Global News Media

Muammar Gaddafi Dead Because Of NATO

2011-10-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

Image taken from Arab Satellite TV, Al Jazeera shows the Libyan supremo, Muammar Gaddafi, dead in his hometown of Sirte. He was reportedly shot with his own Golden Gun by the anti-Gaddafi National Transition Council, NTC forces. The end of his 42 years rule as Libyan supreme leader.

This is the large drainage hole in Sirte where Gaddafi was said to be hiding, shortly before being captured.

Libya's 69 year old former leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years, is dead today, Thursday, 20th October 2011.

He was seen on Al Jazerra's TV, captured alive, but bloodied and badly injured, surrounded by National Transitional Council, NTC forces.

The brutal images, apparently recorded on cell-phones, shows the once invincible Libyan ruler, being dragged by heavily armed NTC forces onto a truck.

However, another video shows the Colonel, dead. His body being dragged across the road by NTC forces.

His death came after weeks of fierce fighting for Sirte, one of the last remaining pockets of resistance.

Nato, which has been running a bombing campaign in Libya for months, said it had carried out an air strike earlier on Thursday, 19th October 2011, that hit two pro-Gaddafi vehicles near Sirte.

It was unclear whether the strikes were connected with Col Gaddafi's death.

There are reports that another of Gaddafi's sons, Mutassim, was also killed in Sirte.

Proof of Colonel Gaddafi's fate came in grainy pieces of video, first circulated among NTC fighters and then broadcast by international news channels.

Meanwhile world leaders, welcomed the news.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had taken a leading role in Nato's intervention in Libya, said it was "a day to remember all of Colonel Gaddafi's victims".

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it a "historic" moment, but warned: "The road ahead for Libya and its people will be difficult and full of challenges."

United States Secretary of State, Hilarry Clinton response was "ohhh... waww" when first informed of the news.

Sources: Al Jazeera News Online, CNN and Easycomeseasygoes.blogspot.com

Article Corresponding By: Global News Media

Picture: Al-Jazeera

Hacker attack Malaysian Government website

2011-06-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

PETALING JAYA: A hacker group has threatened to attack thewww.malaysia.gov.my website.

The group, which calls itself Anonymous, said it will launch the attack at 7.30pm GMT on Wednesday (3.30am Thursday Malaysian time) and has named it “Operation Malaysia.”
It posted the threat in a graphic on this website,http://i.imgur.com/PTFWh.png.
Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the F-Secure Corporation - a computer security software company based in Helsinki, Finland - tweeted about the threat at 4.42am Malaysian time.

No other details were available at this time. It is also not known why Anonymous has targeted the Malaysian website.

Hacker group Anonymous threatens to attack Malaysian Government website.

But there has been an uptick in “hacktivism” these past weeks, where hacker groups have targeted various organisations for political purposes.

Hackers have attacked the International Monetary Fund and Sony PlayStation Network, as well as the networks of aeronautics companyLockheed Martin Corp and Citibank in North America, amongst others.

Anonymous was blamed for the hack into the PlayStation network but a spokesman for the group has denied involvement, saying that its aims are political. Spain, however, has arrested three suspected members of the hacker group for that attack.

Anonymous apparently comprises a vast number of hackers in various countries, who have been organised into cells that share common goals. They operate anonymously but in a co-ordinated fashion.

Meanwhile the AP reported from New York that a group of hackers has gained access to the websites of the U.S. Senate and video game company Bethesda Softworks, the latest in a series of cyberattacks plaguing a broad range of online victims.

The group, which calls itself Lulz Security, posted what it called a "small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data" from Senate.gov on its website on Monday.

Likely referencing reports that the Pentagon is considering whether a cyberattack could be considered an act of war, the group also wrote "is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?"

A representative from the office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms did not immediately return a phone message for comment Monday afternoon.

File - In this May 15, 2011 file photo people wearing masks often used by a group that calls itself "Anonymous" take part in a rally in Madrid. Spanish police arrested three suspected computer hackers that allegedly belonged to a loose-knit international activist group that has attacked corporate and government websites around the world, authorities said Friday June 10, 2011. A National Police statement identified the three detainees as leaders of the Spanish section of a group that calls itself "Anonymous." - AP

Bethesda acknowledged the intrusion in a blog post Monday, saying hackers may have gained access to users' names, email addresses and passwords. The company said no credit card data or other financial information were compromised.

Josh Shaul, chief technology officer at database security software makerApplication Security Inc., said the data Lulz posted is "verifiable proof" that it was able to gain access to and take control of the Senate's website.

"It's a very skilled group," he said. "They claimed it was easy."

Lulz Security has also recently claimed responsibility for breaking into the websites of PBS, Sony Pictures, Nintendo and others. Meanwhile, it's unclear who was responsible for a recent cyberattack on the International Monetary Fund's computer system or the one on Citibank that stole about 200,000 credit card account numbers, customer names and email addresses.

Shaul said the recent string of attacks take advantage of insecure systems. While companies are protecting the perimeter of their computer systems, once hackers get in, "everything is there to own," he said. It's the equivalent of a bank putting a guard at the door and leaving all the money in a pile instead of in safes and vaults, he added.

"We've created this situation where it's so easy for a skilled attacker to break in and get data," Shaul said. "They are doing it because they can."

Bethesda declined to comment beyond its blog post and did not say how many users were affected.

In Twitter messages, Lulz (Internet-speak for laughs) said it has had information on more than 200,000 users "for weeks" and broke into Bethesda's website more than two months ago. Bethesda, meanwhile, said that a hacker group "attempted an unlawful intrusion" over the weekend.

Lulz said on its website Monday it is not releasing information it has on the 200,000-plus users.

Bethesda, behind games such as "Brink" and "Fallout: New Vegas," is a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media Inc., based in Washington, D.C.

Previous Stories:
Extent of IMF hack not disclosedHackers steal Citibank card dataNo turning back for Sony despite hacksGoogle could be hurt by hacking claimSony music site security breached

Air Asia Travel

2011-03-31T18:04:00.000-07:00

AirAsia, Expedia ties to power travel revolution in Asia

Published on: Wednesday, March 30, 2011

SINGAPORE: AirAsia and Expedia, Inc., have officially launched a new joint venture covering the Asia Pacific and offering a complete range of great value flights, hotels and holiday packages.

AirAsia is the leading and largest low-cost carrier in Asia and Expedia, Inc., the world's largest online travel company.

This is the first partnership of its kind globally between a low cost carrier (LCC) and an online travel agent (OTA).

Speaking to reporters after the launch here, group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes said the equal partnership between two global brands and leaders in the travel industry, comes at a time when online travel bookings are exploding in the region.

He said Asia, and its booming economy, offers a huge opportunity to develop a set of loved consumer brands.

Under the joint venture agreement, a new company will be formed to operate Expedia, Inc.'s Expedia branded businesses in Japan, India, Southeast Asia and other East Asian markets, as well as AirAsia's, AirAsiaGo and GoRooms ventures.

The new undertaking will build on AirAsia's unique local marketing expertise, along with Expedia's world leading technology, and both companies' quality travel products in the region and beyond.

It will have the exclusive online third-party distribution rights in the region for AirAsia and AirAsiaX flights and travel packages meaning, with few exceptions in the region, the only place to find and book AirAsia flights online will be AirAsia.com, AirAsiaGo.com and Expedia.

Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive, Expedia, Inc., said: "By partnering with AirAsia, Expedia is taking an important step in developing our global position.

"This is particularly exciting, given Asia's influence in the online travel marketplace."

To celebrate the union, www.AirAsiaGo.com will be offering hotel discounts of up to 80 per cent in 10 Asian cities, for three days beginning Tuesday.

Expedia will be launching its new Malaysian site www.expedia.com.my and Thai site www.expedia.co.th, with a two-week sale period, offering discounts of up to 60 per cent on South-East Asian destinations.

Sources: Daily Express News paper

Story Arrangement By: Global News Media

Picture: Airasia.com

Elizabeth Taylor Dies

2011-03-24T06:04:00.003-07:00

Elizabeth Taylor Dies

After 55 years living famously on earth finally Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79 early Wednesday. Global News Media present you the latest news for Entertainment, Politic, Social and Economic around the world. Read More.......

Quintessential star Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79

(AP) – 3 hours ago

Elizabeth Taylor, screen goddess, was born in 1951's "A Place in the Sun," when she cooed into Montgomery Clift's ear, "You'll be my pickup." Taylor had been a child and teenage star, but "A Place in the Sun" was the first head-on look at her mature, raven-haired, violet-eyed beauty. It would be captured again, if fleetingly, in the sultry "Butterfield 8," the sweltering "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and the fitting "Cleopatra," surely her historical counterpart.

Her searing screen presence astonished a moviegoing public. It was a ravishing, glamorous glow that no amount of blockbuster failures or tabloid escapades could dim — and in her 79 years, there were plenty of both.

As news of her death Wednesday spread, it was clear how many were still entranced. Fellow stars, fans and heads of state were nearly as helpless as Clift's George Eastman.Her former husband, former Sen. John W. Warner recalled her "classic face and majestic eyes." Joan Collins remembered Taylor as "the last of the true Hollywood icons." Elton John said she embodied "the very essence of glamorous movie stardom."

Taylor died early Wednesday of congestive heart failure, said her publicist Sally Morrison. She was surrounded by her four children at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks. Film critic Vincent Camby once wrote that Taylor "represents the complete movie phenomenon — what movies are as an art and an industry and what they have meant to us who have grown up watching them in the dark."

She may have been the quintessential movie star, but Taylor's life was far messier than her on-screen icon. As flawless as she was in celluloid, she was utterly human off-screen. Her stormy personal life — she was married eight times, including twice to Richard Burton — made her an early template for modern celebrity. Most, though, didn't find her diva-like, but self-deprecating, generous and funny.

"I, along with the critics, have never taken myself very seriously," she said, accepting a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute in 1993.

Perhaps because of her looks, Taylor often wasn't considered a great actress. But she was utterly suited to the medium: sensual, fiery, vulnerable and innocent. She won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work.

She was an ardent and early supporter of AIDS research, when HIV was new to the industry and beyond. The American Foundation for AIDS Research noted in a statement that she was "among the first to speak out on behalf of people living with HIV when others reacted with fear and often outright hostility."

One of her Oscars came for her performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" She played an alcoholic shrew in an emotionally sadomasochistic marriage opposite Burton. For all the ferocity of her screen roles and the turmoil of her life, Taylor was remembered by"Virginia Woolf" director Mike Nichols for her gentler, life-affirming side."The shock of Elizabeth was not only her beauty. It was her generosity. Her giant laugh. Her vitality, whether tackling a complex scene on film or where we would all have dinner until dawn," Nichols said in a statement. "She is singular and indelible on film and in our hearts."

Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children's classic "National Velvet" and the sentimental family comedy "Father of the Bride" to Oscar-winning transgressions in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "BUtterfield 8." The historical epic "Cleopatra" is among Hollywood's greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Burton, the "Brangelina" of their day.

To many, her defining role, one that lasted past her moviemaking days, was "Elizabeth Taylor," ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany's.

She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor's life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and carried on until she no longer required explanation. She was the industry's great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.

The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.

She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for "BUtterfield 8" and decades later co-starred with her old rival in "These Old Broads," co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

Taylor's ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.

As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."

The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with "National Velvet," the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.

Critic James Agee wrote of her: "Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school."

"National Velvet," her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor's long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.

Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in "Father of the Bride," in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy." The movie co-starred her close friend Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.

Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood's great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.

"I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me," Taylor said around the time she turned 50.

She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.

She was a box-office star cast in numerous "prestige" films, from "Raintree County" with Clift to "Giant," an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." In "BUtterfield 8," released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.

Sympathy for Taylor's widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for "BUtterfield 8."

To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. "I don't really know how to express my great gratitude," she said in an emotional speech. "I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart." It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.

"Hell, I even voted for her," Reynolds later said.

Greater drama awaited: "Cleopatra." Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi, then an emerging breed, snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the "caprices of adult children."

The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though "Cleopatra" was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, "Cleopatra" remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor's salary per film topped $1 million. "Liz and Dick" became the ultimate jet set couple, on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.

They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their marriages: "The VIPs" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "The Comedians" (1967), "Dr. Faustus" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Under Milk Wood" (1971) and "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972).

Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in "Virginia Woolf" and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.

Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.

"We fight a great deal," Burton once said, "and we watch the people around us who don't quite know how to behave during these storms. We don't fight when we are alone."

In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play "Private Lives," in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton's death, in 1984.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London's Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.

At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy "There's One Born Every Minute."

Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor's father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in "Lassie Come Home." Taylor's screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.

Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in "Conspirator."

"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."

Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis. Then, a roll call of husbands: She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December. When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years. She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.

— The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.

— Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making "Cleopatra." She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.

— After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.

— In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.

But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.

"I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married," she once remarked. "I guess I'm very old-fashioned."

Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund and the Variety Clubs International.

She received the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.

In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.

During much of her later career, Taylor's waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on "Saturday Night Live," dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.

"It's a wonder I didn't explode," Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book "Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image."

She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including "Poker Alice" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of "The Flintstones." She had a brief role on the popular soap opera "General Hospital."

Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including "Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir" and "Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry." In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.

"I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me," Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper's Bazaar. "And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream." Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A private family funeral is planned later this week.

Associated Press Writers Bob Thomas and David Germain contributed to this report.

Story Arrangement By: Global News Media Team

Sources: Associated Press USA

Image: Associated Press

Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan

2011-03-22T05:00:00.001-07:00

Pairin lost the chance: Dr M

Published on: Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Kota Kinabalu: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said former Chief Minister (now Tan Sri) Joseph Pairin Kitingan lost the opportunity to develop Sabah the moment he decided to pull out of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition just before the 1990 general elections.

He said, as a matter of fact, Sabahans could have got their own university four years earlier had Pairin's Parti Bersatu Sabah not deserted BN and teamed up with Gagasan Rakyat of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, an action infamously described as "a stab in the back."

"Until then, it had been our policy not to undermine the pro-BN indigenous parties in Sabah and Sarawak by starting Umno there.

Now, to counter PBS's defection, we had to assert our presence in Sabah to maintain the BN's position," he said, explaining Umno's decision to expand to East Malaysia that marked a watershed in the nation's political history.

Revealing this in his memoirs "A Doctor In The House", the former Prime Minister said he promised this (university) to Pairin, who was then Chief Minister.

The decision to build Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) was taken only after the PBS Government fell due to defections of its assemblymen to Barisan Nasional parties in 1994.

Recalling the period, Dr Mahathir said when the elections were called, he came to Sabah to campaign but the atmosphere was not good despite his promise of a university.

"On my return to Kuala Lumpur, as we were having dinner at Angkasapuri, the Minister of Information Tan Sri Mohd Rahmat whispered into my ear that Pairin had pulled PBS out from Barisan Nasional.

"I hastily called a meeting of the Umno Supreme Council, which decided immediately to set up Umno in Sabah."

Dr Mahathir said he had been quite close to (ex-CM) Harris "but was suspicious of Pairin because I did not have any clear indication as to his loyalty to BN.

"Everytime I visited Sabah, when he was Chief Minister I felt as if I was in opposition territory."

Dr Mahathir said he even took Pairin on a trip to South Korea and talked to the latter at length about Sabah and its future.

He said Pairin had registered his objection to former CM Datuk Harris Mohd Salleh's consent to Labuan becoming a Federal Territory as he (Pairin) saw it as part of Sabah's domain which should be enhanced, not diminished.

"To emphasise his claim, he (Pairin) once held a State Cabinet meeting on Pulau Layang Layang, an island in the South China Sea reclaimed by the Federal Government, to indicate that it too was part of Sabah.

"He dwelt upon the 20 issues (20-Point Agreement) which Sabah claimed had remained unsettled since it had joined Malaysia. I expected trouble from him so I had to consolidate elsewhere," said Mahathir.

Mahathir said Umno Deputy President Tun Ghafar Baba spent a considerable amount of time in Sabah organising party divisions in all the constituencies.

"Although by polling day Umno had been set up in the State, it could not contest the election because of Pairin defection and Umno's response to it, had occurred after nomination day.

All Umno could do was to support Usno led by Tun Mustaffa," he said.

PBS won 14 parliamentary seats and BN only six.

"It was by far the worst performance ever by BN in Sabah," said Mahathir.

But he said since Gagasan lost, "Pairin's hope of remaining a part of the Federal Government was shatteredÉhe had backed the wrong horse.

"By deserting BN, Pairin lost whatever leverage he once had with the Federal Government to develop Sabah, in particular to secure a university for the State."

Mahathir said realising that PBS would no longer enjoy Federal Government cooperation, many of its members began to desert the party.

Easy Comes Easy Goes: Anwar Ibrahim vehemently denies he is the man in latest sex video

2011-03-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

Easy Comes Easy Goes: Anwar Ibrahim vehemently denies he is the man in latest sex video