T P P


1. Not many people know what these letters stand for. I too did not know until some Japanese MPs gave me a badge with “No to TPP” for me to wear.

2. They told me that TPP means Trans Pacific Partnership. It is conceived and promoted by the United States of America. Apparently Malaysia had agreed to join this new organization.

3. The MP asked me why did Malaysia join? I must admit I could not answer.

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MY FEARS

1) Lim Kit Siang is reported to have said that I am working hard to ensure the Opposition will not win because I am afraid when the Opposition Government is in place, it will act against all my “misdeeds” when I was Prime Minister.

2) No doubt he is inspired by what happened to Gadaffi and Mubarak. He would love to see me dragged to the courts and sentenced to death or to at least a life sentence. Maybe like Gadaffi I would be murdered.

3) He is right. I am afraid. I am afraid of the kind of abuse of power that has already been shown by one of Pakatan’s great leader who got a senior police officer to frighten Dr Ristina and Ummi Hafilda into withdrawing Ummi’s letter to me.

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THE TRIAL OF A PRESIDENT

 1.      I watched on Al Jazeera the trial of President Charles Taylor of Liberia.  He was accused of war crimes.  He was found guilty and sentenced to 50 years jail.

2.    He is 64 years old and 50 years really means a life sentence for him. The prosecution was disappointed as they had asked for 80 years. I suppose the prosecution expects him to be discharged at the end of 80 years when he would be 144 years old!  He must live to that age so he can suffer fully for his crimes.

3.    There is no doubt that Taylor was guilty as charged.  The prosecution told about how he was responsible for the killings in a
neighbouring country.  On one occasion he did not stop a soldier from forcing a woman to carry a sack-full of decapitated heads. That was truly inhuman, more inhuman than the killings and the hideous injuries inflicted by another President on hundreds of thousands of Afghans, Iraqis and others, more inhuman than the tortures of prisoners in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

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EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW

1. One of the nonsense that we believe in is equality before the law. Of course this is one of the great fictions that democracy is said to uphold. But then democracy itself is often not even democratic. The people, the ordinary citizens never really govern themselves. But that is another story.

2. Now, about equality before the law that democracy is said to uphold. It is not upheld at all. Some people are actually above the law and some are far below it, i.e. they don’t really get the benefit or the protection of the law.

3. I will deal with those who do not benefit first. The democratic legal system gives the power to the courts to decide on disputes between individuals or organisations. The courts are presided over by legally qualified but very human judges. The contestants have to convince the presiding judge of their innocence.

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PENANG MALAYS

1. I was in Penang recently, having been invited to give a talk by the Penang Mubarak (Council of Former Elected Representatives). On the way to Tanjung Bungah I was surprised to see the same wooden zinc-roofed shacks, which were there 60 years ago. The difference is that they are stuck between the slender beautiful high-rise flats favoured by Penang. Their ramshackle appearance seems out of place amidst the modern dwellings of the Penangites.

2. Why are the Penang Malays still living in these hovels? Yes, Kuala Lumpur has Malay slumps. But these are mostly built by new urban migrants. The Government has succeeded to rehouse most of the squatters in modern high-rise buildings so that, passing along the main roads, one does not see the slums anymore.

3. But the Penang Malays live in the same old shacks that housed them long ago. And they are an eyesore.

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POLITIK MALAYSIA

1. Kita sudah merdeka selama 55 tahun dan telah mengadakan 12 Pilihan Raya Umum. Walaupun parti-parti bukan dari Perikatan atau Barisan Nasional telah berjaya menawan dan mendiri Kerajaan dibeberapa negeri di Semenanjung dan di Sabah, tetapi Perikatan dan Barisan Nasional tidak pernah kalah di peringkat Pusat. Perikatan dan Barisan Nasional terus menjadi Kerajaan diperingkat Pusat, peringkat yang paling berkuasa di Malaysia.

2. Memang pada 1969 Perikatan hampir kalah tetapi kuasa kekal di tangan Perikatan dan akhirnya beberapa parti lawan telah menyertai Perikatan untuk menubuh Barisan Nasional yang terus memerintah.

3. Barisan Nasional menghadapi beberapa masalah dalaman tetapi berjaya mengatasinya dan mengekal kuasanya di Peringkat Pusat. Serpihan dari UMNO yang diusahakan oleh Tengku Razaleigh dan Anwar Ibrahim tidak berjaya mengalahkan Barisan Nasional.

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LYNAS

1. I was the first to write in my blog about rare earth, about how difficult it was to rid ourselves from activated rare earth when it was no longer needed.

2. Rare earth can be used for many things and in many ways. The rare earth represented by tin tailing, mostly ilmenite, when activated can be used in colour television. Today colour television uses plasma or LED.

3. This posed a problem of getting rid of the activated rare earth left in Malaysia. Finally it was agreed between Mitsubishi Electric and Malaysia that a site in Perak of almost a square kilometre be reserved for burying under concrete the activated “amang”.

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POLICE BRUTALITY – Part 2

1. The Bar Council accuses the Malaysian Police of brutality against the Bersih demonstrators. But, then that is to be expected. The Bar Council has never ever tried to be impartial or neutral when it comes to the Government. It is more of an opposition than the opposition parties.

2. But has the Malaysian Police been brutal? It is not the most perfect police force but this country is better served by its police than many other countries.

3. In a force that big there must be a few who may be inclined towards abuses of authority. When outnumbered, as they were during the Bersih demo, despite their being armed, the police must fear bodily harm to themselves. People in a crowd invariably feel daring and would do what they would not do when alone or outnumbered. They also know that the police had been instructed not to use their arms or undue force.

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POLICE BRUTALITY

1. One of the favourite accusations against the police in the West is “police brutality”. No doubt there is and there will always be police brutality in the West and elsewhere. But the term is used indiscriminately and even when the police apply some permissible force in the course of their work, they are likely to be accused of “police brutality”.

2. The recent Bersih demonstration in which the demonstrators are obviously violent has given rise to the accusation of police brutality. Even the pictorial and video evidence that the police were violently attacked by the demonstrators have not stopped the Bar Council from accusing the police of brutality.

3. There were it is believed some 250,000 demonstrators. i.e 250 times more than the police. They were violent. They broke the barriers set up by City Hall to stop the demonstrators from going into the Merdeka Square. Obviously from the video clips and pictures the demonstrators not only broke the barriers but attacked, literally attacked the police who were tasked to keep the demonstrators from breaking the barriers. They chased police cars, shattered the windscreen and overturned it. They kicked a policeman who had fallen on the ground.

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BERSIH 3 Pt 2

1. Some who condemned my piece on Bersih 3 say that the ruling party abused the authority of the Government to ensure its success. They ask why rural constituencies have more seats for less voters. Why the gerrymandering.

2. This is because since the days of the British the urban areas tend to dominate politics and to be better served by the Government. To balance this, the poorly serviced rural areas have to be given higher representation in the legislature.

3. This is not new. It is common practice in the United States the state of New Jersey with less than five million people gets the same number of Senate seats (two) as California with more than forty million people. In most democratic countries some leverage is given to constituencies which for a variety of reasons are less developed.

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