Lawatan Ke Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat 2003

Pada bulan Ogos 2003, penulis telah melawat wilayah selatan Thailand. Lawatan ke beberapa pondok dan sekolah agama. Suasana disana persis macam dalam negara kita . Cuma bezanya sekolah agama disana mendapat bantuan tahunan dari kerajaan setiap pelajar +- RM 300. Di sekolah setiap murid diberi makan tengahari percuma kerana waktu sekolah dari 8.30 pagi hingga 4 petang. Oleh kerana jam di Thailand mengikut perlajalan matahari sebenar, orang disana tak terkejar kejar masa pagi masuk pejabat dan sekolah.

Tidak seperti di Semenanjung gara gara nak selaras jam dengan Sabah Sarawak ramai kanak sekolah dan pekerja pejabat dan kilang tidak sempat solat subuh pada bulan- bulan Januari, Februari,Mac dan awal April. Pada bulan bulan itu waktu subuh masuk selepas jam 6 pagi.

Merata tempat di Yala,Patani dan Nara kelihatan banyak masjid dan surau. Orang sana cakap melayu loghat kelate. Cuma yang bezanya tulisan tulisan di papan kenyataan dan nombor plet kereta motor dalam bahasa Thai.

Rata rata boleh dikatakan 98 % kenderaan persendirian diatas jalan raya adalah jenis pickup disel..Kenderaan pickup disel pelbagai guna sangat popular disebabkan cukai jalan yang murah hanya lebih kurang RM 100 setahun .Campur dengan insuran RM 100 setahun menjadikan pikup kenderan pelbagi guna paling di minati. Pikup digunakan untuk mengangkut hasil dusun dan kebun oleh petani sendiri ke pasar.

Saya kira di negara kita masalah utama pemasaran hasil pertanian dapat di atasi sekiranya rakyat boleh memiliki kenderaan pikup disel dengan kos cukai dan insuran yang murah. Sebaliknya di negara kita hanya kontraktor dan mereka yang kaya saja memliki pikup 4 roda untuk berniaga, bergaya dan berlumba.

Sepatutnya cukai jalan pikup disel dinegara kita sama harga nya dengan traktor disel empat roda iaitu RM 100 setahun saja.Barulah ramai petani kita akan jadi petani peniaga macam di sana.

Lebuhraya mereka dua lorong macam kita. Sepanjang perjalanan 2 jam tak ada tol dan tak ada tanda had laju 110 km sejam macam kita. Cuma tanda kurangkan had laju bila sampai ke kawasan Bandar. Sepanjang tiga hari perjalanan di sana tiada jumpa satu kemalangan pun. Bandingkan setiap kali saya memandu dari KL ke utara atau Kelantan pasti jumpa paling kurang satu kemalangan. Kata pemandu van tambang yang saya tumpangi, kita boleh bawa pandu seberapa laju yang kita berani pandu. Perjalanan dari Golok ke Bangkok sejauh lebih 1,000 km tiada tol kecuali bila memasuki Bandar Bangkok menggunakan jalan bertingkat.

Harga petrol disel berbeza beza tiada kawalan harga macam kita. Ini menggalakan saingan sihat.

Kos sewa rumah sana juga murah. Kos makanan juga murah. Kos nak menikah lagi juga murah dan tak banyak karenah. Mungkin sebab itulah ramai orang Malaysia termasuk menteri kita pergi kesana untuk urusan nikah. Rami pelajar Malaysia belajar di pondok disana untuk tempoh yang lama . ada hingga 10 tahun. Kos sara hidup RM 70 sebulan sudah memadai untuk setiap pelajar.

Di bandar Yala, dan Patani ramai orang islam lelaki berkopiah dan wanita bertudung. Ramai juga yang berpurdah. Berkat usaha gigih para pendakwah,ulama dan tok guru pondok. Di Masjid masjid di Yala, setiap minggu beribu orang datang untuk hadir majlis ilmu tok guru atau majlis penerangan iman dan amal soleh oleh para pendakwah.

Yala,Patani dan Nara adalah destinasi yang bagus untuk bawa keluarga masa cuti sekolah. Disana banyak kawasan air terjun ,pantai bersih dan peginapan calet dan hotel juga murah.

Kalau anda nak memandu dengan kenderaan sendiri jangan lupa bawa salinan kad pendaftaran kenderaan dan surat izin tuan punya kenderaan sekiranya kereta pinjam. Beli dahulu insuran 3rd party di sempadan dengan harga tak sampai RM 30 untuk 9 hari perjalanan diThailand. Dapatkan peta Thai percuma di pejabat penerangan pelacung di sempadan sebelah Thai sana. Ini akan banyak membantu anda semasa memandu nanti.

Kalau nak beli baju raya anak, isteri dan diri sendiri anda boleh dapat banyak pilihan fesyen cantik dan bermutu tinggi ala arab oman,sudan,yaman, ala India Pakistan, ala melayu semua ada. Harga nya boleh ditawar hingga separuh dari harga di KL. Banyak kedai kain baju,jubah,gamis,tudung dan kopiah terdapat di perkarangan Masjid Dakwah di Yala. Pakaian ini adalah hasil kerja tangan dari penduduk kampung sekitar Yala,Petani dan Nara. Khabarnya malam 27 Ramadhan setiap tahun beribu orang akan datang ke Masjid Dakwah untuk hidupkan malam dengan qiamullail.

OLEH : SI SONGKOK TINGGI SRI PETALING
Dipetik dari laman web tranungkite.net

Ka-shing: Global economy won’t recover in 2009

HONG KONG: Billionaire Li Ka-shing, who predicted China’s stock-market bubble would burst in 2007, said the global economy won’t recover this year and told investors to be cautious about buying shares, especially with borrowed money.

“The worst is over for the global economy,” Li, Asia’s second-richest man, said after his Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd posted better-than-estimated first-half earnings. “Yet it’s too optimistic to say the global economy has reached a turning point. The degree of decline has shrunk but that doesn’t mean it has stopped shrinking.”

The 81-year-old Li’s predictions are closely watched in Hong Kong, where the media has dubbed him “Superman” for his investing acumen. Home prices have risen 15% since March, when he told investors to buy the city’s real estate.

“The things he says influence many investors,” said Castor Pang, a strategist at Sun Hung Kai Securities Ltd in Hong Kong. “His predictions about the stock market have been the most accurate among Hong Kong tycoons.”

Li said investors should avoid margin trades or borrowing to buy stocks when prices are too high.

“I won’t buy stocks today,” Li said “It’s not that I wouldn’t buy at all, but if the prices are too high, I will be very careful. For example, if the P/E is low and the dividend yield is okay, and the stock isn’t overbought, I will buy.”

Cheung Kong, Hutchison’s largest shareholder and the world’s second-largest real estate developer by market value, said net income gained 4.7% to HK$11.5 billion (RM5.24 billion), almost double analysts’ estimates. Hutchison yesterday posted a 33% decline in first-half profit as the global recession curbed sales at mobile-phone and retail units and cut port traffic.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index has risen 45% this year, after plunging 48% in 2008.

Global trade has shrunk and interest rates won’t rise in the short-term, Li said at a press conference after the results were announced. He said the worst is over for containerised shipping, and the pace of declines in Asia will slow.

“Globally, ports are steadier compared with 2008,” Li said. “They fell, but the degree of decline from now onwards won’t be as severe as in the past few months.”

Born in Chaozhou in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Li turned the plastics company he opened in Hong Kong in 1950 into investments in retailing, real estate, ports and energy in 54 countries.

That global scope hurt earnings at Hutchison, operator of container terminals in 49 ports including Hong Kong; Felixstowe, UK; Buenos Aires; Freeport, Bahamas; Sohar, Oman; and Amsterdam. Falling oil prices eroded Hutchison’s energy earnings.

“The fact that Hutchison’s 3G business is still not able to attain EBIT breakeven is a concern,” said Steven Leung, Hong Kong-based director of institutional sales at brokerage UOB-Kay Hian Ltd.

Hutchison is the key reason Cheung Kong, a developer of real estate in Hong Kong and mainland China, is this year’s worst performer in the six-stock Hang Seng Property index, analysts including Raymond Ngai from JPMorgan Chase & Co said.

Cheung Kong’s 34% gain this year compares with the index’s 57%. Sino Land Co, controlled by the billionaire family of chairman Robert Ng and his father Ng Teng Fong, is the best performer, with an 84% percent jump.

Hong Kong’s property market is “healthy” and Cheung Kong may raise home prices if sales improve, said Victor Li, Li Ka-shing’s eldest son who is deputy chairman of Hutchison and Cheung Kong.

Hong Kong home prices have risen 22% this year, according to the Centa-City Leading Index, a weekly measure developed by Centaline Property Agency Ltd and City University of Hong Kong. It stood at 69.4 on Aug 2 and may rise to 90 by the end of 2010, UBS AG analysts led by Eric Wong said in a July 27 report. The measure posted a record 102.93 in the last week of October 1997.

“Hong Kong is a lot better than many other places in the world,” Li Ka-shing said. “The government is already trying hard. The economy will take longer to recover. It won’t recover fully by the end of the year.” - Bloomberg

One of the world's richest men left no will for US$5.5b

NEWARK, New Jersey: Nine half-siblings fathered by one of the world's richest men are vying in a New Jersey court to inherit his billions because he left no will.

At issue is which of Wang Yung-ching's heirs should be named administrator of his $5.5 billion fortune and whether New Jersey is the right jurisdiction.

The Taiwan-born Wang built Formosa Plastics Group into a multinational conglomerate with U.S. headquarters in Livingston, New Jersey.

He died last year in New Jersey at age 91.

His frail, elderly wife could inherit his fortune.

The lawyer for oldest son Winston Wong argues the tycoon's wife chose his client to be her guardian.

The judge said Thursday he needs more information before ruling.

Wang was born to an impoverished tea farming family in Taiwan when it was a Japanese colony.

He went on to build the Formosa Plastics Group into a multinational conglomerate with U.S. headquarters in Livingston, New Jersey.

In 2008, Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at $5.5 billion.

None of the children are from Wang's wife of more than 70 years.

Family ties are established in Taiwan through something called "household registration," which is the prevailing legal document. - AP

Stop mis-selling products, banks told

PETALING JAYA: The National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) today called on the Finance Ministry and Bank Negara Malaysia to take immediate steps to stop commercial banks from "mis-selling financial products through their helpless employees."

Its secretary-general J Solomon told Bernama that NUBE members were being pushed by "greedy superiors" to meet pre-set targets.

"But the sad thing is that our members are not properly briefed and are not well versed with the products, hence in their zeal to achieve set targets they just conclude the sales without giving consumers proper explanations.

"The banks are also hiring staff on contract without any security of tenure, with high commissions being paid to them based on sales, thus encouraging blatant greed, which in the final analysis causes society to pay for it," he added.

He said greedy executives, fuelled by promise of big bonuses and incentives, slavishly drove sales people to achieve pre-set targets without any thought as to how the job was done by their staff.

"Credit cards, insurance, unit trusts and other financial products are being sold like cheap soap," he said.

He added that it was not uncommon to see bank employees running around in cheap T-Shirts provided by the employers harassing people in shopping malls.

"Our members are victims of exploitation by banks and often left with no choice but to conduct themselves in such a manner, apart from working late nights and giving up their weekends," he said.

"NUBE which represents more than 30,000 bank employees is very concerned with this rampant mis-selling, as it will result in a crisis of sorts where Malaysian taxpayers will have to bail out the financial services industry," he said. — Bernama

Berkshire profit up 14 percent as stocks rebound

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc posted its best quarter in nearly two years, as recovering stock markets boosted the value of its equity investments and derivatives bets.

Operating earnings for the second quarter nevertheless fell short of forecasts, reflecting lower underwriting gains, including from the Geico Corp auto insurance unit, and the impact of the recession on Berkshire's more economically sensitive manufacturing and service units.

"Warren hasn't been able to defy the laws of gravity," said Thomas Russo, a partner at Gardner Russo & Gardner in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which invests more than $3 billion and owns Berkshire shares. "Berkshire's operating companies are not trying to compromise their long-term results. They are taking the hits that come with an economic contraction."

Net income for Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire rose 14 percent to $3.3 billion, or $2,123 per Class A share, from $2.88 billion, or $1,859, a year earlier. Earnings had previously fallen for six straight quarters.

Excluding investments, operating profit fell 22 percent to $1.78 billion, or $1,147 per share, from $2.27 billion, or $1,465. On that basis, analysts expected profit of $1,238 per share, according to Reuters Estimates. Revenue fell 2 percent to $29.61 billion.

Berkshire has close to 80 operating units that provide such products as insurance, carpeting, electricity and natural gas, ice cream, paint and underwear.

Results included $1.53 billion of derivatives gains. These were tied mainly to the performance of four market indexes in the United States, Europe and Japan, which rose between 8 percent and 23 percent in the quarter.

The derivatives are a major reason earnings had fallen in recent quarters. Accounting rules require Berkshire to report changes in their value with earnings. Berkshire said the bets will continue to generate "extreme volatility" in earnings.

Book value increased 11 percent from the first quarter and on a per-share basis rose to $73,806 from $66,248. Net income was the highest since the third quarter of 2007 and came on the heels of a first-quarter loss, Berkshire's first quarterly deficit since 2001, Reuters data show.

EQUITY HOLDINGS REBOUND

Berkshire's common stock holdings increased 22 percent from the first quarter to $45.79 billion, reflecting price changes as well the purchase of $350 million of stock.

The company is the largest shareholder of American Express Co and Wells Fargo & Co, whose shares rose a respective 71 percent and 70 percent in the quarter.

Berkshire also ended June with $30.37 billion of "other" investments, including in Dow Chemical Co, General Electric Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Swiss Re and Wm Wrigley Jr Co.

Buffett has become something of a white-knight investor in the financial crisis. Berkshire ended June with $24.51 billion in cash, down from $25.55 billion at the end of March.

"The magnitude of the investments he has been able to make is because of his past discipline, and his credibility," Russo said. "He had to weather a lot of criticism for not making the easy and early bets, but waiting for the big fat pitch."

Young investors in US wary of jumping into market

BOSTON: Young investors may accept the argument that those who begin investing when stocks are cheap end up with more retirement money, but after the turmoil of the past year, some find it hard to put their money in the market.
Asset managers and analysts say that those who invest in rock-bottom stocks of a bear market will see share values rise for decades.
But many in their 20s and early 30s are not buying rosy projections, due to immediate financial pressures and exposure to the longest recession since the 1930s Great Depression.
“I would keep all my money in cash,” said Alex Corbacho, a senior at Boston University.
The trend has some worrisome long-term implications. Stock brokers may find themselves largely shut out of a big customer base, and demand for equities will likely be crimped as investors favour safer havens, hurting the stock market’s prospects.
It’s also unclear whether these young investors will have accumulated enough to fund their retirement when the time comes.
Corbacho is no stranger to markets. At age 13, he invested his birthday money and a matching donation from his father, US$1,000 (RM3,500) in total, in tech stocks only to feel the sting when the Internet bubble burst.
He carried the lesson with him in early 2008, after seeing signs of economic trouble as an intern at a Boston investment bank. He put the majority of his stock investments, which had reached about US$5,000, into a certificate of deposit instead.
Corbacho doesn’t plan to return to stocks for a few years after graduation and is instead focusing on saving.
The recent market collapse has made holding cash for immediate expenses far more attractive to young people than investing, said Rodger Smith, managing director of Connecticut consulting firm Greenwich Associates. “They are taken aback by how much they lost and how quickly they lost it,” Smith said.

The early exposure to such dramatic declines could restrain many from investing aggressively when they are older and have accumulated more money to put into the market, some say. Asset managers, financial advisers and investors agree that young people will emerge from the financial crisis more educated, and more cautious, about managing their money.

“I do think they are taking a more practical and slightly more conservative view of the world,” said Michael Doshier, vice-president of Fidelity’s Workplace Investing Group.
Corbacho said his generation should not expect to accumulate sudden wealth like some in the past.
“We might be a little smarter and a little wiser moving forward. We will have been more conservative and more observant and won’t have 65% of our life savings invested in equities,” he said.
Assets in US retirement plans fell 22% in 2008 or nearly US$4 trillion, with almost 75% of the drop in the second half of 2008, the Investment Company Institute found. “These folks need to be resold on the idea that a 401k is a long-term investment,” said Smith, who oversees a profit-sharing plan for his firm and advises younger investors.

Long-term concerns
Financial advisers have long suggested that those further from retirement invest more heavily in equities, then switch to less risky assets as they near their golden years.
But the portfolios of those in their early 20s don’t reflect that advice. At Fidelity Investments, those aged 20-24 invest 31% of their 401k in equities, compared to those aged 50-59 with 35% in equities.
Overall, those saving for retirement have pulled back from stocks. In June, 48% of all Fidelity 401k participants were in equities, down from 53% a year ago.

Those in the investment industry say young investors should buy stock early and often.
“The key message is that it’s not a bad time for everybody,” said Christine Fahlund, senior financial planner at T Rowe Price. Ita Mirianashvili, a 35-year-old fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, has confidence in long-term stock market prospects.
“I know the downturn cycle we are in will continue for some time but it will come back,” she said outside a MIT class that simulates a stock trading room.

But concerns about inflation, heavy government spending and rising bankruptcies have left many young investors uncertain. “It’s still difficult to be bullish... for the long run,” said Ashan Walpita, a 2009 Boston University graduate and former president of the school’s finance club.
Other short-term obstacles may hold young investors back. Employer-sponsored retirement plans often give people their first market exposure but with many graduates not finding work, they are yet to get started on making investments. — Reuters

Demonstrations: A fundamental right of citizens

AUG 6 — It would be an untruth if I said I was ever a fan of Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Be that as it may, I am sorry about his coming into office, unlike all his predecessors, weighed down by the heaviest baggage imaginable, stuffed up to the neck with allegations of impropriety that I’d rather not bore you with.
I will not enumerate them either as they are too many. Also it would be pointless to waste our time dwelling upon unproven allegations that should have been nipped in the bud before they got out of hand, but for some unexplained reason, Najib had allowed them to fester like tropical sores on his credibility and honour.

I, like many other Malaysians, want very much to keep an open mind. We earnestly hope that he will give serious consideration to confronting, in a court of law, those who have defamed and reviled him.

His studied indifference might be considered by some to be an appropriate response, but he is not helping his own cause. He is pandering to the insatiable appetite of the noisy rumour mongering, chattering classes.

People are not giving Najib the benefit of the doubt that he craves for. His moral legitimacy to govern is being seriously challenged because of his cavalier attitude to these extremely damning allegations.

I am not about to dispute his legitimacy to govern based on the mandate given to the Barisan Nasional by the people as part of the electoral process, but that, without an underpinning of high ethical standards of behaviour, renders a leader morally deficient.

Conventional wisdom has it that in the sticky situation he has found himself, the only recourse is for Najib to take those who have maligned him to court and clear his name, once and for all. People are asking “Why is he fighting shy of seeking justice in a court of law unless he has something to hide?” They have a point there.

For the sake of what is left of the country’s already battered reputation, and his own, he should clear his name sooner rather than later. Najib’s 1 Malaysia requires of him that he put the interest of the nation above his own.

We cannot have a prime minister who is not prepared to answer these serious allegations about his involvement in some seedy criminal activities, or those bordering on the criminal, and yet who expects us to embrace his yet hazy and unclear 1 Malaysia and to shower him with our trust and affection.

I know all these allegations may have no basis in fact and, therefore, all the more reason for Najib to let the criminal justice system be the arbiter of truth. Perceptions may not have any basis in fact, but they are real.

Najib wants so desperately to be loved, and to be well thought of. I see nothing wrong with that. It is just a silly bit of misplaced, self-serving egoism, a very human weakness most of us suffer from, but it is a harmless desire. However, there is everything wrong, if as rumours have it, public funds are being used to pay international and local spin doctors to bolster up his position.

Mahathir, when he was prime minister, so we are told, used public funds to have a meeting with President Bush arranged to boost his flagging international reputation. We expected this of Mahathir, a man of many contradictions with few scruples, but I should like to think that Najib is made of stronger and finer moral fibre, but then I could be wrong.

I am ecstatic, more than any one can imagine, by Najib’s strong rhetoric against corruption. I use the word “rhetoric” advisedly because while we have heard many populist pronouncements rolling off his smooth silvery tongue on a variety of issues, we are still waiting to see the colour of his money. Will he deliver as promised?

For someone who has been on the receiving end of countless allegations of perceived unethical public conduct relating to purchases of military assets during his watch as defence minister, he is right to want to distance himself from any further insinuation of impropriety.

Defence contracts are notoriously susceptible to corrupt practices the world over and because of this, people simply will not believe that a defence minister can be clean and pure as the driven snow, or be like Caesar’s wife, completely above suspicion especially when the procurement process is shrouded in secrecy and mystery, as ours is and has been for years.

For this, if not for any other reason, if I may be so bold as to advise Najib, he should order a complete review of the defence ministry’s procurement rules and procedures at once and bring them in line with best international public procurement practice.

The purpose of any procurement systems review is to ensure the highest degree of transparency. Without transparency, there is no accountability. Najib has a lot on his plate, and as they say, he has his work cut out for him, lucky him.

Minutes before writing this article, I had just finished reading, for the second time after a lapse of some years, F.W. De Klerk’s “The Last Trek – A New Beginning.” He was, of course the President of South Africa who dismantled apartheid and gave the people of that troubled nation a new democratic constitution which saw the once proscribed African National Congress in the seat of power after winning the general elections in 1994.

I mention all this because in spite of the fact that the Republic of South Africa had been under a state of emergency and under siege, De Klerk, in 1989, a few months before his inauguration as President, made a conscious political decision to legalise protest demonstrations that had been made illegal until then, much to the consternation of his security advisers. They thought it was madness on his part given the circumstances prevailing at the time. Why did he do what he did? Let him tell us in his own words:

“We were faced with the fact that it would be impossible to avoid the gathering of thousands of people committed to the march. The choice, therefore, was between breaking up an illegal march with all the attendant risks of violence and negative publicity, or of allowing the march to continue, subject to the conditions that could help to avoid violence and ensure good order. These were important considerations, but none of them was conclusive. The most important factor, which tipped the scale, was my conviction that the prohibition of powerful protests and demonstrations could not continue. Such an approach would be irreconcilable with the democratic transformation process that I was determined to launch and the principles of a state based on the rule of law, which I wanted to establish.”(Italics mine.)

In terms of the security and public order situation then obtaining in South Africa, and the situation in Malaysia today, where peaceful demonstrations are illegal, the two situations do not bear the remotest resemblance.

The justification trotted out with regular monotony by the government is so outrageously dishonest as to insult our intelligence. A government that sees a need to continue to impose an undemocratic law has no place in a parliamentary democracy. For F.W De Klerk, the man who worked himself out of a job, it was nothing more than “restoring what was regarded throughout the world as a basic democratic right.” (Emphasis mine)

Perhaps De Klerk’s most inspiring statement in defence of democratic principles is “…..no vision of the future can justify any government to ignore the basic human rights of the human beings involved. No cause is so great that we should allow it to dilute our sense of justice and humanity.” (Emphasis mine)

On that note, as our legal friends would say, I rest my case. Now over to our self-proclaimed reformist prime minister.