Malaysia's ranking dropped

Recently the Paris based watchdog Reporters sans Frontiers released their latest press freedom ranking and guess what? Malaysia dropped further down the list of 173 countries and we are actually worst off than our neighbouring countries like Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. For this I have to send a big THANK YOU to our Prime Minister Badawi and DPM Najib. I have to also thank all the Ministers and YB's in the BN front for making Malaysia ranking slip further. What a great achievement!
I pulled this chart from Din Merican's blog(thanks Din). If we were to look at the chart carefully, we have been slipping since 2006, so why is it that our PM and ministers in the BN government keep reminding us that Malaysia have had better press freedom than Tun Mahatir's era? I don't expect to find an answer from PM or BN-UMNO for this as I know PM nor BN-UMNO will not be able to improve this ranking as BN-UMNO are still using policies and methods that are outdated but most importantly, they themselves are not willing to change as BN-UMNO Ministers have just too much too loose! To them, it's BN-UMNO come first, then only the "rakyat".

I have also pulled out the following report from Din's blog(courtesy of Malaysiakini) :

Malaysia’s press freedom ranking on a free fall
October 22, 2008
Malaysia crashed into the bottom quarter of 173 countries in the worldwide press freedom ranking index released today by Paris-based watchdog Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF, Reporters Without Borders).In the latest 2008 ranking, Malaysia fell eight spots to 132. Last year, it was placed 124th while in 2006, it was at 92.

According to the index, Malaysia was placed fifth among 10 Southeast Asian countries after Timor-Leste (65), Indonesia (111), Thailand (124), Cambodia (126).

“In the face of mounting criticism, the government of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi reacted with a crackdown,” lamented RSF, referring to several incidences last year.

It said that the mainstream press made no attempt at balance remarks by the authorities attacking the organisers of two major demonstrations last year which were led by election reform movement Bersih and Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf).

“The Internal Security Ministry asked some media on three separate occasions in November not to report on unauthorised demonstrations.

“Thus a march on Nov 10 calling for free and transparent elections passed off without any coverage, apart from online, including by the daily Malaysiakini, which also revealed in June (2007) that the authorities had ordered radio and television not to allow too much airtime to the speeches of opposition leaders.”

UNMO-linked NST ticked off

RSF also ticked off UMNO-linked New Straits Times for abruptly halting the columns by two independent-minded writers.

“Officially for technical reasons, the columns written by Zainah Anwar, promoting the rights of women, and another by Amir Muhammad disappeared within five days or one another.

“Zainah had headlined her last piece, ‘Let’s give freedom a good press’. Amir Muhammad, a respected film-maker and writer, had broken one of the country’s taboos by rehabilitating communists who fought for independence in the 1940s.

“He posted on his blog the uncut versions of his articles, which were regularly re-written by the daily’s management.”

The press freedom watchdog also said that the management and former managers of NST sued bloggers Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan for “defamation”, after they posted articles “demonstrating that some news and editorials in the daily lacked objectivity”.

Bloggers threatened by ISA

RSF added the attacks against bloggers continued last year.

“Abdullah had called bloggers ‘liars’ while (last) July, (then) law minister, Nazri Abdul Aziz, said the government would not hesitate to resort to the Internal Security Act (ISA) to punish them.”

Popular blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, who was eventually detained under ISA last month, was interrogated by the police in July last year after he posted criticism of the king.

“Nathaniel Tan, a blogger and member of the opposition PKR was held in custody for four days, apparently because of a link from his blog to a website hosting news termed as an ‘official secret’ relating to a corruption case implicating (then deputy) internal security minister, Johari Baharum.”

The press freedom watchdog also cited two cases of journalists being threatened, one of whom was beaten up by unknown men.

Photo-journalist R Raman of the Tamil-language Malaysia Nanban was left in a coma after being assaulted by two thugs in his office in Johor Baru.

Meanwhile, his colleague, M Nagarajan, received a phone call threatening to kill him if he continued to write articles about poor conditions in the schools.

source:www.malaysiakini.com

Mid Life Crisis

What is this mid life crisis? We hear a lot of it and even a TV series was made based on man that is going thru mid life crisis, so what is it? I will be passing 40 soon, so am I going thru it also, as I write this? Maybe? Does worrying for my children's future, my family's future group me as going thru a mid life crisis kinda guy? Hmmm, maybe I should google "Mid life crisis" and see what comes up.
Maybe it's the catching up of age coz I tend to worry more these days. Every little thing catches my attention. From little things at home to current issues in Malaysia and the world. I realize I am also less tolerant against incompetent people and hypocrites as say 10 years ago. That is why I am so agitated with the current bunch of politicians who are so concern about their own personal agenda but seem to have neglected the big picture that the country is in trouble. Furthermore, I cannot stand politician who treat us like morons or idiots, politicians who thinks we do not know how to think and differentiate right from wrong. These politicians keep feeding all sort of BS to us day in day out.
Maybe this is mid life crisis after all and actually out there in the real world, situation is not that bad. Maybe it is just my imagination that gave me this perception of things spiraling out of control, locally and abroad, with local issues being compounded with ministers and leaders who are all out helping themselves first before helping the people. I don't know. Maybe this is equivalent to women going thru their menopause. Everything seems so moody, unpleasant and all sort of ideas run thru your head everyday.

Public Transport :2009-2014, RM35billion

I for one always welcome positive change, even though some come rather late but better late than never. Our out going PM finally pledges RM35billion to be used to improve the public transportation for the next 5 years starting from 2009. I think what Pak Lah did was good that he finally went down to the commuter level to get a personal feel or experience of what we common people have to go through when taking public transport. If I were given a choice, I would rather take the public transport than drive but unfortunately the local buses are so unreliable, dirty, uncomfortable and unsafe. I hope Pak Lah's commitment do not apply only to the city's public transportation, it should also cover out of town/city transportation's like express buses and KTM's. For eg., countries like Japan, Taiwan or even China, people travel to work on public transport that takes them hours per trip but is still the most viable because they have non of the negative aspect I mentioned above. This way, many of us will be able to save on petrol, maintenance of cars, pollutions, traffic congestion's, lower road maintenance etc etc. There will be more positive than negative impacts if these is done and follow thru properly.
Lastly, the only thing bugging me now is Pak Lah better put somebody or have some body to oversee that the fund will be use properly and wisely. Pak Lah also need to "sack" the current Minister and the current staff overseeing the welfare of public transport as they have proved to be incompetent and irresponsible in their job. They failed the people and so much money have been wasted.

MK apologize:Najib accept:Then?

Malaysiakini issued an apology to Datuk Seri Najib for wrongly attributing a manifesto to him. He accepted the apology and will not take action action MK. The reporter Wong Choon Mei tender her resignation and took full responsibility for not first verifying the validity of the manifesto before publishing. That is true professionalism and MK should be proud to have this journalist on their team! This cannot be said about Cerpen, the Utusan fella who wrote the "YB J" fiction, he really give professional journalist a bad name!

The other issue that has been bugging me about this MK and Najib issue is who are the so call supporters of Najib who issued this manifesto? Surely somebody must know since they are Najib's supporters. I mean look at YB Teresa's case, she did not even participate nor signed any documents and said anything as reported by Utusan but it didn't take long for someone to point the finger at YB Teresa. So, why is it so difficult to find the perpetrator who point the finger to Najib? Also I don't see Albar or Najib himself jumping to conclusion and using the ISA on any suspect, why no "wild shooting" this time? I will be waiting anxiously the next few days to see if the police, Albar and Najib is pursuing this case like YB Teresa, DSAI, RPK and the Sin Chew reporter's case with such ferocity.

On the same note, Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek said it is up the MCMC to take action against Malaysiakini. He said :

"This is one of the abuses of cyberspace where people just simply pick up things without checking and publish as the gospel truth. But the damage done is rather obvious. It was clearly done with the intention of tarnishing a national leader. The action is very much regretted."

Ah, hello Mr. foam in your mouth minister, can you be a bit more bias with what you just said. You seem to have forgotten about Utusan Malaysia's report on YB Teresa. I am pretty sure that will be under your jurisdiction right? So, put your money(or foam) where your mouth is! Act against the editor, reporter and Utusan Malaysia itself. If I am not mistaken, there were no warning letter given to Utusan at all, so practice what you preach before you crucify others! Cakap tak serupa bikin! How do you expect the rakyat to respect a Minister that is so bias, one sided and so much BS?(not to mention so much unsightly foam)

Money Politics

Our dear Foreign Minister Rais Yatim have to be applauded for coming up front to say that in UMNO, money politics is alive and thriving. It is a revelation that our Foreign Minister dare to speak out as normally one would expect them to just close one eye. I wonder if our PM in waiting will summon him up today and "goreng" him for this remark or not? Rais Yatim also said that due to his stand of not wanting to be one of the "players", his mark will not go up, so is he also implying that those with high votes actually pay? Now, is that why our PM in waiting is chalking up so high votes? I guess then the SIL must be really "kiam siap" coz his vote was not as high as expected and Dtk Mukhriz must have paid rather well.........makes you wonder right? But then again, the UMNO members now must learn to "carry leg" of the new PM in waiting, so maybe our new PM in waiting do not really need to pay anything for votes lah. Foreign Minister Rais Yatim is also under the impression that majority of the UMNO members are not interested in choosing the "right" leader up at the helm but is more concern about how much money they can capitalize. In other words, if this is even half truth, my goodness, can you imagine what sort of YB's, MP's, PM will be put in charge to run this country? You will have incompetent, mediocrity and lack luster "seem to know" people running the country, our life's and our children's life's. Honestly, I do not see any probable candidate from BN that can assume the role of PM, none! Furthermore, with this remark, where is the ACA hah? Chiak Sai lah!

On a lighter note, Shah Rukh Khan, yes the Bollywood hunk apparently appeared in a steamy sex scene with another Indian actress, courtesy of the Scribe SRIHERO. Now, I wonder how the Governor of Melaka feels about giving the Datukship to SRK, padan muka! Actually, since our Governor of Melaka is in a roll now, he might as well issue more Datukship to actor and actresses like Catherine Zeta Jones, Sean Connery , Chow Yuen Fatt and Jodie Foster. I think these actors and actresses did more to promote Malaysia in their movies in the International level than Dtk SRK, don't you agree?

Over the weekend, MCA just had their general elections. I am not going to say who won as I am aware you all already know lah. If not, sleeping the whole weekend ah? What I wanted to say is, to me MCA and Gerakan is a "has been" because I do not see any positive outcome from them and to them as long as they are still "attached" to big bro UMNO. Everyone knows, without a reasonable doubt UMNO will never ever change their policy, their warlord ways and their corrupted practices. Everyone also knows for a fact and without any reasonable doubt, MCA and Gerakan will toe the line. It has been the norms, tradition that during the general election, MCA and Gerakan leaders will shout for this and that, promise this and that. They will always say that they will stand up to big bro UMNO when there is unfair policies but when shit hits the fan, all this "fearless" MCA and Gerakan leader suddenly become "kuci miao" and just toe the line with their tail behind their back. Ah, it will be the same again coz the people up there is still the same, they are still having the same mentality and work procedures, they will never change. So, come next GE(13th), MCA and Gerakan will just disappear into oblivion if they don't break away.....but I am hoping PR will succeed first and earlier, otherwise Malaysia will go into oblivion....

1st blog posting

Wow, finally took the first jump into the blog sphere and honestly speaking my mind just went blank! Well, usually there are so many things on my mind that I wanted to pen down or even express on other blogs that I have visited but now that I can do it all in my own blog, I just went right smack into a wall.......
I know of course there won't be anybody reading what I am writing now but it feels good to be able to just say(write) what comes to my mind without thinking aloud but I think I need a bit more practice, to relax and let things just comes naturally. I keep telling myself don't try too hard or you will sound like an broken down old cd player........sucks!
Ok, today, what's bugging me.....hmmmmm, well I will list them out, think will be easier this way :

1) Bad economy situation, both in Malaysia and abroad but yet our leaders claim otherwise, where have they been all this while I wonder?

2) Disappointed that RPK is still under ISA and have to spent his Raya in Kamunting camp.


3) TOOLAN about PM's claim that UMNO is not a bully(ya right!).


4) Also disappointed that PR is not making much head way in their quest.

5) TOOLAN that another lady in Johor got pulled in under ISA, eventhough she is out on bail now but why is the government still using the ISA after so many people have voiced their disatisfaction? Really stubborn, worse than an e-mule!

6) Bad road signs and traffic lights...............so, do I follow the traffic light or heed the no left turning sign?


These are the few things at the top of my head now, especially the 1st one as business is bad, and like all small time businessman in Malaysia, are feeling hopeless and frustrated about the government's inability to come out with some sound plan to cushion the situation.
I bet my blood pressure have shot way up high but luckily for my family(my children's and wife), I do get some comfort when I get home to be with them......

Will sign off now and hopefully I will learn to write more interesting subject in the near future....