Ahad, 7 Julai 2013

The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

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The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

India police: Blasts at one of Buddhism's holiest sites

Posted:

PATNA, India (AFP) - Multiple small bomb blasts at one of Buddhism's holiest sites - the Bodh Gaya temple complex in eastern India - wounded two monks on Sunday, but the historic temple itself was not damaged, police said.

The Indian government called the blasts a "terror attack" after eight bombs exploded at the complex in Bihar state, which attracts Buddhists and other visitors from all over the world.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but police said they earlier warned officials that Islamic militants could target the site, as revenge for Buddhist violence against Muslims in neighbouring Myanmar.

"Eight low-intensity serial blasts took place early this morning, injuring two people," said senior police official S.K. Bharadwaj.

Two more bombs were found and defused inside the complex, one of them near the temple's celebrated 80-feet-tall (24-metre) statue of the Buddha, Bharadwaj told AFP.

"The holy bodhi tree is safe and there is no damage to it," Bihar police chief Abhayanand, who goes by one name, told AFP.

Along with temples, dozens of monasteries, housing monks from around the world, are located near the complex, which is believed to contain the tree under which the Buddha reached enlightenment in 531 BC.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the blasts at the complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and said, "such attacks on religious places will never be tolerated".

Junior home minister R.P.N. Singh told reporters "it is clear that this was a terror attack" and teams of investigators were probing the incident.

Police in New Delhi had warned state officials last winter that Islamist militants from the Indian Mujahideen group were planning to attack the complex, an official focused on anti-terror operations told AFP.

"We told state police that the Indian Mujahideen planned to carry out an attack as retaliation for Buddhist violence against Muslims in Myanmar," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"We told them that Bodh Gaya is a probable target for attack," he said.

Indian Mujahideen has admitted carrying out numerous bomb blasts in recent years, and is often listed as a suspect in attacks across the country.

Attacks on Buddhists are rare in India but there have been tensions in the wider region recently following clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Additional security forces have been deployed to guard the complex after the blasts, which wounded two monks, a 50-year-old Tibetan and a 30-year-old Myanmar national, who have been taken to hospital.

Windows were shattered at one of the buildings, while a wooden door at a small temple was destroyed and debris was strewn inside another building.

Sri Lanka Buddhist monk Gomarankadawala Hemarathana, 28, who raced to the scene after the blasts, said one of the bombs had been placed at the base of the statue.

"It is a miracle that the Buddha statue was not harmed. The bomb was placed at the foot of the statue but it did not go off," he told AFP.

Former local legislator Sarbajeet Kumar said he was on his daily morning walk to the temple when the bombs exploded.

"Suddenly I saw smoke and heard the sound of the blasts. I realised that something bad had happened and ran for shelter," he told local reporters.

The Bodh Gaya complex, 110 kilometres (68 miles) south of the state capital Patna, is one of the earliest Buddhist temples still standing in India. The first temple was built in the 3rd century BC by the Buddhist Emperor Asoka and the present temples date from the 5th or 6th centuries, according to UNESCO.

The complex houses the holy bodhi tree as well as the giant Mahabodhi statue of Buddha, and multiple shrines marking the places where he is believed to have spent time after his enlightenment.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama makes frequent trips to the complex, which attracts visitors during the peak tourist season from October to March.

After his meditations beneath the tree, Buddha is said to have devoted the rest of his life to teaching and he founded an order of monks before dying aged 80.

Brotherhood fails the test

Posted:

The core of Mohamed Morsi's failure is that he succumbed to authoritarianism in today's Egypt whose revolution was diverse and demanded inclusiveness.

HEBA Morayef voted for Mohamed Morsi last year. The Muslim Brotherhood candidate was an unlikely choice for a liberal Egyptian woman, the director of the Human Rights Watch office in Cairo, but she loathed Hosni Mubarak's old guard, wanted change and believed Morsi could be inclusive.

"I have been extremely conflicted this past week," Morayef told me. "I don't support the military or coups. But for me as a voter, Morsi betrayed the trust that pro-reform Egyptians placed in him. That is what brought 14 million people into the streets on June 30. It was not so much the incompetence as the familiar authoritarian agenda, the Brotherhood trying to solidify their control by all means."

Morsi misread the Arab Spring. The uprising that ended decades of dictatorship and led to Egypt's first free and fair presidential election last year was about the right to that vote. But at a deeper level it was about personal empowerment, a demand to join the modern world, and live in an open society under the rule of law rather than the rule of despotic whim.

In a Muslim nation, where close to 25% of Arabs live, it also demanded that the Muslim Brotherhood reject religious authoritarianism, respect differences and uphold citizenship based on equal rights for all.

Instead, Morsi placed himself above judicial review last November, rail-roaded through a flawed Constitution, allowed Brotherhood thugs to beat up liberal opponents, installed cronies at the Information Ministry, increased blasphemy prosecutions, surrendered to a siege mentality, lost control of a crumbling economy and presided over growing sectarian violence.

For the Brotherhood, the pre-eminent Islamist movement in the region, the sudden shift from hounded outlaw to power in the pivotal nation of the Arab world proved a bridge too far.

As Mohamed El-Baradei, the Nobel-Prize winning diplomat, put it in a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine: "The uprising was not about changing people, but changing our mindset. What we see right now, however, is just a change of faces, with the same mode of thinking as in Mubarak's era – only now with a religious icing on the cake."

This was Morsi's core failure. He succumbed to authoritarianism in a nation whose revolution was diverse and demanded inclusiveness. The lesson for the region is critical.

Egypt is its most important experiment in combining Islam with democratic modernity, the only long-term way to overcome the sectarian violence raging in Syria and elsewhere.

El-Baradei is a liberal moderniser. Yet he appeared beside Gen Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi as a takeover was announced that deposed a president chosen in a free election, suspended the Constitution and installed an interim government.

For all the generals' efforts to insist they have no interest in politics and avoid the word "coup", this was a coup. It placed the military front and centre again – a bad precedent and blow to civilian democracy. El-Baradei's presence in the choreography of this act – like Morayef's conflicted state – demonstrates just how desperate Egypt's situation had become.

"The rejection went far beyond the liberal community," Morayef said. "The vast majority of the women at the demonstrations were veiled. Practising Muslims, non-Westernised Egyptians, were saying no to political Islam and religious authoritarianism. We have never seen anything like this in the Arab world."

Avoidance of a coup would have been far better. If Morsi had called new elections when 14 million Egyptians appeared in the streets that might have been possible. He did not do so, proving tone deaf yet again. So, conflicted, I say he had to go.

Now all will depend on whether the army can uphold the spirit of the revolution. This demands that nobody hijack Egypt's modernising aspirations – not the Brotherhood, not the military, not the illiberal liberals who only like democracy to the point it backs their candidates, not the old guard's thugs.

It is critical that polarising violence be avoided and that the Brotherhood continue to play an important role in the nation's politics (forcing them underground would be the death of democracy).

New elections must be held soon and the army must uphold its commitment to "remain away from politics". A new Constitution must be drafted. Egypt's liberals, who have proved a squabbling bunch, must overcome pettiness and cohere into a credible political grouping.

Without effective management of the economy that restores order, all attempts to establish consensus and reset Egypt's course will fail.

All this is an immense task. But Egypt, the world's oldest nation state and not some Arab country sketched on a map by dyspeptic British bureaucrats, has immense reserves of talent and wisdom. It is not an impossible task: Egypt's inspiring youth have shown their determination.

All the anger in Egypt over the past couple of years was once deflected outward at imagined enemies or conspiracies. This was a colossal waste. It is now focused where it belongs – on the Arab failure to deliver the new "mindset" of which El-Baradei wrote.

The army cannot deliver that but – just conceivably – can still be its incubator. Islamist authoritarianism, just like secular dictatorship before it, could not. — ©2013 The International Herald Tribune

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

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The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

Somebody save me (and us)

Posted:

Is an endless, insanely expensive parade of semi-fascist bores (read: superheroes) strangling the film industry? Do we need saving from the heroes?

TWENTY years ago, after appearing in two phenomenally successful, visually opulent and generally brilliant Batman movies, Michael Keaton decided he didn't want to make any more Caped Crusader films. So he walked away. It was a disastrous move that effectively ended Keaton's career as a leading man, the actor learning the hard way that the only unforgivable crime in Hollywood is to walk away from a phenomenally successful franchise.

The next two Batman films starred Val Kilmer and George Clooney. Batman Forever was not very good and Batman & Robin was terrible. And for the next few years, Batman dropped out of the global conversation.

This was good because it gave society a breather. The Dark Knight thing was played out: the excitement moviegoers felt when Tim Burton made the first Batman film had evaporated under the tutelage of Joel Schumacher. In retrospect, Keaton's catastrophic decision to walk away now seems heroic, because he was the last actor to go through a script, take a cold, hard look at the superhero genre and say: "Enough. These films are starting to suck."

Today's superhero films have not yet reached the point where they flat-out suck. But they are getting there. Iron Man 2 was a huge disappointment, The Avengers an aimless hodgepodge and The Dark Knight Rises a pretentious, incoherent mess. And now, we have yet another Superman movie, Man Of Steel.

Those of us who would like to see an end – or at least an extended pause – to the hegemony of superhero films would be very pleased if Robert Downey Jr, Christian Bale and their costumed brethren would make a similarly audacious artistic decision and walk away.

As Steven Soderbergh recently complained, these films are draining the life out of motion pictures, diverting virtually all of the industry's resources into insanely expensive "tentpole" films that supposedly prop up other projects. It is unlikely that any of these actors will make such a courageous decision as Keaton, though: they saw what happened to him, they saw how Sean Connery's career stalled when he quit 007. But it's still okay to dream, isn't it?

This thing is starting to get old. There are too many superhero films; their storylines are all beginning to run together. It is a genre dominated by the thoroughly unoriginal notion that you cannot trust the government. Even when you can trust the government, you cannot trust all of it. And even the branches you can trust aren't much help, because they are incompetent.

To save humanity, one must rely on a bootstrap operation headed by a dedicated go-getter and self-starter. At heart, all superheroes are Republicans.

In superhero movies, women are almost always accessories. This is true even if they themselves are superheroines. The men do the heavy lifting; the women serve an ornamental function. This is why we are all the way up to Iron Man 3 and Batman 7, but have not seen a Supergirl film since 1984, or a Wonder Woman film ever.

The 12-year-old boys for whom superhero movies are chiefly made are not interested in women. They may not even be interested in girls. They are certainly not interested in girls with superpowers.

Breeding neurosis

Superhero films increasingly rely on a structure where the hero thinks he is fighting one villain when he is actually fighting another. In The Dark Knight Rises, Batman thinks he is up against the crypto-fascist Bane, when he is actually locked in a deadly struggle with a mysterious fellow philanthropist played by Marion Cotillard. In Iron Man 3, the hero believes he is going toe-to-toe with a terrorist called the Mandarin, when the villain is actually a mad scientist who bears a striking resemblance to the dead but not forgotten US rock star Warren Zevon.

In Thor, the bodacious nordic deity spends most of the movie worrying about a race of tall, antisocial creatures called The Frost Giants of Jotunheim, and does quite a bit of jousting with the testy emissaries of the US Government, when the person he should really be worrying about is his brother, Loki.

In days gone by, a superhero only had to worry about the Joker or the Silver Surfer or Lex Luthor. Now, he has to worry about mysterious philanthropists. No wonder he's so neurotic.

In fact, the rise of superhero movies signals the triumph of the neurotic over the maverick. In the classic Hollywood movie, whether the hero is cop, cowboy, private eye, rebel or drifter, there comes a moment when this solitary, self-sufficient loner faces the bad guys all by himself. The bad guys are usually trying to destroy a ranch, a town, a portion of the high chaparral, or in some extreme cases, a flourishing ethnic group. They are rarely seeking to destroy an entire planet.

These villains have limited aspirations, and the man in the white hat has a limited arsenal of era-appropriate weaponry: a gun, a bow and arrow, a few grenades, maybe even a tank. He does not have any weapons of mass destruction to fall back on, nor any supernatural powers. He has to rely on brains, brawn and guts, nothing else. Sometimes, this is not enough: more often than we would like to think, he ends up like Spartacus or Braveheart.

In the classic superhero movie, the situation is quite different. Here, the bad guys are trying to destroy entire societies, cities or planets, and the good guy is rarely self-sufficient. Instead, somehow or other, he has come into possession of a preternaturally phantasmagoric suit of armour, complete with zany high-tech accoutrements; or a hammer that can call down lightning from the heavens; or extendable fingernails; or laser eyesight; or implausible (and non-steroid-related) abs; or the ability to change shape.

And these superpowers aren't just good news for all the societies, cities and planets that need saving: most superheroes are nerds or geeks or losers or screw-ups or pixies or marooned orphans from deep space who can't get their personal lives functioning properly – until they come into possession of some mystical power or magical weapon.

Nothing in their pitiful lives works out until they are bitten by a spider, or start sporting a remarkable piece of jewellery, or are handed a large, seemingly radioactive hammer by their father.

Waking up awesome

"Being a superhero is a way of working out your personal problems," my 26-year-old son told me when I asked him about the popularity of the genre among his age group and younger. "You're an ordinary person with no special skills – and suddenly, you wake up one day and you're awesome. So, if you're asking me if the superhero genre is going to fade away soon, the answer is no."

You wake up awesome. Not because you did something special like beat Hitler or cure polio. All you did was wake up. And suddenly, you were awesome. It is the dream of the fame-hungry TV talent contest generation.

If movies are a reflection of society's most cherished hopes and deepest fears, then superhero movies perfectly capture the planet's current mood of uncertainty and dread. Today's global economy is a disaster, unemployment is ravaging the economies of both the developed and the developing world, and the threat of terrorism stretches from Kabul to Moscow, from London to Boston.

Superman arrived during a particularly dark time in the world's history, the 1930s, so it is not surprising that the franchise is being rebooted now, with Man Of Steel directed by the prolific action hack Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen). There is no clearer indication that this is a dark time in the world's history than the fact that the director who made the slovenly, inept Watchmen is now getting to reboot Superman. Is nothing sacred? No.

Superhero movies are made for a society that has basically given up. The police can't protect us, the government can't protect us, there are no more charismatic loners to protect us and the euro is near-defunct. Clint Eastwood has left the building. So, let's turn things over to the vigilantes. Superheroes need not obey laws or social conventions; they go where they please and do what they want. They pose simple – usually violent – solutions to complex problems. Superheroes operate in a netherworld just this side of fascism.

Still, it would be a mistake to say that all superhero movies are the same. Christopher Nolan's Batman movies are dark. The Iron Man movies are funny. The Hulk movies are goofy. The X-Men movies are complicated. Captain America was camp, Thor a bit silly, The Avengers sillier still. The Spider-Man movies are closest to conventional movies, placing ordinary people in difficult situations. They also feature a romance that seems quite believable, unlike Iron Man.

Rebooting and rehashing

Although superheroes are archetypal, each succeeding generation of filmgoers demands a more up-to-date hero. And so, each generation gets its own reboot of the Batman/Spider-Man/Superman franchise. One day, there may even be a Daredevil reboot, though hopefully not soon.

The films reflect the values of the decade in which they appear. The Batman movies of the 1990s were camp and jokey; the Dark Knight movies, appearing a decade later, were not. The Superman movies of the 1970s were over the top, like the comic books they were based on – it was, after all, the era of Nixon, Ford and Carter, clowns to a man.

Iron Man, a more recent creation, is recognisable as a sneering, insincere slacker: nothing heartfelt ever passes through his lips; the very thought of saying something honest and authentic would mortify him. You cannot imagine Iron Man talking like Batman, Wolverine or even Thor. He is the superhero as wise guy. He is Ironyman.

One thing that is puzzling about modern-day superhero movies is that the skill set of the individual hero is often poorly defined. I am not sure what it would take to put Iron Man out of commission. I have not been able to figure out whether the Dark Knight can actually fly: he certainly seems light on his feet. And I have no idea what powers Thor possesses. I know that his hammer has miraculous potencies, but I am still not sure precisely how miraculous they are. I have no idea what it would take to kill Thor; nor for that matter does Loki. In films featuring Dracula, Tony Montana, Orcs or even Achilles, the parameters are more clearly drawn.

The most interesting thing about the popularity of superhero movies is that they are insanely expensive to make, yet they spring from a plebian, populist artform. Comic books, at least until recently, were cheap. They were beautifully drawn and exciting, but they were still basically cheap. That was the point.

Movies are not cheap, especially not in 3D. Comic book heroes, like football players, have lost all contact with their proletarian roots.

Some people will read all this and say: "You're over-intellectualising. You're reading too much into it."

This may be true. But these charges are always made by people who never over-intellectualise anything, who never read too much into things. They are made by people who want you to take the X-Men seriously, as legitimate fiction. And then, when you do, they say that you are over-intellectualising.

After all, they say, it's only a movie. That's exactly right. It's only a movie. But it's the same movie – over and over and over again. – Guardian News & Media

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

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The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

Somebody save me (and us)

Posted:

Is an endless, insanely expensive parade of semi-fascist bores (read: superheroes) strangling the film industry? Do we need saving from the heroes?

To save humanity, one must rely on a bootstrap operation headed by a dedicated go-getter and self-starter. At heart, all superheroes are Republicans.

The 12-year-old boys for whom superhero movies are chiefly made are not interested in women. They may not even be interested in girls. They are certainly not interested in girls with superpowers.

Breeding neurosis

In days gone by, a superhero only had to worry about the Joker or the Silver Surfer or Lex Luthor. Now, he has to worry about mysterious philanthropists. No wonder he's so neurotic.

Nothing in their pitiful lives works out until they are bitten by a spider, or start sporting a remarkable piece of jewellery, or are handed a large, seemingly radioactive hammer by their father.

Waking up awesome

Rebooting and rehashing

Movies are not cheap, especially not in 3D. Comic book heroes, like football players, have lost all contact with their proletarian roots.

Some people will read all this and say: "You're over-intellectualising. You're reading too much into it."

After all, they say, it's only a movie. That's exactly right. It's only a movie. But it's the same movie – over and over and over again. – Guardian News & Media

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: World Updates

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The Star Online: World Updates

Earthquake strikes El Salvador, no damage reported
Crew tried to abort landing before San Francisco air crash
Ten killed in Alaska floatplane crash

Earthquake strikes El Salvador, no damage reported

Posted:

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - A strong earthquake struck the Pacific coast of El Salvador on Sunday evening, shaking buildings in San Salvador, and sending residents running out into the street.

There were no immediate reports of damage from the 5.9 magnitude quake, which according to the U.S. Geological Survey was centered 24 miles (38 km) south-southeast of the capital, just off shore and 60 miles (97 km) below ground.

"We do not have reports of damage anywhere in the country," Jorge Melendez, head of the Central American nation's emergency services, told local radio.

(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Editing by Will Dunham)

Crew tried to abort landing before San Francisco air crash

Posted:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed at San Francisco's airport on Saturday was flying "significantly below" its intended speed and its crew tried to abort the landing less than two seconds before it hit a seawall in front of the runway, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Sunday.

Asiana Airlines said the pilot in charge of landing the Boeing 777 on Saturday, Lee Kang-kook, was training for the long-range plane and it was his first flight to that airport with the jet. Asiana Airlines said he had previously flown to San Francisco on different planes and was being assisted by another pilot more experienced with the Boeing 777.

Information collected from the plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated that there were no signs of trouble until seven seconds before impact, when the crew tried to accelerate, NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said at a news conference at the airport.

A stall warning in which the cockpit controls begin to shake activated four seconds before impact, and the crew tried to abort the landing and initiate what is known as a "go around" manoeuvre 1.5 seconds before crashing, Hersman said.

"Air speed was significantly below the target air speed" of 137 knots, she said. The throttle was set at idle as the plane approached the airport and the "engines appear to respond normally" when the crew tried to gain speed in the seconds before the crash, Hersman said.

Two Chinese teenagers died in the incident and more than 180 people were injured, local officials said. In a tragic new twist, the San Francisco Fire Department said that one of the teenagers may have been run over by an emergency vehicle as first responders scrambled to the scene.

"One of the deceased did have injuries consistent with those of having been run over by a vehicle," fire department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said. "Many agencies were on the field yesterday."

Autopsies to determine the cause of death will be conducted by the San Mateo County coroner's office, officials said.

More than 30 people remained hospitalized late on Sunday. Eight were listed in critical condition, including two with paralysis from spinal injuries, according to hospital officials.

The charred hulk of the aircraft remained on the airport tarmac as flight operations gradually returned to normal. Three of the four runways were operating by Sunday afternoon.

Hersman said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. The data recorders corroborated witness accounts and an amateur video, shown by CNN, that indicated the plane came in too low, lifted its nose in an attempt to gain altitude, and then bounced violently along the tarmac after the rear of the aircraft clipped a seawall at the approach to the runway.

Asked whether the information reviewed by the NTSB showed pilot error in the crash, Hersman did not answer directly.

"What I will tell you is that the NTSB conducts very thorough investigations. We will not reach a determination of probable cause in the first few days that we're on an accident scene," she told reporters.

Asiana said mechanical failure did not appear to be a factor in the crash. Hersman confirmed that a part of the airport's instrument-landing system was offline on Saturday as part of a scheduled runway construction project, but cautioned against drawing conclusions from that.

"You do not need instruments to get into the airport," she said, noting that the weather was good at the time of the crash and that the plane had been cleared for a visual approach.

The Asiana flight originated in Shanghai and was flying to San Francisco from Seoul with 291 passengers and 16 crew members on board. Several large groups of Chinese students were among the passengers.

SERIOUS INTERIOR DAMAGE

People on the flight said nothing seemed amiss until moments before the plane hit the ground. Pictures taken by survivors showed passengers hurrying out of the wrecked plane, some on evacuation slides. Thick smoke billowed from the fuselage and TV footage showed the aircraft gutted and blackened by fire. Much of its roof was gone.

Interior damage to the plane also was extreme, Hersman said on CNN earlier on Sunday.

"You can see the devastation from the outside of the aircraft, the burn-through, the damage to the external fuselage," she said. "But what you can't see is the damage internally. That is really striking."

The NTSB released photos showing the wrecked interior cabin oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.

The dead were identified as Ye Meng Yuan and Wang Lin Jia, both 16-year-old girls and described as Chinese nationals who are students, Asiana Airlines said. They had been seated at the rear of the aircraft, according to government officials in Seoul and Asiana, and were found outside the airplane.

Hersman said the first crew of emergency workers to arrive at the scene included 23 people in nine vehicles. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said a total of 225 first responders were involved.

"As chaotic as the site was yesterday, I think a number of miracles occurred to save many more lives," Lee said at the airport news conference. Appearing later at San Francisco General Hospital, he declined to address whether one of the Chinese teenagers may have been run over.

The crash was the first fatal accident involving the Boeing 777, a popular long-range jet that has been in service since 1995. It was the first fatal commercial airline accident in the United States since a regional plane operated by Colgan Air crashed in New York in 2009.

"For now, we acknowledge that there were no problems caused by the 777-200 plane or (its) engines," Yoon Young-doo, the president and CEO of the airline, told reporters on Sunday at the company headquarters on the outskirts of Seoul.

Asiana said passengers included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 64 Americans, three Indians, three Canadians, one French, one Vietnamese and one Japanese citizen.

Asiana, South Korea's junior carrier, has had two other fatal crashes in its 25-year history.

(Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Alistain Barr, Sarah McBride, Ronnie Cohen, Poornima Gupta, Laila Kearney, Dan Levine, Jonathan Weber, Peter Henderson, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Jonathan Allen and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Will Dunham)

Ten killed in Alaska floatplane crash

Posted:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Ten people were killed on Sunday when a floatplane crashed and burst into flames at an airport in the Alaska Kenai Peninsula town of Soldotna, officials said.

No survivors were found, according to the Soldotna Police Department. The plane, a de Havilland DHC3 Otter, was operated by a local air-taxi company, Rediske Air, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane crashed at the Soldotna airport at about 11:20 a.m. local time, the FAA said. It was initially unclear whether the plane was departing or landing at the time, the FAA said.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, officials said.

Victims' names were not released on Sunday. Police said they were still trying to identify the victims and locate family members.

Rediske Air provides sightseeing charters and air-taxi services, according to a profile with the Better Business Bureau. The mountainous Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage, is a popular destination for tourists, fishermen and hikers.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Will Dunham)

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Business

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The Star Online: Business

For stocks, there's no need to fear good news
Telekom Malaysia joining 4G bandwagon
Time and tide waits for no man, important to meet targets once set

For stocks, there's no need to fear good news

Posted:

NEW YORK: Wall Street doesn't hate good news after all.

The June jobs figures were stronger-than-expected and caused a big sell-off in the bond market. That further underscored expectations that the Federal Reserve will be chopping back its big bond-buying programme sooner rather than later. This kind of occurrence in the past would have caused the stock market to freak out.

But the three major US stock indexes climbed 1% on Friday, possibly pointing the way to more gains ahead.

The stock market has been in an odd spot for some time. Fear that the Federal Reserve would reduce its monthly bond-buying stimulus, designed to boost borrowing demand and help the US economy, put investors in the position of rooting for just-OK data, the kind of figures that would keep the spigot open while still pointing to decent growth.

This report may have definitively changed that outlook. In June, a total of 195,000 jobs were created – much stronger than the forecast for 165,000. Government data also showed that the US labour force has increased for three straight months now. The 10-year US Treasury note's yield jumped to a two-year high above 2.70% from 1.60% in a matter of weeks.

In that time, equities have barely budged. Sure, the S&P 500 has drifted off its all-time closing high of 1,669.16 reached on May 21. It's still less than 3% from that mark despite the sharp rise in interest rates. Light volume in the stock market, however, means that the move up should be taken with a grain of salt. And it makes the next several days that much more important.

"Good news is good news, but there's so much uncertainty about how payrolls could impact markets," said David Kelly, who helps oversee US$400bil as chief global strategist for JPMorgan Funds in New York. "The market is schizophrenic about this."

Good news in the form of bullish economic data has recently been taken as a negative, causing market selloffs on the theory that it means the Federal Reserve will slow its stimulus. While comments from Fed officials helped relieve those concerns last week, June's strong payrolls data refocused investors' attention on the uncertainty.

The June non-farm payrolls report raises the stakes for Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who will be speaking on Wednesday before the National Bureau of Economic Research. Investors will closely scrutinise his comments for any hint about whether the jobs report could mean a faster end to the Fed's bond-buying stimulus programme.

Some strategists said the bond market's sell-off was in part because of thin volume exacerbating wild swings. Because of that, "it is unlikely that (yields) will rise any more than they already have," said Alec Young, global equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ in New York.

"That means that if we get good news, it will come without an accompanying rise in rates, which is great for stocks."

Major signals for the market will come from areas with an outsized sensitivity to macroeconomic growth and higher interest rates. Those areas have done relatively well since May 21, when the Dow and the S&P 500 ended at record highs. Small-cap stocks jumped in their best week since mid-May, with the S&P 600 small-cap index closing on Friday at 568.15, an all-time high.

Financial stocks were the strongest sector on Friday, with the S&P financial sector index up 1.8%. Regional banks such as SunTrust Banks were among the S&P 500's biggest percentage gainers because those companies benefit from rising rates because it boosts their ability to profit from lending at higher rates while borrowing at lower rates.

In search of clarity

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its June 18-19 meeting. Those minutes are likely to attract heightened attention from Wall Street since they are coming out on the same day that Bernanke speaks to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The consensus on when the Fed will start cutting back its stimulus sits firmly in September of this year, with 11 of 16 primary dealers believing that, according to a Reuters poll, compared with seven of 17 in the June 19 Reuters poll.

On May 22, Bernanke said the quantitative easing programme would be slowed if economic growth met the Fed's targets. Investors interpreted that as an indication of an early exit, sparking a steep slide in stocks and a surge in US Treasury yields that prompted Goldman Sachs to close its recommendation that investors buy rate-sensitive names.

"The market is so inundated with voices from Fed officials – some far more reassuring than what we heard from Bernanke - that there's a lot of confusion," said Kristina Hooper, head of portfolio strategies at Allianz Global Investors in New York.

"Hearing him next week will settle things, especially on the heels of the jobs report," she said. "This is such a data-driven environment that to get a sense of how the Fed is viewing things is critical."

Stocks have stabilisd after the recent decline. On Friday, the S&P 500 closed above its 50-day moving average for the first time since June 19.

For the week, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.5%, the S&P 500 gained 1.6% and the Nasdaq jumped 2.2%.

The Fed probably will be the major driver for equities next week, although geopolitical tensions will also be in focus. The unrest in Egypt has generated concerns about oil supply, pushing crude prices to 14-month highs.

Fundamentals will return to the forefront as companies begin to release second-quarter results next week. Expectations call for S&P 500 earnings growth to rise 1.6% in the second quarter from a year ago, while quarterly revenue is forecast to increase 2.9% from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Dow component Alcoa Inc will post results after the market closes on today. JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo are also set to report results later in the week.

Second-quarter revenue outlooks for S&P 500 companies – with three negative forecasts for every one that's positive – are among the most negative of the economic recovery, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"We think companies will exceed and beat that low bar. So while Bernanke can always change the conversation, we think the news flow next week should be decent," S&P's Young said. – Reuters

Telekom Malaysia joining 4G bandwagon

Posted:

PETALING JAYA: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has made no secret of its interest in the mobile business despite having demerged it from its operations a few years ago.

The telecom giant had said in the past that it was not ruling out the possibility of collaborating with industry players to offer mobile broadband. This time, however, TM is venturing on its own to join the long-term evolution (LTE) or 4G bandwagon.

In its pre-request for proposal briefing in May, TM said it would invite tender for LTE deployment, with the letter of award to be prepared in mid-September.

"TM is currently exploring the expansion of its wireless broadband services in underserved areas, looking at the best technology evolution path in the optimisation plans for our current Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network, and in line with our broadband services delivery strategy for the nation," TM said when contacted.

According to a document made available to StarBiz, TM said the network provider would propose an end-to-end network and IT solution with some integration to existing TM infrastructure for the deployment of the LTE. In addition, TM will opt for the establish-operate-transfer (EOT) model for the network and IT infrastructure for at least 24 months.

The document also revealed the timeline for the deployment of the 4G services. The first commercial service is expected to be rolled out by Feb 12, 2014, with the end of rollout slated for Oct 15, 2014. TM plans to use 800MHz as its LTE frequency band, providing it with better signal transmission.

In addition, TM aims to have 100,000 users by 2014 and more than one million by 2017.

Telco analysts said the time was right for TM to enter the 4G scene now, as deployment would take a while. They said TM's focus had always been on fixed lines and its high-speed broadband Unifi. Eventually, TM will have to look for opportunities to extend its reach to enlarge its market.

"We think that TM is looking at wireless broadband to complement its fixed broadband, thus posing a credible threat to the incumbents," CIMB Research analyst Kelvin Goh said.

He said TM would pose a "credible threat" to the incumbents in wireless broadband. However, it was unlikely that TM would make much headway into mobile voice, at least in the near term, given the limited penetration of LTE-enabled phones, he added.

"We believe TM's 4G roadmap would likely get clearer when the contract is awarded," an analyst said, adding that competition was going to be fierce and could not be avoided in relation to TM's impending entry into the 4G arena.

Analysts said TM currently complemented its fixed data and broadband services with a host of wireless solutions, including WiFi, fixed wireless technology via CDMA as well as Evolution Data Optimised.

Cellular operators like Celcom Axiata Bhd, Maxis Bhd and DiGi.Com Bhd have sizeable grasp on the local scene, while Axiata Group Bhd has leverage in the regional arena. Futhermore, Maxis and Celcom have already introduced their 4G services, and DiGi is expected to do so this month.

Celcom has also entered into a master collaboration agreement with Puncak Semangat Sdn Bhd for its 4G service rollout.

Fitch Ratings expects TM to face stiffer competition in the fast-growing, increasingly important data segment this year, especially from the resellers. The rating agency said competition in the Malaysian data segment would intensify, as the LTE spectrum owners, who won spectrum in December 2012, would start launching their respective services in 2013.

CIMB's Goh said TM's extensive fibre optic network would allow it to roll out a wireless network in a quick and cost-effective manner.

He pointed out that TM had two 10MHz blocks at the 850MHz level, which is covered by the LTE standard, with superior in-building and geographical coverage. The other telcos are launching LTE at 1800MHz and 2.6GHz, which have inferior propagation qualities. However, without the optimal 2x20MHz block, TM's LTE speed would not be able to reach the theoretical peak download speed of 300Mbps.

"The impact on the incumbent celcos is likely to be limited because wireless broadband contributes to 4%-6% of their revenues," Goh said.

Time and tide waits for no man, important to meet targets once set

Posted:

TIME never stands still: its passage is unmercifully relentless. It's hard to believe that already half the year is gone and before we know it, it will be December, the festive season and yet another year would have passed.

And since time never stands still, we have to move along with it. Much has been said about national reconciliation and more about its lack. But we must realise that we have to put aside the divisiveness of the general elections, do what's best and move on from there. Really there is a lot of work to be done.

In times such as these, it helps to remind ourselves of the aims under the Government and economic transformation programmes specifically set out by the Prime Minister and endorsed and supported by the Cabinet and most people in the country to take this country to developed status.

The true north of transformation is to become a developed country by 2020, and the yardstick, the measure for this, is to achieve a per capita gross national income of US$15,000 by the year 2020.

The other important corollary of this is that this is done in an inclusive manner and in a sustainable way. Inclusiveness means that all communities and all sectors, and particularly the poor and disadvantaged, benefit from this increase in income, so that prosperity is reflected among all Malaysians.

When we say sustainable, we refer to developing and stretching our resources and maximising their returns so that future generations will also benefit from our wealth. That also means giving due consideration to the environment and the quality of life of all Malaysians.

The Performance Management and Delivery Unit or Pemandu, which I head, is the body which coordinates and facilitates the implementation of specific measures aimed at reaching our goal of becoming a developed country by the year 2020 together, including fostering seamless and effective working relationships between the civil service and private sector players.

Credit must be given where it is due, and the true heroes of our nation's transformation are both these civil service and private sector players who make things happen in line with the needs of the country.

In explaining Pemandu's approach to the work that we do, there is nothing that we help coordinate and facilitate which has not been agreed to by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Pemandu always and unambiguously acts according to and under the instruction of the Prime Minister at all times. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth and simply does not understand how things work.

The scope of work we carry out is very clear and together with our counterparts in civil service, and stakeholders from various segments of the corporate sector, we are all collectively committed to the cause in helping Malaysia achieve a developed nation status.

Indeed, I am firmly convinced that the broad aims of the transformation programmes are good for everyone – for all Malaysians whatever their creed and colour and whatever their political ideology.

Is it not good if we achieve developed status by meeting the high-income target? Is it not great if all Malaysians benefit from increased income and the poor benefit more than others? Should we not think about increasing the quality of life for Malaysians now and for future generations by using up our resources sustainably and taking care of our environment and wellbeing?

And as a good government should we not constantly get feedback from the public and do our best to fulfill all legitimate demands of the general public?

Going forward, there are five areas that we need to focus on where this is concerned:

·We must stop and reverse the polarisation of the nation. The best way to do this is to focus on what we agree on and move forward from there. People may disagree that we are meeting the targets of transformation but few will disagree with the targets that we have set. If we collectively agree and do whatever we can to achieve our targets, we are already getting there.

·We must have an education system which meets the expectations of the rakyat while fulfilling national aspirations. No matter the medium of instruction, we want education to be of great quality and useful. If we need the quality of English to rise to improve the employability of our graduates, let's just do it.

·We must take whatever measures necessary to reduce further the incidence of crime and corruption. The public wants crime levels to be as low as those in the most developed and safe of countries in the world. We as a Government need to look at this deeply and come out with more solutions instead of fighting among ourselves our inconsequential things.

·We need to deal with public distrust of our key institutions. If we need to rebuild them up from bottom to top, so we must. Without public trust in all government institutions, without the public belief in these bodies, much of what the Government wants to do cannot be achieved.

·We need to be clearer and more consistent in our communications so that the public is not confused by the different signals coming from different parts of the Government. As far as possible, the Government needs to speak with one voice.

Acknowledging that we need to improve in some areas to meet with public demands is not a weakness. It reflects maturity and will to make changes, so necessary for any government to improve and move forward as ours is clearly committed to do.

That means we will continue to coordinate and facilitate all that is necessary to reach our transformation goals. And as we continue on our journey, we will have feedback loops to ensure that we stay focused on our eventual, agreed targets.

As they say, time and tide waits for no man and we really have to get a move on to get to where we want to go and meet the targets we have set for ourselves.

Datuk Seri Idris Jala is CEO of Pemandu and also Minister in the Prime Minister's Department. All fair and reasonable comment is most welcome at idrisjala@pemandu.gov.my

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

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Both Flesh And Not
Hard Twisted
Until I Say Goodbye

Both Flesh And Not

Posted:

THE steady stream of posthumous publications of David Foster Wallace's work since his tragic death by suicide in 2008 (aged just 46) has left me increasingly conflicted.

As it stands, there may be two camps of Wallace fans: those who are perfectly content with these releases as a way of keeping their love for the writer burning, and the junkies who are beginning to suspect that some cynical marketing machine is cashing in on their fandom.

With Both Flesh And Not, I am starting to lean towards the more cynical group.

The collection opens with possibly one of Wallace's most famous journalistic works, Federer, Both Flesh And Not, a love letter to tennis player Roger Federer and the sport itself. The piece is a crystalline example of Wallace at his finest, straddling both earnestness and a steady stream of factoids, meticulously detailing why he feels Federer is a top player – from his "liquid whip" of a forehand serve, to his "eel-like all-body snap at the moment of impact".

Vivid descriptive abilities aside, the reason I love Wallace's non-fiction is the same one that makes my teeth grind when reading his novels – his unabashed love of footnotes.

While his laborious marginalia can be a bit much to take when trying to follow a fictional plot, the footnotes work beautifully for the most part in his essays and journalistic writing, because they make you feel like you're part of a real conversation.

Here is footnote number 37 from Democracy And Commerce At The US Open, appearing after Wallace describes an older gentleman in the tennis crowd pointedly ignoring the "sweet burnt-pine" smell of marijuana hanging in the air: "New Yorkers also have an amazing ability to mind their own business and attend to themselves and not notice anything untoward going on... that always seems to lie somewhere on the continuum between Stoicism and catatonia."

All the little digressions, sometimes informative and sometimes little more than clever punchlines, circle around the main essay to not just solidify its arguments but also add a down-to-earth feel to the ideas put forth.

Apart from the first essay, the rest of the collection is arranged chronologically by when they were published, and touch on topics ranging from prose poetry to criticism of the special effects in Terminator 2.

While this juxtaposition may show the evolution of Wallace's writing style, some of the pieces seem to be included just because they were written, and these drag the stronger pieces down.

Overlooked: Five Direly Underappreciated US Novels > 1960 for instance, nothing more than a collection of short blurbs about Wallace's prefered books, is glib and uncharacteristically flat. Meanwhile, all Back In New Fire did was give me a petty writer's Schadenfreude over the fact that Wallace was not born a genius writer.

A moralistic screed about the HIV/AIDS epidemic being a "gift" to remind us that there is "nothing casual about sex at all", the essay itself is nowhere near as sinister as this summary makes it seem. Instead, it is the kind of hipster-intellectual argument that one can imagine a young and precocious writer making as a theoretical thought exercise.

Most annoying of all, however, is the inclusion of Wallace's "vocabulary list" that is interspersed throughout the book, which apparently "highlights his ferocious love of language".

Perhaps laundry lists like these are aimed at hardcore fans who would devour any tidbit of the writer's inner workings, but the exercise seems tired and cynical to me. I wonder if, by the time this review is published, there will be a new Wallace book that compiles the doodles he made in the margins of his notes, coupled with scanned images of his Post-It notes from his desk!

What tenuously holds Both Flesh And Not together are Wallace's recurring criticisms of the shaping of popular culture and thought.

The essay in which he rather unexpectedly pounces on this is his introduction to The Best American Essays 2007. Entitled Deciderazation – A Special Report, Wallace slyly draws parallels between his role as a "decider" of the essays in the book and becoming an informed citizen in an age of information overload.

Going through a barrage of essays of "high-quality description" of all manner of topics, he writes, is "a kind of Total Noise that's also the sound of our US Culture right now, a culture and volume of info and spin, and rhetoric and context that I know I'm not alone in finding too much to even absorb, much less to try to make sense of or ogranize into any kind of triage of saliency or value".

While Wallace was theorising about the increasingly divisive nature of American politics, his warning of the temptation to "retreat to narrow arrogance, pre-formed positions, rigid filters" can readily be applied to the current Malaysian context as well.

In the end, Both Flesh And Not is nowhere near as strong as Wallace's previous non-fiction collections such as A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997) and Consider The Lobster And Other Essays (2005).

Perhaps if the editors of this collection were a bit closer to being as transparent as Wallace was, in his own assessment of selecting essays to be compiled, I would be a whole lot less cynical.

Hard Twisted

Posted:

BASED on real-life events, and inspired by C. Joseph Greaves' inadvertent discovery of two skulls in the Utah canyon, Hard Twisted is the story of drifter Clint Palmer and Lucille Garrett (Lottie), and Palmer's killing spree across the American South during the Depression era.

Homeless and on the road with her father Dillard, 13-year-old Lottie meets charming Palmer on a hot afternoon in Oklahoma, and both father and daughter move to Texas with him on the promise of work and a home. When her father mysteriously disappears, Lottie is forced to depend on Palmer for everything. What follows is told from her perspective – her life on the road with Palmer, and the subsequent discovery that Palmeris not what he portrayed himself to be.

The great thing about this book is that Greaves successfully manages to tell a story while giving the reader a minor history lesson. Basing it on true historical events, Greaves draws on real happenings, and stays true to the local lingo of the time, which makes Lottie's experience more real to the reader.

Furthermore, Greaves didn't have to create fictitious characters; Palmer actually was a man with a torrid past.

As Greaves' notes, "Clint Palmer was a sexual predator and a career criminal who, when he first encountered young Lottie Garrett in May of 1934, was only four months removed from his latest incarceration, a three-year stint in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, for kidnapping, statutory rape, and violating the Mann Act." A real gem, this Clint Palmer was.

Lottie and her father Dillard were both real people as well, and while Greaves does take liberties with the characters, dialogue and interactions, he remains true to their history and the case.

One of my biggest issues withHard Twisted is the non-traditional dialogue. This makes it difficult for the reader to engage properly with the characters, especially Lottie, who is not only the main protagonist but also the one whose voice is telling the story.

Another thing that could potentially put readers off is the book's sheer density. Greaves has packed much information in practically every page that there is a real possibility of information overload, and I found myself flipping back pages to refresh my memory at several points.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the reader gets a free history lesson of a timewhen the socioeconomic and political environment was rapidly changing, with many people struggling to adapt to a world that was different from what they grew up in.

On the same vein, this is not a book that you can read in small parts, or take some time off before continuing. If you do that, you might as well start all over again. It would be a better idea to spend a couple of hours to read the book to its end. It is the only way to appreciate Greaves' writing, the thoroughness of his research, and the history of the time.

With this book, he has proven himself to be a strong voice in the literary world, one who can narrate history, including the violent and gory details, with grace and without detracting from the story.

To conclude, Hard Twisted is a novel that engages and challenges the reader, and one that will compel you to think. It is one of those books that, at its conclusion, makes you want to give it to the next person you come across, with a "You have to read this."

Until I Say Goodbye

Posted:

WHAT would you do if you had only one year left to live?

It's a frightening question. But it was a question that journalist Susan Spencer-Wendel was forced to ask herself when she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) at 44 years old.

Spencer-Wendel was told her health would slowly deteriorate, leading to her inevitable death. Lou Gehrig's disease is irreversible, systematically destroying the nerves powering your muscles, resulting in every movement being difficult and painful.

It would have been understandable to despair. But Spencer-Wendel refused to give up. Quitting her job, the courageous woman decided to spend that last year the way she chose: spending time with her loved ones, discovering her roots, and seeing the world.

Until I Say Goodbye is the bittersweet story of Spencer-Wendel's last year of good health. Profound, moving and inspiring, the book is a poignant reminder of life's ephemerality, and of never taking anything for granted.

Spencer-Wendel worked as a court reporter for twenty years before her illness. She wrote her book on an iPhone – unable to walk or even lift her arms due to the disease, she tapped out her story letter by letter with her right thumb, the last finger she had working.

Until I Say Goodbye is the fulfillment of her final wish: "To make people laugh and cry and hug their children and joke with their friends and dwell in how wonderful it is to be alive."

Spencer-Wendel describes how she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life, journeying to Hungary, Cyprus, and the Bahamas, among other places. While her travel accounts are delightful, the narrative is most magical when the author expresses her feelings about her companions.

"That's our thing. I realize now," she writes about a cruise she takes with her sister. "Something special between the two of us. The thing fully realized on that trip. Not travelling. Not adventure. But being there for one another, so that we may unburden our hearts. Uncrowd our minds. And hear what our souls are saying."

Family is clearly important to the author; much of her last year is spent bonding with her husband, John, and three children. An adopted child, Spencer-Wendel also manages to track down her family, resulting in several whimsical chapters of reunions and reminiscing in her birth country of Cyprus.

Indeed, certain parts of this story are rather rib-tickling. What is amazing is how well Spencer-Wendel blends honesty and humour, speaking frankly about the pains of her condition, while consistently remaining upbeat.

The most poignant part of the story, however, is undoubtedly when Spencer-Wendel takes her 14-year-old daughter Marina to Kleinfeld's bridal shop in New York, so the author can see her in a wedding dress.

"I simply wanted to make a memory," she writes. "I wanted to see my beautiful daughter on her wedding day. I wanted to glimpse the woman she would be. Maybe I would cry. Mothers cry, right? But I knew I would laugh, too. Because I would be with my Marina. I would be imagining her happy."

Until I Say Goodbye is not a fairytale adventure; there are parts of the story where Spencer-Wendel's plans go awry, once even failing completely. What is inspiring, however, is that at no point is the author bitter about any of these snags, always choosing to look on the bright side of things.

And perhaps that is the main theme of the book. Nothing goes according to plan. Life is an ocean with an ever-changing tide, and no matter how much we struggle, it often overwhelms us, carrying us to strange shores we do not expect.

The trick however, is in enjoying the dip.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Nation

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Nazri and Zahid differ on repeal of Sedition Act
Suspect drives off in police car where he was locked up
Kelantan drug, car theft gangs shootout over territory

Nazri and Zahid differ on repeal of Sedition Act

Posted:

PETALING JAYA: Two ministers are taking a different stand on the Sedition Act 1948 with one for repealing it and the other calling for it to be retained.

Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said that the Government was committed to repealing the Act while Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi believes that the Act should remain, as abolishing it might lead to dispute over certain core aspects of the Federal Constitution.

Nazri, an Umno Supreme Council member, said that he had been informed that the Attornery-General was looking at repealing the Act.

"We are committed to go through with the repeal.

"However, it is important that when we repeal it, we still need an Act that could preserve the harmony and unity between Malaysians of different ethnic groups," he told journalists after visiting Kellie's Castle in Batu Gajah while launching its tourism upgrade project here Sunday.

Zahid, an Umno vice-president, had told journalists after launching the commemoration of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Putrajaya that repealing the Act could lead to disputes over four aspects in the Constitution.

According to Zahid, the four core aspects are the special rights of Malays, the status of Malay rulers, the status of Islam as the Federal religion and the status of Bahasa Melayu as the national language.

The Home Minister said he wanted the Act retained so that these will not be questioned.

"The Cabinet cannot decide to abolish (the Act) but (it can propose) to amend.

"If the Sedition Act is abolished wholly, (people) will have the rights to touch on these four areas although these are enshrined in the Constitution.

"I will not compromise if there are parties who want to touch on any of these four main aspects of the Constitution.

"Those who do, must be charged under the existing Sedition Act 1964," said Dr Ahmad Zahid on Sunday after launching the commemoration of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking here.

In July 2012, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak promised that the Government would repeal the Act in favour of a new National Harmony Act.

Suspect drives off in police car where he was locked up

Posted:

KUANTAN: A suspected thief drove off in a police MPV where he was locked in after he was arrested.

He did not get far after driving 15km against the flow of traffic in Taman Tas after noon here. The MPV's tyre burst and he fled on foot but was soon rearrested.

Prior to the incident, the suspect and an accomplice were caught stealing cement bags from a housing construction site in Indera Mahkota.

Kuantan police deputy chief Supt Abdul Aziz Ahmad said two policemen on motorcycles and two in the MPV rushed to the site upon receiving a report from the site supervisor.

They arrived at about 12.15pm and found the two suspects loading cement bags onto a lorry.

"Realising the presence of the policemen, the two suspects tried to escape, but one of them was quickly nabbed," Supt Aziz said.

The suspect was then locked up inside the MPV. Somehow, he managed to drive off with the vehicle. In the meantime, the policemen managed to arrest the other suspect.

The policemen later gave chase and found the MPV abandoned by the road side in Taman Tas about 15 minutes later.

Following a search, the suspect was arrested near a scrap metal shop in Jalan Galing Kem at 6.30pm.

"The two suspects were found to have previous criminal records related to theft and drugs," Supt Aziz said.

Kelantan drug, car theft gangs shootout over territory

Posted:

KOTA BARU: Three major drug trafficking and car theft gangs are in bitter struggle for territory, leading to several shooting cases in Kelantan.

Five shooting cases in the state since January this year were believed to be linked to the turf war, said Kelantan police chief Datuk Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman.

There were 10 shooting cases related to tuft war last year.

"We have identified the groups and individuals involved and are going after them.

"One of them was picked up opposite a bank in Pasir Mas at 4.30am yesterday (Saturday)," Jalaluddin told reporters.

"The 25-year-old man, who is from Kampung Stong, Kemubu, Kuala Krai was found to be driving a stolen Proton Waja.

"He led the police to the arrest of a 29-year-old man at a house in Kampung Kelar, Pasir Mas where a gun and a bullet casing were found," he said, adding that the duo were arrested by CID officers and men from the state headquarters and Pasir Mas.

Both men have been remanded for four days for investigations under the firearms act.

Jalaluddin said the 25-year-old suspect were arrested three times before for drugs and vehicle thefts while the 29-year-old man were picked up twice for drug related cases. Both of them were tested positive for drugs. - Bernama.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Ahad, 7 Julai 2013