Living beyond the means 2

It was in June 2004 when I wrote about Malaysians bad habit of being over dependent on foreign labour to support their lifestyle. As a developing country we cannot afford it, and it is a habit that even a developed country do not indulge in.

The situation has become desperate and Abdullah Badawi expressed his government desire to arrest this runaway problem when he gave the closing speech at the recent UMNO AGM.

Unfortunately, typical of politician, he is not expected to walk the talk. It was in June 2004 that his Minister of Human Resources announced that in three months, a training centre under the Ministry, will start training locals to become professional domestic helpers. It was also reported that the Ministry will embark on structural adjustment programme to help manufacturers become more capital intensive and thus relying less on labour. Nothing had been done, and the Prime Minister is now merely repeating the same thing that was said in 2004 to pacify the citizen.

This problem has become a vicious circle, and by the year 2010 the Minister of Human Resource had said, if nothing is done, the number of immigrant labour in Malaysia will increase to more than five million.

Old fashion medicine

Recently a female houseman was assaulted by a newly admitted female patient at a public hospital. The patient is a middle age Chinese who could not communicate either in English or Bahasa Melayu. The houseman, a Malay, had requested the Chinese medical officer on duty to attend to the patient but she was scolded because he considered it very rude for a junior to instruct a senior. As a result she did her best to clerk or interview the patient. Her persistent questioning led to the patient losing temper and hit her several times and broke her spectacles.

The management of a public hospital is much more than a matter of filling it up with more doctors, nurses, paramedics and other support staff. These various skill sets must be organised to work as a team for better patient care. People work best where they are valued as individuals and recognised as key members of the hospital. Those assigned with supervisory role such as the consultant and medical officers must ensure that procedures are administered uniformly and followed judiciously by treating subordinates fairly and consistently. The time has come to abandon the old style hospital management that seniors are untouchable and therefore will not help juniors while patients are dying.

In fact the most important innovation needed in the public hospital and the public sector in general is building better team work. Investment in new technologies is secondary compared to the importance of optimal utilisation of its existing human resources. The adage in Mayo Clinic, one of the best hospital in the world, is "No one is big enough to be independent of others".

At the center of the storm

Former CIA chief had just released his book entitled At the Center of the Storm. The main theme of the book is to restore his damaged reputation as a result of misrepresentation by Bush and Cheney in justifying the invasion of Iraq.

A group of officers from CIA wrote a letter to the publishers stating that Tenet has no reason to complain that he was victimised. He was a willing participant in the ill conceived war. Off course Tenet was not alone for failing to speak up and protest when it matters, but he was in charge and opted not to do the right thing. In fact he collaborated with the British Intelligence in fixing evidence that Colin Powell resented to the UN. He therefore did not show the leadership and integrity that is worthy of the Medal o f Freedom awarded to him by George Bush, and to this the signotories to the letter urged him to return it. They also urged him to donate half of the royalties from the book to the victims of Iraq war.

The book is therefore a misleading and self serving in his attempt to correct the blame for the mess.

Intractable Palestinian problem

Condoleeza Rice had just concluded her meeting with Arab quartet comprising of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and UAE, and also met the Palestinian President and Israel's PM to restart the stall peace negotiation. Most analyst consider this to be a futile exercise.

Firstly none of the members of the International quartet recognised the unity government of Palestine which consist of Hamas and Fatah factions. Abbas is merely a puppet who allow the West to continue boycotting his government. He should insist that if they want to negotiate they must include his senior partner Ismael Haniyeh. What is the West's motive? It is my personal view that they are creating a mask to perpetuate the conflict, the result of pressure from the Zionist, who in turn has tremendous influence on the US congress and senate. Boycotting the Palestine leader, previously against Yasser Arafat, is a well tested tactic to stall the peace process and entrenched Israel occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine land.

The Zionist, although a minority in Israel, is deeply committed to the settlement of "Judea and Samaria", i.e. most of the West Bank. The settlement movement continue unabated throughout several administration, even after the 1990 Oslo peace accord that require the freeze on new settlement.

It is unlikely that the Israeli government will agree to the surrender of the West Bank on their own, because they will not survive the fight coming from the Zionist. The only way for the final settlement to be concluded is for the US to tell them what they must do. But again imagine if the US Congress and Senate will want to force their will on Israel when almost all of them are financially dependent on the Zionist. They will never want to annoy the Zionist lobby who is in complete control of US politics and media.

Zionism is the basis for the formation and existence of Israel. They believe that Palestinian do not exist and the Arab must be driven out of the West Bank. At most they are regarded as temporary residents of the land. Therefore to recognise Palestine will mean to recognise the illegitimacy of Zionism. The prolong conflict will allow them to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian out of "Greater Israel", or it is a UN approved genocide.

The Zionist was very good to turn the story around: the Palestinian want to destroy us, they do not recognise us (instead of the Zionist who do not believe in the right of the Palestinian), they are terrorist, they hate us.

It is for this very reason that the Hamas led government was installed by the Palestinian because they are the only one who know how to fight the genocide force of Israel and the Western power.

Racism in Malaysia

This is an excerpt from the finding of telephone survey by New Straits Times on 1200 respondents which confirm that racism runs deep in Malaysia.

Negative stereotyping is well entrenched:

• 58 percent of Malays, 63 percent of Chinese and 43 percent of Indians polled agreed that Malays are generally lazy.
• 78 percent of Malays, 60 percent of Chinese and 40 percent of Indians think the Chinese are greedy.

• 60 percent of Malays, 58 percent of Chinese and 20 percent of Indians believe that Indians cannot be trusted

The findings confirm my own gut feel about the state of ethnic relations in Malaysia.

Saddam's accomplices

Now that the show trial of Saddam Hussein has ended with the death sentence handed to the former dictator, some people are wondering why his accomplices are not tried. One of them was George Bush Snr who had secretly shipped arms to Saddam via third countries such as South Africa and Chile. In 1992 the Congressional Banking Committee headed by Henry Gonzalez said "...We found that Bush and his advisers financed, equipped and succored the monster....".


Douglas Hurd, the British Foreign Minister in 1981, also sold missile technologies to Saddam. So was Donald Rumsfeld who offered all sort of assistance to Saddam immediately after the gassing of the Kurd.

The biggest crime of all committed by America and Britain is to attack a defenseless country based on concocted threat.

Yellow Box Junction

I wonder if yellow box junctions built around cities and towns in Malaysia are properly regulated. There are so many of such junctions within a short distance of each other, a good example is along Jalan Ampang, that it has become a gridlock. You see the box not only at major junctions with traffic lights but also at almost every exit points from office buildings, private apartments and private schools into the main roads. Ironically you also get this boxes drawn five metres before a traffic light. All this certainly defeat the purpose of setting up a yellow box junction, which is to remove the traffic gridlock.

I learn that yellow box junctions was first introduced in UK to help clear traffic flow at major intersections. Vehicles may not enter the area unless their exit from the junction is clear except when one is prevented from doing so by oncoming vehicles.

Given the continuous flow of oncoming traffic along Jalan Ampang if you are turning right at any of this yellow boxes which is not part of a major junctions, you will get stuck in the box. This is why I believe you see traffic congestion on this road most of the time. The yellow boxes has become a traffic obstructions.

I trust that there is already a provision under our traffic law to require motorist to observe whatever is required when crossing the yellow box. I also hope that this law has been incorporated into a highway code and sufficient publicity is given on the correct way to use it.
The only question to be answered is how did the local authorities decide where to place this boxes. As it is now the yellow box junction creates more problems with the traffic flow and the motorist using it because the boxes are placed arbitrarily.
Removing this obstacles do not require huge investment and will go a long way towards improving traffic flow in KL and the services of Rapid KL too.