New US Government must respect smaller nations

Malaysia has expressed hope that the new Barack Onama-led United States administration will be more respectful of the sovereignty of smaller nations, and not focus on power and force as tools to solve the problems of the world.
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said this in a press statement yesterday to congratulate Obama on his historic victory, adding the victory is not only meaningful for the Americans but for the human race as a whole."Obama's victory also brings hope for change in the world. We hope he becomes the new torch for the pursuit of democracy."
Rais said Obama's victory showed that Americans can select their leader without taking into consideration the colour of one's skin or religion. There is high hope that Obama can bring about many positive changes in international relations, especiallyto the bilateral relationship between Malaysia and US.
Malaysia will continue to work on fostering bilateral ties with the new administration and we hope Obama will give his due attention to developing countries in the context of humanity, development and bilateral ties.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said in a statement that Obama 's call for unity and his promise to forge a new direction in the relationship between US and the rest of the world is welcomed by Malaysians."The support that President-elect Obama draws from across racial, religious and generational lines parallels the sentiments felt by Malaysians from all walks of life who earlier this year cast votes in vehement opposition to the failed policies of an incumbent regime.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said:" Obama's win is wonderful news as it showed that the president-elect was judged on his character and not the colour of his skin."

Stop excessive politiking: Sultan Azlan

The Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, has called on the people to stop excessive politiking over the status and eminence of the Malay Rulers, Islam, the Malay language, the special position of the Malays and legitimate interests of other communities as enshrine in the Federal Constitution.
He said the interest of the people who elected the government should be given priority, and the country's peace and harmony should not be sacrificed in the name of power struggle among certain leaders and groups.
"if there are mistakes and derailment in the implementation of certain policies, what needs rectification is the implimentation mechanism. The core policies, which form the fountation of this independent country, should not be touched, tested or challenged at all. It is is feared that such actions, if not stopped, will hurt the feelings and emotions of the Malays," he said at the handing over of a memorandum by Gabungan Melayu Perak(GMP) at the Istana Iskandariah yesterday. Also present were the raja Muda of Perak, Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah and Raja di-Hilir Perak Raja Jaafar Raja Muda Musa.
Sultan Azlan said any amendment to the constitution pertaining to Malay Rulers and their jurisdiction over Islam, the national language, the position of the Malays, and bumiputra in Sabah and Sarawak should be consented to first by the Rulers.
He said the Malay Rulers understood that the Federal Constitution also recognised and safeguarged the interests of the various races, religions, languages and cultures.
About 2000 representatives of Malays non-governmental organisations, silat and arts associations throughout the state , headed by GMP chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hilmi Ismail, participated in a peaceful march from the Ubudiah Mosque to the palace to hand over the memorandum.
Mohd Hilmi said the memorandum ,among other things, expressed gratitude for the special statement issued by the Malay Rulers last month which touched on issues related to the privileges of the Malays and the interests of other communities.

RM7 billion to stimulate the economy

Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razal yesterday announced in the Dewan Rakyat a stimulus package worth RM7 bilion, the result of savings in the government's fuel subsidy brought on by plummeting world crude prices.
He said the RM7 billion saved will be channelled into 15 projects.

This is how the money will be spent:

1. RM1.2 billion to build 25,000 units of low and medium cost houses;
2. RM500 million to upgrade, repair and maintain police stations, living quaters, army camps and quarters;
3. RM600 million on minor projects under the public and basic infrastructure project maintenance programmee. These include maintaining village roads, building community halls and small bridges. This would help small-time contractors address the problem of shortage of construction projects;
4. RM500 million to repair and maintain public facilities such as road, schools and hospitals ;
5. RM500 millionto build and upgrade roads in rural areas, villages and agriculture roads, including in Sabah and Sarawak;
6. RM200 million to government-aided religious schools, mission schools, Chinese and Tamil schools(shared equal);
7. RM300 million to start a fund to run skills training programmes, with focus on tourism, health, construction and business process outsourcing sectors;
8. RM500 million to bolster the public transport system(LRT,Komuter and city bus systems)
9. RM1.5 bilion to set up an Investment Fund to attract more private sector investment in strategic sectotrs, like solar panels, aerospace industry, and aeroplane components;
10. RM400 million to move the High Speed Broadband Project;
11. RM200 million to fund programmes by private training institutions, with participation of all races;
12. RM100 million for youth programmes at various levels and involving all races;
13. RM200 million to revive abandoned housing projects in stragic areas;
14. RM100 million to increase number of business premises in selected small towns;
15. RM200 million on early educational programmes for children aged one to six years. A project management unit will be set up to monitor the implementation of these projects, he said.

Other measures and iniatives announced by Najid were:

• Employees can reduce EPF contributions by 3 % on a voluntary basis for up to two years from 1 Jan. This measure can place RM4.8 billion in the hand of consumers if all EPF contributors opt for it;
• Abolishing the 5 % import duties on seven types of fertilisers. The fertiliser manufacturing industry has also agreed to cut down fertiliser prices by at least 15% immediately;
• Abolishing import duties on cement and long iron and steel products, and the scrapping of Approved Permits for the latter;
• Allowing hypermarkets to close late(weekdays 11 pm; weekends 1 am);
• Beginning February, biodiesel will be used as huel, starting with government vehicles, followed by the industrial and transport sectors. It is estimated that 500,000 tonnes of palm oil a year is nected when it is fully implemented in early 2010, he said.
• Plan to generate extra revenue and kickstart local economic activities by making full use of government land in strategic locations like the Lembaga Getah malayia land at Sungai Buluh and government land in jalan Cochrance and in Jalan Ampang Hilir, Kuala Lumpur.
• To widen the Social Security Net to improve spending power of the poor and low income earners, the income eligibility for monthly welfare aid raised from RM400 to RM720 in Peninsula, RM830 in Sarawak and RM960 in sabah. This will widen to cover 110,000 people from 55,000 now.
• Higher car loan ceiling for government servants in several categories, and the permission for government servants to buy houses on a secondary market where strata titles not given yet;
• All civil servants can opt tp extend housing mortgate repayment period to 30 years instead of 25. Earlier, the government only allowed new borrowers to do so.

Motion on multilinqual roadsigns rejected

The Dewan Rakyat rejected a motion by Datuk Ibrahim Ali(Ind-Pasir Mas) to discuss the Penang government's move to put up names of roads in various languages.
Speaker Tan Sri pandikar Amin Mulia rejected the motion , sumitted on Friday, on the ground hat it was not urgent.
In his motion, Ibrahim said the move clearly insulted the position of the Malay language as the national language, and insulted the foundation of the Federal Constitution.
"According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, the national language must be used for official purposes, as such road names are considered official business based on the National Language Act 1963/1967.
"The use of various languages can also cause much confusion."

Law Portal holds competition on popular topics

A local legal community portal,eLawyer, is organising a blog writing competition for lawyers, law students and bloggers.
The competition features the following"hot" topics:

• Towards an independent judiciary in Malaysia
• Common Bar Exams: The creation of anew problem or asolution for an old one?
• Welcome CheDet.com: the impact of Tun Mahathir's blog;
• Anti -party Hopping Law-agree or disagree?

Participants can choose any one of the above topics and submit their features in not more than 1000 words.

The grand prize is RM500, while prizes for first and second runners up are RM200 and RM100 respectively. Ten consolation prize winners will also receive an eLawyer merchandise.

The event is sponsored by the Law Society, University Malaya; UK Malaysian Law Student Union; law Student Union; International Islamic University Malaysia; Law & Commerce Society; Management & Science University and Law Society; and Univerti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

The panel of jidges comprises the following:

• Dr.Azmi Sharom, an associate professor at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya, who is known for his bold and critical view on various issues regarding the democracy and constitutional law in Malaysia.
• Lee Shih-a practising lawyer and a member of the KL Bar Committe.
• Fahri Azzat- a practising lawyer who is member of the IT Committee under KL Bar committee. Fahri is a blogger and is also the founder of an online email forum -The Rostrum" for legal professionals to discuss issues concerning the legal industry
• Entries should be submitted via email to contest@elawyer.com.my by noon on or before Nov 30. Late entries will be disqualified.
  

Crisis in our schools

Shocking and appalling things are happening in our education system and teaching profession these days. Gone are the days when teaching was a noble and revered profession. Today, it seems that the profession is blended with the doers and riffraff. What a sad state of affairs. And gangsterism seems to have infiltrated into schools.
Some of the transgressions that have happened included:

• A Form 5 girl stabbed several times by another student;
• A Form 3 student was raped by a bogus policeman in a rubber estate;
• During a psysical education lession,a Form 5 student punched the teacher; and
• A 41-year-old teacher molested 10 boys, and many of his colleagues knew of the paedophile acts of this teacher.

We were told that in some schools in KL and Petaling Jaya, ther are 22 classes which have no teachers. And nobody seems to care. We have tabled various cabinet committe reports on ways to improve the country's education syatem, but what has happened to these reports?

prof Khoo Kay Kim was recently quoted as saying that our education system has not nurtured educated students. We have to subscribe to his views. Many teachers and headmasters today are responsible for the pathetic state of affairs in school. Teaching these days is no longer a dedicated profession but just a means to learn a living.

Our MPs should call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry abd conduct an in-depth study and make recommendations to surmount this crisis besseting our education system.

Govt.cleared of abuse of power in Eurocopter deal

The Public Accounts Committe has cleared the government of any abuse of power in the RM1.604 billion Eurocopter helicopter deal.
It will howevwer, continue to monitor the deal, even though the purchase of the 12 helicopters had been deffered by the government.
PAC chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid said the committe did not find any prosedural abuse in the financial and technical aspects of the tender.
They were satisfied that the deal was done in accordance with procedures. The tender process was done properly and according to international standards.In their evaluation, they find that there was no abuse of power.
Azmi said members of the committe has suggested that the deal be monitored in the future as it was a high-profile matter.
He did not not discount the possibility of looking into the deal until the helicopters were handed over to the government, if the deal went through.
He said the only aspect of the deal that the committe was unhappy with was that there was no physical evaluation before the purchase.
As a result, it ecommended that an independent review panel be set up to look into all large government procurrements in the future. This would promote transparency and avoid wasting publis funds, he added.
Another matter that the committe failed to achieve was determining the correct price of the helicopters. Azmi said the quantum of each bid was fixed, with the committee only evaluating what was stated in the bids.
" We are not in a position to say whether the purchase was more expensive(than it should have been) as each country's miitary requirements are different."
He said of the seven bidders, three were shortlisted with bids of RM1.262 billion, RM1.604 billion and RM 2.442 billion respectively.
He said the RM1.604 bid by Eurocopter was selected as it fulfilled the requirements set by the Defence Ministry.
He said the lowest bid was not selected as it did not meet the requirements.
On a statement bu Lim Kit Siang(DAP-Ipoh Timur) that the Nuri helicopters could be used for another 20 years, Azmi said the Nuris had disadvantages compared with the newer Eurocopters.
The Nuris cannot be used for night flights besides being unable to remain airborne on a autopilot mode during rescure operations. These shortages can be overcome by using newer helicopters. It will cost more for the Nuris to be upgraded.
Lim said he had received an email from a former Nuri pilot who stated the Nuris could b used for another 20 years.