Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Lindungi Sarawak dan pertahankan pembangunan Sarawak - YAB Pehin Sri
Sebahagian Teks Ucapan YAB Ketua Menteri Sarawak Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud
Perdebatkan dasar pembangunan dengan menyeimbangkan spekulasi masa depan, realiti
KUCHING: Generasi muda harus bijak memperdebatkan dasar-dasar pembangunan negeri Sarawak khas-nya dengan memberi penekanan kepada spekulasi-spekulasi mengenai masa depan.
Ketua Menteri Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud berkata bagaimanapun nilai spekulasi dalam perdebatan itu harus memberitahu umum mengenai realiti dan menyeimbangi semua aspek.
“Apabila anda berdebat me-ngenai dasar-dasar pembangunan negara mahupun negeri, anda akan bercakap mengenai apa yang boleh berlaku, mak-nanya rangka perdebatan akan lebih kepada spekulasi mengenai masa depan.
“Namun nilai spekulasi ini banyak bergantung kepada sejauh mana ia memberitahu anda dan umum tentang realiti.
“Itulah yang saya lakukan setiap kali merancang dasar ekonomi baharu, dengan demikian debat tidak hanya melibatkan kakitangan kerajaan atau sektor ekonomi tetapi melibatkan golongan berpendidikan,” katanya.
Beliau berkata demikian ketika melancarkan portal Internet yang berpangkalan di Sarawak iaitu OurYouth.my di sebuah hotel terkemuka di sini semalam.
Taib memberitahu, generasi hari ini harus bijak memilih strategi yang betul untuk menambah baik program pemba-ngunan dengan menyeimbangi semua aspek iaitu memelihara alam sekitar, mengekalkan ke-amanan dan memastikan golo-ngan miskin serta kurang upaya tidak ketinggalan daripada arus pembangunan.
“Semua ini adalah perkara yang mesti diberi penekanan dan menjadi kebimbangan rakyat yang bertamadun termasuk anda (generasi muda) kerana jika anda lebih prihatin dan anda boleh melihat pihak mana akan tercicir,” ujarnya.
Ketua Menteri berkata generasi muda perlu lebih kritikal dalam melakukan pendebatan kerana menerusi pendekatan itu mereka boleh membantu kerajaan menambah baik perubahan.
Selain itu katanya pendekatan itu akan dapat menentukan cara terbaik yang boleh membawa seterusnya memastikan perubahan berlaku lebih relevan kepada kumpulan generasi muda yang lebih besar.
Menurutnya jika tiada langkah seumpama itu dilakukan jurang generasi yang dialami sejak merdeka lagi dan usaha merapatkan jurang itu banyak bergantung kepada generasi muda hari ini.
“Selalunya generasi muda menyuarakan pandangan mereka dan generasi tua cuba mendengar, membuat keputusan berdasarkan apa yang difikirkan baik dan diterima pakai oleh kedua-dua generasi, seterusnya mengharapkan yang terbaik.
“Namun saya tidak pasti sama ada anda tahu wujudnya had antara anda dengan orang yang membangunkan negara.
“Had ini perlu bagi memastikan perancangan semula dan perubahan berjalan dengan lancar,” ujarnya.
Taib berkata kenyataan itu tidak harus diabaikan oleh generasi muda dan sedar bahawa sentiasa wujudnya jurang maklumat antara pihak yang merangka dan melaksanakan perubahan untuk manfaat generasi tersebut.
Dalam pada itu beliau percaya jurang generasi itu akan dapat dirapatkan jika kedua-dua generasi berjalan seiring menuju hala tuju sama dan generasi muda lebih peka serta berminat terhadap perkara yang berlaku dan pada masa sama cuba mencari penyelesaian baharu.
“Penyelesaian baharu kepada masalah akan datang amat perlu kerana ada kemungkinan penyelesaian sedia ada atau lama masih relevan dan tidak kurang juga yang sudah ketinggalan zaman.
“Oleh itu, peranan rakyat merapatkan jurang ini banyak bergantung kepada anda generasi muda hari ini dan orang seperti saya, dari generasi lalu boleh memberitahu anda apa yang sudah berlaku pada masa lalu… diharap anda boleh belajar daripadanya,” tambah beliau.
Hadir sama pada majlis itu kedua-dua Menteri Muda Datuk Dr Stephen Rundi dan Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif AZAM Datu Aloysuis Dris dan pengerusi penganjur yang juga Pengarah Conqueror’s Vision Sdn Bhd syarikat yang menginisiatif portal berkenaan, Datuk Patrick Liew.
Taib asks bloggers to protect Sarawak’s, nation’s interests
by Samuel Aubrey, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on September 28, 2012, Friday
RARE OPPORTUNITY: Taib (seated centre) is seen with the youths during a photo call after the dialogue. Seated from left are Karim, event organising chairman Datuk Patrick Liew, Dr Rundi and Dris.
KUCHING: Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud has called on bloggers to play their part in protecting both state and national interests.
He pointed out bloggers have an important role to play in the face of the constant propaganda being churned out against the state and its development programmes.
“I’d love to see more bloggers who are not someone who repeat what the international people say. To me, bloggers are not a nuisance. They are part of our development to protect our interests. If you (bloggers) can do that, we are safe,” he said.
Taib said this during a dialogue with 50 youths comprising bloggers and fresh graduates in connection with the launching of lifestyle portal ouryouth.my recently.
The youths were given the chance to ask questions and interact with the Chief Minister during the almost two-hour long session.
Taib also shared his vision for the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) and human capital development strategies adopted for it.
He also advised the youths to treasure the unity of the many races in the state, stressing that Sarawak, which has a small and scattered population, cannot afford to be disunited.
Among those present were Assistant Ministers of Youth Development Datuk Dr Stephen Rundi and Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah and Angkatan Zaman Mansang (Azam) chief executive officer Datu Aloysius Dris.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Kuasa 'besar' dunia EU memfitnah dan menghancurkan negara-negara Islam
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
American blowback
The only surprise is there aren't more violent protests in the Middle East
The Muslim eruption reflects a deep popular anger and blowback from US intervention in both Libya and Afghanistan
Anti-western protests reached Gaza on 14 September as the Islamophobic US-made video spread across the Muslim world. Photograph: Ashraf Amra/Zuma/Corbis
Eleven years after it began, Nato's occupation of Afghanistan is crumbling. The US decision to suspend joint Afghan-Nato operations in response to a wave of attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on Nato troops cuts the ground from beneath the centrepiece of western strategy.
Nato is, after all, supposed to be training up Afghan troops to take control in time for the withdrawal of combat forces in 2014. Instead, those client regime troops are routinely turning their guns on a long-reviled foreign occupation force. No wonder support for a continued military presence is falling rapidly in the main British political parties – long after it has among the populations of all the occupying states.
The US-British invasion of Afghanistan was of course launched in response to the 9/11 attacks: the poison fruit of US-led support for the Afghan mujahideen war against the Soviet Union. Why do they hate us, many Americans asked at the time, oblivious to their country's role in decades of coups, tyranny, sanctions regimes and occupations across the Middle East.
In the aftermath of the killing of the US ambassador to Libya and assault on the consulate in Benghazi, as protests against a virulently Islamophobic US-made video spread across the Muslim world, Hillary Clinton echoed the same sentiments. "How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?" she asked, "in a city we helped save from destruction?"
She was referring to Nato's decisive role in winning power for the Libyan rebels who first took up arms in Benghazi last year. But just as the mujahideen the US backed in Afghanistan later turned their guns on their imperial sponsor in the form of the Taliban and al-Qaida, so many of the Islamists and jihadists who fought against Gaddafi with Nato air cover have their own ideas for the future of their country.
This is the start of the blowback from US and western attempts to commandeer the Arab uprisings. Something similar is likely to happen in Syria. The invasion of Afghanistan more than a decade ago not only didn't destroy al-Qaida, it spread it into Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and north Africa, and today the flags of its offshoots are flying across the Arab world.
In Libya, Nato's intervention sharply escalated the death toll, triggered large-scale ethnic cleansing, spread war to Mali, and left thousands in jail without trial and the country in the control of multiple armed militias. Western governments hailed July's elections, in which most seats were not open to political parties, as bucking the Islamist trend across the region.
But their man, a former Gaddafi minister, has now been defeated for the job of prime minister by an independent Islamist, while the British ambassador's convoy, the Red Cross and UN have been attacked and Sufi shrines destroyed. Meanwhile, the Nato-backed authorities are threatening military action against jihadists in Benghazi, as American warships and drones patrol Libya's coast and skies.
The fact that the attack on the US consulate, along with often violent protests that have spread across 20 countries, was apparently triggered by an obscure online video trailer concocted by US-based Christian fundamentalists and émigré Copts – even one portraying the prophet Muhammad as a fraud and paedophile – seems bafflingly disproportionate to outsiders.
But in the wake of the Rushdie affair and Danish cartoons controversy, it should be clear that insults to Muhammad are widely seen by Muslims as an attack on their collective identity and, as the Berkeley-based anthropologist Saba Mahmoud argues, a particular form of religiosity that elevates him as an ideal exemplar.
Those feelings can obviously be exploited, as they have been in recent days in a battle for political influence between fundamentalist Salafists, mainstream Islamists and the Shia Hezbollah. But it would be absurd not to recognise that the scale of the response isn't just about a repulsive video, or even reverence for the prophet. As is obvious from the slogans and targets, what set these protests alight is the fact that the injury to Muslims is seen once again to come from an arrogant hyperpower that has invaded, subjugated and humiliated the Arab and Muslim world for decades.
Since launching the war on terror, the US and its allies have attacked and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq; bombed Libya; killed thousands in drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; imposed devastating sanctions; backed Israel's occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians to the hilt; carried out large-scale torture, kidnapping and internment without trial; maintained multiple bases to protect client dictatorships throughout the region; and now threaten Iran with another act of illegal war.
The video is manifestly only the latest trigger for a deep popular anger in a region where opposition to imperial domination is now channelled mainly through the politics of Islam rather than nationalism. The idea that Arab and Muslim hostility to the US would have been assuaged because it intervened to commandeer Libya's uprising (an intervention most Arabs reject) is absurd.
About two-thirds of people in the Middle East and North Africa say they distrust the US, polling shows, rising to more than three-quarters in Pakistan. After 11 years of the war on terror, following decades of baleful intervention, the only surprise is that there aren't more violent anti-US and anti-western protests in the region.
Western war in the Muslim world has also fed a toxic tide of Islamophobia in Europe and the US. What is it about Muslims that makes them so easily offended, Europeans and Americans commonly demand to know – while Muslims point to cases such as the British 19-year-old who wasconvicted in Yorkshire last week of posting a "grossly offensive" Facebook message that British soldiers in Afghanistan "should die and go to hell", and ask why they're not afforded that protection.
The events of the last week are a reminder that an Arab world which has thrown off dictatorship will be more difficult for the western powers to hold in thrall. The Economist called the deadly assault on the US consulate in Libya an example of "Arab dysfunction" and urged the US not to retreat from the Middle East but go in deeper, including in Syria. As Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya have already shown, that would only bring disaster.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Sarawak folk are role models of 1Malaysia spirit
NST
FRUITS OF INDEPENDENCE: Its diverse ethnic groups reap development, progress through unity
KUCHING: SARAWAK, together with Malaya, Sabah and Singapore, formed Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963.
Composed of various ethnic communities living peacefully and harmoniously, the "Land of the Hornbills" has made great progress in the 49 years it has been a part of Malaysia.
Its people have benefited from the development and progress in the country.
Sarawak Special Functions Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem said Sarawak was one of the rapidly developing states in Malaysia, as was proven by its ability to tackle poverty among the people.
Sarawak folk were not only on a par with those from other states, but they were also successful.
"We have reaped the benefits of the fruits of independence and we can move further if we maintain our unity and continue to cooperate with each other."
Adenan advised the younger generation not to belittle and disregard the unity in Sarawak. Instead, he urged them to work towards preserving it.
He said there was no other ethnically diverse country in the world that had achieved as much progress as Malaysia.
"Our success has become the envy of people in other nations", he said at the "Significance of Independence" seminar, held by the Sarawak Foundation, here, recently.
Adenan called on the younger generation to study the nation's history to avoid being influenced by "outsiders" and bring disrepute to the country.
"To move ahead, we must know our history and be aware of what is happening."
He said the state was fortunate to benefit from physical and human resource developments.
Adenan added that the opportunities provided by the government, including those in the education sector, had allowed Sarawak folk to improve their socio-economic status.
"Due to the educational opportunities provided by the government, it is now possible for the young generation to hold professional jobs.
Jefri Anak Kirang, 47, said: "Sarawak people are fortunate to be administered by a government which is responsible and concerned about the issues affecting them."
He also said the government had provided many facilities, including the 1Malaysia shops and 1Malaysia clinics, apart from the 1Malaysia People's Assistance programme and education assistance funds to assist the people, particularly those from the low-income group.
Muhamad Zaini Hassan, 37, who is from Johor, said he was impressed by the unity shown by the people in Sarawak.
Zaini, who has been working in Sarawak for five years, said this had become the pillar for Sarawak's success.
"Sarawak folk are unique as they cooperate with each other regardless of their ethnic origins and religious beliefs," he said, adding that since moving to the state, he had yet to witness any misunderstanding over trivial matters among the people.
"Sarawak people are role models for Malaysians in terms of the 1Malaysia spirit and pillars for the nation's resolve to achieve progress."
With a population of almost 2.5 million, Sarawak has 11 divisions -- Kuching, Sri Aman, Sibu, Miri, Limbang, Sarikei, Kapit, Kota Samarahan, Bintulu, Mukah and Betong.
Sarawak is rich in natural resources such as gas, petroleum, timber and oil palm.
It also possesses manufacturing, biotechnology and energy sectors, such as the Sarawak Corridor for Renewable Energy (Score). Bernama
Friday, September 14, 2012
Wong Ho Leng 'utter nonsense' - Datu Robert Lian Sarawak Immigration Director
Director rubbishes Ho Leng’s statement as utter nonsense
KUCHING: State Immigration Department director Datu Robert Lian has described as “utter nonsense” the statement made by Bandar Sibu MP Wong Ho Leng that Immigration officers were alleged to have issued identity cards to illegal Indonesian workers.
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. First and foremost we are not the agency which issued identity cards.
“And secondly, when we carry out our duties to check on illegal immigrants we have other enforcement officers joining us to ensure that we are transparent,” Robert told The Borneo Post here yesterday.
Wong had issued a statement in Sibu on Tuesday last week alleging that Immigration officers when visiting construction and oil palm companies asked whether they had illegal workers from Indonesia to be given Malaysian identity cards.
Wong added that the condition for the illegal workers to have the identity cards was that they must support Barisan Nasional in the upcoming general election.
He said the information he received also revealed that the identity cards could be issued at Batu Niah within a few days.
Wong, who is also Bukit Assek assemblyman, was quoted to have said that if there were 50 workers or more, the police would accompany them to (Batu Niah) apply for the identity cards.
He said he could not tell whether there was any truth in the allegation.
“Nevertheless, it is something very worrying. With the general election imminent, the possibility of it happening cannot be discounted,” said the DAP state chairman.
Wong also revealed that his friend who has a construction company here had told him that a few of his workers had been approached by the Immigration officers for the same reason.
Robert said his department was still trying to assist illegal workers to have proper documents even though the amnesty deadline had already ended on March 31.
The authorities reckoned that there were at least 50,000 illegal foreigners in Sarawak, and only 22,220 of them had been documented as legal workers.
These illegal workers were believed to have come to the country using social visit documents, especially those from West Kalimantan through the various entry points along the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson from the National Registration Department strongly denied the allegation.
“It’s not that easy, applicants of identity cards must produce supporting documents before they (their documents) could be further processed,” said the spokesperson.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Anak Sarawak Tan Sri Ahmad Johan membawa "Important milestone in our nation's aviation history" - YAB Datuk Patinggi Perdana Menteri
Monday, September 10, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Projek Darul Hana pemangkin penambah baikan masyarakat
State injects RM60 mln into Darul Hana project
by Posted on August 30, 2012, Thursday
TO GREATER PROSPERITY: Taib (third right) leading a toast with a fizzy drink popular in the past together with (from left) Satem, Junaidi and Abang Johari.
KUCHING: Some 14,600 people from 13 villages who are affected by the Darul Hana initiative in Seberang Hilir here received good news on Tuesday evening in the form of a RM60 million injection into the project by the state government.
This is in addition to the allocation of RM60 million which was announced by the federal government last April.
Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, who made the announcement during a Hari Raya gathering organised by PBB Kuching here, said the government’s aim was to turn the area into a new urban centre which could be used as a model by other towns in the state.
“The prime minister announced an allocation of RM60 million for the Darul Hana project, and I would also like to contribute another RM60 million from the state government to help transform the area.
“We hope that the project will be a step towards a new urban Kuching, to be followed by other towns in the state.”
Among those present were organising chairman and Santubong MP Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, Minister of Housing Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg and Minister of Special Functions Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem.
This re-development project, which spans 707 acres from Kampung Boyan to Kampung Bintawa Batu, is set to boost the socio-economy of the people, especially those in the 13 villages.
On another matter, the chief minister urged PBB leaders and members to focus on unity among themselves and the people to ensure continuous prosperity.
“Unity and prosperity go hand in hand. It is not sufficient for us to only focus on winning during elections. We must also focus on strengthening unity among our people, regardless of race and religion.”
He added that to manage and lead the state successfully, the government needed cooperation from the people to ensure that its target to be a developed nation by 2020 could be realised.
“This is how we can make our party prosper, and it’s easy when everyone is united.
“Our PBB culture has always emphasised on managing a multi-racial society successfully by uniting folks from all races. This is what we should hold on to and spread to other BN members.”
Monday, September 3, 2012
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