Croatia

Polls on Sunday

Apr 17th, 2013
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Polls on Sunday – what’s your beef Bishop Tan

KUALA LUMPUR: Several quarters have questioned the motive and intention of Reverend Bishop Paul Tan to condemn the holding of the coming polls on a Sunday, on May 5.

 

The bishop, according to a news report, had stated that to fix the polls on May 5 was a reflection of the callous insensitivity towards Christians in the country.

 

“This disrespect of the government of the Christian rights is to be denounced. It just proves that the government is not sincere in its 1Malaysia slogan,” he was quoted as saying.

 

An MP pointed out that in the history of Malaysian general elections, voting had been held on a Sunday three times.

 

Previous elections in Malaysia held on Sunday were on August 3rd 1986 and 21st October 1990 as well as 21st March 2004.

 

A prominent blogger pointed out that even in a Christian majority nation abroad, polls were held on a Sunday, citing last week’s election in Venezuela as an example.


Wangsa Maju MP Wee Choo Keong when questioning Tan’s motive to condemn the Election Commission (EC) for fixing polling day on a Sunday pointed out in his blog that three of this country’s general elections have been held on Sundays and there were no complaints from citizens of various faiths about having to go out and vote on a Sunday.

 

“With due respect to Reverend Bishop Paul Tan, this is not the first time in our history that GEs (general elections) were held on a Sunday.  Just for the record, there have been THREE previous GEs that were held on SUNDAY too,” Wee wrote.

 

“Just wonder, what has inspired a bishop of Reverend Paul Tan’s standing to make such sweeping statements when there were three previous GEs held on Sunday?” he further wrote.

 

In Christian countries, elections have been held on Sundays.

 

Venezuelans went to the polls to elect their new president on April 14, which fell on a Sunday.

 

The next day, Nicolas Marudo was announced as the country’s president, following the death former president Hugo Chavez on March 5 after a long battle with cancer.

 

Prominent blogger Datuk Ahirudin Attan, popularly known as Rocky Bru, said in his blog that Tan intended to sound harsh when he criticised Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for setting May 5 as polls day and looked ignorant for being unaware of the fact that the Venezuelans had voted on a Sunday.

 

“The Bishop intended to sound harsh. Unfortunately, he was also a little too hasty and, I’d hasten to add, pitifully ignorant. He was obviously not aware that Venezuela, where well over 95 per cent of the population adheres to Christianity had just gone to the polls to elect their new President – on a Sunday,” wrote Rocky.

 

Blogger Eddy Daud had criticised the bishop stating that the country has successfully and  peacefully held three general elections on a Sunday with no complaints whatsoever.

 

He wrote: “Voting on Sunday 5 May 2013 will start at 8.00 am and end at 5.00 pm and you can have your mass in the morning which shouldn’t take that long, and after that plenty of time for your flock to go to vote what.”

 

“So what do you want really Bishop Tan, the polls to be on a Friday? Rest be assured that the very tolerant majority Malaysian Muslims would not complain as they will find time to vote before or after Friday prayers, tak de hal punya (no problem),” he further wrote.

 

Below is a list of several Christian-majority countries which have held their last elections on a Sunday:

 

1) Germany (September 22,  2013)

2) Mexico (July 1, 2012)

3) Belgium (June 13, 2010) 

4) Croatia (December 4, 2011)

5) Argentina (October 23, 2011)

6) Brazil (October 3, 2010)

7) France (April 22, 2012)

8) Spain (November 20, 2011)

9) Sweden (September 19, 2010)

10) Greece (June 17, 2012)

11) Colombia (May 30, 2010)

12) Romania (December 9, 2012)

13) Cyprus (February 17, 2013)

14) Luxemborg (June 7, 2009)

Source: MOLE

Austrian space diver no stranger to danger

Oct 10th, 2012
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Austrian space diver no stranger to danger

LOS ANGELES, Oct 9, 2012 (AFP) – Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian daredevil who had hoped to make history Tuesday with a jump from the edge of space, is no stranger to death-defying danger. 

 

The 43-year-old, who said he may now try his aborted jump on Thursday, is hoping to break at least three records by conducting the highest and the fastest freefall jump and by becoming the first human to break the speed barrier without an aircraft. 

 

“I love a challenge, and trying to become the first person to break the speed of sound in freefall is a challenge like no other,” he said ahead of the canceled stunt in the skies over New Mexico. 

 

Tuesday’s attempt was scuttled at the last minute due to gusting winds which buffeted the huge, gossamer-thin balloon used to lift the skydiver to an altitude of 23 miles (36 km). Another bid may be made Thursday. 

 

Baumgartner, born on April 20, 1969, grew up in the shadow of the Alps in Salzburg, Austria. He dreamed of skydiving and flying helicopters from an early age. 

 

He made his first skydive at the age of 16, and improved his skills after joining the Austrian military, becoming a member of its Special Forces demonstration team. 

 

One of Baumgartner’s first records was in 1999 for the lowest BASE jump ever from the hand of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, which is only 95 feet above the ground. 

 

Baumgartner has “Born to Fly” tattooed in large letters on his forearm. BASE is an acronym for the four things which are jumped from: buildings, antennas, spans and earth. 

 

The Austrian, a licensed gas balloon and helicopter pilot, twice set world records for the highest BASE jump from a building. 

 

The first was from the 1,479-feet (450.8-meter) Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1999, and five years later from the even taller Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan. 

 

In 2003, he completed the first winged “freefall crossing” of the English Channel, jumping out of an aircraft and flying the rest of the way to Calais in northern France with a pair of carbon wings. 

 

Other feats include parachuting into a 623-feet (190-meter) deep cave in Croatia, leaping off the highest bridge in the world, the 1,125-feet (343-meter) high Viaduc de Millau in France. 

 

Baumgartner has also imprinted his hands and feet in concrete in Vienna’s “Street of Champions” and was nominated for a World Sports Award and two categories in the NEA Extreme Sports Awards. 

 

He has been training for Tuesday’s Red Bull Stratos jump — from 120,000 feet (23 miles, 36 kilometers) — for five years, and has successfully jumped from 71,600 feet (21.8 kilometers) and 97,100 feet (29.6 kilometers). 

 

A major danger, he said, is losing consciousness. 

 

“That could happen if I get into a flat spin… like a CD on a CD player. Then the blood goes to the head and leads to red-out. Black-out is the opposite, when the blood goes to the feet.” 

 

But he said it is unlikely that he will pay the ultimate price for his love of skydiving. 

 

“In order for me to die, lots of things have to happen at the same time,” Baumgartner said. 

 

Meticulous planning makes that outcome unlikely, he said. 

 

“I think it is all about preparation. Do your homework, you know. I hate it if someone calls me a thrill-seeker or an adrenaline junkie because I am not. I like the whole planning,” Baumgartner said. 

 

He divides his time between Switzerland and the United States but says: “The air is where I am at home.” 

 

“I believe in God and I truly believe that there is a plan that he has for everybody. And I also believe that he has a plan for me. It looks like I am becoming an astronaut,” he has said. 

 

“I’m going to slide the door open, bail out and become the first human person in freefall to break the speed of sound,” he said. 

 

“That is His plan and that is probably my last goal that I have to accomplish.”

Source: MOLE

There's no altruism in Soros' fundings

Oct 4th, 2012
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There’s no altruism in Soros’ fundings

In Malaysiakini’s second instalment on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s letter to currency speculator George Soros, the portal zoomed in on the former’s narration of the horrors of war he had experienced and drew parallels to that of the latter’s.


While Dr Mahathir was devastated after witnessing the killing of a young British soldier by the Japanese in his hometown in World War Two, Malaysiakini narrated Soros’ ordeal in surviving the Battle of Budapest, deemed as one of the most frightful urban battles during that war.


Such a narrative and more by Malaysiakini would have made for another interesting article about a controversial figure such as Soros but, coming out at a time when numerous accusations are being levelled at Malaysian beneficiaries of his funds, it only points towards the need to provide a human face to the personality.


Consistent with the earlier trend as in its first instalment, what Malaysiakini did in the second instalment was to leverage what Dr Mahathir had written in his letter to Soros to tell those who had criticised the portal for receiving funds from Soros that even Dr Mahathir had invited him to join his cause.


That meant Soros was a “good man” worthy for Dr Mahathir to ask to “lend his name” to the noble cause – vis-à-vis the Global Peace Forum – of criminalising war.

 

As stated by Malaysiakini, “it is not known what Soros had said in his response to Mahathir, but it is likely to have been a polite ‘no’, given that he did not join the Global Peace Forum”.

 

It is just as well that Soros declined to join the Forum as otherwise, Dr Mahathir and other bona fide members of the Forum would have lost massive moral ground by having Soros in their midst. Unless Soros had decided to use the Forum to redeem himself.

 

By now, given the notorious reputation that Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) has earned in terms of its involvement in funding non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil societies in numerous parts of the world, all in the name of promoting democracy but in actual fact pushing for regime change, Dr Mahathir and the Forum would want to distance themselves as far possible from Soros and any organisations he has funded.

 

Furthermore, coming from a man who, when asked what he felt about his role in the 1997 East Asian currency crisis, famously said: “As a market participant, I don’t need to be concerned with the consequences of my actions,” it is doubtful that he has much concern about the effect of his actions on the rest of the population as he pursues his agenda.

 

By now too the role of OSI in pushing for regime change is widely and well-documented and that Soros has also funded opposition parties in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Georgia, and Macedonia is an open secret.

 

In Georgia, Soros, through his OSI, is accused of placing “stooges” in the Cabinet and the opposition described Soros is effectively the President while the Georgian president and prime minister were his Governors. In Azerbaijan, there are fears that Soros’ involvement is pushing the region to war.

 

Following Soros’ success in determining the political leadership in Ukraine and Georgia through NGOs, there is a call in Turkey for the introduction of a special law prohibiting NGOs from taking money from foreigners, similar to that of Russia’s.

 

All these can be read from Forbes’ article, “Are George Soros’ Billions Compromising U.S. Foreign Policy?”

 

For more revelations, do read Nile Bowie’s blog.

 

As such, the Malaysian NGOs and Malaysiakini are either naïve or that they take others to be naïve when they insisted there is nothing wrong or sinister about them receiving funds from Soros, his OSI or other organisations linked to them.


Surely, what Soros and the OSI have done elsewhere is not going to stop when it comes to Malaysia. Surely too, Soros and the OSI will aim to use the Malaysian NGOs, which they fund, to pursue their regime change agenda.


When the Malaysian NGOs started getting all heaty and feisty, demanding an apology from the New Straits Times for exposing them of being recipient of foreign funds and coming from organisation as shady as the OSI, enter the Bar Council.


Its president Lim Chee Wee declared there is nothing wrong for NGOs to receive foreign fundings and for as long as it complies with local laws.


He was then quoted to add: “there is nothing sinister about foreign funding” for NGOs.

 

If his statements were to be juxtaposed with what had been written about Soros, the OSI, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Lim had either been under the a rock or that he too wants to be part of the chorus of misleading the Malaysian populace.


Even the part where he said “for as long as it complies with local laws” is flippant and frivilous as the issue is not about merely breaking the law but whether the benefactors, in this case Soros and his ilks, are extending their funds to affect regime change in Malaysia.


And based on the numerous reports of what Soros, his organisations and allies had committed elsewhere, they leaned strongly towards the regime change agenda being a fact and not mere wild speculations or views borne from unfettered paranoia.


As pointed out earlier, Russia had prohibited foreign fundings for their NGOs. A civil society in Turkey that had seen the treacherous nature of Soros’ fundings is urging the Government to do likewise.


But more significant, especially for the Bar Council and the NGOs, is that the U.S., the beacon of democracy for many of these NGOs or civil societies, have a law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

 

The following is what the FARA website displayed and it is self-explanatory of what the law is all about:

 

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities.  Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterespionage Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.


Is it the Malaysian Government, groups and individuals who are concerned over the motives of the Soroses and their foreign agents (the term FARA used) who are being paranoid or aren’t they justified to be suspicious as the Russians and Americans are.


Through Malaysiakini, the Bar Council and the NGOs could probably assist the Government and concerned Malaysians on understanding the FARA.


Surely, being the enlightened ones, they can throw some light to the murkiness of foreign fundings.

 

For the first part: An Unlikely Saviour for Malaysiakini

 

Source: MOLE

Olimpik 2012 : France Kejutkan Juara Bertahan

Jul 29th, 2012
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LONDON, 2012 – France melakukan kejutan terbesar pada hari pertama acara Bola Baling Wanita dengan menewaskan juara bertahan Norway dengan keputusan 24-23 dalam Kumpulan B peringkat kelayakan di Copper Box.

 

Norway yang merupakan Juara Dunia, Juara Olimpik dan Juara Eropah terpaksa berhempas pulas menentang France yang bermula dengan cemerlang dengan mendahului 6-1. Walaubagaimanapun, pasukan dari Scandinavia itu kembali merapatkan jurang kepada 9-10 setelah 22 minit separuh masa kedua bermula.

 

France kembali menjarakkan diri dengan menjaringkan empat gol berturut-turut sehingga berada dihadapan seketika dengan jaringan 17-12 mengakibatkan pasukan Norway hilang tumpuan untuk kembali mencari rentak permainan.

 

Sehingga tiupan wisel ditiup, akhirnya pasukan France berjaya menumpaskan Norway dengan jurang keputusan yang cukup rapat 24-23.

 

Sebelum itu, juara tiga kali Olimpik acara Bola Baling Wanita, Denmark memulakan langkah kanan dengan menewaskan Sweeden dengan keputusan 21-18. Keputusan lain turut membabitkan Korea Selatan menumpaskan Sepanyol dengan keputusan 31-27 dalam Kumpulan A.

 

Rusia turut menewaskan Angola dengan keputusan 30-27, Brazil pula menewaskan Croatia 24-23 manakala pasukan tuan rumah Great Britain terpaksa tunduk kepada Montenegro dengan keputusan 31-19.

Money troubles raise corruption risk in football

May 15th, 2012
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Cizmek represented his native Croatia at under-20 and under-21 level. A diagnosis of diabetes halted his rise and he never made it to the big leagues. Instead he became a journeyman, playing for clubs as far afield as Israel and Iceland.

 

The 36-year-old midfielder, though, has since made a name for himself for the wrong reasons after admitting involvement in fixing eight matches in 2010, raising the prospect of time in jail and a ban from playing the sport for life.

 

Cizmek said his life started to unravel after his club, Croatia Sesvete, failed to pay his salary, which amounted to roughly 3,000 euros (about $3,900) a month.

 

“A month or two is not a problem but I did not get my wages for a full year,” he told AFP.

 

He owed the state about 35,000 euros in taxes and social contributions and did not want to ask friends and family for loans anymore.

 

“You lose your dignity and become an easy target,” he said, revealing how the organisers of the match-fixing worked on cultivating susceptible players for months.

 

Cizmek said he received between 2,000 and 3,000 euros a match and was one of 15 players and football officials sentenced by a court here last December for rigging eight Croatian First Division matches.

 

For that, he was sentenced to 10 months in jail in the country’s first trial of its kind. He is now waiting for Croatia’s Supreme Court to give its final ruling. If it finds against him, he will go to prison.

 

Cizmek stressed that the difficulties he faced did not justify his behaviour and now wants his experience to serve as an example to young players tempted to follow the same path.

 

“You get just a bit and you can lose almost everything,” he said. “Football was my whole life and I lost it,” he said.

 

“You feel so stupid and miserable … thinking, ‘How is it possible that I’m doing this after a honest career spanning 20 years?’”

 

Cizmek, though, is not an isolated case in the global game.

 

In Turkey, nearly 100 people, including officials and players from top sides like Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas, are currently on trial over claims that at least 19 first and second division matches were fixed during the 2010-11 season.

 

Italian prosecutors are also grappling with fresh claims of graft, six years after current Serie A champions Juventus were stripped of two league titles and relegated to Serie B for trying to influence refereeing appointments.

 

Corruption allegations have also rocked the fledgling league in China, while the probe in Croatia was launched in late 2009 after German police provided information about match-rigging and betting fraud across Europe.

 

Football’s world governing body FIFA has launched a new drive against corruption in the game, including an appeal for assistance to Interpol and the establishment of protection programmes for those who blow the whistle on match-fixing.

 

FIFA estimates that between 400 and 500 billion euros are generated each year by betting on sport — both legal and illegal — with between five and 15 billion euros stemming from fixed matches, making it hugely attractive for organised crime.

 

But in a special “Black Book”, the global football players union FIFPro said there was “a clear link between the non-payment of wages and match-fixing”.

 

It found that more than 40 per cent of professional players in 12 Eastern European countries did not have their salaries paid on time.

 

Cizmek said the reality of fixing matches is more mundane than simply making mistakes on the pitch and with most first division sides in Croatia struggling financially, it’s easy to see how players can succumb to temptation.

 

“There were eight of us (from the same club involved in match-fixing) on the pitch, it was enough just not to play with 100 per cent effort,” he explained.

 

Marketing and sponsorship income have dropped dramatically in less high-profile leagues like Croatia due to the economic crisis, while poor quality games and fans turned off by a string of scandals has left clubs playing to almost empty stadiums.

 

Anti-graft prosecutors in Croatia suspect several top football officials of taking bribes and fixing matches.

 

“The current situation within Croatian football is the most critical ever” since the former Yugoslav republic gained independence in 1991, said leading sports journalist Robert Matteoni.

 

“The main problem is poor management of the federation and clubs, which are on verge of financial collapse.”

 

The Croatian league has vowed to slim down from 16 clubs currently to just 10 by 2014.

 

“Simply, Croatia’s economic environment cannot support 16 professional clubs,” added Croatian football federation (HNS) secretary-general Zorislav Srebric.

 

To tackle the problem, Croatia’s centre-left government is drafting a new law on sports aimed at bringing more transparency in management and money flows.

 

Changes in the football federation leadership are also imminent, media reports have suggested.

Over 600 die in Europe cold snap, 215 in Russia alone

Feb 13th, 2012
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Over 600 die in Europe cold snap, 215 in Russia alone

MOSCOW: Some 215 Russians have died this year in a prolonged period of abnormally cold winter weather, the health ministry said Monday as the overall death toll for Europe rose to well over 600.

 

Heavy snow continued to fall on Monday in Romania and Bulgaria, but the cold snap that froze much of Europe for the past two weeks began to ease in the west of the continent.

 

In Russia, 215 people died and 5,546 people suffered from hypothermia and frostbite, including 154 children, between January 1 and February 13, the ministry said in a statement.

 

While accustomed to frosty winters, Russia has seen 20 days of unusually cold weather, with the average temperature falling 7 to 14 degrees Celsius below average, the state weather service said.

 

In Moscow, the temperature was minus 20 degrees Celsius on Monday afternoon, the state weather service said.

 

While Russian apartment blocks are generally well heated, the homeless are particularly at risk.

 

In a stunt to protest the prices that Ukraine pays for Russian gas the Ukrainian feminist group Femen braved the cold to pose topless outside the Moscow headquarters of Russian gas giant Gazprom.

 

The women were escorted away by security guards after about 10 minutes, an AFP photographer said.

 

Over the last 24 hours, the coldest temperature measured in Russia was -52.8 degrees Celsius in Toko in the northern Sakha republic, the state weather service said.

 

In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, authorities set up shelters in the capital Tbilisi on Monday after two homeless people died during the coldest weather for decades.

 

“The situation is very serious as far as homeless people are concerned,” Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava said in a statement after visiting a hospital where a further three homeless men were reported to be in intensive care.

 

Ugulava said that municipally funded canteens that provide free food to the poor would be turned into temporary shelters.

 

Two homeless men died Friday after being admitted to hospital with hypothermia, one in the capital and the other in the western town of Ozurgeti, local media reported.

 

Temperatures fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius in Tbilisi on Sunday — the lowest recorded in the capital for 40 years, according to local media.

 

In Romania, the death toll from the cold increased to 74 on Monday as new snowfalls blanketed the south of the country.

 

“Unfortunately there have been six new deaths due to cold, five of which occurred outside, on the streets or in courtyards, and one in a non-heated building,” said deputy under-secretary for health Raed Arafat.

 

Snow disrupted road and railway transportation in the south and in Bucharest. More than 300 passenger trains were cancelled, officials said.

 

In neighbouring Bulgaria where heavy snowfalls also took place, the newspaper Trud on Monday said 47 people had died of cold or drowned since late January. There is no official death toll.

 

In Bosnia, an 84-year-old woman was found dead of cold in Foca, while in neighbouring Montenegro one of 80 passengers who have been stranded in a train for the past three days because of an avalanche died of a heart attack.

 

The total number of deaths in the western Balkans was put at 56.

 

Twenty people have died in Serbia, 13 in Bosnia, 10 in Kosovo, five in Montenegro, three in Croatia, three in Albania and two in Montenegro.

 

In Sarajevo the heavy snowfall caused the roof of the Olympic sports hall in Skenderija to collapse but no one was injured.

 

At the Grbavica football stadium, part of the stands also crumbled under the weight of the snow, an AFP photographer reported.

 

Over the past two weeks at least 135 people have died of the cold in Ukraine, 82 in Poland, and 45 in Italy.

 

In western Europe, temperatures began to return to normal February averages.

Source: MOLE

Hungary closes the Danube; winter death toll passes 540

Feb 10th, 2012
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Hungary closes the Danube; winter death toll passes 540

BUDAPEST: Hungary closed the Danube to river traffic Friday because of thick ice, bringing shipping to a near standstill on Europe’s busiest waterway, as the continent’s cold snap death toll reached past 540.

 

“Shipping was ordered stopped overnight Thursday to Friday because of conditions created by icing along the Hungarian part of the river,” Istvan Lang, who heads the national technical supervisory body OMIT said.

 

“All ships still underway must immediately head for the closest harbour,” Lang, quoted by MTI news agency, said.

 

Other countries along the Danube, including Austria, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, had already suspended river traffic because of the freeze.

 

The 2,860-kilometre river, which flows through 10 countries and is vital for transport, power, irrigation, industry and fishing, was nearly wholly blocked from Austria to its mouth on the Black Sea.

 

In Hungary, 60 to 70 per cent of the river was frozen, with only ice-breakers remaining in action, especially in the south of the country, officials said.

 

The cold snap, which started two weeks ago, is expected to continue until mid-February, forecasters said.

 

In neighbouring Serbia, the situation is relatively better then in the previous days as the snow stopped and the emergency services will focus today on delivering food to endangered regions, Predrag Maric Serbia’s chief emergency official told state television.

 

Helicopters were to deliver food to remote areas of southwestern Serbia which have been trapped in snow for days, he added. Some 70,000 people were still cut off from the outside world.

 

Temperatures in Serbia hit a new low Friday with with minus 26 degrees Celsius in the northern town Sombor and minus 15 degrees Celsius in the capital Belgrade at 0500 GMT.

 

In Bosnia, 20,000 homes in the southern towns of Mostar and Nevesinje and surrounding villages were connected again to the electrical grid after three days without power, Pero Pavlovic of the Civil Protection services said Friday.

 

“Some small hamlets are still without electricity but it should be re-established shortly,” Pavlovic added.

 

In Romania, 13 died of cold overnight Thursday to Friday, bringing the overall toll to 57 since the start of the cold spell, officials said.

 

Over 20,000 people are cut off by snow in the east of the country with food supplies runing out, they added.

 

In some villages, such as Varasti, in the south of the country, where four metres of snow have fallen, inhabitants had to tunnel their way out of their homes or exit through top windows.

 

“I fear all my hens and turkeys are dead,” said Varasti resident Marin Boacana, 60, pointing to his snow-covered chicken coop.

 

In Italy, where the cold has killed more than 45 in the past 10 days, snow started to fall anew on Friday.

 

A 42-year Romanian woman, believed to be sleeping rough and who had found shelter in a cave in the Rome suburbs, was found frozen to death, while a man was reported attacked by scavenging stray dogs near Rimini.

 

Motorways banned some heavy truck traffic in the northeast of the country, while rail services and Bologna airport experienced delays.

 

In Rome, where forecasters predict up to 30 centimetres of fresh snow, all schools were closed on Friday.

 

Residents stocked up on food, fearful of a repeat of the disruption seen last weekend. At the Porta Portese street market, snow chains have been selling for up to 400 euros after city authorities ordered all cars to carry them.

 

The Abruzzi mountains, in central Italy, the Marche region, in the east, and towns along the western coast were all blanketed in snow.

 

On the island of Sardinia, a man died apparently from hypothermia shortly after coming out of a hospital dressed only in pyjamas and slippers.

 

In Bulgaria where 32 have died, authorities continued a massive relief effort in the southeastern village of Biser, submerged under the icy waters of a nearby dam that burst on Monday. Ten died in the flood, with the last two bodies recovered Friday from rubble.

 

At least 135 people have died of the cold in the Ukraine, 82 in Poland, 46 in Russia, 25 in the Czech Republic, 24 in Lithuania, and 16 in Serbia.

 

In France, the death toll increased to at least eight after Paris authorities said that two homeless men, a Pole and a Romanian, had died of cold in the capital over the past week.

 

And a nuclear reactor at the Cattenom plant shut down because of a fault, placing fresh pressure on the already strained national power grid Friday, state energy giant EDF said.

 

Meanwhile Azerbaijan set up shelters for homeless people in the capital Baku on Friday for the first time since World War II, after five died of the cold.

Source: MOLE

Europe sends in the ice-breakers

Feb 7th, 2012
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Europe sends in the ice-breakers

BELGRADE: Authorities employed explosives, ice-breakers and tractors Tuesday in the battle to overcome Europe’s big freeze, as dozens more died of hypothermia and tens of thousands remained cut off by snow.

 

Around 400 people have now died from the cold weather in Europe since the cold snap began 11 days ago and forecasters warned there would be no early let-up to some of the lowest temperatures seen in decades.

 

While there was some respite for people in Ukraine — where more than 130 deaths have been recorded — the mercury plunged overnight to minus 39.4 degrees Celsius in the Kvilda region of the Czech Republic.

 

More bodies were found either on the streets, in their cars or in their homes in Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Hungary and across the Balkans.

 

Authorities in Serbia said that 70,000 people were trapped in snow-bound villages in the south as officials declared an emergency situation.

 

In a dramatic effort to prevent two of the country’s main waterways from becoming completely blocked, officials called up army explosive experts.

 

As ice layers threatened to cause widespread floods on the Ibar, Alexander Prodanovic, the country’s top water official, said dynamite would be detonated to break up the huge blocks which had formed.

 

Authorities also hired ice-breaking ships from Hungary to ease the flow on the Danube, the main waterway for all commercial shipping in Serbia. The port authority said the Danube was navigable around Belgrade but with difficulty.

 

There was similar chaos elsewhere in the Balkans with train linking Croatia’s central coastal town of Split and the capital Zagreb derailing as a result of a snow drift. There were no reports of injuries.

 

The army, firefighters and rescue services were trying to get food and medicine to the population in several hundred villages in southern Croatia where snow up to 1.4 metres high was piled up.

 

“This is a disaster, we have been cut off from the rest of the world … Snowploughs cannot reach us, so we have to walk to get some bread and basic things,” Marko Ancic told the Slobodna Dalmacija daily after trekking some 17 kilometres from his village to reach the nearest town.

 

Large parts of eastern and southern Bosnia were also cut off by the snow and avalanches. There has been no contact since Friday with the hamlet of Zijemlje, some 30 kilometres from the town of Mostar.

 

“We don’t know what is going on there. They have not had electricity since Friday and phone lines are cut, they have no running water,” Radovan Palavestra, the mayor of Mostar, told AFP.

 

“There are elderly people who are very fragile and children including a baby of two months.”

 

A helicopter which should have flown in aid to Zijemlje was unable to take off Tuesday morning because of heavy snowfall.

 

In Romania, two heavily pregnant women had to be flown out by helicopter in the eastern area of Iasi after their villages were completely cut off. Another pregnant woman had to be ferried to hospital by tractor in the eastern Paltinis area after her ambulance became stuck in the snow.

 

Schools were shut in large parts of the country, including Bucharest, while many train services were cancelled. Around 40 per cent of roads were also closed, although flights did resume from Bucharest airport.

 

Snowstorms lashed Bulgaria, a day after eight people drowned in raging rivers and the icy waters from a broken dam that submerged a whole village to the southeast.

 

A Briton living on the Greek island of Symi drowned in a river which had been swollen by heavy rains as he tried to move his moped to safety.

 

The numbers killed by hypothermia in Poland rose to 68 after the authorities there recorded another six deaths in the last 24 hours. The majority of those who have died were homeless, many of whom had been drinking heavily.

 

The cold snap has also seen a sharp rise in the number of people being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty gas heaters.

 

According to the state weather forecaster in Ukraine, temperatures there could rise to a relatively modest minus six degrees. But the respite will be short-lived with temperatures expected to plunge to minus 30 by the weekend.

 

The UN weather service said temperatures would remain low until March.

 

“We might expect the change in the current cold wave to to start easing from the start of next week up to the end of the month,” Omar Baddour, a scientist at the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters.

 

It was a similar message from Britain where forecasters said the cold spell could last for two more weeks and heavy snow at the weekend.

 

And in France, authorities appealed to households to save power where possible as they predicted electricity use could hit a record high.

Source: MOLE

Najib urged to include defence transparency in GTP

Nov 18th, 2011
by admin.
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INTERVIEW An international expert on transparency of defence procurement sees the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) as a golden opportunity for introducing higher transparency in the defence ministry.

Given the advantages of Malaysia – a well-established military, stable and free from upheavals – it has all the reasons to be a standard setter for transparency, accountability and anti-corruption capability in the region, said Mark Pyman, Director of Defence and Security Programme, Transparency International UK (TI-UK).

“The fact that there has been a single government or administration in place for sometime should be no reason as to why this should not be a model nation in this area,” he said, referring to the coalition’s rule since 1957.

NONEPyman (right), a former chief financial officer of international oil and gas giant Shell, has been advising various countries on building the integrity of their defense and security forces since he took over the TI-UK post in 2004.

He also sits in the UK’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC), an independent office of the treasury to help the UK government deliver best value for its spending.

Pyman gave an interview to Malaysiakini yesterday during his one-week visit to Malaysia to attend a conference on reducing corruption in security and defence to be held tomorrow organised by Transparency International Malaysia Chapter (TI-M).

He lauded Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for introducing the GTP which has anti-corruption as one of the seven National Key Result Areas (NKRA), and urged him to include defence procurement in the programme.

Holding head up high

“There is no reason why defence could not be part of that programme. There is no reason why the defence ministry can’t say we would be just as good as these areas of reform. There is no reason why defence can’t lead government in this (anti-corruption) area, I think it would be eminently doable….

dap defence ministry patrol vessels 120405 defence ministry building“I really do think that a more transparent and proactive defence environment is in the country’s interest and adding it officially or unofficially alongside the transformation programme would be an excellent signal,” he said.

Although government procurement is one of the priorities under the anti-corruption NKRA, no specific attention has been given to the defence ministry which has been allocated RM2.77 billion under Budget 2012 for development expenditure, including equipment procurement and construction.

On Malaysia’s average defence spending which is close to 2.5 percent of the nation’s GDP, Pyman said the figure is considered average compared with the international standard, but the details of defense budget revealed is way below average.

He was shown a copy of the federal expenditure estimation report which has the most detailed information provided to MPs during the budget bill debate.

The part that lists out development expenditure of defense ministry simply categorises items into “construction”, “equipment”, “modification and repair of army camp/base” and “housing”, without further detail.

“That’s much less detail than you expect, you would expect pages and pages of detail.

“It will not show you the detail of secret items but it will show you a great deal of detail, for example, the asset purchases expected into the services, and you would expect it by category, and even ammunition or armoured vehicles,” he said.

military malaysia army tentera 131106 paradeNot only would the budget reveal the proposed purchased items such as ammunition, armoured vehicles or tanks, Pyman said, the original purchase price, maintenance cost and other associated cost would also be shown in a “normal” budget document.

However, according to his experience dealing with various countries, including those having more pervasive corruption than Malaysia, introducing reform in defence procurement is highly possible.

Pyman pointed out that the reluctance to publicise defence procurement is more often caused by historical practice which turns into a “bad habit”, instead of corruption or political factors.

“It becomes a bad habit to classify things as secret and this isn’t to do with corruption. I think this is a bureaucratic instinct because it’s easier to administer things if they are secret.”

Apart from public anger or pressure from civil society like what happened in Sweden, Croatia and Columbia, changes in some countries were initiated by those within the system such as a reformist defense minister, senior military officials annoyed by malfunction or inferior equipment, or middle-level officials who want to see a competent military, said Pyman.

Citing Ukraine, a country which has a major corruption problem, as an example, Pyman revealed that the majority of its security forces supported reform within the organisation and put in place an anti-corruption training programme that had trained hundreds of senior officials who had initiated changes in their respective departments.

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