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Monday, March 29, 2010
Mara declares 10 defaulters bankrupt
KUALA TERENGGANU: Mara will take stern action against those who default on their loans as they deprived others of getting aid, Mara director-general Datuk Ibrahim Muhamad said.
He said Mara would work with the Immigration Department to stop these defaulters, whose arrears amounted to a whopping RM500 million, from leaving the country.
"Some of them are exempted from paying their loans after scoring good results in examinations but have yet to apply for the exemption.
"If they apply for the exemption, the amount could be just around RM200 million," he said after opening the Mara Education Carnival 2010 for the eastern zone here .
He said Mara had declared 10 loan defaulters bankrupt when they failed to repay their loans within the timeframe given. -- Bernama
He said Mara would work with the Immigration Department to stop these defaulters, whose arrears amounted to a whopping RM500 million, from leaving the country.
"Some of them are exempted from paying their loans after scoring good results in examinations but have yet to apply for the exemption.
"If they apply for the exemption, the amount could be just around RM200 million," he said after opening the Mara Education Carnival 2010 for the eastern zone here .
He said Mara had declared 10 loan defaulters bankrupt when they failed to repay their loans within the timeframe given. -- Bernama
Sunday, March 28, 2010
'I Expect a Currency Crisis or Semi-Crisis': Jim Rogers
The worst of the economic crisis is not over and a currency crisis can happen this year or the next year, because the problem of too much debt in the system has not been solved, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Monday.
The current recovery is just a consequence of the fact that consumption fell so dramatically in 2008 and people have to buy things they need in 2009, Rogers told "Worldwide Exchange."
"How can the solution for debt and consumption be more debt and more consumption? How can that be the solution to our problems?," he said.
Video: Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Monday that when Lehman Brothers failed he thought “thank goodness they’re finally letting somebody collapse.”
"I would expect there to be a currency crisis or a semi-crisis this fall or next year. It's crony capitalism, Bernanke and Greenspan have brought crony capitalism to America … but that's not going to solve the world's problems," Rogers added.
There are still "gigantic amounts of horrible, horrible debt that hasn't been dealt with" in Central Europe, while hopes that China will pull the world out of recession are overblown, according to Rogers.
"China saved up a lot of money for a rainy day, it's raining and it's spending it," he said. "But China cannot pull out America or India or Europe from all this. Their economy is a 10th of the US. Hallelujah, let them do good things but they're not going to save the world."
The Federal Reserve has tripled its balance sheet and the US government's debt skyrocketed, which may cause currency problems next year, while protectionist tendencies have already started, he warned.
10 Banks Should Have FailedRogers on CapitalismInside the Financial CrisisAlternative InvestingRoach: Fed Must Police ExcessMarc Faber: Let Big Banks Fail AIG Dead, Other Banks Zombies: HendryMore European News
On Monday, China has requested World Trade Organization talks over US-imposed duties on Chinese-made tires, which China has branded protectionist.
"We're going to have some serious problems in currency markets, we're going to have serious problems in the world markets if we see protectionism rising and rising again," he said.
The current recovery is just a consequence of the fact that consumption fell so dramatically in 2008 and people have to buy things they need in 2009, Rogers told "Worldwide Exchange."
"How can the solution for debt and consumption be more debt and more consumption? How can that be the solution to our problems?," he said.
Video: Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Monday that when Lehman Brothers failed he thought “thank goodness they’re finally letting somebody collapse.”
"I would expect there to be a currency crisis or a semi-crisis this fall or next year. It's crony capitalism, Bernanke and Greenspan have brought crony capitalism to America … but that's not going to solve the world's problems," Rogers added.
There are still "gigantic amounts of horrible, horrible debt that hasn't been dealt with" in Central Europe, while hopes that China will pull the world out of recession are overblown, according to Rogers.
"China saved up a lot of money for a rainy day, it's raining and it's spending it," he said. "But China cannot pull out America or India or Europe from all this. Their economy is a 10th of the US. Hallelujah, let them do good things but they're not going to save the world."
The Federal Reserve has tripled its balance sheet and the US government's debt skyrocketed, which may cause currency problems next year, while protectionist tendencies have already started, he warned.
10 Banks Should Have FailedRogers on CapitalismInside the Financial CrisisAlternative InvestingRoach: Fed Must Police ExcessMarc Faber: Let Big Banks Fail AIG Dead, Other Banks Zombies: HendryMore European News
On Monday, China has requested World Trade Organization talks over US-imposed duties on Chinese-made tires, which China has branded protectionist.
"We're going to have some serious problems in currency markets, we're going to have serious problems in the world markets if we see protectionism rising and rising again," he said.
Blues over education system — Teacher’s Blues
MARCH 28 — Of late, there have been calls and suggestions to have the proposed single-stream school system implemented in our education system.
We have been made to believe that for a multiracial, multi-cultural and multi-religious country like ours, getting our younger generation to freely mix, play and study together under one school roof with the national language as the common medium of instruction would serve to promote national unity and instil in our kids the 1Malaysia spirit.
Well, undoubtedly having a single-stream school system is an ideal goal that we should all strive for. However we need to first address the many ills and shortcomings plaguing our education system before we even contemplate such a move.
National unity and misconception
To begin with, it is both naïve and simplistic to claim that making our students conversant in the Malay language will by itself forge national unity and instil in them a strong patriotic spirit. It has been pointed out that this is a misconception as many countries with a common predominant language are bedevilled by communal strife, making national unity an elusive dream.
Forging genuine national unity means more than mere racial tolerance and being fluent in the national language; it involves deep communal understanding, a deep sense of fair play, genuine respect and sincere acceptance of the cultural and racial diversity in this beloved land of ours. Just ask those Malaysians (now adults and busy pursuing their careers) formerly educated in the vernacular Chinese primary schools who secured an A in their UPSR Malay paper and were still made to waste one precious year in attending remove classes not too many years ago (although this irrational move has now been scrapped) - simply because they failed to get an A for their Chinese paper - how they feel about this issue and you will get the point.
Secondly, let’s not merely talk about change for the sake of change without examining the root causes that are responsible for racial polarisation and the drastic decline in the quality of our education system. Our education system has a “grade inflation” syndrome where grade As are so easily secured with questionable standards and marking methodologies so that we have students awarded scholarships to study in foreign universities simply because they secured so many wonderful As in their SPM papers. Yet many of these students failed to measure up when subjected to open and robust competition at varsity level without the benefit of quotas and positive discrimination.
Malaysian parents desire quality education
Having a single-school system is fine for Malaysian parents in general, provided that the quality of teachers and teaching standards are in place, open-minded, practical and dynamic school heads selected based on merit are entrusted to run such schools, no unwanted religious overtones are allowed to prevail in such schools causing unease among non-Malay students and there is a favourable school environment where wholesome education and sound learning can take place.
Such schools would even be more attractive if the POL (pupils’ own language) classes are given serious attention and the school heads have enough autonomy, with the blessings of their respective Parent-Teachers Associations, to select from a broad-based, flexible and creative curriculum. Malaysian parents in general desire quality education for their kids. I wonder if a single-stream school system can live up to such expectations.
This seems like a tall order. We should reflect on the time when English-medium schools of the 1950s and 1960s were the preferred choice regardless of ethnicity. The increasing demand for private and international schools today is surely an indicator that our national school system falls far short of public expectations.
And the fact that 15,000 Malaysian students are currently attending schools daily across the causeway and some 60,000 pupils from other ethnic groups, notably Malay kids, are enrolled in Chinese primary schools speak volumes for the fact that sound and solid education is what Malaysian parents want for their kids, irrespective of race. Surely, the thousands of Malay parents who chose to send their kids to Chinese primary schools can’t be accused of not being patriotic or not having the interest of the nation at heart?
Now, for all the perceived shortcomings and flaws in their school system, the Chinese primary school teachers in general tend to be hard working, have good work ethics and often take a no-nonsense approach in educating their young charges. Parents with children in such schools are happy that if their kids work hard, the latter would be placed in better classes based on academic merit the following year and not along racial lines or quotas. And that their kids, with their impressionable young minds are unlikely to be subjected to extreme religious views or suffer from sexual assaults by their so-called teachers.
Teachers poor in quality, curriculum irrelevant, administrators political
On the other hand, let me just quote a line from Zaid Ibrahim’s latest book “I, too, am Malay”, where he wrote, inter alia “ …We are afraid to admit that the teachers, most of whom are Malays, are poor in quality, that the school curriculum is irrelevant and the administrators too political…” (Page 245). With so many national schools in such a bad shape, any wonder why the calls for a single-stream school system just do not go down well with many knowledgeable and practical Malaysian parents?
Over the years, we have seen far too many poor choices for the many important jobs in the teaching profession, right from the running of education departments to schools, and perhaps higher up at the Ministry level. If we just bear in mind how much havoc one mistake in recruiting a bad candidate for teacher training can create in the schools over a period of 30-odd years of teaching service, you can well imagine the damage done to our education system with the lax recruitment of teacher-training candidates made possible by over-zealous implementation of the New Economic Policy over so many years. It is only of late that the policy makers realised the folly of such short-sighted moves, but the damage has already been done to the education sector.
Once in the system, many of these poor quality teachers subsequently get promoted to head this and that section, department and school, and soon enough, the tyranny of mediocrity becomes an established fact in our education system. And when over 95 per cent (to be generous) of our Education Ministry’s staff are headed or manned by one ethnic group, will the policy planners be open-minded and far-sighted enough to deliberate on important policy matters with the overall interest of all Malaysians at heart?
The answer cannot be very encouraging, not when in spite of so many calls to scrap the impractical Moral Studies and give students more flexibility in choosing the subjects they like under the so-called open certificate exam system, things remain largely intact. Otherwise, the maximum 10-subject for SPM would easily accommodate Chinese and Tamil languages and literature - if the impractical Moral Studies and humdrum History (half of the Form Four syllabus is focused on Islamic civilisation) are not made compulsory subjects for SPM students.
It is well said that the heart of education begins with the education of the heart. The proposed single-stream school system will remain a pipe dream as long we do not have enough enlightened, courageous, practical and far-sighted minds in the Education Ministry who are prepared to realise this dream.
We have been made to believe that for a multiracial, multi-cultural and multi-religious country like ours, getting our younger generation to freely mix, play and study together under one school roof with the national language as the common medium of instruction would serve to promote national unity and instil in our kids the 1Malaysia spirit.
Well, undoubtedly having a single-stream school system is an ideal goal that we should all strive for. However we need to first address the many ills and shortcomings plaguing our education system before we even contemplate such a move.
National unity and misconception
To begin with, it is both naïve and simplistic to claim that making our students conversant in the Malay language will by itself forge national unity and instil in them a strong patriotic spirit. It has been pointed out that this is a misconception as many countries with a common predominant language are bedevilled by communal strife, making national unity an elusive dream.
Forging genuine national unity means more than mere racial tolerance and being fluent in the national language; it involves deep communal understanding, a deep sense of fair play, genuine respect and sincere acceptance of the cultural and racial diversity in this beloved land of ours. Just ask those Malaysians (now adults and busy pursuing their careers) formerly educated in the vernacular Chinese primary schools who secured an A in their UPSR Malay paper and were still made to waste one precious year in attending remove classes not too many years ago (although this irrational move has now been scrapped) - simply because they failed to get an A for their Chinese paper - how they feel about this issue and you will get the point.
Secondly, let’s not merely talk about change for the sake of change without examining the root causes that are responsible for racial polarisation and the drastic decline in the quality of our education system. Our education system has a “grade inflation” syndrome where grade As are so easily secured with questionable standards and marking methodologies so that we have students awarded scholarships to study in foreign universities simply because they secured so many wonderful As in their SPM papers. Yet many of these students failed to measure up when subjected to open and robust competition at varsity level without the benefit of quotas and positive discrimination.
Malaysian parents desire quality education
Having a single-school system is fine for Malaysian parents in general, provided that the quality of teachers and teaching standards are in place, open-minded, practical and dynamic school heads selected based on merit are entrusted to run such schools, no unwanted religious overtones are allowed to prevail in such schools causing unease among non-Malay students and there is a favourable school environment where wholesome education and sound learning can take place.
Such schools would even be more attractive if the POL (pupils’ own language) classes are given serious attention and the school heads have enough autonomy, with the blessings of their respective Parent-Teachers Associations, to select from a broad-based, flexible and creative curriculum. Malaysian parents in general desire quality education for their kids. I wonder if a single-stream school system can live up to such expectations.
This seems like a tall order. We should reflect on the time when English-medium schools of the 1950s and 1960s were the preferred choice regardless of ethnicity. The increasing demand for private and international schools today is surely an indicator that our national school system falls far short of public expectations.
And the fact that 15,000 Malaysian students are currently attending schools daily across the causeway and some 60,000 pupils from other ethnic groups, notably Malay kids, are enrolled in Chinese primary schools speak volumes for the fact that sound and solid education is what Malaysian parents want for their kids, irrespective of race. Surely, the thousands of Malay parents who chose to send their kids to Chinese primary schools can’t be accused of not being patriotic or not having the interest of the nation at heart?
Now, for all the perceived shortcomings and flaws in their school system, the Chinese primary school teachers in general tend to be hard working, have good work ethics and often take a no-nonsense approach in educating their young charges. Parents with children in such schools are happy that if their kids work hard, the latter would be placed in better classes based on academic merit the following year and not along racial lines or quotas. And that their kids, with their impressionable young minds are unlikely to be subjected to extreme religious views or suffer from sexual assaults by their so-called teachers.
Teachers poor in quality, curriculum irrelevant, administrators political
On the other hand, let me just quote a line from Zaid Ibrahim’s latest book “I, too, am Malay”, where he wrote, inter alia “ …We are afraid to admit that the teachers, most of whom are Malays, are poor in quality, that the school curriculum is irrelevant and the administrators too political…” (Page 245). With so many national schools in such a bad shape, any wonder why the calls for a single-stream school system just do not go down well with many knowledgeable and practical Malaysian parents?
Over the years, we have seen far too many poor choices for the many important jobs in the teaching profession, right from the running of education departments to schools, and perhaps higher up at the Ministry level. If we just bear in mind how much havoc one mistake in recruiting a bad candidate for teacher training can create in the schools over a period of 30-odd years of teaching service, you can well imagine the damage done to our education system with the lax recruitment of teacher-training candidates made possible by over-zealous implementation of the New Economic Policy over so many years. It is only of late that the policy makers realised the folly of such short-sighted moves, but the damage has already been done to the education sector.
Once in the system, many of these poor quality teachers subsequently get promoted to head this and that section, department and school, and soon enough, the tyranny of mediocrity becomes an established fact in our education system. And when over 95 per cent (to be generous) of our Education Ministry’s staff are headed or manned by one ethnic group, will the policy planners be open-minded and far-sighted enough to deliberate on important policy matters with the overall interest of all Malaysians at heart?
The answer cannot be very encouraging, not when in spite of so many calls to scrap the impractical Moral Studies and give students more flexibility in choosing the subjects they like under the so-called open certificate exam system, things remain largely intact. Otherwise, the maximum 10-subject for SPM would easily accommodate Chinese and Tamil languages and literature - if the impractical Moral Studies and humdrum History (half of the Form Four syllabus is focused on Islamic civilisation) are not made compulsory subjects for SPM students.
It is well said that the heart of education begins with the education of the heart. The proposed single-stream school system will remain a pipe dream as long we do not have enough enlightened, courageous, practical and far-sighted minds in the Education Ministry who are prepared to realise this dream.
Friday, March 26, 2010
RMN’s Scorpene submarine can now dive
SINGAPORE, March 26 — The spanking new Royal Malaysian Navy Scorpene-type submarine KD Tunku Abdul Rahman, which recently suffered technical setbacks, is now ready for dive trials.
Its designer and builder, DCNS, said today, the submarine had completed its first sea trials off the Malaysian coast, following scheduled maintenance at its home port in Teluk Sepanggar, Sabah.
In a statement here, the company said the trials confirmed the boat’s readiness for underwater service. It said following maintenance, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman was floated out and made ready to resume its training schedule, including dive trials by the Malaysian crew off its home coast.
“These trials demonstrate that the Royal Malaysian Navy has successfully established the country’s first ever submarine force,” said Pierre Quinchon, head of DCNS Submarine division.
The contract between the Malaysian Government and DCNS for two Scorpene submarines and associated logistics and training was signed in June 2002.
The second submarine, KD Tun Abdul Razak, currently in Toulon, is scheduled to sail from France to Malaysia in May.
Apart from Malaysia, two other countries have ordered the Scorpene submarines — Chile (two units) and India (six).
The Scorpene was designed by DCNS and developed jointly by DCNS and Spanish naval shipbuilder Navantia. — Bernama
Its designer and builder, DCNS, said today, the submarine had completed its first sea trials off the Malaysian coast, following scheduled maintenance at its home port in Teluk Sepanggar, Sabah.
In a statement here, the company said the trials confirmed the boat’s readiness for underwater service. It said following maintenance, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman was floated out and made ready to resume its training schedule, including dive trials by the Malaysian crew off its home coast.
“These trials demonstrate that the Royal Malaysian Navy has successfully established the country’s first ever submarine force,” said Pierre Quinchon, head of DCNS Submarine division.
The contract between the Malaysian Government and DCNS for two Scorpene submarines and associated logistics and training was signed in June 2002.
The second submarine, KD Tun Abdul Razak, currently in Toulon, is scheduled to sail from France to Malaysia in May.
Apart from Malaysia, two other countries have ordered the Scorpene submarines — Chile (two units) and India (six).
The Scorpene was designed by DCNS and developed jointly by DCNS and Spanish naval shipbuilder Navantia. — Bernama
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Malaysia`s DiGi Telco Cheating An Estimated Half Billion A Year
Malaysia's DiGi mobile phone telco is cheating its subscribers by an estimated half billion Malaysian dollars a year.
Tests show that the unscrupulous cell phone operator is sending calls to voice-mail even when the phone is receiving a strong network signal.
Calls being made to DiGi mobiles are routed to voice-mail without any delay whatsoever, thus not allowing for any switching times.
When a client does not respond to calls that DiGi does pass through, the time before being routed to voice-mail is very short, compared to other oversea operators, not allowing the mobile phone user sufficient time to answer incoming calls before the caller is routed to voice-mail.
Each time a call is routed to voice mail from a Digi phone, the caller is billed 12 cents, and charges for calls routed to DiGi voicemail from other operators may be even higher.
The company robs users double in many cases, as Digi users are forced to call their voicemail, again whilst being billed, in order to retrieve messages left by callers who would have otherwise reached the subscribers handset, were it not for the tweaking of systems to route callers to voicemail.
The costs to overseas callers into Malaysia are estimated to be several billion dollars per year.
Moreover the company has been found to be billing subscribers for services that were cancelled, such as the monthly Internet service for post-paid business companies, at 68 Malaysian dollars per month.
The company requests that cancellations are faxed to them, but then does not proceed to cancel and continues to bill for those services.
DiGi pre-paid mobile charging is however fairer than the other operators, in that although charged at a rate of 10 cents per 10 kb, as soon as $5 Malaysian is reached, there is no further charge for the day. If more than 100MB data is transferred in a day, the speed may be throttled.
Mathaba advises DiGi users to call customer service on 016-2211800 to demand deactivation of voice-mail, as well as requesting to prolong your calling tone. Users are also advised not to subscribe to any special caller ringing tones as these may not be prolonged.
DiGi has some 8 million subscribers in Malaysia making up a little over a quarter of the total mobile phone subscriber base in the country and is 49% owned by Telenor.
Mathaba has found extensive cheating by all 3 large Malaysian mobile telcos, which rate worse than those of its neighbors Singapore and Thailand.
Unlike its two neighbours to the north and south, the Malaysian mobile Internet is both unreliable and costly, much of the time failing to perform, with 3G and 3.5G having slower actual throughput speeds than Thailand's EDGE.
Calls on Skype phone from mobiles on Celcom and Maxis proved generally impossible according to tests conducted, whilst Digi's EDGE performed reliably even for Skype voice calls, similar to Thailand where 3G is generally not available due to licensing issues.
Digi is now starting to operate 3G and 3.5G broadband which we have not yet tested, but provides good GPRS/EDGE coverage, whilst Maxis and Celcom provide mobile broadband services that extensively rip off subscribers as is being reported in other news articles.
Users of mobile operators in Malaysia are invited to leave comments below, and the Telcos are urged to redress this situation, provide a working customer service without cost to subscribers and to compensate users for failure to provide services billed for.
Digi is called upon to provide exact and verifiable figures and come clean about its revenue from voice mail, how many calls are routed to voice mail each day, its switching policies and technical parameters, and to make it easy for its users to opt out of the service by default.
Technicians and employees of the company who wish to share further information in confidence, may make use of our secure contact form - communications via this form is encrypted and not visible to ISP nor telco within Malaysia.
Tests show that the unscrupulous cell phone operator is sending calls to voice-mail even when the phone is receiving a strong network signal.
Calls being made to DiGi mobiles are routed to voice-mail without any delay whatsoever, thus not allowing for any switching times.
When a client does not respond to calls that DiGi does pass through, the time before being routed to voice-mail is very short, compared to other oversea operators, not allowing the mobile phone user sufficient time to answer incoming calls before the caller is routed to voice-mail.
Each time a call is routed to voice mail from a Digi phone, the caller is billed 12 cents, and charges for calls routed to DiGi voicemail from other operators may be even higher.
The company robs users double in many cases, as Digi users are forced to call their voicemail, again whilst being billed, in order to retrieve messages left by callers who would have otherwise reached the subscribers handset, were it not for the tweaking of systems to route callers to voicemail.
The costs to overseas callers into Malaysia are estimated to be several billion dollars per year.
Moreover the company has been found to be billing subscribers for services that were cancelled, such as the monthly Internet service for post-paid business companies, at 68 Malaysian dollars per month.
The company requests that cancellations are faxed to them, but then does not proceed to cancel and continues to bill for those services.
DiGi pre-paid mobile charging is however fairer than the other operators, in that although charged at a rate of 10 cents per 10 kb, as soon as $5 Malaysian is reached, there is no further charge for the day. If more than 100MB data is transferred in a day, the speed may be throttled.
Mathaba advises DiGi users to call customer service on 016-2211800 to demand deactivation of voice-mail, as well as requesting to prolong your calling tone. Users are also advised not to subscribe to any special caller ringing tones as these may not be prolonged.
DiGi has some 8 million subscribers in Malaysia making up a little over a quarter of the total mobile phone subscriber base in the country and is 49% owned by Telenor.
Mathaba has found extensive cheating by all 3 large Malaysian mobile telcos, which rate worse than those of its neighbors Singapore and Thailand.
Unlike its two neighbours to the north and south, the Malaysian mobile Internet is both unreliable and costly, much of the time failing to perform, with 3G and 3.5G having slower actual throughput speeds than Thailand's EDGE.
Calls on Skype phone from mobiles on Celcom and Maxis proved generally impossible according to tests conducted, whilst Digi's EDGE performed reliably even for Skype voice calls, similar to Thailand where 3G is generally not available due to licensing issues.
Digi is now starting to operate 3G and 3.5G broadband which we have not yet tested, but provides good GPRS/EDGE coverage, whilst Maxis and Celcom provide mobile broadband services that extensively rip off subscribers as is being reported in other news articles.
Users of mobile operators in Malaysia are invited to leave comments below, and the Telcos are urged to redress this situation, provide a working customer service without cost to subscribers and to compensate users for failure to provide services billed for.
Digi is called upon to provide exact and verifiable figures and come clean about its revenue from voice mail, how many calls are routed to voice mail each day, its switching policies and technical parameters, and to make it easy for its users to opt out of the service by default.
Technicians and employees of the company who wish to share further information in confidence, may make use of our secure contact form - communications via this form is encrypted and not visible to ISP nor telco within Malaysia.
Monday, March 22, 2010
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