Biggest Thief Sues First, Again

For the last year or so, the US had been increasingly claiming of massive 'computer hacking' and 'computer spying' coming out of China and the Chinese had been stealing trade secrets etc through those hackings.

The US claimed their security experts found that most of the hackings were coming from 'IP addresses' known to be from a building in China 'associated' with the Chinese military (dumb Chinese fellas, do everything from one place unlike smart Americans - see below)

In the lead up to last week's China's leader Xi JinPing's visit to the US, media reports were saying that 'hacking' was going to be a major issue the US will raise at the meeting.

But just days before that meeting, news broke that the US government (through its National Security Agency or NSA) has been conducting large scale 'monitoring' (as opposed to 'hacking' or 'spying') of telecommunications inside and outside the US, and internet sites like Facebook, Google, Twitter etc were giving the NSA access to their user database.

US officials initially claimed that the monitoring were not targetted at American citizens, are 'focused' (i.e. not indiscriminate) and done only with 'court apporval', and are done only to 'protect the safety of Americans' (i.e not to spy on others etc).

Websites like Facebook initially claimed there was no such thing (but went quiet after that).

A day or so after the news broke, the 'whistle blower' came out in public in Hong Kong (of all places) and said (among others) that :
 - 97 billion 'pieces of information' was gathered worldwide in one month and 3 billion were from computers within the US (i.e. average 8 'pieces' for every US citizen)
 - people like him can tap into any e-mail or phone call of anyone including the president

With access to user data in those American 'social websites' they have access to who is related to who and was doing what at what time etc. All voluntarily provided by billions of suckers around the world! Only Chinamen needs to hack...

The whistle blower was an ex-CIA employee working for Booz-Allen, the private company contracted by the NSA to supply people to work on the monitoring programme operating out of countries all over the world (not just from inside the US) like Switzerland.

See, people so smart. They don't use military staff and they operate from outside the US so that it is harder to link the perpetrators to the US.

From the 'heat map' below, one notices that the 'most monitored' countries were Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and India. The next highest group included Saudi Arabia, Iraq, China and Germany!

But the US had never accused Eygpt, Saudi, Iraq, India and Germany (all supposedly friends of the US) as 'sponsors of terrorism' nor 'spying' or 'hacking'. So what sort of threat were those countries posing to the 'safety of Americans'?

According to Russsia Times TV, those countries are either key suppliers of oil or economic competitors i.e. the US were conducting espionage (that they accused China of doing).

John Boehner (Speaker of US House of Representatives) was shown today on Bloomberg TV saying that the monitorings are done under 'mountains of controls'. Well, the key word is 'mountains' - you believe mountains can do controls?

Additional Notes:

More than 10 years ago, there were reports that the US, UK and Australia operate a global eavesdropping system that can monitor and tap into any telecommunication around the world.

As the developer of ARPANET (the predecessor of today's internet), the US controls the entire world's internet system and has refused requests by other countries for control to be passed to an international body. There is a reason for that.

For example, the internet is supposedly 'smart' such that every data transmitted through it will find 'mulitple paths' to its intended recipient. Well, may be those data can also be directed by some 'smart' fellas to go pass some people's special servers and get 'saved' along the way?

Over the last few years, the US had also disallowed Chinese telecommunications equipment manufaturers like Huawei to bid for contracts to supply US telecom companies with Chinese made networking equipment including those used for internet data switching and routing. The official reason was for fear of Chinese using those equipments to spy. There are reasons for that too.

As example, how can they tell those Chinese fellas to send a 'copy' of everything to some special 'servers' somewhere without the Chinese knowing about it and telling the whole world?

When the below monitoring news broke, there was reports that since 1999 (if you believe it) the US government has special 'back doors' that allow them to get into the Windows operating system and take anything they want from any computer using that software even if the contents are encrypted.

A famous example was the Stuxnet virus (discovered in 2010) that the US used to 'attack' Iran's nuclear facilities via Windows. Only Iran? So nice?


Article from Zerohedge:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-08/nsas-boundless-informant-collects-3-billion-intelligence-pieces-us-computer-networks

The NSA's "Boundless Informant" Collects 3 Billion Intelligence Pieces From US Computer Networks In One Month

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/08/2013

There's one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on.

The latest piece of news once again comes from the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald who this time exposes the NSA's datamining tool "Boundless Informant" which according to leaked documents collected 97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide in March 2013 alone, and "3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period."

This is summarized in the chart below which shows that only the middle east has more active NSA-espionage than the US. Also, Obama may not want to show Xi the activity heatmap for China, or else the whole "China is hacking us" script may promptly fall apart.



Using simple, non-AES 256 breaking math, 3 billion per month amounts to some 100 million intrusions into the US per day, or looked at from another perspective, just a little more than the "zero" which James Clapper vouched announced earlier today is the applicable number of US citizens falling under the NSA's espionage mandate: "Section 702 cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, or any other U.S. person, or to intentionally target any person known to be in the United States." Oops.

But it gets worse for the NSA. As the Guardian reports, "Emmel, the NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian: "Current technology simply does not permit us to positively identify all of the persons or locations associated with a given communication (for example, it may be possible to say with certainty that a communication traversed a particular path within the internet. It is harder to know the ultimate source or destination, or more particularly the identity of the person represented by the TO:, FROM: or CC: field of an e-mail address or the abstraction of an IP address). Thus, we apply rigorous training and technological advancements to combine both our automated and manual (human) processes to characterize communications – ensuring protection of the privacy rights of the American people. This is not just our judgment, but that of the relevant inspectors general, who have also reported this."

In other words, Americans are absolutely the target of billions of monthly intrusions, but said data "mining" is exempted because it is difficult to identify in advance if a US citizen is implicated in any metadata chain.

Only it isn't as it is the whole premise behind Boundless Informant.

An NSA factsheet about the program, acquired by the Guardian, says: "The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country."

The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.

The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, "What type of coverage do we have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals intelligence] infrastructure."

Under the heading "Sample use cases", the factsheet also states the tool shows information including: "How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country."

A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA "global heat map" seen by the Guardian, shows that in March 2013 the agency collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.

Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.

Next up: more NSA lies of course.

The disclosure of the internal Boundless Informant system comes amid a struggle between the NSA and its overseers in the Senate over whether it can track the intelligence it collects on American communications. The NSA's position is that it is not technologically feasible to do so.

At a hearing of the Senate intelligence committee In March this year, Democratic senator Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, the director of national intelligence: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

"No sir," replied Clapper.

Judith Emmel, an NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian in a response to the latest disclosures: "NSA has consistently reported – including to Congress – that we do not have the ability to determine with certainty the identity or location of all communicants within a given communication. That remains the case."

Other documents seen by the Guardian further demonstrate that the NSA does in fact break down its surveillance intercepts which could allow the agency to determine how many of them are from the US. The level of detail includes individual IP addresses.

IP address is not a perfect proxy for someone's physical location but it is rather close, said Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist with the Speech Privacy and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you don't take steps to hide it, the IP address provided by your internet provider will certainly tell you what country, state and, typically, city you are in," Soghoian said.

...

At a congressional hearing in March last year, Alexander denied point-blank that the agency had the figures on how many Americans had their electronic communications collected or reviewed. Asked if he had the capability to get them, Alexander said: "No. No. We do not have the technical insights in the United States." He added that "nor do we do have the equipment in the United States to actually collect that kind of information".

Turns out they do, and that perjury in the US is now merely another facet of the "New Normal." Plus what difference does it make that yet another member of the most transparent administration perjured themselves. Then again, when the head of the Department of Justice is being investigated for lying to Congress under oath, one can only laugh.

That laughter risks becoming an imbecilic cackle when reading the following veiled threat to the Guardian from the NSA's Judith Emmel: "The continued publication of these allegations about highly classified issues, and other information taken out of context, makes it impossible to conduct a reasonable discussion on the merits of these programs."

In other words, the best discussion is one that would simply not take place as reporters should promptly stop actually reporting, and fall back to their New Normal role of being access journalists to important people (see Andrew Ross Sorkin's rise to fame on... nothing) with zero critical insight or investigative effort. Or else...

Linking Cyprus, Russia and BP

Cyprus requested $18B from EU and IMF to help bail out its bankrupt banks. EU/IMF agreed to provide $10 on condition Cyprus come up with $8B on their own.

Cyprus decided to bankrupt and reconstitute their 2 largest banks resulting in estimated 30-40% loss by the banks' depositors with balances more than EUR100,000

About 40% of affected accounts were held by foreigners and mostly Russians (allegedly dirty Russian mafia, KGB etc). Russian government was pissed and publicly called in robbery.

May be it is the Europeans (EU) and Americans (who control the IMF) way of making the Russians pay back for defaulting on their bonds (mostly held by who else?) a dozen years ago.

At same time, Russian oil company Rosneft just completed deal with BP that will make Rosneft the world largest oil company and BP owning about 20% of Rosneft.

On day that Rosneft made its $12B or $16B final payment to BP, the Jewish Russian oligarch Bereszovsky living in exile in UK and who had been bad mouthing Russian President Putin and calling for his overthrow were reported to have 'hung' himself.

The next day, Bereszovsky's rival Jewish Russian oligarch who is supposedly friendly to Putin was reported to have be called in by the US FBI for questioning.

All just coincidents or are we seeing the first signs of some new re-alignments?


Background on Cyprus

Cypriot banks' assets are more than 7 times the country's US$18B GDP and almost 20% of that (or 120% of GDP equivalent) was 'invested' by their 2 largest banks in Greek bonds that went into default last year with 76% haircut.

That means the 2 Cypriot banks lost more than $5B from just the Greek default! In addition, they also have losses from a burst housing bubble (like everywhere else in US and Europe).

With a government debt of 100% GDP and a sinking economy, the Cypriot government was in no position to bailout the banks and therefore asked for assistance from EU and IMF of about $16B.

EU and IMF were willing to provide $10B on condition that Cyprus come up with the rest and bank depositors are made to pay partly for the banks' losses.

Cyprus govenment initially wanted to tax all bank depositors about 7% (for account balance less than EUR100,000) and 10% (above EUR100,000) but parliament rejected it and after street protests.

Final plan implemented was to take a cut from accounts with balances more than EUR100,000 in the 2 bankrupt banks instead of all banks in the country.

In standard banking laws in most countries, depositors are considered as creditors of a bank and if the bank goes bankrupt the losses will be paid for from shareholders' capital, bondholders, and then depositors in that order.

So the EU/IMF insistence that depositors be made to pay for it is in accordance with standard banking laws and is the proper way of handling bankrupt banks as opposed to bailing out the failed banks including shareholders etc. using taxpayers' money which was what the US, UK, Ireland and Greece did.

However, Cyprus happened to be a banking haven to a lot of foreigners and specifically non-EU foreigners like rich Russians, Lebanese etc. who make up about 40% of the deposits in their banks.

Some reports said that Russians and British people are the 2 largest groups. Given that many Russian Jewish oligarchs live in UK, the 'British' may well be Russian too.


BP vs US
2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP charged and paid $billions of settlement but case still not closed in 2013...

UK banks vs US
2012 Barclays charged with LIBOR manipulation and UK MP said US working against 'interest of the City' (City is term used to mean the UK banking industry)

2013 HSBC charged with money laundering for Iran and Mexican drug traffickers

1990s Russian Crisis and Default
After the collapse of the USSR in 1989, the Russian economy collapsed in late 1990s as result of the weak economy and mismanagement under Boris Yeltsin.

As result, many Russian resource assets ended up in the hands of so-called oligarchs many of whom happened to be 30+ year old Jewish Russians with dual citizenship or residency in Israel or UK.

How did 30+ year olds Russians come up with so much money or have such great enterpreneurial skills to 'build up' their businesses so quickly from nowhere? Unlikely, of course. More likely explanation: they got financial help from and were working for foreign Jewish financiers to scoop up those prized assets.

President Putin called those oligarchs 'thieves' and tried to recover many of the assets from them. The more cooperative ones like Abramovich 'returned' by various ways and 'national service'. But others like Khodorkosvky tried to fight back but then had their assets re-nationalised and jailed or like Bereszovsky escaped abroad before Putin got to them.

Khodorkovsky owned the largest Russian oil company Sibneft which was seized by Russian government who renamed it Rosneft ('neft' means oil in Russian).

In 1990s Bereszosky was a top official to President Boris Yeltsin who presided over the 1990 crisis. He reportedly supported the ascent of Putin because he thought he could 'control' him but it backfired. Putin went after the oligarchs and their ill gotten assets instead.

In 2011 Bereszovsky sued Roman Abramovich for $billions supposedly due to him from Russian assets cheated from him by the latter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis


Russia-BP Rosneft Deal
2012 BP ended their TNK-BP partnership with a group of Russian oligarchs. They 'agreed' (see oligarch background above) to sell TNK-BP to Rosneft controlled by Russian government.

Computer Viruses as Weapons

Background to report below (by CCK)
For almost a decade, the US, Israel and some western countries had been claiming that Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb and threatened to attack Iran. However, other countries like Russia says that Iran's ability to do that is still very far e.g. to make a bomb the uranium has to be enriched to above 95% while Iran can only achieve about 3% when the accusations began years ago and about 20% in 2012 even by US claims.

Over the last few years, there were reports of Iranian scientists being murdered and their computer systems attacked by viruses. Report below is the latest.

Key things to note:
 - latest discovery was made by Russian computer security experts at request of the UN which clearly suspect the US or their allies. That's why the UN requested US' 'opposite' to do the investigations
Moral: if you suspect some one is the thief, do not use him as the police/investigator
 - the viruses discovered so far uses the same flaw in Microsoft Windows (made by US company). It may not be a coincident that the virus attacker and the supplier of the software (Windows) are from the same country. E.g. Indian and Chinese government do not allow their officials to us Blackberry phones made in Canada for fear of information theft
Moral: your supplier or the one closest to you may be the one compromising you
 - a few weeks ago, a new Russian commercial plane (Sukhoi Superjet) crashed in Jakarta during an air expo demo. Russia has openly said they suspect the US was behind the crash as commercial sabotage. At same time, Russia claimed that is similar to crashes of other Russian crafts flying over areas near the US. They suspect the US has powerful equipments that can sabotage the functioning of electronic devices.


Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran
By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - Security experts have discovered a highly sophisticated computer virus in Iran and other Middle East countries that they believe was deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that claimed responsibility for discovering the virus.

Kaspersky researchers said on Monday they have yet to determine whether Flame had a specific mission like Stuxnet, and declined to say who they think built it.

Iran has accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.

Cyber security experts said the discovery publicly demonstrates what experts privy to classified information have long known: that nations have been using pieces of malicious computer code as weapons to promote their security interests for several years.

"This is one of many, many campaigns that happen all the time and never make it into the public domain," said Alexander Klimburg, a cyber security expert at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.

A cyber security agency in Iran said on its English website that Flame bore a "close relation" to Stuxnet, the notorious computer worm that attacked that country's nuclear program in 2010 and is the first publicly known example of a cyber weapon.

Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team also said Flame might be linked to recent cyber attacks that officials in Tehran have said were responsible for massive data losses on some Iranian computer systems.

Kaspersky Lab said it discovered Flame after a U.N. telecommunications agency asked it to analyze data on malicious software across the Middle East in search of the data-wiping virus reported by Iran.

STUXNET CONNECTION

Experts at Kaspersky Lab and Hungary's Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security who have spent weeks studying Flame said they have yet to find any evidence that it can attack infrastructure, delete data or inflict other physical damage.

Yet they said they are in the early stages of their investigations and that they may discover other purposes beyond data theft. It took researchers months to determine the key mysteries behind Stuxnet, including the purpose of modules used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.

"Their initial research suggest that this was probably written by the authors of Stuxnet for covert intelligence collection," said John Bumgarner, a cyber warfare expert with the non-profit U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit think tank.

Flame appears poised to go down in history as the third major cyber weapon uncovered after Stuxnet and its data-stealing cousin Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain.

The Moscow-based company is controlled by Russian malware researcher Eugene Kaspersky. It gained notoriety after solving several mysteries surrounding Stuxnet and Duqu.

Their research shows the largest number of infected machines are in Iran, followed by Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan and Syria.

The virus contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, which caused centrifuges to fail at the Iranian enrichment facility it attacked. It has about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, said Kaspersky Lab senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg.

GATHERING DATA

Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.

Kaspersky Lab said Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and that both viruses employ a similar way of spreading.

That means the teams that built Stuxnet and Duqu might have had access to the same technology as the team that built Flame, Schouwenberg said.

He said that a nation state would have the capability to build such a sophisticated tool, but declined to comment on which countries might do so.

The question of who built flame is sure to become a hot topic in the security community as well as the diplomatic world.

There is some controversy over who was behind Stuxnet and Duqu. Some experts suspect the United States and Israel, a view that was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine what they say are Iran's efforts to build a bomb.

The U.S. Defense Department, CIA, State Department, National Security Agency, and U.S. Cyber Command declined to comment.

Hungarian researcher Boldizsar Bencsath, whose Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security first discovered Duqu, said his analysis shows that Flame may have been active for at least five years and perhaps eight years or more.

That implies it was active long before Stuxnet.

"It's huge and overly complex, which makes me think it's a first-generation data gathering tool," said Neil Fisher, vice president for global security solutions at Unisys Corp (UIS.N). "We are going to find more of these things over time."

Others said that cyber weapons technology has inevitably advanced since Flame was built.

"The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now," Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.

Some experts speculated that the discovery of the virus may have dealt a psychological blow to its victims, on top of whatever damage Flame may have already inflicted to their computers.

"If a government initiated the attack it might not care that the attack was discovered," said Klimburg of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. "The psychological effect of the penetration could be nearly as profitable as the intelligence gathered."

(Additional reporting by Jim Wolf in Washington, Daniel Fineran in Dubai and William Maclean in London; editing by Edward Tobin, Ron Popeski and Mohammad Zargham)

Steal Not Enough

They can steal by printing more money for themselves and yet that is not enough. They want even commissions for doing the printing...


Bribe probe hits former Malay PM
Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker
July 5, 2011

The Reserve Bank of Australia's banknote firms are suspected of attempting to bribe former Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Badawi in order to get his help to win a $31 million currency contract.

Mr Abdullah is one of a several highly influential Malaysian political figures whom anti-corruption authorities believe Securency and Note Printing Australia— firms respectively half and fully owned and overseen by Australia's reserve bank— allegedly sought to bribe using part of $4.2 million in commission payments made to two Malaysian middlemen.

Malaysian sources confirmed to The Age that the Australian Federal Police have gathered information about attempts to bribe Mr Abdullah by Securency and Note Printing Australia, which are respectively half and fully owned and overseen by the RBA

The Age sought comment from Mr Abdullah last night.

Asked about the approach to Mr Abdullah yesterday, an AFP spokesman said: "Given that matters relating to investigations into Securency International and Note Printing Australia are currently before the court, the AFP is unable to make any further comment."

It is understood the attempt to bribe Mr Abdullah related to contract negotiations that occurred around 2003, the year he became prime minister and finance minister. He served as prime minister until 2009.

Before becoming prime minister, Mr Abdullah was deputy to long-serving Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad.

The alleged attempt to bribe of Mr Badawi, who remains a serving MP, adds to the list of high-profile Asian politicians and central bank officials targeted by the RBA firms.

The AFP last week alleged Securency bribed Vietnam's former central bank governor by paying his son's English university tuition fees. Authorities in Malaysia last Friday arrested a former Malaysian central bank assistant governor accused of receiving two bribes from NPA.

The revelations about the attempt to bribe Mr Abdullah come as the fallout from Australia's plastic note bribery scandal continues to spread, with The Age reporting yesterday about the intimate involvement of senior officials from the Australian government trade agency Austrade in Securency's allegedly corrupt Vietnam dealings.

An AFP-led international corruption taskforce continues to work towards further arrests, having already charged seven former senior Securency and NPA executives with foreign bribery offences.

Mr Abdullah is believed to have been involved in approving the contract won by the RBA firms to supply Malaysia with its polymer five Ringgit note, which began circulating in 2004.

Securency and NPA's agents for the 2004 were former state MP and senior figure in the country's ruling party, UMNO, Dato Abdullah Hasnan Kamaruddin and arms trader Abdul Kayum, who was arrested and charged on friday with two counts of bribery.

Mr Kayum, who pled not guilty to the charges, worked as NPA and Securency's main middleman in Malaysia and allegedly promised the firms that he was able to convince senior Malaysian officials to buy the plastic bank note technology.

Several senior Securency and NPA former executives are believed to have been aware that payments to Mr Kayum may have been used to pay bribes. He acted as their agent between 2000 and 2007, before being sacked after an internal audit raised probity fears.

His hiring and subsequent receipt of several million dollars from the RBA firms raises further questions about the adequacy of supervision provided by the RBA-appointed directors of Securency and NPA.

Mr Kayum also represented one of the Pakistan Government's main weapons making facilities, the Air Weapons Complex, which is believed to play a central role in the nation's nuclear weapons program.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission yesterday refused to confirm or deny whether it was investigating the performance of the Securency and NPA boards after Greens leader Bob Brown and federal Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson suggested last Friday that it should.

Former RBA deputy governor Graeme Thompson, who is also a former chief of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, chaired Securency and NPA during the 1999-2005 period the alleged bribes in Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia took place.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/bribe-probe-hits-former-malay-pm-20110704-1gz6c.html#ixzz1TMkmDa25

Who the Hack is Running the Country?

According to reports, these fellas had eavesdropped on thousands of people's voice mails and messages over at least a decade, and the British police had closed an eye to the whole thing until recently when these fellas were on the verge of buying BskyB (below you will see why the British politicans are now sufficiently alarmed to raise the alarm).

Apparently, those fellas control so much of the country's news organsations that for the last few decades anyone that The Sun (owned by the same fellas) supported ended up winning the country's elections.

Quote: 'If you do not read newspapers you are uninformed, if you do you are misinformed' - Mark Twain

As a result, all their politicians from all parties had 'coddled up' to these fellas and employed their employees as their 'press czars'.

For those that cannot get it, here's the reason: by doing that they hope to get the 'support' of those fellas' newspapers, TV stations etc and thus 'win' elections.

[side note: Anyone familiar with US financial regulatory history would know that this is akind to the US government appointing employees of large banks (like Goldman Sachs) as their financial czars]

They reportedly even 'tapped' Gordon Brown's (the previous PM) phone for years from when he as finance minister to prime minister and that bugger apparently did not even know about it until now!

That and the fact that those fellas had 'eavesdropped' on an 'industrial scale' on thousands of people for so many years tells us a few things.

That country's political leaders and government were either not aware of the whole thing, or they were aware but too 'afraid' to antagonise those devils and have them turn their 'news' against them. In both cases, one wonders who are the ones really running that country.

For the benefit of children in my mail list, one does not have to have direct control of a country to be in control of it. It is the same reason why a lead British financier (Lord Rothschild) from 100 plus years ago once claimed that 'I care not who sits on the throne of the British empire. The one who controls its finances controls the empire, and I control its finances'.

The recent behaviour of those fellas in response to the 'recent revelations' are also telling (and these are just the ones I am aware of).
- the father refused to attend the British parliament inquiry on the matter and instead now says that he will setup his own 'independent' committee to investigate all charges (yah, a thief tells the whole country to bugger off and says he will pick his own judge),
- he also says that it is just a 'minor mistake' (stealing from thousands of people is a minor mistake to him)
- when asked what is the most important thing to him now that the case is 'blown up' he pointed to his CEO and said 'to save her' (that woman was the head of his british operations at the time of those 'hackings' and many people were calling for her to be charged). You see what is important to those people. It is not justice but his fellow tribeswoman by name of Rebekah
- his son tells the same parliamentary committee that he will appear at a date of his own choosing!

For those that do not know - all those devilish characters above are from one single race. Coincidence? Not really. They are people that many fools say are 'god's chosen people'.

So now you can see why those fellas talk and behave as if they are 'kings'? That is why I say chinamen that go round telling others that Jews are 'god's chosen people' are complete idiots (for those idiots will be dying to suck up to those people).


Some notes on 'phone hacking':

A few days ago a local Singapore newspaper ran an article written by some local 'electronic games developer' that talked about how easy it is for people to 'hack' into other people's phone mails and messages. According to that 'expert', the method is to 'imitate' the phone's owner and try to log into the owner's voice and message box, and it is quite easy as most people do not bother to change the default passwords assigned by telcos.

Yah, only simpletons believe that people that do it on 'industrial scales' take that route. There are easier ways like gaining control of the telcos' computers or just simply having access to them (i.e. be on the inside).

Despite the impression that 'phone hacking' is something different, it is actually computer hacking and there is no difference between the two. At the core of the entire 'modern phone system' is nothing but many computers acting as switches and as storage so that phone users can sign in later to retrieve. So with so many computers all over the network, it would not be surprising that copies of those mails and messages are siting on multiple computers which makes it all the easier get to from the inside.

Thus, those fellas above did not have to hack into people's phones and unlikely even to have to pretend to be the rightful owners. It is more likely that they were accessing those computers from the inside and did not even have to hack into those computers. Remember: the ones that control those computers can access anything they want and that is the easiest and most efficient way of getting people's mails if you are operating on an 'industrial scale'.

So and unless you think the ones managing those telco networks are total idiots that did not really know what was happening, you imagine what sort of 'power' is needed for that to happen?

People with that sort of reach don't do things the way the average joe or joker does, or the way they think things are done...



Rupert Murdoch attacks Gordon Brown in first interview since NoW closed
Speaking to Wall St Journal, media tycoon defends News Corp's handling of scandal and says MPs' comments are 'total lies'

David Batty
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 July 2011

Rupert Murdoch has attacked Gordon Brown in a fierce defence of News Corporation's handling of the phone hacking scandal. Murdoch accused British MPs of lying about allegations of corrupt practices at his newspapers

In his first interview about the crisis that has engulfed his media empire, Murdoch said some MPs' comments on the scandal were "total lies" and singled out Brown for criticism over the former prime minister's accusation that News International was guilty of "law-breaking on an industrial scale".

The media baron said Brown "got it entirely wrong" when he alleged that Murdoch's British papers had used "known criminals" to get access to his personal information when Labour was in power.

"The Browns were always friends of ours" until the Sun withdrew its support for Labour before the last general election, he told the Wall Street Journal, his flagship US paper.

On Twitter, Murdoch's biographer Michael Wolff said he "seemed genuinely distressed about Gordon Brown not liking him anymore."

Murdoch said he had agreed to appear before the Commons culture, media and sport select committee after being told he would be summoned to a hearing on the hacking scandal next Tuesday. He said he wanted to address "some of the things that have been said in parliament, some of which are total lies."

The summons was issued after Murdoch said he would not give evidence to the committee until after having appeared before the public inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson.

Murdoch, who will join his younger son James and News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks at the hearing, added: "We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public."

The chairman and chief executive of News Corp also defended the company's handling of the crisis, claiming it had made only "minor mistakes".

The damage to the company was "nothing that will not be recovered," he said, adding that the company had a great reputation in the US.

He admitted "getting annoyed" about the negative media coverage of the scandal but said: I'll get over it."

Amid growing calls from News Corp shareholders for James Murdoch to step down as the chairman of BSkyB, his father also attempted to quash speculation that the scandal had dashed the chances of his younger taking over his media empire.

Rejecting criticism that James Murdoch had reacted too slowly to the scandal, he said: "I think he acted as fast as he could, the moment he could."

He also claimed that his own his reponse to the situation had been prompt and appropriate.

"When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right," he said.

He also denied there were plans to sell News International, or separate it from the rest of News Corp, describing such reports as "pure rubbish".

"Give it the strongest possible denial you can give," he added.

But Murdoch said it would set up an independent committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct" made against News International.

The committee would be headed by a "distinguished non-employee" and also establish a "protocol for behaviour" for new reporters across the company.

Why Leaking State Secrets Can Be Dangerous

Before Gringo, Poodle and all attacked Iraq, their own weapons experts (like Scott Ritter and the man in below story) were coming out with the truth which is there were no weapons of mass destruction and that excuse for attacking Iraq was just a big lie.

There are simpletons I know that ape the main stream media in those states and their 'allies', and tell others that disclosing such state secrets is 'not good'. To them WikiLeaks is also a bad thing.

One can see why leaking state secrets can be dangerous - the ones leaking the secrets may die much sooner than the ones perpetuating the lies (Bush Jr and poodle are still kicking around...no ICC 'crimes against humanity' charges for them).

May be simpletons like elephants to be simple like them... one simple blindman telling them what an elephant looks like is sufficient. To them, other blindmen's stories especially those that deal with elephants more often (i.e. insiders) are either unimportant or 'dangerous'.

Only such simpletons would believe that men willing to risk their careers and lives to speak out for truth in the hope of saving hundreds of thousands of other people's lives would be so weak as to take their own lives just because they are 'exposed' as the source of leaks.

To such men, even the thought of some devils taking someone else's lives is below them and should be fought against (unlike cowards). You think they'd put those good lives of theirs to such simple waste?


http://worldpress.org/Europe/1405.cfm#down

Suicide and Suspicions over War with Iraq
Barry Shelby and Sarah Coleman
Aug. 13, 2003

The July 18 suicide of British Ministry of Defense (MoD) weapons expert David Kelly has intensified the ongoing British row over the reasons Britain went to war, the quality of Western military intelligence, and news media bias. British commentators from across the political spectrum agree that it also represents the most serious challenge Tony Blair’s government has yet faced.

Kelly, 59, committed suicide after being named by the government as the source for a press leak. In a conversation with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Andrew Gilligan in February, Kelly was an unnamed source who debunked Downing Street’s claim that weapons of mass destruction could be launched from Iraq within 45 minutes. That information was part of a dossier of evidence against the Iraqi regime, published by the British government last September and thought to be enormously influential in giving a moral justification for removing Saddam Hussein. Asked who had been responsible for “sexing up” the dossier, Gilligan’s source named Blair’s top press secretary Alistair Campbell.

Kelly later denied that he had been the main source for Gilligan’s story, telling a parliamentary committee on July 15 that “from the conversation I had I don't see how [Gilligan] could make the statements he was making.” By that time, Gilligan’s story was dominating the news and the pressure on Kelly was apparently intolerable. Four days after he gave his evidence, he was dead.
In the aftermath of the suicide, British commentators were divided as to whether the lion’s share of blame for Kelly’s suicide rested with the government or the BBC. Some blamed the news agency for refusing to release Kelly’s name sooner; other fingers pointed at the MoD for violating its normal rules of secrecy by telling reporters that it would confirm the mole’s name if they submitted it to the ministry. For its part, the government accused the BBC of having an antiwar bias that had led to sensationalist reporting.

“Make no mistake, this is serious,” wrote David Cracknell in the conservative Sunday Times (July 20). “Early in the Iraq dossier row, one MP said this was New Labor’s Watergate. That looked like hyperbole then. It does not now.” Kelly’s death “is not merely a political event, it is a moral event, and it has made people feel not only sad, but ashamed,” William Rees-Mogg wrote in The Times the next day (July 21).

Britain’s conservative tabloids were eager to point fingers at the BBC. “Are the BBC to blame?” asked the conservative, mass-circulation News of the World (July 20). “Maybe….It is the reputation of the BBC that will be covered in Kelly’s blood.” The Sun (July 21) was even more damning in its rhetorical questions: “The BBC is in the gutter…How can we ever trust them again?”

But others argued that it wasn’t clear exactly what the BBC could have done to save Kelly. Writing in the liberal Guardian on July 21, Jackie Ashley offered an explanation for the conservative attacks on the corporation. “The attacks on the BBC have been led by two groups—Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and New Labor spin-doctors—which have been closely intertwined in recent years. The covert Murdoch message is clear enough: Tony, we are your real, reliable supporters, not the dodgy lefties of the BBC.”

Others cautioned against making too much of the battle between the BBC and press secretary Alistair Campbell, saying that they were simply actors in a larger drama. “Blair went to war arguing that Iraq posed an imminent threat,” said an editorial in London’s liberal Independent on Sunday (July 20). “It is not scientific advisors, or Campbell, or the BBC...who should be in the dock but the prime minister….We need [an inquiry] into the real reasons why this country was taken into a war that has claimed not only too many lives as its victims but the nation’s trust in its leaders as well.”

Blair, who was on a tour of Asia when Kelly’s death was announced, appeared visibly shaken in press conferences and immediately announced that an inquiry—led by Irish judge Lord Hutton—would be launched into the scientist’s death. He averred that he would appear before the inquiry’s commission himself. Hutton subsequently announced that he would also be calling Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon and Campbell to the witness stand.

But for some editorialists, the Hutton inquiry was doomed before its first hearing. “Limits have been imposed on Lord Hutton…His investigation, however rigorous, is likely to produce only half the story,” wrote Glasgow’s centrist Herald (July 22). “He is being asked to consider Kelly’s death as if it occurred in isolation from other events. In truth, however, it was but one part of a
larger narrative.”

British headlines after the inquiry’s first days focused on internal BBC memos indicating that Gilligan’s “loose use of language and lack of judgment” in his choice of words had been a millstone around the corporation’s neck. “BBC admits Iraq scoop was flawed,” The Times trumpeted in its top headline on Aug. 13. “Gilligan report ‘flawed,’ “ The Scotsman announced. The Guardian, which had declared itself to be “gunning for the BBC” in a July 22 editorial, conceded an “Inquiry blow for the BBC” in its lead headline on Aug. 13. Of the most prestigious British papers, only The Independent devoted its top headline to the other important revelation from the previous day’s proceedings: that Kelly had also told Susan Watts, science editor of BBC2’s Newsnight, that Campbell had insisted that the controversial “45-minute claim” be inserted into the September dossier.

In the days before the inquiry opened, the controversy had taken a new turn. On Aug. 3, Tom Kelly, the prime minister’s spokesman, referred to the Nobel Prize-nominated David Kelly as a “Walter Mitty” character. Newspaper columnists and editorialists were quick to seize on the comment as an example of the government’s desperation and increasing reliance on spin.

“The sheer incompetence and self-destructiveness of this administration’s handling of the Kelly crisis has become epic,” wrote Iain MacWhirter in Glasgow’s Herald (Aug. 6). “The government propaganda machine seems to have taken on a life of its own; has turned on its masters, and is now destroying them. Terminator meets All the President’s Men.”

“Even before Lord Hutton begins his inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the
government manages to keep itself on the front pages as if it is determined to alienate public opinion in advance of the formal proceedings,” wrote Steve Richards in The Independent. “The once-sharp antennae of the publicity-conscious New Laborites have been blunted by power, and the prospect of power for years to come.”

The reference to Mitty, the protaganist of a 1939 short story for the New Yorker whose name has become a byword for a person who dreams about a life much more exciting than his own, caused one columnist to do some literary sleuthing and to conclude that the comment was more of a compliment than a slur.

“The whole point of Thurber’s story…is that Mitty fantasizes wildly about becoming someone else, but never actually changes,” Andrew Buncombe wrote in The Independent (Aug. 7). “Mitty is a hero for every one of us who has played the lottery….So, it’s perfectly possible that, from time to time, the Nobel Prize nominee Kelly was a Walter Mitty character; but then, so, hopefully, is his namesake who tried to undermine the scientist’s reputation with such a cheap
shot.”

On Aug. 5, the day before David Kelly’s funeral, Tom Kelly apologized for the comment. Nevertheless, the centrist Financial Times felt that “Tom Kelly should be suspended,” while the conservative Daily Express described him as a “the fall guy.” There was much speculation about whether his comment had been a case of individual tactlessness, or part of a calculated strategy by the administration to smear the eminent weapons expert.

"[Tom] Kelly’s briefing was not part of a carefully planned operation,” wrote Steve Richards in The Independent (Aug. 6). “Such a development would be a clear sign the collective forces in Downing Street had gone insane. Imagine the conversation: ‘Why don’t we get it into the newspapers that we regard David Kelly as a fantasist just before his funeral?’”

“If the government is found to be engaging in the character assassination of a dead man then the implications could prove devastating. The wider public will find the whole business distasteful in the extreme,” read an Aug. 6 editorial in the Irish News. However, the paper concluded, there were larger issues at stake. “The tragic death of David Kelly looks set to dominate Tony Blair’s political life for months.”

Malaysian Hat Tricks

Comments posted in Malaysia Today on reports after the 2008 general elections of Perlis Sultan's insistence that all MPs appearing before him must wear the Songkok (Malay hat), and some DAP reps' refusal to comply.


A storm in a songkok

1st comment:

Much ado about what covers the head when what is needed for the country is to enlighten that which the hats cover.

Throughout history, all cultures (political and religious) in power deemed themselves honoured when their subjects are made to wear their costumes. What got to be put on the heads was apparently especially important to those 'powerful' people of the dark ages whether they were from Europe, Middle East or Asia.

As an example, to the arrogant Manchu rulers of China a century or so ago, their mandatory 'pig tail' hairstyle was the epitome of their overlordship (they had their own NEP system too) and was to be compromised only at the price of the head. The Qing, of course, gained more lasting infamy than respect from that antic of theirs.

The 'songkok' is, of course, something some people copied from the Turks.

History seems to show that it is the arrogant vile that feel most honoured if others ape after them, and feel most exalted by their one-size fits all version of 'only my way or nothing'. The US of George Bush Jr. is just the latest ‘global’ version of such arrogance.

Today we see first hand how our own version of such a 'My Way' attitude by an M character had created the Malaysian Dilemma. Forcing others to wear his stupid notions in their head is far worse than that of forcing outfits on others, but they all have small beginnings.

It may start with a book, a hat, or a megalomaniac's dream.

xxx



Subsequent posts (as web arguments on whether the DAP reps should or should not have submitted to the Songkok-or-nothing rule):


People can choose to have fun with others' costumes but they should not get to choose to have fun with others' liberty.

xxx


One can put whatever one likes on one's own head based on whatever reasons one can find or dredge up. One should however not think that one had it all sorted out and thereforth to insist that all others should ape after him.

It is perhaps better that one knows where to cap it all off.

And do you think that unto such as you;
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew:
God gave the secret—and denied it me?
Well, well, what matters it? Believe that, too.
- Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam

xxx

Various Postings on Malaysian Indians

Comments posted in Malaysia Today before the 2008 general elections on 8 March 2008 in which the opposition parties won more than 1/3 the Parliamentary seats and became states government for Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor for the 1st time.


Suara rakyat, suara keramat

The Malaysian Indians suffered from a combination of factors.

Culturally they are a people conditioned to accept whatever life has to offer. They call that fate. Which is why their Hindu caste system lasted for a few thousand years and still going.

The Hindu caste system also conditioned them subconsciously to submit blindly to whoever happens to be in position of power. Thus their past faithfulness to Samy Vellu and BN.

In our country, Indians had also been conditioned to submit to the Malaysian caste system where they are further placed below some other people that have 'special positions'.

All these had combined to instill in the least well-to-do segments of Malaysian Indians (which is the majority) an inferiority complex worse than that created by their Hindu caste system.

If Malaysian Indians had failed, it is because our country had failed them and made them feel worse than what their disastrous caste system had done.

If Malaysian Indians had failed, it is because our country had intentionally kept them down by forsaking or letting them forsake their children's education.

It is only through education and, thereof, the opportunity to partake in all the best opportunities the country and the world has to offer (this means equality and meritocracy), that Malaysian Indians can get out of the rut that their own culture and government had created for them.

It should pain all compassionate Malaysians to see those pictures of our Tamil schools operating out of huts and 2-storey shop houses.

It is clear that the Indian community is too poor to start with to have much opportunity to get out of their hole themselves.

For one, they are now lower down in the Malaysian caste system than they had ever been in history, and cannot feed off others by the wave of a straight or crooked knife.

Just as their Hindu caste managed to keep their lowest members perennially subservient by keeping them continuously desperate, with whatever time they have spent on struggling to just survive not to say to figure out who among their leaders (all predators) were lying to them, the Malaysian caste system had done the same and worse with the help of a certain MIC and Samy Vellu.

The Indians may also be spread too thin to be able to run their Tamil schools cost effectively.

And if this country's government cannot or do not wish to uplift the Malaysian Indians who are unlikely to do so on their own, then the good people of the other races should extend a helping hand instead of talking to them condescendingly.

Going to so-called 'national' schools may also not be the solution as is obvious to anyone with some insight, including the discerning Malays who send their children to Chinese schools (even Mahathir talked about it when they were calling for his head).

The Chinese schools, on the other hand, have more critical mass (that is before a certain group of ‘special viles’ chase them out or kill them off with crooked knives), and the right people and value system to do that.

So I suggest that Indian and Chinese educationists consider the option of bringing the Indians into the fold of the Chinese school system/network.

If any group of people is able to do that, it is these 2.

Come on Indians and Chinese Malaysians, you have not much more to lose but all the more to gain by coming together, starting with our children and by imparting to them the knowledge and skills to compete successfully anywhere on earth, whatever dirt-princes notwithstanding.

2 people from 2 of the largest and greatest civilizations in history can surely find the space in our hearts and our schools to keep ourselves and our great cultures (except the Hindu caste system, of course) standing together upright against the odds posed by the vile predators that lord the Malaysian caste system.

xxx


Theva's desperate plea
Malaysia's middle class Indians can be ignored but there is more at stake than just votes
----

It is true that more than just votes is at stake but it is not true that Malaysia's Indian middle class can be ignored just because their numbers are small.

If number is all that matters in the advancement of the human race and in national development, then Malaysia should be lording over Singapore by now and Indonesia over Malaysia.

The truth is only a small number of minds really makes a difference in this world.

The rest are mere followers and hitch-hikers. Some are worse than that, as Malaysia show abundantly.

Although only a few really makes a difference, no one can ever foretell who those few will be and where they will come from.

Thus the need to give every single deserving individual the best opportunity they deserve to grow, and not waste resources on the undeserving. That is meritocracy.

The 7% Malaysians who are Indians may be small in number but we should be mindful that among all the races in Malaysia, that race have produced the largest number of Nobel prize winners. (Globally, there have been 6 ethnic Indian winners, 5 Chinese, and 0 Malays)

Some Malaysian races can claim to be princes of some soil or dirt, but none other than the Indian race in Malaysia can claim the honour of being awarded with the most Nobel prize.

It is perhaps timely to remember Chandrasekhar Subramanyam, the physicist from an Indian middle class family whose work was once publicly insinuated by his white mentor in front of a gathering of the Royal Astronomical Society.

None of the established European physicists of that time came to that young man's rescue.

One reason was that white mentor held the title of ‘father of modern astronomy’ and had arrogantly claimed that he was only 1 of 3 men in the world at that time that understood Einstein's theory of relativity. His name was Arthur Eddington.

The Nobel Prize committee was not impressed with Eddington but gave Chandrasekhar a Nobel prize for his work (on what became known as 'Chandrasekhar Limit') that arrogant Eddington scoffed at.

Chandrasekhar's uncle C.V. Raman was also a Nobel prize winner for his work on the Raman Effect (Physics).

Now, what race, not to say middle class family, can claim the honour of having 2 Nobel prize winners in 2 generations?


So Malaysian Indians,

Some people in Malaysia may look down on you or scoff at you but they will never be able to get anywhere near the achievements of your race.

Your people's achievements is Nature's way of showing you promise. And hope.

So hold your heads up high. Only fools ignore you to their own loss and detriment.

xxx


Malaysian Indian Muslims want to be called Malays
Kuala Lumpur, Mar 3 2008: Members of the Malaysian Indian Muslim Youth Movement (Gepima) want to be known as Malays and not Indians.
----

In the 19th century the western countries led by the British forced the Chinese to allow the sale of opium and made a lot of gold/money selling opium derived from India and Afghanistan (the British called that dominion 'the Jewel of the Crown').

At the same time their religious groups offered food and money (subsidised by that opium money, mainly) to any Chinese willing to convert to Christianity.

To the more humane in the west, the view was Christianity would humanise and civilise the Chinese.

Others like a British poet, Rudyard Kipling, considered the Asiatics and Africans (regions the west were fighting to colonise then) 'A Whitemen's Burden'.

And Kipling's poem of that name called upon the Americans to join the British in colonising these regions filled with 'half-devil and half-child'.

That poem was written when the Americans had whacked and taken possession of all Spanish dominions in the Americas and Pacific, and was occupying the Philippines.

Faced with the generosity of money derived the opium sale (so it was really money from the Chinese themselves) and the ineptitude of their own government, many of the poorest and desperate Chinese then took up the conversion offer to survive.

The other Chinese called the conversions 'shi jiao' or literally 'eating religion'.

The Indians of Gepima may also be just wanting to 'eat race'.

But are the people they want to join that generous, or would they just treat them as half-devil and half-child?

xxx

No Need for Colored Glasses

Like most humans, Chinese fear change. There are other terms for this already used by the crass.

Like most fools, it is the stupid that think that inspiration, insight and guidance can be drawn from only one book, or the most beautiful scenery of nature comes in monochrome.

Thus voting for such people to put them in power is to tell the fools with a broom stick they have a working compass and should lead the way around the globe.

Or his monochrome NEP still camera is the best way to capture the beauty and essence of nature.

By following fools you may not run into problem tomorrow or day after but that does not make them or their followers less foolish.

The broom stick may work as well as a compass for our globetrotter, for a while.

The monochrome NEP still pictures may tickle the senses of the half-blind, for a while.

But you will someday have to pay for the fool's acts, it is just a matter of when.

It is as simple as that.

No need for crass, colored glasses, cross, crescent and other complicated notions.xx



14/09: Through a Chinese Looking Glass
Posted in Malaysia Today
By Wang Earn Swey

In a recent posting in Malaysia-Today.net (MT), Raja Petra lamented that in the last general election, the Chinese threw their lot in with BN; this despite the fact that PAS issued a statement that if a May 13-type race riot were to occur, PAS members would stand in front of the Chinese and face death if necessary to shelter the Chinese from harm. Thus, continued Raja Petra, the Chinese deserve the UMNO-led government they get.

The Malaysian Chinese mind is not well understood, and Raja Petra understands it least of all; this despite the fact that his wife is ethnic Chinese. In another article, he branded the Chinese as cowards.The Chinese are a pragmatic race. They value education. They love making money.

And the Chinese in Malaysia have sought to equate the value of education to the value of future income. Talk to any Chinese parents in the 70’s and they would list the ‘good’ careers for their sons and daughters to pursue; doctors, engineers, etc., all the big money careers. Tell our parents that we are studying to become a kindergarten teacher and we very possibly might be disowned. This thinking has deviated from the thinking of the Chinese of the Han Dynasty where the civil service was the ultimate goal. Back then, scholars studied day and night, travelled hundreds of miles to write the civil service examinations, which can last for several days. The subjects of study were mostly from the Confucian texts. All of that in pursuit of titles like “chuang yuan” or “siew chye”, etc. These were high ranks among scholars and they gained ministerial positions according to their attained scholarship.

A similar route to high civil office does not exist for the Malaysian Chinese. Besides, the government model of today is completely different from the imperial Han Dynasty government. So what is left? Education and money! Education itself has been thoroughly transformed by technology. The Confucian Ethics Specialist is just not in demand anymore. The real goal of education is money anyway. The Chinese have never, in the past, thought that having money translated to having economic power. They simply liked being wealthy. It’s about respect. The materialistic (western) world looks at money through a twisted looking glass: money and wealth are exalted, at the same time money is the root of all evil. Not the Chinese. We look with awe at Bill Gates, the richest man on earth and a college dropout. We love every rags-to-riches story, as if that validates that we, too, can become billionaires. We don’t pay so much attention to other equally against-the-odds success stories: such as the one about the child who overcame his severe autism, and struggle now as an adult working as a government clerk.

Back to the general election; any general election. The Malaysian Chinese citizen holds the ballot paper in front of him. BN, DAP, PAS, PKR. Hmm. DAP has never run a government. They have become synonymous with the word ‘opposition’. PKR, a nebulous party with meagre election wins in the past. That leaves BN and PAS. PAS has a track record of running a state government or two. Now, PAS has offered to protect the Chinese in the event of a race riot. Sounds good, right? Not so fast.

Let’s play out the scenario. Say PAS receives a respectable amount of votes, enough to threaten the shrinking BN majority. Say racial sentiments start to brew to a boiling point. But race riots never occur, because PAS members stick to their word and stand in front of the Chinese, confronting any UMNO member. Race riots thus become a thing of the past. Two or three elections later, PAS wins the majority and now expects the Chinese to be supportive of their new government, including support for instituting Sharia laws. After all, we owe them for their past protection.

This is where the Chinese mind comes in. With the current government, I get to keep 75 sen of every ringgit I make. And I have a fighting chance of getting some of that 30% economic pie allocated to the non-Bumis. (This number is made up. I don’t have statistics to back up the 30% figure.) Under-the-table-money further cuts into my 75 sen. But this has been going on for years. I’m used to it. I have deprived myself of luxuries for the past 20 years to save up and open my own business. Sure, there are obstacles upon obstacles. Money has to change hands under the table again to open my own business. But, finally, I get to open my dream business. I’ve become the local distributor of Christian books to churches around the country. Oh relax, I’m not that pious a Christian. I go to church to cozy-up to the movers and shakers of Malaysian churches, just so that as a book distributor, I have their ears. In fact, I go to a different church every Sunday.

One vote for PAS and all my dreams become fuzzy. Who am I? I am the Chinese Christian Books distributor. I am the Chinese pig farmer. I am the Chinese casino worker. I am the Chinese non-halal food distributor. I am the Chinese temple builder. Pragmatist? My life story virtually defines the word. Coward? Don’t think so. My elderly parents who depend on my 75 sen.

“What more do you want?!” Raja Petra asked. For one thing, dear PAS member, we don’t want your pledge to stand in front of us. We have always been able to take care of ourselves in all adversities. We would rather you stand beside us. We don’t need the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” faux friendship. We want to know if you do take power, what shape will the government take? The Saudi model? The Iranian model? The Taliban model? Or the progressive democratic model that Turkey is struggling to keep? We want to know if you will teach our future children that wars of any kind take two sides, neither of which is blameless. We want to know if your government will be the first to appoint the most qualified persons, bumi or non-bumi? We want to know if our children will be the first to hear you declare that Islam is not superior to any other religion, that we are all God’s children, and that words like infidels, pagans, goyims are all man-made words and are offensive in the eyes of God. We want to know if your government will be the first Islamic government in the world to have permanent Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu Religious Affairs advisors. We want to know if the NEP that we have grudgingly supported for so long will be revamped, so that its goal is to narrow the gap between rich and poor, with income as the only criteria.

Sorry, Raja Petra, pledging to become a human shield for me is the last thing I need.

Social Contract

29/08: MCA policy statement on social contract “blacked out” in MCA newspaper The Star – Why?

Category: General
Posted by: Raja Petra

Media Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader and DAP MP for Ipoh Timur Lim Kit Siang

This is most extraordinary and unthinkable – MCA newspaper The Star “blacking out” the MCA policy statement on the “social contract”!

The Chinese newspapers gave front-page headline treatment to the policy statement issued yesterday by the MCA Presidential Council following the shock declaration of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that Malaysia was an Islamic state and not a secular state.

Strangely enough, the policy statement was reported by the Sun but it is also conspicuously omitted in the New Straits Times and the Malay newspapers.

Releasing the MCA Presidential Council statement, MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting said the Federal Constitution should be the reference to resolve controversies or confusion over the social contract.

The statement said that what had been agreed by the forefathers 50 years ago, especially the principles and the spirit in governing the country, must be preserved.

These principles and spirit were enshrined in the Constitution.

Two questions are in order:

Firstly, why the two-faced treatment of the MCA Presidential Council policy statement on the “social contract” by the MCA – having it published prominently in the Chinese media but blacked out in its own English-language newspaper, the Star and the New Straits Times as well as the Malay newspapers.

Secondly, why had the MCA Presidential Council betrayed the fundamental principles espoused by the early generation of the MCA founder-leaders like Tun Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Tan Siew Sin who had declared unequivocally both inside and outside Parliament 50 years ago that this nation was conceived as a secular state with Islam as the official religion and not an Islamic state.

In limiting its “social contract” understanding and commitment to what is in the Malaysian Constitution, the present MCA leaders have created the conditions to justify their support for the abandonment of the foundation nation-building cornerstone of Malaysia as a secular state with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic state. This is to enable the present MCA leadership to support the distortion and misinterpretation of the Merdeka “social contract” of Malaysia as never having been an secular state and had always been an Islamic state.

The Malaysian Constitution is both silent on a secular state and an Islamic state. However, all constitutional documents leading up to the 1957 Merdeka Constitution and the 1964 Malaysia Agreement and the highest judicial pronouncements of the land spelt out clearly that Malaysia was conceived as a secular state with Islam as the official religion and not an Islamic state.

Now, through sheer political hegemony and against the public stands of the first three Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein, the “social contract” and Merdeka Constitution is being misinterpreted to jettison the fundamental nation-building principle of a secular Malaysia and to substitute instead an Islamic Malaysia.

The MCA Presidential Council policy statement yesterday has only one objective – to perpetuate the myth that MCA remains steadfast and fully committed to defend and uphold the Merdeka social contract when in fact it had already abandoned the fundamental principle that Malaysia was conceived as a secular state and was never meant to be an Islamic state.

How could Tun Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Tan Siew Sin rest in peace at such betrayal of principles by the present crop of MCA leaders?

Lim Kit Siang


CCK comment:

When Singapore refused to up the price of water supplied by Malaysia on basis that the legal contract under which it is supplied does not allow for it, government leaders and cronies went up in arms.

Ridiculously cheap and Singapore is an asshole country, they say.

In turn, this same bunch of characters expect entire people to submit to their whims and greed on the basis of a ridiculous interpretation of what they call 'social contract' under which easy money can be gotten by way of conspiratorial contracts and not endeavor.

And they complain about others going up in arms.

No Gull Please

Comment posted in Malaysia Today in response to call to abolish the SJK schools


If a company has a proven record of producing good quality and reliable products, people around the world will go to it without the need for coercion or the likes.

The theorists will talk about dedication, intelligence, hardwork and many other notions being potentially the cause of a company's success.

They can also have many theories to explain why some companies lose out. In some countries they just go on a wild blame ride.

For the fair minded, the preponderance of a company's products is the simplest indicator of its quality. That is, you know a company is good when you see many of your neighbours buying its products.

A good example is Samsung which became one of the top 10 brands in the world over the course of a quarter of a century. Sony is not even on that list today.

And no salesman with any cock-n-bull story will be able to stop the tide of the mass consumer.

You also cannot force people to buy your product if you are a lousy manufacturer unless you resort to unfair means. A good example is our local Toyota wannabe.

The world is best being a pretty free market.

Those who believe that their favorite manufacturer produces the best products should stick with it. Good for them.

Those who think they operate a very good company should concentrate on producing world quality products. The crowd will naturally come to you.

But spare the other consumers who think otherwise the horror of being a potential gull.

Educational institutions are no different. The world class ones are obvious. So are the low down ones.

You decide for yourself and your children but please let the others make their own choices.

They will follow you if yours is clearly the best around. If not, you should perhaps scratch your head a bit.


Subsequent comment:

Useless products can only come from lousy companies run by sub-standard people using below-par materials.

Resorting to lelong sales pitches will not carry them far.

Hoping their products will improve by way of blowing hot air is a fool's dream.

Never put your capital into such companies.

The True Fathers of Malaysian Independence

Malaysia Today posting

28/08: The true fathers of Malaysian independence
Category: General Posted by: Raja Petra

by Anti-Jihadist

When Malaysians take time this upcoming Friday to reflect on the meaning of (what is widely referred to as) the 50th anniversary of Malaysian independence (a.k.a. Merdeka), they should spare a moment to thank one of the men who helped make it possible—Adolf Hitler.

That’s right. Adolf Hitler and his fascist allies, in an ironic twist of history, are in many ways the true fathers of independent Malaysia. Without their actions, Merdeka would have taken, at the very least, many more years if not decades to come to pass. Remember, in the years preceding World War II, Malaya’s status as a British colony was not seriously opposed by anyone, especially inside Malaya itself. British rule of the colony was unchallenged. And a unified Malaya not run by Britain was all but unthinkable.

The actions of one man thousands of miles away would change this status quo forever. It was Hitler’s Germany that launched war in Europe in 1939, and whose forces directly attacked the British homeland soon after. It was Hitler’s Afrika Korps and Italian allies who attacked British forces and possessions throughout the Mediterranean, and attempted to seize the British protectorate of Egypt and the vital Suez Canal. These assaults on multiple fronts concentrated British forces and planning on these theatres of war, and turned London’s attention away from Asia. The British Empire in 1940 and 1941 (when they did not yet have an official ally in the US) was stretched to the limit and fighting for its life.

Left all but forgotten at this critical juncture were the British possessions in the Far East—Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, and Burma. Stripped of military units that had been hurried westward to fight the Germans and Italians, these areas were tempting targets.

Such an opportunity was not to go unnoticed, especially by Hitler’s other ally—the Empire of Japan, who had been planning their so-called “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” for some time. Seeing that the chief colonizing power in Southeast Asia (the UK) had its hands full fighting the Germans in North Africa and elsewhere, the Japanese militarists carefully planned their coup de main. Germany’s conquest of Western Europe (and the fall of other colonial powers France and the Netherlands) also made for other ‘ripe pickings’ in Southeast Asia.

On December 8, 1941, Japan decisively struck the Malayan peninsula and landed a sizable invasion force near Kota Baru (on Malaya’s northeast coast). The few British units still left in Malaya resisted valiantly, but were outmaneuvered and overwhelmed in short order. Japan’s ‘jungle blitzkrieg’ succeeded enormously, and the seemingly ‘invincible’ British quickly surrendered in all of Malaya.

The resulting Japanese occupation of Malaya was humiliating as it was brutal. However, it did demonstrate to everyone (in particular, the Malays) two vital lessons that cannot be underestimated, and that ultimately paved the way for Merdeka. One, the British were clearly not unbeatable. And secondly, it could now be shown conclusively that a Malaya without British rule was possible.

When the British returned to Malaya in 1945, they did so as victors, but in full awareness that continued British rule in Malaya would not, and could not, continue as it had before. The British had won the war, true, but their victory over Hitler and fascism had bankrupted them, and they had lost much of their desire for empire as a result. Their soon-to-be former subjects, the Malays, knew that the genie was out of the bottle, and realised that they had to finagle the most favourable terms possible from the soon-to-depart British.

It was merely a question of time, of process, and of form, but thanks to the schemes of the Nazis and their friends, Malayan independence had become inevitable.

Remember that this week when you display your Jalur Gemilang.


Comments

TheWrathOfGrapes wrote:
.More like surrogate fathers.One Fuhrer with his Lebensraum, and one Emperor with his Greater East Asian Co-Propsperity Sphere, resulting in the dismantling of the old colonies.Some good coming out of something bad..
28/08 15:29:43

rakyatmalaysia wrote:
good one joe, but that does not mean i will look hitler as my hero but a blooody bastard who massacred million of jews.
28/08 15:31:22

theantijihadist wrote:
I couldn't agree more with that assessment of Herr Hitler. May he burn in Hell for eternity.
28/08 15:36:28

WanSinga wrote:
Hitler! How I adore him very much. Not because of his cruelty but to his inflence & absolute power.Think again.Jews were shot dead. So be it. But why? Because they are weak, like the rest of us.Think again.Every history has a lesson...
28/08 15:46:52

ShyteStirrer wrote:
Anti-Jihadist, please do not fall into the trap of all the apologists of the Nazis and the Fascist Imperial Japanese when they say that their actions precipitated the independence movements in Asia. It is true that it may have been a unintended by-product. However, do not forget that the Nazi's and Japanese were inperialists who wanted domination of peoples and raw materials. Please also do not forget the millions of people that perished because of their imperial dreams. They never intended freedom for anyone - they only wanted complete domination. Please do not twist history.
28/08 15:52:43

shardik wrote:
'Mein Kampf' becomes bestseller in Turkey
Publisher: 'The times we live in have a definite impact on sales'http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43380
28/08 15:55:55

cheekhiaw wrote:
The victors had conveniently blamed Hitler for WWII. But history shows that the seeds of WWII was sowed by the victors of WWI i.e. the British, French and Americans.

The Versaille Treaty for Germany's surrender in WWI exacted huge reparations (contrary to expectations set to the Germans by the Americans) that resulted in super-high inflation.

John Maynard Keynes the famous economist who represented the British Exchequer in that event resigned in compassionate protest over its unreasonableness. The super high inflation arising from that and the great depression set the ground for extreme German views/actions.

Germany fought WWI because she was a new nation and wanted a share of the colonial pie dominated by the older powers. By end 19th century, Germany was only 30 years old but its economic might (along with US) was second only to Britain.

Lord Balfour the British Foreign Secretary in WWI was recorded to have suggested years before to the Americans that they should start a war with Germany so that they could 'maintain their standard of living' i.e. to whack Germany to keep it from challenging them.

During WWI the same Balfour (a Jew) issued the Balfour Declaration on behalf of Britain which made public the British government's support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine in return for financial support for the war from the Jews. That 'letter' was addressed to a certain Lord Rothschild of the financial world.

According to historian Paul Kennedy, access to cheap financing is 1 of 3 key factors that decide the outcome of modern wars. This is why the Germans hated this other group of people so much.

Thus the final collapse of the British empire was partly the result of their own insidious actions and not just the challenge of upcoming powers Germany and Japan.

We should therefore thank the British themselves.

The Israelites do that. Which is also why they can afford to be so arrogant towards the Palestinians.
28/08 16:01:34

cruzeiro wrote:
Hey AJ,I think it was rather unfair.

You should've said that it was Roosevelt, as the British could've easily held on to Malaya with all it's riches. There were enough turncoats who benefited directly or otherwise from the colonization, to perpetuate it. After all, the questions of Malayan Union, and the muted resistance, came about after WWII, becos of the conditions imposed on the British by Roosevelt and Gang!So it was Roosevelt, AJ. Or else, we might be worshiping the Hirohito, and saluting Japs today.As an alternative, you could probably thank and give some credit to the Jewish lobby/ bankers who had vested interest in an open market!
28/08 16:01:36

farouk wrote:
You mean to tell me, the British DIDN'T give us independence because they thought we were matured and capable of running a soveriegn state? ;)
28/08 16:01:55

shardik wrote:
In any case the Brits were bankrupt, sapped up and their manpower drastically reduced after the war. They did not have the energy to hold on to their colonies. They needed to rebuild the home country and it made more economic sense to decolonise.
28/08 16:03:51

cheekhiaw wrote:
To see who we should really thank for the outcome of WWII, we should compare the price each country paid in lives of its people.

3 nations had more than 10 million casualties each (Russia, Germany, China)

The Americans, British and French had about 1 million in total between them or about 2% of total global war casualty. [My original comment as pointed out by another blogger is incorrect:'The Americans, British and French had less than 100,000 each.']

The Americans and British sat out of most of the war and pretended to fight Germany in Africa, and moved into Europe only after the tide of war there had already changed. Thanks to the East Europeans/ This is why world leaders had the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII in Russia 2 years ago.

As to Asia, China paid the highest price and the Americans won it on the cheap via the bomb. During most of the war, China was left pretty much to its own. Those who brandish small crooked knives around town here should note this.
28/08 16:13:47

cruzeiro wrote:
Shardik,I don't think they would've, had they not been forced to do so by "Roosevelt"- what more, when they needed even more wealth to rebuild their economy!In fact they were looking for reasons not to give the Independence.Malaya with its tin and Rubber which were prime commodities, would've helped a lot, with little cost on their part.
28/08 16:14:05

theantijihadist wrote:
Cheekhiaw's WW2 casualty stats are a little off.The UK's casualties for WW2 are estimated to be 450,000. The US is a bit less (~420,000) and France 562,000. These stats include both military and civilian deaths.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Casualties_by_country
28/08 16:18:39

shardik wrote:
In fact they were looking for reasons not to give the Independence.Malaya with its tin and Rubber which were prime commodities, would've helped a lot, with little cost on their part.
________________________________________

Even after independence, they were able to hold on to these through the various companies. Only after `69 were things to change.But by giving independence they were able to concentrate on developing the home country. Though the emergency and konfrontasi did hurt some in addition to keeping the Overseas Forces in M`sia.If they had to monitor the whole country their expenses would have been much much greater.In fact the pullout of Allied Forces in `67 hurt the m`sians much more. States like Malacca/Negeri Sembilan/Penang suffered badly.
28/08 16:22:43

rakyatmalaysia wrote:
anyhow, this bastard did talk something sense here. Maybe its an advice to the malaysian.

“We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”— Adolf Hitler
28/08 16:25:27

shardik wrote:
Recurrence of the night of the long knives?
28/08 16:28:27

shardik wrote:
and moved into Europe only after the tide of war there had already changed
____________________________________

And what changed the tide of war?
28/08 16:30:25

cheekhiaw wrote:
Russia since it is still not obvious.
28/08 16:46:40

shardik wrote:
How silly of me. N the allies were just as you obviously put it `sat out of most of the war and pretended to fight Germany in Africa`.
28/08 16:59:15

cruzeiro wrote:
Even after independence, they were able to hold on to these through the various companies. Only after `69 were things to change.
============

Of course.I was talking about the events prior to Merdeka ..... the Malayan "resistance/ independance" movement was virtually non-existent or puny at best, compared to that of countries that had to literally fight for it to the very end, like India.They could've held on if they wanted to, without breaking sweat - but with India gone, it (the refusal for independence) probably just wasn't worth it anymore.The trouble of 5.13 was an event that was anticipated by the British, in their absence. They were quite aware of the workings of the "powers" in the alliance, that took on the role of the "new Tuans".But that's another story .....At the end of the day "we" reaped the harvest, of a series of world events without paying a price (relatively speaking).That is why, some people are today quite while stupidly arrogant about "supremacy", demand to rob the nation blind, using all avenues at their disposal - and the real victims, in their ignorance, are actually cheering them on as the true champions!
28/08 17:17:11

cruzeiro wrote:
shardik wrote:How silly of me. N the allies were just as you obviously put it `sat out of most of the war and pretended to fight Germany in Africa`.
=============

Yes shardik - the Nazis despite having some "bite" when they faced US/UK, were already quite a spent force by then after the Russian campaign. The US/ UK forces were largely against the "kids" on the western front, compared to the Eastern front - but they were still quite potent ....
28/08 17:23:54

LChuah wrote:
cruzeiro wrote:> the Nazis despite having some "bite" when they faced US/UK, were already quite a spent force by then after the Russian campaign.]]Stalingrad - the mighty struggle of the Soviets will be remembered for all time. Sitting out "of most of the war" was the West's strategy: American opinion shapers were openly calling for the Germans and Russians to finish each other off.
28/08 17:36:07

shardik wrote:
I think it was the Russian winter that really wrought havoc. The allies in that sense learnt from Napoleon`s similar disaster in Russia.Also on the Western front the only country left was an extremely weakened Britain. In fact, if I remember correctly the Treasury was empty, cept for 50,000 pounds of gold belonging to the Belgian Govt. which was borrowed by the Brits.Things only began to change when the US declared war on Germany in Dec.`41.As for the Desert Campaign I hardly think it was just a simple matter of `sat out the war`. There were British/Indian forces for instance in the siege of Tobruk and other battles.It was attrition on a massive scale which depleted the German forces (despite Arab assistance).There were the Desert Rats operating behind German/Arab lines. Then of course there was El Alamein. So slowly the Germans were rolled back.
28/08 17:39:37

cheekhiaw wrote:
Sowly is the keyword. That's another way of saying what we meant.
28/08 17:45:22

shardik wrote:
cheekhiaw:If you go to the top [navigation] click `admin` n then click `browse your comments`, you can edit or delete your comment.
28/08 18:02:48

cheekhiaw wrote:
shardick, thanks. take care.
28/08 20:35:25

007zain wrote:
.Deii!!! India also!! Indonesia, too!!=>
BIG DEAL!!!!!!!
GOD SAVE MALAYSIA!!!.
28/08 21:33:54

suv wrote:
Ya,in a way,Hitler helped to destroy Imperial Brits,
butwe must oso remember Brits gave dominion status to Ireland well before WW11(which led to full independence),

and Brits were willing to give dominion status to India oso (Stafford Cripps mission) but Gnadhi as usual f*ked things up
28/08 21:45:33