A large crowd estimated at 10000 surged past police and DBKL barriers into Dataran Merdeka to usher in 2014 with a protest against a broad range of tariff, toll and price hikes.
Malaysia ranks fourth in the list of the top 25 countries with the highest measured cumulative illicit financial outflows from 2002 to 2011, according to Global Financial Integrity. Over the last decade, some RM1.2 trillion flowed out of the country. Where is all that money being parked?
Update:(30 December 2013): Not being a real estate lawyer, I didn’t realise that a private company can actually lease the sea from the state! Like most people (including the fisher folk), I was under the impression that the beaches and the sea are supposed to be public property. These comments from a report in The Star today:
Theme Park Concepts and Services Sdn Bhd, the operator of Wet World Wild, described the comments (in this blog) as “strange”.
“We’ve had about 800 visitors so far and they all loved it,” said its regional account director Melvin Kuo.
Kuo also said two fishermen tried to cast their nets next to the park’s floating ramp yesterday.
“They don’t understand that we took a lease for the sea off Moonlight Bay and kept insisting the sea is public property,” he said.
“We are paying almost RM8,000 a year to the state government to lease about 1ha of land and sea surface,” he said.
RM8000 a year? That’s about the annual rental for a small basic apartment.
Some of you commenters are also mentioned in the full report in The Star.
Original post (27 December 2013):
The RM3m Wet World Wild Adventure Park had its soft launch in Penang on Christmas Day.
The Wet World Wild theme park in Batu Ferringhi
Hundreds of Cardiff City FC supporters staged another protest against owner Vincent Tan’s handling of the club while expressing support for its beleaguered manager, Malky Mackay.
Selamat Hari Natal: My message of peace
The many faces of our society have weaved our social fabric into a unique one, one that depicts a diverse yet united society. We have lived in this diversity ever since Malacca was a busy port of international merchants and traders. There, our history began and developed to become one of the most diverse societies and that finally was embodied in the formation of an independent Malaya, along with Sabah and Sarawak, which the world knows today as the Federation of Malaysia.
A Christian-Muslim dialogue in Taiping, March 2010
Never mind the rise in electricity tariffs, toll rates, and satellite television subscriptions, many Malaysians are grumbling every time they go to the market and stores because of the soaring prices of fruit and vegetables.
A couple of groups yesterday protested against recent price hikes in separate gatherings at a couple of major shopping malls in KL.
This was the protest at Sogo.
Vincent Tan has reportedly lifted his threat to sack Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay, who reiterated his decision not to resign after the club’s supporters chanted “Vincent out! Malky in!”
Here they are chanting “Don’t sack Mackay!” after the game against Liverpool:
Wishing all of you a blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year ahead. May we help to brighten the Light of love, justice and hope in the world and dispel the darkness of repression, injustice and despair.
While Malaysians are groaning as a result of high household indebtedness, not everyone is suffering. Some are laughing all the way to the bank – and some may be laughing inside the banks. Could it be time for a ‘Robin Hood tax’ on financial transactions (instead of the regressive GST)?
Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay has been told to quit of face the sack by owner Vincent Tan. Earlier Liverpool manager Brendan Rogers spoke his mind about the situation.
Malaysian artiste HeyMun Tan, who won the folk/singer-songwriter category of the US-based 2013 Unsigned Only Music Competition, has come out with a new single based on her recent trip to New York.
These are the results for the last five years of Lingkaran Trans Kota Holdings Berhad (Litrak), the concessionaire for the Damansara Puchong Expressway (LDP), a major 40km highway in the Klang Valley.
Traffic volume along the LDP has increased by 3.3 per cent since last year, contributing to a higher profit in 2013. Earlier, in 2007, the government had agreed to compensate Litrak with RM150m after coming out with a revised toll structure for the period 2007-2010.
This was a ferry shuttling to and from the Malayan Railway jetty along Weld Quay on the island and the railway station at Prai Junction on the mainland.
The SS Violet shuttling between Weld Quay and the Prye Railway Station – Photo: Anything Goes blog
