KLUANG: The owner of the thousands of arowana fish that escaped from broken rearing ponds in Renggam near here on Tuesday has indicated he has no intention to reclaim the escaped fishes current in possession of villagers there.
Ng Ah Phau said he came to that decision as it would be impossible to get back the 15,000 to 18,000 fish because it was a complicated process, and he expressed hope that no one would blame or threaten the nearby villagers over the matter.
"The incident was probably caused by certain infrastructure construction work, so I hope the related authorities will conduct an immediate investigation. I have lodged a report with the police and will take legal action," he said when contacted.
News of the escaped fish had gone viral on social media, with thousands of fish found in the irrigation canals and streams around Layang-Layang and Renggam since Tuesday.
Villagers had earlier been reported to have said they were willing to return the fish they retrieved and in their care, and also hoped that they would not be penalised for their actions.
THE news of the 11-year-old who suffered heatstroke on April 30th, after a teacher forced him to stand in the sun for three hours has left Malaysian from all walks of life angry, dismayed and disgruntled.
Ampang Hospital in Selangor provided the family a reference letter for her son to be assessed as a person with disabilities in view of his resulting health issues.
The irony and contradiction is that three warning letters from the school were allegedly sent to the boy’s parents regarding his absence from school while he was receiving medical treatment at the hospital.
What the Malaysia public is wondering though is whether there are many teachers of this kind in the teaching profession.
No one with a sane mind will deny the existence of such teachers in the system. These teachers have gone through proper teacher training programmes of mastering the psychology, pedagogy and the rest of the disciplines to teach effectively and efficiently, so why are there still many found with racist and sadist mindsets?
The Education Ministry should now look into the curriculum of teacher training as well as the selection process and training trajectories before they qualified as teachers.
The selection process must be able to detect and identify applicants who are racist and religious bigots.
If this can be eliminated at the interview and selection process, the Education Ministry is doing a great favour to the teaching profession.
The Ministry shouldn’t only be looking at the tree all the time but missing the forest, if not such incidents will reoccur again and again.
Malaysia is a multiracial, multi-religious and multi-linguistic society that carries along with it its pros and cons of its diversity demography.
In theory we can talk of unity in diversity until the cows come home but in practice it is an utter failure.
The policies and its implementation and the rhetoric of politicians must be scrutinised at all times. There are several dichotomies between many diverse elements which can instantly whip up racial religious hatred towards one another.
Malaysia is a fragile society as far as race and religion are concerned, and it has not matured sufficiently as politicians are ever ready to sniff around the sentiments to gain political mileage.
We hope this uncivilised incident will make the Ministry look deeply at the curriculum, selection and training programme of the teaching profession. It should not be brushed under the carpet as an isolated incident.
The Ministry must do some soul-searching with proper officials to correct, rectify and remedy the potentially dormant 2R (race and religion) embedded in our educational system which rears its ugly head with snippets of incidents like this.
K. Tamil Maran (K.T. Maran) is a Focus Malaysia viewer.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
EDUCATION has and always will be a hot topic among Malaysians. This is best exemplified by a post on the Entrepreneurs and Start Ups Malaysia Facebook page by Eric Siew who said he has no regrets sending his offspring to “public school”.
He went on the list the many benefits of making such a decision which included massive financial savings.
The father was especially keen to emphasise that his kids are proficient in the national language. He observed that this linguistic ability seemed to surprise certain quarters was in itself a sad reflection of the current state of Malaysian society.
The poster also pointed out the lack of self-entitlement by being among more rounded citizenry as well as exposure to different ethnic groups allowing for a well-rounded upbringing.
The post has generated 5,500 likes, 1,900 shares and 630 comments at time of writing, reflecting how important this issue is to many Malaysians. There are many lengthy comments which readers can readhere.
Here is a sample of the shorter comments which do highlight many different perspectives.
There were many who supported the poster’s views.
One netizen pointed out that building lasting friendships in such an environment is networking for the future.
A few quite rightly pointed out that it depends on the needs of each individual child. One netizen also insinuated that there is no gaji buta in private set-ups as under performers will be axed. Parents – as paying clients – also get a bigger say in how school is run.
There were many who firmly believed that national schools offered the best platform for integration.
However, there were dissenting views with one netizen quite rightly pointing out how national education syllabus is used to further certain agendas, not to mention the perceived lowering of standards.
With one poster pointedly asking the ‘cost-no-object’ question, would it still be the same decision.
Amid all the debate, one netizen summed it up with a message of hope.
Menteri Na’im Mokhtar berkata pihaknya difahamkan status individu yang terkandas masih sama dan mereka belum lagi membuat aduan kepada TH. (Gambar Bernama)
KUALA LUMPUR: Jabatan Perdana Menteri (Hal Ehwal Agama) masih belum menerima sebarang laporan rasmi mengenai beberapa rakyat Malaysia yang terkandas di Makkah selepas didakwa ditipu agensi pelancongan yang berjanji untuk mendapatkan visa mengerjakan haji tahun ini.
Menteri Mohd Na’im Mokhtar berkata pihaknya difahamkan status individu yang terkandas masih sama dan mereka belum lagi membuat aduan kepada Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH) bagi meminta bantuan untuk dibawa pulang ke tanah air.
“Setakat laporan yang diterima daripada ketua pegawai eksekutif TH (Syed Hamadah Syed Othman) dan ketua rombongan Haji, Syed Saleh Syed Abdul Rahman, belum ada secara rasmi mereka menghubungi untuk mendapatkan bantuan.
“Kita harap mereka (yang terkandas) membuat aduan kepada warga TH yang berada di Tanah Suci,” katanya selepas merasmikan Pavilion Al-Falah dan Pelancaran Buku Baharu terbitan agensi di bawah Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri (Hal Ehwal Agama) di Pusat Dagangan Dunia.
Pada Rabu lepas, media melaporkan terdapat beberapa jemaah haji Malaysia terkandas di Makkah selepas pasport mereka dipegang agensi pelancongan sekali gus tidak boleh pulang ke tanah air.
Anak kepada mangsa terkandas dilaporkan berkata ibu bapanya mengambil pakej haji menggunakan visa pelancong yang diuruskan sebuah agensi pelancongan di Seri Kembangan, Selangor.
Mengulas lanjut, Na’im berkata kejadian tersebut melibatkan bidang kuasa Kementerian Pelancongan, Seni dan Budaya kerana membabitkan isu pelancongan dan umrah, manakala haji pula di bawah bidang kuasa TH.
Dalam masa sama, beliau turut mengingatkan rakyat untuk tidak mudah mempercayai sebarang iklan yang dikeluarkan agensi pelancongan yang mendakwa mampu mengeluarkan visa haji.
“Saya sudah tekankan visa haji hanya dikeluarkan oleh TH yang mana merangkumi 31,600 pada tahun ini, selain daripada TH adalah kedutaan Arab Saudi yang disebut sebagai Visa Mujamalah atau Furada. Orang lain (agensi pelancongan) tidak ada kuasa untuk mengeluarkan apa jua bentuk visa haji,” katanya. - FMT
Former Bar presidents Hendon Mohamed and the late Sulaiman Abdullah received awards for their lifetime achievements.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Bar has presented lifetime achievement awards to two former presidents, Hendon Mohamed and the late Sulaiman Abdullah, for their contributions to the legal field.
Hendon, the first Malay woman called to the Bar in 1963, became the first female Bar Council president from 1993 to 1995. Sulaiman, who died in December last year, led the Bar from 2000 to 2001.
Former president Karen Cheah said that Hendon, now 89 years old, was one of the most active members of the Bar. “She has been described as a person petite in size but gutsy and feisty,” Cheah said at the award ceremony here today.
She recalled that during Hendon’s tenure, the Bar opposed a proposal by the attorney-general to broaden the Bar Council to include representatives of the corporate sectors and academia.
Another ex-Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan described Sulaiman as someone with the courage to defend what he believed was right.
She cited an incident where a judge wanted to cite Sulaiman for contempt, to which he was ready to go to prison for the Bar. “He did not flinch in his decision to stand his ground,” Ambiga said. The contempt bid was subsequently dropped.
Sulaiman’s son, playwright and director Huzir, who accepted the award on his father’s behalf, said his father always upheld the legal profession’s principles, particularly when it came to privacy and confidentiality.
“He once got a call from someone while watching a tennis match on the TV. He listened to the caller and then said, ‘No, Datuk. I will not advise Tuanku to do so,’ and hung up. I asked him who the ‘Tuanku’ was, and he just told me, ‘You know I can’t tell,’ before going back to the tennis match,” Huzir said.
Sulaiman previously represented Anwar Ibrahim in the 1998 abuse of power and the sodomy 1 cases.
He also appeared for former Perak menteri besar, Nizar Jamaluddin, who was toppled in 2009 after three assemblymen declared they no longer supported the Pakatan Rakyat leadership and threw their support behind Barisan Nasional.
He had also represented the state in prominent cases, including the Catholic Church’s challenge on the use of the word “Allah”, Lina Joy’s attempt to remove the word “Islam” from her MyKad, and a constitutional challenge by three transgenders in Negeri Sembilan against a state shariah enactment banning cross-dressing.
In 2018, Sulaiman was appointed as lead prosecutor in Najib Razak’s SRC International trial. - FMT
Selangor police chief Hussein Omar Khan showing the plastic bundles found in the suitcases seized from a suspected drug courier at KLIA Terminal 2. (Bernama pic)
SEPANG: Police have arrested a man carrying 38.8kg of syabu in two suitcases at KLIA Terminal 2 yesterday.
Another man was arrested at a nearby hotel. They are believed to be couriers for a drug syndicate from a neighbouring country for distribution in Sarawak, including Bintulu, Sibu and Miri, police said.
Selangor police chief Hussein Omar Khan said a 34-year-old man was detained at 4am at the airport. He had two suitcases filled with 37 plastic packages believed to be syabu, with a street value of about RM1.2 million.
Hussein said the suspects earned RM2,500 per trip, with records showing seven trips made between March and May. They were provided with flight tickets and accommodation near KLIA, with their task lasting two to three days.
“They were given bags of drugs to transport to Sarawak, where syndicate members awaited them at drop-off points,” he said.
Drug analysis revealed that the seized drugs could potentially cater up to 77,700 users a day, assuming a daily consumption of 0.5g per person.
The suspects have been remanded for seven days. Hussein said police surveillance has been intensified following increased attempts at drug smuggling. - FMT
