MV Agusta sold for 1 euro; Harley buys it for US$109m

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I think Proton has some explaining to do. It sold MV Augusta for 1 euro after buying it for RM368 million. Now look at this – AP reports on 11 July the following:
Harley-Davidson Inc. said Friday it will buy Italian motorcycle maker MV Agusta Group for about $109 million to boost its presence in Europe, giving it entry into the popular performance bike market there.
And here’s a report from Bernama a couple of years ago.
Proton Defends Sale Of MV Agusta KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 (Bernama) — In what appears to be an unending saga, Proton Holdings Bhd has again come out in defence of its sale of financially-troubled MV Agusta, reiterating that there were no synergies between the motorcycle maker and Proton as a car maker. Describing continued criticisms over the sale and change in management announced by Proton in July 2005 as “uninformed speculation”, the national car company said there was “a refusal among some to acknowledge explanations provided earlier”.
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Foreign spies in Malaysia?

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Apparently there have been people in the country gathering information for foreign security or surveillance agencies. Nine peoople are being detained under the ISA for “mengumpul maklumat untuk agensi perisikan/keselamatan asing“. That’s a major news story, don’t you think? So why are most people unaware of these “spies”? Were these arrests reported in any of our mainstream media? According to the “Menteri Dalam Negeri”, the nine are part of 68 ISA detainees at the end of April 2008. These people have been detained without trial. The Minister was responding to a question in Parliament from Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli, the MP for Kuala Krai.
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85% of motorists ready to switch to buses and trams

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Photo by Henk Graalman, Adelaide

Trams in Adelaide, the “twin city” of George Town, Penang Photo credit: lightrailnow.org

It looks as if a huge majority (85 per cent) of urban motorists in Malaysia are ready to leave their cars behind at home if there is an effective and integrated public transport system comprising buses and trams. That is the outcome of a just concluded poll of 551 visitors to this site. The main reason I put out this poll is that I wanted to allay the fears of those who are worried that dedicated bus and tram lanes may cause road congestion for motorists. The results confirm what many of us may have already guessed: many motorists are ready to abandon their cars in favour of buses and trams. So why are we still talking about new urban highway projects, ring roads, and other infrastructure for more cars? Here are the poll results:
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Abdullah buys more time with 2010 handover deadline

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It looks as if Abdullah Badawi has bought himself a little more time with this new handover deadline – he wants to hand over power to Najib in June 2010. Remember, before this latest development, many analysts were predicting that Abdullah’s shelf life would expire by December. The PM probably knows that a lot of things could happen in two years which could jeopardise Najib’s chances of taking over. Najib’s ‘baggage’ could weigh down heavily on him in the coming months. His prospects have already dimmed somewhat after the allegations linking him to the Altantuya case surfaced last week. If a week is a long time in politics, two years is an eternity. Najib is in no position to argue. He probably figures he needs a couple of years anyway to recover from all the negative publicity – so 2010 would now suit him nicely.
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38% of households struggling to make ends meet

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According to the latest household income survey, the following are the percentages of families in the various monthly household income brackets.
Household monthly Percentage
income range of families
< RM 1000 8.6
RM 1001 – 2000 29.4
RM 2001 – 3000 19.8
RM 3001 – 4000 12.9
RM 4001 – 5000 8.6
RM 5001 – 10,000 15.8
> RM 10,000 4.9
100.0
Source: Figures presented by Senator Amirsham A Aziz, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, in response to a query in Parliament by Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, MP for Sungai Siput
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World Heritage listing: Some words of caution

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Following Unesco’s recognition of George Town and Malacca as world heritage sites, LW wrote these important words of caution, which I thought I should highlight:
I just hope, though, that this listing will actually bring about more context sensitive and local-culture-based modes of development in Penang and Melaka that are sustainable in the long term – not speculative and profiteering projects that will only earn quick cheap dollars from tourists but suck the life out of the cities.
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George Town, Malacca now Unesco World Heritage sites

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Armenian Street in George Town, which has the largest collection of pre-war houses – over 12,000 in all – in South-East Asia. Photo credit: Wikipedia

The Stadhuys Square in Malacca Photo credit: Wikipedia

Rua das Flores (Flowers Street), the main street in Curitiba, Brazil, has been a pedestrian avenue since 1972. Penang Road and other streets of George Town could be turned into pedestrian malls, serviced by buses and trams. Photo credit: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=377289

The historical Straits Settlement cities of George Town and Malacca have just been classified as Unesco World Heritage sites. “The two towns constitute a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia,” said the citation on the Unesco Heritage list website. This comes as a major boost to the lack-lustre economies of these two states. The new status is the result of a 11-year-long struggle. “It has been a touch and go affair until the last minute,” said heritage conservationist Loh-Lim Lin Lee, when contacted.
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Gloomy outlook for Malaysian economy

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Today I was chatting with someone who owns a few stationery shops in Penang and I was told that “business is down” because prices have gone up. Later in the evening I chatted with the cashier at a petrol station and he told me that sales volume was down. So it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we are in for some gloomy times ahead especially with a global economic slowdown expected in the second half of the year. I culled the following from various analyst reports on Malaysia:
  • Global economic slowdown 2H 2008
  • Slowdown in Malaysian exports to US and UK (esp electronics)‏
  • Trade surplus will narrow
  • High commodity prices support palm oil, oil exports
  • Fiscal deficit could soar to 5% of GDP in 2008-2009
  • Possible fiscal pump-priming
  • RM1.5 billion to subsidise rice farmers
  • More imports of rice from Thailand
  • Delay in large infrastructure projects
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LIVE: Oil price hike protest

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Malaysia Today is now accessible at this URL: http://202.75.62.194/ 2245: Anwar has addressed the crowd of not more than 10,000 people, about 85-90 per cent Malay, mostly young people. He explained the political circumstances surrounding the sodomy allegations at this time, saying there was great fear among the BN that they could lose power. Najib came under fire too and Anwar told the crowd they could see the DPM’s office if they had any problems. He also maintained that he could reduce the price of oil. How exactly he would accomplish this, he didn’t say. Instead, he said he would reveal more details on the 15th. My source at the scene believes that, from the hints he got from Anwar’s address, this could involve plugging leakages of funds. The event has now drawn to a close, thankfully without any major incident. Malaysians have once again asserted their right to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly. 2200: Charles Santiago in the stadium reports that the crowd has now swelled to 10,000 as Kit Siang address the crowd. 2105: About 7,000 people are in the stadium now as the main speakers start arriving one by one. 2042: The stadium and the field are filling up. People are still arriving. The roads to the stadium are jammed. 1947: Malaysiakini reports that sections of the crowd were unhappy with a couple of the performances by two different rock bands. A member of one of the bands had shown his rear to the crowd; it was unclear if he had boxer shorts on. A mob rained projectiles on them, mostly water bottles. Earlier, about 700 Pas Amal members pulled out in protest at another rock band performance. That could partly explain the traffic jams later.
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30,000 gather to listen to PR top guns

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A large crowd has gathered in Seberang Jaya on mainland Penang tonight for a ceramah by Pakatan Rakyat leaders, according to a source. Anwar and Guan Eng have been speaking. Among the hot topics are Najib as well as the issue of selective prosecution. The ceramah comes on the eve of a scheduled protest against oil price hikes in KL. The speakers have been telling people to show up in KL. They are saying it’s the “last opportunity to tell AAB it’s time to wrap up and go,” says my source at the scene.
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Bala – before and after “fish-head curry”

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Photo credit: China Press

Bala (left) when making the first SD

Bala (right) when making the second SD

Remind me to avoid fish-head curry in Brickfields.

Bala and family have now gone missing and are out of contact, says his worried nephew, who has lodged a police report. Meanwhile, Najib has denied any involvement in Bala’s retraction of his first SD. “I have no knowledge of anything,” said the deputy premier.

Bala left for fish-head curry in Brickfields: Americk

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He had friendly phone chat with ASP who wanted to congratulate him for first SD, says lawyer (Press statements by Americk and Sivarasah) At a press conference now going on at 5.30pm, P Balasubramaniam’s lawyer Americk Singh Sidhu has cast doubt on the private eye’s second statutory declaration. After spending hours with Bala taking notes of his testimony previously and being familiar with his character, Americk said, “I am very sceptical that he has signed the second statutory declaration of his own free will and I am convinced he has been intimidated to do so by either threats or promises, as I can think of no other reason.” He said Bala had signed the first declaration in front of a commissioner of oaths – someone whom Bala recognised as having grown up in the same Slim River neighbourhood as himself – on his own free will. “I am therefore extremely surprised that Mr. Bala, in the space of 24 hours, has engaged the services of another lawyer and affirmed another statutory declaration swearing the first one was untrue and that he was forced to sign it,” said Americk. The last Americk saw Bala was in Americk’s office after the press conference. Bala said the police were trying to contact him over the phone. Americk then told Bala to talk to them since they were trying to reach him.
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Balasubramaniam retracts statutory declaration

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Hmm… what is going on here? The PI, Balasubramaniam, wants to retract his statutory declaration yesterday and has come up with a new one. The address of the commissioner of oaths who witnessed the new declaration is reportedly the same as that of a legal firm owned by the brother of the Federal Territory Minister.
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“Malicious lies,” says Najib, as temperature rises

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Was busy today rushing out an article for Asia Times (see below). In the meantime, as Mustafa has pointed out here, the mainstream media online have been very… apa nama … “shy” in reporting Anwar’s and Balasubramaniam’s allegations – until Najib came out with his denial. Funny, they didn’t display the same reticence when reporting Saiful’s allegation on Sunday morning. I noticed on the front page of the Sunday Star that Anwar was said to be “fighting for his political credibility” in the wake of Saiful’s report. I wonder if they will say the same thing of Najib now. Najib has now dismissed all the allegations as “malicious lies”. He maintains he has never met the woman and Anwar is trying to divert attention from the sodomy allegations. See the NST here. Najib seems keen to lob the “ball” back to the sodomy allegations. Where is all this leading to? Taking a step back and looking at the larger picture, I believe this high-stakes “tennis match” (lob and counter-lob) symbolises the battle between the new political order and the old, the tsunami vs the hegemony. I don’t think it is a healthy development though, for politics to be so personalised. The tsunami movement for reforms and change is too broad-based to be focused on individuals at the apex slugging it out for their political survival – but there you go. Anyway, here’s the article I wrote:
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Anwar: Najib knew Altantuya, alleges former cop

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The stakes have just got higher. No, they have shot through the roof! In a sensational development, Anwar has revealed that a former cop has come up with a statutory declaration implicating Najib and others in the Altantuya case. Former police officer-turned private eye, P Balasubramaniam claimed that it was Najib who introduced Altantuya to Abdul Razak Baginda at a diamond exhibition in Singapore and that the Mongolian woman was promised US$500,000 as commission for a submarine deal in Paris. Balasubramaniam was engaged by Baginda as a private investigator. Click here for Anwar’s statement in full. Click here for Balasubramaniam’s statutory declaration.
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Malaysia Today, Aliran websites attacked

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The Malaysia Today website has been hacked and defaced. Now it’s simply not downloading as Raja Petra is having difficulty restoring it due to a poor Streamyx connection. A couple of days ago, the Aliran website came under bombardment with close to 60,000 hits coming from two unknown IP addresses within the space of a few minutes. “The account was being attacked,” said the webhosting network security administrator. As a result, he temporarily disabled the website and and restored it hours later, after blocking those IPs. On 19 June, Mahathir’s chedet.com website was “locked” because it was deemed to be a “suspected spam blog”. His webmaster was forced to change the domain name from www.chedet.com to test.chedet.com
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Where has all the tsunami money gone?

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Still waiting for proper homes

Tanjung Bunga fisherfolk still waiting for proper homes

When the tsunami slammed into our shores, claiming scores of victims, many Malaysians donated generously in cash and in kind. But, four years later, a dozen fisherfolk in Tanjong Bunga, living in a “temporary” longhouse, are still waiting for alternative housing. Where has all the tsunami money gone, they wonder.

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Why is Petronas delaying release of financial results?

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It’s already 2 July, and still no sign of Petronas’ results for the financial year ended 31 March 2008. I hope the government or top management are not waiting for the big 6 July oil price hike protest to be over first. In previous years, Petronas announced its financial results to the media by the end of June.
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Full text of Anwar’s police report against IGP and AG

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Check out the full text of the police report here. Anwar is alleging that a thorough police investigation had revealed much earlier (by Oct 1998) that the former police chief, Rahim Noor, was the one responsible for the assault on the ousted deputy premier.
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TNB CEO’s monthly pay = 5 yrs’ pay for poor households

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Do you know that 24 per cent of Malaysian households are struggling to make ends meet, earning less than RM1,500 a month? The figure would be higher if you define “low income” as households with a monthly income of below RM2,000. Check out this report in NST:

THE country’s poverty rate will increase from 3.7 per cent to 24.3 per cent if the poverty line is raised from the current RM800 to RM1,500 per household.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Amirsham A. Aziz said the definition of the poverty line was a household income sufficient for basic necessities. It does not include luxury items. The basics are food, clothes and other expenses like rental, utilities, transport and communication, health, education and recreation. “In short, the poverty line provides no room for luxuries like sending children to private schools or tuition classes, receiving treatment from private clinics or having their meals outside,” Amirsham said in reply to a question by Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim (PKR-Bandar Tun Razak). However, the poverty line would be updated from time to time, taking into account the prevailing inflation rate. The government had redefined the low-income group as people earning less than RM2,000 a month.
These are the households that are feeling the brunt of oil price and electricity tariff hikes. Contrast their household income with the remuneration of the Tenaga Nasional Bhd CEO, who earns over RM1 million per year:
Basic salary RM600,000 Bonus RM302,000 EPF contribution RM113,280 Car allowance RM42,000 Flexible benefits RM50,000 Total RM1,107,280 Figures are from TNB’s 2007 Annual Report.
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