a play club

We did not spend much time with the police in Merdeka Square and turned right to Jalan Parlimen and continue walking along Jalan Kinabalu behind Royal Selangor Club trying to meet another group at National Mosque.

A wildlife conservation group wants the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to look into alleged business dealings involving a minister and a former director-general where wild monkeys are being exported for profit.

The group said the ACA must investigate Environment Minister Azmi Khalid (photo) and former Department of Wildlife and National Parks DG Musa Nordin, who retired last October, for abuse of power.

Malaysian Animal Rights and Welfare Society (Roar) believes that a company linked to the two is the beneficiary of a export programme created under the guise to trim down the population of long-tailed macaques in Peninsular Malaysia.

Roar submitted a memorandum to ACA office in Kuala Lumpur today calling for investigation into the matter. Accompanying the group were DAP and PKR officials.

Roar consists of Selangor Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals (SSPCA), Malaysian Animal Assisted Therapy for Disabled Association, PKR and Malaysian Association for Responsible Pet Ownership.

Motivated by profit

"We are angry that the animals are being exploited by the very ministry tasked to protect them," Roar pro-tem chairperson N Surendran told a press conference today.

Surendran said ACA should investigate whether a recent lifting of the ban on the export of macaques was motivated by profit.

In June, against international convention, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry lifted a 23-year ban on the export of macaques, saying there is an overpopulation of the species.

In July, Roar submitted a memorandum to the minister demanding the reinstatement of the ban and a halt on all pending macaque shipments. They also lodged a police report against Azmi and ministry officials for violating Section 92(f) of the Protection of Wildlife Act 1972.

The police forwarded the case to the ACA last month, saying it has elements of abuse of power.

"We found this very suspicious. All animal rights groups and wildlife experts found it very strange. The question is why the ministry is bent on exporting these monkeys? I will give you the answer right now... money," said Surendran.

"The ministry wants to make money out of it, and the ministry is allowing a private company to make money out of it. The question here is why is the Malaysian environment and natural resources being plundered in order to profit some company," he said.

RM250 for one monkey

Surendran referred to a news article published by the Star on Sept 11, where Musa admitted he was "indirectly involved" in the monkey trade.

"We have information that the decision to export the monkey when Musa Nordin was still the DG. We have information that there is connection with the company. He has close contacts with the Department of Wildlife. Clearly there was some hanky panky going on there with elements of corruption," he said.

According to Roar, each exported monkey brings in RM250. The macaques are exported, mostly to China, for animal testing and vivisection.

Roar alleged that the export contract of over 20,000 monkeys annually was given by the Environment Ministry to a company, Sunny K-9 Sdn Bhd. A check revealed that the company, based in Ipoh, is a dog-training academy.

Surendran also disagreed with the Environment Ministry figures that there are over 250,000 monkeys living near urban centres and over 500,000 monkeys living in the jungles.

"We question the figures because experts found that it was not possible to calculate the precise number of monkeys through the ministry's methodology. I feel the figures are grossly over-estimated to justify the lifting of a ban," said Surendran.

Surendran said the ministry should pursue alternative ways to reduce the macaque population including sterilisation, relocation and humane culling.

"That the House gives leave to Ketua Pembangkang YB Lim Kit Siang to adjourn the House under S.O. 18 (1) to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance -- Malaysia's worst-ever ranking in Reporters Without Borders (RSF) worldwide press freedom index 2007.

"Malaysia scored two 'worsts' in the index -- the sharpest plunge of 32 spots from last year's 92 to 124 placing, which is also Malaysia's worst ranking in the RSF annual worldwide press freedom ranking since it was started in 2002.

"Last year, when Malaysia jumped 21 spots to 92nd ranking from the previous year's 113rd position, there was a lot of self-congratulations in government and mainstream media circles.

"This year, Malaysia cannot make the same claim of scoring higher than all the other Asean countries, as we are behind Cambodia (85) and Indonesia (100) while in the Asia-Pacific region, we are behind Taiwan (32), Japan (37), South Korea (39), Hong Kong (61), Timor-Leste (94), Bhutan (116) and India (120).

"Malaysia's drop and placing for this year's RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index would have been worse if the shocking development that the Prime Minister does not want to hear the truth from the media and the public had been taken fully into account.

"Malaysia's worst placing in the RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index joins a lost list of indicators that all is not right with Malaysia on the occasion of our 50th Merdeka anniversary -- a sober reminder that while we should be proud of our national achievements, we have greater reason to be concerned about our many national failings, in particular the failure to honour the Barisan Nasional's pledge in 2004 general election for openness and reform as well as the urgent need for a Freedom of Information Act and to dismantle undemocratic and oppressive laws."

A thorough investigation must be carried out on the ferry catching fire while heading for Pulau Tioman, leading to the death of four passengers and a number of others suffering serious injuries and with some missing .

It was a very serious matter involving the safety and health of the public and the crew concerned.

The investigation should determine the cause of the tragedy, whether there was any negligence on the part of the ferry owner and operator in relation to the adherence to safety standards and regulations by the ferry operators, compliance with appropriate occupational safety and health practices, provision of adequate safety vests and safety briefing and instructions given to passengers in the event of any emergency before the ferry took off as well as the verification of the validity of the ferry licence which was claimed as expired by the Marine Department (the ferry owner had claimed otherwise).

Investigation must also be conducted to check whether the enforcement by the relevant authority had been lax, leading to the tragedy and whether the crew members had done their best to evacuate and help save the passengers when the fire broke out.

These and other related questions need to be fully answered by the Ministry of Transport when the investigation is carried out, and the result of the investigation must be made public.

It is also report that two other ferries belonging to the company that operated the ferry which caught fire off Mersing have been seized as the two ferries also did not have the proper documents for them to go to sea.

Southern Region Marine Department director Hazman Hussein said the vessels, Seagull Express 3 and Jentayu belonging to Seagull Express and Accommodation Sdn Bhd, did not have domestic shipping licences and manning certificates though the two vessels had passenger certificates, Hazman said.

A domestic shipping licence determines the places where a vessel is allowed to operate while a manning certificate is required when a vessel needs to have qualified crew members.

This is not the first time a ferry tragedy had occurred. There were other tragedies in the past but obviously we have not learnt from past experiences and have taken the safety of the public for granted.

It is a typical Malaysian behaviour that very time a tragedy occurs there will be promises of investigation to find out the causes, but whether the lessons learnt from each tragedy will be observed and practiced to prevent future tragedies is very doubtful.
After a while when everything dies down, the lessons are forgotten and we wait for another tragedy before we go though the same rigmarole.

That until and unless all ferry operators are prepared to put into practice good occupational safety and health practices and make safety a culture in the course of their operations, there is no guarantee that another tragedy will not occur in the future.

A thorough investigation must be carried out on the ferry catching fire while heading for Pulau Tioman, leading to the death of four passengers and a number of others suffering serious injuries and with some missing .

It was a very serious matter involving the safety and health of the public and the crew concerned.

The investigation should determine the cause of the tragedy, whether there was any negligence on the part of the ferry owner and operator in relation to the adherence to safety standards and regulations by the ferry operators, compliance with appropriate occupational safety and health practices, provision of adequate safety vests and safety briefing and instructions given to passengers in the event of any emergency before the ferry took off as well as the verification of the validity of the ferry licence which was claimed as expired by the Marine Department (the ferry owner had claimed otherwise).

Investigation must also be conducted to check whether the enforcement by the relevant authority had been lax, leading to the tragedy and whether the crew members had done their best to evacuate and help save the passengers when the fire broke out.

These and other related questions need to be fully answered by the Ministry of Transport when the investigation is carried out, and the result of the investigation must be made public.

It is also report that two other ferries belonging to the company that operated the ferry which caught fire off Mersing have been seized as the two ferries also did not have the proper documents for them to go to sea.

Southern Region Marine Department director Hazman Hussein said the vessels, Seagull Express 3 and Jentayu belonging to Seagull Express and Accommodation Sdn Bhd, did not have domestic shipping licences and manning certificates though the two vessels had passenger certificates, Hazman said.

A domestic shipping licence determines the places where a vessel is allowed to operate while a manning certificate is required when a vessel needs to have qualified crew members.

This is not the first time a ferry tragedy had occurred. There were other tragedies in the past but obviously we have not learnt from past experiences and have taken the safety of the public for granted.

It is a typical Malaysian behaviour that very time a tragedy occurs there will be promises of investigation to find out the causes, but whether the lessons learnt from each tragedy will be observed and practiced to prevent future tragedies is very doubtful.
After a while when everything dies down, the lessons are forgotten and we wait for another tragedy before we go though the same rigmarole.

That until and unless all ferry operators are prepared to put into practice good occupational safety and health practices and make safety a culture in the course of their operations, there is no guarantee that another tragedy will not occur in the future.

DAP Secretary General Lim Guan Eng speaks on a dinner organised by DAP Petaling Jaya on the 1st November 2007.

He illustrated current political scenario.

The national shame of Malaysia falling completely out of the list of the world's Top 200 Universities this year in the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES)-Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings had been equaled by the scandal that this Malaysian ignominy had been totally ignored by last week's Umno General Assembly, whether by Umno delegates or leaders.

This shows the superficiality of the commitment of Umno leaders to the slogan of "Cemerlang, Gemilang and Terbilang" and to transform Malaysia into a knowledge-based innovative economy marked by a world-class university system.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had after the Umno General Assembly expressed his concern about the fall of Malaysian universities from the international league of best universities, but why wasn't there a single reference to this shocking result in the Umno General Assembly, touted as the most important national political assembly of the country?

Further details have shown that Malaysian universities have suffered a very serious drop in the international league of the world's best universities.

For the first time, there is not only not a single university in the op 200 Universities list, there is also not a single university in the separate ranking of Top 100 Universities for five subject areas -- Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities; Life Sciences and Biomedicine; and Engineering and Information Technology.

For the Top 200 Universities List, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) had fallen out of the ranking, with UKM plunging from 185th slot last year to 309th while University fo Malaya plunged from 192nd last year to 246th spot. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), which was ranked as the only "outstanding" five-star university in a recent government survey, has fallen to 307th spot from 277 last year. In 2005, USM was in the 326th spot.

The performance of Malaysian universities in the Top 100 lists for the five subject areas are even more dismal, with not a single university making into the five lists although last year University of Malaya was ranked 49 in Social Sciences and 95 in Natural Sciences, UKM was placed No. 62 in Natural Sciences, and University Sains Malaysia placed No. 96 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) (No. 33) is ranked among the Top 100 Universities for all the five categories while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) (No. 69) is ranked among the Top 100 universities for three categories, viz: Engineering & IT; Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.

NUS is ranked No. 10 for Engineering & IT; No. 12 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine, No. 25 for Natural Sciences; No. 20 for Social Sciences and No. 21 for Arts & Humanities.

NTU is ranked No. 25 for Engineering & IT; No. 99 for Natural Sciences and No. 88 for Social Sciences.

Even Thailand's Chulalongkorn University is rated among the Top 100 Universities for two categories -- Engineering & IT (No. 100) and Social Sciences (No. 83)

Malaysians have not be told the real and true reasons for the shocking performance of Malaysian universities in the THES-QS Top 200 Universities ranking. Malaysian universities have been consistent in increasingly deplorable results in world rankings, whether the THES-QS, Shanghai Jiao Tong University World's Best 500 Universities or the Newsweek's Top 100 Global Universities.

If the government is serious about its slogan of "Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang" to create a world-class university system to transform Malaysia into a knowledge-based innovative economy, it must end the NEP-mentality in the universities and fully restore the policy of meritocracy and academic excellence coupled with social need to provide university education opportunities to economically-backward Malaysians regardless of race.

All universities should be allowed to enroll the most qualified students, employ the most competent professors and researchers with competitive remunerations and restore a culture of academic excellence and freedom.

One simple test of whether the government is seriously committed to abandon the baggages of past NEP policies to create a world-class university system is whether it has the political will to end the brain drain depriving Malaysia of the best and brightest for the development of the country.

For a start, I call on the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to check the annual four-figure brain-drain of the best and brightest STPM students and Chinese Independent Secondary school students by providing them equitable higher education opportunities at home to demonstrate that the government is serious in wanting to build a world-class university system.