KUALA LUMPUR, May 18 — There's nothing like a good risotto or pasta that tells you the Italian bistro you have just been to is worth going again. We liked the Prawn and Scallop Risotto at Uno! in Taman ... Read More
KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — They learnt to make butter and pasta, clarify a consommé, shape semolina dumplings, and ice a strawberry mille-feuille. All 17 of them.The children — little chefs — were bewitched ... Read More
KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — This definitely has to be one of my favourite desserts. Panna Cotta, a popular Italian dessert with an Asian twist — green tea!In its simplest form, panna cotta is made by simmering ... Read More
BERLIN, May 22 — Puerto Rican banker Richard Carrion launched his bid for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today, with his long financial experience a powerful pitch in his quest for the world's top sports job.
The 60-year-old Carrion, who is chairman of Puerto Rican lender Popular Inc, heads the IOC's finance commission and is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, becomes the third official candidate in the race to be decided on Sept. 10.
"We have a lot at stake in this election," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"Our place in the world is not guaranteed. We must have a leader that knows how not just to manage the coming change, but also make it work for the IOC and the movement," said the soft-spoken Carrion.
"We must embrace this ever-changing reality and keep innovating and evolving, or risk becoming less relevant to this and future generations."
IOC Vice Presidents Thomas Bach from Germany and Singapore's Ng Ser Miang have already launched their campaigns while the head of the International Boxing Federation (AIBA) C.K. Wu is set to announce his bid tomorrow. — Reuters
BERLIN, May 22 — The Court of Arbitration for Sport have rejected Japanese hammer thrower Koji Murofushi's appeal against the blocking of his election to the International Olympic Committee's Athletes Commission, CAS said today.
The court said the main reason for turning down his appeal was that the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) "did not comply with applicable rules and regulations".
The London 2012 bronze medallist and the JOC had opted to appeal to CAS after the IOC barred him from the commission over election rules violations.
Taiwanese Athens 2004 Games taekwondo gold medallist Chu Mu-yen was also excluded for similar reasons and his CAS appeal was rejected in March.
Murofushi and Chu were excluded on charges they had campaigned inappropriately, in the wrong places and using methods that were against the rules.
"The IOC welcomes the CAS decision and looks forward to working with Danka Bartekova, James Tomkins, Kirsty Coventry and Tony Estanguet, who are expected to be proposed... for election at the July 2013 Extraordinary Session in Lausanne following expiry of the 28-day appeal period," the IOC said.
French canoeing gold medalist Estanguet, Zimbabwean swimmer Coventry, Australia's former Olympic rowing champion Tomkins and Slovakian shooter Bartekova were elected to the commission. — Reuters
Reuters file picture of rapper Pitbull.LOS ANGELES, May 22 — Rapper Pitbull has taken his blend of American pop music fused with Latin beats from the clubs of Miami to international pop charts, but he now is crossing into film with his first acting role as an animated character in the upcoming movie, "Epic."
Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Perez, has become a staple in the pop music field with lively dance-floor tracks including recent chart hits "Feel This Moment" with Christina Aguilera and "Live it Up" with Jennifer Lopez.
The rapper, 32, plays street-smart frog Bufo in "Epic," due to be released on Friday and which explores a secret universe where the natural world is battling evil forces.
Pitbull talked to Reuters about his film debut, working with Lopez and the origins of his numerous nicknames.
Q: What do you make of this whole animation world you got a chance to work in?
A: Before I didn't understand what it meant to put a voice to animation and see it come to life. But I'm always game for trying new things. I love how those artists could see my voice on the character before it was even drawn up.
Q: How did the animators bring your influence to the character of Bufo the frog? Did they capture your essence?
A: They captured a piece of my essence, absolutely. The suits, the business/hustler, knowing how to navigate his way through the good and bad. Bufo knows how to play the middle. It's business, not personal for him. I think they captured about 75 percent of my essence. The gestures, the hand movements, the way he walks - I think they watched me a lot in the studio when I was there.
Q: Many musical artists have made their way to film. Why haven't you transitioned sooner?
A: It's all about timing. I've had projects on the table but I didn't have the time to do them. This caught me at the right time ... I hope there's a sequel because I would love to see more of Bufo in number two. I have a lot of good ideas for them, ideas that would capture the rest of that 25 percent of the essence they may have missed.
Q: Your stage moniker 'Pitbull' is named after a dog that tends to get a lot of bad press unfortunately.
A: Pitbulls are misunderstood and that's the same thing with me when I first came into the music business. Being Cuban-American made me politically incorrect. My whole life was trying to make people understand that we all come from the same place. It's the same with the dog. The pitbull is a very loyal, very loving dog that doesn't understand the concept of losing. I believe in fighting hard for what you believe in and never giving up.
Q: How important is your Cuban heritage?
A: It's very important. I'm Cuban-American, first generation. The Latin culture is everything. But I'm very careful to not let that box me in. I want to represent (my heritage) and I'm proud of who I am, but it's about letting others know that we are just like everybody else. We don't want people to judge us, we want people to understand us, to see that we've gone through the same things everybody else has gone through and suffered the same struggles.
Q: What were some of the pivotal moments in your career that really changed things for you?
A: The record that took it global was "I Know You Want Me" (in 2009). Before that, I lived in the clubs and in the streets as far as my music. But that song took it to the next level. "Give Me Everything" (in 2011) was a turning point. This record coming out (on May 28) called "Outta Nowhere" will be another turning point I think.
Q: How so?
A: It's a different side of me. It's going to show everything that we've been speaking about here - motivation, believing in yourself, not giving up. With this record, I wanted to come out of nowhere, which is why the name is perfect.
Q: "Live It Up" is your third collaboration with Jennifer Lopez, following "On The Floor" and "Dance Again." What's your partnership like?
A: Jennifer is a hard worker, very professional, gorgeous and she's a walking empire. Anytime I'm around her, I'm watching, learning, studying. It's a natural combination, like a student and teacher. I'm a student all day. I think it would be an honor for Jennifer to watch me grow and say, 'That kid did learn.'
Q: With all your recent success, do you feel like you've gotten the respect you deserve? Do you feel more relaxed now and less needing to prove yourself?
A: No, I'm never relaxed. I think complacency is a cousin of death. As far as respect, whether they do or don't, to each his own. But I do tell you this much, this is just the beginning. I promise you, it's just the beginning. — Reuters
Director Sorrentino (right) and co-stars Toni Servillo (centre) and Carlo Verdone meet the media. — Reuters picsCANNES, May 22 — Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty", a nostalgic, melancholic ode to the eternal city Rome, is one of several films that touch on the unravelling of contemporary Italy in official selection at the Cannes film festival this year.
Also competing for the prestigious Palme d'Or award to be handed out on Sunday is "Un Chateau en Italie" ("A Castle in Italy") by Franco-Italian director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi about the demise of an aristocratic family.
Italian actress Valeria Golino makes her directorial debut with "Miele" ("Honey") about a woman who helps terminal patients end their lives. The movie is competing in the "Un Certain Regard" category for emerging filmmakers.
Bathed in the beautiful Roman light of yellows and golds, "La Grande Bellezza" ("The Great Beauty") is a lush, sweeping film that both critiques the emptiness of life and revels in it.
We first meet protagonist Jep Gambardella, played by Toni Servillo, at a late-night bash that makes the famed "bunga bunga" parties of Silvio Berlusconi look tame.
Jep is living the high life on the laurels of a famous novel he wrote 40 years ago, and now at 65 is stuck in a rut.
As he reflects on the possibility of writing again, he questions his hedonistic life and his rich, vapid friends, whom he entertains at raucous parties at his apartment overlooking Rome's Colosseum.
"The film tries to portray a poverty that is not material," Sorrentino told reporters yesterday. "At the same time, we're not passing a negative judgment but showing what it is, and it symbolises our country."
Star appeal in "Un Chateau en Italie" director/actress Tedeschi, sister of former French first lady and supermodel Carla Bruni.'A by-gone time'
With its thousands of years of civilization on show at every turn, Rome is a character in "The Great Beauty", and Sorrentino's camera guides us like a privileged guest through locked palaces, interior courtyards and private terraces.
"You have a portrait of a city that symbolises a certain human condition," Servillo said. "It doesn't symbolise hope at all, but rather missed opportunities, a by-gone time."
In a review, Screen magazine called "The Great Beauty" a "virtuoso piece of filmmaking".
"An alternately elegiac and world-weary cinematic fresco of contemporary Rome that references both the melancholy hedonism of 'La Dolce Vita' or Fellini's 'Roma' and the decadence of the latter days of the Roman empire," wrote reviewer Lee Marshall.
Sorrentino's "Il Divo" ("The Divine") based on Italy's former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, won Cannes' 2008 Jury Prize.
Tedeschi, an actress/director and sister of former French first lady and supermodel Carla Bruni — chooses as the centrepiece of "A Castle in Italy" an Italian family who can no longer afford the upkeep of their ancestral castle.
Inspired by the famous Chekhov play "The Cherry Orchard", the film mixes the story of the impending sale of the castle with the death of a brother, and a budding relationship between the lead character, played by Tedeschi, and a much younger man played by French actor Louis Garrel.
In "Honey", director Golino deals with another kind of death, euthanasia, following a young woman who works outside the law to ease the suffering of the terminally ill.
The issue of euthanasia is not the focus of the film, but rather the inner goings-on of the edgy heroine, played by Jasmine Trinca, who never emotionally engages with her clients until she meets one who turns out not to be sick at all. — Reuters
LONDON, May 22 — For a pathogen with such a short history, the mysterious new virus killing people in the Middle East and Europe has already had an amazing array of names.
Despite its short history, a mysterious new virus killing people in the Middle East and Europe has already had an amazing array of names. — AFP picIt first surfaced last year as "human betacoronavirus 2c EMC", but the suffixes "2c England-Qatar, "2C Jordan-N3", "England 1" have also appeared and many scientists have resorted to "novel coronavirus" - new crown-shaped virus - instead.
While the World Health Organisation (WHO) says the virus and the severe infections and deaths it has caused are "alarming" and need to be tracked, none of its names is especially helpful.
"A virus is only 'novel' until the next one comes around," Raoul de Groot, head of the Coronavirus Study Group (CSG), said of the catchiest of the titles it has acquired so far.
So with the death toll from the 42 cases identified at 21 and expected to rise — de Groot's group has come up with a new name: "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome" or MERS, since all the cases have had a direct or indirect connection to the region.
The CSG, which published the name in the Journal of Virology last week, said it had been endorsed by the Saudi, Dutch and British scientists who discovered it, the WHO's European office and the Saudi health ministry.
But naming deadly new viruses is fraught with sensitivity, and the signs are this matter has yet to settle.
DIFFICULT HISTORY
Human disease is littered with examples of fractious, sometimes furious rows over what emerging pathogens are called.
Some 30 years ago, when the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, was discovered, it was named "GRID", or "gay-related immune deficiency", helping to spread the slur "the gay plague".
It was not until it became clear the sexually transmitted virus was also infecting heterosexuals and haemophiliacs, that GRID was replaced with the more accurate HIV.
More recently, the scientific "H1N1" was the name that stuck for the pandemic flu strain that swept the world in 2009/2010 after earlier suggestions proved too sensitive.
An Israeli health minister objected to "swine flu" on religious grounds and "Mexican flu" caused offence to a nation.
When scientists called a "superbug" enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to almost all known antibiotics "New Delhi metallo beta lactamase", or NDM-1, the Indian health ministry called it "malicious propaganda" to put India in the name.
"Clearly, naming viruses and diseases after ethnicity, religion, gender and lifestyle is potentially stigmatising and offensive, and thus unacceptable," de Groot said.
"All parties involved were acutely aware of sensitivities around geographic naming and the issue has been weighed very carefully," he told Reuters via email.
The MERS decision involved Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands, Maria Zambon of the UK Health Protection Agency and Ali Mohamed Zaki, an Egyptian microbiologist working at the Dr Soliman Fakeeh Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, among others.
All of them played key roles in discovering the new virus.
According to a source close to the discussions, who declined to be identified due to sensitivities surrounding the issue, one suggestion was to name the virus after Zaki as a tribute to his work; he lost his job after going public with his findings.
It is early days, but so far, MERS has not caught on, despite the WHO's European branch saying "the WHO and other committee members strongly urge the use of this name in scientific and other communications".
A "disease outbreak update" issued from the WHO's global headquarters in Geneva today referred to the "novel coronavirus" or "nCoV" throughout. MERS did not get a mention.
A WHO spokesman said he was unable to comment on the discrepancy but added that from now on "we are going to be using the new name in all our updates". — Reuters
The shoes of actress Bai Ling are pictured as she poses on the red carpet during the 66th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes May 21, 2013. — Reuters picBOSTON, May 22 — High-heeled shoes are known to shorten calf muscles, cause pain, and even trigger migraines, but according to new research, they won't lead to bunions. For that, you can thank your parents.
The study, led Dr. Marian Hannan from Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School in Boston, included 1,370 participants enrolled in the Framingham Foot Study. Participants had a mean age of 66 years and 57 per cent were female.
The research showed bunions are "highly inheritable," meaning your favourite stilettos are off the hook. But if you have pre-existing bunions, your high-heel habit won't help, the researchers noted.
Bunions affect 23 per cent of individuals 18 to 65 years of age and 36 per cent of those over 65 years according to prior research.
Australian researcher Neil J. Cronin, who recently published a study on how high heels alter the biomechanics of the foot, advises that high-heel wearers try, if possible, to steer clear of towering heights when selecting shoes. Opt for heels maybe "once or twice a week," he told The New York Times, or "try to remove the heels whenever possible, such as when you're sitting at your desk."
The findings of the new study, announced Monday, are published online in the journal Arthritis Care & Research. — AFP/Relaxnews
Dina Zaman writes to find answers. Sometimes she doesn't. If she's not spending too much money on books, it's household items. She would like everyone to be happy.
MAY 22 ― Now that some of the dust has settled after the elections, and while our politicians duke it out over electoral fraud, we Malaysians have to contend with living life as we know it.
Reading the home minister's remarks about how unhappy Malaysians should just emigrate was not pleasant, especially so early in the morning. But it was also inspiring and moving to see how Malaysians rallied around that and Utusan Malaysia's eye-opening headlines.
The truth is, in spite of everyone banding together and telling one another that we are Malaysians first, we Malaysians are bigots. We are situational bigots when we see fit, and we ask for tolerance because we do not want to be inconvenienced.
I belong to a number of WhatsApp chat groups, and also groups on Facebook. The reason why I'm glued to social media and the phone is not just to try beating my friends at Scrabble (I am pathetic), but to observe human behaviour.
When the Utusan headline stunned the nation, at work, very unpleasant incidents happened. I noticed in one WhatsApp group that a Chinese friend of a member was harassed at work, on the very day that headline was published, by her Malay colleagues. Soon, a barrage of messages appeared. Everyone was distressed.
"Teruk lah this thing to happen. How to work like this? Such inconvenience."
I zeroed in on the word "inconvenience." I am being myopic here but let's look at a few hypotheses:
• Was it an inconvenience because racial tension at work would lessen productivity?
• Was the person who said this a bigot, or inherently a bigot, who just wanted to get his work done, and played nice, just so his KPIs are met?
• Or was the person truly sympathetic towards the victim?
I find all this schizophrenic. One moment, many Malaysians spew hatred about one another, and this coming from educated, middle- to upper-middle class professionals. The next moment, when a crisis like this happens, we are united.
A friend sent me a photo taken at a primary school a few days after that. Area: upper-middle class suburbia.
When I first saw the photo, I hoped that my presbyopia had worsened.
Do schools these days have such a roster? Or is this school the only one to exercise such a racial attendance registration? Am I looking too deeply into this?
How do we begin erasing racism from the country's DNA? A concerted effort on the part of parents, schools, community leaders is one, but can they sustain it? Can we abolish race-based policies immediately, to place merit-based ones with immediate effect? And being human, would it be that easy to rid of the bigot in one's self?
All these questions, and no clear cut answers.
***********
In a closed Facebook group, a member (members of the group have permitted their comments to be replicated in this column) had shared a New York Times article, "Anwar, Malaysia's Opposition Leader, Takes to the Streets", and quoted from the feature, "Like Indonesia, Myanmar and many other countries in Asia, Malaysia is a product of European colonialism and still a work in progress. The mix of ethnic Malay, Chinese and Indians (a much smaller group) is far from a melting pot — more a Babel of language, a hodgepodge of foods and a tense coexistence of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism."
The member asked, was this a fair representation of Malaysia?
One replied, "True. Malaysians don't integrate. They mostly have an uneasy co-existence living in their own community silos like those water bird communities. Some have long beaks, some have beaks pointed downward, some have short pointed beaks. They live in the same place but each eat different things so they don't get into each others' feathers. But they hardly interact with each other."
Another responded that "It's more a sort of parallel coexistence which tenses up at points where interests conflict, and we have no productive frame of discourse to talk through our disagreements, or even to frame discussions not as fights, but as opportunities to hash out issues. Although actually, I think food is one of the areas for which we are a melting pot. The fact that we have no appreciation of our own history (cf. Farish Noor) doesn't help."
"A small point though, the paths through which Malaysia and Indonesia have attempted to build any sort of 'national identity' have obviously differed: Indonesia decided that an Indonesian identity = Javanese and on the surface this is what defines the national identity. This is also the case in Thailand. Malaysia chose to go the different route of negotiating a sort of plural existence, but if from the outset, your colonisers have determined that the only sorts of political parties that would have legitimacy would be race-based ones (therefore perpetuating their divide-and-rule social policies and ensuring that their interests would be safeguarded) what we did was sacrifice pluralism for a confused 'multiethnic society'."
And another observed that a Malaysian's identity is very much rooted in race and ethnic consciousness, thanks perhaps to the way privileges and power are still distributed along racial lines. "Attempts to understand each other tend to be superficial, and limited to social or festive gatherings. Pluralism isn't a bad thing but I guess we haven't managed it in the best way possible. If anyone has watched Alfian Sa'at's play Parah, it highlights how easily apparently deep multiracial friendships can fall apart in a conflict."
There is hope after all. The "urban chauvinism versus rural debate versus middle class needs" conversation has started, and this is something one hopes will materialise into something bigger: perhaps an understanding of how race and class are created as tools of power and dominance, and how civil society can take their power back.
Personally, I am hoping for the real histories of Malaysians to be revealed more and more, however uncomfortable they may be.
Native Sabahan Erna is (not) Malay but loves Malay literature. Her hobbies: cats/gaming/blogging at ernamerin.com/Tweeting at @ernamh.
MAY 22 — Reform. Reconciliation. Those are the words our government throws out and yet beneath all that still simmers other words. Resentment. Regression. Repression.
Fifty years on, we are still talking about the same things. And yet we must talk about them, if only because we have been talking about them the wrong way.
For too long we have allowed ourselves to listen to the ever vigilant watch-owls hooting "Sensitive! Sensitive!" whenever we try to have a conversation about our differences.
The Malays are afraid of being oppressed.
The Chinese fear being assimilated.
The Indians would like people to remember they exist.
As do the unfortunately named "lain-lain."
Every time we make some little progress, someone brings up ghosts of the past, specifically May 13.
But to many of our young people, May 13 is but a shadow of the past. And yet our political bomohs in the war room keep invoking it like a malevolent spirit.
This is the reality — being Malaysian is to be a part of something complex. We have to start moving to what is our ultimate destiny which is to be able to answer "Malaysian" when people ask what you are.
You can be a Malay-Malaysian. A Chinese-Malaysian. A Serani-Malaysian. As a friend pointed out, Malaysian is a noun, the race an adjective in this particular usage. You mention the race first, the nationality second because the second matters more.
We cannot continue to keep looking backward, bringing up old slights, dredging up old mistakes.
It is not about ignoring the past. Moving forward means to acknowledge it and then keep moving instead of constantly looking back, staring at a fixed point in the past.
This country breaks my heart every day. But I am still here. And I am still walking and waiting for the day when we can all walk together, none falling behind.
There is a future so bright waiting for us if we could all just turn in its direction and continue on the path.
KUALA LUMPUR, 22 Mei — Pihak polis didakwa telah menyiasat pengasas DAP Dr. Chen Man Hin, di bawah Seksyen 112 Kanun Prosedur Jenayah berhubung tuduhan menggunakan istilah "Malaysian Spring" dalam e-mel peribadinya tahun lepas kerana mempunyai hubungan dengan konspirasi untuk menggulingkan kerajaan secara haram dan ganas, kata Lim Kit Siang.
Penasihat DAP itu kecewa dengan tindakan pihak polis itu menegaskan, Ketua Polis Negara Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar seharusnya mengutamakan kepentingan negara dalam membanteras jenayah dan meningkatkan kepercayaan rakyat berhubung pencegahan jenayah, dan bukannya hanya "bermain politik untuk memuaskan nafsu tuan politiknya".
Bagi menyokong kenyataannya itu Kit Siang (gambar) turut mengeluarkan contoh, akibat tindakan polis menyiasat perkara yang "tidak perlu', kediaman kakak kepada Timbalan Perdana Menteri Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin dan adik kepada Ketua Polis Negara sendiri telah dipecah masuk penjenayah.
"Saya baru dimaklumkan yang dua pegawai polis telah menyoal siasat penasihat parti dan pengasas DAP Dr. Chen Man Hin selama satu jam 15 minit di bawah Seksyen 112 Kanun Prosedur Jenayah berhubung tuduhan tidak berasas dan tidak bertanggungjawab bahawa istilah "Malaysian Spring" yang digunakan oleh Dr. Chen di dalam e-mel peribadinya tahun lepas mempunyai hubungan dengan konspirasi untuk menggulingkan kerajaan secara haram dan ganas.
"Ini tidak masuk akal dan betul-betul satu pembaziran sumber, tenaga dan masa pihak polis sedangkan ada lebih banyak perkara penting untuk dilakukan pihak polis, seperti memastikan Malaysia bebas daripada jenayah," tegas ahli Parlimen Gelang Patah itu.
Beliau juga turut berkata, Khalid seharusnya dikecam kerana tindakan berkenaan yang mana beliau seharusnya fokus kepada tugas pertamanya iaitu membuatkan rakyat Malaysia, pelancong dan pelabur selamat daripada jenayah dan kebimbangan menjadi mangsa jenayah.
"Dengan keadaan jenayah yang begitu berleluasa, adalah sangat tidak bertanggungjawab untuk polis membuang masa dan sumber untuk satu pemburuan sia-sia hanya kerana ada ahli politik yang menyeleweng dan tidak bertanggungjawab membuat tuduhan palsu akan tetapi tidak mempunyai prinsip dan keberanian untuk membuat laporan polis," kata Lim.
Lim turut menegaskan adakah pihak polis bersedia untuk mendakwa mereka yang membuat tuduhan tidak berasas dan tidak bertanggungjawab sehingga menyebabkan polis memburu sesuatu yang sia-sia, membazir masa dan sumber awam.
Menteri Dalam Negeri Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi jelasnya mungkin boleh berlagak bahawa siasatan polis terhadap Dr. Chen adalah bukti betapa dia serius bertugas sebagai Menteri Dalam Negeri.
"Dia teramatlah salah, kerana itu hanya membuktikan Malaysia telah mendapat orang yang salah untuk menjadi Menteri Dalam Negeri yang tidak tahu apa keutamaan yang sepatutnya."
KUALA LUMPUR, 22 Mei — Pemimpin DAP Lim Guan Eng mengkritik kesatuan sekerja penjawat awam supaya tidak menjadi pertubuhan perkauman ekoran gesaan memboikot syarikat penerbangan tambang murah AirAsia dan AirAsia X hari ini.
Syarikat penerbangan tersebut diserang hebat oleh akhbar Utusan Malaysia ekoran tulisan di Twitter ketua pegawai eksekutif AirAsia X Azran Osman Rani yang tidak senang dengan garis perkauman yang dimainkan oleh akhbar tersebut selepas pilihan raya 5 Mei.
"CUEPACS salah kerana menyertai Utusan Malaysia memboikot AirAsia Dan AirAsia X.
"CUEPACS tidak sepatutnya menjadi sebuah pertubuhan perkauman tetapi berkhidmat kepada semua penjawat awam di Malaysia tanpa peduli kaum dan agama," kata Lim (gambar) dalam satu kenyataan media hari ini.
Setiausaha agung DAP tersebut juga membidas Presiden CUEPACS Datuk Omar Osman yang mengambil pendirian bersifat politik walhal beliau sepatutnya sedar bahawa penjawat awam di Malaysia terdiri daripada pelbagai kaum.
"Datuk Omar Osman sepatutnya berkelakuan sebagai seorang Presiden CUEPACS untuk semua dan tidak mengambil bahagian dalam tindakan perkauman Utusan Malaysia atau Umno," kata Lim lagi.
"Jelas sekali bahawa Datuk Omar telah terlupa bahawa ada penjawat awam Melayu yang tidak rasis dan ada juga warga bukan Melayu di dalam perkhidmatan awam," tambahnya lagi.
Menurut Lim lagi, langkah dan gesaan seperti dua entiti Utusan Malaysia dan CUEPACS ini merosakkan perpaduan dan imej negara, malah menunjukkan Malaysia tidak jauh beza dengan rejim perkauman seperti di Afrika Selatan.
"Dengan membenarkan boikot produk berasaskan perkauman ini berterusan, Malaysia akan dilihat sebagai tidak jauh beza berbanding rejim perkauman seperti rejim apartheid Afrika Selatan, malah turut membawa kesan negatif kepada ekonomi," katanya lagi.
Akhbar milik Umno Utusan Malaysia hari ini melaporkan CUEPACS dan dua lagi pertubuhan menyertai panggilan untuk memboikot AirAsia dan AirAsia X, selain menyaran menggunakan Malaysia Airlines (MAS) dan anak syarikatnya Firefly semasa cuti sekolah dua minggu akan datang.
Beberapa kumpulan turut dilaporkan memberi alasan sama untuk menyokong kempen boikot AirAsia seperti Kesatuan Pegawai Eksekutif (Kepak) dan Lembaga Pelindung dan Kebajikan Pengguna Malaysia (LPKPM), lapor akhbar tersebut.
Untuk menyokong dakwaan mereka terhadap perkhidmatan pesawat tambang murah itu, Utusan turut melaporkan di muka hadapan tentang seorang lelaki mengadu syarikat penerbangan itu enggan menerbangkan mayat arwah ibunya dari Jogjakarta ke Kuala Lumpur walaupun beliau telah membeli tiket sebelum ini. AirAsia mengatakan mereka tidak mempunyai lesen untuk menerbangkan mayat.
Sebagai respon, akhbar Utusan telah memainkan komen-komen dari pemimpin Perkasa, Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia dan aktivis pro Umno yang menyelar Azran, mengatakan beliau angkuh dan Melayu lupa daratan.
Pemangku Presiden Perkasa Datuk Abdul Rahman Bakar yang menyokong Utusan menyelar Azran, mengatakan beliau tidak akan sampai ke kedudukannya sekarang tanpa "kuasa Melayu yang diperjuangkan oleh Utusan Malaysia".
The Malaysian Insider hujung minggu lalu melaporkan kempen memboikot barangan pengguna daripada peniaga kaum Cina akan membantutkan perancangan transformasi ekonomi kerajaan, Dewan Perniagaan Melayu dan Cina, disamping pakar ekonomi Dr Yeah Kim Leng menekankan ketegangan perkauman akan menakutkan pelabur luar negara.
Malah, langkah tersebut dilihat tidak praktikal memandangkan keluaran dalam negara kasar (KDNK) berkembang pada 4.1 peratus dalam suku tahun pertama, rekod paling rendah dalam tempoh suku kesembilan sebelum ini.
The Malaysian Insider :: Food
KUALA LUMPUR, May 18 — There's nothing like a good risotto or pasta that tells you the Italian bistro you have just been to is worth going again. We liked the Prawn and Scallop Risotto at Uno! in Taman ... Read More 
KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — They learnt to make butter and pasta, clarify a consommé, shape semolina dumplings, and ice a strawberry mille-feuille. All 17 of them.The children — little chefs — were bewitched ... Read More 
KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — This definitely has to be one of my favourite desserts. Panna Cotta, a popular Italian dessert with an Asian twist — green tea!In its simplest form, panna cotta is made by simmering ... Read More 
KUALA LUMPUR, 22 Mei — Pihak polis didakwa telah menyiasat pengasas DAP Dr. Chen Man Hin, di bawah Seksyen 112 Kanun Prosedur Jenayah berhubung tuduhan menggunakan istilah "Malaysian Spring" dalam e-mel peribadinya tahun lepas kerana mempunyai hubungan dengan konspirasi untuk menggulingkan kerajaan secara haram dan ganas, kata Lim Kit Siang. 
KUALA LUMPUR, 22 Mei — Pemimpin DAP Lim Guan Eng mengkritik kesatuan sekerja penjawat awam supaya tidak menjadi pertubuhan perkauman ekoran gesaan memboikot syarikat penerbangan tambang murah AirAsia dan AirAsia X hari ini.