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No time for horsing around at Inter Milan Posted: 20 Oct 2011 08:30 AM PDT MILAN, Oct 20 – Mongolia president Tsakhia Elbegdorj talked of Genghis Khan and his country's famous horses during a visit to Inter Milan this week but coach Claudio Ranieri will have more mundane things on his mind against Chievo on Sunday (1300 GMT). With only four points from six Serie A matches so far, Inter, given an invitation to visit Mongolia, could be contemplating trips to less exotic places such as Padova, Bari and Brescia if they do not start picking up points soon. Ranieri (picture) made a bright start when he replaced Gian Piero Gasperini, fired after five competitive games in charge, with a 3-1 win at Bologna . The revival was brief, however, as they slumped to a 3-0 home defeat against Napoli then lost 2-1 at Catania a week ago when new signing Diego Forlan was missing with a hamstring injury. That has left them level with relegation candidates Bologna and Lecce and only two points clear of bottom club Cesena. The bright spot for Ranieri has been Inter's European form, with Tuesday's 1-0 win at Lille following their earlier 3-2 victory over CSKA Moscow. "One swallow does not make a spring but the important thing is to have won," he said after Tuesday's match against the French side. "The lads are working hard, they are taking it seriously, it's a black period but we want to turn over the page and this result is good for morale." Inter's troubles have certainly not discouraged Elbegdorj, a self-confessed Inter fan who said he stays up at night to watch their matches. Elbegdorj visited Inter yesterday and suggested that the club could help to develop football in his country, currently a modest 167th in the FIFA rankings. "There are thousands of Mongolians who are fans of Inter. We are building a stadium for football and we are setting up an academy for youngsters who want to play this sport and we would like to collaborate with Inter," he said. "We're proud of our history and our conquests. Everyone knows the figure of Gengis Khan. In our country, there are more horses than people, six million horses and three million people. They are the most famous horses in the world. I hope that in the future our country can also be famous for football." Juventus and Udinese, level at the top with 12 points apiece and both still unbeaten, have home matches, Juve hosting Genoa on Saturday (1845) and Udinese entertaining Novara on Sunday (1300). Defending champions Milan, in 13th place with eight points and themselves far from convincing, visit Lecce on Sunday (1030). Like Inter, their form has been better in Europe and yesterday's 2-0 win over BATE Borisov left them with seven points from three group games and cruising towards the last 16. – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Pearce to coach British team at 2012 Olympics Posted: 20 Oct 2011 05:33 AM PDT LONDON, Oct 20 – Former England defender Stuart Pearce will coach the British soccer team at the London Olympics next year, the British Olympic Association (BOA) confirmed today. The 49-year-old Pearce, who has been in charge of England's under 21s since 2007, was chosen by the Football Association (FA) to lead a combined British soccer team at an Olympics for the first time since 1960. Pearce (picture) will, in theory, select mainly under-23 players from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland although the participation of a British team has been problematic. In June, the BOA angered Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales by announcing an "historic agreement" for Britain to field a united team for the first time in 52 years. The three home associations, worried about their national identities in world soccer, issued a joint statement rejecting the BOA's statement and voiced their opposition to their players taking part in the Games. Pearce, who spent most of his playing career with Nottingham Forest where he earned a reputation as a hard man, played for England 78 times. While most of the British squad will be under 23s, the rules state that he can select three over-age players with former England captain David Beckham keen to be part of it. Former England coach Hope Powell would lead the women's Olympic team, officials said. – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Conversions threaten Pakistan’s ‘Macedonian’ tribe Posted: 20 Oct 2011 01:08 AM PDT Their claim to descent from the army of Alexander the Great: Fair, with light eyes. BUMBORET VALLEY, Pakistan, Oct 20 — Nestled among the valleys of Pakistan's mountainous northwest, a tiny religious community that claims descent from Alexander the Great's army is under increasing pressure from radicals bent on converting them to Islam. The Kalash, who number just about 3,500 in Pakistan's population of 180 million, are spread over three valleys along the border with Afghanistan. For centuries they practised polytheism and animal sacrifice without interference from members of Pakistan's Muslim majority. But now they are under increasing danger from proselytising Muslim militants just across the border, and a hardline interpretation of Islam creeping through mainstream society — as Pook Shireen discovered. After falling unconscious during a car accident, the mid-20s member of the paramilitary Chitral Scouts woke to find that people with him had converted him to Islam. "Some of the Muslim people here try to influence the Kalash or encourage them by reading certain verses to them from the Quran," said his mother, Shingerai Bibi. "The men that were with him read verses of the Quran and then when he woke up they said to him, 'You are a convert now to Islam'. So he converted." The conversion was a shock for his family. But they were lucky compared with other religious minorities under threat from growing religious conservatism that is destabilising Pakistan, a nuclear-armed US ally. In May 2010, more than 80 Ahmadis, a minority who consider themselves Muslims but are regarded by Pakistan as non-Muslim, were killed in attacks on two mosques in Lahore. Then in March this year, the Christian minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, whose job it was to protect groups such as the Kalash, was assassinated outside his home in the capital, Islamabad, in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. Religious tensions The lush green Kalash valleys, which sit below snow-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush, have been a magnet for tourists, both for the scenery and for the people, who are indigenous to the area. Most are fair and with light eyes, which they say prove their descent from the army of Alexander of Macedonia that passed through the area in the 4th century BC to invade India. The community brews its own wine and women are not veiled. But the co-existence between the Kalash and Muslims has been fading in recent months and the area is suffering from many of the religious tensions marring the rest of Pakistan. The conversions are causing splits among the Kalash — converts become outcasts overnight, described by many as "dead to their families". "When a Kalash converts we don't live with them in our houses anymore," said farmer Asil Khan, sitting on a neighbour's balcony. "Our festivals and our culture are different. They can't take part in the festivals or the way we live." Some in the area are so concerned that they believe segregation is the only way to protect the Kalash. "We should move the Muslims out of the valley to make more room for the Kalash," said Shohor Gul, a Kalash member of the border police who lives in Rumbur valley. "This area should be just for us. We dislike these conversions — it disturbs our culture and our festivals, and it reduces our numbers." The subject of Kalash festivals is raised often in these narrow valleys, where carefully cultivated corn crops cover what flat land exists, and the Kalash community's distinctive wooden houses terrace the valley walls. Culture clash with encroachment of hardline Islam. Kalash festivals, held to usher in seasonal change or to pray for a good harvest, include hypnotic dancing and animal sacrifice, fuelled by the grape wine with which the Kalash lace their gatherings. Converts to Islam say, though, that these rituals quicken the decision to leave the Kalash. "The main thing wrong in the Kalash culture are these festivals," said 29-year-old convert Rehmat Zar. "When someone dies the body is kept in that house for three days." Muslims usually bury people the day they die. Zar added of the Kalash: "They slaughter up to a hundred goats and the family are mourning — but those around them are celebrating, beating drums, drinking wine and dancing. Why are they celebrating this? That's wrong." Not all Muslims Not all of the area's Muslims feel this way. Qari Barhatullah is the imam at the Jami Masjid in Bumboret valley's Shikanandeh village. He stresses that many of the valley's Muslims value the Kalash's contributions to the area's tourism industry and contends that Kalash festivals run parallel to their own. He admits though that there is tension between the two communities. Unveiled Kalash girls in colourful homemade skirts and head-dresses grow up alongside Muslim women covered by the all-enveloping burqas. The Kalash girls are also free to marry who they choose, in a country where arranged marriages are common. "We do support the Kalash — Islam teaches us respect for other religions — but there are people here, maybe they are not as educated — who don't like the Kalash because of their religion," Barhatullah said. Akram Hussain oversees the Kalasha Dur, a cultural centre devoted to promoting and protecting the Kalash culture, a stunning structure of elegantly crafted carved wooden beams and stone where Kalash children are educated. It also houses a library, clinic and museum, which are open to both the Kalash and Muslim communities. "Some of the Muslims here don't want to educate the Kalash people. They don't want us to have an education," he said. Without more schools that cater exclusively to the Kalash, though, Hussain worries his community and culture will disappear. "There are few Kalash teachers and there aren't schools for older children, so they go to the secondary schools and learn about Islam. The Muslim teachers are brainwashing them. They tell the children that Islam is the only right way and that we are going to hell," he said. A provincial spokesman said the regional government is funding development projects for the Kalash and that Pakistan was committed to protecting their unique heritage. "We have set aside 15 million rupees (RM534,000) over three years for projects such as improving roads, water supply systems and community centres," said Ahmad Hassan. "Whatever the Kalash say they need." Others in the Kalash valleys though say development should cease and insist the adoption of Islam should continue, despite the impact on the Kalash culture. Rehmat Zar, the Kalash convert, says his eventual aim is to convert his entire community to Islam. "I'm trying my best to convert many of the Kalash myself. I'm trying to convert as many as I can," he said. "The people who are trying to preserve the Kalash culture are doing wrong. They are committing a mistake. The Kalash should convert to Islam because this is the real, and last, religion". — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Football played 300 years earlier than thought Posted: 19 Oct 2011 09:46 PM PDT New evidence indicates an organised form of the game was being played by royalty from as early as the 15th century. — AFP/Relaxnews pic GLASGOW, Oct 20 — Historians have uncovered evidence suggesting football was played 300 years before the sport was commonly believed to have been invented, the Times reported Tuesday. While the first international football match took place between England and Scotland in 1872, new evidence indicates an organised form of the game was being played by royalty from as early as the 15th century. Players used a leather-bound pig's bladder as the ball and were only allowed to use their feet in the sport. Richard McBrearty, curator at the Scottish Football Museum in Glasgow, has also uncovered a manuscript of accounts from King James IV of Scotland indicating he paid two shillings for a bag of "fut ballis" in 1497. "Football was more of an evolution than a 19th-century revolution," said McBrearty, who made his discovery as he re-catalogued old documents held at the National Library of Scotland, told the Times. One record reports a match involving 20 players taking place in front of on Elizabeth I in 1569 in which players kicked a ball around a 50-metre pitch where trees were used as goalposts. — AFP/Relaxnews Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Film industry turns its attention to Tokyo festival Posted: 20 Oct 2011 06:49 AM PDT LOS ANGELES, Oct 20 – Japan is this week warming up for its major film festival with the local industry buoyed by big box office numbers. The 24th Tokyo International Film Festival – which runs from October 22 to 30 – boasts five world premieres on its 200-film programme, among them the Shuichi Okita-directed drama The Woodsman and the Rain and Chinese director Du Jiayi's coming-of-age tale Kora. The event is used by the Japanese film industry to peddle its wares to the world – and by international filmmakers and distributors to gain an insight into what is happening there, and perhaps strike up some business. The visitors will no doubt be impressed by what they find when they land in Tokyo. Japan's box office came into 2011 off a record year – the 220.7 billion yen (RM8.59 billion) collected in 2010 was the most in the country since 1974 – and there have been impressive figures recorded once again. The current box office champ is the Hollywood sci-fi actioner Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which has taken US$17 million (RM53.13 million) in just two weeks, while the local Moteki sits in second place with an impressive four-week collection of more than US$20 million. The festival in Tokyo is considered one of Asia's "top three" film festivals – behind the event which concluded last week in Busan, South Korea, and in front of the large Shanghai festival that is held each June. It places much emphasis on its film market, seen as a doorway into both producing films in Japan and marketing international films in the country. The festival's official website produces daily webcasts and interviews with guests for those unable to make the event itself. In other news from the Asian box office, the Hugh Jackman-led actioner Real Steel went straight to the top of the charts in South Korea, picking up around US$813,000 from its first week. The film was also dominant in Hong Kong, collecting US$1.6 million in its first week to knock the comedy-thriller Johnny English Reborn from its perch. That film has now taken US$3 million from its two-week run and is the latest in a growing trend of international productions which have targeted foreign markets before their own domestic audiences are tested. – AFP Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Anne Hathaway joins Hugh Jackman in ‘Les Misérables’ Posted: 20 Oct 2011 02:04 AM PDT Actress Anne Hathaway will be singing 'I Dreamed a Dream' as Fantine in the film version of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. – AFP pic LOS ANGELES, Oct 20 – Confirming rumours circulating last August, Anne Hathaway will be singing "I Dreamed a Dream" as Fantine in the film version of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. The adaptation of the musical stage play stars Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe as the antogonist Inspector Javert, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Set in 19th-century France, during years prior to the French Revolution, the story follows a paroled prisoner who seeks redemption and a struggling factory worker. Amy Adams was apparently vying for the role of Fantine. The team of Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush, from The King's Speech, could appear as the Thenardiers, per Deadline Hollywood, and Emma Watson may also be in consideration for a role. Directed by Tom Hooper, who won the Oscar for The King's Speech, production is planned for starting at the end of the year. The film will be released December 7, 2012. Hathaway will be seen as Catwoman in the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises from director Christopher Nolan, to open next July, and has also signed on to a Judy Garland biopic. Currently Jackman is starring in the sci-fi thriller Real Steel and he will be in the sequels for Wolverine and the animated Rise of the Guardians, as well as star as P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Show on Earth. – AFP Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Mary Gabriel on love, capital & Karl Marx’s family Posted: 20 Oct 2011 03:38 AM PDT LONDON, Oct 20 — Veteran journalist and former Reuters editor Mary Gabriel spent eight years poring over the personal lives of Karl Marx and his aristocratic wife Jenny. The result is a revealing portrait of Marx as a husband, father and human being inside a thorough account of the poverty, persecution and death which haunted the family of a man whose political theories would change the world. Gabriel, whose book has been nominated for a National Book Award in the United States, spoke to Reuters about her work: "Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution". Q: Wasn't Marx a crowded field for a writer? A: There are libraries of books on Marx and books on his theory in every conceivable language, but I was shocked to find that among all those volumes there was not a single book that focused on Marx and his family. Marx's personal life has been a controversial subject from the time of his death in 1883. Immediately after his burial efforts began by his followers to sanitise his story so that this 'socialist god' would not seem human. I believed there was room for another biography that told the story of Marx and his family, that readers ought to be introduced to Marx as husband, father and friend — for better or worse. Readers will see that this man was not at all the stern patrician he appeared to be in socialist and communist propaganda. I also found that uncovering the private Marx helped me understand his theory. Having done so, I can't imagine reading Marx's works without understanding the circumstances in which they were written and the historical events that were unfolding around him as he did so. Q: What surprised you most about Marx? A: I was shocked by how approachable Marx was, and how much, by the end of the project, I enjoyed his company (I "moved in" with the Marxes for about eight years.) There is a silly question people are often asked about political candidates — "Which one would you most like to have a beer with?" By the end of the book, I would answer Karl Marx! He was funny, brilliant, passionate and completely exasperating, which in a sense only made him more endearing. I came to the book with an image in my head of Marx's Highgate monument. He was utterly remote — no doubt as stony in life as he was in death. But when I encountered him in his letters, or those of his friends and family, and understood his commitment and the sacrifices he made for his work, I realised how wrong I had been about him. Whatever one thinks of his politics or vision, one can't ignore his dedication to his mission — which he believed was to save mankind from the excesses of capitalism. Q: Do you think Marx would have been surprised by how "communism" under the Soviets actually turned out? A: I think Marx would have turned over in his grave if he had lived to see Lenin or Stalin at work. Soviet Russia could not have looked less like Marx's vision of a communist society — which in fact was never completely articulated. From the time he was a young man, Marx abhorred the notion of the state imposing its will upon the people. He had a horror of state surveillance of citizens, a surveillance he was subject to. And he would have never advocated state violence in order to suppress dissent. In many ways the Soviet state reflected Marx's personality — he was easy to anger and had little patience with those who disagreed with him — more than his theory. I am convinced he would have been a committed anti-Soviet. Q: Of all the characters, who did you admire most and why? A: I really loved Jenny Marx, Karl's wife, and his eldest daughter Jennychen, but I must say I enjoyed Marx's closest collaborator Friedrich Engels most of all. Engels was part playboy, part saviour; part soldier, part philosopher. He was, in fact, much more complicated than Marx. Through the years, he has been one of the most misunderstood historical figures. He is either not given the credit he is due: his role in Marx's life and work was integral; he was, as Marx called him, his alter ego. Or he has been blamed for the excesses of 20th century communism, as if his writing deviated so much from Marx's that it spawned its own brutal form of communism. The two men worked so closely that their handwriting shared the same page. Engels knew Marx's works and theories as well as Marx did, and his superhuman loyalty to his friend certainly did not abandon him when he was left to edit Marx's final two volumes of Das Kapital. In fact, Engels not only provided Marx with the all-important 'material' upon which to build his economic theories, by introducing him to the actual horrors of industrial capitalism, which he knew intimately because he worked at his father's factory in Manchester, England, but he also gave Marx the material means to survive. Throughout their relationship, which lasted for nearly 40 years, Engels supported the Marx family. He did this with an unfathomable spirit of generosity and belief in Marx's genius. While writing, whenever the Marx family's own story became too grim, I was thrilled to be able to escape into Engels's world. Q: Did you feel burdened by the weight of all the debate about Marx, Engels, communism, etc from the right and the left. A: I didn't feel burdened by it, but I was mindful that I had to be absolutely balanced in my writing in order to avoid becoming part of the debate. Marx and Marxism is a minefield, probably more so in the United States than in Europe or Asia. I wanted to make absolutely sure that the information I presented and the way I presented it was correct, in part, because there has been so much misinformation about Marx. I am not a Marxist -- I'm not even sure at this point what that means —   but I wanted to make sure I presented Marx and his theories as clearly as I could for an audience that might have only been introduced to him as the inspiration for repressive communist states. Q: What was it like for Jenny, the daughter of a Prussian aristocrat, to stay married to Marx? A: Sometimes it's hard from our perspective to understand why Jenny stayed with Marx. There were many times when a modern wife in her position might have walked away, but that was not done in those days. Divorce wasn't legal in England until 1857 and even after that, divorced women were social outcasts. There is no indication that Jenny ever considered that step, or that she truly ever abandoned Marx emotionally. He would have been an absolute trial to live with, but I think she believed — like Engels — that she was orbiting around a very special star and that her difficult job was to try to protect and nurture it. — Reuters   Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

New book says van Gogh’s death was no suicide Posted: 19 Oct 2011 06:56 PM PDT Van Gogh is known to have suffered prolonged bouts of mental illness and depression. — AFP/Relaxnews pic WASHINGTON, Oct 20 — Did Vincent van Gogh, one of the world's greatest artists despite having sold just one painting in his short and tortured lifetime, commit suicide in 1890 in a wheat field in northern France? Two American authors are now challenging the theory that the enigmatic post-Impressionist killed himself aged 37, saying he claimed to have attempted suicide to protect two teenaged brothers — one of whom shot him. Van Gogh, who suffered prolonged bouts of mental illness and depression — he sliced off an ear once — was not contemplating taking his life, Gregory White Smith and Steven Naifeh argue in their new book "Van Gogh: The Life". "The version retained is not credible," Smith said in an interview published in the Dutch newspaper NRC Next. The duo, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their biography of US artist Jackson Pollock, spent 10 years researching their book, which argues that van Gogh was fatally shot in a farmyard in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris. Their hypothesis — which the head of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam calls "spectacular" — has the art world talking. "I must say, we feel we are in the middle of a whirlwind that we didn't quite anticipate," Naifeh told AFP by telephone from South Carolina, where he and Smith live. "We anticipated this would generate, not quite this level of furore, but certainly some level of furore," he said. Naifeh added: "These pieces of evidence came from multiple different sources, and only by putting them all together does this alternative version emerge." On the CBS show "60 Minutes," Naifeh asked: "How did he (Van Gogh) get the gun? Everybody in Auvers knew that he had been in an insane asylum. Pistols were a rarity in rural France. Who would've given Vincent van Gogh a gun?" According to the authors, who had access to family letters and private correspondence, the painter left his boarding house on the fateful day — July 27, 1890 — with paints and easel. "Why would he have waited just until this moment to end his days?" Naifeh told NRC Next. "He wasn't going through the most difficult period in his life. "Does someone paint when he has decided to end his life? It just simply does not hold," he added. Van Gogh — portrayed by Kirk Douglas in the 1956 film "Lust for Life" — returned to the boarding house run by the Ravoux family five hours later with a bullet wound and died in the arms of his brother Theo after 30 hours. Smith said doctors at the time reported the bullet entered at a "crazy angle". The gun and his painting supplies from that day have never been found. The authors argue that van Gogh was shot, probably accidentally, by one of the Secretan brothers. They say one of them alleged that the artist had stolen his pistol. 'Still questions without answers' When asked by police whether he had committed suicide, he is said to have replied from his deathbed: "I believe so. Don't accuse anybody else ... it is I who wanted to kill myself." According to the daughter of the boarding house owner — who was 13 at the time of van Gogh's death — the painter replied "yes" when a doctor asked him if he had taken his own life. Naifeh told CBS: "What the evidence points to is that this incident took place not in the wheat fields, but in a farmyard on the Rue Boucher. That it involved these two boys. "And that it was either an accident or a deliberate act. Was it playing cowboy in some way that went awry? Was it teasing with the gun with Vincent lunging out? It's hard to know what went on at that moment." The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam — which had extended cooperation to the two authors — said the new theory was "interesting" but added it was premature to discard the long-held suicide theory. Museum curator Leo Jansen said "there are still questions without answers regarding the suicide of Van Gogh," but noted that the "spectacular" theory proposed by the two US writers also leaves "some questions unanswered". "The two authors have not found new facts, they have just interpreted them differently," he said, also questioning why van Gogh would protect two boys "who never stopped bothering and teasing him?" Naifeh said he believed "a couple of kids had shot Vincent van Gogh and he decided to basically protect them and accept this as the way to die. These kids had basically done him the favour of shooting him. "He knew that he was a burden to Theo. So there's something wonderfully sweet and touching about the fact that Vincent would accept death partly to end his own misery. But even more so to take this terrible burden off of his beloved ill brother's shoulders." But Van Gogh — who once wrote that he would never amount to anything as a painter, and whose works now are among the most expensive pieces of art — would not have become the legend had he lived a normal life, leftist Dutch De Volkskrant daily said in an editorial on Tuesday. "If Vincent van Gogh died of old age at the age of 80 in 1933, bathed in glory and in possession of both his ears, he would never have become the myth that he is today," it said. "His psychosis, his depressions, his errors and their manifestations — an ear severed, suicide — are as much the integral history of 'Vincent van Gogh' as the cypresses and wheat fields" he famously painted, it said. — AFP/Relaxnews Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Tg Adnan: Ahli bebas hadir, tapi Umno tak terlibat anjur Himpun Posted: 20 Oct 2011 01:48 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR, 20 Okt – Umno tidak terbabit dalam penganjuran perhimpunan Sejuta Umat (Himpun) yang dijadualkan berlangsung di Stadium Shah Alam, Sabtu ini. Setiausaha Agung Umno Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor (gambar) berkata dakwaan kononnya parti itu menjadi dalang penganjuran perhimpunan itu bersifat liar dan tidak berasas. "Umno tidak ada kena mengena. Ini kerja NGO (badan bukan kerajaan)," katanya kepada pemberita di lobi Parlimen di sini hari ini. Dipetik Bernama Online, beliau mendakwa terdapat pihak tertentu cuba mempolitikkan perhimpunan itu dengan menuduh ianya program Umno yang kononnya cuba membangkitkan sentimen perkauman. Ketua Penerangan Umno Datuk Ahmad Maslan pula berkata Umno bagaimanapun tidak menyekat anggotanya untuk menyertai perhimpunan berkenaan memandangkan ia diadakan di tempat bertutup dan mendapat permit polis. "Ia tidak akan menimbulkan masalah berbanding perhimpunan jalanan atau demonstrasi yang tidak terkawal," katanya. Perhimpunan yang bertemakan "Selamatkan Akidah" itu adalah anjuran bersama badan-badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) Islam, institusi-institusi pendidikan, warga korporat, kelab-kelab sukan dan riadah, persatuan seni mempertahankan diri, pasukan beruniform, kelab-kelab belia, ahli jawatankuasa masjid dan surau, tenaga guru dan beberapa badan lain-lain. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Keluarga tiga remaja ditembak di Glenmarie cabar KDN Posted: 20 Oct 2011 01:43 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR, 20 Okt – Ibu mangsa salah seorang daripada tiga remaja yang mati ditembak polis di Glenmarie, Shah Alam November tahun lalu hari ini mencabar Kementerian Dalam Negeri (KDN) membawa kes itu ke mahkamah bagi membuktikan pihak polis bertindak mengikut peraturan. Norhafizah Mohd Razali, ibu kepada Allahyarham Muhammad Syamil Hafiz Shapiei yang kecewa dengan sikap lepas tangan KDN mahu kematian Syamil dan dua rakannya diadili mengikut siasatan yang menyeluruh. "Saya sangat kecewa dan marah dengan pihak polis dan Kementerian Dalam Negeri kerana kes ini diperkotak-katikkan. "Saya minta menteri KDN lihat semula laporan bedah siasat ketiga-tiga anak ini dan saya cabar menteri bawa kes ini ke mahkamah kalau betul mereka di pihak yang benar," kata beliau pada sidang media di lobi Parlimen hari ini. Muhammad  Syamil, 15, Mohd Khairul Nizam Tuah, 20, dan Mohd Hanafi Omar, 22, maut ditembak polis dalam kejadian pada awal pagi 13 November tahun lalu di Glenmarie, Shah Alam. Ketiga-tiga remaja itu ditembak kira-kira pukul 4.45 pagi kerana disyaki terlibat dengan rompakan stesen minyak. Hari ini merupakan kali kedua Norhafizah dan ahli keluarga mangsa hadir ke Parlimen ditemani anggota Lawyers for Liberty  (LFL) setelah memorandum dan rayuan mereka agar kes ini diadili mengikut saluran perundangan tidak diendahkan. Norhafizah buat kesekian kalinya menekankan bahawa beliau tidak berpihak kepada anaknya namun kecewa apabila melihat laporan bedah siasat yang mendapati ketiga-tiga mangsa ditembak dalam keadaan mereka sudah melutut, bukan dalam keadaan menyerang seperti yang didakwa polis. "Berapa kali saya katakan saya terima kalau anak saya benar-benar bersalah tapi sepatutnya mereka ditangkap, bukan terus dibunuh," katanya sambil menahan sebak dan marah, lapor Harakahdaily. Sementara itu Ahli Parlimen Puchong, Gobind Singh Deo pada sidang media sama menyifatkan jawapan Menteri Dalam Negeri, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein bahawa hasil siasatan mendapati tindakan polis melepaskan tembakan tersebut adalah mengikut lunas undang-undang sebagai longgar dan tidak bertanggungjawab. Hishammuddin dalam jawapan bertulis kepada soalan Gobind di Dewan Rakyat Isnin lalu berkata, pihak polis menjalankan siasatan di bawah Seksyen 307 Kanun Keseksaan berhubung kes ini. "Bagaimana kes yang mendapat liputan meluas di seluruh negara, setahun keluarga minta penjelasan daripada polis dan menteri dan saya sebagai seorang ahli Parlimen tanya soalan secara serius. "Tapi jawapan menteri hanya satu perenggan, berkata tindakan mengikut lunas undang-undang.Mana faktanya? Mana hujah membantah laporan bedah siasat?" soalnya. Ahli Parlimen Lembah Pantai, Nurul Izah Anwar berkata Hishammuddin memesongkan Dewan Rakyat apabila berkata kes tersebut ialah cubaan membunuh sedangkan kesemua mangsa mati ditembak. "Menteri wajib bertanggungjawab dengan kenyataan yang dibuat dalam Dewan Rakyat. "Budaya terlepas daripada hukuman dan menembak sembarangan di kalangan sebahagian daripada anggota pasukan polis dibenarkan berikutan sikap Menteri KDN yang melulu mempertahankan polis walaupun mereka melakukan jenayah," katanya yang juga Naib Presiden PKR. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Let’s get Perkasa to Parliament Posted: 19 Oct 2011 04:43 PM PDT OCT 20 — Despite all our misgivings about Ibrahim Ali and his fine — and they are so-so fine — right-wing organisation Perkasa, it must be conceded to no one's credit, they are highly unoriginal. But originality is not the basis of modern politics, relevance is. That is why this column lobbies to send Ibrahim Ali's gang to Parliament. To let Perkasa have as many representatives in Parliament as their support base deserves. Democracy must triumph. Shocking probably, seeing this liberal-leftie advocacy page wanting more right-wing rhetoric on the legislative stage. Suffice to say, an enemy present is less stealthy, a better target. Perkasa... bulls-eye As said at the start, Perkasa's verbal diarrhoea is not completely foreign to the Malaysian lexicon. These crude, relentless and hurtful lines have floated in our collective Malaysian consciousness for decades, and will go on eschewing the oxygen the good works of our other nobler countrymen produce. The columnist has already had enough people in his life call him "Keling" and not blink. As a Tamil, the columnist has been raised to not wallow in the bile that 60 years of Umno has nurtured. He has been raised to look at potential and the future his mind will allow. He is disinterested in the lamentations that non-Malays are selfish, uncaring, exploitive, depending on their ethnicity. That they are populist and cheap. All Malaysian, he knows, are susceptible to modern choice and watch the same sitcoms. But they are more than capable of rising above the muck some are consigned to. The progress minded have to ask, how to move forward? The columnist realises that the real game, the one that matters is about improving Malaysian lives. Representative Perkasa Perkasa did not create hate in Malaysia, they were born of the hate and now inadvertently bear the weight of this hate. In this freer world, having Perkasa as a legislative player provides a tangible space, to put them in a compartment to contest against other ideologies operating from other compartments. In football terminology, while they can go on shooting at will, as they always have, now they also have a goal to defend. The fun of an impetuous child of just wanting to run around with the ball is dowsed quickly when there is the adult demand of keeping a tight backline too. Rather than a faceless predator and exterminator of love arriving at vicious turns and inopportune junctures, there will be early notices, and press conferences announced with letterheads. Allowing right-minded Malaysians to attack the far right. Now that it is has a declared face. No more of those "surat layangs" (poison pen letters) to build fame. Look at how things have played out since Perkasa came into being. Never before have right-wing diatribes taken such a public beating, and Ibrahim Ali's continued vehemence underlines his frustration and continued surprise at the resilience of a larger, more tolerant Malaysia. As argued by this column previously, men from political parties and other organisations are hard-pressed to stay inside Perkasa. When there was no Perkasa, they could milk the grandstanding of race-righteousness while holding on to the political pliability of Umno, PAS, PKR, Gabungan Pelajar (student coalition), youth movements (like Gerakan Belia 4B, Malaysian Youth Council etc) or a combination of them. Now that Perkasa is doing the grandstanding, where does it leave them? Umno, whose role in Perkasa's formation is often speculated, cannot openly side the organisation. If indeed Perkasa was a calculation to outflank Pakatan Rakyat (PR) on race loyalty, while Umno swept home by holding on to inclusivity, then a miscalculation is unintentionally mounting. It is glaringly obvious that the Umno formula of wearing two hats — both championing race and echoing tolerance — is not embellished by Perkasa, the right-wingers have in fact become competitors. Umno is now constantly forced to push a Malay hard-line which is not as hard as Perkasa's, to sustain a degree of distinction. Increasingly it appears the Umno model is having the proverbial rug yanked from beneath it. And more are invited Which is where the weekend's "Gathering of a Million Faithful" joins the equation. What started as the usual "in the name of race and religion" is turning out as a plebiscite on what the real Malay issues are. The right wing will struggle, fortunately, in the aftermath of this impending debacle. First, Perkasa or the "Gathering" asks our population their level of commitment to the cause. A chasm divides clicking the "like" button on Facebook and getting to a decaying stadium in a desolate end of my home state's capital.   Those who show up have to actively choose to participate, and then defend the basis of the cause, to themselves at least. It is good they ask these questions; while speech is the doorway to democracy, reflection is the stabiliser of democracies. When the typical participant has to wait for the limited bus service to Shah Alam, and then experience the heat and relatively poor facilities in the stadium, stay on for the screaming — upbraiding an unseen enemy, and then head home with equal difficulty, that typical participant might come to a realisation; that's his problems, and of his state and his country might be more than faith. And if that thinking extends, hopefully it does for enough people, that the self-appointed leaders of race and religion are not in their situation, perhaps it will strike that there are differences between the haves and have nots. The real challenge If Perkasa is in Parliament, it cannot just bemoan the reality. It has to advocate a better future for Malays as it puts it. It has to show how by keeping all the things they advocate, they will move Malays forward. They have been saying that the current funding for Malays has to stay, but in the same breath they argue that the manner in which the funds are distributed is not ideal. That more can be done. As a party in Parliament they cannot just point to our perceived shortcomings, they have to show how their proposals jive with the present.   They have to become constructive. That is where Perkasa will in its present reincarnation fail irrevocably. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. 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Professionally flawed Posted: 19 Oct 2011 04:31 PM PDT OCT 20 — It is almost midweek but I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming at Jermain Defoe to pass it to the unmarked Jake Livermore and Emmanuel Adebayor. If he had passed the ball late in the game against Newcastle, it would have been three points for Spurs. Yes, strikers are selfish and they will continue to be but a little bit of intelligence too is required when put in a situation as abovementioned. The glory should be for the team but Jermain Defoe, after scoring for Spurs, eventually lost them two points. I recall the same with Gervinho for Arsenal against Blackburn Rovers in the match played at Ewood Park last month, with the Gunners leading 2-1 at the time. Robin Van Persie was in the penalty area, unmarked and ready to put the ball into the net, yet the selfish Ivorian, who had brought the ball to the edge of the box, decided he wanted a second goal in that match and took a shot which was easily blocked. What that possible Van Persie goal would have done is put some daylight between the teams; instead Blackburn got back into the game with three quick goals, two of which were thanks to Arsenal defenders obliging with own goals, and the match ending 4-3 to the Rovers. That just proves my point of how fortunes can turn on a bad decision by a player, whatever his reasons may be. The big match last weekend was one involving the then-league leaders Manchester United against the once-mighty Liverpool. There was a strange doom-and-gloom attitude from some sections after the draw between the two English giants. The Red Devils had not played their best players, some mourned. They did not go for it, whinged others. Contrary to popular belief, it was a very tactical set up from Sir Alex Ferguson with the emphasis on experience and a certain degree of respect for the opponents. Certainly, the game could have produced better football but it is not always going to be like this. After Liverpool took the lead, United brought on the attacking players and duly got back into the game. The question – and one that makes me sick of hearing it over and over again — is why not start with those players in the first place? I am not a betting man, but if I were, I'd put my money on the fact that if Nani, Wayne Rooney and Chicharito had all started the game, the Red Devils could well have been two or three down by halftime. So, leave the romance at home please, as the game of football has to be carefully thought out. The game at Anfield meant players who can and will play better in their own half, had to start. Likewise in Romania in the Uefa Champions League, it was about Rooney and Chicharito being quick on the counterattack. The Red Devils played at a very slow tempo as their opponents sat deep despite being at home. Just so they don't get thrashed, one can only presume. Meanwhile, the Manchester City versus Villareal game never took off as both teams struggled with fluency and cohesion. However, there were enough positives from David Silva and Kun Aguero though, for City to take into the Manchester derby this weekend. The Santiago Bernabeu was the place to be, however, as Real Madrid steamrolled Lyon, for so long their nemesis in the Champions League It was poetry in motion at times and Mesut Ozil once again was great whether with the ball or off the ball. This Real side is going to take some beating as they did seem on cruise control throughout the game. The best is yet to come from the Spanish giants but only if they stay clear off the other Spanish giants. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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