Magic Najib , awesome!

No one would believe that Najib was able to pull the Malayan Railway relocation project off so easily and quickly. For him to reach an agreement with Hsien Loong is like David Copperfield performing his majic and his audience staring in disbelief. The Malayan Railway was Mahathir’s pet subject in how to skin Singapore. Mahathir knew how badly Singapore wanted that piece of land for redevelopment and irritatingly refused to come to any agreement no matter what. It was simply no go. Najib has only been a PM for less than a year. And on the home front he has made many overtures and decisions that would give Mahathir a big nightmare. With Mahathir breathing down his neck and watching him like a hawk, and with a team of ultras in his cabinet waiting to pounce on him to prove that they are bluer than blue, any PM would be walking on trip wires. The agreement with Singapore, no matter how attractive and beneficial, is bound to come under attack before the ink is dry. For Najib to be able to walk away with it and smilingly is a sign that he is in control, whether by persuasion or sheer leadership, he must have his cabinet behind him. The agreement can be the most attractive and favourable to Malaysia in many counts, but if the cabinet is not behind him, it will never be accepted. If the cabinet is still stuck with the baggages of Mahathir, no Najib magic will work. I am still in a state of shock and disbelief that it is happening. And this bodes well for bilateral ties and economic cooperation between the two countries. It is a gigantic step forward and both sides can only benefit with more cooperations and joint ventures, bilateral or springing into the international arena. When both sides are willing to put aside the historical baggages and look ahead, there will be many more magical moments to come. There will be no need for any formal loose federation when the spirit of cooperation is there. Many of the unnecessary barriers could be lowered or remove to facilitate mutually beneficial activities. In Najib there is a new vibrancy in Malaysia. His mind is set on moving ahead rationally, for economic growth and development instead of fighting the shadows of past animosities. The unfruitful and unproductive politicking of the past is history. He has many tasks ahead and is wasting no time to kick start Malaysia into another economic powerhouse. If he is successful, he will easily outdo what Mahathir had done in the last 30 years in a fraction of that time. Now that the agreement has been signed, Najib is going home to face his doomsayers and the recalcitrants who would be pulling all the plugs under him. Would he be strong enough to stand on his feet and carry his dreams forward, intact?

From missionary to mercenary

Historically we have seen many beans answering to a calling to become missionaries. Many stayed that way throughout their lives, living frugally and accepting whatever that was provided for them. The monks lived off the alms while the priests lived off the parish or the church. These are devout believers with a heard of gold. Modern days have changed many things. Even monks who took vows to abstain from material comfort and wealth could defend their lavish lifestyles on grounds that things have changed, values have changed. Modern living and the pursuit of material well beings are compatible with monks and missionaries. Men and women with hearts of gold easily succumbed to modern lifestyles and became men and women with minds for gold. Charitable organisations, religious or secular, are not spared. The missionaries could not resist the temptation of greed and turn themselves into very rich mercenaries, and still claiming to be to a calling. They still wear their robes and badges of honour like the early missionaries who toiled for a cause without asking for more. Indeed time has changed, people have changed, moral and ethics have also shifted to new grounds. Hearts of gold are now minds full of gold.

Intelligence Report: US authorised sinking - By Freeman Cain

A classified independent intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that the US authorised the torpedo assault, according to senior officials who cautioned that the assessment was based on their sense of the political dynamics there rather than hard evidence. The officials said they were increasingly convinced the US ordered the corvette Cheonan sunk to help secure the continued presence of American soldiers in South Korea and their bases in Okinawa. An official involved in the assessment said: 'There is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the American leadership and the military.' Both the conclusion and the timing of the assessment could be useful to the US as it rallies world support against Pyongyang....Another WMD justification in the making. So far, the US and South Korean leaders have been careful never to link Mr Kim in public to the attack, which killed 46 crews. Officials said that was partly due to the absence of hard evidence, but also largely to avoid playing into America's hands by casting one of the worst attacks since the 1953 armistice as another piece of lore about the Kim family taking on South Korean and the West to justify the American presence. The American's propaganda surrounding that imagery has been used to sustain two generations of American military presence in South Korea and Japan, and the leading theory in the independent intelligence community is that the Cheonan's sinking was part of an effort to extend the American military presence. North Korea has denied involvement despite the presentation of forensic evidence last Thursday - including parts of a torpedo found in the wreckage - that experts from three countries said established the torpedo was launched from a North Korean submarine. Although officials would say little about what led them to conclude the US was directly involved, one factor appeard to be intelligence that Hilary Clinton was in Japan on a closed door discussion with the Japanese on the sinking. Both have vested interests to raise the tension in the Korean peninsula to justify the continued semi colonisation of South Korea. PS: The above article is an adulterated version of an article by David E Sanger in NYT and reprinted in the mypaper today. I just replaced words like North Korea and Kim Jong Il to the US, Americans and Clinton. How could an intelligence report coming out at this time and based on nothing but gut feel deserved such a prominent exposure and to be read by the gullible readers? _________________

I am Marxist, declared Dalai Lama

When the Dalai Lama unashamely called himself a Marxist, believing in the goodness of Marxism which he said, 'has moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make money' it heralds a new tomorrow on the ascend. The moral degradation and irresponsibility of western Capitalism is acknowledged by the premier institutions that manufactured countless numbers of production line MBAs that are helping to destroy the world's financial institutions. Harvard's admission of guilt and wrongdoing is their planned introduction of a hippocratic code mirrored along the medical schools. It is meant to remind their graduates that making money immorally, indiscriminately and devoid of ethical considerations is simply bad. But many laughed at it as another meaningless gimmick that would not change the direction of things. Hippocratic code or hypocritic code, the message is clear. The western model of Capitalism and the western institutions of learning need a thorough revamp and what is sorely missing is the element of moral responsibility or ethics. When the Asian financial crisis hit, the western overlords landed in their shining chariots from heaven with a cane in their hands. Asian govts were treated with disgust as simpletons who could not manage their own finances, and harsh words and actions were the order of the day. But they say all things come in full circle. Now we have seen how the Americans messed up their country and the world despite the strings of top financial institutions churning out the 'best' financial gurus and working for the system. Now we have the European financial crisis when they mismanaged at a scale no less than the Americans and much worst that the simpleton Asian govts. What was noticeable is that there were no harsh words and forcing the sick govts to sign on the dotted line for recommendations to treat their woes. And the best part is that they are only pushing their problems to their future generations to pay. The bad part is that they have nothing to pay except for a few who strike black gold in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. The Asians were lucky as countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillipines have abundant natural resources to pay for their temporary excesses. For naive Asian countries that swear by the western economic model, it is time to wake up and reassess where they are heading. It is like the communist doctrine of thesis, anti thesis and synthesis. Western Capitalism was the anti thesis of Communism. A new anti thesis to western Capitalism is needed to reach a synthesis. Blind following and apeing of the western model is inviting the same danger and awaiting the same fate.

The Missionaries

As Dr Goh's body lays in Parliament House awaiting a state funeral, the people came from near and far to pay their last respects and tributes to a great and honourable man who had done so much for so little for his country. All the words were of the works that he had conceived and done. They remembered the times they met him when he was serving as a minister and busily doing what he had to do. And words would not be enough to describe all the things that Goh Keng Swee had done in his ministries. One word was starkingly absent. No one mentions anything about sacrifice. No one tells how men of his time, including senior civil servants, slogged through days and nights just to get the job done. If I can recollect, even when he was a minister, he had never complained about the sacrifice he made for the people and country. For he did not need to justify for himself or what he was doing. There were plenty of works to be done and they went about it like missionaries. A calling, a duty to the people and the country. And they did a damn good job for it without the glamour and the trappings of extravagant rewards to go with it. They were men and women on a mission. Dr Goh was an exceptional missionary.