
For over 30 years, Aliran has been a beacon for Malaysian society in many important ways. Aliran provides a rallying point for citizens and civic organisations concerned with freedom, justice and democracy. Aliran defends civil liberties and human rights, and promotes inter-ethnic and inter-religious respect. More than that, Aliran advances the causes of marginalised communities, disadvantaged groups and persecuted individuals who are too often bereft of any opportunity to speak for themselves.
Heritage lost: “Welcome tourists, bye-bye tenants”
The world heritage listing of George Town and Malacca appears to be a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, it has highlighted the importance of preserving our historical inner cities; but on the other, it has led to an overemphasis on the built environment while traditional communities are squeezed out through gentrification. Old shop-houses are sold and converted to boutique hotels, trendy restaurants and galleries. In the process, traditional trades and small businesses, long-time communities and low-income tenants are forced to shut down or make way.
Check out this article: City without a soul? which appeared in Aliran Monthly recently.
Israelis protest against attacks on Gaza
“The war belongs to (Israeli PM Ehud) Olmert, the victims belong to us”: Israelis protest against the attacks on Gaza in Tel Aviv
Israelis protest: “End the massacre in Gaza!” Photos by the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom
It is not just Arabs and many anti-war folks outside Israel who are protesting against the attacks on Gaza, which have now killed over 400 people, many of them civilians and police officers. Jewish Israelis too have protested in the heart of Tel Aviv against the attacks on Gaza. Another demonstration is scheduled this Saturday evening in Tel Aviv.
This report from the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom. “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies! Our demand: A full truce and the lifting of the siege on Gaza NOW!” said Gush Shalom, in publicising the protest:
No organisation called for the demonstration – but more than a thousand men and women gathered spontaneously in order to protest in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel-Aviv, only a few hours after the murderous Air Force attack on the Gaza strip started. They were members of the diverse peace organizations, from “Gush Shalom” and the “Women’s Coalition for Peace” to the “Anarchists Against the Wall” and Hadash. The police, apparently afraid that the protesters would storm the building in which the Minister and the Army High Command were conducting the war, took special precautions: the elite police commando unit was backed by mounted police. Reserves were hidden in side streets. At the beginning of the demonstration, some of the police confronted the crowd with loaded and pointed guns. “Barak, Barak, Minister of Defence – How many children have you murdered today?” shouted the protesters, whose slogans were backed up by drums. They were especially incensed by the Meretz Party statement the day before, which justified an attack on Gaza, and shouted: “Meretz, Meretz Party – Again for a War?”Another group, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, has written a letter to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, pointing out breaches in the previous ceasefire:
Claiming that this is an action to stop rocket fire is a wholly unpersuasive argument…. The Israeli government steadily sought to break down the ceasefire, not just in Gaza since early November, but also in the West Bank. Israeli forces have carried out an average of 33 incursions, 42 arrests or detentions, 12 woundings and 0.84 killings a week in the West Bank during the ceasefire. The tactic has been to continue attacking Hamas and other militants in the West Bank, provoking responses in Gaza, and to use the responses as the pretext for the massive attacks of the last 24 hours. On 23rd December Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire if Israel would undertake to open border crossings for supplies of aid and fuel, and halt incursions. For those of us appalled at the collective punishment involved in the ongoing siege, and concerned that Israelis should not fear death or injury from Qassam rockets, that seems a truly reasonable response. For Israel to reject it bespeaks a bankrupt body politic especially since the army and the politicians are acting against the wishes of the Israeli public. It is after all the civilians on both sides who will bear the brunt of this dangerous folly.Meanwhile, The UK Guardian’s award-winning journalist Seumas Milne reports on the context leading up to the attacks on Gaza. “The issue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power, but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied”:
Home Ministry bans Herald’s Malay supplement
The good news is that the Home Ministry has approved the Herald’s permit a couple of days before it expired – just in the nick of time.
The other bit of good news, according to the NST, is that the paper apparently has been allowed to expand its scope beyond coverage of “religion” in the narrowest sense. The new permit allows it to also cover “current affairs” and “international affairs”. Previously, the Home Ministry had issued warning letters for articles that allegedly went beyond the scope of “religion” (according to the government’s narrow definition).
The bad news on New Year’s Day is that the approval comes with strings attached:
- the Herald has to stop its Malay-language supplement. A typical edition of the weekly paper has 32 pages, including an eight-page Malay-language pull-out, three pages in Chinese and two pages in Tamil, with the rest in English.
- the paper can only be sold in churches (I don’t think it’s being sold anywhere else at present);
- The Herald must print clearly on the cover that the paper is only meant for Christians.
Malaysia ushers in a new year filled with uncertainty
Fireworks explode above George Town at the stroke of midnight and illuminate the sea around the island – Photos taken from mainland Penang
Malaysians are ushering New Year tonight, making the most of the start of what will be a difficult year ahead. Jobs are likely to be lost as the economy slows or even sinks into a recession. In the meantime, we are entering an equally uncertain period of political transition.
Still, amidst all the gloom, perhaps it would not be too much to hope that we can come up with creative, sustainable solutions to empower workers and marginalised communities and to transform the economy, promoting social justice and self-sufficiency while protecting the environment.
Say ‘no’ to plastic bags
While the rest of the world is moving towards bans on the free distribution of plastic bags, supermarkets in Malaysia are still happily dishing out such bags, which are an environmental nightmare.
Why are we so gung-ho about plastic bags and what is preventing the authorities from asking supermarkets to stop freely giving out plastic bags and instead encouraging customers to use reuseable cloth or jute bags? Is it a case of apathy or is the ‘plastics lobby’ in Malaysia so strong?
Our landfills, rivers, streams and drains are clogged with plastic bags of all sorts. Then, there are all those “mineral” water bottles.
Even at the local corner shop or hawker stalls, we can say no to plastic bags and bring our own reuseable bags or containers instead.
But be careful of certain reuseable bags that are not exactly environmentally friendly.
This article from National Geographic News:
Plastic-Bag Bans Gaining Momentum Around the World John Roach for National Geographic News April 4, 2008 From Australia to the U.K., and all across the U.S., politicians and corporations are pondering banning or taxing plastic bags. A hefty surcharge that began in 2003 in Ireland has spurred the public there to spurn plastic bags almost completely in favor of reusable cloth totes. Plastic sacks are also taxed in Italy and Belgium. Grocery shoppers must pay for the bags in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. Spain, Norway, and now the U.K. are considering a ban or tax as well.
Are the Penang govt’s fears of being sued justified?
We have heard it said quite a few times now: that if the Penang government or Municipal Council were to cancel of even review projects already approved by the previous administration, it could be sued by developers.
This has led to official inaction in a number of important cases ranging from the land rezoning of the Turf Club land, approved hill-slope projects and approved high-rise buildings in the heritage area.
What if urgent state action is required in the public interest? Can official inaction be justified by the fear of being sued or of being held liable to pay compensation?
Blog reader ashtanga, a lawyer, thinks not:
LGE keeps worrying about lawsuits, for this matter (hill-slope projects) as well as PGCC and the Turf Club land. Part of his problem might be the quality of the legal advice the bureaucrats in admin feed him. Remember he seeks legal counsel from a civil service inherited from Koh Tsu Koon’s time. I am from the legal profession, and I can safely say a good many of us bristle when he falls back on those anxieties at a time when we expect him to change things for Penang.
Two reasons why we are lagging behind…
We are well behind many other countries in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) benchmarks. It’s a sad reflection of the state of our education system. We are just, well, average in the global class.
Percentage of eighth-grade students who reached the TIMSS advanced international benchmark in mathematics, by country: 2007
Percentage of eighth-grade students who reached the TIMSS advanced international benchmark in science, by country: 2007
What does our Education Minister have to say about this?
Percentage of eighth-grade students who reached the TIMSS advanced international benchmark in science, by country: 2007
What does our Education Minister have to say about this?
Guan Eng under pressure to stop hill-slope projects
We are owners and residents of a string of four blocks of 87 apartment units perched on the side of Pearl Hill, Penang. About a year ago the previous State government approved the building of apartment blocks right below our properties. This part of Pearl Hill has slopes categorised as class 3, that is, more than 25 degrees with some localised sections in excess of 35 degrees. The proposed development will cut away two-thirds of the trees. Blasting is bound to be undertaken, as huge rocks – some as big as cars – are evident in the landscape of the hill. Cracks have appeared both on the public road serving our residences as well as on our walls, indicating possible potential slope failure. We wrote the following letter to YAB Lim Guan Eng, the Chief Minister of Penang soon after the Bukit Antarabangsa tragedy. We want the approval withdrawn. We cannot risk having the development proceed, even if the building work is to be monitored for the reasons given in our letter to the Chief Minister of Penang, reproduced below.YAB Lim Guan Eng Chief Minister of Penang 13 December 2008 Dear Sir Development on Hill Slopes As all Malaysians, we were horrified to hear of the recent landslide at Bukit Antarabangsa, and dismayed that, so many years after Highland Towers, these loss of precious lives and properties continue. It is all the more lamentable because they could have been avoided. We read with interest and concern the recent press statements you made in response to the tragedy. Concern because you seemed to have made light of the Prime Minister’s call for a stop to development on slopes. Politics aside, we had been heartened by it, and though we reserve our cynicism that things will not change, his statement seemed to us a national clarion call to reason.
The storm reaches our shores…
The storm has reached our shores.
In Kedah, 1,429 workers from 17 factories have been “temporarily” laid off.
In Kuching, 1,500 workers have been retrenched as Western Digital shuts its plant in March. About 60 per cent of these workers are reportedly married with children. The job losses account for 15 per cent of the 10,000 workers in the electronics sector in Sarawak.
Another 3,250 workers around the country, mainly from the electronics sector, are expected to be retrenched by over 130 employers in the next three months. And that’s just the official estimate.
Earlier in June, 1,600 workers in Nikko Electronics on mainland Penang lost their jobs when the company said it was unable to continue operations. They received a pittance in compensation.
Can you imagine what it will be like when we feel the full impact of the storm next year? Are we really prepared? Will we also come up with measures to make our economy more sustainable and socially just? It’s also time we put in place a comprehensive safety net (a national retrenchment fund) and begin re-training workers with skills to become self-employed. Unfortunately, this would require federal initiatives or funding, and that could be too little, too late.
Klang Sentral: Make concession agreement public
A storm is blowing over Pakatan Rakyat in Selangor and the mainstream media are going to town over it.
One of the issues that was bound to crop up sooner or later revolves around the Pakatan Rakyat leaders’ relationship with the the business community including developers. PR representatives need to keep the business community at arm’s length to protect the interests of the public. It cannot always be a “win-win” situation. Sometimes, PR leaders have to choose whose interests they want to protect and uphold – vested business interests or the people’s interests (e.g. workers’ rights, public safety and environmental protection). For instance, PR leaders need to respond decisively to the people’s demands for a ban on all steep hill-slope development.
The other issue is whether CAT is really being put into practice – or is it just a slogan? For instance, why haven’t Pakatan leaders declared their assets publicly? Pakatan reps were elected to power in five states because people felt they would be different from the BN folks. The non-declaration of assets so far is a major letdown.
I made a quick call to economist Charles Santiago, the DAP MP for Klang and one of the more principled politicians in Pakatan, to find out what was going on with the move of the main bus station to Klang Sentral, about 15 minutes away.
Israeli air attack slaughters over 200 in Gaza
An Israeli air attack on Gaza, which has massacred over 200 people including women and children, has been portrayed by the global media as a “retaliation” for the rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza (map source: Wikipedia). The Israeli air-strike comes at a time when Israeli politicians are campaigning for a general election.
Three key points that have not been highlighted in the corporate media:
- It was the Israelis who broke the truce, as the Israeli peace movement Gush Shalom points out.
- The rocket attacks from Gaza onto Israeli territory have not killed or injured a single Israeli, reports Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada.
- Gaza has been under a terrible and suffocating Israeli siege, which has caused immense suffering among the entire 1.5 million population. “Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren,” says Ali Abunimah. It is vicious collective punishment.
First the article by Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace group:
- A sovereign and viable state of Palestine to be established side by side with Israel.
- The border based on the pre-1967 Armistice Line (the “Green Line”). Insubstantial alterations by mutual agreement on an exchange of territories on a 1:1 basis.
- East Jerusalem and all Arab neighborhoods as the capital of Palestine. West Jerusalem and all Jewish neighborhoods as the capital of Israel.
- All Israeli settlements will be evacuated
- Israel will recognise in principle the right of the refugees to return. … The number of refugees who will return to Israeli territory will be fixed by mutual agreement, it being understood that nothing will be done that materially alters the demographic composition of the Israeli population.
- The West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip constitute one national unit. An extraterritorial connection (road, railway, tunnel or bridge) will connect the West Bank with the Gaza Strip.
- Israel and Syria will sign a peace agreement. Israel will withdraw to the pre-1967 line and all settlements on the Golan Heights will be dismantled. Syria will cease all anti-Israeli activities conducted directly or by proxy.
- In accordance with the Saudi Peace Initiative, all member states of the Arab League will recognise Israel and establish normal relations with it. …
Saturday 27/12/08 The war in Gaza – vicious folly of a bankrupt government (and Amos Oz will soon regret having supported it) The war in Gaza, the bloodshed, killing, destruction and suffering on both sides of the border, are the vicious folly of a bankrupt government. A government which let itself be dragged by adventurous officers and cheap nationalist demagoguery, dragged into a destructive and unnecessary war which will bring no solution to any problem – neither to the communities of southern Israel under the rain of missiles nor to the terrible poverty and suffering of besieged Gaza. On the day after the war the same problems will remain – with the addition of many bereaved families, wounded people crippled for life, and piles of rubble and destruction.
How about helping the poor at home first, Najib?
According to Najib, the government is willing to help Malays advance in other countries where they are a minority.
He said this when opening the the Malay World Muslim World (DMDI) forum’s ninth convention on 23 December, reports Malaysiakini.
The deputy premier said ethnic Malays in the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Cambodia, South Africa and southern Thailand could be assisted.
What would have been the reaction if the deputy premier of India and the vice premier of China had offered to help the ethnic Indians and ethnic Chinese respectively in the various countries of South-East Asia? Wouldn’t the governments of this region have asked them to butt out, citing foreign interference in domestic affairs?
Gov’t must account for premium on pump price
The global crude oil price is now US$36 barrel. In contrast, the local pump price is still relatively high at RM1.80/litre – despite a fifth reduction in price on 15 December since a 41 per cent hike in June.
It’s obvious that the pump price is now higher than the real market price; in other words, the higher price is a form of consumer tax (as opposed to a subsidy previously). Now, it is the government’s prerogative if it wants to impose this kind of tax.
But what is it going to do with this surplus?
“It never happened. Nothing ever happened”
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. – Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Harold Pinter, who passed away on Christmas Eve, was well known for his plays. But the corporate media have downplayed his role as one of the most prominent opponents of the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. His words on how politicians and the mainstream media often try to blank out monumental or historic events from the public consciousness have relevance for us in Malaysia, where official news reports are often at sharp odds with what really happened. Politicians, he observed, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. “To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives.” “Sometimes,” he asserted, “a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.” This was Pinter’s Nobel lecture:
Art, Truth & Politics
In 1958 I wrote the following: ‘There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.’ I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?Palestinian Christians face eviction from Bethlehem
As we remember the birth of Jesus, it may have escaped our notice that the little town of Bethlehem, his birthplace which lies in Palestinian territory, is now cut off by a 4-metre high Israeli security wall on three sides.
Palestinian Christians also have to contend with demolition and eviction orders issued by Israeli occupation forces.
Over in the Gaza strip, which is now under an Israeli siege, many Palestinian Christians have been denied access to Bethlehem even as the town welcomes foreign tourists.
This report from Al Jazeera: