~penarik beca (2)

Harakah (30/9/08): Anda pergi ke mana Hari Raya ini? Sheih, blogger yang baru-baru ini ditangkap di bawah Akta Hasutan berpesan, sambil ziarah-ziarah Hari Raya, tanya-tanyalah siapa yang tahu mengenai syarikat pengeluar helikopter, Eurocopter yang telah memenangi tender untuk menggantikan helikopter Nuri atau Sikorsky S61A-4 Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia (TUDM).

Tanya-tanyalah benarkah Datuk Kamaluddin (anak Perdana Menterilah, siapa lagi!) adalah "agen rahsia" bagi pihak Eurocopter.

Tanya-tanyalah juga adakah benar urusniaga Eurocopter itu akan membolehkan Kamaluddin meraih sebesar RM250 juta setahun untuk 30 tahun akan datang.

Laporan media baru-baru ini menyatakan, Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi mengumumkan bahawa Eurocopter telah memenangi tender Kementerian Pertahanan itu.

Beliau berkata, surat hasrat atau letter of intent (LOI) telah dihantar kepada Eurocopter untuk membeli helikopter tersebut.

‘‘Pada masa ini Kementerian Pertahanan sedang mengadakan rundingan dengan Eurocopter mengenai spesifikasi teknikal helikopter, klausa perjanjian sebelum menandatanganinya secara rasmi dengan syarikat berkenaan,’’ katanya.

Beliau berkata demikian kepada pemberita selepas menerima taklimat khas di Wisma Pertahanan baru-baru ini.

Ketika ditanya mengapa syarikat itu yang dipilih, Abdullah mendakwa pemilihan itu adalah berdasarkan kepada kriteria yang ditetapkan oleh Kementerian Pertahanan serta ciri-ciri yang terdapat pada helikopter berkenaan.

Beliau menambah, sudah tiba masanya khidmat Nuri ditamatkan memandangkan usia pesawat itu yang telah lama digunakan dan pernah terlibat dalam beberapa kemalangan yang menyebabkan kehilangan nyawa.

‘‘Saya masih ingat mesyuarat Kabinet menetapkan bahawa helikopter Nuri itu perlu digantikan dengan segera memandangkan ia telah terlalu lama berkhidmat,’’ katanya

Nuri pernah digelar sebagai "keranda terbang" berikutan begitu banyak kemalangan yang melibatkan helikopter jenis itu.

Menurut Sheih, apa yang gagal diberitahu oleh Abdullah ialah Kamaluddin adalah "agen rahsia" bagi pihak Eurocopter.

Menurut Sheih lagi, Kamaluddin juga sedang berusaha untuk memenangi tender sewa beli helikopter dari Polis DiRaja Malaysia.

Dua perkara berlaku sebelum Hari Raya, kata Sheih dalam blognya.

Pertama, Perdana Menteri bertukar portfolio dengan timbalannya, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. Beliau mengambilalih jawatan Menteri Pertahanan dari Najib manakala Timbalan Perdana Menteri pula mengambil alih jawatan Menteri Kewangan dari Abdullah.

Kedua, Perhimpunan Agung Umno ditangguhkan ke bulan Mac 2009.

Menurut Sheih, apa yang gagal dilihat oleh rakyat Malaysia ialah antara perkara pertama dilakukan Abdullah sebagai Menteri Pertahanan ialah membuat pengumuman mengenai Eurocopter yang menjadi keghairahan terkini Kementerian Pertahanan.

Di samping itu, Abdullah juga bersetuju dengan pelan peralihan kuasa yang fleksibel dan mungkin lebih awal tetapi meminta tempoh tiga bulan sehingga Mac 2009 untuk membolehkan beliau terus menjadi Perdana Menteri.

Blogger itu bertanya, adakah kedua-dua tindakan Abdullah itu didorong oleh urusniaga Eurocopter yang bermakna Kamaluddin akan meraih sebesar RM250 setahun untuk 30 tahun akan datang?

"(Adakah) dengan menangguhkan Perhimpunan Agung Umno, Abdullah boleh memastikan urusniaga itu ditandatangani sebelum beliau berundur," katanya.

Jkia benar, Sheih mengucapkan "Horey untuk Malaysia! Selamat Hari Raya dan bertanya-tanyalah tentang urusniaga Eurocopter itu ketika ziarah-ziarah Raya anda".

Malaysian Insider (26/8/08) Next up: a crackdown on bloggers. This possibility looms large after the government reached a sober assessment that it could all end in tears for the Barisan Nasional at the next general election if tough action is not taken to counter allegations on the Net and hold owners of blogs accountable.

This conclusion was reached during a meeting last week involving several Cabinet ministers and senior government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Government officials noted that some 400,000 new voters are registered each year. Assuming that the next polls are in five years, there would be two million new voters the next time the BN seeks a fresh mandate. A large chunk of these two million voters are likely to obtain their news and information from websites and blogs, and not from the mainstream media.

Several ministers noted that if the government followed its current policy of allowing allegations by bloggers to go unchallenged, this would create the perception that the information being posted is accurate.

"There is a growing consensus in government that those who run websites and blogs should be held accountable and this means that laws should be used to take action against those who defame and spread disinformation.

"If not, we are going to have a situation where everyone will be free to make all sorts of allegations with no downside at all. There is a fear that the trust level with BN would be very low if nothing is done, '' said a senior government official familiar with details of the meeting.

The prevailing mood in the government against the alternative media is one of frustration. After decades of being able to control newspapers and television stations through a raft of legislation, government officials and politicians are finding that their tools are useless in setting boundaries for new media.

At last week's meeting, an official of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) explained that the authorities have not come down hard on websites and bloggers because Section 3 of the Communications and Multimedia Act prohibits any form of censorship.

But government officials corrected him and said that the guarantee that the Internet would not be censored did not preclude legal action from being taken against bloggers for defamation and sedition.

They pointed out that the Singapore government had hauled several bloggers to court for a series of offences and suggested that the Malaysian government should follow suit. In the aftermath of Election 2008, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that the government paid a heavy price by allowing accusations and reports on the Internet to go unchallenged.

He said that the BN underestimated the power of the Internet and committed a serious misjudgment by relying on the mainstream media in the run-up to the general election. His comments resulted in the Information Ministry reaching out to some prominent bloggers and giving them some air-time on television but by and large the relationship between the alternative media and the government has remained testy.

In recent months, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the country's best-known political blogger, has had a running battle with Najib and his wife, implicating both of them in the October 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shariibuu. The DPM has also been on the receiving end of other damaging allegations.

His supporters in Umno have been pushing for a more hardnosed approach in dealing with bloggers and operators of news portals, arguing that the softer touch by the Abdullah administration has resulted in daily attacks on ministers and BN politicians.

Critics of the government said that instead of focusing on bloggers and the alternative media, they should strive for more accountability and transparency, and remove the shackles on the mainstream media.

The Star (6/7/08): For the next 48 hours, Ahirudin Attan will not blog on anything about the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case and the alleged sodomy accusation against PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, saying he is fed up of the mudslinging in cyberspace.

“I am not going to blog on both Altantuya and Anwar because there are other issues to talk about,” said the blogger, also known as Rocky.


“Filthy comments have been posted in the blogosphere. It is making me fed up with how real-life politics is dumped on us in cyberspace.

They are throwing dirt on each other.”

He also posted his intent to “go on strike” on his blog, http://rockybru.blogspot.com/ yesterday.

After the 48 hours, Ahirudin said he would set new rules on his blog where comments would be more strictly moderated and that he would post only important developments on the two issues.

The blogger, who constantly writes on political issues in Malaysia, added that the current two “hot topics” were not lightweight issues and it was wrong to trivialise them.

Another blogger, Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, also expressed her exasperation over the matter.


“I am fed up. There are more important things in life, like how is someone going to feed his family. There is just so much rubbish going around,” Marina said.

“I will not blog on issues that I do not know about. And there are people who insist they know what is happening.”

In her blog (www.rantingsbymm.blogspot.com) on Thursday, she wrote that she would go on strike and refrain “from reading the news”, being interested in what politicians were up to and the “so-called analyses of what’s happening by people who don’t really know anything”.

“I don’t know anything at all and I’m quite happy to admit that. And I don’t care to offer an opinion either.

“I just have more important things to do in my life. And I will blog about things that I hope will make us smarter, not stupider,” she wrote.