People will always migrate from despair to hope
More seeking to migrate since last month - New Sunday Times
"On an average, we used to receive between 15 and 20 enquiries (on migration) a day," said Desmond, a migration agent in Kuala Lumpur.
"However, over the last two weeks, our phones have been ringing non-stop."
This "ringing non-stop" translates into about 6,500 enquiries for migration to Australia between Nov 14 and Nov 19.
There were 5,500 enquiries for New Zealand, and 4,000 for Canada, about 3,500 enquiries for other countries, including Norway and Switzerland.
"The country of choice is Australia, followed by New Zealand.
"If they do not meet the requirements for these two countries, their next option is Canada."
The most number of enquiries, according to Desmond, comes from professionals (60 per cent) and the rest from tradespersons like cooks, mechanics, tool-makers, carpenters and hair dressers.
"But the demand abroad is much higher for tradespersons compared to professionals," said another migration expert, Max Manesh, who is based in Subang Jaya.
It’s not as simple as "Australia, here I come" should you want to emigrate.
Indonesian migrants subjected to beatings, rape, forced labor in Malaysia (?)
Indonesia: More than a million Indonesian migrant workers in neighboring Malaysia face serious abuses from beatings and rape to forced labor — the bulk of them women and children, the top U.N. official on migrant rights said Wednesday.
Jorge Bustamante, wrapping up a weeklong trip to Indonesia that included interviews with families at a Malaysia border crossing, also said women recruited as domestic workers were "virtually sold to their employers."
A memorandum of understanding between the two Southeast Asian nations allows employers to take away migrants' passports, he said, further stripping away their freedom.
"A chain of vulnerability for migrants leads to very serious violations of human rights such as women being beaten and raped and migrants being whipped in prison," he told reporters in Jakarta.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation with 220 million people, is still recovering from the 1997 Asian economic crisis and many people go abroad in search of a better life, especially women and children.
Bustamante said more than a million Indonesian workers faced the risk of rights abuses in Malaysia, half of them illegal workers.
"The international community is not interested because there is true demand for irregular (illegal) migrants," said Bustamante, adding that half those going to Malaysia are domestic workers, but that a large number are plantations laborers.
The Indonesian government said it would ratify a 1990 international convention protecting the rights of migrants in 2007, Bustamante said.
People will always migrate from despair to hope
Statement by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the occasion of the International Day of Migration
Strasbourg, 18.12.2006 – “People migrate. They always have done, and they always will. Whatever their motives, people will continue to move - from persecution to freedom, from starvation to survival, from poverty to dignity and from despair to hope.
Governments must therefore put policies in place to deal with migratory flows in ways which are economically sustainable, politically sound, effective in the long-term - and which respect human dignity and human rights.
Across Europe, people of many different origins, cultures and religions live side by side - not always in harmony, not always without tensions - but they are here to stay. A multicultural Europe is fact of life, not some far-fetched intellectual concept. The question is therefore not whether we accept or agree with cultural diversity, but rather how we respond to it.
A growing number of politicians have decided to cater to populist fears and prejudices. They seek political profit from pitting one human misery against another without any regard for the consequences and with absolutely no interest in finding genuine solutions. The result is not a society which is less multi-cultural, but simply one which is more divided, more frustrated and more dysfunctional.
The Council of Europe response to growing populism and intolerance is to invest efforts and resources and create a society in which diversity is accepted and respected, and in which conflicts, when they occur, are resolved peacefully, on the basis of commonly accepted values of democracy and human rights – and on the basis of mutual respect. The result is a society which is not only better, but also more stable.”
Abdullah Denies Buying RM30 Million Boat
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has denied buying a RM30 million boat as reported by a newspaper in Turkey recently.
"The report is inaccurate. It is a lie. I don't know where it got such facts," he told reporters here when asked to comment on a newspaper report that he went to Bodrum in Turkey recently to see the boat which he ordered four months ago.
Abdullah said he would ask the newspaper to make a correction.
According to the report, the boat is made of Akuju, Maun, Sipo and Brimanya tree which is imported from South Africa and expected to be completed in 16 months.
"I was in Turkey but did not see the boat," he said in reference to his transit in Turkey from Kuala Lumpur before coming here for a three-day official which ended Tuesday.
Abdullah Badawi is telling us that it's a lie on the report that he purchased a RM30million (Malaysian tax payers money)Yatch.
If the newspaper does not retract this news and apologise, we will know who is right and who is wrong if Pak Lah decides to sue the newspaper or not.
Well,I know that youlied to told us live on TV3 that your son did not receive any Government contracts.Later it was revealed that SCOMI in fact did receive government contracts worth hundreds of million Ringgit.
He alsolied to told us that SCOMI is the only company in Malaysia that have expertise in Mud Drilling.It was later prooven that he lied again when we found out that there's more than 10 companies in Malaysia that have this services.
Helied said the truth when he said that 'due to the protest from majority Malaysians',he had to cancle the Scenic Bridge when the project was 70% completed.
And, by the way, he said he did not see the boat, not buy, ok !
Malaysia’s squandered reform chance
By Ooi Kee Beng
Ever since Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi announced soon after taking power in October 2003 that the country was in dire need of deep-reaching economic reforms, the soft-spoken leader has had no peace.
His cautious and consensual style of leadership has made many Malaysians not only impatient with the pace and direction of his
government’s once highly touted reform program, but increasingly worried that the export-dependent economy is falling behind its
regional rivals in the competition for global market share.
On the surface, the Malaysian economy is growing at a respectable clip, expanding 5.8% in the third quarter compared with a year ago, in
effect putting the country on track to meet the government’s 2006 growth forecast of about 6%. But an expected global economic slowdown,
including forecast slower growth in the United States, will put Abdullah’s reform spirit to an important test - one he seems poised to
fail.
Average global economic growth is expected to fall from 5.3% in 2006 to as low as 4.6% in 2007, according to projections prepared by the
Economist Intelligence Unit. Exports account for about 130% of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP), and slowing global growth
would hit the country’s electronics producers particularly hard. Economists note that belt-tightening structural reforms are most
needed when economic growth tails off - though that is precisely the time tough changes are politically most risky.
This is especially the case in Malaysia, where deep-reaching reforms would inevitably alter the infrastructure of the New Economic Policy
(NEP), an affirmative-action program implemented in 1971 to lift the economic fortunes of the majority Malay community. The controversial NEP has since aimed to redistribute economic opportunities and national wealth within the context of a fast-expanding economy.
That’s why the government led by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) has since the 1970s prioritized fast economic growth, frequently propped by huge government spending on infrastructure and other big-ticket projects. One of Abdullah’s biggest reform challenges in succeeding former fast-spending premier Mahathir Mohammad was to trim the huge national deficit while at the
same time maintaining healthy growth rates.
Earlier, Abdullah moved to suspend various projects initiated under Mahathir’s tenure, including the termination of the US$170 million
bridge project designed to connect the southern province of Johor with the island republic of Singapore. Other belt-tightening measures have
included the shelving of a scheduled $4 billion railway project. Since Abdullah took office, the national deficit as a percentage of GDP has
been trimmed from about 8% to 4%.
Nevertheless, a number of signs are emerging that his administration’s policymakers may have mishandled the country’s macroeconomic balance. Inflation is expected to rise to about 3.6%, the highest level since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, and economists predict it will gallop at similarly high levels over the next two years.
Less optimistic forecasters believe growth will come in closer to 5.5% than 6%, much lower than the annual average growth-rate target of 7%
needed to meet the government’s long-term goal of developed-nation status by 2020. That ambitious goal, first promulgated with great
fanfare during Mahathir’s tenure, is being carried forward by
Abdullah.
If achieved, the government’s so-called 2020 vision would provide the economic cushion finally to dismantle the controversial affirmative-action programs, which have been criticized broadly as
wasteful and have over the years arguably caused more tension than harmony among Malaysia’s diverse races and religious groups.
Poor planning, heavy costs
Meanwhile, the NEP’s shoddy planning, its loose implementation and the absence of monitoring mechanisms have been broadly blamed for the
culture of unaccountability and cronyism that has long plagued the country. The government admitted recently in Parliament that as much
as $3 billion had over the years been used to bail out seven failed NEP-related privatization projects, including the Putra Light Railway
System, the Starlight Railway Transit System and former national carrier Malaysia Airline System.
The recently released United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) World Investment Report showed that Malaysia
has slipped from being ranked the fourth-most-attractive country for foreign direct investment in 1990 to 62nd in 2005. US financial-services giant Citigroup recently wrote in a research report that “Malaysia is quickly dropping out of the radar screen of global
investors”.
Weak government management, of course, is more politically volatile when the broad economy starts to slow - as is likely to happen next year. Moreover, inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions, kept in check during Mahathir’s authoritarian rule, are rising under Abdullah’s more consensual administration. And the issues of contention are being articulated more clearly and more publicly in Malaysia’s traditionally subdued society.
For instance, opposition to the continuance of the NEP is mounting, particularly in the wake of a recent independent research report that
showed ethnic Malays now hold more than the NEP’s goal of 30% of the country’s total equity. The report has sparked a politically charged
debate concerning the technicalities of measurement. More worryingly, inter-faith conflicts are breaking out into the open, involving highly charged cases where non-Muslim families are increasingly being taken to sharia (Islamic law) courts.
To his credit, Abdullah is acutely aware of the fractious and potentially destabilizing nature of the domestic and international problems Malaysia now faces. He has in his public speeches repeatedly implored the country’s Malays to shed their reliance on state “crutches” for their economic livelihoods. So far, though, his rhetoric has not been matched with enough tough action: his government extended the NEP indefinitely in its latest five-year economic plan.
As the global economy starts to slow early in the new year, some political and economic analysts believe that Abdullah’s window of opportunity to push through tough and potentially unpopular economic reforms has already closed. That’s particularly true in light of the bruising public row he has fought with his predecessor Mahathir, who
has frequently complained about Abdullah’s leadership style and alleged cronyism and nepotism among his administration’s top ranks.
But as Abdullah tarries, political opponents, including former deputy prime minister and until recently political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim,
are seizing the reform high ground. Anwar has recently stated his desire to dismantle large parts of the NEP - though most analysts believe his chances of trumping UMNO at the next polls are practically non-existent.
Rather than pursuing a virtuous cycle of reform-led economic growth, Abdullah’s administration appears poised to wait for the next global
economic upswing or expanded trade through new free-trade agreements, including potential pacts with the US, China and India. Still, these
negotiations are proceeding slowly, and tellingly are bogging down because of foreign concerns about restrictions and encumbrances
arising from the NEP and other protectionist policies.
Ooi Kee Beng is a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. The views expressed here are his own.
(Source:Asia Times)
Malaysia Abdullah Indonesia migrants RM30 million boat
"On an average, we used to receive between 15 and 20 enquiries (on migration) a day," said Desmond, a migration agent in Kuala Lumpur.
"However, over the last two weeks, our phones have been ringing non-stop."
This "ringing non-stop" translates into about 6,500 enquiries for migration to Australia between Nov 14 and Nov 19.
There were 5,500 enquiries for New Zealand, and 4,000 for Canada, about 3,500 enquiries for other countries, including Norway and Switzerland.
"The country of choice is Australia, followed by New Zealand.
"If they do not meet the requirements for these two countries, their next option is Canada."
The most number of enquiries, according to Desmond, comes from professionals (60 per cent) and the rest from tradespersons like cooks, mechanics, tool-makers, carpenters and hair dressers.
"But the demand abroad is much higher for tradespersons compared to professionals," said another migration expert, Max Manesh, who is based in Subang Jaya.
It’s not as simple as "Australia, here I come" should you want to emigrate.
Indonesian migrants subjected to beatings, rape, forced labor in Malaysia (?)
Indonesia: More than a million Indonesian migrant workers in neighboring Malaysia face serious abuses from beatings and rape to forced labor — the bulk of them women and children, the top U.N. official on migrant rights said Wednesday.
Jorge Bustamante, wrapping up a weeklong trip to Indonesia that included interviews with families at a Malaysia border crossing, also said women recruited as domestic workers were "virtually sold to their employers."
A memorandum of understanding between the two Southeast Asian nations allows employers to take away migrants' passports, he said, further stripping away their freedom.
"A chain of vulnerability for migrants leads to very serious violations of human rights such as women being beaten and raped and migrants being whipped in prison," he told reporters in Jakarta.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation with 220 million people, is still recovering from the 1997 Asian economic crisis and many people go abroad in search of a better life, especially women and children.
Bustamante said more than a million Indonesian workers faced the risk of rights abuses in Malaysia, half of them illegal workers.
"The international community is not interested because there is true demand for irregular (illegal) migrants," said Bustamante, adding that half those going to Malaysia are domestic workers, but that a large number are plantations laborers.
The Indonesian government said it would ratify a 1990 international convention protecting the rights of migrants in 2007, Bustamante said.
People will always migrate from despair to hope
Statement by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the occasion of the International Day of Migration
Strasbourg, 18.12.2006 – “People migrate. They always have done, and they always will. Whatever their motives, people will continue to move - from persecution to freedom, from starvation to survival, from poverty to dignity and from despair to hope.
Governments must therefore put policies in place to deal with migratory flows in ways which are economically sustainable, politically sound, effective in the long-term - and which respect human dignity and human rights.
Across Europe, people of many different origins, cultures and religions live side by side - not always in harmony, not always without tensions - but they are here to stay. A multicultural Europe is fact of life, not some far-fetched intellectual concept. The question is therefore not whether we accept or agree with cultural diversity, but rather how we respond to it.
A growing number of politicians have decided to cater to populist fears and prejudices. They seek political profit from pitting one human misery against another without any regard for the consequences and with absolutely no interest in finding genuine solutions. The result is not a society which is less multi-cultural, but simply one which is more divided, more frustrated and more dysfunctional.
The Council of Europe response to growing populism and intolerance is to invest efforts and resources and create a society in which diversity is accepted and respected, and in which conflicts, when they occur, are resolved peacefully, on the basis of commonly accepted values of democracy and human rights – and on the basis of mutual respect. The result is a society which is not only better, but also more stable.”
**********
Abdullah Denies Buying RM30 Million Boat
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has denied buying a RM30 million boat as reported by a newspaper in Turkey recently.
"The report is inaccurate. It is a lie. I don't know where it got such facts," he told reporters here when asked to comment on a newspaper report that he went to Bodrum in Turkey recently to see the boat which he ordered four months ago.
Abdullah said he would ask the newspaper to make a correction.
According to the report, the boat is made of Akuju, Maun, Sipo and Brimanya tree which is imported from South Africa and expected to be completed in 16 months.
"I was in Turkey but did not see the boat," he said in reference to his transit in Turkey from Kuala Lumpur before coming here for a three-day official which ended Tuesday.
Abdullah Badawi is telling us that it's a lie on the report that he purchased a RM30million (Malaysian tax payers money)Yatch.
If the newspaper does not retract this news and apologise, we will know who is right and who is wrong if Pak Lah decides to sue the newspaper or not.
Well,I know that you
He also
He
And, by the way, he said he did not see the boat, not buy, ok !
Malaysia’s squandered reform chance
By Ooi Kee Beng
Ever since Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi announced soon after taking power in October 2003 that the country was in dire need of deep-reaching economic reforms, the soft-spoken leader has had no peace.
His cautious and consensual style of leadership has made many Malaysians not only impatient with the pace and direction of his
government’s once highly touted reform program, but increasingly worried that the export-dependent economy is falling behind its
regional rivals in the competition for global market share.
On the surface, the Malaysian economy is growing at a respectable clip, expanding 5.8% in the third quarter compared with a year ago, in
effect putting the country on track to meet the government’s 2006 growth forecast of about 6%. But an expected global economic slowdown,
including forecast slower growth in the United States, will put Abdullah’s reform spirit to an important test - one he seems poised to
fail.
Average global economic growth is expected to fall from 5.3% in 2006 to as low as 4.6% in 2007, according to projections prepared by the
Economist Intelligence Unit. Exports account for about 130% of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP), and slowing global growth
would hit the country’s electronics producers particularly hard. Economists note that belt-tightening structural reforms are most
needed when economic growth tails off - though that is precisely the time tough changes are politically most risky.
This is especially the case in Malaysia, where deep-reaching reforms would inevitably alter the infrastructure of the New Economic Policy
(NEP), an affirmative-action program implemented in 1971 to lift the economic fortunes of the majority Malay community. The controversial NEP has since aimed to redistribute economic opportunities and national wealth within the context of a fast-expanding economy.
That’s why the government led by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) has since the 1970s prioritized fast economic growth, frequently propped by huge government spending on infrastructure and other big-ticket projects. One of Abdullah’s biggest reform challenges in succeeding former fast-spending premier Mahathir Mohammad was to trim the huge national deficit while at the
same time maintaining healthy growth rates.
Earlier, Abdullah moved to suspend various projects initiated under Mahathir’s tenure, including the termination of the US$170 million
bridge project designed to connect the southern province of Johor with the island republic of Singapore. Other belt-tightening measures have
included the shelving of a scheduled $4 billion railway project. Since Abdullah took office, the national deficit as a percentage of GDP has
been trimmed from about 8% to 4%.
Nevertheless, a number of signs are emerging that his administration’s policymakers may have mishandled the country’s macroeconomic balance. Inflation is expected to rise to about 3.6%, the highest level since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, and economists predict it will gallop at similarly high levels over the next two years.
Less optimistic forecasters believe growth will come in closer to 5.5% than 6%, much lower than the annual average growth-rate target of 7%
needed to meet the government’s long-term goal of developed-nation status by 2020. That ambitious goal, first promulgated with great
fanfare during Mahathir’s tenure, is being carried forward by
Abdullah.
If achieved, the government’s so-called 2020 vision would provide the economic cushion finally to dismantle the controversial affirmative-action programs, which have been criticized broadly as
wasteful and have over the years arguably caused more tension than harmony among Malaysia’s diverse races and religious groups.
Poor planning, heavy costs
Meanwhile, the NEP’s shoddy planning, its loose implementation and the absence of monitoring mechanisms have been broadly blamed for the
culture of unaccountability and cronyism that has long plagued the country. The government admitted recently in Parliament that as much
as $3 billion had over the years been used to bail out seven failed NEP-related privatization projects, including the Putra Light Railway
System, the Starlight Railway Transit System and former national carrier Malaysia Airline System.
The recently released United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) World Investment Report showed that Malaysia
has slipped from being ranked the fourth-most-attractive country for foreign direct investment in 1990 to 62nd in 2005. US financial-services giant Citigroup recently wrote in a research report that “Malaysia is quickly dropping out of the radar screen of global
investors”.
Weak government management, of course, is more politically volatile when the broad economy starts to slow - as is likely to happen next year. Moreover, inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions, kept in check during Mahathir’s authoritarian rule, are rising under Abdullah’s more consensual administration. And the issues of contention are being articulated more clearly and more publicly in Malaysia’s traditionally subdued society.
For instance, opposition to the continuance of the NEP is mounting, particularly in the wake of a recent independent research report that
showed ethnic Malays now hold more than the NEP’s goal of 30% of the country’s total equity. The report has sparked a politically charged
debate concerning the technicalities of measurement. More worryingly, inter-faith conflicts are breaking out into the open, involving highly charged cases where non-Muslim families are increasingly being taken to sharia (Islamic law) courts.
To his credit, Abdullah is acutely aware of the fractious and potentially destabilizing nature of the domestic and international problems Malaysia now faces. He has in his public speeches repeatedly implored the country’s Malays to shed their reliance on state “crutches” for their economic livelihoods. So far, though, his rhetoric has not been matched with enough tough action: his government extended the NEP indefinitely in its latest five-year economic plan.
As the global economy starts to slow early in the new year, some political and economic analysts believe that Abdullah’s window of opportunity to push through tough and potentially unpopular economic reforms has already closed. That’s particularly true in light of the bruising public row he has fought with his predecessor Mahathir, who
has frequently complained about Abdullah’s leadership style and alleged cronyism and nepotism among his administration’s top ranks.
But as Abdullah tarries, political opponents, including former deputy prime minister and until recently political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim,
are seizing the reform high ground. Anwar has recently stated his desire to dismantle large parts of the NEP - though most analysts believe his chances of trumping UMNO at the next polls are practically non-existent.
Rather than pursuing a virtuous cycle of reform-led economic growth, Abdullah’s administration appears poised to wait for the next global
economic upswing or expanded trade through new free-trade agreements, including potential pacts with the US, China and India. Still, these
negotiations are proceeding slowly, and tellingly are bogging down because of foreign concerns about restrictions and encumbrances
arising from the NEP and other protectionist policies.
Ooi Kee Beng is a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. The views expressed here are his own.
(Source:Asia Times)
Malaysia Abdullah Indonesia migrants RM30 million boat
posted by Ah Yun Wong at
6:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home