Declare war on drug traffickers ....

The drug menace is on the rise in terms of frequency and quantity of drugs smuggled into the country. It seems to me that the mandatory death penalty for drug smuggling does not deter a determined smuggler from bringing in drugs by the kilos. It also seems to me that there's also a conspiracy to  weaken  the country's security by undermining its youth and a long term one to destroy its sovereignty. Who the ultimate perpetrators are, are not known.

Every other day one comes across news of people being caught attempting to smuggle in drugs. Most of them are foreigners from Africa, Iran, South America, Indonesia, Thailand and so on. The amount of drugs run into the kilos.

A few days ago, at the Penang airport, an Indonesian was caught while trying to smuggle in 4 kilos of syabu worth about a million ringgit while another Indonesian, using a fast boat, was caught off Sabah for attempting to bring in 3.4 kilos of syabu worth RM 960,000. 

The whole world knows that Malaysia was the first country to enact a law that mete out the death sentence for smuggling or distribution of drugs in the country. If one is found guilty of this crime, the sentence is death by hanging. There are no two ways about it. At one time, the West ridiculed the law and  Hollywood made jokes about it. Gradually, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia a few other countries in South East Asia promulgated similar laws. 

But now, despite these laws, drug smuggling and distribution in Malaysia go unabated and are on the rise.

Update 04/09/2012 Teusday: Since this article was written, there has been many cases of drug traffickers being caught by the Malaysian authorities but the one that prompted me to continue is this case about a West African (obviously a Nigerian) who has been here for a number of years and has even married a local woman. He is 50 years old and is still registered as a student [this info is enough to suspect him as one with potential for unsavoury activities, yet this somehow escaped the authority]. The police caught him and his wife in an apartment where they keep syabu and heroin worth millions for exports and local distribution. They used their apartment as a hub for other drug smugglers from Iran, Africa etc to store or keep in custody. What I am worried is that, knowing the curious and uncaring and insensitive, judicial system, the couple stand a good chance of escaping the gallows on a non prima facie case, much to the disappointement of the Police. And that's why I say to declare war on those who smuggle and distribute drugs into the country. Treat them as war criminals, much like spies were treated during war times, and shoot or hang them without the due process.

Is this how to win an election ? ..

These few days, Barisan National was in a state of near panic when someone in the opposition promised the rakyat that if they are returned to power, they would abolish excise duty and import duty on cars. Now, for that, I and a great majority of the rakyat would gladly give a resounding vote to the opposition. Taken aback by the antics of the opposition, BN ministers are now trying hard to explain to us that removing the duties on cars is tantamount to making the country bankrupt for how else can the country pay for development, salaries of civil servants, etc, etc. The country would be starved of funds. 

Joining the chorus of BN politicians explanations are the custom officials who protest that that means a shortfall of RM 7 billion per year. How is the custom dept. going to replace such a big amount especially when, according to the newly minted Customs Director-General, as it stands now, leakages amounting to some RM 8 billion are draining the Customs annually. He unabashedly blames the leakages due to the  shortfall in duty collection because importers of goods tend to under declare their products that they bring into the country and that the Customs have no way of determining the prices of such goods and therefore are unable to quantify the tax amounts. 

What a load of rubbish !

To think that all this time the Customs have been losing revenues because importers under declare their imports is a far fetched argument. What's so difficult in obtaining prices of imported goods from Europe or the US since most, if not all, invoice their goods fairly and honestly unlike, maybe, exporters from say China or India or from the Asean countries, except Singapore, who may not cooperate with Customs of importing countries. Even so, if they were caught, the Malaysian Customs can simply blacklist them. As for used car imports, it is not difficult to determine their prices provided the base prices  i.e. their prices when new, are known and these are usually published in motor magazines, internationally or locally. And what with the availability of the internet that one can easily obtain the price of any car model instantly. It is difficult for us to accept the leakages unless of course the Customs are not doing their jobs.

Back to the opposition antic on giving surprises to the BN. It is nothing new. The oppositions have been doing it for years such as the toll rates they would reduce or tolls that they would abolish, or the price of fuel that they would reduce if returned to power, or the doing away with PTPTN, the increase on oil royalty, to name a few. Each time the opposition did this BN politicians panicked. Anwar gets a kick out of doing this and that, just to irk Najib who would then has to explain away in the media. The next time, Anwar will say that he would remove income tax and that would make all taxpayers consider voting for the opposition without giving a second thought. Najib would have a hard time to counter this. Anwar might go further as to propose that if the oppositions were to return to power he would double or triple the salaries of all civil servants in the country, across the board. He would do it simply by taking some of the USD 144 billion in our forex reserve. 

I find this unbelievable...

Today, I came across news that 2 Iranians were sentenced to death for attempting to distribute 473.5 grams of methamphetamine in Malaysia. My first reaction was good, since they deserved the death penalty for whatever they were doing in this country. Foreigners have been warned time and again not to carry drugs above a certain amount for that would constitute as attempts to distribute drugs, and if they were caught, they would be hanged. 

But what I find unbelievable was the judges statements after meting out the sentence ! A right thinking judge would reprimand the Iranians for doing what they did because their very act would endanger Malaysian youths into becoming drug addicts, or he ought to say something like they being sentenced would serve as a warning for others not smuggle and distribute drugs in the country.

But no, what he advised to the criminals, which to me, was tantamount to giving them ways to escape the gallows, by saying that they still had a couple of chances more. As a judge he ought to be satisfied  with his verdict and should be pleased that the verdict be carried out to its final conclusion. By saying what he said it's as though he wasn't sure of sentencing the 2 Iranians and hoped that his sentence be confirmed by the next levels of judiciary. He apparently had no confidence in meting out the death sentence.

For one, it's not his business to make suggestions. Let the defense lawyers do their work and if the defense did not take up the case to the next level, then it's tough luck for the 2 Iranians. And for another, personally, when I have made a decision, I abhor if someone higher up later on countermand my decision that make me look stupid.

The honorable judge ought to be charged with contempt of court !

Update 31/07/2012: Hurrah to the high court judge who made no bones about it when, after sentencing an Iranian found guilty of distributing metamphetamine to be hanged, stated that there was only one punishment and that is the death penalty by hanging. He made no other sympathetic statements.

An evil empire ....

The United States of America is an evil empire. Not satisfied with the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, it now plans to destroy Iran. It is now doing all kinds of things to get other countries not to trade with Iran so that if its plan succeeds to impoverish Iran, then it hopes that Iran would abandon uranium enrichment thus preventing Iran from having the capacity to produce nuclear bombs. 

At one time, it succeeded in overthrowing the democratic government of Mossadeque to replace it with the dictatorial government of the Shah who was, in turn, overthrown by the Iranian people in 1979. 

It all started when Mossadeque nationalised the oil companies owned by the British in Iran. Prior to the drastic steps taken by Mossadeque, he had requested, negotiated, and even begged, the oil companies to share some of the oil wealth with the Iranian people. The greedy oil companies, supported by the British government, refused, saying that no way would they give a penny to the Iranians because they believed that it's they who developed the oilfields and produced the oil. The only benefits that the Iranians were to get was employment. Wasn't it not enough for the Iranians to have jobs in the oil companies ? The fact that the oilfields were in Iran didn't matter to the oil companies. 

Mossadeque had asked for 25% of the oil revenue be given back to Iran for his government to develop Iran and for his people to improve their living standards. The oil companies simply said "fuck you" you dirty, backward Iranians. Who do you think you are messing with. We are British, who are far superior to you,  you sob Iranis. 

When subsequent talks and more talks proved futile, Mossadeque, exercising Irans's right as a sovereign nation, decided to  nationalise the oil companies. For awhile since then, Iran got to enjoy all the benefits of the oil wealth. In retaliation, the British government undertook various measures to prevent Iran from selling its oil and succeeded. But that wasn't enough for it reckoned the oil by right belonged to the oil companies and it would do anything to get hold of the oil again.

Winston Churchill, who was then the PM of Britain, quietly complained to President Eisenhower of the goings on in Iran and persuaded the US to do something about it. Eisenhower needed no prompting to do something about it since he hated Mossadeque as he mistakenly believed that Mossadeque was a communist. In no time, he got the CIA. together with the British MI6, to conduct covert and overt actions to overthrow Mossadeque and before long Mossadeque, in August 1953, was overthrown by the Iranian people, the very people that he was fighting for. He was arrested and incarcerated in prison.

In his place, President Eisenhower installed Mohd Reza Shah Pahlavi as King, and CEO of the Iranian government. The Shah took the job as duck took to water and ruled Iran as he thought Iran ought to be ruled, at first ruling wisely, but later ruling dictatorially. He had his gestapo-like SAVAK to bully and oppress his people without any criticism from the West especially the US since, according to US, Iran under the Shah presented a bulwark against Soviet expansion during the Cold War. The oil companies got their oil back while the Shah was dined and wined by the Kennedys and Hollywood especially during the time when oil was the kingmaker and the Shah's Iran stood above the second richest oilfield after Saudi Arabia. During this time, the Shah was under the delusion that he was an oil strategist, claiming credit for being responsible for the quadrupling of the oil price when in reality it was the Arab Sheikhs, under the leadership of one Sheikh Zaki Yamani, who were the ones responsible for price increase. The Shah was merely a follower, a Johnny- come-lately.

[During about this time, there circulated a book, disguised as a work of fiction called the Crash of '79 written by Paul E Erdman, a Swiss writer. In it, the writer claimed that the Shah had designs to become a world power and in fact had produced several working nuclear bombs. The crash he referred to was  the banking crash brought about by a concatenation of events starting with the transfer of wealth from the West to the Arab countries, the Shah's war with the US when he detonated nuclear bombs on Saudi Arabia, and the retaliatory US's destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities, including causing the death of the Shah. The Shah had not realised that the nuclear devices that he detonated contained radioactive cobalt with a long half-life whose fall-out had rendered Saudi Arabia's oil inaccessible to any one.]

Little did the presidents of the United States, their CIAs and military know that, under the Shah who was deluded into thinking that he was popular in Iran [who now styled himself as Shahanshah-king of kings or emperor, to wit], there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction amongst the Iranians. The Iranians who were of the more disciplined Shiite variety of Muslims did not like their country be spoiled into hedonism under the secular administration of the Shah. They didn't want to be like the nightclubbing, womanising, hypocritical Sunni variety of the Muslims such as those from Saudi Arabia, and completely surprised the West by kicking out the Shah and instead welcomed the religious cleric Ayatollah Khomeini as spiritual leader for Iran in a historic 1979 revolution.

The Iranians have by this time know how to produce and market their oil and have accumulated enormous oil revenue. They were no longer obligated to share the oil with the predatory British oil companies that have exploited Iran in the last 40 years.

With more wealth from oil, the Iranian government managed to industrialise its country and improve the education of its people to such an extent that the brilliant ones became scientists of high calibre. In fact, it's the only Muslim country that was capable of making nuclear bombs given the right environment. That's what cheesed the Americans for they feared the people of the Middle East's capacity to make sophisticated weapons particularly weapons of mass destruction. The American administration are determined that no weapons of mass destruction are produced by countries in the Middle East, with one exception, which is Israel.

In the aftermath of the fall of the Shah, the boycott by the West by way of not trading with Iran on high tech goods such as jet fighters, sophisticated weapons, missiles, and so on was a blessing in disguise for the Iranian people; for then they realised that they had to produce them themselves. Spare parts and avionics that needed replacements for the jet fighters were made by the Iranians and old weapons bought during the Shah's era were improved and innovated. [It's interesting to note here that when Saddam Hussain realised that his sophisticated jet fighters, acquired from Russia and the US, were to be destroyed  during the first Gulf Far, he had them flown into Iran and in effect donated them to the Ayatollah - much to the Iranian's surprise. Pangs of conscience must have pricked old Saddam Hussain for attacking Iran in the Iraq-Iran War]. Following their frustrations, the Iranians became determined to produce all kinds of weapons from light weapons to battle tanks, to fighting ships, to rockets and missiles, and to a host of other weapons. Lately, they have managed to capture some UAVs, the so called drones, that entered Iranian airspace. It would not be long before Iran started producing their own drones.

What CBT ....

A former group chief executive of Sime Darby, Zubir Murshid, is being charged today for CBT (criminal breach of trust). One news media said that he failed to take legal action or failed to instruct against or to rectify the award of 2 pieces of land in Sarikei Sarawak to 2 companies resulting in a loss of some RM 101 million to Sime Darby. By his inaction, Sime Darby was forced to acquire the 2 companies. That was the gist of his being charged for CBT. The lands are Native Customary Right lands (equivalent to the Malay Reserve lands in Peninsular Malaysia).

I have been trying to figure this out. What I know of CBT is that when you entrust someone with your own money, that someone  uses it for his or own benefits without letting you know. That constitutes a crime of breaching your trust in him or her. Another example is when a manager of a company makes use of the company's money or property for his benefits, he then commits an act that is considered as CBT.

IN Zubir's case there were 2 companies involved. One was Vertical Drive Sdn Bhd (RM 85,023,047.20) while the other was Nature Ambience Sdn Bhd (RM 16,816,217). It was not mentioned who owned the 2 companies - whether they were 2 ringgit companies or companies owned or within the control of Zubir or companies to be temporarily used by Zubir before acquisition by Sime Darby. Another flaw in the charges was that when millions of ringgit were involved, it was not a one man decision. It is usually a board decision, albeit recommended by the CEO. This is a common practise. I have a feeling that the Chairman, Musa Hitam at that time, was not involved and was chagrined by the fact that he was left out in the decision making. Zubir was accused of failing to inform the board for the decision of Sime Darby's acquisition of the 2 companies. What Zubir Murshid should have done was to call for a full board of Sime Darby in which the Chairman, willy nilly, had to be present in the decision making process.

For the moment, what with the scanty news from the media, there's nothing much to say on this case on Zubir. He, of course, pleaded not guilty and was allowed bail. There was a picture of salt and paper haired Zubir, properly attired in suit, beside his defense lawyer. It was actually puzzling that Zubir was charged with CBT on land transaction in Sarawak when this all started with Sime Darby being hit with an RM 1.8 billion loss from its energy division some 2 years ago. One tends to ask who awarded the NCR land to the 2 companies. Was it the Sarawak government or some other entity ? Or were the lands purchased from some companies ? Have the lands got something to do with oil palm development in Sarikei Sarawak ? It looked to me that someone wanted to "done him in" as Eliza Doolittle would say.

To be continued ....

The funny currency that is the MYR ....

First of all, I am a bit suspicious when news has it that Bank Negara is printing new notes. The first thing that comes to mind is that  BNM is increasing the money supply. It's OK if BNM prints new notes to replace old notes without introducing more notes into general circulation. But it looks as though that institution intends to increase the money supply. 

That's why now the MYR is reducing in value compared with the USD, the Sing dollar, the Swiss Francs and even the Thai Baht, as soon as the new notes are introduced. Some 2-3 years ago,  it took RM2.30 to buy 1 Singapore dollar. Today, you need RM 2.54 to buy the Singapore dollar. The same with the USD, the so called toilet paper. Now, you need RM 3.20 to buy 1 USD. Which is the toilet paper now ! What is wrong with our money system ? No reasons were given as to the devaluation of the Malaysian ringgit.

It won't be long before prices of goods start increasing. The government claims that current inflation is held at 3 percent. My take is that inflation rate will increase gradually by a percentage amount that the money supply is diluted. 

Of house price increase and contempting the court ...

These few days, I come across a couple of amusing news. One is about how to prevent drastic increases in the price of houses proposed by the Minister of Housing while the other is about judges warning to us good citizens running the risk of being in contempt of court should they give "insulting" opinions on judges who pass bad judgments. 

While the former on  house price increase is a stale proposal that goes way back to the 1970s on how to curb house price increases, every Housing Minister since then never bothered to find ways to do it. Just imagine a DS terrace house that cost 30,000 in the 1970s now cost 700,000. The current minister shrinks away from proposing to enact a law to prevent house price increase because he thinks its for the market to determine. Instead he is proposing the outdated provisions to increase the capital gains tax, to impose limits between house transfers and so on. We have seen this before and it has never worked. All the house speculators need do is to under declare the transaction price and voila, he pays less tax or none at all.

The fault really lies primarily with the housing developers and the banks. A house developer initially develops a township at an average price a 100,000 say. Later he discovers that in the secondary market, the houses are actually sold at an average price of 200,000. Realising that his initial pricing was not "realistic", what the developer does that for the next township that he is developing, he doubles the average price to 200,000. Again he discovers that, in the secondary market, the average price of houses transacted is 400,000. Again the developer realises that, all along, he has been stupid for "under pricing". So, in the next housing development project, the developer swears that he would never be stupid again and markets his houses at an average price not at 400,000 but at 600,000, to ensure that at last he would not be labelled as stupid by the shareholders. Surprise of surprise, in the secondary market, the houses that he has developed, are transacted at 750.000.

And that's what the situation is now in the Klang Valley.

So far, have any Ministers of Housing in the past ever done anything to curb the drastic price increases of houses ? Most probably, they are all in favour of price increase because it means more tax for the government, directly or indirectly. Didn't it occur to any of them that one of the ways to curb price increase is enact a law preventing houses being sold while they are being developed. Make a law that only completed houses that have water and electricity and other amenities available can be sold. In other words, developers can only sell houses with certificates of fitness. Let the development of houses be entirely financed by the developers own funds and their banks before allowing the houses to be sold to the public - treat the houses like any other products like cars for examples. And let's see what the prices would be.

The banks are obviously in favour of price increases because it means more income from interests, service fees, and what have you they impose on the consumers. It also provides an opportunity for these banksters to seize houses when borrowers fail to pay, seizing them at low prices and re-selling at high prices to new buyers. Another group of professionals that like prices to go up are those from the legal profession because their fees would be a certain percentage of higher numbers. Who wants to get 10% of a 100,000 when a 10% of 700,000 means more for their pockets for drawing up a standard well worn document.

As usual, it's the consumer that's getting the shit end of the stick. The house buyer is the ultimate loser for getting a house that is smaller, on a piece of land that has reduced in size and for a price that's 7-10 times what his father paid for it from an income that has increased by 2-3 times compared to the 1970s.

Is this what the Minister of Housing is talking about ?

On another note, there is this Malaysia's chief justice who issues warnings to all citizens, politicians, ministers, and the common people alike, not to insult the judges, not to make heavy criticisms on them, or else drastic actions like being charged for contempts of court would be taken against them. Even outside the courts, they believe they can charge us for contempts.

The judges are not to be criticised since they feel that their status is well above the people, above the Prime Minister, and perhaps, only slightly below the level of a divine Being. To me, they are nothing but a bunch of government servants who should be criticised for making bad judgments and, come to think, can be sued in court ( the word used is impeachment, as though using any other word to mean the same thing is beneath them) if they make mistakes or blunders in administering justice.  They are employed to serve, first and foremost, the rakyat, the taxpayers, not the other way round. If personnels in the executive, legislative branch of government can be hauled to court why cannot the members of the bench ? What's so special about them that perhaps they can only be "impeached" in special courts if they failed to administer justice ? Remember the Teoh Ben Hock case wherein  3 officials of MACC were disciplined for being indicted indirectly to the death of Ben Hock who jumped from the MACC building in order to avoid further harassment. The 3 men were not charged in court but were charged following a royal commissioning of  inquiry. They were in fact doing their job.

to be continued ......

What's wrong with the Chinese people .....

A common trait among the Chinese is his selfishness. If he thinks that he has the right to do something, he will do it without realising that what he does may irritate or harm his neighbours. Let me explain what I mean by giving a few examples. 

One is if he is driving a car and cut in infront of you, oblivious to the fact that, by so doing, you are forced to brake your car in order to prevent an accident. If you complain to him of his callousness, his response would invariably be it his right to be on the road because he has the road tax to show for it. And, if you had not reacted in time to cause an accident, and challenged him, he would reply that, since you hit him from behind, it was you who are at fault, by law, insisting that it's his right to be on the road. 

Two is if a woman carrying a baby crosses in front of a car in a car park say, instead of being patient and allow the woman to cross completely, the driver would blast his horn to prompt the woman to hurry up. If you take a closer look at the driver, you will find a Chinaman behind the wheel. If you challenge him, he would reply that that's his right since he's paying for parking. 

Three is if you happen to be a woman working as a junior clerk in a small Chinaman company. A senior Chinese clerk would invariably attempt to bully you by asking you to do chores like washing her dirty cups, wiping her tin cans and so on when she could easily do it herself, even though its outside your job scope. 

Four is if you happen to be an Indonesian maid working for a Chinese family living in a high-rise apartment in Singapore. You will be asked, among other things, to clean the outside of apartment windows without any means provided to ensure your safety. You may end up like one of the nine maids that have fallen to their deaths in 2012 alone. When charged in court, the court tends to look the other way always agreeing and sympathising with the apartment owners saying that the maids are stupid enough to do what they have been doing. At best, the judge will impose a fine of S$500.

Now, at last the government has realised that prior to the 9 deaths in this year alone, there had been scores of incidents in the past wherein maids have plunged to their deaths when cleaning apartment windows and it's getting a bit embarrassing for only in Singapore that such incidents occur. It is now attempting, belatedly, to enact a law prohibiting apartment window cleaning by maids.

Outstanding blogs ...

Between sometime in mid April 2012 to just about now, I have not blogged anything in this blogsite. This is because I had been away from my main computer, though I had "blogged" on my IPad through the "writing" applications that I had downloaded. Though I could easily invoke the richardsorge.blogspot.com and write in the blog on my IPad, , I refrained from doing so after some bad experience with 'glitches' like highlights appearing in the paragraph and so on. So during the duration that I was not on my main computer, I used Apps such as Pages, Notes, etc. to write on the usual views of news that I came across in the internet or news papers.

So I am reserving this column to insert my earlier writings since if I copied them in the usual manner, I would not be able to collate them properly in the date order. What appears below are the "articles" that I had done in the past 2-3 months or so.

Greece should abandon the Euro ...

When Greece became part of Euro, abandoning its currency, the Drachma, little did she know that she joined a rich men's club. So eager was Greece to become a member of the Eurozone fraternity she was prepared to show false statistics in order to fulfil the entry requirements. If, for example, the requirements that economic strengths were a prerequisite to be a member, then Greece provided bloated trade figures, balance of payment, forex reserves, and so on just to gain entry into the Eurozone dominated by such rich countries as Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and several others. Greece was a poor man trying to keep up with Jones's but had not the resources and the capacity to sustain for a long time.
In the end, Greece had lived beyond its means becoming bankrupt in the process. In order to keep up with the richer countries , it spent and spent using borrowed money until it could not possibly repay its loans or even the interests on its loans. And now, having stuck in a quicksand of debts, there's no way that Greece could extricate itself other than downsizing its bloated economy by, first of all, reverting to using her old currency system. This is the only solution if Greece wants to survive in the eurozone by accepting the painful fact that it's a poor country.
One of the things that Greece can easily do to get back on its feet is to sell the many islands to the world in order to improve its GDP. A great number of the islands are useless since many of them are inhabited.
The other day I was astonished to read that Greece's GDP per capita was USD 24,000. Malaysia is now trying hard to attain a GDP per capita of USD 15,000 ( it's now about USD 8,000) before saying that it has reached developed status. As things are, we Malaysians are way better off than the Greeks. We are well off enough to tour Greece but not so for the Greeks to tour our country.
The trouble with Greece is that the country has, for years, not been getting sufficient taxes. Its either the tax collection system is hopelessly inefficient or that the Greeks are fond of avoiding tax. Ask any grocery storekeeper or a butcher or even an Onassis when was the last time he paid tax. The answer is either some few years ago at best or never at all at worse. Some might reply that what tax are you talking about !
Greece should go back to the times when "Never On Sunday" was made. Although the Greeks were never as rich as the Germans or the French then, at least, they were never out of a job. Even Mellina Mercouri was prosperous enough to have a day off.



Malaysia's Foreign Loans


10/04/2012 Monday: 


It's heartening to know that Malaysia's 1st loan taken from 1965-1998 from the World Bank has been fully settled while a later loan taken from ADB in 1968-2000 has some USD 124 millions left to pay. The implication would be a strengthening of the Malaysian Ringgit (MYR), an increase in our forex reserve, an improvement of its financial ratings and so on.

Foreign loans should be totally wiped out by 2020 which is the target year for Malaysia to attain "developed status" as Najib promised that he would take Malaysia to this position. Malaysia would then be like Singapore now which doesn't owe to anybody except to her own people in the form of loans from her people's provident fund.

Taking foreign loan is a double edged sword. Firstly, foreign governments or their institutions tend to be extra wary before they decide to provide loans. And if they do, the terms and conditions are extremey tough. Secondly, foreign loans are designated in their own currencies or in USD and payments have to be made by way of the same currencies. The danger is that should the currency of the borrowing country weakens, the country faces a double whammy of a punishment in that the borrower has to pay both the principal and the interest in the currency of the lending country or in USD. It's good if the currency of the borrowing country strengthens, but it usually never does since how could it when the borrowing country needs money to finance itself.

Many years ago, Malaysia suffered because she borrowed ¥ from Japan and had to pay back the instalments in ¥ despite the soft loans provided when Malaysia's currency greatly weakened vis-a-vis the ¥. This was during the period when Mahathir was the PM of Malaysia. Malaysia regrets to this day for taking loans from foreign countres.

We don't like to be like Greece which has been living beyond their means. Portugal, Ireland, Iceland are going the way of Greece now. Spain and Italy are possible future victims of their own profligate ways. These countries face bankcruptcy in the near future.


Teachers are fond of ....

I despise teachers who are fond of making fun of their students in front of the class. They seem to get a kick out of humiliating a student when the student answers wrongly or makes an obvious blunder. A popular way to humiliate a student is for the teacher to make fun of essays written by a student. He enjoys reading the essays as loud as possible in front of the class, pointing to some obvious errors like grammatical mistakes, sentence construction, and the arguments presented in the essays. To their credit at least, they don't reveal the author of the essays. They don't bother to council students, to tutor them, to advise them, or to encourage them to improve. Their attitude Is one of "take it or leave it". If the student fails to understand then it is too bad for him.

One such teacher I know was Tan Cheng Or. Rumours had it that he had a first class honours in english from the University of Malaya. True or not I was not sure because he did not speak English fluently the way a graduate teacher with a "first" spoke. There was many a time we saw him in class reading the Utusan Melayu (a local daily written in Jawi) to show off to us that he had mastered the Malay language. There was another teacher by the name of Ti Teow something who was trying to teach us to pronounce the word "perpendicular" properly by repeatedly pronouncing it as "perpenticular". His Chinese tongue simply could not distinguish a "d" from a "t" just as the commonly peculiar Chinese tongue that cannot distinguish an "r" from an "l"; like, for example , in Bill Haley's rock song "Lock, lock, lock, lound the crock". There was another maths teacher by the name of Cheah who had a bad case of halitosis. Its only when he came up to the students desk to emphasise on some problems that we prefer he ought to explain them on the board, far away from us. He sported an Omega watch which to us was the watch at that time until we learnt later that the real watch is a Rolex. Another teacher that I know was called Austin Hooi. He taught us Geography in Form 4. To us he was lazy, usually coming to teach at just 15 minutes before the 45 minute-period was over.

There were also good teachers in my time who take the trouble to make you understand. There were teachers like Norton, Ananda, Wilson, Mehrotra, Gurmukh, Chan Chee Onn, who had the patience and the zeal to teach us students. But most of them only provide the service without care to their students.

Another notorious teacher was OP Agarwal. He was a science teacher on contract from the Indian government to teach science in small town schools. Academically, Agarwal was a brilliant teacher, being conversant in science and maths. He had an excellent memory. We used to make fun of him because of his right index finger which was half missing. There was a story related to us kids when he was briefly a science teacher in a neighbouring school, notorious for having unruly and outspoken students. One day, he was so angry with his students in class that he harangued them for being so stupid that they could not even give the correct answer to 5 plus 5, to which a cheeky student replied that 5 plus 5 equalled to 9 and a half. I remember one day, while in Form V, I chanced to look at this Agarwal leering at the chest of a female student by the name of Kamala. She was a Tamil girl whose bosoms were  just nicely developing as she was  growing up, as most of the female students were in their 16s and 17s. In all my innocence, I was wondering why he kept on staring at her chest, oblivious to anyone in the classroom. Years later when I knew the meaning of sex, I realised that this Agarwal was enjoying himself with a hard-on. Another teacher was Gurbachan Singh who was the rugby teacher. He liked to refer himself as GBS like the British philosopher George Bernard Shaw. Rumours had it that he was intimately involved with a Malay girl from the kampung to the extent that some of my friends had seen that he had sex with her. I have no means to verify that but I did see this GBS being extra nice to her as he was giving her tips on javelin throwing while in preparation for the school's sports.

The principal of that school was an Indian by the name of MT Pillai, with curly, rounded alphabets for a signature. He used to have a car but from one day we observed that he walked to school. And he walked to school since then. He had 3 children as far as we knew, a son and 2 daughters. The son was good for nothing except that he had an  'A' for English, while a daughter, Vasantha, was mediocre in class. The youngest daughter was however the exception. In school, she was always among the very top. But his wife was the one that gave him the most embarassing problem, for she was an alcoholic. She was notorious for swearing profanities when drunk. We students simpathise with the headmaster.

The assistant to the headmaster was one Mailvaganam. He was later transferred to a school in another neighbouring town and this was where he became notorious as one who meted out punishment to a Chinese student by severe caning. The boy must have made him so angry that at a certain point, the teacher called him "communist". [This was unfortunate, because, it so happened that the boy's name was Chin Peng, and Chin Peng was, at that time, the head honcho of the communist terrorists who have been terrorising Malayans from 1948 to 1960]. The punishment was so severe that the boy's father took him to court where the media ran a detailed expose on what actually happened.

Another teacher was Balwant Singh who was a man of violent temper. He left teaching to study law and became a practising lawyer. Many years later, he was the Datuk Balwant Singh who shot and killed an Indian in an incident. After a long trial, he was lucky to have escaped the hangman's noose. During the height of the trial, a Punjabi friend of mine inadvertently slipped out a dark secret of Balwant Singh - which was for having an affair with his own niece in contradiction to the peculiar characteristics of the Punjabis in this country,  Punjabis here are notorious for looking after their womankind in the most strange way. Should a Punjabi girl get herself involved in prostitution or being notorious for being too amorous, woe betide her because Punjabi men will hunt her down to perform honour punishment or even honour killing. For doing what she does, the Punjabi Kaur has digraced the Punjabi race. Examples of honour killings are many in Britain. In many instances of cultural conflicts in Britain, many a migrant Punjabi father, has killed his own daughter for being on a date with men who are not of their kind.

During those days, most of the teachers were men and in most so called English schools, there was a dearth of Malay teachers. In contrast, currently, most of the teachers in so called national schools are women and are invariably of the Malay race. The Chinese, Indians, and Punjabis prefer to earn their livelihoods in other high-earning professions rather than being in rot with low incomes as teachers.


On another note, there was this MKK of a girl by the name of Mazidah Mahmud. She was one or two years my junior, and for no rhyme or reason, she seemed to be prejudiced against me. I didn't know her at all apart from the fact that she had a sister in the same form as me. Her father had been a Malay school inspector, and a stupid one at that, because he was unable to answer satisfactorily to questions that I posed in class where he taught on retirement, and had to bluff himself out expecting that I would not notice. She was jealous of me perhaps because I came from a poor family and I was a brilliant student, always among the top 3 in class, competing against brilliant Chinese students. At that time, no Malay students were ever at par with me.Rumours had it that even in Form III, she had a penchant for spreading her legs for her male classmates, or male seniors, and even for some of the teachers. Hence the MKK appellation( mek kuat kangkang). Her sister was no better. If any girl student I hate to this very day, it is this girl. I wonder what has become of her now !




This is one news I like to speculate on ....




16/04/2012 Monday : A bunch of US military officials and secret service agents were sent to Columbia ahead of Barack Obama's attendance in a so-called Summit of the Americas, a kind of regular convention of political leaders from Canada, US, Central and South Americas. A sort of convention to re-affirm the "Monroe Doctrine" - America for the Americans - is still alive. Yes, those latinos that speak Portuguese and Spanish are still Americans, not only those that come from US. Europeans had better keep out. As for Asians and Africans, they better be not seen anywhere near the conference. Strangely, this time Cuba was not invited.

I am not going to talk about the "Monroe Doctorine" in this blog, but about the US security officials who have been assigned in Columbia to "secure" the presence of US political and administratve officials there, including the President himself. Instead of doing their job as portrayed in the History Channel and by Hollywood of tough, no nonsense, dedicated security officials, they were confronted with Columbia's police who found them in different degrees of sobriety caused by "excessive drinking" and in associations with the local prostitutes. It all started when one local prostitute refused to leave the room where an agent short-changed the pro for her services. She created such a ruckus that the hotel management had to call the authorities to deal with the situation. The local authority later discovered that a whole bunch of security agents and military personnel were all found to be not doing there jobs that they were assigned. They were nothing but of bunch of freeloaders, behaving like the ugly American tourists, enjoying themselves at the US government's expense.

The reason for their behaviour is easy to guess. To them, Barack Obama, is a nigger and why should threy take all the trouble to look after him, even if he is the CEO of the United States. Most probably they are Republican sympathisers too. Their attitude would have been different if the President is George Bush or any of the "white, anglo-saxon" bastards of a president .....

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This will be the final nail ....

When the written judgment on Anwar's trial comes out, it will be the final nail in the coffin of his political career. Where is he going to hide his face when the judge said that there was buggery committed. His credibility will be gone foreever and with that his friends, here and overseas, who will avoid him like the plague. Even his family will shun him.

These few days, the DPM of Malaysia, in a 6-day working visit to Indonesia, is busy trying to explain to Indonesia on what goes on in Malaysia, to clear the air on what he perceives as Anwar's negative propaganda to the Indonesian people. Apparently, these past 2-3 years, Anwar has been accused of badmouthing Malaysia and those in the government, regionally as well as globally. It is natural for anyone in the opposition to say about a country and how it is run, usually implying that if he were the PM, he can run it better. He usually picks on issues and weaknesses in the present crop of leaders and their leader. And the purpose of the DPM's visit is to enlighten Indonesia. 

What I find amusing is the response from leaders of Indonesia's main political parties, in effect, saying that only now they know. All these while, they are having the impressions that Malaysia is anti-Indonesia, her leaders and people tend to be arrogant when dealing with Indonesians, bullying Indonesians and so on. Indonesia is a country across the Melaka Straits, having not less than 3.0 millions of her population residing, legally or illegally, in Malaysia for years. Its highly unlikely that Indonesians are ignorant on what goes in this country.

Of course, you idiot !....

04/07/2012: Wednesday

As I always said before about Malaysian judges and how they pass judgments. They are incompetent or perhaps a better word is the Malay " bengong" or the Chinese slang equivalent "mengong". As I said in many a blog in my blog page,  one can escape with murder here or get away scot free when caught smuggling drugs in quantities. But woe betides you if you are caught pilfering a handphone or smoking syabu in a night club when, if brought before them, judges can be most severe in handing out punishments.

Thus we have the story of Anwar Ibrahim who was declared not guilty to the offense of sodomy that he perpetrated on his young assistant. The judge himself believed that Anwar was guilty but was scared to say so and instead declared Anwar not guilty. I wrote before that, although Anwar was declared not guilty, he certainly was not innocent of the offense ( crime ? ) of sodomy. After the verdict, Anwar went around the world to tell anyone and everyone that he was the victim of conspiracy and that he was never the bugger made out to be by Mahathir and such.

Now, several months have passed when we finally obtain the judgment in written form in which the trial judge wrote that there was indeed penetration by Anwar, meaning buggery, as confirmed by 3 medical experts but that the semen samples obtained were spurious e.g. contaminated.

Ha, ha, ha.

On this basis, the judge said that he could not pronounce the guilty verdict on Anwar and, willy nilly, had to declare him not guilty. This is like saying that a murderer was found not guilty when he was initially charged with shooting his victim by using a Kalashnikov when it was later proved that the bullets came from an M16 carbine. This is similar to another trial some months ago when a drug smuggler, charged when caught with kilos and kilos of methamphetamine, was let scot free by the judge when it was later found to be ketamine that he was smuggling.

And this is why I am in contempt of the judges in Malaysia.

Update 05/07/2012:Thursday: In a rare instance of proper administration of justice, I come across today in MM that a Thai woman was sentenced to be hanged in Alor Star high court for attempting to smuggle in 18.63 kilos of cannabis. Her name is Natcha Babkaew. In her defense, she said that 2 Africans gave her RM 2,000/- to carry the drugs in her bags across the border and to give them to another African waiting at Changlun.

The trip to Europe ....

I just had a trip to Europe for a month from the 17th of April 2012. The purpose of the trip was to accompany my family who had never been to Europe and also for me to visit Italy which I had missed before during my student days. 

Then, I used to go and even worked in northern Europe such as in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark during the summer vacations whereby students were required to gain working experience and write a report on it. Somehow, I had no time to go to Italy or the Iberian peninsula. As for Britain, the farthest north had been 0xford. I had missed the Lake District, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and several others. 

Armed with a few thousand pounds and some euros that I could garner from what was left from the last group tour some 4 years ago, my family set off to London on the Emirates 380-800. Some 7 hours later, the wide bodied Airbus touched down on the Dubai airport tarmac. As there was no aerobridge to connect the plane to the finger terminal, we had to enter the airport building by way of a bus. And what a confusion it was at the transfer points. Passengers from different planes seem to converge into the same area to be tranferred to another plane. To make matters worse, there were no Emirates personnel to guide the passengers. Somehow by following the general flow of the crowd, we managed to reach the duty-free area. 

All the latest Rolex watches were displayed for the tourists and in another shop, I saw, for the first time, one kilo of 999.9% pure gold bar. Confused as to what to see, we all decided to go to the toilets. It was one of the most crowded duty- free concourse I have ever seen. The place seemed to reek of money.

A punjabi trying to be more English than the English ...

All Malaysians visiting Britain are warned to be wary of an unsavoury character in the form of a Punjabi Sikh immigration officer who takes pleasure in harassing visitors coming to England. This son of an immigrant himself whose parents must have been harassed and bullied by the British when they first tried to enter Britain, possibly after being kicked out from Uganda by Idi Amin or fleeing from the poverty-stricken Punjabi state in India is taking out on Asians for the humiliation that he and his parents had gone through by the British people. 

His questionings suggest that his thinking was that all Asians coming to Britain as tourists were really coming to work here at the expense of the British taxpayers just as his parents or grandparents did, that the Asians had no money, that Asians are coming here to get the benefits of the dole. It didn't occur to him that Asians, especially Malaysians come here to spend money that indirectly helps the ailing British economy. 

To him, all Asians are like the poor Indians or the Africans that peddle umbrellas and trinkets in the streets of Rome, Milan and Paris. This bloody Punjabi declined to give us his name other than his number which is 4814. All Malaysians entering Britain should be aware of this bearded, turbaned Sikh who thinks that he is an Englishman trying to protect England from being invaded by Asians just because he is lucky enough to be granted British citizenship and be employed as a petty official in Britain's Border Agency. 

You can find him manning a booth at the terminal 3 in Heathrow Airport.

Update: 09/07/2012 Monday. I managed to track this Punjabi down by way of youtube.com where he appeared in a video interview.

Who is Singapore's enemy ? ...

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Asia is the world's top importer of weapons. With loads and loads of cash and forever harbouring suspicions on its closest neighbours, I am not surprised that India is the top importer. In terms of volumes of weapons, its import is 10% compared to its nemesis Pakistan at 5%. China by sheer size imports as much as Pakistan while South Korea's volumes of weapons is 6% - which is understandable - since it's always at loggerheads with North Korea.

But the real surprise is Singapore which imports 4% in weapons volume, clearly highly disproportionate to its population and its land size. If one looks at the map, Singapore is a tiny fraction of the size of Johore and sometimes when one zooms out in Google Earth, the letter S fully covers up the whole island. Weapons imports by Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philipine are too small as to be not worth being reported by the Research Institute.

Who is Singapore's enemy ? Vietnam ? Hardly. Thailand or Indonesia ? Unlikely. Philipine ? Also unlikely since it's too far away. Obviously Singapore is preparing for a war with Malaysia.

A good Injun is a dead Injun ....

It's nothing unusual to hear of American soldiers killing native peoples. They have done it for years in the US itself, in Vietnam, in Guam and in a lot of other places. Most of the times, they get away with it, whether it may be murder or rape.

In the latest incident in Kandahar, Afghanistan, a US soldier went on a killing spree, murdering 16 innocent civilians. The US authorities are of course coming out with all kinds of rationales into the inexplicable deed heinously perpetrated by the US soldier.

Usually, it is insanity. For how could a soldier do this kind of thing unless he is insane ! There will be hordes and hordes of psychiatrists and priests from the US military establishments testifying to the fact that the US soldier is obviously mad. They will swear on their mothers' arses that the soldier is mad and hence should never, ever be punished.

In the end, the killer gets away with it. His punishment would, at best, be a few years jail in the US, not in the country where he commits the crime.

The trouble is, in America, the country is full of bigots. It is not uncommon for these bigots to kill people not of their kind and think nothing of it. Their attitude is one of " a good Injun is a dead Injun". So, it is the same manifest attitude towards the Afghanis when the soldier, an experienced staff sergeant no less, is driven to kill since the Afghanis are not of his kind.

Remember, in the dark history of US conflicts with the native Indians, after killing hundreds of innocent, unarmed Indians, US cavalry soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour for " bravery".

Update 20/-3/2012 Teusday: We are now told that the perpetrator is Sgt. Robert Bales who has now been transported to US and imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth. A columnist commented that what he did was plain murder - pure and simple. Comments from the media in the West like CNN or NY or CBS or Time were of the types that say, obviously, the man was deranged and hence didn't know what he was doing. But the funny thing was why didn't he kill his own comrades if he's mad, or deranged or insane. Why did he coolly and quietly leave the safety of his barracks, wander to the village, and kill innocent women and children, then burn them ? Is that the behaviour of a deranged, insane personality ?

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The true story of Osama's body ..

Sometime ago, I immediately pooh-poohed the explanation given by the US that, after Osama bin Laden was killed, his body was brought to an aircraft carrier from where it was buried at sea according to Muslim rites. I wrote that his body was flown to the US for George Bush and the others to gloat over.

The truth has finally come out that Osama's body was flown to the US and then burned. I presume his body must have been defiled by the Americans before they decided to burn it ..... Wikileaks and Anonymous.

Israeli's revenge .....

The world is not fair to Israel, so says its Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Remember, some time ago, Iran acquired a few thousands mid range or long range missiles, either from Russia or by making them, for the purpose of defending itself from Israeli jet fighters. Israeli's Benjamin Netanyahu was whining to the neocons in the White House, that it might be difficult or even impossible to attack if Israeli's F-16s and F-35s were being shot at as they approached the Iraq-Iranian border. US should do something about it.

It's not fair that these Iranians have the means to counter attack Israel's planes, even in the name of defending themselves. The Iranians should be like the Egyptians or the Iraqis or the Syrians of yesteryears to expose their tanks and facilities so that we, Israelis, can destroy them for clearly they were acquired or built to destroy God's chosen people. It is Israel's right to kill as many Arabs as possible and it was the duty of US and Britain to ensure that we succeeded.

Remember, some 80 years ago, that bastard Hitler tried to kill us Jews and nearly succeeded. But we swore never again are we to be destroyed. We are now taking vengeance against those Germans by killing Arabs that are now set to destroy us. We dare not hit back at Germany and the Germans because they may prove to be strong. However, the Arabs, especially those of the Palestinian variety, are easy meat. So says Netanyahu who is pleading for Obama to pull his finger out and do something to save Israel.

Hiding their weapons complex deep underground, the Iranians are a bad sport since Israeli's bombs cannot reach them. The Iranians should lie bare their industrial complexes, their military bases and other strategic facilities for US satellites to photograph them and to provide intelligence for Israel to destroy them. Because it is Israel's right to ensure that those Ayrabs and Persians should not live like human beings. So says Netanyahu and such ...

Update 29/02/2012 Wednesday:

The latest is that both Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are not going to rely on Barack Obama to help them destroy Iran's capability to make nuclear weapons. They seem to say that "hey, you blackie, what do you know about Western, and especially Israel, civilization that is now facing a clear and present danger from Ahmadninejad. If you guys in the White House are lackadaisical about Iran, then, we are compelled to go on our own without telling you about it until it's all over on the frontpages. Remember, with a couple of nuclear devices, Iran is capable of wiping Israel off the map. We have to defend ourselves by deploying the hundreds of nuclear bombs to use against those Iranians."

Update 02/03/2012 Friday: A recent article by Erik S Margolis that appears in the Sun today reveals the sad truth of Iran's military power. I believe in what the writer says about Iran's military weaknesses. In spite of what we read and see in the media, those thousands of missiles, mid range and short range types, are, most probably, not accurate enough to exact damages on sophisticated jet fighters, like the F-16s and F-35s, from Israel or the US. As for the Iran's jet fighters they are mostly outdated F-14s, operating at below par for want of proper spare parts, acquired during the Shah's regime. There are Russian MIGs sent by Saddam Hussain when his air force was nearly obliterated during the 2nd Iraq-US war and some other refurbished Russian jet fighters.

The Israelis and the Americans know about this. Iran's strengths are in its Revolutionary Guards and the suicide speedboats; but they cannot in all honesty withstand the havoc inflicted by modern fighters. That's why there is increasing hype from Ehud Barack and Netanyahu to go it alone to attack Iran for they know that they can win in any areal warfare against Iran.

Update 04/03/2012 Sunday: Short of threatening the President of United States, warmonger Netanyahu of Israel is insisting that Obama should take the initiative to attack Iran before Iran starts producing nuclear bombs. The sooner, the better. Obama seems to be pissed off with Israel's paranoia that Israel is under attack and seems to say that "Hey, you Yid, when it's time to do something, we'll really do something about it. US is taking all sort of actions to make Iran come to terms with us, but we will not be aggravated by a bunch of the likes of Ehud Barak and Netanyahu".

In the past week, Ehud Barak has been canvassing in the Capitol to drum up supports of the Senators from both Democrats and Republicans on Israel's stand to take unilateral action against Iran. Netanyahu has even the cheek to tell Obama to get Iran to dismantle its underground nuclear facilities because Israel's jet fighters cannot get to them. The Yid conveniently forgets his own 300 nuclear bombs when talking to Obama.

As I said before, Netanyahu complains of Iran's total unsporting behaviour for not exposing Iran's facilities as targets for his aircrafts.

Update 06/03/2012 Teusday: In an effort to convince the US administration to take tough action on Iran, Netanyahu re-invokes the Holocaust story again and again, this time producing a letter from the World Jewish Congress asking, in 1944, the US war department to bomb Auschwitz. The polite refusal from the US war department (saying, in effect, they had more important things to do than diverting away from their strategic objectives) to the Zionist request, according to Netanyahu, was similar to what's now happening in the Obama administration. Netanyahu is equating what happened to the Jews then to what Iran is threatening to start another holocaust in Israel. He is equating the Germans at the heights of their power to an impoverished Iranians with less military hardware than Zimbabwe.

"Don't you guys in the White House realise that Israel is under threats ? Our very survival is at stake !"

Update 08/03/2012 Thursday: Netanyahu went back to Israel disappointed that Obama was not really keen to attack Iran immediately. Obama's rationale was that there was insufficient proof that Iran was on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb while this Israeli nut insisted that his country was in extreme danger from Iran. Obama would not fall for the "nuclear bomb trick" as George Bush did which prompted him to attack Iraq without just cause. Obama, rightly, does not want to go down in history as the US President responsible for World War III.

Update 11/03/2012 Sunday: Newt Gingrich is desperate for Zionist support because he thinks that demonising Iran is one sure way of getting zionist fundings from all over America for him to win the Republican presidential nominee. Watching him debate on Youtube is enough for me to conclude that he has absolutely no idea on world affairs. He claims Ahmad Dinejad is a tyrant to his people, without knowing the meaning of the word.

As I said before ....

You can get away with murder here. So I said before. You also can get away with drug smuggling provided the quantity of the drugs is a lot. If you are caught with, say a few grams above the mandatory limit, you can bet your life you be will sentenced to be hanged until you are dead - like a man was sentenced to death for having some 60 grams of methamphetamine, somewhere written down here. However, if you are caught with kilos and kilos of dangerous drugs, you can bet your money that you will get away scot free. That seems to be the way the judiciary operates these days.

In a Sun report in a high court in George Town in Penang, a 36 year old Iranian woman by the name of Leila Fatami, accused of carrying 1.75 kilo and Sahar Mohammedi of carrying 2.16 kilo, of methamphetamine, were acquitted by the trial judge. The judge's rationale for his acquittal verdict was because the prosecution witnesses contradicted among themselves. The judge, apparently, ignored the fact that the drugs were found in the accused respective suitcases.

Therefore if you want to get away with murder or drug smuggling in this country, all you need do is to ensure that the prosecution (which is usually the Police) produced unreliable witnesses and, Voila ! you get away with whatever crimes you committed.

The two Iranians came to this country as tourists in February of 2011.

A princess tale ...

Once upon a time there lived a Danish princess. One day, she was invited to a state banquet in honour of the visit of the President of a neighbouring country called Finland. Seated to her left was the husband of the President. The husband was well known throughout Finland for his philandering ways during his young, carefree bachelor days and for his leering ways when he grew into late, very late middle age.

The princess was also into her late, but not so late middle age, and is suffering from, what American men would say, a seven-year itch syndrome, female version. So, on that occasion, she was dressed to kill, and was wearing a low-slung, dark V-shaped dressed, with gold embroidery borders on the V. Being a princess, she was, of course, wearing a tiara.

Unbeknownst to her, the person sitting next to her was leering at her neckline with such intensity that he forgot that he was being watched by the ubiquitous paparazzi video camera. However, female intuition warned her that her cleavage was being scrutinously inspected by the leering eyes of the man next to her. The man was wondering " was she, or was she not" wearing a bra. With savoire faire, she turned her head to face the lascivious man who reacted by looking up at the ceiling with a small smirk in his face, reminding me of what kids do when, from behind, they tap their friends head and look the other away, in all innocence, when confronted.

The incident infuriated the Danish press and could precipitate a diplomatic war, if not a full declaration of war, between Finland and Denmark. The Danish press was offended at the indignity that the country's royal tits of Princess Mary were being voyeuristically defiled by commoner Arajarvi's eyes from Finland.

[The tale is by courtesy of the Daily Telegraph of Britain - my version].

Sorry, no visas for you ..

It's good to know that finally the Malaysian government is taking a tough stand on the so called foreign students from Africa and the Middle East. Concerned that these students are involved in drug smuggling and other scams, the authorities impose stricter conditions to the granting of visas to these students. Those who are not bona fide students i.e. students that just register for temporary enrolment in private colleges would have their visa applications turned down. Granting of visas will be subject to the colleges acceptance, course tenures, and many other restrictive terms and conditions.

For years, these students, some as old as over 30, come to this country to earn their first degrees ? Instead, they prey on the locals by perpetrating internet scams, and be involved in drug smuggling in the kilos and kilos.

Female students or tourists from China, Phillipines, Thailand come here for a different reason - to earn money in prostitution - while Africans and Iranians come here to commit crimes like drug smuggling and cheating. It's about time that Malaysia doesn't give a chance to these bastardos who are out to ruin the country.

So can we .....

What is this William Hague, the bald-headed Foreign Secretary of Britain, talking about fears of a new "Cold War" in the world and in the Middle-East should Iran successfully acquire nuclear weapons. First of all, what is Iran compared to Russia, Europe and US. After World War II, the big powers were (and still are) US and Russia (never mind that it was actually the Soviet Union). Both had armies and conventional weapons in equitable numbers and, worse, both had weapons of mass destruction. Both feared that one may attack the other if given the opportunity. A war between the 2 would result in mutual annihilation. There was then a very serious Cold War lasting for nearly six decades.

But now we have a small fart of a nation trying to impress the world that what the West (meaning US and Europe) can do, she can also do. If the West can industrialise, so can the Iranians. If the West can develop weapons, for mass destruction or not, so can Iran develop its own weapons. What's wrong with that !

And now we witness this Hague fellow telling us that Iran poses serious threats not only to the Middle East but also to the world. He thinks that once Iran manages to develop nuclear bomb technology, other countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Algeria, Turkey - even little Jordan and Abu Dhabi - and all the other "stan" countries to the north and east of Iran shiver on their camels to counter Iran by making weapons of their own, resulting in nuclear weapons proliferation.

For all we know, Iran is merely developing nuclear weapons to tell those zionist Yids in Tel Aviv that "Look here, if you try to nuke us, we can also nuke you. And, if your nukes could kill 20 millions of us, we could obliterate the few millions in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jaffa. You won't have anybody left".

It reminds me of the US propaganda during the Vietnam War years. Some idiot in the White House or the Pentagon implanted the idea of the domino theory - that if South Vietnam falls, so would all countries in South East Asia, falling like dominoes. The idiot got the idea when observing his children arranging dominoes in a row and by toppling the first domino against the second and the third and so on, all the other dominoes started falling, well, like dominoes. He promoted this idea about Vietnam in the White House and the Pentagon, and all the people there believe in the Domino Theory. In reality, what happened was that Vietnam became an independent nation and is now a member of South East Asian grouping called Asean. Even the US is helping Vietnam to develop itself.

Before this Hague fellow start influencing his nation on threats from Iran, doesn't he know that North Korea has already developed nuclear devices and the means of delivery. Is there a nuclear arms proliferation in the region ? Doesn't he know that as soon as India started exploding nuclear bombs, its biggest enemy Pakistan started developing and detonating their own nuclear bombs ? But then, is their any nuclear arms proliferation in the region ?

Again, as I said, what is this bald headed minister talking about a new Cold War in the Middle east !

In reality, the West belligerant attitude towards Iran must be something to do with that precious commodity called oil. The British in particular feels that the oil deposit in Iran still belongs to them. Fighting North Korea, India or Pakistan is meaningless since these countries have nothing useful. Their poverty stricken population becomes a liability. But taking over Iran, Iraq, Libya is profitable and means a lot to the West's growth.

Now is the time to call ....

Najib Razak, the PM of Malaysia, has every reason to be happy. Malaysia's economy on which hinges the success or failure of his party in the coming general election whose exact polling day is a subject of speculation in the last couple of years appears to be humming like a well tuned Ferrari, ready to be driven by a skillful driver.

In his last budget speech on 10 October 2011, Najib has sworn to keep the country's deficit down. Worried that the deficit had been going up and up for several years, even from before he became the Prime Minister, he had promised to keep the deficit under control. The local economists were also worried about the spectre of a runaway budget deficit that many speculated could bankcrupt Malaysia just like Greece.

Today, Bank Negara, announced that the deficit for 2011 is 5.o % versus 5.6 % the previous year. What' s more, GDP achieved was within the forecast figure of 5.1%, surprising most economic pundits prediction of 4.5 % while tax collections from direct and indirect sources showed a combined double digit percentage growth for the full year 2011 versus the previous year. To the surprise of many, trade figures have also increased despite the recession occurring in the US and Europe.

Rumour has it, that the good statistics would prompt Najib to call for a general election in June 2012 which , I believe, would be the right thing to do now. Furthermore, Anwar Ibrahim, the wily, immoral leader of the opposition alliance had angered the Malay community by expressing full support for the security of that hated country called "Israel". What more better for Najib now to strike while the iron is hot. It's an opportunity that should not be missed.