Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Do Sarawakians of the Christian faith still want to vote for the BN?
All the work done by Najib to campaign for the state BN will probably end up in the ditch. This news is going to spread like wild fire to Sarawak. To hold protests one day before voting day, must be stupidity personified.
Muslim groups will protest tomorrow [April 15] against Putrajaya’s release of Malay-language bibles, after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak promised yesterday that his administration would never again impound bibles.
The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam (Pembela)’s protest here would occur a day before Sarawak, where half of its population is made up of Christians, goes to polls.
“We are organising the assembly to express our opinions and the voices of Muslim groups who represent the Muslim community to defend the sanctity of Islam as the country’s official religion,” said Pembela spokesman Dr Yusri Mohamad.
“The assembly is to protest the government’s action in allowing Bahasa Malaysia bibles, including the usage of the word ‘Allah’,” he added.
Yusri said Pembela also opposed the Najib administration’s decision to release 35,100 copies of the Alkitab that the Home Ministry had impounded at the Port Klang and Kuching ports.
“We see there are efforts and an inclination to dispute the position of Islam, so what we are doing is just to express our protest,” said Yusri.
“We want to defend the position of Islam in the country so that it is not disputed,” he added.
Pembela, a coalition of 20 Muslim bodies, will organise the protest after Friday prayers at the National Mosque tomorrow [April 15], said Yusri.
The Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) picked up its cargo of 5,100 copies of the Alkitab from Port Klang last month, but said they would be preserved as museum pieces as a reminder of what it maintains was a deliberate government move to deface their holy book.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala said yesterday that the remaining 30,000 copies of the Alkitab have been collected by its importer, The Gideons.
Pembela said recently that the decision to allow the Alkitab to be freely distributed nationwide showed that the government was being manipulated by Christian groups.
The Muslim coalition also threatened to challenge Putrajaya’s 10-point solution on the bibles row in court.
Malay rights group Perkasa warned Christians last Sunday against asking that bibles be printed in Bahasa Malaysia, saying Malays have allowed non-Malays to make “excessive” demands.
But the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) said today it was unconvinced with the Najib administration’s 10-point solution to the Alkitab row, calling it “ad hoc and short term” and pointing out that it still did not address the impasse over the use of the word “Allah”.
CFM president Ng Moon Hing said while the 10-point solution had dealt with the impounding of the Alkitab, it had failed to address the root cause of Christian discontent – the prohibition of publications containing the word “Allah”.
The government is still locked in a legal dispute with the Catholic Church over the use of the word “Allah” to refer to God by non-Muslims, as Islamic enactments in 10 states prohibit this practice.
With the Sarawak polls looming this Saturday, the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration had sought to pacify the Christian community by ordering the release of the holy books, and later drafting the 10-point solution early this month to resolve all future disputes in the matter.
The solution, however, stipulates two separate sets of rules for Christians living on either side of the South China Sea.
For those in the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, the distribution and printing of such books have been allowed, due to the large Christian community.
Sarawak is home to the country’s largest Christian population.
But the Cabinet insisted that Malay-language bibles in the peninsula be marked with a cross and “Christian Publication” on the front cover.
[Source: Malaysian Insider]
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The final push before V-Day by Pakatan
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
UMNO fight for the rights of Bumiputras?
From Malaysiakini : Portal hit by cyber attacks
The Malaysiakini technical team has determined it to be a denial-of-service attack, where an attacker uses computers in different parts of the world to swarm Malaysiakini servers to the point that they are unable to cope with the massive traffic.
Both our servers, which are hosted at two data centres - TM Brickfields and Jaring - have been affected by the attack. It is learnt that the attack was launched from overseas.
Malaysiakini has posted all of today's reports in Facebook. Readers can access Malaysiakini in full via Facebook Notes.
We will soon be making our reports, especially those on the Sarawak election, available on http://malaysiakinicom.wordpress.com or
http://malaysiakinicom.blogspot.com.
For Malaysiakini's Chinese-language website, please go tohttp://www.facebook.com/mkinicn and http://malaysiakini-cn.blogspot.com/.
For Bahasa Malaysia, go to http://www.facebook.com/mkinibm.
Malaysiakini is also working to bring up a new set of servers.
We apologise for the technical problem and we will keep readers
informed of developments via Facebook and Twitter.
Similar to attacks on 'Sarawak Report'
The attack on Malaysiakini came three days after Sarawak Report, a website which has been critical of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, was shut down by a similar assault.
According to site founder Clare Rewcastle Brown, the attacks has been building up with interruptions over the past week, culminating in a concerted attack over the weekend.
She explained that web experts said it was a distributed denial of service attack - the type that brought down Wikileaks at one time.
In a DOS attack, multiple bots, or programmes running on servers or personal computers in different countries are used to bombard a site's server with multiple requests to view the site.
The 'bots' will repeat the request for data so many times they flood the server, beyond its ability to respond.
Sarawak Report has this morning moved to a new address -http://www1.sarawakreport.org/
Alternative websites where you can access Malaysiakini for FREE:
Wordpress: malaysiakinicom.wordpress.com
Blogspot: malaysiakinicom.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Romance of The Three Kingdoms in Sarawak
I have always love the war epics from Chinese classics such as The Water Margin, The Three Kingdoms and the Red Cliff (which is one part of the story from The Three Kingdoms). All three (and many more which I am not familiar with) focus mainly on strategic planning before the start of each battle. One of the Christmas presents I received from my kids was the box set of the HD version of The Three Kingdoms screened recently on ASTRO. There were 96 episodes in all and since it is a kind of a "male thing", only four females appeared in the entire series. Historical names such as Cao Cao, Yuan Shu, Liu Bei, Guan Ye and Zhang Fei take centre stage, but each battle would not have been successful if not for strategists like Zhuge Liang and his antagonist, Sima Yi. From the word "Go", it was like a game of chess, on who is better at outwitting the others. Now we come to the Sarawak state elections.
War drums are sounding loud and clear and banners unfurled in the battlefield for Sarawak.
Without being overly dramatic, the situation is truly not far from the scenes depicted in Chinese novel War of the 3 Kingdoms - with DAP fighting a bloody and brutal battle against George Chan's SUPP and Taib Mahmud's BN.
Prime Minister Najib Razak too has joined the battle as it is obvious that long-time BN stalwart SUPP is now fighting for its life against the Pakatan Rakyat's DAP.
The SUPP and DAP are going head to head in the Chinese-dominated urban areas, with the heaviest artillery fire ongoing in these areas:-
1. Pending (Violet Yong of DAP vs Dr Sim Kui Hian of SUPP)
2. Kota Sentosa (Chong Chieng Jen of DAP vs Alfred Yap of SUPP)
3. Batu Kawah (Christina Chiew of DAP vs Tan Joo Phoi of SUPP)
4. Bukit Assek (Wong Ho Leng of DAP vs Chieng Huong Toon of SUPP)
5. Bawang Assan (Alice Lau of DAP vs Wong Soon Koh of SUPP)
6. Piasau (Ling Sie Kiong of DAP vs George Chan of SUPP)
Of Palace intrigues and evil viceroys
Najib, his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin and Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud have urged the voters to reject DAP because they say DAP is intent on building a Chinese dynasty that will bully and ostracize the other races.
They also claim DAP had just as many old and decrepit leaders who refuse to step down like Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh. BN leaders also insist that DAP's election promises were just "empty rhetoric" and DAP's fire and brimstone ceramahs lacked "real substance".
"Chinese voters can see that it is the BN leaders who are spewing hot air as BN leaders have not changed anything in Sarawak for 48 years. BN is having a tough time convincing the Chinese in Sarawak who are now demanding that it is time to change. It is BN who is talking a lot but not instituting any changes," said DAP MP for Seremban John Fernandez told Malaysia Chronicle.
He pointed to recent and horrific death of senior Customs officer in MACC premises in Kuala Lumpur. Slthough, it had nothing to do with the Sarawak polls, the Chinese can see that Najib is "not running the country properly", Fernandez said.
The Chinese voters also saw Pakatan Rakyat leader Anwar Ibrahim as being victimised and they feel sympathy for him. In the coffeeshops of the big cities in Sarawak, the Chinese believe that BN is plotting and scheming to topple Anwar to stay in power and to continue in their corrupt activities.
The Chinese love to read novels of war and intrigue and these Umno plots and manipulations remind them of those in the Emperor's court during the era of the dynasties where evil Viceroys are always lurking in the shadows waiting to frame and victimize a good military general who is loyal to the Emperor.
Listen to the Hornbill
Meanwhile, out of the 15 seats which DAP is contesting, Simanggang, Meradong and Kidurong are Iban-majority while Bukit Kota is Malay-Melanau-majority. The rest of the 11 seats have at least 50% Chinese voters. The other seats are Padungan, Repok, Dudong,Pelawan and Pujut.
Malaysia Chronicle also spoke to DAP's Skudai state assemblyman, Dr Boo Cheng Hau, for his news of the campaign. Dr Boo has been camping out in the East Malaysian state for days now.
According to him, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng's success in Penang has been noted by the Sarawak Chinese. The fact that DAP still has old guards like Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh does not matter as they are not helming the nation and siphoning out the nation's wealth as what Taib, Najib and the Umno have been accused of doing.
"BN leaders have no more ammo with which they can attack DAP," said Dr Boo.
With polling scheduled to take place on Saturday, the last 3 days namely, 13th, 14th and 15th will be the most crucial.
In the meantime, Ubah the DAP's mascot Hornbill is swooping all over Sarawak announcing that the time for change has come. Will Sarawak listen to the clarion call of its own special bird?
His resignation came hours after the PKS’ central sharia council slapped him with a list of sanctions.
Arifinto resigned from the House of Representatives amid mounting calls for him to step down.
Photographs showing Arifinto looking at pornography on his tablet computer were widely circulated in the media and on the Internet, leading to an outburst of criticism of the party, which has described itself as “clean, caring and professional”.
“As a co-founder of my party, I am obligated to take responsibility for the sake of the continuity and good image of my party,” he said.
“I would also like to apologize to all PKS members and lawmakers. I will continue to reflect on my actions and work to improve the quality of my personality by seeking input from ulema, donating to the poor, and any other good gestures during my life in this world,” he said, hoping the incident would serve as a lesson for his party and other lawmakers.
Arifinto said he decided to resign “without any intervention or pressure from anybody” — despite a statement in the list of the sanctions that said the penalties were intended to convince him to “voluntarily resign from the House”.
Arifinto was also sacked from the PKS patron council, said PKS sharia council head Surahman Hidayat.
Arifinto’s decision to quit was met with appreciation.
House Deputy Speaker Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said the resignation was the best decision for everyone, including the House.
“Arifinto’s move should be appreciated since many legislators rarely take responsibility for their misdeeds. This matter really tarnished the image of the House,” he said.
House deputy speaker, Priyo Budi Santoso of the Golkar Party said Arifinto’s move was a lesson for everyone. “We have to show our appreciation.”
Yahya Zaini of the Golkar Party resigned from the House following the revelations of a sex video featuring him and singer Maria Eva in 2006.
Another sex scandal involved the PDI-P’s Max Moein, who is now standing trial in a high-profile corruption case. The House ethics council expelled Max in 2008 after pictures depicting him naked with his secretary circulated on the Internet.
Calls for the police to investigate Arifinto and charge him with the controversial 2008 Pornography Law have been mounting. The PKS has been one of the law’s strongest supporters.
Internet users said imprisoning Arifinto would be appropriate given the harsh treatment of singer Nazril “Ariel” Ilham, who was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment under the 2008 Pornography Law after sex videos featuring him were leaked and circulated on the Internet. -- Jakarta Post, 12 April 2011