Ahad, 20 November 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

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The Malaysian Insider :: Sports

Dutchman Luiten wins Johor Open

Posted: 20 Nov 2011 03:17 AM PST

Luiten hits a shot at the Barclays Singapore Open on Sentosa Island in Singapore November 13, 2011. — Reuters pic

JOHOR BARU, Nov 20 — Dutchman Joost Luiten has now set himself the goal of breaking into the Ryder Cup team after a maiden European Tour success at the rain-affected Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia today.

The 25-year-old came from four shots behind heading into the third and final round of the 54-hole reduced event to win by a stroke with a five-under par 66.

Luiten finished on 15-under par at the Horizon Hills course, becoming only the fourth Dutch golfer to win on the European Tour and first since Robert Jan Derksen in 2005.

"This win takes a lot of pressure off me as I have been close a few times this year and to finally win one and to be close to being inside the top 15 on the Race to Dubai is unbelievable," Luiten told reporters.

"The first win they say is always really tough but to get that first win is the first step to keep on winning.

"I now want to be play in the Ryder Cup and I want to be also playing in the Majors and also get myself into the top-50 in the world. This win is the first step."

Luiten, who earned a US$333,330 (RM1.03 million) for his victory, is set to move just outside the leading 10 European Ryder Cup qualifiers once the points table is adjusted.

Sweden's Daniel Chopra, the overnight leader, had the chance to force a play-off but he missed his 15-foot eagle putt in a round of 70 for second place at 14-under par.

Triple major champion Padraig Harrington, last year's winner, finished a further stroke back after a 69.

"I was very disappointed with seven because I hit the ball really nicely and it was really the only bad shot I made all day," said Chopra of a double-bogey which dented his challenge.

"But it's a great way to finish the year. It has been a long, hard-working year and it is nice to have this good finish."

Harrington needed an eagle at the last to get into a play-off but missed the green with his approach shot and then chipped and two-putted for a par.

British pair Rhys Davies (65) and James Morrison (69) shared third with Harrington.

"It was disappointing not only to chip-and-putt 18 but also 16 but there you go," said Harrington. "I am happy with my form and where my head was at but still a little disappointed with the result." — Reuters

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US won Presidents Cup fair and square, says Couples

Posted: 20 Nov 2011 01:06 AM PST

Couples poses with the Presidents Cup trophy at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne November 20, 2011. — Reuters pic

MELBOURNE, Nov 20 — The United States team won the Presidents Cup because they were the better team, not because they were more accustomed to its format, captain Fred Couples said after his team's fourth straight victory in the biennial tournament today.

Internationals captain Greg Norman said the tournament should allow the hosts to pick the format after his players were routed in the foursomes matches, which the United States play on alternate years against the Europeans in the Ryder Cup.

The US won eight out of 11 of the foursomes, the margin greater than their winning total of 19-15, but the Internationals more than held their own in the four-ball and singles formats.

Norman, who lost his second successive Cup to the Couples-led Americans, also called for an extra two captain's picks for the Internationals saying there were at a relative disadvantage being spread across the globe and playing a number of different tours.

Couples suggested Norman's comments were sour grapes.

"We won this week because we were better players, and I think we have a little motivation, and we teamed well and we won," he told reporters. "I don't know what they would have said if they would have won.

"Everything would have been fair. But we won, and you know, I'm not saying anything bad to Greg.

"I'm just saying, I don't get that. We had 10 players, they got two picks. We got ten players and two picks and we won."

Couples placed four of his seasoned campaigners in the final singles matches and it proved a masterstroke as they notched four straight wins to secure victory after the Internationals made an early charge.

Tiger Woods, in his seventh Presidents Cup appearance sealed the win with his crushing 4&3 victory over Aaron Baddeley after 41-year-old Jim Furyk beat Ernie Els to post a perfect 5-0 record for the tournament, only the fourth to manage the feat in the tournament's history.

It was the Americans' seventh win from nine editions of the tournament but only their first outside of North America and was clinched at the venue of their sole loss in 1998.

"I give the guys a lot of credit, because obviously they came a couple weeks before this tournament, and we had a game plan to come play as a team, win as a team, and that's what we did," Couples added.

"The best thing I feel great about is our team won in Australia on away soil, which is a demanding task.

"We'll be celebrating, staying up late, and we have flights tomorrow, but you know, I think it's not top secret, but we'll have a beer or two and gamble a little bit tonight.

"We're staying at the Crown (casino), and we'll hang out and tell stories about how we won." — Reuters

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The Malaysian Insider :: Features

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In India, Tibet self-immolations test exiled leaders

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 08:46 PM PST

Tibetan monks pray during a candlelight protest march in New Delhi. — Reuters pic

DHARAMSALA, India, Nov 20 — Teenage Tibetan monk Lobsang Rabten fled over the Himalayas to India after a childhood friend set himself ablaze in March to protest against China's campaign of forced "re-education" at their monastery.

By the time the seventeen-year-old reached the safety of India's Tibetan exile capital of Dharamsala in October, almost a dozen young monks and nuns had followed his friend Phuntsog's example. At least six have died.

"There are so many ways to protest, but Phuntsog's self-immolation was a completely different strategy," Rabten said, speaking at a refugee reception centre outside Dharamsala where he had arrived days earlier.

"It really demonstrates his dedication and sincerity towards freedom."

The wave of self-burning reveals desperation among Tibet's youth after 60 years under Beijing's thumb. But it is also a moral and policy dilemma for Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and a new generation of exiled politicians.

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 with hundreds of followers and they set up base in Dharamsala, a town in the Himalayan foothills about 400 km north of New Delhi.

The deaths raise theological questions about non-violence and highlight a long-standing schism between the elderly Dalai Lama's softly, softly approach to China and activists who want to fight for independence.

"It's almost regular now, I get these kind of updates, this morning I was woken around 7 am by a phone call saying someone, a monk, self-immolated himself," said Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan government-in-exile's prime minister.

A Tibetan in Nepal had set fire to himself that day.

Indian born, Harvard educated Sangay is in a tough position — under pressure from his generation of exiles who see no progress from the Dalai Lama's measured approach to China, but also shouldering a huge responsibility not to inflame tensions in Tibet and risk the lives of his compatriots.

"We do not encourage any protests inside Tibet, because we know the consequences," he said, but added it was his duty to give voice to men and women who chose such drastic steps.

In a sign of increased activism, his government has promoted events in solidarity with a quiet protest movement in Tibet called "White Wednesday."

Unlike the immolation in Tunisia that sparked the Arab spring revolutions, in Tibet no large-scale uprising has followed. Instead, since 2008, each Wednesday, a day considered auspicious for the Dalai Lama, an unknown number of Tibetans shun Chinese businesses, attend monasteries, wear traditional dress and speak in their own language.

Many of the self-immolators, including Phuntsog, were linked to Kirti, a large monastery in western Sichuan that has emerged as a centre of defiance to China's controls.

The internet, digital photography and mobile phones have helped the monks get news and videos of the protests to a sister monastery in Dharamsala, sometimes within hours of an immolation.

Rabten was in the county town of Apa the day his friend doused his dark red robes in gasoline and set himself ablaze. Monks fought with police and took the then still-alive monk into the temple.

"All that remained were white traces on the asphalt from the fire extinguishers," he said of the site where his friend committed suicide.

Rabten, who did not witness the grisly act and says he was not involved, went into hiding, dressing in lay clothes and growing his hair to escape arrest.

"There were plain-clothed police on every corner, there were huge military trucks with armed soldiers and machine guns," he said.

China considers the Dalai Lama a dangerous separatist and hopes Tibetan resistance will fade when the 76-six-year-old dies. It says it has brought economic growth and education to a backward, feudal society previously ruled by a theocracy.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama has for years said he is seeks autonomy and religious freedom in Tibet, not independence. This "middle way" policy has never convinced Beijing. Many exiles say the fight must be for full independence.

"Immolations, right or wrong?" read one flier announcing a discussion group in Dharamsala, where shaven-headed monks and nuns rub shoulders with backpackers in narrow streets of gabled temples and prayer wheels.

This is the question playing on the minds of the holy men and second generation exiles who are trying to keep an ancient culture alive in their new home.

The burnings add a dark twist to the tale of Tibetan resistance. Some Buddhists say suicide is violence and therefore unacceptable. Others see self-sacrifice for a greater cause as legitimate.

"What the monks do in Tibet is all their own decision, and we don't feel we are in a position to tell them to don't do it," said Kunchok Gyamtso, a senior member of the Kirti monastery in Dharamsala.

For many young Tibetans in town, the answer is clear — the situation across the Himalayas has reached unbearable levels.

Tenzin Chokey is the general secretary of the Tibetan Youth Congress, which has fought for full independence for decades and says the immolations are a clear message the world must do more.

"How many more lives exactly does the world need? Is it the method? Is it too soft for the world? Because you are only taking your own life and not that of others?" she said.

"If we had independence as a goal, and if that is what we push for, the world leaders will also have to respond to the voice of the Tibetan people."

Perhaps emboldened by his formal departure from politics in March, the Dalai Lama has blamed the burnings on "cultural genocide" by the Chinese and has not directly called for them to stop, in contrast to his call for an end to protests ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In the present crisis there are a number of different voices within the exile community and the Dalai Lama's devolution of political power has left a vacuum of authority that the young secular government has yet to fully fill.

The Kirti Rinpoche has some sway over what the Dalai Lama says about immolations because it is mostly his monks burning themselves in China.

He has not called for an end to the immolations.

There are signs Beijing is considering a softer approach to Tibet as the immolations draw international attention to the crackdown, despite strict media controls.

This week, the Communist party chief in the Tibet Autonomous Region, an economist, promised healthcare, welfare payments and television connections for monks.

The Oracle of Nechung, a monk who enters into a trance to offer advice to the Dalai Lama and Sangay, said Xi Jinping, who is likely to be named China's president next year, could be more responsive to calls for democracy from Tibet.

"The world is changing, for example what is happening in Arab countries," the oracle, Thupten Ngodup, said at his temple in Dharamsala.

"In 2012 a huge reshuffle of leadership is going to take place, I think they will absorb those ideas." Ngodup said.

Kirti monastery's Gyamtso, who left Tibet in 1993 echoed the optimism but worried democratic reforms in China will come too late to save Tibetan culture.

"Time is not on our side, with these kinds of policies going on, in the near future Tibet as a nation will be destroyed, the environment, culture, everything," he said to the sound of a temple bell and pattering feet as young monks ran to lunch. — Reuters

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Climate change driving world towards food crunch, experts say

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 05:43 PM PST

Drawing on published studies, a panel is offering guidance on how the world can be fed as its population rises and diets shift. — AFP pic

PARIS, Nov 20 — Surging population growth and climate change are driving the planet towards episodes of worsening hunger which only an overhaul of the food system will fix, a panel of experts said on Wednesday.

"In the 21st century, as we are now we've got a major set of converging threats," said John Beddington, a British professor who chaired a 13-member nine-month probe.

"There's population growth, unsustainable resource use and big pressures on humanity to transform the way that we use food," Beddington said in a teleconference.

"But it is intimately linked to water issues and energy issues — and of course with the major issue of climate change." Beddington said that in 2007-8, a surge in food prices drove 100 million people into poverty, and 40 million more followed them in the 2010-2011 spike.

"There is a real concern about hunger, and there are consequences at the level where food price increases cause instability," he said.

The so-called Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change was set up in February by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an umbrella organisation funded by national governments, regional organisations and research foundations.

Drawing on published studies, the panel is offering guidance on how the world can be fed as its population rises from seven billion to more than nine billion in mid-century and diets shift to higher consumption of calories, fats and meat.

During this time, greenhouse gases emitted in past decades will have an inevitable effect on the climate system, adding to the risk of drought and flood.

"The challenge that's ahead of us globally is really quite hard even to comprehend," said Megan Clark, chief executive officer of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia.

"We must increase global food production by 2050 by some 30 to 80 per cent and reduce our (carbon) emissions by half.

"To put it another way, as my children grow old over the next 60 years, we'll have to produce as much food as has been produced in human history and at the same time during that period, we will have to learn how to halve our emission rate from agriculture."

The panel released a "summary for policymakers," setting down seven recommendations. The full report will be issued early next year.

The proposals include a big focus on curbing waste through smarter supply chains, as roughly a third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted across the global food system. Sustainable methods and support for poor, small farmers are also promoted.

Costly over-use of fertilisers is cited as a problem, as are methods that wreck farmland.

"An estimated 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of agricultural land, and their potential for producing 20 million tonnes of grain, are lost each year to land degradation," said Lin Erda, director of the Research Centre of Agriculture and Climate Change at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Asked what role genetically-modified crops should play, Clark said, "the commission didn't set out to pick winners with regard to agriculture."

"We looked at the major factors that would enhance resilience, productivity and sustainable use," said Clark.

"We really came to the conclusion that you need to diversify responses, all the way through from organic to genetic." — AFP-Relaxnews

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The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz

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‘Trenched’ to expand European empire on November 30

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 03:40 PM PST

LOS ANGELES, Nov 20 — Trenched, that historical sci-fi game of mechanised bipedal tanks, alien technology and ridiculous moustaches, is to receive its launch in European regions on November 30 under the name Iron Brigade.

The Xbox 360 download was originally released to the North America Xbox community in June, but European trademark troubles and a crammed release schedule led to a name change and a delay for fans waiting in other parts of the world.

Trenched's well-received debut had come just prior to an annual Xbox 360 promotion, Summer of Arcade, and the release of several highly anticipated titles — Bastion, From Dust, and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.

A congested release schedule affecting both online and retail — from Gears of War 3 and Call of Duty to Skyrim, Renegade Ops, and Dungeon Defenders — ensured that an immediate dispatch wouldn't have been possible, even once the legal dispute had been resolved.

Owners of the North American Trenched will find that come November 30 their copies of the game are automatically updated to reflect the title change to Iron Brigade.

A new Survival Mode and the ten pieces of equipment packed in with the Euro release will also be issued to previous purchasers, and players from all regions will be able to take on Vladimir Farnsworth's evil armies together. — AFP-Relaxnews

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Internet show ‘The Annoying Orange’ to land on television

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 03:31 PM PST

'The Annoying Orange'; video screenshot. — AFP pic

LOS ANGELES, Nov 20 — Internet phenomenon The Annoying Orange will head to television with a juicy deal on US station Cartoon Network, which will air the series featuring the animated character next year. Orange the comedy, created by Dane Boedigheimer and produced by The Collective, features an orange with a human mouth and eyes, as well as other fruit. New segments have been ordered and will be made into 11-minute installments and be shown with other quarter-hour segments for a series, according to Variety.

A huge hit for three years, it's the ninth most popular channel on YouTube with 850 million streams as of September, despite criticism of the talking orange.

"The television series follows Orange and his band of buddies as they travel through time in a magical fruit cart. From Prehistoric Era to Colonial Times, Orange and the rest of the Kitchen Crew are dropped into random adventures and forced to squeeze their way out," is the press release description.

Orange will also continue episodes on the internet, and Cartoon Network hopes to bring online fans to the television show.

The Orange brand launched a merchandise line through J.C. Penney as well as an iPhone/Android app.

Other web-based video series that have moved to television previously include $#*! My Dad Says with William Shatner (Star Trek) and Web Therapy starring Lisa Kudrow (Friends) on premium cable channel Showtime. — AFP-Relaxnews

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The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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Voting rights for overseas Malaysians

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 04:12 PM PST

NOV 20 — I shouldn't be amazed, but I am.

Here we are in the year 2011, and astonishingly, there are still people out there who hold antiquated views about who should be able to vote.

Datuk Ei Kim Hock has rightly been castigated for suggesting that Malaysians like me who live abroad should not be allowed to vote as we have "lost touch" with our country. I'm not sure which is the more preposterous claim, that someone like me takes no interest in what's happening in the country, or that someone like me should not be allowed to vote because what I read about Malaysia may be "biased" and "wrong."

Now, I will grant you that there are Malaysians out there who don't take an interest in what's going on in the country, but actually, these people live inside Malaysia as well as outside Malaysia, so should disinterested Malaysians living in the country be barred from voting too?

Until 1918, only men with property could vote in Britain, and it wasn't until 1928 that women were accorded the same voting rights as men. Do people like Datuk Ei really want us Malaysians to go back to a time when voting rights were accorded to certain people only?

Let me remind such people of one simple fact: voting, unlike many other things, is a right accorded to every adult Malaysian citizen. As long as I am a Malaysian citizen I should be able to vote, and the government and the Election Commission (EC) should be doing their utmost to ensure that all able Malaysians are able to vote, no matter where they live.

I know there are plenty of people out there who will blithely say, "Well come back then, if you care about it so much." Let me tell you this: whether I come back to Malaysia or not to vote is not the point.

So let me reiterate the point, in case you missed it: as long as I am a Malaysian citizen (and yes, I am a registered voter) I should be able to vote, and the government and the EC should be doing their utmost to ensure that all able Malaysians are able to vote, no matter where they live.

Don't talk to me about logistics, either. If the government and the EC can cater for students, army personnel and diplomatic staff, then obviously they have found a way to accommodate overseas voting.

Besides, if we can develop the latest technological marvel and include it in our passports and MyKad, then it can't be beyond someone's capabilities to overcome these supposed logistical hurdles.

If we can't work it out ourselves, then why not look at how other countries do it? After all, Britain and the USA - both countries where people vote according to their localities, like ours - allow non-resident citizens to take part in elections. If these two developed countries can do it, then why can't we, a country aspiring to developed nation status, do it too?

As far as I'm concerned, too many excuses have been given on why overseas Malaysians aren't allowed to vote. "Logistical nightmare" is merely one excuse. The other one often trotted out is the "difficulty" in locating overseas Malaysians.

Again, let me ask: do the authorities knock on every single door in Malaysia to ask people to register? Of course not. So why should this be an issue when it comes to overseas Malaysians?

As I've mentioned in a previous article, it really isn't difficult to run an information campaign in this day and age. If the EC can't work out how to do it, I'm sure there are plenty of Malaysians who would gladly set up a Facebook page to do this and publicise any registration exercise!

During the 2008 French presidential elections, an enormous queue wound its way around one of the polling stations in London. I remember looking at that queue in envy. If I'd been born French, there would have been no question whatsoever about me casting my vote in a city outside France. This is quite simply a normal state of affairs.

Of course there are questions about the EC's ability in ensuring overseas votes are collected properly. This, however, shouldn't become another reason why overseas citizens are denied their voting rights. Ensuring elections are held in a fair and transparent manner goes hand in hand with ensuring citizens are able to vote.

Currently overseas citizens — apart from a certain few - don't even have the right to vote. We have been stripped of our rights, disenfranchised, for no reason other than the fact that we live abroad.

Lest they forget, the government and the EC are there to serve the rakyat. The last time I checked, Malaysian citizens have the same rights regardless of where they live (and let's not confuse rights with privileges; there are plenty of privileges that I have given up due to where I choose to live, and that is to be expected). So when will my voting rights be restored to me?

I would dearly love to be able to queue outside the Malaysian High Commission in London to cast my vote for our next elections, and I'm glad that there are more sensible politicians who are backing the call to enable overseas Malaysians to vote.

So come on, EC, it's time for Malaysia to join the developed world. Let people like me vote for the leaders of our country without having to plan an impromptu trip back.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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The poo phenomena (sung to ‘The Funk Phenomena’)

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 04:01 PM PST

NOV 20 — One in every eight children in Hong Kong is constipated. This is not a pretty topic served up as dinner conversation but recent findings have shown that the problem is causing a stink among our little ones.

Researchers at the Chinese University believe that one of the reasons is because children put off using the toilet due to embarrassment or by spending too much time on other pursuits (The Standard, Oct 21, "Don't delay on toilet trouble, children told" ).

Staying apart from their parents, spending more than two hours a day on homework (15 per cent) and sleeping less than seven hours a day (17 per cent) also appear to contribute to constipation.

Of the 2,318 primary school students interviewed between March and June, 12.2 per cent suffered from constipation. Of the 200 students who did not live with their parents, 28.8 per cent experienced this condition.

Doctors say that therapy, treatment and alterations to the diet will help them recover. Serious constipation will take up to a year to treat.

I was surprised by the high numbers. I mean, if you, like me had attended schools with absolutely filthy toilets, then it would make sense to delay using the toilet until you got home.

I remember holding my breath every time I had to walk past the toilet, which was on the way to the school canteen. The floor was perpetually wet and at least one of the eight squatting stalls would be clogged. Poorly aimed stools and urine were a daily affair. This was at an urban primary school in Petaling Jaya.

Granted we were young then but the situation did not improve when we reached secondary school. Only this time the school tasked students to clean our own toilets. That's right. Each classroom was assigned a stall and every day two girls were assigned to scrub it with soap powder, a toilet brush and *shudder* use the short hose that was attached to the tap inside the stall (same one that some used to wash themselves) to rinse the soap away.

You can understand why some of us chose not to use the toilet unless we had no choice. And in order not to have to use the toilet, we drank less. It is a vicious cycle. I hope you are not reading this over a meal.

The thing is, Hong Kong toilets are surprisingly clean. Even public toilets. I was relieved when I visited my son's kindergarten and saw how well maintained it was. So avoiding a dirty loo at school should not be an issue.

The research findings also mentioned that children who have only three or four meals with their parents a week tend to suffer from constipation (16 per cent). I take this to mean that perhaps there is not a balanced diet being provided or not having a parent hover over them to ensure they eat their fruit and vegetables.

It is common for working parents to return home after 8pm, long after children have had their dinner. In an interview with The Standard, researchers were quoted saying that parents play an important role in helping prevent constipation from becoming an embarrassing issue for their children. I for one took for granted how much work goes into making, um, regular deposits.

We have had our own poo issue as well, though not yet related to the factors above. Up until recently, our son enjoyed regular visits to the loo.

Then along came nursery school and for reasons that still befuddle me, constipation struck. We went from twice-a-day motions to once in five days. He ate his fruit, yoghurt and drank fluids but something else was happening — he was holding it in!

There was the typical warning signs: staining on the underpants (up to five pairs daily), bloating, lack of appetite and straining. By day five we were forced to resort to an enema, which is awfully traumatic on a three-year-old and his parents.

We took steps to inform his school teachers of our problem and the measures we were taking at home. We asked they provided encouragement when he needed to go and exercise patience if he had an accident. They were wonderfully supportive.

Then finally, after weeks of tears, we found our solution: a reward chart. I printed a free chart off the Internet with pictures of a little boy sitting on his potty and the words "I pooped!" underneath. Each successful attempt meant colouring in one star on the chart. It was a surprisingly simple strategy.

After five coloured stars, Ishan got to pick out a toy from the shop. He made sure he collected big on his first successful attempt, picking out a big truck that cost three times what we would normally spend on a toy. But a promise was a promise and it was worth it.

It has been three months since and we have now got his act down to a once-in-two days affair. We never thought that poo, or rather the absence of it, could cause so many problems. Knowing exercise contributes to healthy bowel movements, we religiously keep to Ishan's playtime with his friends in the evenings.

The exercise plus all that gulping of water (it helps to watch his friends drink from their bottles) works wonders. We're definitely not scheduling any after school activities for a while. Meanwhile, I still can't get Armand Van Helden's "The Funk Phenomena" (1994) out of my head every time we hit a dry, hard spell.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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The Malaysian Insider :: Bahasa

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Guan Eng: Pakatan sepakat tentukan tarikh pilihan raya DUN Pulau Pinang

Posted: 20 Nov 2011 02:20 AM PST

Lim berkata tidak mahu mengecewakan rakyat Pulau Pinang memandangkan Bajet 2012 baru sahaja diluluskan. — Foto fail

SERDANG, 20 Nov — Lim Guan Eng hari ini berkata kepimpinan Pakatan Rakyat secara bersama akan menentukan sama ada Pulau Pinang perlu mengadakan pilihan raya Dewan Undangan Negeri serentak dengan pilihan raya umum nasional, yang dijangka dipanggil dalam waktu terdekat.

Khamis lalu, Menteri Besar Selangor Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim mengumumkan beliau tidak akan membubarkan Dewan Undangan Negeri jika pilihan raya umum Parlimen diadakan sebelum Jun depan.

"Itu keputusan Tan Sri Khalid. Sudah tentu beliau ada prerogatif untuk ambil keputusan itu.

"Tetapi pada masa yang sama, meskipun Menteri Besar atau Ketua Menteri ada prerogatif, saya mengambil pendekatan berbeza, saya mahu berunding dengan rakan-rakan saya dalam Pakatan Rakyat," kata Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang ini selepas Persidangan Tahunan DAP Selangor di sini.

Lim yang juga Setiausaha Agung DAP berkata, beliau tidak mahu mengecewakan rakyat negeri Pulau Pinang memandangkan Bajet 2012 baru sahaja diluluskan.

Baru-baru ini, dengan memberikan lima alasan, Lim yang juga Ahli Parlimen Bagan berkata kerajaan negeri Pulau Pinang tidak akan membubarkan Dewan Undangan Negeri jika Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak memutuskan untuk memanggil pilihan raya umum tergempar.

Terdahulu Pemuda MCA mendakwa Pakatan Rakyat tidak bersedia untuk mengadakan pilihan raya serentak sama ada "kerana tidak bersedia untuk berhadapan dengan calon-caloan Barisan Nasional atau bebas ataupun gagal dalam menunaikan janji-janji pilihan raya."

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Dr M: ‘Saya tahu pandangan saya masih relevan’

Posted: 20 Nov 2011 01:26 AM PST

Dr Mahathir mendakwa pihak-pihak yang mengkritis beliau turut menikmati manfaat DEB. — Foto fail

KUALA LUMPUR, 20 Nov — Bekas perdana menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad yang terus popular dengan kritikan mengenai pelbagai isu semasa termasuk dasar-dasar kerajaan sejak bersara pada 2003 menegaskan bahawa pandangan beliau masih relevan walaupun ramai menganggapnya sebagai konservatif dan sudah tua.

"Dalam blog saya ada orang Melayu yang mengatakan bahawa saya ini sudah lama (tua) dan tidak relevan.

"Tapi saya tahu bahawa pandangan saya masih relevan kerana yang berkata itu jika tidak dengan pertolongan, dia tidak akan ada di situ," kata beliau dengan menekankan pihak-pihak yang mengkritiknya sebenarnya mendapat manfaat daripada Dasar Ekonomi Baru (DEB) yang diperkenalkan pada 1970.

"Dia ada di situ kerana dia ditolong melalui DEB," katanya lagi menjawab soalan dalam Mingguan Malaysia hari ini bahawa pendapat dan pandangannya dilihat sudah tidak lagi relevan dan terlalu konservatif.

Dalam ulasannya itu Dr Mahathir yang mempunyai blog chedet.cc berkata, "kita tidak ambil semua harta orang Cina."

Bekas perdana menteri ini juga dilabel sebagai rasis ekoran kenyataan-kenyataan beliau sebelum ini.

"Melalui dasar ini, kita bagi separuh kepada orang Melayu dan orang Cina kita bagi juga.

"Tapi orang Melayu tidak berani kata sekarang yang dulu kita bagi juga pada orang Cina," kata Dr Mahathir.

Sejak melepaskan jawatannya lapan tahun lalu, Dr Mahathir pernah mengecam teruk penggantinya Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Malah sejak kebelakangan ini beliau juga dari semasa ke semasa menyuarakan pandangan lantangnya berkenaan dasar-dasar pengganti Abdullah, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Baru-baru ini beliau mengesyorkan agar pentadbiran Najib mengadakan referendum berkenaan dasar Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris (PPSMI), yang dimansuhkan.

Dasar itu diperkenalkan oleh Dr Mahathir beberapa bulan sebelum bersara.

Dalam temu bual ini, Dr Mahathir juga berkata Umno sudah rosak dengan teruk apabila Abdullah mengambil alih kepimpinan.

"Ini kerana beliau mengutamakan keluarganya dan macam-macam lagi pertuduhan rasuah dan pelbagai lagi.

"Lepas itu orang tahu tentang penglibatan menantunya," katanya sambil menambah, "sekarang ini Umno yang rosak ini diwarisi oleh Datuk Seri Najib untuk beliau perbaiki."

"Umno memerlukan banyak masa supaya ia boleh diperkuatkan. Tapi beliau pun sibuk dan tidak mempunyai masa yang cukup.

"Pemimpin-pemimpin Umno yang lain pula belum ada kredibiliti dan masih baru," katanya lagi.

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Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Ahad, 20 November 2011