Increase select committee members to 16 MPs, group urges

While lauding the formation of 10 parliamentary special select committees (PSSCs) at Parliament, a group urged the government to increase the composition of MPs in each committee to a maximum of 16 people.

“Currently, each committee would only have nine members. It is a waste as it fails to fully utilise backbenchers and opposition MPs.

“There are 67 MPs who have no roles because they are not members of any special select committee or Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“Hence, we propose increasing the composition of MPs in each committee to a maximum of 16 people.

“Perhaps, we can consider establishing more committees to ensure that all MPs fulfil their function and role in the committee that has been assigned,” it said.

On March 21, Dewan Rakyat approved the formation of 10 PSSCs to have a stronger oversight mechanism.

The committees are for Finance and Economy; Health; Domestic Trade, Entrepreneurship, Cost of Living and Agriculture; Infrastructure, Transport and Communications; Nation-building, Ethnicity, Education and Human Resources Development and Women, Family and Community Development.

Other PSSCs include Environment, Science and Plantations; Security; International Relations and International Trade and Human Rights, Elections and Institutional Reforms.

On that note, CSO Platform welcomed the establishment of the PSSCs on Women, Children and Community and on Human Rights, Elections and Institutional Reform.

“These two committees will play an important role in ensuring that justice and equality for all Malaysians can be preserved.

“It will also make Malaysia a more inclusive and fair country in line with the concept of a civilised Malaysia,” it added.

The group said the PSSCs should be a space for Malaysians to provide views and opinions, and contribute ideas on issues that involve their interests.

“In addition, we would also like to express our willingness to cooperate with the committees in ensuring that the democratic process in Malaysia runs smoothly and transparently.

“We believe that the involvement of civil society organisations in this framework will enable the committees to obtain information.

“As a suggestion for improvement, we hope that the PSSCs can give more space and opportunities to representatives of civil society and human rights activists to give their views on the issues discussed in the committee.

“And we hope that we will be given more access to information and data related to the issues discussed so that the decisions made are based on facts and solid evidence,” it mentioned. - Mkini

Intrigue Behind Drone And Missile Strikes Against US Occupation In Syria

 Wherever the Americans go there is bound to be trouble. There was a missile shoot out in Syria between American occupation forces and the locals beginning Thursday and continuing into yesterday. 

 

• attacks on American bases near Omar oilfield, Koniko gas field Syria
• drone strike killed American contractor, injured five US troops
• US occupation forces staged counter strike in Dayr al-Zawr
• pro Iran Syrians retaliated with rockets
• US base near al-Omar under rocket fire Friday 
• US base targeted with eight rockets
• American wounded in counter attack

Here is evangelist Erick Stakelback of Watchman TV with his take on the exchange of fire :

 

My Comments:    Iran and the Saudis have made peace in Beijing - much against the wishes of the Americans. The Syrian president just visited the UAE - to re-establish relations with the Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia. Again much to the dislike of the US. Netanyahu in Israel is not on too friendly terms with the Biden camp. Israel usually "takes out" these missiles that originate from Iran. Looks like they missed a few this time around.

After the shootout the Americans quickly released a statement that they do not seek a confrontation with Iran.  Meaning they are blinking first. They are chickening out. With Iran, Saudi, Russia, China, UAE and even Netanyahu all on the opposite side in the Middle East the Americans are quite alone, defending their freedom and democracy over by the oil and gas fields in Syria.

Just one missile strike at the right spot  shows really how vulnerable is the United States.

Here are two maps:

 

As you can see the first map shows the location of US military bases in the middle east.
The second map shows the strike range of Iranian missiles. They can reach Ukraine. So the US do not really wish to get into a shootout with the ayatollahs. The Americans avoid fights with enemies who can shoot back. The mullahs know this too. 

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

SATURDAY JOKES - 152

 

Two archaeologists, exploring a remote mountain in Tibet came across a huge granite statue which resembled a sitting man. It stood almost 400 foot tall, and its bodily details were accurate down to the fingernails and teeth.

"It looks real enough to talk," says one.
"Let's try," says the other and turning to the statue he asks it its name.
No answer.
"How old are you?"
No answer.
Finally. one shouts out, "What is the square root of 64?"
Suddenly, the mountain shakes as the giant statue rises onto its feet and puts its hand on its chin. Then after about ten seconds, the statue answers in a roaring voice, "Eight."

"Of course!" says the scientist, "... It only stands to reason!"

 

Al: When was your son born?
Sam: In March, he came the first of the month.

Al: Is that why you named him "Bill"?

 

An old man was sitting on a bench in the mall when a young man with spiked hair came over and sat down beside him. The boy's hair was bright yellow and green with orange tips and he had blue makeup around his eyes. The old man kept looking at him. The boy said, "What's the matter, old man, haven't you ever done anything wild in your life?"

The old man answered, "Well yes, actually, I have. I got drunk once and had sex with a parrot. I was just wondering if you were my son!"

A highly timid little man, ventured into a biker bar in the Bronx and clearing his throat asked, "Um, err, which of you gentlemen owns the Doberman tied outside to the parking meter?"
A giant of a man, wearing biker leathers, his body hair growing out through the seams, turned slowly on his stool, looked down at the quivering little man and said, "It's my dog. Why?"
"Well," squeaked the little man, obviously very nervous, "I believe my dog just killed it, sir."
"What?" roared the big man in disbelief. "What in the hell kind of dog do you have?"
"Sir," answered the little man, "it's a little four-week-old female puppy."
"Bull!" roared the biker, "how could your puppy kill my Doberman?"

"It appears that your dog choked on her, sir!"

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. “Hey,” I announced to the technician, “it's open!” To which he replied, “I know - I already got that side!”

A manager brings a dog into a nightclub to work. The dog is a brilliant piano player.  He plays all the standards.  He's sitting there, pounding out the tunes, when all of a sudden, a big dog comes in and drags him out.  

The nightclub owner asks, “What happened?”

The manager says, “That's his mother. She wants him to be a doctor!”

 

Symptom: Drinking fails to give satisfaction and taste; shirt front is wet.
Fault: Mouth not open or glass being applied to wrong part of face.

Solution: Buy another pint and practice in front of a mirror. Continue with as many pints as necessary until drinking technique is perfect!

 

A man and an ostrich walk into a restaurant. The waitress asks, "What will it be?"
The man replied "a burger and a coke." "And you?" "I'll have the same," the ostrich replies. They finish their meal and pay. "That will be RM 10.50" The man reached into his pocket and pulled out the exact amount. They do this every day till Friday.
"The usual?" she asked. "No, today is Friday. I'll have steak and a coke."
"Me too." says the ostrich. They finish and pay. "That will be RM 50.90"
The man reached in and pulls out the exact amount again just like all week.
The waitress was dumb-founded. "How is it that you always have the exact amount?"
"Well," says the man. "I was cleaning my attic and I found a dusty lamp. I rubbed it and a genie appeared." Wow!" said the waitress. "What did you wish for?"

"I asked that when I needed to pay for something, the exact amount would appear in my pocket." "Amazing! Most people would ask for a million ringgit. But what's with the ostrich?" "Well," said the man. "I also asked for a chick with long legs!"

As usual, we remind you to take your Memo Plus Gold daily. It will help to keep you alert and mentally sharp. For more information or to order for Memo Plus Gold, please visit : https://oze.my.

Judges’ pay scheme should be more appealing, say lawyers

 

The present salary scheme gives scant regard to the seniority and experience of judges, says lawyer Syed Iskandar Syed Jaafar.

PETALING JAYA: An attractive salary scheme, styled similar to those in the private and public sectors, must be immediately drawn up for judges, a lawyer said.

Syed Iskandar Syed Jaafar said it was “utterly ridiculous” that members of the judiciary – an important arm of constitutional government – were victims of a stagnant wage structure.

He said under the Judges’ Remuneration Act 1971, a Federal Court judge earns a basic salary of RM28,500, a Court of Appeal judge receives RM27,500, and a High Court judge gets RM26,500. Judicial Commissioners draw RM25,500.

The Chief Justice’s basic salary is RM36,000, the Court of Appeal president, RM31,500, and the Chief Judges of Malaya and Sabah and Sarawak, RM30,000.

However, members of the judiciary do not receive an annual increment, unlike civil servants and those who work in the private sector.

Syed Iskandar said: “The present salary scheme gives scant regard to seniority and experience. A newly elevated High Court judge will earn the same basic salary as his seniors on the judicial ladder.”

Judges in Singapore were much better rewarded and also receive performance bonuses, he added.

At present, all wages and other perks paid to members of the judiciary come out of the Consolidated Fund, which contains government revenue from all sources.

The judiciary includes 11 Federal Court judges, 27 judges of the Court of Appeal, 88 High Court judges and 36 judicial commissioners.

Another lawyer, A Srimurugan, said the existing scheme prevents the Bar’s best legal brains from joining the bench.

“The current salaries paid to judges in all three courts will not be attractive to the top lawyers, who earn many times more in practice,” he said.

Srimurugan said Malaysian judges were paid lower than their Indonesian counterparts.

“If the government due to financial constraints is not in a position to increase their salaries, then they should at least be exempted from paying tax,” he added.

Last week, the Malaysian Bar adopted a motion calling for an independent remuneration commission to be set up to conduct periodic reviews of salaries and perks for members of the judiciary.

Pending the establishment of the commission, lawyers present at the Bar annual meeting called an immediate review of the existing remuneration for judges.

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Salary increases of judges appear to have been done on an ad-hoc and irregular basis, with the last two reviews conducted in 2009 and 2015.

Like senior civil servants, judges also receive housing, entertainment and special allowances. They are also allowed periodic overseas travel together with children aged 18 and below, are entitled to a car loan, and have their telephone and internet bills paid for. - FMT

‘Imam’ and ‘Mentega Terbang’ prove the message isn’t everything when it comes to cinema

It’s not every year that I find myself writing about Malaysian films back-to-back for three weeks straight here, but that’s exactly what happened in February and March earlier this year.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end, and so did that surprise run of good (and even great) things being written about Malaysian films.

I’m sure there will be more opportunities for me to write about local films later on in the year, and I haven’t even managed to find the time to catch the controversial Pulau, which has done pretty well at the box-office so far, with RM2 million collected during its first week of screening.

For now, let’s turn our attention to two relatively new Malaysian movies; one released in cinemas and the other on a local streaming platform (which had to later pull the film from release after controversy arose surrounding the film) and both with religion as its main topic and message.

I’ve seen more than enough films that were praised — especially by casual filmgoers — just because they had a “good message.”

And even though I totally understand their point of view, especially since they are casual filmgoers after all, I’ve always made it a point to try and make people understand that a “good message” in a crap film won’t make it a good film, and great film with a “bad message” will still be a great film (see the Nazi propaganda film Triumph Of The Will by Leni Riefenstahl to see what I mean).

So, with religion front and centre in both Imam and Mentega Terbang, and both also carrying the message that religious fanaticism and using religion to hold on to power or control people is never good, will that be enough to make these two films good?

Imam

The pedigree behind Imam the film is certainly very promising — it’s adapted from national laureate Datuk Abdullah Hussain’s legendary novel of the same name, directed by highly respected film editor Mior Hashim Manap (who plays the dad in Imaginur) and stars local giants M. Nasir and Faizal Hussein — but unfortunately a good pedigree counts for nothing if the execution leaves much to be desired.

The story, set in the 1980s, is about Imam Haji Mihad (M. Nasir), who has recently returned to his village after a long absence, and is appointed the new village Imam.

Trying to bring progress into the village, he tries to turn the mosque into a sort of community centre, where youths can play sports and even sing nasyid songs (complete with guitar as part of the backing instruments), but he runs into opposition from the village’s old guard, who see these things as sinful and haram.

There are definitely great things mined from the epic novel here (and I can still see the novel’s intention of making the village an allegory about a country), but it’s done in such piecemeal and episodic fashion, that everything here turns into random events just sort of happening, without much being explored in terms of motivation and background.

Things just happen one after another here without any narrative thrust that the film starts to feel like a compilation of events plucked out from the novel instead of a proper film adaptation of a novel which usually requires quite a bit of streamlining, chopping, changing and elimination of elements from the source novel.

And don’t even get me started on the intrusive and absolutely overbearing film score that will make you feel as if you’re watching a horror film or an action thriller, instead of a social drama.

In short, it’s shocking how awful Imam the film turned out to be, despite how great the source novel (and message) is, which proves once again that a good message can’t save a movie from being crap.

'Mentega Terbang' was hit by a wave of controversy once local netizens started picking up on the fact that its lead character is a teenage Muslim girl trying to learn about other religions in order to figure out where her dying mother would end up when she dies. — Picture via Instagram/MentegaTerbangMovie

Mentega Terbang

A small, low budget (and practically homemade) independent film that somehow got picked up by a local streaming platform for release, Mentega Terbang was hit by a wave of controversy once local netizens started picking up on the fact that its lead character is a teenage Muslim girl trying to learn about other religions in order to figure out where her dying mother would end up when she dies.

I won’t comment much about the film’s message or whether it’s blasphemous or not, because if you do watch the film all the way to the end, you’ll understand the context of the controversial things shown in the film, as they’re simply stupid acts of rebellion from an introverted teenager learning about comparative religion, so the things she does like eating a char siew bao and pretending that she’s drinking holy water is in a way her version of other teenagers doing stupid things like trying drugs, having pre-marital sex or getting involved in gangsterism/illegal racing.

Even the film’s ultimate message, conveyed through the permissive attitude of the girl’s dad — that one can’t inherit one’s faith so one is encouraged to seek and affirm it on one’s own — is not blasphemous, even if it’s possibly insensitive if viewed from certain angles.

But the film’s real sin, for me at least, is in how poor some of the execution is. My biggest gripe has to be that there’s just too much “telling” going on instead of “showing.”

Just like in Mat Kilau, the dialogue here feels like it’s taken from one text written from only one point of view, but passed along for other characters to mouth, so instead of talking about how Malays are not united like in Mat Kilau, we get a long lecture about comparative religion instead.

And even simple visual things like blocking and camera pans can feel quite amateurish here.

So whether you think the message here is good or not, it will not change the fact that Mentega Terbang is unfortunately quite a weak film, though it’s still nowhere near as bad as Imam.

And considering that this is director Khairi Anwar’s debut film, and it was more or less a homemade project made using chump change, to avoid being as abysmal as the bigger budgeted Imam is already some sort of an achievement.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist Aidil Rusli,

What would it take for Muda to finally catch Pakatan's eye? Young party needs to prove itself in polls, say analysts

 

According to analysts, the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) will need to prove that it can be an asset to Pakatan Harapan and win over support from youths for the coalition to finally accept it. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — The Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) will need to prove that it can be an asset to Pakatan Harapan (PH) and win over support from youths for the coalition to finally accept it, several analysts polled by Malay Mail said.

After Muda complained of again being left out from the Unity Government Secretariat meeting on Sunday, Universiti Utara Malaysia's (UUM) Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani said Muda's poor showing in the 15th general election (GE15) when it won only one Parliamentary seat is not helping its cause.

“This does not show that it is strong and worthy enough to be part of PH or any coalition,” the associate professor told Malay Mail.

He said currently the youth vote was divided, and Muda does not have its own campaigners to win them over. Instead, he said Muda had merely relied on urban votes and the backing of PH's grassroots campaigners during GE15.

Meanwhile, University of Malaya's sociopolitical analyst Awang Azman Awang Pawi said the situation shows that Muda is much more dependent on PH rather than the other way round.

“There is also the worry that Muda might ask for more seats in the state elections later if it is officially part of PH,” he said, adding that Muda ultimately needs to prove that it will be able to win more seats.

“Another factor for the reluctance for PH to officially accept them is that they are considered as the main competitors for the youth wings of DAP, PKR and Amanah,” he said.

Senior Fellow of Singapore Institute of International Affairs Oh Ei Sun agreed that one reason behind PH's hesitation to work with Muda may be because PKR sees the young party as a competitor.

"As PKR is supposed to drive both PH and the unity government now, there is thus understandable marginalisation of Muda,” Oh said.

Muda president Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman had previously said the party was targeting to field candidates in 15 Parliamentary seats in GE15, but after a protracted negotiation with PH — to avoid contesting against each other — only contested six seats. It only win one: Syed Saddiq's incumbent Muar.

Similarly, Oh also said that Muda's weak performance in GE15 denied it a strong bargaining position to be included as part of PH.

“Muda really risks becoming increasingly irrelevant if it can’t find its political niche fast,” Oh said.

The director of Asia Institute, University of Tasmania, James Chin said PH will have to give Muda seats during state elections if the coalition were to accept the party into its fold.

"They were given seats in GE15 but they only delivered one seat, it would be very difficult for them to accept Muda after that,” he said.

Muda currently has one state seat in Johor: deputy president Amira Aisya Abdul Aziz's Puteri Wangsa.

Chin said PH should still accept Muda as it is not good for the coalition’s image to leave the youth party dangling for so long, and suggested that PH may be able to make way for Muda if the latter does not make any demands during seat negotiations for the upcoming state polls.

Additionally, Awang Azman said Muda has yet shown that the support it has on social media could translate into votes.

“However, if the social media support continues, Muda still has a chance of becoming a leading political power for the youths in the future,” he said.

Awang Azman also suggested that Muda’s supporters may be more likely to support PH now than Perikatan Nasional (PN), especially with PH in power now.

Contrasting with Awang Azman, Oh believed that a large part of youth votes have migrated away from PH or Muda to PN instead, which has previously admitted it reaped rewards from flooding social media channels such as TikTok.

"Those who are more religiously minded go for PAS, whereas those more socioeconomically concerned go for Bersatu,” he said.

Chin said that while it may be true that young Malay voters have switched from Muda to PN, there are no set patterns for young voters.

“They can easily switch back to PH or BN, this group is never consistent,” he said. - malaymail