Salahuddin Al Ayubi's Justice - Sheikh Hamza Yusuf | #Palestine

I am proud to be a member of a religion that over a thousand years ago was teaching PLURALISM, was teaching TOLERANCE, was rejecting the discourse of RACISM. 
I am proud of the fact that my prophet said and I know of no other historical Prophet that actually condemned racism in no uncertain terms when he said, 

"there is no preference of a black man over a white man and a white man over a black man except in conciousness in awareness of his God and that is known to only God.

@aidyadnan

Putting an End to Religion: The Exploding New American Secularism.

What is going on? How do we explain this recent wave of secularization that is washing over so much of America?

The answer to these questions is actually much less theological or philosophical than one might think. It is simply not the case that in recent years tens of millions of Americans have suddenly started doubting the cosmological or ontological arguments for the existence of God, or that hundreds of thousands of other Americans have miraculously embraced the atheistic naturalism of Denis Diderot. Sure, this may be happening here and there, in this or that dorm room or on this or that Tumblr page. The best-sellers written by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris—as well as the irreverent impiety and flagrant mockery of religion by the likes of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, House, South Park, and Family Guy—have had some impact on American culture. As we have seen, a steady, incremental uptick of philosophical atheism and agnosticism is discernible in America in recent years. But the larger reality is that for the many millions of Americans who have joined the ranks of the nonreligious, the causes are most likely to be political and sociological in nature.

For starters, we can begin with the presence of the religious right, and the backlash it has engendered. Beginning in the 1980s, with the rise of such groups as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, the closeness of conservative Republicanism with evangelical Christianity has been increasingly tight and publicly overt. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, more and more politicians on the right embraced the conservative Christian agenda, and more and more outspoken conservative Christians allied themselves with the Republican Party. Examples abound, from Michele Bachmann to Ann Coulter, from Mike Huckabee to Pat Robertson, and from Rick Santorum to James Dobson. With an emphasis on seeking to make abortion illegal, fighting against gay rights (particularly gay marriage), supporting prayer in schools, advocating “abstinence only” sex education, opposing stem cell research, curtailing welfare spending, supporting Israel, opposing gun control, and celebrating the war on terrorism, conservative Christians have found a warm welcome within the Republican Party, which has been clear about its openness to the conservative Christian agenda. This was most pronounced during the eight years that George W. Bush was in the White House.

What all of this this has done is alienate a lot of left-leaning or politically moderate Americans from Christianity. Sociologists Michael Hout and Claude Fischer have published compelling research indicating that much of the growth of “nones” in America is largely attributable to a reaction against this increased, overt mixing of Christianity and conservative politics. The rise of irreligion has been partially related to the fact that lots of people who had weak or limited attachments to religion and were either moderate or liberal politically found themselves at odds with the conservative political agenda of the Christian right and thus reacted by severing their already somewhat weak attachment to religion. Or as sociologist Mark Chaves puts it, “After 1990 more people thought that saying you were religious was tantamount to saying you were a conservative Republican. So people who are not Republicans now are more likely to say that they have no religion.”

Tanda Tanda Awal- Tukar Tiub

Media milik parti Ketuanan Melayu juga gagal memberi pencerahan kepada pembaca tentang makna dan tanda dari kejatuhan nilai ringgit ini. Pembaca Melayu terus dibodohkan dengan berita-berita Raja, Melayu dan Islam.

Pembaca wajib diberi maklum : apabila nilai ringgit jatuh ertinya duit upah/duit gaji yang masuk dalam poket kita – walau pun jumlah angkanya sama – tetapi kuasa membelinya merosot. Ini bermakna kalau dulu satu tin susu boleh dibeli dengan harga 1 ringgit kini harganya telah naik menjadi 2 ringgit. Bila harga barang naik ertinya nilai duit dalam poket kita kurang.

Ketika Najib membentangkan belanjawan 2015 – pendapatan negara bergantung pada dua minyak – petrolium dan minyak sawit. Kini harga jualan kedua-dua minyak telah jatuh. Ertinya belanjawan Najib telah bocor. Kebocoran ini akan membawa krisis ekonomi yang melebar TIDAK berapa lama lagi.

Pendapatan negara pengeluar minyak – saperti Malaysia- semakin kurang. Kita bukan saja menghadapi krisis belanjawan yang bocor malah TIDAK ada lagi keupayaan untuk mengimpot barangan. Jual beli semakin berkurangan. Ini menjadikan ekonomi dunia merundum. Inilah lingkaran setan dalam sistem ekonomi kapitalis.

Kita telah membaca bagaimana TV Bernama telah gagal membayar gaji pekerja. Besar kemungkinan TV Bernama akan gulung tikar. Kita juga mula mendengar desas desus bahawa telah ada jabatan kerjaan yang upah dan gaji bulanan lewat dibayar. Kita juga mendengar bagaimana anak-anak muda – graduan yang baru lulus – mendapati peluang pekerjaan semakin menguncup. Dalam masa yang sama kita mula mendengar syarikat itu dan syarikat ini mula memberhentikan pekerja. Kita membaca tentang dana PTPTN telah dikurangkan.

Prophet Muhammad Honored By the U.S. Supreme Court In 1935

By Abdul Malik Mujahid

As the United States Supreme Court judges sit in their chamber, to their right, front, and the left sides are friezes depicting the 18 greatest lawgivers of the world. 

The second frieze to the right features a person holding a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. It is intended to recognize Prophet Muhammad as one of the greatest lawgivers in the world, along with Moses, Solomon, Confucius, and Hammurabi, among others.

Here is what the Supreme Court’s website says about this frieze:

Muhammad (c. 570 - 632) The Prophet of Islam. He is depicted holding the Qur’an. The Qur’an provides the primary source of Islamic Law. Prophet Muhammad’s teachings explain and implement Qur’anic principles. The figure above is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad, and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet.

In the year in which the frieze of Prophet Muhammad was erected, Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, and Charles Evans Hughes was the Chief Justice. It is not known how the court deliberated on this architectural contribution. No one at that time thought it inappropriate to include Prophet Muhammad as one of the greatest lawgivers of the world at the chambers of the United States Supreme Court. This was despite the fact that American society at that time was not as diverse as it is today. Women had just acquired the right to vote, and Japanese-Americans were about to be sent to concentration camps.

While the learned people in our country knew of the contribution of Prophet Muhammad, our neighbors today are given regular doses of misinformation about the Prophet and Sharia, the path of the Prophet, more commonly described as Islamic law.

Prophet Muhammad’s Peace And Justice Movement

Prophet Muhammad envisioned a just and peaceful society. With a mass peace movement, he achieved this goal during his life. He hated war and always preferred a peace treaty with his opponents, even if it was not favorable to his and his followers’ interests. He established his first peace sanctuary in the city of Madinah without any war whatsoever. While he did fight to defend that peace sanctuary, it is critical to note that the total time of actual fighting defending his people was not more than six days in his life of 63 years. He struggled to secure a peace that ensured justice and liberation for all people, especially for those most marginalized and oppressed.

Here are some of the Prophet’s notable contributions:

• He taught that there is one God for all mankind.
• He taught Muslims to believe in all of the prophets and all divinely revealed scriptures, especially Biblical ones.
• As the Prophet established a peace sanctuary called Madinah after his migration from Makkah, he negotiated treaties with the Jews and the pagans of Madinah. Muslims consider these treaties to be the first written surviving constitution in the world. The constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, self-governance, and legal autonomy in all matters. It called for the common defense of Madinah, and declared the Jews, pagans, and Muslims of that treaty to be one nation, or “one Ummah.”
• He prohibited hunting and the cutting of trees in the peace sanctuary of Madinah.
• He declared killing non-combatants to be illegal, placed severe restrictions on how warfare could be conducted, and even paid compensation for the killing of some dogs by one of his commanders.
• The Prophet’s teachings and the Quran are the two major sources of Sharia. Some of his precepts include the following:
•  Moral behavior: personal cleanliness; emphasis on preservation and nourishment of all life forms, including plants and animals; rituals and spirituality of prayers; fasting and charity; righteous conduct and good deeds; and rights of parents, children, spouses, and neighbors.
• Interpersonal relations: teaching to enhance human relations and to avoid breaking relationships; encouraging mutual consultation in all affairs; prohibiting bigotry and racism; and emphasizing kindness and hospitality toward others, especially the weak and the poor.
• Financial guidelines: encouraging charity, rights of the poor, respect for workers, and rejection of exploitation; and circulation of wealth among all classes.
• Personal rules and laws regarding privacy, gender relations, marriage, divorce, and inheritance.
• Criminal laws implementing the many of the Ten Commandments. (The only one of the Ten Commandments not having a parallel statement in the Quran is the one having to do with keeping the Sabbath.) Less than two percent of Quranic verses deal with the criminal law of Islam, which is a part of the Sharia but not the totality of it.
• The Prophet asked his judges to make things easy for people, not difficult.
• He declared all sins forgivable as long as a person asks God’s forgiveness and that of the one who has been wronged.
• The Prophet gave special emphasis to honoring treaties, standing up for justice, and opposing oppression.

Fascism and War: Elite Tools to Crush and Kill Dissent

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1937 with Adolf Hitler.

Dr. Jacques Pauwels is not the kind of historian you often hear about in the mainstream media. He’s obviously not the kind of “expert” they refer to for historical facts. Actually, one crucial propaganda method consists in excluding current events from their historical context.

Listening to Pauwels makes one realize the scope of the lies we’ve been fed about the Second World War, fascism and democracy, and how myths related to previous wars need to be upheld in the mainstream discourse to satisfy never ending war propaganda needs.

In a speech held December 15 in Montreal, he explained that World Wars I and II were all about crushing mass revolutionary movements.

The myth of the Good War

Every time Westerners’ approval for war is required, the myth of the good war surfaces: the Second World War was a good war, a necessity to quench Hitler’s blood thirst. Pauwels tears this myth apart, uncovering the vicious nature of the western elite.

The reasons for the US involvement in World War II lie in the social-economic conditions of the time, not in an outpouring of compassion destined to save humanity from fascism. The US elite was actually in favor of fascism, a very convenient tool to crush the mass revolutionary movement embodied by the Russian Revolution and the USSR.

WWII was in fact a continuity of WWI. “We are always told that WWI started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but it’s not true”, Pauwels says. It is indeed a well established myth carried on by various sources, whether history is written by “thousands of eminent experts, scholars, and leaders” like in Encyclopedia Britannica, or by just about anybody, like in Wikipedia:

The outbreak of war

With Serbia already much aggrandized by the two Balkan Wars (1912–13, 1913), Serbian nationalists turned their attention back to the idea of “liberating” the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, head of Serbia’s military intelligence, was also, under the alias “Apis,” head of the secret society Union or Death, pledged to the pursuit of this pan-Serbian ambition. Believing that the Serbs’ cause would be served by the death of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph, and learning that the Archduke was about to visit Bosnia on a tour of military inspection, Apis plotted his assassination. (World War I, Encyclopedia Britannica)

The immediate trigger for war was the 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. This set off a diplomatic crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia,[10][11] and international alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked. Within weeks, the major powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. (World War I, Wikipedia)

Both WWI and WWII had two dimensions: the vertical dimension, namely the rivalry between empires, and the horizontal one, class warfare, Pauwels explains.

These wars were actually the best way for the western elite to cope with the ever growing revolutionary and democratic movements fueled by dire economic conditions and which threatened the established order.

In Nietzsche’s view for example, Pauwels says “war was the solution against revolution, since in a war, there are no discussions, like there is in a democracy. In a war, the minority, the elite, decides and the majority, the proletarians, obey.”

For members of the elite like Malthus, “the system could not be the cause of poverty since they were profiting from it. The cause of poverty was the poor: there were too many of them. Therefore the solution to poverty and threatening revolutionary movements was simply to eliminate poor people and what better solution than war to kill poor people?”

After WWI though, “revolution was no longer a simple idea but rather something concrete: the Soviet Union.” That’s when fascism came to the rescue. “Fascism was the instrument used by the elite to further the objectives of 1914, namely put an end to revolutions and communism.”

Communism and socialism were gaining worldwide momentum after WWI. “The German industrial and financial elite wished to crush the revolutionary movement and destroy the Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler was their instrument.”

According to popular belief Western leaders were defending democracy, engaged in a war against Germany to save humanity from fascism and the US involvement in the war led to the downfall of Hitler’s war machine. Nothing is further from the truth. “Hitler was supported by other European countries and the US because they wanted him to destroy the USSR, the cradle of the revolution.” The exact opposite occurred: it was the USSR that defeated Nazi Germany, losing over 20 million souls in the battle.

The US even recruited the best Nazi scientists, technicians and engineers to work for them after the war. That piece of history called Operation Paperclip (picture below) has yet to find its way in Encyclopedia Britannica.

WWII was the victory of American Imperialism, a term which is rarely used today even if it best describes the reality the world has been living in ever since.

But even more surprising is the surviving myth that we are going to war to save the world from evil dictators or terrorists and that the western world fights for freedom and democracy. Thanks to the “stenographers of power”, the tactic is still reliable and used several decades later.

Visit Jacques Pauwels web site at http://www.jacquespauwels.net/about/. His articles and books are available in several languages. See also Jacques Pauwels’ articles on Global Research. 

Pornography diNegara-Negara Islam

Google, the world’s most popular Internet search engine, has found in a survey that mostly Muslim states seek access to sex-related websites and Pakistan tops the list. Google found that of the top 10 countries - searching for sex-related sites - six were Muslim, with Pakistan on the top. The other Muslim countries are Egypt at number 2, Iran at 4, Morocco at 5, Saudi Arabia at 7 and Turkey at 8. Non-Muslim states are Vietnam at 3, India at 6, Philippines at 9 and Poland at 10.

Bukankah negara-negara seperti Pakistan, Iran dan Saudi Arabia itu juga yang terkenal dengan penggunaan keras hukum Syaria'? Negara-negara ini jugalah yang banyak menjatuhkan hukuman mati kepada rakyatnya, kadang-kadang disebabkan oleh sesuatu perkara yang tak munasabah. Pakistan juga didapati banyak menjatuhkan hukuman mati keatas wanita-wanita tanpa diadili dengan adil. Malah ada yang dihukum mati hanya disebabkan oleh kata-kata sesaorang.

Apakah kesimpulan yang boleh dibuat disini berkenaan negara-negara yang dikatakan Islam ini?


@aidyadnan

Ucapan di Gettysburg oleh Presiden Lincoln 1863

Antara ucapan yang pernah dibuat oleh Presiden Amerika Syarikat, ucapan yang dibuat diakhir perang saudara inilah yang paling terkenal. Walaupun agak singkat tetapi ianya memberikan satu maksud yang mendalam akan cara pemikiran dan persepsi Presiden Lincoln terhadap peperangan, perjuangan, semangat nasionalisma, hak manusia ataupun hak rakyat didalam pembentukkan satu model kerajaan rakyat. 

Lapan puluh tujuh tahun yang lalu, bapa2 pengasas negara ini telah sama2 melahirkan disatu benua yang indah ini, sebuah negara yang baru, yang dibentuk berasaskan hak kebebasan manusia, yang mana menjunjung kepada satu asas kefahaman dimana setiap insan didunia ini adalah sama, mempunyai hak2 yang sama tanpa mengira warna kulitnya, bangsa, ugama maupun darah keturunan.

Malangnya apa yang terjadi kini adalah satu perang saudara, yang cuba untuk menguji pendirian mereka yang terlibat dalam pembentukkan dan arahtuju negara itu, dan melihat sejauh manakah ketabahan mereka ini dalam mempertahankan kefahaman yang telah dijadikan asas negara ini. Akhirnya kita telah dipertemukan disini, disatu padang, medan pertempuran yang terbesar, didalam perang saudara ini. Kedatangan kami disini adalah untuk memberi penghargaan dan menjadikan sebahagian daripada kawasan pertempuran ini sebagai tempat rehat terakhir pada mereka yang telah menyerahkan nyawa mereka demi untuk negara ini supaya terus hidup. Maka apa yang dapat dilihat berlaku pada hari ini amatlah bersesuaian dan sememangnya sesuatu yang amat wajar untuk kita lakukan.

Namun, dalam satu pengertian yang lebih besar, bukanlah bagi kita untuk membuat apa-apa dedikasi pun, ataupun mengabadikan ia, maupun menganggapkan tanah ini sebagai satu tanah keramat. Mereka yang telah bertempur dengan penuh keberanian, samada yang hidup maupun yang telah mati; yang telah memberikan segala-galanya didalam perjuangan mereka inilah yang telah memberikan maknanya yang tersendiri, terhadap padang pertempuran ini, jauh daripada kuasa kecil manusia seperti kita ini untuk menokok tambahkan ia.

Apa yang berlaku pada hari ini hanyalah satu nota kecil didunia ini, dan apa yang diperkatakan disini juga, kemungkinannya tidak akan diingati lagi dimasa akan datang. Namun apa yang telah berlaku disini, adalah sesuatu yang tidak akan mudah untuk dilupakan. Maka adalah pada kita yang masih hidup ini, disebaliknya, yang telah didedikasikan disini, iaitu suatu tugas yang masih lagi belum selesai, yang setakat mana telah diperjuangkan oleh perwira negara  ini, telahpun membawa kita jauh dalam mencapai matlamatnya.

Oleh itu ianya adalah kursus untuk kita disini, ditinggalkan satu tanggungjawab yang besar dihadapan kita, daripada mereka ini bagi kita untuk menambahkan lagi semangat kita untuk terus berjuang, sebagai satu tanda penghormatan kepada perjuangan mereka ini, yang telah memberikan kesetian penuh mereka sehinggalah hembusan nafas yang terakhir.

Maka disini, kita telah bertekad dan mengambil satu pendekatan dimana mereka yang telah mengorbankan nyawa mereka disini, tidaklah membuat satu pengorbanan yang sia-sia - bahawasanya negara ini - dibawah satu perlindungan Tuhan Yang Maha Esa - akan melahirkan satu pengertian baru akan maksudnya kebebasan - dimana satu kerajaan rakyat, yang dibina oleh rakyat, yang dibina untuk rakyat, tidak sekali-kali akan luput didunia ini.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863

Translation by @aidyadnan

Swedish government email accounts hacked by Anonymous

Swedish government email accounts have been hacked by the Anonymous hacktivist group, in response to last week’s seizure of The Pirate Bay servers by Swedish police.

The group also claimed to have hacked into the government email accounts of Israel, India, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.

The hacktivist group also left a message at the end of the leak: "Warning: Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year to all!! Bye :*"

This is not the first time Swedish entities have been hacked following The Pirate Bay raid. On Friday, Swedish internet giant Telia was attacked, The Local reported.

Telia's online services were affected, as well as user connections. The chief researcher at Kaspersky Lab, David Jacoby, said the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack was likely triggered by the police raid on The Pirate Bay in Stockholm.

"These attacks don't come from nowhere. The Pirate Bay raid has provoked feelings in these groups," Jacoby told TT news agency.

The company also came under cyber assaults on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Tuesday, The Pirate Bay and several other torrent websites temporarily disappeared from the internet. The sites were downed in a raid by Swedish police, which seized the servers, computers, and equipment of previously elusive web pirates.

The Pirate Bay appeared back online later that day, changing its web domain to .cr (Costa Rica).

Earlier in September, The Pirate Bay announced new cloud technology which made its servers “raid proof,”adding that the 21 “virtual machines” (VMs) were scattered around the globe with cloud-hosting providers.

The cloud technology reportedly made the site more portable and harder to take down.

source RT

Does Belonging to What You Think as The Right Group Makes You Better Than Others?

Ibn Taymiyyah reminded us to not be arrogant when dealing with sectarianism:

"Just because somebody is in a correct group, doesn't mean that he is going to enter jannah. Surely you will find that one who is in the incorrect group might even get to the highest level of jannah because of his sincerity and good deeds. And the person who thought that he is with the correct faith or correct theology might not even get to enter jannah because of the sin that he has done, which is for having arrogance in his heart."

We always have to be careful of the greater sin that we are endanger of committing when we talk about sectarianism and that is the sin of arrogance. Sure you might believe that your theology is the right one but let that not translate into believing that you as a person are better than somebody else, better than the person who does not believe in your theology. Because the theology itself  might be right, but you are surely not perfect, and we have to make a distinction between the believe and the person.

If you believe that you're upon the truth, as it was embodied by our Prophet Muhammad (saw) then let truth lead to humility, let truth lead to humbleness and let truth lead us to compassion.

And let us not forget the golden rule that is the teaching from all the prophets including Moses, Jesus and Muhamad (saw) which is -

"we should treat others as we ourselves want to be treated"

That is the rules of mercy and compassion and that is the rule of Allah and his Messengers. 

@aidyadnan

Anifah Berlagak bagaikan Presiden Putin.

Bro Anifah tak payah la nak berlagak mcm pres Putin plak? Bukannya satu perkara besar sangat pun. Lagipun, bukankah orang2 Melayu masih lagi memegang hak kuasa memerintah. Apalah yang nak dirisaukan. Tambahan pula dengan adanya "sedition act plus" nanti maka bertambah kukuhlah pemerintahan orang2 Melayu dimasa2 yang akan datang. Dan ternyatalah lebih ramai lagi yang akan berada didalam list millionaires dan juga billionaires. Lagipun diplomat Amerika tu pun cuma "puzzled" je dengan tindakan u-turn yang dibuat oleh PM Najib. Soalnya adakah itu sesuatu yang tidak benar? Dan sejak bila pulak negara2 lain diharamkan daripada membuat apa2 komen berkenaan dengan politik dinegara ini? Nampak macam terlampau sensitive plak pemimpin2 Melayu kita sekarang. Rilex Bro!

KUALA LUMPUR: Wisma Putra has summoned United States (US) Ambassador to Malaysia Joseph Y. Yun to explain his country's position on Malaysia's decision to retain the Sedition Act 1948.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman (pic) said Kuala Lumpur was disappointed that the US ambassador had chosen to highlight his unwarranted comments on the Government's decision, given Malaysia's unwavering position on moderation and tolerance.

"Malaysia regrets the comments made by Yun on the latest developments relating to the government's decision to retain the Sedition Act 1948," he said in a statement Wednesday.

The envoy in an interview with an online news portal on Dec 6, said the US was ‘puzzled’ over Malaysia's decision to retain the Sedition Act.

A day before, US Vice-President Joe Biden had also made a remark on the Act, and on Oppposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Anifah said Malaysia called on the US Government to respect the country's internal affairs and allow Malaysia the space, indispensable to all countries with maturing democracies to ensure continued peace, security and stability.

"Malaysia wishes to remind all parties that the decision relating to the Sedition Act is a prerogative of the Government," he added.

He stressed that any government decision on the Act was an internal matter and any unwarranted comment related to the matter would be regarded as interference in the countrys internal affairs.

Anifah pointed out that the Sedition Act did not hinder a vibrant democracy, but was a preventive measure to ensure that no party would incite religious and racial tension that could jeopardise peace and stability in this country.

"The Malaysian Government remains committed to maintaining peace, stability and harmony in the country, and safeguarding the multiracial and multicultural values, norms and practices in Malaysia," he said. - Bernama

Kebenaran dalam soal Akta Hasutan dan Guantanamo Bay

Akhir-akhir ini timbul pula beberapa pendapat pro-akta hasutan yang cuba untuk menyangkal satu kenyataan yang dibuat oleh seorang diplomat Amerika Syarikat, yang mana agak hairan dengan sikap pemerintah negara ini yang telah membuat satu u-turn pada janjinya untuk tidak lagi menggunakan akta tersebut.

Ahli-ahli politik muda seperti Khairy Jamaluddin dan juga orang lama, Dr Mahathir dengan segera mengeluarkan pendapat mereka yang mengatakan bahawa Amerika Syarikat tidak mempunyai hak dan tidak layak untuk membuat apa2 kenyataan pun terhadap akta hasutan yang digunakan dinegara ini, kerana mereka sendiri menggunakan akta yang sama keatas rakyatnya sendiri, seperti contoh mereka2 yang kini dipenjarakan diGuantanamo Bay.

Sememangnya sebahagian daripada kenyataan mereka ini boleh dianggapkan mempunyai sedikit kebenaran walaupun suaranya agak angkuh, namun apa yang tidak difahami (ataupun sengaja di"spin"kan) oleh Khairy dan juga Dr Mahathir ialah, mereka yang berada diGuantanamo Bay itu adalah orang2 luar yang dianggapkan sebagai tawanan perang dan bukannya rakyat Amerika sendiri. Dan mereka semuanya ditangkap kerna disyaki mempunyai kaitan ataupun terlibat dengan pihak2 terrorist yang mengancam keamanan dan keselamatan negara itu. Disebabkan oleh nature of the crime yang berunsur international itu, maka menghakimi sesaorang yang disyaki bersalah itu ternyatalah agak rumit, walaupun kerajaan Amerika Syarikat telah pun membebaskan ramai daripada mereka2 yang telah ditahan sehingga kini hanya tinggal lebih kurang 130 orang sahaja.

Tambahan pula, tidak ada seorang pun yang berkerakyatan Amerika Syarikat yang boleh ditahan tanpa sebab dengan sewenang-wenangnya dinegara itu, kerana ini adalah hak rakyat yang terjamin dibawah kontitusi mereka. Oleh itu untuk mengatakan bahawa Amerika Syarikat menggunakan satu akta yang bermiripkan akta hasutan keatas pelajar2 universitinya, ahli2 politiknya, peguam2nya, mereka2 yang membantah politik pemerintahnya, yang mana kesemua mereka ini dimasukkan keGuantanamo Bay adalah satu argument yang nyata tidak berasaskan faktor dan tidak boleh diguna-pakai untuk membalas kenyataan yang dibuat oleh diplomat itu.

Malangnya ramai rakyat Malaysia yang akan menyokong dan mempercayai kenyataan2 yang dibuat oleh kedua2 ahli politik ini, kerana merekalah yang dianggapkan sebagai bijak pandai dan tidak mungkinlah mereka ini akan membuat satu kenyataan yang tidak benar, hanya untuk mempertahankan sokongan mereka dalam mengekalkan satu akta yang memberikan sepenuh kuasa kepada pemerintah dan tidak langsung mementingkan hak hak rakyat.


@aidyadnan

Letter to the people of Malaysia: Champion open debate and discourse on Islamic law

Finally, an open letter questioning the role of the government and the function of Islam in our society. It's great to have these 25 very affluent Malays who used to be holding top government positions to finally voice out their dissatisfactions and disagreement towards how these situations are currently being handled by BN and also some of the government's bodies such as MAIS, JAIS etc. Actually, for a while now, I've thought that these people don't really exist, because it has always been the same faces that we'll see voicing their disagreements over these issues, but nevertheless, I'm glad that such important matters such as these are being looked at with concerned by those who were in the government services, especially those influencial in directing the course this country is heading. - @aidyadnan

We, a group of concerned citizens of Malaysia, would like to express how disturbed and deeply dismayed we are over the continuing unresolved disputes on the position and application of Islamic laws in this country. The on-going debate over these matters display a lack of clarity and understanding on the place of Islam within our Constitutional democracy. Moreover, they reflect a serious breakdown of federal-state division of powers, both in the areas of civil and criminal jurisdictions.

We refer specifically to the current situation where religious bodies seem to be asserting authority beyond their jurisdiction; where issuance of various fatwa violate the Federal Constitution and breach the democratic and consultative process of shura; where the rise of supremacist NGOs accusing dissenting voices of being anti-Islam, anti-monarchy and anti-Malay has made attempts at rational discussion and conflict resolution difficult; and most importantly, where the use of the Sedition Act hangs as a constant threat to silence anyone with a contrary opinion.

These developments undermine Malaysia's commitment to democratic principles and rule of law, breed intolerance and bigotry, and have heightened anxieties over national peace and stability.

As moderate Muslims, we are particularly concerned with the statement issued by Minister Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, in response to the recent Court of Appeal judgement on the right of transgendered women to dress according to their identity. He viewed the right of the transgender community and Sisters in Islam (SIS) to seek legal redress as a "new wave of assault on Islam" and as an attempt to lead Muslims astray from their faith, and put religious institutions on trial in a secular court.

Such an inflammatory statement from a Federal Minister (and not for the first time) sends a public message that the Prime Minister's commitment to the path of moderation need not be taken seriously when a Cabinet minister can persistently undermine it.

Kuala Lumpur tops global rich list with 13,800 millionaires

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 — Malaysia’s largest city Kuala Lumpur has the highest number of millionaires (denominated in US dollars)  surpassing all other cities of the world, according to a report by international wealth research group WealthInsight.

The city had 13,8000 millionaires or high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in 2013, higher than Abu Dhabi’s 12,500, Cape Town’s 8,753 or Birmingham’s 8,736, WealthInsight said.

The  number of millionaires concentrated in Kuala Lumpur gives an indicator of Malaysia’s fast-growing wealth at the top end but also suggests an increasing gap between the richest and the rest of the population.

Average annual income in the country stands around RM20,000 and minimum wage weighs in at RM900 a month.

WealthInsight predicted that Malaysia’s number of millionaires will jump from over 26,000 last year to 30,054 in just four years, with total Malaysian wealth also projected to increase from US$151 billion (RM527 billion) to US$206 billion (RM719 billion) in the same period.

“Malaysian wealth grew at the remarkable rate of 59.6 per cent between 2009 and 2013 and is expected to increase by a further 28% to reach US$206 billion in 2018,” said the group which claims to have a detailed database on the rich and an international-based team of over 500 economists, analysts and researchers.

WealthInsight analyst Tom Carlisle cited the well-performing Malaysian economy during the financial crisis as the reason for the 45.5 per cent hike in new millionaires minted during the 2009 to 2013 period to the total pool of 26,105.

“Since becoming an Islamic banking hub, Malaysia has seen a large surge in investment to its shores, increasing by 52.6 per cent since 2008 to US$11.6 billion. Malaysia has also seen a large increase in HNWIs acquiring their wealth in finance as well as in real estate and construction, increasing by 64.8 per cent, 57.2 per cent and 55.1 per cent respectively”, says Carlisle.

“Malaysian HNWIs are currently investing 54% of their overseas portfolio in the Asia-Pacific,” Carlisle said, adding that the Malaysian millionaires’ wealth had grew through investment in real estate which would be influenced by the high economic growth expected over the next five years.

Malaysia is also predicted to have more billionaires (20) in 2018 compared against oil-rich United Arab Emirates (19), WealthInsight said in its report titled “Millionaires in Malaysia: 26,000 and Counting”.

The leading source on the rich and ultra-rich pointed out that Malaysia’s overall wealth was similar to countries with larger populations, including Argentina’s US$160 billion, Colombia’s US$154 billion and Indonesia’s US$206 billion.

“With a population of only 28.3 million, Malaysia has a similar number of millionaires than much more densely populated countries such as Indonesia, whose population stands at 237.6 million.

“This demonstrates the big potential for billionaire growth in Malaysia,” Carlisle said.

Currently, Malaysia’s billionaires have 209 per cent more wealth than Paraguay’s entire millionaire population, with the growth of Malaysian billionaires last year standing at US$46 billion, WealthInsight said.

source: Malay Mail Online

Malaysia's Investment Funds Disaster

A champagne-swilling youth leads the PM into a bog of debt and scandal

In 2008, a boisterous young man by the name of Jho Low Taek, a Penang-born Wharton grad with a taste for Cristal champagne and Broadway blondes, approached Malaysia’s Terengganu state government with a proposal to use the state’s authority to sell RM10 billion (US$2.87 billion)  in bonds to start a state-backed investment fund. 

That proposal has led to what Tony Pua, a Democratic Action Party lawmaker, has called “the mother of the mother of the mother of all scandals in the history of Malaysia.” 

That might be one mother too many, but Pua is not alone, with critics of what is now called 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, coming from outside the opposition as well. It is certain that the proposed Terengganu Investment Authority has metastasized into a mess that can properly be called huge and has put Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s tattered reputation on the line yet again.  Much of the story has been detailed in two Malaysian publications, The Edge and the online news portal Malaysiakini's business unit, Kinibiz.

Najib, the head of the 1MDB advisory board, has faced a barrage of questions from opposition lawmakers in Parliament for weeks and an attack on his own flank from former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his allies, including former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, over what can only be regarded as an astonishing level of mismanagement.

The question was why Malaysia needed another government-backed investment fund in the first place, especially one dreamed up by a young friend of the PM's family. It has Khazanah Nasional Bhd., the 23-year-old investment holding arm that manages Malaysia’s assets and makes strategic investments, and the Employee Provident Fund, which also invests employee pension funds. Both are creatures of the Ministry of Finance.

The Terengganu Sultan, Mizan Zainal Abidin, had misgivings over the plan by Jho Low, as he calls himself, so the 27-year-old Low went to the parents of a friend he had made among Malaysia’s privileged elite in the UK. While anti-colonial rhetoric still spews at home, Malaysia’s wealthy have always known where to send their scions. Jho Low was at the exclusive 450-year-old Harrow, with his friend Riza Aziz at nearby 150-year-old Haileybury, which trained English youth for service in India. Riza’s mother is Rosmah Mansor, Najib’s second wife.  

Thus the proposed Terengganu Investment Authority metamorphosed into 1Malaysia Development Bhd., also under the Ministry of Finance. Today 1MDB has accumulated debt of RM36.25 billion (US$10.4 billion) that is only covered by repeated accounting upgrading of the value of property handed to it at a knock-down price by the government to get it started – a 196-hectare former air force base near the center of Kuala Lumpur. 

In recent months, the government, in an attempt to build up the fund so it can be listed, has strong-armed at least three no-bid contracts for 1MDB to build coal-fired and solar power plants. One of those power plants, in Port Dickson near Malacca, was awarded to 1MDB despite a lower bid from a joint venture of YTL International Bhd and SIPP, partly owned by the Sultan of Johor, who is said to have been enraged by the loss and is demanding privately that SIPP be given its own no-bid contract for another plant.

Although its dealings are opaque, sources in Kuala Lumpur believe it was Jho Low, previously regarded as a savvy investor despite his tender years, who drove 1MDB into disaster.  Although the chairman of the Board of Directors is Lodin Wok Kamaruddin, who holds the high-ranking honorific of tan sri, he is regarded as a figurehead and many of 1MDB’s major decisions have Low’s fingerprints on them 

Low, who has accompanied Rosmah on forays to New York to meet celebrities including Lionel Ritchie and Paris Hilton, landing in the pages of the New York Post, involved 1MDB in backing his failed 2011 bid to buy three prestigious London hotels – Claridge’s, the Connaught and The Berkeley, according to documents filed in the Chancery Division of the UK’s Royal Courts of Justice. 

A Los Angeles law firm accused the government of Malaysia, without mentioning 1MDB, of racketeering in funding the phenomenally successful movie The Wolf of Wall Street, an Oscar-nominated picture starring Leonardo DeCaprio and co-produced by Riza Aziz, Rosmah’s son. How that might have been done is unclear. The lawyers for a Los Angeles plaintiff who sued over the rights to the movie refused to elaborate, citing lawyer-client privilege.  But in the case of the Claridge’s campaign, 1MDB issued guarantee letters saying the fund would stand behind the purchase. Presumably that meant Malaysia’s sovereign fund would cover any losses accrued if the sale failed.  

The fund loaned RM7.2 billion to finance oil exploration for another chum out of that rarefied London ex-colonial society – Tarek Essam Ahmad Obaid, a London playboy said to be a grandson of the Saudi Sheikh Obaid, one of the kingdom’s most senior grandees. Tarek met Jho Low a few months before the deal for the loan was consummated, according to Clare Rewcastle Brown, a former BBC reporter who has followed the 1MDB affair closely. Tarek is the founder and chief executive of PetroSaudi International, Ltd.  Despite its pretentious website there is little information on PetroSaudi, which was only incorporated three years before the entry of 1MDB. The money, to be loaned at 8.75 percent, has disappeared. 

What 1MDB has not done is make enough money to cover its huge debt, although determining anything is difficult because no up-to-date accounts have been filed. “I was the finance head for oil companies  before I entered politics,” Rafizi Ramli, strategic director and secretary-general of the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat, told Asia Sentinel. “Nobody I knew had ever come across PetroSaudi before. We tried to check what it was. It was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. While it is normal for financial investors to enter into ventures, how could a government commit such a huge sum of money with a greenhorn company with no known track record, incorporated in a haven for dodgy money, in an industry where capital risk is so huge?”  

When the bid to explore for oil collapsed, the money appears to have been invested in speculative yen forex deals, insiders told Rafizi. Forex trading is not for amateurs.  By early 2012, it began to appear that the money had altogether disappeared, according to Tony Pua. 1MDB was having trouble filing its financial reports, a signal that something was wrong.  When 1MDB said the funds had been moved into a fund in the Cayman Islands, its managers refused to say who was managing the money.

Today, Pua said, the entire operation appears to be built on debt, although with audited financial reports delayed it is impossible to say for sure. Its managers are seeking to cover the losses through additional borrowings and money raisings, including a US$4.75 billion one engineered by Goldman Sachs, the international investment bank, that cost 1MDB 10 percent of the offering, a phenomenal amount for “commissions, fees and expenses” according to the prospectus. By comparison, Tenaga Nasional, the state-owned energy utility, paid a 2 percent fee on a US$300 million money raising. SMBC Aviation Capital, which leases jets to Malaysian Airlines, paid 0.5 percent on a US$1 billion capital raising. The fees paid to Goldman worked out at US$1.54 billion, Pua said.

The fund today is betting its future on becoming the country’s biggest power producer and a global energy player. It acquired a string of overpriced independent power producers from the Genting gambling interests and Ananda Khrishnan, the country’s richest businessman and an UMNO crony, for RM11 billion to generate cash flow, at what were astounding valuations. Indeed, within six months, the fund’s auditors wrote off RM1.2 billion of the valuation because they were so overpriced. 

“Because they were desperate to borrow to cover the acquisitions, they had to pay higher interest rates,” Pua said. “And because they were desperate, they paid Goldman crazy fees to arrange the loans.”

On top of the enormous interest burden from the debt, it turns out that the cash flow from the IPPs is so small that it was barely enough to cover the interest, let alone pay back the RM15 billion principal. 

With the hole from the initial failed loan to PetroSaudi, and the vast debt from the IPP purchases, 1MDB is now trying to list to raise US$10 billion from the market. But in order to write a credible prospectus for the listing, it requires strong financials. 1MDB’s financials do not come anywhere near credible enough to assure potential investors of future cash flow. 

The government has stepped in to extend the contracts for the IPPs, which were supposed to end after their contract periods ended. That is still not enough. The government then tendered a contract to build the coal-fired plant in Port Dickson. Critics charge the contract was unnecessary, that Tenaga Nasional, the state-owned utility, had the experience and capital to build the plant itself. The tender turned out to be a fiasco, with the YTL-SIPP consortium coming in with a lower bid, only to be disqualified on what many critics have said was a technicality.

Since then, the government has awarded three contracts to 1MDB, the other two without the potential embarrassment of a tender process. But critics point out that 1MDB has never built anything and is mainly relying on the expertise of Tenaga Nasional. The bid for a 50 megawatt solar power plant project in Kedah in the north of the country is to be the largest solar plant in Malaysia despite the fact there is no guaranteed offtake, that prices for solar, even though they have fallen sharply, still exceed that of conventional plants, and that Malaysians are going to end up paying more for their electricity.  

All of these moves are an attempt to rescue 1MDB and give it the potential to demonstrate income to investors. So on the advice of a 27-year-old neophyte and friend of the prime minister’s family, the country has created a state-backed investment fund, got itself involved in a series of businesses it knew nothing about, put the country’s sovereign backing behind a private hotel bid and a Hollywood movie, run up a vast amount of debt, and now is seeking to bail itself out via preferential contracts to build electrical plants with expertise so far it doesn’t have.  The critics expect that this is going to cost Malaysia’s taxpayers and ratepayers a considerable amount of money. 

Written by John Berthelsen

MON,08 DECEMBER 2014

The International Jew by Henry Ford (1920)

"Among the distinguishing mental and moral traits of the Jews may be mentioned: distaste for hard or violent physical labor; a strong family sense and philoprogenitiveness; a marked religious instinct; the courage of the prophet and martyr rather than of the pioneer and soldier; remarkable power to survive in adverse environments, combined with great ability to retain racial solidarity; capacity for exploitation, both individual and social; shrewdness and astuteness in speculation and money matters generally; an Oriental love of display and a full appreciation of the power and pleasure of social position; a very high average of intellectual ability."

— The New International Encyclopedia.

The Jew in Character and Business

The Jew is again being singled out for critical attention throughout the world. His emergence in the financial, political and social spheres has been so complete and spectacular since the war, that his place, power and purpose in the world are being given a new scrutiny, much of it unfriendly. Persecution is not a new experience to the Jew, but intensive scrutiny of his nature and super-nationality is. He has suffered for more than 2,000 years from what may be called instinctive anti-Semitism of the other races, but this antagonism has never been intelligent nor has it been able to make itself intelligible. Nowadays, however, the Jew is being placed, as it were, under the microscope of economic observation that the reasons for his power, the reasons for his separateness, the reasons for his suffering may be defined and understood.

In Russia he is charged with being the source of Bolshevism, an accusation which is serious or not according to the circle in which it is made; we in America, hearing the fervid eloquence and perceiving the prophetic ardor of young Jewish apostles of social and industrial reform, can calmly estimate how it may be. In Germany he is charged with being the cause of the Empire's collapse and a very considerable literature has sprung up, bearing with it a mass of circumstantial evidence that gives the thinker pause. In England he is charged with being the real world ruler, who rules as a super-nation over the nations, rules by the power of gold, and who plays nation against nation for his own purposes, remaining himself discreetly in the background. In America it is pointed out to what extent the elder Jews of wealth and the younger Jews of ambition swarmed through the war organizations — principally those departments which dealt with the commercial and industrial business of war, and also the extent to which they have clung to the advantage which their experience as agents of the government gave them.

In simple words, the question of the Jews has come to the fore, but like other questions which lend themselves to prejudice, efforts will be made to hush it up as impolitic for open discussion. If, however, experience has taught us anything it is that questions thus suppressed will sooner or later break out in undesirable and unprofitable forms.

The Jew is the world's enigma. Poor in his masses, he yet controls the world's finances. Scattered abroad without country or government, he yet presents a unity of race continuity which no other people has achieved. Living under legal disabilities in almost every land, he has become the power behind many a throne. There are ancient prophecies to the effect that the Jew will return to his own land and from that center rule the world, though not until he has undergone an assault by the united nations of mankind.

The single description which will include a larger percentage of Jews than members of any other race is this: he is in business. It may be only gathering rags and selling them, but he is in business. From the sale of old clothes to the control of international trade and finance, the Jew is supremely gifted for business. More than any other race he exhibits a decided aversion to industrial employment, which he balances by an equally decided adaptability to trade. The Gentile boy works his way up, taking employment in the productive or technical departments; but the Jewish boy prefers to begin as messenger, salesman or clerk — anything — so long as it is connected with the commercial side of the business. 

An early Prussian census illustrates this characteristic: of a total population of 269,400, 

the Jews comprised six per cent or 16,164. Of these, 12,000 were traders and 4,164 were workmen. Of the Gentile population, the other 94 per cent, or 153,236 people, there were only 17,000 traders.

Jibby Dibby Dibby Lie

So, Jibby did a u-turn yet again. Surprised? Not really. See, Jibby is a probably one of the worst leader I've seen so far. His reaction to any kinda situation is too damn fcukin slow, no sense of urgency whatsoever when it comes to matters of concerned, and that goes to making decisions as well . It seems like he doesn't have a brain of his own, scared to make his own decisions and always wait to see what others think of it first. Yep, basically got no balls to stand on his own as a leader, stern with his decisions no matter what the people say, because it is the right thing to do. 

Hey, I'm not gonna argue with all this sedition acts bullshit because there's no point in arguing with people who don't understand, which is basically the problem of this country. But then if they don't understand, do you think that they know that they're the problem? Of course not. Interestingly enough, these earth prince and princesses, seems to know it all, as long as you don't argue with them. Because it'll end up the same all the time. That in this God forsaken country, they are always better than the rest, just for being a Malay.

Why is Malaysia not part of the MH17 investigation?

Has Malaysia been left out of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the MH17 crash because the country would not point fingers at Russia, asks the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) today.

Its president, prominent Malaysian scholar Dr Chandra Muzaffar, said it was logical and sensible for Malaysia to be part of the investigation since national carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS) owned the downed aircraft.

In an article on the Centre for Research on Globalisation website dated November 24, he wrote that Malaysia had more rights to be in the JIT than some of its present members, and expressed hopes that a resolution endorsing a demand to be included in the team be adopted at the ongoing Umno general assembly.

“One can understand why Ukraine is in the team since that is where the plane was shot from the sky. We can understand the Netherlands’s membership of the JIT since the flight originated from Amsterdam.

“But why is Belgium in the JIT? Is it because Brussels is the administrative capital of the European Union and the EU may have some aviation responsibilities over commercial flights in the continent?

“If that is the case, then it is the EU, not Belgium, which should have a place in the team,” he wrote.

Chandra said if Australia was in the JIT because a large number of Australians were killed in that tragedy, Malaysia should also be in the team as it lost 43 citizens on board – the second largest number of casualties after 193 Dutch nationals.

He said the Unites States should perhaps be a member of the investigation team since Boeing, an American multinational, manufactured the 777 passenger jet.

MH17, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed in rebel-held eastern Ukraine after it was shot by an air-to-surface missile on July 17. All 298 passengers and crew members were killed.

Chandra said it had been alleged that Malaysia was left out because the country, unlike the four JIT members, would not point a finger at Russia as the cause of the MH17 disaster.

He said Malaysia would not blame Russia or pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine or anybody else “without hard, incontrovertible evidence”.

“Neither Ukraine nor the US Administration has been able to offer such evidence to the public. Comprehensive military data from satellite images of the incident would have convinced a lot of people.

“Instead, right from the outset, Ukraine, the US and a number of their allies have constructed a narrative about how pro-Russia rebels in Eastern Ukraine shot down MH 17 with a BUK system supplied by Russia,” he said.

The narrative, Chandra said, had been widely disseminated through a biased global media that raised no questions about the motives behind the action or who would have benefitted from it.

He said the anger generated by the “mass murder in the skies” especially in Europe had enabled certain parties to expand and reinforce their economic sanctions against Russia.

In such a situation, he said it was “absolutely right” for Malaysia to adopt a principled position on MH17 which refrained from condemning any party until all the investigations have been completed.

“This is why we are insisting upon total access to the crash site to enable investigators to collect all relevant evidence.

“Malaysia is also demanding that it be given a seat in the JIT. It is a demand that undoubtedly has the support of the entire nation,” he said, adding that Umno, the backbone of the Malaysian government, could adopt a resolution endorsing this demand at its general assembly that ends this Saturday.

Chandra said the Malaysian parliament, which is also in session, should lend its weight to a demand, which was at the heart of our integrity and sovereignty as a nation.

“It is just not only because MH17 is ours. It is just because we have a fair and balanced approach to the tragedy and its probe. We want the entire truth to be known.

“Our participation in the investigation will at least help to check any attempt to conceal or camouflage the real story behind one of the most heinous crimes in recent times,” he added.

Efforts to recovery the plane’s wreckage and debris from the crash site was were recently completed.

It was reported that the wreckage and debris were sent by train to Kharkiv, accompanied by Dutch police and observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The train also carried the remains of some victims. It was reported that the wreckage and remains would be sent to the Netherlands from Kharkiv.

By Looi Sue-Chern