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The PGCC project has been the biggest land scam in Penang, Penang Chief Minister Guan Eng said today, adding there were a couple of other large scams still under investigation. He was responding to a statement by Teng Hock Nan yesterday (see full statement below). The previous Penang state government had converted the Turf Club land [...]
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9.00pm - Five of the activists are released. But Suaram’s Teh Chun Hong and Lau Shu Shi, who is also Penang coordinator of the Abolish ISA Movement (GMI), are still being held. Shu Shi in particular has been actively involved in organising a number of well-attended forums after the 8 March general election. Both are [...]
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Interesting move? Let's wait and see who this is. I am keen to find out too.

May 11, 2008 20:25 PM

Lim Confirms Umno Veteran Joining State Government

BUTTERWORTH, May 11 (Bernama) -- Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng today confirmed that an Umno veteran leader had accepted the offer to serve in the state government.

He said the Umno veteran accepted the offer after he resigned from his post in Umno.

"We offered him to join the state government in the interest of the people.

"I will make an official announcement on this and will reveal the name of the Umno veteran at a suitable time," he told reporters after opening the Perai DAP service centre here.

Lim said the appointment letter had been forwarded to the Umno veteran who would join the state government soon, but he declined to disclose the post.

Asked whether there would a difference in the state administration after this, he said: "This is only the beginning.

"What's wrong with Umno working with the state governmeent when it is promoting CAT (competency, accountability dan transparency)?"

Lim said the state government was sincere in making the offer to the Umno veteran and it should be seen in a wider context, not just politics.

-- BERNAMA

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If I believe the news I'm reading on the current state of affairs in the country, I would be very worried. But then, I've stopped buying The Star since GE 08 leaving the occasional Sun or Harian Metro (!) for my daily news-fix. However, even my Online news nowadays seem to reek of "bad news" - just one look at the headlines will tell you all about the state of the nation today:

1. The Bandar Mahkota Cheras fiasco (read here)

2. The Case against RPK (read here)

3. The Continuing Denial of Medical Treatment for Uthayakumar (read here)

4. The Skyrocketing Price of Rice (read here)

5. The Blame Game on Karpal (read here)

.... and I could go on and on..... I stop and ask myself why is this happening. Is it because really, things are so-unmanageable? But then, isn't it the priority of the government of the day to get things done, fairly and with as much justice as possible? On top of that, we have the "now we will, now we won't" posturing by the Pakatan Rakyat's to take over should the BN coalition collapse? Read more on this here.

Why the seemingly "tidak apa" attitude? Why the lack of genuine governance? Why the continued silence on such crucial matters as one ISA detainee's worsening health? Are these people so indifferent to the rakyat's plight? Are they so dumb as they do not know what to do? Are they so cold-hearted to another human being's situation? Or is this all a "wayang kulit" - a masquerade to a more sinister plan? Desperate times call for desperate measures. We have seen this before. Is the Empire waiting to strike back once again?
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KUALA LUMPUR: If football gambling companies register their businesses in countries where betting is legal, why is it a crime here?
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“Position of BN component parties like beggars” is the headline of today’s Sin Chew Daily exclusive interview with former Gerakan President Datuk Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, with a secondary headline: “Not given equal respect – Lim Keng Yaik” Keng Yaik, who is now Gerakan adviser, told Sin Chew that Barisan Nasional component [...]
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KLANG, 12 Mei (Hrkh) - Exco Pendidikan, Pendidikan Tinggi dan Pemodalan Insan, Dr Halimah Ali sedang merancang projek 'Jejak Ilmuan Selangor' yang akan dilaksanakan dalam bulan Jun nanti.
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Malaysia's long standing ‘social contract' came under the scrutiny of royal professor Dr Ungku Abdul Aziz today who claimed that such a term did not exist.
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PARLIMEN, 5 Mei (SK) – Ahli Parlimen Gombak, Azmin Ali hari ini menegaskan bahawa Ketua Umum Parti Keadilan Rakyat, Anwar Ibrahim telah lama memerangi rasuah sejak pemimpin ulung itu masih berada dalam kerajaan lagi. Beliau berkata demikian ketika mencelah ucapan Ahli Parlimen Batu Pahat, Mohd Puad Zarkashi.

Mohd Puad ketika menyampaikan ucapannya telah berkata bahawa, ‘Anwar ketika sedang berkuasa (di dalam kerajaan) tidak menjalankan usaha untuk membenteras rasuah tetapi hanya ketika sudah tidak berkuasa barulah beliau bersungguh-sungguh berjuang untuk menghapuskan rasuah’. Begitu juga dari segi menghapuskan ISA yang menurut Mohd Puad tidak dilakukan ketika pemimpin itu masih di dalam kerajaan.

Menurut Azmin, dengan merujuk kepada usaha Anwar semasa memangku jawatan Perdana Menteri, dimana bakal Perdana Menteri itu ketika waktu itu sedang berusaha membawa kepada Parlimen bagi menggubal dan meminda suatu rang undang-undang yang boleh mendakwa sesiapa yang melakukan rasuah walaupun telah bersara dari jawatan yang disadang oleh seseorang penjawat awam ataupun pemimpin politik. Namun usaha tersebut dihalang oleh Perdana Menteri pada masa itu.

Kata Ahli Parlimen itu yang juga merupakan bekas Setiausaha Sulit kepada Anwar ketika menjawat jawatan selaku Pemangku Perdana Menteri, usaha memerangi rasuah dan penyalahgunaan kuasa telah lama dilakukan oleh pemimpin berpengaruh itu khususnya ketika Perdana Menteri, Tun Dr. Mahathir sedang bercuti selama 2 bulan di Eropah.

Selain itu, ujarnya lagi, Pakatan Rakyat sebelum ini telah banyak memperjuangkan isu-isu berhubung rasuah dan penyalahgunaan kuasa di Dewan Rakyat dan Dewan Undangan Negeri bahkan sehingga Perdana Menteri, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi sendiri sebelum ini telah mengambilkira desakan pembangkang itu di samping berjanji akan memerangi rasuah melalui gagasan Islam Hadharinya.

Isu Air Percuma Di Selangor

Sementara itu, Mohd Puad turut membangkitkan isu air percuma di Selangor dengan menyifatkannya sebagai suatu pembaziran oleh kerajaan negeri. Dakwaan ini berasaskan kepada kadar penggunaan air yang sangat tinggi di negeri berkenaan di samping kemungkinan berlakunya krisis air di negeri yang paling maju itu.

Walaubagaimanapun, dakwaan Mohd Puad disangkal oleh beberapa Ahli Parlimen Pakatan Rakyat antaranya Ahli Parlimen Shah Alam, Khalid Abd Samad yang menjelaskan bahawa tawaran air percuma itu dibuat atas sifat kebajikan kepada rakyat khususnya kepada golongan bawahan dan bukannya untuk tujuan pembaziran.

Di samping itu jelas Khalid lagi bahawa bekalan air yang ditawarkan itu bukanlah diberikan secara percuma tanpa had. Ianya melibatkan sekitar 20 meter padu bagi setiap penggunaan semasa. - Nor Zuwairi Zakwa

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Watching Durham miners, defeated but unbowed by hunger and debt, march back to the pit in 1985, led by their women, was a glimpse of Britain at its best When I first came to live in Britain, much of ordinary life was premised on a sense of community. ...
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Obama is "outraged". After weeks of blistering attacks by the media, Barak Obama held a press conference on Tuesday and made it official; his relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was over, terminated, kaput. He would no longer associate with a man who believed that the United States of America could do horrible things to its people (like infect them with AIDs virus) or that 9-11 might have been blowback from US foreign policy. As Obama said, that's just outrageous.

Obama's press conference:

"I have spent my whole life trying to bridge the gap between different human beings.....That's who I am and that's what this campaign is all about. Yesterday we saw a very different kind of vision of America (Rev Wright's speech to the National Press Club) I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle. The Reverend Wright I saw yesterday was not the person I knew 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they give comfort to those who prey on hate. They do not accurately portray my values and beliefs. If Reverend Wright thinks that is 'political posturing' than he does not know me very well. And based on his comments yesterday I may not know him as well as I thought either."

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Sometimes one can feel overwhelmed by the sheer insanity and insatiable greed of global capitalism. As reports multiply of dire food shortages, riots and civil despair across the globe, America and Europe proceed, ever-selfishly, with biofuel production policies to 'alleviate' global warming.

The US and Europe have been strongly urged to cut back on biofuel crops due to the devastating misuse of farming land for non-food production. Among those criticising the policy is US academic Jeffrey Sachs, an adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Sachs told EU officials in Brussels this week:

"We need to cut back significantly on our biofuels programs...[They] were understandable at a time of much lower food prices and larger food stocks but do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition...In the United States as much as one third of maize crop this year will go to gas tank. This is a huge blow to the world food supply".

But while Sachs's intervention is laudable, it appears to be a rearguard response to the food crisis rather than a holistic appraisal of why the market for biofuel is being touted by governments and big business as a route to environmental salvation.

The EU has proposed a target of 5.75 per cent biofuel for transport use by the end of 2008. The US want 15 per cent of all transport fuels to come from biofuels by 2020.

But the massive subsidies to promote the industry hide this rather more inhuman equation: the poor go hungry so that cars can keep running - even running 'ethically'. It's the political version of Milo Minderbinder's mad 'syndicate enterprise' in Catch 22. Eco-solutions, corporate style. Was there ever a more graphic illustration of the market's blanket blindness to human suffering and environmental destruction?

The 'case' for ethanol and other biofuel production comes in 'ethical response' to rising carbon emissions. In crude reality, the agri-corporations see it as a lucrative market opportunity; a rush to 'match' the 'new awakenings' of government on the problem of carbon output.

In synchronised form, the fat-cat grocery imperialists are raking in vast profits from the food hikes.

As Joanna Blythman put it in a fine Sunday Herald piece:

"The sums just don't add up. There's a world food supply crisis, the cost of a basket of groceries has shot up by between 10% and 12.5%, yet our supermarkets are recording healthy profits - Tesco's profits last year, for instance, showed a 11.8% rise."

"It seems our retailers are doing very nicely out of the global food crisis, thank you very much, and so are the global agri-business firms, traders and speculators currently raking in fabulous profits. Hungry people are out on the streets from Egypt to Haiti to protest at the rocketing cost of staples, yet Cargill, the world's biggest grain trader, has achieved an 86% increase in profits from commodity trading in the first quarter of this year alone. Meanwhile Bunge, another huge food trader, reported a 77% increase in profits during the last quarter of last year. ADM, the second largest grain trader in the world, registered a 67% increase in profits in 2007."

"The IMF and the World Bank pushed countries to dismantle all forms of protection for their local farmers and to open up their markets to global agribusiness and subsidised food from rich countries. Like chiselling snake oil salesmen, they said that a liberalised market would provide the most efficient system for producing and distributing food."

It's a double-whammy for the impoverished and the planet. While compliant Western governments and the IMF mandarins proclaim open food markets for poor countries, with all the debilitating consequences that entails for the latter, biofuel crop production in the affluent West is driving-up prices to those poorer markets, while still encouraging all the standard forms of carbon-based consumption.

Intrinsic to this lies the myth of biofuel as a 'post-carbon' saviour. The short-sightedness of this policy is matched only by the blind-eye greed of the profiteers. And the warnings were all there. As George Monbiot, among others, show, one didn't need the powers of a seer to understand the disastrous implications of biofuel production for food economics and the environment:

"So what's wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 I warned, on these pages, that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats. I received more abuse than I've had for any other column - except for when I attacked the 9/11 conspiracists. I was told my claims were ridiculous, laughable, impossible. Well in one respect I was wrong. I thought these effects wouldn't materialise for many years. They are happening already."

Farmers, chemical corporations, governments and errant environmentalists are all now tied-into this false consensus on the market and eco-benefits of biofuels produced from wheat, maize and other staple crops. The impact of deforestation for biofuel palm oil planting is treated with similar myopic indifference. As Monbiot notes:

"But it gets worse. As the forests are burned, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces. I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes 10 times as much climate change as ordinary diesel."

More recent studies offer conclusive evidence that biofuel is not just an eco-palliative, it's a completely false economy, contributing to even more greenhouse gases after land clearance and other wasteful variables are factored in:

"“When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially,” said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University."

Encouragingly, both Cuba and Venezuela have come out in vociferous opposition to US-led biofuel production, pointing to the catastrophic impact of misused land, food shortages and global starvation.

If only the US and EU shared these same human and environmental concerns. As usual, it's profit and greed which comes before pollution of the atmosphere and starving children.

John

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