Everyday sees the ground moving from under Najib and his team. Yesterday, it was the New York Post report about Jho Low and Mahathir and Siti Hasmah quitting Umno.
Today, it is yet another Wall Street Journal expose that investigators allege the prime minister account had received over US$1bn (RM4bn) not just RM2.6bn via intermediaries and most of this is later returned to the intermediaries.
A Penang State Museum committee came up with this inventory of mostly private heritage buldings but the list seems to have “melted down”, says a former urban conservator.
Concerned and disturbed by the MCMC move to block The Malaysian Insider. The blocking of Sarawak Report, Asia Sentinel, Malaysian Chronicle, and earlier, the Bersih website (now lifted) was bad enough.
The PKR reps are concerned about new not-yet-approved land reclamation projects not the previous ones, says Kebun Bunga rep Cheah Kah Peng, in a letter to the people of Penang.
The Penang Forum steering committee has just released a statement on the Green Lane road widening. It can be found here.
Any congestion in that area is just going to be displaced elsewhere, if there is road-widening along Green Lane. What a waste of public funds.
With the Sarawak state elections expected to be held in April, we can expect all kinds of announcements to be made ahead of the polls.
Like this one: Minister for Rural and District Development Ismail Sabri Yaakob reportedly announced on 21 February that a Mara Science Junior College would be built on a site in Bintulu, with the first intake of students expected in 2019.
Expect more such announcements in the weeks ahead.
By the way, can someone let me know the status of the “university” in Teluk Intan promised by Gerakan-BN candidate Mah Siew Keong on 26 May 2014, just five days ahead of the Teluk Intan by-election.
The sacking of two PKR state assembly members, Bukit Tengah rep Ong Chin Wen (the PKR state whip) and Kebun Bunga rep Cheah Kah Peng, as directors of Penang state government-linked companies is disturbing.
This was the building known as Raffles House in Penang, along Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah/Northam Road. Notice the five 19th Century Doric order columns.
It stood on the site of Stamford Raffles’ house, which was damaged in a fire in 1901. It was rebuilt or reconstructed in 1903 and opened as a hotel. (See timeline further below.) The solid structure of the building may well have been the original. Heritage circles had asked if they could investigate and record the building but it never happened.
Instead, the building was among several that were demolished at the Runnymede site over the Lunar New Year by the developer.
Penang Forum’s position against special projects on the hills of Penang, put forward by prominent lawyer Agatha Foo, has been vindicated in recent weeks by three developments. [Basically, Penang Forum said that the Penang state government had come up with guidelines in 2009 that interpreted too broadly the term special projects contained in the Penang Structure Plan, gazetted in 2007. The Structure Plan prohibits development on hill land more than 250 feet above sea level, allowing only “limited development” for special projects under exceptional circumstances.]