Kuala Lumpur: More Bad News For Malaysia’s Economy

Kuala Lumpur: More Bad News For Malaysia’s Economy
Business

2009-03-26 17:15

KUALA LUMPUR: The bad news is that Malaysia’s economy may dive into the negative territory this year. But the worst is yet to come, according to a UN Survey.

Malaysia is unlikely to escape a technical recession in the first half of 2009, noted Kamal Malhotra, the United Nations resident coordinator for Malaysia, who is also the UNDP regional representative, when he released the latest UNESCAP Asia Pacific economic and social survey entitled - “Addressing Triple Threats To Development” here Thursday (26 March).

“It seems more than likely that the country will continue to face significant economic challenges in the short to medium term,” he said.

“Some independent estimates suggest Malaysia’s GDP growth in 2009 could be as low as a negative 5%,” added.

However, on the upside, Malaysia may be resilient in the current crisis, according to Dr Mahani Zainal Abidin, director general of ISIS Malaysia, who spoke on the impact of the global crisis on Malaysia.

She said this is due to, among other things, Malaysia’s valuable experience from the 1998 crisis, the balanced structure of its domestic economy, a strong banking sector, ample liquidity to finance a stimulus package and sufficient international reserves.

She noted that FDI inflows into Malaysia in 2009 is expected to be RM26 billion or half that of last year’s. She also said the sharp decline on the local bourse of 39% in 2008 has led to a massive impairment of investors’ values.

Dr Mahani also pointed out that there was an outflow of short term capital for two consecutive quarters; RM30.31 billion in second quarter of 2008, and RM38.05 billion the following quarter. This has led to Bank Negara’s international reserves falling to US$90.6 billion on 13 March 2009 compared with US$125.8 billion last June. It was even lower at US$85 billion as at end Feb 2009.

In view of this, the central bank cut its policy rates twice from 3.25% in Nov 2008 to 2.00% last month. At the same time Bank Negara also cut statutory reserves requirements by half from 4.0% in Dec 2008 to 2.0% last month.

The govenrment responed to the ongoing crisis by introducing two stimulus packages,one in five months ago comprising RM7 billion (1.0% of GDP) and another of RM60 billion (9.0% of GDP) ten days ago. As noted by Dr Mahani, the concern is the speed of drawdown as so far only RM1 billion has been used and only RM5.6 billion is expected to be used by middle of this year. (By BOB TEOH/ MySinchew)

Check Khairy, mate

Check Khairy, mate

MARCH 29 - Sometimes, if not always, pawns have to be sacrificed to make way for a powerful queen in a chess game.

And in the arcane 64 squares of Umno politics, the players themselves are often unawares if they are playing black or white.

At this juncture, with a new grandmaster stepping in to play the game, more pawns might have to yield to keep old grandmasters happy — as chess is played one move at a time.

One such pawn could be the winner of the hotly-fought Umno Youth chief contest, Khairy Jamaluddin. The Rembau MP may turn into a loser as part of the play initiated by new president Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak to close ranks and consolidate the party.

Khairy may end up being discarded in order to bring Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad back to Umno, the party he founded in 1988 when it replaced the original one — after it was deemed illegal at the end of a vicious chess game.

Despite the smiles and feel-good atmosphere in the Dewan Merdeka yesterday, Dr Mahathir will not accept Khairy as minister or deputy minister.

His followers have indicated and stated their views in no uncertain terms to the new party president’s camp, who are now finalising the new cabinet — chosen from the president’s men and new faces thrown into the fray by the 2,500 delegates.

The boos for Khairy have also underlined the outgoing prime minister’s son-in-law’s Pyrhhic victory against Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir and Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo.

This has always been the fear of Najib’s camp, to balance the wants of Dr Mahathir and not give the impression that he is running the government.

In the aftermath of the party polls for all wings four days ago, Najib’s aides have made hints that Wanita Umno and Puteri Umno winners might not get cabinet positions.

This is ostensibly a move to rebuild the party, widen support and regain the people’s confidence.

It is easier as Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil lost in Election 2008 and the Puteri Umno leader is not seen as a party heavyweight.

In reality, it might be an elaborate effort to exhibit that Khairy is not being victimised or shunned in the party — when is omitted from the cabinet line-up.

Check Khairy, mate, would be the gambit of the day if the new grandmaster wants the queen to remain powerful.

Malaysian socialists warn of return of Mahathir-style repression

Peter Boyle
28 March 2009

“As present deputy PM Najib Razak plans to takeover the prime ministership on April 2, there seems to be a pattern of growing repression”, warned Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) secretary general S. Arutchelvan.

“The dark ages of [former PM] Mahathir are returning with incidents such as the one-year suspension from parliament of opposition MP Gobind Singh Deo, the three-month ban of two popular opposition newspapers, recent police attacks on opposition public assemblies, the referring of sodomy charges against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to the High Court [and] the setting up of a new ‘anti-corruption agency’ to investigate opposition leaders.”

Another example, S. Arutchelvan warned, was the rejection of the PSM’s party symbol — a red clenched fist.

On March 23, riot police used a water cannon and tear gas to attack a 5000-strong public meeting of opposition People’s Justice Party (PKR) supporters in Sungei Patani.

PSM deputy chairperson M. Saraswathy told Green Left Weekly that the increasingly unpopular National Front (BN) government were “resorting to more dirty, more lawless and more devious means to hold onto power at any cost”.

“The March 2008 political tsunami that swept the PR [the People’s Front opposition coalition] into power in five states was the result of an unprecedented level of disenchantment with the BN’s 50-year rule.

“The neoliberal policies of the government made the lives of the majority miserable. All the welfare state projects were rolled back one by one, resulting in rising prices of basic services while real wages dropped.

“Now the current economic crisis is pushing people into greater hardship and further angering them”, Saraswathy told GLW. “People have little faith that the federal government’s hefty stimulus packages will benefit them.”

In February, the BN regained controlled of one of five state governments won by opposition parties in the 2008 elections through dirty tactics.

“The PR had a narrow three-seat majority in the state assembly but the BN wrested away three seats from the PR by using back door tactics”, Saraswathy explained.

“They bought over two PKR state assembly members who were facing corruption charges, and went on to pay a hefty sum of money to a [Democratic Action Party] state assemblywoman who was the deputy speaker.

“The BN used the Perak monarchy to aid and abet in their unlawful power grab. The Perak Sultan, who has large vested financial interests, removed the opposition government.”

Saraswathy said that the PSM continued to “put forward socialist arguments, analysis, perspectives and proposals, making our one MP stand apart from the rest”.

These include “a retrenchment fund, land for farming, food stamps, freezing of housing loan repayments”, he said.

“A number of these demands were carried to the public in a nation-wide bicycle campaign that made history. The PSM’s cyclists, who faced police harassment as they made their way around the country, finally entered parliament and handed over a memorandum.

“This has never happened before, and was only made possible because of our MP. It succeeded in highlighting the demands of the campaign to a large number of people.

“We believe change comes through people’s power”, Saraswathy said. “We still have a long way to go in the struggle.

“But our election victories have had a great impact on the party’s development. Having a vocal state assembly member in Selangor and a federal parliamentarian have been very good propaganda platforms for the party and enabled us to demonstrate to people what socialists stand for.

“Party policies and actions in PSM constituencies, such as yearly asset declarations, formation of People’s Consultative Councils at the constituency level, and the practice of a different culture of politics — all this has had great appeal and has contributed to the likelihood of PSM becoming a third force on the Malaysian political scene.”

[M. Saraswathy will be one of several international guest speakers at the World at a Crossroads conference in Sydney, Australia, April 10-12. For more information, or to book tickets, visit http://www.worldatacrossroads.org.]

Over 26,000 jobs lost in Malaysia

By correspondants in Kuala Lumpur

Agence France-Presse

March 29, 2009 08:09pm

MORE than 26,000 people have lost their jobs in Malaysia so far this year as the economic slowdown forced employers to cut back, state news agency Bernama has reported.

Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan told Bernama he expected further job losses in the coming weeks.

He said a 16.2 billion dollar stimulus package unveiled earlier this month had not provided immediate incentive for companies to retain their workers.

The government has slashed its work permit approvals for foreign workers by almost 70 percent so far this year and cancelled work visas for 55,000 Bangladeshi workers after unions said the situation for Malaysians was bleak enough.

In January, the government also banned the hiring of new foreigners in the manufacturing and services sectors after a report forecast 45,000 Malaysians would lose their jobs in the next few months.

Malaysia is one of Asia's largest importers of labour and has an estimated 2.2 million foreign workers, who are the mainstay of the plantation and manufacturing sectors.

However, the government has become concerned about the ramifications of having such a large migrant workforce and periodically tries to reduce it.

Old guard to go as divided Malays face up to recession

Old guard to go as divided Malays face up to recession

Kuala Lumpur
March 26, 2009

Women supporters follow UMNO's five-day conference in Kuala Lumpur on closed-circuit TV. The ruling party is undergoing a major overhaul following its recent election slump. Photo: Saeed Khan

DELEGATES of Malaysia's governing party are meeting to choose new leaders in the biggest revamping of leadership in decades and an attempt to recover from a humiliating election defeat of the old guard a year ago.

More than 2500 delegates from the United Malays National Organisation are attending the five-day congress amid heightened political tensions after the authorities on Monday banned the opposition's flagship newspapers for three months and used tear gas to break up a rally by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

The UMNO, as the dominant party in the ruling National Front coalition, has been in power since independence in 1957. But never has it appeared more vulnerable than now: riven with infighting, corruption and favouritism, it is rapidly losing voter support and is left to govern a country facing an almost certain recession.

"This is the most critical time in the history of UMNO," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said.

"We need to accept this challenge by making massive changes to the party and the Government. If we are not brave enough to change, we will be changed by the people," he told party newspapers.

The congress elects top party leaders, including its president, deputy president, three vice-presidents, 25 supreme council members and heads of the party's youth and women's wings.

The conference comes amid rising political tensions in Malaysia and increasing protests from angry minority groups.

Mr Najib will be elected unopposed as party president, a post that traditionally carries with it the office of prime minister. This is despite claims that he was linked to a murder case, an accusation he strongly denies.

He will replace Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, possibly on April 2 or 3.

Dissidents forced Mr Abdullah to step down and accept blame for the National Front's abysmal showing in the March 2008 general elections.

The party had failed to win its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament and conceded control of an unprecedented five states to the opposition. Party leaders acknowledge that failure to reform will almost certainly lead to an opposition victory in the next elections, due in 2013.

AP

Malaysia's PM blasts 'greedy' ruling party

Sarah Stewart, Kuala Lumpur

March 27, 2009

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak.

MALAYSIA'S outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yesterday issued a damning indictment of the ruling party, saying it was contaminated by greed, complacency and internal rivalries.

In his last speech to the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) before handing over as party leader to his deputy, Najib Razak, Mr Abdullah lamented the decay that has set in after 50 years in power.

"We were intoxicated by our own achievements and we became complacent," he told delegates at its annual meeting. "We believed that we had become all-powerful. We have put our own positions within the party first."

Mr Abdullah said that elections a year ago, which handed the opposition control of a third of parliamentary seats in an unprecedented result that effectively ended his career, were a sign that "UMNO's glory has dimmed".

"Materialism has seeped into the party, making a number of party members greedy and avaricious," he said.

"The path that we choose will determine whether we continue to remain relevant or whether we are reduced to a forgotten footnote in the pages of history."

The 66-year-old drifted through a lacklustre term in power after taking over from veteran premier Mahathir Mohamad, who led Malaysia for more than two decades and publicly undermined his successor after the 2003 handover.

Mr Abdullah was punished at the ballot box for failing to implement reforms he had promised, including overhauling the police force and tackling corruption that is endemic in UMNO and Malaysian society.

However, he won some praise for giving more space to free expression after the repressive Mahathir years, and yesterday he warned the party not to resort to a hardline approach. "If we revert to the old path, I believe we are choosing the wrong path, one that will take us to regression and decay. It is a path that I fear will hasten our demise," he said.

Mr Najib has promised a radical overhaul of UMNO, but commentators say his political baggage — including low popularity ratings and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption and links to a sensational murder — will weaken his position.

Mr Najib has appealed to party members, who are voting this week to fill key posts, to install a strong new leadership team to help him bring about a turnaround.

There was an upset late on Wednesday when Mr Abdullah's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, 33, seized the position of chief of UMNO's youth wing.

Pundits had expected him to lose, saying he was seen as having too much influence over Mr Abdullah and partly to blame for the disastrous polls. His prospects were further damaged when he was rapped for buying votes. But he edged out other candidates, including Mr Mahathir's son, Mukhriz Mahathir. AFP

Vexing computer worm to evolve on April Fool's Day

Vexing computer worm to evolve on April Fool's Day

Sun, Mar 29, 2009 AFP

By Glenn Chapman

SAN FRANCISCO, March 29, 2009 (AFP) - A tenacious computer worm which has wriggled its way onto machines worldwide is set to evolve on April Fool's Day, becoming harder to exterminate but not expected to wreak havoc.

A task force assembled by Microsoft has been working to stamp out the worm, referred to as Conficker or DownAdUP, and the US software colossus has placed a bounty of 250,000 dollars on the heads of those responsible for the threat.

The worm is programmed to modify itself on Wednesday to become harder to stop, according to Trend Micro threat researcher Paul Ferguson, who is part of the Conficker task force.

"There is no evidence of it going into attack mode or dropping any particular payload on April 1st," Ferguson said in an interview.

"What people controlling the botnet are doing is building in survivability because of efforts by the good guys to lessen the harm of this thing."

The worm, a self-replicating program, takes advantage of networks or computers that haven't kept up to date with security patches for Windows RPC Server Service.

It can infect machines from the Internet or by hiding on USB memory sticks carrying data from one computer to another. Once in a computer it digs deep, setting up defenses that make it hard to extract.

Malware could be triggered to steal data or turn control of infected computers over to hackers amassing "zombie" machines into "botnet" armies.

A troubling aspect of Conficker is that it harnesses computing power of a botnet to crack passwords.

Microsoft has modified its free Malicious Software Removal Tool to detect and get rid of Conficker.

"As this threat continues to evolve, Microsoft and other collaborative companies will continue to identify new ways to disrupt the Conficker threat to give customers more time to update their systems," said Christopher Budd, security response communication lead for Microsoft.

Computer users are advised to stay current on anti-virus tools and Windows updates, and to protect computers and files with strong passwords. Conficker is programmed to reach out to 250 websites daily to download commands from its masters.

On Wednesday, the worm will begin connecting with 50,000 websites daily to better hide where orders originate, according to Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure computer security firm.

"They basically upped the ante; trying to make our lives more difficult," Ferguson said. "They realised the good guys were starting to intercept their communications."

The infection rate has slowed from a fierce pace earlier this year, but computers that are not updated with a software patch released by Microsoft remain vulnerable, according to security specialists.

Hypponen wrote in a message at F-Secure's website that Conficker is in one to two million computers and that most of those machines are believed to have an early version of the malicious software lacking the April 1 trigger.

Conficker was first detected in November 2008.

Among the ways one can tell if their machine is infected is that the worm will block efforts to connect with websites of security firms such as Trend Micro or Symantec where there are online tools for removing the virus.

"Once a machine is infected, it becomes very hard to clean up," Ferguson said. "There is no indication anywhere of (Conficker) doing anything but just sitting there. We don't know whether another shoe is going to drop, or if there is another shoe at all."

Hackers have taken advantage of Conficker hype by using promises of information or cures to lure Internet users to websites booby trapped with malicious software, according to security specialists.

"It seems that every other day you see some story about the Internet being hobbled together with bubble gum and paper clips," Ferguson said. "Conficker could be the biggest non-story of the year; at least that's what I hope it is."

Hardware use can kill tissue and call for amputation

Hardware use can kill tissue and call for amputation
Mar 29, 2009
The New Paper

SOME men will go to extremes for the sake of sexual stimulation. And they are not necessarily weirdos.

The typical penile strangulation patient could be someone standing next to you on the bus or a colleague in the next cubicle, say urologists.

Dr Chin Chong Min, senior consultant urologist at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, said men who put foreign objects on their private parts do so 'to enhance their erection, thinking that the simple way is to create a blockage'.

Professor Peter Lim, senior consultant urologist at Gleneagles Hospital, has seen many cases of penile strangulation in his 29 years of in urology. He estimates that Singapore hospitals see at least two cases a year.

And, he added, there are probably four or five cases that go unreported each year.

The patients could be Mr Average.

Said Prof Lim: 'They're not weirdos. They could be anyone, young and old.'

Most patients in such embarrassing situations are naturally sheepish about their condition. They are 'usually quite silent' when they first visit him, said Prof Lim. One patient entered his clinic one day in 1998 and declared, 'I did something stupid'.

Prof Lim said: 'That was the most honest thing I had heard (coming from a patient).'

The patient had placed a nut (as in nut and bolt) on his penis. 'He could have taken it off easily if he had tried to remove it earlier, but he had an erection and the penis ballooned,' said Prof Lim.

Doctors had to use an orthopaedic saw - usually used as a last resort - to remove the nut.

Prof Lim said: 'It's a crazy, stupid thing to do.'

So why do they do it?

'They want to get a sexual 'high'. It's a form of sexual deviation,' he said. 'They're not aware that it will strangulate the penile area. Congestion occurs and the penis becomes more and more swollen.

Deep trouble

'When they can't take it (the object) out, they realise that they're in deep trouble.'

Besides penile strangulation cases, Prof Lim has encountered unusual cases in which an object had made its way into unexpected places.

One rare case involved a patient who had put a closed safety pin into his urethra - a tube in the penis that discharges urine from the bladder - so that he could 'get sexually aroused', said Prof Lim.

But the safety pin slipped into his bladder.

Prof Lim used an instrument called a cystoscope to remove it.

Another patient had a bottle stuck in his rectum. The man did it 'to stimulate his prostate'.

That's because 'the G-spot for men is located at the back of the prostate', said Prof Lim.

In many cases, Prof Lim uses liquid paraffin as a first option to try to slip the object off the penis.

'But when it's very swollen, sometimes we have to use a saw,' he said.

Prof Lim added: 'In extreme cases, the penis can turn gangrenous and the whole thing can drop off because of tissue death. If so, it may have to be amputated to prevent serious infection which attract bacteria that can enter the blood stream - causing death from septicaemia (blood poisoning).

'Also secondary haemorrhage from open blood vessels at the grangrenous tissues can cause the patient to bleed to death'

Prof Lim, however, has not come across cases with such serious complications. 'It's not likely that anyone here will die from it. If the patient has a swollen penis and a raging fever, it's likely that he will seek treatment before it gets to that stage,' he said.

This story was first published in The New Paper.