Screenshots

Surprisingly the Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. today apologised to Kalimullah Hassan

Good....then mahathir may have some questions for Lee Kuan Yew.....

Singapore will back the incumbent - mark my word. It may be even involved right up to its neck ... in sand

TRANSCRIPT of Leslie Lopez SPORE FORUM Talk:

is available from:
http://powerpresent.blogspot.com/2006/07/transcript-of-leslie-lopez-spore-forum.html

JEFF OOI says: On behalf of all Screenshots readers, we thank you for your labour.

mwt

thanks for the links.

Folk

Looks like the economic cake is getting too small for the UMNO cronies.

Never has so much greed being pursued by so few.

Folks

Malaysians, Singaporeans and foreign investors are more interested, with their respective self-interest, in the endgame.

The end game at this stage of the drama is like the middle of the Da Vinci Code movie. Too many twists and turns and the players are not what they appear to be.

Anwar, T. Razaleigh and Musa are just spoilers. They would like to see TDM humiliated as they were humiliated by him in take sides against TDM is a no-brainer, since TDM had served off his time and will no more be the PM. They know that whatever they say about TDM is useless as a PM, history will judge him accordingly and they admired his tenacity as PM and an UMNO politician. T. Razaleigh and Musa will stay on the side lines and behave lie elder statesmen while harbouring hurt feelings. They will come out and try to be saviours of UMNO after they witness the political corpse of either TDM or Pak Lah or both. Anwar has still recent memory but Anwar's interest is in his international standing, less with how UMNO apparatchiks view him. He had given up on them. Anwar will try to redeem himself as a voice of conscience of the public,at the expense of UMNO.

At the same time all three don't like Pak Lah's crowd and cronies, especially the son in law. They don't particulary respect Pak Lah as a politician, as someone with no particular backbone in UMNO politics.

Their attitude is best describe as one in which "you have to break the egg to make a scramble egg". They would like to see UMNO revamped, the present crowd supporting Pak Lah, excluding the son in law's own cronies, were former TDM cronies. As far as these three are concerned, both the son in law and his cronies and the present UMNO leadership crop need to be removed from the UMNO shelves.

There is a group in UMNO rank and file who saw themselves outside the TDM's cronies in the past and who are presently marginalised by Pak Lah and his son in law. These are the ones who are now active in the whole drama. They stand to gain if TDM gets his way, ie removing the current bunch in the UMNO leadership, who betrayed him in this drama, not just Pak Lah and his son in law's cronies.

The sand in UMNO is shifting very fast. Many still do not know where to put their allegiance. Najib is playing both sides, hoping to be PM, which tradition says he cannot be, History has shown that past DPM had been bypassed too.

Those who want to mediate to call a truce is doing it for self interest. They prefer the status quo and therefore will lose more if TDM gains the upper hand. Even if Pak Lah wins out, they will still lose as their corrupt and hanky-panky will fly out to the open.

UMNO leadership now wants to shut down the drama calling for truce by mediation so that THINGS ARE AS USUAL.

Will TDM agree to the truce. I doubt it. if based on past TDM's record on his performance in crisis like this. As a doctor, you either let the patient die or you cure him. Here he thins the patient cannot be cured because the disease in UMNO has become terminal and Pak Lah has to take the rap, rightly or wrongly.

Amazing! N. Korea, Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor, Interest Rates etc and I'm kinda amused with the excitement we Malaysians have over this He Said He Said thingy. As long as the Gov. has $$ to spend, no matter who's in-charge, there will be issues of such? Jeff has set up an amazing forum where much can be discussed but it always falls back to gossip, speculations, rumours .. Its OK I guess. I hop into this site approx once a week to get a feel of the pulse and chatter of my fellow M'sians and its always these personal squabbles that gets much fanfare. Maybe the following be of interest?
- Jeff attended the 'peace forum' recently, whats his thoughts and any interesting and practical solutions put forth? or as we thought as much just Israel and US bashing?
- Why is M'sian economy so government regulated? are we a capitalistic or socialist society ? if government do less and have less of ppls money to spend, do we need to debate whether Dr M or Badawi's cronies are in the driving seat? Is our tax rate competitive to say HK, S'pore etc and should it be revised down to spur private growth? Progressive Tax system vs. Flat Rate vs Consumption Tax?
-As a member of ASEAN whats our stand in the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and whats our Gov. actively doingto secure regional security etc?
Well, maybe its just me.

remy

N. Korea, Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor ???

We don't have time for them... we have our own pressing problems and they are serious, if you are not aware or is not living in Malaysia.

Charity starts at home, not in people's backyard.

Folks

Just to confirm what I said about Anwar,who just gave an interview in KL. His views are for international investors and readers and meant to smack at at those parochial minded UMNO apparatchiks and the keris-wielding UMNO Youth Leader.

Read below the latest article on bloomberg.com.

Let's see what the spin doctors will say about this in the light of the current TDM-Pak drama, where UMNO crony politics are at the heart of what Anwar is talking about.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aDS_fCme.PVc&refer=asia

Malaysia's `Obsolete' Race Quotas are Paring Growth, Anwar Says.

July 4 (Bloomberg) -- Malaysia should stop giving preferential treatment to its ethnic Malay majority, former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said, arguing the affirmative action policy deters foreign and local investors.

Ethnic Malays, or Bumiputras, which literally means ``sons of the soil,'' get easier access to housing, education and government jobs under the 35-year-old New Economic Policy, aimed at protecting their interests relative to the Chinese and Indian minorities.

``We must be prepared to shift from this obsolete thinking,'' Anwar, 58, an opposition leader who was fired as deputy prime minister in 1998, said in a June 29 interview in Kuala Lumpur. ``It is important for us to think anew, discard the discriminatory practices of this new economic policy and use this to propel growth for all Malaysians.''

Affirmative action has lifted wealth among Bumiputras, who account for 65 percent of the population, and diffused tensions between them and the 25 percent of Malaysians who are ethnic Chinese and comprise the wealthiest segment of the population. Still, critics say the system discriminates against minorities and even hampers progress by creating a sense of entitlement that stifles initiative among ethnic Malays.

``If somebody has to park foreign direct investment, this sort of policy would clearly be viewed as a negative rather than a positive factor in helping to make that decision,'' said Joseph Tan, an economist at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore. ``What they are hoping to see, moving forward, is a liberalization of such policies.''

Education, Housing

The quotas run the gamut of Malaysian society, from governing university entrance to business ownership, and include a requirement that developers sell at least 30 percent of new units in their projects to ethnic Malays at a discount to the market price. Companies planning initial public offerings must sell 30 percent of stock to the grouping.

The program has helped diffuse tension between ethnic Chinese and ethnic Malays, who clashed in pitched street battles during the 1960s. In neighboring Indonesia, anti-Chinese riots occurred as recently as the 1990s.

``This bitter episode in the nation's history was the result of discontentment between `the haves' and `have nots' as well as the strained relations between different ethnic groups caused by inequitable distribution of the country's economic cake,'' Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in March, when he extended the quotas to 2020.

`Source of Disunity'

Still, critics say the quotas have allowed corruption to fester in the nation of 26 million people. The affirmative action policy has been ``raped'' and ``absconded to enrich the few,'' Anwar said.

``It's become a source of disunity in the country,'' Lim Kit Siang, the leader of Malaysia's Democratic Action Party, said in a June 28 interview. ``We should be moving away from such divisions, but it seems to be moving the other way,'' said Lim, whose party is predominantly supported by Malaysians who are ethnically Chinese.

As of 2004, the Chinese community owned 39 percent of businesses in Malaysia, the government said in a March report, with ethnic Malays owning 18.9 percent. Ethnic Chinese owned 69 percent of the country's hotels at the end of last year, while ethnic Malays owned 14.3 percent.

Abdullah, whose United Malays Nasional Organization, or UMNO, gets most of its support from ethnic Malays, in March pledged to raise the share of companies owned by ethnic Malays to 30 percent by 2020. When privatizing companies, 30 percent of shares will continue to be reserved for Bumiputras, he said.

The move will ``generate balanced development especially in under-developed areas and create more opportunities for direct participation in the country's economic development,'' Abdullah said in March.

`Lost the Impetus'

Abdullah has been embroiled this year in a spat with former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled Malaysia for more than two decades, and the decision to extend the program may have been because his government isn't strong enough to scale back populist policies, Anwar said.

``We have lost the impetus,'' Anwar said. ``We seem to be bogged by the old obsolete thinking in the economic policy.''

Anwar, an ethnic Malay, was fired by Mahathir in 1998 and imprisoned for almost six years on corruption and sodomy charges, which he said were politically motivated. The Federal Court, the highest court of appeal, quashed the sodomy conviction in September 2004, though upheld the corruption charge.

Growth Impact

Scrapping the quotas would attract foreign investment and fuel annual economic growth of 7 percent to 7.5 percent, Anwar said, higher than the central bank's 6 percent target for this year.

In ``my limited experience and my discussions with the Malays, they're prepared to see this change as long as you're not going to forsake the Malays,'' Anwar said. ``You're not going to ignore the plight of the poor or marginalize the rural heartland.''

Mahathir in 2002, at the UMNO political party conference, criticized the Malays for being ``still weak'' and ``lazy.'' If the government didn't have to support them, ``the development of the nation would be easier, higher and faster,'' he said then.

Marina Mahathir, a rights activist and daughter of former prime minister Mahathir, also says the policy should be modified.

``The original intentions were good; it was about equality, bringing up people so that there was a level playing field, but I think maybe nobody foresaw some of the psychological side effects,'' she said, citing the ``sense of entitlement.''

``Making a level playing field should be really about economic levels rather than based on race,'' she said.

Still, Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist and now professor of economics and finance at Columbia University in New York, has said Malaysia's affirmative action program is among the most successful in the world.

``Because it's successful, they're now in a position to say, `we've redressed some of the imbalances, and now what we need to focus on is trying to make our country as open, or more open, than we were in the past,'' Stiglitz said in October 2003.

I'm alive and kicking in Petaling Jaya awaiting the WC semis, go Italy! To believe that regional issues are not our concern and do not have anything to do with our economic and political well being is interesting.Asian financial crisis? Security threats if any? I also raised issues like taxes. Are we being taxed fairly and competitively in the region? Revenues spend wisely ? no matter which country you are, the famous saying 'Tax and Spend'? Was the setting up of Petronas, Proton and other GLC of right economic principles? regardless of whether or not its managed properly? These are issues that needs to be debated.Once the ppl accepts the economic system thats in place with government appointments to lead the country's wealth, the probs and squabbles with personalities will persist bcos $$$ is there for the taking.

TRANSCRIPT of Reme Ahmad S'PORE GLOBAL FORUM Talk : Dr MAHATHIR vs Datuk Seri ABDULLAH and other KEY PLAYERS - NAJIB & ANNUAR IBRAHIM is now available at
http://powerpresent.blogspot.com/2006/07/transcript-of-reme-ahmad-spore-global.html

remi and BTW, frank&honest too:

the host here decides the TOPIC and conversationists like you and me can only offer suggestions directly to Jee other topics of interest to cover.

So I'm wit F&H in our nation's priorities coming firts-lah! WE can't do charity for Malaysia, why indeed think about timbuktree?
Hey, Bloggers are all doing this as a hobby, remi, NO? So you can ask why this and THat are not given coverage -- it ain't going to end lah, like Dr M's 4Qs and P Guna's 22 Qs, others will surely follow, if not by protagonists by their proxies lah!

Of Asean members, Singapore has many historical links, and being closet neighbour physically, of course Sin-Mal issues will draw more attn from us, logically.