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Kaka set to make long-awaited return for Brazil Posted: 27 Oct 2011 09:01 AM PDT RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 27 – Kaka has been recalled by Brazil for the first time since last year's World Cup in South Africa for friendlies against Gabon and Egypt next month. The Real Madrid midfielder has come back into form in La Liga after being plagued by injuries and has not played for Brazil since their quarter-final exit at the World Cup. "I always said (Kaka's) return would depend on his production, his performances as they have been occurring for Real Madrid. We're very happy with his return," coach Mano Menezes told reporters today. "I think of Kaka as I do of Ronaldinho. We need players of their experience in the national team... now he's at the level we want him to be," he said after naming a 23-man squad. "That doesn't mean he's already done enough but you have more confidence in him being able to produce more and more at the highest level." The squad is made up solely of players based abroad so as not to disrupt home teams in the run-in to the Brazilian championship. Flamengo's Ronaldinho and Neymar of Santos, who have become automatic choices for Menezes, were left out after the Brazilian Football Confederation and Menezes accepted local clubs' requests to be spared call-ups for their top players. Brazil, the 2014 World Cup hosts, are making the most of FIFA dates when South America's other countries have World Cup qualifiers. They meet Gabon in Libreville on Nov. 10 and Egypt in Doha four days later. Goalkeepers: Neto (Fiorentina), Diego Alves (Valencia) Defenders: Marcelo (Real Madrid), Daniel Alves, Adriano (both Barcelona), Alex Sandro (Porto), Fabio (Manchester United), Thiago Silva (AC Milan), David Luiz (Chelsea), Luisao (Benfica) Midfielders: Dudu (Dynamo Kiev), Elias (Sporting, Portugal), Fernandinho (Shakhtar Donetsk), Hernanes (Lazio), Kaka (Real Madrid), Lucas Leiva (Liverpool), Luiz Gustavo (Bayern Munich), Sandro (Tottenham), Bruno Casar (Benfica) Forwards: Willian (Shakhtar Donetsk), Jonas (Valencia), Kleber, Hulk (both Porto). – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Al Jazeera to launch sports news channel Posted: 27 Oct 2011 08:41 AM PDT DOHA, Oct 27 – Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera will launch a sports news channel across the Middle East next month, it said in a statement today. The channel will broadcast hourly news bulletins and 20 sports news programmes covering major international tournaments and events including European football leagues on Egyptian satellite Nilesat, the statement said. Two programmes will be dedicated to covering major sports events in the Middle East and North Africa, it said. The channel, which will broadcast in Arabic, will provide coverage of events that are not transmitted live through a 5-hour programme broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays, it said. Al Jazeera's first sports channel, dedicated to live sports coverage, was launched in 2003. The new channel will focus on sports news, a spokesman said. Last December Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament and in August the tiny Gulf state officially launched a bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. It has submitted a bid for the 2017 World Athletic Championships, and has expressed interest in hosting the Grand Départ for the 2016 Tour de France. Al Jazeera recently bought a share of the domestic television rights of French soccer league games from 2012 to 2016. – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Population boom heralds big global economic shifts Posted: 27 Oct 2011 03:02 AM PDT A man watches the skyline of Shanghai from the Shanghai Financial Centre building on October 25, 2011. ― Reuters pic LONDON, Oct 27 ― Few economists have been as spectacularly wrong as Thomas Malthus, who predicted in 1798 that unchecked population growth would doom the Earth to starvation. As the number of people on the planet reaches 7 billion, his modern-day peers are cautiously confident that the English clergyman will remain synonymous with unwarranted doom and gloom. With the global population headed for the 9 billion mark by 2050, economists are pinning their faith on continued technological innovation and the invisible hand of market prices to lead to a more efficient, sustainable use of finite natural resources instead of a deadly fight to the end for the last barrel of oil and drop of water. "Malthus has been proven wrong for the past 200 years, so why should he be right in the next 100?" asked Robert Aliber, a professor of international economics and finance at the University of Chicago. Part of the answer to that rhetorical question presupposes uninterrupted advances in technology and productivity of the sort that Malthus, writing before the Industrial Revolution, was unable to foresee. As Willem Buiter, Citi's chief economist, put it, the world would have been doomed long ago if it had been stuck with the largely artisanal modes of production familiar to Malthus. For a start, if cars and trains and bicycles had not replaced horse-drawn transport, London would be buried now under a deep layer of horse manure. "There is always a Malthusian scenario that will cause the world to collapse. It has been a race between the exhaustibility of resources and innovation, and so far innovation has won," Buiter said. "We have several thousand years of human history to support us on that, so I'm reasonably optimistic." Game changer Still, the rapid economic re-emergence of China and India, both with populations of well over 1 billion, is changing the equation. The failure of the cost of oil and many other commodities to fall farther than they have despite stagnation in the West is a harbinger of the wrenching changes to prices and consumption patterns that rapid growth in emerging economies will bring about. "When you've got China, India and Brazil that are so big and are growing so fast, you're going to get a major reorganization, if not disruption, of the world economic order," said Professor Lawrence Haddad, director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in England. "We're going to go through a massive adjustment in the next 15 to 20 years. We're just beginning to see it," he said. Some countries are introducing carbon taxes to reflect the non-renewability of fossil fuels and induce consumers to change the way they behave. The fact that water is largely free for most farmers, who use 70-80 per cent of the world's water, leads to enormous waste, Buiter added. "Either prices or policies will have to change. One way or another we will have to ration these things," he said. "Technical change can't do it all for us. We can choose: we can either have physical rationing, which is difficult and inefficient, or price rationing of some kind." To grasp the scale of the behavioral changes that policymakers will have to bring about, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental organization in Washington, has estimated the impact on the world's natural resources if, as he projects, China's per capita gross domestic product (measured at purchasing power parity) catches up with that of the United States by 2035 ― and if Chinese were to spend their income more or less as Americans do. China would use four-fifths of the world's paper and 70 per cent of the world's current grain output. Were China to have three cars for every four people, as the United States does, China would be consuming nearly all today's oil production. "The world population is outrunning its basic support systems. That's why the world's forests are shrinking, its fisheries are collapsing, its grasslands are turning into deserts from overgrazing, why soil is eroding and why water tables are falling now in 18 countries that contain half the world's people," Brown said. "So we're over-using everything. You can over-pump in the short run but not in the long run. At some point, you have to reduce the pumping to the rate of recharge," he added. Political challenges Getting well-fed, gas-guzzling Westerners to change their lifestyles will be a political minefield. Telling Asians and Africans that they cannot aspire to such a lifestyle in the first place because the Earth will not support it raises even tougher questions. Can South Asia, for example, put the priority on sustainable development when hundreds of millions still do not have access to clean water and many go hungry? "For a region that's clocked something like 6 per cent growth on average over the past decade, the statistics on malnutrition are just truly astonishing and unacceptable," said Kalpana Kochhar, the World Bank's chief economist for South Asia. She said India, whose population is set to overtake China's in a generation, could feed its own people and its neighbors with little difficulty if market forces were given free rein. "There's more than enough food. The problem there is when everything is so tightly controlled by the government, farmers are not able to respond to price signals," Kochhar said. Brown is less optimistic about the potential to keep raising agricultural yields. Large-scale farm land purchases in Africa and Latin America were a taste of what's to come, he said: "Land has become the new gold. It's an early view of the sort of thing we'll be seeing. It becomes an every-country-for-itself world ― whether it's oil, water, grain or copper." Conversely, Brown is excited by rapid progress in developing alternatives to fossil fuels. China does not have to become less energy-intensive, but the energy must come from renewable sources, he said. Haddad with the Institute of Development Studies agreed that China, starting with a blank slate, had the opportunity to become a leader in the low-carbon economy and green technology, carving out a huge market in the process. To ensure Malthus's fears remain unfounded, the onus for change lay mainly with Western countries that have accumulated their wealth without realising the damage that unchecked carbon consumption was doing to the planet. "We're the ones that have to change our behaviour and give countries like India and China more of a run at economic growth and poverty reduction," Haddad said. ― Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

UN wants better life for world of 7b Posted: 27 Oct 2011 01:56 AM PDT Indian children ride in a cart on the way home from school in the outskirts of New Delhi in this file picture taken on February 26, 2001. ― Reuters pic LONDON, Oct 27 ― Instead of worrying about sheer numbers when the world's population hits 7 billion next week, we should think about how to make the planet a better place for people to live in, the United Nations said in a report. "It is both about consumption and population," the UN's Population Fund Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin said at a media conference to launch the report, referring to people's impact on the environment and economic growth. While growing populations could be a drain on the world's resources, the UN's Population Fund's "The State of World Population 2011" released yesterday said a contributing factor was overconsumption by the existing population. "With planning and the right investments in people now, to empower them to make choices that are not only good for themselves ... our world of 7 billion can have thriving sustainable cities, productive labor forces that fuel economies, and youth populations that contribute to the well-being of their societies," Osotimehin said in the report. It was vital to engage with the world's youth and to harness their entrepreneurial skills to boost economies and prevent potential alienation, the report said. Those under the age of 25 make up 43 per cent of the population, and as much as 60 per cent in some countries, and this group must be educated and trained if countries are to have a dynamic work force, it said. Failure to do so would see a loss of ideas, innovation as well as tax income. A major contributor to the recent Arab uprisings was a youth unemployment rate of nearly 25 per cent, the report quoted the International Labor Organisation as saying. Fertility and migration The UN also said migration will become more significant in the coming century, with people moving across borders as well as within their own countries. The report looked at nine countries to see how they were responding to different rates of fertility and migration. In some of the poorest countries, high fertility rates have stunted development and perpetuated poverty, the report said. Getting girls to school and providing women with jobs and equal opportunities as well as sexual and reproductive healthcare including family planning was essential, it said. In some of the richest countries, low fertility rates and too few people entering the job market have raised fears about the prospects for sustained economic growth and the viability of social security systems. Every country has a population that is aging to some degree. The global proportion of people over the age of 60 is expected to grow from 11 per cent in 2009 to 22 per cent in 2050. In Finland, which enjoys a high standard of living but where low fertility rates have led to a quarter of the population being over 60 years old, the emphasis is on excellent social services to make parenthood easier. Academics have said that in countries such as China, which is getting older before it gets richer, there is need for old-age security, medical care and social services. More funding, including from governments and foundations, was needed, Osotimehin told reporters at the media conference. "Family planning, for instance, has not been funded as much as it should have been," he said. A UN Secretary General report showed that US$68 billion (RM212.84 billion) would be needed in 2011 if its program on sexual and reproductive health initiatives set out in Cairo in 1994 was to be met, yesterday's report said. Countries were expected to contribute US$34 billion, with a further US$10.8 billion coming from international and bilateral donors, leaving a shortfall of around US$25 billion. Growing global interdependence meant governments had to work out how to deal with record populations if they were to avoid future competition for limited resources such as food and water. Reports already suggest a 40 per cent global shortfall in water supply by 2030, while developing countries are buying up land in Africa to offset any future shortages at home. ― Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Elite Polish cops sacked for protecting Paris Hilton Posted: 27 Oct 2011 06:24 AM PDT Paris Hilton arrives at a hotel in Poland for the opening ceremony of a shopping centre in Katowice, southern Poland October 11, 2011. Three Polish police commandos will lose their posts in an elite anti-terrorist unit for serving as bodyguards for the controversial celebrity during her visit. – Reuters/Agencja Gazeta WARSAW, Oct 27 – Protecting Paris Hilton on the side could put you in danger of losing your real job. Three Polish police commandos will lose their posts in an elite anti-terrorist unit for serving as bodyguards for the controversial celebrity during a recent visit to Poland. "If the policemen who protected Hilton do not leave on their own by the end of the week, they will be disciplinarily fired," Dariusz Biel, the head of the regional police where the three serve, was quoted as saying this week. Members of the anti-terrorist unit usually conceal their faces and must seek permission for any outside work. The three commandos, who appeared in various photos on gossip sites with the blond hotel heiress, were also said to have carried their police weapons when they served as Hilton's bodyguards during her appearance at an opening of a shopping mall in Katowice, in southern Poland. – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Taiwanese directors try to make their mark on Chinese box office Posted: 27 Oct 2011 06:16 AM PDT 'Love on Credit' sees Lin Chih-ling playing twin sisters chasing the rich men of their dreams. – All Rights Reserved HONG KONG, Oct 27 – While much of the box office fanfare in China this year has focused on locally made and international blockbusters, Taiwanese directors have been busy trying to grab their share of the market too – and it looks as though it's a trend that is set to continue. Leste Chen's rom-com Love on Credit has just picked up a healthy 16.2 million yuan (RM7.8 million) from its opening weekend, according to media reports, and is the first of a number of productions tapping into Taiwanese talent but using Chinese money that are set to roll out over the coming months. Love on Credit sees Lin Chih-ling playing twin sisters chasing the rich men of their dreams and has been financed by Beijing Galloping Horse Film & TV Production. According to industry watchers Film Business Asia, Tom Lin's Starry Starry Night, backed by Huayi Brothers Media Group and seen in competition at the recent Busan International Film Festival, is set for an early November release in China and will be followed by Doze Niu's Love early in the New Year. Love has also been backed by Huayi Brothers. And while full box office figures from mainland China have not been made available, official figures released in Hong Kong show audiences have been lured by the charms of the teen comedy You Are the Apple of My Eye – directed by Taiwan's Ke Jingteng. The film picked up US$1.5 million (RM4.65 million) on its first week of release in the city. South Koreans have meanwhile been flocking to see the baseball-themed coming-of-age tale Punch – directed by Lee Han – which has recorded just over 850,000 admissions in its first week of release, although actual cash receipts from that period have yet to be calculated. And in Japan, cinema-goers are still in the thrall of the Hollywood sci-fi actioner Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which picked up US$3 million over the past week for a three-week total of US$23 million. – AFP Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Murtad: Presiden PAS mahu akidah dimantap, himpunan bukan penyelesaian Posted: 27 Oct 2011 02:43 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR, 27 Okt — PAS mahu isu pemurtadan ditangani dengan memantapkan akidah umat Islam sendiri seperti konsep ditunjukkan oleh al-Quran dan Rasulullah, bukan setakat mengadakan perhimpunan besar-besaran. Presidennya Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang (gambar) berkata, pendekatan hujah dengan ilmu dan pelaksanaan syariat yang tegas dan adil serta menghukum penganut Islam dan menyampaikan dakwah kepada pihak lain tanpa paksaan adalah kaedah lebih baik mencegah gejala murtad. Beliau melahirkan pendirian ekoran Himpunan Sejuta Umat (Himpun) pada Sabtu lalu di Stadium Shah Alam yang khusus membincangkan isu murtad. Himpun yang dihadiri sekitar 5,000 orang meluluskan 10 usul antara lain menggesa kerajaan menggubal undang-undang khusus mencegah murtad. PAS memutuskan untuk tidak hadir Himpun atas alasan ia bukan aktiviti parti politik. "PAS memilih uslub menyampaikan mesej Islam dengan konsep yang ditunjukkan oleh al-Quran dan Rasulullah s.a.w. dengan cara memantapkan akidah umat Islam sendiri secara istiqamah yang menghalang murtad dengan ilmu dan syariat yang tegas dan adil, menghukum penganut Islam, dan menyampaikan dakwah kepada pihak lain tanpa paksaan  dengan uslub hiwar antara agama dan tamadun, serta berhujah dengan ilmu dan amal Islam yang adil dan sempurna," kata beliau dalam satu kenyataan dibawa Harakahdaily hari ini. Bagi PAS menurut Hadi, pendekatan berhimpun tersebut ibarat "cuba menangkap segelintir pencuri yang ada bersama dalam himpunan tersebut." Selain itu, beliau mempersoalkan sama ada Himpun satu bantahan, "kepada siapa ianya dituju, dan apakah kesannya." "Satu himpunan besar dikerah bagi menangani gejala murtad yang berlaku dalam masyarakat Islam di Malaysia. "Kepada siapa ditujukan sekiranya ia adalah bantahan? Apakah pendekatan dan uslub yang akan diambil?" soal beliau. Kata Hadi, PAS tidak bersedia bangkit laksana keluar beramai-ramai untuk menangkap hanya segelintir pencuri yang berjaya melepaskan diri, dengan cara pencuri berada sama di kalangan orang ramai yang memburunya, sama-sama meneriakkan "pencuri! pencuri!" "Akhirnya pencuri hilang bersama suara laungan yang berkumandang," kata beliau lagi. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Ambiga: Rahim Noor umpama diktator, tak faham perlembagaan Posted: 27 Oct 2011 02:08 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR, 27 Okt ― Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan mengecam Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor sebagai "diktator" yang tidak faham semangat Perlembagaan kerana bekas ketua polis negara itu sanggup menyamakan gerakan hak asasi manusia negara ini dengan komunis. Pengerusi gabungan menuntut pembaharuan pilihan raya ini berkata, ucapan Rahim pada perhimpunan agung tahunan Perkasa semalam menunjukkan beliau kurang faham tentang hak asasi manusia dan status fahaman komunis pada hari ini. "Ia satu pandangan yang hanya dipegang oleh diktator-diktator dan rejim-rejim yang menindas mahu membisukan suara berlawanan," kata beliau (gambar) The Malaysian Insider. Semalam, Rahim menyamakan gerakan hak asasi manusia di Malaysia dengan fahaman komunis dan keadaan itu akan membawa kepada tindakan mempersoalkan perkara-perkara diterima semua kaum, antaranya kontrak sosial. "Setiap abad ada gelombangnya dan kita tidak boleh melanggar gelombang ini. "Sekarang ini gelombang hak asasi manusia. Sebelum ini gelombang marxisme, sosialisme," kata Rahim. Sambil melabel gerakan hak asasi manusia sebagai "agama baru", Rahim memberi amaran bahawa aktivis kebebasan sivil menganggap Amerika Syarikat dan United Kingdom sebagai 'laman spiritual' mereka dan melebarkan pengaruh mereka. "Sekarang kita melihat banyak perkara dipersoalkan disebabkan gelombang hak asasi manusia," kata Rahim sambil menambah kumpulan aktivis mula mempersoalkan kontrak sosial. Sehubungan itu, Ambiga, bekas presiden Majlis Peguam berkata Rahim harus memahami Perlembagaan Persekutuan yang menyediakan kebebasan fundamental dan hak asasi manusia. "Terbukti bahawa bekas ketua polis negara ini tidak sedar yang Malaysia juga berada dalam Majlis Hak Asasi Manusia dan kita menganggotai majlis dengan membuat janji dan komitmen kukuh berkaitan hak asasi manusia," kata Ambiga. Bersih 2.0 meneruskan perhimpunan meskipun pihak berkuasa mengenakan pelbagai sekatan dan halangan termasuk mengharamkan gabungan itu. Perhimpunan itu menghimpunkan sekitar 50,000 orang di ibu negara dan hampir 1,700 pula ditahan polis. Susulan perarakan itu, pada awal Ogos lalu pentadbiran Najib mengumumkan pembentukan jawatankuasa pilihan khas Parlimen bagi membincangkan pembaharuan sistem pilihan raya. Pada Sabtu lalu, gabungan pertubuhan bukan kerajaan Islam mengadakan Himpunan Sejuta Umat di Stadium Shah Alam khusus untuk membincangkan isu pemurtadan. Ia dihadiri sekitar 5,000 orang. Di akhir tempoh perkhidmatannya sebagai ketua polis negara, Rahim mengakui telah mencederakan Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim ketika ditahan di Bukit Aman. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Sexy like Scarlett Johansson Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:03 PM PDT OCT 27 — I was having severe writer's block — eight hours in front of the computer with no words written. So I decided to watch one of my all-time favourite movies, "The Prestige". I had watched it many times before but in the state where my mind was not at its freshest, it was not Hugh Jackman or Christian Bale who grabbed my attention. It was Scarlett Johansson. You can bet your money that the reason is because of her sheer beauty and unique sexiness, on top of her acting skills, of course. Then weirdly my mind wandered off a little, to a more serious question. A question I have always pondered about, but could never quite get a truly accurate answer. The question is, dear all, how do we make the nation-building agenda sexy? Scarlett Johansson-like sexy. The nation-building agenda in my understanding are activities which are aimed at making our nation, Malaysia, a better place to live in. Or we can even extend that to efforts which make the world a better place. This can include education and transport issues as well as sports and the movie-making arena. Through my attendance of talks by speakers in regards to this agenda, as well as the times where I helped host ministers to talk about issues, I can safely say getting the crowd will always be the major issue; even with free lunch, dinner or some food or souvenirs to take home. These are mainly events hosted for the benefit of Malaysian students in the UK, but through discussions with friends back home, it is pretty much the same issue back in Malaysia. Don't get me wrong. I do agree that there are keen Malaysians who will make all the effort to attend these kinds of events. But I also think it is fair to say that the number is ridiculously low and you will see the exact same people attending these kinds of events. And to make my point clearer, I will definitely say it is way easier to get 1,000 Malaysian students to buy Manchester United match tickets for £10 (RM50) rather than getting 100 of them to come to a talk on "The future of Education in Malaysia" for free. Even with lunch included. Anyone bitter will put the entire blame on the students, by accusing them of not being patriotic or nerdy enough to get off their books, or being too playful to care. However, I have to disagree. Those are convenient answers to give. The conclusion might be right (students are too nerdy, too playful or not patriotic) but to point out that the main cause is the students themselves, is very immature. The most valuable lesson I learnt so far while venturing into clinical placement in my medical degree is to not rest on the fact that a smoker smokes, but to somehow find the reason why he/she does, and how to stop it. So why do we feel less interested in these kinds of activities? First, in my honest opinion, is the boring nature of these kinds of events. Put the death of Gaddafi as the topic, you might turn a few heads, but normal events involving industry leaders talking about Malaysia's education system or perhaps the healthcare system will fade away with other unimportant Facebook updates on your homepage. It is not fun, and it is not personally mandatory to attend. But once you involve careers or personal development, it will be a different story altogether. Call it a CV workshop, or networking session with top companies or a talk by one of the top CEOs, and a full house is almost always a norm. This is because the students care about the quality of their CVs, care about the chance to network with potential employers as well as about listening to valuable tips from the top CEOs in the world — which is very understandable in a world that is increasingly competitive. So I don't think it is selfish at all for students to make time for these kinds of events rather than events on the education system or public transport. The challenge is then how to also increase participation for the latter. So I think I asked the wrong question at the beginning. The right question should have been, "How do we make more people care for forever-boring and not-at-all-sexy nation building events?' I honestly think this is a systemic problem. One related to our beloved country Malaysia. I see a lot of local (from UK) friends, who, whether or not remarkable academically, make BBC news their must read link whenever they are free. And still I see quite a number of my fellow Malaysians who are really, really smart academically but yet have no idea who the Minister of Education of Malaysia is. The need to care will definitely be absent if we students do not feel that we can do something to make any positive changes in Malaysia either within or outside our area of expertise. I honestly believe that the only way to get our youths to be more involved in the Malaysia-building agenda is to get them to feel involved from the very beginning. Acts like AUKU Section 15 is one of the obvious obstacles in achieving just that. The argument that involving students in politics might affect their studies will be ever-greenly valid, but so what? If students then realise that they want to make bigger changes through other means, why shouldn't they? Another one involves our rigid education system. It might suit Malaysians best but the addition of a module or two where students from as early as their late primary school years do research reading on non-academic but related issues might just do the trick. Or is there any other way you can think of? So long as the aim is to instill inquisitiveness above academic requirements in the most interesting way possible. I am a mere 21-year-old boy who might just be ranting on foolishly but I believe others can come out with a better solution to all these. If it is hard to arrive at one, maybe we should start by asking another question, "Do we actually want our youths to care about building our forever sweet country Malaysia?" * Ezlan is a 3rd year medical undergraduate at Queen Mary, University of London. He tweets at @ezlanmohsen. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Tunisia sudah adakan pilihan raya Posted: 26 Oct 2011 04:53 PM PDT 27 OKT — Tunisia, negara Arab yang pertama bangkit menumbangkan pemerintahan diktator sepuluh bulan lalu sudah mengadakan pilihan raya bebas mulai Ahad 23 Oktober lalu sedang Libya baru selesai berperang manakala Yaman dan Syria belum selesai berarak. Laporan dari Tunis menyebut bahawa pilihan raya bebas yang pertama itu mendapat sambutan luar biasa dari pengundi, berbeza sangat dengan pilihan raya terkongkong di zaman kuku besi dulu. Lebih 80 parti politik bertanding. Semua ramalan menjangka parti Ennahda yang diharamkan semasa pemerintahan Zene el Abidine ben Ali dulu akan mendapat majoriti. Kita lihat apa keputusannya nanti. Ennahda di Tunisia itu adalah sekutu PAS di Malaysia ini. Pemimpinnya Raceid Ghanouce – sebutan dalam ejaan Melayunya Rasyid Ghanusi – yang baru pulang dari buangan di England, mempunyai hubungan baik dengan pimpinan PAS, Al-Marhum Ustaz Fadzil Noor dan Dato Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang. Malah beliau lebih rapat dengan Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Antara sumbangannya kepada PAS, beliau memberi sokongan kuat kepada PAS kira-kira sepuluh tahun lalu supaya membuka pintu kepada bukan  Islam untuk menyertai PAS. Semasa rombongan pimpinan ulama di bawah Ustaz Fadzil ke London meninjau pandangan rakan-rakan parti Islam dari beberapa negara, pimpinan Ennahda itu menyokong pendapat bahawa membuka keahlian PAS kepada orang bukan Islam adalah harus. Langkah bertahap-tahap yang diambil oleh PAS membuka penyertaan bukan Islam dalam politik PAS adalah dipercayai dari pandangan sahabat gerakan Islam anatara bangsa itu. Ennahda dalam pilihan raya itu mengambil pendekatan bagi membentuk pemerintahan demokrasi yang berpandu kepada nilai-nilai Islam, malah ia meraikan fahaman sekular menjadi pegangan ramai penduduknya. Sejak Tunisia dijajah Perancis dan sepanjang zaman merdekanya lebih separuh abad negara dan rakyat diasuh dengan kehidupan dan pemerintahan sekular. Ennahda tentunya memahami pandangan dunia tentang politik Islam, sebaik mana pun cita-citanya mahu membawa nilai kehidupan Islam ke dalam masyarakatnya, ia dicurigai oleh dunia sekular. Mereka telah belajar dari perkembangan di Aljeria hampir 15 tahun lalu, majoriti besar rakyatnya memilih Fiz, parti Islam melalui pilihan raya bebas dan demokratik, tetapi tentera atas sokongan kuasa barat merampas kemenangan itu, mengharamkan parti itu dan menahan semua pemimpinnya. Dan tentu mereka juga belajar dari perkembangan di Turki yang pernah memberi peluang kepada parti Islam – Refah Partisi – pimpinan Perdana Menteri Necmettin Erbakan dan Recep Tayyip Erdogan sebagai Datuk Bandar Istambulnya. Tentera yang sekular memaksa kerajaan Erbakan dibubarkan, parti Refah diharamkan dan Erdogan diseret ke mahkamah hingga  tidak boleh memegang jawatan awam untuk beberapa tahun. Bagaimana pun Erdogan membentuk parti baru AK – keadilan dan pembangunan – meraikan kehidupan sekular yang berakar umbi  dalam masyarakat Turki, berjaya pemimpin kemenangan sudah tiga kali berturut-turut. Kerajaannya demokrasi yang berasaskan Islam, berjaya mengekang rasuah dan kehancuran ekonominya. Atas keruntuhan ekonomi dan akhlak yang  teruk itu Erdogan menengakkan pemerintahan yang kuat  dan ekonomi kukuh. Dipercayai Ennahdah mengambil perkembangan di Turki sebagai model dan sesungguhnya pemimpin Ennahdah itu adalah rakan Erbakan  dan Erdogan yang lama. Pemerintahan Turki adalah dihormati di semua negara Islam sekarang. Rakyat Tunisia yang memulakan kebangkitan dalam dunia Arab sejak sepuluh bulan lalu tentunya melihat perkembangan dan pembaharuan di Turki yang dikira berjaya itu. Keputusan pilihan raya Tunisia ini menjadi perhatian kepada seluruh dunia dan ia mempengaruhi semua negara Arab yang sedang bergolak itu. Apakah Tunisia sekali lagi mendahului dunia Arab mengisi revolusinya dengan demokrasi yang berasaskan Islam? Jika yang diramalkan di Tunisia itu tetap, ia adalah satu isyarat yang menarik bagi pengundi di Malaysia yang berada di ambang pilihan raya sekarang. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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