Join ME and DE'RING
Down Ribber of the mind, mine
Yours too if thou will
I'll take thee along
Where no spoilsport'd belong
You can drink thy toddy
It's you and your own money
I'll bring along my PuErh tea
If Honey wisheth to tehtari'
I'm not hear to disagree/misagree
You tap dance on the pipe
You swivel thy bum on the branch
The monkey maketh face wit' BabeSexie
No need for ground nuts
The creature goeth wilde with Ecstasie
Come on Sundae morn
let'smeander
A nu'e die is borne
Throw some Halia on the barbie
That will drive any hungry man crazee
DESIDERATA: I'm in a nonchalant -- YES< big word from a small mien! --mood,
so don't enjoy my writHing. This is jest self-indulgence. And don interpret that as praying with Self! Godbless all the corrupted babes among Thee, Amen.
***************** UPDATEd @6.44pm:
Rested yet feeling restless, I meandered to another cyber abode of mine, and here's aGEM which must be widely circulated among my fellow Malaysians. From a statesman who should have been Prime Minister, but Man proposed, God disposed. And Desi would continue to meander...
1Malaysia, Bangsa Malaysia or multiethnic Malaysia?
Contributors
Written by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
http://english.cpiasia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1755:1malaysia-bangsa-malaysia-or-multiethnic-malaysia-&catid=219:contributors&Itemid=171
Sunday, 18 October 2009 12:17
The book ‘Multiethnic Malaysia – Past, Present and Future’ was officially launched at University College Sedaya International (UCSI) on Oct 16.
It is a compilation of essays edited by Dr Lim Teck Ghee, Dr Alberto Gomes and Dr Azly Rahman, and published by UCSI and SIRD.
The book launch was hosted by the Malaysian Institute of Development and Asian Studies (Midas), an organization in UCSI where Dr Lim is also resident professorial research scholar.
Included in the day’s programme was a discussion by five panelists – former Bar Council president Ambiga Sreenevasan, Dr Asma Abdullah who is a USM, UPM and UUM graduate school lecturer, UKM academic Dr Helen Ting, UMS director Dr Beth Baikan and Tricia Yeoh who is research officer for the Selangor Menteri Besar – on various aspects of the ethnicity debate. The dialogue was moderated by Dr Lim while the intervener was Dr Gomes.
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was also present to give the keynote address.
Below is the full text of his speech:-
Memory, Race and Hope
OCT 16 — I am honoured that you have asked me to address you today. I am not a scholar. All I can offer today are the personal views of a Malaysian who has seen a little of the history of this marvellous country, and tried to play my part in it.
I say a marvellous country, because Malaysia, for all its frustrations and perils, is truly special. We are a coming together of communities, cultures, traditions and religions unlike anything anywhere else. It is not in political sloganeering or in tourist jingo that we find our special nature. We recover it only by paying attention to the concrete details of our everyday life and our particular history. Wonder is found in the details.
Remembering our stories
Let me tell you a story:
I grew up in Kota Baru. My father was fond of Western cuisine and had a Hainanese cook who prepared the dishes he enjoyed.
One day, while the cook was feeding the tigers in our home, a piece of meat got stuck in between the bars of the cage. — I should explain that we had a mini zoo in our home. My father was fond of animals and we shared a home with tigers, a bear, crocodiles and other creatures in the compound. The animals were very fond of my father. The tigers would come up to him to have their backs stroked. The bear would accompany him on his walks around the garden. The crocodiles made their escape in one of Kota Baru’s annual floods, which I always remember as a happy time because of the water sports it made possible.
My father sent us out to look for them. What he expected us to do when we found them I am not sure.
To return to my story, one day the cook was feeding the tigers, and a piece of meat got stuck between the bars of the cage. The cook tried to dislodge it. As he did so, he failed to notice the tiger. The tiger swatted his hand. Within 24 hours, our poor cook was dead from the infection caused by the wound.
Our family was in grief. He was dear to us all. He had no known relatives. So my father took it upon himself to arrange a full Chinese funeral for the cook, complete with a brass band and procession, and invited all the cook’s friends. We children followed in respect as the procession wove its way through the town.
Your own stories, if you recall the actual details, will be no less strange than my own. Some of the details here might scandalise people in these supposedly more enlightened times. They don’t fit into the trimmed down, sloganised narratives of who we are and how we came to be. This is over the years we have allowed politics to tell us who we are and how we should remember ourselves. We have let political indoctrination, jingoism, and a rising tide of bad taste overcome our memory of ourselves. We have let newspapers, textbooks and even university courses paint a crude picture of who we are, what we fear and what we hope for. This depletes our culture, but there is also a political consequence: The picture that our current politics paints of us is devoid of wonder, and therefore of possibility.
Our politics has become an enemy of our sense of wonder. Instead it has sown doubt, uncertainty and fear. These are disabling emotions. It is not by accident that authoritarian regimes everywhere begin their subjugation of people by cutting them off from their past. Systematically, they replace the richly textured memories of a community that make people independent, inquisitive and open with prefabricated tales that weaken them into subjugation through fear and anxiety. They destroy the markers of memory, the checks and balances of tradition and institution, and replace them with a manufactured set of images all pointing to a centralised power.
Our path to the recovery of a sense of nationhood is not through an equally crude reaction, but through a retrieval of our personal and collective memory of living in this blessed land and sharing it each other. The work done by the contributors to this volume are part of a civilising project to bring to light the fine detail of who we are, against the politicised and commercialised caricatures that have made our racialised politics seem natural and inevitable.
Our own stories, individually and as a country, are full of curious processions, walking bears, and escaped crocodiles. We should begin to wonder again at this amazing country we find ourselves sharing. In that wonder we shall recover what it is we love about being who we are, who we are amongst, and we shall more fiercely defend not just our own, but each others’ freedoms.
A Constitution of Consensus
One place for us to begin this process together is our Federal Constitution.
The spirit in which Malaysia came to be is captured in our Constitution. At the moment of our independence, Malaysia possessed firm foundations in the rule of law and was permeated with a spirit of constitutionalism.
The pledge contained within the proclamation of Independence says that “...with God’s blessing [Malaysia] shall be forever a sovereign democratic and independent State founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of its people and the maintenance of a just peace among all nations.”
The Constitution is the ultimate safeguard of our fundamental liberties. These are liberties which cannot be taken away.
One view put out by those who are impatient with these safeguards is that our Constitution is an external and Western imposition upon us, that it is the final instrument of colonialism. People have drawn on this view to subject the Constitution to some higher or prior principle, be it race, religion or royalty. Of course, the proponents of such views tend to identify themselves with these higher principles in order to claim extra-constitutional powers. These are transparent attempts at revisionism which erode the supremacy of the Constitution. We should have the confidence to reject such moves politely but firmly, whoever advocates them, whatever their social or religious status.
The truth is that our Constitution was built by a deliberately consultative process aimed at achieving consensus. The Reid Commission was proposed by a constitutional conference in London attended by four representatives of the Malay Rulers, the Chief Minister of the Federation, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and three other ministers, and also by the British High Commissioner in Malaya and his advisers. This conference proposed the appointment of an independent commission to devise a constitution for a fully self-governing and independent Federation of Malaya. Their proposal was accepted by the Malay Rulers and Queen Elizabeth.
The Reid Commission met 118 times in Kuala Lumpur between June and October 1956, and received 131 memoranda from various individuals and organisations. The commission submitted its working draft on Feb 21, 1957, which was scrutinised by a working committee. The working committee consisted of four representatives from the Malay Rulers, another four from the Alliance government, the British High Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, and the Attorney-General.
On the basis of their recommendations, the new Federal Constitution was passed by the Federal Legislative Council on Aug 15, 1957, and the Constitution took effect on Aug 27.
As you can tell from this narrative, the Commission solicited the views of all sections of our society and had, throughout, the support and participation of the Malay Rulers and the Alliance government. The process preserved the sovereignty of the Malay Rulers The resulting document, like all things man-made, remains perfectible, but most certainly it is ours. It brought our nation into being, and it is our document.
The question of whether the Federation should be an Islamic state, for example, was considered and rejected by the Rulers and by the representatives of the people. Had we wanted to be ruled by syariah, the option was on the shelf, so to speak, and could easily have been taken, because prior to this the states were ruled by the Sultans according to syariah law. The fact that we have a constitution governed by common law is not an accident nor an external imposition. We chose to found our nation on a secular constitution after consultation and deliberation.
Our country was built on the sophisticated and secure foundation of a Constitution that we formed for ourselves. For us to continue to grow up as a country we need to own, understand and defend it.
Sadly part of the memory we have lost is of our Constitution and of the nature of that Constitution. Today, in the aftermath of the scene-shifting election results of March 2008, people are restless and uneasy about the ethnic relations, and about their future. There is a sense of anxiety about our nation that is often translated into fear of ethnic conflict.
I think we should not fear. On an inviolable foundation of equal citizenship, the rights of each and every community are protected. These protections are guaranteed in the Constitution. What we should be uneasy about is not so much ethnic discord, which is often manufactured for political ends and has little basis in the daily experience of our citizens, but the subversion of our Constitution. Such subversion is only possible if we forget that this Constitution belongs to us, protects us all, and underwrites our nationhood and we fail to defend it.
Our country had a happy beginning in being built on firm foundations in the rule of law. A strong spirit of constitutionalism guided our early decades. The components of that spirit are respect and understanding for the rule of law, and the upholding of justice and liberty. That spirit is antithetical to communal bickering and small-minded squabbling over fixed pie notions of education, economy or whatever. That spirit has declined and with it has come all kinds of unease. It is time we recovered it. With its recovery will come our confidence as a nation once more.
The political framework of this country cries out for reform. But reform is not about the blind embrace of the new. That would be to fly from disorder to confusion. Our path to reform must come from a recovery of the “old” living spirit of constitutionalism, and the “old” values of freedom and justice, and the “old” memories each of us carries in themselves of what is good about our nation.
So far I have spoken more generally about principles. I want to turn now to some examples of how these can work out in pursuing particular reforms.
National reform must begin with reform of our party system. This is because one of the chief reasons this nation is sick is that we have a diseased party system. A diagnosis of the disease of the party system finds that the parties are sick because they have strayed from the constitutional principles that govern them (they are subject to the Societies Act). In doing so they have become undemocratic. In becoming undemocratic they have lost legitimacy. In losing legitimacy they have lost public support and the ability to rejuvenate themselves. The cure, surely, is for them to conform themselves again to constitutional principles.
I have warned that Umno, like any other political party that has been in power for so long, must reform, or it will be tossed out by the people. The people themselves have had a taste of the power of their free vote. They know that parties and governments answer to the people, and not vice versa, they want a repeal of draconian laws, and they have lost patience with corruption. They seek accountability, justice and rule of law. The people are ahead of the government of the day, but the principles they want to see applied are universal, and they are enshrined in our Constitution.
It is not just Umno that needs to reform. The entire political system needs to change, to be in greater conformity with our Constitution and in the spirit of the Rukun Negara, which says from these diverse elements of our population, we are dedicated to the achievement of a united nation in which loyalty and dedication to the nation shall over-ride all other loyalties.
We should not expect our political parties to reform of their own accord. Leaders who owe their position to undemocratic rules and practices are the last people to accept reform. The people must demand it. I say we need a movement embraced by people at all levels and from every quarter of our rakyat, to establish a national consensus on how our political parties should conduct themselves from now on. In the spirit of the Rukun Negara, that consensus should be based on a set of principles such as the following:
1. All political parties are required to include in their constitutional objectives the equality of citizenship as provided for in the Federal Constitution.
2. An economic and political policy that political parties propagate must not discriminate against any citizen.
3. All parties shall include and uphold constitutional democracy and the separation of powers as a fundamental principle.
4. It shall be the duty of all political parties to adhere to the objectives of public service and refrain from involvement in business, and ensure the separation of business from political parties.
5. It shall be the duty of all political parties to ensure and respect the independence of the judiciary and the judicial process.
6. All parties shall ensure that the party election system will adhere to the highest standards of conduct, and also ensure that the elections are free of corrupt practices. Legislation should be considered to provide funding of political parties.
7. It shall be the duty of all parties to ensure that all political dialogues and statements will not create racial or religious animosity.
8. All parties undertake not to use racial and communal agitation as political policies.
9. To remove and eradicate all barriers that hinder national unity and Malaysian identity.
10. To uphold the Federal and State Constitutions and their democratic intent and spirit, the Rule of Law, and the fundamental liberties as enshrined in Part II of the Malaysian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
What we need now is the rise of an empowered public. Democracy in Malaysia is fragile so long as public opinion remains weak. Our hope for a more democratic future depends on our ability to build a strong public opinion. It’s good news that a vigorous body of public opinion, aided by information and communication technologies, is in making on the Internet. I myself rely on it through my blog. If not for my blog, what I say would scarcely get out in the mainstream media. We need a freedom of information Act, and I call for the repeal of the Printing Presses Act. It is silly that we limit the number of newspapers while every person with a blog or a twitter account can publish to the world. In limiting the printed media we have only succeeded in dumbing it down, so that those who rely only on the printed mass media and the terrestrial broadcast channels are actually the poorer for it.
Race and hope
Let’s end by returning to the theme of racial harmony. I repeat: the constitutional guarantees are ironclad. We ought to feel secure in the Constitution’s protections of our rights. A free people must be a secure people.
Another story:
In 1962, when I was a delegate to the United Nations, the late Tun Ismail and I went out one evening to a posh restaurant on New York’s East Side. The maitre d’ turned us away firmly. No, he said, the restaurant was closed for a private function. We could see clearly that the restaurant was open. We understood that we were being denied entry because were “coloured”. This is despite the fact that our reservation had been made by the UN’s offices.
Today, in 2008, an African-American man is President of the United States. He has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 46 years, and well within my lifetime, how far things have come. Had you told me in 1962, after that incident, that a black man would be president in my life time, I would not have believed you. This change did not happen without struggle.
From Leo Tolstoy to Henry Thoreau to Gandhi to Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, we see a thread of conviction about the overriding ethical claims of our common humanity. It is more important that we are alike in being sons and daughters of God than that we are different. This is also the thread of a spirit and method of resistance. Where all reasonable persuasion fails, the final “No” to wrongdoing, the place at which the citizen stands up to defend something fundamental, is through peaceful resistance. I allude to this only as a reminder of the final redoubt of the free citizen. Things may or may not have come to such a bad state that we must rise in this fashion, but let us be conscious of the power we hold in knowing just who we are and what we are capable of as ordinary citizens.
If the authorities continue to do what is unjust, to ride roughshod over constitutional rights, to deny the sovereignty of the rakyat and the primacy of our Constitution, we rest secure in the knowledge that history shows us that the just cause, defended stoutly, persistently and peacefully, will prevail. And sooner than you might expect.
The above was the keynote speech delivered by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah at the launch of the book “Multiethnic Malaysia” at UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Outsider, that's Cliff and Desi!
On a sombre but festive Deepavali holiday, Desi wishes all readers of the Hindu faith -- prosper thyselves in proper ways, Be glad thu art an Outsider, like Desi, that's me. Don't do insider trades for that's bad which is neighbour to Evil. And I was reminded listening to a radio programme backgrounding the story of Deepavali, it's letting light shine on the human world that Good Shall Triumph over Evil.
I am nowhere near being a millionaire though I've often flagged off here that My Blu H'aven is on offer on Eboy for 20million. Sometimes on desperation rounds and after doezens tehtari' which sees Desi danzing nu'es in the gardnernwhere roes of all hues bloom and groom, I'd even say Aye to the notes in Rupiah! Down with the almight greenback,up wit' rmb, the soon-to-be accepted world currency if the backers of rm behave themselves!:) I could not become the millionaire dollarwise as I don't have insider-connexions, and at once dime, Cliff Richard was shouting and danzing his Outsider anthem in Rasah New Billage:) and Desi swallowed it up Hook, Line and Stinker:(.
Here's corporate America lending us a story of GREED, that ever-present human trait what's the Devil's favourite feature to use....IMHO, it applies equally whether thou art American, Singaporean or Malaysian -- black, brown or white.
Billionaire among 6 nabbed in inside trading case
Wall Street wake-up call: Hedge fund boss, 5 others charged in $25M-plus insider trading case
By Larry Neumeister and Candice Choi, Associated Press Writers
On 7:35 pm EDT, Friday October 16, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) -- One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that authorities say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and was a wake-up call for Wall Street.
AP - Raj Rajaratnam, billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, a major hedge fund, is led in handcuffs from FBI ...
Related Quotes
Symbol Price Change
GOOG 549.85 +19.94
IBM 121.64 -6.34
INTC 20.18 -0.49
{"s" : "goog,ibm,intc","k" : "c10,l10,p20,t10","o" : "","j" : ""} Raj Rajaratnam, a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to use insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton set bail at $100 million to be secured by $20 million in collateral despite a request by prosecutors to deny bail. He also ordered Rajaratnam, who has both U.S. and Sri Lankan citizenship, to stay within 110 miles of New York City.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.
He said the case should cause financial professionals considering insider trades in the future to wonder whether law enforcement is listening.
"Greed is not good," Bharara said. "This case should be a wake-up call for Wall Street."
Joseph Demarest Jr., the head of the New York FBI office, said it was clear that "the $20 million in illicit profits come at the expense of the average public investor."
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought separate civil charges, said the scheme generated more than $25 million in illegal profits.
Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC, said the charges show Rajaratnam's "secret of success was not genius trading strategies."
"He is not the master of the universe. He is a master of the Rolodex," Khuzami said.
Galleon Group LLP said in a statement it was shocked to learn of Rajaratnam's arrest at his apartment. "We had no knowledge of the investigation before it was made public and we intend to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities," the statement said.
The firm added that Galleon "continues to operate and is highly liquid."
Rajaratnam, 52, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world's wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth.
According to the Federal Election Commission, he is a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. The FEC said he made over $87,000 in contributions to President Barack Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various campaigns on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in the past five years. The Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, said he has given a total of $118,000 since 2004 -- all but one contribution, for $5,000, to Democrats.
The Associated Press has learned that even before his arrest, Rajaratnam was under scrutiny for helping bankroll Sri Lankan militants notorious for suicide bombings.
Papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn allege that Rajaratnam worked closely with a phony charity that channeled funds to the Tamil Tiger terrorist organization. Those papers refer to him only as "Individual B." But U.S. law enforcement and government officials familiar with the case have confirmed that the individual is Rajaratnam.
At an initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Klein sought detention for Rajaratnam, saying there was "a grave concern about flight risk" given Rajaratnam's wealth and his frequent travels around the world.
His lawyer, Jim Walden, called his client a "citizen of the world," who has made more than $20 million in charitable donations in the last five years and had risen from humble beginnings in the finance profession to oversee hedge funds responsible for nearly $8 billion.
Walden promised "there's a lot more to this case" and his client was ready to prepare for it from home. Rajaratnam lives in a $10 million condominium with his wife of 20 years, their three children and two elderly parents. Walden noted that many of his employees were in court ready to sign a bail package on his behalf.
Rajaratnam -- born in Sri Lanka and a graduate of University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business -- has been described as a savvy manager of billions of dollars in technology and health care hedge funds at Galleon, which he started in 1996. The firm is based in New York City with offices in California, China, Taiwan and India. He lives in New York.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Rajaratnam obtained insider information and then caused the Galleon Technology Funds to execute trades that earned a profit of more than $12.7 million between January 2006 and July 2007. Other schemes garnered millions more and continued into this year, authorities said.
Bharara said the defendants benefited from tips about the earnings, earnings guidance and acquisition plans of various companies. Sometimes, those who provided tips received financial benefits and sometimes they just traded tips for more inside information, he added.
The timing of the arrests might be explained by a footnote in the complaint against Rajaratnam. In it, an FBI agent said he had learned that Rajaratnam had been warned to be careful and that Rajaratnam, in response, had said that a former employee of the Galleon Group was likely to be wearing a "wire."
The agent said he learned from federal authorities that Rajaratnam had a ticket to fly from Kennedy International Airport to London on Friday and to return to New York from Geneva, Switzerland next Thursday.
Also charged in the scheme are Rajiv Goel, 51, of Los Altos, Calif., a director of strategic investments at Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp., Anil Kumar, 51, of Santa Clara, Calif., a director at McKinsey & Co. Inc., a global management consulting firm, and Robert Moffat, 53, of Ridgefield, Conn., senior vice president and group executive at International Business Machines Corp.'s Systems and Technology Group.
The others charged in the case were identified as Danielle Chiesi, 43, of New York City, and Mark Kurland, 60, also of New York City.
According to court papers, Chiesi worked for New Castle, the equity hedge fund group of Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc. that had assets worth about $1 billion under management. Kurland is a top executive at New Castle.
Kumar's lawyer, Isabelle Kirshner, said of her client: "He's distraught." He was freed on $5 million bail, secured in part by his $2.5 million California home.
Kerry Lawrence, an attorney representing Moffat, said: "He's shocked by the charges."
Bail for Kurland was set at $3 million while bail for Moffat and Chiesi was set at $2 million each. Lawyers for Moffat and Chiesi said their clients will plead not guilty. The law firm representing Kurland did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
A message left at Goel's residence was not immediately returned. He was released on bail after an appearance in California.
A criminal complaint filed in the case shows that an unidentified person involved in the insider trading scheme began cooperating and authorities obtained wiretaps of conversations between the defendants.
In one conversation about a pending deal that was described in a criminal complaint, Chiesi is quoted as saying: "I'm dead if this leaks. I really am. ... and my career is over. I'll be like Martha (expletive) Stewart."
Stewart, the homemaking maven, was convicted in 2004 of lying to the government about the sale of her shares in a friend's company whose stock plummeted after a negative public announcement. She served five months in prison and five months of home confinement.
Prosecutors charged those arrested Friday with conspiracy and securities fraud.
A separate criminal complaint in the case said Chiesi and Moffat conspired to engage in insider trading in the securities of International Business Machines Corp.
According to another criminal complaint in the case, Chiesi and Rajaratnam were heard on a government wiretap of a Sept. 26, 2008, phone conversation discussing whether Chiesi's friend Moffat should move from IBM to a different technology company to aid the scheme.
"Put him in some company where we can trade well," Rajaratnam was quoted in the court papers as saying.
The complaint said Chiesi replied: "I know, I know. I'm thinking that too. Or just keep him at IBM, you know, because this guy is giving me more information. ... I'd like to keep him at IBM right now because that's a very powerful place for him. For us, too."
According to the court papers, Rajaratnam replied: "Only if he becomes CEO." And Chiesi was quoted as replying: "Well, not really. I mean, come on. ... you know, we nailed it."
The criminal complaints in the case also captured what authorities said were efforts by the defendants to hide their conversations from authorities.
In one conversation, Chiesi was heard telling Rajaratnam that she was "glad that we talk on a secure line, I appreciate that," to which Rajaratnam replied: "I never call you on my cell phone," the complaint said. It added that Chiesi said she was "nervous" about being investigated.
Associated Press Writers Tom Hays in Riverside, Calif., and Beth Fouhy in New York contributed to this story.
I am nowhere near being a millionaire though I've often flagged off here that My Blu H'aven is on offer on Eboy for 20million. Sometimes on desperation rounds and after doezens tehtari' which sees Desi danzing nu'es in the gardnernwhere roes of all hues bloom and groom, I'd even say Aye to the notes in Rupiah! Down with the almight greenback,up wit' rmb, the soon-to-be accepted world currency if the backers of rm behave themselves!:) I could not become the millionaire dollarwise as I don't have insider-connexions, and at once dime, Cliff Richard was shouting and danzing his Outsider anthem in Rasah New Billage:) and Desi swallowed it up Hook, Line and Stinker:(.
Here's corporate America lending us a story of GREED, that ever-present human trait what's the Devil's favourite feature to use....IMHO, it applies equally whether thou art American, Singaporean or Malaysian -- black, brown or white.
Billionaire among 6 nabbed in inside trading case
Wall Street wake-up call: Hedge fund boss, 5 others charged in $25M-plus insider trading case
By Larry Neumeister and Candice Choi, Associated Press Writers
On 7:35 pm EDT, Friday October 16, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) -- One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that authorities say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and was a wake-up call for Wall Street.
AP - Raj Rajaratnam, billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, a major hedge fund, is led in handcuffs from FBI ...
Related Quotes
Symbol Price Change
GOOG 549.85 +19.94
IBM 121.64 -6.34
INTC 20.18 -0.49
{"s" : "goog,ibm,intc","k" : "c10,l10,p20,t10","o" : "","j" : ""} Raj Rajaratnam, a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to use insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton set bail at $100 million to be secured by $20 million in collateral despite a request by prosecutors to deny bail. He also ordered Rajaratnam, who has both U.S. and Sri Lankan citizenship, to stay within 110 miles of New York City.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.
He said the case should cause financial professionals considering insider trades in the future to wonder whether law enforcement is listening.
"Greed is not good," Bharara said. "This case should be a wake-up call for Wall Street."
Joseph Demarest Jr., the head of the New York FBI office, said it was clear that "the $20 million in illicit profits come at the expense of the average public investor."
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought separate civil charges, said the scheme generated more than $25 million in illegal profits.
Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC, said the charges show Rajaratnam's "secret of success was not genius trading strategies."
"He is not the master of the universe. He is a master of the Rolodex," Khuzami said.
Galleon Group LLP said in a statement it was shocked to learn of Rajaratnam's arrest at his apartment. "We had no knowledge of the investigation before it was made public and we intend to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities," the statement said.
The firm added that Galleon "continues to operate and is highly liquid."
Rajaratnam, 52, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world's wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth.
According to the Federal Election Commission, he is a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. The FEC said he made over $87,000 in contributions to President Barack Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various campaigns on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in the past five years. The Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, said he has given a total of $118,000 since 2004 -- all but one contribution, for $5,000, to Democrats.
The Associated Press has learned that even before his arrest, Rajaratnam was under scrutiny for helping bankroll Sri Lankan militants notorious for suicide bombings.
Papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn allege that Rajaratnam worked closely with a phony charity that channeled funds to the Tamil Tiger terrorist organization. Those papers refer to him only as "Individual B." But U.S. law enforcement and government officials familiar with the case have confirmed that the individual is Rajaratnam.
At an initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Klein sought detention for Rajaratnam, saying there was "a grave concern about flight risk" given Rajaratnam's wealth and his frequent travels around the world.
His lawyer, Jim Walden, called his client a "citizen of the world," who has made more than $20 million in charitable donations in the last five years and had risen from humble beginnings in the finance profession to oversee hedge funds responsible for nearly $8 billion.
Walden promised "there's a lot more to this case" and his client was ready to prepare for it from home. Rajaratnam lives in a $10 million condominium with his wife of 20 years, their three children and two elderly parents. Walden noted that many of his employees were in court ready to sign a bail package on his behalf.
Rajaratnam -- born in Sri Lanka and a graduate of University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business -- has been described as a savvy manager of billions of dollars in technology and health care hedge funds at Galleon, which he started in 1996. The firm is based in New York City with offices in California, China, Taiwan and India. He lives in New York.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Rajaratnam obtained insider information and then caused the Galleon Technology Funds to execute trades that earned a profit of more than $12.7 million between January 2006 and July 2007. Other schemes garnered millions more and continued into this year, authorities said.
Bharara said the defendants benefited from tips about the earnings, earnings guidance and acquisition plans of various companies. Sometimes, those who provided tips received financial benefits and sometimes they just traded tips for more inside information, he added.
The timing of the arrests might be explained by a footnote in the complaint against Rajaratnam. In it, an FBI agent said he had learned that Rajaratnam had been warned to be careful and that Rajaratnam, in response, had said that a former employee of the Galleon Group was likely to be wearing a "wire."
The agent said he learned from federal authorities that Rajaratnam had a ticket to fly from Kennedy International Airport to London on Friday and to return to New York from Geneva, Switzerland next Thursday.
Also charged in the scheme are Rajiv Goel, 51, of Los Altos, Calif., a director of strategic investments at Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp., Anil Kumar, 51, of Santa Clara, Calif., a director at McKinsey & Co. Inc., a global management consulting firm, and Robert Moffat, 53, of Ridgefield, Conn., senior vice president and group executive at International Business Machines Corp.'s Systems and Technology Group.
The others charged in the case were identified as Danielle Chiesi, 43, of New York City, and Mark Kurland, 60, also of New York City.
According to court papers, Chiesi worked for New Castle, the equity hedge fund group of Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc. that had assets worth about $1 billion under management. Kurland is a top executive at New Castle.
Kumar's lawyer, Isabelle Kirshner, said of her client: "He's distraught." He was freed on $5 million bail, secured in part by his $2.5 million California home.
Kerry Lawrence, an attorney representing Moffat, said: "He's shocked by the charges."
Bail for Kurland was set at $3 million while bail for Moffat and Chiesi was set at $2 million each. Lawyers for Moffat and Chiesi said their clients will plead not guilty. The law firm representing Kurland did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
A message left at Goel's residence was not immediately returned. He was released on bail after an appearance in California.
A criminal complaint filed in the case shows that an unidentified person involved in the insider trading scheme began cooperating and authorities obtained wiretaps of conversations between the defendants.
In one conversation about a pending deal that was described in a criminal complaint, Chiesi is quoted as saying: "I'm dead if this leaks. I really am. ... and my career is over. I'll be like Martha (expletive) Stewart."
Stewart, the homemaking maven, was convicted in 2004 of lying to the government about the sale of her shares in a friend's company whose stock plummeted after a negative public announcement. She served five months in prison and five months of home confinement.
Prosecutors charged those arrested Friday with conspiracy and securities fraud.
A separate criminal complaint in the case said Chiesi and Moffat conspired to engage in insider trading in the securities of International Business Machines Corp.
According to another criminal complaint in the case, Chiesi and Rajaratnam were heard on a government wiretap of a Sept. 26, 2008, phone conversation discussing whether Chiesi's friend Moffat should move from IBM to a different technology company to aid the scheme.
"Put him in some company where we can trade well," Rajaratnam was quoted in the court papers as saying.
The complaint said Chiesi replied: "I know, I know. I'm thinking that too. Or just keep him at IBM, you know, because this guy is giving me more information. ... I'd like to keep him at IBM right now because that's a very powerful place for him. For us, too."
According to the court papers, Rajaratnam replied: "Only if he becomes CEO." And Chiesi was quoted as replying: "Well, not really. I mean, come on. ... you know, we nailed it."
The criminal complaints in the case also captured what authorities said were efforts by the defendants to hide their conversations from authorities.
In one conversation, Chiesi was heard telling Rajaratnam that she was "glad that we talk on a secure line, I appreciate that," to which Rajaratnam replied: "I never call you on my cell phone," the complaint said. It added that Chiesi said she was "nervous" about being investigated.
Associated Press Writers Tom Hays in Riverside, Calif., and Beth Fouhy in New York contributed to this story.
Monday, October 12, 2009
The party goes on and on...
MICkey, MCA-ah? UMNO-oh-NO! will swing on...because that FAT LAY has not sung, or breathed her lust breath.
Only an ex-UMNO supremo is singing Soprano nowadays -- here comes the entree...as Desi goes toLingam's for his banana leaf. NO MEATS TODIE! To mark PAS' dismissal at Bagan Pinang -- Dr Hassan Ali must stand at that korner in the mosque to do penance! -- I'm vegan for the next 24. Unless you capitalist friend invoites me toNikko's dim heART/sum!:)
OK, the delayed entry from the MI:
Dr M: Tee Keat and Soi Lek should quit
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad feels that both MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and his former deputy Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek must take the cue from the outcome of the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Saturday and resign.
Dr Mahathir said MCA must choose a neutral candidate to regain the confidence of the grassroots and strengthen the party.
"From a moral aspect, both must relinquish their posts. MCA must pick a leader who is not tainted so that he can gain the support of everyone. Then MCA can be united under one leadership.
"It is clear that both the MCA leaders had lost. So, they must reorganise and look for a new leader. Members of MCA are not happy with their leadership and that is the reason why they rejected both of them," he said when met at a Hari Raya celebration hosted by the Cempaka Umno branch here last night.
Commenting on the newly formed Makkal Sakti Malaysia party that was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Saturday, Dr Mahathir said he welcomed the formation of the party.
"I feel the time has come for us to accept this Indian party into Barisan Nasional since MIC's influence has dropped," he said.
He also reiterated his call for MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu to resign.
"I ask Samy Vellu to resign as well. If he resigns, MIC will be given a new lease of life," he said. — Bernama
*************************** UPDATEd @10.43AM:
FROM THE MALAYSIANMIRROR.com, asmall voice of a Chorus gal, bravo!:)
EducationSportsLifestyleYouthFeatures
Why Ong must not step down
Sunday, 11 October 2009 19:42
LETTER I am writing in reference to the extraordinary outcome in the MCA extraordinary general meeting on Saturday. I am shocked that MCA delegates has decided to punish its president Ong Tee Keat and Dr Chua Soi Lek.
I can understand the delegates' rejection of Chua as their deputy president, having been dogged with the video sex scandal. But I cannot fathom why the party snubbed Ong, who is also transport minister.
For once, I though MCA and Barisan Nasional had a decent leader who had what it takes to turn the flagging ruling coalition around in time for the next general election. Ong had burnished his image as a forthright leader who spoke up fearlessly. He had criticised the excessive amount paid for the renovations of two Chinese primary schools in Johor a few years back. Ong had also spoken up on the unfair allocation of places for admission into local public universities.
His forthrightness earned him two reprimands from the Cabinet.
But all these pales in comparison with his efforts to uncover the mess in the country's largest financial scandal - the Port Klang Free Zone fiasco.
It must certainly amount to something for a person who had the guts to open up a can of worms in a project where powerful politicians have vested interest in. In other words, Ong has been trying to move away from the pre-March 8 way of doing things and this would help BN regain lost ground in time for the next general election.
According to a survey by the Merdeka Centre conducted between Sept 29 to Oct 4, the PKFZ scandal is one issue most people (25 per cent) think BN can showcase its seriousness to combat graft. It's perplexing why his own delegates can reject him on an issue most Malaysians think Ong has struck the right chord.
In any case, Ong was defeated in the EGM by a mere 14 votes - a swing of eight votes and the outcome would be otherwise.
Whatever it is, democratic processes have taken place in the MCA and must be respected.
Be that as it may, the delegates' voice is not supreme. If it were, the MIC would have changed its president long ago and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak would not have launched the new Indian party, Makkal Sakthi on Saturday. Ong may have lost the no-confidence motion by a waffle-thin majority, but in the court of public opinion, he's still on top.
Based on the same Merdeka Centre report, 25 per cent of the respondents feel that Ong should continue leading the MCA. He is the only leader who garnered a double-digit percentile score. The people think highy of him for the brave man that he is.
At a time when BN and MCA are at its lowest ebb, a man of honour and integrity has stood out among the rest. Ong is someone Malaysians of all races can relate to, chiefly, but not entirely due to his efforts in uncovering PKFZ.
For the sake of Malaysians, Tee Keat, please don't go.
For the sake of BN, please do not let this man go.
Susan Long Chi Huey,
Kampar
Only an ex-UMNO supremo is singing Soprano nowadays -- here comes the entree...as Desi goes toLingam's for his banana leaf. NO MEATS TODIE! To mark PAS' dismissal at Bagan Pinang -- Dr Hassan Ali must stand at that korner in the mosque to do penance! -- I'm vegan for the next 24. Unless you capitalist friend invoites me toNikko's dim heART/sum!:)
OK, the delayed entry from the MI:
Dr M: Tee Keat and Soi Lek should quit
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad feels that both MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and his former deputy Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek must take the cue from the outcome of the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Saturday and resign.
Dr Mahathir said MCA must choose a neutral candidate to regain the confidence of the grassroots and strengthen the party.
"From a moral aspect, both must relinquish their posts. MCA must pick a leader who is not tainted so that he can gain the support of everyone. Then MCA can be united under one leadership.
"It is clear that both the MCA leaders had lost. So, they must reorganise and look for a new leader. Members of MCA are not happy with their leadership and that is the reason why they rejected both of them," he said when met at a Hari Raya celebration hosted by the Cempaka Umno branch here last night.
Commenting on the newly formed Makkal Sakti Malaysia party that was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Saturday, Dr Mahathir said he welcomed the formation of the party.
"I feel the time has come for us to accept this Indian party into Barisan Nasional since MIC's influence has dropped," he said.
He also reiterated his call for MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu to resign.
"I ask Samy Vellu to resign as well. If he resigns, MIC will be given a new lease of life," he said. — Bernama
*************************** UPDATEd @10.43AM:
FROM THE MALAYSIANMIRROR.com, asmall voice of a Chorus gal, bravo!:)
EducationSportsLifestyleYouthFeatures
Why Ong must not step down
Sunday, 11 October 2009 19:42
LETTER I am writing in reference to the extraordinary outcome in the MCA extraordinary general meeting on Saturday. I am shocked that MCA delegates has decided to punish its president Ong Tee Keat and Dr Chua Soi Lek.
I can understand the delegates' rejection of Chua as their deputy president, having been dogged with the video sex scandal. But I cannot fathom why the party snubbed Ong, who is also transport minister.
For once, I though MCA and Barisan Nasional had a decent leader who had what it takes to turn the flagging ruling coalition around in time for the next general election. Ong had burnished his image as a forthright leader who spoke up fearlessly. He had criticised the excessive amount paid for the renovations of two Chinese primary schools in Johor a few years back. Ong had also spoken up on the unfair allocation of places for admission into local public universities.
His forthrightness earned him two reprimands from the Cabinet.
But all these pales in comparison with his efforts to uncover the mess in the country's largest financial scandal - the Port Klang Free Zone fiasco.
It must certainly amount to something for a person who had the guts to open up a can of worms in a project where powerful politicians have vested interest in. In other words, Ong has been trying to move away from the pre-March 8 way of doing things and this would help BN regain lost ground in time for the next general election.
According to a survey by the Merdeka Centre conducted between Sept 29 to Oct 4, the PKFZ scandal is one issue most people (25 per cent) think BN can showcase its seriousness to combat graft. It's perplexing why his own delegates can reject him on an issue most Malaysians think Ong has struck the right chord.
In any case, Ong was defeated in the EGM by a mere 14 votes - a swing of eight votes and the outcome would be otherwise.
Whatever it is, democratic processes have taken place in the MCA and must be respected.
Be that as it may, the delegates' voice is not supreme. If it were, the MIC would have changed its president long ago and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak would not have launched the new Indian party, Makkal Sakthi on Saturday. Ong may have lost the no-confidence motion by a waffle-thin majority, but in the court of public opinion, he's still on top.
Based on the same Merdeka Centre report, 25 per cent of the respondents feel that Ong should continue leading the MCA. He is the only leader who garnered a double-digit percentile score. The people think highy of him for the brave man that he is.
At a time when BN and MCA are at its lowest ebb, a man of honour and integrity has stood out among the rest. Ong is someone Malaysians of all races can relate to, chiefly, but not entirely due to his efforts in uncovering PKFZ.
For the sake of Malaysians, Tee Keat, please don't go.
For the sake of BN, please do not let this man go.
Susan Long Chi Huey,
Kampar
Billionaire at 72, anywan?
PAS' 5,435-vote disaster -- the Pakatan Rakyat need to do a thorough examination. Don't do a post-mortem, that's for a dead body. An examination is to prepare one for the next test, and be mighty sure Najib will soon initaite the dissolution of the Sarawak State Assembly following BN's gargatuan victory at Bagan Pinang.
To ease my disAPpointment, I cut&pastry the following lifting article to warm some of my ER who share Desi's life-changing aim of becoming a BILLIONAIRE. If some dingAling boy could do so at 27, I might be able to achieve that status by 72! Badder late than nebber!
A Recipe for Riches
by Duncan Greenberg
Friday, October 9, 2009
provided by
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107927/a-recipe-for-riches.html?mod=career-leadership
Want to become a tech titan or hedge fund tycoon? Up your chances by dropping out of college or going to Harvard and working at Goldman Sachs.
Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?
More from Forbes.com:
• In Depth: A Recipe for Riches
• The Complete Ranking of the 400 Richest Americans 2009
• Fun Billionaire Statistics
We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from entrepreneurs' parents' professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have set them on the path to extreme wealth.
Our admittedly unscientific study of the self-made members of the Forbes 400 yielded some interesting results.
First, a significant percentage of them had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of Forbes 400 members (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.
More from Yahoo! Finance:
• How Self-Made Titans Launched Their Empires
• Unusual Products That Made Millions
• 10 Part-Time Businesses and What You'll Earn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Career & Work Center
Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires and near-billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few of them were born in December, historically the month with the eighth-highest birth rate.
Of the 274 self-made tycoons on the Forbes 400, 14% either never started or never completed college. The number of precocious college dropouts is highest among those who forged careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT), Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL), Michael Dell of Dell (DELL), Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL) and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
Forbes 400 members who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: half of them have graduate degrees. Roughly 70% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master's degrees from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Goldman Sachs (GS) has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman or one of it subsidiaries early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, David Tepper, Daniel Och and Leon Cooperman.
Several Forbes 400 members suffered bitter professional setbacks early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk's first venture was a flop--an experience he regrets but appreciates. "Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one," he told Forbes in 2007.
According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November 2008, his botched buyout of a company in Newark, N.J., in the early 1990s taught him "several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager."
Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, and FedEx (FDX) founder Frederick Smith.
© Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
Parents Had Math-Related Careers
The ability to crunch numbers is typically a key to becoming a billionaire. Often, mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires for whom we could find that information were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.
© Brooke Slezak/Getty Images
September Birthdays
Of the 380 self-made American tycoons who have appeared on the Forbes list of the World's Billionaires in the past three years, 42 were born in September--more than in any other month.
© iStockphoto
Tech Titans Who Dropped Out of College
Forget everything your guidance counselor told you: You don't have to go to college to be successful. Close to 15% of the self-made American moguls on the Forbes 400 never finished college. Many of the list's drop-outs made their fortunes in tech, including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Dell (Dell), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).
Skull and Bones
Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.
© Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Goldman Sachs
A stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs is a prime credential for achieving greatness on Wall Street. Of the 61 tycoons on our list who derive their fortunes from finance, at least six cut their teeth in Goldman's investment banking, trading, or asset management divisions. The company's crown jewel: its "risk arbitrage" unit, which launched the careers of billionaires Edward Lampert and Daniel Och, as well as former billionaires Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.
See the full list of A Recipe for Riches
Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.
To ease my disAPpointment, I cut&pastry the following lifting article to warm some of my ER who share Desi's life-changing aim of becoming a BILLIONAIRE. If some dingAling boy could do so at 27, I might be able to achieve that status by 72! Badder late than nebber!
A Recipe for Riches
by Duncan Greenberg
Friday, October 9, 2009
provided by
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107927/a-recipe-for-riches.html?mod=career-leadership
Want to become a tech titan or hedge fund tycoon? Up your chances by dropping out of college or going to Harvard and working at Goldman Sachs.
Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?
More from Forbes.com:
• In Depth: A Recipe for Riches
• The Complete Ranking of the 400 Richest Americans 2009
• Fun Billionaire Statistics
We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from entrepreneurs' parents' professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have set them on the path to extreme wealth.
Our admittedly unscientific study of the self-made members of the Forbes 400 yielded some interesting results.
First, a significant percentage of them had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of Forbes 400 members (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.
More from Yahoo! Finance:
• How Self-Made Titans Launched Their Empires
• Unusual Products That Made Millions
• 10 Part-Time Businesses and What You'll Earn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Career & Work Center
Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires and near-billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few of them were born in December, historically the month with the eighth-highest birth rate.
Of the 274 self-made tycoons on the Forbes 400, 14% either never started or never completed college. The number of precocious college dropouts is highest among those who forged careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT), Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL), Michael Dell of Dell (DELL), Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL) and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
Forbes 400 members who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: half of them have graduate degrees. Roughly 70% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master's degrees from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Goldman Sachs (GS) has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman or one of it subsidiaries early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, David Tepper, Daniel Och and Leon Cooperman.
Several Forbes 400 members suffered bitter professional setbacks early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk's first venture was a flop--an experience he regrets but appreciates. "Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one," he told Forbes in 2007.
According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November 2008, his botched buyout of a company in Newark, N.J., in the early 1990s taught him "several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager."
Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, and FedEx (FDX) founder Frederick Smith.
© Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
Parents Had Math-Related Careers
The ability to crunch numbers is typically a key to becoming a billionaire. Often, mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires for whom we could find that information were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.
© Brooke Slezak/Getty Images
September Birthdays
Of the 380 self-made American tycoons who have appeared on the Forbes list of the World's Billionaires in the past three years, 42 were born in September--more than in any other month.
© iStockphoto
Tech Titans Who Dropped Out of College
Forget everything your guidance counselor told you: You don't have to go to college to be successful. Close to 15% of the self-made American moguls on the Forbes 400 never finished college. Many of the list's drop-outs made their fortunes in tech, including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Dell (Dell), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).
Skull and Bones
Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.
© Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Goldman Sachs
A stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs is a prime credential for achieving greatness on Wall Street. Of the 61 tycoons on our list who derive their fortunes from finance, at least six cut their teeth in Goldman's investment banking, trading, or asset management divisions. The company's crown jewel: its "risk arbitrage" unit, which launched the careers of billionaires Edward Lampert and Daniel Och, as well as former billionaires Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.
See the full list of A Recipe for Riches
Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Harsh Reality Bytes...
In both MCA and UMNO camps, and Desi enjoys some real good bytes in Port Dickson -- more specifically, LUKUT -- as he gulps down "duck ala "suckling piglet" roasted. big sized prawns ala Indian Desi-spicey richly-embedded in onions mouthful bites, and ah, for Terence N matey plu two of his PD-resident buddies, washed down with beer while this humble servant cometh alcohol-shandy close neighour Sprite in the absence of 7-UP:)
OK, we all now know BN second largest party is in shambles -- divided into two right down the middle, with some fence sitters from UMNO and what'shisnameTiongSingKing who want to be king-makers. And the EGM outcomes yesterday showed the party leadership is in limbo -- neither incumbeent president Ong Tee Keat or his deposed deputy Dr Chua Soi Lek are wanted by the members, as re[presented by the ballots cast by some 2,400 delegates.
And what about UMNO? Can it now laugh with glee behind MCA's backs? Ah, the last laugh might just desserts be on the BN BIG brother when the results of the Bagan Pinang by-election would be in in another four hours (as I write this line, it's 4.43PM, Sunday 11 Oct 2009). 10.10.10 sealed OTK's fate, re-sealed CSL's.
In the little town of BP, some 13,664 humble voters but mighty VIP for the last ten days, courted by federal Ministers none less than PM and DPM and a coterie of ....-carrriers, and Oppoisition ...wigs like DSAI, LKS, Hadi Awang pushing ethir candiadtes -- former MB of Nine States (NS) Isa Samad and PAS NS commissioner Zulkefle Omar to be the new ADUP for Bagan Pinang.
The harsh reality is that UMNO might win the battle in today's by-election, but it will lose the war come GE13, due in 2013, more likely to be called earlier.
***********************************************
I'm taking a commercial break NOW, so enjoy some morself from the ***MM:
LINK***: http://www.malaysianmirror.com/homedetail/45-home/14937-ku-li-better-for-umno-to-lose-bagan-pinang
Ku Li: Better for Umno to lose Bagan Pinang
Sunday, 11 October 2009 12:43
KUALA LUMPUR - Umno veteran, and some say contrarian, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has raised eyebrows yet again with a statement that perhaps it would be better for the party to lose at Bagan Pinang.
“For the good of the party, the dignity of the Malay community it claims to represent and for the sake of the nationwide reform in governance and politics that we must undergo, it would be better if Umno lost today, and used the loss to begin internal reform,” Razaleigh said in his latest blog posting.
Ku Li, as he is better known, is not alone in his anger that the party’s current top leadership chose to select Isa Abdul Samad as its candidate in the Bagan Pinang by-election.
Former Umno president Mahathir Mohamad too has minced no words on the subject, even offering himself if the party had no other talent.
Not the right model
Isa was mentri besar of Negri Sembilan for 22 years until he was promoted to the federal cabinet in 2004.
Nevertheless, that same year, his career hit a major speed bump when he was found guilty of corruption and vote-buying in the Umno election. He was sacked from his posts and suspended for three years.
“A win by Isa would translate into an endorsement of corruption-as-usual within the party and the government that it leads,” said Ku Li.
“Corruption is the scourge of the country. Umno is a step away from being identified with that scourge.”
Upset unlikely but not impossible
The contest for the state seat is being balloted today. Voting will close at 5pm and the results due to be announced before 8pm.
So far, the Election Commission reports the process has been fairly smooth although there have been several scuffles between supporters of Umno and PAS.
Isa is facing PAS state commissioner Zulkefly Omar. He is widely expected to thump the relatively unknown Zulkefly, although an upset is not impossible.
“Don’t underestimate the righteousness of the Bagan Pinang people or even the Umno voters. Right now, Isa looks like a shinning jewel but the people may see through the glitter and opt to send a message to the top leadership,” a political watcher told Malaysian Mirror.
- ***Malaysian Mirror
******************************************
The Other harsh reality is that in succeeding to overcome Ong Tee Keat by backing a NO-CONFIDENCE vote, Dr Chua Soi Lek had won his battle, but he also LOST the war for his party. What use is a parrty if it is split into two almost equal parts, and become potentialprey to vultures like big brother UMNO and suckers like TSKing? And the Rakyat also LOST because without OTK at MCA's helm, the multi-bllion Port Klang Free Zone scandal will be nicely covered up. ++++Digest this from the Malaysian Insider:( And many socalled "national servicemen" manning the zone are laughing all the way to the bank!:( BTW, That "scowl" is from the Rakyat!...potenitally being robbbed bof RM12.5BILLION!
Desi's reality bite is that he's able to enjoy great food by PD restaurants-- and the 13,664 Bagan Pinang voters oo with aan unexpected ang-pow from Isa and his moneybagmen? -- we the Rakay share the views of UMNO elders like Tengku Razaleight and even the man for all UMNO political seasons, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Come, raise a cuplet of Puerh tea to Thee,my EsteemedReaders,
for a possible darmatic upset that David from PR/PAS may yet overcome the Goliath from UMNO -- heard about DIVINE INTERVENTION?
++++
Najib hints that Ong should go
Najib is telling Ong to go and make way for a new leader. — file pic
By Clara Chooi
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 - Barisan Nasional chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today dropped some not-so-subtle hints that MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat should step down as MCA president.
The prime minister told a press conference that since the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) was the highest meeting authority in any party structure, the MCA leadership was confined to accepting the results of yesterday’s controversial meeting.
In a nutshell, Najib is telling Ong to go and make way for a new leader, whomever he or she may be.
During yesterday’s dramatic EGM, MCA central delegates did the unexpected – they booted out both Ong and his estranged deputy Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek by voting on three resolutions.
Ong had lost the vote of confidence against his leadership and Dr Chua had successfully gotten his sacking annulled but failed to retain his deputy president’s post.
Despite the decision, Ong still has the choice of clinging to his post as president since the party constitution stipulates that he can only be removed if two-thirds of the party’s central delegates voted against him.
In the EGM, Ong lost the confidence motion by 1155 against 1141 votes, a wafer-thin majority of 14 votes.
As such, the straight-talking president did not do what most had expected him to do and step down graciously from his post immediately. Instead, he said that the party’s CC would first meet (this Thursday) to deliberate on the matter before delivering its decision.
Najib’s statement today however, delivers a big blow that would surely further dent Ong’s already bruised ego. If anything, Najib has clearly indicated that Ong is no longer the right person to lead the second biggest component party in the Barisan Nasional (BN).
“I really hope the MCA leadership would make a decision quickly to repair the party and return the confidence of its members and the people in it.
“Hence, whatever decisions that the CC plans to make later, must be based on the decisions made in yesterday’s EGM,” he said after launching the book “Helming the Times”, a compilation of his speeches on Malaysian politics and the weaknesses in Umno, in Mid Valley Megamall here this morning.
When asked however if he was directly telling Ong to resign from his post, Najib cryptically said:
“What I am saying is that whatever it is, the decisions from the EGM has the highest authority within the MCA or any party – it must form the basis for the leadership solution in the party.
“I believe and trust that the leaders of MCA know that is needed to restore the credibility and confidence in the leadership of MCA.”
Without being specific, Najib also firmly reprimanded MCA leaders for allowing their internal party bickering to drag on and further tarnish BN’s already blackened image and said the party needed to straighten up and fly right, real soon.
He said that it was important for MCA to become a strong force in the BN and to do so, the party’s leadership needed to be credible and effective.
“The MCA leadership also has to be capable of maintaining the support of the Chinese community in backing the BN.
“As such, the leadership must settle its problems and internal matters in such a manner that they would not be repeated,” he said.
Najib also said that all parties within the BN should respect the results of the EGM for it was based on the decisions and actions taken by MCA’s members themselves.
“If we take a course of action that is based on our wisdom and we put the importance of the BN and the MCA at the forefront, then I believe that the MCA can return as a strong and stable friend in the BN,” he said.
Najib brushed aside speculation MCA would soon become like the MIC, which is widely speculated to soon be replaced by the newly launched Makkal Sakti party to represent the Indian community.
“No, no, no, no, no. I never said Makkal Sakti would replace the MIC. All I said was that we in the BN are willing to work with any party or non-governmental organisation that is in support of the government,” he said.
In fact, Najib added, Umno was also willing to help MCA to settle its problems but would do so only if the Chinese-based component party wanted its help.
“We are willing to help only for as long as they want us to help out. I don’t want Umno to be misinterpreted as interfering in the affairs of the MCA,” he said.
DESIDERATA: Should we the Rakyat drop hints that even if Isa won with a reduced majority, or badder steal, Zulkeflee upset with a dramatic win later today? -- the Prime Minister should just take a bow? Ah, Eeality sometimes is an imitaion of the work of fiction, and Desi's trying to make IT to Hollywood. Holy cow, did I spy a suckling piglet on the Hee Lai Ton's table from mGf Liew Senor, who bets that Isa would win by more than 2k, and I said less than? I know "gambling" in NegaraKu is illegal, so am I a potential arrestee by going public?
OK, we all now know BN second largest party is in shambles -- divided into two right down the middle, with some fence sitters from UMNO and what'shisnameTiongSingKing who want to be king-makers. And the EGM outcomes yesterday showed the party leadership is in limbo -- neither incumbeent president Ong Tee Keat or his deposed deputy Dr Chua Soi Lek are wanted by the members, as re[presented by the ballots cast by some 2,400 delegates.
And what about UMNO? Can it now laugh with glee behind MCA's backs? Ah, the last laugh might just desserts be on the BN BIG brother when the results of the Bagan Pinang by-election would be in in another four hours (as I write this line, it's 4.43PM, Sunday 11 Oct 2009). 10.10.10 sealed OTK's fate, re-sealed CSL's.
In the little town of BP, some 13,664 humble voters but mighty VIP for the last ten days, courted by federal Ministers none less than PM and DPM and a coterie of ....-carrriers, and Oppoisition ...wigs like DSAI, LKS, Hadi Awang pushing ethir candiadtes -- former MB of Nine States (NS) Isa Samad and PAS NS commissioner Zulkefle Omar to be the new ADUP for Bagan Pinang.
The harsh reality is that UMNO might win the battle in today's by-election, but it will lose the war come GE13, due in 2013, more likely to be called earlier.
***********************************************
I'm taking a commercial break NOW, so enjoy some morself from the ***MM:
LINK***: http://www.malaysianmirror.com/homedetail/45-home/14937-ku-li-better-for-umno-to-lose-bagan-pinang
Ku Li: Better for Umno to lose Bagan Pinang
Sunday, 11 October 2009 12:43
KUALA LUMPUR - Umno veteran, and some say contrarian, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has raised eyebrows yet again with a statement that perhaps it would be better for the party to lose at Bagan Pinang.
“For the good of the party, the dignity of the Malay community it claims to represent and for the sake of the nationwide reform in governance and politics that we must undergo, it would be better if Umno lost today, and used the loss to begin internal reform,” Razaleigh said in his latest blog posting.
Ku Li, as he is better known, is not alone in his anger that the party’s current top leadership chose to select Isa Abdul Samad as its candidate in the Bagan Pinang by-election.
Former Umno president Mahathir Mohamad too has minced no words on the subject, even offering himself if the party had no other talent.
Not the right model
Isa was mentri besar of Negri Sembilan for 22 years until he was promoted to the federal cabinet in 2004.
Nevertheless, that same year, his career hit a major speed bump when he was found guilty of corruption and vote-buying in the Umno election. He was sacked from his posts and suspended for three years.
“A win by Isa would translate into an endorsement of corruption-as-usual within the party and the government that it leads,” said Ku Li.
“Corruption is the scourge of the country. Umno is a step away from being identified with that scourge.”
Upset unlikely but not impossible
The contest for the state seat is being balloted today. Voting will close at 5pm and the results due to be announced before 8pm.
So far, the Election Commission reports the process has been fairly smooth although there have been several scuffles between supporters of Umno and PAS.
Isa is facing PAS state commissioner Zulkefly Omar. He is widely expected to thump the relatively unknown Zulkefly, although an upset is not impossible.
“Don’t underestimate the righteousness of the Bagan Pinang people or even the Umno voters. Right now, Isa looks like a shinning jewel but the people may see through the glitter and opt to send a message to the top leadership,” a political watcher told Malaysian Mirror.
- ***Malaysian Mirror
******************************************
The Other harsh reality is that in succeeding to overcome Ong Tee Keat by backing a NO-CONFIDENCE vote, Dr Chua Soi Lek had won his battle, but he also LOST the war for his party. What use is a parrty if it is split into two almost equal parts, and become potentialprey to vultures like big brother UMNO and suckers like TSKing? And the Rakyat also LOST because without OTK at MCA's helm, the multi-bllion Port Klang Free Zone scandal will be nicely covered up. ++++Digest this from the Malaysian Insider:( And many socalled "national servicemen" manning the zone are laughing all the way to the bank!:( BTW, That "scowl" is from the Rakyat!...potenitally being robbbed bof RM12.5BILLION!
Desi's reality bite is that he's able to enjoy great food by PD restaurants-- and the 13,664 Bagan Pinang voters oo with aan unexpected ang-pow from Isa and his moneybagmen? -- we the Rakay share the views of UMNO elders like Tengku Razaleight and even the man for all UMNO political seasons, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Come, raise a cuplet of Puerh tea to Thee,my EsteemedReaders,
for a possible darmatic upset that David from PR/PAS may yet overcome the Goliath from UMNO -- heard about DIVINE INTERVENTION?
++++
Najib hints that Ong should go
Najib is telling Ong to go and make way for a new leader. — file pic
By Clara Chooi
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 - Barisan Nasional chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today dropped some not-so-subtle hints that MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat should step down as MCA president.
The prime minister told a press conference that since the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) was the highest meeting authority in any party structure, the MCA leadership was confined to accepting the results of yesterday’s controversial meeting.
In a nutshell, Najib is telling Ong to go and make way for a new leader, whomever he or she may be.
During yesterday’s dramatic EGM, MCA central delegates did the unexpected – they booted out both Ong and his estranged deputy Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek by voting on three resolutions.
Ong had lost the vote of confidence against his leadership and Dr Chua had successfully gotten his sacking annulled but failed to retain his deputy president’s post.
Despite the decision, Ong still has the choice of clinging to his post as president since the party constitution stipulates that he can only be removed if two-thirds of the party’s central delegates voted against him.
In the EGM, Ong lost the confidence motion by 1155 against 1141 votes, a wafer-thin majority of 14 votes.
As such, the straight-talking president did not do what most had expected him to do and step down graciously from his post immediately. Instead, he said that the party’s CC would first meet (this Thursday) to deliberate on the matter before delivering its decision.
Najib’s statement today however, delivers a big blow that would surely further dent Ong’s already bruised ego. If anything, Najib has clearly indicated that Ong is no longer the right person to lead the second biggest component party in the Barisan Nasional (BN).
“I really hope the MCA leadership would make a decision quickly to repair the party and return the confidence of its members and the people in it.
“Hence, whatever decisions that the CC plans to make later, must be based on the decisions made in yesterday’s EGM,” he said after launching the book “Helming the Times”, a compilation of his speeches on Malaysian politics and the weaknesses in Umno, in Mid Valley Megamall here this morning.
When asked however if he was directly telling Ong to resign from his post, Najib cryptically said:
“What I am saying is that whatever it is, the decisions from the EGM has the highest authority within the MCA or any party – it must form the basis for the leadership solution in the party.
“I believe and trust that the leaders of MCA know that is needed to restore the credibility and confidence in the leadership of MCA.”
Without being specific, Najib also firmly reprimanded MCA leaders for allowing their internal party bickering to drag on and further tarnish BN’s already blackened image and said the party needed to straighten up and fly right, real soon.
He said that it was important for MCA to become a strong force in the BN and to do so, the party’s leadership needed to be credible and effective.
“The MCA leadership also has to be capable of maintaining the support of the Chinese community in backing the BN.
“As such, the leadership must settle its problems and internal matters in such a manner that they would not be repeated,” he said.
Najib also said that all parties within the BN should respect the results of the EGM for it was based on the decisions and actions taken by MCA’s members themselves.
“If we take a course of action that is based on our wisdom and we put the importance of the BN and the MCA at the forefront, then I believe that the MCA can return as a strong and stable friend in the BN,” he said.
Najib brushed aside speculation MCA would soon become like the MIC, which is widely speculated to soon be replaced by the newly launched Makkal Sakti party to represent the Indian community.
“No, no, no, no, no. I never said Makkal Sakti would replace the MIC. All I said was that we in the BN are willing to work with any party or non-governmental organisation that is in support of the government,” he said.
In fact, Najib added, Umno was also willing to help MCA to settle its problems but would do so only if the Chinese-based component party wanted its help.
“We are willing to help only for as long as they want us to help out. I don’t want Umno to be misinterpreted as interfering in the affairs of the MCA,” he said.
DESIDERATA: Should we the Rakyat drop hints that even if Isa won with a reduced majority, or badder steal, Zulkeflee upset with a dramatic win later today? -- the Prime Minister should just take a bow? Ah, Eeality sometimes is an imitaion of the work of fiction, and Desi's trying to make IT to Hollywood. Holy cow, did I spy a suckling piglet on the Hee Lai Ton's table from mGf Liew Senor, who bets that Isa would win by more than 2k, and I said less than? I know "gambling" in NegaraKu is illegal, so am I a potential arrestee by going public?
Friday, October 09, 2009
One rocking:) & wan rolling news:(
President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
via: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace
ROCKING the GOoD Times!:):):)
Barack Obama awarded Nobel Prize Reuters
By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers
OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee.
Still, the U.S. remains at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress has yet to pass a law reducing carbon emissions and there has been little significant reduction in global nuclear stockpiles since Obama took office.
"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, a 1983 Nobel Peace laureate.
"This is probably an encouragement for him to act. Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act," Walesa said.
The award appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said Obama's award shows great things are expected from him in coming years.
"It's an award coming near the beginning of the first term of office of a relatively young president that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all," Tutu said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."
Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's rights activist, among others. The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize, though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.
"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given to someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.
The Nobel committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.
Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.
Obama was to meet with his top advisers on the Afghan war on Friday to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there enters its ninth year.
Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan earlier this year and has continued the use of unmanned drones for attacks on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area.
In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The United States now as about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.
But there has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.
Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.
"In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself," ElBaradei said. "He has shown an unshakeable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts."
Obama also has attempted to restart stalled talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but just a day after Obama hosted the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a freeze.
Nominators for the prize include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation welcomed the award on behalf of its founder Nelson Mandela, who shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.
"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
___________________
Associated Press writers Ian MacDougall in Oslo, Celean Jacobson in Johannesburg, George Jahn in Vienna and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland contributed to this report.
**********************************************
From the Sun frontpage, print edition; reproduced below is from sun2surf.com :(
LET THE HEADS ROLL!:(:(:(:(
PKA sues former GM
Maria J. Dass
PETALING JAYA (Oct 8, 2009) : The Port Klang Authority (PKA) today filed a fourth civil suit over the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) multi-billion ringgit fiasco -- this time against its former general manager Datin Paduka Phang Oi Choo (OC Phang) for alleged breaches of her fiduciary, contractual and common law duties to PKA.
The other suits were against Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) and project consultant BTA Architect.
The suit was filed by PKA's lawyers Skrine at the Shah Alam High Court.
"PKA contends that she had failed to exercise due care, diligence and skill in the discharge of her duties as the PKA general manager," PKA chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng said in a statement issued today.
"Among others, failing to comply with Treasury guidelines, failing to ensure that key agreements entered into by PKA contain adequate terms necessary to safeguard PKA's interest, and appointing a quantity surveyor firm which was in a position of conflict of interest due to the firm’s association with KDSB, the turnkey developer of PKFZ," he said.
The statement further said that Phang caused PKA to enter into further key agreements which were not referred by her to the PKA board members for deliberation and approval, despite having full knowledge that such agreements would cause PKA financial distress as PKA was not in the position to finance the project at that point of time.
Lee Hwa Beng
The financial predicament faced by PKA was also not addressed in an appropriate and prompt manner, it said.
This suit is in addition to the earlier action taken by PKA, including the criminal reports made against her to the relevant authorities, the police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
On Sept 25, the PKA filed a RM920 million suit against KDSB and BTA Architect over key development and supplementary agreements signed between February 2003 and November 2006.
The authority also filed an originating summons with the Civil High Court registry in Shah Alam, seeking a declaration that the increase in the interest rate from 5% to 7.5% per annum in respect of a supplementary agreement for additional development works signed in April 2006 is null and void.
Prior to this, PKA on Sept 18 filed a RM720 million claim against KDSB, disputing the imposition of interest in the purchase of land intended for PKFZ.
via: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace
ROCKING the GOoD Times!:):):)
Barack Obama awarded Nobel Prize Reuters
By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers
OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee.
Still, the U.S. remains at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress has yet to pass a law reducing carbon emissions and there has been little significant reduction in global nuclear stockpiles since Obama took office.
"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, a 1983 Nobel Peace laureate.
"This is probably an encouragement for him to act. Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act," Walesa said.
The award appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said Obama's award shows great things are expected from him in coming years.
"It's an award coming near the beginning of the first term of office of a relatively young president that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all," Tutu said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."
Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's rights activist, among others. The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize, though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.
"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given to someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.
The Nobel committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.
Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.
Obama was to meet with his top advisers on the Afghan war on Friday to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there enters its ninth year.
Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan earlier this year and has continued the use of unmanned drones for attacks on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area.
In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The United States now as about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.
But there has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.
Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.
"In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself," ElBaradei said. "He has shown an unshakeable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts."
Obama also has attempted to restart stalled talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but just a day after Obama hosted the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a freeze.
Nominators for the prize include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation welcomed the award on behalf of its founder Nelson Mandela, who shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.
"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
___________________
Associated Press writers Ian MacDougall in Oslo, Celean Jacobson in Johannesburg, George Jahn in Vienna and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland contributed to this report.
**********************************************
From the Sun frontpage, print edition; reproduced below is from sun2surf.com :(
LET THE HEADS ROLL!:(:(:(:(
PKA sues former GM
Maria J. Dass
PETALING JAYA (Oct 8, 2009) : The Port Klang Authority (PKA) today filed a fourth civil suit over the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) multi-billion ringgit fiasco -- this time against its former general manager Datin Paduka Phang Oi Choo (OC Phang) for alleged breaches of her fiduciary, contractual and common law duties to PKA.
The other suits were against Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) and project consultant BTA Architect.
The suit was filed by PKA's lawyers Skrine at the Shah Alam High Court.
"PKA contends that she had failed to exercise due care, diligence and skill in the discharge of her duties as the PKA general manager," PKA chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng said in a statement issued today.
"Among others, failing to comply with Treasury guidelines, failing to ensure that key agreements entered into by PKA contain adequate terms necessary to safeguard PKA's interest, and appointing a quantity surveyor firm which was in a position of conflict of interest due to the firm’s association with KDSB, the turnkey developer of PKFZ," he said.
The statement further said that Phang caused PKA to enter into further key agreements which were not referred by her to the PKA board members for deliberation and approval, despite having full knowledge that such agreements would cause PKA financial distress as PKA was not in the position to finance the project at that point of time.
Lee Hwa Beng
The financial predicament faced by PKA was also not addressed in an appropriate and prompt manner, it said.
This suit is in addition to the earlier action taken by PKA, including the criminal reports made against her to the relevant authorities, the police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
On Sept 25, the PKA filed a RM920 million suit against KDSB and BTA Architect over key development and supplementary agreements signed between February 2003 and November 2006.
The authority also filed an originating summons with the Civil High Court registry in Shah Alam, seeking a declaration that the increase in the interest rate from 5% to 7.5% per annum in respect of a supplementary agreement for additional development works signed in April 2006 is null and void.
Prior to this, PKA on Sept 18 filed a RM720 million claim against KDSB, disputing the imposition of interest in the purchase of land intended for PKFZ.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
CSM for a socialist comrade...
I first bumped into Pak Chong of Gerakbudaya when he "gatecrashed" BUM2007and Desi at that time was not too friendly as I was wont to believe only capitalists come for a free lunch or a flee ride. So after not too friendly a start, Desi warmed up to another socualist at heART guy and soon enough we were exchanging tehtarik and tariking each Other's kaki, but we did no wandering in the night.
By BUM2009 when Pak Chong was invited o be a Guest he sort of let the host down because some handsome hostesses at Central Market must have offered him badder market exposure -- for day wanderers or wayside wans at night.
Long story short as befits Desi's name which reputation precedes him, and Tion Sin coyly asked: Did I hear your capitalist tendencies got ye into trouble wit' some bigwigs at Mkini, something to date effect, blurted out in a shy affected media manner when a Q is laced with deliberate Agatha Christie deathwish encounter.
A short story made "long", yet another nama I have to live up to, I told Pak Chong socilaists have one thing in common -- WE SPOT EACH OTHER'S WITNESS FROM MILES AWAY!
So here's another 64k spot flagging off a socialist community service message, this time taretged at awe the Young&Articulate Ones:) I spoty a Hishamuddin Raice not whining away but likely dinning away. Yes, he works up a din whenever he starts forum-ing, especially when attractive lasses in blues flash ravishing s-miles from the audience. I must ask to see this Ricey's IC as I wonder allowed -- is he a GOoD commentator for a Forum Muda? Desi signs off with envy ... and they say Greenies don't make any environment friendly as Desi likes his meat well done:) "Minta maaf" if I digress and you don't see any connection. A Blogger's privilege to abuse, so get onto the Bandwagon, free lunch or flee dinner, not matter. You can always gatecrash the Blog4FT bash at de pavilion! Ooops, too late -- it was over last mundane Mondae!:(
********************
FORUM ORANG MUDA
anjuran
GERAKBUDAYA
ETNIK, AGAMA DAN RAJA: KESANNYA TERHADAP PERKEMBANGAN DEMOKRASI DI MALAYSIA.....APA KATA ORANG MUDA?
Pendapat orang muda jarang mendapat tempat. Pandangan orang muda sukar mendapat ruang. Suara orang muda kurang pula diberi peluang. Menyedari hal ini, Gerakbudaya telah mengambil inisiatif untuk menganjurkan suatu forum perbincangan dengan membariskan beberapa orang tokoh muda dari pelbagai latarbelakang sebagai panelis untuk berbincang dan menyuarakan fikiran mereka tentang persoalan-persoalan “panas” yang telah dan sedang melanda tanah air kita dewasa ini.
Apa pandangan orang muda tentang soal etnik? Apa pendapat orang muda tentang soal agama? Apa pula fikiran orang muda tentang soal Raja? Apakah pula pemahaman orang muda tentang demokrasi? Adakah etnik, agama dan Raja memberi kesan terhadap perkembangan demokrasi di negara kita ini? Adakah kesannya negatif atau positif? Adakah ianya menghalang atau membantu di dalam proses pendemokrasian negara kita? Apa kata orang muda? Apa analisa orang muda? Apa suara orang muda?
Untuk mengetahui suara orang muda di dalam membincangkan persoalan-persoalan “panas” ini, jom kita ramai-ramai datang, hadir dan sertai forum orang muda ini. Walau pun panelisnya orang muda tetapi forum ini terbuka untuk semua, muda dan tua, baru dan lama.
Berikut adalah maklumat tentang forum orang muda ini:
Tarikh : 24 Oktober 2009 (Hari SABTU)
Masa : 2.30 Petang –5.00 Petang
Tempat : KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, No. 1, Jalan Maharajalela, 50150 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia (Berhampiran dengan Stesyen Monorail Maharajalela).
Atur-cara Forum:
2.00-2.10 pm
Pendaftaran
2.10-2.15 pm
Ucapan pengenalan
2.15-2.30 pm
Panelis 1: Fahmi Reza, Aktivis dan Pembikin filem dokumentari sosial & politik
2.30-2.45 pm
Panelis 2: Lee Kai Loon, Pengasas dan Anggota Sekretariat Youth For Change (Y4C)
2.45- 3.00pm
Panelis 3: Shazni Munir Mohd Ithnin, Pengerusi Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM), Presiden Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam UM dan Timbalan Presiden Gabungan Mahasiswa Islam Semenanjung (GAMIS)
3.00-3.15pm
Panelis 4: Mohd Hariszuan Jaharudin, Ketua Biro Majlis Diskusi dan Dialog Kumpulan Aktivis Mahasiswa Independen (KAMI) dan Penulis di ruang wacana bebas blog Diskopi
3.15- 4.00 pm
Komentar Jemputan: Hishamuddin Rais, blogger di blog TukarTiub
4.00 –5.00 pm
Diskusi dan Dialog bersama peserta forum
5.00 pm
Jamuan ringan & Tamat
Biodata Ringkas Panelis Forum Orang Muda:
Fahmi Reza:
Fahmi Reza ialah seorang pereka grafik dan pembikin filem dokumentari yang menggunakan seni sebagai medium untuk membangunkan kesedaran di kalangan orang muda ke arah perubahan sosial dan politik yang lebih adil dan demokratik. Beliau telah menghasilkan dua buah filem dokumentari sejarah perjuangan politik radikal yang berjudul “10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” (http://10tahun.blogspot.com/) dan “Revolusi 48”. Filem dokumentari beliau yang berjudul “10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” telah menjadi sebuah filem dokumentari “cult” yang cukup popular di kalangan anak-anak muda.
Shazni Munir Mohd Ithnin:
Shazni Munir adalah pemimpin mahasiswa yang masih menuntut di Universiti Malaya dan aktif dalam gerakan mahasiswa di tingkat nasional. Selain dari menerajui Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam (PMI) Universiti Malaya dan memimpin Gabungan Mahasiswa Islam Semenanjung (GAMIS), beliau juga merupakan Pengasas Bersama Gerakan Mahasiswa Mansuhkan AUKU (GMMA) dan Pengerusi Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM). Beliau juga turut aktif di dalam bidang penulisan dan idea serta cetusan pandangan beliau boleh dibaca di blog Perubah Zaman (shaznimunir.blogspot.com)
Lee Kai Loon
Lee Khai Loon adalah bekas aktivis mahasiswa dari Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Beliau pernah menerajui organisasi pemuda DEMA semasa beliau mahasiswa dan beliau jua pernah bertugas di Hong Kong sebagai anggota sekretariat Asian Students Association (ASA). Sekembalinya beliau daripada Hong Kong beliau mendirikan Youth For Change (Y4C) dan menjadi salah seorang daripada anggota sekretariatnya. Kini beliau memegang jawatan sebagai Ketua Penerangan Angkatan Muda Keadilan dan Ahli Maljis Perbandaran Selayang.
Mohd Hariszuan Jaharudin
Mohd. Hariszuan adalah mahasiswa tahun akhir jurusan Sains Politik di UKM. Beliau merupakan salah seorang daripada pengasas ruang wacana bebas blog Diskusi Santai Kopi (Diskopi). Di samping aktif menulis di Diskopi beliau juga aktif di dalam Kumpulan Aktivis Mahasiswa Independen (KAMI). Di KAMI beliau menerajui Biro Majlis Diskusi dan Dialog (MADILOG). Selain daripada itu beliau juga terlibat aktif di dalam penyelidikan pilihanraya kecil di Permatang Pasir dan Bagan Pinang. Idea dan cetusan pandangan beliau boleh dibaca di blog Diskopi (diskopi.wordpress.com).
Komentar Forum: Bro TukarTiub a.k.a Hishamudin Rais
Hishamuddin Rais adalah orang tua yang perawakan, otak dan jiwanya tak pernah tua. Beliau adalah pengasas mazhab Non-Governmental Individual (NGI) dan pengarang buku “Pilihan Raya atau Pilihan Jalan Raya” dan buku separa-intelektual “Keganasan, Penipuan & Internet”. Beliau sekarang aktif menulis di blog separa-tabloid tukartiub.blogspot.com yang sudah pun menjadi “cult classic”.
Sebarang pertanyaan atau maklumat sila hubungi: Ms Lee Siew Hwa di 03-7957 8342/8343 atau 016-465 5107; Shahrir Halim di 012- 321 5803 atau Mr Chong Ton Sin di 016-379 7231.
www.gerakbudaya.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
文运
呈献
青年论坛
族群、宗教与皇族：对马来西亚民主进程的影响…..青年怎么说？
青年的意见常被忽略。青年的看法很难有发挥空间。青年的心声鲜少被听见。有鉴于此 ，策略研究中心特别为此举办论坛，并邀请数位来自不同背景的青年领袖作为主讲人，以针对我国当下的热门课题发表他们的想法。
青年对族群有何看法？青年对宗教有何意见？青年对皇族有何想法？青年对民主的理解又是如何？族群、宗教与皇族对我国的民主进程可有影响？其影响是正面抑或负面？它们是我国民主化过程的助力抑或障碍？青年对此有何说法？有何分析？有何主张？
想知道青年对这些热门课题的看法吗？那就请大家热烈出席响应此青年论坛。虽然众主讲人是青年，但本论坛绝对欢迎所有人，无论是老是少，是新是旧。
以下是本青年论坛详情：
论坛主题：族群、宗教与皇族：对马来西亚民主进程的影响…..青年怎么说？
日期：2009年10月24日（星期六）
时间：2.30pm-5.00pm
地点：The KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall
No. 1, Jalan Maharajalela, 50150 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
节目流程：
2.00-2.10 pm
报到
2.10-2.15 pm
致词
2.15-2.30 pm
主讲人1：法米里察：社会与政治电影工作者
2.30-2.45 pm
主讲人2：李凯伦：青年社运分子及公正党青年团
2.45- 3.00pm
主讲人3：莎尼穆尼：大专社运分子
3.00-3.15pm
主讲人4：莫哈默哈里斯端
3.15- 4.00 pm
特约讲评人：希山慕汀莱益士
4.00 –5.00 pm
交流
5.00 pm
茶点及结束
青年主讲人简介：
法米里察
法米里察是一位以艺术作为社会与政治改革武器的图像设计师及纪录片工作者。
对“人民力量”的执著成为他制作纪录片“独立前十年”（2007）的动力，该片已成功再现被国阵保守政权泯灭已久的激进政治传统。
http://10tahun.blogspot.com/
莎尼穆尼默罕默德依宁
他是一名目前在马来亚大学进修的大专生领袖，活跃于学生运动。
他领导着数个捍卫大专生生权利和校园民主的大专生组织。职位包括废除大专法令大专生运动(GMMA)的发起人，马来亚大学回教学生协会(PMIUM)主席，全国回教大专生联盟(GAMIS)副主席，以及马来西亚大专生团结(SMM)主席。
李凯伦
李凯伦是马来西亚工艺大学的前学运分子。他曾经任职于香港的亚洲学生协会(ASA)，也是动力青年 (Y4C) 的发起人兼委员。目前，他担任人民公正党青年团宣传局主任，也是士拉央市议会的市议员。
莫哈默哈里斯端
国民大学政治科学系大四生。Diskopi部落格自由论坛(www.diskopi.wordpress.com)撰写人兼网站管理人。独立大专生学运分子部落格(www.kamiukm.blogspot.com)讨论和对话节目主任。他也涉及研究和协调有关马来西亚政治，族群和人权的课题和节目。
特约讲评人：希山慕汀莱益士（拥有赤子之心之老年人）
希山慕汀莱益士，著名社运人士。70年代学运分子，作家。著作包括《选举或选马路》，《暴力，欺骗和网络》。
http://tukartiub.blogspot.com/
欲知进一步详情，请联络：
李书华小姐：03-7957 8342/8343 或016-465 5107; Shahrir Halim: 012- 321 5803，或张永新先生，
016-379 7231.
与文运一起推动青年的讨论文化！
讲座将以国语进行
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GB Gerakbudaya/SIRD
11 Lorong 11/4E
46200 Petaling Jaya
Selangor, Malaysia
T: +60 (0)3 7957 8343
F: +60 (0)3 7954 9202
W: www.gerakbudaya.com
By BUM2009 when Pak Chong was invited o be a Guest he sort of let the host down because some handsome hostesses at Central Market must have offered him badder market exposure -- for day wanderers or wayside wans at night.
Long story short as befits Desi's name which reputation precedes him, and Tion Sin coyly asked: Did I hear your capitalist tendencies got ye into trouble wit' some bigwigs at Mkini, something to date effect, blurted out in a shy affected media manner when a Q is laced with deliberate Agatha Christie deathwish encounter.
A short story made "long", yet another nama I have to live up to, I told Pak Chong socilaists have one thing in common -- WE SPOT EACH OTHER'S WITNESS FROM MILES AWAY!
So here's another 64k spot flagging off a socialist community service message, this time taretged at awe the Young&Articulate Ones:) I spoty a Hishamuddin Raice not whining away but likely dinning away. Yes, he works up a din whenever he starts forum-ing, especially when attractive lasses in blues flash ravishing s-miles from the audience. I must ask to see this Ricey's IC as I wonder allowed -- is he a GOoD commentator for a Forum Muda? Desi signs off with envy ... and they say Greenies don't make any environment friendly as Desi likes his meat well done:) "Minta maaf" if I digress and you don't see any connection. A Blogger's privilege to abuse, so get onto the Bandwagon, free lunch or flee dinner, not matter. You can always gatecrash the Blog4FT bash at de pavilion! Ooops, too late -- it was over last mundane Mondae!:(
********************
FORUM ORANG MUDA
anjuran
GERAKBUDAYA
ETNIK, AGAMA DAN RAJA: KESANNYA TERHADAP PERKEMBANGAN DEMOKRASI DI MALAYSIA.....APA KATA ORANG MUDA?
Pendapat orang muda jarang mendapat tempat. Pandangan orang muda sukar mendapat ruang. Suara orang muda kurang pula diberi peluang. Menyedari hal ini, Gerakbudaya telah mengambil inisiatif untuk menganjurkan suatu forum perbincangan dengan membariskan beberapa orang tokoh muda dari pelbagai latarbelakang sebagai panelis untuk berbincang dan menyuarakan fikiran mereka tentang persoalan-persoalan “panas” yang telah dan sedang melanda tanah air kita dewasa ini.
Apa pandangan orang muda tentang soal etnik? Apa pendapat orang muda tentang soal agama? Apa pula fikiran orang muda tentang soal Raja? Apakah pula pemahaman orang muda tentang demokrasi? Adakah etnik, agama dan Raja memberi kesan terhadap perkembangan demokrasi di negara kita ini? Adakah kesannya negatif atau positif? Adakah ianya menghalang atau membantu di dalam proses pendemokrasian negara kita? Apa kata orang muda? Apa analisa orang muda? Apa suara orang muda?
Untuk mengetahui suara orang muda di dalam membincangkan persoalan-persoalan “panas” ini, jom kita ramai-ramai datang, hadir dan sertai forum orang muda ini. Walau pun panelisnya orang muda tetapi forum ini terbuka untuk semua, muda dan tua, baru dan lama.
Berikut adalah maklumat tentang forum orang muda ini:
Tarikh : 24 Oktober 2009 (Hari SABTU)
Masa : 2.30 Petang –5.00 Petang
Tempat : KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, No. 1, Jalan Maharajalela, 50150 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia (Berhampiran dengan Stesyen Monorail Maharajalela).
Atur-cara Forum:
2.00-2.10 pm
Pendaftaran
2.10-2.15 pm
Ucapan pengenalan
2.15-2.30 pm
Panelis 1: Fahmi Reza, Aktivis dan Pembikin filem dokumentari sosial & politik
2.30-2.45 pm
Panelis 2: Lee Kai Loon, Pengasas dan Anggota Sekretariat Youth For Change (Y4C)
2.45- 3.00pm
Panelis 3: Shazni Munir Mohd Ithnin, Pengerusi Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM), Presiden Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam UM dan Timbalan Presiden Gabungan Mahasiswa Islam Semenanjung (GAMIS)
3.00-3.15pm
Panelis 4: Mohd Hariszuan Jaharudin, Ketua Biro Majlis Diskusi dan Dialog Kumpulan Aktivis Mahasiswa Independen (KAMI) dan Penulis di ruang wacana bebas blog Diskopi
3.15- 4.00 pm
Komentar Jemputan: Hishamuddin Rais, blogger di blog TukarTiub
4.00 –5.00 pm
Diskusi dan Dialog bersama peserta forum
5.00 pm
Jamuan ringan & Tamat
Biodata Ringkas Panelis Forum Orang Muda:
Fahmi Reza:
Fahmi Reza ialah seorang pereka grafik dan pembikin filem dokumentari yang menggunakan seni sebagai medium untuk membangunkan kesedaran di kalangan orang muda ke arah perubahan sosial dan politik yang lebih adil dan demokratik. Beliau telah menghasilkan dua buah filem dokumentari sejarah perjuangan politik radikal yang berjudul “10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” (http://10tahun.blogspot.com/) dan “Revolusi 48”. Filem dokumentari beliau yang berjudul “10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” telah menjadi sebuah filem dokumentari “cult” yang cukup popular di kalangan anak-anak muda.
Shazni Munir Mohd Ithnin:
Shazni Munir adalah pemimpin mahasiswa yang masih menuntut di Universiti Malaya dan aktif dalam gerakan mahasiswa di tingkat nasional. Selain dari menerajui Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam (PMI) Universiti Malaya dan memimpin Gabungan Mahasiswa Islam Semenanjung (GAMIS), beliau juga merupakan Pengasas Bersama Gerakan Mahasiswa Mansuhkan AUKU (GMMA) dan Pengerusi Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM). Beliau juga turut aktif di dalam bidang penulisan dan idea serta cetusan pandangan beliau boleh dibaca di blog Perubah Zaman (shaznimunir.blogspot.com)
Lee Kai Loon
Lee Khai Loon adalah bekas aktivis mahasiswa dari Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Beliau pernah menerajui organisasi pemuda DEMA semasa beliau mahasiswa dan beliau jua pernah bertugas di Hong Kong sebagai anggota sekretariat Asian Students Association (ASA). Sekembalinya beliau daripada Hong Kong beliau mendirikan Youth For Change (Y4C) dan menjadi salah seorang daripada anggota sekretariatnya. Kini beliau memegang jawatan sebagai Ketua Penerangan Angkatan Muda Keadilan dan Ahli Maljis Perbandaran Selayang.
Mohd Hariszuan Jaharudin
Mohd. Hariszuan adalah mahasiswa tahun akhir jurusan Sains Politik di UKM. Beliau merupakan salah seorang daripada pengasas ruang wacana bebas blog Diskusi Santai Kopi (Diskopi). Di samping aktif menulis di Diskopi beliau juga aktif di dalam Kumpulan Aktivis Mahasiswa Independen (KAMI). Di KAMI beliau menerajui Biro Majlis Diskusi dan Dialog (MADILOG). Selain daripada itu beliau juga terlibat aktif di dalam penyelidikan pilihanraya kecil di Permatang Pasir dan Bagan Pinang. Idea dan cetusan pandangan beliau boleh dibaca di blog Diskopi (diskopi.wordpress.com).
Komentar Forum: Bro TukarTiub a.k.a Hishamudin Rais
Hishamuddin Rais adalah orang tua yang perawakan, otak dan jiwanya tak pernah tua. Beliau adalah pengasas mazhab Non-Governmental Individual (NGI) dan pengarang buku “Pilihan Raya atau Pilihan Jalan Raya” dan buku separa-intelektual “Keganasan, Penipuan & Internet”. Beliau sekarang aktif menulis di blog separa-tabloid tukartiub.blogspot.com yang sudah pun menjadi “cult classic”.
Sebarang pertanyaan atau maklumat sila hubungi: Ms Lee Siew Hwa di 03-7957 8342/8343 atau 016-465 5107; Shahrir Halim di 012- 321 5803 atau Mr Chong Ton Sin di 016-379 7231.
www.gerakbudaya.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
文运
呈献
青年论坛
族群、宗教与皇族：对马来西亚民主进程的影响…..青年怎么说？
青年的意见常被忽略。青年的看法很难有发挥空间。青年的心声鲜少被听见。有鉴于此 ，策略研究中心特别为此举办论坛，并邀请数位来自不同背景的青年领袖作为主讲人，以针对我国当下的热门课题发表他们的想法。
青年对族群有何看法？青年对宗教有何意见？青年对皇族有何想法？青年对民主的理解又是如何？族群、宗教与皇族对我国的民主进程可有影响？其影响是正面抑或负面？它们是我国民主化过程的助力抑或障碍？青年对此有何说法？有何分析？有何主张？
想知道青年对这些热门课题的看法吗？那就请大家热烈出席响应此青年论坛。虽然众主讲人是青年，但本论坛绝对欢迎所有人，无论是老是少，是新是旧。
以下是本青年论坛详情：
论坛主题：族群、宗教与皇族：对马来西亚民主进程的影响…..青年怎么说？
日期：2009年10月24日（星期六）
时间：2.30pm-5.00pm
地点：The KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall
No. 1, Jalan Maharajalela, 50150 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
节目流程：
2.00-2.10 pm
报到
2.10-2.15 pm
致词
2.15-2.30 pm
主讲人1：法米里察：社会与政治电影工作者
2.30-2.45 pm
主讲人2：李凯伦：青年社运分子及公正党青年团
2.45- 3.00pm
主讲人3：莎尼穆尼：大专社运分子
3.00-3.15pm
主讲人4：莫哈默哈里斯端
3.15- 4.00 pm
特约讲评人：希山慕汀莱益士
4.00 –5.00 pm
交流
5.00 pm
茶点及结束
青年主讲人简介：
法米里察
法米里察是一位以艺术作为社会与政治改革武器的图像设计师及纪录片工作者。
对“人民力量”的执著成为他制作纪录片“独立前十年”（2007）的动力，该片已成功再现被国阵保守政权泯灭已久的激进政治传统。
http://10tahun.blogspot.com/
莎尼穆尼默罕默德依宁
他是一名目前在马来亚大学进修的大专生领袖，活跃于学生运动。
他领导着数个捍卫大专生生权利和校园民主的大专生组织。职位包括废除大专法令大专生运动(GMMA)的发起人，马来亚大学回教学生协会(PMIUM)主席，全国回教大专生联盟(GAMIS)副主席，以及马来西亚大专生团结(SMM)主席。
李凯伦
李凯伦是马来西亚工艺大学的前学运分子。他曾经任职于香港的亚洲学生协会(ASA)，也是动力青年 (Y4C) 的发起人兼委员。目前，他担任人民公正党青年团宣传局主任，也是士拉央市议会的市议员。
莫哈默哈里斯端
国民大学政治科学系大四生。Diskopi部落格自由论坛(www.diskopi.wordpress.com)撰写人兼网站管理人。独立大专生学运分子部落格(www.kamiukm.blogspot.com)讨论和对话节目主任。他也涉及研究和协调有关马来西亚政治，族群和人权的课题和节目。
特约讲评人：希山慕汀莱益士（拥有赤子之心之老年人）
希山慕汀莱益士，著名社运人士。70年代学运分子，作家。著作包括《选举或选马路》，《暴力，欺骗和网络》。
http://tukartiub.blogspot.com/
欲知进一步详情，请联络：
李书华小姐：03-7957 8342/8343 或016-465 5107; Shahrir Halim: 012- 321 5803，或张永新先生，
016-379 7231.
与文运一起推动青年的讨论文化！
讲座将以国语进行
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GB Gerakbudaya/SIRD
11 Lorong 11/4E
46200 Petaling Jaya
Selangor, Malaysia
T: +60 (0)3 7957 8343
F: +60 (0)3 7954 9202
W: www.gerakbudaya.com
Sunday, October 04, 2009
I Once THought the SOPRANOS was a TV series on...
Hi-Octave singing.
But actually in an imitation of Hollywood, Reality shows that Sopranos can be canaries!:)
Desi's knotty repro of an intem of interest/non-interest on a hazey, lazey and mazey -- not lacey though as Desi's no Soprano! -- Sundae wit' nothing of High octane to do in Peytn Placesque Furong...here/hear!
America gripped by a real-life Sopranos tale of brutal murders and high living
NEW YORK, Oct 4 — If it were an episode of The Sopranos, it would probably be dismissed as too outlandishly plotted and overly dramatic. But the trial of accused mafioso John “Junior” Gotti in New York is full of betrayals, brutality, dark humour and unexpected revelations.
It is the mafia trial to end all mafia trials, providing a rare glimpse into a mob world that still dominates America’s cultural landscape, even while it fades as a criminal organisation. Gotti is probably the most famous alleged mafioso in America, son of the “Teflon Don”, John Gotti Sr, who led the Gambino crime family. Gotti Jr stands accused of a series of brutal killings in a massive case assembled by the FBI in its fourth bid in five years to bring him down.
The star witness for the prosecution is John Alite, an Albanian mobster and self-confessed killer who was Gotti’s best friend. The pair grew up together and were said to be as close as brothers. In the tight-knit world of the mafia, bound by its secret oath of omertà (loosely translated as “code of silence”), that should have been enough to ensure Alite would never testify.
Yet omertà is clearly not what it used to be. In a stunning betrayal of the mafia code, Alite has taken the stand in the trial and sung like a canary. For hours, Alite has recounted endless details of mafia hits and the partying lifestyle he and Gotti enjoyed in between murders. All the while Gotti has stared at him balefully, backed up by a courtroom packed with his family and friends.
If that was intended to intimidate Alite, it has not worked. “John Gotti Jr was my boss” were the first words to come out of Alite’s mouth as he opened his testimony. He went on to detail how Gotti had collaborated with him on three killings and had told him about four others. The descriptions are blood-curdling, including how he had put one man’s body in a car crusher at a junkyard and another victim had been hanged from a tree.
Find vehicles, parts & accessories at low prices on Alibaba.com!
After killing drug dealer George Grosso in 1988, Alite and Gotti had their nails done and then returned to the scene of the crime to check Grosso was indeed dead, Alite testified. “He doesn’t look that good,” Alite said Gotti had joked after seeing Grosso’s corpse. That callousness in Gotti had also been witnessed by Kevin Bonner, who testified that he had seen him fatally stab a man in a bar brawl in 1983. Daniel Silva was just a local drinker at the Silver Fox bar in New York who had got into a row with Gotti. Gotti stabbed Silva and left him slumped and bleeding on a bar stool, Bonner testified. A second witness added that Gotti had taunted the dying man with a Porky Pig impression, saying: “Th-th-that’s all, folks!”
The brutality detailed in the case so far has generated huge media interest, but some say that reflects the fact that the American public, inspired by films and TV shows such as The Godfather and The Sopranos, is obsessed with all things mafia. In fact, Italian-American gangs are far less of a problem than Mexican, Russian, Albanian, Chinese or Colombian criminal organisations. “With the Godfather movies we greatly overstated their criminal power in the first place. Then they got all of this attention, which decreased it even further. Unlucky for them,” said Dennis Kenney, a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
It may have been unfortunate, but it did not appear to stop Gotti, Alite or others living like the mobsters they saw on screen. Alite has described a celebrity-style existence of fast cars, fancy restaurants and glamorous women that seems straight out of the classic mob film Goodfellas. He told of wearing US$500 (RM1,733) shoes and Rolex watches, and watching Gotti blow US$30,000 at the gambling tables during a trip to Las Vegas.
He has described how hundreds of thousands of dollars were generated from crime, funding his and Gotti’s lavish lifestyles. “When I went to restaurants, I didn’t wait. When I went to shows, I got the best seats… We got treated like celebrities,” Alite said.
Like every good soap opera, the case has had its family drama. Alite claimed while under oath that he and Gotti’s sister, Victoria, had become romantically close after she had been beaten by her then husband, Carmine Agnello.
“I had feelings for her, she had feelings for me. We talked to each other,” Alite claimed. That prompted Victoria to break her own silence. “The only feelings I had for John Alite were that I despised him,” she told reporters, denying any relationship. The comments were immediate headline news in New York’s mafia-hungry tabloids.
But while Victoria’s feelings for Alite and his breaking of the mafia’s once-sacred code were clear, she is also guilty of her own version of telling tales. Perhaps no one typifies the bizarre mix of crime, pop culture and the media that the mafia in America has become than Victoria Gotti. Not only has she been the star of her own reality TV show, Growing Up Gotti, she also chose last week to publish her memoir, This Family of Mine. In it she describes the ceremony in which her brother, John Jr, became a “made man” in the mob.
“This was one of the happiest days in his life,” she wrote. Victoria even described the secret oath-taking ceremony that involved burning a picture of a saint stained with blood and she also listed those present. It seems that when it comes to breaking omertà, Gotti’s problems have not ended with his ex-best friend on the witness stand. — Observers
******************************
REALITY TV CUNTFESSIONS deBUTTS?
Letterman’s rivals quick to jump on chat-show host’s confession
NEW YORK, Oct 4 — Career suicide or media masterstroke? The jury is still out over US chat-show king David Letterman’s unprecedented on-air confession of affairs with female production staff.
His very public mea culpa succeeded in snuffing out a US$2 million (RM7 million) blackmail plot and thwarting any chance of the news channels revealing his dalliances first. The twice-married 62-year-old father of one admitted on his CBS show: “I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.”
He then later joked, “I know what you are saying, ‘I’ll be darned – Dave had sex!’“
It drew gasps of disbelief and nervous laughter from his studio audience — and from his television rivals, who have not been slow to stick the knife in.
Hours after the show was screened, Robert “Joe” Halderman, a producer on CBS News’s 48 Hours, pleaded not guilty to attempted grand larceny.
Jay Leno, Letterman’s main rival and the current ratings leader, could not resist the temptation to join in. He told his own audience: “If you came here tonight for sex with a talk-show host, you’ve got the wrong studio.”
Messages posted on Hollywood gossip sites have questioned the wisdom of the confession. Having spent more than a quarter of a century poking fun at the indiscretions of other celebrities, Letterman finds the tables have now been turned. This fact was not lost on the broadcaster, whose minute-long declaration included reference to a desire not only to save his life but also his job.
But while some gossip sites have continued to speculate on the potentially damaging and more lurid details of the affairs, some American commentators have largely backed his decision.
In the New York Daily News, David Hinkley wrote that it would be unlikely to “derail his career”. The journalist Bill Zehme, who has written extensively about American late-night television, claims Letterman may draw even more fans. “It was manful,” he said. “It was kingly. Dave has the gravitas. At this point in his life he’s just a man in control.”
The public relations veteran Cindi Berger called it “very smart” to get ahead of the story, particularly because Letterman “was able to control the message”. And the CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said Letterman “absolutely had to” do what he did.
She said: “Once this matter went in front of a grand jury, as it has, there’s at least a dozen citizens who are getting wind of the allegations. Once it’s in the district attorney’s hands, there’s always the possibility of leaks. So he had to get out there first. He had to tell the story. He had to acknowledge his part in it.” — Independent
But actually in an imitation of Hollywood, Reality shows that Sopranos can be canaries!:)
Desi's knotty repro of an intem of interest/non-interest on a hazey, lazey and mazey -- not lacey though as Desi's no Soprano! -- Sundae wit' nothing of High octane to do in Peytn Placesque Furong...here/hear!
America gripped by a real-life Sopranos tale of brutal murders and high living
NEW YORK, Oct 4 — If it were an episode of The Sopranos, it would probably be dismissed as too outlandishly plotted and overly dramatic. But the trial of accused mafioso John “Junior” Gotti in New York is full of betrayals, brutality, dark humour and unexpected revelations.
It is the mafia trial to end all mafia trials, providing a rare glimpse into a mob world that still dominates America’s cultural landscape, even while it fades as a criminal organisation. Gotti is probably the most famous alleged mafioso in America, son of the “Teflon Don”, John Gotti Sr, who led the Gambino crime family. Gotti Jr stands accused of a series of brutal killings in a massive case assembled by the FBI in its fourth bid in five years to bring him down.
The star witness for the prosecution is John Alite, an Albanian mobster and self-confessed killer who was Gotti’s best friend. The pair grew up together and were said to be as close as brothers. In the tight-knit world of the mafia, bound by its secret oath of omertà (loosely translated as “code of silence”), that should have been enough to ensure Alite would never testify.
Yet omertà is clearly not what it used to be. In a stunning betrayal of the mafia code, Alite has taken the stand in the trial and sung like a canary. For hours, Alite has recounted endless details of mafia hits and the partying lifestyle he and Gotti enjoyed in between murders. All the while Gotti has stared at him balefully, backed up by a courtroom packed with his family and friends.
If that was intended to intimidate Alite, it has not worked. “John Gotti Jr was my boss” were the first words to come out of Alite’s mouth as he opened his testimony. He went on to detail how Gotti had collaborated with him on three killings and had told him about four others. The descriptions are blood-curdling, including how he had put one man’s body in a car crusher at a junkyard and another victim had been hanged from a tree.
Find vehicles, parts & accessories at low prices on Alibaba.com!
After killing drug dealer George Grosso in 1988, Alite and Gotti had their nails done and then returned to the scene of the crime to check Grosso was indeed dead, Alite testified. “He doesn’t look that good,” Alite said Gotti had joked after seeing Grosso’s corpse. That callousness in Gotti had also been witnessed by Kevin Bonner, who testified that he had seen him fatally stab a man in a bar brawl in 1983. Daniel Silva was just a local drinker at the Silver Fox bar in New York who had got into a row with Gotti. Gotti stabbed Silva and left him slumped and bleeding on a bar stool, Bonner testified. A second witness added that Gotti had taunted the dying man with a Porky Pig impression, saying: “Th-th-that’s all, folks!”
The brutality detailed in the case so far has generated huge media interest, but some say that reflects the fact that the American public, inspired by films and TV shows such as The Godfather and The Sopranos, is obsessed with all things mafia. In fact, Italian-American gangs are far less of a problem than Mexican, Russian, Albanian, Chinese or Colombian criminal organisations. “With the Godfather movies we greatly overstated their criminal power in the first place. Then they got all of this attention, which decreased it even further. Unlucky for them,” said Dennis Kenney, a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
It may have been unfortunate, but it did not appear to stop Gotti, Alite or others living like the mobsters they saw on screen. Alite has described a celebrity-style existence of fast cars, fancy restaurants and glamorous women that seems straight out of the classic mob film Goodfellas. He told of wearing US$500 (RM1,733) shoes and Rolex watches, and watching Gotti blow US$30,000 at the gambling tables during a trip to Las Vegas.
He has described how hundreds of thousands of dollars were generated from crime, funding his and Gotti’s lavish lifestyles. “When I went to restaurants, I didn’t wait. When I went to shows, I got the best seats… We got treated like celebrities,” Alite said.
Like every good soap opera, the case has had its family drama. Alite claimed while under oath that he and Gotti’s sister, Victoria, had become romantically close after she had been beaten by her then husband, Carmine Agnello.
“I had feelings for her, she had feelings for me. We talked to each other,” Alite claimed. That prompted Victoria to break her own silence. “The only feelings I had for John Alite were that I despised him,” she told reporters, denying any relationship. The comments were immediate headline news in New York’s mafia-hungry tabloids.
But while Victoria’s feelings for Alite and his breaking of the mafia’s once-sacred code were clear, she is also guilty of her own version of telling tales. Perhaps no one typifies the bizarre mix of crime, pop culture and the media that the mafia in America has become than Victoria Gotti. Not only has she been the star of her own reality TV show, Growing Up Gotti, she also chose last week to publish her memoir, This Family of Mine. In it she describes the ceremony in which her brother, John Jr, became a “made man” in the mob.
“This was one of the happiest days in his life,” she wrote. Victoria even described the secret oath-taking ceremony that involved burning a picture of a saint stained with blood and she also listed those present. It seems that when it comes to breaking omertà, Gotti’s problems have not ended with his ex-best friend on the witness stand. — Observers
******************************
REALITY TV CUNTFESSIONS deBUTTS?
Letterman’s rivals quick to jump on chat-show host’s confession
NEW YORK, Oct 4 — Career suicide or media masterstroke? The jury is still out over US chat-show king David Letterman’s unprecedented on-air confession of affairs with female production staff.
His very public mea culpa succeeded in snuffing out a US$2 million (RM7 million) blackmail plot and thwarting any chance of the news channels revealing his dalliances first. The twice-married 62-year-old father of one admitted on his CBS show: “I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.”
He then later joked, “I know what you are saying, ‘I’ll be darned – Dave had sex!’“
It drew gasps of disbelief and nervous laughter from his studio audience — and from his television rivals, who have not been slow to stick the knife in.
Hours after the show was screened, Robert “Joe” Halderman, a producer on CBS News’s 48 Hours, pleaded not guilty to attempted grand larceny.
Jay Leno, Letterman’s main rival and the current ratings leader, could not resist the temptation to join in. He told his own audience: “If you came here tonight for sex with a talk-show host, you’ve got the wrong studio.”
Messages posted on Hollywood gossip sites have questioned the wisdom of the confession. Having spent more than a quarter of a century poking fun at the indiscretions of other celebrities, Letterman finds the tables have now been turned. This fact was not lost on the broadcaster, whose minute-long declaration included reference to a desire not only to save his life but also his job.
But while some gossip sites have continued to speculate on the potentially damaging and more lurid details of the affairs, some American commentators have largely backed his decision.
In the New York Daily News, David Hinkley wrote that it would be unlikely to “derail his career”. The journalist Bill Zehme, who has written extensively about American late-night television, claims Letterman may draw even more fans. “It was manful,” he said. “It was kingly. Dave has the gravitas. At this point in his life he’s just a man in control.”
The public relations veteran Cindi Berger called it “very smart” to get ahead of the story, particularly because Letterman “was able to control the message”. And the CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said Letterman “absolutely had to” do what he did.
She said: “Once this matter went in front of a grand jury, as it has, there’s at least a dozen citizens who are getting wind of the allegations. Once it’s in the district attorney’s hands, there’s always the possibility of leaks. So he had to get out there first. He had to tell the story. He had to acknowledge his part in it.” — Independent
Saturday, October 03, 2009
2 MBs for Desi's Nine States?
Current besieged Menteri Besar Mohamed Hasan did not smile for the camera when former strongman MB Mohd Isa with a tainted record was finally UMNO's best candidate to fight PAS in the Batang Pinang state cobstituency with polling slated for Sunday Oct 11, 2009. Poor Hasan without the final say in Negeri Sembilan UMNO political matters feels the heat from fires from within -- Desi would not be surprised if his heart could be visible,it could be throbiing in sympathetic chords with the PAS candiadte for a change.
A win by Isa would transalte with a unique situation of my State with two MBs, and the comeback kid is coming with tons of cash from his earlier rampage of the State's resources. I hear a super-Bumi whose nama is Chinese and its SIRname rimes with son-of-a-gun and Isa co-owned the major part of Nilai.
But it was the ****whispered incident in Port Dickson eon years ago when Isa bailed out Najib from a tricky situation involving a famous/infamous lady not is wife ZZ that must have earned Isa his second chance to seat himself on the NS throne deemed by the MB-secondtimearound apparently his family's birthright. Word has it if ISA did not finally make it to nominations if Hasan had raised his "V"oice highenough,Isa's son by the hugely favoured nama of Najib would have been the next UMNO's choice as candidate. Then Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad might hit the campaign trail!?
Note in the MM news report that follows this one-liner: "Nevertheless, Najib is unfazed. Political watchers also believe his hands may be tied." Does the above marked **** explain the mystery WHY Najib's hands are tied? You guys in the know please tell Desi!
Desi took a ride around Teluk Kemang, Port Dickson, in a leisurely drive with a PAS clubber from Furong from 9.30AM to 1.00PM to survey the battle ground. UMNO has homeground advantage with many party flats and "handsome" pictures of Mohd Isa headlining his Aidilfitri Open House PR and PM Najib Tun Razak headlining his nation's headship to justify the early by-election publicity blitz. PAS cnadidate NS PAS State Commissioner does NOT have any portraits up yet since the Election Commission allows only candidates and their parties can put up election stuff for display; I read from media reports that flags and posters put up by fellow parties DAP and PKR were NOT allowed to fluttter in the BN-UMNO-controlled wind.
For the moment, let me reproduce a report from malaysianmirror.com and I'll come back later after my delayed dinner to add some stiffing to the offering:)
PM tells Dr M: Nothing wrong with Isa
Saturday, 03 October 2009 19:04
PEKAN - Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has shrugged off advice from past Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad, saying it was more important for the Bagan Pinang by-election candidate, Isa Abdul Samad, to be able to serve the constituents rather than having an unblemished character record.
“We must look forward. What is important is the service the assemblyman can offer the constituents,” Najib told reporters on Saturday.
The 84-year old Mahathir had cautioned against selecting Isa because the former Negeri Sembilan mentri besar had been found guilty of vote-buying and money politics in 2004.
“For me, it is not just this place (Bagan Pinang). The people throughout Malaysia want to know whether we are serious about eradicating money politics, corruption and so forth," Mahathir had said.
Umno will lose credibility
The former premier warned Isa could help Umno win the battle, but the party would lose the war if it could not convince Malaysians that it was serious about fighting corruption.
Nevertheless, Najib is unfazed. Political watchers also believe his hands may be tied.
Isa has an enormous grassroots base in the Teluk Kemang constituency, under which the Bagan Pinang state seat falls. If he is not selected, the risk of his supporters boycotting the contest and handing a shock victory to the opposition is very real.
Isa is due to face off against state PAS chief Zulkefly Omar, with balloting due to take place on Sunday Oct 11.
“In a by-election, what is important is the service an elected representative can render. He should be able to resolve the problems voters face, this is the yardstick,” reiterated Najib.
“As expected, it is a straight fight in Bagan Pinang. As such, we urge voters to evaluate wisely as to whom among the candidates can best serve them."
- Malaysian Mirror
A win by Isa would transalte with a unique situation of my State with two MBs, and the comeback kid is coming with tons of cash from his earlier rampage of the State's resources. I hear a super-Bumi whose nama is Chinese and its SIRname rimes with son-of-a-gun and Isa co-owned the major part of Nilai.
But it was the ****whispered incident in Port Dickson eon years ago when Isa bailed out Najib from a tricky situation involving a famous/infamous lady not is wife ZZ that must have earned Isa his second chance to seat himself on the NS throne deemed by the MB-secondtimearound apparently his family's birthright. Word has it if ISA did not finally make it to nominations if Hasan had raised his "V"oice highenough,Isa's son by the hugely favoured nama of Najib would have been the next UMNO's choice as candidate. Then Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad might hit the campaign trail!?
Note in the MM news report that follows this one-liner: "Nevertheless, Najib is unfazed. Political watchers also believe his hands may be tied." Does the above marked **** explain the mystery WHY Najib's hands are tied? You guys in the know please tell Desi!
Desi took a ride around Teluk Kemang, Port Dickson, in a leisurely drive with a PAS clubber from Furong from 9.30AM to 1.00PM to survey the battle ground. UMNO has homeground advantage with many party flats and "handsome" pictures of Mohd Isa headlining his Aidilfitri Open House PR and PM Najib Tun Razak headlining his nation's headship to justify the early by-election publicity blitz. PAS cnadidate NS PAS State Commissioner does NOT have any portraits up yet since the Election Commission allows only candidates and their parties can put up election stuff for display; I read from media reports that flags and posters put up by fellow parties DAP and PKR were NOT allowed to fluttter in the BN-UMNO-controlled wind.
For the moment, let me reproduce a report from malaysianmirror.com and I'll come back later after my delayed dinner to add some stiffing to the offering:)
PM tells Dr M: Nothing wrong with Isa
Saturday, 03 October 2009 19:04
PEKAN - Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has shrugged off advice from past Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad, saying it was more important for the Bagan Pinang by-election candidate, Isa Abdul Samad, to be able to serve the constituents rather than having an unblemished character record.
“We must look forward. What is important is the service the assemblyman can offer the constituents,” Najib told reporters on Saturday.
The 84-year old Mahathir had cautioned against selecting Isa because the former Negeri Sembilan mentri besar had been found guilty of vote-buying and money politics in 2004.
“For me, it is not just this place (Bagan Pinang). The people throughout Malaysia want to know whether we are serious about eradicating money politics, corruption and so forth," Mahathir had said.
Umno will lose credibility
The former premier warned Isa could help Umno win the battle, but the party would lose the war if it could not convince Malaysians that it was serious about fighting corruption.
Nevertheless, Najib is unfazed. Political watchers also believe his hands may be tied.
Isa has an enormous grassroots base in the Teluk Kemang constituency, under which the Bagan Pinang state seat falls. If he is not selected, the risk of his supporters boycotting the contest and handing a shock victory to the opposition is very real.
Isa is due to face off against state PAS chief Zulkefly Omar, with balloting due to take place on Sunday Oct 11.
“In a by-election, what is important is the service an elected representative can render. He should be able to resolve the problems voters face, this is the yardstick,” reiterated Najib.
“As expected, it is a straight fight in Bagan Pinang. As such, we urge voters to evaluate wisely as to whom among the candidates can best serve them."
- Malaysian Mirror
Friday, October 02, 2009
Some Update on malaysia-today.net
The attacks on Malaysia Today
(UDPATED WITH CHINESE TRANSLATION)
Posted by admin
Monday, 28 September 2009 16:21
The MCMC has in the past failed to silence Malaysia Today officially through blocking it in August 2008. Now, with even more revelations of various scandals of the government exposed through this site, we can't help but suspect that there is a more significant force, a hidden hand at play aimed at bringing down Malaysia Today.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
First of all, I have received tons of happy birthday messages via SMS, Facebook, e-mails and postings on this site. Initially, I tried to reply to all these messages one by one but as the messages flooded in I found it impossible to reply to each and every message individually. Therefore, I would like to say thank you and at the same time apologise to all those I was not able to personally reply to.
Now, you may have noticed that of late Malaysia Today has been ‘off the air’ almost every day, sometimes for a stretch of many hours. This has been going on for more than a week. The man leading our technical team thought that maybe we should inform our readers about what is happening so that you can be kept abreast of the developments. Rest assured we are doing everything we can to solve this problem.
Nevertheless, there is just so much we can do. Money, of course, is one issue that we have to address, as what would be required does cost us quite a sum. Money aside, though, if they choose to continue the attacks, even money can’t solve the problem. We just have to pick ourselves up and start all over again whenever we are hit and bear the disruptions to the site with a stiff upper lip.
Anyway, let our technical team explain what is the problem we have been facing.
What happened to Malaysia Today
By Malaysia Today’s technical team
With so much confusion and speculation making its rounds about what is happening to Malaysia Today over more than a week, we are compelled to offer our explanation so that the record can be set straight. Only limited technical details will be mentioned to allow you to appreciate the scale of challenge the site is facing.
You may now be aware that the site has been up and down since Friday, 17 September 2009. This was due to malicious activities by those behind the effort to cripple Malaysia Today. This is just one of the many rounds of cyber-attacks that we at Malaysia Today have had to face for more than a year now.
Coincidentally, this latest round of attacks started immediately after RPK’s explosive expose two weeks ago on Tuesday regarding the Malaysian Cabinet's knowledge and 'approval' of the PKFZ scandal long before it became public knowledge. Suspicious activities against the site happened as early as Wednesday, but the first damage was done in the afternoon of Thursday, which brought the site down.
The site was quickly recovered and by 6.00pm we were up and running again although with some loss of data. The attack revolved around the long-time problem faced by the site - a rather old version of Joomla content management system and the use of third-party components.
Lack of resources (financial, manpower, etc.) has always been a challenge faced by Malaysia Today, which affected the maintenance and operations of the site. During the recovery process, we locked down the site to reduce the danger of further compromises.
The next wave of attacks came the following day on Friday. This time it was in a wave of DDoS traffic crippling one of our nodes at Singapore. The Singapore node operates with about 30Mbps of bandwidth, a luxury by Malaysian standards but far short if we need to match any serious DDoS attacks. The node was basically choked with illegitimate traffic. Typical of DDoS network attacks, the origin of the attacks is difficult to pinpoint and sometimes pointless as the attack agents/zombies are likely compromised systems themselves.
We then activated our resources at our US node to recover the site. The process required optimisation of the site to cope with demand. (The demand on the site seemed much higher, possibly due to the interest on the PKFZ expose.) Hence the intermittent site outage, due to either overloading or optimisation process.
Being a service provider of a larger scale and sophistication, the US node has a higher capability of sustaining the attacks. Still, the attacks persisted on a daily basis and we tried deflecting them as far as we could. The DDoS traffic we suffered ranged from 227Mbps to 835Mbps, a mammoth scale for anyone familiar with maintaining Internet sites. The attacker does not appear interested in defacing the website, typical of self-styled college hackers. He/she just deleted articles published on Malaysia Today, literally one by one, with the single-minded aim of erasing all the explosive stuff on the site.
Further complicating the trace of attacks is the use of free proxy servers, on random basis, by the attackers. This is an irony, as we have been advising our users to use such proxy servers to overcome any potential content filtering by the government.
All the malicious activities and behaviours bear the hallmark of professional, for-hire hackers. These are certainly no amateurs, judging from the persistence and frequency of the attacks, with the main objective of making the content of Malaysia Today inaccessible to the public.
We believe that there is NO explicit blocking of the site by the various Malaysian ISPs. The inconsistent and intermittent accessibility of the site in the past many days are the result of the situation described above, although we must caution that it is almost impossible to detect any clandestine censorship.
The MCMC has in the past failed to silence Malaysia Today officially through blocking it in August 2008. Now, with even more revelations of various scandals of the government exposed through this site, we can't help but suspect that there is a more significant force, a hidden hand at play aimed at bringing down Malaysia Today.
READ CHINESE TRANSLATION HERE++++ from ccliew.blogspot.com:
++++
2009年9月28日 星期一
毫不留情: 《今日大马》受到的攻击
多媒体委员会在2008年8月正式封锁《今日大马》，可是却无法让它消声灭迹。现在，通过本站说揭露的更多各式各样的政府丑闻，我们不得不怀疑这是一股更强的力量，一只黑手在玩弄着，其目的即是击垮《今日大马》。
首先，我收到大量来自短讯、面子书、电邮和来自这个网站的庆生信息，我想要一一回覆这些信息，可是当这些信息排山倒海的继续涌入，我觉得不太可能回覆每个信息，因此，我要在此感谢您，以此同时，对于无法一一回覆，我再次向大家致歉。
现在，你也许已经意识到《今日大马》几乎每天都在『停止广播』的状态，有时这种状态则维持了好几个小时，这种情况持续了接近一个星期。领导我们的技术小组的人士认为也许我们需要通知我们的读者们发生了什么事，以让你对最新的事态进展有所理解，大家放心！我们会竭尽所能解决这个问题。
可是，我们需要能做的不多。金钱！当然是其中一项我们需要注明的课题，而要做到这些，会花掉许多钱。尽管除了钱的问题，如果他们选择继续攻击的话，这个问题不是金钱可以克服的。每次我们的被攻击，网站被瓦解时，我们只有哑子吃黄莲，收拾包袱重新再来过。
总而言之，就让我们的技术小组解释我们目前所面对的问题吧！
《今日大马》发生了什么事？
《今日大马》技术小组著
超过一周，有许多的困惑和谣言围绕在《今日大马》所发生的事，我们被迫做出解释，以平息外面的舆论。为了让您评估这个网站目前所面临的挑战难度，我们将细述部分的技术细节。
你或许有发现到，自从2009年9月17日至今，这个网站的情况时好时坏，这是因为有人在背后做出恶意活动，以瘫痪《今日大马》。这是自从一年多前直到现在为止，我们在《今日大马》被多次网络攻击的其中一次。
巧合的是，最近一轮的攻击发生在两周前的星期二，当日，《今日大马》揭露了马来西亚内阁知晓和『批准』巴生自贸区这桩路人皆知的丑闻的事，在当天，我们即刻受到攻击。早在星期三，网站发现了可疑的活动，可是，首次造成损坏是在星期四下午，并导致网站故障。
在下午六时，网站快速的重新恢复运作。尽管如此，我们损失了部分资料。网站面临了长时间被攻击的问题，这是因为所使用的Joomla内容管理系统以及一些插件的关系。
缺乏资源（财力，人手等等）一直以来都是《今日大马》所面对的问题，这致使了网站的维修和运作受到影响。在修复过程中，我们封锁了网站，以减少进一步的暴露在危险中。
次轮攻击发生在隔天星期，这一波是『分布式拒绝服务攻击』(DDoS)，瘫痪了我们在新加坡的站点，新加坡站点的频宽是30Mbps，对大马人来说是个奢侈，可是要对抗严重的DDoS攻击就显得非常不足了。由于这些非法流量，这个站点被卡死了。典型的DDoS网络攻击中，要找出攻击来源是很困难的，同时，攻击这些代理/电脑犯罪分子（zombies）是毫无意义的，因为他们懂得互相协调。
接着，我们启动我们在美国的站点，以恢复本站的运作。这个程序需要对对本站进行优化，以应付流量需求（流量的增加可能是因为对巴生自贸区被揭露而引起了网络使用者的星期）。由于上载过程或优化过程在进行中，网站间歇性的中断服务。
美国是个大规模和复杂的网络供应营商，它有很强的抵御攻击的能力。可是，攻击还是每日进行，我们只有尽最大能力击败他们。我们所蒙受的DDoS攻击由 227Mbps到835Mbps不等，任何熟悉网站维修的人都知道这是场大规模的攻击。攻击者看来没有兴趣只损害网站外表，那是典型的学生式骇客的做法。他/她删除掉发布在《今日大马》的文章，老实说，即是一篇篇的删掉，他们的想法只有一个，即是删除本站所揭露的所有文章。
攻击者随意的利用免费代理服务器，使得追踪更加变得复杂化。这是很可笑的，因为我们开始劝告我们的读者使用这种代理服务器，以克服政府过滤内容的潜在问题。
这些所有的恶意活动和态度证明了这些都是受聘的骇客专家的所为。由攻击的坚持和频密度来看，这可定不是业余骇客所做的，他们主要的目的就是让公众无法取得《今日大马》的内容。
我们相信马来西亚的各家网络营运商并没有明显的封锁本站。本站服务的间歇性中断即是以上情况造成的。尽管我们必须谨慎，可是任何秘密的网络审查是几乎不可能的。多媒体委员会在2008年8月正式封锁《今日大马》，可是却无法让它消声灭迹。现在，通过本站说揭露的更多各式各样的政府丑闻，我们不得不怀疑这是一股更强的力量，一只黑手在玩弄着，其目的即是击垮《今日大马》。
出处∶Malaysia Today
原题∶No Hold Barred∶The attacks on Malaysia Today
作者 ∶拉惹柏特拉
发表日期∶28-09-2009
翻译 ∶西西留
Labels: 毫不留情
(UDPATED WITH CHINESE TRANSLATION)
Posted by admin
Monday, 28 September 2009 16:21
The MCMC has in the past failed to silence Malaysia Today officially through blocking it in August 2008. Now, with even more revelations of various scandals of the government exposed through this site, we can't help but suspect that there is a more significant force, a hidden hand at play aimed at bringing down Malaysia Today.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
First of all, I have received tons of happy birthday messages via SMS, Facebook, e-mails and postings on this site. Initially, I tried to reply to all these messages one by one but as the messages flooded in I found it impossible to reply to each and every message individually. Therefore, I would like to say thank you and at the same time apologise to all those I was not able to personally reply to.
Now, you may have noticed that of late Malaysia Today has been ‘off the air’ almost every day, sometimes for a stretch of many hours. This has been going on for more than a week. The man leading our technical team thought that maybe we should inform our readers about what is happening so that you can be kept abreast of the developments. Rest assured we are doing everything we can to solve this problem.
Nevertheless, there is just so much we can do. Money, of course, is one issue that we have to address, as what would be required does cost us quite a sum. Money aside, though, if they choose to continue the attacks, even money can’t solve the problem. We just have to pick ourselves up and start all over again whenever we are hit and bear the disruptions to the site with a stiff upper lip.
Anyway, let our technical team explain what is the problem we have been facing.
What happened to Malaysia Today
By Malaysia Today’s technical team
With so much confusion and speculation making its rounds about what is happening to Malaysia Today over more than a week, we are compelled to offer our explanation so that the record can be set straight. Only limited technical details will be mentioned to allow you to appreciate the scale of challenge the site is facing.
You may now be aware that the site has been up and down since Friday, 17 September 2009. This was due to malicious activities by those behind the effort to cripple Malaysia Today. This is just one of the many rounds of cyber-attacks that we at Malaysia Today have had to face for more than a year now.
Coincidentally, this latest round of attacks started immediately after RPK’s explosive expose two weeks ago on Tuesday regarding the Malaysian Cabinet's knowledge and 'approval' of the PKFZ scandal long before it became public knowledge. Suspicious activities against the site happened as early as Wednesday, but the first damage was done in the afternoon of Thursday, which brought the site down.
The site was quickly recovered and by 6.00pm we were up and running again although with some loss of data. The attack revolved around the long-time problem faced by the site - a rather old version of Joomla content management system and the use of third-party components.
Lack of resources (financial, manpower, etc.) has always been a challenge faced by Malaysia Today, which affected the maintenance and operations of the site. During the recovery process, we locked down the site to reduce the danger of further compromises.
The next wave of attacks came the following day on Friday. This time it was in a wave of DDoS traffic crippling one of our nodes at Singapore. The Singapore node operates with about 30Mbps of bandwidth, a luxury by Malaysian standards but far short if we need to match any serious DDoS attacks. The node was basically choked with illegitimate traffic. Typical of DDoS network attacks, the origin of the attacks is difficult to pinpoint and sometimes pointless as the attack agents/zombies are likely compromised systems themselves.
We then activated our resources at our US node to recover the site. The process required optimisation of the site to cope with demand. (The demand on the site seemed much higher, possibly due to the interest on the PKFZ expose.) Hence the intermittent site outage, due to either overloading or optimisation process.
Being a service provider of a larger scale and sophistication, the US node has a higher capability of sustaining the attacks. Still, the attacks persisted on a daily basis and we tried deflecting them as far as we could. The DDoS traffic we suffered ranged from 227Mbps to 835Mbps, a mammoth scale for anyone familiar with maintaining Internet sites. The attacker does not appear interested in defacing the website, typical of self-styled college hackers. He/she just deleted articles published on Malaysia Today, literally one by one, with the single-minded aim of erasing all the explosive stuff on the site.
Further complicating the trace of attacks is the use of free proxy servers, on random basis, by the attackers. This is an irony, as we have been advising our users to use such proxy servers to overcome any potential content filtering by the government.
All the malicious activities and behaviours bear the hallmark of professional, for-hire hackers. These are certainly no amateurs, judging from the persistence and frequency of the attacks, with the main objective of making the content of Malaysia Today inaccessible to the public.
We believe that there is NO explicit blocking of the site by the various Malaysian ISPs. The inconsistent and intermittent accessibility of the site in the past many days are the result of the situation described above, although we must caution that it is almost impossible to detect any clandestine censorship.
The MCMC has in the past failed to silence Malaysia Today officially through blocking it in August 2008. Now, with even more revelations of various scandals of the government exposed through this site, we can't help but suspect that there is a more significant force, a hidden hand at play aimed at bringing down Malaysia Today.
READ CHINESE TRANSLATION HERE++++ from ccliew.blogspot.com:
++++
2009年9月28日 星期一
毫不留情: 《今日大马》受到的攻击
多媒体委员会在2008年8月正式封锁《今日大马》，可是却无法让它消声灭迹。现在，通过本站说揭露的更多各式各样的政府丑闻，我们不得不怀疑这是一股更强的力量，一只黑手在玩弄着，其目的即是击垮《今日大马》。
首先，我收到大量来自短讯、面子书、电邮和来自这个网站的庆生信息，我想要一一回覆这些信息，可是当这些信息排山倒海的继续涌入，我觉得不太可能回覆每个信息，因此，我要在此感谢您，以此同时，对于无法一一回覆，我再次向大家致歉。
现在，你也许已经意识到《今日大马》几乎每天都在『停止广播』的状态，有时这种状态则维持了好几个小时，这种情况持续了接近一个星期。领导我们的技术小组的人士认为也许我们需要通知我们的读者们发生了什么事，以让你对最新的事态进展有所理解，大家放心！我们会竭尽所能解决这个问题。
可是，我们需要能做的不多。金钱！当然是其中一项我们需要注明的课题，而要做到这些，会花掉许多钱。尽管除了钱的问题，如果他们选择继续攻击的话，这个问题不是金钱可以克服的。每次我们的被攻击，网站被瓦解时，我们只有哑子吃黄莲，收拾包袱重新再来过。
总而言之，就让我们的技术小组解释我们目前所面对的问题吧！
《今日大马》发生了什么事？
《今日大马》技术小组著
超过一周，有许多的困惑和谣言围绕在《今日大马》所发生的事，我们被迫做出解释，以平息外面的舆论。为了让您评估这个网站目前所面临的挑战难度，我们将细述部分的技术细节。
你或许有发现到，自从2009年9月17日至今，这个网站的情况时好时坏，这是因为有人在背后做出恶意活动，以瘫痪《今日大马》。这是自从一年多前直到现在为止，我们在《今日大马》被多次网络攻击的其中一次。
巧合的是，最近一轮的攻击发生在两周前的星期二，当日，《今日大马》揭露了马来西亚内阁知晓和『批准』巴生自贸区这桩路人皆知的丑闻的事，在当天，我们即刻受到攻击。早在星期三，网站发现了可疑的活动，可是，首次造成损坏是在星期四下午，并导致网站故障。
在下午六时，网站快速的重新恢复运作。尽管如此，我们损失了部分资料。网站面临了长时间被攻击的问题，这是因为所使用的Joomla内容管理系统以及一些插件的关系。
缺乏资源（财力，人手等等）一直以来都是《今日大马》所面对的问题，这致使了网站的维修和运作受到影响。在修复过程中，我们封锁了网站，以减少进一步的暴露在危险中。
次轮攻击发生在隔天星期，这一波是『分布式拒绝服务攻击』(DDoS)，瘫痪了我们在新加坡的站点，新加坡站点的频宽是30Mbps，对大马人来说是个奢侈，可是要对抗严重的DDoS攻击就显得非常不足了。由于这些非法流量，这个站点被卡死了。典型的DDoS网络攻击中，要找出攻击来源是很困难的，同时，攻击这些代理/电脑犯罪分子（zombies）是毫无意义的，因为他们懂得互相协调。
接着，我们启动我们在美国的站点，以恢复本站的运作。这个程序需要对对本站进行优化，以应付流量需求（流量的增加可能是因为对巴生自贸区被揭露而引起了网络使用者的星期）。由于上载过程或优化过程在进行中，网站间歇性的中断服务。
美国是个大规模和复杂的网络供应营商，它有很强的抵御攻击的能力。可是，攻击还是每日进行，我们只有尽最大能力击败他们。我们所蒙受的DDoS攻击由 227Mbps到835Mbps不等，任何熟悉网站维修的人都知道这是场大规模的攻击。攻击者看来没有兴趣只损害网站外表，那是典型的学生式骇客的做法。他/她删除掉发布在《今日大马》的文章，老实说，即是一篇篇的删掉，他们的想法只有一个，即是删除本站所揭露的所有文章。
攻击者随意的利用免费代理服务器，使得追踪更加变得复杂化。这是很可笑的，因为我们开始劝告我们的读者使用这种代理服务器，以克服政府过滤内容的潜在问题。
这些所有的恶意活动和态度证明了这些都是受聘的骇客专家的所为。由攻击的坚持和频密度来看，这可定不是业余骇客所做的，他们主要的目的就是让公众无法取得《今日大马》的内容。
我们相信马来西亚的各家网络营运商并没有明显的封锁本站。本站服务的间歇性中断即是以上情况造成的。尽管我们必须谨慎，可是任何秘密的网络审查是几乎不可能的。多媒体委员会在2008年8月正式封锁《今日大马》，可是却无法让它消声灭迹。现在，通过本站说揭露的更多各式各样的政府丑闻，我们不得不怀疑这是一股更强的力量，一只黑手在玩弄着，其目的即是击垮《今日大马》。
出处∶Malaysia Today
原题∶No Hold Barred∶The attacks on Malaysia Today
作者 ∶拉惹柏特拉
发表日期∶28-09-2009
翻译 ∶西西留
Labels: 毫不留情
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)