Din Merican: the Malaysian DJ Blogger
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." (Mohandas Gandhi)

Archive for September, 2009

1Malaysia: Apa Ini? Rasuah!

September 30, 2009

Satu Malaysia (1Malaysia)

Rasuah–Haram Dan Beban Kepada Rakyat

Negri Sembilan PAS Chief for Bagan Pinang By-Election to take on Isa Samad

September 30, 2009

Untuk Pengundi di DUN Bagan Pinang  dari Bekas President UMNO

September 30, 2009
PAS (and Pakatan Rakyat) names Negri Sembilan Chief as its Bagan Pinang By-Election Candidate

Malaysian Insider reports (By Adib Zalkapli):
PAS today (September 29, 2009) named its Negri Sembilan chief Zulkefly Omar as the candidate for the [...]

Mahathir’s Advice to Civil Service

September 29, 2009

September 29, 2009
Mahathir says change strategy to achieve Vision 2020
Malaysia might not be able to achieve its Vision 2020 on time, if it does not change its strategy and remains dependent on foreign direct investments, says former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
He said Malaysia should focus on developing major local companies that have the [...]

Malaysia can learn from Indonesia on Environment

September 29, 2009

http://www.thejakartapost.com
September 29, 2009
Why Indonesia emerged as the true hero at G20
By Jonathan Wootliff *
It appears that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) understands what is the real crisis facing our planet. With the continuing popular obsession with global economic woes, most of the leaders attending last week’s G20 summit in Pittsburgh came prepared with more of [...]

Sorry, Che Det: Isa Samad is UMNO’s Man for Bagan Pinang

September 29, 2009

September 29, 2009
Isa Samad is UMNO-BN’s choice for Bagan Pinang By-Election
By Adib Zalkapli in Port Dickson

UMNO’s central leadership bowed to pressure from the Negeri Sembilan party grassroots and picked Tan Sri Mohd Isa Abdul Samad as the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate for the Bagan Pinang by-election.
The by-election is expected to end Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) winning [...]

Breaking News: No show re Kugan case

September 29, 2009

September 29, 2009
No-show in prosecution of Kugan’s death
by Rahmah Ghazali
The fuss over the expectation that a police officer would be charged this morning for the death of detainee Kugan Ananthan has fizzled.
Thus far, there is no sign that the case will come up at the Petaling Jaya Magistrate’s Court today, as anticipated.
Tun Majid Tun Hamzah, [...]

Haris Ibrahim’s Take on Parti Makkal Sakti Malaysia

September 29, 2009

The New Indian Politics: Political Dancing to succeed the Parti Makkal Sakit (Sakti?) Malaysia Way
by Haris Ibrahim (dated September 25, 2009)
September 27, last year, some of us gathered at Dataran Merdeka to light a candle and wish RPK, who was then being detained under the ISA, ‘Happy Birthday’. You can read about that HERE.
Later, some [...]

Tun Mahathir for UMNO in Bagan Pinang, given his track record and clean image

September 29, 2009

Mahathir for Bagan Pinang (?)
Malaysian Insider
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal (September 26, 2009)
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today reaffirmed his stand that Tan Sri Isa Samad should not be nominated to represent UMNO for the by-election in Bagan Pinang on October 11, 2009.
He also suggested sarcastically that UMNO should nominate him to stand instead of Isa if [...]

Kugan’s Death: Action at last

September 29, 2009

September 29, 2009
Comment:  After intense public pressure, the government has finally decided to take action on the Kugan case. A cop, according to Malaysiakini (below), will likely be charged today. Details of the charge are not known at this juncture. More importantly, we do not know how high up the accountability totem pole in the [...]

Harvard B-School Case Study:Najibo-nomics

September 28, 2009

September 28, 2009
The logic of Najibo-nomics
by Dr Azly Rahman (via e-mail)
Fashionable it may seem to credit this or that “economic miracle” episode to this or that country to the name of its leader, economist, dictator, emperor, etc. – the larger picture of the historical march of “freakonomics” is neglected.

Freakonomics is what the global society [...]

Noam Chomsky: America’s Foremost Public Intellectual, and US Foreign Policy Critic

September 28, 2009

September 28, 2009
Noam Chomsky:  Public Intellectual and Critic of American Foreign Policy

Noam Chomsky, a well respected public intellectual, has always been since his youth a political activist. Since 1965, he has become one of the leading critics of American Foreign Policy. He published American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) which is highly regarded [...]

Time to look at Malaysian Politics using a different set of lenses, says Farish Noor

September 28, 2009

September 28, 2009
Irrational Politics Revisited: How Conventional Political Theories No Longer Work In Malaysia

By Farish A Noor
It is bad enough that academics and political theorists are badly paid and overworked; now it seems that we have to make sense out of a mode of politics that is, frankly, nonsensical and irrational in Malaysia.
Perhaps the [...]

The Alliance Road to Merdeka

September 28, 2009

www.sun2surf.com
September 28, 2009
The Alliance Road to Merdeka
by Zainon Ahmad
AS IS generally known, Britain was reluctant to grant Malaya independence so quickly after it reoccupied the country following the Japanese surrender. One of its officials stated in 1951 that it would take another 25 years before the country would be ready for self-government.
The reason, as acknowledged [...]

Thank Heavens, I am not Najib’s Keeper, says Tunku Aziz

September 27, 2009

(September 26, 2009)
Living in the shadow of Najib’s 1 Malaysia

I was in Seoul last Monday to participate in the World Forum for Democratisation in Asia (Third Biennial Conference) on “Sustaining Democratisation in Asia: Challenges of Economic and Social Justice” with some 200 delegates from Asia and the United States.
The conference brought together people [...]

Extraordinary Leadership for Malaysia

September 27, 2009

September 27, 2009
Comment:  Extraordinary political leaders are a special breed of people. Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Dr. Ismail, Tun  Abdul Razak Hussein, Tun Hussein Onn, Tan Sri Khir Johari, Tun Tan Siew Sin, Tun Sambanthan, Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar Dr. M. Said, Dr Burhanuddin Al-Helmy, Ahmad Boestamam, Zulkifli Mohamad et.al of that generation are unique. [...]

Jazz for this weekend

September 26, 2009

Friends,
Before I forget, let me play some jazz pieces, which are classics in my ranking, featuring some well known trumpet players like Al Hirt, Chet Baker (with Alto Saxophonist Paul Desmond), Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis, and Terence Blanchard for your weekend entertainment. For the  next 20 minutes or so, forget our politics and enjoy the [...]

Among the thorns in US-Malaysia Relations: Malaysian Middlemen in sales of US arms and technology to Iran

September 26, 2009

posted by din merican–September 26, 2009
U.S. military equipment and technology through shipments to Malaysian middlemen
Bloomberg’s  Justin Blum in Washington DC reports on September 14, 2009 that Iran increasingly is obtaining U.S. military equipment and technology through shipments to Malaysian middlemen that illegally circumvent trade restrictions, according to American officials and analysts.
The U.S. has charged, convicted [...]