Occupying Dataran, next to already occupied Puduraya

`Occupation' was cut short by the usual suspect! The attendants are usually well dressed, well fed and well equiped with cameras! Fun and laughter abound.

There was a Occupying Dataran activity at Dataran Merdeka, KL going on last night. A couple of hundreds turned up-mostly young er folks. The police claim to act for the DBKL which run the Dataran. The folks who just sat down to start their People Assembly had to come to a stop or risk arrests. A show of hands showed that not many are willing to be arrested so the organiser, in a democraitc manner, announce to stop the assembly.But the people mingled around in smaller groups till late.  Before the stop the assembled folks were having fun, games, socialising etc. Many people have many things to say about this People Aseembly and reclaim the public space movement. A small thought from me: actually there is another location where the issue from the Occupy Dataran/Wall Street is more brought into focus: within half a Km, just outside the Puduraya bus station there has been a perennial `occupation’ by people who are homeless and therefore sleep in the open on daily basis! If the young folks here blend into this crowd the police will have a problem to differentiate the crowd and will have a headache to stop the `occupation’ by hundreds of citizens and perhaps also some non-citizens!

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John Labo, Lawas’ land rights activist, recovering in hospital

John Labo speaking at a blockade against the Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipiline project last year

John Labo was the land rights activist who set up a blockade around Merarap timber camp in Lawas, aimed at stopping the Sabah Sarawak Gas Pipeline Project from passing through their ancestral lands.  He is now recovering from a major brain surgery at Lawas hospital, after undergoing operation in Kota Kinabalu last month. Many local supporters including PKR chairman Baru Bian had paid visit to the activist to show their concern. We wish his speedy recovery and send warmest regards to his family members. To hear John’s strong voice at the blockade go here. Without his help and warm hospitality Sarawaknews is not possible to get this story to the outside world. John had also spoken about the blocakde as one of the top story to go on air with the commencement of Radio Free Sarawak!

 

 

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Time to sue Taib for abusing Sarawak’s state rights in immigration control!

Sue Taib if your were banned from Sarawak

October 15, 2011

Sarawak has no right to bar West Malaysians with proper travel documents from entering the state unless they have been ‘officially’ classified as ‘dangerous’.

COMMENT

By Awang Abdillah

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National Service trainees to expand government’s `hands’ by half a million?

The Malaysian civil service is a `legend’ in a `democratic’ country: at about 1.4mil it dominates some 10% of the workforce, meaning almost 1 civil servant is serving 10 citizens! But this is not enough, apparently. The government is expanding the `hands’ of the government by organising the National Service trainees -who number half a million now, to do `volunteering’ jobs, but may carry a hidden purpose. Apart from this the Defence Ministry is also trying to recruit para-military forces to number about 150 per Parliament constituency-reportedly almost reaching target except in a handful of constituency. There is a common feature of these development: it help the government to reach out to the voters through its authority. The BN politicians have been unashamed to tell civil servants to support the government of the day-purposey confusing that the government of the day is not the ruling party-especially  during elections! If you think part-time paid personnel are not influenced by the `government’ just see how the long house chiefs -who are now paid RM800.00/month, are openly asked by BN politicians to do what are political work for BN campaign eg disallow Opposition campaigners to enter their long houses! Then the RELA -another para-military units which, by its name, started off as a `voluntary’ service -but now authorised to carry arms, allowed to break into homes on excuse to search for illegal migrants etc, all done for a fee! You guess it right that many voters in critical constituencies are recruited as RELA members now. Who do you think will win when a whole long house residents are recruited as RELA members, apart from their chief being given monthly allowance by the government?

Now: why do a government spend so much to extend the people under its employment? If for increasing its political support then the methodology is fundamentally fraud! The party is abusing government machineries and resources to do essentially party work! Similar to how UMNO is abusing the BIRO TataNegara to do UMNO brainwashing to civil servants and Malay undergrads in the whole country!

Plan Afoot To Set Up NS Volunteer Brigade, Says Najib
Saturday, 15 October 2011 08:11

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