Only political change can bring economic reforms, says Ku Li

By Debra Chong

PETALING JAYA, March 23 — Saying that only political change can bring economic reforms to Malaysia, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (picture) last night blamed the Najib administration for crippling the national economy by putting politics ahead of policy reforms.

In his sharpest barb yet directed at  Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the Umno veteran urged the prime minister to end race-based affirmative programmes in the New Economic Policy (NEP) drawn up 40 years ago which he said was a cover for “corruption, crony capitalism and money politics”.

“To make that leap we need a government capable of promoting radical reform. That is not going to happen without political change,” the Kelantan prince and former finance minister said when launching the second edition of  “No Cowardly Past” by lawyer James Puthucheary here last night. Puthucheary, who was once a politician and economist, died 10 years ago.

The Gua Musang MP mocked Najib for delaying announcing his proposed New Economic Model (NEM) and suggested that the new policy may only be a rehash of the “old” NEP, drawing chuckles from the audience.

The chuckles stopped when the 73-year-old reminded his audience how deeply race-based policies had scored themselves in the minds of the powerful few, noting that the NEP was dragged back to life by Umno Youth six years ago because “it was and remains the most low-cost way to portray oneself as a Malay champion.”

“The NEP is over. I ask the government to have the courage to face up to this,” he added.

He called on the Najib administration to restore independence in public institutions and to overhaul the education system and repeal “repressive laws” such as the Printing Presses Act, the Universities and Colleges Act, the Internal Security Act and the Official Secrets Act.

“Confidence in the rule of law is a basic condition of economic growth,” said the politician popularly known as Ku Li.

Tengku Razaleigh added that “radical reform” and not “piecemeal measures” was needed to move the economy forward but strongly suggested that it may not be possible under the present leadership.

Asked to clarify his meaning, Ku Li explained that Najib needs to move fast and translate his proposed policies into action to plug the swift drain of talent out of the country.

Najib is now in Hong Kong to promote Malaysia to fund managers and investors at the Credit Suisse’s 13th Asian Investment Conference which starts today.

The Prime Minister is due to receive a report on the NEM which he announced when taking office last April. The report and policies will be fully announced in June when Najib tables the 10th Malaysia Plan as the government wants public feedback to shape the NEM.

Malay right-wing groups have said the NEM must be guided by the NEP which was officially abandoned in 1990 and subsumed into the National Development Policy which ran from 1991 to 2000.

Tengku Razaleigh, who was unsuccessful in challenging Najib for the Umno presidency last year, remains a harsh critic of the ruling Barisan Nasional government policies particularly its refusal to give 5 per cent oil royalty to his home state Kelantan.

However, he has pledged loyalty to Umno despite calls to quit his Gua Musang seat and his division leadership. The opposition Pakatan Rakyat has privately urged him to join them but he has declined the offer.

Make Israel pay an 'occupation tax'

By Ezzedine Choukri Fishere 

Commentary by 
Monday, March 22, 2010

Arab intellectuals and policymakers have often accused Europe of using financial generosity to cover up its political impotence over the Arab-Israeli conflict. If Europe is to be taken seriously as a global player, they argue, it must also flex some muscle when it delivers the money.

In Arab eyes, European officials implicitly plead guilty to these charges by pointing to Europe’s complex multilateral politics and the European Union’s bureaucratic nature. Europe’s Arab interlocutors are unimpressed: they want Europe to stop talking like a Great Power and start acting like one.

But it is precisely the EU’s desire to look more and more like a nation-state that has pushed its position on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the wrong direction. Europe’s inability to play a political role in the Middle East peace process was wrongly diagnosed as resulting from a European bias against Israel. Policy advisers argued that gaining Israel’s trust was necessary to win support for a European role in the peace process. Almost nothing became too dear in this quest: technology transfers, upgraded relations, association agreements, and even, reportedly, the prospect of Israel’s joining the EU.

European policy thus revolved around simultaneously seducing Israel and bribing the Palestinian Authority. Financing Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank served both objectives at the same time, at a cost to European taxpayers of several billion euros. Yet this policy earned Europe neither recognition nor relevance. Palestinians continued to trivialize Europe’s contribution, and Israelis to loathe it for “financing Palestinian terror.”

In the end, Europe paid a lot of money only to expose its own weakness. How much worse can things get before the EU abandons its counterproductive policy?

The idea that Europe can seduce the occupier into giving it a role in ending the occupation seems wrong-headed. Israel does not want an even-handed mediator but an unconditional supporter. This is partly why Israel prefers the United States as sole mediator, and it is also why Israel’s acceptance of a monopoly role for the US evaporates as soon as any American president starts developing views different from its own.

When this happens, America’s ability to project power makes all the difference. In other words, no matter what blandishments are showered upon Israel, when push comes to shove it is the ability to use power – not charm – that determines whether an outside power has a say in advancing Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Europe’s failure to play a role in resolving this conflict does not result from its supposed anti-Israeli views, but from the fact that the EU is not a state. States are not given roles; they acquire them by the power assets they can deploy. And Europe cannot deploy the type of power needed to tilt the balance in Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

But Europe can do other things. To change the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic, external actors now need to influence the political calculus inside Israel and Palestine by lowering the political cost of peace and raising the cost of occupation. Any meaningful Arab-Israeli peace depends on Israel’s return of Palestinian territories, with certain conditions. However, no Israeli government will be willing or even able to do so unless the political calculus inside Israel changes. Making withdrawal a tolerable political option (or making occupation a more costly one) is needed to trigger a meaningful peace process.

Europe has already tried incentives for withdrawal, but that alone will not suffice; the cost of occupation must also be raised. In plain English, an “occupation tax” is needed. This would be different from applying sanctions, which would risk triggering a “Masada Complex” that might push Israel to further extremes. Instead, an occupation tax would target the settlers’ economy and the violation of Palestinians’ human rights.

Such a tax should start with turning the European Union’s current exclusion of Israeli settlements’ products from preferential customs treatment into a full-scale ban on imports from settlements – and any transactions with them. Companies and banks should be barred from doing business in or with the settlements, especially with construction companies and their suppliers. Pressure should be exerted on Israel to end its financial assistance to settlements.

The occupation tax should also include action aimed at ending the virtual impunity enjoyed by the Israels Army. Israeli military officials argue that some level of human rights violation is inevitable during occupation, and that the record of Israel’s armed forces is not much worse than that of any other occupation army.

They are right: An occupation cannot be sustained without the systematic violation of human rights. That is precisely why these violations must be made costly: to signal to Israeli voters that the cost of occupation is bound to rise. This can be done if Europe supports investigations of suspected war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law committed by the Israeli armed forces, as well as the establishment of international tribunals when such crimes occur.

Only the United States can bring Israelis and Palestinians to a new negotiation process. Europe and others can support such a process, but mainly by affecting internal political calculations in Israel. Such a role would better protect Europe’s broader interests in the Middle East, while allowing it to remain faithful to its values.

Ezzedine Choukri Fishere is a professor of international politics at the American University in Cairo and a former adviser to the Egyptian foreign minister. He has also worked for the United Nations Envoy for the Middle East Peace Process in Jerusalem. 

[News] Klinik 1Malaysia: 'Pesakit diberi ubat silap'

Susan Loone Mac 22, 10 11:09am

Klinik 1Malaysia dikatakan memberi perkhidmatan perubatan yang berkualiti rendah, sehingga ada pesakit yang diberi salah nasihat dan juga bekalan perubatan yang silap. Dr T Jayabalan, yang mewakili pekerja dan Majlis Kesatuan Pekerja Malaysia (MTUC) mendakwa, kajian klinik-klinik 1Malaysia yang dilhamkan oleh Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak mendapati ada pegawai pembantu perubatan memberikan ubat yang silap kepada pesakit. Kajian berkenaan didakwa dilakukan di Kampar, Perak. “Mereka memberi preskripsi untuk ubat yang salah dan ada juga yang membekalkan ubat yang mereka tidak ditauliahkan untuk berbuat demikian. "Ada juga yang didapati gagal mengenalpasti sakit yang dihadapi oleh pengunjung klinik itu,” kata Jayabalan yang juga adalah penasihat kesihatan Persatuan Pengguna Pulau Pinang (CAP). “Walaupun, penyediaan klinik-klinik itu adalah tindakan yang mulia untuk membolehkan golongan kurang upaya mendapatkan bantuan kesihatan, namun kita mahu pesakit diberikan akses perubatan yang berkualiti,” katanya. Doktor berpengalaman itu yang kini berrkhidmat di sebuah hospital swasta di Pulau Pinang membuat pendedahan berkenaan ketika ceramahnya di Kompleks Caring Society di Pulau Pinang yang berjudul “Apa silap dengan sistem kesihatan kita” pada Sabtu lalu. Majlis itu anjuran Forum Sembang-sembang, sebuah pertubuhan yang memperjuangkan isu sosial dan awam. Ia dipengerusikan oleh bekas ahli dewan undangan negeri Machang Bubok yang mewakli Gerakan, Toh Kin Woon. Jayabalan juga melahirkan rasa terkejutnya kerana 44 klinik berkenaan yang ditubuhkan sejak Januari lalu bagi membantu golongan berpendapatan rendah di bandar gagal ditubuhkan secara telus. Dakwanya, kebanyakan doktor kurang mengetahui mengenai projek klinik 1Malaysia itu.

[News] 6b Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia units still available

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• Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia: 244,00 investors, 3.4b units
• Poor take-up for 1 Malaysia fund blamed on wary investo

KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 — Six billion Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia (AS1M) units are still available for public subscription, to date.

Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) president and group chief executive Tan Sri Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman said the Bumiputera and Indian quota made up the bulk of the remaining portion.

Saying that the subscription pace had not changed much since ASM1 was launched in July last year, he said the take-up rate was the fastest among the Chinese.

“Only eight per cent or 238 million units of the three billion units allocated for the Chinese community is still available,” he told reporters after announcing the income distribution for Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) here today.

He said the equity income fund enjoyed brisk sale among the Chinese community as not many funds offered by PNB are open to non-Bumiputeras.

“Many people are still waiting for the maiden dividend to be announced. They want to compare with other funds, under PNB, to determine if the returns from AS1M are as attractive as other unit trusts,” he said.

Hamad Kama Piah said Bumiputeras are more comfortable investing in Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB) and Amanah Saham Didik.

The AS1M, a fixed price fund of RM1 per unit, is open to all Malaysians with 50 per cent allocated to Bumiputeras, 30 per cent Chinese, 15 per cent Indians and other races, five per cent.

The fund is the fifth launched by PNB after the ASB, ASM, Amanah Saham Didik and Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020. — Bernama

When Should You Engage A PR Consultant?

You should engage a public relations (PR) consultant when you suffer from an image problem.  That is, of course,  if you can afford it.  And if the stake is high enough.  Painting a favorable image on the stage is essential for a leader.  The stage can be at the village level, the national, or the world wide one.  If it's the national, you call in a local consultant; if it's international, you call an international consultant.

'Neo-Colonialisme'

Penjajahan baru - 'Neo-Colonialisme' - bermakna penjajahan semula negara oleh kuasa tertentu. Objek penjajahan ialah menundukkan sesebuah negara (yang dijajah) kepada kehendak penjajah, atau mengaut sumber kekayaannya.  Manakala penjajahan silam dilakukan melalui tindakan ketenteraan, penjajahan kini (neocolonialism) tidak lagi memerlukan penggunaan ketenteraan secara langsung.  Namun matlamat - menundukkan sesebuah serta mengaut sumber - tercapai juga.  Malah penjajahan cara baru ini tidak perlu mengorbankan nyawa di pihak penjajah manakala ia lebih mudah diterima  kadangkala dialukan - oleh negara yang dijajah, serta penjajahan itu lebih mudah bertahan.

Fallujah Genocide: Dark Legacy of Bush

Hari ini, wartawan BBC telah mendedahkan kisah bayi-bayi yang dilahirkan di Fallujah dengan kecacatan yang mengerikan.  Ada yang dilahirkan dengan masalah jantung, ada yang dilahirkan dengan enam jari di sebelah tangan, ada dengan mata di tengah dahi, dan ada yang dilahirkan dengan 3 kepala. Kebanyakan bayi-bayi itu  mati sejurus selepas dilahirkan.

Kejadian ini berlaku dengan kadar 2 atu 3 dalam satu hari, bermakna 1000 kes dalam setahun, melebihi kadar di mana-mana tempat lain di Iraq sendiri.

Sehingga ada doktor yang menasihatkan kaum ibu di Fallujah supaya jangan mengandung.

Itulah peninggalan Bush durjana, yang menggunakan apa sahaja untuk menghadapi musuhnya yang lemah.  Musuh dihapuskan tanpa sifat belas kasihan walaupun kepada waris-waris mereka.

Itulah cara mereka berperang.

Dan mereka pura-pura bertanya kenapa agaknya ada orang yang tidak berapa sayang pada Uncle Sam ...

Tidakkah layak mereka didakwa sebagai penjenayah perang?

Untuk sesiapa yang telah lupa tentang tragedi Fallujah sila ikuti pautan berikut:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_during_the_Iraq_War

Masalah Dalaman PKR, Najib, & PRU13

Satu demi satu ADUN dan AP PKR keluar, sama ada menyertai UMNO/BN atau sebagai ADUN/AP bebas.  Bermula dengan ADUN Perak setahun dulu, kini masalah itu kelihatan merebak ke Pulau Pinang dan Perak (semula; sebenarnya Bagan Serai lebih serasi dengan Pulau Pinang daripada Perak.)