Rakyat Kelantan kahwin warga asing meningkat

KOTA BARU, 21 Mac — Jumlah rakyat Kelantan sama ada lelaki atau wanita yang berkahwin dengan warga asing didapati meningkat setiap tahun dengan warga Thailand dan Indonesia menjadi pilihan utama.

Pengarah Jabatan Imigresen Kelantan, Che Bahrom Hamzah berkata melalui rekod pihaknya, seramai 4,342 orang lelaki dan wanita Kelantan berkahwin dengan warganegara asing pada 2007 dan 4,971 orang pada 2008.

Pada tahun lepas pula, 4,804 kes dilaporkan, katanya kepada Bernama.

“Walaupun jumlah perkahwinan menurun tahun lalu, namun ia hanya sedikit dan masih menunjukkan rakyat Kelantan meminati pasangan hidup daripada warganegara asing,” katanya.

Che Bahrom berkata warga Thailand dan Indonesia menjadi pilihan kerana selain soal rupa paras yang dimiliki wanita asing, kemungkinan faktor kedudukan negara yang berjiran dan berhampiran turut menjadi puncanya.

Bagaimanapun beliau berkata kes perkahwinan wanita Kelantan dengan lelaki asing lebih banyak menimbulkan risiko ekoran terdapat warga asing yang semata-mata mahu mendapatkan taraf kerakyatan negara ini.

“Walaupun bukan merupakan kes tertinggi, tetapi banyak kes yang dilaporkan berlaku di mana lelaki warga asing menghilangkan diri selepas tiga bulan berkahwin.

“Ini berlaku apabila lelaki asing yang muda berkahwin dengan wanita tempatan yang sudah berusia di mana apabila perkahwninan sudah mencecah tiga bulan dan lelaki asing berjaya memiliki taraf kerakyatan, dia akan terus menghilangkan diri,” katanya.

Che Bahrom berkata terdapat juga kes warga asing pulang ke negara asal mereka apabila berlaku pergaduhan suami isteri. “Mereka akan meninggalkan isteri atau suami tempatan mereka,” katanya.

Namun beliau berkata ramai juga perkahwinan rakyat tempatan dengan warga asing kekal bahagia

Fifa revenues burst through US$1 billion mark

ZURICH, March 20 — World football governing body Fifa’s annual income passed the US$1 billion (RM3.4 billion) mark for the first time last year and president Sepp Blatter said the money would be used to develop the sport around the world.

“We don’t want to have the money here,” Blatter (picture) told reporters yesterday. “We do not give it back to the rich, we give it to those who don’t have it.

“We don’t make the rich richer; we help those who have less.”

Blatter said that Fifa’s finances had attracted less attention as they had improved over the years.

“We are in a very good situation so it’s not so interesting any more. Despite the last year feeling the effects of the financial crisis which started in 2008, we are comfortable, but I wouldn’t say we are rich.”

Fifa said its expenditure for the year was US$863 million, leaving a surplus of US$196 million.

Blatter said one of Fifa’s first moves would be to distribute US$200,000 to each of the 208 national federations. Chile and Haiti, both struck by big earthquakes this year, would get extra money, he said.

In addition, he said, smaller nations would continue to get regular help through Fifa’s development project known as Goal.

Fifa’s finance chief Markus Kattner said the budget for 2011-2014 envisaged a total revenue of US$3.8 billion and expenditure of US$3.6 billion.

He said 74 per cent of expenditure would be spent on football development projects and the organisation of Fifa competitions. — Reuters

The Malaysian Maverick - Ebook

The Malaysian government has not banned the book but it withheld hundreds of copies of the book before it can hit the bookshops, Malaysian people are deprived of the freedom to learn the truth of the Mahathir years. We therefore make the scanned copy of the book available here, to overcome the dirty tactic of the UMNO-BN government. This is clearly a loss of income to the respectable author, Barry Wain. Therefore only low-quality scanned copy is made available. If you can afford it, please purchase your copy from Singapore or Amazon. Thank you.

Chapter 1 PDF

Chapter 2 PDF

Chapter 3 PDF

Chapter 4 PDF

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Chapter 6 PDF

Chapter 7 PDF

Chapter 8 PDF

Chapter 9 PDF

Chapter 10 PDF

Chapter 11 PDF

Chapter 12 PDF

Chapter 13 PDF

World’s mega-rich adding wealth, Carlos Slim No 1

NEW YORK, March 11 — Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world’s richest person, knocking Microsoft founder Bill Gates into second spot, as the wealth of the world’s billionaires grew by 50 per cent over the last year, Forbes magazine said today.

It is only the second time since 1995 that Gates has lost the crown, the magazine said, estimating Slim’s net worth at US$53.5 billion (RM182 billion), compared to Gates’s US$53 billion fortune, while investor Warren Buffett came in at No 3 with US$47 billion.

The trio regained US$41.5 billion of the US$68 billion they had lost the previous year, Forbes said.

The number of billionaires around the world has nearly recovered in 2010 after dropping by a third last year during the global financial crisis. There are now 1,011 billionaires, compared with 793 last year and 1,125 in 2008.

The net wealth of those billionaires grew to US$3.6 trillion from US$2.4 trillion last year, but is still down from 2008’s US$4.4 trillion, according to the 24th annual Forbes list, which took a snapshot of wealth on Feb 12 to compile its ranking.

The average billionaire is now worth US$3.5 billion, up US$500 million from last year. And the number of women on the list rose to 89 from 72 last year.

“The global economy is recovering and it’s reflected in what you see in the list this year,” Steve Forbes, chief executive of Forbes, told a news conference. “Financial markets have also made an even more impressive comeback from the lows of just about a year ago, particularly in emerging markets.”

“Asia is leading the comeback,” Forbes said.

The number of billionaires in the Asia-Pacific region grew by 80 per cent to 234 and their net worth almost doubled to US$729 billion, which the Forbes ranking attributed to the area’s “swelling stock markets and several large public offerings during the past year.”

Two Indians round out the top five richest people in the world — Mukesh Ambani, with a petrochemicals, oil and gas fortune of US$29 billion, and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who is valued at US$28.7 billion.

The biggest gainer on the list was Brazilian mining magnate Eike Batista, 53, with US$27 billion, up from US$7.5 billion. He made his riches through the initial public offerings of several companies. He is planning to take his shipbuilding and oil services firm OSX public next week in an expected US$5.6 billion offering, which would be Brazil’s second biggest ever IPO.

Of the 97 billionaires making their debut on the Forbes list, 62 are from Asia, while for the first time China is now home to the most billionaires outside of the United States.

“The United States still dominates, but the United States is lagging,” Forbes said. “It is not doing as well as the rest of the world in coming back.”

“The global boom that we experienced from the early 80s ... which was temporarily derailed in 2007, now looks like it is beginning to get back on track. But Asia and a handful of others are surging, relatively the United States and Western Europe are lagging.”

The top homes to billionaires are New York with 60 and Moscow with 50, followed by London with 32.

There are 55 countries represented on the Forbes list with billionaires from Pakistan — clothing exporter Mian Muhammad Mansha — and Finland — manufacturing mogul Antti Herlin — making an appearance for the first time, while Turkey, Russia and India regained billionaire numbers lost last year.

There were 164 billionaires returning to the list in 2010, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is also the world’s youngest with a US$4 billion fortune at the age of 25.

The second-youngest self-made billionaire is Japan’s Yoshikazu Tanaka, 33, who made US$1.4 billion from social networking firm Gree. The oldest is 99-year-old Walter Haefner from Switzerland who has US$3.3 billion.

The sixth-richest man is Oracle Corp Chief Executive Larry Ellison with US$28 billion. At No 7 is the richest man in Europe, Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury goods group LVMH, who has a fortune of US$27.5 billion.

“The bling is back,” said Forbes Senior Editor Luisa Kroll of Arnault’s wealth.

Rounding out the top 10 is Spanish clothing retailer Inditex founder Amancio Ortega with US$25 billion and German supermarket king Karl Albrecht, who is valued at US$23.5 billion.

While Gates’s and Buffett’s fortunes far exceed most others in the top 10, Forbes Senior Editor Matthew Miller said their fortunes would be far greater if they hadn’t given away a lot of their money.

“They would be far richer today if it wasn’t for their tremendous philanthropy,” he said. “Buffett would be worth at least US$55 billion ... and Gates’ net worth would exceed US$80 billion had it not been for his philanthropy.” — Reuters

Medan & Lake Toba Mac2010

CBO: $10 trillion jump in debt under Obama budget

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If President Obama's 2011 budget were put into effect as proposed, the U.S. federal government would add an estimated $9.8 trillion to the country's accrued debt over the next decade, according to a preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

Of that amount, an estimated $5.6 trillion will be in interest alone.

By 2020, the agency estimates debt held by the public would reach $20.3 trillion, or 90% of GDP. That's up from 53% of GDP in 2009.

Research done by economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart has shown that such high levels of debt can cause a drag on economic growth.

The CBO cited two big contributors to the jump in debt.

One is the president's proposal to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the majority of Americans. The other is the proposal to protect middle- and upper-middle-income families from having to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

Together those proposals would cost $3 trillion between 2011 and 2020.

"It points out the unwillingness of the administration to raise the revenues to pay for the size of government being proposed," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group.

If Congress doesn't act, all of the Bush tax cuts are slated to expire at the end of this year and there will be no protection from the AMT.

But current law is not politically realistic, many say. That's why the administration prefers to compare the cost of its proposals to what lawmakers are likely to do -- namely, extend tax cuts and fix the AMT.

Hence, the White House Budget Office estimates that under the president's proposals, $8.5 trillion would be added to the country's accrued debt over the next decade, or $1.3 trillion less than the CBO estimate.

Either scenario is unsustainable, Bixby said.

The administration has also called the budget trajectory unsustainable and the president has created a fiscal advisory commission to recommend ways lawmakers can get annual deficits down to 3% of GDP by 2015.

That's well below where it would be under the president's budget, according to estimates from both the CBO and the White House. And while his proposals would chip away at deficits in the next few years, they start to climb again thereafter. By 2020, the annual deficit as a percentage of GDP will be 5.6%, according to the CBO. The White House estimates it will be 4.2%.

But there is no guarantee the fiscal commission's recommendations will be adopted by lawmakers.

The CBO notes that its estimates incorporate the Administration's revenue and spending assumptions for policies such as health reform and climate change, because the agency didn't have sufficient details from the White House about those policies to do its own analysis.

A full analysis of the president's budget will be published later in the month, the CBO said.

Kingston Digital releases 256GB DataTraveler 310 USB flash drive

Kingston Digital, Inc., has announced the release of a 256GB DataTraveler 310 USB flash drive.

The DataTraveler 310 also features Password Traveler software, which allows the user to create and access a password-protected privacy zone. The secure area of the drive can account for up to 90 percent of the drive´s capacity and does not require administrator rights.

"We saw an opportunity to push the capacity envelope for USB Flash drives in the marketplace. Customer feedback and our research determined that this is a great solution for designers, engineers and architects who have a need to easily store and transport large data files," said Nathan Su, Flash Memory Sales Director, APAC Region, Kingston.

"For the enthusiast who wants easy access to their full media library, the DataTraveler 310 can store up to 365 CDs, 54 DVDs or 51,000 images. This device makes an entire collection of data easily portable."

The DataTraveler 310 has a protective cap that snaps onto the back for the drive for convenient storage when not in use. This drive is available only in 256GB and is backed by a five-year warranty and free tech support.