Via Malaysiakini Malay Edition: Umno Cheras division chief Syed Ali Al Habshee questioned what's so difficult for Abdullah to come face-to-face with Dr Mahathir to resolve their problems. In fact, Syed Ali said, Abdullah should be grateful to Mahathir for choosing him as the successor.
Via The Star: Wanita Umno Lubuk Kawah branch in the Kubang Pasu division has unanimously passed a resolution calling for Minister Mohamed Nazri Aziz to be sacked from the party for rude remarks against Dr Mahathir.
Declaring himself as "a loyal citizen of this country", Mustapha Ong also wants to "protect the sovereignty of our civilised nation of more than 25 million people" by invoking the services of our Special Branch to fix an alleged 'kwailan, kwailo' freelance journalist from Australia -- with deportation as a firm option.
As karmic wind blows in circle, will the political climate cool down with the former and present Prime Ministers going on holidays worlds apart from each other?
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will be fishing and golfing as he takes his family members for a two-week vacation in their holiday home in Perth.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad will be holidaying in Turkey and Greece with his family members and close friend, tycoon T. Ananda Krishnan, says Leslie Lopez in Singapore Straits Times (June 30, Page 16).
(Satellite link-up? You must be out of your mind!)
Meanwhile, after the Wednesday Cabinet meeting, many Umno ministers felt they have found the materials to 'checkmate' Mahathir on the "crooked bridge" debacle and FA Minister Syed Hamid Albar was asked to do the delivery. The NST calls it "Shifting Sands".
Incident Report
Date/Time: 26th June 2006 (Monday)
Type of Incident: Abuse – DoS attack
Incidents Description
0905 hrs – 0950 hrs
NOC detected very high incoming traffic on both of the data center uplinks which is causing intermittent connection to the data center in Cyberjaya. The problem has been classified as an incoming Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack situation.
Engineers identified the source of the DoS attack is from a hosting provider in New York and the targeted server to be co-located in the data center.
As the DoS attack originated from a high-speed bandwidth, as at 0951 hrs – 1044 hrs, access-lists (ACLs) implemented on both routers are only able to mitigate the current situation with minimal effect, as the intermittent problem was still there.
Webvision, a Singapore company, is giving me bloody hell
1000 apologies
The national issues we have at hand is hot, and yet my visitor trafic has dropped.
Meanwhile, I received scores of emails and SMS complaining to me that they have difficulty accessing this blog. Personally, I also have difficulty in updateing my blog from the IMbps Streamyx line from office, and 1Mbps Streamyx line at home, and 10Mbps like from overseas. All day long in the past one week.
I offer my sincere apology to you all. Meanwhile, I am taking up a case with TM, which has outsourced its Myloca internet data centre to a Singaporean company, Webvision Sdn Bhd, which hosts my server.
If other companies hosting their clients' servers with Webvision are having similar problems, please email me.
I am in Singapore, and this is what is printed in Straits Times, the newspaper Kalimullah Masheerul Hassan and Brendan Pereira once worked for their keeps, on Page 13, titled: Call to tone down criticism of Mahathir:
There is a strong feeling on the ground that while Umno and the government may peldge loyalty to Datuk Seri Abdullah, they should not humiliate Tun Dr Mahathir, who is regarded as the elder statesman.
A political analyst said an attack on the ex-premier might swing fence-sitters who are still confused and undecided, and those who may not agree with Tun Dr Mahathir's views but feel disillusioned with PM Abdullah's administration.
And on Page 23, Straits Times re-runs Dr P Ramasamy's piece that first appeared in Malaysiakini, retitled: What lies beneath Mahathir's attacks.
"Let it all hang out, warts and all. It's good for Malaysia." Sounds like my new ringtone.
+ + +
Check out what's on and what's gone on World Cup karmic circle. Tomorrow will play a tragedy for top 2 teams: Germany vs. Argentina.
There is a context, from the horse's mouth, to A. Kadir Jasin's 'Right of Reply' he insisted on -- and earned -- during the NSTP AGM yesterday, in response to Kalimullah's personal attack on him in The NST.
Sdr Rocky, thank you for your efforts. Dato' Hishamudin Aun published my letter in today's NST page 28 in full except for removing the word "Insya-Allah". It's Arabic for God Willing. I was told that Christian Arabs used the expression all the time. They too refer to Allah as Allah. But I think we're always a bit confused in this country.
Some said my reply is mild. Maybe. The idea is to get the facts across with the hope that they are published and are not further manipulated. I have already thanked Dato' Hisham via SMS.
But I still think what the minority shareholders said at the AGM was important too. Even NSTP's CEO admitted that rising fuel cost, higher electricity rates, inflation and interest rates are affecting the company's performance.
So if a big commercial consumer like the NSTP is feeling the pinch, can you imagine the poor, individual consumers.
I thought that's where the minority shareholders questioned the accuracy of reports and comments in the NSTP newspapers on the real rakyat issues. Almost all NSTP minority shareholders present were pensioners and elderly people.
Thank you.
And this is AKJ's Letter to Editor published in The NST today, minus Insya-Allah, which was deleted by The NST:
Draw your own conclusions
I REFER to the comments by Datuk Kalimullah Hassan in "Political tiffs and intrigues not new" (NST, June 27). Allow me to respond to the comments made about me:
I have no objection to the writer describing me as being among friends and relatives of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. I will not dare presume that Anwar and Dr Mahathir share that sentiment. I leave it to them. But I am not their relative.
"Kadir and his partners (unidentified) were the largest recipients of a number of projects, including independent power plants (IPP’s)." Yes and no. Yes, Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad and its ultimate holding company, Realmild Sendirian Berhad, were the ultimate beneficiaries of the IPP licences.
I and three other then senior executives of The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad were deemed to be the beneficiaries of these projects by virtue of the management buyout (MBO) of the NSTP and Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Berhad that we undertook in the early 1990s.
Under that arrangement, NSTP and TV3 became subsidiaries of MRCB. The arrangement then, as it is now, is sufficiently explained by the writer when he said: "The NSTP Group (is held) by Media Prima, which in turn is nominally controlled by interests close to Umno."
By way of explanation, the "interests close to Umno" do not own these companies. They merely hold shares in the companies in trust. So let me not go into detail as this could embarrass the real "owners" of the shares.
When I resigned from the NSTP in 2000, I had already explained my position in my New Sunday Times "Other Thots" column. I accepted all blame due to me individually and collectively, including the sales performance of all newspapers in the group. I do not wish to repeat it. The writer is free to make his remarks and conclusions.
Yes, NSTP sold Berita Publishing Sendirian Berhad to me and another former senior executive of the NSTP for RM1. As a severance package involving my position in Realmild, MRCB and NSTP, I was asked to choose between a cash payment and the sale of Berita Publishing. I opted for the latter.
When we took over in 2000, Berita Publishing had accumulated losses amounting to RM3.8 million as at Aug 31. Offset against its share capital, the shareholders’ fund amounted to only RM157,073.
In addition, we offered an option to Berita Publishing staff to either follow us or remain in the NSTP. Out of 105, only 48 followed us. We are today a profitable wholly-owned Bumiputera publisher, employing 100 people.
The comparison to Proton’s one euro sale of MV Agusta may not be appropriate. NSTP is not a government-linked company, we are a wholly-Bumiputera company and the value of the transaction was small.
Yes, Datuk Jalaluddin Bahaudin, the former special assistant to Dr Mahathir when he was Prime Minister, another former newspaper executive and I did submit a privatisation proposal for RTM and Bernama, but it was rejected by Dr Mahathir’s Government.
It’s the writer’s prerogative to draw the conclusion that I remain one of Dr Mahathir’s staunchest supporters and am a harsh critic of the current administration through my blog and the dwindling Malaysian Business.
DATUK A. KADIR JASIN
Kuala Lumpur
* Ed: The writer, Kalimullah Hassan, stands by his comments
In summary, the editorial says investor's confidence is dictated by a market environment that is transparent. The present Mahathir-Abdullah standoff is far less severe than the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and the 1998 Reformaso Movement. hence, the paper says, what Kalimullah wrote in The NST is gross exaggeration.
As I'm not sure if Malaysia's "free media" that Kalimullah spins carries it, but this is a transcript, via Malaysiakini, of Mahathir's Q&A with the local media after a dialogue session in the Malaysian Institute of Management Global Exchange Forum themed "A Leader's Imperative: Managing Global Challenges" yesterday.
Read, and tell me if theSun should just shut up and let him, and every Malaysian who stakes an interest in country, should speak up.
If theSun truly believes in transparency in the system, where each Malaysian is a stakeholder, it shouldn't offers itself to be another Kay Kay. That's bad for Malaysia.
Let's give Mahathir a plug. He has been blacked-out. Here's it is:
On Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz’s comments yesterday.
Mahathir: Nazri is what they call a hatchet man. I don't care at all for his opinion.
I know there is this process of demonising me so that I will be hated by Umno. At that stage, I think they will take action to expel me. At the moment, they cannot. It has to be built up, and they are building this up through the newspapers, showing pictures of me with PAS leaders.
(They said) I was supposed to be on the same platform (with PAS leader); I don't know what they meant about platform. Those PAS people, they came together with all the other NGOs. I wasn't on the same platform with PAS people but if they want to come, I can't say no. I am giving a talk to NGOs, and they came. It wasn't even organised by me. I went there, and they were there; so be it.
On whether he would be leaving Umno
The party doesn't belong to Datuk Nazri. It belongs to all Malays. Nazri has no right to ask this person or that person to leave. I was in Umno before he was born.
On causing disunity within the party.
No, not disunity. Lots of people have come to ask me, ‘cannot something be done about what's happening?’ And nobody wants to take the risk. Because you take the risk, you get punished. And lot of people now feel the pinch.
So, nobody wants to talk. Ministers want to say yes, MBs (mentri besars) want to say yes, to be in the good books. So nobody is talking. So I talk. I have nothing to gain, I have already retired, I have no more ambition. But when people appeal to me, and also because I see wrong things being done, I feel it is my duty (to speak out). It was also the same when I thought the (first prime minister) Tunku (Abdul Rahman) was wrong. Nobody wanted to take the risk, I stuck my neck out. That is a bad habit I have, I stick my neck out.
On whether he was sad due to the lack of support for him.
I am not sad because the number of people who come to see me, the number of people who wrote letters to the press but were not published; there are very many of them. They all gave me a copy of their letter, and they said they had written but not published.
You look at the newspapers, it would seem that nobody agrees with me, everybody is angry with me but lots of people are not angry with me. In fact, they come to see me, and say ‘go on, datuk, go on datuk, we cannot’.
They say all this talk about openness is a big bluff. The only thing open, they feel, is when you condemn anybody who criticises the government. You can see them digging up; now they have not just stopped at me. They have gone on to attack other people who have the same ideas as mine. I am sorry for (ex-New Straits Times editor-in-chief) Kadir Jasin, they dig here and there. If we dig, there is also dirt.
On starting rumours about the government.
The AP thing, is that a rumour? Nobody dares to say anything until I said it. Others, it's the same. The selling of Agusta, losing RM500 million for nothing because you are ‘bodoh’ (stupid) and don't know technology, (and) you say it's useless.
Sack this person, and that. These are not rumours, they are facts. I spoke about facts. Why is the good of me saying this? This won't appear in your papers.
There are a lot of people doing it, they have been told they must demonise us, that nothing I say will appear in the press. But this is (their) openness - you are open to support the government, it's not open to criticise the government.
On breaking his promise not to criticise the government.
They broke the promise first, I kept silent. Promises made while I was in the government, and just before I was about to leave, were broken but I didn't say anything. So, finally when it comes to the bridge, I felt it is our sovereignty, it has been undermined.
People talk about my pet projects - I have no pet projects, all are my pet projects, during my time, they were influenced by me, the whole country is my pet project. So, don't talk about pet projects.
Yes, of course, I built the railway, KLIA, Putrajaya - was there anything that happened during my time that I didn't have a hand in, that I didn't encouraged and ensure that they were successful? All were my pet projects.
To make it sound this is my pet project ... it is sheer nonsense. This is a spin doctor's job. I think these are very good spin doctors.
They are building up towards it, if I am still popular in Umno rank and file, I don't think they will do it. But they have to demonise me, associate me with PAS and opposition, show pictures of me, what was that picture (in the newspaper)? Well, I was smiling so I must have smiled at quite a lot of people but those pictures were not shown.
On when Umno will sack him
I don't know, it's up to the tempo. I think if they can build up Umno’s hatred for me fast enough, then they will do it sooner. I don't plan to do anything. As far as I am concerned, if you do
something wrong, I will criticise.
On whether the spat has become an open war.
No open war. Critising the government is not war. They are trying to make out that this is a war between Dr Mahathir and Umno. You mean to say you can't criticise the PM at all? During my time, the amount of criticism I had to face would fill several volumes.
On his criticism being not good for the country.
It is not good if you don't criticise. Things which are done which are wrong; that would not be good for the country. In any case, people already have doubts. After I left, whether things would move at the same pace, they felt that (they are not), and even Malaysians are going abroad nowadays, there is no business in place.
It's not going to stop me from criticising. I have been expelled from Umno before. Before, it was even more serious. I didn't know it would stop me from becoming PM. But now I don't have any ambition to come back, not even as an MP.
On achieving Vision 2020.
Because things have slowed down. Everybody says things have slowed. Of course, the figures that are trotted out says that everything is fine, but figures can hide a lot of things.
On whether the PM supports the move to expel him.
I don't know. Everybody has the right to expel anybody, they have the authority to do so. But my view is Umno belongs to the people, and at the moment I have every right (to speak out). I have not breached anything in the constitution of Umno.
While A Kadir Jasin may be staking his claims for his "Right of Reply' to Kalimullah's personal attack on him in The NST (June 27, Pages 6 & 7), in the name of transparency, I say let him speak up and tell his side of story. No truth is truer when their versions collide.
Irrespective of whether The NST will publish his written reply verbatim, this is what AKJ wrote in RockyBru at 9:29pm last night:
Sdr Rocky, sudah lama tidak menyertai bahas blog anda. Namun saya setia mengikuti posting saudara dan perbahasan yang berlaku.
Mengenai posting saudara yang terbaru, izinkan saya mengambil sedikit masa dan ruang untuk menjelaskan beberapa perkara.
1. "Debat", kalau istilah itu tepat digunakan, di antara saya dan GEIC NSTP, Datuk Hishamuddin Aun, umumnya berlaku dalam bahasa Malaysia;
2. It wasn't my intention to fry anybody. I was, in fact, honouring Hisham by recognising him as supreme editorial authority of the company. In that capacity, I hold him singularly responsible for what is published and not published by the group's newspapers. If you noticed, I mentioned only two names in connection with today's NST article -- Jen (Bersara)Tan Sri Ghazali Che Mat and Hisham;
3. I asked Hisham to give the undertaking that he would publish my reply, should I decide to send him one. I need that undertaking and requested the Tan Sri to be the witness because Hisham had not published a short letter explaning that I did not make police report against NST for publishing an offending cartoon implicating the Prophet (PBUH) in February;
4. I told Hisham that it was wrong for his papers to react to reports that they did not publish as this would confuse readers. I also asked him to differentiate between straight news reporting (by reporters) and commentaries (by editors) irrespective of where they are published in the newspapers; and
5. I asked Hisham to reinstate the time-honoured "right of reply" policy in his newspapers.
It's alright for anybody to damn me. But let's be fair. It does not matter if my critics and accusers have a larger and more potent means, like a daily newspaper, to malign me. It does not matter if I only have a weblog and a dwindling (the writer's description) fortnightly magazine (Malaysian Business) to respond. But let's play fair.
I am curious why Hisham should decide to publish articles and pictures (with me in them) three days after the event had taken place and, interestingly, on the day that the NSTP was holding its annual general meeting.
Hisham has a long way to go. My journalistic journey has been long and has seen its good and bad days. I am more than willing to give Hisham a chance to be the GEIC that the NSTP and its readers can be proud of.
For information I have sent my response to today's NST article(pg 6 and 7) to Hisham at about 6pm, well ahead of the offstone time. It was a simple explanation letter. I am sure he will publish it.
theSun runs an editorial on Page 10, asking Dr Mahathir to shut up.
It says:
Mahathir's threat to continue his present course of embarrassing the government would in the end only hurt him and all that he had achieved. His image would suffer as more and more people, including those who suported him when he was the PM, come out to challenge and rebuke him like what Datuk Seri Abdul Aziz did yesterday. The Malays and UMNO members will be split again...
I beg to differ. When Mahahtir spoke up repeatedly, he must have calculated his risks, and it's very clear by now, that personal image and legacy have little bearings and meanings to a man who has slogged over 50 years of his life for this country. For the many sins that he has inflicted, there are an equal amount of larger good he had done for the country. You can't erase his deeds with a fluke of the pen, or a stroke on the keyboard, just to suit the flavour of the month.
Let them speak, I say. Mahathir's and Abdullah's hatchetmen can have equal opportunities to tell more on what has gone wrong in the last 22 + 3 years during the previous and present administrations and the gravy trains related to the system. The more they speak up, the more transparent the system will become.
Like what Malaysiakini's Steven Gan told the Iseas audience in Singapore last week: "Let it all hang out, warts and all. It's good for Malaysia."
theSun should remember not to screw up its motto, that majority shareholders Tong Kooi Ong and Tan Sri Vincent Tan both cherish by not meddling with the editorial operations -- TELLING IT AS IT IS.
So, for Malaysia's sake, I ask theSun to just shut up. Let them speak. The rakyat will decide. We are not that stupid anymore.
Yesterday, a spin-doctor told NST readers that "the Malaysian media has never been freer in deciding what to print and what not to print."
But strange things happen in today's Malaysia. There so many Kay Kays around that make media freedom transparent, so transparent that you don't see the stories getting out.
Three casualties so far.
Sunday June 25, Star Online gave you a 'now you see it, now you don't'. See Screenshots here.
Tuesday June 27, NST Online gave you a 'now you see it, now you don't'. See Screenshots here.
Tuesday June 27, national news agency Bernama also gave you a 'now you see it, now you don't'.
The story that Bernama spiked is about Tebrau Umno Division chief Maulizan Bujang, who told Bernama that Minister Nazri's 'jantan-man' challenge to Mahathir was a personal opinion, and that the differences in opinion between Mahathir and Abdullah were a party matter that had to be resolved quickly by Umno.
Umno Tebrau chief also said, "What are unnecessary now are statements that will worsen the situation. While we support the prime minister (Abdullah), let's not forget the deeds of Tun (Dr Mahathir). Such a view (by Nazri) does not bring any good."
The story was spiked, but readers YW Loke and Apa-Apa Pun Boleh were quick to give me this slert:
This is another piece of news pulled shortly after it appeared:
Read it at 7:10 pm 27/06.2006 or thereabout. Shortly before 8:00pm, it disappeared. Perhaps servers at Bernama find it too heavy to carry.
Or God forbid, another sign of the Press 'Freedom' in the new era since the MT Dialogue.
Some screencaptures courtesy ApaTakBoleh:
News portal editors and webmasters are reminded that as you do the janitor's job, robots at the search engines are hard at work. They cache even the slightest cracks among the Umno grassroots!
Welcome to Kay Kay's NewsGone.com -- "the Malaysian media has never been freer"!
As a matter of fact, the article has been available online at this URL since this morning.
However, the URL has been taken down from the news index (National/Local section) on the NST website (ask the online chief Zainul Arifin why) and thus, the URL to the story, which was still live at blog time, becomes oblivious on the Internet.
'Mahathir won't quit Umno, but ready to be sacked'
UPDATES: Dr Mahathir today said he won't leave Umno on his own accord.
"The party doesn’t belong to Nazri. It belongs to all Malays. Nazri has no right to ask this or that person to leave. I was in Umno before he was born," declared Mahathir, according to Malaysiakini, in an apparent rebuttal to his former junior minister who asked him to be a 'jantan'-man and leave Umno.
"I know there is this process of demonizing me" in the ruling United Malays National Organization party, Mahathir told reporters.
"I think they will take action to expel me...they are building up toward it," he said. [...]
Mahathir said "many people" have urged him to keep up the criticism because they are dissatisfied with Abdullah's policies but who dare not object openly.
But even if he is expelled, Mahathir warned, "it is not going to stop me from criticizing."
Minister of Information Zainuddin Maidin also admitted that it is tough to get Mahathir to back off as the former Prime Minister has "made up his mind" and believes in what he is doing in criticising the Abdullah administration.
We'll see if Husam Musa, who earlier said Mahathir was poised for sacking, will be vindicated.
I will say it's going to be a long haul for Abdullah and Mahathir. locked in a political quagmire. Either one will fall ultimately if there's no divine intervention of sort.
UPDATED VERSION. The AGM started slightly after the scheduled time of 10.00am. Minority shareholder A Kadir Jasin, who is the attack target of NSTP Deputy Chairman in Malaysia's No. 3 English paper today, looked sizzling.
There were several angry shareholders, Chairman Gen (Rtd) Mohd Ghazali Haji Che Mat, who was chairing the AGM in his last term, made several attempts to put them to a stop but he was told he couldn't.
As the deputy chairman cum editorial adviser stayed stone-faced and hardly talked, the new Malay Mail became the hot topic for discontentment.
A former Malay Mail editor, who doesn't look like RockyBru, spoke diplomatically about how the company could kill a 116-year old English paper without wasting money, thus creating values for the shareholder.
+ + +
Today, some NSTP minority shareholders -- ESOS beneficiaries, retired journalists and VSS-ed editors -- will attend AGM 2006 with full anticipation.
The NSTP counter 24+6 months after Kalimullah Masheerul Hassan helmed the editorial. Wasn't it RM5.50 in 2000, recovering from the Asian Financial Crisis?
With the declared first and final dividend of 5 sen per share less 28% tax for the financial year ended 31 December 2005, some feel there's nothing much to look forward to except the door-gifts.
Speculation is rife that “爱·开麦·无障碍”, the 9-10am popular call-in radio show over Ai-FM, the former Chinese-language Radio 5, will be axed from July 1.
Little Birds told Screenshots that MCA is unhappy with a recent call-in session that implicated Hon Choon Kim for dereliction in his duty as a deputy education minister.
Hon's name was said to have been implicated by an angry parent during the live call-in over Ai-FM, albeit in an unsavoury manner.
The Little Birds said MCA leaders had made representations to the Minister of Information Zainuddin Maidin (ZAM), and one of the resolutions is to have the popular call-in radio show axed from next month.
DJs on Ai-FM have a blog at Livelogger.com, and the blog entry related to the issue is dated June 21, the date that might have prompted Hon to pounce.
The Hon Blooper
Over the past few weeks, Hon had been criticised by the Chinese community for condoning the Selangor education department to combine classes that have less than 45 pupils, while a new class will only be allowed if has 45 pupils.
The Selangor education department's directed was to become effective from July 1, affecting 25 vernacular schools in the state.
The Education Ministry has cited shortage of Chinese-trained teachers as the the reason, and Hon clarified that the 45 pupils per class is a standing order that has to be followed.
This is despite highlights in the newspapers that similar compulsory reduction of classroom numbers had happened in Pahang recently, and Hon had attributed the problem to shortage of trained teachers, compounded by the retiring teaching.force that exceeds new recruits.
However, parents and educationists articulating in the Chinese Press are saying that the shortage of trained teachers had been a perennial problem for decades that should have been overcome with proper planning of teachers training programmes.
Apparently, Hon hasn't come up with an amicable solution and the recruiting of temporary teachers, a phonomenon that dates back to the 1970's, is said to have slowed down.
In an editorial on June 20, Oriental Daily News said, beginning July 1, a total of 30 schools will have their classes condensed to contain over 40 pupils each. The paper stated that this rule defies Selangor Education Department requirement of not having more than 35 pupils per class, while the national average classroom size published in 2005 was 31.
Meanwhile, the National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) have also refuted Hon's 45-pupil requirement, and reiterated that the ideal classroom size for proper teaching-learning process should be limited to 30 per class.
Now, instead of pooling resources to solve the classroom problem in the Chinese vernacular schools, political manoeuvres are being spent on gagging the Chinese-language radio station that has helped the government reach out to a wider Chinese audience with its momentum in popularity.
Is Hon avenging his national blooper to kill the messengers on-air?
I am also interested to know if this is MCA's grand strategy to gag the Chinese radio station after having cartel-controlled the print media (The Star and the Nanyang Press Group) and gained access into the airwaves through the acquition of two former Redifussion radio channels.
Already, the Wah FM Chinese-language channel, which was an offshoot of NTV7, had been killed off when the parent company was bought over by Umno-owned media cartel, Media Prima, last year. There is so far no date of revival of the Chinese-language radio channel despite previous promises of doing so.
I have appeared in the live call-in over Ai-FM to talk about blogs. I have a penchant for this station. And I do not know what's on ZAM's mind to axe this popular show.
Ai-FM is a government-run radio station reaching to the Chinese-Malaysians. Does ZAM want the citizens to stop interacting with the ruling government?
But this is a mad act that serves nobody's purpose. Abdullah's pledge has been to get the people to tell him the 'real thing', not just feel-good stories!
Malaysiakini Chinese edition quoted media sources as confirming that all editors-in-chief of mainstream have been summoned to attend a briefing by the Internal Security Ministry, scheduled for today. However, the agenda is not known at press time.
The Ministry, headed by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, issues the printing and publishers' license for the print media through power vested under the Printing Presses and Publications Act.
Malaysiakini Chinese Edition today also confirmed that major mainstream newspapers -- including The NST, The Star, theSun, Nanyang Siang Pau, Oriental Daily News and national news agency Bernama -- did despatch their journalists to cover the Saturday event in which Mahathir launched his latest scathing attacks on the Abdullah administration.
Gag order
None of these newspapers, except theSun, carried the stories filed by their assigned reporters. Star Online, which had originally carried the story on the web, timelined June 25, hurriedly took it down on Sunday.
Malaysiakini said the gag order was passed down on Saturday before Mahathir could finish his speech and Q&A.
Related to this, A. Kadir Jasin revealed in his blog that the gag order came from an officer at the PM's Office who carries the initials KK. Many has taken KK to be the PM's Media Special Officer, Kamal Khalid, 36, who is also a non-executive director in Utusan Group.
Earlier this month, Mahathir had repeatedly complained that his news has been blacked out by the mainstream media.
With the turn of events, international media freedom watchgroups have placed Malaysia under close monitoring.
Or so the circus starts, with Minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz clowning in, using the lobby at the Parliament as his grandstand.
He declared it is now an open war with Mahathir. Via Malaysiakini:
“If he continue to remain in the party, he would be like the opposition. It’s better for him to be a ‘jantan’ (man) and leave the party,” said Nazri in a heated 45-minute press conference.
Nazri also defended Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s influential and ambitious son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin (left), who is Umno Youth deputy chief.
“An 81-year-old man wants to quarrel with a 31-year-old young man. Better to pick someone his own size.”
Meanwhile, when contacted by Malaysiakini Malay Edition, the PM's son-in-law adhered to his father-in-law's 'elegant silence' and declined comments on his being implicated in Mahathir's tirades.
'Intra Malay/Umno Conflict'
On Saturday, Dr Mahathir reminded us to revisit Hang Tuah's concept of 'Ketuanan' -- "Di mana titah, patik patuh." (Read Chandra Muzaffar's 1979 Ph.D thesis on this Malay psyche.)
And Hang Tuah went on to kill his friends, Jebat et.al., apocalypse-like with money-back guarantee and no question asked.
Meanwhile, political scientist Dr P. Ramasamy, who was 'forced to retire' from UKM in 2005, holds the views that the Mahathir-Abdullah conflict goes much more deeper than the four issues that the former Prime Minister has raised for the attention of the government.
Essentially, Ramasamy said in a Malaysiakini Op-Ed piece, the conflict represents an intra-Malay/Umno conflict over the access to resources, business opportunities and power.
To better understand the intrigues of the conflicts between the benefactors and beneficiaries of the system, Ramasamy suggested a words, a political economy approach to dissect the malaise that shows the subtle linkages between politics and economics in the country.
Only such a methodology will be able to provide better and more realistic assessment of the basis of the present nature of conflict and how race, religion and nationalism have been invoked to hide the clamour for wealth and power between two power bases in Malay society.
Umno politics in general have become much more materialistic in the last few decades or so. Gone are the days when difference of ideology took a centre stage in the domain of Malay or Malaysian politics.
The struggle in Umno all in the name of religion, God and race is invariably related to acquisition of material wealth and the need to maintain this wealth by seeking access to politics or political patronage.
While money politics was outwardly shunned as the evil that would destroy Malay unity, it has proved impossible to dismantle the operation of money politics. In fact, one could argue that without money politics, Umno would have fragmented a long time ago.
Is there any wonder that Nazri wanted to cast the first stone and be damned?
Get a Malaysiakini subscription to read the details. You should know WHO gets WHAT for the Umnoputras under the Mahathir and Abdullah administrations, respectively.
However, theSun editors have snipped the part where Dr Mahathir attacked, re-positioned and deconstructed Abdullah's core religious posturing, which can be viewed in the video-clip on Malaysia-Today, from the 41:28th to 46:14th minutes. The transcript is also available on AgendaDaily.com.
'Good for Malaysia'
To give a perspective to the rift between Abdullah and Mahathir Mohamad runs deeper, Malaysiakini editor Steven Gan told the audience at the Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore that, at the bottom of the feud are their clashing world views. Mahathir's mantras are economic and political nationalism, which get little weightage in Abdullah's policies, Steven said, explaining the root cause of friction between the two leaders.
Steven described Abdullah as a fiscal conservative who implements IMF-like policies.
The spat has opened a can of worms, added Mr Gan, who has been observing Malaysian politics for 20 years.
"Nobody expects this to be a short fight," said Steven. "Both sides have much to lose - Tun Dr Mahathir is in the danger of losing his legacy. And Datuk Seri Abdullah, in attacking the decisions made in the past 22 years, is vulnerable because he and his ministers were part of the previous government."
"But in the end, the row might be a good thing, Mr Gan pointed out, because Malaysians would see more transparency," Steven said.
'Cakap serupa bikin'
So, if KK strikes again, your last chance of media transparency may be The Moon -- and that's pathetic for Malaysia!
Or you want to tell KK to f**k-off? Call him at his direct line at 03- 8888 3417, or his secretary at 03-8888 8017 or email him at kamal@pmo.gov.my not to renege on his boss' pledge to the People, prodded by his spin-doctors' sloganeering.
It's for the benefit of Malaysia and Malaysians that those who had vilified Mahathir for deciminating press freedom must invoke the same yardstick on the Abdullah administration. Abdullah's pledge for transparency will lose its currency if media freedom is mean to whack Mahathir and his past mistakes.
Like Steven said, "Let it all hang out, warts and all. It's good for Malaysia."
We are just wondering if Malaysia under the Abdullah Administration is any more transparent, and if media freedom is any more effervescent compared to the Mahathir era.
It is noted that all newspapers that I browsed, except the Tamil version which I can't read, have blacked out the news on Mahathir's Saturday dialogue with the NGOs, during which the former Prime Minister launched his latest criticism of the present administration over numerous issues of governance.
When TV3 aired the footages, it was seemed done with the sole aim of distorting facts, as Singapore Straits Times' Carolyn Hong reported:
That night, the private TV3 station aired footage of Tun Dr Mahathir mingling with them, hinting naughtily at an unholy tango between the former premier and the opposition who once labelled him a pharaoh for his mega projects.
This, however, was almost the only coverage of Tun Dr Mahathir's latest diatribe in the local media yesterday.
A Screenshots reader noticed Star Online carrying the story briefly (see image below) but it seemed to have been erased.
According to A Kadir Jasin, there has been a blackhand who ordered the blackout in the mainstream media. However, AKJ only said the blackout order came from an official from the No. 1 Office in Putrajaya, who carries the initials of KK.
Dr Mahathir doesn't only want answers. He wants to right the wrongs.
So, he soldiers and battles on to out the 'Third Party' that "controls the Abdullah administration".
Target: "Orang yang belajar di Universiti Oxford... merchant banker? budak belum kering hingus..."
Islam Hadhari vs 'Islam Yang Satu'
A lot of Mahathir's talking points are expected to be blacked out by the mainstream media as he hit out at the core of Abdullah's religious posturing.
Mahathir didn't mince his words especially when he articulated his sceptical views of Islam Hadhari, during the Q&A session, awkwardly in the presence of PAS national leaders, who had openly renounced Abdullah's concept of 'Civilisational Islam'.
He argued that one can't interpret Islam and connote it as having an older and newer versions just because time has lapsed. He said, for him, there is only one Islam pillared on the Al-Quran and the Hadis. Quote:
"Jadi kita balik kepada Islam yang satu... tak payah le Hadhari ke tak Hadhari... Islam sesuai sepanjang zaman. Jangan ingat zaman Nabi saja... zaman sakarang sesuai. Kalau kita ikut tafsiran Al-Quran yang betul... ia sesuai untuk zaman seberapa moden sekalipun."
For himself, he said he will hold on to the original Islam since the time of Prophet Muhammad SAW, and will remain true to being an Islamic fundamentalist who reveres the Al-Quran, the Hadis and the Prophet. He emphasised that an Islamic fundamentalist must not be confused as a terrorist as often stereotyped by western thoughts.
Dr Mahathir's rejection of Abdullah's Islam Hadhari can be viewed in the video-clip on Malaysia-Today, from the 41:28th to 46:14th minutes. The transcript is also available on AgendaDaily.com.
Keep watching the live telecasts. The 'knock-out' round is now tersely playing.
Tonight, Fifa World Cup Soccer 2006 will move into the 'sudden death' phase where the Top 16 will knock out each other in 'do-or-die' matches. If the regular 90 minutes can't result in a winning team, a 30-minute extra time willbe added, failing which again a penalty shoot-out will be the decider. It's a time blood pressure heightens for the team managers as well as peanut and bigtime punters alike.
As the matches play out in stadia scattered around Germany, which is on a time zone of 6-hour difference from ours, Malaysia never had it so good with all 64 matches, from the 32-team preliminaries to the July 9 final, beamed live to our private bedrooms and our version of al-frescos at the mamak stalls.
Meanwhile, Singapore, which depends on live feeds from an RTM-relay, is crying foul of scrambled signals that it has no control over.
Just watch the YouTube to know what it means that bother our usually more progressive neighbours by global benchmarks.
Live telecasts have come a long way in Malaysia. Today, you don't have to do the Adib Adam-Citizen Nades' way of the 1980's, where you had to get Ahmad Sebi to collaborate via Malay Mail to campaign for the live telecasts by means of Tajaan oleh Rakyat Malaysia. Leave it to our satellite broadcaster, it now has the power to milk the fat cows among advertisers -- Maxis, Hotlink, Petronas, Power Root et. al. to nurse your soccer fever.
So, who are we to thank for if not Astro? When Rocky Bru romanicised his gratitude to one of the four T. Anandakrishnan (AK) enterprises, ASTRO, he was mobbed and mocked. Mocked, partly because he had invoked the name of a man most demonised:
When Dr Mahathir told Malaysians of his plans to launch a satellite in space (in 1991, I think, during a press conference in Langkawi), many of us thought it was such a lofty thing to be doing. I had my reservations, too.
But, hey, it's not too late to say thank you to him now.
Such is the force of the karmic circle. You sow the seeds but it's not neccessary that you should reap the fruits.
Astro, which broadcasts all 64 matches live, is an outcome of a long-range vision entrusted in the hands of people capable of delivery to do the execution. And no doubt, the entrusted ones belong to the privileged few and they stand the risk of being dobby-marked "CRONY' on the forehead.
Mahathir's cronies, if one is to be specific with the spin-doctors' demonising rounds.
Some flashback is appropriate to narrate this karmic circle vividly.
Apart from advertisers' money, Astro relies on transponders mounted on Measat satellites to make the 64 matches beamed live to your bedrooms possible. And Malaysia has the distinction of putting the two birds into orbit, within a year in 1996.
That's the hallmark of Malaysia entering the multimedia phase as 1996 was the year the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) was launched. AK, the eminently privileged among the rare few to launch Measat satellites and ASTRO's 15-year monopoly to operate Malaysia's sole direct-to-home (DTH) payTV, has touted his act as a ground-breaker to "earn future's money'.
If you remember well, in 1996, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was still swimming along the political tide in Wisma Putra.
And of course, at that early time, little did AK imply that Measat (then called Binariang Satellite Systems), would make money that will be resoundingly earned by such post-2004 outfit like ECM-Libra. More about this later.
'Karmic circle'
Not many people realised the significance of the chosen dates for the Measats 1 and 2 lauunches -- on January 13 and November 13, 1996, respectively -- but AK as the dominant owner of Measat must have pulled a joke on Mahathir. Numberical 13 is said to be Abdullah's favourite number. One of his vintage cars bears it on the numberplate, AAB13. The karmic circle had been in motion by then.
But Mahathir did have his moments of glory, didn't he? The two birds were acclaimed, and The Star and The NST were not the last to echo it, as the crowning moment of the Malaysia Boleh! spirit.
Dr M was seen taking keen interest in the country’s national agenda of embracing and utilizing new opportunities of communications. The signing ceremony was held in Paris and this was the formalization and appointment of Arianespace as the preferred commercial launcher for Measat 2.Picture courtesy Asia PR, the public relations agency of record for Arianespace, the commercial launch service provider that propelled Measat 1 and 2
Mahathir was in Kourou, French Guiana, to witness the launch of Measat 2 on November 13, 1996, which was tagged Mission V92 by Aianespace. The picture shows him being briefed on what takes place before the actual lift-off of the launcher carrying the satellites.Picture courtesy Asia PR
Dr Mahathir and wife Dr Siti Hasmah (2nd & 3rd from right) visiting Arianespace's launch base in Kourou, French Guiana, during the countdown to the launch of Measat -2. The man on the far left is Mr. You-Know-Who.Picture courtesy Asia PR
With the two birds, AK's enterprises soared beyond the Tanjung Plc, which milks retail punters through the Big Sweep gaming business. After the on-time handover of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) project, AK's enterprises in telecommunications (main brand Maxis, sub-brand Hotlink, 5051, 5051-CA, 5051-OA), broadcast (ASTRO, 5076 and 5076-CA) and satellite communications (Measat, 3875) were nurtured to be listed on the mainboard of Bursa Malaysia.
I leave it to you to tabulate the total capitalisation of these three AK enterprises. As a quick reference, Astro raised RM2.03 billion in October 2003; Maxis Communications Bhd raised RM3.05 billion in July 2002; and Measat raised RM340 million from the sale of AK's 20% stake in Measat Global Bhd.
Meanwhile, ECM-Libra emerged as a conduit to tap this karmic circle after the Reverse Takover (RTO) exercise on South Peninsular Industries Bhd (SPI), which was completed in swift five months after Abdullah was elevated to be the Prime Minister who also holds the Minister of Finance portfolio.
'Knock-out Round'
Call that coincidence, but the timing was incredibly critical. ECM-Libra, then ECM Capital Sdn Bhd, was the advisor on the share placements for Measat, ASTRO and Maxis, in stages.
According to a Bernama story on March 17, 2004, ECM Libra was founded in 1994 as Libra Capital, which formed a chain of financial hot houses in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong linked to Lim Kian Onn.
ECM-Libra was ranked No 1 in terms of equity capital market transactions in 2003, the year of Abdullah's ascension as the Prime Minister, when it handled 28% of the volume of shares transacted which were valued at US$531 million (about RM2.017 billion), Bernama reported.
That was the result of ECM-Libra being given the tasks of co-leading the Astro initial public offer, and solely managing placements by Maxis, MEASAT and YTL Power, a profit-making Independent Power Producer (IPP) in the country.
Recently, ECM-Libra swept into media lightlight when the Prime Minister's son-in-law, a corporate novice with no prominent business track-records, bought into the company after taken up shares worth in excess of RM9 million.
Public attention on ECM-Libra was further attenuated when it proposed a merger with, and takeover of, a Government-linked Company (GLC) Avenue-Capital, which has a larger capitalisation. However, the proposed merger exercise, now nearing completion, will ultimately see the principal shareholders in ECM-Libra taking management control.
The sideshow to this is a law suit filed recently over a June 14 Leslie Lau story in the Singapore Straits Times, which chronicled a public challenge hurled at Kalimullah to declare his assets amassed, including those in ECM-Libra, after Abdullah came into office.
This is the karmic circle of how a company variously enriched through the financial advisory assignments awarded by AK's enterprises, has volunteered its head honcho's arsenals to 're-position' -- in a crass, unsavoury taste -- the very same visionary man who had made AK's 'empire in the air' a reality. No sacred cows, but many call this something very alien in the history of Budaya Melayu.
Will the karmic circle cease to spin from here?
Keep watching the live telecasts. The knock-out round is now tersely playing.
"SOMEBODY TRIES TO SABOTAGE ME AGAIN!" The room burst into laughter when Dr Mahathir quipped as the lights suddenly went off, for brief seconds, in the midst of a press conference at the Perdana Leadership Foundation on June 21.
That sent many people relating to the whispering campaign that was said to have irked the former Prime Minister to the hilt.
The whispering campaign is none other than the vicious mouths that accuse Mahathir of emptying the national coffers for his mega projects and failed cronies. And that his successor Abdullah had inherited nothing but a country that's almost bankrupt.
The Foundation is tucked in an undeveloped parcel of Putrajaya in Precinct 8, with the signature Seri Saujana bridge as the backdrop, which is slightly beyond where the uncompleted mini 'Golden Gate Bridge' is located. There's no boulevard leading to the place, and you have to access an obscure underpass. You will surely lose your way if don't know the terrain well.
The June 21 by-invitation-only function started with a list of about 100 guests, but the numbers ballooned into over 300, Mahathir said. I saw members of the diplomatic corp, representatives from the NGOs, young university students, and business tycoons who appeared to have fallen out of favour with the present Administration. And dignitaries from overseas.
They came in self-driven cars and chauffered limousines. And this is how the public carpark looks like. It holds water.
All pictures by Steven Sum, LensaPress - copyright protected
It holds water -- I take it to mean the whispering campaign and the campaigners' despise for the Mahathir legacy. And I also take it to mean Mahathir's anger and scathing barbs over the performance of his successor. And I am also referring to the juxtaposed contrasts the two portray in various means, not least the water-clogged carpark that the Public Works Department doesn't seem to care.
It all holds water.
And the NGOs and diplomatic corp who had their tyres dirtied in the muddy carpark may report as such. It's something that's too insignificant to grudge about, but it's something equally stubborn to shirk from an eye-witness' account.
Peace becomes illusive when stopping war becomes a soliloquy; and it's elusive when those willing to make peace are ridiculed and vilified -- despite the falling nuclear rain outside.
LensaPress picture, copyright protected
Such was the feeling enveloping LensaPress photographer Steven Sum when he took the picture at the Perdana Peace Forum yesterday.
We know our man comes this way but once in his life-time, and his time is running out.
LensaPress picture by Steven Sum, copyright protected
Only those who understand it, however small the tribe may be, will cherish.
Little Birds told Screenshots that MCA is unhappy with a recent call-in session that implicated Hon Choon Kim for dereliction in his duty as a deputy education minister. 
