great!... there WILL BE more and extra supression on this kinda cases now in this so called democratic country who preach about freedom of speech, religion, etc... wooohooo..
honestly, if you ask me fm the 'political point of view'.. both decision will be a big lost to the current govt...
yes, to lina joy means a huge floodgate will be opened to the others who wanna renounce islam and/or the islam as the religion in the mykad issue...
no, to lina joy means bigger supression... on top of that, the ge is so near.. the timing for this case is just not that right for them to make such a huge and 'impactful' decision.. i personally believe, by this 'unfavourable decision', many votes and/or seats which belongs to the ruling party will be lost... if you think the ruling party have no influence or watsoever over the courts in watever 'level', then i think you are really wrong...
if anyone of you out there know lina joy.. pls tell her to settle down in some country which have real religion freedom instead of supression and dun bother about her islam-in-mykad issue anymore... get married there, get a pr/citizenship there, live there, work there, give birth there, to leave the world fm there and be buried there... try not to come back other than visiting yr parents, anyway, there's a risk to come back afterall... proud to have a malaysian like you lady!... you fought a good fight and ran a good race for ALL malaysians!...
No joy for Lina
May 30, 07 11:18am Adjust font size:
newsflash Lina Joy’s long wait for her conversion to Christianity to be recognised by law is over - the Federal Court ruled today that she remains a Muslim and her religious status will not be removed from her identity card.
Delivering the judgment to a packed gallery this morning in Putrajaya, Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim ruled that jurisdiction remains with the Syariah court.
A large section of the 300-strong crowd waiting outside recited the tahlil or read the Quran while waiting for the decision.
When the news reached them, they shouted Allahuakbar - their reaction resounded through the Palace of Justice.
At the time of writing, Justice Richard Malanjun was reading his judgement, with Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff to follow. However, the chief justice has already stated that he concurs with the majority decision.
Born to Malay parents, Joy, 43, whose Muslim name was Azlina Jailani, converted to Christianity in 1998.
[Full report to follow]
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67914
PUTRAJAYA: 11.47am: Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff said he agrees with Fairuz's judgment.
11.45am Richard Malanjum allows Lina's appeal.
11.32am - Justice Malanjum appears to be delivering the only dissenting judgment of the Federal Court.
11.13am: Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim who has just finished reading his judgment said he is with the majority when he dismissed Lina Joy's appeal against the majority decision of the Court of Appeal delivered on September 19, 2005
The Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak, Datuk Richard Malanjum is delivering his judgment now.
The other Federal Court judge who heard the appeal is Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff.
Please refresh this page for the latest update.
http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/9155/2/
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
forcible conversion to islam of 19 year old student... another 'talibanised' act?!?...
one pathetically barbaric act have yet to pass, another one came up!...
i wonder why didn't we really hear about this particular news via the media, blogs, etc... major supression?!?.. no public acknowledgement to it?!?... just another normal barbaric act?!?.. people do not know about it?!?...
honestly, wat is malaysia is coming to?!?.. is this a islam hadhari way to celebrate 50 years of independence?!?... i dunno, you tell me pls...
FORCIBLE CONVERSION TO ISLAM OF 19 YEAR OLD STUDENT
With all due respect may we humbly refer to the above matter wherein we act for Mr.Ragu a/l Cheelathurai (No.K/P: 860301-56-6105) and his family of No.18, Jalan 2/92 B Taman Kobena, 56100, Kuala Lumpur.We wish to bring to your kind attention the abhorrent, unjust and unconscionable manner in which a nineteen(19) year old student of youthful age was forcibly converted into the Islam religion whilst studying at a fully residential government skills training institution without his parent’s knowledge and consent.
Brief Facts
1. In line with the Prime Minister’s and the Government’s constant call for national unity, national integration and racial harmony our client had made a concerted effort to also befriend his Malay/Muslim friends.
2. Throughout the 1 ½ years out of our client’s two (2) years course at the National Youth Skills Institute (Institut Kemahiran Belia Negara) at Dusun Tua, Ulu Langat a fully residential Institution (hereinafter referred to as the said School)., numerous attempts were made by the Islamic teachers (ustaz), officials and friends to drill into our client and/or brainwash him to convert to the Islamic faith. All this was done without our client’s parents and family’s knowledge or consent especially so bearing in mind that our client was merely a 19 year old youth at that material time.
3. As the Indian/non Muslim students were a tiny minority at the said Institute, our client merely keeps quiet to be polite and in order for him to continue and complete his course without any hindrance. At all material times our client never ever had any intention of embracing the Islamic religion or renouncing his Hindu faith for that matter.
4. On or at about 11.00 a.m. on 26/1/2006 our client Mr.Ragu a/l Cheelathurai who was at that material time merely 19 years old was a final year student at the said School in the Wiring Course (Note: Our client was the only Hindu Indian pupil on this course). During the midst of his practical wiring course our client was abruptly and forcibly taken away by two (2) religious teachers, one Ustaz Azrin and another Ustaz Basri, and a committee member of the said School’s mosque, Encik Churaimai to the Islamic Religious Department in Kajang under the false pretense of taking our client out. Never at any time did they tell our client that he would be brought to the Islamic Religious Department in Kajang.
5. Upon arrival at the Islamic Religious Department in Kajang our client was forced to sign certain documents indicating his conversion to the Islamic religion which our client did under duress, oppression and under fear of being expelled from his Institution and bearing in mind that he was merely six (6) months away from graduating. Our client was then pronounced a Muslim and then given a Muslim name i.e. Muhammad Ashraf bin Abdullah without both his Hindu parents knowledge and consent. He was then issued with a letter of acknowledgment of his conversion to Islam dated 26/1/2006 at about 12.00 p.m. on 26/1/2006 which also has a picture of our client in school uniform in it. Our client was then threatened not to inform his parents of what had transpired. A copy of this letter dated 26/1/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 1”.
6. Upon returning to the said school our client contacted his father, Mr.Cheelathurai a/l Alagesu (No K/P Lama: 550303-06-5183) and informed him\ of what had transpired. Our client’s father rushed to his son’s hostel after working hours and at that very same moment (which was about 12.00 p.m. on 27/1/2007) removed his son from the said school on the advise of MHS President Dato’ A.Vaithalingam.
7. Within twenty-four (24) hours our client had on 27/1/2006 at about 11.00 a.m. lodged a police report No. Ulu Langat/000127/06 at the Cheras Police Station with regards to the aforesaid forced conversion to Islam. Up to date there has been no criminal prosecutions against the said religious teachers and officials by the learned Attorney General. A copy of this letter is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 2”.
8. Our client and his family were instructed by the Cheras Police to meet one ASP Mohd Zawawi Abdullah of the IPD Kajang. At about 1.00 p.m. the said ASP Mohd Zawawi brought our client into his room and our client once again complained that he was force to convert to Islam as per the said police report. Thereafter ASP Mohd Zawawi tried persuading our client that Islam was a good religion but our client again kept quiet.
9. At about 4.00 p.m. the said Encik Churaimi arrived and our client again repeated that he was forced to convert to Islam. Encik Churaimi then told our client to tear off the said letter of conversion to Islam dated 26/1/2006 and to continue to pretend to be a Hindu.
10. In the interim our client had sought the assistance of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam (MHS) under the patronage of Malaysia’s only Hindu and longest serving Cabinet minister Y.B. Dato’ Seri S. Samy Vellu. MHS had vide their letter dated 22/6/2006 verified and confirmed that our client is a practicing Hindu. A copy of the said MHS letter is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 3”.
11. Our client thereafter affirmed a Statutory Declaration (SD) about his forced conversion to Islam. A copy of the said SD dated 9/2/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 4”.
12. Vide our client’s previous Solicitor Messrs T.Raja & Co’s letter dated 16/2/2006 and duly acknowledged receipt by the Legal Adviser of the Islamic Affairs Department of Selangor on 21/2/2006, our client’s said previous Solicitor amongst others demanded an annulment of our client’s alleged conversion to Islam. A copy of the said Solicitors letter dated 16/2/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 5”.
13. Vide T.Raja & Co’s letter dated 14/3/2006, a reminder was sent to the said Legal Adviser of the Selangor State Islamic Affairs Department which was duly acknowledged receipt on 17/3/2006 for their decision but to no avail. A copy of T.Raja & Co’s letter dated 14/3/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 6”.
14. In the interim our client dared not return to the said Institute and was accordingly sacked vide the Institution’s letter dated 24/4/2006. A copy of the said Institute’s letter dated 24/4/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 7”.
15. Since our clients forcible conversion he has neither attended any religious classes or courses nor has he been circumcised and he has since refused to return the said School. Our client does not believe and has never practiced the Islamic religion but has continued living as a Hindu all his life up to date. Mr Cheelathurai like many other non-Muslim parents have placed their children under the trust and care of such National Government State Institutions with full confidence and believe that their children would be returned to their care holding the same faith they were born and raised with. YAB, your goodself and the Malaysian Government had repeatedly called for “National Integration, National Harmony and National Unity”. Yet in the face of such forcible conversion that has occurred to our client on 26/1/2006, your goodselves’ vision of “National Integration, National Harmony and National Unity” has been blurred and further fosters disintegration, disharmony and disunity rather than national integration, harmony and national unity. Over the years, we have received numerous reports of such practices by religious teachers, officials and students in many other such public institutions like MRSM, UTM, other National Youth Skills training Institutions, Vocational schools, Universities and other Institutions of Higher Education especially those which are fully residential and with an almost all Malay/Muslim student population. The National Service Programmes may also be of a serious concern to non-Muslim parents in the future. Our client’s father for that matter has decided not to send any of his children for the National Service training as he has since lost confidence in the state authorities.
With respect our client appeals that for instances of this nature not to happen again in the future that your goodself forthwith issue a circular accordingly. Should your goodselves not rectify this abuse, the 13 million non-Muslim population in Malaysia would be unduly alarmed and it would go to the core and fabric of our already alarmed multi-racial and multi-religious society.
It is a sad day for Malaysia that even after fifty (50) years of independence the Islamic Religious authorities could abuse their powers in this manner and in direct violation of Article 11 of the Federal Constitution. Instead of progressing we are regressing in terms of multi-racialism and multi-religionism. We regret to bring to your kind attention
that against ground reality the government chooses to showcase Malaysia as a model multi-racial and multi-religious society. We pray for your goodselves and the Malaysian Cabinet’s intervention to calm and ally the fears of non-Muslim parents like Mr.Cheelathurai, in sending their non-Muslim children to National Government schools and institutions and especially to such educational institutions which are fully residential. We hope your goodselves also see the fears and insecurity of the non-Muslim Indian and Chinese parents, 50% and 95% of whom choose to send their children to Tamil and Chinese Primary schools respectively even after 50 years of independence.
With all due respect our client hereby humbly calls upon YAB and the Malaysian Cabinet to intervene and forthwith direct and in any event within fourteen (14) days from the date hereof that the Department of Islamic Religious Affairs of Kajang revokes/annuls this forced conversion of our client on 26/1/2006 vide their letter dated 26/1/2006 and to issue an unconditional letter to that effect to our client failing which our client would be left with no alternative but to institute legal proceedings accordingly at the Shah Alam High Court.
Thank you
http://www.bangkit.net/2007/05/23/forcible-conversion-to-islam-of-19-year-old-student-at-a-fully/
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67660
i wonder why didn't we really hear about this particular news via the media, blogs, etc... major supression?!?.. no public acknowledgement to it?!?... just another normal barbaric act?!?.. people do not know about it?!?...
honestly, wat is malaysia is coming to?!?.. is this a islam hadhari way to celebrate 50 years of independence?!?... i dunno, you tell me pls...
FORCIBLE CONVERSION TO ISLAM OF 19 YEAR OLD STUDENT
With all due respect may we humbly refer to the above matter wherein we act for Mr.Ragu a/l Cheelathurai (No.K/P: 860301-56-6105) and his family of No.18, Jalan 2/92 B Taman Kobena, 56100, Kuala Lumpur.We wish to bring to your kind attention the abhorrent, unjust and unconscionable manner in which a nineteen(19) year old student of youthful age was forcibly converted into the Islam religion whilst studying at a fully residential government skills training institution without his parent’s knowledge and consent.
Brief Facts
1. In line with the Prime Minister’s and the Government’s constant call for national unity, national integration and racial harmony our client had made a concerted effort to also befriend his Malay/Muslim friends.
2. Throughout the 1 ½ years out of our client’s two (2) years course at the National Youth Skills Institute (Institut Kemahiran Belia Negara) at Dusun Tua, Ulu Langat a fully residential Institution (hereinafter referred to as the said School)., numerous attempts were made by the Islamic teachers (ustaz), officials and friends to drill into our client and/or brainwash him to convert to the Islamic faith. All this was done without our client’s parents and family’s knowledge or consent especially so bearing in mind that our client was merely a 19 year old youth at that material time.
3. As the Indian/non Muslim students were a tiny minority at the said Institute, our client merely keeps quiet to be polite and in order for him to continue and complete his course without any hindrance. At all material times our client never ever had any intention of embracing the Islamic religion or renouncing his Hindu faith for that matter.
4. On or at about 11.00 a.m. on 26/1/2006 our client Mr.Ragu a/l Cheelathurai who was at that material time merely 19 years old was a final year student at the said School in the Wiring Course (Note: Our client was the only Hindu Indian pupil on this course). During the midst of his practical wiring course our client was abruptly and forcibly taken away by two (2) religious teachers, one Ustaz Azrin and another Ustaz Basri, and a committee member of the said School’s mosque, Encik Churaimai to the Islamic Religious Department in Kajang under the false pretense of taking our client out. Never at any time did they tell our client that he would be brought to the Islamic Religious Department in Kajang.
5. Upon arrival at the Islamic Religious Department in Kajang our client was forced to sign certain documents indicating his conversion to the Islamic religion which our client did under duress, oppression and under fear of being expelled from his Institution and bearing in mind that he was merely six (6) months away from graduating. Our client was then pronounced a Muslim and then given a Muslim name i.e. Muhammad Ashraf bin Abdullah without both his Hindu parents knowledge and consent. He was then issued with a letter of acknowledgment of his conversion to Islam dated 26/1/2006 at about 12.00 p.m. on 26/1/2006 which also has a picture of our client in school uniform in it. Our client was then threatened not to inform his parents of what had transpired. A copy of this letter dated 26/1/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 1”.
6. Upon returning to the said school our client contacted his father, Mr.Cheelathurai a/l Alagesu (No K/P Lama: 550303-06-5183) and informed him\ of what had transpired. Our client’s father rushed to his son’s hostel after working hours and at that very same moment (which was about 12.00 p.m. on 27/1/2007) removed his son from the said school on the advise of MHS President Dato’ A.Vaithalingam.
7. Within twenty-four (24) hours our client had on 27/1/2006 at about 11.00 a.m. lodged a police report No. Ulu Langat/000127/06 at the Cheras Police Station with regards to the aforesaid forced conversion to Islam. Up to date there has been no criminal prosecutions against the said religious teachers and officials by the learned Attorney General. A copy of this letter is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 2”.
8. Our client and his family were instructed by the Cheras Police to meet one ASP Mohd Zawawi Abdullah of the IPD Kajang. At about 1.00 p.m. the said ASP Mohd Zawawi brought our client into his room and our client once again complained that he was force to convert to Islam as per the said police report. Thereafter ASP Mohd Zawawi tried persuading our client that Islam was a good religion but our client again kept quiet.
9. At about 4.00 p.m. the said Encik Churaimi arrived and our client again repeated that he was forced to convert to Islam. Encik Churaimi then told our client to tear off the said letter of conversion to Islam dated 26/1/2006 and to continue to pretend to be a Hindu.
10. In the interim our client had sought the assistance of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam (MHS) under the patronage of Malaysia’s only Hindu and longest serving Cabinet minister Y.B. Dato’ Seri S. Samy Vellu. MHS had vide their letter dated 22/6/2006 verified and confirmed that our client is a practicing Hindu. A copy of the said MHS letter is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 3”.
11. Our client thereafter affirmed a Statutory Declaration (SD) about his forced conversion to Islam. A copy of the said SD dated 9/2/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 4”.
12. Vide our client’s previous Solicitor Messrs T.Raja & Co’s letter dated 16/2/2006 and duly acknowledged receipt by the Legal Adviser of the Islamic Affairs Department of Selangor on 21/2/2006, our client’s said previous Solicitor amongst others demanded an annulment of our client’s alleged conversion to Islam. A copy of the said Solicitors letter dated 16/2/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 5”.
13. Vide T.Raja & Co’s letter dated 14/3/2006, a reminder was sent to the said Legal Adviser of the Selangor State Islamic Affairs Department which was duly acknowledged receipt on 17/3/2006 for their decision but to no avail. A copy of T.Raja & Co’s letter dated 14/3/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 6”.
14. In the interim our client dared not return to the said Institute and was accordingly sacked vide the Institution’s letter dated 24/4/2006. A copy of the said Institute’s letter dated 24/4/2006 is enclosed herewith as “Enclosure 7”.
15. Since our clients forcible conversion he has neither attended any religious classes or courses nor has he been circumcised and he has since refused to return the said School. Our client does not believe and has never practiced the Islamic religion but has continued living as a Hindu all his life up to date. Mr Cheelathurai like many other non-Muslim parents have placed their children under the trust and care of such National Government State Institutions with full confidence and believe that their children would be returned to their care holding the same faith they were born and raised with. YAB, your goodself and the Malaysian Government had repeatedly called for “National Integration, National Harmony and National Unity”. Yet in the face of such forcible conversion that has occurred to our client on 26/1/2006, your goodselves’ vision of “National Integration, National Harmony and National Unity” has been blurred and further fosters disintegration, disharmony and disunity rather than national integration, harmony and national unity. Over the years, we have received numerous reports of such practices by religious teachers, officials and students in many other such public institutions like MRSM, UTM, other National Youth Skills training Institutions, Vocational schools, Universities and other Institutions of Higher Education especially those which are fully residential and with an almost all Malay/Muslim student population. The National Service Programmes may also be of a serious concern to non-Muslim parents in the future. Our client’s father for that matter has decided not to send any of his children for the National Service training as he has since lost confidence in the state authorities.
With respect our client appeals that for instances of this nature not to happen again in the future that your goodself forthwith issue a circular accordingly. Should your goodselves not rectify this abuse, the 13 million non-Muslim population in Malaysia would be unduly alarmed and it would go to the core and fabric of our already alarmed multi-racial and multi-religious society.
It is a sad day for Malaysia that even after fifty (50) years of independence the Islamic Religious authorities could abuse their powers in this manner and in direct violation of Article 11 of the Federal Constitution. Instead of progressing we are regressing in terms of multi-racialism and multi-religionism. We regret to bring to your kind attention
that against ground reality the government chooses to showcase Malaysia as a model multi-racial and multi-religious society. We pray for your goodselves and the Malaysian Cabinet’s intervention to calm and ally the fears of non-Muslim parents like Mr.Cheelathurai, in sending their non-Muslim children to National Government schools and institutions and especially to such educational institutions which are fully residential. We hope your goodselves also see the fears and insecurity of the non-Muslim Indian and Chinese parents, 50% and 95% of whom choose to send their children to Tamil and Chinese Primary schools respectively even after 50 years of independence.
With all due respect our client hereby humbly calls upon YAB and the Malaysian Cabinet to intervene and forthwith direct and in any event within fourteen (14) days from the date hereof that the Department of Islamic Religious Affairs of Kajang revokes/annuls this forced conversion of our client on 26/1/2006 vide their letter dated 26/1/2006 and to issue an unconditional letter to that effect to our client failing which our client would be left with no alternative but to institute legal proceedings accordingly at the Shah Alam High Court.
Thank you
http://www.bangkit.net/2007/05/23/forcible-conversion-to-islam-of-19-year-old-student-at-a-fully/
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67660
public forum... civil service excellence - quality vs quantity...
wat lead to this forum/debate?!?... this 4 articles below have most of the infos you need...
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67645
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67723
http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/05/oxford_vs_oxford.php
http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/05/civil_servants_oxford_vs_oxfor.php
dun think kj will come lah... trying to be a champ by talking 'behind the scene'.. he did that kinda stunt before and am sure he will keep on doing it....
anyway.. personally... i would love to see a public debate between the 2 oxford graduates... see how far their respective ideas, opinions, intellectual, etc.. go...
kj... if you are not up to something and if you do not wish to complete something which you started it... shut up and sit quietly and plan another free fall for mat rempits and get the rakyat pay for it... this time make sure you jump 1st, WITHOUT any parachutes.. do ALL of us a favour pls!...
p/s ; did i mentioned that my money will be on tp IF this oxford vs oxford debate happen?!?...
Please spread the message. Originally, this was the date and stage for Tony Pua (http://tonypua.com) to debate the Son-in-Law in public but of course Son-in-Law and Ketua Rempit declined (what a coward), as he said the DAP were trying to "divert attention". But do come by anyway to hear some opinions on the subject by a very interesting line-up of speakers.
Topic: Civil Service Excellence: Quality vs Quantity
Venue: KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall
Date: 30 May 2007 (Wednesday)
Time: 8.00 pm
Confirmed speakers:
Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim
Nurul Izzah Anwar
Lim Guan Eng
Lim Kit Siang
There may be two more speakers: a rep from MTUC and a respected academician.
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67645
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67723
http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/05/oxford_vs_oxford.php
http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/05/civil_servants_oxford_vs_oxfor.php
dun think kj will come lah... trying to be a champ by talking 'behind the scene'.. he did that kinda stunt before and am sure he will keep on doing it....
anyway.. personally... i would love to see a public debate between the 2 oxford graduates... see how far their respective ideas, opinions, intellectual, etc.. go...
kj... if you are not up to something and if you do not wish to complete something which you started it... shut up and sit quietly and plan another free fall for mat rempits and get the rakyat pay for it... this time make sure you jump 1st, WITHOUT any parachutes.. do ALL of us a favour pls!...
p/s ; did i mentioned that my money will be on tp IF this oxford vs oxford debate happen?!?...
Please spread the message. Originally, this was the date and stage for Tony Pua (http://tonypua.com) to debate the Son-in-Law in public but of course Son-in-Law and Ketua Rempit declined (what a coward), as he said the DAP were trying to "divert attention". But do come by anyway to hear some opinions on the subject by a very interesting line-up of speakers.
Topic: Civil Service Excellence: Quality vs Quantity
Venue: KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall
Date: 30 May 2007 (Wednesday)
Time: 8.00 pm
Confirmed speakers:
Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim
Nurul Izzah Anwar
Lim Guan Eng
Lim Kit Siang
There may be two more speakers: a rep from MTUC and a respected academician.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
50 years into independence and where is OUR national unity?!?...
lately we see/hear tons of advertisements via the tv, newspaper, radio, etc.. mentioning that we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary soon... we also see those black and white clips and black and white videos a lot lately...
major plans ahead on how to go around celebrate it... they even gonna transform merdeka stadium into how exactly it looked like during the proclamation of merdeka by tunku in 1957...
had a chat with my parents just few days ago about national unity... my parents certainly went through a lot... japanese occupation, communists insurgency, may 13, merdeka, etc... all this are indeed very important events for the country....
during this time (probably except may 13 event), it certainly shows one very visible thing.. the NATIONAL UNITY... be it malay, chinese, indian, etc... all of them work, eat, sleep, fight, etc.. together.. they can hear almost nothing about big hoo-hahs on racial/religion issues like wat we are facing now... everyone were kinda free to do watever they want and be happy about it.. no supression or watsoever like wat we are facing now...
totally different now... every race seems wanna to beat each other, loves comparing to one another, etc... for example, i came across a book that mentioned something along this line...
"kalau tak malas, bukan melayu"...
"kalau tak tipu, bukan cina"...
"kalau tak minum, bukan india"...
wat made this author comment this kinda comments?!?...
according to my parents.. we certainly cannot compare the national unity we had then to the national unity we have now...
it's madness now!... despite the good time we are having, the roller coaster economy we are having, the 1st class infrastructure we are having, we produce our own car, we have world class f1 track, yummy food all around, etc... to me personally, all this are just the surface projecting a 'beautiful and peaceful malaysia', wat is going on beneath this surface is the TOTAL opposite!...
they put the meaning of democracy to shame, racial issues, so-called freedom on religion, breaking up families due to religion issues, fighting over dead body becasue of religion issues, nep, corruption, discrimination, marginalisation, we have ministers who put malaysia to shame and no proper action is taken against them, etc.. etc.. etc...
for those who wanna deny that all this is happening and/or dun bother to go and vote because you think yr 1 miserable vote won't do a thing.. i wish you a happy and peaceful life living the malaysian way...
for those who wanna help save the country before the country go beyond help... pls do the necessities.. be pro-active... perhaps, getting people to vote WISELY in the coming general election may be a very small but it will be a very significant step towards changing the country for the better...
p/s ; my ramblings and my concern for our future and the future of the generations to come...
major plans ahead on how to go around celebrate it... they even gonna transform merdeka stadium into how exactly it looked like during the proclamation of merdeka by tunku in 1957...
had a chat with my parents just few days ago about national unity... my parents certainly went through a lot... japanese occupation, communists insurgency, may 13, merdeka, etc... all this are indeed very important events for the country....
during this time (probably except may 13 event), it certainly shows one very visible thing.. the NATIONAL UNITY... be it malay, chinese, indian, etc... all of them work, eat, sleep, fight, etc.. together.. they can hear almost nothing about big hoo-hahs on racial/religion issues like wat we are facing now... everyone were kinda free to do watever they want and be happy about it.. no supression or watsoever like wat we are facing now...
totally different now... every race seems wanna to beat each other, loves comparing to one another, etc... for example, i came across a book that mentioned something along this line...
"kalau tak malas, bukan melayu"...
"kalau tak tipu, bukan cina"...
"kalau tak minum, bukan india"...
wat made this author comment this kinda comments?!?...
according to my parents.. we certainly cannot compare the national unity we had then to the national unity we have now...
it's madness now!... despite the good time we are having, the roller coaster economy we are having, the 1st class infrastructure we are having, we produce our own car, we have world class f1 track, yummy food all around, etc... to me personally, all this are just the surface projecting a 'beautiful and peaceful malaysia', wat is going on beneath this surface is the TOTAL opposite!...
they put the meaning of democracy to shame, racial issues, so-called freedom on religion, breaking up families due to religion issues, fighting over dead body becasue of religion issues, nep, corruption, discrimination, marginalisation, we have ministers who put malaysia to shame and no proper action is taken against them, etc.. etc.. etc...
for those who wanna deny that all this is happening and/or dun bother to go and vote because you think yr 1 miserable vote won't do a thing.. i wish you a happy and peaceful life living the malaysian way...
for those who wanna help save the country before the country go beyond help... pls do the necessities.. be pro-active... perhaps, getting people to vote WISELY in the coming general election may be a very small but it will be a very significant step towards changing the country for the better...
p/s ; my ramblings and my concern for our future and the future of the generations to come...
Monday, May 21, 2007
did uncle sv just prove himself as another sexist?!?...
as reported in the star today (21st may 2007)... (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/21/nation/17789216&sec=nation)...
“A woman 50 years ago, she looks beautiful, but today she won't look so beautiful,” he said,"...
who gives him the right to assume such things?!?... is that wat is happening to indrani?!?... :) ....
why do the top guns sitting up there compare, comment, etc.. about women in general lately?!?...
wat kind of responsibility is this as a minister?!?... with this kinda irresponsible statement coming fm a minister certainly shows they have gender discrimination attitude in them...
one thing am FOR SURE.. women today, altho watever their age may be.. they certainly look better than this go-out-must-have-toupee minister!...
p/s ; despite pressure and articles on the seriousness of this kinda matters fm wao, jag, wdc, dap, malaysiakini, bar council, etc... lately... it is still going on!... drastic action like replacing the pipes must be taken, instead of just calling a plumber and patched the leaks!...
“A woman 50 years ago, she looks beautiful, but today she won't look so beautiful,” he said,"...
who gives him the right to assume such things?!?... is that wat is happening to indrani?!?... :) ....
why do the top guns sitting up there compare, comment, etc.. about women in general lately?!?...
wat kind of responsibility is this as a minister?!?... with this kinda irresponsible statement coming fm a minister certainly shows they have gender discrimination attitude in them...
one thing am FOR SURE.. women today, altho watever their age may be.. they certainly look better than this go-out-must-have-toupee minister!...
p/s ; despite pressure and articles on the seriousness of this kinda matters fm wao, jag, wdc, dap, malaysiakini, bar council, etc... lately... it is still going on!... drastic action like replacing the pipes must be taken, instead of just calling a plumber and patched the leaks!...
another confession fm aab!...
i nearly choked on the mee hoon goreng i had for breakfast couple of minutes ago when i read this...
as reported in the star today (21st may 2007)... (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/21/nation/17789830&sec=nation)...
“I was a naughty boy.”...
“I happen to like naughty children as I was one myself."...
now, no wonder he is STILL keeping the naughty boys in the half-past six cabinet despite tons of disgraceful mistakes they make!... trying to remind him of his past eh?!?...
btw, naughty should not be the word for the half-past-six cabinet tho... naughty is too nice and cute a word to be used on them... what about... pathetic, bad, rotten, 'maggots producing machines', animals, sexist, one-eye-jack, clowns, etc?!?..... these should be the proper ones eh?!?...
as reported in the star today (21st may 2007)... (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/21/nation/17789830&sec=nation)...
“I was a naughty boy.”...
“I happen to like naughty children as I was one myself."...
now, no wonder he is STILL keeping the naughty boys in the half-past six cabinet despite tons of disgraceful mistakes they make!... trying to remind him of his past eh?!?...
btw, naughty should not be the word for the half-past-six cabinet tho... naughty is too nice and cute a word to be used on them... what about... pathetic, bad, rotten, 'maggots producing machines', animals, sexist, one-eye-jack, clowns, etc?!?..... these should be the proper ones eh?!?...
Friday, May 18, 2007
top 20 asian progressives by michael backman...
find this pretty interesting... would be good to know wat made michael backman mentioned this particular top 20... why and how too...
Top 20 Asian progressives
Words by: Michael Backman, World Business
Published: 09-May-07
Who are the modernisers and reformers steering the region towards good business practice, transparency and management excellence?
Other publications list Asia's most influential, or its most powerful or richest, but World Business is more forward-looking than that. We have spotlighted the individuals driving Asia forward - those that are helping to bring about rules-based civil societies, or who are advancing the cause of better governance, be it in business or government. One of the greatest guarantees of freedom is the free-flow of information, debate and commentary, and so our list includes several who are integral to promoting debate where governments of the region seek to restrict it. Included are several prominent bloggers who risk their livelihoods to bring to the people of Asia commentary and opinion that is a matter of course in the West.
We have included some of the region's prominent businesspeople, notable not only for their forward-looking approach but also for their philanthropy, which remains essential in Asia where governments for the most part lack sufficient resources to do all that should be done to take care of society's most vulnerable. And there are some prominent legislators: Asia is home to some of the world's most repressive regimes, but others, such as Vietnam's current leadership, have shown a preparedness to ditch ideology in favour of improving their people's welfare.
Some of the names will invite controversy: as administrator of Tibet, Hu Jintao was responsible for a crackdown in 1989 that saw hundreds of Tibetan protestors killed; Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad did not use his period of power to introduce greater transparency in government tendering or stamp out corruption in Malaysia's police force; and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, leader of the Maoists in Nepal, led a bloody decade-long war against the Nepalese government. But it is our contention that these individuals are now helping to reform Asia, so that in future the region's citizens will enjoy greater freedoms than in the past.
1. HU JINTAO, CHINA
Hu Jintao is the eighth General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and China's paramount leader and president. The general rule of thumb has become that each new Chinese leader is less hard-line than the last and Hu bears this out. He succeeded Jiang Zemin in 2002 and to date has shown himself to be cosmopolitan, worldly and technocratic. He speaks relatively unaccented Mandarin, unlike most of his predecessors, underlining his urbane image.
Hu rose through China's construction ministry, became involved in the Communist party and was introduced to a series of mentors who recognised his talent. He was appointed party chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1988, where he took a hard-line politically, instigating a crackdown in 1989 that saw the deaths of several hundred Tibetan activists. But at the same time, he liberalised cultural activities. This apparently paradoxical approach sums up his style: protect the Chinese state at all costs, but increase personal freedoms.
Since becoming president, one of Hu's priorities has been the development of China's poorer inner provinces to ensure a better distribution of the country's economic advancement. Transparency in government decision-making has also increased - China's news agency now publishes Politburo standing committee meeting details, and foreign journalists enjoy unprecedented access. Emphasis on GDP growth has lessened; instead, there is more concern with the quality of growth.
China's foreign policy, particularly its cultivation of links with African and South American states, illustrates that under Hu, China is becoming more of a commercial player on the world stage and less of a political strategist for its own sake.
2. RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN, MALAYSIA
Though more robust than that of Singapore, Malaysia's media is nonetheless tame. All significant media outlets are sympathetic to the government, there is little investigative journalism and discussion of many issues is discouraged. The newspapers focus endlessly on crime and lifestyle issues, and Malaysians tend to buy them for their job ads and to find out what's showing at the cinema. Increasingly, the serious reporting and commentary is done by bloggers, of which Raj Petra Kamarudin's www.malaysia-today.net is the best.
Petra, a nephew of a former king of Malaysia, founded Malaysia-today in 2004 and works on it full time. The site now gets an astonishing 1.8 million hits on an average day, making it much more popular than any Malaysian newspaper. Malaysia-today plays an enormously important role in its attempts to keep the government accountable. It reports on ministers' many business interests, nepotism and just about anything else that the government would prefer to keep quiet. Petra uses the site to denounce money politics, corruption and Malaysia's endless fascination with race and race-based politics. A popular, ongoing series is the Khairy Chronicles, which provides an account of the doings of the prime minister's young, unelected, but highly influential son-in-law.
Many reports have been made against Petra to the police, agents from Malaysia's Special Branch have questioned him on several occasions and his computers have been seized. Recently, he reported how the government intended to use a nominee company to borrow $50 billion, in order to avoid recording the loan as government borrowing. He has also reported on a particularly grisly murder that appeared to implicate senior government figures.
3. LOU JIWEI, CHINA
Lou Jiwei has been appointed to head the investment agency that will manage $200 billion of China's $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, which have accrued from inwards foreign investment and export earnings. Finance minister Jin Renqing said in March that the new agency will use "international best practices" and that "we will try to maximise profits and returns on our management of foreign exchange, guided by the principles of safety and risk management". The agency will model itself on the Singapore government's Temasek Holdings, but will be twice its size.
Educated and cosmopolitan, Lou's reputation as a moderniser precedes his appointment to the agency. He has been at the forefront of reforming China's economy for more than two decades and is a well-regarded technocrat. He spearheaded the reform of China's financial services industry during his seven-year term as vice-minister of finance. A protege of the reformist premier Zhu Rongji, Lou was pivotal in redesigning China's tax system and drawing up plans for a domestic bond market as the deputy head of the Shanghai Commission for Economic Regulation.
A computer programmer turned economist, he has always been a low-key policy specialist and perhaps represents the best hope for China's troubled Communist party. As the party's devotion to Marxist and Maoist ideology has waned, talent in running China's increasingly sophisticated economy has become more important. Unlike many of his colleagues, Lou did not join the rallies in Shanghai's People's Park in 1989 in support of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. He prefers to use more official channels and consequently has been one of China's most effective reformers.
4. NARAYANA MURTHY, INDIA
Narayana Murthy founded global consulting and IT services giant Infosys Technologies in 1981. He and a handful of other software engineers, who saw IT outsourcing's potential, have almost single-handedly changed how the world thinks about India. In the space of one generation, the popular perception has changed from one of chronic poverty and over-population to one of technical sophistication and a country on the move. Of course, the reality lies somewhere in between, but this change in perception has been more important within India than outside, giving Indians a new confidence. Importantly, it has shown that India can compete on the world economic stage in a sector not assisted by government or hidden behind tariffs.
Murthy served as Infosys chairman for 20 years until 2002, and as executive chairman of the board and chief mentor from 2002 to 2006. The company expects revenues of more than $3 billion this year. He has been prominent in the fight in India for better corporate governance and was appointed chairman of the Securities & Exchange Board of India's Committee on Corporate Governance in 2003,
He is a member of the advisory board of Harvard Business School's Corporate Governance initiative. He is also on the board of directors of INSEAD and is an independent director of DBS, Singapore's largest bank. In March, he became chairman of the Asia Business Council, and he joins Unilever's board this month as a non-executive director. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, and in December 2005 was voted the seventh most admired CEO/chairman in a global study by the Economist Intelligence Unit. In March, he denied that he was interested in running for the presidency of India.
5. NGUYEN TAN DUNG, VIETNAM
Nguyen Tan Dung was appointed prime minister of Vietnam in June 2006 after the retirement of his predecessor, Phan Van Khai. At 57, he is the first Vietnamese communist leader to be born after the August Revolution in 1945 and is Vietnam's youngest prime minister. Like Khai, he is a reformer and a moderniser; he was appointed to carry on the economic reforms that have seen the economy grow at about 7% a year and permitted the country's admission to the WTO in 2006.
Dung is a technocrat and is economically literate, but he is not the only moderniser in the government. Nguyen Minh Triet, who was appointed president when Dung was appointed prime minister, is also a reformer. And the third member of the power triumvirate, communist party chief Nong Duc Manh, is another keen moderniser with a strong preference for privatising state-owned assets.
Dung was appointed one of five deputy prime ministers in 1997; a year later he was also made governor of Vietnam's central bank, the State Bank of Vietnam, where he pushed forward monetary reform and bank mergers, thus giving the country's financial system a more stable foundation. On becoming prime minister, he nominated fighting corruption and developing the Vietnamese economy in a sustainable way as two of his priorities. On one of his first overseas trips as prime minister, Dung met the Pope at the Vatican in January, the first Vietnamese leader to do so.
Dung is overseeing Vietnam's progress from a communist state to a more market-oriented country that is an active and mature participant on the world stage. He is firmly committed to carrying on the legacy of his recent predecessors - that of further openness and economic freedom.
6. MUHAMMAD YUNUS, BANGLADESH
Born in 1940, Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, which provides micro-credit loans to poor, would-be entrepreneurs who would otherwise be denied credit by the formal banking system. For his efforts, he and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus is also the recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the World Food Prize and the Sydney Peace Prize.
Yunus graduated in economics from Dhaka University, later obtaining a PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University. He first became interested in what later became known as micro-credit during the 1974 Bangladesh famine. His first loan - from his own pocket - was for $27 to a woman who made bamboo furniture. He soon realised that very small loans could make a big difference to poor people who want to start or expand a small business.
In 1976, the Grameen Bank started to make loans to poor Bangladeshis. It has since lent more than $5.1 billion to 5.3 million borrowers. More than 96% of loans are to women: they are more impoverished and have also proven to be more diligent repayers than men. Repayment is encouraged by lending to informal groups whose members act as co-guarantors. The success of the Grameen model has inspired similar efforts throughout the developing world and there are now micro-credit institutions in more than 23 countries.
Yunus announced in February that public pressure to intervene in Bangladesh's violent and complex political arena had forced his decision to set up a new political party. The country has been ruled by a military-backed administration since 11 January, when the president declared a state of emergency and cancelled parliamentary elections.
7. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD, MALAYSIA
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister from 1981 to 2003, was perhaps Asia's most misunderstood leader. Mahathir had plenty of critics, but the country's impressive development under his stewardship is undeniable. Also undeniable is his popularity among Malaysia's minority ethnic groups, particularly the Chinese, who comprise about 30% of the population. Mahathir managed to persuade different ethnic groups to think of themselves as Malaysians, despite economic and education policies that favoured the majority Malay population at the expense of the commercially successful Chinese minority.
These policies helped to break the nexus between great wealth and (Chinese) ethnicity, thus making the Chinese less of a target politically in the event of unrest. Mahathir also kept a lid on Islamic fundamentalism, showing not just Malaysia but much of the Islamic world that economic progress and Islam can go hand in hand. Under Mahathir, the media and the judiciary lacked independence, but Malaysians enjoy far more political freedoms than the citizens of neighbouring Singapore.
Mahathir resigned as prime minister while still popular and at a time of his choosing. In retirement, he has emerged as a loud critic of the new administration, bringing to Malaysia a level of public debate that few would have thought possible. His regular interventions on policy issues have almost given Malaysia the strong opposition voice that it has not previously had.
He has attacked the government for not doing enough to tackle the widespread corruption, and has criticised the concessions given to foreign firms that invest in an economic zone in southern Malaysia. Even out of office, Mahathir continues to modernise his country.
8. LI KA SHING, HONG KONG
Sir Li Ka Shing has broken the mould. When most ethnic Chinese become big in business, it usually means they simply become even bigger traders of goods. But not Li. An immigrant from mainland China, he had his start making and selling plastic flowers. As he became more successful, he moved increasingly into providing services, albeit with infrastructure development - specifically, providing port services in Hong Kong, mainland China, India and elsewhere, and more recently becoming a worldwide force in telecommunications services.
By moving beyond the old cultural stereotype, Li has transformed his group of companies into one of Asia's first home-grown genuine multinationals. He is admired around the world rather than merely in Hong Kong as an astute investor, and along the way has made himself the world's ninth richest individual, with an estimated fortune of $23 billion. But he does not lead an extravagant lifestyle: the main indicator of his wealth and status is that he's rarely seen without a large contingent of bodyguards.
Cheung Kong Holdings emerged in the early 1970s; today, the group operates in 54 countries and employs 220,000 people. In 1979, Li acquired Hutchison Whampoa, which became the vehicle for his electricity generation, ports and telecommunications interests. Li was an early investor in telecoms group Orange, before selling out to Germany's Mannesmann Group in 2001 for a profit of more than $15 billion. In January 2007 Hutchison agreed to sell its 67% stake in Indian mobile phone operator Hutchison Essar to Vodafone for $9 billion.
Li has established the Li Ka Shing Foundation for charitable works and is a major donor to education and healthcare - he is believed to have given away more than $1 billion to date.
9. JAIME AUGUSTO ZOBEL DE AYALA, PHILIPPINES
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala is the head of the influential Ayala Group, one of the Philippines' biggest business groups. Zobel studied economics at Harvard and has an MBA from Harvard. He is an intellectual, has a truly global outlook and is a strong promoter of the principles of corporate governance in a country that sorely needs them.
Ayala has interests in real estate, water supply, automobile distribution, banking and food production, and has a reputation for being prudent and conservative. Zobel serves as chairman of the family holding company, Ayala Corporation, the group's mobile telephone operator Globe Telecom and the Bank of the Philippine Islands. He is also co-vice chairman of the Ayala Foundation, a leading corporate donor in the Philippines. The foundation has a US-based arm that encourages Filipinos to contribute to social development programmes in the Philippines.
The family's sound management practice is exemplary by Asian standards. It does not have private business interests that run parallel with its listed companies, and so it is free of the conflicts of interests that bedevil many Asian family-controlled conglomerates. All Ayala businesses are listed or belong to a parent company that is.
The family is of Spanish descent, but under Zobel it has moved to open its management ranks to Filipinos of any ethnicity. Family members are involved in the group's management only if they have the requisite professional skills. The group has raised its accounting practices to international standards, ahead of that mandated by the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Philippine GAAP.
10. SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARY, MALAYSIA
Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary has built himself up from almost nothing to be one of Malaysia's richest men. He has developed port facilities and an airport in southern Malaysia, as well as amassing interests in property, hotels, power stations, rubber plantations, banking, retailing and construction. His companies are run by professional managers throughout, rather than family members.
He dislikes publicity and is remarkable by Malaysian corporate standards in not using his shareholders' money to buy a corporate jet, a helicopter or a fleet of Mercedes-Benz. He has no interest in personal aggrandisement. Instead, his great passion is his charitable foundation, the Al-Bukhary Foundation, into which he has poured millions to build mosques, schools and hospitals. The foundation has also built, stocked and runs the Islamic Art Museum in Kuala Lumpur, a world-class institution that puts Malaysia's National Museum to shame. A modern Muslim, he does not believe that women should cover their heads or faces and feels that Islam should return to what it was once known for: commerce and the arts.
In late 2006, his MMC Corporation, together with a local partner, won an extraordinary $30 billion infrastructure deal in Saudi Arabia to develop a new industrial and commercial city. It's a huge undertaking for any company, let alone a Malaysian one, and it represents how Al-Bukhary likes to do business. He is a strong promoter of Muslim cross-border investment and trading ties, in the same way that other commercial ethnic groups trade across borders.
Al-Bukhary is a breath of fresh air for corporate Malaysia and an inspiration to Muslims everywhere.
11. SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO, INDONESIA
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected president of Indonesia in 2004. To some, his presidency has been disappointing, but then it could barely be anything else. Indonesia's problems are so enormous and intractable that the job is near-impossible. So why is Yudhoyono one of Asia's top progressives? Largely because of what he's not: he is not corrupt, prone to nepotism, administratively incompetent or an obsessive nationalist.
He has enormous personal integrity and has done a remarkable job in balancing Indonesia's many conflicting interests in this the world's largest Islamic country, but also one of its most ethnically diverse. A retired general, he is Indonesia's sixth president but the first to have been elected directly by voters. He is an English speaker, in contrast with his immediate predecessor Megawati Soekarnoputri, a Jakarta housewife whose only political attribute was that her father had been president. Unlike other senior politicians' children, Yudhoyono's two sons are not in business. Each of ex-president Soeharto's six children started one or more conglomerates, all dependent on government favours and concessions.
Yudhoyono earned a reputation as one of the army's pro-reform officers in the last days of Soeharto's regime. In the aftermath of Soeharto's fall in 1998, Yudhoyono talked publicly about his ideas for reforming the role of the military and Indonesia more generally. His popularity rose, and he was made co-ordinating minister for politics and security. One of his first tasks was to remove the army from political life.
Yudhoyono's time as president has been plagued by natural disasters, including the 2004 tsunami. Nonetheless, he has negotiated a peace settlement with rebels in the province of Aceh, and cut fuel subsidies twice in 2005.
12. RATAN TATA, INDIA
Ratan Tata is India's most progressive businessman on several counts: he has expanded a family business into a well-run international conglomerate and has done so largely on behalf of charity - the principal owners of the Tata Group are a series of charities. The family's activities (it has given millions to research, environment projects and schools), like those of the rest of India's small Parsee community of which Tata is a member, have made it well-liked and admired, despite its wealth and ethnic minority status. The Parsees provide a valuable lesson to other rich business minorities on how to avoid persecution from an envious majority.
Tata joined the family business after graduating in architecture and structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962. In 1991, he took over as group chairman, ushering in a period of management rationalisation and greater investment in core activities that have allowed the group to expand to its current size - Tata Group has the largest capitalisation on the Mumbai stock exchange. The group bought Tetley Tea in 2000 for $421 million, the truck division of South Korea's Daewoo for $102 million in 2004 and, in January, Europe's Corus steel-making group for a massive $11.3 billion. Under Tata, the group has been at the forefront of India's push to become the world's biggest exporter of IT services.
Tata is on the board of India's central bank and is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. Among his other public and charitable roles, he also serves on the programme board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS initiative. Tata has shown India that its companies can be world class, and he is arguably the country's most important philanthropist.
13. WARREN LICHTENSTEIN, JAPAN/KOREA
A US citizen, Warren Lichtenstein is an activist investor and founder of Steel Partners, a New York-based hedge fund. The fund has stakes in more than 100 companies in the US, Japan and Korea. Lichtenstein is a demanding minority investor, who exercises shareholder rights to enforce disclosure and accountability from the companies in which he invests. Accordingly, he has been something of a shock to corporate Japan and Korea, in which minority shareholders are expected to know their place.
In Japan, many listed companies hold their AGMs on the same day to limit the number of meetings that investors in multiple companies can attend. Many companies have little interest in shareholder value and build up huge cash piles with no intention of returning funds to shareholders. This, and other sluggish practices, damages the reputation of the stock market and hinders the flow of new capital.
Lichtenstein targets cash-rich firms with market capitalisations well below net asset values, builds up a stake in them and then threatens a takeover unless they return their cash to shareholders. His targeting of several Japanese companies in 2003 impelled the boards of dozens of unrelated Japanese companies to pre-emptively increase their dividend payouts. In Korea, Lichtenstein teamed up with fellow fund manager Carl Icahn to launch a hostile takeover bid for South Korea's biggest tobacco company, KT&G. Hostile takeovers are almost unheard of in Korea and the move created an uproar, but KT&G agreed to return $2.9 billion to shareholders.
Lichtenstein's method of doing business has made him immensely wealthy, but he has also dramatically changed the behaviour of Japanese and Korean companies.
14. MAHESH, AJAY AND SHARAD AMALEAN, SRI LANKA
A Sri Lankan-based intimate apparel maker, the three Amalean brothers founded MAS Holdings in 1986. It is the largest supplier to Victoria's Secret and other customers include Gap, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Reebok. In March 2007, MAS announced plans to launch its own brand this August.
The company has 17 plants in eight countries and 35,000 employees. But what's remarkable about it is its home-grown corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. Women comprise more than 90% of MAS' employees and so the company established the Women Go Beyond programme to educate and empower its employees. A beauty, health and hygiene certificate is offered, and there are classes on reproductive health, domestic violence and traditional crafts. Nearby schools and hospitals are funded and scholarships are awarded.
MAS set up its plants in rural locations near villages so that women would not have to leave their families to find work, and all employees must be aged at least 18 (in contrast, Chinese factories can take on employees as young as 14). The company also invests in developing clear career paths: its Ready to Unleash programme aims to guide graduates into the company and on to management levels.
MAS has faced intense competition from China. The international Multi-Fibre Agreement, which ended in 2005, ensured that at least some of the West's clothing and textiles were sourced from smaller developing countries. Since then, the Amaleans have shown that it is possible to compete with sweatshops in China by emphasising their CSR programme, which has made MAS a more attractive source for retailers with ethical buying policies.
15. JARUVAN MAINTAKA, THAILAND
Born in 1947, Jaruvan Maintak is Thailand's auditor general and an iconic figure. A Catholic convert, she graduated from Thailand's Chulalongkorn University and later completed an MBA at Michigan State University. She joined the office of the auditor general and in 2001 was appointed by the Thai Senate to be the auditor general. The manner of the appointment was controversial, however, and she did not appear to be then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's first choice for the position.
Jaruvan embarked on a series of investigations that embarrassed the government and a legal challenge was made to her appointment, which was upheld. Many interpreted this move as an attempt to silence her rather than concerns about due process. She refused to step down, saying she would do so only if the king assented. The king withheld his assent, thus embarrassing Thaksin and his government.
The military coup in September 2006, which had the implicit backing of the king, abrogated the 1997 constitution and most of the state organisations it established. The auditor general's office was spared, however, and the new military government confirmed Jaruvan in her position.
The government made Jaruvan a member of its newly established Assets Examination Committee (AEC), tasked with investigating corruption involving projects approved by Thaksin's government. Jaruvan threatened to resign if its scope was not expanded to include all cases of alleged irregularity, including the personal wealth of former cabinet ministers.
The AEC has since commenced several high-profile investigations and Jaruvan has shown no fear. Her dogged determination has attracted many enemies, but she has set new standards of accountability in Thailand.
16. LEE KIN MUN (ALIAS MR BROWN), SINGAPORE
Singapore has some of the world's tightest media restrictions. Little genuine public debate is permitted and investigative journalism is largely non-existent. The role of the media is to report government announcements rather than to hold the government to account. And so Singaporeans are fed a bland diet of lifestyle articles, world news often slanted to show Singapore in a good light by way of comparison, and news about government policy. Not surprisingly, Singapore has one of the world's most active blogging communities. Genuine debate, opinion pieces and news appear on many Singapore-related websites.
Lee Kin Mun has become one of Singapore's most widely read and influential bloggers through his social and political commentary website, www.mrbrown.com. Lee also produces a satirical podcast called the Mr Brown Show, which averages 20,000 downloads a day. It is sophisticated and hugely funny - and a stark contrast to what is available on local government-controlled television.
Such is the popularity of Lee's blog that he was given a column in the government-controlled Today newspaper in a measure designed to demonstrate that the government could tolerate a measure of public debate. However, the experiment ended abruptly after Li wrote a column on rising living costs. A government official complained that Lee had distorted the truth and Singapore's prime minister claimed that Lee had made wild accusations.
Lee continues to publish and broadcast his satires and commentaries, providing Singaporeans with a vibrant and diversified media otherwise denied them.
17. ZETI AKHTAR AZIZ, MALAYSIA
The assertive and competent Zeti Akhtar Aziz was appointed governor of Malaysia's central bank in 2000. Her appointment demonstrated to the world that being a Muslim woman in an Islamic country was not incompatible with either holding a position of real power or with south-east Asian traditions. She had held previous positions with the bank, including deputy governor, chief economist and head of the economics department.
Zeti was instrumental in advising the government to unpeg the Malaysian ringgit from the US dollar, as she had been in advising the government about implementing the peg in the first place. Many might have disagreed with the government's decision to peg the ringgit in 1998 during Asia's economic crisis, but few could argue with the competency with which it was carried out - Malaysia's central bank is one of Asia's most technically able and least corrupt.
Zeti has been prominent in the development of Islamic finance in Malaysia and internationally, such that the country is emerging as an important centre for Islamic finance, both in its practice and in developing the regulatory framework to support it. She studied economics at the University of Malaya, obtained her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and is published in the areas of monetary and financial economics, capital flows and macroeconomic management.
18. TARISA WATANAGASE, THAILAND
Tarisa Watanagase, the first female governor of the Bank of Thailand, the country's central bank, was appointed to the post in October 2006; she also sits on the seven-member monetary policy board that sets interest rates in Thailand. She has been with the bank for 31 years (with a break at the IMF from 1988 to 1990) and is widely respected in the finance community not only for her technical skills, but also for her reputation as a fighter for central bank independence.
The attempts of previous prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to undermine the independence of most key state institutions was one of the contributing factors in the military moving against him in September 2006. The interim military-backed government's appointment of Tarisa to head the central bank was a signal that it intended to adopt a hands-off approach. Similarly, it opted to reinstate the auditor general, who Thaksin had sought to remove, for similar reasons (see Jaruvan Maintaka).
Born in 1949, Tarisa gained a PhD in economics from Washington University. She joined the bank in 1975 and has had experience in each key division. Before her appointment to governor, she had been one of the bank's three deputy governors and another woman, Atchana Waiquamdee, was appointed to fill the vacancy created by Tarisa's appointment. The pair provide clear evidence of the prominent role that women are able to play in Asia.
19. DAVID WEBB, HONG KONG
David Webb runs one of the best websites devoted to corporate governance among listed companies anywhere - see www.webb-site.com. His commentaries on the misdeeds of many of Hong Kong's listed companies are exceptionally well written, and are devastating in their forensic and careful analysis. Unfair related-party transactions between listed and privately held companies are a particular target of his; a recent post, for example, looks at Chinese oil company CNOOC's attempt to force minority shareholders to approve more loans to a finance company set up by its state-owned parent.
Still relatively young, Webb is a former investment banker who moved to Hong Kong from London in 1991. He was corporate finance director of Barclays subsidiary BZW Asia, conducting equity issues and advisory mandates throughout Asia, until 1994, when he became in-house adviser to Wheelock, a local listed conglomerate, before retiring in 1998.
He made a small fortune from savvy stock investing and has devoted much of his time since to non-profit corporate governance advocacy work, most notably through his website, which has attracted a following among the investment community. He has become widely quoted on corporate governance issues in the Hong Kong and regional media. He holds small stakes in many companies in order to attend AGMs and hold directors accountable.
He was elected a non-executive director of Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing, which runs Hong Kong's stock exchange, in 2003. Some were concerned that this would compromise his independence, but his withering and typically humiliating website commentaries have continued.
20. PUSHPA KAMAL DAHAL (ALIAS PRACHANDA), NEPAL
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda, is the leader of the Maoist Communist party of Nepal. Born into a Brahmin family in 1954, he studied agricultural science at a Nepalese university and was inspired by China's Cultural Revolution in the 1970s to become active in the communist movement in Nepal. He became leader of the Communist party in 1986 and after it splintered he emerged as the leader of the Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) in 1994. The party gave the government a list of 40 demands and threatened to declare war if the demands were not met. Between 1996 and 2006, the Maoists waged a bloody civil war, causing enormous damage to Nepal's rudimentary infrastructure and costing about 12,000 lives. Both sides were culpable and engaged in appalling human rights abuses.
In February 2005, Nepal's king sacked the elected government and took direct control of day-to-day affairs of state. In November 2005, Prachanda and an alliance of seven parties that had been elected to Nepal's parliament in 1999 released a 12-point plan for co-operation. Key to the plan was a commitment by all sides to a multi-party democracy, press freedom and human rights. A ceasefire was agreed and, at Prachanda's urging, the government of prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala stripped almost all powers and many assets from the king, a process that has occurred with surprising speed.
Prachanda's talks with the prime minister have resulted in an agreement that the Maoists will enter a multi-party interim government, a new constitution will be drafted and both sides will disarm under international supervision. Nepal now has its first chance of peace in more than a decade and the possibility of real political reform.
http://www.worldbusinesslive.com/search/article/655151/top-20-asian-progressives/
Top 20 Asian progressives
Words by: Michael Backman, World Business
Published: 09-May-07
Who are the modernisers and reformers steering the region towards good business practice, transparency and management excellence?
Other publications list Asia's most influential, or its most powerful or richest, but World Business is more forward-looking than that. We have spotlighted the individuals driving Asia forward - those that are helping to bring about rules-based civil societies, or who are advancing the cause of better governance, be it in business or government. One of the greatest guarantees of freedom is the free-flow of information, debate and commentary, and so our list includes several who are integral to promoting debate where governments of the region seek to restrict it. Included are several prominent bloggers who risk their livelihoods to bring to the people of Asia commentary and opinion that is a matter of course in the West.
We have included some of the region's prominent businesspeople, notable not only for their forward-looking approach but also for their philanthropy, which remains essential in Asia where governments for the most part lack sufficient resources to do all that should be done to take care of society's most vulnerable. And there are some prominent legislators: Asia is home to some of the world's most repressive regimes, but others, such as Vietnam's current leadership, have shown a preparedness to ditch ideology in favour of improving their people's welfare.
Some of the names will invite controversy: as administrator of Tibet, Hu Jintao was responsible for a crackdown in 1989 that saw hundreds of Tibetan protestors killed; Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad did not use his period of power to introduce greater transparency in government tendering or stamp out corruption in Malaysia's police force; and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, leader of the Maoists in Nepal, led a bloody decade-long war against the Nepalese government. But it is our contention that these individuals are now helping to reform Asia, so that in future the region's citizens will enjoy greater freedoms than in the past.
1. HU JINTAO, CHINA
Hu Jintao is the eighth General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and China's paramount leader and president. The general rule of thumb has become that each new Chinese leader is less hard-line than the last and Hu bears this out. He succeeded Jiang Zemin in 2002 and to date has shown himself to be cosmopolitan, worldly and technocratic. He speaks relatively unaccented Mandarin, unlike most of his predecessors, underlining his urbane image.
Hu rose through China's construction ministry, became involved in the Communist party and was introduced to a series of mentors who recognised his talent. He was appointed party chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1988, where he took a hard-line politically, instigating a crackdown in 1989 that saw the deaths of several hundred Tibetan activists. But at the same time, he liberalised cultural activities. This apparently paradoxical approach sums up his style: protect the Chinese state at all costs, but increase personal freedoms.
Since becoming president, one of Hu's priorities has been the development of China's poorer inner provinces to ensure a better distribution of the country's economic advancement. Transparency in government decision-making has also increased - China's news agency now publishes Politburo standing committee meeting details, and foreign journalists enjoy unprecedented access. Emphasis on GDP growth has lessened; instead, there is more concern with the quality of growth.
China's foreign policy, particularly its cultivation of links with African and South American states, illustrates that under Hu, China is becoming more of a commercial player on the world stage and less of a political strategist for its own sake.
2. RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN, MALAYSIA
Though more robust than that of Singapore, Malaysia's media is nonetheless tame. All significant media outlets are sympathetic to the government, there is little investigative journalism and discussion of many issues is discouraged. The newspapers focus endlessly on crime and lifestyle issues, and Malaysians tend to buy them for their job ads and to find out what's showing at the cinema. Increasingly, the serious reporting and commentary is done by bloggers, of which Raj Petra Kamarudin's www.malaysia-today.net is the best.
Petra, a nephew of a former king of Malaysia, founded Malaysia-today in 2004 and works on it full time. The site now gets an astonishing 1.8 million hits on an average day, making it much more popular than any Malaysian newspaper. Malaysia-today plays an enormously important role in its attempts to keep the government accountable. It reports on ministers' many business interests, nepotism and just about anything else that the government would prefer to keep quiet. Petra uses the site to denounce money politics, corruption and Malaysia's endless fascination with race and race-based politics. A popular, ongoing series is the Khairy Chronicles, which provides an account of the doings of the prime minister's young, unelected, but highly influential son-in-law.
Many reports have been made against Petra to the police, agents from Malaysia's Special Branch have questioned him on several occasions and his computers have been seized. Recently, he reported how the government intended to use a nominee company to borrow $50 billion, in order to avoid recording the loan as government borrowing. He has also reported on a particularly grisly murder that appeared to implicate senior government figures.
3. LOU JIWEI, CHINA
Lou Jiwei has been appointed to head the investment agency that will manage $200 billion of China's $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, which have accrued from inwards foreign investment and export earnings. Finance minister Jin Renqing said in March that the new agency will use "international best practices" and that "we will try to maximise profits and returns on our management of foreign exchange, guided by the principles of safety and risk management". The agency will model itself on the Singapore government's Temasek Holdings, but will be twice its size.
Educated and cosmopolitan, Lou's reputation as a moderniser precedes his appointment to the agency. He has been at the forefront of reforming China's economy for more than two decades and is a well-regarded technocrat. He spearheaded the reform of China's financial services industry during his seven-year term as vice-minister of finance. A protege of the reformist premier Zhu Rongji, Lou was pivotal in redesigning China's tax system and drawing up plans for a domestic bond market as the deputy head of the Shanghai Commission for Economic Regulation.
A computer programmer turned economist, he has always been a low-key policy specialist and perhaps represents the best hope for China's troubled Communist party. As the party's devotion to Marxist and Maoist ideology has waned, talent in running China's increasingly sophisticated economy has become more important. Unlike many of his colleagues, Lou did not join the rallies in Shanghai's People's Park in 1989 in support of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. He prefers to use more official channels and consequently has been one of China's most effective reformers.
4. NARAYANA MURTHY, INDIA
Narayana Murthy founded global consulting and IT services giant Infosys Technologies in 1981. He and a handful of other software engineers, who saw IT outsourcing's potential, have almost single-handedly changed how the world thinks about India. In the space of one generation, the popular perception has changed from one of chronic poverty and over-population to one of technical sophistication and a country on the move. Of course, the reality lies somewhere in between, but this change in perception has been more important within India than outside, giving Indians a new confidence. Importantly, it has shown that India can compete on the world economic stage in a sector not assisted by government or hidden behind tariffs.
Murthy served as Infosys chairman for 20 years until 2002, and as executive chairman of the board and chief mentor from 2002 to 2006. The company expects revenues of more than $3 billion this year. He has been prominent in the fight in India for better corporate governance and was appointed chairman of the Securities & Exchange Board of India's Committee on Corporate Governance in 2003,
He is a member of the advisory board of Harvard Business School's Corporate Governance initiative. He is also on the board of directors of INSEAD and is an independent director of DBS, Singapore's largest bank. In March, he became chairman of the Asia Business Council, and he joins Unilever's board this month as a non-executive director. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, and in December 2005 was voted the seventh most admired CEO/chairman in a global study by the Economist Intelligence Unit. In March, he denied that he was interested in running for the presidency of India.
5. NGUYEN TAN DUNG, VIETNAM
Nguyen Tan Dung was appointed prime minister of Vietnam in June 2006 after the retirement of his predecessor, Phan Van Khai. At 57, he is the first Vietnamese communist leader to be born after the August Revolution in 1945 and is Vietnam's youngest prime minister. Like Khai, he is a reformer and a moderniser; he was appointed to carry on the economic reforms that have seen the economy grow at about 7% a year and permitted the country's admission to the WTO in 2006.
Dung is a technocrat and is economically literate, but he is not the only moderniser in the government. Nguyen Minh Triet, who was appointed president when Dung was appointed prime minister, is also a reformer. And the third member of the power triumvirate, communist party chief Nong Duc Manh, is another keen moderniser with a strong preference for privatising state-owned assets.
Dung was appointed one of five deputy prime ministers in 1997; a year later he was also made governor of Vietnam's central bank, the State Bank of Vietnam, where he pushed forward monetary reform and bank mergers, thus giving the country's financial system a more stable foundation. On becoming prime minister, he nominated fighting corruption and developing the Vietnamese economy in a sustainable way as two of his priorities. On one of his first overseas trips as prime minister, Dung met the Pope at the Vatican in January, the first Vietnamese leader to do so.
Dung is overseeing Vietnam's progress from a communist state to a more market-oriented country that is an active and mature participant on the world stage. He is firmly committed to carrying on the legacy of his recent predecessors - that of further openness and economic freedom.
6. MUHAMMAD YUNUS, BANGLADESH
Born in 1940, Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, which provides micro-credit loans to poor, would-be entrepreneurs who would otherwise be denied credit by the formal banking system. For his efforts, he and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus is also the recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the World Food Prize and the Sydney Peace Prize.
Yunus graduated in economics from Dhaka University, later obtaining a PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University. He first became interested in what later became known as micro-credit during the 1974 Bangladesh famine. His first loan - from his own pocket - was for $27 to a woman who made bamboo furniture. He soon realised that very small loans could make a big difference to poor people who want to start or expand a small business.
In 1976, the Grameen Bank started to make loans to poor Bangladeshis. It has since lent more than $5.1 billion to 5.3 million borrowers. More than 96% of loans are to women: they are more impoverished and have also proven to be more diligent repayers than men. Repayment is encouraged by lending to informal groups whose members act as co-guarantors. The success of the Grameen model has inspired similar efforts throughout the developing world and there are now micro-credit institutions in more than 23 countries.
Yunus announced in February that public pressure to intervene in Bangladesh's violent and complex political arena had forced his decision to set up a new political party. The country has been ruled by a military-backed administration since 11 January, when the president declared a state of emergency and cancelled parliamentary elections.
7. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD, MALAYSIA
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister from 1981 to 2003, was perhaps Asia's most misunderstood leader. Mahathir had plenty of critics, but the country's impressive development under his stewardship is undeniable. Also undeniable is his popularity among Malaysia's minority ethnic groups, particularly the Chinese, who comprise about 30% of the population. Mahathir managed to persuade different ethnic groups to think of themselves as Malaysians, despite economic and education policies that favoured the majority Malay population at the expense of the commercially successful Chinese minority.
These policies helped to break the nexus between great wealth and (Chinese) ethnicity, thus making the Chinese less of a target politically in the event of unrest. Mahathir also kept a lid on Islamic fundamentalism, showing not just Malaysia but much of the Islamic world that economic progress and Islam can go hand in hand. Under Mahathir, the media and the judiciary lacked independence, but Malaysians enjoy far more political freedoms than the citizens of neighbouring Singapore.
Mahathir resigned as prime minister while still popular and at a time of his choosing. In retirement, he has emerged as a loud critic of the new administration, bringing to Malaysia a level of public debate that few would have thought possible. His regular interventions on policy issues have almost given Malaysia the strong opposition voice that it has not previously had.
He has attacked the government for not doing enough to tackle the widespread corruption, and has criticised the concessions given to foreign firms that invest in an economic zone in southern Malaysia. Even out of office, Mahathir continues to modernise his country.
8. LI KA SHING, HONG KONG
Sir Li Ka Shing has broken the mould. When most ethnic Chinese become big in business, it usually means they simply become even bigger traders of goods. But not Li. An immigrant from mainland China, he had his start making and selling plastic flowers. As he became more successful, he moved increasingly into providing services, albeit with infrastructure development - specifically, providing port services in Hong Kong, mainland China, India and elsewhere, and more recently becoming a worldwide force in telecommunications services.
By moving beyond the old cultural stereotype, Li has transformed his group of companies into one of Asia's first home-grown genuine multinationals. He is admired around the world rather than merely in Hong Kong as an astute investor, and along the way has made himself the world's ninth richest individual, with an estimated fortune of $23 billion. But he does not lead an extravagant lifestyle: the main indicator of his wealth and status is that he's rarely seen without a large contingent of bodyguards.
Cheung Kong Holdings emerged in the early 1970s; today, the group operates in 54 countries and employs 220,000 people. In 1979, Li acquired Hutchison Whampoa, which became the vehicle for his electricity generation, ports and telecommunications interests. Li was an early investor in telecoms group Orange, before selling out to Germany's Mannesmann Group in 2001 for a profit of more than $15 billion. In January 2007 Hutchison agreed to sell its 67% stake in Indian mobile phone operator Hutchison Essar to Vodafone for $9 billion.
Li has established the Li Ka Shing Foundation for charitable works and is a major donor to education and healthcare - he is believed to have given away more than $1 billion to date.
9. JAIME AUGUSTO ZOBEL DE AYALA, PHILIPPINES
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala is the head of the influential Ayala Group, one of the Philippines' biggest business groups. Zobel studied economics at Harvard and has an MBA from Harvard. He is an intellectual, has a truly global outlook and is a strong promoter of the principles of corporate governance in a country that sorely needs them.
Ayala has interests in real estate, water supply, automobile distribution, banking and food production, and has a reputation for being prudent and conservative. Zobel serves as chairman of the family holding company, Ayala Corporation, the group's mobile telephone operator Globe Telecom and the Bank of the Philippine Islands. He is also co-vice chairman of the Ayala Foundation, a leading corporate donor in the Philippines. The foundation has a US-based arm that encourages Filipinos to contribute to social development programmes in the Philippines.
The family's sound management practice is exemplary by Asian standards. It does not have private business interests that run parallel with its listed companies, and so it is free of the conflicts of interests that bedevil many Asian family-controlled conglomerates. All Ayala businesses are listed or belong to a parent company that is.
The family is of Spanish descent, but under Zobel it has moved to open its management ranks to Filipinos of any ethnicity. Family members are involved in the group's management only if they have the requisite professional skills. The group has raised its accounting practices to international standards, ahead of that mandated by the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Philippine GAAP.
10. SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARY, MALAYSIA
Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary has built himself up from almost nothing to be one of Malaysia's richest men. He has developed port facilities and an airport in southern Malaysia, as well as amassing interests in property, hotels, power stations, rubber plantations, banking, retailing and construction. His companies are run by professional managers throughout, rather than family members.
He dislikes publicity and is remarkable by Malaysian corporate standards in not using his shareholders' money to buy a corporate jet, a helicopter or a fleet of Mercedes-Benz. He has no interest in personal aggrandisement. Instead, his great passion is his charitable foundation, the Al-Bukhary Foundation, into which he has poured millions to build mosques, schools and hospitals. The foundation has also built, stocked and runs the Islamic Art Museum in Kuala Lumpur, a world-class institution that puts Malaysia's National Museum to shame. A modern Muslim, he does not believe that women should cover their heads or faces and feels that Islam should return to what it was once known for: commerce and the arts.
In late 2006, his MMC Corporation, together with a local partner, won an extraordinary $30 billion infrastructure deal in Saudi Arabia to develop a new industrial and commercial city. It's a huge undertaking for any company, let alone a Malaysian one, and it represents how Al-Bukhary likes to do business. He is a strong promoter of Muslim cross-border investment and trading ties, in the same way that other commercial ethnic groups trade across borders.
Al-Bukhary is a breath of fresh air for corporate Malaysia and an inspiration to Muslims everywhere.
11. SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO, INDONESIA
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected president of Indonesia in 2004. To some, his presidency has been disappointing, but then it could barely be anything else. Indonesia's problems are so enormous and intractable that the job is near-impossible. So why is Yudhoyono one of Asia's top progressives? Largely because of what he's not: he is not corrupt, prone to nepotism, administratively incompetent or an obsessive nationalist.
He has enormous personal integrity and has done a remarkable job in balancing Indonesia's many conflicting interests in this the world's largest Islamic country, but also one of its most ethnically diverse. A retired general, he is Indonesia's sixth president but the first to have been elected directly by voters. He is an English speaker, in contrast with his immediate predecessor Megawati Soekarnoputri, a Jakarta housewife whose only political attribute was that her father had been president. Unlike other senior politicians' children, Yudhoyono's two sons are not in business. Each of ex-president Soeharto's six children started one or more conglomerates, all dependent on government favours and concessions.
Yudhoyono earned a reputation as one of the army's pro-reform officers in the last days of Soeharto's regime. In the aftermath of Soeharto's fall in 1998, Yudhoyono talked publicly about his ideas for reforming the role of the military and Indonesia more generally. His popularity rose, and he was made co-ordinating minister for politics and security. One of his first tasks was to remove the army from political life.
Yudhoyono's time as president has been plagued by natural disasters, including the 2004 tsunami. Nonetheless, he has negotiated a peace settlement with rebels in the province of Aceh, and cut fuel subsidies twice in 2005.
12. RATAN TATA, INDIA
Ratan Tata is India's most progressive businessman on several counts: he has expanded a family business into a well-run international conglomerate and has done so largely on behalf of charity - the principal owners of the Tata Group are a series of charities. The family's activities (it has given millions to research, environment projects and schools), like those of the rest of India's small Parsee community of which Tata is a member, have made it well-liked and admired, despite its wealth and ethnic minority status. The Parsees provide a valuable lesson to other rich business minorities on how to avoid persecution from an envious majority.
Tata joined the family business after graduating in architecture and structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962. In 1991, he took over as group chairman, ushering in a period of management rationalisation and greater investment in core activities that have allowed the group to expand to its current size - Tata Group has the largest capitalisation on the Mumbai stock exchange. The group bought Tetley Tea in 2000 for $421 million, the truck division of South Korea's Daewoo for $102 million in 2004 and, in January, Europe's Corus steel-making group for a massive $11.3 billion. Under Tata, the group has been at the forefront of India's push to become the world's biggest exporter of IT services.
Tata is on the board of India's central bank and is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. Among his other public and charitable roles, he also serves on the programme board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS initiative. Tata has shown India that its companies can be world class, and he is arguably the country's most important philanthropist.
13. WARREN LICHTENSTEIN, JAPAN/KOREA
A US citizen, Warren Lichtenstein is an activist investor and founder of Steel Partners, a New York-based hedge fund. The fund has stakes in more than 100 companies in the US, Japan and Korea. Lichtenstein is a demanding minority investor, who exercises shareholder rights to enforce disclosure and accountability from the companies in which he invests. Accordingly, he has been something of a shock to corporate Japan and Korea, in which minority shareholders are expected to know their place.
In Japan, many listed companies hold their AGMs on the same day to limit the number of meetings that investors in multiple companies can attend. Many companies have little interest in shareholder value and build up huge cash piles with no intention of returning funds to shareholders. This, and other sluggish practices, damages the reputation of the stock market and hinders the flow of new capital.
Lichtenstein targets cash-rich firms with market capitalisations well below net asset values, builds up a stake in them and then threatens a takeover unless they return their cash to shareholders. His targeting of several Japanese companies in 2003 impelled the boards of dozens of unrelated Japanese companies to pre-emptively increase their dividend payouts. In Korea, Lichtenstein teamed up with fellow fund manager Carl Icahn to launch a hostile takeover bid for South Korea's biggest tobacco company, KT&G. Hostile takeovers are almost unheard of in Korea and the move created an uproar, but KT&G agreed to return $2.9 billion to shareholders.
Lichtenstein's method of doing business has made him immensely wealthy, but he has also dramatically changed the behaviour of Japanese and Korean companies.
14. MAHESH, AJAY AND SHARAD AMALEAN, SRI LANKA
A Sri Lankan-based intimate apparel maker, the three Amalean brothers founded MAS Holdings in 1986. It is the largest supplier to Victoria's Secret and other customers include Gap, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Reebok. In March 2007, MAS announced plans to launch its own brand this August.
The company has 17 plants in eight countries and 35,000 employees. But what's remarkable about it is its home-grown corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. Women comprise more than 90% of MAS' employees and so the company established the Women Go Beyond programme to educate and empower its employees. A beauty, health and hygiene certificate is offered, and there are classes on reproductive health, domestic violence and traditional crafts. Nearby schools and hospitals are funded and scholarships are awarded.
MAS set up its plants in rural locations near villages so that women would not have to leave their families to find work, and all employees must be aged at least 18 (in contrast, Chinese factories can take on employees as young as 14). The company also invests in developing clear career paths: its Ready to Unleash programme aims to guide graduates into the company and on to management levels.
MAS has faced intense competition from China. The international Multi-Fibre Agreement, which ended in 2005, ensured that at least some of the West's clothing and textiles were sourced from smaller developing countries. Since then, the Amaleans have shown that it is possible to compete with sweatshops in China by emphasising their CSR programme, which has made MAS a more attractive source for retailers with ethical buying policies.
15. JARUVAN MAINTAKA, THAILAND
Born in 1947, Jaruvan Maintak is Thailand's auditor general and an iconic figure. A Catholic convert, she graduated from Thailand's Chulalongkorn University and later completed an MBA at Michigan State University. She joined the office of the auditor general and in 2001 was appointed by the Thai Senate to be the auditor general. The manner of the appointment was controversial, however, and she did not appear to be then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's first choice for the position.
Jaruvan embarked on a series of investigations that embarrassed the government and a legal challenge was made to her appointment, which was upheld. Many interpreted this move as an attempt to silence her rather than concerns about due process. She refused to step down, saying she would do so only if the king assented. The king withheld his assent, thus embarrassing Thaksin and his government.
The military coup in September 2006, which had the implicit backing of the king, abrogated the 1997 constitution and most of the state organisations it established. The auditor general's office was spared, however, and the new military government confirmed Jaruvan in her position.
The government made Jaruvan a member of its newly established Assets Examination Committee (AEC), tasked with investigating corruption involving projects approved by Thaksin's government. Jaruvan threatened to resign if its scope was not expanded to include all cases of alleged irregularity, including the personal wealth of former cabinet ministers.
The AEC has since commenced several high-profile investigations and Jaruvan has shown no fear. Her dogged determination has attracted many enemies, but she has set new standards of accountability in Thailand.
16. LEE KIN MUN (ALIAS MR BROWN), SINGAPORE
Singapore has some of the world's tightest media restrictions. Little genuine public debate is permitted and investigative journalism is largely non-existent. The role of the media is to report government announcements rather than to hold the government to account. And so Singaporeans are fed a bland diet of lifestyle articles, world news often slanted to show Singapore in a good light by way of comparison, and news about government policy. Not surprisingly, Singapore has one of the world's most active blogging communities. Genuine debate, opinion pieces and news appear on many Singapore-related websites.
Lee Kin Mun has become one of Singapore's most widely read and influential bloggers through his social and political commentary website, www.mrbrown.com. Lee also produces a satirical podcast called the Mr Brown Show, which averages 20,000 downloads a day. It is sophisticated and hugely funny - and a stark contrast to what is available on local government-controlled television.
Such is the popularity of Lee's blog that he was given a column in the government-controlled Today newspaper in a measure designed to demonstrate that the government could tolerate a measure of public debate. However, the experiment ended abruptly after Li wrote a column on rising living costs. A government official complained that Lee had distorted the truth and Singapore's prime minister claimed that Lee had made wild accusations.
Lee continues to publish and broadcast his satires and commentaries, providing Singaporeans with a vibrant and diversified media otherwise denied them.
17. ZETI AKHTAR AZIZ, MALAYSIA
The assertive and competent Zeti Akhtar Aziz was appointed governor of Malaysia's central bank in 2000. Her appointment demonstrated to the world that being a Muslim woman in an Islamic country was not incompatible with either holding a position of real power or with south-east Asian traditions. She had held previous positions with the bank, including deputy governor, chief economist and head of the economics department.
Zeti was instrumental in advising the government to unpeg the Malaysian ringgit from the US dollar, as she had been in advising the government about implementing the peg in the first place. Many might have disagreed with the government's decision to peg the ringgit in 1998 during Asia's economic crisis, but few could argue with the competency with which it was carried out - Malaysia's central bank is one of Asia's most technically able and least corrupt.
Zeti has been prominent in the development of Islamic finance in Malaysia and internationally, such that the country is emerging as an important centre for Islamic finance, both in its practice and in developing the regulatory framework to support it. She studied economics at the University of Malaya, obtained her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and is published in the areas of monetary and financial economics, capital flows and macroeconomic management.
18. TARISA WATANAGASE, THAILAND
Tarisa Watanagase, the first female governor of the Bank of Thailand, the country's central bank, was appointed to the post in October 2006; she also sits on the seven-member monetary policy board that sets interest rates in Thailand. She has been with the bank for 31 years (with a break at the IMF from 1988 to 1990) and is widely respected in the finance community not only for her technical skills, but also for her reputation as a fighter for central bank independence.
The attempts of previous prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to undermine the independence of most key state institutions was one of the contributing factors in the military moving against him in September 2006. The interim military-backed government's appointment of Tarisa to head the central bank was a signal that it intended to adopt a hands-off approach. Similarly, it opted to reinstate the auditor general, who Thaksin had sought to remove, for similar reasons (see Jaruvan Maintaka).
Born in 1949, Tarisa gained a PhD in economics from Washington University. She joined the bank in 1975 and has had experience in each key division. Before her appointment to governor, she had been one of the bank's three deputy governors and another woman, Atchana Waiquamdee, was appointed to fill the vacancy created by Tarisa's appointment. The pair provide clear evidence of the prominent role that women are able to play in Asia.
19. DAVID WEBB, HONG KONG
David Webb runs one of the best websites devoted to corporate governance among listed companies anywhere - see www.webb-site.com. His commentaries on the misdeeds of many of Hong Kong's listed companies are exceptionally well written, and are devastating in their forensic and careful analysis. Unfair related-party transactions between listed and privately held companies are a particular target of his; a recent post, for example, looks at Chinese oil company CNOOC's attempt to force minority shareholders to approve more loans to a finance company set up by its state-owned parent.
Still relatively young, Webb is a former investment banker who moved to Hong Kong from London in 1991. He was corporate finance director of Barclays subsidiary BZW Asia, conducting equity issues and advisory mandates throughout Asia, until 1994, when he became in-house adviser to Wheelock, a local listed conglomerate, before retiring in 1998.
He made a small fortune from savvy stock investing and has devoted much of his time since to non-profit corporate governance advocacy work, most notably through his website, which has attracted a following among the investment community. He has become widely quoted on corporate governance issues in the Hong Kong and regional media. He holds small stakes in many companies in order to attend AGMs and hold directors accountable.
He was elected a non-executive director of Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing, which runs Hong Kong's stock exchange, in 2003. Some were concerned that this would compromise his independence, but his withering and typically humiliating website commentaries have continued.
20. PUSHPA KAMAL DAHAL (ALIAS PRACHANDA), NEPAL
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda, is the leader of the Maoist Communist party of Nepal. Born into a Brahmin family in 1954, he studied agricultural science at a Nepalese university and was inspired by China's Cultural Revolution in the 1970s to become active in the communist movement in Nepal. He became leader of the Communist party in 1986 and after it splintered he emerged as the leader of the Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) in 1994. The party gave the government a list of 40 demands and threatened to declare war if the demands were not met. Between 1996 and 2006, the Maoists waged a bloody civil war, causing enormous damage to Nepal's rudimentary infrastructure and costing about 12,000 lives. Both sides were culpable and engaged in appalling human rights abuses.
In February 2005, Nepal's king sacked the elected government and took direct control of day-to-day affairs of state. In November 2005, Prachanda and an alliance of seven parties that had been elected to Nepal's parliament in 1999 released a 12-point plan for co-operation. Key to the plan was a commitment by all sides to a multi-party democracy, press freedom and human rights. A ceasefire was agreed and, at Prachanda's urging, the government of prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala stripped almost all powers and many assets from the king, a process that has occurred with surprising speed.
Prachanda's talks with the prime minister have resulted in an agreement that the Maoists will enter a multi-party interim government, a new constitution will be drafted and both sides will disarm under international supervision. Nepal now has its first chance of peace in more than a decade and the possibility of real political reform.
http://www.worldbusinesslive.com/search/article/655151/top-20-asian-progressives/
forum... "respect women’s dignity, towards a 1st world parliament”...
pretty effective forum i must say!...
approx 300 people turned up and they kinda expect less than 100+ people by the way they set up the seating!... approx 70% of them are males!... it proves another thing in this 'leaking issues'.. the 2 leaking clowns definitely disgrace the male population too!....
the speakers did an excellent job explaining various issues which is hindering malaysia to achieve the 1st world parliament 'status'... fm sexual abuse to gender discrimination to childish mentalities of the bn mps to why the parliament being called a circus to etc...
another thing brought up was the fear in people in general.. they are fear of changes, fear of supremacy, fear of govt, etc... i personally concluded that we need to turn the whole thing around, let the govt be fearful of the rakyat and treat the rakyats as their assets, not as their liabilities!...
people in general MUST stand up and be firm on this kinda issues... pls come out fm the fear and make a change and move towards the real bangsa malaysia status!...
p/s ; for this 2 leaking clowns and a whole lot of others, they fear no one EXCEPT the hand that feed them which is the big boss.. and it is US that gives the vote to the big boss for him to sit up there... now, who is the BIGGER clown?!?... no matter wat kinda stupid nonsense the election commission will be coming out... i suggest all the sane malaysians to work hand-in-hand and PLEASE vote wisely during the next ge...
for the 'official results' of the forum... do go here.. (http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=245)
“Respect Women’s Dignity, Towards A 1st World Parliament”
The Parliament has failed in its duty to the nation and people, in particular Malaysian women. It has shirked its responsibility to redeem itself and punish the two sexist BN MPs who have brought shame and dishonour to Parliament by the use of derogatory, crude, vulgar, sexist and gender-offensive attack on Sdri Fong Po Kuan and all Malaysian women on Wednesday, 9th May.
Since Parliament is not prepared to do what it should do to redeem its honour and those of Malaysian women and the nation, it is now up to the ordinary Malaysian public to do what Members of Parliament and Ministers have failed to do – by making their condemnation of the sexist conduct of the two BN MPs loud and clear to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the country!
In conjunction with the above incident, DAP is organising the following forum entitled “Respect Women’s Dignity, Towards A 1st World Parliament!”
Date:
17 May 2007 (Thursday)
Time:
7.30pm
Venue:
YMCA Hall,
Kuala Lumpur.
No.95,
Jalan Padang Belia, Off Jalan Tun Sambanthan, 50470 Kuala Lumpur
(Opposite of the KL SENTRAL Station)
Speakers:
Ambiga Screenevasan - Bar Council President
Maria Chin Bte Abdullah - Executive Director of Women Development Collective (WDC)
Zainah Anwar - Executive Director of Sisters in Islam
Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail – President of Parti KeADILan Rakyat * (To be conformed)
Lim Guan Eng - Secretary-General of DAP
YB Lim Kit Siang - Parliamentary Opposition Leader
YB Teresa Kok Suh Sim - MP for Seputeh
YB Fong Po Kuan - MP for Batu Gajah
Moderator: Tony Pua.
All are welcome, admission is free!
approx 300 people turned up and they kinda expect less than 100+ people by the way they set up the seating!... approx 70% of them are males!... it proves another thing in this 'leaking issues'.. the 2 leaking clowns definitely disgrace the male population too!....
the speakers did an excellent job explaining various issues which is hindering malaysia to achieve the 1st world parliament 'status'... fm sexual abuse to gender discrimination to childish mentalities of the bn mps to why the parliament being called a circus to etc...
another thing brought up was the fear in people in general.. they are fear of changes, fear of supremacy, fear of govt, etc... i personally concluded that we need to turn the whole thing around, let the govt be fearful of the rakyat and treat the rakyats as their assets, not as their liabilities!...
people in general MUST stand up and be firm on this kinda issues... pls come out fm the fear and make a change and move towards the real bangsa malaysia status!...
p/s ; for this 2 leaking clowns and a whole lot of others, they fear no one EXCEPT the hand that feed them which is the big boss.. and it is US that gives the vote to the big boss for him to sit up there... now, who is the BIGGER clown?!?... no matter wat kinda stupid nonsense the election commission will be coming out... i suggest all the sane malaysians to work hand-in-hand and PLEASE vote wisely during the next ge...
for the 'official results' of the forum... do go here.. (http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=245)
“Respect Women’s Dignity, Towards A 1st World Parliament”
The Parliament has failed in its duty to the nation and people, in particular Malaysian women. It has shirked its responsibility to redeem itself and punish the two sexist BN MPs who have brought shame and dishonour to Parliament by the use of derogatory, crude, vulgar, sexist and gender-offensive attack on Sdri Fong Po Kuan and all Malaysian women on Wednesday, 9th May.
Since Parliament is not prepared to do what it should do to redeem its honour and those of Malaysian women and the nation, it is now up to the ordinary Malaysian public to do what Members of Parliament and Ministers have failed to do – by making their condemnation of the sexist conduct of the two BN MPs loud and clear to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the country!
In conjunction with the above incident, DAP is organising the following forum entitled “Respect Women’s Dignity, Towards A 1st World Parliament!”
Date:
17 May 2007 (Thursday)
Time:
7.30pm
Venue:
YMCA Hall,
Kuala Lumpur.
No.95,
Jalan Padang Belia, Off Jalan Tun Sambanthan, 50470 Kuala Lumpur
(Opposite of the KL SENTRAL Station)
Speakers:
Ambiga Screenevasan - Bar Council President
Maria Chin Bte Abdullah - Executive Director of Women Development Collective (WDC)
Zainah Anwar - Executive Director of Sisters in Islam
Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail – President of Parti KeADILan Rakyat * (To be conformed)
Lim Guan Eng - Secretary-General of DAP
YB Lim Kit Siang - Parliamentary Opposition Leader
YB Teresa Kok Suh Sim - MP for Seputeh
YB Fong Po Kuan - MP for Batu Gajah
Moderator: Tony Pua.
All are welcome, admission is free!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
200 durians cost the rakyat rm 26,000.00?!?...
durians galore!.. (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/17/nation/17749395&sec=nation)
now.. pls tell me aab didn't use the rakyat's money to pay for his durian feast with lhl... if he did, another outrageous nonsense he just did!.... rm 26,000.00 can save couple of villages fm hardcore poverty, rm 26,000.00 can help the less fortunate, rm 26,000.00 can at least patch couple of leakages in the parliament, etc...
there are loads more can be done with the rm 26,000.00 than buying durians!...
i mean if rm 26,000.00 can bring malaysia good and we can afford it, that is not an issue at all... the problem now is, with the current economy malaysia is facing, with the villages living without electricity and water, etc... every single cent certainly counts!....
am sure, there are loads more other ways to entertain yr guest other than spending a freaking rm 26,000.00 on durains alone!...
p/s ; 200 durians for just both of them?!?... call them the thornies! :) ....
now.. pls tell me aab didn't use the rakyat's money to pay for his durian feast with lhl... if he did, another outrageous nonsense he just did!.... rm 26,000.00 can save couple of villages fm hardcore poverty, rm 26,000.00 can help the less fortunate, rm 26,000.00 can at least patch couple of leakages in the parliament, etc...
there are loads more can be done with the rm 26,000.00 than buying durians!...
i mean if rm 26,000.00 can bring malaysia good and we can afford it, that is not an issue at all... the problem now is, with the current economy malaysia is facing, with the villages living without electricity and water, etc... every single cent certainly counts!....
am sure, there are loads more other ways to entertain yr guest other than spending a freaking rm 26,000.00 on durains alone!...
p/s ; 200 durians for just both of them?!?... call them the thornies! :) ....
the mother of all court battles started!...
now... after weeks of reading, following up and 'speculation' of this issue.. the mother of all court battles finally taking place... (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/16/nation/20070516152748&sec=nation)
will taib also sue the the japan times (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20070329a5.html) because they started this so-called 'allegations'?!?...
why only sue utusan, malaysiakini and keadilan when, think this 3 parties obtained this piece of news fm the japan times?!?...
if this proven to be true... anyway, how fake can it be?!?.. :) ... it's better for taib to step down immediately before he 'add more' shame/embarassment on himself and all the people in kuching for supporting him through out the years...
for more reading on this case.. pls go to (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/65905) and (http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/printable.php?id=261876)...
p/s ; the strongman of sarawak finally met his match?!?...
will taib also sue the the japan times (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20070329a5.html) because they started this so-called 'allegations'?!?...
why only sue utusan, malaysiakini and keadilan when, think this 3 parties obtained this piece of news fm the japan times?!?...
if this proven to be true... anyway, how fake can it be?!?.. :) ... it's better for taib to step down immediately before he 'add more' shame/embarassment on himself and all the people in kuching for supporting him through out the years...
for more reading on this case.. pls go to (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/65905) and (http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/printable.php?id=261876)...
p/s ; the strongman of sarawak finally met his match?!?...
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
leaking clowns patched up?!?...
after reading this.. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/16/nation/20070516125604&sec=nation and http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67295...
i wonder at times are they for real?!?...
i wonder why after all this hoo-hahs then only they apologise?!?...
i wonder why do they call it a slip of tounge when you are clearly enjoying yrself discriminating other people?!?...
i wonder are they really trying to show that they are above the law and/or having the thought that the sleeping beauty will let them go?!?...
i wonder did they really apologise because they are afraid because they will be suspended?!?...
i wonder will they be voted to office again during the next ge?!?...
i wonder why nr said it was just a joke then?!?...
i wonder why sharizat only took action after all this hoo-hahs?!?...
i wonder where is rafidah, azalina, ng yen yen, chew mei fun, komala, etc?!?...
i wonder when are those mcps gonna make this kinda statement again?!?...
but.. one thing am quite sure...
don't think po kuan made this issue into a big one because of her political intention, publicity, etc... dun think it's a way to gain extra votes at the next ge, etc.. more like she is defending the rights and dignity of all women in general WITH the support of women fm various background, organisations, etc...
btw, why do the opposition need to make this issue into a big one to gain votes in the next ge, when the opposition already have hundreds of other 'bigger' issues to nail the ruling umno-led party down?!?... fikir-fikirkan lah...
p/s ; the real apology comes fm deep within the heart and you don't say it when you are closing-one-eye!... any intention of issuing a public apology in the parliament?!?....
i wonder at times are they for real?!?...
i wonder why after all this hoo-hahs then only they apologise?!?...
i wonder why do they call it a slip of tounge when you are clearly enjoying yrself discriminating other people?!?...
i wonder are they really trying to show that they are above the law and/or having the thought that the sleeping beauty will let them go?!?...
i wonder did they really apologise because they are afraid because they will be suspended?!?...
i wonder will they be voted to office again during the next ge?!?...
i wonder why nr said it was just a joke then?!?...
i wonder why sharizat only took action after all this hoo-hahs?!?...
i wonder where is rafidah, azalina, ng yen yen, chew mei fun, komala, etc?!?...
i wonder when are those mcps gonna make this kinda statement again?!?...
but.. one thing am quite sure...
don't think po kuan made this issue into a big one because of her political intention, publicity, etc... dun think it's a way to gain extra votes at the next ge, etc.. more like she is defending the rights and dignity of all women in general WITH the support of women fm various background, organisations, etc...
btw, why do the opposition need to make this issue into a big one to gain votes in the next ge, when the opposition already have hundreds of other 'bigger' issues to nail the ruling umno-led party down?!?... fikir-fikirkan lah...
p/s ; the real apology comes fm deep within the heart and you don't say it when you are closing-one-eye!... any intention of issuing a public apology in the parliament?!?....
Saturday, May 12, 2007
leaking clowns in malaysia parliament!...
click here (http://sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=17887) if you wanna know who, when, why, where and how the clowns leaked!...
umno-led bn brought us national shame again and yes, aab said nothing about his half cooked people until now!...
to me personally, wanna show yr stupidity via vulgarity and some kinda pathetic sexist andoffensive statement/s go show somewhere else lah... for goodness sake, not during an official parliament hearing!... try go and telling yr respective mum and wife too, see wat will their response be!...
jasin and kinabatangan, if you both don't know how to joke, DON'T joke!... if you don't know how to play with words, DON'T play!... both of you makes the approx 27 million malaysians look extremely silly!...
dun think the women in umno-led bn mps dare to say anything about this tho... they should demand apologies fm their fellow colleagues, frens, etc... over this EXTREMELY offensive remarks... rafidah?!?... azalina?!?... sharizat?!?... chew mei fun?!?... komala?!?...
if we go on voting this kinda clowns to office, we are the BIGGER clowns at the ed of the day and when we look at the mirrors, we will be able to read the word, stupidity and/or dumb!...
p/s ; now, you know why parliment hearing in malaysia is not shown live despite requests to do so?!?...
umno-led bn brought us national shame again and yes, aab said nothing about his half cooked people until now!...
to me personally, wanna show yr stupidity via vulgarity and some kinda pathetic sexist andoffensive statement/s go show somewhere else lah... for goodness sake, not during an official parliament hearing!... try go and telling yr respective mum and wife too, see wat will their response be!...
jasin and kinabatangan, if you both don't know how to joke, DON'T joke!... if you don't know how to play with words, DON'T play!... both of you makes the approx 27 million malaysians look extremely silly!...
dun think the women in umno-led bn mps dare to say anything about this tho... they should demand apologies fm their fellow colleagues, frens, etc... over this EXTREMELY offensive remarks... rafidah?!?... azalina?!?... sharizat?!?... chew mei fun?!?... komala?!?...
if we go on voting this kinda clowns to office, we are the BIGGER clowns at the ed of the day and when we look at the mirrors, we will be able to read the word, stupidity and/or dumb!...
p/s ; now, you know why parliment hearing in malaysia is not shown live despite requests to do so?!?...
Thursday, May 10, 2007
aab and nr is just the same...
according to malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/66983) when they interviewed mm.. he said nr is more qualified then the current sleeping beauty...
wat made him say that?!?...
why did he said that?!?...
how come he said that?!?...
any agenda behind his back or he just wanna prove aab is just a one term pm?!?...
"we will bath this keris with chinese blood"... remember something along this line when our once so gung-ho nr?!?...
"i have no comments".. remember something along this line on how he kept extreme silence when allegations were thrown to him regarding the mongolian beauty, sukhoi, millions of ringgits kickbacks fm the submarines deal/s, etc...
think nr is already building his wealth now, even before he is a pm (if he ever will lah).. wat more, he is a pm then...
there are so many more to write on this lah... ok, work is bothering me now.. back to work!...
p/s ; if nr really gonna be the pm of malaysia one day, to me personally both (aab and nr) will provide same kinda negative outcome, probably different style only... worse if keris-muddin or his right hand man in umno youth comes on as pm after nr... not to say me being negative, but all this people won't be able to change a single thing fm many point of views, their current senseless and 'gangsteric' ways of doing things proves a lot!... the only major changes is to put the oppostion to power for once...
wat made him say that?!?...
why did he said that?!?...
how come he said that?!?...
any agenda behind his back or he just wanna prove aab is just a one term pm?!?...
"we will bath this keris with chinese blood"... remember something along this line when our once so gung-ho nr?!?...
"i have no comments".. remember something along this line on how he kept extreme silence when allegations were thrown to him regarding the mongolian beauty, sukhoi, millions of ringgits kickbacks fm the submarines deal/s, etc...
think nr is already building his wealth now, even before he is a pm (if he ever will lah).. wat more, he is a pm then...
there are so many more to write on this lah... ok, work is bothering me now.. back to work!...
p/s ; if nr really gonna be the pm of malaysia one day, to me personally both (aab and nr) will provide same kinda negative outcome, probably different style only... worse if keris-muddin or his right hand man in umno youth comes on as pm after nr... not to say me being negative, but all this people won't be able to change a single thing fm many point of views, their current senseless and 'gangsteric' ways of doing things proves a lot!... the only major changes is to put the oppostion to power for once...
rm 22 million just for checking/inspecting buildings?!?...
am sure a lot of people out there should know by now that malaysian umno-led govt buildings have tons of negative effects to it... millions of ringgits spent... another millions of ringgits needed for just to do checking/inspecting...
uncle sam mentioned in the below article that rm 22 million needed!... will this 'project' be another one like mrr2?!?.. fm rm 22 million to some other bigger amount?!?..
also, why rm 22 million?!?... the rakyat have every right to know!...
mind you, as per the report rm 22 million is only for checking/inspecting.. wat about repair work?!?... the way they are spending the money is like they can tear down the whole buidling and build another brand new one!...
p/s ; at times i wonder whether, did they do this on purpose... think the long term effects can definitely make them richer tho... :) ...
Checks for defects will cost RM22m, says Samy
KUALA LUMPUR: Inspections of all government buildings in Putrajaya for defects will cost about RM22mil, said Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu.
The inspections will be carried out in six months and a proposal had been submitted to the Cabinet, he told reporters.
On April 30, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ordered an immediate check on government buildings following the third case of structure collapse in three weeks.
A month ago, a burst pipe at the new Immigration Department Headquarters in Putrajaya brought its operations to a halt.
On April 29, chunks of the plaster ceiling at the multi-purpose hall at the Entrepreneurial Development and Cooperative Ministry collapsed.
The third incident was at the new Jalan Duta Court Complex here on April 30, where two parts of a ceiling collapsed.
On the malfunction of the runway navigation lights at the Sultan Mahmud Airport in Terengganu, Samy Vellu said new Public Works Department director-general Datuk Dr Judin Abdul Karim would investigate and take action against the contractors doing the upgrading works.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/10/nation/17682967&sec=nation
uncle sam mentioned in the below article that rm 22 million needed!... will this 'project' be another one like mrr2?!?.. fm rm 22 million to some other bigger amount?!?..
also, why rm 22 million?!?... the rakyat have every right to know!...
mind you, as per the report rm 22 million is only for checking/inspecting.. wat about repair work?!?... the way they are spending the money is like they can tear down the whole buidling and build another brand new one!...
p/s ; at times i wonder whether, did they do this on purpose... think the long term effects can definitely make them richer tho... :) ...
Checks for defects will cost RM22m, says Samy
KUALA LUMPUR: Inspections of all government buildings in Putrajaya for defects will cost about RM22mil, said Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu.
The inspections will be carried out in six months and a proposal had been submitted to the Cabinet, he told reporters.
On April 30, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ordered an immediate check on government buildings following the third case of structure collapse in three weeks.
A month ago, a burst pipe at the new Immigration Department Headquarters in Putrajaya brought its operations to a halt.
On April 29, chunks of the plaster ceiling at the multi-purpose hall at the Entrepreneurial Development and Cooperative Ministry collapsed.
The third incident was at the new Jalan Duta Court Complex here on April 30, where two parts of a ceiling collapsed.
On the malfunction of the runway navigation lights at the Sultan Mahmud Airport in Terengganu, Samy Vellu said new Public Works Department director-general Datuk Dr Judin Abdul Karim would investigate and take action against the contractors doing the upgrading works.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/10/nation/17682967&sec=nation
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
maybank 'discriminating fiasco'...
receive this couple of times via email...
some may have been following up on this blatant and downright discrimination by maybank... an extra reading material for you during coffee breaks...
i hv close my maybank account last month of so, which i have been having since approx 13 years.... i thought as much this kinda stupid ruling will happen sooner or later, as a matter of timing... wat's next?!?...
are the current umno-led govt gonna support this discriminating move?!?... are they gonna keep quiet again?!?...
p/s ; i have also close my bank bumi current account as a silent protest to this 'bumi rules' matters... already 50 years into independence, will this 'bumi rules' matters ever end?!?...
Maybank rapped for pro-Bumiputra discriminataory policy
Maybank, a government-linked company (GLC), and another unnamed major bank, gave come under severe public criticism for practising pro-Bumiputra policy discriminating against their multi-racial clienteles.
The two banks have recently introduced new regulation requiring law firms to have a minimum of three partners, of which one must be Bumiputera with a minimum 50% stake in the firm, before they can do any business with the banks.
Media reports said the requirements would take effect on July 1 while the deadline for existing firms is a year after the new ruling is implemented.
Dr Goh was quoted as saying in the Chinese Press that the regulation is an insult to the legal profession and contradicted the prime minister's calls to promote meritocracy.
The Bar Council has cried foul over the conditions set by the banks. Quote Council chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan from Bar Council website, May 6: (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8796/2/)
The requirement is "totally discriminatory"
There is no legal basis for such a condition and it's certainly in breach of the spirit of the Federal Constitution.
All our lawyers should be judged on merit. That is the correct basis for selection.
Most of all, we are concerned that such preferences will give rise to tokenism and that it will affect the quality of the legal services provided.
Ambiga said the Bar Council had written to the banks in the last two days expressing concern and asking them to review their policies.
The Bar Council will also be following up on this matter with Bank Negara Malaysia.
Legal circles said, at the moment , there are no specific requirements for legal firms to be appointed by financial institutions. Even the Bank Negara had said there is no specific requirement for legal firms appointed by financial institutions.
Furore in Public and Parliament
Meanwhile, the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) has rapped Maybank (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8790/2/) for the discriminating policy. See Bar Council website archive here (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8790/2/) .
Yesterday, Maybank went to Press (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8806/2/) by stating that it would do the necessary review based on feedback, giving no specifics.
It might be too late. The issue was debated in the Parliament with MCA Youth chief Liow Tiong Lai urging the PM to intervene. See Oriental Daily News (http://www.orientaldaily.com.my/news_item.asp?NewsID=9748) here as MCA's mouthpiece, The Star, has missed the story today.
According to Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/66907), DAP Member of Parliament for Bandar Kuching Chong Chien Jen yesterday tried to move a motion to debate the matter in the Dewan Rakyat. However, Speaker Ramli Ngah Talib rejected it it, saying that it was an internal matter of the bank.
However, Chong disagreed with the decision, saying the Speaker had taken the easy way out. Quote:
"All banks in Malaysia are subject to the directive and policies of Bank Negara. The Speaker's decision only shows that the government condones practices that are discriminatory on a racial basis," he alleged.
"Previously, this has been done in relation to government procurement procedures. Now it has sipped into procedures of government-linked companies," he said.
Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang was more specific in his statement to Maybank. He said in keeping with the principles of CSR (corporate social responsibility), Maybank should not speak in ambiguities (http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=202) but must make clear its policies and guidelines.
Kit challenged Maybank to be a model of CSR and make public the top 25 legal firms on its panel which have been given the most bank business each year for the past 10 years.
(He) urged Maybank to explain whether the 50 percent bumiputera partnership ruling will come into force on July 1, and how it will impact on both current panel lawyers and new firms.
"I call on Maybank to be a model of corporate social responsibility and make public the top 25 legal firms on its panel which have been given the most business each year for the past 10 years," said Lim.
"This is to allow the public to judge whether the firms given the most business are the politically- connected ones rather than those (who receive work) based on meritocracy or other criteria."
Kit also asked the government, which effectively owns Maybank as a GLC, to freeze Maybank bumi ruling until EPU methodology on ethnic equity ownership (http://www.jeffooi.com/mt32/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=lim+teck+ghee) is made public.
Meanwhile, DAP Socialist Youth (Dapsy) members have threatened to close their accounts with Maybank if it failed to retract the ruling in the next two weeks.
some may have been following up on this blatant and downright discrimination by maybank... an extra reading material for you during coffee breaks...
i hv close my maybank account last month of so, which i have been having since approx 13 years.... i thought as much this kinda stupid ruling will happen sooner or later, as a matter of timing... wat's next?!?...
are the current umno-led govt gonna support this discriminating move?!?... are they gonna keep quiet again?!?...
p/s ; i have also close my bank bumi current account as a silent protest to this 'bumi rules' matters... already 50 years into independence, will this 'bumi rules' matters ever end?!?...
Maybank rapped for pro-Bumiputra discriminataory policy
Maybank, a government-linked company (GLC), and another unnamed major bank, gave come under severe public criticism for practising pro-Bumiputra policy discriminating against their multi-racial clienteles.
The two banks have recently introduced new regulation requiring law firms to have a minimum of three partners, of which one must be Bumiputera with a minimum 50% stake in the firm, before they can do any business with the banks.
Media reports said the requirements would take effect on July 1 while the deadline for existing firms is a year after the new ruling is implemented.
Dr Goh was quoted as saying in the Chinese Press that the regulation is an insult to the legal profession and contradicted the prime minister's calls to promote meritocracy.
The Bar Council has cried foul over the conditions set by the banks. Quote Council chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan from Bar Council website, May 6: (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8796/2/)
The requirement is "totally discriminatory"
There is no legal basis for such a condition and it's certainly in breach of the spirit of the Federal Constitution.
All our lawyers should be judged on merit. That is the correct basis for selection.
Most of all, we are concerned that such preferences will give rise to tokenism and that it will affect the quality of the legal services provided.
Ambiga said the Bar Council had written to the banks in the last two days expressing concern and asking them to review their policies.
The Bar Council will also be following up on this matter with Bank Negara Malaysia.
Legal circles said, at the moment , there are no specific requirements for legal firms to be appointed by financial institutions. Even the Bank Negara had said there is no specific requirement for legal firms appointed by financial institutions.
Furore in Public and Parliament
Meanwhile, the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) has rapped Maybank (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8790/2/) for the discriminating policy. See Bar Council website archive here (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8790/2/) .
Yesterday, Maybank went to Press (http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/content/view/8806/2/) by stating that it would do the necessary review based on feedback, giving no specifics.
It might be too late. The issue was debated in the Parliament with MCA Youth chief Liow Tiong Lai urging the PM to intervene. See Oriental Daily News (http://www.orientaldaily.com.my/news_item.asp?NewsID=9748) here as MCA's mouthpiece, The Star, has missed the story today.
According to Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/66907), DAP Member of Parliament for Bandar Kuching Chong Chien Jen yesterday tried to move a motion to debate the matter in the Dewan Rakyat. However, Speaker Ramli Ngah Talib rejected it it, saying that it was an internal matter of the bank.
However, Chong disagreed with the decision, saying the Speaker had taken the easy way out. Quote:
"All banks in Malaysia are subject to the directive and policies of Bank Negara. The Speaker's decision only shows that the government condones practices that are discriminatory on a racial basis," he alleged.
"Previously, this has been done in relation to government procurement procedures. Now it has sipped into procedures of government-linked companies," he said.
Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang was more specific in his statement to Maybank. He said in keeping with the principles of CSR (corporate social responsibility), Maybank should not speak in ambiguities (http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=202) but must make clear its policies and guidelines.
Kit challenged Maybank to be a model of CSR and make public the top 25 legal firms on its panel which have been given the most bank business each year for the past 10 years.
(He) urged Maybank to explain whether the 50 percent bumiputera partnership ruling will come into force on July 1, and how it will impact on both current panel lawyers and new firms.
"I call on Maybank to be a model of corporate social responsibility and make public the top 25 legal firms on its panel which have been given the most business each year for the past 10 years," said Lim.
"This is to allow the public to judge whether the firms given the most business are the politically- connected ones rather than those (who receive work) based on meritocracy or other criteria."
Kit also asked the government, which effectively owns Maybank as a GLC, to freeze Maybank bumi ruling until EPU methodology on ethnic equity ownership (http://www.jeffooi.com/mt32/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=lim+teck+ghee) is made public.
Meanwhile, DAP Socialist Youth (Dapsy) members have threatened to close their accounts with Maybank if it failed to retract the ruling in the next two weeks.
Friday, May 04, 2007
fair skin indians are higher class than dark skin indians?!?...
another 'new' reason why i cringe in disgust with the current cabinet which aab is leading...
i didn't really get a good chance to read the daily newspaper for the past couple of days, but am kinda sure this was not reported tho...
honestly, am still searching for the GENUINE answer why do people vote this kinda clowns to office...
sigh!...
p/s ; any action fm abb?!?... even a teacher will make his/her student pay if he/she make such remarks... wat a more a leader of the country.. an immediate and urgent action should be taken by him!..
Apology demanded from racist minister
Dr Sheela Moorthy
May 2, 07 2:52pm Adjust font size:
I am a Malaysian currently living in the USA. I am supporting the education of my sister who is enrolled at CalPoly, California.
The reason I am writing this letter is to express my disgust and anger regarding comments passed by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Jamaludin Jarjis during a working visit to California recently.
He was present at a gathering organised by the Malaysian Consulate for the students to meet him. The purpose of this meeting was for them to address any concerns or queries they had. Being away from home, we all know that we love to meet our fellow-countrymen regardless of what color or creed they may be.
And being brought up in the true Malaysian way, we were thought to respect each other and look beyond the shallowness of skin color.
This was not the case with our minister. He made several derogatory remarks about Indians in general, about how they were brought in as 'buruh kasar' and at one point asked my sister about how many Indians were in her batch of students.
My sister answered him saying there were two of them. The other Indian student was fair-skinned and was actually sitting at the same table as the minister.
He did not realize that this student was also an Indian and went on saying that he must be a 'high class’ Indian and then pointed at my sister and said that she must be a ‘low class’ Indian as she was darker skinned.
I am appalled that we have people like this sitting at the helm and trying to run a multi-racial country. I urge all Malaysian to stand together and voice out against weeds like this who give our country a bad image.
I demand an apology from him and I want him to take responsibility for his words and I believe that malaysiakini is one of the venues to voice my dissatisfaction.
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66722
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66773
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66774
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66773
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66771
i didn't really get a good chance to read the daily newspaper for the past couple of days, but am kinda sure this was not reported tho...
honestly, am still searching for the GENUINE answer why do people vote this kinda clowns to office...
sigh!...
p/s ; any action fm abb?!?... even a teacher will make his/her student pay if he/she make such remarks... wat a more a leader of the country.. an immediate and urgent action should be taken by him!..
Apology demanded from racist minister
Dr Sheela Moorthy
May 2, 07 2:52pm Adjust font size:
I am a Malaysian currently living in the USA. I am supporting the education of my sister who is enrolled at CalPoly, California.
The reason I am writing this letter is to express my disgust and anger regarding comments passed by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Jamaludin Jarjis during a working visit to California recently.
He was present at a gathering organised by the Malaysian Consulate for the students to meet him. The purpose of this meeting was for them to address any concerns or queries they had. Being away from home, we all know that we love to meet our fellow-countrymen regardless of what color or creed they may be.
And being brought up in the true Malaysian way, we were thought to respect each other and look beyond the shallowness of skin color.
This was not the case with our minister. He made several derogatory remarks about Indians in general, about how they were brought in as 'buruh kasar' and at one point asked my sister about how many Indians were in her batch of students.
My sister answered him saying there were two of them. The other Indian student was fair-skinned and was actually sitting at the same table as the minister.
He did not realize that this student was also an Indian and went on saying that he must be a 'high class’ Indian and then pointed at my sister and said that she must be a ‘low class’ Indian as she was darker skinned.
I am appalled that we have people like this sitting at the helm and trying to run a multi-racial country. I urge all Malaysian to stand together and voice out against weeds like this who give our country a bad image.
I demand an apology from him and I want him to take responsibility for his words and I believe that malaysiakini is one of the venues to voice my dissatisfaction.
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66722
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66773
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66774
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66773
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/66771
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