Something about Malaysia by an Australian for the Aussie papers!!

[Mad1]

Originally Posted by The_YongGrand

How about the Kompleks Sukan in London anyway? I don't understand, why should they build a huge Kompleks Sukan in London when they can do all the sports practice here??? And they want to train themselves in the Winter for the Summer Olympics?

Now this really got me scratching my balls.....errrr I meant my head

[jinongman]

Here is our trade minister's reply:
Rafidah plays down Aussie barbs
KUALA LUMPUR: An article in an Australian newspaper The Age ridiculing Malaysia and calling Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid) has left International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz unperturbed.
"What do we care? Obviously, this person doesn't know Malaysia. He is an outsider and he can say what he likes. I don't really care about what others say – as long as it is not a Malaysian saying it," she said.
The Wanita Umno chief said the Australian writer had apparently not followed the Umno general assembly proceedings closely.
"If he did, he would have seen things differently."
The Nov 15 article by Michael Backman said it was time Malaysia grew up and stopped arguing about what proportion of the economy the Chinese and Malays owned.
The Government was more interested in stunts like sending an astronaut into space when the country's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, the writer said, adding "that's not Malaysia Boleh, that's Malaysia Bodoh."

[jinongman]

Michael Backman's column following Trade Minister's remarks
(sorry for the long post but worth reading imo)
Malaysia bites back and industriously trades the insults
by Michael Backman
The Age
November 29, 2006

MY LAST column on wasteful government spending in Malaysia (Business, 15/11) generated a furore. I
received more than 600 emails from readers, mostly Malaysians (both expatriate and in Malaysia) and
nearly all supportive.

The column was the most emailed item on The Age's website for six days straight and it was replicated in
dozens of blogs worldwide.

My personal website received more than 50,000 hits. A Malaysian Government minister criticised the
column publicly. And the Malaysian Opposition Leader issued a news release in its support.

The minister, Rafidah Aziz, Malaysia's Minister for Trade and Industry, declared somewhat imperiously
that she didn't care what I said because I am a foreigner and I probably don't know much about Malaysia
anyway.

Rafidah knows her trade brief like few others. Her knowledge of the complex rules of the international
trading system, with its many trade barriers, is remarkable. In meetings with other trade ministers, she
rarely needs assistance from minders. Hard working and tenacious, I once thought she might make a
reasonable prime minister.

But her technical abilities are marred by her mishandling of other issues, most recently her ministry's
allocation of much coveted car import permits. Most went to a handful of well-connected businessmen,
including her own relatives.

The issue exploded in Malaysia late last year and she was lucky to keep her job.

And then there are the corruption allegations. In 1995, in a report to the attorney-general, the public
prosecutor said there was a prima facie basis for Rafidah's arrest and prosecution on five counts of
corruption.

An opposition activist later acquired official documents that appeared to confirm this. He was jailed for
two years under the Official Secrets Act simply for possessing them. Rafidah, on the other hand, was not
even charged.

Rafidah added to her remarks about my column that no Malaysian should say such things. It's little
wonder that she doesn't welcome scrutiny from her own people. But then the idea that Malaysians
cannot comment publicly about how their country is run but a non-Malaysian can, is disgraceful.

Perhaps Rafidah needs to be reminded who pays her salary.

And as if to underscore my points about waste, on the day that my column was published, an assistant
minister told the Malaysian Parliament that Malaysia's first astronaut to be sent into space next year
aboard a Russian space mission will be tasked to play batu seremban, a traditional Malay children's
game played with pebbles, will do some batik painting and will make teh tarik, a type of Malaysian milky
tea, all to see how these things can be done without gravity.

The day before, the Government announced that a new RM400 million ($A142 million) palace will be
built for Malaysia's king, a position that is almost entirely ceremonial.

And the week before a groundbreaking ceremony was held for a second bridge between Penang and
the Malaysian peninsular costing RM3 billion, a bridge that many consider unnecessary.

Where would the money be better spent?

Education is the obvious answer. But not on school buildings, for it matters less in what children are
educated than how. And how children are educated in Malaysia is a national disaster.

Learning is largely by rote. In an email to me last week, one Malaysian recalled her schooling as being in
a system "all about spoon-feeding, memory work and regurgitation. Students are not encouraged to
think for themselves and they become adults who swallow everything they're told."

Even the existing system fails many. It has just emerged that in Sabah state, only 46 per cent of the
students who had sat the UPSR — the exam that students sit before going to secondary school — had
passed. One small school actually had a 100 per cent failure rate.

But does the Malaysian Government want creative, critical thinkers? Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said
to the ruling party's recent general assembly Malaysia needed to make students creative. But that
means they must be questioning and thus critical; what hope is there of that when one of Abdullah's own
ministers tells Malaysians that they cannot say the things that I can and hundreds of them write to me to
complain because they don't feel that they can complain to their own Government?

Malaysia needs to do something. Its oil will run out soon and it has lost much of its appeal to foreign
investors — recent UN figures show that from 2004 to 2005, foreign investment in Malaysia fell by 14 per
cent, when the world economy was enjoying one of its longest periods of growth. One might wonder what
the Trade and Industry Minister has actually been doing.

But, while politicians from the ruling party preach about Malay nationalism, there are at least some who
quietly go about the business of trying to secure the country's future. Not all of them are Chinese.

Two weeks ago, Malaysia's MMC Corporation, together with a local partner, won a $US30 billion
infrastructure deal in Saudi Arabia. That's a huge undertaking for any company, let alone a Malaysian
one, and just as well too — someone has to pay the bills.

[zy]

And the week before a groundbreaking ceremony was held for a second bridge between Penang and
the Malaysian peninsular costing RM3 billion, a bridge that many consider unnecessary.

ermmm penang really needs a new bridge ...
but what it needs a a cheap/reliable/efficient bridge ..
not a fancy bridge

you see how many accidents happen on penang bridge
each accident can cause a 4 hours jam

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by zy

ermmm penang really needs a new bridge ...
but what it needs a a cheap/reliable/efficient bridge ..
not a fancy bridge

you see how many accidents happen on penang bridge
each accident can cause a 4 hours jam

Do you actually think the bridge costs RM 3 BILLION??

It almost certainly costs less than RM 1 billion, with the rest split between our noble politicians.

[zy]

thats the problem they create a fancy bridge to trick ppl