NFC merupakan milik keluarga terdekat Menteri Pembangunan Keluarga dan Wanita Dato’ Seri Sharizat A Jalil dan diberikan konsessi untuk membangunkan projek penternakan lembu dan fidlot bagi ternakan tersebut, semenjak 2008. Ianya dilaporkan tidak mencapai tahap yang dikehendaki, terutama sejumlah wang telah disalurkan dari pinjaman oleh Kerajaan Persekutuan dengan kadar kos yang amat rendah. Apabila skandal yang dibongkarkan oleh PKR berasaskan sebahagian laporan Ketua Audit Negara, ianya begitu pantas mendapat perhatian.

Kegagalan Pengerusi Eksekutif NFC Dato’ Dr Mohd Salleh “Salleh Budu” Ismail menangani persoalan dan persepsi negatif ditimbulkan dalam kadar yang segara mengakibatkan ianya menjadi makin berpanjangan dan rumit. Namun begitu, ianya menjadi parah apabila Sharizat sebagai Ketua Wanita UMNO Malaysia menggunakan platform Wanita UMNO sebagai ‘Bala Tentera’ untuk mempertahankan maruah beliau sebagai Menteri, walaupun isu ini ialah masalah peribadi.

Keadaan makin kronik apabila Polis melengkapan siasatan dan pihak SPRM juga terlibat dalam siasatan berasingan. Dikatakan siasatan siasatan ini telah sampai ke pihak Peguam Negara untuk tindakan seterusnya.

Kes ini tidak menjadi isu yang menjadi minat untuk dibela walaupun oleh anggota Kabinet sendiri. Malah Perdana Menteri sendiri tidak begitu serious untuk mempertahankannya secara terbuka dan menyerahkan kepada pihak berkuasa untuk melengkapkan kerja. Dalam pada itu, skandal ini sudahpun menunjukan kesan. Kredibiliti Kerajaan Pusat dikatakan telah amat terjejas kerana skandal ini, sehingganya ianya menjadi liabiliti No. 1 BN seluruh negara.

Namun begitu, Wanita UMNO masih dikerah untuk ‘mempertahankan’ Sharizat dengan memberikan sokongan moral sekembali beliau dari ‘percutian tiga minggu’. Pada 15 Jan Sharizat mengumumkan beliau akan ‘bercuti’ agar membolehkan ruang untuk siasatan diperlengkapkan, walaupun asset NFC dibekukan sementara manakala operasi biasa NFC diteruskan untuk menentukan aktiviti penternakan sebagaimana dirancang terus lancar.

Terbaru ialah sebaran SMS ini:

“Aslm YB/YBhg Ketua Wanita Neg2, jmptn ke Mjls Smbtn Kepulangan DS Shahrizat Abd Jalil pd 2/2 (Khamis) jam 6 ptg di KLIA dan diikuti dgn solat Maghrib dan Hajat di Masjid KLIA, Sepang, Sngor. Sila pnjgkn jmptn kpd Ketua & Naib Ketua Wanita Bhgn2 & mohon k’jasama utk m’bawa telekung sdr. Kehdrn dihargai. Tq – SUK PWUM”

Sekiranya Wanita UMNO terus diheret dalam permasalahan peribadi Sharizat ini, maka lambat laun pergerakan paling penting UMNO itu juga akan menghadapi masalah kredibiliti juga. UMNO tidak mampu untuk ‘kehilangan’ Pergerakan Wanita UMNO.

Sharizat wajar berundur dari Kabinet segera, walaupun setakat ini tiada dakwaan dibuat keatas mana warga NFC. Beliau perlu mengambil masa dan ruang secara peribadi untuk ‘membersihkan nama’, walaupun proses ini mengjangkaui PRU 13 yang disebut sebut akan menjelang tidak lama lagi. Sekiranya Sharizat dan keluarga benar benar dianiaya, maka pihak yang benar akan akhirnya menyerlah.

*Dikemas kini pada 1800hrs

]]> http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/jangan-babitkan-wanita-umno/feed/ 4 3.128874 101.632495 3.128874 101.632495 biggie http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/economic-recolonialisation-the-iphone-story/ http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/economic-recolonialisation-the-iphone-story/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:15:37 +0000 Biggum Dogmannsteinberg http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/?p=16056 ]]> THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE iECONOMY

How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work

Donald Chan/Reuters
People flooded Foxconn Technology with résumés at a 2010 job fair in Henan Province, China.
By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH
Published: January 21, 2012

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke,President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.
Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.
The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhonemanufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

Companies and other economists say that notion is naïve. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.

To thrive, companies argue they need to move work where it can generate enough profits to keep paying for innovation. Doing otherwise risks losing even more American jobs over time, as evidenced by the legions of once-proud domestic manufacturers — including G.M. and others — that have shrunk as nimble competitors have emerged.
Apple was provided with extensive summaries of The New York Times’s reporting for this article, but the company, which has a reputation for secrecy, declined to comment.
This article is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former Apple employees and contractors — many of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs — as well as economists, manufacturing experts, international trade specialists, technology analysts, academic researchers, employees at Apple’s suppliers, competitors and corporate partners, and government officials.

Privately, Apple executives say the world is now such a changed place that it is a mistake to measure a company’s contribution simply by tallying its employees — though they note that Apple employs more workers in the United States than ever before.
They say Apple’s success has benefited the economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. And, ultimately, they say curing unemployment is not their job.
“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

‘I Want a Glass Screen’

In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.

Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.
People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”

After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to Shenzhen, China. If Mr. Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere else to go.
For over two years, the company had been working on a project — code-named Purple 2 — that presented the same questions at every turn: how do you completely reimagine the cellphone? And how do you design it at the highest quality — with an unscratchable screen, for instance — while also ensuring that millions can be manufactured quickly and inexpensively enough to earn a significant profit?
The answers, almost every time, were found outside the United States. Though components differ between versions, all iPhones contain hundreds of parts, an estimated 90 percent of which are manufactured abroad. Advanced semiconductors have come from Germany and Taiwan, memory from Korea and Japan, display panels and circuitry from Korea and Taiwan, chipsets from Europe and rare metals from Africa and Asia. And all of it is put together in China.
In its early days, Apple usually didn’t look beyond its own backyard for manufacturing solutions. A few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, for instance, Mr. Jobs bragged that it was “a machine that is made in America.” In 1990, while Mr. Jobs was running NeXT, which was eventually bought by Apple, the executive told a reporter that“I’m as proud of the factory as I am of the computer.” As late as 2002, top Apple executives occasionally drove two hours northeast of their headquarters to visit the company’s iMac plant in Elk Grove, Calif.
But by 2004, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. Guiding that decision was Apple’s operations expert, Timothy D. Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive last August, six weeks before Mr. Jobs’s death. Most other American electronics companies had already gone abroad, and Apple, which at the time was struggling, felt it had to grasp every advantage.

In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.
The impact of such advantages became obvious as soon as Mr. Jobs demanded glass screens in 2007.
For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. Apple had already selected an American company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.
Then a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.
When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.
The Chinese plant got the job.
“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”
In Foxconn City
An eight-hour drive from that glass factory is a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. To Apple executives, Foxconn City was further evidence that China could deliver workers — and diligence — that outpaced their American counterparts.
That’s because nothing like Foxconn City exists in the United States.
The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.
Foxconn employs nearly 300 guards to direct foot traffic so workers are not crushed in doorway bottlenecks. The facility’s central kitchen cooks an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day. While factories are spotless, the air inside nearby teahouses is hazy with the smoke and stench of cigarettes.
Foxconn Technology has dozens of facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and in Mexico and Brazil, and it assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics for customers like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.
“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”
In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. Within three months, Apple had sold one million iPhones. Since then, Foxconn has assembled over 200 million more.
Foxconn, in statements, declined to speak about specific clients.

“Any worker recruited by our firm is covered by a clear contract outlining terms and conditions and by Chinese government law that protects their rights,” the company wrote. Foxconn “takes our responsibility to our employees very seriously and we work hard to give our more than one million employees a safe and positive environment.”

The company disputed some details of the former Apple executive’s account, and wrote that a midnight shift, such as the one described, was impossible “because we have strict regulations regarding the working hours of our employees based on their designated shifts, and every employee has computerized timecards that would bar them from working at any facility at a time outside of their approved shift.” The company said that all shifts began at either 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., and that employees receive at least 12 hours’ notice of any schedule changes.
Foxconn employees, in interviews, have challenged those assertions.
Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.’
In China, it took 15 days.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Some aspects of the iPhone are uniquely American. The device’s software, for instance, and its innovative marketing campaigns were largely created in the United States. Apple recently built a $500 million data center in North Carolina. Crucial semiconductors inside the iPhone 4 and 4S are manufactured in an Austin, Tex., factory by Samsung, of South Korea.
But even those facilities are not enormous sources of jobs. Apple’s North Carolina center, for instance, has only 100 full-time employees. The Samsung plant has an estimated 2,400 workers.
“If you scale up from selling one million phones to 30 million phones, you don’t really need more programmers,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, who oversaw product development and marketing for Apple until he left in 1990. “All these new companies — Facebook, Google, Twitter — benefit from this. They grow, but they don’t really need to hire much.”
It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.
But such calculations are, in many respects, meaningless because building the iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans — it would require transforming the national and global economies. Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.
Manufacturing glass for the iPhone revived a Corning factory in Kentucky, and today, much of the glass in iPhones is still made there. After the iPhone became a success, Corning received a flood of orders from other companies hoping to imitate Apple’s designs. Its strengthened glass sales have grown to more than $700 million a year, and it has hired or continued employing about 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market.
But as that market has expanded, the bulk of Corning’s strengthened glass manufacturing has occurred at plants in Japan and Taiwan.

“Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China,” said James B. Flaws, Corning’s vice chairman and chief financial officer. “We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that’s 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas.”

Corning was founded in America 161 years ago and its headquarters are still in upstate New York. Theoretically, the company could manufacture all its glass domestically. But it would “require a total overhaul in how the industry is structured,” Mr. Flaws said. “The consumer electronics business has become an Asian business. As an American, I worry about that, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Asia has become what the U.S. was for the last 40 years.”
Middle-Class Jobs Fade
The first time Eric Saragoza stepped into Apple’s manufacturing plant in Elk Grove, Calif., he felt as if he were entering an engineering wonderland.
It was 1995, and the facility near Sacramento employed more than 1,500 workers. It was a kaleidoscope of robotic arms, conveyor belts ferrying circuit boards and, eventually, candy-colored iMacs in various stages of assembly. Mr. Saragoza, an engineer, quickly moved up the plant’s ranks and joined an elite diagnostic team. His salary climbed to $50,000. He and his wife had three children. They bought a home with a pool.
“It felt like, finally, school was paying off,” he said. “I knew the world needed people who can build things.”
At the same time, however, the electronics industry was changing, and Apple — with products that were declining in popularity — was struggling to remake itself. One focus was improving manufacturing. A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories: the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85. Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities. Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.
“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”
Modernization has always caused some kinds of jobs to change or disappear. As the American economy transitioned from agriculture to manufacturing and then to other industries, farmers became steelworkers, and then salesmen and middle managers. These shifts have carried many economic benefits, and in general, with each progression, even unskilled workers received better wages and greater chances at upward mobility.
But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees, today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.
Even Mr. Saragoza, with his college degree, was vulnerable to these trends. First, some of Elk Grove’s routine tasks were sent overseas. Mr. Saragoza didn’t mind. Then the robotics that made Apple a futuristic playground allowed executives to replace workers with machines. Some diagnostic engineering went to Singapore. Middle managers who oversaw the plant’s inventory were laid off because, suddenly, a few people with Internet connections were all that were needed.
Mr. Saragoza was too expensive for an unskilled position. He was also insufficiently credentialed for upper management. He was called into a small office in 2002 after a night shift, laid off and then escorted from the plant. He taught high school for a while, and then tried a return to technology. But Apple, which had helped anoint the region as “Silicon Valley North,” had by then converted much of the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare call center, where new employees often earn $12 an hour.

There were employment prospects in Silicon Valley, but none of them panned out. “What they really want are 30-year-olds without children,” said Mr. Saragoza, who today is 48, and whose family now includes five of his own.

After a few months of looking for work, he started feeling desperate. Even teaching jobs had dried up. So he took a position with an electronics temp agency that had been hired by Apple to check returned iPhones and iPads before they were sent back to customers. Every day, Mr. Saragoza would drive to the building where he had once worked as an engineer, and for $10 an hour with no benefits, wipe thousands of glass screens and test audio ports by plugging in headphones.
Paydays for Apple
As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived. Last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the combined state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since 2005, when the company’s stock split, share prices have risen from about $45 to more than $427.
Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’sand pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.
The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. Mr. Cook, Apple’s chief, last year receivedstock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings.
A person close to Apple argued that the compensation received by Apple’s employees was fair, in part because the company had brought so much value to the nation and world. As the company has grown, it has expanded its domestic work force, including manufacturing jobs. Last year, Apple’s American work force grew by 8,000 people.
While other companies have sent call centers abroad, Apple has kept its centers in the United States. One source estimated that sales of Apple’s products have caused other companies to hire tens of thousands of Americans. FedEx and United Parcel Service, for instance, both say they have created American jobs because of the volume of Apple’s shipments, though neither would provide specific figures without permission from Apple, which the company declined to provide.
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”
What’s more, Apple sources say the company has created plenty of good American jobs inside its retail stores and among entrepreneurs selling iPhone and iPad applications.
After two months of testing iPads, Mr. Saragoza quit. The pay was so low that he was better off, he figured, spending those hours applying for other jobs. On a recent October evening, while Mr. Saragoza sat at his MacBook and submitted another round of résumés online, halfway around the world a woman arrived at her office. The worker, Lina Lin, is a project manager in Shenzhen, China, at PCH International, which contracts with Apple and other electronics companies to coordinate production of accessories, like the cases that protect the iPad’s glass screens. She is not an Apple employee. But Mrs. Lin is integral to Apple’s ability to deliver its products.
Mrs. Lin earns a bit less than what Mr. Saragoza was paid by Apple. She speaks fluent English, learned from watching television and in a Chinese university. She and her husband put a quarter of their salaries in the bank every month. They live in a 1,080-square-foot apartment, which they share with their in-laws and son.

“There are lots of jobs,” Mrs. Lin said. “Especially in Shenzhen.”
Innovation’s Losers
Toward the end of Mr. Obama’s dinner last year with Mr. Jobs and other Silicon Valley executives, as everyone stood to leave, a crowd of photo seekers formed around the president. A slightly smaller scrum gathered around Mr. Jobs. Rumors had spread that his illness had worsened, and some hoped for a photograph with him, perhaps for the last time.

Eventually, the orbits of the men overlapped. “I’m not worried about the country’s long-term future,” Mr. Jobs told Mr. Obama, according to one observer. “This country is insanely great. What I’m worried about is that we don’t talk enough about solutions.”

At dinner, for instance, the executives had suggested that the government should reform visa programs to help companies hire foreign engineers. Some had urged the president to give companies a “tax holiday” so they could bring back overseas profits which, they argued, would be used to create work. Mr. Jobs even suggested it might be possible, someday, to locate some of Apple’s skilled manufacturing in the United States if the government helped train more American engineers.
Economists debate the usefulness of those and other efforts, and note that a struggling economy is sometimes transformed by unexpected developments. The last time analysts wrung their hands about prolonged American unemployment, for instance, in the early 1980s, the Internet hardly existed. Few at the time would have guessed that a degree in graphic design was rapidly becoming a smart bet, while studying telephone repair a dead end.
What remains unknown, however, is whether the United States will be able to leverage tomorrow’s innovations into millions of jobs.
In the last decade, technological leaps in solar and wind energy, semiconductor fabrication and display technologies have created thousands of jobs. But while many of those industries started in America, much of the employment has occurred abroad. Companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple’s growth and profit margins, they won’t survive.
“New middle-class jobs will eventually emerge,” said Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist. “But will someone in his 40s have the skills for them? Or will he be bypassed for a new graduate and never find his way back into the middle class?”
The pace of innovation, say executives from a variety of industries, has been quickened by businessmen like Mr. Jobs. G.M. went as long as half a decade between major automobile redesigns. Apple, by comparison, has released five iPhones in four years, doubling the devices’ speed and memory while dropping the price that some consumers pay.
Before Mr. Obama and Mr. Jobs said goodbye, the Apple executive pulled an iPhone from his pocket to show off a new application — a driving game — with incredibly detailed graphics. The device reflected the soft glow of the room’s lights. The other executives, whose combined worth exceeded $69 billion, jostled for position to glance over his shoulder. The game, everyone agreed, was wonderful.
There wasn’t even a tiny scratch on the screen.

A major corporate play is said to be brewing in and around Iskandar Malaysia, involving a certain public listed company on an land-bank acquisition roll. Parcels of land have or in the process to be lined up for acquisition or injected into this Plc.

Iskandar Malaysia: East to West, encompassing the JB CBD has been targeted for a massive corporate exercise going towards flipping of land parcels

A property development corporation core business is too look for parcels of land for immediate or short term development projects. If it is long term, then the acquisitions or collaborations, in the form of joint ventures shall be ‘stored’ as land-banks.

Otherwise, they would opt for doing a series of ‘property flipping’. The common definition for this exercise is:

Flipping is a term used primarily in the United States to describe purchasing a revenue-generating asset and quickly reselling (or “flipping”) it for profit. Though flipping can apply to any asset, the term is most often applied to real estate and initial public offerings.

The term “flipping” is frequently used both as a descriptive term for schemes involving market manipulation and other illegal conduct and as a derogatory term for legal real estate investing strategies that are perceived by some to be unethical or socially destructive. The latter usage is typically contested by those who believe the strategies in question are ethical and socially beneficial or neutral.

Superficially, this general definition of any bonafide property development group doing the property flipping exercise looks rather normal for any other plc. However if specific parcels of land which are state owned and deemed to be strategic are being targeted for acquisition either by outright sale or injected for some corporate deals, then there should be alarm raised on what the strategic intent is. This is because these parcels of land could be ‘flipped’ for targeted ‘external benefactors’, who have had their eyes set within the 6,000 sq kilometres from east to west of Johor Bahru.

This is actually a realisation of a dream of the land-strapped ‘jews of the east’, for the longest time. Recently, there was this talk about a parcel of land deemed highly valuable, which was acquired from a GLC and ‘conveniently flipped’ to a Singaporean property developer. Of course, that rumour did not come without ‘an interference’.

It is expected there are more such deals to come with this Plc, as it has been said the process of the land acquisitions and injections for some corporate play, are already in motion. It is also said that the prowl is also on some of the highly valuable parcels belong to the state government or any of its agencies.

When they promoters of this scheme is done, they would have consolidated RM billions of assets acquired and injected into the Plc, without much cash transacted out. Even if there were ‘acquisitions’. it is strongly believed that the financial backers across the straits would have covered the necessary minimal ‘seed capital’ required.

Many, even those outside Johor firmly believed that the Iskandar Development Region incepted by the notorious ‘Level Four Boys’ during the bleak years under PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s weak and scandalous administration, was designed to provide secondary and supporting role to the high value Singapore economy. These series of corporate exercises which involve these parcels of land with strategic value and importance are almost definite about the fulfillment to the needs and demands of the Singapore economy, which include speculative market for property development projects.

The arguments are also almost straight forward. Malaysian corporations would neither put everything into one basket and gamble on a speculative property market nor have the necessary capital to do this exercise, in the narrow window of opportunity. Especially when one do not have the luxury of financial support from financial backers. No other international investors or property market speculators understand more about how Iskandar Malaysia would bring the much appreciated supporting effect to the Singaporean growing and financially-muscled property market and economy.

This is not withstanding the fact that recently, one of the significant players within the ‘Level Four Boys’ and strongest advocate of the South Johor Economic Region proposal and principal policy adviser to PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Abdullah was brought into JCorp Group and now the executive director of Kulim Bhd. One of the planned activity of JCorp Group to reduce and ‘manage’ its RM 3.6 billion debts is to hive off assets, which probably include some of their strategic properties all over Johor Bahru city limits.

Then, there is this bit about energy and oil and gas industry, being planned in the eastern corridor of the state of Johor.

Wednesday May 11, 2011

Petronas to announce RM50bil complex in Johor

By RISEN JAYASEELAN and JEEVA ARULAMPALAM
starbiz@thestar.com.my

Another story literally in the pipeline to this ETP project is a tri-partite power generation plant using gas is being planned to be built in the east coast of Johor, within the area of the recently launched Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) in Pengerang. The whole eastern Johor corridor has been earmarked for this project and all the activities peripheral to the oil and gas industry. State energy producer Petronas, major Malaysian power generation player Malakoff and Singaporean engineering corporation Keppel power plant is set to serve the Singaporean energy needs.

It is obvious that instead of supplying gas to the republic, it would bring about better returns if power is sold instead. Why a Singaporean partner is admitted in the project is not too clear, especially when the ball is definitely in Malaysia’s court in the requirement-for-power-and-energy-of-five-million-people game.

This came as partly emancipation of Johor’s role in supporting lives of Singaporeans with the handover of Gunung Pulai and four other rivers water treatment plants last August.

Addition to the story on the land acquisition game mentioned earlier, a separate party with vested interest is in the play of lining up all the potential oil and gas players to have their facilities along the corridor from Pengerang all the way to Ulu Tiram and Tanjung Langsat. This exercise is believed to be with ‘interference’ too.

Johor is definitely being transformed as the staging ground to serve the Singaporean economy. When the most important, traditional and quantifiable factor of production in the properties and parcels of strategic land are in the process being taken away and gone forever, then the new age of slavery had just begun. Especially when the populous is being geared into serving the more important economy and commanding society. It will come in the literal form of serving the neo-economic masters. The relationship between the two people would eventually be ‘master-servant’.

Philosophically, that is ‘economic slavery’.

Many take this nine-days or so break for an opportunity to go for a holiday, which include trips abroad. As of press time, North South Highway has been congested.  There is a massive influx of cars at the Johor Causeway from Singapore. PLUS has been issuing advice for motorists to stagger the use of the backbone of Semenanjung Malaysia highway system.

Singapore Airlines Business Class on B777-200s

Seen recently at Changi International Airport a man who closely resembles Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who boarded a flight to Italy. He flew in Singapore Airlines business class with a party which could easily pass of as a family unit.

It is also said this trip and the stay at a 5 star accommodation, is being paid by a Tan Sri. Rumour has it he is in the gaming business.

Of course, this has yet to be confirmed. Sources believed to be persons known to the spitting image of the DAP Secretary General leaked the information out.

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng taking a flight on economy class from Penang to KL

If any of this is true, then it is ashamed for people of Penang that their elected leader goes on holiday or business trip with persons believed to be his immediate family in a carrier not the national airlines, but instead a regional competitor. Why he did not insist to support Malaysia Airlines is not too clear, even if the trip is paid by someone else. The choice of airline for this trip very much defies that all of these bollocks publicity relation exercises that “He flies economy class” were just a smoke screen, to depict his DAP led Penang State Government is cost conscious and thrifty.

Anyway, we would like to wish this Lim-look-alike happy holidays for this week long break.

Happy Chinese New Year, 2012. Its the year of the water dragon.

Its the most important celebration for majority of  seven-and-a-quarter Malaysians of Chinese ethnic for any year. Its the time where the family gathers for the CNY eve dinner and stand united as a family unit.

The next few days are for the remaining Malaysians to stand united as a nation, visit their Chinese friends and associates, to wish them well and have a feast, usually in laughter and the most joyous ambience for a multiethnic and plural but united Malaysia. Malaysians, of different ethnic groups exchange mandarin oranges and pleasantries when they gather within these next few days.

Many corporations whose owners and management are Malaysian Chinese use this season to give away bonuses, popularly in the form of ‘ang pows’.

However, one particular minority Chinese leader who in the past 45 years tried to disrupt that harmony, understanding and unity between races, in his usual tone and brand of ‘politics of hatred’. His wish for the Malaysian Chinese in Twitterjaya:

“Let Malaysian Chinese unite as one Dragon…”?

Dragon is the mythical creature, which is the symbol of the Chinese Empire which has now long gone after the nationalists and after the communists took over, since the past 100 years. Mini Emperor Lim is trying to psyche Malaysians of Chinese ethnic, to re-enact the past of glory of the Chinese Empire here in this tanahair? Isn’t that undemocratic and against the flavour of the majority?

If that is not racism and Chinese Chauvinism, we are not sure what is. Does he and any of his cohorts and Chinese Chauvinist cohorts expect the majority not to react with direct messages like this?

]]> http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/happy-chinese-new-year-lets-all-malaysian-chinese-united/feed/ 12 biggie Screen Shot 2012-01-21 at 7.24.11 PM http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/will-he-amend-the-al-quran-too/ http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/will-he-amend-the-al-quran-too/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:12:25 +0000 Biggum Dogmannsteinberg http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/?p=15980 ]]> Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim who recently was acquitted from the charge under Section 377B of the Penal Code and called the sodomy laws as being “archaic”, now is vowing that these laws would be amended when he gets power.

Anwar will review sodomy law if he’s PM

Leven Woon • Jan 20, 12 12:58PTG

PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim has made it clear that the country’s law on sodomy, which has been used to smear certain individuals, will be reviewed once he comes into power.
He said Sections 377B and 377C of the Penal Code “are archaic and have frequently been used to attack political foes”.
“People asked me whether I will review the laws. Yes, I will (review), to make sure it does not meant to insult people,” the Permatang Pauh MP told some 200 supporters at a thanksgiving prayer ceremony at his house last night.
He said evidence could easily be fabricated under the current interpretation of the two sections of the Penal Code, and he “makes no apology about archaic law”.
“Any ustaz who safeguards these two codes is dumb,” he said in a rousing tone.
Sections 377B and 377C state that whoever commits carnal intercourse against the order of nature, with or without consent, shall be punished with imprisonment up to a maximum of 20 years.

Controversial BBC interview

Anwar is now in the centre of a fresh controversy, after telling BBC in an interview that he would review “archaic laws”, when asked by the host about his readiness to to take “the idea of anti-discrimination as far as gay rights”.

Umno-owned dailies Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia zeroed-in on the issue, implying that Anwar was now supporting gay rights.
His personal orientation, Anwar told the crowd last night, expressed in private places should be outside the law.
“But I made it clear that (homosexuality) should not be allowed in public domain,” he said.
The opposition leader’s house in the tranquil Segambut Dalam locality was yesterday packed with 200 supporters attending the thanksgiving to mark his vindication in the two-year-long Sodomy II trial.

The supporters, many of whom donned white songkok, performed a total of four prayers in the living room, with Anwar seated in the centre of the crowd.
Also present were NGO Amanah deputy president Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir, PKR information chief Muhammad Nor Manuty and PKR treasurer William Leong.
Touching on the Sodomy II verdict, Anwar said the surprising judgment might from the trial judge himself.
“That’s why he finished reading (the verdict) in three minutes…. Court proceedings lasted nearly three years, but verdict took just three minutes,” he jeered.

Possibly gov’t did not expect outcome

He said the reaction of the “government’s media” on in the aftermath of the verdict also showed that the authorities might not have expected the outcome.
His 45-minute speech was fittingly titled “The importance of confidence”.
In life, Anwar said, there would always be a time when “someone feels a challenge is too huge to overcome, and giving up seems to be the easier option”.
The Prophet Muhammad, too, he said, was puzzled by the series of obstacles before his triumph.
“As a human being, the larger role you play, the more challenges you will face,” he said.
Anwar’s speech ended with a loud chant of “takbir” and the Ishak prayers .

*********

Malaysian laws prohibit any homosexual activities, even though “consensual between two adults” and punishable with a maximum 20 years prison term, provided under the Penal Code.

This is inline with views of Islam on the same subjected matter and with specific mentions in the Al Quran and interpretation of top Imams through out the years.

China, which is the most promising largest economy in not too far away, saw the sharp rise in urbanisation.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

THE HON TAN SRI DATO’ HJ MUHYIDDIN HJ MOHD. YASSIN

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA

“PROMOTING MODERATION, PEACE AND STABILITY FOR THE WELLBEING OF GLOBAL COMMUNITY”

AT THE CLOSING CEREMONY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT OF MODERATES

19 JANUARY 2012; 2.30.PM

KUALA LUMPUR CONVENTION CENTRE

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin addressing the GMM delegates at the closing ceremony

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh, Salam Sejahtera dan Salam 1Malaysia.

YB Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal,

Minister of Rural and Regional Development, Malaysia.

His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Shihab,

Minister of Finance and Treasury, Maldives.

YBhg. Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Bin Haji Hassan

President of International Islamic University Malaysia

YBhg. Tan Sri Razali Ismail

Chairman of the Board of Advisors, Global Movement of Moderates

1. First, on behalf of the people and the government of Malaysia, I would like to welcome international delegates and distinguished speakers to this conference. I believe your discussions and deliberations at this three-day conference have been very enlightening and fruitful in our quest to promote moderation as a core universal value that contributes to lasting global peace and harmony. I also wish to thank the organizing committee for inviting me to say a few words at the closing ceremony of this conference.

The Historical Context

2. Allow me to briefly mention at the outset the historical context in which contemporary discourse about moderation and the moderates emerge. As we know, at the end of the cold war, many people thought that the war between communism and the West was about to be replaced by a war between the West and Muslims. The Gulf War, the Bosnian conflict, the World Trade Centre bombing and the growing influence of Islamist movements in the Middle-East, Turkey, Central Asia and across the Muslim world gave an impression that there lies an Islamic threat against the West.

3. Throughout the 1990s, Samuel P. Huntington’s seminal work, Clash of Civilizations, generated so much interest in the academia as well as in the media. It seemed that confrontations drawn along the fault lines of ideology and religion were inevitable. In particular, the prophecy of an imminent conflict between two great civilizations, namely Islam and the Christian West sent tremors across the world.

4. It was rather unfortunate that the tragic event on September 11, 2001 accentuated the images of conflict between Islam and the West. Eventually, the post 9/11 world was marked by growing Islamophobia in the West and across the world. From Osama Ben Laden to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the vision of militant Islam as a threat to the West has gripped the imaginations of Western governments and the media.

5. For more than a decade, the image of Islam as the religion of peace and moderation was hijacked by violent aggressions of militant Muslims and their network of terror. The events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir and other parts of the world where Muslim minorities are struggling for self-determination, reinforced the image of Islam as a religion that is prone to fanaticism, extremism and warfare. On the other hand, the global war on terror led by Western superpowers has pitted the West against the Muslims in a scale that has never been felt before.

6. Without us realizing it, the instability of the war inflicted regions in some parts of the Muslim world and the growing fear of terrorism fuelled by Islamophobia in the West overshadowed the voices of moderation, peace and harmony within Islam. People tend to ignore the fact that the phenomenon of extremism, fanaticism and militancy in the Muslim world is confined to only small groups of people usually alienated from the mainstream tradition of Islamic moderation.

The Concept of Moderation in Islam

7. The virtue of moderation was expounded in Islam by a key verse in the Qur’an which describes Muslims as an ummah or community justly balanced. Allah the Almighty says in the Qur’an:

وَكَذَٲلِكَ جَعَلۡنَـٰكُمۡ أُمَّةً۬ وَسَطً۬ا لِّتَڪُونُواْ شُہَدَآءَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ ٱلرَّسُولُ عَلَيۡكُمۡ شَهِيدً۬ا‌ۗ

Which means, “Thus have We made you of an Ummah justly balanced That ye might be witnesses over the nations and the Messenger as witness over yourselves”

(Surah Al-Baqarah; Verse 143).

8. From this verse, Muslim scholars define Ummatan Wasata, or ummah justly balanced, as the primary characteristics of Islamic community as willed by Allah the Almighty Himslef. In this context, classical Muslim scholars agreed that being ummah justly balanced means essentially possessing a combination of interconnected attributes of justice, goodness, avoidance of extreme laxity or extravagance and being in the middle position.

9. Apart from this, the Qur’an also emphasizes the role of Islam as the harbinger of mercy and compassion to all mankind. Allah says in the Qur’an:

وَمَآ أَرۡسَلۡنَـٰكَ إِلَّا رَحۡمَةً۬ لِّلۡعَـٰلَمِينَ

Which means, “We sent thee not, but as a mercy for all creatures.”

(Surah Al-Anbiya’; Verse 107)

10. With this understanding of Islamic moderation and the message of mercy and compassion that Islam spreads to the mankind, many contemporary Muslim scholars and leaders condemned the act of terror perpetuated in the name of religion. Militant radicalism and religious extremism contradict the very essence of Islam as the religion that promotes the virtue of moderation and peaceful co-existence between peoples of different faiths, creed and color.

11. For Muslims, religious and cultural differences should not be the root cause of hatred and enmity as the Qur’an itself accords spiritual recognition to social plurality and cultural heterogeneity which is part of human nature. Allah says in the Qur’an:

يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقۡنَـٰكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ۬ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلۡنَـٰكُمۡ شُعُوبً۬ا وَقَبَآٮِٕلَ لِتَعَارَفُوٓاْ‌ۚ إِنَّ أَڪۡرَمَكُمۡ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ أَتۡقَٮٰكُمۡ‌ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ۬

Which means, “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)”.

(Surah al-Hujrat; Verse 13)

The Necessity of Moderation

12. Apart from religious injunctions, the political, social and economic realities that we are facing today necessitate the practice of moderation. On the economic front, Western countries are major trading partners of the Muslim world. As much as the West depends on Muslim countries for natural resources, Muslim countries rely on economic prosperity of the West as major importers of goods and services to accelerate the process of economic development at home. As we know, for decades the peace, prosperous and developed West created millions of jobs and countless economic opportunities for Muslims in their respective countries. It will be folly for Muslims to believe that economic and political destruction of the West will bring economic prosperity and political stability to the Muslim world.

13. At the same time, growing population of Muslims in the West has changed the social and cultural demography of Western society. For instance, in Europe today, a key debate is about how to integrate and assimilate new Muslim population into the European society without necessarily eroding European cultures, traditions and identity. No doubt, the success of this process of integration and assimilation will have far-reaching consequences on lasting peace and stability of European countries.

14. As Muslims are making inroads into the West, bringing together their values and social practices into the fabric of Western societies, the social and political values of the West are also increasingly being embraced by Muslims. The values of human rights, freedom and liberty, which were once associated with the West, now form part and parcel of the life of Muslims. It is not uncommon now to find Islamic groups and Muslim-based political parties together with civil society movements participate in democratic processes and clamor for democratic reform. The political transformation currently underway in Muslim countries shows that the value of democracy can sit easily with the value of moderation, justice and compassion in Islam.

15. The political, social and cultural interactions between the Muslim world and the West, which is now being reinforced by the forces of globalization, brings about new perspective on the relationship between Islam and the West. For Muslims, the classical demarcation line that separates Dar al-Islam (the realm of Islam) from Dar al-Harb (the realm of war) has now become obsolete. It is not proper for Muslims to regard the West as their enemies when the cultural and social demography of the West itself is undergoing tremendous change as a result of its rising Muslim population. Likewise, it is no longer fitting for the West to regard Islam as the new fascism which poses imminent threat to the security of its nations and the future of its civilization. The truth is, the Muslims themselves are becoming more familiar and receptive of the good values of Western civilization.

16. The future path of global peace and prosperity must be built upon mutual understanding and respect between communities which represent the world major civilizations. Be it Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism and other world major civilizations, all must work for the perpetuation of peaceful co-existence between people of different religions and cultures. This necessitates a shift in our perspective from clash of civilizations to civilizational engagement. In this particular context, the practice of moderation and the rejection of extremism is the key to civilizational engagement and global peace. Only by rejecting extremism and embracing moderation will we be able to treat others with dignity, accept our differences and live with each other in peace and harmony. In today’s world, moderation is not an option, but a must.

Moderation in Other Faiths

17. We are fortunate that all major religions and civilizations advocate moderation as a way of life. Christianity and Confucianism abhor extravagance and opulence which symbolize an extreme behavior in the conduct of one’s life. Likewise, in Hinduism, the concept of middle path that calls for divine centered living without renouncing the world is considered the best means to achieve salvation. In the same vein, Buddhism advocates Middle Way between all extremes by avoiding fanaticism and laziness in the journey to nirvana.

18. If we can see the nature of religion through the prism of moderation, we will be able to identify common values shared by all religions. The values are peace, harmony and true happiness which will materialize when the followers of every religion avoid excessiveness in religious practices and in the conduct of worldly life. I believe if everybody can nurture the spirit of moderation, which implies rejection of excessiveness and extremism, there will be no harm done to human kind in the name of religion or ideology.

19. At the same time, we need to address the root cause of extremism and fanaticism which often lead to hatred and enmity between people of different religions and cultures, namely economic alienation, political exclusion and social deprivation. We need to replace economic alienation with equitable distribution of wealth; we need to end political exclusion by promoting political inclusiveness; we need to eliminate social deprivation by upholding social justice and respect for human dignity. We believe that the seeds of goodness will only bear fruit when the root cause of evil are completely annihilated.

Moderation in Malaysia

Ladies and gentlemen,

20. Moderation has been the pillar of Malaysia’s success in dealing with ethnic and religious diversity. Being part of the Malay world where great civilizations meet, Malaysia has been blessed with peace and prosperity that is built upon mutual understanding and respect among its multi-ethnic and multi-religious population. Despite being a plural society from the start, we thank the Almighty God that we have so far been successful in maintaining peace and averting conflict by promoting moderation as a national culture.

21. We promote moderation through active involvement of the government and the civil society in educating the people about the values of moderation and peace. The government working together with religious communities and the civil society have been actively promoting religious harmony as a main pillar of national unity. A Committee on Inter-Religious Harmony was formed with a view to promote common values shared by all religions as a means to encourage mutual understanding, respect and cooperation between different religious communities. I must say that our success as a nation depends on the willingness of the moderates from all religions and cultures to set aside differences and work for a common goal in perpetuating peace, harmony and prosperity for our people.

22. It is my great pleasure today in conjunction with this conference to launch an important work on Islamic moderation as it is envisioned and practiced in Malaysia and the Malay world. Professor Tan Sri Mohd. Kamal Hassan, a renowned professor of Islamic studies from the International Islamic University Malaysia, has come up with a great book entitled “Voice of Islamic Moderation From the Malay World”, which compiles evidences from the Qur’an and prophetic traditions which extol the essence of Islam as the religion of moderation. There are also numerous empirical evidences which epitomize moderation as the foundation of peace, harmony and stability in the Malay world in general and in Malaysia in particular.

23. I am glad to quote a passage in Tan Sri Mohd Kamal Hassan’s book which is of great interest to me. I quote, “The voice of Islamic moderation coming from contemporary Malaysia is a reflection of the Malaysian milieu in which Islamic thought has been nurtured in a multi-ethnic society in which Muslims, though in the majority, have lived and co-existed with non-Muslims of various ethnic and religious groups in peace and harmony … This democratic set-up has molded a national culture which makes political or religious extremism unpopular and uncalled for. The winning formula for all communities has always been one in which there is a realistic recognition of the pluralistic nature of the nation and the need to balance between the particular interest of a community and the larger interest of national stability, national security and national wellbeing, without stepping beyond the limits of freedom as provided for in the Constitution of the nation,” unquote.

24. I believe the value of moderation will continue to provide lasting peace, harmony and stability for Malaysia and for the world community. This requires the coalition of the willing among the moderates of the world to persistently promote moderation as a global value. I do hope that this international conference, the idea of which was mooted by Malaysian Prime Minister, The Honorable Dato’ Seri Mohd. Najib Tun Abdul Razak, and the actions that will follow from it will provide avenues for the moderates from all major civilizations of the world to work hand in hand in the promotion of just and lasting peace for the wellbeing of the global community.

25. On this note, it is my great pleasure to close the International Conference on Global Movement of Moderates and officially launch Professor Tan Sri Mohd. Kamal Hassan’s book, “The Voice of Islamic Moderation From the Malay World”.

Wabillahi al-taufiq wal hidayah wassalamu’alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Thank you.

This is the BBC interview when he was in Mumbai:

“We will have to review some of these archaic laws. We, Muslims and Non Muslims in Malaysia generally believe and committed to support the sanity of marriage between man and woman. But we should not be seen as punitive and consider the archaic laws as relevant. We need to review them”.

These are the views, supported by specific mentions in the Al Quran and interpretation by the major imams on sodomy, homosexual and carnal intercourse.

So, are these Quranic verses “Not relevant and archaic’?

Could the PAS leaders, who have been adamant in their support of Anwar Ibrahim as the Opposition Leader and the coalition between PAS-DAP-PKR top candidate if they win the next general election as the “Prime Minister of Malaysia”, explain about these “These no longer relevant and archaic laws”?

]]> http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/can-anwar-explain-if-al-quran-is-still-relevant-and-not-archaic/feed/ 17 biggie