No prima facie case, as always ....

In a rare instance of justice dispensed properly, since the introduction of the death penalty for drug smuggling and distribution, today, there appears in the news media that a man was to be hanged after having been convicted for being in possession of 60.89 grams of methamphetamine. I, for one, am in favour of the death penalty if only to deter the smuggling of drugs which is now rampant in this country. There's not a day that passes without us hearing of drug mules, of foreigners being caught with kilos and kilos of syabu, heroin, and other drugs. Some of the methods - hidden in shoe soles, tapiocca, lipstick holders, and in intestines - to smuggle are hilariously funny that I sometimes wonder why the smugglers do what they do.

Thus we have Mexicans, Iranians, Africans, getting caught by the Police for smuggling drugs, manufacturing drugs, and distributing drugs by the kilos. What happens to them is left to be seen. What I don't want is to read in the papers, say 2 years from now, that these Mexicans, Iranians, Africans are being released when the presiding judges simply dismiss their cases by merely declaring that the prosecution have no prima facie case. I would squarely blame the judges, in their efforts to be scrupulously impartial, that they become blind to the drug menace in Malaysia that has become so widespread as to destroy thousands of Malaysian youths. The Malaysian judges inadvertently contribute to the rampant smuggling in this country because the criminals know that they could get away with it.

European bailout, why should we ....

Just a few days ago, the Europeans are coming to an understanding to resolve the debt crisis. They are, therefore, introducing a new bailout fund called the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSB) to help solve the crisis. By this scheme, short-term bonds (91 days validity) are issued out to prospective lenders. So far, the EFSB, has raised some 1.972 billion Euros (USD 2.6 billion). The issue ended in a positive note, having been in fact 3.2 times oversubscribed.

To a question whether Malaysia should participate in future bids from the EFSB, ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia, unhesitatingly commented that Malaysia should not be at all involved. He has this to say (which I endorsed completely, as in my past comments appearing in this blog several times, when the debt crisis hit Greece and other European countries) and his comments are so direct, so succinctly worded, that I cannot help but to quote verbatim from a Bernama report:

PUTRAJAYA: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today slammed Europe for initiating a bailout fund to help member economies struggling with their debt crisis, saying European countries should not live beyond their means.

He charged that Europe was getting a dose of its own medicine and said that there was no need for Malaysia to participate in the Europe bailout fund as they did little to help Malaysia during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis.
He said it was the unscrupulous western hedge funds which attacked the Malaysian Ringgit and other Asian currencies, precipitating the financial meltdown from which regional economies took a long time to recover from.
And when Malaysia helped its companies recover from the crisis without going to the International Monetary Fund and thereby maintaining its financial independence, they criticised the government for adopting unorthodox policies to prevent a financial disaster.

"No, why should we? If I'm in the government, I wouldn't. I don't think Malaysia should contribute anything, you see they tried to bankrupt us before and they undermined our currency," he said when asked whether Malaysia should contribute to the bailout fund after European leaders agreed to tighter budget rules and an expanded bailout fund at the European Union Summit last week.

"Now, they are (being served) the same dose of medicine, so let them solve it. Actually, their wealth is not true wealth," the former prime minister, who was credited for saving Malaysia from a financial disaster, said in an interview with Bernama and Bloomberg.

Dr Mahathir said both the United States and Europe were the world's largest home appliances and car manufacturers but later focused on the financial industry after Eastern countries like China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan started to produce similar products.

"The financial market is not a real business because it does not create jobs and there are no spinoffs. They make billions of dollars just by transferring numbers in the books of banks.

Speculative attacks saw the ringgit diving from RM2.42 against the US dollar in July 1997 to as low as RM5.20 about a year later, which led Dr Mahathir to peg the ringgit against the greenback to RM3.80 under the capital controls.

" When they start leveraging, eventually the whole system collapses due to gambling, speculations and manipulative activities. Now they are poor people, but they don't admit that and want to live in their own style.

"When their governments want to have an austerity programme, they protest against it through demonstrations, which make matters worse," Dr Mahathir said.

Many western economists asked the Malaysian government not to bail out companies, but asked the government to have a surplus budget and raise interest rates to curtail spending but the government decided not to follow them.

Contrary to calls for tighter spending, Malaysia adopted unorthodox measures by loosening spending and lowering interest rates to spur business activities which helped the country to gradually recover from the financial crisis.

The government also imposed capital controls including pegging the ringgit against the US dollar and banned ringgit trading outside the country in a bid to stop speculations against the Malaysian ringgit.

"We did go against them. Now they are doing all the things that we did, but on a bigger scale, with Germany bailing out Greece with US$300 billion.

"We only bailed out companies during the financial crisis in the range of RM200-RM300 million only," he said.

Asked on ways to solve Europe's problems, Dr Mahathir said they should not live beyond their means.

"If you are poor, you live like poor people, accept lower pay, the standard of living must be lower and don't enjoy life too much. But the problem is, now they want to live like they are rich," added Dr Mahathir, who was prime minister for 22 years before he retired. -- BERNAMA

A never ending cycle of ..

Just as I am growing mellow on the BN and perhaps consider more positively on BN in the coming election, notwithstanding the bad publicity emanating from the PKFZ scandal, my opinion of BN now, and particularly UMNO, have leapfrogged backwards to a position just before the 2008 election, when I heard about the NFC scandal. Just imagine, what kind of people there are in UMNO who, upon being granted a government loan of RM 250 million to run a cattle project, abuse this privilege by investing in a couple of multi-million ringgit condominiums in Bangsar when the loan should be used solely for the NFC project.

Should I vote for them ? Should I did what I did then, simply by the power of my conviction, persuade my friends, relatives, and acquaintances, numbering in the hundreds, not to vote for those who are seen to be corrupted ?

Syahrizat lost her parliamentary seat in Pantai, Bangsar to a nobody despite being an UMNO Wanita chief. This time around, who would want to vote for her, or rather, how many more would vote against her, for being the wife of the man whose company benefits from the loan and has abused the privilege. She doesn't seem to learn that the voting public knows when she farts and when she does that, the gas that comes out emits a sound that can be heard far and wide and, worse, the smell, is lingeringly wafted all around Bangsar. Who wants to vote for a tramp !

An UMNO stalwart in Cheras even suggested that Syahrizat resign as Minister as he believed that the Minister was aware of what went on with her husband's company. He even commented that why on earth was the husband keeping mum about the loan abuse and suggested that he come out in the open to explain the whole thing instead of waiting for other people in UMNO to be prompted by the opposition for an explanation. This sort of behaviour is enough for me and many of us, the public, to pangkah someone else.

Update 16 Jan. 2012: Monday: News of the NFC scandal slowly unravels. We hear of the RM 250 million in soft loan bearing an interest of 2%, of 2 multi-million ringgit condos in Bangsar and another condo in Singapore's Scott Road, of luxury cars being acquired, in contrast to only 400 Australian cattle being found in the kandang. We hear today of the 3 week-leave she is taking and of her husband's company's assets being frozen to facilitate MACC investigation. Good.