Don't you love irony?

The irony. Watch Suzuka. Honestly.

Speculation and reality

24 July 2007: Bernama, with other wire agencies, reports that AirAsia X, the international arm of AirAsia, was thinking of Australia as their first international destination, contradicting the initial hype of a flight to London.


10 August 2007: Air Asia announces that one of their first desinations will be Gold Coast.

So damn tired. Will update when life doesn't crash down on me.

Oi! Since when!?

Since when did School Rumble enter Malaysian shores?!

Dabeleww-tee-eff!?

News Opinion: of Bakun and "western" influence

From TheStar:

Friday August 3, 2007

Bakun sex slaves cry for help

By STEPHEN THEN

stephenthen@thestar.com.my

MIRI: Gangsters are believed to be holding several foreign women as sex slaves at the giant Bakun dam site, in remote central Sarawak, and the women are crying for help through SMSes to The Star.

Their fear and desperation were also expressed in text messages about a grave the women had found with a crossed-stake planted on it.

The grave served as a chilling reminder that there was no way out but death for those who defied the gangsters.

A non-governmental organisation came to know about their plight and gave the women the telephone number of this reporter.

A woman, who has been sending the messages and making calls to The Star, claimed that the foreign women were being confined and abused for sex services.

The messages were accompanied by appeals for help. Some of the messages read:

> Pls sir help us.

> Not fine, sir.

> We cannot stand here sir.

> My friends very pitiful here.

> Can you come help us sir?

The Star has forwarded the text messages to senior police officers in Bukit Aman for action. Some 2,000 people are working at the 60,000ha Bakun dam, which is about the size of Singapore.

Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Talib Jamal confirmed that police had evidence of people bringing women to the project site for sex.

“They bring in the women to ‘service’ workers in and around the Bakun project site,” he said, adding that due to the magnitude of the project, the RM6bil Bakun hydroelectric dam had attracted many workers.

He said certain people had set up makeshift entertainment centres there for the workers’ leisure.

It is learnt that the women are moved around in four-wheel-drive vehicles and vans to the entertainment centres.

Labourers involved in timber fields and oil palm plantations within the Kapit Division are also said to be enjoying the sex services.

Gangsters and syndicates are said to be supplying the women, both local and foreign, to the workers at the project site in Belaga district.

“These people are cashing in on the situation. We believe some of these women were brought into the state illegally,” Comm Talib told The Star.

On Tuesday night, police crippled one of the suspected syndicates providing the sex services.

A pimp and 10 women from Indonesia, the Philippines and China were picked up about 189km from Bintulu town, near Bakun.

Asked how the women were brought into Sarawak, Comm Talib said there were two possibilities – via entry points and transported to Bakun to be used as sex slaves, or smuggled in over the porous 1,000km Sarawak-Kalimantan border.

And slightly more in detail from TheBorneoPost:

Vice den in Bakun busted

Posted By Web Master On 2nd August 2007 @ 10:00 In Local

Music café raid nets five Indonesian women, two Filipinas and a suspected pimp

BINTULU: The State anti-vice squad - casting its dragnet far and wide – has caught out an alleged sex den operating deep in the interior of the Division.

News opinion: Anwar a traitor to Malay cause, says Khairy

From TheStar:

Friday August 3, 2007

Anwar a traitor to Malay cause, says Khairy

KUALA KANGSAR: Umno Youth has labelled Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim – who was once head of the movement – a traitor to the Malay cause.

In making the declaration, Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaludin said: “The (coming) general elections is not about politics but the future of the Malays.”

Band of brothers: Khairy showing a wristband which will be worn by BN Youth members on Aug 26 to launch its election machinery.

“Anwar is a puppet of the United States and the Jews, thus he must be hounded until there is no more place for him to run to,” he told a state Umno Youth gathering on Wednesday night.

Among the 5,000 people present were the wing’s former chief Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also Deputy Information Minister, and Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohd Tajol Rosli Ghazali.

Khairy said the movement was angered by Anwar’s persistence in wanting to do away with the New Economic Policy, a cause close to the hearts of the Malays.

“He wanted to abolish it simply because he wanted to win the support of the non-Malays,” he said.

In Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Khairy said there should be no more statements from any Barisan Nasional component party leaders concerning demands for extra seats for the parties.

He said the coalition’s success was based on the power-sharing consensus formula, which will be maintained.

“Umno Youth will not accept threats from the component parties that they will leave the Barisan if they fail to get additional seats,” he said, in an apparent reference to the People’s Progressive Party’s request for more seats in the coming general election,

“That’s unfair and it’s not the Barisan style. We always share and discuss, and we make compromises.

“We hope there will not be any such talk from the component parties,” he told reporters after chairing a meeting on preparations for a Merdeka Day youth gathering.

Give crack to Mat Rempits, talk like a crack addict.

Mahathir was right after all.

News opinion: Fast-track Kuching LCCT, AirAsia urges

From Bernama, via TheBorneoPost:

We want to start as soon as possible low-cost carrier operations in Kuching, Penang: Group CEO

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Bhd is hoping that Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) will fast-track its plans to set up low-cost carrier terminal each in Kuching and Penang.

News opinion: Kuching South mayor Chong passes away

From TheStar:

KUCHING: Kuching South mayor Chong Ted Tsiung, 51, passed away Friday morning at a private hospital here after a short illness.

He had been in the job for less than year, having been sworn into office on Sept 25 last year.

The first civil servant to be appointed mayor in Kuching South, he was previously controller of the Sarawak Natural Resources and Environment Board.

His body has been taken home for people to pay their last respects

Interestingly, there is no news on this either on The Borneo Post or Eastern Times. Only a front page press release in front of the MBKS homepage.

More from Bernama. Wonder who takes over?