Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Headlines That Catch the Eye Today

Two items in the news today July 28, 2010 were a bit unsettling while a third was a whiff of a goodness that sent a breath of fresh air to offset the doldrums.

The 1st item had been hogging the limelight even before this, but confined only to one party. But what came today affects the opposing party. It was just out of sych as though it came off a page of ‘Dallas’( am I that ancient?) where the sub plots would go through twists and turns just to sustain the serial.

‘DPP dropped over Saiful link’
the headline screamed! You can never imagine a member of the prosecution team in Sodomy II was revealed to be romantically linked to the main witness. You can never get it more weird or more worst than that. It was just an utter shock!

Never mind, it was an allegation by rogue fugitive RPK in his blog ( a few weeks ago ) or there’s any truth in it and that it involved a junior member of the team , but the govt had to act immediately and rightly so. The person, Farah Azlina Latif who was alleged to be currently dating or having an affair with Mohd Saiful was not only dropped from the team but also transferred out from the AG’s chambers.

This is not something deviously planned with bad intentions ( very unlikely ) It appears ( if true ) to be just an unfortunate, unlucky and a bad coincidence. Tough luck!

On hindsight, Azlina could have refused to be included in the team ( without having to state or give reasons) in the first place. It is just tough luck!

The other was headlined ‘PKA will pay ‘ so said the new Minister of Transport. This is relating to the release of the final payment of RM222.58mil. to be paid to Kuala Dimensi ( KDSB ) the turnkey contractor of PKFZ . The PKA ( Port Klang Authority) board had earlier on refused to make the payment but the Minister (under Sec 3 of the PKA Act 1963) which gave him the power to override the board decision made it happen. This is to meet the bond obligations of KDSB through its special purpose vehicle ( SPV) ) which falls due on July 31, 2010. It goes without saying that failure to meet the bond obligation would rock the bond market which is disastrous to say the least.

It makes you feel sick to know that after all the jiving, mucking and ruckus over the PKFZ issue, KDSB gets its payment. The legal eagles had made certain all the guarantees and safeguards ( favouring the govt ) are in place but what if KDSB couldn’t meet its payment obligations if found in the wrong later on. It would be a long legal battle again on the cards.


Strut your stuff, Ana, we need to see you winning more than just one game in a tournament, any tournament!



The whiff of goodness comes in the form of a pretty Ana Ivanovic , the pin-up girl of tennis in the Sports Section. It showed Ana who won her game in the B.O.W Classics in Stanford, California triumphantly exhibiting her delight to the crowd. Ranked 63rd in the world, she’s not expected to progress far, but still a good thing to know she is still in the game.

Her presence gave life to the sports. The endorsements she gets are more than enough to last her a lifetime. She doesn’t need tennis but tennis needs her. If only she can win more often , then we'll get to see her ‘live’ more often too.

6 comments:

abdulhalimshah said...

Dear Hank,
It just goes to show that Malaysia.net founder is still a force to reckon with. Now Gani Patail should resign when more expose is coming through, with courtesy from RPK though I do not like that fellow.

kaykuala said...

Dear Hal,
I used to read RPK's quite often before as the expose are somewhat original ( in that you will not find it elsewhere and his sarcasm is subtle) Truth may be suspect though and his one-sided slant tends to put off some of those not on his side.

Al-Manar said...

Dera Hank,
What a coincidence for us to pick up headlines to write about. You go for polical and sports side and I for moral and education issue.
Sometimes I wonder 'who cares' what we think apart from our own satisfaction to express ourselves freely (within our own bounds)at any length and at any time.
Salaam

kaykuala said...

Dear Pak Cik,
Yes sir, and today's headline is a biggie,on Tun Ling, an extension of PKFZ. Let it be. Am not saying anything - it's only the beginning!

norzah said...

Akhi Hank, as some wise people say 'truth can be more scary than fiction'. So many unbelievable truths have hit Malaysians on the nose recently ( and many more await to be revealed), that we have learned to laugh at them. The sad part is that with every disclosure we find that the public had been short-changed, that the country's economy had been bled to death. While the country is very wealthy only about 10% of the population are rolling in wealth while the rest live on the scale between comfortable and desperate. The moral scale ranging from 'commendable' to 'despicable' seems to run in the opposite direction of the economic scale from 'wealthy' to 'poor', for the population as a whole.

kaykuala said...

Akhi Norzah,
While the desire is to be equitable and fair it always gets tainted with racial considerations and selfish ends.
Society gets manipulated and in so doing reforms are viewed with suspicions. This runs through the whole gamut from economics, education and culture to religion, land and the landless.
Those with wealth would stalk for more and selfishly preserve what they have. As you Akhi had pointed out in the all too familiar percentages, the distribution will not be too much different for many years to come.
Even those who accuse others of bad governance get embroiled in sand stealing and gangsterism the first opportunity they get – just within a short space of 2 years we are seeing the worms wriggling out of the can.
They got muddled in simple protocol affecting the DYMM The Permaisuri Agong and HRH The Sultan of Selangor no less.
It is sad. We are beginning to see the bad and lots more as yet to come.