Is there an anti-corruption drive?

Now that Eric Chia has been acquitted - largely due to the prosecution’s failure to produce material witnesses, the prime minister’s much touted anti-corruption drive once again comes to question.

This Perwaja Steel case was the first high-profile case initiated immediately Abdullah Ahmad Badawi assumed office in October 2003.

He, then, said that he would not compromise on corruption and vowed to clean up the menace.

After Eric Chia, former cabinet member Kasitah Gaddam was also charged in courts amid a massive media blow-up that Abdullah was keeping his promise of a clean government and governance.

Three years on, the wheels on the premier’s clarion call have slowly fallen off. No other high-profile cases were filed. No credible-tainted ministers were removed. Our world ranking in corruption continued to slide down. And now this smack in the face with the acquittal of Eric Chia.

No doubt the prosecution will appeal - which they rightly so did yesterday. But we must remember the words of the judge who said that: "The prosecution's case has been negated by their own evidence and crippled by the non-calling of essential witnesses".

Today, the prosecution said it was appealing because: "The decision to appeal was made because we are dissatisfied with the (acquittal) decision which, in our view, was against the weight of evidence."

What evidence? Apparently not much, according to the judge. Remember, the prosecution made expensive trips to Japan and Switzerland to gather evidence, which was not accepted in courts here. Five of their credible Japanese witnesses also refused to testify here.

All these makes me ponder:

1. Was the prosecution really keen to prosecute Chia? Or was the AG forced to act upon a political decision despite (perhaps) advising the government that it had insufficient evidence to charge Chia?

2. Or was it a government decision to charge Chia to ride on a popular wave, knowing that in any event there isn’t enough evidence to have a successful conviction?

I think I will get a better idea with the outcome of the Kasitah case.

Oz male drivers shown the little finger

An ad campaign in Australia is hitting the male ego big time, especially the young drivers who like to speed.

The series of TV ads shows women shaking their little finger - a gesture used to symbolise a small penis - as speeding male motorists race past.

The idea is to reduce road deaths by questioning the manhood of speeding drivers.

The cost of this ad is a cool $A1.9m (£805,400, US$1.6m), and the campaign is called “Speeding. No-one Thinks Big of You".

Read more about the ad campaign here.

And see the ad here.

Times' world’s top footballers

Steven Gerrard comes in the top ten at number seven while Jamie Carragher (32) is also in the list. But strangely not Pepe Reina nor Xavi Alonso. Not even Javier Mascherano.

But injury plagued Gary Neville (50) is in it. So is England’s ‘wonder-boy’ Wayne Rooney (11). There are also other familiar names such as Kaka (1), Lionel Messi (9), Ronaldinho (2), Clarence Seedorf (49), David Beckham (34) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (17).

And then some unheard or less popular names such as “Lucho” Gonzalez (39), Rodrigo Palacio (46), Diego (45) and Sergio Ramos (13).

And then there are 36 other players, to make it to the Times of London’s Top 50 footballers in the world today.

Gabriele Marcotti picks the best players on the planet on this basis:

“I couldn’t even have begun to compile such a list without basic criteria.

So here they are: imagine you are the manager of a totally new team. You have a certain budget to spend, but first you get one freebie, one guy to build your team around. You get him only for one season, the 2007-08 campaign, so you want to go for who can do the best job for you here and now, without worrying how good he can be down the line. Who would you choose? Who would your “ringer” be? Have a look at all at my selection…

Do you agree? Check out his list here.

A lil’ emperor as the police chief

The Malaysian police have come under fire recently for the rising crime rates in Johor and the explosive accusations of working hand-in-hand with gangsters.

And now add to that equation the manner how the Sibu police chief is acting as his own emperor.

According to this report, this police chief has threatened to jail journalists under OSA if they get crime news from anyone else but him.

He has informed journalists that the police district HQ is a protected area and the reporters cannot enter unless they are invited.

Reporters were further cautioned that they could only get crime news from the division police chief and, in his absence, from his deputy (only on a strict condition that chief has given his permission to his deputy).

And to cap it all, here is a quotation from him:

"You go and tell your colleagues that you cannot come and ask me what crimes there are for the day. You can only come to me for confirmation on what you have heard from the public."

What is the police tag line again? Mesra selalu? Sedia berkhidmat?

Homer Simpson kidnapped in M’sia

This is an AFP report, based on what NST carried today. Read and have fun.

"D'oh! Thieves drove off with a life-size statue of television cartoon star Homer Simpson poking out of their getaway car, the Motion Picture Association said Thursday.

The theft, under cover of darkness early Monday, took place outside a cinema in a suburban Kuala Lumpur shopping centre, said Nor Hayati Yahaya, Malaysia's director of the association.

Hayati expressed surprise at the brazen act, which was captured on several closed-circuit TV monitors. Pictures show two men lugging away the bulky Homer, who then protruded from the boot of the getaway car.

"There is CCTV everywhere in the shopping centre and the worst part is they couldn't close the bonnet because Homer is too big," Hayati told AFP.

She said cameras also captured the not-too-smart thieves' car licence plate number.

"We can trace the suspects," she said, confident of Homer's return.

Homer was part of a display with statues of other Simpsons family members promoting the July 26 local release of The Simpsons Movie, Hayati said.

She said 20th Century Fox's Malaysia studio had offered a reward of 1,000 ringgit (292 dollars) for Homer's safe return.

"It's not a publicity stunt," she said, adding a police report had been filed."

[And the picture is courtesy of NST too.]

LATEST:

The culprits have been found and Homer saved! Read here.

Making it a free and fair poll

Phantom voters. How do you stop them from influencing the outcome of an election?

In Malaysia, at every by-election, or even the general election, a very common complaint lodged by the opposition is the presence of phantom voters to help swing the count for the ruling party.

The Election Commission here has dismissed such claims, adding that these are legitimate voters who have failed to change their addresses.

While we here still continue to fight for proper electoral reforms, lets see how the Indian election commission conducts an election - in this case the Madurai West assembly constituency by-election on June 26.

A small report in the web today quoted Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta as saying that an enquiry has been ordered into claims of rampant money politics. If such claims are found to be founded, the election could be postponed.

But more interestingly, especially in the matter of phantom voters, the electoral officer has ruled that all outsiders would be asked to move out of the constituency 48 hours prior to the elections.

Wow! This is excellent. This means only registered voters will be in the constituency to vote. No busloads of outside party loyalists and supporters like what happens very often here!

Read more on how the Indian election authorities want to make the Madurai by-election a free and fair poll here and here.

Here comes more fatwa for Sir Rushdie!

In 1988, a plain Salman Rushdie writes The Satanic Verses and earns a fatwa from the late
Ayatollah Khomeini from Iran seeking his death.

His offence was that his book spoke about how the prophet was misled by the devil. The book was banned in many Muslim countries, including Malaysia.

Since the fatwa Salman has been living in hiding for about nine years, at the expense of the British tax-payers, believed to be at a cost of almost 10 million British Pound.

It was not until 1998, when the Iranian government said that it would not support the outstanding fatwa, that the author took the decision to return to public life.

And now - 20 years later - once again, the author has become a target among the world Muslim community and government.

As the Times of London said, he is once again the subject of death threats across the Islamic world.

All because of his latest status as Sir Salman Rushdie - he was granted knighthood over the weekend.

The main complaint from his critics is that the knighthood looked as though he was awarded for his critical stance against Islam.

Some are even saying that the knighthood award was a justification for suicide bombing as it was "blasphemous and insulting" to the world's Muslims.

Hmmm? Let’s see how far this will go. I am sure there will be protests in the Muslim nations. In fact PAS will be submitting a protest memo to the British High Commission tomorrow.

A new fatwa? More hiding? And eventually more sales for his books - old and new alike.
Who says Salman is complaining?

Read more here and here.

Goats’ milk and sex workers

Guatemala City, Guatemala: Prostitutes buy fresh goat milk while waiting for clients outside their rented rooms on a street where dozens of women work.

Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/AP

found at: this gallery

Unrest in Malaysia?

‘Malaysia Unrest’ was the graphics work which accompanied an AP story in an online publication today (above).

What unrest? Where? And why?

According to the story, the unrest was caused by film fans that rioted over a movie delay.

Yup...We ARE talking about the fuss created in the screening delays of Sivaji. But to claim that the rowdy behaviour of the fans had caused unrest do seem a little far-fetched. Don’t you agree?

Anyways, the report started by stating:

“Ethnic Indian fans wrecked cinemas in several Malaysian cities after a nationwide premiere of a long-awaited Tamil film was delayed or canceled due to technical glitches, news reports and a theater employee said Saturday.”

Hardly a situation that has caused widespread unrest in the whole country!

And the website with such an alarmist attitude is wcbstv.com – which is part of CBS Television Stations, one of the largest network-owned station groups in the US.

It was in his pocket all the time

Two days ago I blogged about the mysterious disappearance of George W Bush’s wristwatch in Albania.

Details now emerge that it was NOT stolen by someone in the Albanian crowd. Apparently, the president had removed it from his wrist to safely lodge it in his pocket.

Read more about it here in this Times Online report.

And watch this You Tube to see the real truth about the watch.

By a man’s pants shall ye judge him

"If you’re going to show your willy to carefully-targeted strangers on jam-packed commuter trains, then obviously you want to wear something that you can whip open and closed in a trice, not something that’s going to require seconds of awkward, double--handed fumbling."

Does this make any sense? Apparently in the UK, a judge has been cleared of flashing because of the brief (underwear) he was wearing.

Read more here.

Where is the presidential watch?

Someone in Albania is a happy chap for he has with him a very valuable possession – George W Bush’s wristwatch.

The story goes like this:

Bush, on a recent visit to Albania, went out to meet his local supporters who grabbed both his hands for handshakes. In the ensuing melee, one smart-arse managed to nick the president’s watch.

Watch this You Tube video carefully and you might be able to catch the precise moment the incident happens.



Apparently the US embassy in Albania is saying that the watch was not stolen but was removed and placed in his pocket by the president himself.

Well, they or the president can now produce the watch to back their claims. Or, we could just wait to see if the culprit owns up. Alternatively, we could check in ebay to see if it’s up for sale.

Read more on the incident in this Guardian article. It comes with other video clips which might provide more clues as to what actually happened to the presidential watch.

UPDATES:

Below are a series of pictures from Times of London (read article here).

Note the missing watch in the third photo!