17/12/2008 3:38pm
PULAU PINANG 17 Dis. — Pulau Pinang mencatatkan peningkatan mendadak penyakit malaria apabila 175 kes dilaporkan sejak Januari hingga November tahun ini berbanding hanya 54 kes bagi tempoh yang sama tahun lepas.
Ketua Menteri, Lim Guan Eng berkata, jumlah itu menyaksikan peningkatan sebanyak 121 kes di mana penyumbang utama ialah warga asing.
“Menurut statistik Jabatan Kesihatan negeri, sebanyak 39 kes daripada 54 kes dikesan pada pekerja asing tahun lepas manakala sebanyak 153 kes daripada 175 kes dikesan pada golongan yang sama tahun ini,” katanya ketika berucap pada taklimat kesihatan berkaitan pekerja asing di sini, hari ini.
Beliau berkata jumlah itu tidak termasuk pendatang asing tanpa izin.
Katanya bagi penyakit tuberculosis (tibi) pula, ia menunjukkan penurunan apabila sebanyak 708 kes dilaporkan bagi tempoh yang sama tahun ini berbanding 882 tahun lepas.
Lim berkata, keadaan itu membimbangkan memandangkan statistik Persekutuan Majikan Malaysia (MEF) menunjukkan seramai 2.5 juta orang iaitu 25 peratus daripada tenaga kerja di negara ini adalah pekerja asing.
Katanya, paling membimbangkan ialah warga asing yang bekerja secara tidak sah di negara ini kerana mereka tidak menjalani pemeriksaan kesihatan berbanding yang bekerja secara sah.
“Jabatan Imigresen menyatakan dari Januari hingga 30 September tahun ini, jumlah pendatang tanpa izin yang ditahan ialah seramai 55,618 orang,” katanya.
Beliau berkata, perangkaan MEF menunjukkan Malaysia terpaksa membelanjakan peruntukan yang besar iaitu RM578 juta setahun bagi kemudahan kesihatan untuk warga asing. -
Malaysia leader says Proton needs foreign alliance
Associated Press Writer
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi speaks to an Associated Press reporter during an exclusive interview at Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Dec. 17, 2008. Malaysia's prime minister, who is rushing through with a raft of reforms in his final days in office, said Wednesday his last mission is to cool racial and religious tensions in this multethnic country.
Malaysia's leader said that national carmaker Proton, criticized for shoddy workmanship and poor after-sales service, should tie-up with a strong foreign partner in a joint venture to remain competitive.
The comments by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi came amid news Wednesday that Proton has been sued by its former Chinese joint-venture partner, Goldstar Heavy Industrial Co. Ltd., for 1 billion yuan ($146 million) in compensation for breach of contract.
Abdullah indicated in an interview with The Associated Press that Proton should be willing to give majority control to a partner in a joint venture if necessary but refused to be drawn on specifics.
Asked if a foreign partner can hold a majority 51 percent stake, he said: "It doesn't matter as long as Proton, the mother company, is entirely ours."
"This (joint venture) is our investment in collaboration with another company. We will (find) what is the best arrangement which will be entirely commercial," he said.
Pressured by dwindling sales and growing competition as Malaysia liberalizes its auto market, state-owned Proton began searching for a new foreign partner after Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp. bailed out as a major shareholder in 2004 due to its own financial problems.
Alliance talks with Germany's Volkswagen AG and General Motors Corp. failed due to the government's reluctance to cede control of Proton - seen as a national icon.
Abdullah declined to comment on speculation that Proton has revived alliance talks with Volkswagen, saying it's up to Proton to find the best suitor before it reports to the government.
Some analysts have warned it will be tough for Proton to penetrate global markets or gain new technology without a strong foreign partner, particularly amid a global economic slump.
Proton improved its domestic market share to 33 percent so far this year, from 24 percent last year, after introducing several cheap models but its exports remained weak.
The company has said it aims to boost sales by selling within China through a tie-up with Jinhua Youngman Automobile Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
Proton said Wednesday it had terminated its contract with Goldstar after the Chinese firm failed to get a manufacturing license over a period of three years.
"Goldstar's failure has frustrated Proton's initiatives to get the joint venture to start producing cars in China," the company said in a statement.
The termination of the contract led to the $146 million compensation suit filed by Goldstar in China last month.
Proton said it had begun arbitration proceedings against Goldstar and also obtained an anti-suit injunction in Singapore to prevent the Chinese firm from starting or continuing with any other court proceedings.
The recent legal suit by Goldstar is violating the agreed arbitration process and the anti-suit injunction, it said.
BLOGGER SAID
IT IS A SHAME IF THE CARS THAT WERE BUILT IS NOT A GOOD QUALITY
DISANGKA KAN SEPERTI ORANG SUSAH.RUPANYA MAT GIAN
ALOR SETAR-Disangkakan memangnya orang susah yang memerlukan bantuan.Rupanya seorang penagih dadah.Setelah maklumat di terima , barulah disedari bahawa beliau adalah seorang penagih dadah.
En Mohd Rashid, Pengarah Jabatan Kebajikan Kedah yang kebetulan berada di hotel yang sama mengambil semua butiran untuk membantu, namun akhirnya kecewa apabila diberitahu oleh sumber bahawa orang yang beliau akan bantu melalui Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat adalah seorang penagih yang berkeliaran di bandar Alor Setar.
PANDAI JUGA BERLAKON.
53 KETUA ISI RUMAH DAN 2 BUAH PERTUBUHAN KEBAJIKAN MENERIMA SUMBANGAN RM20,000
SEBAHAGIAN PENERIMA YANG BERADA DI LOBI HOTEL
YTM DATO' SERI TUNKU PUTERI INTAN SAFINAZ(KUNING)DAN TUNKU HAJAH NAFISAH
YTM DATO' SERI TUNKU PUTERI INTAN SAFINAZ(KUNING)DAN TUNKU HAJAH NAFISAH
Alor Setar- Satu majlis penyampaian sumbangan kepada rakyat marhaen telah diadakan di sebuah hotel terkemuka di Alor Setar siang tadi. Majlis yang dinaungi Yayasan Sultanah Bahiyah ini memberi sumbangan sempena hari krismas kepada yang tidak berkemampuan.
Turut hadir ialah seorang pemuda Mohd Firdaus yang menerima bantuan bagi menjalani semula pembedahan hidungnya.
Raja-Raja pun memberi sumbangan kepada rakyat melalui Yayasan.Maka kerana itu Raja-Raja Melayu harus dinobatkan di kedudukan asalnya.
Paper may close in 'Allah' row
Catholic newspaper in M'sia may have just two more weeks in print unless the government backs off a threat to close it down. -Reuters
Wed, Dec 17, 2008Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR - A CATHOLIC newspaper in Malaysia may have just two more weeks in print unless the government backs off a threat to close it down over its use of the word 'Allah' to describe the Christian god.
The 'Herald - the Catholic Weekly' has a circulation of 14,000 and has been published since 1980 but in July was told its license was being reviewed as its use of the word Allah could inflame the Asian country's majority Muslim population.
The newspaper says that it is a victim of politics and that the government that has ruled Malaysia for 51 years since independence from Britain is stoking religious conflict in a bid to retain power after big losses in elections earlier this year.
Other religious groups have complained of persecution in this country of 27 million in which almost 60 per cent of the population is Malay and Muslim but which has substantial ethnic Indian and Chinese minorities who practise a variety of faiths.
'The Catholic Herald's 'Allah' is seen as a threat to national security,' Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of the paper, told Reuters at his office behind an early 20th century church in the heart of the Malaysian capital.
The Herald publishes in English, Mandarin and Tamil languages but it was the use of the Malay language that especially irked the government. It publishes in Malay to cater for tribal communities in the states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo Island, many of whom converted to Christianity long ago.
'We are now a scapegoat, a means for the Malay-Muslims to rally together,' Father Andrew said of the paper which needs the license to publish in 2009.
In recent weeks, ethnic Chinese Malaysians have expressed alarm after a leading politician from the main government party called for Chinese language schools to be closed.
An ethnic Indian group that organised a huge anti-government protest in 2007, triggered in part by the demolition of what authorities said were illegal temples, was banned in October as a threat to national security.
Under the Malaysian constitution, Malays must be Muslim and enjoy special privileges in job opportunities, cheap loans and access to an affirmative action programme in universities.
Those privileges have come under attack from the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim, a one-time Muslim activist who was deputy prime minister until he was sacked and imprisoned on what he says were trumped up sodomy and corruption charges in the late 1990s.
The issue of the use of Islam for political ends has started to cause alarm among some Muslim scholars and even the Sultans of Malaysia's states have warned the government that they are the guardians of Islam under the constitution.
When the government-backed National Fatwa Council last month declared that Muslims should not practise the Indian physical regime of yoga it was rebuked by the Sultan of Selangor, one of Malaysia's eight sultans who take it in turn to be king.
With internal elections due in March in the main government party, the United Malays National Organisation, the Herald looks unlikely to get a break.
'The pressure is coming from within (the government) and also the Malay-Muslim NGOs, who will be opposed on no uncertain terms to any non-Muslim using the word,' said Mr Osman Bakar, deputy chief executive of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies Malaysia.
The government insists it is still reviewing the Herald's license and that it is following due process.
'Until Dec 31, we are not going to announce anything.
There is plenty of time till then. Let them wait,' Deputy Home Minister Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh told Reuters. -- REUTERS
MALAYSIA: Protestors Pedal to Parliament, Brave Police
PENANG, Dec 17 (IPS) - Dozens of cyclists promoting workers' rights are on an extraordinary odyssey across the country, scheduled to climax with the handing over of memorandums in Parliament on Thursday.It has been a rough ride, so far, with arrests and police harassment constantly threatening to bring their journey to a premature end.Two cycling teams -- four dozen from the north of the peninsula and three dozen from the south -- each accompanied by a dozen or so activists have been pedalling their way to Kuala Lumpur since early December.
Along the way, they have met with almost daily police action including road blocks, detentions and arrests.Organisers, cyclists and those distributing leaflets have been hauled up, bicycles have been carted to police stations, and dozens of arrests made as police continue to look for possible violations of the law.In one mysterious incident on mainland Penang, eight bicycles were torched -- three of them badly damaged -- by arsonists at dawn.The ”People, the Force of Change” cycling campaign is organised by the Oppressed People's Network, known by its Malay acronym ‘Jerit'. The Jerit network brings together factory workers, plantation workers, students and youths, urban settlers and civil society groups.
The memos to be presented to Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and parliamentary opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim contain economic demands such as calls for the enactment of a Minimum Wage Act, adequate housing for all, price controls for essential goods, and an end to the privatisation of water supply, health care, education and other basic services.There are also pro-democracy demands such as the repeal of oppressive laws and the re-introduction of local town council elections, which were suspended in the 1960s and 70s.The bicycle campaign has been endorsed by 47 civil society groups, federal-level opposition political parties belonging to the People's Alliance and some of their parliamentarians and state assembly members.On Monday, the teams encountered police action typical of the sort they experienced since the start of their journey.
Both cycling teams were confronted by police as they approached Kuala Lumpur from the north and south.Of the 59-member northern team, about 30, including organisers, were arrested for illegal assembly. Another 27 cyclists below 18 years of age were held by police for their parents to collect them. Police are also holding on to their bicycles, says one of the Jerit organisers.The police chief of Selangor state Khalid Abu Bakar said the arrests were made to stop children from being exploited or misused by irresponsible groups. ”When giving their statements, these children said they did not know why they were asked to participate in the cycling event,” he was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama.Organisers disagree. ''Many of those below 18 are children from areas where there have been struggles -- land struggles, plantation workers fighting eviction from their homes or other similar struggles,'' says Rani Rasiah, a Jerit coordinator. ''Others are children of activists, like my son who is taking part, and there are also cyclists from the public who have joined in.''By Tuesday afternoon the 27 teenage riders but only after their parents turned up to vouch for them.
Nearly all of them said they wanted to continue cycling, but the last leg of the journey could be scaled down to avoid further delay.''The children are saying they won't leave until all the organisers and their colleagues are released,'' said Rani. ''They are very spirited and angry with the harassment.''Over in the south, some 20 organisers and 37 cyclists, about 20 of them below 18, were threatened with arrests after a convoy of a dozen police vehicles had tailed them in the morning. After a five-hour stand-off in the afternoon near the town of Bangi, the cyclists were 'released'.”All the youths have consent letters from the parents,” Kohila Yanasekaran, national coordinator of Jerit told IPS.
Organisers lodged a police report against the police on Tuesday, while the parents are expected to make a similar complaint.One text message, making the rounds, jokes that all these arrests are a bit late: they should have been made 67 years ago, when Japanese forces on bicycles were invading Malaya on their way to Singapore during World War Two!Along their way to Parliament, the Jerit teams have already submitted memorandums to the state governments in Kedah, Penang and Perak -- all ruled by the People's Alliance -- as well as Negeri Sembilan and Johor, both of which come under the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition.So far, chief ministers of three PA-ruled states -- Penang, Perak and Selangor -- have personally endorsed the campaign.
The onset of the global economic stagflation has added to the workers worries in this export-oriented economy. Neo-liberal economic policies since the 1980s had already taken their toll among workers, especially marginalised communities who are finding it hard to make ends meet. Privatisation of essential services has added to the burden of ordinary workers.Urban-rural income disparities remain high and despite its relatively high human development, Malaysia has the widest income disparity in South-east Asia with the top 10 percent earning 22 times what the bottom 10 percent earn.Many plantation workers and urban settlers have been dispossessed of their homes with minimal compensation as landowners turn to property development.
Although the official benchmark for measuring poverty is a household income of around 700 ringgit per month (200 US dollars), many believe the real poverty line should be closer to 2,000 ringgit (571 dollars). If that benchmark is used, 38 percent of Malaysian families could be classified as low-income and struggling.Activists were due to submit a memorandum to the Selangor chief minister before delivering their memorandums to Abdullah and Anwar on Thursday.How they will get there, in the face of police action, is another matter, says Kohila. ”The Thursday appointment in Parliament is definitely on; how we are going to reach there -- walking, cycling or taking a bus -- we will discuss.''Whether they succeed or not, their campaign message has already received publicity beyond anything the cyclists could have expected.
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