Who Is FBC Media?

What they say on their website:

Formed in 1998, FactBased Communications (FBC) is a European-based media and entertainment group specialising in television format creation, production and distribution.

However, there is more that you should know about them. Apart from entertainment, they apparently do public relations.

Guess who is part of their clientele? Our very own BN government of course, and it's probably funded by you and me.

The news is, they were paid millions of ringgit by Putrajaya and Sarawak to shine their images globally.

Fortunately, the BBC and CNBC have come to their senses and disassociated themselves with FBC Media.

Read the whole story here: CNBC drops flagship show over paid Malaysian interviews

P.S. There is a transcript of one of the public relations type shows between the host and Najib on the site, so you don't want to miss it!

DUMC - The Church That Got Raided Over A Dinner

The freaking religious authorities merely walked in without a warrant and seized the function’s programme sheets and questioned the dinner organisers and guests.

They claimed they were there in response to a complaint but never clarified what the complaint was.

This is part of DUMC's press statement.

Click to enlarge

So much for Najib seeking an audience with the pope. Why bother with that when you royally p1ss off the Christians???

Read the whole story here: Jais, cops raid church over multi-racial dinner

Yet Another Phantom Voter Found On The Electoral Roll!

Someone had just checked his details on the electoral roll. For fun, he randomly changed one value in the IC number.

He stumbled upon this name.

Then he changed yet another number, and the same name showed up again!!

How could the same name appear again? Is this a real life human being behind the IC number or yet another of the election commissions attempts to cheat?

Really, how many phantom voters are there in the electoral roll?

The fact that a random number managed to pick up a phantom voter goes to show that there must be thousands of them in there!!

Asia Sentinel on Rosmah

The surat layang - "flying letters" in Malay, or anonymous assaults -- have been flying in record numbers in recent weeks, attacking Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

They are being picked up and spread in volume by the country's blogosphere, much of it arrayed against the Barisan Nasional, or ruling national coalition.

It isn't certain who is behind the attacks, but they are clearly tied to national elections expected either late this year or early in 2012.

Read the rest here: Malaysian PM's Wife Draws flak

Election Commission Reverts Status Of Mismah

Just yesterday, I posted the news from Malaysiakini regarding attempts by the ruling coalition BN to register phantom voters into the electoral roll.

However, due to the bad publicity it was receiving, the Election Commission quickly reverted her status to "being verified for the electoral roll".

This is one instance where the cheating has been discovered and highlighted. But I really do wonder how many others have escaped detection.

BN is desperate and would do anything to gain enough votes to stay in power.

EC changes 'Mismah' status in draft electoral roll

The Election Commission (EC) has changed the status of Mismah, a 'permanent resident' whose name had been entered in the draft electoral roll.

Based on a check of its online verification system at 2pm, under the 'record status', it is now stated that her application to register as a voter is dalam proses pengesahan daftar pemilih (being verified for the electoral roll).

Her name had been included in the draft supplementary electoral roll that has been opened for public scrutiny for a week.

EC head Abdul Aziz Yusof, when contacted, explained that the objection period had ended yesterday.

"Those who did not receive any objection will be gazetted (as elegible voters). Those who received objections will be subjected to a verification process," he said.

"(During the process) a public inquiry will be called, (enabling) both parties - the potential voter and the complainant - to be heard."

Malaysiakini yesterday discovered Mismah had beencategorised as a permanent resident (PR) in the National Registration Department (NRD) online system.

The NRD online verification system, which allows users to check the status of an individual, shows that Mismah holds MyPR card No. 640704715238.

About four hours after yesterday's report, Mismah's status on the NRD online verification system had been 'upgraded' to that of a citizen.

Abdul Aziz had earlier attributed this to technical negligence on the part of the NRD, insisting that only citizens are eligible to be registered as voters.

'NRD online database not updated'

Elaborating on this today, he said he had contacted the NRD and was told that its online database had not been updated alongside the Agency Link-Up System (Alis).

"(It was only) when I called (them) that they realised they have not updated the names online," Abdul Aziz (left) added.

The NRD online database - used by the public to verify their status and details - is different from Alis, which is the reference point for the EC in registering voters, he said.

According to election laws, the EC updates the electoral roll every three months with a quarterly supplementary electoral roll draft.

The names of all newly-registered voters, voters who have changed their residing addresses and voters who have been removed from the electoral roll, are compiled in the supplementary electoral roll draft.

The roll is then displayed usually for one week, for public scrutiny, before it is gazetted and used in the next election.

During the display period, members of the public can raise their objection to the names listed in the supplementary electoral roll.

Permanent Resident Becomes Citizen ... In Four Hours!

From Malaysiakini:

Less than four hours after Malaysiakini reported that a permanent resident (PR) holding a red MyPR card had been registered as a new voter, she has apparently become a citizen.

She now has a blue Mykad, based on a check of the same online system of the National Registration Department (NRD) where her identification details are recorded.

A check of the NRD online verification system twice - at 5.48pm yesterday and 11.30am today - had shown that a person named Mismah was a PR holder who had collected her MyPR card (No. 640704715238), an identification card for PR.

When the same number was entered into the Election Commission (EC) online verification system, Mismah appeared as a newly-registered voter.

However, another check with the NRD system at 3pm returned a shocking result - the same Mismah has become a citizen who has collected her blue Mykad.

Her status on the EC online verification system remained the same as at 3pm - a newly-registered voter in the latest supplementary electoral roll draft which is now on display for public scrutiny.

Despite the fact that non-citizens cannot be registered as voters, she was registered in the Ijok state constituency and Kuala Selangor parliamentary constituency, which are respectively held by Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid from PKR and Dzulkelfy Ahmad from PAS.

It appeared that Mismah's is not an isolated case.

Federal Territory PAS has claimed to have encountered 52 such cases when filing complaints with the Federal Territory EC today about the supplementary electoral roll draft .

Titiwangsa PAS division secretary Hedzer Ibrahim, who went to the EC office with other party leaders, said the first check with the NRD online verification system from 9-10am today showed that the 52 were PR who had collected their red MyPR card.

However, when the PAS team conveyed the result to the Federal Territory EC officials about 3pm, the latter checked the NRD database and found the 52 names to be those of citizens.

Hedzer then instructed the party technician to check the NRD online system again and obtained the same surprising result.

Fortunately PAS had screen-captured the result accessed this morning and a copy was given toMalaysiakini.

The 52 voters are registered in six parliamentary constituencies in Kuala Lumpur that were won by the opposition in the last general election.

These are Lembah Pantai (6 voters), Bandar Tun Razak (1), Segambut (5), Titiwangsa (28), Batu (8) and Wangsa Maju (4).

Malaysiakini is attempting to seek comment from the NRD.

Voter registration procedures

According to election laws, the EC updates the electoral roll every three months with a quarterly supplementary electoral roll draft.

The names of all newly-registered voters, voters who have changed their residing addresses and voters who have been removed from the electoral roll, are compiled in the supplementary electoral roll draft.

The roll is then displayed usually for one week, for public scrutiny, before it is gazetted and used in the next election.

During the display period, members of the public can raise their objection to the names listed in the supplementary electoral roll.

Allegations of foreigners being illegally registered as voters to shore up the support of certain political parties have been continually raised by the opposition parties but constantly denied by the EC.

EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof has said thatonly citizens are allowed to be registered as voters, and that verification is done through the Agency Link-Up System (Alis) of the NRD.

Through the system, the EC cross-checks with NRD and employs 33 types of vetting before any application to become a voter can be approved.

“During the registration process, the applicant's identifier will be cross-checked with the NRD through Alis. The EC will only process the application if the details tally with the NRD records," he said.

“The system will automatically reject any fraudulent attempts to register a voter."

The Race Card

More than three years ago, I read an article and saved it. Today I read it again, and I found it still relevant.

So here it is: The Malaysian Race Card with a brief excerpt.

Chinese and Indians have become more vocal in opposing discriminatory policies, but they have given little indication that if they were granted greater equality they would rise above their own clannish tendencies.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that all Malaysians are racist and clannish. In fact, the Bersih 2.0 rally was testament to the fact that we are colour blind deep down.

Then again, those who came out to stand up for their rights as voters are those who love their country and countrymen.

The problem is those who love to complain about the state of this nation but have never lifted a finger to do their part, be it signing a petition or attending a talk, much less participating in a rally.

I notice an interesting phenomenon when I read articles in Malaysia Today by Raja Petra Kamarudin.

When RPK posts a blog-entry that slams the Malays, many Chinese and Indians cheer him on. Interestingly, the Malays graciously accept their weaknesses and admit it.

But when RPK criticises the Chinese or Indians (rightfully), there is much angst and vexation over it.

Some time ago, John Malott, former US Ambassador to Malaysia spoke out against institutionalised racism practised by the Malaysian government.

I personally think the Malaysian government is rotten to the core and all its policies are designed to aid them in lining their own pockets.

But they still have the support of the Malay population because there is still a certain amount of wariness towards the Indians and Chinese as elaborated by one Umar Mukhtar in Malott painted only half the picture of racism.

A few excerpts:

Yes, two wrongs do not make a right. But as the saying goes, “It takes both hands to clap”. That is to say, Mallot's article runs the risk of completely absolving non-Malays from any responsibility in the racial predicament that the country is in. That is nothing less than avoiding reality and counter-productive to any effort to improve race relations in Malaysia. Malays have their grievances, too, against the Chinese. The fact that they seldom get aired does not make those grievances any less legitimate or valid.

Education for the very young is one obvious area where racist attitudes can be nipped in the bud.

Often the excuse given by the Chinese for insisting that their children go to vernacular schools and for more such schools to be built is the poor quality of national schools. Surely the solution is not to build more racially-segregated schools but to join hands with Malays and Indians in insisting and ensuring that the quality of national schools be improved for the benefit of children of all ethnicities. Perhaps that is considered such an outlandishly 'out-of-the-racial box' thinking that I have never heard any Chinese make that call.

Any sincere and honest effort to improve race relations has to take cognizance of the fact that racism exists in and racial discrimination is practised, to one extend or another, by all the races in Malaysia.

However, my own honest observation is that the Chinese never want to admit or acknowledge their own racism against Malays or other races.

Official and overt discriminatory policies can easily be criticised as institutionalised racism but covert racial discriminations by their very nature are harder to pinpoint. That does not mean they don't exist or any less invidious than the former.

When a “Mandarin speakers only” requirement is stated in job advertisements, even for jobs which do not conceivably require much language skills, that surely is equivalent to saying “Chinese only”. But you will be hard put to find any Chinese who would admit that the practice is racially discriminatory.

To many Malays, given the refusal of non-Malays to even acknowledge their own racism, the prospect of a rollback in whatever few affirmative action policies left on the plate appears to be concessions which are unlikely to be matched in a similar spirit by the Chinese in the spheres that they predominate, namely the commercial and economic.

If Najib can be accused of pandering to militant Malay groups, Chinese political leaders in the government and opposition, too, can be accused of pandering to their racial constituency.

In my lifetime, I have yet to hear of any Chinese leader asking that the Chinese to join in and contribute towards the betterment of national schools.

I have yet to hear of one calling for Chinese businesses to assist or at least not to gang up against their fellow non-Chinese businesses or to not practice discrimination in their employment policies.

Mallot failed to take into account one side of the equation in his brief exposition of the race relations situation in Malaysia. Hopefully, I have managed to redress that and allow a better understanding of why things are the way they are in Malaysia.

It would have been more gracious of Mallot if he had used his relationship with Malaysians during his tenure as a diplomat to impart his country's experience and firm action with regard to vigilance against the emergence of the evil that is racism, than to make things worse by dogmatically adopting the attitude that sympathising with the minority makes one righteous.

Unlike Umar Mukhtar, I have met the Chinese who speak out against racism. They are a wonderful bunch.

But the majority of people are more content to watch out for their own interests rather than the collective well-being of everyone involved.

Siapa Yang Bodoh?

RPK posted one of his usual Malay-bashing posts about 3 Malay men, 2 of them academicians in Melayu Bodoh.

I was rolling my eyes in my usual fashion when I realised it was taken from the idiot agency, Bernama.

And then I got to the end where it said this:

Another academician, Abd Ghapa Harun, Senior Lecturer at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's History, Political and Strategy Research Centre surmised that peace and harmony in the country could be sustained if the government readily responded to the issues that were being relentlessly harped on.

"For example, issues about corruption or the election - the government must respond to them immediately.

"Peace is not merely a demonstration-free situation. In a wider context, it is taking further measures to avoid confrontations including through dialogues and discussions before issues are blown out of proportion," he said.

I did a double-take. I went back to the beginning to check if it was still part of the Bernama article.

Lo and behold, it was! Bernama was actually reporting both sides of the story! This is unprecedented competence from this agency.

But when I got down to the comments section, I really started wondering who was 'bodoh' to begin with.

For example:

written by devious17, July 31, 2011 09:12:09
I was told that no one was born stupid, we are just lazy but after reading this article I am beginning to have doubts of what I was told about stupidity.

These three are nothing but The Three Stooges of umno/bn, the noose around their necks are tightening and desparate.

These three are indeed Melayu Bodoh.

and

written by roggon, July 31, 2011 01:29:39
CHE HAMDAN-uITM, MOHD ARIFFIN (DR) AND ABD GAPA HARUN, ukm. tHESE 3 ARE EXAMPLES OF MELAYU BODOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!!

Were the true bodoh people the Melayu or the Cina dan India who had obviously not read to the end but chose to hurl insults at all 3 Malay men mentioned?

Lucius Goon Exposes Najib

I just love this piece by Lucius Goon!

From: Jangan Temberanglah, Najib!

JULY 31 — I have watched from afar how the prime minister and his administration have squirmed and twisted and justified their handling of Bersih 2.0 and shown their reluctance to discuss meaningful electoral reform.

Very little has surprised me about an administration that is bereft of principle and function on the basis of spin and half-truths. It is quite obvious that the government believed that it could kill off Bersih by tough action and threats of intimidation.

When this did not happen, Najib tried a different tack: that the government was reasonable but Bersih was bent on causing havoc on the streets. His administration also spread the word that if the electoral system was skewed, there is no way the Opposition could have snared five states.

Today, while speaking to student leaders, Najib added to the spin, saying that if the government really controlled the Election Commission, it could have easily won Kelantan in 2004 where a few seats were lost by a few votes.

I think we should end this lie now. In 2004, the PM was Abdullah Badawi, not the smartest man around and definitely a major disappointment but not a cheat. He would not have thought of stuffing the ballot box. In addition, the Umno guys did not know that Abdullah would lead BN to a strong win across the country.

Their showing in Kelantan was probably a surprise. But in all likelihood, Abdullah would have frowned on cheating.

In 2008, nobody, not BN, not Abdullah and certainly not Pakatan Rakyat, believed that the Malaysian public would punish the incumbents so severely.

Umno was caught unawares. Given that scenario, they did not feel the need to change the postal vote rules as they have done so recently. In addition, it is unlikely that as a God-fearing man, Abdullah would have agreed to wide-scale cheating.

But times have changed and the people at the top these days are facing much more pressure than Abdullah did: there is more racial strife; personal issues like the Scorpene deal which refuse to go away; a disillusioned non-Malay/Muslim electorate; a gaping budget deficit and a less gullible electorate.

More than anything else, there is also belief within Umno circles that this could be the end, and this fatalism is reflected by the grabbing and get rich mood currently prevalent among the BN elite and their cronies.

With this background, it is not surprising that Najib played hardball over the Bersih rally. Within Umno, they actually gave the Bersih people more power and credit than they deserved.

There is no way that Umno will agree to the transparency of electoral reform because the party leadership believes that control of the Election Commission is the last trump card it holds.

Coming back to Najib today. All this stout defence about offering Shah Alam Stadium is an afterthought. As the days roll along, the administration will embellish this story, aided and abetted by the lamestream media.

Depending on the audience, sometimes the justification for the government crackdown on Bersih will be to protect the majority against tyranny of the minority or that it is illegal to deal with an illegal organisation or something along those lines.

Temberanglah.

Notice all talk of communism and a Christian takeover has suddenly disappeared.

Rosmah Inserts Her Foot Into Mouth

Guess what big mama just said?

The US 24.8 million diamond was actually bought from savings since she was a teenager...

According to the Utusan Malaysia article, Rosmah Mansor, wife of PM Najib Razak, is quoted as saying that – yes, she bought this 30-carat diamond from Jacobs & Co. Fine Jewellers New York for US$24,458,400 – and that the money came from her savings since she was a teenager!

I have no idea whether the above quote is correctly attributed to her, but since her picture and the actual diamond bought also appeared in this same Utusan Malaysia article, and, so far, she has not denied it, we have to assume that this assertion did come from her mouth.

Unless Utusan Malaysia and its UMNO cohorts are the dumbest illiterates and can't-count-at-all morons, or they think all citizens of this 1Mar-rae-sia country should qualify for these "titles" I am flabbergasted as to the extent of their naivety and their nonchalant acceptance of this status quo!

Consider the following:

1. Datuk Seri Paduka Rosmah Mansor was born on 10 December 1951, which would make her 59 years 7 months old, or 60 years old on 10 December 2011 – 2 years old than hubby PM Najib Razak, who was born on 23 July 1953.

2. She has a BArts (Hons) Degree in Anthropology and Sociology from the then University of Malaya, where she graduated in 1974, and a MSc in Sociology and Agriculture from Louisiana State University, U.S., where she graduated in 1978.

3. She received the "Honorary Doctorate of Innovation in Human Capacity Development" from the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology on 22 March 2011.

4. She married Najib in 1987 and they have 2 kids – Nooryana Najwa Najib and Norashsham Razak Najib. This is Rosmah's second marriage, as she was previously married to Farid Ismeth Emir, a former TV presenter, and current job appears to be a GM of a trading company. She also had 2 kids with Farid. It is also Najib's second marriage – he first married Tengku Puteri Zainah Tengku Eskandar ("Ku Yie") in 1978, and she bore him 3 kids. He divorced Ku Yie in 1987 to marry Rosmah.

5. According to her official website http://www.pmo.gov.my /datin rosmah, she then worked in Agriculture Bank Malaysia until 1983, and as Business Development Manager at Island and Peninsular Berhad, where she worked until 1987.

6. So, at most, from her graduation in 1978 to the end of her working career in 1987, she worked some 9 years only!

7. She now tells us, as stated, that this US$24.5 million bauble was bought from her "savings" since her teenage days!

Let's explore further this statement:

-US$24,458,400 at today's exchange rate of RM3.047 to US$1.00 means it is RM74,524,745!

- What age is one called a "teenager"? Say we start at 15 years old. She's 59+, so she "saved' for some 44 years. RM74,524,745 divide by 44 years means:

***** her average yearly "savings" is RM1,693,744!
***** or average "savings" of RM141,145 a month!
***** or average "savings" of RM4,705 per day!

Wow, even better than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet who both had to work their butts out to get to where they are today!

8. She worked only 9 years from 1978 to 1987 in low to mid-level Managerial positions – the usual starting positions for most new University graduates – and basic pay-wise, would be around RM2,000 per month in 1978 to RM4,500 per month in 1987 – maybe, if you consume just nasi lemak and teh tarik every day, you will be able to save some money from these salaries! But RM74.5 million? Dream on!

She would be world famous if she wrote her thesis on how she did it – My Way!