Wanted: Pornthip's head

Thai pathologist Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunan has promised to bring Teoh Beng Hock's case to justice by requesting an exhumation of the dead political aide's body for a second post-mortem, making her a well-known legendary figure across this country.

She fears no evil, and has over the past three decades brought justice to countless unjustifiably killed victims.

That explains why a million-baht tag has been placed on her head!

Guang Ming Daily travelled all the way to Thailand to talk to her. Other than seeing her dissect dead bodies in her white overall, we also saw her tender side as a Thai woman, a mother, and a wife.

Teoh Beng Hock's mysterious death has yet to be solved. Under the recommendation of their lawyer, Teoh's family agreed to invite internationally acclaimed pathologist Pornthip Rojanasunan to conduct a second post-mortem with the hope of unearthing any hidden truth.

Thanks to the intervention by Pornthip to conduct a second post-mortem on a wealthy Thai MP back in 1999, earlier police reports pointing at him committing suicide was overturned, resulting in a drastic twist in the development of the case.

Heads-on with the authorities

Pornthip fears no evil and would even go against the will of the authorities just to bring out the truth.

She has gained tremendous popularity since, but that has also made her a target of some people. Her life has been constantly under intimidation.

Pornthip said after she overturned the police report that the wealthy MP had committed suicide, she had received numerous unidentified calls threatening her life.

She was warned to stay clear of the case, or "a post-mortem will be conducted ON YOU tomorrow!"

That was only a beginning. Pornthip said the analyses she did on the six pieces of earplugs found at the site of an explosion in southern Thailand three years ago allowed the police to detain two suspects. One of the suspects was subsequently sentenced to death while the hearing of the other is still being conducted.

Since then, she has been told by the police that her head was wanted by certain people in southern Thailand.

"They offered at least one million baht (approximately RM100,000) for my head, but I'm not afraid of it!

"I'm well aware that my head fetches a good price, but I won't chicken out, but will instead be more determined to get the truth out of the dark."

A good price on the head of "Doctor of Death"

Popularly known as the "Doctor of Death," Pornthip is someone who would never give up things easily. That said, she is well aware of the fact that she is constantly walking on a tightrope, and does not know when she will miss and fall to her death.

Militants, underground outfits, even hostile politicians have been offering rewards to get her wiped out from the face of the earth.

She often leads her team to the sites, especially of cases involving explosions, and believes DNA technology could be employed in the police force to assist in the identification of leaders of the militants in the troubled Deep South.

Pornthip said she had no regret of any sort for the sake of the safety of majority of Thai people.

Revisiting Malaysia this month

On Teoh Beng Hock's case, Pornthip said the family's lawyer Gorbind Singh had contacted her, but whether she would come to Malaysia would depend on whether the court would approve the application by Teoh's family.

She admitted that it was inconvenient at this juncture for her to divulge any detail of her recent court statements in Kuala Lumpur, as the case is still on trial.

However, she said she would go to KL for a forensic conference in mid-November.

On Teoh's mysterious death, Pornthip said boldly that it shared a lot of similarities with many of the suspense cases she had handled earlier on.

She cited an example in which a woman was found hanging herself at home in Bangkok not too long ago. According to post-mortem reports, the woman hanged herself to death, but after two weeks, the victim's son and other relatives suspected foul play and requested Pornthip to conduct a second post-mortem to find out the truth behind her death.

After reading the post-mortem reports, Pornthip found some irregularities that did not match scientific evidences.

Generally, those hanging themselves to death will present injuries on the upper part of their throats, but this female victim had obvious injuries further down!

Moreover, Pornthip also found other injuries around the victim's body, including bruises on her arms.

As a result, she felt it necessary to revisit the site. Besides, the victim was said to have hanged herself with a certain type of cloth that did not match the actual situation.

Consequently, Pornthip got the victim's husband to explain these irregularities, but her husband was unable to provide proper answers to her questions.

Pornthip said collecting evidences was of paramount importance in solving a case.

Solving a mysterious death

The next example that Pornthip cited, was the case in which she conducted a second post-mortem on a victim for the first time.

The victim was a Thai man who died under police custody.

According to post-mortem reports presented by the police, the victim died at about 11.00 p.m. while under police custody.

The family of the victim sought Pornthip's assistance three months later, and wanted her to exhume the victim's body for a second post-mortem, during which four apparent injuries and bullet shells were found on the body.

Besides, there was undigested food in his gastrointestinal tract.

Pornthip said the victim took his meal at 4 p.m., and this was contradicting the police's claim that he died at 11 p.m.

Six months later, the Thai Legal Association issued a statement that the victim's blood was found in the bush.

The victim had apparently been killed by someone else before his body was moved to another location.

Unfortunately, the case was put to an abrupt stop without any solution, as a member of the victim's family met his doom during the process of finding the truth; and for their own safety, the family agreed to accept a 3-million baht "reconciliation" offer from the police.

Pornthip said helplessly, "Thailand lacks the say when it comes to human rights protection."

Every dead body tells a story! Pornthip allows the speechless evidences to talk on their own! Watch out for Part Two of the mind-boggling interview on Monday.

(Translated by DOMINIC LOH/Guang Ming Daily)

Santokh Singh in coma at HKL

Malaysian football legend Santokh Singh is in a coma at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

The 57-year-old who played at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, has been warded at the intensive care unit over the past four days.

His condition has been reported as stable.

On Monday, Santokh collapsed and lost consciousness while at home in Setapak.

His wife, Taljit Kaur, believes that the former international could have been struck by a viral infection as doctors had yet to determine the source of his ailemnt.

She said Santokh did not have any health problem when he collapsed at their home about 11am.

"A day earlier, my husband was in great health and even managed to conduct a coaching programme," she told reporters here today.

Meanwhile, Football Association of Selangor (FAS) general secretary Datuk Hamidin Amin who visited Santokh today, said his contributions to Malaysian soccer during the 1970s were invaluable.

He said FAS would help in any way it could to facilitate Santokh's speedy recovery, and urged fans to pray for their idol.

-- BERNAMA

Is this the reason why we are losing out in global trade?

Malaysians in Qatar are upset with the Malaysian embassy officials in Doha here for inviting only a selected number of Malaysians for a dinner to celebrate Malaysia Day at a leading hotel here recently.

Some Malaysians feel this has something to do the recent visit here by International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapha Mohamed. During the visit, Mustpaha hosted a dinner cum discussion with Malaysians at the Malaysian-managed Holiday Villa.

During the briefing, the YB invited Malaysians to raise current issues affecting Malaysian businessmen here in Qatar. Many Malaysians openly complained about the failure of the Malaysian Embassy to cooperate and support Malaysians here.

One Malaysian said he had been working with a leading Qatari construction and development company at the boardroom level for many years. He said to date, no Malaysian embassy official had visited the CEO or chairperson to pitch for work whereas the Singapore ambassador holds regular dialogues and pitches work for Singporean companies and Singaporean products.

Another Malaysian criticised the Malaysian embassy officials' inability to speak Arabic whereas the Singaporean ambassador, who is a Sikh, speaks fluent Arabic and makes the local Qatari officials feel comfortable.

Senior officials from major Malaysian engineering and construction firms attended the minister's briefing. One complained that Exim's bank's failure to support Malaysian companies here and in the Middle East for the past 25 years was a case in point.

One firm has suffered massive losses due to a lack of understanding of local issues. Most private sector officials assigned here said that their lack of knowledge of the local business and economic environments was the main cause of the failure of Malaysian businesses.

One Malaysian resident complained that even Malaysian-produced 'kacang goreng' was being exported to Qatar by a Singaporean company. He said the Malaysian embassy did nothing to pitch for work or even promote Malaysian products.

Some said that Thailand has four to five restaurants here and they market their products through popularising the restaurants. The Thai embassy officials are very active in promoting their country both for tourism and consumer products.

During the dialogue, the minister was unable to answer many specific questions raised by Malaysians here. He said he will advise the Malaysian embassy to be more active. The chargé d'affaires was seen busy making notes.

At the end of dialogue, the minister asked his 20-member delegation to stand up in order to be recognised by the Malaysians in Qatar. Sadly, the Malaysian delegates were so slow that the minister had to practically plead to them three times.

Finally, the Malaysian team got up from one corner of the room. The minister reminded them two times not to group together in one place but to mingle amongst the Malaysians here in Qatar.

Some Malaysians in Qatar feel that the embassy may be upset due to the above incident and avoided inviting all Malaysians to celebrate '1Malaysia' function. As the monies to celebrate Malaysia Day comes from Malaysians, it is unfair to invite only some Malaysians and not most.

[Source : Panglima Garang]

Geronimo's Take : What! A Singaporean Sikh speaks Arabic while our fella (presumably a Malay Muslim) could not? Some thing is not right here. How can we consider ourselves a serious player in the global market when we can't even get our basics right. It reminded me of the time when I needed to buy a property. During one launch by one of the property developers, I noticed that the staff from the foreign banks were selling their loan services aggressively by proactively approaching customers to handle their end financing needs. They always seemed to have a mathematical calculator with them all the time to provide quick answers to the customers should they inquire about the repayment terms. In contrast, the staff of the local Malay bank still relied on repayment tables printed out on a sheet of paper. Every time a prospect inquired about the amount he needs to pay monthly, the staff would have to do cross reference on the sheet of paper which sometimes could be time consuming. In addition, instead of being up and about fishing for customers, they just sat there behind the table waiting for customers to come to them. Speed and pro-activeness count and the local bank was slow to adapt to such simple basics.

Minister says English at work 'weird'

When I came across the following news report in the Malaysiakini, I almost puke ....

Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi has said that speaking English in the workplace is "weird" and harmful to the nation's culture and identity.

He said employees in the private sector used English 99 percent of the time and should switch to Bahasa Malaysia in order to show pride in the national language, the New Straits Times reported.

"This also occurs in government-linked companies where we have this weird culture of people speaking to each other in English instead of the national language," he said at the launch of a linguistics seminar.

"We are polluting our own culture and identity as a nation," he said.

"It would be difficult to strengthen the position of Bahasa Malaysia if this culture continued," he added, urging Malaysians to emulate the French, Japanese and Koreans, who stuck to their own language.

'Rojak' Bahasa slammed

The New Straits Times said Mohd Puad also criticised young people for using a mix of English and Bahasa Malaysia in SMS text messages and on the Internet.

He called on the nation's leaders to use Bahasa Malaysia for all meetings and events and said that when he receives letters in English he returns them and asks for them to be written in the national language.

English is widely spoken in Malaysia, a multicultural nation where the population is dominated by Muslim Malays but also includes large ethnic Chinese and Indian populations.

Many Malaysians speak several languages including English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Chinese and Indian dialects.

- AFP

Geronimo's Take: For 52 years since our independence, our national language, sad to say, has not evolved with the times while other Asian countries such as Japan, Korea and China have taken steps to ensure that their languages take that quantum leap into the technological era. South Korea, in the last few years, have in fact started to remove remnants of Chinese characters in their language so that their language will hence become solely Korean. I started learning Bahasa Kebangsaan immediately after Merdeka and love the language, especially when I was tutored by my next door Malay neighbour. Gradually, I was able to read, write and speak the language fluently. However, my interests started to wane when UMNO started to politicise the language. Despite this, I still enjoy the beautiful pantuns and asli music especially those played by the late Hamzah Dolmat. Back in the late 50s, I used to sing this song with a lot of gusto during school assemblies.

Just to correct Mohd Puad Zarkashi. It is not weird using English in the workplace, especially in the private sector as the linqua franca happens to be English. We are living in the IT era and if we were to use Bahasa Kebangsaan, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Baku or Bahasa Malaysia in the office, this is how it will sound :

Hardware = barangkeras

Software = baranglembut

Joystick = batang gembira

Plug and Play = cucuk dan main

Port = lubang

Server = pelayan

Client = pelanggan

Try to translate this:

ENGLISH:

That server gives a plug and play service to the client using either
hardware or software joystick. The joystick goes into the port of the
client.

Now in BAHASA:

Pelayan itu memberi pelanggannya layanan cucuk dan main dengan
menggunakan batang gembira jenis keras atau lembut. Batang gembira itu
akan dimasukkan ke dalam lubang pelanggan.

With no offence to our national language, now you know...WHY... English is still a better option.

What a bl***y waste of taxpayers money & "gaji buta"?

Selangor government is facing multi-million ringgit losses due to failed housing development projects in Bukit Botak, Selayang during the previous four Barisan Nasional administrations.

The third declassified documents revealed today showed state subsidiary, the Selangor Development Corporation (PKNS) could lose a further RM136.4 million if it went on with the projects.

The project started in 1986 when the state government planned to relocate 2,300 squatters on a 81.34 hectares (201 acres) to Bukit Botak due to the high density in Klang Valley.

Initially, the relocation of the Bukit Botak landowners started in 1986 under the tenure of the then menteri besar, Ahmad Razali Mohd Ali.

Then in 1988, his successor Muhammad Muhammad Taib (left) appointed Shah Alam Properties (SAP) as the project development manager and RM17 million was allocated for various development costs.

However, due to technical setbacks, the project was abandoned in 1992 and SAP could not proceed with the plan.

The projects turned disastrous when in 1999, under menteri besar Abu Hassan Omar, a two-month Syarikat Delpuri Corporation Sdn Bhd (DCSB) was picked to replace SAP.

Several of the company directors did not have any experience in housing development and one of the directors was also a former Hulu Selangor land officer.

Despite the weaknesses, the developer was tasked to provide temporary homes and RM300 in subsidy per month (to those who refused temporary homes) until their homes were fully built.

The company was also required to develop 2,775 units of Semi-D, bungalows, offices, shops and flats. But project failed again and was abandoned for a second time.

The DCSB had also failed to develop the temporary houses as promised and did not make the payment of RM300 to the landowners.

Fraud involved?

In 2005, the administration of Mohd Khir Toyo, decided to terminate DCSB's contracts and instructed PKNS to take over 1,367 units of semi-Ds in order to revive the project.

But it did not see the light of the day as PKNS only managed to get into the land sites in January 2007, over a year after its appointment due to problems related to previous developer, DCSB.

"It is strange that DCSB was again appointed to develop 592 units, the most units compared to the other two - PKNS Infra Berhad and Selangor Industrial Corporation," said the documents.

"Although aware of the problem, the state government in 2007 instructed the land office to take over the low-cost housing that was supposed to be built by DCSB. But this did not take place.

"Based on information received, PKNS was given no choice but to take up this project although it was known that it would face great losses on its part," it said.

Khalid (right) decided to terminate all development contracts relating to Bukit Botak due to losses that would be incurred by PKNS, which indirectly will affect the taxpayers in Selangor.

The state government had also set up an exco portfolio of housing, building management and squatters led by Iskandar Abdul Samad to investigate if there was cheating or fraud involved.

The committee comprising the Gombak land office, representatives from the exco, lawyers and representatives of the committees were to ensure only qualified landowners get their rights.

This measure was needed to be done as the investigation from the committee revealed that the land was given to individuals that were not entitled to it.

In summary, PKNS would have faced RM136.4 million in losses if the project went on and some landowners collectively would face RM7.87 million in losses because they had paid advance payments to DCSB.

"DCSB had also failed to show its ability in developing this area but then, it was reappointed to revive the project. In short, the previous state governments had failed to benefit the people in Bukit Botak," said the document.

[Source : Malaysiankini]

Geronimo's Take : This is really mis-management personified by these UMNO fellas, and yet they are thinking about running the state again. Fat hope! How could such a thing be happening for so long? What was our state auditor doing? What was our state legal advisor doing? What was the then ACA doing? We not only found our hard earned money flushed down the toilet bowel via the abandoned projects, but also paying the state officers for not doing anything - gaji buta.

The same thing applies to Catholic Ministers like Maximus Ongkili and Bernard Dompok. In my blog of November 15, the first two paras read : Home Ministry officials in Putrajaya today were stunned to learn that the word “Allah” had been used by Catholics in this country to refer to the Christian God hundreds of years ago. “I told them that ‘Allah’ had been used in this country because the lingua franca at that time was Malay,” Reverend Father Lawrence Andrew, the priest-editor of The Herald said. Now, if Ongkili and Dompok have done their jobs, the Home Ministry officials would not have been stunned, would they? Gaji buta.

Wah, Ah Long now on FaceBook and wants to connect with you

It appears that no measure is too extreme for 'Ah Long' [loan shark] trying to collect debts.

One persistent debt collector has taken to hounding a borrower on the popular social networking website, FaceBook, with the aim of humiliating him into settling his outstanding debt.

MCA Public Service and Complaints Department head, Datuk Michael Chong, said the new modus operandi involved posting of the victim's identity, including photographs, personal information and their debts, on the website. "Prior to this, the 'Ah Long' used red paint and posters to humiliate their debtors but now, they are posting the debtors' personal information on the social website," he told reporters at the MCA headquarters here today.

Chong said the latest case involved a car accessory shop worker who found a loan shark's threatening message posted on Facebook, demanding that he pay his outstanding debts.

The 25-years old victim from Batu 9, Cheras, had taken a RM1,000 loan in September but was now being pressured to pay RM80,000, inclusive of interests accrued. The victim lodged a police report at the Kajang police headquarters last Friday. - BERNAMA.

Geronimo's Info : For those who wish to apply for loan from the 'Ah Long', please use the following prescribed form. Wakakaka.

Monday Humour

A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.

Last week, we took some friends to a new restaurant, 'Steve's Place,'
and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.

It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils,
I observed that he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket.

Then I looked around and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets.
When the waiter came back to serve our soup I inquired, 'Why the spoon?'

'Well, 'he explained, 'the restaurant's owner hired Andersen Consulting to
revamp all of our processes. After several months of analysis, they
concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It
represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per
hour.

If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips
back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.'

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he replaced it with his spare.
'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an
extra trip to get it right now.' I was impressed.

I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter's fly.

Looking around, I saw that all of the waiters had the same string hanging from
their flies. So, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, 'Excuse me, but can you
tell me why you have that string right there?'

'Oh, certainly!' Then he lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant.
That consulting firm I mentioned learned that we can save time in the restroom.

By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull it out
without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the
time spent in the restroom by 76.39%.

I asked quietly, 'After you get it out, how do you put it back?'

'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the

spoon ---

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Quek made a routine house call to Mr. Lim, one of his elderly patients.

He asks, "And how are you doing today, Mr. Lim?"
Mr. Lim replies, "I feel just fine, doc. But you know, it's the strangest thing. Every night when I get up to pang jio, the bathroom light goes on for me automatically when I open the door!"

The doctor is worried that the old man is getting senile, so he phones the man's son, and the son's wife answers.

The doctor tells her, "Mrs. Lim, I'm a little
concerned about your father-in-law. It seems that when he gets up to urinate at night and opens the bathroom door, the light somehow goes on...."

At which point, Mrs. Lim yells, "Aiyoh, Ah Seng! Ah Pa pang jio in the fridge again!"

_____________________________________________

QUESTION: How do you know frogs are Hokkien?
ANSWER : Because when it's cold, they go "kwah,kwah, kwah".

QUESTION : How do Hokkien prawns laugh?
ANSWER: Hae hae hae.

QUESTION: How do Hokkien fish laugh?
ANSWER: Hoo hoo hoo.

And here is a classic .....

QUESTION: What's the difference between Ang-mor fairy tales and Hokkien fairy Tales?

ANSWER: Ang-mor fairy tales begin with "Once upon a time..."

and

Hokkien fairy tales begin with "Lim Peh ka lu kong..."

Christians here called God "Allah" four centuries ago

Home Ministry officials in Putrajaya today were stunned to learn that the word “Allah” had been used by Catholics in this country to refer to the Christian God hundreds of years ago.

“I told them that ‘Allah’ had been used in this country because the lingua franca at that time was Malay,” Reverend Father Lawrence Andrew, the priest-editor of The Herald, told The Malaysian Insider.

The priest had met several senior aides to Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein in Putrajaya earlier this evening to clear up the confusion over the Catholic paper’s on-off publishing permit for next year.

Among the staffers present were the ministry’s head of publication control and Quranic texts and two special officers to Hishammuddin, Datuk Lau Yeng Peng and Datuk Michael Chong.

Andrew described the meeting as “cordial”.

During the hour-long dialogue, Andrew took the chance to draw their attention to a Malay-Latin dictionary published in 1631 which showed the translation for “Allah” and a Catholic prayer book published in 1894 brought over from Hong Kong.

The priest related that Hishammuddin’s aides were surprised to learn that Catholics had used the word “Allah” outside the Muslim context over four hundred years ago but declined to comment on the issue, explaining it was beyond their scope.

The church is challenging the home minister’s ban in recent years on it publishing the word “Allah” to refer to the Christian God.

The ministry first threatened to cancel The Herald’s licence last year, effectively shutting down the country’s only Catholic publication.

The High Court here had earlier this week ejected nine Islamic bodies from intervening in the suit.

The fight to decide who can use the word “Allah” to mean what will be heard on Dec 14.

[Source: The MalaysianInsider]

Geronimo's Take: Today is Sunday and it is the day I attend my Sunday morning mass at the SFA Church in Cheras. At the same time, as I purchase my copy of The Herald, I am also comforted by the thought that I shall be continuing to receive my weekly magazine come the new year. Praise the Lord! However, if the government is so adamant in refusing the Church to use the word "Allah", then I believe the Hindus should also protest to UMNO against PROTON using the word "ISWARA" as it is the name of the Hindu God/Diety. I cannot imagine the name of a god being commercialised into a motor vehicle. All I can say, as fellow Malaysians, let us live and let live.

The rubbish bin is not safe

I just don't get it. Lately, Hishamuddin has been pretty upset that his men in blue have been badly demonised by the rakyat. So, if our police force is as competent as our UMNO leaders claim them to be, then how come the owner of this rubbish bin is feeling so insecured that he has have it all chained and padlocked? Makes you wonder doesn't it?

[Picture by Art Harun]