Sunday, March 29, 2015

05-03-2015 Dr.Mohd.Asri Zainul Abidin: Bahaya Menyebarkan Hadith Palsu

Kisah Wali Allah dan Pemerintah Zalim - Ustaz Abdullah Khairi

Kuan Yew and I

By Dr Mahathir Mohamad

1. No matter how friendly or unfriendly we are, the passing away of a man you know well saddens you.
2. I cannot say I was a close friend of Kuan Yew. But still I feel sad at his demise.
3. Kuan Yew became well known at a young age. I was a student in Singapore when I read about his defence of labour unions.
4. I first met Kuan Yew when I was a member of Parliament in 1964 after Singapore joined Malaysia in 1963. We crossed swords many time during the debates. But there was no enmity, only differences in our views of what was good for the newborn nation. He included me among the ultra Malays who was responsible for the racial riots in Singapore. Actually I never went to Singapore to stir up trouble. Somebody else whom I would not name did.
5. The Tunku attended the inaugural meeting of the PAP and was quite friendly with Kuan Yew. He believed Kuan Yew was a bastion against Communism. But when the PAP contested in the Malaysian elections in 1964 with Malaysian Malaysia as its slogan, Tunku felt that the PAP’s presence in Malaysia was going to be disruptive for the country.
6. When I became PM in 1981, I paid a courtesy call on Kuan Yew. It was a friendly call and he immediately agreed to my proposal that the Malaysia and Singapore times which had always been the same should be advanced by half an hour. I explained that it would be easier adjusting our time when travelling as we would fall within the time zones fixed for the whole world at one hour intervals.
7. I am afraid on most other issues we could not agree.
8. When I had a heart attack in 1989 and required open heart surgery, he cared enough to ring up my wife to ask her to delay the operation as he had arranged for the best heart surgeon, a Singaporean living in Australia, to do the operation. But by then, I had been given pre-med and was asleep prior to the operation the next day.
9. My wife thanked him but apologized. She promised to ring him up after the operation. She did the next evening.
10. When he was ill, I requested to see him. He agreed but the night before the visit, the Singapore High Commissioner received a message that he was very sick and could not see me.
11. Still when he attended the Nihon Keizai Shimbun annual conference on the Future of Asia in Tokyo, which I never failed to attend, I went up to him at dinner to ask how he was. We sat down together to chat and the Japanese photographers took our pictures promising not to put it in the press. I wouldn’t mind even if they did. But I suppose people will make all kinds of stories about it.
12. Now Kuan Yew is no more. His passage marks the end of the period when those who fought for independence lead their countries and knew the value of independence.
13. Asean lost a strong leadership after President Suharto and Lee Kuan Yew.
http://chedet.cc/

Friday, March 13, 2015

SANCTIONS

By Dr Mahathir Mohamad
1. At a forum in UKM recently, Dr Chandra Muzaffar raised the matter of sanctions in international affairs and suggested that sanction is war by other means. Therefore it should be made a crime and that the campaign to make war a crime should include sanctions.2. I fully agree with Dr Muzaffar that sanction is a crime.
3. In the past, during the numerous wars of the European nations, one of the most effective weapons was the siege. This consisted of cutting off communication of a city with the outside through positioning soldiers all round the city so that the citizens would be starved to death or surrender.
4. The concept has been “upgraded” so that whole country could be cut off from communication and trade with other countries. The effect is to starve and deprive the people of food and medicine until the country surrenders. It is another way of killing people as in war.
5. We talk a lot about the rule of law. We know that for justice to be done everyone must be equal before the law. No one should be above the law.
6. But sanctions can only be effectively applied by the powerful against the weak. There is no way for a weak country to apply sanctions against a strong power, indeed against another weak country even.
7. Against a strong country even the whole world or the United Nations cannot apply sanctions. The strong country can just ignore sanctions. There is no equality before the law. And therefore there is no justice. The rule of law cannot be applied.
8. What is worse about sanctions is that it is not the only country under sanctions which will be deprived of their rights, other countries which have trade and even friendly relations with the sanctioned country will also suffer the loss of trade and relations. This is so because if a country continues to trade with the sanctioned country, the powerful country can punish the recalcitrant by cutting off trade, denying banking facilities etc. In effect the other countries have to suffer sanctions as well.
9. We talk about free trade. We talk about borderless world. We talk about human rights. But the big power or power can deprive weak countries of all their freedoms with impunity.
10. Truly sanction is war by other means. It is an expression of might being right. It is cruel and inhumane. It denies the claim of the big powers that they want to see nations uphold freedoms including. It negates their assertion that trade should be free.
11. Since sanction is war, it should be made as criminal as other forms of wars, conventional or otherwise.

source :
http://chedet.cc/

SOMETHING ROTTEN

By Dr Mahathir Mohamad

1. Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet remarked that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Perhaps from the complaints being made by Malaysians about Malaysia one might say there is something rotten in the state of Malaysia.
2. Many of these complaints reach me. I hope I am permitted to detail them here in my blog. People can decide whether things are rotten or not.
3. Some people complain that the Government seem unwilling to pay them for work done for the Government. There would always be a dispute whether the Government owes them anything at all. If the court decides that the Government has to pay there would be a dispute with regard to the amount.
4. Then there would be delays, sometimes for years. For business, delays can kill.
5. Then there are those whose contracts have been withdrawn for unknown reasons. Often it is given to someone else even after the contract documents have been signed.
6. Then there are those whose project submissions have been passed on to others. The others make bids at a higher price but the documents are identical. Frequently the first proposer or bidder has to go through tender process. This is only right of course. But the proposer as first bidder would find others have submitted what looked like his submission. Frequently he fails or has to raise his bid because the others have quoted higher prices or lower prices as the case may be.
7. Delays in getting approval costs. The reasons for the delays are frivolous and cannot stand scrutiny. Sometimes to speed up approvals gratification is offered. The party that offers pays and will not complain or report. It is unhealthy. You will need their services again and you may be blacklisted. Or you may find all kinds of obstacles.
8. Long before the permits or whatever is due to be terminated, notices for immediate termination were given. The authorities want to take over the business. The person concern may appeal. He is going to lose money. Sometimes the appeal is not answered, the authorities cannot be met and if meeting is possible, the applicant may be told that his loss is his problem, not the concern of the authorities.
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SOMETHING ROTTEN

1. Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet remarked that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Perhaps from the complaints being made by Malaysians about Malaysia one might say there is something rotten in the state of Malaysia.
2. Many of these complaints reach me. I hope I am permitted to detail them here in my blog. People can decide whether things are rotten or not.
3. Some people complain that the Government seem unwilling to pay them for work done for the Government. There would always be a dispute whether the Government owes them anything at all. If the court decides that the Government has to pay there would be a dispute with regard to the amount.
4. Then there would be delays, sometimes for years. For business, delays can kill.
5. Then there are those whose contracts have been withdrawn for unknown reasons. Often it is given to someone else even after the contract documents have been signed.
6. Then there are those whose project submissions have been passed on to others. The others make bids at a higher price but the documents are identical. Frequently the first proposer or bidder has to go through tender process. This is only right of course. But the proposer as first bidder would find others have submitted what looked like his submission. Frequently he fails or has to raise his bid because the others have quoted higher prices or lower prices as the case may be.
7. Delays in getting approval costs. The reasons for the delays are frivolous and cannot stand scrutiny. Sometimes to speed up approvals gratification is offered. The party that offers pays and will not complain or report. It is unhealthy. You will need their services again and you may be blacklisted. Or you may find all kinds of obstacles.
8. Long before the permits or whatever is due to be terminated, notices for immediate termination were given. The authorities want to take over the business. The person concern may appeal. He is going to lose money. Sometimes the appeal is not answered, the authorities cannot be met and if meeting is possible, the applicant may be told that his loss is his problem, not the concern of the authorities.
9. Sometimes development permission cannot be given because some authority or powerful person wants the land. There is no one to appeal to i.e. no one with real authority. Even if you know who wants the land, you cannot do anything. He is too powerful.
10. Government-owned entities employing more than a thousand workers are suddenly given no job because some foreigner has been chosen to get the contract. The workers were sacked. And the Government facilities may just close down or get some minor subcontract from the foreign contractor.
11. Local companies with adequate competence are not considered for contracts because foreign companies can do the job, may be better, may be no better. Frequently the local companies are said to be too small to do the job. Lots of money flows out of the country.
12. We go all out to welcome FDI. But Malaysian entities with lots of money will not invest at home. They prefer to go buy properties in foreign land. The prices paid are sometimes indefensible. Again lots of money flow out of the country. And when profits are made, taxes are paid to the foreign country. Even when the money is brought back, no tax is paid to the Malaysian Government.
13. There is a need for investments at home, but that is not for local companies. Malaysians institutions with oodles of money would do better by buying foreign technology companies and bringing them home to improve our technological capacities. But there is no encouragement for doing this.
14. If a Malaysian company is in trouble, we seem to prefer bankrupting them and selling them to foreigners. Proposals to rescue by Malaysian white knights are not welcome. Due diligence cannot be done by the white knights for some unknown reasons.
15. After tin was exhausted it was assumed that there would be no more mining in Malaysia. Then we found that we still have lots of other minerals. But mining for these is not for Malaysians. They are for foreigners only.
16. No attempt is made to add value before export. Just dig the earth and export the things raw. And forests disappear along with the mining.
17. There was once some idea about being business friendly. Not anymore. The state competes with the private sector when the private sector seems to be doing well. With the power conferred on the state, there is no way the private sector can win. They lose. But the States also lose simply because business is not the business of the State. Still the trend and preference is for nationalisation.
18. Big is beautiful. So why have small business? Kill them. But big businesses were once small. If you kill small business, then they can never grow big. So how do we get big business if we kill them when they were in their infancy?
19. There is a lot of talk about the importance of Small and Medium Enterprise. But what is happening on the ground does not reflect this importance.
20. Today the actual administration seems less important than the extra administrative bodies which have been set up. This is very confusing to the public. It seems to be confusing to the administrators also. They do not seem to know what they are expected to do when policies and decisions are made by the special bodies.
21. Critics are being demonised by the mainstream media, by certain individuals and politicians who had lost. Critics risk their property being seized and auctioned, They may be bankrupted.
22. I am now being accused of forcing the Government to do things which should not be done.
23. And there are many more complaints about the state which would give it a rotten smell.
22. But not to worry. We will get use to the smell.
source :
http://chedet.cc/