Kanesin SVS Sappania Pillay: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, it was you who made Anwar Ibrahim the finance minister in your cabinet and he was sacked for reasons other than failing as finance minister if my memory serves me correctly. I am sure he would have learnt from his 'failure'.
Ed: Hmm, and yet he was the right choice for finance minister under your administration. I guess Mahathir always had the tendency to surround himself and his cabinet with people who 'didn't know anything' in relation to the offices they held.
SusahKes: Well, let's see Dr Mahathir. You were responsible for:
1) Awarding privatisation contracts at hugely inflated prices
2) Bailing out MAS by paying higher than market value for its shares
3) Using Petronas to bail out your son
4) The loss-making Paya Indah Wetlands/Sepang projects
5) The loss-making Putrajaya development
6) The loss-making Cyberjaya/MCS development
7) The huge Bank Negara forex trading losses (which you conveniently called 'paper losses')
8) Bailing out Proton and passing the mess back to the taxpayers
I've only just mentioned the financial side. What about the 'raid' you made on the judiciary? What about the use of ISA/OSA? What about corruption?
Do you know how much of potential FDI we lost over the years because of the non-financial aspects of your dictatorship? Aiyo, Dr M, don't 'pusing-pusing' la...
Victor Johan: Mahathir, when journalists seek your opinion, it does not mean that you should think they and the rakyat are stupid. Your reply only reflects who you are.
In my opinion, your statement certainly reflects your mental state - you're uncomfortable with the progress that Anwar and other like-minded Pakatan Rakyat representatives are making in providing the rakyat with an alternative government come the 13th general election.
Their success will certainly be your demise and those of the other BN reps - all the cans of worms and skeletons in the closets will be revealed. We need facts, not gutter-level political replies. You were prime minister and finance minister once, remember?
(MalaysiaToday) Monday, 16 November 2009 Super Admin
Today at about 12.30 p.m myself and my brother Chandran saw the body of my nephew which was full of blue black marks on his back, (Spine area) legs and hand as if he was beaten with a rotan, hit and also punched.
Last night at about 10.30 p.m the Air Molek Prison authorities telephoned me to say that my nephew (my own sister’s son) Saravanan a/l Jeganathan (22) had died in the said prison at about 10.00 p.m by hanging himself. I do not believe this.
My nephew who is a Supermarket general worker was arrested on 16/10/2009 and detained at the Desa Cemerlang, Ulu Tiram police station up to 11/11/2009. From 11/11/2009 to 15/11/2009 ie within four days at the Air Molek Prison, he is now dead. How is this so?
Today at about 12.30 p.m myself and my brother Chandran saw the body of my nephew which was full of blue black marks on his back, (Spine area) legs and hand as if he was beaten with a rotan, hit and also punched. His right toe has bruises. The police and hospital personnel including Dr. Mohd Hasnah have refused to allow us to take photographs of these injuries. I now demand my right to take the photos before it disappears or any evidence of this murder is tampered with by the police, prison and hospital authorities..
I believe that my nephew was beaten up and killed by the Air Molek Prison personnel.
I want the police and/or prison personnel responsible to be prosecuted for murder forthwith and criminal action to be taken against the police and Johor Baru General Hospital doctor and personnell for trying to cover up this murder.
The following words were mentioned in The Star Online (quoting Bernama la): Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he chose Malaysia as the first country to visit ....... because "Malaysia is a friend, a neighbour and a strong partner in the development of the (drumroll please ....) .......... RACE!!!!!!"
That's right - RACE!!
Yeah Baby Yeah!! Now I wonder if SBY considers himself and all Javanese, Bataks, Minangs, Bugis and what not "Melayu/Malay/Bumiputra" as per the Malaysian Constitution, Mahathir Definition, Umno definition, or was simply misquoted by our very "dependable" Bernama or even The Star. If he did, he should probably import UMNO to Java ...... and he can probably at least take the Toyol back, I suppose.
Something like "PI Bala resurfaces .... Bombshell 3" The link to Free MalaysiaToday which supposedly published it now shows Error 404!! Even the header and excerpt has disappeared from MT!!!! (I wonder why) I happened to copy a few words from the article:
"he was taken to see XXX at the Curve in Damansara on July 3 2008 when he was told by the YYY’s architect brother to “follow instructions if he loves his family.” Hours after that meeting, Bala signed a second statutory declaration which was prepared for him and later issued to the media. He and his family were then taken by road to Singapore before being flown to Thailand and and Nepal and eventually to India, where he has been hiding since."
Note: The names - "XXX" & "YYY" - has been deleted to avoid naming people in "unverified" news .... I have no way to verify any of the above - but someone did say thru an anonymous email some time back, that Bala will resurface, and "work is in progress" .... and I believed him, although I never knew him personally!!!
Author Unknown If anyone has a proprietary interest in this story please authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as the circumstances dictate.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 – The Bar Council said today it was disheartened by the government’s position in the V.K. Lingam controversy which it said had brought the Malaysian justice system into shameful disrepute.
Bar Council president Ragunath Kesavan said today that he was appalled at the government’s stand that no wrongdoing could be established in the probe into the V K Lingam video clip incident.
Lingam, a senior lawyer, had been secretly recorded on video engaged in a telephone conversation where he appears to be brokering senior judicial appointments.
The video first surfaced in 2007 and became a major campaign issue in Election 2008 for the opposition.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz sparked an uproar in Parliament on Monday when he said “judiciary fixer” Lingam had been let off the hook “because he had broken no law”.
Nazri also suggested that Lingam breached no laws as he might “have just acted to fix the appointment of judges as if he was brokering the appointment of senior judges to impress people”.
Nazri argued that from the legal perspective Lingam could have merely made a suggestion as to who should be appointed to senior posts in the judiciary.
A royal commission had proposed that action be taken against Lingam and several others purportedly involved in the recording including former Chief Justice Tun Eusoff Chin, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, a close friend of former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Nazri revealed that investigations by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on the figures named also found no conclusive evidence that there was any form of power abuse by any of them.
BMW XPo. 3 days only. Click for details.
“Such a simplistic and irresponsible conclusion is an affront to the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI)’s commendable work of thoroughly and objectively sieving through the evidence presented.
“The RCI found that wrongdoings had indeed been committed, and it further identified some breaches of statutes applicable to the circumstances,” Ragunath said in a statement today.
He added that Lingam’s statement that he was able to fix the appointment of judges “brings into contempt the administration of justice.”
“The video clip raises grave questions but there is also other evidence of serious misdeeds, for example Dato’ V.K. Lingam’s authorship of a judgment in a case in which he had himself appeared as counsel for one of the parties.
“Another example is the clear evidence of the joint New Zealand holiday taken by Dato’ V. K. Lingam and then-Chief Justice Tun Eusoffe Chin and their respective families, which wholly discredited their claims for many years that they had met only by chance,” he said.
Ragunath stressed that these incidents must be investigated to determine if the allegations were true.
“What happened has undoubtedly brought the Malaysian judicial institution into shameful disrepute. To now say that no laws have been broken and to classify the affair as ‘No Further Action’ is to selectively and arbitrarily apply justice.
“The tragic irony will not escape the Malaysian public – the very system of justice that Dato’ V. K. Lingam has been found to have abused and made a mockery of now refuses to mete out justice against him,” he said.
Pakatan Rakyat MPs yesterday presented the alleged key witness that may support their claims that Lingam and Eusoff had planned their New Zealand trip together.
They had hoped the alleged key witness, Lingam’s former secretary Jayanthi Naidu, would prove that the government was attempting to cover up the scandal which has raised suspicions about possible collusion.
However Nazri refuted today that Jayanthi was the witness that MACC was looking for.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 – It will be a straight fight between The Herald and the Home Minister in the High Court here next month over the right to publish the word “Allah” to refer to the Christian God.
Judge Lau Bee Lan from the High Court’s Appellate and Special Powers division fixed hearing for Dec 14 after ruling in favour of the Catholic Church’s bid to strike out interveners in their challenge against the Home Minister’s ban on publishing the word” Allah” in a non-Muslim context.
Lau retracted her decision, made three months ago, to allow eight state Islamic councils and the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (Macma) to intervene in the suit, on the basis that they were advisers to the rulers who are heads of Islam.
“The order on the 3rd of August was made on the grounds the High Court had no jurisdiction, following the order from the Federal Court,” counsel for the church, S. Selvarajah told reporters after leaving the judge’s chambers.
The Federal Court, led by Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi, had earlier this year made a landmark ruling barring the Selangor Islamic Council (Mais) from intervening in a dispute between the Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) and Bong Boon Chuen and 150 landowners over Islamic burial land in neighbouring Selangor.
The top court’s decision set the example for other lower courts to keep interveners out.
Selvarajah also said the issue of “justiciability” – whether the courts had the power to decide on the use of the word “Allah” – which had been raised by lawyers from the Attorney General’s Chambers representing the Home Minister, would be argued during the hearing proper.
He noted that The Herald’s annual publishing licence would expire on Dec 31.
The priest-editor of the Catholic weekly, Reverend Father Lawrence Andrew, smiled brightly at the court’s decision.
“It’s good. It’s the thing we’ve been waiting for,” a much-relieved Andrew told The Malaysian Insider. “We hope it can be settled within the year.”
The Herald, which is read by 14,000 subscribers, was first banned from publishing the word “Allah” last year.
Under threat of having its licence revoked, it filed a suit challenging the Home Minister’s ban for going against the Federal Constitution, but the dispute failed to be resolved then because its licence had expired.
It was forced to file another application earlier this year, based on the existing publishing licence.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 – The future has just grown murkier for the country’s only Catholic newspaper, which is locked in a lawsuit against the Home Minister over the right to publish the word “Allah” to mean God for Christians.
The Malaysian Insider was told that The Herald’s publishing permit for next year was retracted recently.
The weekly’s priest-editor, Reverend Father Lawrence Andrew, explained that the Catholic Church which publishes the multi-lingual weekly, had first applied for the annual licence in late July.
The Home Ministry had replied on Aug 5 and approved their application to publish in four languages: Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin and Tamil, but rejected their request to add a new language, Kadazandusun.
The church received a second letter from the Home Ministry on Sept 3, which promptly retracted the approval given a month earlier even though the RM800 publishing fee had been paid up.
No reason was given for the rejection, Andrew said.
Instead, the Home Ministry ordered the church to disclose its bank accounts and send in the latest statement, which Andrew found odd.
“They are a licensing body for permits, not a commercial body,” he said.
The priest also said they were forced to put in a letter asking for a refund on the RM800 payment, which he also found strange.
He noted that the ministry should have returned the money automatically, and added that he would not follow the directive as it may indicate that the church agreed with the rejection.
Andrew said the church has enlisted the aide of Datuk Michael Chong, a special officer to the Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and a church-going Catholic, to clear the confusing chain of events.
Chong responded promptly and told him the deputy home minister had “overturned” the decision to reject the church’s permit.
But there has been no breakthrough since then. Their last communication was yesterday, through an SMS exchange.
