New pressures on the NCR lands

The same James Masing who claim that there are basis to defend the NCR lands (Going to court running on Common laws) over encroachment by those who are given Provisional Leases by the State Government (via Land Code provision)now revel his true colour: he want more aggressive methods to `develop’ NCR lands! More land grabs if he has his ways. Watch out!

Tuesday November 30, 2010

Sarawak to double oil palm plantation area

By JACK WONG
jackwong@thestar.com.my

KUCHING: Sarawak, which recorded its fastest pace in opening up land for oil palm cultivation in the past one year, targets to double its plantation area to two million hectares.

State Land Development Minister Datuk Dr James Masing was optimistic that the new target could be reached by 2020, making Sarawak the biggest crude palm oil producing state in Malaysia.

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Oil Palm company ran parallel function to distract Long Terawan residents’ landrights workshop

Long Terawan's land also include Mulu National Park-but all now threatened by oil palm plantation.

While the Long Terawan residents organised a para-legal land rights workshop on last Saturday the oil palm company which intend to take away the villagers’ land ran a religious seminar in the Royal Mulu Resort to distract the villagers from attending the land rights workshop. All the village committee of Long Terawan attended the religious seminar while only 1 village committee member attended the opening of the land rights seminar on Friday. A 10-member delegation from Miri, comprising mainly NGO Brimas staff travelled 300 km to support the program, but only a dozen or so villagers attended the workshop which provide vital information to the villagers on land rights.

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Where oil palm company don’t take natives’ `no’ as answer

Protests have been going on continually against the take over of ancestral land of the Terawan, Tering and Penans around Mulu National Park which is a World Heritage area-but ignored by oil palm plantation giant KTS Pusaka.

While the scandal around the Mulu National Park is brewing there is another scandal happening just outside its doorstep: At Long Terawan and a few villages around it -the oil palm company KTS Pusaka has taken over 800 000 hectares of NCR lands by securing the village chief’s consent, but notably ignoring the majority of the villagers and other ethnic groups like the Penans. The agreement between the company and the Terawan chief has been kept away from the villagers. See the video here.

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Mulu National Park to be Taib’s pension fund?

Dirty profits from clean water at the national park?

MEDIA RELEASE BY THE BRUNO MANSER FUND, BASEL / SWITZERLAND

Corruption scandal breaks over Malaysian UNESCO World Heritage Site

Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmund found to be a shareholder of the Royal Mulu Resort – UNESCO urged to launch an investigation on alleged breaches of the UN Convention against Corruption

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Taib has got the inspiration for Sarawak’s state elections!

S’wak CM Taib says has received ‘inspiration’ on state election date

KUCHING: Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud returned Wednesday from his pilgrimage to Mecca and said he has received the inspiration on when to call the next state elections.

“I have the inspiration but I won’t tell you (the date),” he told reporters at the Hornbill Skyways Hangar here.

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Future directions of Radio Free Sarawak: sky is the limit!

Radio Free Sarawak has kicked up a veritable storm among the netizens so far-whether they are from Sarawak or not. Along with the glare come the close scrutiny on this new media kid on the bloc, as well as bold suggestions to improve it. Among these `bold’ suggestions are:
1. Longer hours of transmission per day; doubling of the daily transmission hours seems to be on the card; The desire for longer hours of transmission is a welcoming sign of people asserting their right for information-from all sides and of greater depth;
2. 3-5min of news reading at the beginning; Look like we may get more than what we asked for-may be a veteran broadcaster may offer her service! The advance of technology allow people from different parts of the world to chip in; they just need to do a part of the broadcast and forward the sound file to where the radio transmit world wide;

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Lawas 3 could not find Investigation Officer at police station today-sign of no charges!?

The 3 persons arrested at Lawas blockade reported to the Lawas police station this morning-only to find the Investigation Officer missing! They decide to return on Dec 15th along with the other 4 who reported to Police station yesterday-but told to come back on Dec 15th.

This could be a good sign for the residents as it may reflect a lack of resolve by the local police to press any charges against their fellow residents! Let’s keep an eye on this.

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Reception report of RFS from Kuching: loud and clear-but interference from background noice significant

Loud transmission-but loud noise pick-up too!

The reception of Radio Free Sarawak is tested in Kuching this evening-and the sound was loud and clear-but background interference can be overwhelming at times. Same quality of reception is also observed about BBC transmission at a frequency next to 15mhz, as used by RFS. The morning transmission will be checked tomorrow.

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Penan pre-school fund still short of Rm2000.00

The Penan Pre-school fund had collected Rm53000.00 so far from 83 donors, only another Rm2000.00 away from the target. The project has trained 2 local teachers to start teaching the 100 over students at 2 schools, from January next year. The schools are located at Middle Baram at Long Item and Long Pakan.

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Berawan’s ancestral land robbed as `state land’ which is given to private resot operator!

More and more land grabs are coming into lights-this is another one-from the Long Terawan region:

APPEAL FOR HELP TO STOP ROBBERY OF BERAWAN’S ANCESTRAL LAND ADJACENT TO ONE OF THE WORLD’S HERITAGE SITE (UNESCO),GUNUNG MULU NATIONAL PARK

We, the Berawan (one of the ethnics group in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia) of the village, Kampung Long Terawan in the Tutoh river, Baram, Miri Division, Sarawak, East Malaysia wish to make and urgent Mulu info appeal to our fellow beloved citizens of the world for help to stop the robbery of our ancestral lands, our heritage, our birth right, which is our sources of survival as native peoples.

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