Terry Fox Run 2010 KL

Sometimes when I think there is no hope for this country, I am reminded that there is a ray of light even in the dense forest.

One of them is the Terry Fox Run which will be held in KL this Sunday.

It is usually the civilised and developed countries that organise this run, but evidently Malaysia has its moments too.

Terry Fox is a Canadian who first lost his leg to cancer. He eventually lost his life to it as well, but before he departed, he ran to raise funds for cancer.

Must have been painful on only one normal leg. But he did it.

And so do many other people around the world every year.

If you're keen to help raise funds for cancer research, here are the details:

Date: 7-11-2010 (Sunday)
Time: 8:30am
Venue: Taman Tasik Titiwangsa

Launch Of BERSIH 2.0

INVITATION TO THE LAUNCH OF BERSIH 2.0
UNITE AND ADVANCE ELECTORAL REFORM

We, the BERSIH 2.0 steering committee, invite your organisation to join and unite with us to advance clean and fair elections in Malaysia. Much still needs to be done and BERSIH 2.0 needs your support and help to make the mission come true for a democratic Malaysia.

BERSIH 2.0 believes that it is only when elections are clean and fair, can citizens determine their own destiny and expect holders of public office to act accountably and effectively. The road to electoral reform is part and parcel of the democratic process to put into place the rule of law, human rights protection, good governance and sustainable development in Malaysia. As citizens, we can make this our reality.

The key issues of electoral reform include
1. A complete revision of the electoral roll to ensure that the existing irregularities are removed and a roll with full integrity is in place.
2. The use of indelible ink (as is done in Indonesia and India) to prevent multiple voting.
3. The reform of postal voting to abolish the existing separate electoral roll for postal voters and to make it flexible for all voters, at home or abroad, with valid reasons to opt for postal voting.
4. Free and fair media access for all contesting parties, which should include: (a) free access to state-owned media especially television and radio; (b) fair paid access (political advertisement) to private media; and (c) provision of the right of reply for all contesting parties and personalities who are covered negatively in news reports.
5. A meaningful minimum campaign period of 21 days.
6. Fair and professional practices in constituency redelineation exercises to minimise mal-apportionment, gerrymandering and consequent disproportionality in seats and votes.
7. Automatic registration of all eligible voters.
8. Reduction of the voting eligibility age from 21 to 18 years old.9. Reform in electoral financing to ensure transparency and limit the influence of money politics.
10. Administrative neutrality of all levels of governments before, during and after general and by-elections for the federal and state legislatures.
11. Affirming the right of all students of 18 years and above, to participate in politics inside and outside campus.

Bersih 2.0, whilst acknowledging the importance of the reform agenda of Bersih, is now relaunched as a fully non-partisan coalition of civil society groups. It is a movement of ordinary citizens asserting the right of all, to clean and fair elections as guaranteed by law. We must ensure our votes and voices count.

We, therefore, warmly invite you and your organisations to join us and extend your full support to ensure that the next election and future ones will be clean, fair and democratic.

The details of the launch are as follows:

Date: 10 November 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 8.30 p.m. – 10.30 p.m.
Venue: PJ Civic Hall, Jalan Yong Shook Lin, Petaling Jaya.

Please bring your members and friends to the launch. You can contact Nurul at 03-77844977 for more information. I

Yours sincerely,
Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan
Chairperson

The Steering Committee of BERSIH 2.0 comprises:

Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan, (Chairperson), Andrew Khoo, Arumugam K., Dr Farouk Musa, Haris Ibrahim, Liau Koh Fah, Maria Chin Abdullah, Richard Y W Yeoh, Dr Toh Kin Woon, Dr Wong Chin Huat, Yeoh Yang Poh and Zaid Kamaruddin.

Remember the first BERSIH rally in 2007?

A Call To Reluctant Politicians

It's about the third force.

We need people with integrity. Those who would NOT leap like frogs to BN.

Or as Haris puts it, those who "can be counted on to not sell their souls when BN comes a calling with millions ... to betray the rakyat."

Read the whole post HERE.

The general elections may be closer than you think.

Trying To Obtain A Birth Certificate

Some of you may remember a previous post about Malaysian-born children without birth certificates.

I still find it shocking that in this day and age, there are children in this country who are stateless and belong nowhere. They do not exist in the eyes of our government.

These are three of the eight children I wrote about earlier. The little boy peeking out from behind his sister has no birth certificate.

He hasn't attained school-going age yet, but if he doesn't somehow obtain a birth certificate, he doesn't obtain an education.

Which is why my friend was so keen on ensuring these kids make their foray into government records. He dragged the young 25 year old mother and her unregistered children to the Registry department.

But trying to get a birth certificate is not easy. Firstly there is a fine for not registering within the stipulated period.

Secondly, you need a witness to swear under oath that he/she was present when the child was born.

And last but not least, the civil servants in the district were uncooperative. They told the mother to go all the way to Seremban to register their birth.

It takes over an hour to get from Kuala Pilah to Seremban. There is limited public transportation, if any.

Perhaps the civil servants were acting within their rightful jurisdiction. But the manner in which they regarded this uneducated, poverty-stricken woman was out of line.

It is not merely the politicians in the state level that exceed their boundaries. So do those in the local council.

We need to have more say and control over the government and administration of the local council for things to improve.

On The Fast Track To Bankruptcy

These are the days when one is compelled to slap one's forehead in dismay at the priorities of the ruling coalition in terms of "national interests".

Of course, the average Malaysian knows that it is about how much money the politicians can siphon from this project to build a 100 storey tower.

We already have the Twin Towers, which reigned as the tallest for awhile.

And then it was quickly overtaken by Taipei 101 (Taiwan) and Burj Khalifa (UAE).

So why do we need yet another Malaysia Boleh project?

It is not the first time I have said it, and I will say it again:

We are a nation that nurses its deep-seated insecurities by conjuring up ridiculously over-the-top mega-projects which serve no purpose beyond ego-stroking.

When thousands of Malaysians suffer traffic jams everyday due to our poor public transportation, do we need another white elephant?

At some point we need to come to our senses.

Let that be NOW.

Facebook Blocks Politically Sensitive Sites

 

TIME magazine has this to say:

An American may have invented Facebook, but when it comes to social networking, we can't touch Malaysia.

A study showed that Malaysians have the most friends on their social networks, averaging at 233 digital friends per user.

Malaysians were also the heaviest users of social networking sites, spending a whopping nine hours per week on average communicating with their hoards of online friends.

So it is a grave mistake for Facebook to block the publishing rights of the page “Malaysians for Beng Hock”.

The administrators of the above-mentioned page have this to say:

The arbitrary and undemocratic governance of Facebook on its users is not only tyrannical in itself, it is open to manipulation by authoritarian regimes to shut down facebook activism by making a lot of or high-powered complaints.

From our knowledge, at least two other politically-critical pages - ‘Justice for Beng Bock’ and ‘save Jamal on Air’ pages were also terminated by Facebook without reasons.

As both the death of Beng Hock and sacking of 988 deejay Jamaluddin Ibrahim are highly controversial issues in Malaysia, these raise the legitimate suspicion if such blocking was the outcome of some backdoor crackdown operation on new media, made possible by Facebook’s arbitrary governance.

It is entirely expected that our scum-of-the-earth government would pressure Facebook with a request like this, but very surprising that Facebook would accede to that.

After all, Facebook have the highest number of users in Malaysia and you don't want to piss them off.

The Teoh Beng Hock Inquest

Remember how the last session of Teoh Beng Hock's inquest went?

Please attend and support his family. Your presence will make a difference.

Date: 14/10/10 (Thursday)
Time: 2pm
Venue: Shah Alam High Court

Lawyer Gobind Singh will interrogate witness about the ‘note’.

If you have any queries, please call Yap Hwa at 012-2658448

Sabah Or Malaysia

Some dude by the name of Aricco Jumitih represented the country in the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

He took the gold medal for the 62 kg weightlifting event.

But he was seen wearing a vest bearing the flag of his home state Sabah, instead of the Jalur Gemilang usually worn by national athletes participating in international events.

That has irked some of the bigwigs.

The irony is they barely give two hoots about East Malaysia, except to exploit them politically and economically.

Even when they actually do the nation proud, they get their asses stomped on.

You just can't win sometimes.

Dog Eat Dog World

Some of you may have been unhappy about struggling to make ends meet when April comes and the tax man wants another chunk!

The problem is, Najib needs your money.

More than you do.

Third Line Of Defence

I expect our National News Agency to spout a lot of rubbish.

It is even a given for our Prime Minister to babble nonsense.

But still, nothing prepared me for this.

I guess the fourth line of defence would be to show this article to enemies of Malaysia so that they die laughing.