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How will the Murum Dam affect Bakun?

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Bakun Dam nearing completion (Photo by Raymond Abin/IPS)

Even before they can make up their minds what to do with all the electricity to be generated by Bakun, they have already started preliminary work on the 944MW Murum Dam, which is just 60km upstream from Bakun. Remember, Sime Darby has pulled out from the project to lay undersea power cables to the peninsula.

About a thousand indigenous Penan will have to make way as their homes will be submerged by the Murum.

How will the Murum Dam, which will be constructed in the Bakun catchment area, affect the Bakun Dam?

These are some of the issues I looked at in writing this piece for IPS:

PENANG, Malaysia, Sep 27 (IPS) – Preliminary work on a 3 billion ringgit (875 million dollar) dam in Murum in the north Borneo state of Sarawak has put the spotlight on a controversial scheme to build a string of public-funded dams to provide cheap electricity for energy-intensive industries to the state.

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Encounters with JBJ in JB

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I hope all of you are having a good Raya break.

But let us remember our Muslim brother undergoing detention without trial, in Kamunting or elsewhere.

Read Farish Noor’s ‘Eidil Fitri in prison’ (Aliran) and Raja Petra’s ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ (Malaysia Today) from Kamunting.

I wish all Muslim readers a joyous celebration with their loved ones and friends.

Blog reader RastamanJB shares with us how as a stranger, he met and got to know the legendary J B Jeyaretnam:

I met him many times at the Kerala Reastaurant, Jalan Ibrahim, JB, and chatted with him about his WP.

He was a man worth his salt. His steadfastness and righteousness was there for all to see. It is a shame that we do not have anyone, and I repeat anyone, on both sides of the border to match him.

He was a very approachable person and talked to anyone who acknowledged him. A simple man, with his trade mark side-burns, collared T-shirts and short pants and sandals… popped into JB very often for his thosai and air suam.

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J B Jeyaretnam 1926-2008: Passing of a legend

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The legendary Singapore opposition icon, Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, better known as JBJ (photo credit: Wikipedia), passed away early this morning of heart failure.

After having left the Workers Party, he had just formed the Reform Party to mount a new challenge to PAP dominance. He was the interim secretary general of the party.

He was Singapore’s Mr Opposition, having broken the PAP’s 15-year monopoly in Parliament in the Anson by-election in 1981, winning 52 per cent of the votes to become Singapore’s first opposition MP.

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Trip to Kamunting to convey Raya greetings

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I have just been informed by the Bukit Bendera MP’s office that they, along with several Penang-based civil society activists, are planning a drive to the Kamunting Detention Centre in Taiping on the second day of Raya to convey their greetings to the ISA detainees:

Flowers, cards and gifts, if any, will be passed on to Raja Petra and the other ISA detainees to let them know that they are not forgotten on this special day.  RPK’s wife Marina has been informed of the event and hope that she will also be able to join us. The Press will also be invited for this event.

Details of travel:

Date: Thursday, 2 October 2008

Meeting Place: DAP Bukit Bendera Service Centre, Wayton Court, Penang
Meet at 9.00am

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End of an empire?

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For those enamoured by free markets and deregulation, the US experience makes for sobering reflection – although some argue that the Military-Industrial-Media Complex is hardly a model of free market economics.

For some time now, market fundamentalists had preached that the government should have as little do as as possible in regulating business. Now, we see Wall Street being brought to its knees and turning to the US government to bail out failed financial institutions, the victims of their own unbridled greed. All this is the result of financial deregulation with little oversight.

This is also what happens when the Occupation of Iraq meets financial deregulation, a wild credit bubble (cheap credit) and a colossal debt:

A shattering moment in America’s fall from power
The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over

John Gray
The Observer,
Sunday September 28 2008

Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.

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Trams: Can Penang emulate The Netherlands?

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Trams glide along the narrow streets of Amsterdam (Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Leidsestraat_Amsterdam.JPG)

Blog reader Josh, a Penangite in the Netherlands, is impressed with the trams over there:

I fully support the re-introduction of trams in Penang. I am a Penangite now living in The Hague, The Netherlands. Trams are the main public transportation here in The Netherlands, be it in The Hague, Amsterdam or Rotterdam.

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RPK meets Marina in Kamunting on his birthday

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Marina was able to visit RPK on his birthday in Kamunting on Saturday, 27 September. Interesting that part of RPK’s rehabilitation (or is it punishment?!) involves reading the NST! 🙂

Here is another touching account of their encounter:

Happy 58th Birthday, Love

Yesterday, 27 September 2008 was Pet’s Birthday. My two daughters’ and I were allowed the scheduled visit to see Pet at Kamunting on his 58th birthday.

When we wished him Happy Birthday he had forgotten it was his birthday and we told him that we had brought along birthday cards hand-drawn by his two grandchildren, ages 5 and 6, one from Jia Wei age 7, one card signed by a few of his friends and also three books. We had to handover all the items with the prison authorities and they would only give it to him after inspection. I told him of the numerous emails, sms, calls, on the blogs and our sons in the UK also sent him Birthday wishes.

This visit was also face to face and so I was holding on to his hands all along.

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No more projects on steep hillslopes in Penang: MPPP

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A small victory for People Power

The scary project

Some positive news from Chee Seng Garden in Tanjung Bunga, Penang, after the ‘miraculous’ flooding on hill-slopes (caused by hill-slope apartment/condo projects). The MPPP has said there will be no more projects on steep hillslopes. It’s a small victory of sorts for People Power over irresponsible developers.

A resident George Aeria sends us an update:

Since the floods on 6 September, we met up with the MPPP Engineering Dept directors and the developers on the 10th, but their response was pathetic. Thus, we, the residents, pushed for a meeting with the MPPP YDP and we finally got it on 20 September.

This meeting was a surprise to us as he acted as the role of residents’ champion and instructed all parties – both the developers, his MPPP Dept directors and all other government departments – to act responsibly and to resolve all issues at the housing estate. He even stated in the meeting that he would NOT approve any more hillslope developments above Class 4 slopes i.e. > 35 degrees.

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Over 60% of Gerakan members want to quit BN: Koh

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Looks like Gerakan has some tough decisions to make, if they are to survive as a party. This is what Koh Tsu Koon says here:

“If you go on sentiments alone, I would say more than 60% (want us to leave), but we are taking a lot of factors into consideration, and a decision cannot be based just on sentiments.

I believe one of the factors is the Gerakan reps with positions in government will probably lose their positions if they pull out.

The choice for the party is simple: either return to its roots and embrace the reform agenda whole-heartedly (can it really do that within the Barisan and with the current party leadership?) or lose more and more of their members and disappear into oblivion.

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2,000 in peaceful Abolish ISA protest in KL

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Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes yesterday. Lots of candles around – ‘cept they were not on my birthday cake. Some 2,000 Malaysians, many holding up candles to dispel the darkness of our times, gathered last night in KL calling for the release of RPK, the Hindraf Five and other ISA detainees.

That’s an amazing turnout! Full report, pictures and video clips by DeadAlienX here.

(Listen to RPK speak days before his arrest. The BBC interviews him here. If you would like to send an email to your favourite politician(s) calling on him/them to release all ISA detainees, click here for details.)

The event was organised by two different groups: Hindraf and a coalition of NGOs led by the Writers Alliance for Media Independence. As the original venue Dataran Merdeka was cordoned off by police, the vigil turned into a peaceful march to the Kortumalar Pillayar Temple, opposite Puduraya.

The whole event last about an hour. If you were there, do send in your citizen journalist eye-witness impressions.

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