Saturday, November 14, 2009

I break the law. So what?

By right, whether you are just an ordinary citizen of this country, or a political leader or even the royalty, nobody is above the law. If you are caught in any criminal act, even if one is of a misdemeanor, you will be punished accordingly. However here are two classic cases which show otherwise as far as UMNO leaders are concerned.

NO CRASH HELMET?

Flood tour: Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin hitching a ride as he tours flood-hit areas in Alor Setar in Kedah. One of his stops was SK Gunung where flood evacuees were being temporarily housed. Muhyiddin later announced a DID study to overcome flood woes in Kedah.

And how about this biggie as reported in Malaysiakini ...

Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar Mohd Hasan could have broken the country's banking laws by allegedly transferring funds amounting to RM10 million through a money changer in 2008, claimed PKR's strategy director Tian Chua today.

He said this was discovered by Bank Negara recently in its investigations into errant money changers.

mohammad hassan negeri sembilan mbHe added the central bank found that Mohd Hasan (right) had used the services of Salamath Ali Money Changer Sdn Bhd to transfer the amount to London. He did not reveal how he knew about Bank Negara's findings.

Last month, Bank Negara Malaysia had revoked the money-changing licences of Salamath Ali Money Changer and 19 others under the Money-Changing Act 1998. No reasons were given for the decision.

Commenting on the matter today, Chua, who is also the Batu MP, said it was imperative that Mohd Hasan clarified the cash transaction made in 2008.

"He must explain if the transaction was done in accordance with the laws of the country.

"Can he also explain how he got the money and what was the purpose of the transfer?" he asked.

MACC must probe too

suhakam suara keadilan 250309 tian chuaChua also urged Bank Negara to investigate Salamath Ali Money Changer on the transaction as it could have breached Section 30 (1)(b) of the Money-Changing Act 1998 which disallowed remittance or transfer of funds outside Malaysia.

He also wants the central bank to find out who was the recipient of the cash.

At the same time, he wants the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate Mohd Hasan on the RM10 million.

He said that he was informed that many politicians and businessmen were transferring money out of the country using the services of money changers although such activities were illegal.

Mohd Hasan was a successful corporate figure before he was made the Negri Sembilan menteri besar in March 2004.

Geronimos' Take : And many of us know that what is happening today is nothing more than the tip of the ice berg. Everything this fellas do is like thumbing their noses at us rakyat, "So what!"

Friday, November 13, 2009

Now you see him, now you don't. Now you see him ......

FINALLY, private investigator P.Balasubramaniam has come out of hiding after 15 months to give a no holds barred interview on what happened to him.

In the presence of three prominent lawyers on Oct 27, he reaffirmed that his first statutory declaration released on July 3 last year was true and that he was offered to RM5million to retract it.

He named carpet businessman Deepak—who is said to be an associate of Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Prime Minister Najib Razak—as the person who met him at a Rawang restaurant and made the cash offer.

Excepts of the video interview has been posted on YouTube


In the interview, Bala said Deepak made more than a cash offer.

“He asked me to go to Putrajaya but he never mentioned who he wanted me to go and meet… then after that he offered me RM5million to retract the SD,” Bala said.

The meeting allegedly took place at a restaurant in Rawang, on the same day Bala’s statutory declaration became public alleging links between Najib, his aide Razak Baginda and murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaaribu.

Today, the first part of Bala’s interview appeared on YouTube and Raja Petra’swww.malaysia-today.net . This is to be followed by a series of other portions of his Bombshell 3 expose.

Bala is likely to name people who played a role in the retraction of his first statutory declaration, which was replaced by a second one read out at a press conference the next day, on July 4 last year.

It is learnt that some of the personalities to be named are those close to the Prime Minister and his wife as well as senior police officers.

The 50-year- old former Special Branch officer is also expected to give a full account of his family’s ordeal while hiding away from Malaysia.

It is learnt that he and his family first went to Singapore , then flew to Bangkok before arriving in New Dehli and Chennai via Kathmandu.

Who are the people and why they went to such lengths to buy Bala’s silence is likely to become clearer as his expose in the interview unfolds.

[Source : Free Malaysia Today]

BN's monopoly on the apple business - a good analogy


Assuming (B)elum (N)yanyuk company (in short BN) was the sole apple wholesaler in Malaysia and there was no other apple wholesaler to compete with them over the past 50 years. We had another 3 individual apple sellers that we did not pay much attention to because we hardly heard any of their advertisements anywhere. All wholesale apples were sold in a bag, with each bag contained 100 apples and had to weigh around 5kg to ensure those apples were almost identical in size.

During the early days, BN’s apples were very good in quality. We as customers were very happy and satisfied with their apples supply. We were very supportive of BN’s apples to the extent of, even though occasionally we found out that there were 8-10 bad apples in a bag, we were forgiving enough to not ask for single cent refund. After all, they were the only apple wholesale seller available at that time.

After 30 years in service, BN’s directors got greedy. Their directors demanded to live like a king in a palace, so they had to come out with a way to quadruple their profits to build their palaces.

First, they started to import low quality apples to replace those high quality apples and sold to us at the same price as before. We found something amiss about the apples’ sweetness, but they assured us that the apples were the same. Being naïve, we trusted their words as we trusted them for the past 30 years.

Unfortunately, by importing low quality apples did not quadruple their profits, they had to figure out other ways to make their palaces dream came true as soon as possible. Next, they started to tamper with their weighing machines’ scaling. With that, they managed to reduce the number of apples by 30 per bag yet they continued to sell us those apples at the old price despite being cheaper in cost.

Of course we were unhappy with the move and accused them of frauds. But due to of our own stupidity, they managed to convince us that these batch of new apples weighed more because they contained more nutrition than the previous batch of apples. Since we had trusted them for 40 years, so we decided to believe them one more time; after all we yet to have an alternative to choose from at that point of time.

After 3 years, those BN’s directors happily moved in to their new palaces. To their horror – after staying in the palace for barely 2 months, they started to realise that the cost of maintaining a palace in good conditions required much more money than to build it. To make things worse, those directors’ families got greedy as well, some of them demanded that their father to bring them to Disneyland’s tour every summer.

To fulfill all those evil requests, they raised the price of apples by 50% citing rising cost of transportation as the culprit for the major increment. They were braved enough to take this drastic move as they were not afraid that we (the customers) would run away because they were the only one with apples in Malaysia.

When we protested against them, they were arrogant enough to threaten us with defamation suits and requested the police to detain us under (I)kut (S)uka (A)ku Act. Greed brought them to the point of arrogant. They forgot that - we the loyal customers were the people that kept them in business for 50 years. Because of our blind loyalty, now they treated us like their slaves -- whereas in contrary to the business’s world where the customers were always regarded as the boss.

We kept our cool and protested in silence. Quietly, we figured out ways to stop relying on BN for apples. We forced the other 3 individual apples sellers to merge together to become the alternative apple wholesaler in Malaysia. For 50 years, most of us never really bought any apples from them because we trusted BN’s advertisement that their apples were hazardous to us. They agreed to give it a try and with our support, they merged together under a single company called - (P)rotect (R)escue Company (in short PR).

With the birth of PR, we now have 2 apples wholesalers to choose from. But we yet to get the best bargain for our apples, because PR is still weak because they are still in the transitioning phase as running the small apple stalls is very much different from running a wholesale company.

After realizing their sales were dropping exponentially, BN promised to make some changes to their business conducts. However, BN’s promised is like the saying “tomorrow that will never come.” BN’s new approach is always about shouting the same thing - that they have the best apples in town, and we are getting the best bargain from the price we paid. They even come out with a slogan called “1Apple – The only apple company in Malaysia you should trust” to hoodwink us that they are changing for the better. Besides that, they also promise us that they will change their arrogant way of treating us but quietly they are still using the same old tampered weighing machines to weigh their apples behind our backs. But now, we are smart enough not to fall into their tricks again.

As for PR, they are still learning on how to be a good apple wholesaler. They are still learning on how to maintain the quality of apples, how to reduce transportation costs, how to expand their business to meet our never ending demand while moving away from the old habits of selling apples individually.

PR knows that their existence hurts BN’s rice bowl a lot. BN is getting desperate by the day as their business can no longer cover the cost of their palaces and their families are grumbling because they have not been able to visit Disneyland for the past 2 years. PR also realises that counter attacks and sabotages from BN are imminent. Hence, PR has to be always on guard to continuously fight off BN’s attempts to ruin their business.

To add to PR’s list of misery, all transportation companies, apples suppliers and packaging houses are very reluctant to accept orders from PR because they are afraid of offending BN who has given them business for the past 50 years. The business environment is tough for PR because BN is trying to influence everyone to be biased against PR. Despite all that, PR managed to stay afloat for the past 20 months because we gave them enough business to survive.

At least PR knows, we are the one that give businesses to them. Unlike BN, who treats us as we owed them the money to keep them in business. They think PR was purposely started by a certain few to rob their business away, while forgetting the fact that PR was born because of their greed and arrogance towards us.
Yes, we gave birth to PR – but unfortunately we expected too much in return and to make things worse, we expected PR to deliver instant results. We expected those 100 apples in PR’s bag to be 100% perfect. When we find 2-3 apples (mind you, not 3-4 apples), we are very quick to punish PR’s reputation and ask for refund immediately. As a typical Malaysian, we so conveniently forgotten that we used to allow BN to get away with those bad apples without a single complaint 20 years back.

Some of us even go to the extent of threatening PR that we will buy our apples back from BN if they don’t buck up. Some of us already written them off and some have even come to the conclusion that PR is just the same as BN. PR kept quiet to our critisms and threats because PR respects our views and values our importance. But to be fair to them, we must also admit that it takes time to adapt from being a small stall apple seller to a apple wholesaler because it is totally a different business altogether.

We forget that PR is still new in this wholesaler business. Their directors all have different opinions of running this wholesale company because their knowledge were limited to operating their 3 different apple stalls - which they were targeting different groups of consumers to keep their business alive. But now, it is a totally new scenario for these directors as they have to juggle between keeping their old customers coming back while satisfying the request of new customers that turned their back on BN. They are still searching for a balance business approach so that they will not offend any of their new and old customers.

Yes as we expected in PR, there will be some quarrels every now and then. We saw some directors resigning along the way because they couldn’t agree to what PR is doing or they did not manage to secure any credible position in PR. Some of them jumped over to BN because of better offers from BN to sabotage PR’s stability. Some voiced their problems and dissatisfaction over the medias because they can’t get their voices heard in the board room.

But this is not a good reason why we should lose confidence in PR. We have to keep in mind, all new companies face the same problems like PR and it takes time for them to get stabilize, and it takes time for those directors to familiarize with this wholesale business. Besides that, they have to deal with the constant sabotages from BN – which actually gives them less time to concentrate on improving this wholesale business. We can’t expect them to be as masterful as BN in such short period of time in running this wholesale business when they are having a hard time running their business in a BN-friendly environment. Problems will keep cropping out every now and then, but the important thing is those PR’s directors know how to solve those problems efficiently.

Yes, I agree that sometimes PR’s directors argue too much, and it makes them look rather instable. But are we too quick to punish them because of that? Why the impatient from our side? Why can’t we be more supportive of them?

I think the only reason why we feel so agitated when PR failed to be what we wanted them to be; is because we wanted to kick BN out of business so badly and we could not stand our hope being dashed because of PR’s incompetency. PR is our last hope to ensure we get the fair price for our apple supplies.

Just because we gave birth to PR, doesn’t mean that they can’t do no wrong. We should treat PR like our children, they must given the chance to rise again after they hit a snag. We must educate them to be the wonder child we hope for. But we mustn’t discourage them when they make mistakes. Instead, we must ensure, they are able to rise up stronger again and again after each setback they endured. We can criticize, but we must also guide them to the right path. We can’t be too quick to write them off since we know that going back to BN is not going to help us to improve the situation anyhow.

BN is still the bigger player in this apple industry. PR is still very much the underdog, and in the business’s world, everyone is biased towards the underdog. PR is going to have a hard time finding suitable low-cost transportation, suitable suppliers and loyal workers without being sabotage by BN. They have to keep their business afloat despite the rising costs of goods imposed by BN’s cronies to destabilize PR. The only way they can survive is by increasing their apples sales, which means it requires more support from us. Once they become the big brother in the apple business, they can start to dictate those suppliers and the transportation providers aligned to BN to lower their price or else they will lose the business contracts from PR.

To counter those frauds and high prices in the apple industry, we need PR to rise up in this BN-friendly environment to compete with BN, head-to-head. We must ensure there’s at least 2 apples wholesalers at any one time in the future. If we punish PR too hard, BN will take advantage of the situation to break PR into 3 small stall apple sellers so that they can monopoly the market again. And we must not let that happen because in the end we are the only one who suffer.

Now let us get back to our real BN and PR in politics. Malaysians tend to very forgetful but they also can be very unforgiving. Malaysian can be very forgiving on your mistakes for the past 50 years, but they can never forgive you for today’s mistake. One wrong statement can change their whole perception about PR regardless of how many good things PR had said or done in the past.

But sad to say, a lot of Malaysian are still generally very emotional and very ignorant about the country well-being. As long as they get their typical 3 meals a day, they couldn't care less about what’s the BN politicians are doing to our country. They forgot about the possibility that their children and grandchildren may not be that lucky as them!

PR’s death only benefits BN and its cronies and no one else. We are the biggest loser if PR goes down. Therefore, we must help to ensure PR survives at all cost. We must continue to lend our support to PR, even more so when they hit a rocky path like they are having now.

We must not lose sight of why we gave birth to PR. We wanted an alternative for us to choose from. PR’s survival and success is about us and our country - rather than it is about PR or BN’s political prosperity. We must ensure PR survives and becomes the big brother in Malaysia’s politics to kick start the healthy competition between BN and PR. There’s no real start to a 2 party system until the other side wins for at least once.

For a better Malaysia, we need PR. Punishing them now will lead us to back to BN’s dictatorship, and that’s exactly what BN wants us to do.
[Source : Harakah]

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Utusan Malaysia is the stupidest newspaper in the world - and here is the living proof

The following story is now spreading like wild fire in blogosphere and it is written by none other than our witty blogger Art Harun.

I laughed my head off. The mee rebus which I had for lunch is now threatening to make its way upward and later, outward.

Many Malaysians have given up with the mainstream media. That is because their so called responsible journalism entails nothing more than the act of extreme spinning of facts and events to suit their political masters or their own not-so-hidden agenda.

I have ceased reading the local newspapers for a long long time. I have for example, berated against the NST for their treatment of the Bersih rally some time ago.

Despite all the lies, untruth and skewed reporting that these newspapers have been carrying all these while, the Prime Minister recently saw it fit to hail Utusan Malaysia for, among others, “being the voice of the people“.

Well, I now have proof that Utusan Malaysia is nothing more than a loyal servant of their political masters. I now have proof that Utusan Malaysia will not stop at almost anything in order to protect its political masters. For whatever is deemed necessary to protect its political masters, Utusan Malaysia would stoop as low as physic permits to do and execute. And that includes misrepresentations and even downright lying. It will even doctor photographs!

The thing is this. They are not even good at doing it!! To lie and misrepresent an event is something. But to do it in a really stupid way is another thing altogether. Do Utusan Malaysia think that all of us, Malaysians, are as stupid as themselves?

We are in a globalisation era. We are in the cyber era. We are not in the 60s or 70s anymore. Nowadays, stupidity is easily exposed.

What am I ranting and raving about? Well, I received an e mail from a friend of mine just now. It contained a picture of an event which took place on 9.11.2009. The same picture was published by many local newspapers while reporting the same event.

As the story goes, a man in his 70s was arrested for allegedly killing his wife. The following picture was published by Berita Harian:

Berita Harian

This was in the Star:

the star2

And this was in Harian Metro:

Harian Metro

Notice the blue umbrella? That umbrella has the Barisan Nasional emblem on it. Quite obviously, that umbrella was distributed by the Barisan Nasional during some kind of election as it has the “vote-BN” emblem on it.

Utusan Malaysia, thinking that the stupid masses of Malaysia might equate Barisan Nasional to a person arrested for an alleged murder because of that blue umbrella, quickly exercised its responsible journalistic discretion by DOCTORING the same photograph and published the same in its report as follows:

Utusan

This is my proof that Utusan Malaysia is the stupidest newspaper in the whole world!

The Nizar/Zambry Case - a breath of fresh air. There is hope for Nizar yet?

Show us any provision in the Perak Constitution empowering the Sultan of Perak to sack Nizar”. That was fundamentally the gist of the submission made by Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin’s legal team in the recently concluded appeal at the Federal Court.

Datuk Zambry Kadir’s lawyers as well as the Attorney-General, in asking the apex court to affirm the decision of the Court of Appeal, submitted that Zambry is the lawful mentri besar (MB) as he was appointed by the Sultan under Article 16 (2) of the Perak Constitution.

Not so soon, replied Nizar’s lawyers. Before Zambry may claim that he is the lawful MB he has to discharge the burden of proving that the office of the MB rightfully held by Nizar was indeed vacant. Alternatively, Zambry has to prove that Nizar was validly or constitutionally sacked by the Sultan.
As rightly pointed out by Harley CJ (Borneo) in Stephen Kalong Ningkan vs Tun Abang Haji Openg and Tawi Sli (1966) 2 MLJ 187, there are two situations where the Governor (or the Sultan as the case may be) may exercise his absolute discretion namely (a) on the issue of the appointment of MB or (b) withholding consent to dissolve the State Assembly.

Nevertheless, as Harley rightly cautioned “As regards to (a), nobody could be so foolish to suggest that a Governor could appoint a second Chief Minister while there was still one in office...”

What is plain and obvious in this case is that until the appeal was heard on Nov 5, 2009 Zambry has not been able to prove that the office of MB held by Nizar was vacant. Nor has he been able to prove that Nizar was legally or constitutionally removed by the Sultan.

Zambry’s lawyers, and of course the A-G, submitted further that since Nizar had, by a letter dated Feb 5, 2009, asked the Sultan to dissolve the State Assembly under Article 16 (6) of the Perak Constitution and since the Sultan had withheld his consent to dissolve the Assembly, Nizar and his exco members have no other options but to resign en bloc.

They further submitted that in his letter to the Sultan, Nizar had stated therein that there was a deadlock in that the numbers of the state assemblymen of BN and PR were equal, namely 28 each, as the seats of the three defected assemblymen were duly declared vacant by the Speaker. By conceding that the numbers were equal, they argued, Nizar would definitely be defeated if a vote of no-confidence was to be carried out. This is because the Speaker (Sivakumar) could not cast his vote under the Perak Constitution. Thus, they argued, Nizar would lose by one vote.

In reply, Nizar’s team submitted that before Article 16 (6) would apply, there must be cogent proof that Nizar had indeed lost the vote of no-confidence of his peers in the State Assembly. It was not disputed in this case that hitherto, Nizar has not lost any vote of no-confidence simply because no such a vote has been carried out at any time. Thus the condition precedent of Article 16 (6) was not met by Zambry.

Nizar’s team also relied on historical precedent. Historically speaking, as far as the issue of MB’s removal is concerned, the constitutional convention endorsed the practice of casting votes of no-confidence which was to be held in the State Assembly. Apart from Stephen Kalong Ningkan, the downfall of the PAS government in Terengganu in 1961 was also another case in point.

In 1959, PAS captured Terengganu and in turn formed a coalition government with the help of Parti Negara. One Daud Samad was duly appointed as the MB. However, the lifespan of such a government was too short. On Oct 26, 1961 the Information Chief of Umno declared that three assemblymen each from PAS and Parti Negara had defected to Perikatan’s team.

On Oct 30, 1961 a vote of no-confidence was duly passed by the Terengganu State Assembly evidencing the demise of Daud Samad as the MB of Terengganu. The attempt by Daud Samad thereafter to ask the Sultan for the dissolution of State Assembly was rejected by the latter. The Sultan instead appointed Ibrahim Fikri from Perikatan as a new MB.

The aforementioned historical precedent demonstrates that the Sultan only made a decision refusing to dissolve the State Assembly after a vote of no-confidence was duly passed by the State Assembly. If this precedent was duly observed, would we have to see what we have seen in Perak?

With regard to Zambry’s arguments that Nizar would lose a vote of no-confidence on the basis that Sivakumar could not vote, this was a reply by Nizar’s team: “Yes, constitutionally speaking Sivakumar, being the Speaker, could not vote. However, what shall bar him from stepping down as the speaker when voting really takes place? What shall bar him from becoming an ordinary member of (the) State Assembly and in turn exercising his right to vote if Umno is confident enough of bringing a motion of non confidence against Nizar?”

If Umno is too foolish, it may appoint another state assemblyman from its side to replace Sivakumar and if this really happens a vote of no-confidence against Nizar will remain wishful thinking.

When Nizar refused to resign, his team submitted, was the Sultan given the power to sack him? Zambry’s teams said yes, the Sultan has such a power. Nizar’s team replied “show us any provision in the Perak Constitution giving the Sultan of such an express power.” Zambry’s team submitted the Sultan was deemed to have such a power. Nizar’s team retorted “show us the said deeming provision enshrined in the Perak Constitution”. Of course, no such deeming provision exists.

Nizar’s team then submitted that there must a deeming provision in the Perak Constitution stating in no uncertain terms that when the MB refuses to resign, his office is deemed to be vacant by the operation of law.

Nizar’s team quoted a very clear example of such a deeming provision in the Perak Constitution. Article 19 (1) in Part 2 of the Perak Constitution is such a classic example. The said Article expressly provides that the Sultan is deemed to have vacated his Throne if he fails to attend the Senate meeting for a very long period without sufficient or reasonable grounds. You notice no such deeming provision exists as far as the removal of MB is concerned.

To add further, Nizar’s team submitted that Article 16 (7) of the Perak Constitution expressly provides that, unlike the State exco members who hold their positions at the pleasure of the Sultan, the MB’s office is not at the pleasure of the Sultan. Thus, any suggestion by Zambry’s lawyers that Nizar could be removed by the Sultan was, at best, fanciful and at worst, smacks of power hunger on Zambry’s part.

Being in Nizar’s teams, I believe that the Court of Appeal has erred in law when it dismissed Nizar’s appeal but the question remains, is our Federal Court willing to upset and overturn such a decision by the Court of Appeal? May the Federal court be reminded that cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare (anyone can err, but only the fool persists in his fault)

Nizar deserves to win the appeal unless of course… (please fill in the blanks).


[Source: The MalaysianInsider]

The high-handedness of the police, *sigh*

On October 31, 2009 in Taman Sri Sentosa, off Old Klang Road, Kuala Lumpur, a PKR fund-raising dinner was disrupted and there were attempts to prematurely end it by the police. The event was organised by PKR Lembah Pantai headed by Nurul Izzah Anwar.

The fund raising dinner was organized and hosted by Parti KeAdilan Rakyat Lembah Pantai.

MP Lembah Pantai, Nurul Izzah Anwar and leaders from her constituency chose an apt theme for the dinner, "Dinner for Justice" or "Jamuan Makan Malam Keadilan" which also jives with the name of their political party.


So from now onwards, if you intent to host a wedding dinner where guests and hosts will be making speeches and yam seng at the same time, you will need a police permit

I am just wondering what would have happened had the police laid a finger on Nurul. The crowd would have gone berserk, I think.

PI Bala to re-appear to testify?

BREAKING NEWS : The fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, or RPK, has raised the ante again against Datuk Seri Najib Razak by threatening to expose another statutory declaration by missing private investigator P. Balasubramaniam.

Talk has been swirling for several weeks now that the private investigator was going to surface after going missing since July last year.

There has been speculation that Balasubramaniam would restate allegations against the prime minister he first made in a statutory declaration last year linking Najib to the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.

In a posting on his Malaysia-today.net portal, RPK alleges that Balasubramaniam had been living in India since he went missing and had been paid to keep quiet.

“Little did they know that Bala was just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to strike back.

“And now he is striking back and has come out to reveal what really happened since the time he signed his first statutory declaration, followed by the second one the following day, 16 months ago,” RPK wrote.

For the opposition, this development, if true, will provide a chance to put the prime minister under pressure and put a difficult issue for him back on the table.

While RPK provides little concrete evidence for his allegations, such is his following and influence among Malaysians that his attacks against Najib remain damaging.

In his latest attacks, he publishes photographs of cheques allegedly made out to Balasubramaniam.

And he promised to make more revelations within the next month.

Abdul Razak Baginda, one of Najib’s closest associates, had been charged for abetment and tried for the 2006 murder of Altantuya.

Abdul Razak was eventually acquitted. But two policemen who were once on Najib’s security detail were found guilty of the murder.

Abdul Razak had admitted that Altantuya was his lover.

But the close ties between the major players in the murder and Najib have always dogged the prime minister, with critics like RPK frequently accusing the government of a conspiracy to protect the PM.

Last year, Balasubramaniam caused a stir when he made public a statutory declaration in which he alleged Najib had a sexual relationship with Altantuya.

But he then made another statutory declaration a day later retracting the accusations against Najib.

After that Balasubramaniam disappeared.

The private investigator had been hired by Abdul Razak to help him deal with Altantuya, who was alleged to have been harassing him.

Balasubramaniam was also a witness in the murder trial.

[Source: The MalaysianInsider]

Geronimo's Take : If this is true, then Najib may be screwed this time. I hope he is sleeping easy these days as so many things are beginning to unfold at such rapid pace.

The Herald 2010 permit cancelled

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.

Father Lawrence Andrew is the editor of The Herald. – Picture by Jack Ooi

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.

“We’re in limbo right now,” Andrew said.

[Source : The MalaysianInsider]


Geronimo's Take: There goes Najib's 1Malaysia. This is so vindictive to say the least.

Then who is the key witness?

You may need to read this over a couple of times before you come to a conclusion :

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz today said that lawyer VK Lingam's former secretary Jayanthi LG Naidu was not the key witness which the MACC was looking for to conclude the probe against the lawyer.

"It is not her. They are looking for someone else," he said without revealing the identity of the mystery witness.

In a separate statement, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission confirmed that Jayanthi was not the witness which it was looking for.

[Source: Malaysiakini]

What a whole load of crap! If Jayanthi is not the key witness, then who is? The least Nazri and MACC could have done was to tell us that they were looking for a certain Mr/Ms X, and I am sure if they can't find this witness, Sivarasa and his team would be too happy to oblige. Maybe this key witness is nothing more than a smokescreen to send the Lingam case into oblivion? I tell you who the key witness/s might be - they are the airline pilots who flew them to and from NZ OR the receptionist who attended to them when they checked in at the hotels in Singapore and NZ OR the captain of the NZ cruise ship OR the ticketing clerk of Holiday Tours OR the salesgirl who sold them the winter clothings OR it could be Eusoff Chin's/Lingam's drivers OR ....... Come of it Nazri stop insulting our intelligence. You have Jayanthi's testimony and Malaysiakini's Bowman's Report. Both are equally damning and yet you continue to stonewall the case. It is just simply unbelievable!!!!

"Allah" ban: Church scores initial victory

Eight parties including seven Islamic religious councils are no longer intervenors in the Kuala Lumpur Roman Catholic Church's application for a judicial review over the usage of the word "Allah".

herald the catholic weekly online 241207High Court judge Lau Bee Lan ruled that based on the Federal Court ruling on Sept 3 in the case of Majlis Agama Islam Selangor vs Bong Boon Chuen & 150 others, the High Court had no jurisdiction to allow intervention in judicial review proceedings under Order 15 Rule 6(2)(b) of the Rules of the High Court 1980.

She then set aside her own order on Aug 3, allowing the eight parties to intervene in the new application by Archbishop Murphy Pakiam for a judicial review over the usage of the word "Allah" in the church's weekly publications of The Herald magazine.

The eight parties are the Islamic religious councils of Perak, Terengganu, Penang, Selangor, Kedah, Johor and Melaka, and the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association.

The decision was made in chambers.

Court hearing to kick off on Dec 14

The church's counsel, S Selvarajah, told the media that the court fixed Dec 14 to hear the merits of the case.

Selvarajah said the court should hear the case before Dec 31 as The Herald's publication permit for 2009 would expire on Dec 31.


Oendon funeral 201005 murphy pakiamn Feb 16, Pakiam (right), as the publisher of The Herald, filed a new application for a judicial review after a similar application in 2008 was deemed academic following the expiry of The Herald's publication permit for Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2008.

In the application, naming the Home Ministry and the government as respondents, he is seeking, among others, a declaration that the decision by the respondents on Jan 7, 2009, prohibiting him from using the word "Allah" in the 'Herald-The Catholic Weekly' publication is illegal and that the word "Allah" is not exclusive to the religion of Islam.

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Bernama

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

VK Lingam - now maybe we have a case

BREAKING NEWS :Pakatan Rakyat MPs today presented the alleged key witness that may support their claims that senior lawyer VK Lingam and former chief justice Tun Eusoff Chin had planned their New Zealand trip together.

They hope the alleged key witness, Lingam’s former secretary Jayanthi Naidu, will prove that the government is attempting to cover up the scandal which has raised suspicions about possible collusion.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had said there was no case to answer and that a key witness could not be located. It had also said that Lingam had not broken any laws for fixing judicial appointments as there was no evidence he had a hand in the appointments.

Lingam had claimed he was not the person captured in a video that opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim showed in 2007, claiming it was proof that judicial appointments were fixed during Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s reign as prime minister.

Appearing in the Parliament lobby today alongside R Sivarasa, Subang MP and PKR vice-president, a smiling Jayanthi reiterated she had been the one who arranged the trip for both Eusoff and Lingam.

“After the Royal Commission proceedings, I gave another statement to the MACC in the presence of my lawyer (which) among the matters... were that Lingam and Eusoff and families’ holiday trip to New Zealand was all paid for by Lingam,” she said.

Jayanthi, who quit working for Lingam in 1995, also made fresh claims of how Lingam had “fixed” a judgement by a judge in the Vincent Tan v MGG Pillai libel case back in 1993.

Lingam had represented Tan Sri Vincent Tan in the case, in which Pillai was ordered to pay compensation in the millions and resulted in the veteran journalist declaring bankruptcy.

“The judgement delivered by Datuk Mokhtar Sidin were written in Lingam’s office. I was among the various staff present in the office assisting in the process.”

“I am also aware of a few incidents in Lingam’s office where he and other lawyers have also written or assisted the writing of draft judgements,” added the former secretary.

Jayanthi also claimed she had been instructed many times by her former boss to withdraw cash in amounts between RM100,000 and RM300,000 to be “hand delivered by others to individual judges.”

All her claims had been made to both the MACC and the Royal Commission set up to probe a video clip of Lingam purportedly brokering the appointment of judges.

Though the commission strongly suggested that action be taken against Lingam, Eusoff and others involved, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz yesterday told parliament that no further action will be taken as they have, technically, not broken the law.

He also said the MACC had cleared both Lingam and Eusoff of any wrongdoing as a “key witness” could not be located.

It is uncertain as to whether Jayanthi is the person MACC is looking for but PR leaders insist that Lingam’s former secretary is the so-called missing key witness.

Sivarasa claimed with the presence of Jayanthi today, Nazri and government had blatantly lied and are trying to sweep the case under the carpet.

“It shows that the government had, from the beginning, never intended or possessed the political will to take any measures to reform the judiciary,” he said.

Sivarasa added that while there are no longer any legal ramifications, the move to present the alleged key witness to prove the purported cover-up attempt will leave the government open to judgment by the electorate.

And this may prove to be a setback for the government who is trying to win support from a sceptical public, said the Subang MP.


[Source: The MalaysianInsider]