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So Harakahdaily reports that Mokhzani is following his Dad out of Umno. He reportedly made the announcement this morning. The shrewd politician that he is, Mahathir probably has a few tricks up his sleeve. Scheming and scheming all the time… I believe he is opting for a multi-prong strategy in his battle to unseat Abdullah and put [...]
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"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step". So said Confucius some 2400 years go.

I turn 47 in a little over 4 months from now. I left school almost 30 years ago. I remember leaving home some 24 years ago. Malaysia turns 51 come August/September, depending on which "independence" you're inclined to lean toward to. So many miles have gone by. So much water has flowed under the bridge. So many experiences tasted. So, what am I trying to get at?

Looking at myself, looking all around me, especially in the aftermath of the 8/3/08 GE, and the mammoth challenges this country is staring straight at for probably the 1st time in all of 50 years of independence, I realize that we have come a long way, both as individuals and as united a nation as we could ever be under the circumstances. That's the reality. But, there's still a long way to go yet along this journey - as a people of this country, irrespective of the time we have left yet. How we get there is even more important than what we look like when we actually "arrive". Because this has been one of the flaws in process of building the "modern Malaysia". We have been too occupied with our appearance than what we really are below the surface. We have been contented with just doing the "facials" instead of concentrating on removing the fat. We have spent too much time, energy and resources on the things that divide rather than on what can unite.

One good thing about the GE 08 was the "Makkal Sakti" - the people power phenomenon. It shows a new mentality among the people. It shows we are prepared to "pay the price" for a better future. It shows a certain maturity. It shows that we are prepared to get out of the "highway to hell" and get back on the "road to freedom".

Signposts help us find our way and keep track as we continue on our travels and journeys. That's why a blast from the past may well help us get back on track. We may do well to take a leaf (or huge sheaves of leaves as may be necessary!) from another past Master. Here are no less than 10 sobering, if not inspiring thoughts from the Mahatma himself - Gandhi:

1. Change yourself.

• “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
• “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”
  

2. You are in control.

• “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

3. Forgive and let it go.

• “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
• “An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
  

4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

• “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

5. Take care of this moment.

• “I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

6. Everyone is human.

• “I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

• “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

7. Persist.

• “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

8. See the good in people and help them.

• “I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

• “Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”

• “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

• “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

• “Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

10. Continue to grow and evolve.

• "Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

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It’s really a change that we were all looking for. I am truly impressed to see the Selangor State Government actually providing live feed of the proceedings of their state assembly. I hope the other state assemblies will follow suit. I went in earlier and hey presto – the sitting is live on the internet. Seeing a Malaysian Chinese being at the helm of the speaker. Suggest everyone follow the proceeding soon. This is a great effort from the state government and I hope other state governments will follow suit. Sadly, the Parliament is still going with a 30 min live broadcast and I think this is really a waste of time.

Watch it here!

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NIBUNG TEBAL, 22 Mei (Hrkh) - Barisan Nasional (BN) Parlimen Nibung Tebal terus parah apabila 120 orang keturunan India beralih angin menyertai Kelab Penyokong PAS kata, Setiausaha PAS Cawangan Changkat,Aziz Ramli.
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A hostile posting in yesterday’s thread “Fulfilment of 30-year dream of Sabahans in the hands of Sabah BN MPs” reminded me that the first time I raised the problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah was exactly 30 years ago. I referred to this in my speech in Kota Kinabalu at the 37th DAP anniversary [...]
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Snoop squad probe Former MCA vice-president Dr Chua Soi Lek says he received a five-page report containing details that may be linked to the alleged snoop squad.
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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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UPDATED VERSION. Mokhzani quits. Mukhriz stays.

ORIGINAL POSTING

Read Che Det in his own words, particularly the entry titled LOMPAT.

And theSun/Reuters: PM Abdullah in danger as Mahathir quits party.

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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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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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