Malaysia PM sets big reforms to boost investment (Reuters)

Fundamentally, Government should not have direct intervention to either Local or Foreign investment company including work-force quotation according to ethnic or race.
In this competitive age, race or color of your skin No Longer can be used to measure the level of capability/qualification to the offered job & it will be foolish for any Employer to assume this way.

Recently, I had a conversation with my friends who is working in the MNC and they are forced to promote certain ethnic group as not to violate country/HR regulations set by Government for the higher management quota.

I am not sure whether this is true but from the post below, it seems it is quite true.
Just imagine if you are rich enough to own a company & while worrying about the profit/lost margin for your product/services, yet you still have think about other not so related item such as meeting quotation for certain ethnic group hiring?

To me, this is redundant as the bottomline of a good company is to hire the most capable/qualified candidate as possible…it is the TALLENT that matters not the color…

Malaysia PM sets big reforms to boost investment (Reuters)
By David Chance and Soo Ai Peng

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's prime minister unveiled a raft of measures on Tuesday to boost investment in the slumping economy, coming close to ending an affirmative action program for ethnic Malays that critics say has stymied growth.

Najib Razak told a conference in Kuala Lumpur that his government would end rules on foreign investment in most sectors of the economy and would open up the investment management and brokerage industry, as well as property, ending requirements for 30 percent ownership by ethnic Malays.

He also promised reforms of Malaysia's huge government companies such as plantations and property giant Sime Darby, and said they would be forced to sell non-core assets to boost domestic competition in the Southeast Asian nation.

"We have become a successful middle income economy, but we cannot and will not be caught in the middle income country trap," Najib told the conference.

"We need to make the shift to a high income economy or we risk losing growth momentum in our economies and vibrancy in our markets."

The reforms gave the ringgit a small boost and it traded at 3.521 to the dollar at 0500 GMT (1 a.m. EDT), up from 3.54 at the open, although data released later showed foreign investors had continued to pull money out of Malaysia this year.

Malaysia is Asia's third most export-dependent nation, seeing shipment slump 26 percent from a year ago as demand for electronics and commodities has been hit by the global downturn. The economy has shrunk 5 percent this year.

Investment flows have dried up and the country has been overtaken by neighbouring Thailand in terms of direct investment since 2001 and portfolio flows turned negative to the tune of 92.3 billion Malaysian ringgit ($26.10 billion) in 2008.

In the first quarter of 2009 they remained negative to the tune of 12.2 billion ringgit, even as investment in other emerging Asian economies has recovered. Malaysia's stock market has risen 20 percent this year, underperforming a 30 percent rise in Asian markets excluding Japan.

"This move will definitely encourage investors to rethink or reconsider Malaysia amid the many choices (in the region) such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia," said Wan Suhaimie Wan Saidie, economist at Malaysia's Kenanga investment bank.

BALANCING INVESTMENT AND POLITICS
Najib who heads an unpopular government and himself has an approval rating of just 45 percent, according to a June poll, had to balance the need for reform to attract diminishing global investment flows against the risk of a political backlash.

That means that he could not formally end New Economic Policy (NEP), the system of economic and social privileges for ethnic Malays who are 55 percent of the population and which has been cornerstone of the country's policies since 1971.

Instead Najib chose to emphasize that he would keep an overall aim of boosting Malays' ownership of the economy to 30 percent from 19.4 percent at present but he placed a new stress on helping competitive Malays, rather than a blanket guarantee.

"Pragmatism requires a focus on substance, not form. The government of Malaysia remains committed to pursue the spirit and substance of growth with equity," Najib said.

Najib leads the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the dominant party in the multi-ethnic 13-strong National Front coalition that has ruled Malaysia for 51 years since independence from Britain.

The Front's grip on power was hit in elections in March 2008 when the opposition won over a third of parliament seats, blocking the coalition's ability to change the constitution, and five of Malaysia's 13 state governments, a record haul.

The government ousted lackluster premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and replaced him with Najib who took office in April and has launched a series of liberalization measures in the services sector and finance that his predecessor had shied away from.

"This is a fundamental shift in the government mindset, rather than going for quantity we go for quality," said James Chin, professor of politics at Monash University in Kuala Lumpur.

"This is also an acknowledgement by the government that we are a trading nation and we live in a globalized world."

($1=3.536 Malaysian Ringgit)

(Additional reporting by Niluski Koswanage, Razak Ahmad, Loh Li Lian; Editing by David Fox)

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First round in Internet war goes to Iranian intelligence (Debka)

It was the internet social networking website that bring them together but it is also the same tool that bring them down.
I don’t think the protest or any further bloodshed can do Iran any good except for a fresh election govern by the Neutral party.
But then again, do you believe there is any “Neutral” Human component that don’t sway?
Think again…

First round in Internet war goes to Iranian intelligence (Debka)
Millions of sympathizers around the world looked forward to seeing Iran's protest movement using the Internet for the first online coup in history. Instead, the Iranian Islamic regime turned the tables: Its Internet police, arguably the largest in the world, pushed "control," "halt," "delete" and "send" buttons to activate a deadly weapon for suppressing the movement, as soon as it took to the streets to protest the June 12 election which was believed to have given Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a false victory.

By Sunday, June 28, when the Guardian Council was to hand down its final verdict on their complaints, the street rallies had petered out.

Part of the reason, DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report, was their organizers' heavy reliance on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other social sites to orchestrate their protest movement. They did not at first appreciate that Iranian intelligence Internet experts, operating from secret headquarters established months ago, were using their communications to shoot them down.

According to our sources, that headquarters is located at the telecom center on Sepah (Khomenei) Square in Tehran. It was built for the Shah in the 1970s by the Israel construction contractors Solel Boneh and designed by Israeli intelligence and telecommunications experts.

The high-end apparatus, installed in late 2008 by the German Siemens AG and Finnish Nokia Corp. cell phone giant, gave Iranian intelligence the most advanced tools anywhere for controlling, inspecting, censoring and altering Internet and cell phone messaging. Those tools were being used weeks before the poll to identify penetrations by alien spy services, their local agents and dissident activists.

This system is capable of conducting "deep packet inspection" of every type of text and video communication in all parts of Iran on three tracks:

1. Like other advanced electronic spy systems in the world, this one uses such keywords as attack, weapons, cash, data, explosives, meeting, demonstration, resistance, protest, etc. to alert Iran within milliseconds to feeds of interest by computer or phone - mail, signals or visuals.

In a flash, intelligence analysts get a fix on the sender and the electronic addressee which are then placed on a surveillance list for further monitoring. Once identified, the sender or receiver and their connections are closely shadowed by field agents.

2. By "deep packet inspection," the secret controllers can cause delays in online data transfers, which surfers may attribute to glitches connected with their providers. The more targets under surveillance, the more online transfers are slowed down.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that the day after the presidential poll and resulting street outbreaks, Iran's Internet control and tracking supervisors took over the 10 leading service providers in the country. Their first action was to slow down incoming and outgoing cyber traffic from 1,500 to 54 kilobytes to make sure that not a single byte by Internet or cell phone to or from protest leaders escaped their notice.

Tehran has vented its ire on Britain because it is accused of providing the organizers of the dissident movement with London telephone numbers to circumvent the deliberate slowdown of online traffic from inside the country. These numbers gave anti-government activists instant, direct links through Western Internet providers for getting their messages out to the world. Iran suspects they were laid on by British intelligence.

Eventually, the British lines became jammed by overload.

3. Iranian intelligence made cynical use of the large amount of electronic and personal data accumulated on anti-regime elements. Instead of detaining their prey at once, Iranian intelligence invaded their computers and cell phones to plant false leads for smoking unsuspecting activists out in the open and keeping them under inspection.

Within a few days of their protest, Mir Hossein Mousavi and the bulk of his supporters, realizing their electronic campaign had been taken over by the regime to hunt them down, disappeared from the streets of Tehran.

Wednesday, June 24, when the extent of the damage the Iranian Internet invasion had inflicted on American interests was brought home to him, US secretary of defense Robert Gates ordered a special cyber defense system set up to protect the US armed forces' 15,000 Web sites, which encompass seven million computers. Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, was put in charge of getting the new system up and running by the end of 2010.

Tuesday, June 23, a group of US senators led by the Republic presidential candidate John McCain and independent Joe Lieberman initiated legislation to fund a cyber defense system capable of combating Internet assaults like the one mounted by the Iranian government.

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Mashaal to Obama: we appreciate your words, but actions speak louder (PIC)

Looks like No-Go from the Palestinian side...
The condition of disarment is like ripping off your only source of "protection" or "self-defence" but with the back-up from US & Arab neighboring countries, I still wonder if this will post any risk.
Or the main decision is not made with the interest of the people...and again Politician is also a mortal human-being where the self interest always be the tip of all moves...
Well, just my thoughts...

Mashaal to Obama: we appreciate your words, but actions speak louder (PIC)
From Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
In a landmark speech in Damascus Thursday afternoon, Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal urged President Barack Obama to transform his positive words about the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people into “concrete actions.”

“We do appreciate Obama’s new language, we think it is a step in the right direction. However, we expect the American administration to put these words into actions and to refrain from imposing conditions on Hamas.”

Mashaal said dealing with Hamas must be based on respecting the Palestinian people’s democratic choice, not imposing conditions such as those imposed by the Quartet, which included demands for unconditional recognition of the apartheid Israeli regime, giving up resistance entirely and accepting without reservation all the vague agreements and understandings reached by Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Mashaal pointed out that conditions such as these had been imposed by Israel and the U.S. and carried out (by the PA), but nothing changed on the ground as the Israeli occupation remained entrenched, the settlement expansion continued unabated and the Palestinian horizons narrowed further and further.

He argued that whenever the PA budged to Israeli demands and conditions, fresh demands and conditions were imposed.

“They asked the PA to recognize Israel , and the PA recognized Israel . But, look, now they want the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish nature of Israel , to recognize that al-Quds al Sharif is Israel’s capital, and to give up the right of return for the refugees. You see, Israel’s conditions and demands are endless.”

Mashaal stressed that Hamas was not terribly concerned about getting itself recognized by foreign powers.

“Hamas’s priority is not getting itself recognized by others, but rather getting others to recognize the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights. The Palestinian national cause has a priority over Hamas, and concerns over the national cause takes precedence over concerns over all other interests and considerations. And no faction has the right to give concessions at the expense of the national cause for the sake of making factional political gains.”

On Netanyahu speech
Mashaal reserved some of his strongest words for Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu who two weeks ago proposed the creation of a vaguely-defined Palestinian entity which would be nearly completely controlled by Israel and not encompassing Jerusalem .

“Netanyahu wants to give our people a state with a name but without any substance. He may continue to entertain his fascist whims for ever, but he won’t find a Palestinian who would listen to him.”

He said that Netanyahu’s racist speech reflected an inherently racist mindset and hell-bent desire to keep up the occupation of our motherland.

He further pointed out that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state meant in real terms killing the right of return as well as undermining the future of the 1.5 million Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

Mashaal addressed Arab leaders, saying they should withdraw the so-called Arab peace plan because Israel is viewing it with contempt.

“Netanyahu has turned the table upside down, hence it is futile to keep our hands extended to an insolent Israeli leadership. Therefore, and in response to the Israeli arrogance and insolence, I urge Arab leaders to behave in a dignified manner and make available new choices and gather our assets of power, which are available, provided there is the will“

He said Hamas was willing and ready to cooperate with any party for the sake of expediting the national interests of the Arab people. He added that begging Israel for peace would give a sign of weakness.

Hamas’ politburo chief devoted a significant part of his speech to the national rift with Fatah, saying that Palestinian national unity was paramount, not necessarily for the sake of expediting peace talks with Israel, but rather in order to strengthen the Palestinian people and enhance their ability to extract legitimate Palestinian rights from Zionist hands.

“National unity is paramount because it consolidates our internal front in Israel’s face.”

He said that Hamas adopted a decision to act expeditiously to end this rift through Egyptian-mediated efforts.

However, Mashaal said that there were three requirements without which inter-Palestinian reconciliation wouldn’t be accomplished.

First, Palestinians must not allow foreign interference in their internal affairs; Second, Palestinians must agree on all contentious issues in one package; and, third, the Palestinian Authority must put an end to the provocative policy of arresting Hamas’ supporters and sympathizers.

“The problem is not a mere internal disagreement. We are talking about systematic practices carried out by the Fayyadh government under the supervision of the American Gen. Keith Dayton. There is a close coordination with the Israeli occupation army against resistance elements, for the sake of arresting or killing them as happened recently in Qalqilya.”

Mashaal pointed out that as many as 830 men and women, including scholars, academics, students, business people and other professionals were languishing in PA jails.

“Many are tortured and some have died while others were transferred to hospital for treatment of torture-related illnesses.

“There is a systematic process of eradication. Nothing like this has happened since 1967. All institutions have been closed down, Zakat (Alms) committees confiscated, funds destined to prisoners and orphans stolen…”

Mashaal argued that the provocative and repressive practices of the PA were the main obstacle impeding national unity between Fatah and Hamas.

Underscoring Dayton’s disastrous role in fomenting Palestinian division, Mashaal called on President Obama to withdraw Gen. Dayton from the West Bank immediately.

“I believe that building a repressive authority is incompatible with Obama’s calls for spreading democracy in this part of the world. Hence.”

Mashaal scoffed at the PA for meticulously carrying out “commitments” to appease Israel while Israel was continuing to build settlements and steal land and Judaize Jerusalem and imposing siege on Gaza .

Mashaal recognized that some political prisoners were being released from PA jails.

However, he pointed out that even more people were being arrested, accusing the PA of following the rolling-gate policy.

“I am sorry to say that what the PA is doing in the West Bank doesn’t really give us a reason for hope. This is why I am urging our brothers in Egypt to deal with this matter urgently.

Finally, Mashaal reasserted Hamas’ commitment to free Palestinian prisoners languishing in Zionist jails, detention camps and dungeons.

He pointed out that there were as many as 12, 000 Palestinian prisoners detained in Zionist custody, including 400 children, the youngest of whom is Yousuf al Zeq, who is only 15 months’ old.

“What is preventing a prisoner swap deal from seeing the light is Israeli intransigence. Otherwise, we are willing to carry out a serious deal that would release our prisoners from Zionist jails.”
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Hamas leader rejects "freak" Israel offer of state (Reuters)

No pain no gain?
I guessed the risk is far too big to be handled...

Hamas leader rejects "freak" Israel offer of state (Reuters)
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal denounced on Thursday an Israeli offer of a demilitarized Palestinian state as a "big prison" and said only armed struggle could restore Palestinian rights.

In a speech this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the U.S. goal of a Palestinian state but said it should be demilitarized and the Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish nation.

"The state that Netanyahu talked about, with control on it by land, sea and air, is a freak entity and a big prison, not a country fit for a great people," Meshaal said in a speech in the Syrian capital to supporters of Hamas, which won Palestinian elections in 2006.

Meshaal said the notion of an exclusive Jewish nation was anathema to the Palestinians because it means giving up what he described as the right of six million Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland in what is now Israel.
"We warn against any Arab leniency on this issue. The calls by the leaders of the enemy for the Jewishness of Israel are racist, not different to Italian Fascism and Hitler's Nazism," said Meshaal, who lives in exile in Syria.

OBAMA SPEECH
His speech also aimed to reply to the June 4 speech by U.S. President Barack Obama to the Muslim world in which he re-affirmed the U.S. objective of a Palestinian state alongside Israel on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

Obama also wants a halt to all Israeli settlement building, a point of disagreement between him and Netanyahu.

Meshaal said Hamas appreciated what he termed Obama's new language, which could be the start of an "unconditional dialogue" between Washington and the Palestinian Islamist group.

"Dealing with Hamas and Palestinian resistance movements must be based on respecting the will of the Palestinian people and its democratic choice, not through putting conditions, such as those of the quartet," he said.

He was referring to the demands of the United States, Russia the United Nations and the European Union for Hamas to renounce armed struggle, as well as accept past peace agreements.

Hamas, which took control of the Gaza strip in 2007 after routing forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly rejected these conditions.

Meshaal also repeated the Hamas line of calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders.

"The minimum we accept is a Palestinian state with (East) Jerusalem as its capital, full sovereignty, removal of settlements and the refugees' right of return," he said.

He said Hamas, which is mainly supported by Syria and Iran, sees no alternative but to continue armed struggle to liberate Palestinian land after decades of Israel flouting international resolutions to withdraw.

"There is no alternative," Meshaal said. "Peaceful resistance works for a civil rights struggle, not in front of an occupation armed to the teeth."
(Editing by Charles Dick)
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Syria: Netanyahu speech rejects peace prerequisites (PIC)

My previous Post did mentioned about different view from different eye & the news below just proving this point...

Syria: Netanyahu speech rejects peace prerequisites (PIC)
DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- An official Syrian source has described the speech of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu as reflecting a clear indication against peace in the region.

The source in a statement carried by the official Syrian 'SANA' news agency on Tuesday called on the Arab and Islamic Nation to unite efforts and adopt necessary measures to confront the "Zionist destructive policy".

He added that Netanyahu's emphsis on the Jewish nature of Israel and his rejection of the Palestinian refugees' right of return is a racist position aimed at abolishing the right of a people to exist on its own soil.

The source opined that Netanyahu's conditions for peace constituted a clear rejection of objective fundamentals that could lead to peace in the Middle East in accordance with international legitimacy.

He said that Netanyahu's speech makes it imperative on the Palestinians to return to national unity and to jointly work for the sake of preserving and restoring rights.

The source asked the world community at large and the USA in particular to pressure Israel to end all forms of usurpation, to halt judaization of Jerusalem, to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip and to implement all international resolutions in a bid to reach a just and comprehensive peace.
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