An excellent article equating Sabah's predicament with Palestine

 http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2013/02/01/in-whose-hands-lie-sabah%E2%80%99s-destiny/

In whose hands lies Sabah’s destiny?

Vidal Yudin Weil | February 1, 2013

It is time to end decades of grinding uncertainty which has harmed the economic growth of Sabah.

COMMENT

For more than three and a half decades, the people of Sabah have always been aware of the huge number of foreigners arriving here and given fast-track citizenships to become voters.
We now hear directly from the horses’ mouth in the Royal Commission of Inquiry, confirming the clandestine modus operandi employed by Umno and carried out by the Election Commission and National Registration Department in rigging every Sabah election to sabotage the Sabahans’ choice of governments.
Unless the Barisan Nasional federal government now swiftly abolish the death penalty like it did the Internal Security Act, all the conspirators from both sides of the political divide might be sent to the gallows for high treason when their immunity from prosecution is revoked and removed once a change of government takes place.
Why even from the opposition side? How were they involved? For those who do not already know, apart from the dead and retired, 90% of the remaining perpetrators are now playing active roles in PKR and they are all at the top levels.
It is a fact known to all politicians from the peninsula that all along Malaya needs resource-rich Sabah and Sarawak to stay afloat instead of vice versa and one way to ensure that the money keeps pouring in is to deny and prevent the legitimate people of Sabah, at all costs and by all immoral and illegal means, from electing a state government that will turn off the hydrant.
But one question kept popping up among the people here even from the villages these days: is this union called Malaysia still tenable at all by international democratic standards propagated by the United Nations?
Many people in Malaya, including also senior constitutional lawyers and history professors, are pathetically confused that Malaysia is Malaya while Sabah and Sarawak are merely states like the 11 states in the peninsula.
What they never try to find out was: does Malaysia really have sovereignty without Sabah and Sarawak in the equation?
Is this what has become of citizens who were hoodwinked from young with a distorted version of events riddled with major historical inaccuracies and an endless series of purely fictional scenes played by non-existent characters and peddled by a government which is totally bankrupt of morals?
Is the Malaysia Agreement signed in 1963 actually legal? Does Britain have sovereignty over the whole of Sabah when giving independence? Is the Malaysian government still paying annual rentals to the heirs of the Sulu sultanate until today? If the Malaysia Agreement is illegal, doesn’t that mean that Sabah is technically still a British colony then?
Scotland with all its oil wealth in the North Sea will decide in a referendum by its people in 2014 whether to leave the United Kingdom; South Sudan with all its petroleum wells is now an independent nation as from 2011; likewise, if it is no longer in Sabah’s interest to remain in an unreformed union, should the legitimate people of Sabah be given the opportunity to decide in a referendum conducted by the United Nations if they would still be in favour of staying on or leave Malaysia?
Or, will Sabah secede and declare independence like Kosovo from Yugoslavia in 2008 which the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in 2010 that the unilateral declaration of independence by the democratically and legitimately elected government of Kosovo does not violate any international laws?
But then again, isn’t it better and more fun to remain and make the federal government beg for financial survival?

Can Sabahans trust Anwar?
Sabah people resent the interference of Kuala Lumpur in their lives and their disillusionment with the BN federal government is now at an all-time high.
It is time for the people to have their say to settle this Malaysian quagmire in Sabah politics; this is the time Sabah voters must decide whether to claw back the sovereignty of Sabah from Malaya.
Voters in Sabah must use this chance to choose whether they want to be ruled by Malaya or to determine their own affairs while opting to stay in Malaysia.
This time, the situation is more serious than the political battles of 1976 and 1985 when Usno and Berjaya were kicked out respectively.
Do the people of Sabah still remember the long list of developments promised by Anwar Ibrahim to be carried out within 100 days after hijacking the mandate of the people in 1994? What came out of it? Will we still trust a Pakatan Rakyat led by this same man?
It is time to end decades of grinding uncertainty which has harmed the economic growth of Sabah.
Sabahans must send a historic ultimatum to Malaya to get out of Sabah affairs by showing all their parties the exit door. The bullying must be stopped. We must roll out the red carpet for a grand send-off for all the Malaya-based parties.
Until Sabah is finally free from all forms of interference by any party from Malaya, everyone is a slave.
The present BN government does not embrace reforms and the current chief minister does not have an effective and intelligent Cabinet. BN politicians are most dangerous, most obnoxious, and the least intelligent.
Will the election manifesto of local opposition parties insist that powers be returned to the state as her interests are best served in a complete autonomy and promise the people to be flexible and adaptable in order to re-invent the economy of Sabah?
As millions of Malaysians in Sabah are saddled with debts, will there be major changes to difficult questions confronting Sabah? Will our local opposition politicians make us more competitive? Will they be fair and democratically accountable? Our economy is now very brittle and recovery must not take longer than six months; we badly need a new chief minister who is capable of change and ensure that citizens have jobs, small businesses will not struggle with low turnovers, and families not squeezed by high inflation.

Najib embarrassed

It was reported that in the second quarter of 2012, government debt was expected to be around RM503 billion or about 54% of GDP; we are indeed standing on the thin rope of bankruptcy.
As usual, a major international embarrassment happened last week to our prime minister.
Our beleaguered and embattled Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak went overseas to Gaza in a bid to divert attention away from all his failures at home exactly like what former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad did when he was pushed to a tight corner; only this time, it backfired right into his face when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced Najib’s visit as interfering in their domestic affairs.
Many Malaysians, particularly 99% of the Malays, do not understand the Palestine conflict. The issue in Palestine was never about religion between Judaism and Islam; it was always about the occupation of land and flooding the occupied territories with Jews from all over the world.
The facts are that many Jewish Israelis do not agree with their government’s actions and supported the Palestinians in their struggle; and that many leaders and victims in Palestine are in fact Christians – Hanan Daoud Khalil Ashrawi is one fine example, among others.
Every year when he was still alive, Yasser Arafat accompanied his Christian wife Suva into church to celebrate Christmas mass and one particular year he took to the pulpit and told the congregation in front of international media that Jesus Christ was born a Palestinian and He (Jesus) also would have fought the Israeli occupation.
Did our Malay leaders tell the citizens, particularly the Muslims, about this? Instead, they make it look like as if it was a Jewish conspiracy against Islam.
Are the Muslim people of Palestine closer in brotherhood to the Muslims of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, and Syria who fought and brought down their tyrannical governments or are they closer to the Muslims of Malaysia who support a despotic government corrupted to the core?
A government that relied on suppressing the people and keeping them segregated and unequal in religion and race as a tactic to hold on to power? A country where citizens were denied the attainment of equal individual and collective rights which should also include the right to separate identities and cultural institutions after five miserable decades of so-called independence?
Is it any surprise that integration and living in harmony was never in Umno-BN’s vocabulary?
Doesn’t the Umno-led BN government look more like the cruel regimes of Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Saddam Hussein, and Bashar al-Assad?
The question now is no longer whether all these are being done to dupe the Malay Muslim voters, but whether the Malay Muslims are still gullible enough to be fooled?
Sabah’s situation is no different from Palestine; we are also fighting occupation by Malaya politicians who are flooding us with foreigners by giving them citizenships.
Like Palestine, all the Christians and Muslims in Sabah must kick them out.
Khalifah al-Barat mengutuk Emir al-Nusantara
Jejak al-Gaza menyinggung Ummah
Al-Munafig menyamar sebagai Mukmin
Abu Jahil menjaja Hikmah
Fitnah menjadi Lumrah Langkasuka
Ulama buta Fatwa sesat
Baitulmal dirompak Rakyat dikejami
Sang Pendusta berlagak Imam Mahdi
Intifada Palestin seruan kepada Sabah
Undi Pembangkang menggantikan batu
Merejam Syaitan di PRU 2013 – Ameen.
The writer is a former member of Sabah’s faded tourism industry; loves food and speed; and blogs at http://legalandprudent.blogspot.com giving no quarters.

Unethical AIRASIA destroying SABAH

By not providing direct flights from Kota Kinabalu to Seoul, while both Korean Air and Asiana direct flights are always full, AIRASIA is destryoying Sabah's tourism industry. Tourism industry is the only industry left where the benefits go to Sabahans. Timber, oil palm and petroleum industries mostly benefit West Malaysians.

The solution is very simple. Just return the landing rights to Tokyo and Seoul to Malaysia Airlines. By not doing anything about it, when it was the BN government's decision to transfer the landing rights from MAS to AIRASIA, BN is responsible for more destruction of Sabah and MAS.

By destroying both Sabah and MAS, BN is destroying the nation as well. Lies about MAS losing in these flights are more proofs about BN lack of concern about Sabah. Direct flight to Tokyo was almost full even just a few months after the radiation scare. The direct flight to Hong Kong that I also took recently was also almost full. MAS staff cannot get standby seats on flights to Korea.

The World says Sabah is the poorest!

United Nation Human Development Program, World Bank, Malaysian Federal Government Statistics Department, Sabah Economic Planning Unit, all of them say that Sabah is the poorest in the World, certainly the poorest in Malaysia by a large margin, Sabah 20% poor, compared to 6% for the next one, Perlis, also a BN controlled state, certainly not Kelantan. Why? Because Musa brings in foreigners instead of employing Sabahans, not only in Plantations but also in almost all jobs worth getting. Hospitals? What hospitals? The waiting list for critical life threatening surgery is 2years. My mother in law was a witness last year. Many died already waiting. We had to pool resources to go to SMC. But now even SMC is no more. There is not even a single private hospital in Sabah now. Only shop lot clinics. SMC has to borrow operating rooms and even equipment. You call that progress! We nearly lose Maliau Basin, if it were not for NGOs making noises. It was not Musa who stop these blatant thefts, but NGOs and oppositions. Who say Sabah is poor? – Musa by Nancy Lai. Posted on November 15, 2012, Thursday KOTA KINABALU: Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman yesterday took opposition leaders to task for claiming there is no development in Sabah and it is the poorest state in the country. “If Sabah is poor then why do I have plantation owners requesting to bring in foreign labour to work in the state? What about the schools, hospitals and other public infrastructures as well as facilities that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government has built for the state?” Musa asked. Speaking at the opening of the state-level annual Farmers, Livestock Breeders and Fishermen Day celebration yesterday, Musa urged people in the state to be wary of opposition leaders, including those from Peninsular Malaysia who are now traveling around the interior areas with their allegations. The Sabah BN chief said it was the opposition’s perception that there was no development in Sabah as they had turned a blind eye to what the government had done. “We do not need to boast about what we have done because the rakyat know and what is important is that the rakyat know that we are sincere in our efforts to help them,” he said. According to Musa, opposition leaders were also not new faces because among them is a former Deputy Prime Minister, a former Chief Minister and former ministers. “If we are to reply to their allegations, they will say that we are slanderous but let me ask you who is the one who ‘sold’ off certain government agencies? You can open the records or files to find out if it was me and you will see that I never sold off any of the government agencies. “In fact I was the one who managed to get a few of them back – so you can see that these former leaders are the ones responsible but are trying to be the heroes now,” he stressed. Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/11/15/who-say-sabah-is-poor-musa/#ixzz2CIKXs4jo

Illegal FEDERAL Government

I suspect this is happening. If it was not challenged, it will become the norm. Thisis what I had suspected happening to Sabah making it the poorest in the world now. Many Sabahansvare happybwith the way they are, but all over the world, nations progress at a much faster rate, even in war torn nations like Palestine, have better standard of living than the 20% Sabahans, making them the poorest in the world now. Imagine, our Maliau basin to be strip mined for coal? Once it is handed over to the Federal government. If it can happen in Selangor, it is surely much worse in Sabah, with the majority of illiterate politicians voted into power. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/11/15/nation/12320553&sec=nation SHAH ALAM: Another top civil servant in Selangor has been transferred out amid the brewing controversy surrounding the Batu Caves condominium project. A source said Selayang Municipal Council (MPS) president Datuk Zainal Abidin A'ala (pic), who had reportedly revealed minutes of a meeting in 2007 pertaining to the project, has been transferred to the National Institute of Public Administration (Intan). He is due to report for duty today. The source said the Public Service Depart-ment (PSD) had informed him of the transfer. Yesterday was the last day at the council for Zainal Abidin, who had reportedly said the controversial condominium project was given a development order in late 2007 and that it included a block of shops and office lots that were constructed earlier. He was not available for comment but two MPS councillors disclosed Zainal Abidin had been given notice of the transfer. Councillor A. Murugeshu told The Star Zainal Abidin had known about the transfer about a month ago but did not know where he would go. “It is so coincidental that Zainal Abidin's transfer happened when the Batu Caves issue is hot,'' he said. Another councillor Gunarajah R. George believed Zainal Abidin was transferred out of MPS because he had released the minutes of a meeting in 2007 that gave the names of the municipal councillors then who had approved the 29- storey condominium project that was to be developed by Dolomite Corporation Bhd. Gunarajah said Zainal Abidin was due to retire next year. On Sept 27, Petaling Jaya mayor Datuk Mohamad Roslan Sakiman reportedly received a letter informing him that he would be transferred effective Oct 1. The state government objected to the move and the transfer has since been frozen. Regarding the latest transfer move, state executive councillor Ronnie Liu expressed his disappointment but said he had yet to receive a letter from the PSD informing the state government of Zainal Abidin's transfer. “We are upset and shocked, as MPS will lose a hardworking and efficient leader,” Liu, who is state housing and local government committee chairman, told reporters yesterday. Meanwhile, Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim announced yesterday former Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (Mida) director-general Datuk N. Sadasivan would chair the independent committee that would review the development of the Batu Caves project. Selangor Town and Country Planning Department deputy director Norasiah Bee has been appointed secretary. The planned project has been been stopped temporarily following orders from the state government to conduct soil testing.

All World Heritage sites handed over to Malaya?

If you still have doubts about the intention of Malaya over Sabah, this should convince that Malaya never intends to develop Sabah for Sabahans, only 
for Malaysians, sadly of which Sabah is never part of Malaysia. The interesting issue is that, whatever happens to the existing world heritage sites? 
Were they federalised also? How about Sarawak?

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/11/10/standoff-over-world-heritage-sites/

Standoff over world heritage sites

Michael Kaung

 | November 10, 2012

The Sabah state government is at odds with the federal government, which want the places concerned federalised.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government has found itself in a fix over its bid to gain World Heritage Site status for several extraordinary rainforest areas in the state harbouring unique flora and fauna.

The federal government has thrown a spanner in the works by claiming full jurisdiction over the sites but the state government has dug in its heels and refused to hand over the keys to its riches mindful that land is a “sensitive” state matter.

The Federal Ministry of Culture, Arts and Information which must endorse World Heritage Site applications has said that it will not do so if the places concerned are not “federalised”.

The state government has insisted that the demand to handover jurisdiction of the sites was an affront and a less than subtle takeover of state land.

This, they said, was against the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement which guaranteed wide-ranging autonomy for the state in all land matters among others.

The Barisan Nasional government of Chief Minister Musa Aman is aware that surrendering the administration and management of the iconic sites would mean indirect federalisation of state land, already a sore point among voters in the state.

The outcome of the standoff is that full, long-term governmental protection for Maliau Basin, Imbak Canyon and the world famous Danum Valley remains up in the air.

The local press quoted state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Masidi Manjun as being angered by the federal ministry’s demands.

The state BN government is acutely aware that it is open to attack by the opposition that they are hostage to the federal government on all important matters and this case furthers that perception among Sabahans deeply concerned by the gradual federalisation of the state.

Masidi’s comments at this week’s two-day International Conference Heart of Borneo (HoB) +5: Shaping and Nurturing Sabah’s Future Together appeared to show that the state government was confounded that the federal authorities had thrown up a barricade of red tape to thwart its bid to raise the tourism profile of the state.

He indicated that the federal government had been dragging its feet on the HoB initiative though it was formalised five years ago.

“We want to move forward … it does not matter whether you want to ride a bicycle, bus or car but what is important is we reach the same destination,” he told the around 600 conference participants representing local and international agencies.

The other parties involved in the initiative are Kalimantan through the Indonesian government, Brunei and Sarawak.

This story makes me...

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KK will beat DUBAI? Liar.

With only RM570 million and filling KK’s waterfront instead of increasing it, KK hopes to be like Dubai? Bloody liar!

Dubai increased its waterfront 10 times instead of reducing it, and had spent 570 billion RM the last 10 years and will spend more than that in the next 10 years.

You think KK will beat Dubai in the next 10 years? Will all the discriminatory budget against Sabah still being carried out openly. Only idiots will believe it. Even IVORY Coast of Africa had beaten KK in the last 10 years. The lack of development is still going on in Sabah to the point that in the next 10 years, KK will be like a warzone compared to the other cities in the third world. You can’t even get airport lights working properly, imagine what will happen in the next 10 years. Even the dangerous 3 second traffic lights will get even worse with most of it not working at all.

Sabah will be like Dubai in next 10 years

by Chok Sim Yee. Posted on November 4, 2012, Sunday

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah will boom in the next 10 years with billions of investment by the government, Petronas and international companies.

Kota Kinabalu has the potential to become the jewel of South East Asia due to the beauty of our nature and our people, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Haji Megat Najmuddin Megat Khas, chairman of Asian Pac Holdings Bhd, said at the launching of Loft C, 110 units of luxury serviced residences of KK Times Square Phase II, here on Friday.

The total investment cost for KK Times Square Phase II is RM570 million. KK Times Square is developed by Syarikat Kapasi Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Asian Pac Holdings Bhd.

The eight-acre of KK Times Square Phase I comprises shop offices, the 15 acres of Phase II will include shopping, food and beverage, leisure and entertainment centre, exterior shops, and five blocks of serviced residences.

The five blocks of serviced residences, namely Loft A, B, C, D and E, will house 631 units in total.

Loft C, with its spectacular sea view, offers various types of designs from 1+1 bedrooms to 4+1 bedrooms, ranging from 704 square feet to 4,171 square feet.

With an average selling price of RM983 per square foot, the price of Loft C units ranges from RM754,000 to RM2,818,000.

Residents of Loft will also enjoy a three-acre Eco Deck, a greenery park with landscaped water feature, garden and sculptured lawns, equipped with gym facilities, children’s playground and covered walk path providing access and recreation.

In addition, KK Times Square will feature an internationally renowned four-storey Imago shopping mall measuring 800,000 square feet of lettable space upon completion of the final phase.

Megat Najmuddin said Petronas would be spending RM45 billion in the next 10 years in Sabah, while the government would also spend billions in upgrading the infrastructure in the State.

With the money and investment into Sabah by the government, Petronas and international companies, Megat Najmuddin said it was his hope that Sabah would boom in the next 10 years.

To achieve this, Megat Najmuddin said Sabah need to bring in more talents from overseas and Peninsular Malaysia to develop Sabah into a destination like Dubai or Singapore.

“We don’t want second grade development in the State.

“We must upgrade the city to something like Dubai and Singapore, and it is important to make that dream come true,” he stressed.

KK Times Square, as Megat Najmuddin said, was constructed using first class materials and engaged first class architects to produce first class architectural design.

He believed that the KK Times Square project, which he said to be the only kind of integrated living in Malaysia, would uplift Kota Kinabalu to a new level.

“KK Times Square offers all-in-one lifestyle package.

“You can live here, you can work, you can play at this place.”

Meanwhile, Dato’ Mustapha bin Buang, managing director of Asian Pac Holdings Bhd, said the construction of Phase II had reached 30 to 40 per cent and it was expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2014.

Mustapha said Loft A, B, D, E, which were launched previously, had an average take-up rate of 80 per cent.

“Loft B was launched a year back and it has a good take-up rate of 93 per cent,” he said, adding that majority of the buyers were locals.

With the launching of Loft C, Asian Pac Holdings Bhd is offering 11 per cent guaranteed rental return over two years, which is 5.5 per cent per annum. Those who purchase for their own stay will receive five per cent plus two per cent special rebate.

The first 50 purchasers on Friday were entitled to a business class ticket to Paris for one person worth between RM10,000 and RM20,000.

Also present at the launching were Asian Pac Holdings Bhd senior manager of sales Lilian Lung and group accountant Y.Y. Liew.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/11/04/sabah-will-be-like-dubai-in-next-10-years/#ixzz2BOztgQEb

Why BN supporters happy with budget?

Many of these comments are fair and missed by me. The bad thing is that BN supporters are happy with all these. It is a bad sign for Sabah and Sarawak.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/10/03/sarawak-sabah-left-high-and-dry/

Sarawak, Sabah left ‘high and dry’

FMT Staff | October 3, 2012

Many people in these two states are disappointed that the focus of Budget 2013 is all on the Peninsula.

KUCHING: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s “pro-peninsula” budget has angered many people in Sabah and Sarawak.
Sarawak, which is among the poorest states in Malaysia, was hoping that the 32-year-old cabotage policy would be eased, roads and infrastructure would be improved and the high cost of domestic transport solved.
Prices are so high here that Najib even mentioned in his Budget 2013 speech that in remote Ba Kelalan constituency, the price of a 14kg gas cylinder is RM70.
But despite knowing the ground reality in Sarawak, “Santa Claus” Najib did not announce any long-term programmes to alleviate the hardship of the people.
Instead, the prime minister said more Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) stores would be set up in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan to offer “price uniformity” of essential goods.
He allocated RM386 million for 57 stores to be opened in these places. The money would also be used to bear the cost of delivering products in the interior.
He also allocated RM100 million to supply 40,000 water tanks for rainwater harvesting in the interiors of Sabah and Sarawak.
But the allocation came as a shock to some who see it as yet another Barisan Nasional scam in the making.
Said a FMT reader: “Giving RM100 million for 40,000 water tanks? That translates into RM2,500 a tank… the cost of a one unit 80-gallon poly water tank is about RM120. No wonder these BN cronies are laughing all the way to the banks. I give you some, you give me some.”
Another reader, Azman Hamid, said: “Who is going to get the contract to build those KR1M stores there (Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan)? Someone is going to get rich!
“But seriously instead of spending RM386 million, why not reduce the cost of transport?”

Disappointment for Sarawak
Stanley Teoh, another reader, urged Sarawakians to wake up.
“Instead of taking measures to bring Sabah and Sarawak into 2020 and beyond, the prime minister is talking about KR1M… sundry shops.
“With all those huge dams in Sarawak, he is talking about water tanks to harvest rainwater.”
“This is a rubbish budget for Sabah and Sarawak,” Teoh said.
In Miri, an activist said Najib’s budget had left Sarawak high and dry while keeping the people in the Peninsula happy.
“Overall, Budget 2013 is focused more on developing infrastructure in Peninsular Malaysia.
“But really, we are the ones in dire need of big allocations for infrastructure development…
“The federal government should have set aside allocations to improve the Pan Borneo Highway instead of providing funds for maintaining good roads in the Peninsula.
“Many people here were hoping that Najib would announce extra allocation for the Pan Borneo Highway connecting Sabah and Sarawak… but nothing happened.”

Inflation risk
The Federation of Sabah Manufacturers (FSM) has also warned of a possible risk of inflation later down the road.
FSM president Wong Khen Thau said while the price uniformity programme was a move in the right direction, it does not solve the underlying problem of price inequality between West and East Malaysia.
“This is caused by the high transport costs due to the cabotage policy and inefficient transport network.
“While we welcome the setting up of 57 KR1M stores, we believe that in the long run, it would affect small-time sundry shops in the rural areas, which are normally operated by Bumiputeras,” he said.
“We hope the government would seriously look for long-term solutions,” he said.