URANGSABAH (SAVING SABAH - SABAHAN ONLY YOU CAN)

The whole world against us on 1mdb

2017-07-06T10:45:00.003+08:00

It is worrying!!!!
The whole world is talking about 1MDB.
But not in the Malaysian media.
Check it out.....

1. The Guardian (UK) reported:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/16/leonardo-dicaprio-returns-a-picasso-as-us-investigates-1mdb-scandal

2. The New York Times (US) reported:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/world/asia/1mdb-malaysia-najib-razak.html

3. Reuters (UK) reported:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-scandal-rosmah-idUSKBN1970YK

4. Al Jazeera (Qatar) reported:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/moves-seize-540m-malaysia-1mdb-fund-170616183309579.html

5. Financial Times (UK) reported:
https://www.ft.com/content/c7669654-51e8-11e7-bfb8-997009366969

6. The Wall Street Journal (US) reported:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-targets-540-million-of-new-assets-in-1mdb-fraud-case-1497539922

7. Fortune (US) reported:
http://fortune.com/2017/06/16/1mdb-leonardo-dicaprio-fund-picasso/

8. CNBC (US) reported:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/us-acts-to-seize-assets-allegedly-looted-from-malaysia-fund-1mdb.html

9. The Australian (Australia) reported: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/miranda-kerrs-diamonds-hit-by-1mdb-freeze/news-story/95d648d5bbd47b0792fb22653e569fd0

10. The British Broadcasting Channel (UK) reported:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40292733

11. Bloomberg (US) reported:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/u-s-seeks-to-recover-540-million-tied-to-tainted-1mdb-fund

12. The Business Insider (Australia) reported:
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-government-sues-to-obtain-2-million-of-palantir-stock-in-1mdb-scandal-2017-6

13. The Independent (UK, Singaporean correspondents) reported:
http://www.theindependent.sg/us2-2-billion-deal-linked-by-us-justice-to-1mdb-scandal/

14. The Washington Post (US) reported:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/malaysia-rejects-us-claims-over-assets-said-stolen-from-1mdb/2017/06/16/07beeb62-5274-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html

15. The Russian Times (Russia) reported:
https://www.rt.com/usa/392505-civil-forfeiture-movies-dicaprio-1mdb/

16. The Asian Correspondent (Asia) reported:
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/06/malaysia-us-acts-seize-picasso-1mdb-probe/

17. The Times of India (India) reported:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/u-s-acts-to-seize-stolen-assets-picasso-in-probe-of-1mdb/articleshow/59174437.cms

18. Gulf News (UAE) reported:
http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/investment/1mdb-probe-turns-to-jho-low-role-in-coastal-energy-1.2042901

19. Tempo (Indonesia) reported:
https://m.tempo.co/read/news/2017/06/16/116885205/terkait-1mdb-leonardo-dicaprio-kembalikan-piala-oscar

20. Handelszeitung (German) reported:
http://www.handelszeitung.ch/politik/us-justiz-greift-nach-dicaprios-picasso-1425671

21. France24 (France) reported:
http://www.france24.com/en/20170616-12-million-pangolin-scales-seized-malaysia

22. Bangkok Post (Thailand) reported:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/1269778/us-to-seize-more-assets-stolen-from-malaysian-fund

23. Manila Times (Philippines) reported:
http://www.manilatimes.net/us-moves-seize-another-540m-malaysias-1mdb-scandal/333238/

24. Hindustan Times (India) reported:
http://m.hindustantimes.com/world-news/malaysia-s-first-lady-linked-to-jewellery-worth-30-mn-bought-with-1mdb-funds/story-6s9aWiGne8N9qKNWXBrXqL.html

25. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) reported:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/dicaprio-parts-with-oscar-gift-as-malaysian-fund-probe-nears-6-billion-mark-20170616-gwsdki.html

26. The Japan Times (Japan) reported:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/06/16/world/crime-legal-world/u-s-acts-seize-stolen-assets-including-picasso-owned-dicaprio-probe-malaysian-fund/

27. South China Morning Post (China) reported:
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2098715/malaysias-first-lady-allegedly-received-us30-million-worth

28. The Straits Times (Singapore) reported: Malaysian PM Najib's wife linked to S$41.5m worth of jewellery bought with 1MDB funds
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-afsia/malaysias-first-lady-linked-to-s415m-worth-of-jewelry-bought-with-1mdb-funds

Jasa Besar UMNO/BN

2012-01-29T08:03:00.001+08:00

JASA BESAR" KERAJAAN UMNO-BN KEPADA RAKYAT MALAYSIA....UNTUK MELAYU YANG MUDAH LUPA !! 1. PKFZ RM12bill 2. Submarine RM500mil 3. Sime Darby RM964mil 4. Paya Indah Westland RM88mil 5. Posmalaysia (transmile) RM230mil lost 6. Eurocopter deal RM1bil waste? 7. Terengganu Stadium Collapsed RM292mil 8. MRR2 repair cost RM70mil 9. Maybank Overpay for BII RM4bil 10. Tourism -NYY kickback RM10mil 11. 3 paintings bought by MAS—————– RM 1.5M 12. Overpayment by Sport Ministry————- RM 8.4M 13. London 's white elephant sports complex —- RM 70M 14. MRR2 Repairs—————————— RM 70M 15. MATRADE repairs ————————– RM 120M 16. Cost of new plane used by PM————– RM 200M 17. InventQ irrecoverable debt —————- RM 228M 18. Compensation for killing crooked bridge —– RM 257M 20. Lost in selling Augusta ——————— RM 510M 21. Worth of AP given out in a year ———— RM 1.8B 22. Submarines (future Muzium Negara artifacts)- RM 4.1B 23. PSC Naval dockyard ———————— RM 6.75B 24. The Bank Bumiputra twin scandals in the early 1980s saw US$1 billion (RM3.2 billion in 2008 ringgit) 25. The Maminco attempt to corner the world tin market in the 1980s is believed to have cost some US$500 million. (RM1.6 billion) 26. Betting in foreign exchange futures cost Bank Negara Malaysia RM30 billion in the 1990s. 27. Perwaja Steel resulted in losses of US$800 million (RM2.56 billion). 28. Use of RM10 billion public funds in the Valuecap Sdn. Bhd. operation to shore up the stock market 29. Banking scandal of RM700 million losses in Bank Islam 30. The sale of M.V. Agusta by Proton for one Euro making a loss of €75.99 million (RM 348 million) 31. Wang Ehsan from oil royalty on Terengganu RM7.4 billion from 2004 – 2007 32. For the past 10 years since Philharmonic Orchestra wasestablished, this orchestra has swallowed a total of RM500 million. Hiring a kwai-lo CEO with salary of more than RM1 M per annum ! 33. In Advisors Fees, Mahathir was paid RM180,000, Shahrizat AbdulJalil (women and social development affairs) RM404,726 and Abdul HamidOthman (religious) RM549,675 per annum 34. The government has spent a total of RM3.2 billion in teaching Maths and Science in English over the past five years. Out of the amount, the government paid a whopping RM2.21 billion for the purchase of information and computer technology (ICT) equipments which it is unable to give a breakdown. Govt paid more than RM6k per notebook vs per market price of less than RM3k through some new consortiums that setup just to transact the notebook deal. There was no math & science content for the teachers and the notebooks are all with the teachers' children now. 35. The commission paid for purchase of jets and submarines to two private companies Perimeker Sdn Bhd and IMT Defence Sdn Bhd amounted toRM910 million. 36. RM300 million to compensate Gerbang Perdana for the RM1.1 billion "Crooked Scenic Half-Bridge" 37. RM1.3 billion have been wasted building the white elephantCustoms, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) facilities on cancellation ofthe Malaysia-Singapore scenic bridge 38. RM 100 million on renovation of Parliament building and leaks 39. National Astronaut Programme – RM 40 million 40. National Service Training Programme – yearly an estimate of RM 500 million 41. Eye on Malaysia – RM 30 million and another RM5.7 million of free ticket 42. RM 2.4 million on indelible ink 43. Samy announced in September 2006 that the government paid compensation amounting to RM 38.5 billion to 20 highway companies. RM380 million windfalls for 9 toll concessionaires earned solely from the toll hike in 2008 alone. 44. RM32 million timber export kickbacks involving companies connected to Sarawak Chief Minister and his family. 45. Two bailouts of Malaysia Airline System RM7.9 billion. At a time when MAS incurring losses every year, RM1.55 million used to buy three paintings to decorate its chairman's (Munir) office. 46. Putra transport system bailout which cost RM4.486 billion. 47. STAR-LRT bailout costing RM3.256 billion. 48. National Sewerage System bailout costing RM192.54 million. 49. Seremban-Port Dickson Highway bailout costing RM142 million. 50. Kuching Prison bailout costing RM135 million. 51. Kajian Makanan dan Gunaan Orang Islam bailout costing RM8.3 million. 52. Le Tour de Langkawi bailout costing RM 3.5 Million. 53. Wholesale distribution of tens of millions of shares in BursaMalaysia under guise of NEP to cronies, children and relatives of BN leaders and Ministers worth billions of ringgits. 54. Alienation of tens of thousands of hectares of commercial lands and forestry concessions to children and relatives of BN leaders and Ministers worth tens of billions of ringgits 55. Since 1997, Petronas has handed out a staggering 30 billion ringgit in natural gas subsidies to IPPs who were making huge profits. In addition, there were much wastages and forward trading of Petronas oil in the 1990s based on the low price of oil then. Since the accounts of Petronas are for the eyes of Prime Minister only, we have absolutely no idea of the amount. 56. RM5700 for a car jack worth RM50 57. Government-owned vehicle consumed a tank of petrol worth RM113 within a few minutes 58. A pole platform that cost RM990 was bought for RM30,000 59. A thumbdrive that cost RM90 was bought for RM480 60. A cabinet that cost RM1,500 was bought for RM13,500 61. A flashlight that cost RM35 was bought for RM143 62. Expenses for 1 Malaysia campaign paid to APCO? 63. RM17 billion subsidy to IPP 64. USD24 million diamond ring for Ro$mah --- cancellation of order -- how much compensation??? 65. Cattle/Cow gate by family of Sharizat RM250 million 66. Making Sabah the poorest from the 2nd richest in the Federation. Thanks to compiler.

2011-10-01T11:48:00.000+08:00

'No proof of Project IC'

Published on: Friday, September 30, 2011

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Kota Kinabalu: Deputy Home Minister Dato' Lee Chee Leong has denied allegations by opposition parties about the existence of the so-called Project IC which was supposedly started by an Umno task force in the 1990s.
He said the Government had asked the opposition to provide proof regarding the allegations for many years, but had yet to receive any until today.
"I don't see any way how they (immigrants) could get their identification card just like that, because every applicant needs to go through all sorts of procedure to get them," he said.
"So this is not true," he said, stressing that the Ministry denies such claims.
He was speaking after presenting citizenship certificates to 23 applicants at the Federal Administration Complex on Thursday.
It was claimed that the Project IC had benefited at least 600,000 foreigners in 2005 who were given Malaysian ICs through falsified SD (statutory declarations) in 1991.
The purpose of the task force, as claimed by some, was to seek out foreigners and issue them with Malaysian ICs and register them as Umno members and voters to be placed in 30 out of the 48 state constituencies during that time.
Meanwhile, foreigners who have applied for Malaysian citizenship have been urged to follow-up with the National Registration Department.
Lee said there are still a number of people whose applications have been approved by the Government but who are not traceable.
"The 23 recipients today are those the Department are able to trace and locate, and there are still quite a number of people who are not able to be found.
Those who have applied for the Malaysian citizenship should check with the NRD to see whether their applications have been approved," he said, adding that those who have changed their addresses should inform the department once they do so.
He also stated that the outcome of applications would be announced within a year from the date of submission.
Also present was Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister's Department, Datuk Edward Khoo and City Police Chief, ACP Ahmad Sofi Zakaria among others.
Lee, Khoo and Sofi among other guests posing for the camera with the citizenship recipients.

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889,779 foreigners push Sabah to the top spot

Published on: Friday, September 30, 2011

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Kota Kinabalu: Sabah has the most migrant workers in the country, recording a 44.7 per cent increase from 614,824 in 2000 to 889,779 in 2010.
Women, Family and Community Ministry Secretary General, Dato Dr Noorul Mohd Nur, said this after launching the Indonesian Workers in Tawau Seminar Findings here, Thursday.
The figures were based on the 2010 Population and Housing Census, which shows 27.7 per cent out of the 3.2 million population in Sabah comprised migrant workers with a majority of them being Indonesians.
"In 2000, Sandakan recorded the most migrant workers (114,230).
However in 2010, Tawau recorded the most (171,409) most of whom are Indonesians," she said.
She said that in the context of the nation's development, especially Sabah, the focus was on legal migrant workers and not illegal migrants.
"A research conducted in 2010 by the Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) in Tawau, which is an agency under the Ministry disclosed three main reasons for the influx. First was for reasons of employment, second was to garner higher income and third was to follow their spouse or relatives who have entered the State.
"Even though the intake of migrant workers has assisted in the economic growth of the nation, the government takes seriously the issues concerning the influx of migrant workers because of the negative implications such as remittances.
"Among steps taken is to monitor and control the number of migrant workers entering the country. However, local employers should also offer more jobs opportunities to the local community.
"There are many employers who prefer employing migrant workers due to the cheaper labour compared to the locals, which deprives our locals from obtaining employment in various sectors mainly plantation, manufacturing and service sectors," she said.
She disclosed that a policy is being formulated by the Economic Planning Unit and the Government on how to ensure local workers are not excluded in these sectors.
Commenting on the implementation of high technology in the sectors, she said: "Employers prefer to take in migrant workers even though they are unskilled due to the cheaper labour.
"Many of the employers do not use high technology because it would mean they have to employ skilled workers which costs higher than unskilled workers.
"If we don't implement technology now, then our country will not achieve our target of being a developed economic nation by 2020," she said.
Towards its end, she said it is important for the State Government to review the employment categories and competency level, which is needed in human resources development.
"This step is necessary because if many of the jobs offered are for unskilled or semi-skilled workers, despite the fact that many locals have achieved tertiary education, then the work generated would not benefit the community.
"In line with the implementation of the Sabah Development Corridor, the State is expected to face a major transformation by 2025," she said.
"The State's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) can by then expect to increase to RM63.2 billion with per capita increasing to RM14,800.
"Based on the analysis by the SDC, the unemployment rate in the State will be decreased to 3.5 per cent and new job opportunities are expected to increase to 900,000 by year 2025," she said, advising locals to grab the job opportunities offered through the SDC.

Leaked cable: Ex-EC chief issued 60,000 fake ICs

2011-09-25T08:06:00.000+08:00

If the below is true.......this the present from UMNO to the Sabahan people........

http://www.isarawak.com.my/v2010/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1108:leaked-cable-ex-ec-chief-issued-60000-fake-ics&catid=34:news&Itemid=53

Malaysiakini - Joseph Sipalan (View expressed here is solely the opinion of the source)

A leaked US Embassy cable carries an explosive charge against former Election Commission (EC) chief Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahim - that he admitted to issuing more than 60,000 fake Malaysian identity cards to foreign workers in Sabah in the 1990s - on Umno's orders.
The cable, posted on Wikileaks, quotes former Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) chief Malek Husin as claiming that Rashid confessed this to him during a private meeting at Rashid's house on Oct 25, 2006.

In the cable marked confidential, Malek is said to have told US Embassy officials that Rashid (left) also confirmed Umno's launch of a "shadowy" campaign in the 1990s to wrest political control of Sabah - held until 1994 by the then opposition front PBS.

"During that decade, Umno granted citizenship and Malaysian identity cards to over 600,000 foreign migrant workers (predominantly Muslims from Indonesia and Mindanao in the Philippines) in Sabah, in exchange for their votes in state assembly elections.

"According to Husin, Rashid 'admitted to personally issuing over 60,000 fraudulent Malaysian ICs in Sabah', to help Umno assume political control there," the cable says.

Instant citizenship and voting rights for illegal immigrants have long been an issue in Sabah, with local leaders in and outside the BN coalition having repeatedly demanded a solution from the federal government.

However, nothing has come out of their demands.

It is claimed that the situation became acute in the 1990s, with the blame placed on the then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for allegedly launching what is now called 'Projek IC' - a clandestine operation said to involve the National Registration Department, related government agencies and their agents - to artificially boosting votes in favour of Umno and the BN.

In the 1994 state election, PBS - which held Sabah as an independent opposition front since 1985 - saw its majority hold of the state assembly reduced to a razor-thin margin over the BN.

Although PBS was eventually toppled with a string of defections to the BN by party stalwarts, many blamed the contentious 'Projek IC' for playing a major role in the success of BN's hostile takeover of the Sabah.

Wan Ahmad is 'anti-reform'

The cable, created on March 16, 2007, also includes Malek's claim that Rashid had also described EC deputy chief Wan Ahmad Wan Omar as "an Umno member who is anti-reform".

Malek is said to have told US Embassy officials that Rashid had intended to stay on as EC chief until "the number two is gone", with the aim of easing in the then EC secretary, Kamaruzaman Mohd Noor, as his successor.

In a separate meeting with Kamaruzaman, the cable quoted him as telling US Embassy officials that the EC was not in a position to push for reforms, as each and every proposal must go through the Prime Minister's Office for approval.

Kamaruzaman is also reported to have said that the EC had no power to investigate election day abuses, with it having to refer allegations of fraud or election tampering to either the police or the Anti-Corruption Agency, the predecessor of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

Battle for polls reform 'very steep'

Based on meetings among US Embassy officials and the EC, Mafrel, Bersih and several academicians, the cable summarised that electoral reforms in Malaysia faced a "very steep uphill battle" as it moved towards the March 2008 general election - which ironically proved to be a watershed outing for opposition parties, which were able to deny the BN a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The cable described the "Umno-led BN governing coalition" as keeping a tight rein over all important levers of power, including the EC, leaving little wiggle room for any efforts to open up the country's elections to greater transparency and fairness.

It pointed out that despite concerted efforts by Mafrel and Bersih to push for grassroots engagement in their bid for a revamp of an electoral system heavily tilted in BN's favour, "their best efforts will almost certainly not produce meaningful reforms", at least in the medium term.

"Umno, in power since independence, faces no effective public, opposition party or internal pressure to reduce its overwhelming powers of incumbency," the cable states.

Kota Kinabalu aka Jesselton in Memory

2010-10-04T12:11:00.000+08:00

The longest round about in World or maybe just in Malaysia, could be 2 kliometer round! Where u might ask, Alam Mesra, i.e. near 1 Borneo, Kota Kinabalu Sabah 03/10/10

Morning scenery along the Tg Lipat Coastal Road, Feb 2010.

August 17, 2008 12:56 PM
Jesselton, Sabah's 'Mother Of Evolution'

By Newmond Tibin

KOTA KINABALU, Aug 17 (Bernama) -- Jesselton, the one-time "ghost town" which has evolved into the present-day vibrant city of Kota Kinabalu, evokes pleasant memories in the people of Sabah.

Founded by the British North Borneo Company by accident after its administration centre on Gaya Island was flattened in a fire, Jesselton became the worthy third capital of North Borneo in 1946 after Sandakan and Kudat.

Located on a narrow strip of land with hills on one side and the sea on the other, the town was named Api-Api (Fire-Fire) apparently in view of the Gaya Island fire.

It was renamed Jesselton later, taking on the name of Sir Charles Jessel, the then deputy manager of the British North Borneo Company.

Historic landmarks that developed in Jesselton have survived to this day, among them the Jesselton Hotel, the Customs building, Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Chartered Bank, the Kota Kinabalu community hall, the Capital Cinema, the Sabah Tourism building and the railway service.

These landmarks had been in existence before North Borneo joined the Federation of Malaysia on Sept 16 1963 and came to be known as Sabah.

Old timer Abdullah Hussin is able to recall vividly the "great life" he enjoyed in those days.

"I still remember, in the early 1950's, we used to hang out with friends of different races - Malays, Kadazandusun, Chinese - and play snooker in Jesselton. Sometimes, we go to 'aramati' (a party) together.

"At that time, I stayed in a wooden house in the town centre. I worked as a labourer at a rubber trading company called Sun Lee. That life was really great but all that is past and what's left are just memories," he told Bernama
The 76-year-old grandfather said the workers were well taken care of. "Although my salary was only RM80 per month, it was more than enough to make ends meet. I could even save money to enjoy the weekends. Everything was cheap in those days. For example, the price of sugar was just 10 sen or 20 sen a kati (600 grams)," he said.

Abdullah said he came to Jesselton in a cargo vessel from Kudat in the early 1950's to look for a job

"There were no roads from Kudat to Jesselton. When I arrived in Jesselton, I found only a few blocks of wooden shophouses with 'rumbia' (sago palm leaf) roof and a number of fishermen's houses on stilts. It was only after 1957 that concrete buildings began to sprout.

"In the heart of Jesselton was the famous 'Panggung Kapital' (Capital Cinema). The Old Capital Theater now a Cathay Cineplex

Watching movies was a favorite pastime of people, even from nearby villages now known as Kampung Tanjung Aru, Sembulan and Likas," he said...

Fifty-five years ago, Abdullah said, Jesselton was almost a "ghost town" by 7 pm.

"But we had nothing to worry about, even when we went out at night. Nobody disturbed us. It was quite safe. Hawkers could just "ampai-ampai" (leave) their bananas (in the market) overnight and they will be there the next day. At that time, thefts and robberies were almost unheard of.

However, there was a serious lack of development in all aspects in Jesselton, he said. But things changed after Sabah joined Malaysia. The government invested millions of ringgit to support the development of Jesselton as a centre of administration. Jesselton was renamed Kota Kinabalu on Sept 30 1968. It was declared a city on Feb 2 2000.

Kota Kinabalu has since developed by leaps and bounds and has grown into a reputable financial, economic and tourism centre in the region, particularly within the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).

The city has certainly progressed with the times, and boasts numerous deluxe hotels such as Sutera Harbour Resort and Shangri-la Tanjung Aru Resort, roads stretching to the west and east coast towns, and modern structures like the imposing Sabah Foundation building, 1 Borneo hypermall, Center Point building as symbols of advancement.

Mohamad Awang, 50, of Kampung Sembulan Lama said "we can see a lot of changes in all spheres of development, including economic, educational, health and infrastructure development.

"In Kota Kinabalu itself, we have so many primary and secondary schools and we have Universiti Malaysia Sabah, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the new Kota Kinabalu International Airport and the soon-to-be-upgraded railway service ...," he said.

However, he hoped that Kampung Sembulan Lama, located on the fringe of Kota Kinabalu, would be turned into a traditional Malay village soon.

Mohamad said that despite all the progress and power changing hands from the British to the people of the land, the rich cultural diversity as well as traditions and customs remain intact.

The State Archives Director Datu Tiga Belas Datu Zainal Abidin said the history of Jesselton was significant not only to city dwellers but also all the people of Sabah.

As such, the "Jesselton Dalam Kenangan" (Jesselton in Memory) special event tomorrow in conjunction with this year's Merdeka celebration would enable the people to know and appreciate Jesselton as Sabah's "mother of evolution".

"We will put up hundreds of records, including old pictures, of Jesselton during the event for public viewing at Wisma Pertanian," he said.

Where HSBC & SCB is now

Scared Heart Church 1930s

Karamunsing without the flyover

Signal Hill Hill Top on the 60s

Dah Yeh Villa After

And Deh Yeh Villa before

Malaysia Singapore Airline before MAS and SIA......Compare where SIA is now and where MAS is now... for more http://www.airtimes.com/cgat/my/msa.htm

These picture are obtained from the various sources found in the public domain.

These landmarks are mostly gone, what is left are the pictures only

Peter Chin Assures Sabah Will Attain Saidi Rate By Year-End

2010-03-14T09:07:00.000+08:00

Peter Chin Assures Sabah Will Attain Saidi Rate By Year-End

SEPANGGAR, Mar 13 (Bernama) -- Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Peter Chin Fah Kui today pledged that electricity interruption in the state will be considerably reduced by year-end.

Electricity supply in Sabah has always been an issue and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had set a System Average Interruption Duration Index (Saidi) target that will track the number of minutes consumers experience power failure in the state.

Chin assured that Sabah would attain the System Average Interruption Duration Index (Saidi) target of 700 minutes/consumer annually, this year, or resign from office.

Sabah recorded a high rate of 2,870 minute/consumer annually at the end of 2009.

"Because it's my Key Performance Indicator (KPI), so it's up to the Prime Minister. But that (to resign) will be the right thing to do.

"We will work towards achieving the target but we have to wait until Dec 31, 2010 to know if we have succeeded. And, we will be transparent.

"If we fail to reach the target, then, at the time, you can fire me," he told reporters after launching the commercial operations of the first 65 Megawatt gas turbine unit for Ranhill Powertron II here on Saturday.

Chin said RM468 million has been allocated for the purpose of achieving the target.

In his speech earlier, Chin sympathised and apologised to all Sabahans who suffered from frequent electricity disruption.

"I don't think its very fair at this juncture to judge us, we are just delivering the first phase of the 65 Megawatt plant for the 190Mw combined cycle power plant project today," he explained.

"People sms me, I feel bad. This is not something we planned for, we don't plan for electricity shortages. But I am very committed to solve the issue, but you have to give me time, that is until the end of this year," he said further.

Demand for electricity supply in Sabah is 750 Megawatts, and with the additional 65 Megawatts launched today, the state's capacity to generate electricity is 800 Megawatts.

However, an extra 20 to 25 per cent of power supply is needed to mantain reliable supply.

Source -- BERNAMA

47 years under UMNOed BN.......1963 - 2010.....Sabahan really a 3rd class citizen

Gus Breymann writes:: A Sabah Sojourn

2009-12-05T14:23:00.002+08:00

This story is a reproduction from an email of unknown source...

Gus Breymann's writes: A Sabah Sojourn

INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNEY

More than 160,000 Peace Corps Volunteers and staff members have served in wonderful, challenging settings around the world. It is a safe bet that most of us have returned with at least one good story about our experience. This is my personal collection of such stories. There is no grand design here, although the anecdotes are presented chronologically for the most part. Each sketch is intended to entertain and satisfy my simple urge to commit something to writing about his six-year association with the U.S. Peace Corps in Malaysia and the Philippines between 1964 and 1970. Along the way, small contributions about the history of the Peace Corps and some of the Southeast Asian countries where it was a guest may surface. Where sensitivity to individual situations is still advisable, first names or altered names are used. A couple of scenes in this six-year script are better left unrecorded for the time being.

We were Sabah/Sarawak IV. That is, we were the fourth contingent of Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to Sabah and Sarawak. Our group replaced volunteers in "Borneo I" who had entered service in 1962 before the formation of Malaysia.

Collectively, the Peace Corps referred to us as "BAGS," or "BA Generalists." Many of us were liberal arts graduates who fit easily into TESL teaching slots overseas.

Sargent Shriver had sent a telegram in the fall of 1963, congratulating me for being selected as a trainee for the Peace Corps in Sabah/Sarawak. A quickly retrieved world globe showed where Sarawak was, but there was no sign of Sabah. Further checking revealed that Sabah was the new name for North Borneo, which until September of that year had been a British colony. On September 16, 1963, Sabah and Sarawak had become the two Borneo states of the new Malaysian nation. Beginning in early 1964, all future groups of Peace Corps Volunteers sent to Sabah or Sarawak were known as "Malaysia" volunteers, and training of Borneo and peninsular Malaya volunteers was consolidated.

Sabah/Sarawak IV volunteers trained at University of Hawaii in Hilo and Waipio Valley between February and April, 1964. In Hilo,we were housed on the grounds of the old Army hospital just below Rainbow Falls. In Waipio Valley, we lived in bamboo huts and got a taste for the first time what life might be like in a Borneo village. Throughout training, the group studied Pasar (bazaar) Malay intensively, learned something of the history of Malaysia, completed practice teaching assignments in Hilo's schools, and went through a regimen of physical exams and psychological tests. Occastionally, trainees would disappear overnight, having been "deselected" and sent back to their homes on the mainland for reasons known only to the University of Hawaii training staff and the psychologists who observed us around the clock. Those of us who remained in training resented the speed and secrecy of the deselections, but in hindsight, there was probably no better way to accomplish the separations.

Approximately twenty of us eventually completed training, were sworn in, and flew off to Borneo at the end of April, 1964. As we climbed aboard our Pan Am Boeing 707 in Honolulu, three of us were singled out at the foot of the ramp. George Grantham, Julia Chang and I were each handed copies of the Yale series textbook on Chinese language and told that we were being assigned to Chinese middle schools.

Our flight carried us first to Wake Island, where we stood around in a World War II quonset hut while the plane was refueled. Commercial jet travel was only five years old in 1964, and westward trips across the Pacific often required refueling stops. From Wake, we flew on to Manila, where we were deposited in the transit lounge for several hours. Eventually, we boarded a Cathay Pacific Lockheed Electra II and began the last leg of our trip down to Jesselton, the capital city of Sabah.

Imagine leaving home and "civilization" for a two-year tour of duty. Imagine flying toward the third largest island in the world, three degrees north of the equator, a place known by most Americans then---and perhaps now---only as the home of the "Wild Man of Borneo." Imagine enduring three months of training and education in anticipation of the very moment when you would actually step onto the soil of Borneo. As the Cathay Pacific turboprop carried us south, our anticipation grew palpable. Soon we saw Banggi Island, then the green, hilly west coast of Sabah. We peered out the left side of the aircraft at the tropical island and the blue-green South China Sea. As we descended on Jesselton airport, the reality of our actually being in "The Land Below the Wind" began to sink in. Few of us realized that reality would continue to unfold for the duration of our volunteer experience or that, for most of us, our lives would be changed forever---all because Sargent Shriver had sent us telegrams inviting us to join a great adventure. Few of us understood that we would have to redefine our understanding of "civilization" as we immersed ourselves in an unbelievably rich multicultural experience.

The vignettes that follow are dedicated to Song Chang, Martin Collacott, and Roger Flather. They know they enriched my life, and they know how grateful I am.

Click here for some of my photos.

THE EARTH RANG LIKE A BELL: GOOD FRIDAY 1964

Sabah/Sarawak IV was in training in Hilo when the greatest earthquake on the North American continent occurred in Alaska on March 27, 1964. It was recorded at 9.2 on the Richter scale. According to World Book, it lifted more than 25,000 square miles of the earth's surface from three to eight feet and pushed one end of uninhabited Montague Island 33 feet upward, exposing a strip of sea floor some 1,350 feet wide. At the same time, a 35,000 square mile region around Kodiak and Anchorage sank two to six feet. Buildings and pavement in Anchorage fell 30 feet in a few seconds.

The quake sent shock waves around the world, literally. In Iran, for example, the ground surface rose and fell a third of an inch. Streets in Houston rose nearly five inches. Georgia well water moved up and down 10 to 20 feet. A showboat on the Mississippi River was torn from its moorings. Six months later the earth was still quivering in Alaska, where more than 9,200 aftershock quakes were recorded. In effect, the entire Earth rang like a bell on Good Friday.

In Hilo that Friday evening, several of us were attending a movie downtown near the bay. Suddenly, the tidal wave siren sounded and we evacuated quickly, heading back uphill toward the Peace Corps training center at Rainbow Falls.

Hilo had been struck by devastating tidal waves in 1946 and 1960. Photos of the power of a tsunami show parking meters in the downtown area bent flat against the street in the 1960 tidal wave---within just a couple of blocks of the movie house we had just left.

At the training center, we listened to the radio and learned that, if a tidal wave was to strike Hilo again, it would move down the Pacific and hit the islands in succession within a couple of hours. That gave us enough time to climb in a car and drive to a sugar mill northeast of Hilo. It was a spot where we could look back across Hilo Bay toward the city's business district. We continued to listen to the radio as the tidal wave progressed toward Oahu, then Maui, then the Big Island. All we could see in Hilo Bay was a stream of small boats and ships heading out to the open ocean, where they could ride out the fast-moving tsunami.

Luckily, Hawaii was spared on Good Friday, 1964. After a few hours of watching from the sugar mill, the radio informed us that the danger had passed and we returned to the training center.

THE CLOSET PSYCHOLOGIST

In the early years of Peace Corps training, it was the staff psychologists who decided whether trainees went to a host country assignment or whether we were "deselected" and bundled off in the middle of the night to catch a flight back to the mainland. The University of Hawaii staff psychologists were omnipresent: observing, taking notes, interviewing trainees, always maintaining appropriate professional distance. In Waipio Valley, I remember one of them hiding behind a bush, watching attentively as we learned the proper Muslim way to butcher a chicken. Which trainees would be squeamish? Which ones would enjoy killing the chicken?

In addition, the staff psychologists administered batteries of psychological tests indiscriminately: the MMPI; the California Test; the Rorschach. There were probably others. As the Peace Corps matured, I believe it reduced this overly heavy emphasis on psychological profiling, perhaps because trainees and civil rights attorneys demanded fewer invasions of personal privacy. The central point, though, is that staff psychologists were widely perceived in 1964 to play decisive roles in our fates as trainees. These demigods were held in fear and respect. As our judges, surely they led exemplary, unflawed personal lives.

Which brings me to a wedding. Two wonderful people in our group had entered Sabah/Sarawak IV training as a couple and decided they would get married before leaving for Malaysia IF both completed training successfully. They finished with flying colors, and a wedding was planned in the historic Lyman home overlooking the Pacific in Hilo. All of us attended, and the two were married in the wide living room that fronted on the ocean. It was a beautiful ceremony in the home of one of the pioneer families on the Big Island.

Several of us stood at the rear of the room as vows were exchanged. We heard a commotion, looked behind us, and saw an inebriated man climbing the steep rear steps. This man was not just tipsy; he was falling-down drunk. He was literally crawling up the back steps of the Lyman home on all fours. He was so far gone that he was a danger to himself. In unison, we moved toward the man, grabbed him in the armpits, and carried him quietly to a closet just inside the entrance to the home. There he stayed, behind a guarded door, until well after the wedding reception ended, out of view and earshot of the wedding party. I was pretty proud of myself for helping to handle this very embarrassing situation so adeptly. The newly married couple learned only later about this guest's arrival during the ceremony.

He was the chief staff psychologist for our group. Peace Corps training must have proven too much for him.

FIRST NIGHT ON THE ISLAND OF BORNEO

Thanks to author Agnes Newton Keith, Borneo is "The Land Below the Wind." The typhoons that devastate Luzon, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and the China mainland periodically do not follow a more southerly track, and North Borneo is spared the destruction of the great winds that howl westward across the Pacific toward the Asian mainland. Frequent local storms, yes. A long monsoon season, yes. But no monster storms.

Upon arrival in Jesselton, Sabah/Sarawak IV volunteers were taken by bus to temporary housing at Gaya College, where we stayed through a brief in-country orientation by members of the government of Sabah. The biggest question on most minds that first afternoon and evening was where our volunteer assignments would be. Three of us knew that we had been selected to teach in Chinese middle schools, but their exact locations remained undisclosed.

We found out soon enough. While shaving in the men's lavatory at Gaya College shortly after arrival, I was approached by a tall, distinguished and friendly person who introduced himself as Martin Collacott. Martin was a Canadian Colombo Plan advisor assigned to the Sabah Education Department, and he was to be one of my supervisors for the rest of my volunteer assignment. He was also responsible for implanting the memory of my first night in Borneo firmly in my mind from that day to this.

Borneo. "The Wild Man of Borneo." Headhunters with blowpipes and shrunken heads. The Land Below the Wind. Somerset Maugham's short stories about district officers. Japanese atrocities against the Australians at the end of the war in the Pacific. Just what kind of place were we coming to? Because the Peace Corps was still in its relative infancy, we were sure we would be posted to the "ulu" and not emerge again into "civilization" until our tour of duty ended two years hence. We would march off into the jungle in our hair shirts, not to be seen again.

Contrast that prospect with what we actually found at Martin's home in Tanjung Aru that first evening in Borneo. Since our new supervisor was an advisor to the Sabah education department, he was accorded a comfortable "Division I" government home usually reserved for the highest state officials. Government housing in Sabah, from Division I down to Division IV, had a certain functionality that made it fit in beautifully in the tropics. Of course, there was no air conditioning, but the living rooms, dining areas, kitchens and bathrooms featured large screenless windows that let cooling breezes flow through. On hot, still days and nights, ceiling fans helped make these government quarters livable. Only the bedrooms were screened, making it possible to sleep without mosquito netting much of the time.

Martin's cook, an elderly Chinese prepared a meal for the four of us that was delicious by any standard. We finished it off with a delicious yorkshire pudding, coffee and small glasses of Drambuie.

Amid the drinks and conversation that evening, Martin set an empty cardboard box on the floor across the wide living room from where we sat. He drew a bullseye on one side of the box. He then produced two genuine Murut blowguns and a quiver full of sharp bamboo darts. We three newcomers were challenged to see who could hit the bullseye using the blowgun and darts.

The contrast was almost too much to bear, given our earlier expectation that we would all vanish into the primitive Bornean jungle as soon as we climbed off the plane. That prospect was shattered, temporarily at least, by a wonderful, convivial evening. An after-dinner game with a native blowgun just hours off the plane from Honolulu! Could all this really be happening? And a delicious Western meal provided by an urbane, witty host who was obviously enjoying living in Borneo. Would our own volunteer assignments include any of these same amenities? What were we to experience in our own postings now that our earlier expectations of Borneo had been modified?

No doubt Martin was sizing each of us up that evening. I learned shortly thereafter that I was being assigned to teach a special English transition class at Government Junior Secondary School in Tawau. Tawau, reachable only by ship every other week or by Borneo Airways Dakota every evening if the weather was good, was to be my new home.

EVENSONG, CANON NEWMARCH, AND THE END OF THE EMPIRE

St. Patrick's Anglican Mission in Tawau was a thatch-roofed wooden structure on the shore of Cowie Bay. The pews were rough hewn. There was no electricity, but there was a large, Australian nun who powered the tiny pump organ near the altar. Canon Walter Newmarch, an Australian missionary who had been spreading the Word in Borneo since 1954 on behalf of the Australian Church Missionary Society, lived in a comfortable home on stilts next to the entrance to the rudimentary church structure. Newmarch and his wife were open, friendly and genuine people. They made visitors feel at home, welcome. Little do they know what a positive impact they had on one young American who was learning to live in Asia.

It became a custom to attend Evensong at St. Patrick's on Sunday. The liturgy was simple, majestic and somewhat shorter than other Anglican eucharistic rites. Even in Borneo, though, it was clearly "high church" by today's Episcopal standards.

The evening breezes along the bay also made the small sanctuary bearable as the tropical sun began to set and the large fruit bats flew in for a night of foraging from their roosts on Sebatik Island across the bay. Evensong was a time for preparation for the upcoming week of teaching at Government Junior Secondary School.

One of the popular hymns sung by the small congregation began, "The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended. The darkness falls at thy behest." Borneo had been a British colony until only a few months earlier. Slowly, all the colonial servants drifted away to other posts or to retirement in England. (How many times would I hear the lament---particularly from the Chinese towkays and office workers I met in 1964---that they wished Sabah had never joined Malaysia. They were, in effect, still mourning an era that had recently passed away, much like a close relative.) The final stanza of the stately Evensong hymn affirmed the transitory state of the Empire: "So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never, like earth's proud empires, pass away." The beneficent "darkness" of empire was emerging into the light of new day as I watched.

Returning to St. Patrick's Church thirty-four years later was revealing beyond words. The wood and thatch church was long gone, replaced by a large, white, air-conditioned structure. Heavy glass doors sported signs imploring parishioners not to use cellular telephones in the sanctuary. A Christian rock band warmed up its amplifiers near the altar. The building was used for services in English, led by a charismatic Chinese pastor, Albert Vun, who would certainly be uncomfortable being referred to as an Anglican priest. Beyond the attractive building was a newer, huge edifice, painted pastel pink. The interior looked more than anything like a modern movie theater. That was where the Mandarin, Hakka, and Malay services were conducted. Upon entering one Sunday morning, ushers quickly hustled the visitor to the smaller building. Surely, they thought, this orang puteh could not be there to participate in a Hakka service!

From small, rude Anglican mission to energetic "cell church": Clearly any hint of empire that lingered in 1964 had vanished by 1999. Most of those present in church that Sunday morning hadn't even been born when Sabah was still a British colony. And I had frequented St. Patrick's when the state was still going through its birth pangs.

MAH JONGG AT MIDNIGHT

C. M. Tan and his Filipino-Chinese family were the neighbors who lived immediately behind my Peace Corps house in Tawau. Mr. Tan worked for the Public Works Department and was a respected leader in the Filipino community in Tawau.

As I shaved at the kitchen sink every morning, Mr. Tan's sultry daughter, Pilar, watched me in amusement as she washed dishes in her kitchen a few feet away. Pilar also worked at the local cold storage, precursor of the modern supermarkets now present in Tawau. I have her to thank for letting me buy groceries on credit near the end of every month until my next month's living allowance came through from the Peace Corps office in Jesselton. Even in those days the Malaysian ringget equivalent of $100 per month did not go far.

One of the things I'll always remember about my neighbors, the Tans, was that I could wake up at virtually any time in the middle of any rainy night and hear the mah jongg tiles clicking on the table inside their home. That family really loved those ivories.

THAT DAMNED STORK

In parts of Europe, storks are symbols of good luck. Homeowners even place small platforms on their roofs in the hope that storks will build nests there and bring good fortune to the household. Elsewhere, a "visit from the stork" is a euphemism for childbirth and all the happiness usually implied in that event. Some say that the stork has been saved from extinction because of the myths that have been built around these tall birds.

Between 1963 and 1966, there was a military engagement ("Konfrontasi") between Indonesia and Malaysia because President Sukarno opposed the inclusion of Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak in the newly formed nation to his north. There were infrequent incusions by Indonesian troops along the Sabah and Sarawak borders with Indonesia. Tawau was an armed fortress, situated as it was literally within sight of the Indonesian frontier. The Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Gurkhas, the SAS, various army units, and the militia were all encamped in or near Tawau at one time or another while I lived there. The Royal Navy's "Hermes" and "Ark Royal" aircraft carriers steamed into Cowie Bay and sat offshore several times as visible symbols of Commonwealth support for Malaysia in its first years of nationhood. RAF aircraft based in Singapore and Malaya flew daily low-level patrols over Tawau in a show of colors. The five or six Peace Corps Volunteers stationed in the town capitalized on this military environment in different ways. If nothing else, it provided an opportunity to get NAAFI gin at very low cost! PCVs were entreated to soak the labels off the gin bottles to remove proof that they had come from a British commissary intended only for the Her Majesty's troops.

During 1964 and 1965, a tall Marabou stork roosted on the roof of a PCV’s shack next to the terminal at the Tawau airport. This bird had been brought to Tawau by an RAF squadron that had been posted in Africa previously. It was the squadron's mascot, and it flew from perch to perch around the perimeter of the airport. The fact that it chose to spend much of its time atop a shack occupied by a PCV was the source of occasional comment around town.

The scene shifts to a quiet, paved road in front of Tawau's cottage hospital. As I came around the corner on my blue Suzuki motorbike, I was confronted by the foot-long beak of a Marabou stork, aimed squarely at the middle of my forehead. In its meandering, the RAF mascot had decided to land in the mangrove swamp opposite the hospital and had then walked into my path. There wasn't enough time or space to come to a stop before I hit the big bird. As I flew over the handlebars, I looked back and remember seeing the mascot flopping on the pavement. Luckily, I suffered only scrapes on my knees and elbows and a muffler burn on one calf. The bird’s beak missed my forehead. The motorbike also survived. I was cleaned up and bandaged at the cottage hospital next door and then continued home.

Shortly thereafter, an RAF officer drove up to my house. No doubt I was going to be rebuked for colliding with and killing the squadron's mascot. I prepared myself for the worst. After the officer inquired about my injuries, he informed me that he had found the stork back in the mangrove, that it had suffered only a broken leg, but that the officer had shot the bird. When I expressed remorse over being the cause of the animal's demise, the officer replied, "Not to worry! We were going to get rid of it anyway. It was becoming a hazard to air traffic around the airport."

FRITZ, AZAHARI, AND THE BRUNEI REBELLION

The involvement of Peace Corps Volunteers in internal partisan or military affairs of host countries where they served was strictly proscribed, particularly during the early 1960s. Sargent Shriver and the Kennedy administration knew that adverse publicity about a Volunteer becoming embroiled in a host's domestic affairs could wreck the new agency. When those standards of proper conduct were breached by Volunteers, as was sure to happen, the Peace Corps acted swiftly and quietly to remove the PCV from the country. Sometimes the agency removed a Volunteer even if he or she had not been personally responsible for getting caught up in host country political or military affairs. The latter is the case in this little vignette.

Sheik A. M. Azahari was the charismatic, ultra-nationalist leader of a political party in the Sultanate of Brunei, the oil-rich British protectorate that separated most of North Borneo from Sarawak. Azahari was also pro Indonesia in 1962, when it was becoming increasingly clear that Sabah and Sarawak would be incorporated into Malaysia within a year or so. In him, Sukarno had an ally against Malaysia. There were some indications that Azahari had connections with communist parties in China and Indonesia.

Azahari fomented a rebellion against the proposed federation of Malaysia, and his rebel supporters took to the jungle around Brunei. Azahari demanded the overthrow of the Sultan of Brunei. He proposed the formation of an independent, unified state of Kalimantan Utara (North Borneo), consisting of Sarawak, Brunei, and North Borneo, instead of federation with Malaysia. The British were forced to bring Gurkha troops in from Singapore to quash the rebellion, and Azahari removed himself to Manila in late 1962, where he continued to promote his unsuccessful cause briefly.

PCV Fritz was stationed near the Brunei border, and he got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was rounded up by British soldiers purely as a safety measure. Fritz and his protectors came under attack by Azahari's rebels, and the PCV performed gallantly by saving the life of a British soldier who had been wounded in the skirmish.

Although Fritz had gotten caught in an international incident through no fault of his own, it became clear eventually that he would be unable to continue serving successfully as a PCV. The Peace Corps arranged for him to take a training assignment at the University of Hawaii's Peace Corps training center in Hilo. The agency could move very swiftly when it needed to, especially when it faced a potentially embarrassing incident.

SARGE OUTFOXES SUKARNO, OR DOES HE?

This little anecdote may be apocryphal. Then again, it may not be.

Sargent Shriver cooled his heels in Singapore for a few days while the American ambassador in Jakarta struggled to arrange a meeting between Shriver and mercurial President Sukarno. The Peace Corps director was interested in introducing Peace Corps Volunteers into Indonesia, and Sukarno had invited Shriver to come to Jakarta to discuss that possibility.

The brilliant nationalist Sukarno was, as some will remember, a great admirer of the female form. Among his wives he counted the alluring young Madame Dewi, whom he had brought to Indonesia from Japan in the late '50s.

A meeting between the Peace Corps director and the vain father of Indonesia was eventually arranged. The story goes that Sukarno repeatedly requested pretty, young American nurses, ostensibly to assist in ameliorating severe health problems in the islands. His motive was suspect; Shriver knew that Sukarno had an appreciative eye for young women. Apparently, Sukarno was promised American nurses by the end of Shriver's visit to Jakarta. Somewhere between the deal and the fact, though, someone else decided that Indonesia would be better off with tall male basketball coaches as Peace Corps Volunteers. That's what the newly emerging country got. Sukarno's reaction was not recorded.

The Peace Corps presence in one of the most populous developing countries in the world was painfully brief. As Indonesian-American relations deteriorated in 1964, Sukarno kicked the Peace Corps and the United States Information Service out of the country.

COLLIDING WITH PRINCE PHILLIP

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Government Junior Secondary School (now known as Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Tawau) is located on the east side of the Tawau airport. My Peace Corps home in 1964 and 1965 was located on the west side of the runway. The only safe way to get from A to B was a circuitous trip that required fifteen minutes on a motorbike. The shorter way was to drive up to the airport and cut across the active runway onto the school sports field that bordered the runway. Much shorter. Obviously the preferred and more daring route.

Because the Tawau airport was busy during Konfrontasi, a system had been set up to alert everyone to the pending arrival of an airplane. An air traffic controller hoisted a large white flag to the top of a sturdy bamboo pole on the wooden airport control tower. When the flag went up, everyone knew that the runway was off limits and that a plane could be expected to land soon. If the flag was lowered, activity around the runway resumed.

After we finished a day of teaching at GJSS one day, my PCV friend Maryanne and I climbed aboard my motorbike, intent on crossing the runway on our way downtown. We edged off the school sports field, crossed the deep drainage ditch that paralleled the east side of the runway, and stopped. The white flag was up, signifying that a plane was in the vicinity. We didn't hear or see one anywhere. Just as we braked to a stop, the air traffic controller walked out onto the ledge of the control tower and began gesturing at us energetically with both arms. Maryanne and I debated what his instructions meant, and we concluded that he was trying to indicate that it was still safe to cross the runway in spite of the white flag flapping above him.

We began to cross the runway. About half way, I looked to my right and fixed my gaze on the outline of an airplane on final approach from the north. I goosed the motorbike, and we made it to the other side without really coming close to a collision with the landing plane.

The RAF traffic controller was apoplectic. I bore the brunt of his anger, although I'm certain I would have been in much greater trouble if Maryanne hadn't been on the back of my bike. I had violated the rule of the signal flag! What was far worse, THIS aircraft was part of the Queen's Flight, a Hawker Siddeley 748 twin turboprop. What's more, the plane was piloted by HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of the Queen of England! (Philip had been a rated pilot since 1959 and flew both helicopters and airplanes.) Only when I learned the pilot's identity did I understand the air traffic controller's rage. That also explained why there had been armed Malaysian troops positioned along the drainage ditch as we had begun our crossing.

Prince Philip completed his royal inspection of all the British troops in the area and left a couple of days later. I went up to the airport to watch him board the plane with the Queen's crest emblazoned on the fuselage to the right of the door. I crossed that runway many more times after HRH left, but never when the white banner was flapping atop the bamboo flagpole. I had learned my lesson.

On February 9, 1999, I looked out the window of my Malaysian Air 737 jet on the tarmac at that same Tawau airport, waiting to leave the town I had grown to love thirty-four years earlier. My old school building was visible across the same runway, and I could still approximate the very point where we had made our notorious motorbike crossing in 1965. It was a nostalgic moment.

FRESH BREAD, FRESH COFFEE AND GHEE

Tawau was an isolated place in 1964, accessible only by one daily Dakota flight or by Straits Steamship every couple of weeks. There were no highways to anywhere. Television was unheard of in Borneo. The battery-powered Philips short-wave radio provided by the Peace Corps brought occasional BBC news and propaganda from China. Access to telephones was mostly undependable and always expensive.

Under those circumstances, Peace Corps Volunteers survived and prospered by learning to appreciate and anticipate small pleasures. The previous week's international editions of "Time" and "Newsweek" usually arrived on Friday afternoon for the reader to discover what was happening in the outside world. One could become absorbed with the news for an entire weekend.

Small pleasures were wholly idiosyncratic. In my case, one enduring pleasant memory is arising early enough to get down to the bakery to buy a still-warm loaf of white bread. Fresh bread, New Zealand butter and canned strawberries from the Huat Lee cold storage made for a perfect start of the day.

But the senses were aroused even more by a unique little place near the shophouses along Chester Street in Tawau. To get to the bakery, I had to drive past a small open shed across the street from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Inside the shed was a huge wok with a diameter of about four feet. A laborer stirred the contents of the wok with a large wooden paddle. The aroma of large quantities of roasting coffee in the cool morning air was fantastic enough, but numerous coffee shops in Malaysia often added ghee to the roasting process, producing and even richer fragrance. Furthermore, the beans were roasted longer and darker. The ghee and the dark roast produced an unbelievably delicious cup of coffee. Anyone who has ever sat in a coffee shop in Kuching, Sibu, Kota Kinabalu or Sandakan will still summon that fragrance to their nostrils and smile broadly.

A couple of other fragrances deserve mention. In the evenings I often spent time on Tawau's municipal wharf. Traders in small wooden craft tied up there to bring in and haul out all kinds of goods. Often there were small boats from the Celebes (now Sulawesi) and from the Moluccas. Bags full of whole nutmegs often filled the air with the smell of that spice. More common, however, was the unique, oily sweet smell of copra. The hotter the day, the more pungent the aroma. Both were unforgettable.

Just why that small tin-roofed shed was situated on the corner of a vacant lot was something I never learned. What I know, though, is that driving past when the coffee and ghee were being blended in the sizzling wok was one of those seemingly small, insignificant events that gave rise to sensory pleasure in a time and place where small satisfactions could make the entire day.

"THE MILITIAMEN ARE RECEIVING THEIR GUNS TODAY."

The sports padang at Government Junior Secondary School was about the size of two soccer fields. It doubled occasionally as a drill site for conscripts in the local militia. The home guard was an important, if not particularly battle ready, supplement to all the other military forces in the area. They guarded public facilities around Tawau, but not much more. Elite fighting units they were not.

I watched a new batch of militia members arrive aboard lorries one afternoon as I sat in a friend's home across the road from the sports field. One of the lorries also bore several large wooden crates. The militia members formed into ranks, and training them to march in step got underway. Back and forth across the dusty field they trudged. Each recruit carried a wooden stick instead of a rifle. I watched as the officers present worked to establish discipline among boys and young men from the ulu who knew very little about military organization or the reason they had been recruited in the first place.

I started to leave my friend's house a while later. As I descended the front steps, a British officer came running toward me as fast as he could make his legs move. He obviously had something to say and began yelling, "Get back inside! Get back inside!" I complied.

The officer came to the front door and ordered everyone to stay inside and away from all windows and doors until the all- clear was signaled. My curiosity got the best of me, and I asked why our movements were being restricted so severely. The officer looked at me and said, "This is a bit embarrassing, but it's for your own safety. The militiamen are getting their real guns today."

We remained invisible inside until the trucks pulled away at dusk.

GURKHA DOUBLE-TIME

Another small pleasure in Tawau during 1964-65 was witnessing the arrival or departure of the Gurkha Rifles. The legendary and incredibly disciplined Nepali fighting men usually arrived at the airport aboard RAF Argosy twin-boom turboprop transports. Platoons were then posted deep in the ulu along Sabah's border with Indonesia. When an Argosy arrived with a new deployment of Gurkhas, small crowds gathered at the terminal for the ceremony. The Gurkha Rifles invariably disembarked from the transport in tight formation, wearing their distinctive hats with the bent brim. They literally marched off the wide rear loading ramp of the aircraft in double step under the watchful eyes of their British officers, who often carried swagger sticks that matched their style.

The contrast between the tall, fair- skinned officers and the very short, powerfully built Gurkha fighting men was dramatic. Combined, however, the officers and soldiers presented a military image of absolute fearlessness and total command of the situation. Their reputation for never taking prisoners alive preceded them and must have struck fear into the hearts of the Indonesian incursionists who operated along the border. To top it off, each Gurkha wore a sheathed kukri. The kukri: that famous curve-bladed killing knife used only by the Gurkhas. In a capsule, it was a REAL SHOW!

A brief bit of trivia here. After "Konfrontasi" ended, a few Gurkhas returned to Borneo as civilians to raise vegetables on the slopes of Mount Kinabalu. They found the mountain and the Kadazan farmers in the area similar to their environs in their homeland in Nepal.

THE HOVERCRAFT EXPERIMENT

Military conflicts around the world have always provided opportunities to test new, experimental weapons under actual combat conditions. That was true during "Konfrontasi." Within walking distance of my house in Tawau, the Royal Navy decided to field-test its SR.N5 air cushion vehicle, popularly known as the Hovercraft, for the first time in early 1965. In fact, these tests were probably the very first military applications of air cushion vehicles anywhere in the world. Two early model Hovercraft were deployed in my town for many months and were being evaluated for coastal patrol and logistic support of Commonwealth troops on Sebatik Island and in the estuaries west of Tawau. Built by British Hovercraft, the SR.N5 was powered by a single Rolls Royce turbine. It provided forward propulsion (via a large propeller mounted on the back of the craft) and downward air pressure which caused the machine to rise above the surface on its rubber skirts.

The SR.N5 appeared completely helpless when not in motion. It was like a duck sitting on a rubber nest---low, squat and motionless---on the narrow beach below the Tawau Resident's home. When powered up, though, it was both fast and noisy. It carried about a dozen soldiers. Speed must have been the most redeeming feature of the Hovercraft. It could not have been stealth; it was far too noisy. As one or both of them skimmed across Cowie Bay, I could hear them approaching miles away. Not only was the Hovercraft noisy. It also had a distinctive sound unlike any aircraft or ship. Certainly the Indonesians must have identified them easily.

One day as I watched a football (soccer) game at the town padang, two American Navy officers approached me. That was a very strange occurrence because we never saw American military in Tawau. They were there to observe the use of the two Hovercraft in combat. We had a brief but pleasant conversation. They were just as surprised to see a Peace Corps Volunteer there as I was to see them.

Beginning in 1967, the U. S. Navy began using a slightly larger version of the Hovercraft, the SR.N6, in the Mekong Delta. I wondered whether its introduction into that much larger Southeast Asian war was an outgrowth, in part, of the military observers' visit to Tawau a couple of years earlier. Later, in the Persian Gulf War, our Navy used behemoth relatives of the SR.N6 called LCACs (landing craft/air cushioned) successfully.

For all we know, this naval innovation got its start in a coastal town in Borneo.

AMERICA'S CHINESE PRESIDENT

When I taught English at GJSS in Tawau, all the students were Chinese, the sons and daughters of towkays and farmers who had settled in the area years earlier. Most of them spoke Hakka, a somewhat more gutteral and less demanding dialect than Mandarin. The administrative and teaching staff consisted of a delightful mixture of Chinese and Indians. Our principal was Mr. Ngee Kut Keng.

Our job was to remove all the students between Form Three and Form Four for a year of intensive English language instruction. The goal was to prepare them for the Junior Cambridge Examination after completion of Form Four. The "remove class" was an experiment unique to this school. We did not have a great deal of guidance about how it should be conducted. We were given two texts published by the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan and then told, in effect, to teach the students English all day every day.

They were a willing group and deserved much better than I could provide. As their facility in English improved, some of the students enjoyed making jokes about English words and surnames. Sometimes a word seemed funny to them solely because of its sound. Other times, a word was humorous because its pronunciation was roughly comparable to a salacious term in Hakka or Mandarin.

Lyndon Johnson was president then, basking in the afterglow of his success with the Civil Rights Act and whatever residual affection he acquired when he assumed the presidency upon JFK's assassination. The Vietnam War had not yet begun to strangle Johnson. One of the students in my "remove class"---I think it may have been Lim Seng Neng--- grinned broadly one day and asked whether I was aware that the President of the United States was Chinese. I took the bait and replied that that was news to me. I asked who this Chinese President of America was.

"John Soong," he said, flashing his ever-present smile.

A SEA OF SNAKES

By no means was she a cruise ship. The M. S. Kinabalu was a 4,500-ton cargo carrier that plied the waters between Singapore and Sabah for the Straits Steamship Company. Tawau was the last port of call on each voyage of the Kinabalu and her sister ships. Each one sported a few passenger cabins and a combined bar and small dining room. Maintained and staffed in the finest of British colonial traditions, the small ships were a clean and comfortable way to navigate the stunningly beautiful coast of Sabah.

During a school holiday in 1965, my supervisor sent me from Tawau to Kudat to work on some curriculum plans. He was kind enough to book passage aboard the Kinabalu, a real treat for a Peace Corps Volunteer. The trip is etched in memory because of three events along the way.

Along the main deck, the Kinabalu had a small library for its first-class passengers. It seated no more than one or two, but its sliding doors provided remarkable "National Geographic" vistas of the turquoise water and volcanic islands as we steamed through the Celebes Sea and then into the Sulu Sea. As I sat reading in the library one afternoon, the steward approached me and said, "Tea time, sir." I thanked him and said that I would take tea there in the library. He replied that tea must be taken in one's cabin. I tried to convince him that I should be permitted my cup of orange pekoe, my biscuits, and my fresh fruit there. Unsuccessful, I followed him meekly to my small cabin, with its small porthole, where he delighted in serving afternoon tea in the proper, prescribed manner. It was an amusing lesson in the rigidity of British routines concerning one of the social practices of truly civilized people.

Another vivid recollection was watching Moslem passengers respond to the call to prayer. The men, wearing their songkoks and checkered sarongs, gathered on the ship's fantail five times a day, spread their prayer rugs on the bleached deck, and faced Mecca to pray. It was a small scene to the casual Western observer--- nothing more than a very colorful snapshot---but it symbolized the great power of Islam, which would ascend mightily in East Malaysia from that time onward. What a memorable snapshot!

Finally, the trip aboard the Kinabalu provided a chance sighting that few humans have ever witnessed. As we sailed north of Semporna on a hot, sunny day in a calm Sulu Sea, we cut through a huge congregation of sea snakes. It took literally minutes to slice through thousands of yellow-bellied serpents basking on the surface. Thousands upon thousands of them, writhing in the crystal clear water! According to Sherman Minton, who wrote an article in "Oceans" in 1978, "this tendency to gather in great numbers at the surface is an enigmatic aspect of sea snakes."

During the Vietnam War, helicopter pilots over the South China Sea also reported this rare sea snake phenomenon, according to Minton. Like other experiences in Borneo, I count myself incredibly lucky to have witnessed this strange habit of one of Earth's tropical creatures.

THE ROOSTER STOPPED CROWING ON SEPTEMBER 30

This sketch might easily be entitled "The End of the Year of Living Dangerously." Anyone interested in President Sukarno in the '60s should watch "The Year of Living Dangerously" on videotape. It is a remarkable movie.

When Sukarno went to war with Malaysia in January, 1963, he stated, "We will support the North Kalimantan Unitary State and carry out confrontation until Malaysia is pulverized into dust. We will not be toyed with. We are the rooster that crows for the rising sun of the Far East. Malaysia will be crushed."

Less than three years later, Sukarno himself was "crushed" in what started out as a Communist-led coup d'etat. Who was responsible for his ultimate downfall is still very much in debate, but it is clear that the United States, Britain, and Germany were deeply concerned about the rapidly rising influence of the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI, in the country's internal affairs. There is little doubt that the United States aided the anti-Sukarno forces in numerous ways as far back as the late 1950s, but that's not the subject of this vignette.

Sukarno's demise as president began on September 30, 1965, in what is now known as "Gerakan 30 September", or the "September 30 Movement." I was about two months away from completing my first Peace Corps assignment on the Malaysia- Indonesia border. I could stand on the municipal wharf in Tawau and look southward across Cowie Bay into Indonesia two miles away; it was that close.

I learned of the Sukarno's fall from power shortly before it was known to the world. A British gentleman whose name I remember very well lived up the street from me. He was with the Special Branch. We talked casually occasionally, and I got to know him as a friendly and well informed person. He often walked down the street in front of my house, and he stopped at the front door one day at the very beginning of October. Without much ado, Laurie proclaimed with a sly smile, "You don't know this yet, but Sukarno has just been overthrown."

I doubted what the Special Branch officer said because this news was so completely unexpected. As the days passed, though, word did begin filtering out that a transition was, in fact, in progress and that Sukarno was in difficulty.

I've never figured why Laurie chose to pass this bit of intelligence along to me. I can only surmise that he knew it would become public soon and that he and the Commonwealth forces would be able to leave that tropical backwater where they had been resisting Indonesia for more than two years.

The overthrow of Sukarno set in motion an unparalleled purge of the Chinese in Java and the rest of Indonesia that began a few weeks later. The number of Chinese deaths has never been ascertained, but estimates range as high as two million. Only a fraction were active PKI sympathizers. It remains the most terrible blemish on contemporary Indonesian history.

Anyone interested in the origins Konfrontasi must read Greg Poulgrain's meticulously researched 1998 book, The Genesis of Konfrontasi. The author, a professor at Queensland University of Technology, theorizes that Confrontation was instigated by Anglo-American intelligence planners as an anti-Sukarno stratagem and as a way of forcing a reluctant Sarawak to join Malaysia in 1963. This stratagem was carried out in spite of President Kennedy's attempts to end Konfrontasi by befriending Sukarno in 1962. Poulgrain's book is a fascinating new addition to the extensive literature on Konfrontasi.

I had come to Sabah during the height of Konfrontasi, and I left the Malaysia-Indonesia border as the little war wound down. It ended officially at a peace conference in Bangkok in 1966.

SUNDARI BINTI SOYO AND THE NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS

Sundari binti Soyo was a jolly, rather plump Javanese woman with a mouth full of gold inlay. She always dressed in an immaculate, beautiful sarong and kebaya. My housemates and I inherited her services from the first group of volunteers who occupied "the Peace Corps house" in Tawau. She cleaned and cooked for us occasionally, and we paid her monthly from our meager living allowance. It was she who taught me how to buy fish and prawns and crab that were still fresh, not "busok." She lived a few blocks away at the Tawau Residency, where her main job was to be the maid and cook for Mrs. George, the wife of the British Resident. Sundari was known throughout Tawau as an outstanding cook of Javanese fare, and she was often hired out to prepare large feasts.

Sundari also had an amazing green thumb; she could make anything grow. She planted a huge variety of beautiful tropical shrubs and flowers outside the house. They bloomed constantly. The banisters on the front porch were lined with pots of plants, flowers, and herbs. I can still smell the lemon grass. She did all this out of simple generosity and out of an inborn Indonesian appreciation of beauty and color.

Sundari even found a rare night blooming cereus (known in Sabah as the "bunga rajah") and tended it carefully on my front porch as it grew taller and taller. This flower has a reputation for blooming only once every few---is it seven?--- years. The large, single white blossom opens only during the night, and it wilts completely before next daylight. It is a charm to have these plants bloom in one's presence. Our night blooming cereus blossomed shortly before I left Tawau at the end of 1965. We watched its progress from birth to death through the night.

But Sundari's generosity was not unlimited. A few days before I left Tawau, she took a parang and cut down every single plant she had placed around the house, including a large hibiscus bush. The pots vanished from the porch. I was surprised to see how plain the house looked absent her handiwork. She did not know who would be living there next, and she was not interested in having another person enjoy the floral beauty she had created. It was also her touching way of saying goodbye.

THE WILD MAN OF BORNEO AND TWO U. S. SENATORS

After a month back in the States, I returned to Sabah in February, 1966, as Associate Peace Corps Director.

The Peace Corps office in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) was the only U. S. government office in the state. The nearest American consulate was in Kuching, Sarawak, a couple of hours away. Therefore, Peace Corps staff in Sabah were called upon occasionally to carry out small assignments on behalf of the State Department that would have been delegated to some other element of the "country team" in any other country where the U. S. had diplomatic representation.

At the end of 1966, we were asked to do the advance work and then host two U. S. senators who were coming to Sabah. They were senators Gale McGee (D-Wyoming) and Frank Moss (D-Utah). We greeted them when they arrived at the Jesselton airport aboard a U. S. Air Force MATS C- 121 Super Constellation. The interior of the aircraft was beautifully appointed with plush executive seating designed for congressional junkets such as this one. McGee, Moss, their wives, and a few staff members had just been to Hong Kong and Saigon on their way to Sabah, and the aft baggage compartment in the cabin of the plane was crammed full of boxes of booty from their earlier stopovers in the shopping havens.

We laid on a nice visit for the two senators. They met informally with a representative group of Peace Corps Volunteers in the lobby of the Borneo Hotel in Tanjung Aru. They paid courtesy calls on Sabah's Yang de Pertua Negara (head of state) and the chief minister.

But why had these two American pols come to Sabah, of all places? The answer lay in the fact that Senator McGee was an avid photographer. He had picked up fancy new camera equipment in Hong Kong. Shortly after the dignitaries arrived, the MATS pilot asked me whether it would be possible for Senator McGee to charter a helicopter. I replied that I would find out, and I asked what the purpose and destination of the helicopter flight would be. The MATS pilot responded somewhat hesitantly that Senator McGee wanted to go into the jungle to photograph the fabled "Wild Man of Borneo." It took me a while to convince the pilot that there was really no such person or tribe in Sabah in 1966, and the idea of a chopper flight into the ulu to photograph cannibalistic savages died shortly thereafter. A helicopter was not chartered. Instead, we took the entourage to a colorful native market in Papar, where Senator McGee delighted in trying out his new camera equipment.

The distinguished junketeers departed for their next stop, Jakarta. Later, I received a very complimentary thank-you letter from Ambassador James Bell in Kuala Lumpur. The embassy must have considered the visit a success. I hoped that Senator McGee had been convinced once and for all that the "Wild Man of Borneo" was really the "Mild Man of Borneo."

JESSELTON/KOTA KINABALU

Jesselton, the post-war capital city of Sabah, would not do as a proper Malay name after Merdeka in 1963. After Malaysia came into existence, Jesselton was renamed Kota Kinabalu in 1968. Situated on the west coast of Sabah and hugging the Crocker Range, "K.K." is a wonderful place. I had the good fortune to live there for more than two years, first in a home along Penampang Road. Later, I moved into a two-bedroom apartment in a house that I shared with a Chinese goldsmith, Tham Shin Hup, and his young family near the Radio Sabah headquarters.

I spent many weekends snorkeling with friends around the beautiful islands that lie a mile offshore in the South China Sea. Although there is a great deal I might say about my time in Kota Kinabalu, three brief sketches will do.

Snapshot #1

The Chinese constituted about 23% of the population of Sabah in 1960. Many of them had been born on the Chinese mainland and wound up in places like Sabah because of any number of historical events that made relocation advisable. One fact of Chinese history and culture that I witnessed in K. K. was the occasional sighting of an elderly woman with bound feet. Breaking the bones and then binding a young girl's feet tightly with cloth strips so that they would grow to no more than three or four inches during her lifetime was a sure symbol of gentility and high class, according to those who practiced this horrible deformation of the human body. The tiny feet were then placed in elaborately embroidered "lotus shoes." Walking was often difficult or impossible, accomplished painfully only with the aid of a cane in both hands. Hip and lower back disorders were common and debilitating results of the practice. Foot binding had begun about a thousand years ago and had been outlawed only at the end of the last Chinese dynasty in 1911. (It continued to be practiced in rural areas of China until the 1930s, however.)

It would be insensitive to say that I count myself lucky to have seen some of these old women hobbling around on canes. What impresses me still, though, is that I witnessed firsthand a unique cultural practice that few Westerners have ever observed and which will, thankfully, be a thing of the past in only a few more years. Meanwhile, the two old ladies with bound feet and walking canes who sat on the high porch of their home along Penampang Road remain etched in my mind's eye.

Snapshot #2

Another group of refugees who stood out in K. K. were Sikh bank guards. They were posted as silent sentinels, invariably with huge double-barreled shotguns, at the entrances to most banks in K. K. They never said anything; they just sat there, formidable both because of their weaponry and because they were large, proud, powerfully built people.

My office was located on the third floor of the Chung Khiaw Bank Building, and the bank's Sikh guard was always there, crouching on the sidewalk, eyeing every passerby. As many times as I passed by him for more than two years, he never gave me more than a piercing stare.

Why were all the bank guards Sikhs? Why were they in K. K.? The answer, I learned, was that these natives of the Indian subcontinent had also been bank guards in China before Mao Jedong took power in 1949. So, with the mass exodus of Chinese Nationalists during the late 1940s, the Indian Sikhs living in China also saw the Communist handwriting on the wall and emigrated to places like Sabah, where they resumed working as fearsome bank guards.

Snapshot #3

The final K. K. sketch concerns the Nam Hing Restaurant. In the 1960s, it featured delicious and inexpensive Cantonese food. On Sunday mornings, it served steamed dim sum and was always crowded for those delicacies. Peace Corps Volunteers and staff members frequented the Nam Hing because it was close to the Peace Corps headquarters. The restaurant's owner put a large jar of fresh, homemade chili sauce on every table. It went great with steamed rice! I will never forget the gray-haired matriarch who sat at a side bench early every morning squeezing the juice out of hundreds of fresh limes into a bowl. After a couple of gallons of lime juice had been extracted, she combined it with salt, garlic and red chilies. The mixture was allowed to age in a refrigerator for a time and was then transferred to the bottles on patrons' tables. It was the most delicious chili sauce one could imagine; I've experienced nothing that tasty since. The Nam Hing's cooks also had a special recipe for preparing sweet and sour pork that gave it a unique taste and consistency.

When I walked into the Nam Hing in February, 1999 after an absence of more than thirty years, a few things had changed. Air conditioning had been added. (I do not think that qualifies as an "improvement.) The beautiful white marble that had graced the tabletops had been replaced by unattractive Formica. But, wonder of wonders, the jars of homemade chili sauce were still there, and the concoction was just as delicious as ever. Grandmother must have passed her recipe along before she went to her higher reward. And the sweet and sour pork? Its unique taste and crunch were unchanged.

I studied the towkay carefully for a while and concluded that, thirty years older, he was the same man who had supervised the restaurant when many of us had frequented it in the 1960s. He limped thirty years ago, and he limped now. He hovered over the cash drawer now just as he had then. He shouted his customers' orders back to the kitchen the same way.

I was in a time warp in 1999, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

BLOOD ON THE BITUMEN

Keningau was a quiet village and the government center for the Interior Residency of Sabah. There was only one road into and out of town. As I walked south along the left shoulder one day, I noticed huge, dried splotches of what could only be blood on the bitumen. A single spot might have been explainable, but there were many. What could account for large, round bloodstains on the surface of the road?

The answer became apparent as I approached the back end of a water buffalo being led along by its owner. Leeches were firmly dug into the tender tissue at the animal's backside and were engorging themselves with its blood. They became distended, reaching a length of five or six inches and the thickness of an adult's finger, and then they simply dropped or were swatted off that tender part of the water buffalo's anatomy onto the road surface. As the occasional Land Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser drove over the huge parasites, they burst like water balloons and left their telltale marks on the pavement.

Sabah the land that was

2009-11-08T08:28:00.000+08:00

I came to know of Sabah on August 2nd 1962, that was the year I was born. My initial years with Sabah were quite blurry.

As for the period before attending primary school, I could only remember the beautiful scenic view of Tanjuang Aru 1st, 2nd and 3 rd beach. The time when the beaches were freely access by those who could come.

There was no Beach Hotel, not sure if the skating ring was around at that time, but one thing is for sure the Tanjung Aru beach at that time was probably the most beautiful, clean and scenic. You could easily get shells or starfish on the shore. I guess during the time Pulau Gaya was still not infested by the PTIs.

In 1969, I began my school life at St Agnes Primary School. Though I could not remember how I went to that school. My elder brother who is 3 years older than me also went to the same school. My mother was illiterate and was working as Maid with an Urang Putih couple, whose husband was a pilot with MSA (Malaysia Singapore Airlines). Even my younger sister went ti the same school. The funny thing is that, we were staying in Tanjung Aru which is about 10 miles away from the school.

At that time, the only road to reach the school was via the old Tuaran road and the old KK Tanjung Aru road. The buses during that time were TUT (Tuaran United Transport) for KK-Tuaran, Luen Thung for KK/Sembulan/Tg Aru/Kepayan/Putatan and PUT (Penampang Union Transport) if memory serve me right.

During my primary school life my family move to quite an number of location, around KK. I completed my primary six in 1974 and manage to pass the Primary 6 exam with 66%. I was allocated La Salle in Tanjung Aru as my secondary school

One Tg Aru land mark that is gone for good is the Boon Pang Theater, which is now a church. Who could forget Hone Place padang, where all the defacto football field at that time or the soon to be forgotten Tang Aru Turf Club (lumba kuda) wher we could pock tri forecast..

To get to Tanjung Aru from KK, I had to take the bus, Luen Thung Transport (if memory serve me right) The bus stop at that time was in front of State Library before it move to where Centerpoint was. Yes Center Point was actually the bus terminal for all (TUT) Tuaran Road, (PUT) Penampang and (LTT) Tanjung Aru.

Tangung Aru Beach was the cleanest beach around and the scenery was breath taking unlike now where Tanjung Aru Beach is very commercialised. When I escape from class, I would walk to Tangjung Aru beach and loiter around until noon before taking the bas back to KK. I spend 5 years in La Salle completing my MCE in 1979 before I accidentally apply for ITM that time it was located in the building infront of the Federal House Sembulan, just beside PWD HQ.

But the point I would like to make is that, very minimal information with regards to the history of Sabah is available on the net. Our Sabah Bahasa for one is dying out......words like main bubut, lusir, alun alun, mangkali, indada ..... click here to read some of the Bahasa Sabah . Even pictures of Sabah are very few.

If any of you have any picture or if there are words that is peculiar to just Sabah, post it here or email me.

Malaysianised & Bumiputrnisation of PTIs

2009-10-24T19:14:00.000+08:00

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Detained 'Indian national' in Sabah says he's Malaysian

A Muslim specialty restauranter Mohd Kani Majid, 43, who has been held since April 20 at the Rumah Merah (Red House), the detention centre in Menggatal for illegal immigrants, is emerging as a test case of sorts for "Malaysians" stripped of their "citizenship" and earmarked for deportation to their "determined countries of origin".

Menggatal is in the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu but within the city limits.Majid, who holds a "valid" MyKad and has voted thrice so far in the general elections, has lodged an application with the High Court in Kota Kinabalu for a revision of his Detention Order.

He listed himself in the application as a tax payer, contributor to the EPF (Employers Provident Fund) and is listed in the latest (2009) revised electoral rolls.He first registered as a voter in 1999, according to the application.His counsel, P. J. Perira and Ram Singh, have filed for a Certificate of Urgency for the case to be expedited given their client's continued detention.

Majid was arrested at his 24-hour restaurant, Kedai Kopi Jamiyah in Inanam, in the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, by Malaysian Immigration authorities. Apparently, the arresting officers determined that he was in fact an Indian national and not a Malaysian as claimed.It is not known whether he was held during a campaign by the Immigration Department, a routine inspection or whether they were acting on a tip-off.

The restaurant has been in operation since 1999 with a valid licence issued by City Hall.Briefly, in filing for the revision, Majid wants the High Court to determine the "correctness, legality or propriety of the Immigration Department remand or continuing remand".

He claims that he's entitled to the MyKad that he's currently holding.Further, he argues that if the authorities believe his MyKad was obtained fraudulently, or through misrepresentation, then they should refer the matter to the Home Affairs Ministry under Article 27 of the Federal Constitution for a Notice of Enquiry to be held.

The National Registration Department (NRD), he points out, did not charge him under Section 25 (1)(e) of the National Registration Regulations 1990 for an alleged offence i.e. having a fake MyKad, or if it was a genuine MyKad, being in its possession when he was not entitled to have one.No charges preferred

The Immigration Department, which arrested him, did not charge with any offence either, continues Majid in his pleadings.Instead, he alleged, the Immigration Department "forced" him to apply for an Indian passport after seizing his Malaysian International Passport which is still valid.The authorities, he complains, had also failed to comply with Article 5(3) and (4) of the Federal Constitution and inform him or his family members officially of the grounds of his arrest.

The Revision has also been served on the Immigration Sabah Director, Immigration Department Deputy Public Prosecutor, senior Federal Counsel, and the Home Affairs Ministry's Legal Advisor in Putra Jaya, the Federal Administrative Centre.Records kept by Perira and Singh show that they wrote to the Home Affairs Ministry on July 27 on the detention of Majid. Copies of the letter were extended to the NRD Director General, Immigration Director General, MACC (Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission) Chairman and the Suhakam (Malaysian Human Rights Commission) Chairman.Only the NRD Director General replied, on July 29, saying that the matter would be referred to the NRD Sabah in Kota Kinabalu.

The lawyers wrote on Aug 7 to the Prime Minister to bring Majid's continued detention to his attention.Copes of the letter were extended to the NRD Director General, the Immigration Director General, the MACC Chairman and the Attorney General.Only the AG's Chambers responded on Aug 12 saying that they had forwarded the letter to the Home Affairs Legal Department.Earlier, on Aug 6, the lawyers wrote to the Immigration Sabah Director requesting for documents in regard to Majid's continued detention. opies of the letter were extended to the Immigration Director General, the NRD Director General and the AG's Chambers. There was no reply. On Aug 12, they wrote again to the Immigration Sabah Director with copies to the same parties.Again, there was no reply.

According to the facts of the case according to the lawyers, Majid arrived in Sabah from India in 1983 and worked as a restaurant helper in Papar along the west coast, an hour's drive south of Kota Kinabalu.

Ten years later, in 1993, he applied for a Malaysian identity card (IC) through the district NRD office under the IC Projek Pedalaman (Interior Division IC Project).It was not immediately clear what personal documents he used to apply for the Malaysian IC.

He claimed that some 100 other Indians and Pakistanis applied for the same document (IC) together with him.Majid claims that he obtained the IC through the NRD Papar sometime in 1993/94 and issued by the NRD in Kota Kinabalu.
It is not known whether the other 100 Indian and Pakistani applicants with him received Malaysian Identity Cards as well. Upon receipt of his Malaysian IC, Majid claims that he surrendered his Indian passport to the authorities.

It is not known to which authority.Majid claims that to satisfy himself that his Malaysian IC was genuine, he wrote to the NRD Sabah for verification of his document.He claims receiving a letter from the NRD dated Nov 4, 1994, informing him that his Malaysian IC was genuine.

He also claims to be in possession of a letter from the NRD Sabah bearing the signature of the then Deputy Director, Mohd Nasir Sungip. It is also not known what made Majid doubt the authenticity of his Malaysian IC although he claimed to have collected it from the NRD Papar.Less than a year later, Majid applied for and was issued a Malaysian International Passport on June 20, 1995.

Majid married an Indian citizen in 1997.She arrived on an Indian passport and has been staying in Sabah on a Visa under Section 11(10) of the Immigration Regulations 1963.The couple have three children. The eldest, 11, was born in India and holds a Dependant Pass. The other two children, aged 10 and 7, were born in Sabah.

Anti illegal immigration activists in Sabah are watching the Majid case closely.They recall that Indian restaurants in the state and their association had been in the news not so long ago for harbouring illegals and those with dubious Malaysian documents.

Source - National Express of Malaysia

Reading from the above, now the children of Mohd Kani Majid would definitely be branded as "Melayu & Bumiputra"...................who is going to save Sabah......UMNO and All UMNOed BN, I think not.......

If you Sabahan do not stand up now, I think definitely the Ori Sabahan will be label as PTIs....

Open this link for more stories http://mutalibmd.blogspot.com/2009/03/pendatang-haram-india-di-sabah.html

LEST WE FORGET

2009-09-12T09:18:00.000+08:00

Book blames peninsular politics for Sabah immigrant woes

Joe Fernandez

Aug 28

Book title: Lest We Forget Author : Dr Chong Eng Leong

This is a book which has long been in the writing considering that the writer, Dr Chong Eng Leong, filed an election petition back in 1999 alleging that there were phantom voters in the then Likas state constituency.

He had stood there as a PBS (Parti Bersatu Sabah) candidate and lost. Dr Chong, a leading general surgeon at the Sabah Medical Centre in Kota Kinabalu, had always been an activist against illegal immigration.

The writer won a landmark judgment that prompted the Election Commission to have the Election Act amended to the effect that once the Electoral Rolls have been gazetted, they are not challengeable in any court of law.

Better late than never, Dr Chong has marshaled an impressive array of facts and figures in this documentation of an explosive issue, illegal immigration, for posterity. It is feared that there will be "a reverse takeover" of the state one day by foreigners i.e. if it is not already happening. Suhakam (Malaysian Human Rights Commissioner) vice chairman Simon Sipaun touches on this fear in his foreword to the book. "It (the situation) appears to be out of control as clearly indicated in this book by Dr Chong Eng Leong," writes Sipaun, a former Sabah state secretary, who sympathises with the plight of the illegal immigrants as well. "We cannot blame the illegals.

However, the public is questioning the authorities for allowing illegal immigrants to enter Sabah so easily.""They are also questioning why and how these foreigners could easily become citizens through the backdoor." Population expands because of illegals

The year 1970 is the base year in the book. In that year, statistics put Sabah's population at some 648, 693 and that of neighbouring Sarawak at 976,269. By the year 2000, Sabah's 2,603,485 population had overtaken Sarawak's 2,012, 616. Given the advent of modern medicines, in the absence of economic and social progress, demographers tell us that population doubles naturally every 25 years.

It's the effects of economic and social progress that act as a damper once they set in as in Singapore, for example. Sabah's figures clearly don't jell unlike Sarawak's. The extraordinary increase in Sabah can only be attributed to illegal immigrants being counted as Malaysians, according to the book.

The population figures for Sabah today are variously put between 3.5 million and 4.5 million - some of the population floating all the time - using rice consumption as a guideline. Sarawak meanwhile hovers around 2.5 million.Dr Chong leaves no stone unturned to point fingers at former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the chief architect of a covert state within a state project to pad the electoral rolls in 30 state seats in Sabah with the names of illegal immigrants mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia but also including the Indian subcontinent.

The idea was to tip the balance just enough to carry it off sufficiently to put Umno in the seat of power in Kota Kinabalu. The ruling Umno had correctly anticipated that time was running out for the half-century old party in Peninsular Malaysia. It needed to look elsewhere to shore up its continued hold on power and cast its eyes across the South China Sea. Sabah was one answer. Sarawak could be the next excuse if the Opposition Alliance, Pakatan Rakyat, upsets the apple cart there in forthcoming state elections just as PBS did earlier in 1985. Such accusations are nothing new and have been made before. But what is interesting is that Mahathir has never commented on these allegations one way or other.

Get control at whatever cost Mahathir's name was first mentioned in court in 1992 but it was not until the Likas petition that he became synonymous with the problem of illegal immigrants holding MyKads who were being listed in the electoral rolls.

There is an extraordinary wealth of information in the book complete with names, dates, places and eyewitness reports.The mindset at work is demonstrated in Page 37, where the Commissioner of Police tells one Hassnar Ebrahim, an ex-ISA (Internal Security Act) detainee, to commit murders.

"Federal Government wants political control over Sabah at any cost, even to the extent of murdering innocent people to have a reason to declare emergency rule," the CP is quoted as saying by Hassnar. Pictures of the 1986 demonstrations and riots show police escorting the demonstrators, swarms of foreigners, who had also thronged the court when there was a bid to stop the state election.

Mahathir's continued silence should tell us all something of the warped sense of destiny of Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister. He remains smug in the knowledge that no one can set the wheels in motion to go after him.

The Sabah of today and Malaysia which lurches from crisis to crisis is the result of the misguided policies of the Mahathir years which rewrote the rules on national security.

Basically, this is a tale of abuse of power and an exercise in acts of absolute power. In that sense, it's merely an extension of the Peninsular Malaysian political theatre where a series of events were set in motion viz. a Lord President tried by a kangaroo court of his peers and dismissed from the Judiciary, a Deputy Prime Minister incarcerated on circumstantial evidence and heresy; the Doctrine of the Separation of Powers, which provides for checks-and-balances, shunted aside by an Executive which was determined to reduce the other branches of government i.e. the Judiciary and the Legislature, to cringing subservience.

Sabah was child's play compared with Peninsular Malaysia which had formidable foes in the form of the Bar Council, the NGOs, PAS and DAP, among others.The amazing theme running through Lest We Forget is how easily the Federal Civil Service in Sabah caves in to the demands of their political masters and is willing to set aside internal systems of checks and balances to achieve a political goal.

That the Civil Service has been infiltrated by party politics over the last half century and heavily politicised is an open secret. Even so, it's surprising to discover the levels to which ordinary civil servants are willing to stoop to please their political masters. Subservience and lack of political will.

It is in this atmosphere of subservience and a cringing culture that Mahathir and others before him in Sabah have been able to make their identity card scams work. This message comes across clearly in this book which can only be considered a labour of love. The entire proceeds from the sale of the book would go to the Borneo Heritage Foundation.

In addition, the writer dug into his own pockets for the initial outlay for the printing costs.The book proposes various suggestions to overcome the menace of illegal immigration in Sabah. But the lack of political will remains a stumbling block.

At the heart of these proposals is the emphasis on the National Registration Department (NRD) in Sabah and the Immigration Department Sabah, among others, being headed by locals and not imports from Peninsular Malaysia. It is alleged that Peninsular Malaysians are mercenary and have no qualms about doing Sabah in if they are provided with the right mix of incentives.

Source : SAPP Blog

Lest We Forget - The Palace Coup

2009-09-01T05:40:00.000+08:00

Sabahan this a part of Sabah History, though written by an outsider, it may never be taught in the classroom history book.........
A fine example of step childing or menganak tiriing of Sabah.......
The Palace Coup (Part 1)

Monday, 31 August 2009 10:55

By Hakim Joe

Many Malaysians may not know this but the Perak Fiasco this year is not the second constitutional crisis that has rocked Malaysia (after the UMNO crisis). In fact, UMNO’s deregistration as an association by the Registrar of Societies in 1987 was also not Malaysia’s first constitutional crisis but the second.

The dubious award of Malaysia’s first ever constitutional crisis was bestowed on the Sabahan State Government in 1985 when the Berjaya-appointee Sabahan Governor, Tun Haji Mohd Adnan Robert, despite stern objections from his advisors including the Sabah State Attorney Datuk Nicholas Fung and Sabah High Court judge, Justice Datuk Charles Ho, had decided to swear-in a minority coalition party leader as the Chief Minister of Sabah, a coalition that had won less state seats (22 seats combined) in the just completed State Elections than the victor (26 seats), an action that contravened the State Constitution and the Federal Constitution of Malaysia.

So, what happened during the early dawn hours of 22 April 1985 that eventually propelled the State of Sabah into total chaos? An action by one single man in his capacity as the Governor? Or was he somehow “persuaded” (against all logical reasons) by Datuk Haji Yahya Lampong and the inaction of others present (except for Nicholas Fung and Charles Ho) to continue with the swearing-in ceremony? Before you continue reading, always keep this in mind. A Sultan or a State Governor can appoint a Menteri Besar or a Chief Minister but he cannot dismiss him after swearing him in. The appointed MB or CM can only be dismissed in the State Legislature by a vote of no-confidence, if he is convicted of a crime or if he dies in office.

Once again, let us start from the beginning.

Sabah held its state elections on 21 April 1985, a wide open contest between three political parties, namely Berjaya (BN component party and incumbent state government) led by CM Datuk Harris Mohd Salleh, USNO (previous BN component party and state government) led by Tun Datu Haji Mustapha Datu Harun, and the recently formed, months-old, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), led by Datuk Joseph Pairin Kitingan (former Berjaya Vice President).

By 11pm on Election Day, it was evident that Berjaya had lost the Sabah state elections. CM Harris had in fact lost his seat in his Tenom constituency. The only Berjaya candidates that survived the backlash were the Speaker of the State Assembly, Tan Sri Haji Sunoh Marso, two deputy ministers, Haji Malek Chua and Hiew Ming Kong, plus three others.

Celebrations were however held at the USNO camp. At almost 1am on 22 April 1985, when USNO and PBS had jointly won 25 seats (simple majority), USNO’s director of elections, Haji Karim Ghani called Pairin’s residence to implement the secret plan between USNO and PBS to form a coalition state government, a plan hatched between Pairin and Mustapha to unseat Berjaya prior to the elections. The telephone call was answered by Pairin’s PBS legal advisor, Datuk Herman Luping, who told Haji Karim that “he will get back to him after speaking to Pairin”, a call that was never returned as PBS continued to win one constituency after another. Treachery? Well, nobody said that politics was clean. The initial pact was made at a time when neither USNO nor PBS thought that their respective party could win the Sabahan elections alone.

It was not until later when the return call never came that Mustapha realized that Pairin had double-crossed him. Moral of the story so far - never trust your political opponents.

It was also then that the State Attorney General Datuk Haji Yusuf Rashid, mentioned to Datuk Haji Yahya Lampong that USNO’s 16 seats plus Berjaya’s 6 seats (a total of 22 seats) were sufficient to form the State Government, provided that the Governor grant the 6 nominated seats to them. (The Sabah Governor has the privilege to do so as the Sabahan Legislature consists of 48 contested seats and 6 nominated seats.)

A call (at 2am) was hastily made to the USNO camp for a meeting between the two leaders. At 2.30am, Karim called Datuk Haji Majid Khan (Berjaya’s elections director) to confirm the meeting at Tun Mustapha’s residence. Majid and Abdul Malek Chua arrived about 15 minutes later and were taken to meet Mustapha. In the meeting, Mustapha was skeptical about this “plan of action” that could unseat PBS but a subsequent telephone call from the Istana “inviting Tun Mustapha to take the oath of Sabah CM” banished all doubts from the USNO President’s mind.

Why did the Governor do it knowing very well that PBS had won 26 seats to Berjaya’s 6 seats and USNO’s 16 seats? Events soon unfolded that Harris had called the Governor after receiving the call from USNO at 2am, informing him that Berjaya has formed a coalition with USNO and that their combined total of 22 seats plus the 6 nominated seats (by the Governor) constitutes a simple majority win in the 54-seat Sabah Assembly. It was then that instructions were given to Adnan’s ADC, Haji Mandalam Marziman, to prepare for the swearing-in ceremony in the wee hours of the night (or is it day?). It was also then that Madalam received a call from the PBS legal advisor, Datuk Herman Luping, as to whom he would need to contact to organize the formal swearing-in ceremony for Pairin as the CM of Sabah.

Mandalam then proceeded to contact the Governor’s private secretary, Sukarti Wakiman, to inform him of Adnan’s decision and to contact the Protocol Officer, Ahmad Jalil, to prepare the arrangements for the ceremony. Ahmad Jalil was already at his office and called the Secretary to the Cabinet, Richard Ngui Thien Soong, to bring all the Instruments of Appointment and Oath of Office to the Istana. It was also then that Ahmad Jalil called Mustapha’s residence to inform him of Adnan’s decision and to invite him to the Istana. The time was almost 2.45am now. By then Harris had already dispatched Nicholas Fung and the State Secretary, Hamid Egoh, to the Istana to help out with the arrangements for the ceremony.

When Richard Ngui arrived at the Istana, he told Ahmad Jalil that the Instrument of Appointment and Oath of Office already had Datuk Harris’s name on it (optimistically never expecting Berjaya’s humiliating defeat) and that Jalil should just blanko off the Harris' name and retype Tun Mustapha’s name on it. It was now that the Sabah State Attorney Nicholas Fung pointed out to Adnan that PBS was the victor and that it was unconstitutional for Adnan to swear in Mustapha, to which the Governor interjected that he knew “what he was doing”.

By then, the guests were all arriving at the Istana and these included Mustapha, Yahya Lampong, Majid Khan, Malek Chua and the Commissioner of Police, Mohd Noor Khamis. When Nicholas Fung saw Yahya and Majid, he once again strongly reiterated that it was unconstitutional for Adnan to appoint Mustapha as the CM. It was then pointed out by Yahya that under Articles 6(3) and 10(2) of the State Constitution that Adnan has the discretion to appoint a member of the Assembly so long as he is satisfied that the member is likely to command the confidence of the majority of Assembly members. Nicholas Fung was not easily cowed and warned of the dire consequences if the swearing-in ceremony was permitted to go ahead, but to no avail. It was then that Adnan asked if Kuala Lumpur had been consulted of his decision to which Majid replied that Harris was trying to get in touch with Musa Hitam (the acting PM as Mahathir was in London). It was also then that Adnan asked if a judge was necessary to which High Court judge, Justice Charles Ho was immediately called up on the phone to attend the ceremony at the Istana.

Harris managed to contact acting PM, Musa Hitam at around 3.40am, and informed him of the Berjaya loss and the subsequent proposal to form a coalition party with USNO. Harris also told the acting PM that Adnan had decided to appoint Mustapha as the CM to which Musa said, “Datuk, give me a few hours.” Musa was of course naturally apprehensive over the events happening in Sabah as it might create a law and order situation of which the Federal Government had no intention of sticking their head into. After all, Musa might be the acting PM but he was the Home Minister. Pairin might not be able to contact Musa but he finally got through to the Federal Attorney General, Tan Sri Abu Talib of which he explained the situation. Abu Talib then advised Pairin to take legal action against Adnan if the latter had already sworn-in Mustapha because the Federal Attorney General and the Governor possess no power to dismiss the CM once he is sworn-in.

When Justice Charles Ho arrived at the Istana, he was briefed by Nicholas Fung and Hamid Egoh as of the situation to which the Judge told the Governor that it was unconstitutional, that the judiciary did not want to get involved in this illegal event and that who was willing to take the blame if there was any bloodshed? Charles Ho then proceeded to tell Tun Adnan that he wanted nothing to do with this decision and that he was going home. Nicholas Fung left with Charles Ho. Adnan told Hamid Egoh to proceed with the ceremony. It was almost 4am. Moral of story so far, listen to what your subordinates have to tell you.

It was about this time that Kota Kinabalu police chief, OCPD Supt. Victor Lim got a call on his walkie-talkie that Harris and Mustapha were present at the Istana for the swearing-in ceremony. He immediately alerted Pairin and Luping. Luping immediately tried to contact Sukarti at the Istana but was told by Mandalam that Sukarti was not available. Luping then drove to Hamid Egoh’s house but the latter was already at the Istana. It was then that Luping (and a group of PBS supporters) drove to the Istana but found themselves barred from entering. Pairin was kept informed of the worsening situation and he decided to call Musa Hitam, of which he failed to contact at his home. (Musa was in fact at Bukit Aman monitoring the Sabah situation.)

When Hamid Egoh was resting after the swearing-in ceremony, he received a call from Abu Talib, demanding to know what was happening in Sabah. After a lengthy argument, Hamid Egoh told Abu Talib that Mustapha had already been sworn in as the 7th CM of Sabah.

Pairin finally managed to contact his good friend, Musa at about 6.30am. Musa reassured Pairin that they were doing everything to defuse the tense situation and that the Federal Government had to uphold the system of parliamentary democracy and that they will respect the wishes of the people of Sabah. Pairin then instructed his legal team to prepare two letters to Adnan, the first emphasizing that PBS had won the elections and therefore the right to form the state government, and the second as a warning to Adnan that unless he dismisses Mustapha, legal action will be taken against him.

It was at about 9am that Pairin managed to contact Hamid Egoh at the State Secretariat. After properly lambasting the State Secretary for allowing the illegal swearing-in of Mustapha as the CM (probably left, right and centre), Pairin asked Hamid if he still had the power and authority as a State Secretary to set up a meeting with Adnan. Hamid immediately contacted Sukarti, instructing him to make an appointment for Pairin to meet with Adnan. 15 minutes later, Sukarti called Hamid to tell him that Adnan would see Pairin at noon. Hamid conveyed the news to Pairin, who immediately agreed.

Adnan however changed his mind and cancelled the meeting at the last minute. He got his personal secretary to inform Hamid Egoh that he was busy and tired and that Hamid should relay this news to Pairin. When Pairin heard about this snub, he had to move fast lest his supporters start a riot.

Adnan however had an early visitor in the form of KK OCPD, Supt Victor Lim who proceeded to hand over the two letters from Pairin’s legal advisors. This was the first time that Adnan heard (from Supt Victor Lim) that Kuala Lumpur was not pleased with his actions. It was also at this time that Herman Luping turned up at the Istana gates to seek an interview with the Governor with regards to Pairin’s swearing-in ceremony. Of course Adnan refused to see him and asked Supt Victor Lim to convey to Herman that they should deal with the “new” CM and not him.

Kota Kinabalu streets were now completely deserted after Mustapha had announced over the radio that the people of Sabah should not be apprehensive and unduly alarmed over his appointment as CM. Mustapha had also instructed the Press Secretary, Fauzi Patel, to draft a similar statement for Adnan’s private secretary, to be issued by the Istana confirming the Governor’s decision to appoint him as the CM. Fauzi Patel of course had to have this statement confirmed by Hamid but was told to clear it with Nicholas Fung. Nicholas, on the other hand, refused to have anything to do with it as he had no intentions of working for Mustapha and was planning to resign the position of the Sabah State Attorney. A further attempt by Hamid to send the draft to Fung through the Secretary of the Cabinet, Ngui, proved to be equally futile. Hamid was therefore left with no other choice but to vet the statement himself. He then asked Sukarti to forward a copy each to be forwarded to the Information Department, RTM and Bernama.

To highlight the incredulity of the people of Sabah, even the press division of the internal Information Department withheld the release of this statement. Department Head, Justine Miol had to personally go to see Hamid Egoh to confirm its authenticity as he could not believe what he had just read.

At about noon, RTM began relaying Musa’s statement on the Sabah Elections, “The Sabah Election is now over and the people have already made their choice. To the winners, I congratulate them. However, I would like to appeal to all parties, especially those who lost, to respect the wishes of the majority of the people. For we in the Federal Government will also continue to respect the wishes of the majority, based on the system of parliamentary democracy which we hold in high esteem…The Federal Government will continue to ensure that the security situation is under control. In this connection, I would like to remind any group planning to take action which could threaten the security that the Government would not hesitate to take firm actions against them.”

About an hour later, Musa came up with another statement, “I would also like to take this opportunity to explain the Barisan Nasional’s stand in connection with the developments in Sabah after the elections that have just ended…I would like to inform that at 3.40am yesterday, Datuk Harris Salleh had asked my permission that Berjaya under his leadership join USNO to form the new State Government of Sabah. I explained to Datuk Harris that I could not give him the permission as I have to consider…” Moral of the story so far, have high ranking pals in the Federal Government.

The shit had just (literally) hit the fan. This was the second indication (the first was from Supt Victor Lim to Adnan) that the Federal Government had not viewed favorably the turn of events at the Istana, but this was official while Supt Victor’s words were merely unconfirmed hearsay.

Adnan was jolted to the hilt when he heard the statements made by acting PM Datuk Musa Hitam. First was the threat by Musa to take firm actions against anyone who threatened the security of the State (which he did when he made Tun Mustapha the CM subverting the Constitution) and the second was Musa’s disassociation of BN from any actions partaken by the Governor and Berjaya after the elections (meaning that he would not be obtaining any help from Kuala Lumpur). The meeting that Pairin had so far failed to get (with him) suddenly gained prime importance. Hamid was contacted to immediately set up the meeting at 2.30pm “alone with Datuk Pairin”, insisted Adnan.

Despite conveying the message to Pairin that the Governor wanted to see him alone, ten full carloads of supporters (together with Nicholas Fung) accompanied Pairin to the Istana. Pairin arrived early at the Istana (2pm) and was immediately brought to meet Adnan. It was here, less then 24 hours before, that Mustapha was appointed and sworn-in as the new CM and it was here now that Adnan is conspiring with Pairin to bring about the revocation of the appointment (together with Nicholas Fung and Hamid Igoh). Abu Talib was contacted to give his advice and the Federal Attorney General reiterated that Mustapha cannot be dismissed (Kalong Ningkan case) but recommended them to talk to Mustapha urging him to resign on his own accord.

Herein lies the problem. How could they urge Mustapha to resign when they had appointed him less than 24 hours ago? Yacob Marican was fished in to assist and he recommended using Razak Rouse (USNO legal advisor) as the conduit because of the latter’s close friendship with Tun Mustapha. Razak was invited to join the group at the Istana but dreaded the responsibility once it was impressed upon him the full nature of the business at hand. Meanwhile, an official letter was drafted to Mustapha revoking (not dismissing) his position as the CM of Sabah. This letter was then handed to Sukarti, who gave it to Jalil to personally deliver it to Mustapha. Meanwhile preparations were made for the “second” swearing-in ceremony of the day.

This time, RTM and the State Information Department were called in to record the ceremony. There were only four guests at the ceremony (Hamid Egoh, Nicholas Fung, Victor Lim and Charles Ho). It was then that Justice Charles Ho contemplated the evident fact that Adnan’s decision to proceed with Pairin’s appointment as CM without first obtaining Mustapha’s resignation would complicate matters even more. RTM broadcasted the ceremony nationwide later in the evening. On Mahathir’s return to Malaysia, he openly backed what Musa had done to defuse the situation in Sabah.

While the uproar was still at the height of the controversial event, Pairin sprung another surprise by announcing that he had included 3 (out of the 6 nominated members) into his cabinet, namely Bernard Dompok, Nahalan Haji Damsal and Puan Ariah Tengku Ahmad to represent the Malay interests in the state. 3 Kadazans to represent the Malay interest (even though two of them were Muslims)? USNO in the meantime had beseeched Pairin to honor the election pact to form a coalition government but was told in the State Assembly (20 May 1985) that “PBS was perfectly capable of representing the Muslim interest and therefore a coalition with USNO would have served no purpose.” It was then that Yahya Lampong challenged Pairin’s position as CM stating the fact that as Mustapha had never resigned from that post after being appointed by Adnan and since Adnan did not have the power to dismiss Mustapha, Pairin’s subsequent appointment was ipso facto unconstitutional. This revelation shocked many PBS MPs as not all of them knew what really happened on the 22nd of April between the Governor and their party leader. Yahya proceeded to lead all USNO MPs out of the Assembly.

On 22 May 1985, USNO lawyers filed a writ at the KK High Court seeking to declare Tun Mustapha as the rightful CM of Sabah and that the revocation was unconstitutional, null and void; that the Governor’s appointment of Pairin was unconstitutional, null and void; that the Governor has acted unconstitutionally in appointing the State Cabinet; and that all acts and things done by Pairin in the capacity of CM were null and void.

Joseph Kurup (PBS Secretary-General) retorted by threatening to initiate procedures to dismiss all USNO members for their walkout in the May 20th Assembly session. The stakes are now well and truly raised. Whatever that had possessed Adnan to make the decision to appoint Mustapha took on a new dimension when a bomb exploded in the Segama complex the following day. The second bomb exploded on 29 May. This was to be the onset of a series of bombings in Sabah.

To offset the USNO writ, Pairin announced that the Legislative Assembly will meet on May 30th to pass a vote of confidence on his position as the CM. USNO countered this move by applying to the High Court on May 27th for an injunction to stop Pairin from proceeding with the session but to no avail as the application was rejected because the High Court was of the view that they did not have the jurisdiction to interfere with Assembly proceedings. (How much has changed leading to the Perak Fiasco.)

On May 30th, Pairin easily won the vote of confidence. Capitalizing on this victory, Pairin continued his attack on USNO, branding them as conspirators in a coup to snatch power from those who had legally won in the elections. Later, in his defense of the USNO writ, Pairin claimed that Mustapha had conspired with Harris to illegally install Mustapha as the CM and that their attempt to seize power by fraudulent means had been motivated by their desire to prevent the previous government’s financial and administrative misdeeds from being exposed.

On June 4th, the third bomb went off at Tanjong Aru, recording the first fatality. Moral of the story so far, get away from places where bombs are likely to be detonated and never compound one mistake with another (to cover the first one).

To preempt the hearing of the USNO writ, Pairin once again called an emergency session of the Assembly, this time to express its confidence in Adnan’s appointment of Pairin as the CM. USNO members once again boycotted this session as they deemed Pairin’s administration to be illegal and proceeded to lodge a police report to the effect that the vote of confidence constituted a contempt of the court. Here is where the shit really hit the fan. In moving the motion, Mark Koding (Pairin’s deputy) said that Adnan was forced and coerced to appoint Mustapha as the CM.

The court battle begins (to be continued).

Sources : Malaysia Today

The Palace Coup (Part 2)

Monday, 31 August 2009 20:33
By Hakim Joe
There is no such thing as either a “good” law or a “bad” law. As with all laws, they are required to be tabled and read in Parliament and it is these Parliamentarians (or lawmakers) that hold the key as to having the law to be approved, amended or repealed.

Read this part carefully as it was a precedent-setting case just like the Kalong Ningkan case. However, it can only be signified as a constitutional landmark “if the jurist act in accordance to the law of the land” and not misinterpret it to suit themselves (or their political masters) or the will of the people.

The fact remains that Pairin could have sought a vote of confidence in the Sabah legislative Assembly against Mustapha instead of insisting Adnan to swear him in as the CM. An error was already done when Adnan swore Mustapha in as the CM despite knowing the fact that the combined USNO-Berjaya seats were less than that of PBS. To swear Pairin in without first obtaining a resignation from Mustapha, and to revoke the initial appointment was in fact another error in judgment. There are no laws in Malaysia that allows for a Sultan or Governor to dismiss, discharge or revoke the status of a CM in office. Additionally, there are no laws that allow the Judiciary to interfere with the Legislative Assembly proceedings let alone either declare or dismiss a CM in office, and until the Perak Fiasco, these constitutional rights were treated as sacrosanct (well, maybe not in this case either…)

In the Mustapha/USNO writ against Pairin/Adnan, it is the contention that the initial appointment of Mustapha as the CM of Sabah by the Governor (Tun Adnan) supercedes all later appointments.

Additionally, a CM can only be ousted from the Assembly through a successful no-confidence vote against him at the State Assembly, and not through a dismissal or revocation by the Governor and since no such vote was ever held in the Sabah State Legislature and that the revocation order is null and void, it must therefore follow that Tun Mustapha is still the legally appointed CM of Sabah.

Pairin’s legal counsels (Luping and Puthucheary) argued that the High Court does not have the jurisdiction to interfere with the Legislative Assembly proceedings and that the writ should be rejected because the issue at hand was not justiciable.
Additionally, the Sabah State Legislature had successfully held a vote of confidence on May 30th and that Pairin, as the leader of the winner in the state elections & duly being appointed as CM by the Governor, should not have to be answerable to this writ and the added fact that the initial appointment was made under duress after the Governor was coerced by Harris and Mustapha to appoint the latter as the CM.

The learned High Court Judge, Justice Datuk Tan Chiaw Tong, however found that the issue was not who had won the recent state elections or what went on in the Sabah State Legislature, but whether the initial appointment of Tun Mustapha was legal or not, henceforth making the matter judiciable in the determination of the rightful CM. Pairin/Adnan were then asked to prepare their defense.

Not agreeing with the High Court verdict, Pairin’s legal counsels appealed to the Supreme Court for final judgment. On 21 October 1985, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal by Pairin and upheld Justice Tan’s ruling on the matter of jurisdiction.
Acting Lord President, Justice Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Omar together with Justice Tan Sri Hashim Yeop Sani and Justice Tan Sri Eusoffee Abdoolcader stated that the central issue of the matter was the validity of the initial appointment of Mustapha as CM, and since the appellants spoke of “duress and coercion” that had led to the appointment of Mustapha, “it is therefore imperative that the court examine the allegations in order to determine the lawfulness of the initial appointment and whether Tun Adnan was impaired as a result of exercising his discretion in making the appointment.”
The crafty Pairin while awaiting for the case to begin, once again called for an emergency session of the Assembly for the amending of the State Constitution, this time specifying the Governor’s powers on the appointment of a CM and to make these amendments effective on the 22 April 1985, so that through this device of constitutional amendment, Adnan’s dismissal of Mustapha and subsequent appointment of Pairin would ipso facto be legalized. Yet another amendment is to forbid assembly members from joining another political party with the consequences being their contested seat automatically falls vacant if they do. (DSAI should be able to learn a thing or two from this episode.) USNO’s response to these maneuvers was to apply to the KK High Court to restrain Adnan from assenting to any Bills passed by the Legislature until the court has decided on the issues raised in the writ.

To be able to amend the State Constitution, one requires a two-third majority voting for change (which is why it is so damned important that a government should not possess such a majority) and not a simple majority.

When Pairin initiated the amendments to the Sabah State Constitution, he only had 32 (26 plus 6) out of the 54 available votes which amounted to 59.2%. He in fact needed a minimum of 36 votes in his favor to be able to do anything, which he thought he obtained by enticing 5 USNO and Berjaya politicians to join PBS. (He would have 37 votes.)

On 28 October 1985, Tun Adnan’s invitation (parliamentary privilege) to speak at the Assembly kick started the Sabah State Legislature session. Pairin even had the cojones to ceremoniously hand over the prepared PBS text to him in the open. Mustapha (attending the Assembly for the first time since the elections) did not have to wait long to know its contents.

Adnan began by informing the Assembly that the people had made it amply clear as
to which particular political party they had preferred to form the State Government.
Then came the tirade which included the usage of terminologies like “evil forces” , “exploitation”, “disrespect”, “interference” and “manipulation”.

Adnan finished his “prepared” speech by confirming the appointment of Pairin as the CM and that he wants to “make it absolutely clear that” he “does not recognize any other as CM apart from Datuk Pairin.” Having delivered his speech, Adnan fled the stunned Assembly.

While Adnan was making his fast getaway through the exit doors, the Clerk of the Legislative Council, Francis Yap rushed to Pairin informing him that he did not have the two-thirds majority of votes he required to amend the State Constitution because he only had 35 (64.8%) votes and that Ghapur and Gatuk were absent.

Yap then advised Pairin to withdraw the Constitutional Amendment Bill which he consented to a doubly stunned Assembly. While this was all happening, Bernard Dompok rose to move yet another resolution, this time seeking disqualification of Mustapha, Yahya and Piting from their Assembly membership for being absent from three consecutive Assemblies without permission.

The Assembly was now triply stunned when the Speaker stopped Dompok from moving the resolution, stating that he had in fact given official leave of absence to the three USNO members. This Dompok and Pairin flatly refused to accept because it was claimed that it was the Speaker himself that has confirmed that the three USNO members had remained absent without permission. Moral of story so far, do not trust your political opponents, do not trust the frogs and do not trust (especially) your own party members.

If Pairin thought that he had enough worries for the day, he was sorely wrong. Adnan reached the Istana to find an injunction (from Mustapha)waiting for him, barring him from assenting to any Bill(s) passed by the Assembly.

If Pairin thought that he had enough worries for the month, he was sorely wrong. While he was in KL, USNO and Berjaya submitted four pre-signed resignation letters to the Speaker who immediately declared their seats vacant.

The four were Ahmad Baharom Titingan, Saman Ghulam, PK Lau and Othman Yassin, the same three USNO/Berjaya members that had crossed over to PBS (plus one who had promised to cross over.)

PBS quickly submitted an injunction to stop the by-elections but was rejected by the court even after the four had stated that they did not resign from office. (Different scenario from what finally eventuated in Perak.) The EC fast tracked this issue and by the time the by-elections were over, USNO had successfully retained two of the four vacancies. Berjaya lost the other two seats to PBS.

On 18 November, the Mustapha vs. Pairin case resumed in court. This time Pairin and Adnan were represented by Anthony Paul Lester QC, and new facts were added from the defense whereby Adnan had been subjected to undue outside influence when he appointed Mustapha as the CM (against his will) and that the Governor had feared for his life and those of his family members. (Wa-lan-nay! It’s good to have a good lawyer.)

Lester went on to state that Adnan had felt “extremely frightened and insecure” when he agreed to proceed with the ceremony and that the “Mustapha’s coup” was unprecedented in the history of Malaysia. Furthermore, Mustapha had pressured Adnan into misusing the Governor’s constitutional powers to appoint him as CM rather than Pairin. The defense counsel contended that Mustapha and Harris had usurped the constitutional powers vested in the Governor and had forced him to appoint Mustapha, against his wishes.

Adnan played his part well as the first witness called by the defense, making certain that the inviolable office of the Head of State was being adjudicated here. How could a judge say that the Governor is lying? The only conflicting statement Adnan made was the police report he made on the April 22nd incident and that was not tendered as evidence because the report was safely locked away in the Attorney-General’s office vault.

When Adnan was questioned by Kidwell QC (Mustapha’s legal counsel) as to why he had discussed the present case with Lester and Puthucheary (Pairin’s legal counsels) instead of the State Attorney, Adnan stated as a fact that Datuk Herman Luping was also present. This, Kidwell failed to grasp because the current State Attorney was Nicholas Fung and not Herman.

If Kidwell had done his homework, that would have been obvious and Adnan’s testimony would be left wide open for Kidwell to systematically demolish.

Furthermore, when questioning the security at the Istana, Adnan stated as a fact that he did not trust Mandalam (his ADC and security chief) 100% but sympathize with him and retained him due to Mandalam’s large family. Further questioning revealed that none of the security personnel were transferred since the elections and that Adnan had retained all of them to facilitate the court. (Before the case was over, Adnan was to transfer them all when they refused to back him up in his evidence.) Kidwell proceeded to tear apart Adnan’s testimony (of being frightened for his life), asking him why he did not inform the Police Commissioner who was at his house or his good friend (Avtar Singh) a former police officer who was also at that time in the house with him (as a family guest), or even Supt Victor Lim (KK OCPD) who visited him the next morning.

Adnan also claimed that after Nicholas Fung had left with Justice Ho, he did not utter the words “Let’s go. Let’s swear-in Tun Mustapha” which was contradicted by Hamid Egoh, who in his evidence claimed to have distinctly remembered Adnan inviting all those present to attend the ceremony using exactly those same words.

Lester was however up to it and began by asking Adnan what the exact procedure was in conjunction to the swearing-in ceremony of a new CM. Adnan replied that there should be witnesses to this ceremony and protocol demands that a Judge, the State Secretary and the State Attorney be present at the ceremony in the witnesses area, which in fact was unoccupied owing to the fact that the ceremony was “faked” to get rid of Harris, Mustapha and their “wild” supporters. Additionally, he did not wear any songkok to the ceremony attesting to his claim that the ceremony was a fake one.

Adnan also told the court that he was supposed to wear three songkoks and to read the “Doa Selamat” after the ceremony, which he did not.
Good rebuttal? Kidwell’s was even better and all he had to do was to show a videotape of Pairin’s swearing-in ceremony which showed that there were once again no witnesses at the area reserved for them (Hamid Egoh, Nicholas Fung, Victor Lim and Charles Ho were seated at the guests area) and that Adnan was not wearing a songkok, let alone three, and did not read the “Doa Selamat” after the ceremony.

Earlier Adnan had answered Kidwell’s questioning of the songkok by stating that as far as he can remember, he did wear a songkok at Pairin’s swearing-in ceremony.

Moral of the story so far, don’t lie in court. If you think that you are so clever that you can get away with a lie, remember that the blood-sucking no-good “sell their mother in a half a second” lawyers are far cleverer (and bloody sneaky and cunning to boot), especially those cocky Etonian-accented snobbish (but rich) English QCs.

Getting back to the story, it was therefore blatantly obvious (except to the blind) that Adnan’s concoction of what is suppose to pass as evidence was a flagrant fabrication put forward explicitly to give credence to his claim that the ceremony for Mustapha was a fake while that for Pairin was genuine.
On the question of duress, Adnan told the court that Yahya had given him a piece of paper threatening to remove him from “the face of the earth” if he did not go ahead with the ceremony to swear-in Mustapha. He persistently maintained that he had thus been placed in constant fear of USNO supporters intending to kill him. To this Kidwell (must be having fun) once again demolished Adnan’s testimony. (Lester must have been cringing every time Adnan opened his mouth.) The barrage of questioning got so bad that Adnan had to resort to “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know” to get through it. (Now we know who the “gua tak tahu(s)” learnt it from.)

To shorten it, Adnan had to admit that he did not fully understand what was written on the piece of paper and that if he did, he would have informed Justice Ho and Hamid Egoh about the threat as written on the paper.

When Adnan was questioned whether he obtained the “green light from KL” before or after Justice Charles Ho arrived and before or after he got the note from Yahya, Adnan confidently said that he asked about the green light only after receiving the note from Yahya.

Kidwell once again asked Adnan if he was certain about this, to which the answer was “Yes, I remember.” Kidwell proceeded to exhibit Adnan’s previous evidence and statement of defense whereby he attested that the piece of paper was given to him before Justice Ho’s arrival. Now, how was he going to tell Justice Ho (about the threat even if he understood it) when the jurist has not arrived? (in Semi-Value’s case, he would have uttered “Gua Tak Tahu”.)

When Adnan was asked about Datuk Musa’s broadcast, he vehemently denied hearing or reading a statement of it because he “did not know that there was a broadcast by Datuk Musa regarding the appointment of Tun Mustapha.” Even after Adnan’s counsel had intervened and conceded that Hamid Egoh did in fact pass a copy of the broadcast to Adnan, he stubbornly persisted in his delusions that he had not known anything about Musa’s statements.

However, as the evidence started to mount against him, Adnan finally admitted that he had seen the copy of the broadcast but had not been duly concerned of its contents.

From the court proceedings, it was painfully evident to everyone and anyone attending the trial that Adnan had perjured himself in court with contradictions (of himself) and of events that had happened. Could this one man be correct whilst the rest of the witnesses were all wrong? Well, someone believed him and that someone was High Court Justice Datuk Tan, and that was all that really mattered, stating in his judgment that, “At the outset, I would state that I find these (defense) witnesses to be entirely honest, impartial and independent witnesses, who gave their respective evidence clearly and honestly.

I accept them without any hesitation as witnesses of truth; and I accept their evidence. I have reached this conclusion from observing their demeanor in court while giving evidence, and after weighing their evidence against the rest of the evidence, particularly the evidence of the plaintiff’s witnesses Haji Mandalam bin Marziman, Constable Mohd Yunus bin Mohd Yasin and Constable Ali Hassan Muyong.” (What the…)

In other words, what the learned Judge was saying in his God-know-how-many-pages judgment is that he believed Tun Adnan 100% (regardless if he contradicted himself most of the time) and he believed the rest of the other witnesses (who contradicted Adnan) 0%. With this judgment (which was not released until April the 15th, 1986), Pairin was therefore the legal CM of Sabah. End of story. (Sounds like the Perak Fiasco case, right?)

Well, almost the end of the story. The moral of it all is what the Federal Government
wants, not what Adnan, Harris, Pairin, Mustapha or even Justice Tan wanted. Sure as Hell it didn’t care what the people wanted (even though it might have been exactly what the Sabahans wanted).

On 23 February 1986, when Pairin was in KL to attend the Rulers’ Conference, he was asked by the Press of his opinion with regards to the rumors that a few PBS politicians were intending to quit the party. So confident was he of his powers that he condescendingly brushed aside the matter as mere rumors and speculations.

On 24 February 1986, Francis Liong (Asst. Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) announced that he and 5 other MPs (Haji Adut Sigoh, Thomas Anggan, Wences Lojinga, Bernard Chin and Ignatius Malanjum) were quitting PBS.
The 6 has earlier written to the Speaker asking him to ignore the pre-sign letters of resignation which might be submitted by PBS in the event that they quit the party.
The 10-month old PBS State Government is now left with only 22 elected MPs. (The initial 26 elected MPs were appended with 5 frogs from USNO/Berjaya making it 31 in total until the fateful day in the Assembly when Pairin had to withdraw his Constitutional Amendment Bill due to the fact that 2 of the 5 frogs went missing, and the by-election which they won 2 and lost 2.)

The crisis intensified when rumors surfaced that all the Chinese MPs might leave PBS to form their own party (Parti Cina Sabah). The PBS people were able to locate Wences and Haji Adut in KL and after some hard bargaining, was able to get them to withdraw their pledge to leave PBS.

That made the total 24 plus 6 in the 54 seat Assembly, too close for comfort considering the fact that Sabah politics revolves around these frogs. A few more jumpers and that would be the end for PBS.

(The former Pakatan state government of Perak should have learnt from Pairin.) His decision was to seek a new mandate from the people (before other PBS MPs could jump) and this he made certain of when he obtained an undated pre-signed (by Adnan) declaration of dissolution of the Legislative Assembly.
However, Adnan was still in KL so Pairin had to backdate it to the 24th (the day Adnan left KK for KL). Pairin immediately called a press conference at 5pm at his office and announced hat “rather than hang on to a weakened government under siege, the PBS has decided to go back to the people to get a clear mandate as to who should rule.

The Legislative Assembly is dissolved effective today (February 26th) although the
declaration was signed by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri on the February 24th.” It was also his chance to get rid of the turncoat Speaker. Abdul Salleh Ghapur (former Merotai MP) filed a writ on March 1st at the KK High Court seeking to declare that the dissolution was null and void in view of the outstanding Mustapha writ. He also sought an interim injunction against the EC from conducting a general election in Sabah.

The EC which met on 3rd March was only too obliging (for whatever reasons that they have) and cited administrative problems and a lack of funds (Ha! Ha!) to hold such an election at this juncture of time, henceforth deferring the decision (probably until they have received instructions from the Federal Government).

The newly formed PCS did not want to be left out and started their propaganda machinery. They announced that they will contest in 9 Chinese dominated constituencies at the polls.

Meanwhile everybody was holding their breath awaiting the High Court ruling, due on 12th March. Would the 12th March ruling be the end of the story? Not bloody likely! Look at it this way, if new elections were held, the Mustapha writ would have been inconsequential owing to the fact a new CM would emerge from the polls, regardless if it was Pairin, Mustapha, Harris, Bob the Builder or Optimus Prime.

One, Mustapha would be implicated in the “Palace Coup”. (Chinese idiom – “Water wash also not clean”) Two, Pairin would have been the undeclared victor as it was his dissolution (as CM) that would spark a new round of elections.

At 8am on the 12th of March 1986, a crowd was already building up at the KK High Court compound. Some estimate it at about 2,000 people (predominantly USNO supporters) awaiting the verdict in the hot sun.

The first bomb exploded at 8.45am behind the Public Finance building. 5 more explosions occurred almost simultaneously at the Segama Complex (again), the Central Market, the Sinsurun Complex, the Jalan Tugu Shell station and the Jalan Pantai Esso station. Then the panic started. Everyone started to leave the capital at the same time and causing a massive traffic jam. Just as everyone started to calm down a bit, the 7th bomb exploded at the Jalan Haji Yaakub petrol station at almost 10am. Once again the panic started in earnest.

Meanwhile, the crowd at the High Court compound soon realized that the court wasn’t about to hasten the court proceedings just to impress them, and finding nothing better to do (after the initial excitement of the bomb blasts), they began to march off to Mustapha’s residence (at Tanjong Aru) in a show of support for the USNO leader (which was pointless since Mustapha was in KL).

In Sandakan, almost 3,000 USNO supporters marched through the main street shouting out anti-government slogans. 21 persons were detained by the police. In Tawau, 18 shops were burnt down by arsonists which resulted in 2 deaths. In KL, Mahathir said that the PDRM would ensure the safety of the people and that the IGP was personally flying to Sabah to access the situation there.

In KK, USNO and Berjaya filed a petition to the PM, asking him to intervene and to help resolve the state’s political impasse. PBS appealed for calm and said that the situation was under control. Everything seemed normal approaching evening time.

The next morning, Muslims found painted crosses desecrating the walls of the State Mosque. The Muslim leaders urged the Federal Government to step in before the situation worsened. Over 1,000 Muslims gathered at the State Mosque to protest PBS’s violation of their mosque. Pairin denied that it was the work of PBS and put the blame on irresponsible elements. USNO started to put out a list of 15 reasons branding PBS as anti-Islam. (Here we go again…)

On March 17th, the KK High Court rejected Ghapur’s application. Some 5,000 USNO supporters who were gathered at the court began marching to the State Mosque. As with any large group of people, things soon got rowdy. The police arrested 77 and questioned over 1,000 people. 5 bombs rocked Sandakan the next day.

On March 19th, some 2,000 Muslim protestors marching to the State Mosque had their first confrontation with the police. After repeatedly warning the protestors to disperse (which they did not), the police fired teargas at them. The situation became chaotic when a group of protestors began to burn cars and a few warehouses located nearby.

This forced the riot police to charge them and they soon discovered the torches that were used to light the fires (amongst the demonstrators). When the arsonists and rioters began to flee, the riot police opened fire on them killing 6.

For the first time in Sabahan history, a dusk to dawn curfew was imposed as more and more police were called into the city to patrol the streets. The arriving IGP appealed to Mustapha to use his influence to call off the demonstrations.

The last demonstration was held on March 23rd, led by Harris, Hamid Mustapha (Tun Mustapha’s son) and other USNO members. They were however stopped by the police and were asked to disperse.

Once again the marchers refused this order and teargas was used on them. The police booked 322 people for illegal procession. USNO again petitioned the Federal
Government to intervene but Mahathir was not biting.

His famous words of BN swimming or sinking with Berjaya kept him from doing so and it was also these proud words that have kept him from approving PBS’s application to join BN.

Mustapha and USNO was also no friend of Mahathir. The Federal Government was going to intercede only on his terms, at a time of his choice and in a manner of his liking.

The next day, Mahathir finally came up with a “peace formula” and that is an ultimatum to PBS that they form a coalition party with Berjaya and USNO or face federal emergency rule.

Mahathir stayed in KK for only 6 hours before flying back to KL. Ghaffar Baba tagged along as the Chief Negotiator. USNO (16 seats) welcomed the “peace formula” as they would be part of the state government. Berjaya (3 seats only) welcomed the “peace formula” as they would be part of the state government. PBS (26 + 6 seats) was covertly against the “peace formula” as they would now have to share power with their political opponents, but overtly portray that they were “keen” on it as well for the sake of security.

Moral of story so far, never trust a politician. Mahathir then announced to the press that he was confident that the crisis in Sabah would be resolved in view of the general acceptance of the (his) formula by the three political parties. Mahathir also said that it was now merely a matter of sorting out the details between the three parties before a coalition government is announced.

He had in fact given the three party leaders a mere two days to set up the meeting. BTW, one of the proposals of this formula is that there will be no fresh elections (Pairin will have to withdraw the declaration of dissolution) and that the parties “maintain their respective number of representatives in the Assembly” and another proposal is for Mustapha to withdraw his writ from the KK High Court.

With the impending dateline in mind, the USNO and Berjaya leaders rushed to KL to set up a meeting with Ghaffar, hoping to iron out these details before the situation in Sabah worsen.

On D-Day, the PBS leader has yet to turn up at KL. Pairin instead sent his deputy, Mark Koding as the representative, pleading illness and that his doctors had ordered him to take a complete rest. Not surprisingly, Koding failed to meet up with Mahathir.

While Koding was in KL, the massive propaganda machinery of PBS started working. A signature campaign to reject the Peace Formula was soon started (not by PBS) by a group of people who called themselves “The Voice of the People of Sabah”. Not surprisingly, they were almost all PBS supporters.

Secondly, PBS has started their reelection committee and was actively campaigning. This delay in the negotiation process (Koding might be the rep but he had to clear everything with Pairin) paid off handsomely as the Federal Attorney General Abu Talib somehow managed to convince Mahathir that fresh elections in Sabah is mandatory after the declaration of dissolution has been signed and ratified as the onstitution does not provide for the CM or Governor to withdraw it once it has been officially declared.

Moreover, the KK High Court has ruled against an injunction to nullify the declaration of dissolution. So, while the leaders of both USNO and Berjaya were in KL, hoping that an accord can be established to form a coalition government, PBS was already ahead of the game. Even though Pairin had chosen to publicly embarrass
Mahathir, the PBS leader was not brave enough to think that he could get away with it and hence his trip to KL (this time his doctors failed to order him to take a rest) to meet Mahathir to discuss his counter proposals.

Naturally, Mahathir pointedly refused to see him. Pairin however managed to meet Ghaffar who accepted these counter proposals without discussing them. One of these
proposals is that PBS would only entertain the formation of a coalition government after fresh elections in Sabah has been conducted.

The question is why Pairin would only consider the formation of a coalition government after fresh elections and not before it. The answers are quite obvious. One, if a coalition government was formed without fresh elections, PBS’s representation would only number 26 (as the 6 appointed MPs would be neutralized). Two, Pairin could not get rid of the troublesome Speaker. Three, the majority of Sabahans were anti-USNO and anti-Berjaya after the bomb explosions and the violent demonstrations. Four, Adnan was on his side. Five, the KK OCPD, Supt Victor Lim was on his side. Six, the withdrawal of the writ would not clear him of any wrongdoings, and seven, he revealed a plot by USNO and Berjaya to oust him as CM and to topple the PBS government by producing a transcript of a telephone conversation between Majid Khan (Berjaya’s elections director) and Yaacob Marican (USNO legal team member).

Additionally, there were rumors circulating within the Sabah judiciary that Mustapha had lost his writ at the KK High Court. Pairin also knew for a fact (or was extremely confident) that all the Chinese and Kadazan seats were theirs. Their election strategy was hence centered on the Muslim-majority constituencies. When the EC belatedly announced on April 3rd that the Sabah state elections will be held on May 5th and 6th (subjected to the Mustapha writ), PBS was already well prepared for it.

Pairin can be considered a shrewd, wily, cunning and ruthless man but one cannot call him stupid. Maybe reckless, but never stupid. Far from it, Pairin matched Mahathir in all aspects even to the fact that he can publicly humiliate the PM and get away with it.

With the election date announced and with a strategic plan to make inroads into the Malay vote, Pairin knew that he would have to count heavily on the “sympathy votes” from the Muslim community as his pro-Kadazan stance would be detrimental in such a situation.
To garner sufficient votes to topple the USNO MPs in the Malay strongholds, he resorted once again to the politics of expediency, an anti-Federal Government stance (since USNO and Berjaya are portrayed as pro-Federal Govt). Thus Pairin announced on April 9th that PBS has decided to withdraw its application to join BN.

BN countered this move by revealing that the “Peace Formula” was in actuality part Pairin’s plan and it was the PBS leader that had suggested most of the major elements including the expansion (to 14) and composition of the State Cabinet, the inclusion of both PBS and USNO into BN, the use of the BN logo in the elections and the power sharing scheme of the proposed coalition government (PBS-28 seats, USNO-16 seats and Berjaya-4 seats).

Pairin denied it all and said that Ghaffar had in fact misunderstood him. On April 15, Justice Datuk Tan delivered his judgment confirming Pairin as the rightful CM. Justice Tan also lambasted those who were involved in the Mustapha swearing-in ceremony. Mustapha’s legal counsel, Kidwell QC was so disgusted with the judgment that he left Sabah the same evening.

Nomination Day on April 19th proved to be quite a day when USNO leader Mustapha and his protégé Yahya shocked their supporters by declaring that they would not contest the elections. This was the USNO strategy to wrestle the Chinese votes from PBS as both Mustapha and Yahya were hated by the Chinese people in Sabah.

Worse still, Mustapha flatly refused to campaign for USNO (he thought that his presence would inflame the Chinese). Rumors began circulating that Mustapha was in fact acting on KL orders as part of a grand strategy to topple PBS. Mustapha soon left Sabah on trips to Sydney and London purportedly seeking medical treatments.

Hamid tried in vain to convince his father to make token appearances. In fact Hamid have to leave Sabah chasing after his father (which was rather foolish) to convince him to return that he himself was missing from Sabah. Hamid himself did not even start to campaign in his own constituency until the final few days before Election Day.

USNO was so short of funds that the candidates had to forego “ceramahs” and instead go on a house-to-house campaign to secure the votes. Political funds contributions were far and few in between.

Berjaya was on a totally different tact. Their strategy was to “steal” their coalition partners’ (USNO, PCS and PMS) votes and appending them to their own votes and hoping that the accumulation would be sufficient to tackle the PBS candidates.

They henceforth went all out to promote their own candidates only. This double-dealing soon caused problems for their group of volunteers as USNO and Berjaya’s supporters and workers refused to cooperate and work with each other. Berjaya’s elections funds were also scarce as Sabahans refused to make donations to a party that was considered a loser.

Even the Federal Government did not contribute much to the party (everybody recognizes a loser).

PBS had no such problems. One, its war chest was filled to the brim and over flowing from donations by the Sabahan business community (everybody recognizes a winner).

Two, they were extremely confident of obtaining the majority of the urban votes and
three, because they were so confident in winning the 28 Chinese and Kadazan seats, these were left to the respective PBS candidates to do as they wish (and with more than sufficient funds to do it).

The top PBS hierarchy only concentrated their efforts on the remaining 20 Malay-majority pro-USNO constituencies. Berjaya had tried before and failed miserably, how was PBS capable then?

In a long term strategy initiated by PBS after Pairin was sworn-in, the party had begun (more than a year ago) to move non-Muslim voters into these areas by giving them low cost flats built here. Business districts were also established in these areas as part of their alleged campaign to appease and enrich the Muslims but were in fact to attract the Chinese businessmen to setup shop here and hence settling here as well. New housing projects were also concentrated in these areas.

In the diehard USNO areas, PBS fielded recently recruited well-known Malay candidates and former USNO frogs. In other “cannot win” areas, PBS fielded other “independent” Malay-Muslim candidates to split the vote. Moral of story so far, if you cannot win a contest, make it doubly hard for your opponents to win
it.

Furthermore, PBS started screening (and distributing) tapes of the recent Muslim demonstrations, the clashes with the police, the illegal processions, the effects of the bombings, the fires, and scenes of crowds outside the High Court chanting anti-PBS slogans.

The results? USNO’s strategy of not fielding Mustapha and Yahya backfired. Berjaya’s strategy of going alone backfired. PBS won 34 contested seats (almost 71%), USNO won 12 seats (from 16 in 1985), Berjaya won 1 seat (from 6 in 1985) and PCBS won 1 seat.

PBS was to win the following 1990 State elections (36 seats) and the 1994 State elections (25 seats) making them the first ever 4-term Sabahan state government.

However Mahathir got the last laugh as BN managed to wrestle (cheat?) the state government from PBS in 1994 after enticing enough of PBS MPs to crossover. Pairin lasted less than two weeks as CM before he resigned his position on the 17th of March 1994.

(The Perak Fiasco was therefore NOT THE FIRST TIME a democratically elected state government had lost power after a general election due to party hopping by dishonourable Assemblymen.)

Moral of story: “Go think about it!”

Source : Malaysia Today

Detained 'Indian national' in Sabah says he's Malaysian

2009-08-29T09:13:00.000+08:00

Thursday, August 27, 2009
Detained 'Indian national' in Sabah says he's
Malaysian
According to the facts of the case according to the lawyers, Majid arrived in Sabah from India in 1983 and worked as a restaurant helper in Papar along the west coast, an hour's drive south of Kota Kinabalu.

Ten years later, in 1993, he applied for a Malaysian identity card (IC) through the district NRD office under the IC Projek Pedalaman (Interior Division IC
Project).

It was not immediately clear what personal documents he used to apply for the Malaysian IC.

Question No. 1 - How many people like him got their citizenship this way?
Question No. 2 - Based on what criteria he acquired citizenship?
Question No. 3 - Projek Pedalaman (Interior Division IC Project) is meant for true locals born here without documents i.e. the indigenous bumiputras...Not meant for foreigners!
Another Parachuted Bumiputra direct from in India.................Sabahan we are doomed.
Nobody seem to be bother by this
But for Real Sabahan......
CITIZENSHIP PENDING SINCE 1963

Written by Admin
Sunday, 30 August 2009 19:49

By: JOE FERNANDEZ

POLITICIANS across both sides of the divide in Sabah want a Special Task Force for Sabah (STF), headed by a local, "to expedite the backlog of citizenship applications lodged since Malaysia Day in 1963 and ease other similar bottlenecks as well."
A Sabahan, it is suggested, "would be in a better position to understand the situation in the state." The call for the STF follows the belated discovery that the Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) acts more as "a remote post office" and is kept completely out of the picture by Putrajaya. There is some public suspicion that the status of the Sabah NRD has in fact been further downgraded since the appointment of a local head, for the first time, recently.
The Sabah NRD's lowly status was discovered in recent days when 50 elderly applicants for citizenship queried their current status through the Sabah Peoples Progressive Party (Sapp).

Another 137 applicants approached the Sabah MCA for help with their citizenship applications, permanent residence and MyKads, according to Edward Khoo, the state liaison chief. "The NRD here (in Kota Kinabalu) doesn't even know about these pending cases. They don't have records.
At least, they should be keeping track of the applications," fumed Sapp Wanita chief Melanie Chia (Luyang). "Many of these people are already in the 80s and are still holding their red IC (permanent residence)." Chia claims that citizenship, by virtue of the Malaysia Agreement, "is automatic via the merger of territories - for those who were in Sabah before Malaysia Day."
The implication drawn is that the applications have not been approved for some reason ignorance and a mindless bureaucracy is hinted at and is unlikely to be approved, given the passage of time, despite the Malaysia Agreement.
Her views were echoed by Sapp deputy presidents Liew Teck Chan (Likas) and Eric Majimbun (MP for Sepangar) who is among those who raised the idea of the STF and also a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the NRD and the extraordinary 301 percent rise in the number of 'Malaysians' in Sabah since 1970.
Majimbun disclosed that he had in fact raised the idea of the STF is "should also look into delays encountered by Sabahans, generally those living in the rural areas, in applying for MyKads." Parents' status a stumbling block He lamented the fact that "many natives in the rural areas were in fact in the category of stateless people", being either without birth certificates, the case with the elderly, or without MyKads in the case of the young even if they had birth certificates..
The stateless status of their parents remains the stumbling block. Majimbun noted the formation, not so long ago, of a 60-strong STF at the NRD in Putrajaya to deal with the backlog of applications. However, Sabahans are generally not impressed with what it has done for the state so far. Hence, the call for a STF just for Sabah.
The Putrajaya STF (PJ-STF), according to its KPI (Key Performance Index), has "cleared" 50 percent of the 32, 900 applications for citizenship received before 2008. It is not known how many of these applications have been approved. The PJ-STF has pledged to "clear the backlog by the end of this year."
It has been estimated in the past that 30,000 Sabahans alone are not Malaysians. Besides, the NRD receives 500 applications daily for citizenship and has a backlog of 16,000 appeals alone for entry permits, the first step on the road to permanent residence.
These applications, rejected by the Immigration Department without assigning any reason whatsoever, are from foreigners who have family in Malaysia. The numbers include foreigners married to Malaysians.. "Once the applications reach Putrajaya, virtually nothing is done," disclosed former Sabah chief minister Chong Kah Kiat, citing his personal experience during his term in office. "I had to personally see (former premier Dr) Mahathir (Mohamad) to get approval for 300 applications for Permanent Residence in Sabah from foreigners."
"These applications were from people, mostly professionals like doctors, who had been in the state for up to 30 years. The state government had approved their applications but they were held up at the federal level for no rhyme or reason by ignorant civil servants. It's a mindset problem in Putrajaya."

No identity documents Moyog (Upko) state assemblyperson Donald Mojuntin likewise cited his personal experience with applicants in Kibabaig in Penampang, Beluran and Kota Marudu. Mojuntin heads Upko's citizenship and security bureau. Upko stands for United Pasok Momogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation. Pasok is the Dusun term for Natives and Momogun for non-Natives. The Kadazan are urban Dusuns.
"Among the problems is that many people have no form of identity documents including birth certificates," said Mojuntin who is also the assistant Finance Minister, a job he secured when Sapp pulled out from the BN on Sept 17 last year. "Then, there were teenagers and as well as adults – the stateless category - who only had birth certificates."
One fear among Sabahans and their political leaders alike is that the applications for citizenship dating back to 1963 may either be "missing in action" by now or "even thrown away after some time." In that case, the onus will be on the applicants to prove that they did indeed follow-up on their applications at regular intervals, according to a source in Sabah NRD.
"Even acknowledgment slips of applications received by the NRD are not good enough for them to press their case. If you merely file an application and just back and wait, you may be waiting forever. Nothing will happen in most cases." In many cases, the applicants apparently went to their graves with their citizenship applications still pending, or ironically, had them approved only after they had passed on.
It is pointed out that the officers handling the citizenship applications lodged in 1963 at the NRD would have long retired from service and perhaps even passed on. Still, "hope springs eternal in the human breast" in Sabah, judging by the spectacle of 80-year-olds approaching their legislators for assistance in securing their citizenship papers. Cynics can't help but wonder with wry humour why 80-year-olds, "with one foot already in the grave", still need their Malaysian citizenship papers "since this definitely won't be an issue where they are going."
Lawyers in the know suggest that "not clearing one's citizenship status could affect as well family members who follow since the policies keep changing arbitrarily." Children appear to take their citizenship status, according to tightened policies in recent years, from both their parents, at least in Sabah. Nevertheless, Chia like the others, remains undeterred. For them, "it's also an issue of principle", no matter how long it takes. She expressed surprise and extreme disappointment that the NRD hasn't been able to settle the pending cases, one way or other, despite the passage of nearly five decades .
Source - Sabahkini.net
But an Indian by the name of Majid, within 10 years got his MYcard

A Forgetful Nation

2009-08-28T07:45:00.000+08:00

A forgetful nation
Posted by admin
Friday, 28 August 2009 02:25

The moot point to note is that Sabah and Sarawak did not join Malaysia. They entered into an agreement with Malaya to form Malaysia on 16 September 1963. So why are we celebrating 31 August as our national day?

By BOB TEOH/MySinchew

I USED to live in Australia for six years. Each year Australia Day was something memorable to celebrate even though I was not a citizen but only a permanent resident. It doesn’t matter really whether one is fair dinkum. Even tourists join in the fun and celebration. All are welcome.

Can we say this of our national day? To begin with we are never sure of what is our national day. Is it Merdeka Day on 31 August or Malaysia Day on 16 September? Where does our Malaysian story start? When we begin to forget our collective story, we begin to forget who we are.

Let’s get our story right.

The declaration of independence of the Federation of Malaya on 31 August 1957 was preceded by Qur’anic doxology:

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Universe and may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon His Messenger.

This clearly acknowledges that Islam is the official religion of the land but the country is a not an Islamic state by any stretch of imagination.

The newly independent nation is to be known as the Persekutuan Tanah Melayu or the Federation of Malaya comprising the Malay States of Johore, Pahang, Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu and Perak and the former Settlements of Malacca and Penang, both being previously dominions of the Imperial British Empire while the others were protectorates. The Malay characteristic has never been in doubt, hence Tanah Melayu.

The new nation is founded on a constitutional monarchy based on parliamentary democracy. The supremacy of the constitution is never in doubt. No other parallel system of law is envisaged.

On this understanding and undertaking Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halimshah, as the first Prime Minister of Malaya, proclaimed independence upon the principles of liberty and justice.

Six years later three other political entities; Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo or Sabah as it is now known entered into an agreement with Malaya to form an enlarged country of Malaysia on 16 September 1963. The Sultanate of Brunei had earlier declined to join the new federation. Singapore mutually separated two years later after an acrimonious short-lived partnership.

The moot point to note is that Sabah and Sarawak did not join Malaysia. They entered into an agreement with Malaya to form Malaysia on 16 September 1963. So why are we celebrating 31 August as our national day?

The basis for putting together the Malaysia Agreement is the so-called 20 points presented by Sabah and Sarawak. For Sabah, the first of the 20 points was on religion:

While there was no objection to Islam being the national religion of Malaysia there should be no State religion in North Borneo, and the provisions relating to Islam in the present Constitution of Malaya should not apply to North Borneo.

So how far have we come 46 or 52 years?

Have we forgotten our shared vision to live in peace based on the principles of justice and liberty, of a constitutional monarchy, and a parliamentary democracy?

I am afraid we are a forgetful nation. We have forgotten that the supreme law of the land does not allow us to cane a woman for drinking beer in public even if she deserves even 80 lashes under some subordinate laws.

I am afraid we forget too many things that are important and fundamental.

I am afraid we forget too easily it was in the name of compassion and mercy that we proclaimed ourselves to be a free and independent nation.

I am afraid there’s little reason to celebrate Merdeka this year. Even the government has downscaled the celebrations apparently because of the (A) H1N1 flu, among other thing.

Let us not forget to remember why there was a 31 August and a 16 September.
Yes, I can still remember Australia Day. But I wish I can also remember Merdeka and Malaysia Day.

This is a reproduction from MySinchew 2009.08.27

Bahasa Sabah

2009-08-27T05:44:00.001+08:00

Urang bilang, kaurang gerenti urang Sabah kalau kau pandai bikin semua ini.

a) U can also overtake a car from the left hand side of the road.

b) U can also overtake a car in the round-about from the left hand side.

c) U can also stop your car anytime anywhere to talk to a friend or pickup a passenger.

d) Proton cars are the official "Kereta Sapu" and their schedule parking lots are the licensed Taxi parking lots.

e) While animals such as dogs, cats, rats, cows, buffalos etc run to cross the road or at least wait or clearence, human beings just walk slowly across the road without looking thinking that they are brave, accident proof or made of steel.

f) When U ask the distance from a kampung folk who tells U "Tidak Jauh", be prepare for at least 20 kms and more.

g) During rainy seasons, your tap is usually dry because the government has no money to pay the turnkey contractor.

h) U can see "local" foreigners with blue IC, making big money as contractors, shopowners, own lands and driving Ninja King.

i) U can see road signs stolen or modified.

j) It is ok to encroach into somebody's land, and U can demand for compensation from the legal owner if asked to evacuate.

Haro poh gia ..........................................

1) You drive at right lane of the road, with a speed of only 50 KM/H. If people horn behind you, you still don't know what's wrong.

2) You have the luxury of working from 8 AM to 5 PM (get off work punctually).

3) You don't believe that there is any "clean" politician in Sabah.

4) You feel "obligated" to reach the top of Mount Kinabalu at least once in a lifetime.

5) You prefer a big car than a big house (probably you can't drive a big house around to show off).

6) You wear slipper and short wherever you go, even in city.

7) You still think that Labuan belongs to Sabah.

8) You will not go to any FREE seminar / function that has no food or refreshment.

9) You don't care about service. You just want things cheap, cheap, cheap.

10) You know where to get your candles and torch light quickly in the total darkness (due to training by frequent blackout).

11) You know what "aramaitiee" means...

12) You shout "referee bodoh" and at the same time throw mineral water bottles on the pitch during a football match at Likas Stadium..

13) Your Timorese maid ran away with her lover, taking your money or jewellery along..

14) You doubt someone's mykad whether it is real or fake..

15) Your favourite assemblyman whom you vote and supported all this while... gambled away and lost a whopping 60 million ringgit in a London casino..

16) You go inside a karaoke at 12 pm and realise that the place is still open at 5 am...

17) You come across a supposedly local person but with a very foreign accent..

18) You cannot vote in an election because someone has voted on behalf of you...

19) You own a bakakuk tambah....

Gerenti urang Sabah, if u say and understand these words....

1) Tuuuna / saaaana - points with the lips - (there-at a distance)

2) limpas (to pass/walk by - Maaf, saya limpas dulu? Excuse me, can I passby?

3) palui (stupid, duh! )

4) tapuk (to hide )

5) bida (ugly)

6) bubut (as in proper malay- "kejar", to chase)

7) sakai (ignorant, uncivilized, "hoosier")

8) andang-andang (that's how it is)

9) sapak (kasi campur/gaul -- utk masakan-to mix as in cooking)

10) inda/indada/tia (short form of "tidak" - not, no)

11) wicin (another brand of msg as in "aji-no- moto" - a seasoning or food enhancer)

12) talampau (proper malay - "terlampau"- too much)

13) takajut (proper malay - "terkejut" - shocked, startled)

14) siaurang (proper malay -"kami"/ "saya-orang" - us, we)

15) ngam-ngam (proper malay "kebetulan" - exact, at that time)

16) mangkali (proper malay "barangkali" - maybe, perhaps)

17) kamarin (proper malay "kelmarin" - yesterday)

18) kanapa (proper malay "kenapa" - why)

19) gia (__expression - "is it?")

20) bah (__expression - "ok!")

21) ah? (question, "Apa?" What?)

22) kici/kicil (proper malay "kecil" - small)

23) basar (proper malay "besar" - big, huge)

24) siok (__expression/description, proper malay "seronok" - enjoyable,great, etc-)

25) urang ("orang" - people; sometimes used "diaurang" "kamurang" "kitaurang"- them, they)

26) karing ("kering" - dry)

27) umban ("humban, lempar" - throw)

28) kana ("kena"- got ie--"kena umban" --got thrown)

29) padih ("pedih" - as in "Mata saya padih/pedih!" - My eyes stings, painful)

30) numbur ("nombor" - number)

31) gali ("geli" as in squeemish about something, or "gali"--gali lubang - as Dig a hole.)

32) dorang ("dia orang/diurang" - them, they - Dorang pigi tamu. They went to the market.)

33) panat ("penat" - tired)

34) katawa ("ketawa" - laugh, laughing)

35) lanjang (a.k.a. "periuk /belanga " - pots/pans)

36) putung ("potong" - cut, slice)

37) Buduh ("bodoh" - stupid)

38) tongo/bongo ("stupido" - same as above )

39) kabaru-baruan ("kebaru-baruan"- new to something)

40) giuk (proper malay "ulat"- worm)

41) sisip - to squeeze

42) Sikui (Tembikai - watermelon)

43) Santut (Underwear)

44) celana/salana (Seluar) gipit (to grip...)

45) kanapatan/kadapatan (caught red handed.. or as the malays in kl say..'kantoi')

46) kebangkalan (choked while eating.. proper malay = 'tersedak')

47) ketulahan (bad karma)

48) bahai (plastic bag)

49) uinnaaa! (used to express various feelings, mostly when surprised..)

50) ging (derived from the word gang.. means kawan/member)

51) Tontolou = Mr. Willie

52) Pantat = Butt<---tp di semenanjung,lain tuh kan? eee... ya ba pula..Di sabah .. belakang .. tapi di semenanjung di Depan pulak .. silap .. LOL

53) Cula = Coke or Coca-cola...lol

54) Torrrrrbaik = The Best...lol

55) Bikin panas = feeling angry...HHAH - HOt kununlah..

56) Tembirang = Don't lie.. (eg. Jangan kau tembirang)

57) Sabak ---- means baru ko tau... in english = I TOLD U...

58) Kotoh ---- Means as same like Sabak...

59) Lakas = Lekas/Cepat (Faster)

60) Bobot = Vagina

61) Balabak = Scrotum

62) Kalatiak = Ketiak (Armpit)

63) Duiiii dogo! = My goodness!! / Oh my!!

64) Seluar Katak - underwear

65) siring siring - side / on the side

66) taapun - a phrase used when unable to get the things desired

67) Tuduh - a gesture to touch the food offered but you politely decline.

68) palis palis - touch wood

69) tachut - our version of touch wood

70) gostan - reverse

71) gohed - forward

72) ayuk - swinging movement of the arm in the marble game. can also mean to masturbate

73) taiih - shit / feaces / or just a curse word

74) kogutan - hangover

75) Sepuluh Tiga (10-3) - RM10 for three cans of beer (well in those days lah)

76) Muhau (Mulau) - crazy

77) takana - hit (BM is terkena)

78) tekuis - same like like takana

79) kapayas / tapayas - papaya

80) api api - kota kinabalu

81) (sia) bilang - said

82) skijap - soon / in a short while / later

83) tinguk - (tengok) to look

84) hari satu - monday

85) hari dua - tuesday

86) hari tiga - wednesday

87) hari ampat - thursday

88) hari lima - friday

89) hari anam - saturday

90) SOT - crazy (like me)

91) thai lingong - worse than buduh

92) karan – electricity

93) Lusir – run

94) Main roundess – a kind of baseball or cricket game

95) Bananang –Swim

96) Lampung – light bulb

97) Babal – idiot

98) Alun-alun – road

99) Sikul – school

100) Umbak - Wave

101) Aramaitee(latest additon) – direct translation – huge gathering (localized meaning – drinlking session

102) Lugai lugai (sia nampak si anu lugai lugai di balai raya sana).... aimless or directionless

103 tiru - kalu pasal main billiad, si anu bukan main lagi tiru.....very sharp

last last suba kaurang tarai... kalau ngam, gerenti lah tu ...

Sumua ni tiakana ajar di sikul .

Though I can say, with Malaysianisationm the above masam suda mau ilang suda...

Sources : Compilation From Various Sources

Video On Sabah

2009-08-13T05:52:00.000+08:00

20-point agreement (Sabah)

2009-08-09T09:59:00.000+08:00

20-point agreement (Sabah)

The 20-point agreement, or the 20-point memorandum, is an agreement made between the state of Sabah (then North Borneo) with what would be the federal government of Malaysia prior to the formation of Malaysia in September 16, 1963.[1] A similar agreement was made between the state of Sarawak and the federal government but with certain differences in their 18-point agreement.

History

The agreement was written for the main purpose of safeguarding the interests, rights, and the autonomy of the people of Sabah upon the formation of the federation of Malaysia. It was originally envisaged that Sabah be one of the four entities in the federation, the others being Malaya, Singapore, and Sarawak. However as times passed, Sabah and Sarawak has ended up being merely one of the 13 states in the federation.

The position today

There has been numerous calls for the agreement to be reviewed to take into account social, economic, and political changes over time.[2]

The agreement

Point 1: Religion

While there was no objection to Islam being the national religion of Malaysia there should be no State religion in North Borneo, and the provisions relating to Islam in the present Constitution of Malaya should not apply to North Borneo

Point 2: Language

• a. Malay should be the national language of the Federation
• b. English should continue to be used for a period of 10 years after Malaysia Day
• c. English should be an official language of North Borneo for all purposes, State or Federal, without limitation of time.

Point 3: Constitution

Whilst accepting that the present Constitution of the Federation of Malaya should form the basis of the Constitution of Malaysia, the Constitution of Malaysia should be a completely new document drafted and agreed in the light of a free association of states and should not be a series of amendments to a Constitution drafted and agreed by different states in totally different circumstances. A new Constitution for North Borneo (Sabah) was of course essential.

Point 4: Head of Federation

The Head of State in North Borneo should not be eligible for election as Head of the Federation

Point 5: Name of Federation

“Malaysia” but not “Melayu Raya”

Point 6: Immigration

Control over immigration into any part of Malaysia from outside should rest with the Central Government but entry into North Borneo should also require the approval of the State Government. The Federal Government should not be able to veto the entry of persons into North Borneo for State Government purposes except on strictly security grounds. North Borneo should have unfettered control over the movements of persons other than those in Federal Government employ from other parts of Malaysia into North Borneo.

Point 7: Right of Secession

There should be no right to secede from the Federation

Point 8: Borneanisation

Borneanisation of the public service should proceed as quickly as possible.
Point 9: British Officers
Every effort should be made to encourage British Officers to remain in the public service until their places can be taken by suitably qualified people from North Borneo

Point 10: Citizenship

The recommendation in paragraph 148(k) of the Report of the Cobbold Commission should govern the citizenship rights in the Federation of North Borneo subject to the following amendments:
• a) sub-paragraph (i) should not contain the proviso as to five years residence
• b) in order to tie up with our law, sub-paragraph (ii)(a) should read “7 out of 10 years” instead of “8 out of 10 years”
• c) sub-paragraph (iii) should not contain any restriction tied to the citizenship of parents – a person born in North Borneo after Malaysia must be federal citizen.

Point 11: Tariffs and Finance

North Borneo should retain control of its own finance, development and tariff, and should have the right to work up its own taxation and to raise loans on its own cr.

Point 12: Special position of indigenous races

In principle, the indigenous races of North Borneo should enjoy special rights analogous to those enjoyed by Malays in Malaya, but the present Malays’ formula in this regard is not necessarily applicable in North Borneo

Point 13: State Government

• a) the Prime Minister should be elected by unofficial members of Legislative Council
• b) There should be a proper Ministerial system in North Borneo

Point 14: Transitional period

This should be seven years and during such period legislative power must be left with the State of North Borneo by the Constitution and not be merely delegated to the State Government by the Federal Government

Point 15: Education

The existing educational system of North Borneo should be maintained and for this reason it should be under state control

Point 16: Constitutional safeguards

No amendment modification or withdrawal of any special safeguard granted to North Borneo should be made by the Central Government without the positive concurrence of the Government of the State of North Borneo
The power of amending the Constitution of the State of North Borneo should belong exclusively to the people in the state. (Note: The United Party, The Democratic Party and the Pasok Momogun Party considered that a three-fourth majority would be required in order to effect any amendment to the Federal and State Constitutions whereas the UNKO and USNO considered a two-thirds majority would be sufficient)

Point 17: Representation in Federal Parliament

This should take account not only of the population of North Borneo but also of its seize and potentialities and in any case should not be less than that of Singapore

Point 18: Name of Head of State

Yang di-Pertua Negara

Point 19: Name of State

Sabah

Point 20: Land, Forests, Local Government, etc.

The provisions in the Constitution of the Federation in respect of the powers of the National Land Council should not apply in North Borneo. Likewise, the National Council for Local Government should not apply in North Borneo.

Source from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Talkak - 1991 Sabah political arrests

2009-08-09T09:47:00.000+08:00

Political arrests was carried out between 1990 and 1991 to crack down on opposition leaders in Sabah, Malaysia, and their alleged plans to secede the state from Malaysia, allegedly known as Operation Talkak. Seven men were detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA). All seven men were leaders or prominent members the Kadazan Cultural Association (KCA), Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Sabah Foundation, and opposition party Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), and were placed under two-year detention orders.
Events leading up to Operation Talkak

February 1990

Jeffrey Kitingan, 42, director of IDS, younger brother of Chief Minister of Sabah Pairin Kitingan, is charged in a high court with seven counts of corruption. The corruption charges are in regards to the export of timber. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad denies that the Kitingan case is politically motivated.

July 1990

PBS calls for a 50-50 redistribution of revenue from Sabah's resources, particularly from crude oil. At the time, the distribution is 95-5, with 95% going to the federal government and 5% to Sabah. Sabah produces a fifth of Malaysia's total crude oil output.

October 1990

Four days before the general elections, PBS withdraws from Barisan Nasional (BN), and joins opposition party Semangat 46. According to Bernard Dompok, the relationship between PBS and BN had always been an uneasy one, since PBS came to power during the Sabah state elections in 1985.

Chronology of Events

May 1990

Damit Undikai, 54, PBS member and former Special Branch officer, is arrested by Special Branch police forces on May 18, for allegedly heading plans to secede Sabah from the Malaysian federation.

Albinus Yudah, 41, chief of security at Borneo Rest House, member of PBS and KCA, and former police constable, is arrested on May 25.

Benedict Topin, 37, PBS member, Executive Secretary of KCA, is arrested on May 25. The Malaysian police claims to have been monitoring him since 1987.

July 1990

Abdul Rahman Ahmad, 51, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Sabah, is arrested on July 7.

January 1991

Maximus Ongkili, senior researcher and deputy chief director of IDS, nephew of Jeffrey Kitingan and Chief Minister of Sabah Pairin Kitingan, electoral press consultant to Pairin Kitingan during the 1990 Sabah state and national elections, is arrested on January 3.

Vincent Chung, manager of administration and personnel, Sabah Foundation, is arrested on January 19.

Pairin Kitingan, Chief Minister of Sabah, Huguan Siou (Supreme Chief) of the KCA, president of PBS, is pressed with corruption charges. Almost a year earlier, his brother Jeffrey Kitingan was pressed with similar charges.

March 1991

Maximus Ongkili is released unconditionally on March 2.

May 1991

Jeffrey Kitingan is arrested on May 13.

Source : Wikipedia

SIRITA PASAL HIDUP SIA

2009-08-07T19:19:00.000+08:00

Sia kana baranak di Hospital Queen kurang labi 47 taun dulu. Mamak sia adala dusun babak sia pula cina tapi ada anak nigiri.

Sia kana kasi basar oli Mama sia saja. Dalam kami punya kaluarga ada 3 urang adi-baradi. Abang tua sama adi purumpuan.

Mama sia karja jadi Amah sama Tukang Masak urang putih. Biar inddad sikul, kalu dia masak itu liong tau fu, sia punya cousin dari barbatu batu pun dapat tasium itu bau. Sabulum dia pecen, dia karja sama satu KM.

Kadang kandang nenek perempuan turun dari kampung kaki ayam, hairan sia dia buli tahan. bila sia suru dia pakai silipar, masam mabuk sia inda buli jalan lurus.

Sia punya nenek bobohizan, ada satu malam dia sambanyang turus kana rasuk inda la tau spirit siapa turus pandai sepeking......Dusun sia nenek sia tau. Tapi sayang indada kana kasi turun dia punya kepandaian

Sia pogi sikul sana St Agnes dan La Salle habis sikul 1979. Turus masuk ITM.

Tau la dulu dulu mana computer masam sikarang, kami budak budak main di atas bukit main timbak timbak.

Kalu di sikul main ini games la

- tapak-mau campion dapan balakang melakat sama punya tapak
- guli - kalu guli tiru butulbah sia ni
- Police & Thief
- Bubut
- Tapuk
- Rounders - masam itu cricket, tapi pakai bula tennis
- lawan biji gatah, mau kasi kuat sumbat lilin dalam

Kada kadang pegi siring laut cari lukan....sikarang macam indada suda. Kalu pegi KK naik basikal.

Pegi sikul sia naik itu bas Luen Thung tunggu sana dapan libary kk and pulang naik itu TUT (Tuaran United Transport-Kalu inda sala la). Kalu di kawasan likas, kana pakai itu Tuaran Road sia pegi KK. Indada coastal road time saya.

Kalu pasal tingu wayang, Cathay sama Captol lah, yang slau laku macam wayang Bruce Lee....selalu tingu kalas Kambing - 0.70cts sia dulu. Kalu inda duit sisip la itu banyak urang pigang tangan lau satu urang tua....

Kalu duduk kadai kupi munim cula, woi macam urang kaya.

Mama sia pula kalu inga kasian juga, jadi Amah dapat anak yang nakal nakal sama karas kapala.

Dia hidup sampai umur 65 taun, mati karana aneyrsuem. Tapi sukur juga dapat tingu anak sikit sikit bajaya.

Ini sirita sia kasi dedicate sama sumua Urang Urang Sabah.....Time is changing, Sabahan seem to be losing their identity.....we need to take stock otherwise not only the Young Generation will lose their identity, there will also lose the ability to speak their mother tongue and off course Bahasa Sabah.

Police and your basic rights

2009-07-30T07:27:00.000+08:00

Police and your basic rights

1. POLICE STOP YOU

1.1 Not in uniform, ask for identification

Say: “Please, show me your Police authority card”.

1.2 Police authority card

Red colour: Suspended Police Officer. He has no authority to do anything to you. Walk away.

Other colours:

• Blue colour: Rank of inspector and above

• Yellow colour: Below the rank of inspector

• White colour: Police reserve

Note his name and ID number

1.3 In uniform

Note his name and ID number on his uniform

1.4 Police vehicle

Note the number plate of the patrol car or motorcycle.

2. POLICE QUESTION YOU WHEN STOPPED

2.1 Your identification

Only give your name, ID card number and address.

2.2 The Police ask other questions

Politely ask “Am I under arrest?”

2.3 When are you under arrest

You are arrested if the Police: tell you “yes”;

• do not allow you to leave/want to take you to the Police station; or

• handcuff you.

If you are not under arrest, you may walk away/refuse to follow him back to the Police station or anywhere else, if asked.

2.4 When you cannot be arrested

The Police cannot arrest you just because you are a potential witness and want to take a statement from you

(112/Witness Statement).

3. QUESTIONING BY POLICE WITHOUT ARREST

3.1 112/Witness Statement

When the Police are investigating a case and think you have information/knowledge about the case, the Police may examine

you and take down your answers (112/Witness Statement).

3.2 Informal/ Formal Request

Most 4times, the Police make an informal request that you give a 112/Witness Statement. If the place and time is convenient to you, cooperate. If not, tell the Police you will do so at a convenient place and time.

If you completely refuse to cooperate, the Police can issue a formal order in writing signed by an investigating officer (Police Order) to ask you to cooperate.

If you disobey a Police Order, you cannot be arrested. However, it is an offence and the Police may request the Magistrate to issue a warrant against you to compel you to cooperate.

3.3 Giving a 112/ Witness Statement

You have the right to ask a lawyer to accompany you. This is advisable. In giving a 112/ Witness Statement, you may refuse to answer any question / remain silent if the answer is likely to expose you to a criminal offence.

• Bring along a notebook or writing paper with you (Personal Notes).

• Write down every question asked in your Personal Notes.

• Make sure you understand every question asked.

• Take your time and think carefully before writing answers in your Personal Notes.

• Read your answers to the Police Officer questioning you.

• Keep your Personal Notes for future reference.

3.4 Signing your 112/Witness Statement

Before signing your statement, read the questions and your answers written by the Police Officer carefully.

• Compare the statement you are asked to sign with your Personal Notes.

• You have the right to make any corrections/changes to the statement before signing.

• Sign your signature immediately below the last sentence of your statement.

4 POLICE ARREST YOU

4.1 Ask: “Why am I under arrest?”

An arrest is unlawful if you are not informed of the reason.

4.2 Do not resist an arrest

The Police have the right to use reasonable force to arrest you if you resist.

4.3 Ask: “Which Police station are you taking me to?”

The arresting Police Officer must immediately take you to the nearest Police station and no other place.

4.4 What to do when arrested

You have the right to make a telephone call.

Call your family or friend or lawyer or the Legal Aid Centre (LAC).

Inform:

• you have been arrested;

• the time, place and reason of the arrest;

• the identity of the Police Officer; and

• the Police station you will be taken to.

4.5 What happens after arrest

You may be detained up to 24 hours:

• at the Police station, or

• in a lock-up to “assist” Police investigation.

5 YOUR RIGHTS AFTER ARREST & DURING DETENTION

5.1 Right to contact lawyer

You have the right and should insist to contact/see your lawyer.

5.2 Clothing

You are allowed to have one set of clothing on you in the lock-up.

5.3 Personal belongings

The Police must record and put all your personal belongings in safe custody.

Your personal belongings must be returned to you upon your release.

5.4 Welfare

You are allowed to take bath two times a day.

If you are sick, you have the right to receive immediate medical attention.

You are to be given proper and adequate food and water during detention.

5.5 How long can the Police detain you

The Police can only detain you up to 24 hours for investigation.

The duty of the Police is to complete investigation within 24 hours and to release you as soon as possible.

If the Police cannot complete investigation within 24 hours, the Police must bring you before a

Magistrate for a remand order to extend your detention beyond 24 hours (“Remand Order”).

6 REMAND ORDER BY MAGISTRATE AFTER ARREST

6.1 Who is a Magistrate

A Magistrate is a judicial officer. He/She has power to make a Remand Order to detain you for more than 24 hours.

6.2 Purpose of a Remand Order

It is to give more time to the Police to complete their investigation and decide whether there is evidence to charge you for an offence.

The Police cannot ask for a Remand Order only for the purpose of taking a statement from you.

6.3 How long is a Remand Order

When the Police bring you before a Magistrate for a Remand Order, the Police must give reasons to the Magistrate why it is necessary to detain you beyond 24 hours. The Magistrate’s duty is to consider carefully the reasons given by the Police.

The Police will usually ask for a further detention of 14 days or less.

The Magistrate, after careful consideration of the reasons given by the Police, has discretion:

• not to make a Remand Order; or

• make a Remand Order for a period shorter than that asked by the Police.

The Police can make more than one application for a Remand Order. Altogether, you cannot be detained longer than 15 days.

6.4 What to say when you are brought before a Magistrate for remand

Tell the Magistrate:

• you want legal representation and to contact the LAC and your family;

• you want medical treatment because you are sick or have been beaten;

• if the Police had threatened or beaten you during your detention;

• if you had been denied proper food/water/clothing, toilet or necessary medical attention during your detention;

• whether the Police had carried out any investigation during your detention.

6.5 Ask for a shorter Remand Order from the Magistrate

Before the Magistrate makes the Remand Order, ask for a shorter remand period asked by the Police. Give reasons (Example: “I will co-operate with the Police in their investigation”, “I will be available” etc).

7 BODY SEARCH WITHOUT ARREST

7.1 When can this be done

If you are at a place (example: karaoke/clubs/entertainment outlets) where the Police are conducting a raid or looking for something (example: drugs), the Police may search your body/bags without arresting you.

This must be done in the presence of a Police Officer who is an inspector or of a higher rank.

7.2 What to do

• Do not allow the Police Officer to put his hands into your pockets or bags.

• Volunteer to empty your pockets/bags in his presence so you can see all your belongings.

• Take out your belongings one by one. Each time, say “Purse”, “keys”, “ID card”, etc.

• When your pockets/bags are empty, turn your pockets/bags inside out.

7.3 Your rights

• A female can only be body searched by a female Police Officer.

• All body searches must be carried out with decency (Example: cannot touch your private parts).

• There is no law requiring you to strip naked.

8 BODY SEARCH UPON ARREST

8.1 When Police can do so

• The Police have power to search your body for any object relating to the suspected offence.

• The body search must be conducted in a confined place. It is your right to be bodily searched in private.

8.2 Strip search

Even when arrested, there is no law allowing the Police to force you to strip naked.

If you are forced to strip naked/ threatened if you do not strip naked:

• Protest.

• Remember the Police Officer’s name.

• Lodge a report after the incident.

9 QUESTIONING BY POLICE AFTER ARREST

9.1 Identity of the Police Officer questioning you

Note the name/rank of the Police Officer questioning you.

9.2 Right to remain silent

The Police Officer will first make friendly conversation/talk (example: ask you about your family and friends etc). Be polite. Do not be afraid to remain silent. This is your right.

9.3 Police want a written statement (113 Statement) from you

The Police Officer will ask you questions and then write down your answers. You are only obliged to give your full name, age, address and occupation (Personal Particulars).

Other than giving your Personal Particulars, you have the right to remain silent.

If you choose the right to remain silent, say: “I will answer in Court”.

9.4 Police cannot force you to make a 113 Statement

After giving your Personal Particulars, and the Police Officer wants you to say more things by threatening or forcing you into making a written statement:

• stay calm and remain silent;

• the Police Officer has no right to threaten, beat or force you into making a written statement.

If you have been threatened, beaten or forced, lodge a police report against the Police Officer at first opportunity. This is your right.

9.5 If you wish to give a 113 Statement

Follow the steps in paragraphs 3.3 and 3.4 above.

If you do not have a notebook/writing paper, request from the Police Officer.

Your 113 Statement can/will be used as evidence against you in Court to prove:

• you have admitted / confessed to the criminal offence as charged; or

• you have admitted / confessed certain facts that tend to show you are guilty of the offence as charged.

Source : http://hornbillunleashed.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/2940/

WORLD MOST EXPENSIVE GRAVEL HIGHWAY

2009-03-29T08:45:00.000+08:00

RM563mil spent on 'gravel road' in Sabah
Abdul Aziz Bari | Mar 9, 09 10:55am
Those in Sabah’s construction circles have reacted with surprise to Works Minister Mohd Zin Mohamed’s statement that a RM536 million 'highway' to Tawau had all along been envisaged as a gravel road.

However, his pledge at the same time that the highway will now be sealed has provided some relief to long-suffering road users and struck a hopeful chord among construction companies in the state.

Their constant refrain that the big jobs go to peninsula-based companies with the right political connections have so far fallen on deaf ears.

The 145km Jalan Sapulut-Kalabakan was completed on May 15 last year by Gamuda Bhd as a sub-contractor. The Perak sultan’s daughter has a stake in the company.

The project then became the subject of two reports lodged last year with the Anti-Corruption Agency, since replaced by the Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission.

Mohd Zin said in a statement yesterday that heavy logging activities had been going on along the entire length of the highway, “hence the decision to settle for a gravel road (at the time)”.

“It was a joint decision by the Ministry of Works, the Economic Planning Unit and the Sabah Public Works Department,” he said.

“If the asphaltic coating work on the road had continued (under the original contract), the heavy logging activities would have definitely damaged the new road and increased the reconstruction and repair works by another RM100 million.”

‘Expensive gravel road’

He also said the highway would “definitely be sealed” in the near future once the EPU in the Prime Minister’s Department gives the go-ahead.

“If approved, this work will go through the process of open tender as a new contract and not be treated as additional work or variation order under the previous contract. The work needed careful estimates by the EPU before any decision is made.”

The minister did not give any figures. Neither did he say whether the original contractor and its sub-contractor, a sister company, would be allowed to tender for the sealing contract. Both are based in the peninsular.

It is learnt from local companies eyeing the contract that it would take at least RM150 million to apply asphaltic coating/black top road surface to the highway, which is part of the Pan-Borneo Highway that is due to be completed under the 9th Malaysia Plan (2006-2010).

Kota Kinabalu MP Dr Hiew King Cheu, who had previously raised the issue in Parliament, said RM563 million is “just too much money to build a gravel road”.

“It works out to RM3.88 million per kilometre. With that kind of money, it should be able to sustain heavy traffic load including logging trucks, provided not overloaded, unless the job was not done according to specification,” he added.

Source : Sapp Blog

Tingkayu, Kunak Land Grab

2009-02-21T10:13:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Tan Sri Bernand Dompok has instructed the Public Complaints Bureau to conduct an immediate probe on allegations of power abuse by senior police officers in a land-grab issue at Kampung Tingkayu in Kunak, Sabah.

Dompok said the affected smallholder who had worked on the land for the past 23 years met him in Parliament on Tuesday and briefed him on the issue.

"This is a very serious matter as it involves senior police officers. I've instructed the bureau's director-general Dr Chua Hong Teck to look into the complaint. We guarantee a fair probe. The bureau will treat the complainant fairly as promised in the bureau's clients' charter," he said today.

Dompok said the bureau would convene a special meeting this week to discuss the matter.

"If it is proven that the said police officers misused their power, stern action would be taken against them, as nobody is above the law. The bureau will be cooperating with other relevant agencies once the investigation started and all should give their fullest cooperation," he said, adding that "we don't want to see public trust towards the authorities fade."

In April, Bernama reported that a top-ranking senior law enforcement officer, who is a "datuk", and police officers in Kunak are being investigated by the Sabah Anti-Corruption Agency for allegedly offering "protection services" to a real estate company which allegedly seized 787 hectares (about 4,000 acres) of oil palm land belonging to smallholders.

In exchange for their "services", the company, which is also involved in money lending, had reportedly given the officers kickbacks and other benefits, including its company shares.

Bernama also reported that the company concerned had employed more than 100 illegal immigrants who doubled as thugs to seize the land worth about RM40 million and more then 40 police reports were lodged between January and March this year at the Kunak police station, but there had been no follow-up action.

It is learnt that the state government would also be briefed on the issue as the smallholders have alleged that a few officers of the land and survey department might be involved in the scandal.

Meanwhile, one smallholder who wished to be known as Anthony, 50, said that an official complaint letter was handed to the Home Ministry on Thursday.

"In the letter we have asked the minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar to take appropriate action against the police officers who failed to discharge their duty and abused their power.

"We have all the evidence to prove that the complaints made were true and we hope our nightmare will end soon," he added. — Bernama

Source Malaysian Insider

That June 2008

Back to the future

Two hacked to death

Published on: Saturday, February 14, 2009 Email to a friend Printer Friendly

Kunak: Two smallholders who went to harvest oil palm in their plantation in Kampung Tingkayu, Kunak, Sabah, were hacked to death by a group of illegal immigrants on Thursday.

It is believed that at least five other smallholders were seriously injured in the incident that happened at about 2pm.

The bodies of the two dead men were found by police at about 1pm, Friday, in a shocking state with some body parts detached.

Kunak police district acting chief, ASP Tan Hiap Wah, when contacted, confirmed the incident but declined to elaborate.

Bernama understands that the two victims were attacked and their bodies hidden under a heap of dried palm fronds. Their bodies were sent to the Kunak Hospital for post-mortem and no arrests have been made.

Last year in April, Bernama had reported that the Sabah Anti-Corruption Agency had investigated a high ranking enforcement officer said to be a "Datuk" and several police personnel in Kunak for allegedly offering their "protection services" to a realty company that allegedly grabbed 787ha of oil palm plantation belonging to local smallholders of Kampung Tingkayu.

The company was also reported to have used the services of more than 100 thugs comprising illegal immigrants to grab the land valued at about RM40 million. - Bernama

A repro from Daily Express

The Koperasi response

A repro from Daily Express

Co-op regrets incident, denies link

Published on: Monday, February 16, 2009

Kunak: The Tingkayu Cooperative Land Development Society Limited (TCLDSL) hoped police would investigate the actual identities of the persons who were hacked to death on the property of the cooperative.

Cooperative chairperson Hajjah Alina Usman said the investigation should be carried out without fear or favour as TCLDSL had never employed anyone, let alone illegals, to look after or enter its property.

Alina also wants the police to investigate into the group of people claiming to be smallholders "having the right" to harvest the oil palm fruits in the area.
She was commenting on the incident in which two smallholders were hacked to death purportedly by a group of illegals, while going into Kampung Tingkayu here, to harvest oil palm fruits "in their plantations".

She regretted that the incident happened on cooperative land and that the cooperative's name was dragged into the fray. Alina said it was puzzling how a man claiming to be a lawyer had attempted to enter into the cooperative land, considering that the so-called smallholders were "in fact trespassers".

She pointed out that High Court Judge Datuk Clement Skinner in his ruling on March 18, last year, had declared that the "smallholders" claiming to have the right to enter the cooperative land were, in fact, trespassers.

"Maybe the lawyer is trying to enforce the injunction granted earlier by the same court, on Feb 1, last year, allowing them to enter the cooperative land to harvest the oil palm fruits, when in fact the March 18 ruling declared them as trespassers", Alina said.

She urged Bernama to check their facts making such reports that could tarnish the name and image of the cooperative

A repro from Daily Exprsee

But the question those who were kill are Trespasser, which law allow for the hacking to pieces tresspassers and who were the murderers?

The Police response

Police have arrested six people and identified 16 more suspects in connection with the attack on a group of smallholders that led to one man being hacked to death in Tingkayu, Kunak, last week.

Sabah Commissioner of Police, Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim, said only one smallholder, identified as 46-year-old Seipon Kayabo, was killed in the incident while two others were seriously injured, one slashed in the forehead and the other shot in the thigh.

The five locals and an Indonesian passport holder were arrested within 72 hours after the incident took place on Thursday, he said. Police believe the remaining suspects were locals.

One of the detainees, aged 41, is believed to be the main suspect. "We have identified all the suspects and will be making arrests soon," he said after witnessing ACP Abd Radzak Abd Ghani taking over as the Sabah Police Logistics chief from DSP Sulaiman Abd Rahman at the Sabah police contingent headquarters in Kepayan, Monday.

He said the smallholders were attacked with machetes (parangs), chainsaws and homemade firearms, adding police have yet to recover the weapons, believed hidden, following the attack.

Noor Rashid pointed out the clash took place after about 40 smallholders insisted on entering the Tingkayu oil palm plantation land and subsequently angered the 20 plantation workers

A repro from Daily Express

CP dares Ansari to sue
Published on: Friday, February 20, 2009

Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Commissioner of Police Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim Thursday challenged lawyer Ansari Abdullah to sue him over the Tingkayu incident last week in which a local was slashed to death by a mob.
"Sue me É(so) I can appear in court and talk É I have all the records," he said, in response to remarks by Ansari, who is representing family members of deceased Seipun Kayabo.

Ansari had said he was instructed by Seipun's family members to take legal action against all involved, including police, for the murder.

Noor Rashid also threw the book at Ansari for accusing the police of allegedly failing in their duties over the incident and denied that police were picking sides in the oil palm land dispute. He stressed that police had always remained neutral and that the decision not to serve the court injunction granted to the smallholders was justified, as they (police) were not ordered to do so by any judicial body.

"We did not enforce the injunction because it was not attached to us.

Secondly, there are other people who are entrusted to serve the injunction in the case of a civil dispute. I cannot say 'hey, open your land for this people!' É who am I? Only the proper authority can do that and not the police.

"This (serving court related orders) is a very simple task É why do we want to reject this duty? If the court directs us (to serve it), in one minute I can get my officer to go.

"But when we take sides in civil disputes, we are seen to be siding another party, which we try to avoid. We must be seen to be fair because our objective is to uphold justice to everybody irrelevant of their status in society," Noor Rashid pointed out.

Ansari had earlier said that police's contention of not wanting to get involved in the matter was equal to the police not doing their job.

In a media conference at the Kepayan police headquarters here, Thursday, Noor Rashid said the incident could have been avoided if all sides in the dispute had not jumped the gun and chose to observe the court's decision.

"If you follow the rule of law, all these wouldn't have happened É in any case the rule of law must prevail.

"(For instance) if an injunction is served and violated, it can be reported back to the court for contempt and let the court decide. The police is not an arbitrary body É we are law enforcers.

"The due process as stated in the law must prevail (and) acknowledged by both parties." However, Noor Rashid pointed out that even though police had not picked sides, they showed their presence in the estate in order to maintain peace and security.

"I regret that the incident happened É we have spent thousands of hours to instill and maintain peace and security in the area. It is very sad that people got injured and killed."

On a claim that police failed to respond despite being contacted three hours prior to the incident by a lawyer representing the smallholders, he said the officer concerned was at a meeting.

"My officer was in the meeting and his phone was on silent mode. He did not realise the phone calls and did not recognise the numbers ... then he received a SMS saying the group of smallholders was going in and immediately deployed his men to Tingkayu. Unfortunately, it already happened when they arrived," Noor Rashid said.

"Whatever men we have we deploy to the ground for the purpose of maintaining the law, crime prevention and they are scattered around," he said, adding police would swing into action if they have information on groups of people going to commit a crime, citing a case in Lantangan, Kinabatangan.

"We received information that a group was assembling and armed, ready to take over a piece of land from somebody else.

"Our role is not to prevent them from taking the land but to be there to maintain peace and security. We managed to disperse the group and in fact, created a buffer zone for them."

A repro from Daily Express

The Police reason for not being able to stop the hacking of the 2 men......I wonder this case has been going on for so long, and police do not know? Question - How many more killing is needed before the police act.

To me a layperson, the employer is also an acomoplice to the employee who commits any crime in the name of the employer.

WIND OF CHANGE -SCORPIONS

2009-02-07T10:15:00.001+08:00

WIND OF CHANGE -SCORPIONS
Video sent by manon42

video clip

Nabawan (4,500 patients monthly) has no hospital

2009-02-07T07:59:00.000+08:00

Nabawan (4,500 patients monthly) has no hospital
Published on: Wednesday, February 04, 2009

NABAWAN: The Federal Government has been urged to speed up the construction
of a hospital in the district that was promised to the people but never
materialised since 1994.

The existing health clinic built in 1973 is unable to cater to the demand of
the growing population, Deputy Minister of Rural Development, Tan Sri Joseph
Kurup, said after visiting the clinic with Keningau Health Officer Dr Khebir
Verasahib and medical officer Dr Nasir Khan Durani.

Kurup said the clinic attended to an average of 4,500 patients a month and
had a staff of 69 personnel and two medical officers. The Nabawan district
has five health centres in Salong, Sepulut, Pegalungan, Pensiangan and
Tibow.

Kurup said he would bring up the matter up with the Health Minister soon.
"The hospital must be built as soon as possible considering the population
and the health care needs in the district." Dr Khebir said the tender to
build the hospital had been offered before and would be "re-tendered" again.

The billboard on the construction of the hospital is still visible after it
was erected in 1994, the year that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib
Tun Raza visited Nabawan and announced its construction. The opposition had
been exploiting this issue to stir up the people's sentiments.

With the hospital in place, Kurup said, it would assist in the Government's
quest to eradicate poverty in rural areas.

According to him, health remains a serious matter among people in the rural
areas since most of them are poor and cannot afford treatment cost.

He said his PBRS office receives many requests for assistance from the
people for health treatment.

On other developments, Kurup suggested that the Government consider
subsidising the registration fee for patients from rural areas.

He said the low turnout of patients at the Nabawan Health Clinic could be
due to the patients being unable to come up with the RM1 registration fee
and the transportation cost that has substantially increased between 2007
and last year. According to Kurup, the Health Minister would visit the
district soon.

Source : Daily Express

Thursday February 5, 2009
Kurup: Start work on much-needed Nabawan hospital

KOTA KINABALU: State Deputy Rural Development Minister Tan Sri Joseph Kurup
wants the hospital project in remote Nabawan, promised by the Federal
Government in 1994, to start immediately.

He said the only medical facility in Nabawan, some 250km from here, was a
rural health clinic built in 1973. The clinic sees 4,500 patients every
month and is unable to cope with the growing population.

"We need a hospital in Nabawan as soon as possible. I will raise this matter
with the Health Minister soon," he said after visiting the clinic yesterday.

Kurup, the Pensiangan MP and Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) president,
said providing sufficient medical facilities in remote areas was crucial as
many rural folk could not afford to seek treatment at hospitals in town
areas.

All that remains of the pledge of a hospital in Nabawan is a billboard and
the opposition has been harping on the matter.

The Nabawan and Sook state constituencies make up the Pensiangan
parliamentary seat which could see a by-election following the Court of
Appeal hearing scheduled for Feb 12 and 13.

Kurup won the Pensiangan seat unopposed in the March 2008 general election
but an Election Court on Sept 8 declared the result null and void.

The case is now in the Federal Court.

Source : The Star

Na ini lah apa urang bilang leader whose feet is not on the ground......Kurub oh Kurub........Sia ingat kau ADUN sama MP dari time PB smapai kau jadi katak....

Ini erection talk sia ka Kurub.....

Reef fish ‘being eaten to extinction’

2009-01-21T10:50:00.000+08:00

Reef fish ‘being eaten to extinction’
KOTA KINABALU, Jan 21 – It is a slow night at the Port View Restaurant here, and still the place seems packed. Several banquet tables are crowded with a dozen people apiece. Each table seems as if it could collapse from the weight of plates.

Falling to the forks are steaming spring prawns, spotted lobster, coral trout and especially giant grouper, which minutes before had been listlessly swimming in one of the many murky tanks at the Port View, one of the most popular restaurants in this tourist town and capital of Sabah.

This fierce appetite for live reef fish across Southeast Asia – and increasingly in mainland China – is devastating populations in the Coral Triangle, a protected marine region home to the world’s richest ocean diversity, according to a recent report in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.

Spawning of reef fish in this area, which supports 75 per cent of all known coral species in the world, has declined 79 per cent over the past five to 20 years, depending on location, according to the report.

Overfishing in general, and particularly of spawning aggregations that occur when certain species of reef fish gather in one place in great numbers to reproduce, may be the culprit, says Yvonne Sadovy, a biologist at the University of Hong Kong who wrote the report along with scientists from Australia, Hong Kong, Palau and the United States.

She said the report’s conclusions were based on the first global database on the occurrence, history and management of spawning aggregations. It includes data from 29 countries or territories.

Some of the information is based on interviews with more than 300 commercial and subsistence fishers in Asia and the western Pacific between 2002 and 2006.

“The Coral Triangle has relatively few spawning aggregations reported in the communities we went to,” Sadovy said in an e-mail message. “We think that this might be due to the more heavily fished (overall) condition of reef fisheries in many parts of the Coral Triangle, where there is uncontrolled fishing and high demand for live groupers for the international live fish trade.”

About one-third of the species mentioned in the report are sold in Asian markets.

Since the 1980s, Hong Kong has been the centre of the live fish trade. That trade has greatly expanded in the last decade to an $810 million business, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which monitors the market.

Rising wealth in mainland China may be a contributing factor to the increase in the trade. The report notes that the demand for exotic fish is high in Shanghai and Beijing. Destinations popular with Chinese tourists are seeing the demand, too.

While Kota Kinabalu – known here simply as KK – has long been a draw for Chinese vacationers, “eating tourism” is booming lately.

That is because live reef fish cost 60 per cent less here than in Hong Kong, said Angela Lim, the fund’s communications director here for the Live Reef Trade Initiative.

Even locals unaffiliated with the tourist trade are aware of the surge.

Across the street from the Port View, Malays at the famous Night Market speak with awe about the Chinese tourists who spend “a thousand ringgit a week just eating fish.”

Grouper is by far the most popular – and therefore endangered – of the reef fish, with 26 per cent of the world’s 161 species threatened or near threatened, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature 2008 Red List, an annual tally of endangered species around the globe.

With life spans of up to 40 years, groupers can grow to 2m in the wild. After sexual maturity, female groupers can change into males to compensate for population imbalances, becoming ‘‘secondary males’’ in a process called protogyny.

But groupers take five years to mature, and most are taken out of the water long before. They are grown to market size in seaside tanks and then wind up on dinner plates before they can reproduce.

Geoffrey Muldoon, director of the fund’s live fish trade initiative, said the live trade contributed to ‘‘the removal of juvenile or undersize and sexually immature fish.’’

The fund works to manage the Coral Triangle with the six countries that share its seas – Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and East Timor.

It is no easy task in a region where “fish bombing” with dynamite or cyanide is routine, and where the enforcement of existing protected zones is often anaemic.

The organisation is aiding the creation of the region’s first commercial fishing trade organization to establish standards for sustainable practices. Initial talks between government and industry representatives are being planned.

Sadovy suggested that spawning aggregations be considered protected events rather than simply times when fish are easy to catch, as has been done with salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Other species have similar protections.

“Colonies of seabirds were once exploited heavily and are now protected,” said Sadovy, who is also director of the Society for the Conservation of Reef Fish Aggregations, an international group.

“Special feeding or breeding places are now routinely protected on land for many species, because of the recognition that animals are vulnerable at this time or that their aggregated state is very important for their biology.”

She added, “From a very practical perspective, loss of the aggregations ultimately means loss of the associated fishery, so it makes good practical sense to change our attitude.” – IHT

Source : Malaysia Insider

2009-01-18T22:19:00.000+08:00

Source : 風水軒 Geomancy Hut

ZODIAC 2009

鼠 Rat Born in: 1924 1936 1948 1960 1972 1984 1996 2008

Personality
The Rat is charming and humourous, honest and meticulous. Although they can give good advice, they cannot necessarily decide for themselves. May be power hungry, petty or greedy, Bright, sociable and highly ambitious. A true opportunist to reach the target. Passionate and good to her lover. Yet likes to gamble and spend lavishly. The charm of the Rat personality is as universally known and loved as the Walt Disney character, Mickey Mouse. He could be forthright and honest but in such a disarming manner that you find yourself at a disadvantage. Remarkably easy to get along with, hard working and thrifty, he will be generous only to those he is inordinately fond of, so if you get an expensive gift from him, you should certainly rate yourself high in his esteem. However, in spite of his penny-pinching ways, he will never be found wanting for admirers as he emits such fantastic appeal. The Rat likes: bargains, Negotiation, Winning, Trust and Gambling. The Rat dislike: Boredom, Timetable, Poverty, Loneliness and Reprimands. Compatible Animals: Dragon, Monkey, Ox
Your Luck In Year 2009

Overall Forecast

The earlier phase of the 2009 is relatively a favourable one for you, especially in relation to wealth matters. Even though illness and sexual stars are present, lucky stars shine collectively to aid those who are brave enough to make proper and committed changes. Thus, where one seize opportunity to develop oneself , this year will be one where you can invest in properties and gain reputation/fame. Manage your finance prudently. Guard against vile persons. Watch your health. Caution against dangers. Have more tolerance and be more affectionate with regard to love affairs.

Career

A favourable year for you to be entrepreneur, to invest, where things will have a good turnout. Be on guard against vile persons. Avoid gossip circle, do not be too trusty, and rationally discern the words of others. Those who born in the year 1948 and 1960 can have great achievements for this year. Whereas a person born in 1972 can grow exceptionally well due to romance and can also fail miserably due to romance too. The 3rd month is a good time to grab opportunities.

Love

You enjoy a sizzling and affectionate year. Sparks with the opposite gender appear readily, especially for those born in 1972. Seize opportunity when there is any. Married couples have to build up mutual trust and strong affections for each other. Moral discipline have to be upheld nevertheless.

Wealth

Wealth luck is terrific. Joyous star is present to bring much joy, investment gains and wealth both from the proper income and lottery winnings. Opportunity may arise to purchase properties or to move house too. But you have to conserve for raining days. Avoid dark lanes. Secure your valuables well.

Health

Illness star is lucking by to cause you harm. Do not over consume alcohol and cigarettes. Caution on matters regarding blood pressure and the intestines. Take extra care when reaching for stuff stashed high or when on traffic. Hectic social networking tires you.

牛 Ox Born in: 1925 1937 1949 1961 1973 1985 1997

Personality

Intelligent and self-confident. Patient and methodical, helpful and hardworking. Although they might appear rigid and slow, a kind and active mind is beneath. A Natural born under works systematically, the Ox is responsible for family and believes in authority but is sometimes too stubborn and traditional.
The Ox or the Buffalo sign symbolizes prosperity through fortitude and hard work. A person born during this year will be dependable, calm and methodical. A patient and tireless worker, he sticks to routine and conventions. Although he is generally fair-minded and a good listener, it is difficult to make him change his views as he is stubborn and often has strong prejudices. Still, because of his steady and trustworthy character, the Ox person will be entrusted with positions of authority and responsibility. He will not fall short where duty calls. As a matter of fact, he should be careful not to get carried away. The Ox likes: Tradition, Appreciation, Organisation, Sobriety and Routine The Ox dislike: Gimmicks, Parties, Gossip, Laziness and Being Teased Compatible Animals: Rat, Snake, Rooster Your Luck In Year 2009

Overall Forecast

A year of offending Tai Sui. Thus, there are major upheavals. Be more vigilant and firm with regards to every undertaking. Be more discerning when making friends. You are constantly burdened by minor issues at hand. Evil star surfaces to cause you great loss of wealth, and bloodshed. You are at the pit of your luck. Fortunately, there is a lucky star present to help you to resolve some of the troubles.

Regardless of the problems, this appeared to be a relatively better year than the previous. If you firmly walk the path, creative and resolving stars will aid you in your career and work luck.

Career

Danger stars loom about causing you hard to breath. Fortunately, lucky stars are present to lend support. Gradually develop your fundamentals to progress further at a good pace, and all will be well. Do not place too much spending and more rational savings technique. Those born in 1937 can be in deep trouble if they invest wrongly. 1949 and 1961 persons should be careful in making acquaintances.

Love
Neutral romance luck level with no major breakthrough. Your shyness, introvert attitude and major mood swings will be detrimental to your relationship with family members, friends and colleagues. Have tolerance, and control your emotional charges. But there is still opportunity to meet your dream love too.

Wealth

If you can rationally analyse and make wise decisions in relation to investments, undertakings, there will be a good turnout for your wealth luck and there is properties gain too. Proper income luck is stable whereas lottery luck fluctuates greatly. Accumulate your wealth and do not act as guarantors. Discern carefully as to who are your true aid or to place trust upon.

Health

A year of exceptional need to be caution in every way. Cuts, injuries, and accidents happened easily than usual. You should pray to Tai Sui at the year start. DO not neglect pains to the heart and head. Take more rest and seek appropriate treatment at a timely basis.

虎 Tiger Born in: 1926 1938 1950 1962 1974 1986 1998
Personality
Courageous, active, and self-assured, a natural leader, passionate and independent. Possibly restless especially if born at night. Rebellious and dynamic. A warrior and center of attention. Quick tempered but considerate. Affectionate but careless. A roaring success awaits the Tiger.
In the East, the Tiger symbolizes power, passion and daring. A rebellious, colorful and unpredictable character, he commands awe and respect from all quarters. This fearless and fiery fighter is revered as the sign that wards off the three main disasters of a household: fire, thieves and ghosts. The Tiger is a fortunate person to have around provided you are prepared for all the activity that comes along with his dynamic personality. The impulsiveness and vivacity of the Tiger person are contagious. His vigor and love of life are stimulating. He will arouse every sort of emotion in people except indifference. In short, the captivating tiger loves being the center of attention. The Tiger likes: Changes, New experiences, Flattery, Surprises, Quality and Parties. The Tiger dislikes: Boredom, Criticism, Ignorance, Responsibility, Laws and Slowness. Compatible Animals: Pig, Horse, Dog
Your Luck In Year 2009
Overall Forecast
There are favourable signs to be seen. Wealth and health luck is promising. All undertakings are going as anticipated. Those born in 1950 and 1974 have to deal with matters firmly and sincerely, so that noble help will reach you. There is also possible joyous news at home. Documents may contain deceiving plots out to cause you losses. Alcohol and lust during social networking will ruin you. Caution of muggers. Discern as to who are your real mentor and who are out to harm you. Multi facet investments are beneficial. Avoid speculative and risky activities. Take good care of your health and keep valuables out of sight.
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Career
Auspicious stars shine high. Starting a business or expanding one, will be successful. Discern properly as to who are true to you at work. Exhibit your forte and be responsible to your duties. Also, leverage on eminent aid and you will eventually excel among others. Control your temper and give way to others readily. Do not be a guarantor in any ways.
Love
Youth are easily acquainted with friends of the opposite gender, and subsequently fall deeply in love. This will affect the academic performance, so focus on your studies at hand, affection later. Couples are blissfully engage in their love affairs with hope of tying the knot soon. Those married should keep their hands in their pockets and steer clear of temptations.
Wealth
Proper income luck flows in continuously. Career progression is smooth, with a fruitful harvest. There is also hope lottery luck, but do not have a moment of greed. Save more, spend less, do not lend to others. Keep your valuables out of sight. Avoid adhering to investment tips. They are not sound and will cause losses. Health Health luck is smooth and steady. A steadily path of career progression carries with it hectic networking nights. Take your mind off the workload and nights of incessant networking. Control your drinking and smoking too. Keep an eye on your liver health and blood pressure related problems. Do adequate exercises and avoid visiting patients
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兔 Rabbit Born in: 1927 1939 1951 1963 1975 1987 1999
Personality
Peace loving, impeccable manners in the pursuit of a good life, intelligent in business with creative mind but sometimes moody and indifferent.
A person born in the year of the Rabbit possesses one of the most fortunate of the twelve animal signs. The Rabbit, or Hare as he is referred to in Chinese mythology, is the emblem of longevity and is said to derive his essence from the Moon. The rabbit symbolizes graciousness, good manners, sound counsel, kindness and sensitivity to beauty. His soft speech and graceful nimble ways embody all the desirable traits of a successful diplomat or seasoned politician. Likewise, a person born under this sign will lead a tranquil life, enjoying peace, quiet and congenial environment. He is reserved and artistic and possesses good judgment. His thoroughness will also make him a good scholar. He will shine in the fields of law, politics and government. The Rabbit likes: The arts, Comfort, Secrets, Riddles and Intrigue. The Rabbit dislike: Decisions, Violence, Criticism, Untidiness and Dirtiness. Compatible Animals: Goat, Dog, Pig Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast Luck this year fluctuates wildly. Visibly clear good luck hides some air of danger and misspells underneath. Perhaps a better option will be to store your energy for a better comeback. Use this time to plan and feel around for the right to strike. Fortunately, resolving stars are around to bring light amid the darkness of danger. Apparently not a good year to be aggressive in all aspects.
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Set your expectations lower for the year and enrich yourself further. Health issue will be of major setback to you, so take heed. Greed in investment matters will also fail you. Proper finance management will be helpful indeed. Career You are advised to be more conservative when it comes to your career path. Entrepreneurship will only lead to fruitless ventures. Working adults should guard against your colleague who might be a wolf in sheep skin. Nevertheless, keep to your own fences and all will be well. Those born in 1963 and 1975 will have lots of fresh opportunities to begin with. Love Mood and emotional discharges are very unstable. You feel left out, and lonely. Do attempt to correct your twisted perception of your partner and others around you. They do show care for you just that your temperamental behaviour causes them confusion and misinterpretation of your intentions. Trust, care and communication are keys to a fruitful relationship. Wealth Proper income is stable. Control your spending and crisis will not occur. Do not greed of ill-gotten wealth as you will face lawsuits and inevitably, causes you great pain and suffering. In addition, you will do yourself a favour by not borrowing or acting as guarantor. Leave lottery luck to affinity. Reduce amount of unnecessary investments especially risky ones. Health Caution of health and accidents. Fatigue and overdrive cause you to have unstable emotions and mental states. Be careful when you are driving or on a boat trip, especially water danger. Chronic ailments of the elderly may surface again. Partake healthier food.
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龙 Dragon Born in: 1928 1940 1952 1964 1976 1988 2000
Personality
Magical, shrewd, intuitive, artistic and very lucky. Alternately, can be stubborn, irritable and impulsive. Can also be rather worldly and hard to get close to. Full of vitality, self assured, bright and master of success. Somewhat proud and quick-tempered, the Dragon personality is always attractive.
The mighty and magnificent Dragon of mythical folklore never ceases to enchant or stir the imagination. The Dragon person is magnanimous and full of vitality and strength. To him life is a blaze of colors and he is constantly on the go. Egotistical, eccentric, dogmatic, whimsical or terribly demanding and unreasonable, he is still never without a band of admirers. Proud, aristocratic and very direct, the Dragon-born establishes his ideals early in life and demands the same high standards and perfection from others that he has for himself. The powerful Dragon is difficult to contest, at times even impossible. He tends to intimidate those who dare challenge him. An angry, spurned Dragon could be like the big bad wolf at your door. He'll huff and he'll puff until he blows your house down. In spite of his volcano of emotions, the Dragon cannot be said to be sentimental, sensitive or very romantic. He takes love and adulation for granted: they are his just due. But while he maybe stubborn, irrational and overbearing when irked, the Dragon can forgive you the moment he gets over his outbursts. And since things are supposed to work both ways, he expects your forgiveness for his errors, too. The Dragon likes: Festivals, Control, Wealth, Comfort, Concerts, Antique and Decadence. The Dragon dislikes: Boredom, Cold, Dullness, Hunger, Hypocrisy and Quietness. Compatible Animals: Rat, Monkey, Rooster
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Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast You are happily accompanied by many auspicious stars beside the little disturbance caused by some danger stars. Most undertakings are successful than normal. Eminent aid is the key factor to the smooth results in your career and or career change. Dragon are really suited to make good overseas. So long as you are mindful of your words and actions, you should be doing fine. Take good care of your eyes and also that of personal hygiene. Have adequate rest too. There are many joyous news this year. Couples are affectionate and blissful. There’s possible offspring luck. Career You undergo an extraordinary smooth sailing luck for the year. Extremely favourable to roll out any plans, be entrepreneur, or to change jobs. There are chances to make it big overseas. Besides the congregation of lucky stars, noble stars are strong in their aid. Do not be hasty; be modest and morally disciplined. Do not get tempted by lust or get into conflict. Love There are impediments in the romance luck all because of interference made by vile persons. Caution against deceitful words which can cause conflicts with someone you care. Maintain this relationship carefully with affection, trust and communication. There is offspring luck. Show more care to your pregnant spouse. Wealth Wealth luck is superb, which is beneficial to both income and windfall luck. But do not be greedy. Business dealings are smooth. But you have to be wary of sexual traps, as it may cause you loss of wealth and reputation. Preserve your wealth if possible such as purchasing properties. Health It is pretty alright with regards to your health. But hectic social networking sessions cause you to overload with alcohol and cigarettes. This is harmful to your health. Take good care of your digestive systems. Have preventive measures against the flu. Build up your constitution and take a wholesome diet.
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蛇 Snake Born in: 1929 1941 1953 1965 1977 1989 2001
Personality
Philosophical, wise, calm and understanding, though often fickle or self-indulgent. Elegant to the point of being ostentatious. Can behave selfishly if crossed. A Snake lady is also charming in personality and elegant in dress. She is receptive and a deep thinker and likes to judge by intuition. She is fortunate in wealth through her life.
Philosopher, theologian, political wizard, wily financier - the Snake person is the deepest thinker and enigma of the Chinese cycle. He is endowed with an inborn wisdom of his very own; a mystic in his own right. Graceful and soft-spoken, he loves good books, food, music, the theater; he will gravitate toward all the finer things in life. The most beautiful women and powerful men tend to be born under this sign. So if you are one of the Snake people, you are in good company. A person of this sign generally relies on his own judgment and does not communicate well with others. He can deeply religious or psychic, or on the other hand, totally hedonistic. Either way, he trusts his own vibrations rather than outside advice. More often than not...he will be right. The Snake likes: Mystery, Books, Extravagance, Warmth, Organising, Pets and Good Food The Snake dislike: Surprises, Cold, Lending Money, Crowds, Vulgarity, Noise and Discomfort. Compatible Animals: Monkey, Ox, Rooster
Your Luck In Year 2009
Overall Forecast
You face an onslaught of danger stars. Even with the presence of lucky stars, you have to have faith and do more deeds. Never brave the frontline. Shun all mess and gossips. Treat others nicely but treat yourself with the utmost discipline. Develop your moral and spiritual self better. Do not involve in any investments.
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Students are able to think brightly and do well in their exams if they are diligent and modest to learn more from their tutors. Attempt to improve your relation with others to aid you in your career. Spend your money wisely.
Career
A tough and rugged path this year for you. Most endeavours sprout troubles and hindrances. Be strict to the matter at hand but magnanimous to people. Also do not try to take charge as it may not be within your means. There are lots of gossips in the business arena and work place. Think thrice when handling documents and signing contracts. Students are able to excel well. Female Snakes do control your temper.
Love
A frequent winner in the love arena. However, you will meet the romance setback this year. Married couples should communicate and show more care for each other. Doing so will create a very blissful and loving marriage. Couples should be sincere and wedding bells will be heard ringing. Singles should proactively seek for their true and claim victory fast.
Wealth
Wealth luck fluctuates greatly. Not a good time to invest heavily. Regular income is stable, so moderate spending is fine. Do not place any hope on lottery. Those born on the 4th Lunar month will encounter great harvest this year, so be ready to net in your successes.
Health
There is possible accidents and bloodshed, so handle sharp objects carefully. If you have any illness, seek treatment immediately. You are also advised to donate blood to reduce your bad luck. Elderly has to be careful of slippery grounds and heart ailments. Youngsters have to avoid dangerous game and activities.
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馬 Horse Born in: 1930 1942 1954 1966 1978 1990 2002
Personality
Cheerful, quick-witted and popular. With a happy outlook, independent, subjective and self-centered. She is also good at handling wealth.
A person born in this year is said to be cheerful, popular and quick- witted. He has raw sex appeal rather than straight good looks. Earthy and warmly appealing, he is very perceptive and talkative. His changeable nature may lead him to be hot-tempered, rash and headstrong at times. The unpredictable- able horse will fall in love easily and fall out of love just as easily. In most cases the Horse will leave home early. If not, his independent spirit will goad him to start working or to take up some career at an early age. An adventurer at heart, still he is noted for his keen mind and ability to manage money. Self-reliant, vivacious, energetic, impetuous and even brash, the Horse is a showy dresser, partial to bright colors and striking designs to the point of being gaudy on occasion. The horse loves exercise both physical and mental. You can spot him by his rapid but graceful body movements, his animated reflexes and fast way of speaking. He responds quickly and can make snap decisions. His mind works at remarkable speed and whatever he may lack in stability and perseverance, he will certainly make up for by being open-minded and flexible. Basically, he is a nonconformist. The Horse likes: Riddles, Eat in Restaurants, Compliments, Conversation, Challenges and Kindness. The Horse dislikes: Violence, Cold, Cheating, Noise, Bad Food and Lateness. Compatible Animals: Tiger, Goat, Dog
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Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast A good star appears. A definitely better year portrayed than the previous one. There are a mix of bad stars in the midst of the good ones. Thus, one should mull over matters thrice before making a move. Proceed gradually and never be hasty and impetuous. Be mindful of your health as well as that of your dearest ones. A year of smooth and bullish career and academic luck. There is improvement in relationship with business clients or colleagues. There is also investment gains and property luck. Cut down on smoking and alcohol. Immoral lust can lead you to your doom. Take heed. Career Even though lucky stars gather together, evil stars are lurking about too. Thus, there are impediments and vile persons causing troubles now and then. When undertaking projects, proceed with adequate planning and good pace. Fortunately, eminent aid is present in business deals and career paths. A good year of academic performance for students too. Never be haughty. Always be modest and humble. Fulfill your duty at work diligently. Love A very colourful year of romance. Many sparks occur during social networking sessions. However, attached couples have to caution against intrusion of third parties. Control your lust and treat all affection with a sense of morality and sensibility. Wealth There is improvement in wealth luck. You will not have any financial crisis if you can manage your finances prudently. Caution against loss of wealth due to sexual traps. Do not delegate finance matters to others. Check your accounts regularly and thoroughly.
Health
Too much focus on business networking session cause a toll on your health. Drink and smoke at lesser quantity. Control your sexual cravings too. Have adequate rest amid the busy schedule. Treat minor illness at the early stages. Have prevention against the common cold.
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羊 Goat Born in: 1931 1943 1955 1967 1979 1991 2003
Personality
Intelligent with a mind for business. She has artistic inclination who tend to be pessimistic. Good natured and generous but can be undisciplined and irresponsible. May have somewhat antisocial tendencies. The Sheep is also indecisive and too passive. Yet she has fantastic luck in her life.
This is the most feminine sign of the zodiac. A person of the Goat year is called the Good Samaritan of the cycle. He is righteous, sincere and easily taken in by sob stories. He is likely to be mild-mannered, even shy. At his best, he is artistic, fashionable and a creative worker. At his worst, he tends to be easily overcome by his emotions, pessimistic and withdrawn. The Goat is known for his gentle and compassionate ways. He can forgive easily and be understanding about others faults. He dislikes strict schedules and cannot take too much discipline or criticism. Fond of children and animals, he is close to nature and a general homebody. The Goat is apt to mother or even smother the objects of his affections. He is possessed by varying moods and finds it impossible to work under pressure. He also finds it difficult to be objective. The Goat likes: Pleasure, Culture, Harmony, Space, Literature, Quiet, Freedom and Wit The Goat dislikes: Noise, War, Paperwork, Beggar, Politics, Bills and Inelegance. Compatible Animals: Rabbit, Horse, Pig Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast A year where the Goat zodiac clashes with Tai Sui. A not so favorable luck for the year. Evil stars also appear to add pressure. A resolving star that is present is not a match for all these evil stars. You have to be on constant alert, and mull over issues thrice before coming to a decision. And caution against vile person plots and gossips. Take good care of your health and well being. DO not take loans or be guarantors for others.
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You have to be prepared for any sudden events this year. Handle all caution against accidents. Show care and concern to your lover. Career Every undertaking is against your wishes. A time to be on the defensive position. Make prudent decisions when on business or investment grounds. You are advised to treat your colleague, staff and clients with friendliness and kindness to go through this tough period. Never attempt any speculative and quick buck schemes this year. It is also not a good time to partner with others for business opportunities. Scrutinize your contracts well before signing. Handle documents with care. Love Love luck is full of untamed waves of fluctuations. Mood swings and emotional changes are too great. Coupled with vile persons causing sabotage, conflicts with your love ones are bound to occur. But you can resolve it by being more tolerant. Show respect and more affection to your dearest. Wealth
Your wealth luck hits the pit this year. Be prudent with regard to managing your wealth. You cannot afford to be negligent with clients. You may face possible loss of wealth to save your day or in the extreme case, gain extremely large amount of wealth. But you have to curb your gambling activities and do not act as guarantors for others.
Health
Because of the immense level of stress hovering over your shoulder, it is taking a toll on your health. Be cautions against cuts and injuries. Seek treatment immediately if ill. Have preventive measure with regards to your flu, eye or mind health. Avoid water activities when outdoors.
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猴 Monkey Born in: 1932 1944 1956 1968 1980 1992 2004
Personality
Lively, witty, inventive and intelligent, a fast learner with good memory. Good at problem solving but can be too clever and become lazy, opportunistic and manipulative. They also know social skills well but can be selfish and egoistic. Also unbeatable in terms of talent and wealth.
Of all the animals in the lunar cycle, the Monkey bears the closest resemblance to the Naked Ape himself, Man. It is therefore no wonder that it should be he who will inherit most of man's intelligence as well as his capacity for deceit. The Monkey is the sign of the inventor, the improvisor, and the motivator in the Chinese zodiac; a charlatan capable of drawing everyone to him with his intimate guile and charm. Being the quick-witted genius of the cycle, he is clever, flexible and innovative. The monkey can solve intricate problems with ease and will be a very fast learner. He can master anything under the sign and usually has the aptitude for being a good linguist. A person born in this year will be successful at whatever he chooses to do. No challenge will be too great for him. The Monkey likes: Risks, Cooking, Travel, Jokes, Intrigue, Flamboyance and Sunshine. The Monkey dislikes: Organisating, Illness, Convention, quietness, Responsibility and Failure. Compatible Animals: Snake, Rat, Dragon Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast Lucky stars gather and shine collectively to lit the sky brightly. Be mindful that you face impediment amid the good days, so be careful and never negligent in any aspects. There is hope for fruitful results in your endeavours. Working persons will enjoy good news at the second half of the year. Students are able to perform well academically. There are offspring luck this year. Good wealth luck brings in extra money.
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 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
A year to aggressively charge and push forward. Do more good deeds and improve personal relations, which will be of great aid to your career and business. Take adequate rest and caution against minor illnesses. Career A fresh new start with lucky stars shinning as bright as the morning sun. A sad note is that danger stars lurk in the dark. Think thrice before acting. Do not act smart; do not be too trusty. Always be cautious against business traps and avoid being blinded by greed. Shun speculative activities. Make prayers and do more good deeds and accumulate more merits. And then all should be well. Love You feel exhilarated because of the many joyous news. Because most things are proceeding as planned, you feel happy and so romance luck flows smoothly as well. A good time to discuss marriage or start a blossoming romance. Couples are blissful and affectionate. Wealth Wealth star shines high. Proper income and windfall lucks flow in from good sources. There is investment and property gains too. Vile persons are lurking by. Have a discerning eye when interacting with others. Handle deceitful words with discretion. All finance matters should be managed personally. Reap lottery winnings early rather than greeding for more.
Health
There is a lot of minor illness sprouting out here and then. Have a proper diet and take preventive measures against intestinal, digestive and head related problems. The young and the elderly are susceptible to flu and falls respectively. Avoid attending wakes.
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Geomancy Hut
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Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
19
Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
雞 Rooster Born in: 1933 1945 1957 1969 1981 1993 2005
Personality
Dramatic but a reputable person who works systematically Hardworking, resourceful, talented and confident. Vivacious and popular socially, but may have a tendency to brag insensitively. Outspoken and loves to attract attention. Always take good care of their family and can handle money well.
The Rooster, or Chicken as he is called, is the Don Quixote of the Chinese cycle. The dauntless hero who must look to the earth to survive, he is the most misunderstood and eccentric of all the signs. outwardly, he is the epitome of self-assurance and aggression, but at heart he could be conservative and old-fashioned. The Rooster-born, especially the men, will be attractive, even dashingly handsome. The princely fowl is radiant and proud of his fine feathers and has an impressive carriage. You don't find any roosters slouching; they strut about with dignity. Even the shyest member of the Rooster family will cut a neat, trim figure and maintain a special bearing wherever he goes. There are two distinct type of Roosters. The rapid-firing, extremely talkative ones and the deadly solemn observer types with the X-ray vision. both are equally hard to deal with. The Rooster has many outstanding qualities to crow about. He is sharp, neat, precise, organized, decisive, upright, alert, and most direct. He can also be critical to the point of brutality. Don't ever ask him his frank, candid opinion--you may never recover from his comments. He loves to argue and debate, showing how knowledgeable and smart he is, some- times with little regard of the feelings of others. But when his feathers are ruffled in return, he is insufferable. He isn't cut out to be a diplomat. Situations regarding tact, delicacy and discretion will cramp his style. His way is to go about trying to convert everyone to his way of thinking with a missionary zeal. He shines when he is the center of attraction. Tremendously imposing as a personality, he could well pursue any career that exposes him to the public eye. The Rooster likes: Hard works, Fresh Air, Neat but Casual, Challenges, Nature and Control. The Rooster dislikes: Laziness, Weakness, Technology, Illness, Practical Jokes and politics. Compatible Animals: Dragon, Snake, Ox
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Geomancy Hut
Your Life . Your Destiny
Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
20
Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast Wealth vault opens widely, which provides you with great wealth luck. Nonetheless, be wary of potential lawsuits and conflicts. You feel energetic and ready to seize opportunities to strike hard. Perform to your best so that you can gain your superior’s good evaluation and trust. Those doing business can hope for predictable results and can push forward for expansions. Students with diligence can also excel among others. Take note of home safety. Do not speed. Purchase properties if possible. Career An auspicious situation coupled with streaks of danger. Have caution amid the good fortune. There is ideal progress for your career and work luck. Business deals and relation with others are sweet; a good harvest of reputation and money. Working persons enjoy abundant flow of productive creative juices, leading to great performance and promotion chances or overseas assignments. Female born in 1945 should not miss the boat. Love Roosters are very faithful when it comes to romance. But there is no breakthrough in romance luck this year because of severe mood and emotional disturbance. Thus, be more tolerant and affectionate to your companion. Pave a path of common goal and future. Married couples could go for a rejuvenating vacation. Wealth A terrific wealth and colourful year. But it is accompanied by streaks of danger too. Thus, it is clear that ill-gotten wealth has to be avoided. Caution against deceit by vile persons as well as any causes of potential lawsuits. Guard your great flow of regular income and windfall luck from thieves and robbers. Invest wisely.
Health
Rooster has always been very mindful of their health concerns. But do not be complacent when it comes to home safety. Even when the body is strong and energetic, it can succumb to fatigue from overdrive. So take adequate rest and exercise.
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Geomancy Hut
Your Life . Your Destiny
Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
21
Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
狗 Dog Born in: 1922 1934 1946 1958 1970 1982 1994 2006
Personality
Honest , faithful and possessing deep loyalty and responsibility. Can be magnanimous and prosperous, yet also guarded and defensive, never really relaxed despite outer calm. She has a glib tongue, practical and realistic. The Dog is also trustworthy and generous to people and has a deep sense of justice.
This maybe the most likable sign of all in the Chinese cycle. A person born in the year of the Dog is honest, intelligent and straightforward. He has a deep sense of loyalty and a passion for justice and fair play. A dog native is usually animated and attractive and will exude sex appeal. Generally amiable and unpretentious, he will know how to get along with others as he is not too demanding. The egalitarian dog likes to meet others halfway, is always willing to listen to reason and can be counted on to do his share. For a friend, you must know that whenever you are in trouble, all you have to do is dial D-O-G. For no matter how much he or she complains, scolds, feign indifference, the Dog person cannot ignore a real call for help. At times, the dog protects the interests of others more avidly than his own. The Dog often sticks to his object of affection no matter how unworthy the person is. You don't find a dog leaving home just because he discovers that his master has the proverbial feet of clay. He makes allowances for such frailties and will probably stick it out thick or thin. The Dog likes: Routine, Challenges, Friends, Presents, Travel, Food, Play and Nature The Dog dislikes: Mistreatment, Fakes, Discomfort, Rudeness, Dishonesty, Hunger and Anger Compatible Animals: Tiger, Rabbit, Horse Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast
Many lucky stars favour you this year. Nonetheless there also appear dark forces at work to undermine your successes. Thus, walk your path with caution, mindfulness and wisdom. Keep to your business and avoid all sorts
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Geomancy Hut
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Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
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Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
of gossiping. Never dabble with extra-marital affairs. Be on constant preparation for the uncertain,as it will be a tremendous challenge for you. Face it with a positive mindset. A favourable year to acquire properties or to move house. Tame internal conflicts in anticipation of challenges due to clinching of business deals. Improve your relations with others. Beware of sexual and business plots against you. Career A very smooth and favourable year for career and work progress. Increase in business volume, coupled with your creativity and ingenuity, results in speedy advancement in career. Be mindful of your words and where teasing should be done with awareness of how the others will feel. Else you will be ostracized. Maintain a good relation with your superior. Love A very favourable affinity with the opposite gender can sparks romance. Singles should get to know each other better once they found a target. Couples blissfully enjoy each other’s company yet there are vile persons interfering. Avoid one night stand, as they will cause you much sorrow and trouble. Wealth Wealth star shines high and the vault opens with welcoming hand. There is investment gains and good wealth inflow. Grab the chance to purchase properties or to start a business. Be vigilant with regard to your finances and do not be greedy with gambling luck. Caution against robbers and thieves by keeping valuables out of sight. Secure your home well.
Health
Reduce intake of alcohol. A neutral health constitution requires adequate exercise. Caution against danger cause by lust; exercise your discretion. Take note of blood pressure and rheumatism problems. Keep yourself warm and do not climb high.
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Geomancy Hut
Your Life . Your Destiny
Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
23
Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
豬 Pig born in: 1923 1935 1947 1959 1971 1983 1995 2007
Personality
A pig is not as smart as a dog in understanding human thought. It likes sleeping and eating and becomes fat. Thus it usually features laziness and clumsiness. On the positive side, it behaves itself, has no calculation to harm others, and can bring affluence to people. Consequently, pigs were once regarded as wealth. People born in the Year of the Pig are honest and frank. They have a calm appearance and strong heart, but they lack patience and independence. As they do not like to talk in a roundabout way, they are thought to be unsociable. Luckily, they are tolerant and optimistic, so not until they become your friends can their virtue, advantages and fidelity to friendship be found. The Pigs likes: Praise, Health, Diets, Teams, Bath, Comfort, Home, Children and Pets. The Pigs Dislikes: Tiredness, Arguments, Paying Bills, Work, Hunger, Excess, Crime and Concrete. Compatible Animals: Tiger, Goat, Rabbit Your Luck In Year 2009 Overall Forecast Even with the many evil stars present, there still lies rays of luck visible. Lucky stars able to lend you a hand. Thus, pig is advised to make good relations with others. Students have good academic performance. Career adults face impediments at work. Thorough and comprehensive plans should be prepared in anticipation for this challenging Ox year. Do not invest too much this year. Never make any hasty moves or decisions. You are burdened by the hectic work schedules, so take adequate rest. Spend wisely and have tolerance with your spouse. Chronic ailments may sprout again, take heed. Avoid attending wakes.
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Geomancy Hut
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Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
24
Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
Career Career and work luck is considered alright aside from frequent obstacles in the path. Just stride with pace and avoid attempts of huge investments. Be more conservative in your expenses and plans for this year. Keep to the side of the law; do not do anything unlawful. This is also not a good year to change jobs. Love You felt exhausted and down, especially with regards to your relationship with your love ones and family members. There are constant conflicts and frustrations. Do your best to untie the knot of worries and problems. Being more tolerant, forgiving and understanding will be helpful. Then you will all be blissful. Wealth Wealth star is dim, so there may be serious loss of wealth. Watch closely on your expenses. Save early for the raining days to come. You are not to place any high hopes for any form of gambling this year, and keep to the side of the law. Speculative investments are not worst. Regular income luck is still stable. Health Mindless chores burden you, coupled with increase workload, you are almost burnout. Take more time off and open up to others. Take note of personal safety when outdoor. Drive with care and focus. Take note of rheumatoid, digestive system problem and that of the common cold. Exercise more to prevent getting ill.
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Geomancy Hut
Your Life . Your Destiny
Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg
Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg
Tel: (065) 6611 4700
ZODIAC 2009
25
Our Services:
 Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential)
 Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date
 Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions
 Personal Life Characteristics Analysis
 Personal Annual Characteristics Analysis
 Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability
 House and Space Cleansing
Our Services: Geomancy Audits (Both commercial & residential) Selection of Auspicious ROM/Wedding Date Auspicious Dates selection for Special occasions Personal Life Characteristics Analysis Bazhi (8 Characters) analysis for comparability By,
Thomas T
Geomancer Singapore Tel: (65) 6611 4711 Email: enquiry@geomancyhut.com.sg Website: www.geomancyhut.com.sg