Islamic state debate needs to be settled urgently, says Karpal

PAS and DAP have long been in disagreement over Islamic state issue, with DAP is against the idea of transforming Malaysia into an Islamic state.

PAS has, however, in recent times expressed a renewed push for the concept; implementing it in stages should PR win federal power. The issue shows us that the cooperation between PAS and DAP is on a level of marriage of convenience.

DAP national chairman Karpal Singh said that Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) dilemma over the Islamic state issue needed to be settled immediately.

The veteran politician said that he was concerned that Barisan Nasional would use the issue to try and sow discord among PR leaders.

“The issue of the Islamic state. This needs to be settled urgently.DAP will defend the constitution, and recognises Islam as the official religion.

“But the issue of the Islamic state ... can be discussed among us, and I am certain we can reach a consensus,” said Karpal.

BN could wrest one or two states, says Dr M

The opposition's leadership appeared to be falling on each other which cause opposition lands in trouble.

The far-reaching consequences seem to cause Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad predicted Barisan Nasional (BN) may win back one or two states from Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in the next general election because he says the “opposition is in shambles,” according to a Bloomberg report.

He said BN “may not get the two-thirds majority which would enable them to rule the country with a strong majority.”

He told Bloomberg in an interview here that BN “might be able to recover maybe one or two states.”

“At the moment his party is in a shambles,” Dr Mahathir was quoted by Bloomberg as saying in reference to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR.

Dr Mahathir’s remarks come amid intense speculation that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will call snap polls by the first quarter of next year.

BN looks after the interests of all ethnic groups

MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek said, Titiwangsa Umno division chief Johari Abdul Ghani's speech that Umno did not need Indian or Chinese votes appeared on YouTube do not represent the mainstream view among Umno's top leadership.

“If we want a definite answer, ask the prime minister. The prime minister clearly promotes 1Malaysia with policies for every ethnic group. This is very clear.”

MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek said, MCA would not support these non-mainstream grassroots leaders and even recommend to the Umno leadership that they not be fielded as candidates in the general election.

He said that such Umno leaders do not act in the spirit of BN which looks after the interests of all ethnic groups.

“This (video clip) tells us that there are some Umno grassroots leaders who are not politically savvy. They are not very smart. We will report back to the prime minister.

“They should not come out (in public). We will pursue this. They should not represent BN and should retire and go home,” said Chua.

Run afoul of secrecy

Google revealed that it had unintentionally collected WiFi data from open routers using its Google Street View cars.

The data was only discovered when the German Data Protection Authority asked to audit the WiFi data collected by the Google Street View team.

Google said that up until the time of the audit, it had been under the impression that it was only collecting MAC addresses and SSID information. However, the audit showed that Google had been collected fragments of payload data from open WiFi networks.

Data collected by Google included emails and web addresses users were viewing. Google said that it would be deleting all of this extra data and said a third party would be brought in to ensure this was done in the correct manner.

However, it seems Peter Schaar, Germany's federal commissioner for data protection, and freedom of information, is not satisfied with Google's story.

"So everything was a mistake, a software bug! The data was collected and stored without the authorization of the project's managers or even the company's managers. If we go along with this story, this means the software was used without having been properly tested beforehand," he said, according to TGDaily.

Indeed, Germany is not the only country who has found issue with Google's behavior.

The Irish Data Protection Authority Friday contacted Google and asked that all data accidentally harvested in Ireland be deleted.

Google today confirmed that this Irish data was deleted over the weekend in the presence of an independent third party.

No bonus for civil servants to avoid sovereign debt crisis

There is nothing wrong with civil servants earn higher average salaries than private-sector and receiving bonus. But can you imagine how big RM3.1 billion is and its effect on the National Debt?

Ironically, Malaysia GDP is expected to grow more than 3% annually but government debt continues to grow at 12% annually.

The government’s Performance Management and Delivery Unit’s calculations show that by the year 2019, the country’s projected debt will be 103% of GDP and the fiscal deficit will reach RM449 billion or 38% of GDP.

At that point in time, the country will go into sovereign debt crisis in which government revenue will not be enough to service its debt and to operate the hospitals, schools and other government services.

Undeniably, government paying a month's bonus to the 1.2 million civil servants can be seen as unwise. Thus, under no conceivable circumstances should the government ever concede in practice.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said the government could not pay a month's bonus to the 1.2 million civil servants in Budget 2011 because it incurred an expenditure of RM3.1 billion is thus justified.

He said, the special financial assistance of RM500 for each civil servant was appropriate.

Najib said many quarters had lobbied to him to announce a month's bonus to the civil servants. But I would like to share with you ... that a month's bonus incurs an expenditure of RM3.1 million for the government. Personally, I would want to give a bonus but as a responsible finance minister, I cannot expend more than the national revenue.

"It is for this reason that I gave RM500 as a special financial assistance to civil servants," he said.

Najib announced a special financial assistance of RM500 for all civil servants from Grade 54 and below as well as contract officers and retirees. The payment will be made in December this year. The aid could help civil servants cope with schooling expenses for their children at the end of the year.

He said that though no bonus was given, the government had proposed other incentives for civil servants, such as maternity leave of up to 90 days. These also benefited women teachers, who made up almost 70 percent of the 400,000 teachers in the country.

World's richest government

The USA might have the biggest economy, but the American government is not at all rich; in fact, it can't even take out $150bn if asked to now without resorting to borrowing. To date the US government has borrowed $14 trillion!

The UK, likewise, while the country/people are rich, the government isn’t. The UK government's debt stands at $9 trillion now.

There are only 5 countries with no debt (I.E. 0%):
Brunei, Liechtenstein, Palau, Nieu and Macau of China.

World's richest governments after 2008-2009 financial crisis:
1. China
National reserves: $2,454,300,000,000

2. Japan
National reserves: $1,019,000,000,000
3. Russia
National reserves: $458,020,000,000

4. Saudi Arabia
National reserves: $395,467,000,000
5. Taiwan
National reserves: $362,380,000,000
6. India
National reserves: $279,422,000,000
7. South Korea
National reserves: $274,220,000,000
8. Switzerland
National reserves: $262,000,000,000
9. Hong Kong , China
National reserves: $256,000,000,000
10. Brazil
National reserves: $255,000,000,000

20. Malaysia / 96,100

Here are the rest, in million US $:

11 Singapore / 203,436
12 Germany / 189,100
13 Thailand / 150,000
14 Algeria / 149,000
15 France / 140,848
16 Italy / 133,104
17 United States / 124,176
18 Mexico / 100,096
19 Iran / 96,560
20 Malaysia / 96,100
21 Poland / 85,232
22 Libya / 79,000
23 Denmark / 76,315
24 Turkey / 71,859
25 Indonesia / 69,730
26 United Kingdom / 69,091
27 Israel / 62,490
28 Canada / 57,392
29 Norway / 49,223
30 Iraq / 48,779
31 Argentina / 48,778
32 Philippines / 47,650
33 Sweden / 46,631
34 United Arab Emirates / 45,000
35 Hungary / 44,591
36 Romania / 44,056
37 Nigeria / 40,480
38 Czech Republic / 40,151
39 Australia / 39,454
40 Lebanon / 38,600
41 Netherlands / 38,372
42 South Africa / 38,283
43 Peru / 37,108
44 Egypt / 35,223
45 Venezuela / 31,925
46 Ukraine / 28,837
47 Spain / 28,195
48 Colombia / 25,141
49 Chile / 24,921
50 Belgium / 24,130
51 Brunei / 22,000
52 Morocco / 21,873
53 Vietnam / 17,500
54 Macau / 18,730
55 Kazakhstan / 27,549
56 Kuwait / 19,420
57 Angola / 19,400
58 Austria / 18,079
59 Serbia / 17,357
60 Pakistan / 16,770
61 New Zealand / 16,570
62 Bulgaria / 16,497
63 Ireland / 16,229
63 Portugal / 16,254
64 Croatia / 13,720
65 Jordan / 12,180
66 Finland / 11,085
67 Bangladesh / 10,550
68 Botswana / 10,000
69 Tunisia / 9,709
70 Azerbaijan / 9,316
71 Bolivia / 8,585
72 Trinidad and Tobago / 8,100
73 Yemen / 7,400
74 Uruguay / 8,104
75 Oman / 7,004
76 Latvia / 6,820
77 Lithuania / 6,438
78 Qatar / 6,368
79 Cyprus / 6,176
80 Belarus / 6,074
81 Syria / 6,039
82 Uzbekistan / 5,600
83 Luxembourg / 5,337
84 Guatemala / 5,496
85 Greece / 5,207
86 Bosnia and Herzegovina / 5,151
87 Cuba / 4,247
88 Costa Rica / 4,113
89 Equatorial Guinea / 3,928
90 Ecuador / 3,913
91 Iceland / 3,823
92 Paraguay / 3,731
93 Turkmenistan / 3,644
94 Estonia / 3,583
95 Malta / 3,522
96 Myanmar / 3,500
97 Bahrain / 3,474
98 Kenya / 3,260
99 Ghana / 2,837
100 El Salvador / 2,845
101 Sri Lanka / 2,600
102 Cambodia / 2,522
103 Côte d'Ivoire / 2,500
104 Tanzania / 2,441
105 Cameroon / 2,341
106 Macedonia / 2,243
107 Dominican Republic / 2,223
108 Papua New Guinea / 2,193
109 Honduras / 2,083
110 Armenia / 1,848
111 Slovakia / 1,809
112 Mauritius / 1,772
113 Albania / 1,615
114 Kyrgyzstan / 1,559
115 Jamaica / 1,490
116 Mozambique / 1,470
117 Gabon / 1,459
118 Senegal / 1,350
119 Georgia / 1,300
120 Panama / 1,260
121 Sudan / 1,245
122 Zimbabwe / 1,222
123 Slovenia / 1,105
124 Moldova / 1,102
125 Zambia / 1,100
126 Nicaragua / 1,496
127 Mongolia / 1,000
128 Chad / 997
129 Burkina Faso / 897
130 Lesotho / 889
131 Ethiopia / 840
132 Benin / 825
133 Namibia / 750
134 Madagascar / 745
135 Barbados / 620
136 Laos / 514
137 Rwanda / 511
138 Swaziland / 395
139 Togo / 363
140 Cape Verde / 344
141 Tajikistan / 301
142 Guyana / 292
143 Haiti / 221
144 Belize / 150
145 Vanuatu / 149
146 Malawi / 140
147 Gambia / 120
148 Guinea / 119
149 Burundi / 118
150 Seychelles / 118
151 Samoa / 70
152 Tonga / 55
153 Liberia / 49
154 Congo / 36
155 São Tomé and Prìncipe / 36
156 Eritrea / 22