Message To PM

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

Than you for your assurance that there is no political conspiracy against Anwar Ibrahim. The people feel assured and hope this is not another lead to make the people satisfied while your subordinates do the damage.

This statement is, I believe a bit delayed, as the actual incident took place three days ago.

There was blunder after blunder, the Police and even your Home Minister. It was, forgive my expression, a fiasco beyond compare, even your son in law, getting involved on DNA, when the Police report had not been given to the accused person.

We look up to you to run the Government well, but if you are forced to be in the background, while others take prominence, the whole idea of you leading the country is a farce. In this age of quick action, immediate response, cannot be tempered with procrastination, which Sir, you are doing it every time.

Delayed action, becomes an afterthought, and whatever good you may mean is countermanded by your Ministers and the Civil Service,

Is it okay Sir, if I suggest, a daily statement from you, or from your press secretary which now appears extinct, to assure your people you are aware of important things that happen in the country, rather than an incompetent down line official making a stupid statement. Whatever these underlings do, your name is dragged in as the Prime Minister. Even in this case, if you had taken the lead, people like the CID chief, or for that matter your bumbling Home Minister can be put in place.

Please consider. Your PR is lacking.

Thank you.

There is no conspiracy against Anwar, says PM

There is no conspiracy against Anwar, says PM
By V.P. SUJATA

PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has stressed that there is no political conspiracy against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and has given his assurance for the safety of the PKR adviser.

The Prime Minister said no one should believe that there was a conspiracy or any plans by the Government to victimise the Opposition leader.

He said that he could not stop international perception that there was such a conspiracy as the media had already chosen to believe it.

“They say his sodomy allegation is something like that that had happened before. If one wants to believe, how can we control such things?”

“Actually what they are accusing us of is not right at all,” he told reporters here Friday. . Abdullah said he had already given assurance that the investigation on the sodomy allegation on Anwar would be conducted professionally.

He said he had met both Anwar’s wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and PKR vice-president Azmin Ali and assured them of Anwar’s safety.

“I can give the assurance. Even his wife met me for a guarantee that a repeat of the earlier “black eye incident” would not happen.

” YB Azmin asked for a assurance and I said he (Anwar) will be safe and that we will investigate according to the provisions of the law,” he said.

The Prime Minister urged Anwar to allow the authorities to take samples for a DNA test if he insisted that he was innocent.

“The DNA sample the authorities have is too old, so they need a new sample, what is wrong in giving?

“If he insists that he is not involved, (in sodomy as alleged) she should give the sample now and we will see the results as proof,” he said, adding that the police want to solve his case fast but were unable to do so due to the difficulties in getting the DNA sample.

“If we wanted to complete the case fast, it could have been done Thursday but (it is) not finished yet,” he said.

Bar Council President’s Annoyance With Police – Malaysiakini

President of the Bar Council S Ambiga has expressed disappointment over the number of lawyers being summoned for questioning in relation to missing private investigator P Balasubramaniam.

Ambiga added, this was an attempt by Police to intimate lawyers into giving confidential information.

The three lawyers involved are M Puravalan, Americk Singh Sidhu and N Surendran.

M Puravalan had represented Balasubramaniam in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial. Bala is now alleged missing with his children and wife.

M Puravalan said he had declined to respond to questions contradictory to his professional relationship with his clients.

The three lawyers must be congratulated for being professional, and did not succumb to the line of questioning of the Police.

Something is fishy in here. Bernama news on July 9 reported Bukit Aman CID Chief Mohd Bakri Zinin had said, he had traced the whereabouts of Bala, and police officers had been dispatched to record his statement. Zinin refused to divulge the country Bala is in.

So, if Police know where Bala is, was it not superfluous to go after a relative, a nephew of Bala, Kumaresan, or even the lawyers to reveal the whereabouts of Bala.

Some thing stinks to high heaven, or as my grandson will say, ‘who tell truth and who bluff’.

Zinin is involved deeply in the case of Anwar’s arrest, a phenomenon of concern and doubt of the people with the Police action. In the case of Raja Petra of Malaysia Today, it was shoot the messenger leave the message alone. Don’t you think it is fair that people desire for better Police officers.

Technorati Tags: S Ambiga,M Puravalan,Americk Singh Sidhu,N Surendran,Mohd Bakri Zinin,Kumaresan,P Balasubramaniam

The Crap Ministers Do

The Watchman: Malaysian Education System: Not Good Enough?

I’m against the Malaysian National Service. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. The program is ill-conceived and has not merits whatsoever regardless of what the politicians are saying. And can you blame me?

In my previous ranting, I have asked the question whether our wonderful ministers have sent their children to the National Service camps. I ask again … how many ministers in the current Cabinet have children selected to attend National Service? Please raise your hands.

As I have suspected. None! And these are the same people that are trying to convince Malaysians to send their children to these ‘death camps’? What a load of dog pile!

Similarly, these are also the people who are trying to convince Malaysians on how great our education system is. The story below by Boon Yeng suggests otherwise. Read it for yourself and let your blood boil.
___________________________________________________

Education Minister, Hishammudin Hussein’s son is doing ‘O’ Levels, and will be going off to the United Kingdom this coming
September to further his studies.

Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak’s daughter, Nooryana Najwa has been accepted into Georgetown University in
Washington D.C. to read politics and international relations after doing her IB (International Baccalaureate).

Hishamuddin Hussein and Najib Razak’s children are academically smart. However, it seems like both of them did not sit for their SPM.

Before doing her IB, Nooryana had her education in Garden International School. Najib’s son, Norashman Razak had his education there too. But Garden International School bases its curriculum on the National Curriculum of England. It teaches the English National Curriculum through Key Stages 1 to 4 and the Cambridge ‘A’ Level.

Najib and Hishamuddin are cousins. Their fathers were our former education ministers. Najib’s father, Tun Abdul Razak, the second Prime Minister of Malaysia, was the education minister in 1955. Hishamuddin’s father, Tun Hussein Onn, our third Prime Minister, was the education minister in 1969. Fast forward, Najib became our Education Minister in 1995-1999. Hishamuddin is our current Education Minister.

Well, there goes the saying, ‘like father, like son’ Hishamuddin’s son and Najib’s kids did not follow the Malaysian Education System (so I doubt they sat for UPSR, PMR or SPM) though they come from an ancestry of education ministers. Both of their grandfathers were former education ministers, one’s father was the education minister and is now the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia while the other’s father is the current education minister.

So why weren’t Najib’s and Hishamuddin’s children following the Malaysian education system? Were our DPM and current
Education Minister trying to be kind to not let the government subsidize their kids’ education by sending their offsprings to a private school instead of national schools?

Or is it that both Najib and Hishamuddin do not have confidence at all in the Malaysian education system because it is too crappy that they had to sent their kids to a private school which follows the English National Curriculum so that their offsprings would not be screwed up by the already screwed-up education system in Malaysia?

Which is which? I do not know, but I am very inclined to think that the latter prevails.

*SIGH* So much for being a kind and compassionate minister. If the Malaysian education system is not good enough, then do something to improve it. After all, that is under your portfolio.

But if the education system is not crap and of quality and standard like what you and your counterparts have mentioned countless times then why didn’t your kids go through it? Why didn’t your kids go through SPM, then Matriculation or STPM before gaining admission to the university? After all, matriculation and STPM have the potential to produce quality graduates, right?

How does the current government expect us to have faith in our education system when the DPM and current education minister did not even put their kids through it?

HUKM Problems

I think HUKM pharmacist Dexter Von Dort is not telling the truth. I am a regular patient at HUKM and so is my wife. When a drug is required to be bought outside the counter pharmacist tells the patient, buy the medicine outside, thats it, no information is given there of the free alternative. If there is a free alternative why would one spend money to get it outside.

Does the pharmacy keep the Doctors informed as to what alternative drugs are available, so that a remark can be made in the prescription form – the counter pharmacist cannot and will not change what the doctor has prescribed. Long term patients having a prescription for supply of drugs for 8 months, like in my case, have to make many visits during that period to get the medicine. You will be lucky until the third or fourth visit and after that supply of the drug is not available and you are told to get it outside. How on earth do you get an alteration to the prescription slip given a few months back.

By the way, this 8 month, so called regular check up is a joke with the patients. God willing, they say, I should be around for the next 8 month visit, provided nothing happens from now on until the 8th month. This includes patients who are elderly and suffer from cardiology and high blood pressure problems. The reason we are told, is that many doctors have left the hospital and they are over worked. The doctor assures you if anything happens in the interim go to the emergency department for treatment. This emergency department is over-worked as well and you have to be vetted before seen by a doctor and God help you if the doctor thinks the case is minor, you are send home with some medicine given. Though called emergency, there was a day I went in at 7 am for pain in my leg and seen by the doctor at around 11 am because my case was not important. I wonder if ever the bosses visit the emergency department to see the hive of activity there.

Drugs bought at the HUKM private pharmacy is more expensive than the price you pay at the pharmacies in town. My Plendil drug is about RM 70 at the hospital privacy pharmacy, and outside it is RM 52. Discounted price indeed. I believe this pharmacy is a co-operative run thing, and somebody is surely making money at the expense of poor patients.

Never heard of aid from the Medical Social Department at HUKM. Is it still in the planning stages or in the imagination of the Dexter.

I am told this drug running out problem, which HUKM faces, is not faced by the General Hospitals. Lately the hospital is equipped with plasma type TVs, patients do really enjoy viewing them!!!

Any way I hope somebody from the Health Ministry reads this to do away with the drug running short syndrome at HUKM.

New Straits Times Online……

KUALA LUMPUR: Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) has clarified that it is not having budgetary problems, but has moved certain expensive drugs to the “non-formulary” list to ensure the budget stretches to the end of the year.
HUKM pharmacist Dexter Van Dort told the New Straits Times: “The decision to move some products into the non-formulary list is to make sure our budget allocation lasts till the end of the year, in view of an increase in the number of patients and a general increase in the cost of medicines.”

Drugs on the non-formulary list must be purchased, as opposed to the formulary list of medicines which are given out free.

Van Dort was commenting on complaints of patients to the newspaper that they had difficulty obtaining certain drugs.

“These items are generally propriety items that have a free alternative but have reached their agreed buying limit for the year.”
The patients, who did not want to be identified, said they were surprised when told at the pharmacy they would have to purchase certain drugs.

One complainant said: “I cannot afford to buy such expensive drugs outside. We could not get a satisfactory explanation. If there was a free alternative they should have explained to us or told our doctors.”

He said they were made to understand the hospital was making patients buy the drugs because it could be running low on its budget allocation.

Van Dort said most of these drugs can be substituted with the free alternatives if the patient does not want to buy them.

“At no point is a patient’s health compromised by this action.”

He said all of these items are usually sold, or considered non-formulary drugs, in other teaching hospitals.

Furthermore, he said, all these products are available at the HUKM retail pharmacy at discounted prices.

He added if the doctor is of the view a patient needs to be on a certain drug, and he or she cannot afford to buy it, he or she will be referred to the hospital Medical Social Department aid.

Super Magistrate

Don’t you ever be under the misconception that only justice is served in our courts. There is comedy, pathos, drama and what have you, if you are lucky to have Magistrates like Ahmad Hidayat Md Nor deciding on a case. He delivers two judgements and then you pick your choice. Where is this Ahmad now, still around to entertain the public?

The Malaysian Bar – Case of 2 judgments: High Court upholds acquittal

©New Straits Times (Used by permission)

GEORGE TOWN: The High Court yesterday upheld the acquittal of a trader charged with possessing 20.54g of methamphe-tamine — a case which saw two contradicting judgments written by a magistrate.

High Court judge Datuk Abdul Rahim Uda, in delivering his decision yesterday, said if the court were to consider any other judgment apart from the first judgment, it would be making a mockery of the judicial system.

“If we allow the judge to have a second judgment on the same subject matter, it will be against the principles of justice.

“Can we allow this to happen? They cannot be changing their minds at their whims and fancies. There will be no finality to any legal proceeding, which then becomes a mockery of the justice system.”

Abdul Rahim said the integrity of the judge would then come into question.

Trader Kee Chee Wei, who was charged with possessing the drug at Sri Wonder building in Lorong Perak at 3.45pm on Sept 29, 2002, was acquitted by magistrate Ahmad Hidayat Md Nor on April 17 and there was a written judgment to that effect.

Kee’s counsel, Ranjit Singh Dhillon, told Abdul Rahim that his office received a second written judgment on June 13 (also dated April 17) stating that Kee was sentenced to two years’ jail and three strokes of the rotan.

Ranjit said in all his 22 years of practice, he had never come across a situation which involved two contradicting judgments on the same case.

He said the first judgment which acquitted Kee was “signed, sealed and delivered in open court”.

He said anything at variance with the first judgment was deemed an afterthought, and by law should be eliminated.

Deputy public prosecutor Muna Mohamed Jaafar, in her argument, said the magistrate had delivered the judgment after a full trial.