SOON YOU'LL NEED A DEGREE TO CLEAN TOILETS

I've oftentimes dubbed many of the private universities and university colleges in Malaysia as 'graduate factories' cranking out degree holders of all kinds by the score, only for many of them to find themselves unemployable once they apply for jobs.

Interestingly enough, this is a problem also in countries like Australia and other Anglo Saxon countries which have embraced neo-liberal economic policies adopted since the time of Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. and Ronald Reagan in the U.S., as well also in some Third World countries. I have not heard of such reports coming from continental Western or Eastern European countries, from Japan, North Korea, South Korea or Cuba.

In his You Tube video entitled "University Education Is Losing Its Value" You Tuber who goes by the name Daily Rant Australia describes a very similar situation amongst Australia's universities after Australia implemented neo-liberal policies and the once sacred universities fell from grace and were debased by purely commercial profit motives, in competition for students whose fees paid enabled them to survive, whilst they race to the bottom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yijnHjA4JbY

It's also happening in the "almighty" United States of America, according to this almost two hour long video - College SCAM EXPOSED: Declining by Degrees - Higher Education at Risk Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu60bXXlL3w

So today one needs a degree to get a job which any secondary school leaver with O Levels or what was called a Senior Cambridge in Malaysia or Singapore could get  in the 1960s and then move up the ranks as one gains experience.

And, if one needs some specialised training, such as to be a teacher, a nurse, in accounting, a technical skill, a trade, one could either undergo a formal study programme whilst on the job leading to a certificate, a diploma or license to do a skilled job or through evening or correspondence courses.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, after successfully completing Form 5, teachers in Malaysian schools would have to attend a teachers training college and earn a certificate or a diploma before they could teach and Kirby trained teachers were highly regarded back then and the standard of pre-independence Malaya's and later Malaysia's school education was high and teachers well respected by students and society.

Kirby College was established in 1951 in a suburb of Liverpool, UK by the government of pre-independence Malaya to train Malaya's school teachers in a two year programme. The Kirby Project ended in 1962.

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/education/2014/03/23/down-kirkbys-memory-lane/

Two of my aunts and an uncle were teachers and none had degrees, yet both aunts rose to become principal of their respective schools, whilst the uncle rose to become a much feared, yet well respected discipline master in his school in Ipoh.

Besides teaching, other school leavers found jobs in various fields and rose up the ranks. For example, after Form 5 in 1966, one of my cousins got a job with the printing firm Charles Grenier and intended to take a vocational course in printing but another opportunity knocked and he moved on to a job in aircraft maintenance and servicing with Malaysia Air Charter based at the old Subang Airport which flew small aircraft, then moved on to join the Qantas aircraft maintenance facility which maintained large civil airliners, including the Boeing 707. Some of his schoolmates joined too and after having learned on the job and earned their tickets and licenses in various aspects of airframe and engine maintenance, have now moved up the ranks to more senior positions with airlines in Malaysia and overseas. Unfortunately, that cousin passed away in a drowning accident whilst fishing at the young age of 25, which also cut short his career.

Back in 2010, I interviewed several of my St. Michael's Institution alumni who after having successfully completed their Form 5, went on to get jobs as aircraft technicians with what was then called Malaysia - Singapore Airlines and had risen up the ranks in Singapore Airlines today.

In 1972, one of my classmates in Upper 6 Form decided applied to become a pilot with Malaysia Singapore airlines instead of sit for his Higher School Certificate and from what I have heard, he rose to become a Captain of a Boeing 747 with Singapore Airlines before he left to go into business.

In 1968, my Singapore-born cousin who had completed his Senior Cambridge in Singapore, was conscripted into Singapore's military National Service and whilst there, decided instead to enlist for seven years with the naval arm of the Singapore Armed Forces, where he serviced and maintained marine diesel engines, earning certifications and licenses along the way and after completing his seven year term, he found work with several well regarded diesel engine suppliers, firstly as a service engineer and later in engine marketing and is now happily retired, with a splendid home with a swimming pool in Singapore.

Many veteran journalists entered the profession armed with a Senior Cambridge or its successor a Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM since 1970) and moved up the ranks to become editors, whilst some even did not a Senior Cambridge or SPM but learned on the job and rose in the ranks.

Many accountants back then undertook certificate and diploma course in accounting whilst on the job, finally ending up with professional qualifications in accounting.

Those aspiring to be secretaries undertook secretarial course, either on the job or at a college.

Of course, those who aspired to become professionals such as doctors, engineers, architects, economists, physicists, biologists, chemists and so forth had to undertake degree courses at universities and qualify.

After I graduated with a degree in electronics engineering in 1979, I found a job as a process engineer with National Semiconductor in the Senawang Industrial Estate about three months after I returned to Malaysia, so it has always puzzled me as to why today's graduates in IT and other disciplines need to undergo additional post-graduation industry training before they are employable. I later moved on into telecommunications and then into computer servicing, which was one of the longest phases of my career. I also liked writing, so at 40, I joined The Star where I wrote articles on information and communications technology and now in semi-retirement I write about business and economic developments in China, India and Malaysia, as well as the Belt and Road initiative for an online publication called Enterprise TV - 

However today, one needs a degree to get into many jobs, which don't really need degrees and many employers find today's graduates lacking in various ways, so need retraining to be more relevant to the industry they are employed in.

I'm quite sure that if this trend continues, even toilet cleaners will require a fancy sounding degree such as "Bachelor of Science in Public Hygiene Facilities Management" to get the job. Hopefully the graduate factories won't pick up on this idea.

Education used to be sacrosanct, even when governments made education up to university free or very affordable for all but after neo-liberalism kicked in around the late 1970s and 1980s, education has become debased as a commercialised, profit-oriented, money making business.

CHARLES F. MOREIRA

http://aidmap227.blogspot.my/

WELL SAID DR. JEYAKUMAR!

I am glad that Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) Member of Parliament for Sungai Siput, Dr. Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, has said what I have been saying for some years now about the lack of Malaysia's opposition pact's alternative policies which can convince especially rural and lower income voters to switch their vote from the incumbent Barisan Nasional (National Front) to the opposition Pakatan Harapan (Pact of Hope).

Many amongst the opposition still believe they can win by highlighting the wrongs of the incumbent ruling coalition, much like advertisers who advertise their products by highlighting the deficiencies in their competitors' products instead of the strengths and superiority of their own.  

I went up to Sungai Siput during the 1999 general elections to help Dr. Jeyakumar with his campaigning against the incumbent Tun Samy Vellu of the BN and even though Dr. Jeyakumar lost, however he managed to significantly reduce Samy Vellu's majority. In 2004, Samy Vellu beat Dr. Jeyakumar again with a bigger majority but in 2008, Dr. Jeyakumar  beat Samy Vellu to win Sungai Siput and he won again in 2013.

Dr. Jeyakumar, a medical doctor, has always had a concern for the interest of the poor, the marginalised, the labourers and the oppressed and has been active in helping them through community NGOs, pro-bono assistance to the poor and more recently in Parliament and whilst I am not a PSM member nor do I agree with some of its policies but I applaud Dr. Jeyakumar's efforts and work as a man of the people.

In 2012, I attended a protest outside the Ritz Carlton Hotel organised by the PSM against the Free Trade Agreement being negotiated between Malaysian and other governments' representatives inside, and I noticed the absence of representatives from Pakatan Rakyat parties and asked Dr. Jeyakumar why this was so and he said that most Pakatan Rakyat politicians and supporters are neo-liberals who do not oppose such FTA. He then added that more opposition to the FTA comes from BN supporters, despite being "for the wrong reasons". There were representatives from one of the labour unions at the protest against the FTA.

I had seen this very clearly in the statements by opposition politicians and in the comments by pro-opposition people to articles online,as well as in face-to-face conversation over tea; some of which are overtly racist and vulgar especially against the Malays who are the majority and comprise the largest vote base in Malaysia.

Winning elections is a numbers game and Dr. Jeyakumar is right in that whilst the rural and urban lower income voters are just as opposed to issues such as corruption, nepotism and so forth as their economically comfortable urban middle-class counterparts, however their bigger concerns are over their economic survival if their rights and protections are taken away by the opposition if it wins the elections and becomes the Federal Government.

This shows that he has his ear, mind, heart and soul on the ground amongst poor and disadvantaged, unlike the relatively privileged educated, urban middle class elite who are economically secure and comfortable enough to be able to spend their leisure hours sitting on their bums behind their computer screens, on their bums in tea shops or bars, their faces buried in  smartphone screens engaged in WhatsApp group chats, posts on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram or other social media sites - endlessly talking about macro issues such as 1MDB, Altantuya, Scorpene submarines, the cancellation of the Better Beer Festival in Kuala Lumpur, the allegedly high cost of the MRT, making racist comments insulting others' religions and so forth, whilst ignoring local issues on the ground.

Over time, these privileged urban, middle-class types, with too much time on their hands spend hours in endless discussion and debate on social media and in tea shops; eventually began to believe that the opinion of those few within their respective echo chambers are in tune with the many in the wider world beyond. To put it more bluntly, they had begun to eat their own dog food, as the saying goes.

So how can these politicians and opposition supporters expect the opposition to defeat the BN and win the Federal Government when they want to cut civil service jobs, cut subsidies and whatever support to the rural folk and so forth which threaten their economic survival; instead of proposing better alternative policies which will protect these people's livelihoods whilst at the same time being more inclusive of Indian, Chinese and other minority Malaysian ethnicities.

The problem with these sit on bum types is that they see the world as it should be in their minds, whilst people like Dr. Jeyakumar see the world as it actually is and how such realities on the ground determine election outcomes.

We have already seen this in the election of Donald Trump as US president and in the rise of populist far-right parties in Europe and yet these sit on bum urban elite types are blind to the reasons for all this and carry on, business as usual in their respective echo chambers, oblivious to the world beyond.

If the opposition loses the next general elections, despite growing concerns over rising cost of living amongst rural and urban lower income voters, they only have themselves to blame.

The opposition has woken up to this, especially after the survey findings by PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli's crowd-funded INVOKE organisation that most of those surveyed were primarily concerned over matters of economic survival but too late to change course so close to the next general elections. (Though Dr. Jeyakumar thinks it's not too late - well, we'll see for sure at the next GE)

Well, I knew that long before this survey results and I had been saying so in my posts, in comments to articles and in WhatsApp groups (some of which I have since exited from)  but these dumb Pakatoons in their echo chambers apparently did not believe. Well too bad for them.

And mind you, this comes from me who is not pro-BN but I'm sure some dumb Pakatoons who cannot see beyond their smartphone screens, cups of tea or mugs of beer will accuse me of being a "bought and paid for BN stooge", which I certainly am not. I'm still basically pro-opposition but the ignorance, stupidity and short-sightedness of these dumb Pakatoons has put me off them.

Also close to four million youth who became eligible to vote since 2013 have not registered to vote and I understand from a young anti-establishment political activist that many of his young cohorts are fed up with party politics, with all the infighting and fragmentation going on within political parties, so have chosen instead to focus their political activities through NGO work. Whilst I no longer am young like them but old enough to be their father, however I find myself concurring with them about the state of Malaysia's currently puerile and dysfunctional party politics.  

Like Dr. Jayakumar, I try and see opinions in the real world on the ground, not the echo chambers of the urban, middle-class elite, in which the proverbial converted preach to each other.

Free Malaysia Today's article on Dr. Jeyakumar follows below.

CHARLES F. MOREIRA

freemalaysiatoday.com

Jeyakumar: PH risk losing vote of Malays anxious over rights

Minderjeet Kaur 4 minutes

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PETALING JAYA: Sungai Siput MP Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj has cautioned the opposition that it stands to lose out on Malay rural support in the next general election (GE14) unless it addresses the community’s fears about losing its rights.

The PSM leader said there was anxiety among rural Malays that Pakatan Harapan (PH) would be soft on asserting their economic rights if the opposition pact took over the federal government.

He said the coalition should give ample focus on dealing with such concerns, instead of putting more weight on issues related to 1MDB and other corruption allegations against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).

“Corruption and 1MDB are important issues, but aside from talking about those issues, Pakatan should also address the fears of the rural Malays when it comes to their future.

“Umno has a well-defined support system of incentives and subsidies for the Malay poor, so much so that the party is seen as their protector,” Jeyakumar told FMT.

He added that PH has not done enough to allay misgivings about this support system being taken away if the opposition came to power.

Jeyakumar said it was difficult to counter BN’s allegations against PH.

He also cited Prime Minister Najib Razak telling civil servants earlier this week to imagine their future if the opposition came to power. Some opposition members have alleged in the past that the 1.6 million-strong civil service was bloated and should be reduced.

Jeyakumar said many rural and urban poor Malays felt that although Umno might be corrupt, rejecting the party could mean that they would lose their incentives and subsidies.

“They are aware that the government is corrupt and things are not quite right.

“But on the issue of affirmative action, people in Pakatan have given the impression that they are for the free market, where the market would determine the issues.

“Such fears will help Umno retain rural Malay votes,” he said.

PH needs policy statement

Jeyakumar said subsidies implemented by the Umno-led government included RM300 million worth of free fertiliser distributed to paddy farmers, a RM300 monthly payment to small-scale fishermen and benefits for rubber smallholders where the government tops up the rubber price if it drops below RM2.20 per kg of “cup lump”, that is latex collected in tapping cups.

He said it was not too late for PH to come up with a policy statement to address the social and economic programmes targeted at the Malay poor, over and above existing incentives and subsidies, as the Malays also faced a lot of problems.

He cited the example of how rubber smallholders have complained of receiving low-grade rubber seeds from Bumiputera contractors, that resulted in lesser earnings.

“The smallholders feel cheated. They wait for seven years for the tree to grow just to have a lower yield of rubber. This matter needs to be looked into.”

He also said that although fishermen received RM300 on a monthly basis, the government was also issuing licences to foreign boats to fish in Malaysian waters, causing locals to suffer from a lesser catch.

“These are the kinds of issues Pakatan should look at. We need to have measures to overcome these problems,” he said.

“Consult those on the ground. It will convince people that we are aware of their issues. These issues can also be added into the manifesto,” he said.

IRKUT'S MC-21 MAKES IT'S MAIDEN FLIGHT ON 28 MAY 2017, FINALLY

With it's initial design having begun in 2006, Russia's Irkut MC 21 civil airliner made its maiden flight in the city of Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia 11 years later on 28 May 2017.

Click here - MC21 rollout and maiden flight

The MC 21 (MS 21 in the Latin alphabet), is expected to enter commercial service in 2019, when it is expected to provide stiff competition not only to the Boeing 737 (USA) and the Airbus 320 (European Union). which have enjoyed a global duopoly until now, but also newer rivals such as the COMAC C919 (China), the Embraer E190-E2 (Brazil), the Mitsubishi MRJ 90 regional jet (Japan), the TRJ 328 and TRJ 628 regional jets (Turkey) and others, all of which claim significantly improved fuel efficiency and significantly lower operational costs. Irkut claims that the MC-21's fifth-generation turbofan engines consume 20% less fuel. 

The above compilation of videos about the MC 21 on my You Tube channel is courtesy of AINtv, Russia Today, United Aircraft Corporation, Vesti and Sputnik, with the soundtrack - the classic and rock versions of the Russian National Anthem - courtesy of the Ruska You Tube channel. A big spaciba! (thanks) to you all.

THE MALAYSIAN CONNECTION

On 7 June 2010, Russia's Itar-TASS reported that a Malaysian company, Crecom Burj Resources (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crecom Burj Berhad), signed a contract worth US$5 million (about RM16.65 billion at the time) with Irkut to purchase 50 units of the MC-21 (25 MC-21 200 and 25 MC-21 300 variants) starting from 2016, making Crecom Burj Resources Irkut's first international customer for the MC-21.  The aircraft can be fitted with between 130 to 211 seats depending on variant and seating configuration, and the aircraft has a range of between 5,500 and 6,000 kilometres. The plane which made the maiden flight is an MC-21 300 variant, whilst MC-21 200 which is smaller and the MC-21 400 are in the pipeline.

Crecom Burj expected the MC-21 would enter commercial service in 2014. The company intended to lease the planes to South East Asia airlines, from which it had received some interest. Crecom Burj Resources also signed a memorandum of agreement with IBH Investment Bank Ltd, which will act as lead arranger for funding the aircraft’s purchase.

However, Malaysia Business Directory reported that the holding company Crecom Burj Berhad was winding up as of 24 December 2015.

https://www.mysbusiness.com/company/Crecom-Burj-Berhad

Meanwhile, Irkut reported that it had received 175 orders for the MC-21 at time of its inaugural flight. Fifth of these orders are said to be from Russia's national airline Aeroflot.

Besides the MC-21, China's COMAC C919 which made its maiden flight three weeks earlier is in the same league as the MC-21 and together promise to be a significant challenge to the Boeing 737 and the Airbus 320 in the growing Asia-Pacific air travel market.

Boeing expects worldwide demand for 35,280 new civil airliners between 2013 and 2032, of which 12,820 or over one third, will be in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, not to miss out on the party, India's government has revived its SARAS civil airplane programme and a 19 seat SARAS prototype is expected to make its maiden flight this month. The SARAS is expected to pave the way for India's aerospace industry to produce larger 70-seat aircraft, intended primarily to serve India' domestic air travel market, especially the small airports across this vast and populous country.

These initiatives to develop their own civil aircraft are bids by China, Russia and India to wean themselves from reliance on imported western technology.

The 21st Century has been described as the Eurasian Century and and it looks like the world is heading in that direction. 

Charles

http://aidmap227.blogspot.my/

CUBA SUBMITS RESOLUTION TO END OVER 50 YEARS OF FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC EMBARGO TO U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON 26TH OCTOBER 2016

CUBA SUBMITS RESOLUTION TO END OVER 50 YEARS OF FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC EMBARGO TO U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON 26TH OCTOBER 2016

By Charles F. Moreira

KUALA LUMPUR 27 Sep 2016: The Republic of Cuba submitted a resolution entitled “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States of America Against Cuba” before the United Nations General Assembly on 26th of October, 2016.

This is the 25th consecutive time Cuba has submitted such resolution before the U.N. General Assembly and most often, the vast majority of U.N. General Assembly member countries, including Malaysia have voted in support of the resolutions, with the only exceptions being the United States of America and Israel voting against.

When Cuba submitted a similar resolution last year it was supported by 191 member countries, with only the United States and Israel against.

However, news agency Reuters reports that the United States for the very first time abstained in its vote on 26 October 2016 and so did Israel.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-un-idUSKCN12Q259

Whilst U.N. General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, hopefully, this should be an encouraging development in the process of normalisation of U.S. - Cuba relations, since the United States imposed this embargo against Cuba on 19th October 1960, two years after the victory of the Cuban Revolution which deposed the dictatorial, pro-U.S. Batista regime and nationalised U.S.-owned oil refineries, which is Cuba's right as a sovereign nation.

This comes after the United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations on 20 July 2015 and after U.S. President Barack Obama's official visit to Cuba where on 22nd March 2016 Obama acknowledged that this embargo is obsolete, harms rather than helps the Cuban people and called upon the U.S. Congress to end this embargo.

No real change yet

However, despite all that rhetoric, this economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba continues with continued debilitating effects to Cuba's economy, despite several minor amendments to regulations related to this embargo in 2015 and 2016.

Also, despite what he said in his speech in Cuba, on 11th of September 2015, President Obama again renewed sanctions against Cuba under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which constitutes the laws and regulations that make up the embargo, alleging foreign policy interests.

At a media presentation on the 27th of September 2016, Her Excellency Ibete Fernandez Hernandez, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to Malaysia said that the U.S. continues to ban exports to Cuba of products and equipment important to key sectors of the Cuban economy, whilst at the same time, the continuation of the embargo prevents Cuba from freely exporting her products and services to the U.S. and cannot have direct banking relations with the U.S. Also, except of U.S. investments in Cuba's telecommunications sector, Cuba cannot receive U.S. investments in other sectors of her economy.

Cuban Ambassador Her Excellency Ibete Fernandez Hernandez briefs Malaysian journalists on U.S. - Cuba relations and the hardships Cuba faces due to the U.S. imposed embargo

Also, Cuba is banned from opening corresponding accounts in U.S. banks and has been unable to make either cash deposits or payments in U.S. dollars in third countries and this hampers trade, since most international payments for goods and services are denominated in U.S. dollars.

Up until the conclusion of the writing of the resolution which was submitted to the U.N. General Assembly, the United States' announced authorisation of Cuba's use of U.S. dollars in international transactions has not materialised, nor the possibility for U.S. banks to provide loans to Cuban importers of authorised U.S. products. Furthermore, finnacial institutions and U.S. suppliers of such products continue to fear being fined for having transactions with Cuba.

Stiff penalties

Worse still, the risk of heavy fines by the U.S. has deterred many non-U.S. banks opening accounts for Cuban companies and handling trade-related financial transactions with Cuba, even in non-U.S. currencies.

The list is long, so only some examples of penalties, blocked or refused transactions since 17th December 2014 are listed below:-

On 6 August 2016, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) levied a fine of U.S.$ 271,815 on U.S. maritime insurance company - Navigators Insurance Company for violating the embargo by paying U.S.$21,736 in interest for a Cuban national.

On 18 and 23 September 2015, an Australian bank refused to make two transfers in Australian dollars to the Cubatur travel agency for for payment of services for a group of 19 travelling to Cuba.

In November 2015, the U.S.-based PayPal online financial payments company blocked the account of German company Proticket, used by its customers to pay for tickets for the musical comedy Soy Cubano and a concert by Cuban singer Addys Mercedes on grounds that it violated the U.S. embargo. Proticket sued PayPal and on 19 April 2016 a court in Dormund, Germany ruled against PayPal, forcing it to unblock Proticket's account, failing which PayPal had to pay Proticket 250,000 euros compensation.

On 12 February 2016 a branch of Standard Chartered Bank in Uganda informed Cuban doctors working at Mbarara University that they had until 15th February to withdraw their money from their accounts with the bank, since as Cubans theye were not allowed to have accounts with the bank. The doctors tried to open an account with the British Barclays Bank but after doing so were informed that they could not make transactions to or from Cuba.

On 18 March 2016, it became known that Japanese bank Mitsui Sumitomo SMBC Trust refused a funds transfer by a Japanese citizen to pay for a tourist card fom the Cuban consulate in Japan.

On 3 May 2016, it became known that funds collected by the Asociacion de Cubanos in the United Kingdom had been retained by the bank of U.S. company Eventbrite because it had sold tickets for a classic music concert organised by the Association whose funds would go towards the purchase and donation of a piano for the Amadeo Roldan Music Conservatory in Cuba.

Cuba is developing her petroleum industry and on 25 February 2016, OFAC fined CGG Services S. A. of France U.S.$614,250 for having supplied spare parts and equipment originating from the U.S. for gas and oil exploration to ships operating in Cuban territorial waters. Furthermore, the Venezuelan subsidiary of CGG Services S.A. had carried out five transactions related the processing of information for seismic research conducted by a Cuban entity in Cuba's Exclusive Economic Zone.

Free medical care for all

As a socialist country, Cuba provides free medical care for all her citizens and this care is said to be the best in Latin America and Cuba is also noted for her internationally respected biotechnology and biomedical industries.

As a result of this embargo, Cuba's public health services have been unable to obtain from the U.S. the required medicines, reagents, spar parts for diagnostic and treatment equipment, medical instruments and supplies necessary for these services to function.

For example in February 2016, the U.S. company General Electric would not sell medical equipment for the study of the peripheral nervous system to Cuba, citing the embargo

Also, the Farmacuba company requested four U.S. suppliers of protection means and chemical and biotechnological products to manufacture medicines in Cuba and amongst the four, the multi-national company Sigma-Andrich refused to entertain the request due to complications arising from this embargo.

This has forced Cuba to source these through intermediaries from further afield which results in higher costs.

Altogether, this since 1960, this embargo has cost Cuba's public health services over U.S.$2.6 billion and over U.S.$82.7 million over the 2014 - 2015 period, an increase of about U.S.$5 million over the 2013 - 2014 period.

Poaching talent as a weapon

Besides these high costs, since 2006, the United States has been waging an aggressive campaign through the “Parole for Cuban Medical Professionals” programme aimed at inciting Cuban medical professionals working at an international mission outside Cuba to defect. Not only does resulted in a brain drain which adversely affects Cuba's medical services but also denies patients in these thir countries from benefiting from their services, and this still goes on despite supposedly improved bi-lateral relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

Biotechnology

In biotechnology, the National Products Centre which comes under the National Centre for Scientific Research was unable to two chromatographs by U.S. company Agilent used for quality control of products being researched and developed at the Centre.

AICA Laboratories Enterprise faced difficulties obtaining spar parts and technical assistance to repair a machine from Bosch Pharmaceuticals Company in the U.S. used fo rthe production of carpules - i.e. injectable vials with an open bottom used in odontology (dentistry and craniofacial research) or for insulin doses. This has had financial repercussions worth close to U.S.$1.76 million.

Impact on food, education and national culture

Repercussion so fthis embargo has cost Cuba's food production sector U.S.$605.7 million in the 2014 - 2015 period due to increase price of seeds, fertiliser, spare parts for agricultural equipment and other consumables due to Cuba having to acquire these items through intermediaries in third countries. In some cases, the longer lead times between order placed and fulfilment has resulted in substantial repercussions on Cuba's food production.

Free education is a right of Cuba's citizens and with not being able to acquire essential educational equipment from the U.S., Cuba has had to sources these from further afield, resulting in losses for Cuba's Minsitry of Education of close to U.S.$ 1.25 million in 2014 - 2015.

The difficulty in obtaining the required equipment for professional sports has adversely impacted Cuba's sports sector and the embargo has cost Cuba's culture sector close to U.S.$29.5 million in the 2014 - 2015 period.

A major aspect of the embargo which seriously affects Cuba's foreign trade is the prohibition of ships from docking at U.S. ports within 180 days of having docked at a Cuban port.

This has been a major deterrent to ships docking in Cuba to deliver or take on cargo, since it is not cost effective for a to carry only one set of cargo types for Cuba, since they will also carry cargo for other destinations in the region, including the United States.

This forces Cuba to resort on trans-shipment through neighbouring countries, which introduces delays and adds to cost.

Since 1960, the embargo has cost Cuba the equivalent of close to U.S.$125.9 trillion and between March 2015 and March 2016, it has cost Cuba U.S.$4.68 million.

Opposition to the embargo

A hopeful sign for Cuba is growing pressure from U.S. corporations, industry associations, chambers of commerce, businessmen of Cuban origin in the United States, respective state governments, groups of legislators, religious leaders, non-governmental bodies, Republican and Democrat politicians  and others, for the U.S. to end its embargo against Cuba.

According to polls of U.S. society conducted by CBS News, AP-GfK, the PEW Research Centre, the Engage Cuba lobbying group, the Atlantic Council think-tank and others, on average 70% of U.S. citizens support the lifting of the embargo against Cuba, with the majority of Democrats supporting President Obama's policy towards Cuba.

Whilst the ending of this embargo and its associated legislation such as the Torricelli Act, the Helms-Burton Act, the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 which prevents U.S. citizens from travelling to Cuba as tourists and the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 which the financing for sales of U.S. agricultural products to Cuba and these can only be repealed by Congress.

Whilst the U.S. President cannot repeal these acts, he however has the executive power to modify the implementation of aspects of the embargo against Cuba, to allow Cuban banks, companies and so forth to open accounts with U.S. banks; end the financial persecution of Cuba; authorise exports of U.S. products to Cuban companies; permit the import into the U.S. of Cuban products and services such as tobacco, rum, biotechnology products, as well as products manufactured in third countries which contain raw materials from Cuba such as nickle or sugar; authorise U.S. companies to invest in Cuba; authorise U.S. citizens to to receive medical treatment in Cuba and end the 180 days prohibition of ships which have docked in Cuba from docking in the U.S.

Despite the promises to mitigate the effects of the embargo in his speeches, President Obama has done very little in this regard and Cuba believes that he can do more.

However, with Obama coming close to the end of his two terms as President very soon, Ambassador Ibete believes that if Hillary Clinton is elected the next President, she will continue with Obama's legacy, though quite probably at a slower pace.

On the other hand, Ambassador Ibete is less certain of Donald Trump's policy towards Cuba should he be elected as president, since during his election campaigning, Trump's has flip-flopped between saying that he will reconcile relations with Cuba and at other times saying that he break relations.

In a post on Twitter dated 28 November 2016, President-elect Donald Trump wrote, "If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate the deal.

During his election campaign, Trump said he planned to reverse Obama's executive orders on Cuba. These include allowing direct flights between the two countries and lifting limits on the amount of cigars and rum that American travellers can bring back to the U.S. for personal consumption, unless the Cuban government grants more political freedom to Cuba's people, including allowing them religious and political freedom and the freeing of political prisoners.

As President, Trump could order the State Department to place Cuba back on the list of "state sponsors of terrorism" and break off diplomatic relations with Cuba but such measures could well come against objections from industries which have already begun to take advantage of the business and trade opportunities with Cuba, such as the restoration of direct flights between the US and Cuba.

According to John Kavulich, the president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, the Trump administration could well face opposition, including lawsuits from the airline industry if Trump were to do what he threatens, since airlines have already made substantial financial investments based upon the new regulations from the Obama administration.

For instance, American Airlines and JetBlue have already begun flights between the U.S. and Cuba, so stand to lose such business.

Also, tour and travel companies such as Airbnb, Carnival Cruise Line, and Starwood Hotels have also begun to expand into Cuba, hoping to take advantage of what promises to eventually become a booming new tourist destination. Trump could also come up against objections to such reversal from fellow Republicans in the Congress.

So it's left to be seen if a President Trump will actually implement such measures which would amount to bullying and a continuation of American hegemonic attempts to undermine Cuba sovereignty and interfere in Cuba's internal affairs.

However, if Trump indeed carries out its threats, Cuba will continue to have the support of the freedom and peace loving people and countries of the world, who have helped Cuba to survive the difficulties imposed upon her during the 50 or so years of this cruel and unjust embargo, whilst U.S. imperialism and hegemony will continue to be condemned.

A legacy of the Cold War

The embargo against Cuba is a legacy of the Cold War and unlike heavily armed Russia, China and North Korea today, as well as the various terrorist groups, Cuba in no way threatens the existence of the United States.

It's known that the continuation of this embargo is very much influenced by pressure from Cubans loyal to the deposed dictator Batista who fled Cuba to the U.S. and they constitute a considerable electoral vote base which U.S. politicians feel they must please, however it is also known that more amongst the descendants of these exiles favour ending the embargo and reconcilliation between the U.S. and Cuba.

So what does the U.S. have to fear from normalising relations with Cuba, unless it fears that with Cuba's determination to continue along its socialist path and its fierce sense of national independence and sovereignty; if the embargo is lifted, one wonders wther the U.S. fears that Cuba's resultant progress and prosperity will serve as an inspiration to other Latin American countries resulting in the U.S. losing its geo-strategic dominance of the people's of this sub-continent south of the United States, many of whom would like to get the Yanquis of their backs.

Malaysia maintains close relations with Cuba and many Malaysian students have studied or are studying in Cuba.

CHARLES F MOREIRA

FAILURES OF THE WESTERN LEFT

It increasingly looks like Donald Trump is likely to be the next U.S. President and I believe so because he at least promises to address the concerns of the American working class, albeit mostly white members of the American working class who are concerned with their economic survival, the loss of decent MANUFACTURING jobs to low wage countries and so forth.

These issues are what the left in the U.S. would have traditionally taken up but now they seem impotent as to what they can or have done in this regard, thus leave a vacuum for the populist right to fill.

Sure, they have organised protests against Trump, have called him "Hitler", "fascist", "racist" and so forth but without becoming a pole of resistance to austerity measures, the loss of jobs, unemployment, housing foreclosures and so forth, how can they expect to be taken seriously by the voters.

Whilst Andre Vitchek's article "Failures of the Western Left" below speaks about something else - i.e. the Western Left's tendency to demonise any Third World or foreign leader who stands against the western imperialist onslaught and its neo-liberal, warmongering Neo-Conservative agenda, just because these leaders are mostly not leftists, still he shows up the Western Left (most of whom are some shade of Trotskyite or Anarchist) for objectively serving as a left face of western imperialism.

A true leftist would support President Assad of Syria in his fight against Daesh/ISIS because he is objectively opposing western imperialist interference in his country and their attempts to destabilise his country. even though Assad is no leftist and may even be anti-left.

What these fake leftists are really engaged in is identity politics - i.e. they label themselves as "left" and Assad as "right", so they oppose Assad, rather than support what he is doing to combat western-supported DAESH/ISIS.

Andre Vitcheck's article follows below.

Charles



Failures of the Western Left

By Andre Vltchek

September 30, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - It is tough to fight any real war. And it takes true guts, discipline and determination to win it.

For years and decades, the so-called ‘left’ in the West has been moderately critical of North American (and sometimes even of European) imperialism and neo-colonialism. But whenever some individual or country rose up and began openly challenging the Empire, most of the Western left-wing intellectuals simply closed their eyes, and refused to offer their full, unconditional support to those who were putting their lives (and often even the existence of their countries) on the line.

I will never forget all those derogatory punches directed at Hugo Chavez, punches coming from members of the ‘anti-Communist left’, after he dared to insult George W. Bush at the United Nations in 2006, calling him a “devil” and choking, theatrically, from the sulfur that was still ‘hanging in the air’ after the US President’s appearance at the General Assembly.

I will not be dropping names here, but readers would be surprised if they knew how many of those iconic leaders of the US left described Chavez and his speech as ‘impolite’, ‘counter-productive’, and even ‘insulting’.

Tens of millions of people have died because of Western imperialism, after WWII. Under the horrid leadership of George W Bush, Afghanistan and Iraq have been reduced to ruins… But one has to remain ‘polite’, ‘objective’ and cool headed?

Well, that is not how real revolutions have been ignited. This is not how the successful anti-colonialist wars are fought. When the real battle begins, ‘politeness’ is actually mostly unacceptable, simply because the oppressed masses are endlessly pissed off, and they want their feelings to be registered and expressed by the leaders. Even the search for ‘objectivity’ is often out of place, when still fragile revolutions have to face the entire monumental hostile propaganda of the regime – of the Empire.

But the question is: do most of the Western leftists really support revolutions and anti-colonialist struggles of the oppressed world?

I believe they don’t. And this is clearly visible from reading most of the so-called alternative media in both North America and Europe.

Whoever stands up, whoever leads his nation into battle against the Western global dictatorship, is almost immediately defined as a demagogue. He or she is most likely christened ‘undemocratic’, and not just by the mass and ‘liberal’ media, but also on the pages of the so-called ‘alternative’ and ‘progressive’ Western press. Not all, but some, and frankly: most of it!

Chavez actually received very little support from Western ‘left-wing’ intellectuals. And now when Venezuela is bleeding, the ‘Bolivarian Republic’ can only count on a handful of revolutionary Latin American nations, as well as on China, Iran and Russia; definitely not on the robust, organized and militant solidarity from Western countries.

Cuba received even less support than Venezuela. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, no attempt was actually made by Western leftists to bail the heroic nation out. It was China, in the end, which ran to its rescue and saved Cuban socialism. (When I wrote about it, I got hundreds of Western leftists at my throat, and in the end it took Fidel to confirm, in his ‘Reflections’, what I was saying, to get them off my back). Then, when the Obama administration began making dangerous advances on Havana, almost everyone in the West began screwing those cynical grimaces: ‘you see; now everything will collapse! They will buy Cuba!’ They didn’t. I travelled to the beloved green island, and it was so clear from the first moment there, that the ‘revolution is not for sale’. But you will not read it often in the Western ‘progressive’ media.

***

It is of course not just Latin America that is ‘disliked’ by the progressives in the West. Actually, Latin America is still at least getting some nominal support there.

China and Russia, two powerful nations, which are now standing openly against Western imperialism, are despised by virtually all ‘liberals’ and by most of the Western ‘left’. In those circles, there is total ignorance about the Chinese type of democracy, about its ancient culture, and about it’s complex but extremely successful form of Communism (or calls it ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’). Like parrots, the Western leftists repeat ‘liberal’ propaganda that ‘China is being capitalist’, or that it is being ruled by ‘state capitalism’. The internationalism of Chinese foreign policy is constantly played down, even mocked.

The hostility of the Western ‘left’ towards China has disgusted many Chinese leaders and intellectuals. I only realized the extent of this revulsion, when I spoke, last year, at the First World Cultural Forum in Beijing, and mingled with the thinkers at the China Academy of Social Sciences, the right (intellectual) arm of the government and the Party.

China can count on its allies in Russia, Latin America, Africa and elsewhere, but definitely not in the West.

It is pointless to even mention Russia or South Africa.

Russia, ‘the victim’ during the horrid Yeltsin years was ‘embraced’ by the Western left. Russia the warrior, Russia the adversary to Western imperialism, is, once again, loathed.

It appears that the ‘progressives’ in the United States and Europe really prefer ‘victims’. They can, somehow, feel pity and even write a few lines about the ‘suffering of defenseless women and children’ in the countries that the West is plundering and raping. That does not extend to all countries that are being brutalized, but at least to some…

What they don’t like at all, are strong men and women that have decided to fight: to defend their rights, to face the Empire.

The Syrian government is hated. The North Korean government is despised. The President of the Philippines is judged by Western liberal media measures: as a vulgar freak who is killing thousands of ‘innocent’ drug pushers and consumers (definitely not as a possibly new Sukarno who is willing to send the entire West to hell).

Whatever the Western ‘left’ thinks about North Korea and its government (and in fact, I think, it cannot really think much, as it is fully ignorant about it), the main reason why the DPRK is hated so much by the West regime, is because it, together with Cuba, basically liberated Africa. It fought for the freedom of Angola and Namibia, it flew Egyptian MIGs against Israel, it struggled in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as well as in many other countries, and it sent aid, teachers and doctors to the entire continent devastated by the Western colonialist barbarity.

Much good it received in return! At best, indifference, at worse, total spite!

***

Some say that the Western ‘left’ doesn’t want to take power, anymore. It lost all of its important battles. It became toothless, impotent, and angry about the world and itself.

When in January 2016 I spoke at the Italian Parliament (ending up insulting the West for its global plunder, hypocrisy), I mingled a lot with the 5 Star Movement, which had actually invited me to Rome. I spent time with its radical left wing. There are some great people there, but overall, it soon became clear that this potentially the biggest political movement in the country is actually horrified of coming to power! It does not really want to govern.

But then, why call those weak bizarre selfish Western entities – the ‘left wing’? Why confuse terms, and by that, why discredit those true revolutionaries, those true fighters, who are risking, sacrificing their lives, right now, all over the world?

***

Wars are all extremely ugly. I have covered many of them, and I know… But some of them, those that are fought for the survival of humanity, or for survival of the particular countries, are inevitable. One either fights, or the entire Planet ends up being colonized and oppressed, in shackles.

If one decides to fight, then there has to be discipline and single-mindedness; total determination. Or the battle is lost from the very beginning!

When the freedom and survival of one’s motherland is at stake, things get very serious, ‘dead-serious’. Battle is not a discussion club. It is not some chat.

If we, as ‘leftists’, have already once decided that imperialism and colonialism (or ‘neo-colonialism’) are the greatest evils destroying our humanity, then we have to show discipline and join ranks, and support those who are at the frontline.

Otherwise we will become an irrelevant laughingstock, and history will and should judge us harshly!



Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter. 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45581.htm

ARAB SPRING 2.0 ???

The so-called "Arab Spring" began on 17 December 2010, the day after the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, and led to the ousting of longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. It eventually led to a thorough democratization of the country and to free and democratic elections. They saw the victory of a coalition of the Islamist Ennahda Movement with the centre-left Congress for the Republic and the left-leaning Ettakatol as junior partners. The cause behind all this was poverty and high unemployment.

Then today, 14 September 2016, demonstrations break out in Tunisia, two days after another person self-emolated himself and once again over economic hardship, high unemployment and allegation of government corruption.

So apart from having a democratically elected corrupt government, what did Arab Spring 1.0 achieve, which has instead led to Arab Spring 2.0?

PressTV article follows below.

CHARLES F MOREIRA

PressTV-People protest economic woes in Tunisia

Hundreds of people in northwestern Tunisia have staged a protest rally against the deterioration of living standards, widespread poverty, and growing unemployment.

Angry demonstrators set ablaze tires and set up blockades in the roads leading to the town of Fernana, in Jendouba Province, on Tuesday, two days after a young man self-immolated in protest at unemployment in the town.

The protesters also threatened to close the water plant in the region — which supplies the capital, Tunis, and a number of other provinces with drinking water — if their demands are not met.

They also called for launching a thorough investigation into the young man’s tragic death on Sunday as well as the widespread corruption in state-run institutions and the grinding poverty in the country, particularly in the southern and western regions.

Jendouba, like the other western and southern provinces of Tunisia, suffers from a massive rate of almost 30 percent unemployment.



Tunisians are seen setting tires on fire during a protest against economic problems, near the town of Fernana, Tunisia, September 13, 2016.

Tunisia’s new prime minister, Youssef Chahed, and his fresh cabinet members of the unity government are highly expected to deal with these social demands, but the outlines he has drawn for the next year do not seem quite enough to the desperate people in the poor provinces.

“Our situation in 2017, if we don’t change anything in our behavior, it will be so much harder…, we will be forced to adopt a policy of austerity. What does this mean? It means that the state would be forced to cut spending on health, healthcare, it would be forced to fire thousands of public sector employees and forced to raise the taxes,” he had said on August 27.

Chahed, however, promised that fighting corruption and terrorism would be given priority under his administration.

Tunisia registered an unemployment rate of 15.3 percent at the end of 2015 compared to 12 percent in 2010, with university graduates accounting for one third of those without jobs in the country.

Tunisian people rose against the country’s long-time dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, in 2011, ousting him in the first of a series of revolutions that hit Arab dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa.

While the country slipped into chaos in the wake of the revolution, it gradually regained average stability and is hailed as the most successful nation in the establishment of democracy among the Arab countries that witnessed uprisings. Most of the other dictatorships either remained chaotic or saw ruling regimes brutally suppressing the revolutions.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/09/14/484624/Tunisia-Fernana-protest-unemployment-Chahed

THERE THEY GO CHANTING THE SAME MANTRA OVER AND OVER AGAIN WITH DIMINISHING RESULTS

Last Saturday I was chatting with a fellow Alumni member about Malaysian politics and he said that whilst he does not support Prime Minister Najib or the ruling Barisan Nasional (National front) coalition, he however feels the opposition politicians are politically immature, go shooting themselves in the foot and he has lost respect for them.

Well that's how I feel about them too and judging from the Free Malaysia Today article which follows below, it makes me wonder what these opposition politicians have learned by their setback in the Sarawak State Elections, but instead they go on chanting the same old mantra of "1MDB, 1MDB, 1MDM, 1MDB, 1MDB, ....." at a poorly attended roadshow in Sabak Bernam in the north west of Selangor state.

Didn't Einstein say that doing the same think over and over again which achieves the same result (i.e. failure) is insanity?

Well, unable to think outside of the box, these opposition politicians go on doing the same thing over and over again with diminishing results.  

Moreover, this Free Malaysia Today article highlights what I have been saying all along, the people in rural and semi-rural areas are more interested in matters of immediate concern to their livelihood and wellbeing but opposition politicians repeatedly bring up issues which are hot with their more affluent urban constituents and coffee shop politicians who have all the time in the world to idly while away the hours unproductively discussing politics and talking about solving the country's problems, then go home to sleep and, go to work the next day and the process repeats ad-infinitum.

I heard through the grapevine that a member of parliament believes that the next general election will likely be held in early 2017 (possible March), about a year earlier than it must.

Well it will be interesting to see how much the repetition of these these mantras "1MDB, RM2.6 billion, Altantuya, Scorpene submarine and so forth" will help the opposition gain more seats or will they suffer a setback as in Sarawak.

It's pretty obvious that increasingly more ordinary Malaysians are getting tired of all this mantra. A clear indication is the low attendance of at most 2,000 at the #TangkapMO1 (Arrest Malaysian Official No. 1) in the centre of Kuala Lumpur last Saturday, when 5,000 were expected to turn up.

Then this road show stop in Sabak Bernam where only 500 people turned up,some just out of curiosity or just because it was a something happening in town.

I've got better things to do with my life than get all excited over this mantra, unless and only unless the investigators in Singapore, Switzerland or the United States explicitly accuse Malaysia Prime Minister Najib by name of any criminal wrongdoing and lay charges against him. Otherwise, it's all just endless, time wasting speculation and endless idle chatter between armchair politicians in coffee shops, pubs, bars, behind computer keyboards, on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and so forth, however much these chattering classes may huff and puff, hoping to blow Najib away.

Without further ado, the Free Malaysia Today article follows below.

CHARLES F. MOREIRA

It's the same old song at anti-1MDB ceramah

Nawar Firdaws Lukewarm start in Sabak Bernam to PKR-Muhyiddin road show, as those who came wish the Opposition would start speaking more about how they can help improve the people's lives and welfare.

SABAK BERNAM: A nationwide roadshow about 1MDB or ‘1Malaysia Dalam Bahaya’ (1Malaysia In Danger) got off to a lukewarm start with a ceramah attended by about 500 instead of the thousands expected.

With many notable figures including parliamentary opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Selangor Menteri Besar Mohamed Azmin Ali, and former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin billed as speakers, initial assumption was that it would be a massive affair attended by thousands.

In reality less than 500 people turned up, barely filling even a third of the mini stadium.

The roadshow is aimed at people in rural and semi-urban areas, to inform them about the scandals surrounding government investment arm 1Malaysia Development Berhad and how that would affect the daily lives of ordinary Malaysians.

However, those who came to listen appeared less than enthusiastic. FMT spoke to many of those present, who said they failed to see how 1MDB had anything to do with them.

This was perhaps why most chose to spend their Friday night on other activities rather than listen to speeches about a matter “they don’t even understand.”

“I just came to see Muhyiddin. It’s not often that people like me get to see him,” said 31-year-old Nur Asyikin Abdul Rashid. “But honestly, I don’t really understand this whole 1MDB issue. Besides, didn’t the RM2.6 billion which they said were taken from 1MDB actually come from the Saudi government?”

Another ceramah-goer, Muhammad Asdi, 44, said he was only at the event because it was near his house.

“I wish the opposition would start speaking more about how they can help improve our lives and welfare. But they are always repeating the same thing.

“It’s always about 1MDB or Anwar Ibrahim. Don’t get me wrong, I believe Anwar is a victim of dirty politics, but they’re so consumed on avenging him that our needs are no longer a priority.”

(Former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is serving a five-year jail sentence on a sodomy charge.)

Yesterday being the 18th anniversary of Anwar’s sacking as deputy premier in 1998, the three main speakers made it a point to remind the public of the injustice inflicted upon him.

A big part of their speeches also centered on the need for unity among opposition members in order to oust Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional government, whom they accused of being corrupt.

However the same issues they raised were much the same as those raised over the past year. The people of Sabak Bernam also appeared to be as unimpressed as voters in Sarawak in May, when opposition candidates suffered losses to the Barisan Nasional.

“Why don’t they talk about other issues? Like how they plan to help the youth get jobs, or how to increase our income in line with the current cost of living,” said Jamaluddin Abdul Hamid, 52.

“To me and my family, that is more important than the issue of corruption which has been the practice since (former premier) Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s time.”

“The Opposition in Penang, and even Azmin have been accused of corruption and abuse of power as well.”

The next stops on the roadshow are: Malacca (Sept 25), Sabah (Sept 30), Pahang (Oct 2) and Perak (Oct 15).

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/09/03/its-the-same-old-song-at-anti-1mdb-ceramah/

SHAH ALAM BEAT THE U.S. TO GENDER-NEUTRAL BATHROOMS BY NINE YEARS OR MORE

The controversy over gender-neutral bathrooms (restrooms, public toilets) has been raging in the U.S. since as early as January 2016 and perhaps even earlier.

However, the issue of unisex toilets has been a non-issue in Malaysia - well at least not in Shah Alam, Selangor since 2007 according to the time stamp on this picture of a unisex toilet in the building across Jalan Majlis from the now closed Quality Hotel. From what I see on Google Maps, the building which housed this unisex toilet looks like it is called Plaza Alam Sentral today.

Now that was nearly nine years ago and Shah Alam is a pretty conservative city within the Klang Valley, with a largely Muslim population, yet nobody makes a fuss about this unisex public toilet, which beat the U.S. by nine years with regard to gender equality in toilet designation.

I must pay a visit to Plaza Alam Sentral to see if these toilets are still are still unisex or have they segregated into "Ladies" and "Gents".

Another interesting signboard I saw was in front of a coffee shop in the same building with a sign in English saying "Wi-Fi Free", with a sign in Malay right below it saying "Please pay at the counter".

Quite frankly, these "progressives" in the U.S. have nothing better to make issue with, especially when many people have lost their homes to foreclosure, many secure well-paying jobs have been moved offshore to low wage countries, university graduates are saddled with student loan debt which perhaps many will not be able to pay off until they are in their 40s or maybe never, and so many other bread and butter issues.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for gender equality in employment, promotion prospects, income, rights and so forth but how do gender-neutral bathrooms address such more urgent issues of gender equality and treatment?

These "progressives" in the U.S. have got their priorities all upside down or perhaps they have to make a fuss about this irrelevant issue to most, so as to remain "relevant" in the eyes of whatever funding body they may have been receiving their funding from.

So no surprise that right-wing populists like Donald Trump who promises to address the concerns of such suffering folk is so popular and is quite likely to be elected the next U.S. president in November?

Whether he lives up to his promises if elected is left to be seen but gender-neutral bathrooms would have a very low priority compared to bread and butter issues of economic survival amongst those working class Americans who are inclined to  vote for him.

As for Hillary Clinton, well if she becomes president you can expect to see more U.S. imperialist intervention and de-stabilisation of other countries, more refugees fleeing to Europe, more terrorism and a much higher probability of World War III, and a nuclear one at that, though there may be many more gender-neutral bathrooms and the U.S. imperialists via their paid NGO fronts may well demand that all countries designate their public toilets gender-neutral in the name of "democracy" and "human rights".

Following below are four articles in U.S. media about this gender-neutral bathroom controversy and there are plenty more which I did not include. Just do a Google search on "gender-neutral bathrooms".

Don't you find this issue in the U.S. about gender-neutral bathrooms rather ridiculous?

CHARLES F MOREIRA

The Gender-Neutral Bathroom Revolution Is Growing
Katy Steinmetz @katysteinmetz Jan. 11, 2016

Bathrooms often become battlegrounds in fights over civil rights

San Francisco has long been considered one of America’s most—if not the most–LGBT friendly cities. Yet in at least one increasingly watched area, the city has fallen behind. On Monday, San Francisco Supervisor David Campos took the first substantive steps toward changing that when he announced plans to introduce a bill that would make many city bathrooms gender-neutral.

The measure would mandate that all single-occupancy bathrooms in the city be relabeled as places for all genders, rather than solely “men” or “women,” and that new buildings constructed in the city have a gender-neutral bathroom on each floor. The bill would also go beyond similar laws in other cities by putting in place sweeping enforcement mechanisms, including a complaint process handled by the Human Rights Commission, an LGBT rights organization, and adding these facilities as a standard checklist item for building inspections.

The measure, which is expected to pass easily, will add San Francisco alongside Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, D.C., West Hollywood, Calif. and Austin, Texas, to the list of cities with gender-neutral bathroom provisions. More than 150 U.S. colleges and universities have also instituted such measures, including the entire University of California system. In April, the White House added a gender neutral bathroom at the nation’s most prominent address. These changes have prompted push back in a number of states, where bills that would determine access to public school restrooms according to a person’s biological sex at birth are now being considered.

Campos, who developed San Francisco’s bill with the Transgender Law Center, argues its benefits extend beyond that community. “Many people right now are impacted negatively by the gender-specific restroom,” he says. Among his examples: a mother who wants to accompany her son to the bathroom and isn’t sure which to choose; a disabled or senior person who is a caretaker of the opposite sex; any woman stuck in a long line for a single-occupancy ladies’ room while the men’s sits there vacant.

Still, helping LGBT people is the primary thrust of such bills. “Having gender-specific restrooms can create unnecessary risks that lead to transgender or gender non-conforming folks to be harassed,” says Sasha Buchert, a staff attorney at the Transgender Law Center. “Those aren’t in a vacuum either. Those types of interactions can have long-term health consequences.”

One high-profile example is the case of Chrissy Lee Polis, a transgender woman who was beaten at a Baltimore McDonald’s after using the women’s restroom. One of her assailants was sentenced in 2011 to five years in prison for first-degree assault and a hate crime. A video of the beating taken by a McDonald’s employee went viral.

Bathrooms are one of the most incendiary battlegrounds in the transgender community’s ongoing fight for civil rights, as those spaces have previously been for women, African-Americans and the disabled community. This bill comes at a time when four states—Missouri, Indiana, South Dakota and Wisconsin—are considering bills that would limit transgender students usage of facilities at public schools. The Wisconsin bill, for instance, would mandate that all sex-specific bathrooms be used by students according to their biological sex, “as determined by an individual’s chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual’s anatomy.”

The Transgender Law Center’s Buchert says such laws are unenforceable. “Are they going to place security guards at each bathroom to do DNA tests to verify folks’ chromosomes?” she says.

There are also questions about whether laws restricting bathroom access run counter to federal guidance. In a 2014 memo citing the Civil Rights Act, the Department of Education said a school “must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of the planning, implementation, enrollment, operation, and evaluation of single-sex classes.” Rulings from the Department of Justice have found that not allowing a transgender person to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity is a form of sex discrimination.

Though the issue remains controversial in cities and states around the country, San Francisco’s measure is likely to become law without much fuss. “The bottom line,” Campos says, “is this: going to the bathroom is such a basic necessity that nowhere should anyone have a difficult time or be in danger because of that.”

http://time.com/4175774/san-francisco-gender-neutral-bathrooms/

Who’s Afraid of Gender-Neutral Bathrooms?
By Jeannie Suk , January 25, 2016

In the middle of taking the bar exam at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, in New York City, along with thousands of aspiring lawyers, I had to go to the bathroom. The enormous line for the women’s restroom looked like it would take at least a half hour. There was no line for the men’s restroom. I walked in, passed my male counterparts at a row of urinals, used one of several empty stalls, then returned to my desk. I felt that my decision to forgo the women’s bathroom made a difference to my passing the exam, and that the much longer wait for women than men during an all-important test for entry to the legal profession was obviously unfair.

There is now, however, an active debate around what bathrooms we should be able to use. A recently proposed Indiana law would make it a crime for a person to enter a single-sex public restroom that does not match the person’s “biological gender,” defined in terms of chromosomes and sex at birth. The punishment could be up to a year in jail and a five-thousand-dollar fine. Similar laws proposed in several other states have not passed. These proposals attempt to counter recent moves in many states to allow transgender people to access bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s same-sex-marriage decision, last summer, these skirmishes may give the sense of moving the L.G.B.T.-equality debate from the sublime to the ridiculous. But the implications of the controversy go far beyond bathrooms.

Last fall’s successful campaign in Houston to reject a broad anti-discrimination ordinance made clear that restrooms will be fields of battle over gender and sexuality for the foreseeable future. The Houston ordinance, which prohibited discrimination in employment and housing based on categories including sex, race, religion, and gender identity, was defeated in a referendum after opponents painted it as a “bathroom ordinance” that would enable men to enter women’s restrooms. One ad in the campaign showed a young girl being followed into a bathroom by an older man. Another ad emphasized the risk of having registered sex offenders in bathrooms with women and girls. The vulnerability that most people feel in a public restroom, with their trousers pulled down in proximity to others, was easily exploited in connection with sexual assault. Saying no to the so-called bathroom ordinance was framed as preventing sexual danger to women and girls (even though danger to transgender individuals is often seen as a reason to support bathroom access).

Today’s most-prominent arguments against inclusive restrooms are remarkably consistent with the Victorian notions that led to sex-segregated bathrooms in the first place. When the ideology of separate spheres for male and female, public and private, the market and the home reigned, the growth of women’s presence in public life led to the desire to protect women from the crude dangers of the male world. Among the legal effects was the 1873 Supreme Court holding in Bradwell v. Illinois that it was not unconstitutional for a state to deny women admission to the bar on the basis of their sex, with a famous concurring opinion that stated, “Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.” The same separate-spheres paternalism led to the designation of certain physical spaces for women apart from those for men, including bathrooms in public venues. These were safe spaces, if you will, tucked in a world in which women were vulnerable. As our society is currently experiencing a resurgence of paternalist concern about women’s sexual vulnerability—especially in the context of that great equalizer, education—it is no surprise that there would also be a new emphasis on the Victorian phenomenon of separate restrooms.

The connection of public bathrooms with condemned sexual behavior also relates to our recent history of criminalizing homosexuality. For most of the twentieth century, gay sex was criminal, and public disclosure of a man’s homosexuality spelled the death of his reputation and career. Public restrooms were sites of clandestine sex among men, and undercover police engaged in bathroom surveillance to catch men seeking sex in toilet stalls. David Sklansky, a law professor at Stanford, has argued that modern legal ideas of privacy were forged in the nineteen-sixties in part because of the Supreme Court’s distaste for this sordid police practice. According to his theory, bathroom sex is the “secret subtext” of Katz v. United States, which requires the police to have a warrant to eavesdrop electronically on a call made from a telephone booth, and is the source for the modern idea that the Constitution protects a reasonable expectation of privacy. Since Lawrence v. Texas, in 2003, it has been unconstitutional to criminalize gay sex taking place in private, but this protection does not apply to sex (gay or straight) in public spaces. As late as 2007, Senator Larry Craig was arrested in an airport-restroom sex sting for signalling interest in sex with a stranger in an adjacent stall, and convicted of disorderly conduct.

Whereas homosexuality was until recently considered the paradigm of sexual deviance, today’s bathroom debate focusses on heterosexual deviance. The undercover figures we imagine are not snooping cops but rather heterosexual men who might pretend to be women “that day” to follow women and girls into restrooms. I’m not aware of reliable statistics that would indicate that public bathrooms are more sexually dangerous than any other places—or would be, were they to be desegregated—though the history of bathroom sex does associate the space with sexual conduct. Even if the sexual-assault argument against allowing transgender restroom access is implausible, it is still hard to come up with an account of why public bathrooms should be gender-segregated that does not rely on a gendered version of privacy and safety that recapitulates “separate spheres” and sexual vulnerability.

Today, men and women, not assumed to be only heterosexual, are expected to function at work alongside one another, eat at adjacent seats in restaurants, sit cheek by jowl in buses and airplanes, take classes, study in libraries, and, with some exceptions, even pray together. Why is the multi-stall bathroom the last public vestige of gendered social separation? When men, gay or straight, can stand shoulder to shoulder at urinals without a second thought, is there much to back up the view that men and women must not pee or poop next to one another, especially if closed stalls would shield them from view? Women may have some distinctive sanitation needs, but why does that require a wholly separate space from men?

Perhaps the point is precisely that the public restroom is the only everyday social institution remaining in which separation by gender is the norm, and undoing that separation would feel like the last shot in the “war on gender” itself. As we consider the possibility of electing our first female President, the bathroom as the site of sex difference has been underlined by another candidate, Donald Trump, who said, “I don’t want to think about” the “disgusting” things Hillary Clinton was doing in the bathroom, in a comment widely understood to be about her female sex. Though both men and women must perform private bodily functions in public bathrooms, the mere thought of a woman doing it implied an irreducible sex difference that made plain a gross incongruity with the ultimate public role. Public restrooms are not just toilets; for more than a hundred years, they have implicated questions of who really belongs in public, civic, and professional life.

One practical reason we can’t change to unsegregated bathrooms overnight is that municipal, state, and federal legal codes, many with origins in the nineteenth century, mandate that there be separate facilities for each sex, in businesses and places of work. These widespread codes could be changed one by one. But it seems more likely that, when it comes to multi-stall bathrooms, gender segregation will remain the norm, and that we will see the addition of more single-stall restrooms that are open to any gender. Transgender people’s need to use bathrooms that match their identified gender is modest and not reasonably denied. Old ideology, in the meantime, stays alive in mundane legal regulation that resists more thorough change and determines our plumbing.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/whos-afraid-of-same-sex-bathrooms

'We need a restroom revolution'

By John D. Sutter, CNN

Updated 1551 GMT (2351 HKT) May 9, 2016

Atlanta (CNN)Before I launch into the argument for making all restrooms in the United States gender neutral -- that is, removing "men's" and "women's" labels -- I want to show you a photo.

This is James Parker Sheffield.

Now a truly ridiculous question: Which restroom do you think he should use?

Men's or women's?
In the United States at the moment, the legal answer depends on location. If Sheffield is in North Carolina, it's illegal for him to use a public men's restroom. Since he's a transgender man -- his birth certificate has an "F" on it -- he has to use the women's.
If he's at home in Atlanta, he can use the men's.
"It's now the law for me to share a restroom with your wife," Sheffield wrote on Twitter along with his selfie. He posted that message in March, only hours after North Carolina passed a law making it illegal for transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond with their true gender identities.
The U.S. Justice Department recently said the law violates the Civil Rights Act. North Carolina on Monday sued the feds in defense of the regulation.
As it's written, Sheffield would have to use the lady's room or break the law.
That's absurd, as the selfie and tweet make clear. Sheffield is a 36-year-old man who lives in Decatur, Georgia. He has a scruffy beard and a receding hairline, which he jokingly calls a "reverse fade." If he walked into a lady's restroom he'd likely be met with stares or screams or worse.
But you know what else is absurd? The idea that Sheffield -- or anyone else -- should have to choose a male or female restroom at all. And, beyond that, that any of us would feel entitled to decide someone else's gender for them -- and, consequently, where they can and can't pee.
This isn't a binary gender world. People don't fit neatly into the "M" and "F" boxes. It's time our public restrooms reflected that. The fairest way to do so is to desegregate restrooms by sex, and that means eliminating the men's and women's rooms in favor of "all gender" restrooms.
Think that's an overreaction? Take a quick look at the history of bathroom politics in the United States. We've tried time and again to control who we sit and stand next to at the toilet.
In the 1960s, black civil rights activists were killed for trying to use "whites only" bathrooms. In the 1980s, gay men were harassed because the public wrongly assumed they could catch HIV-AIDS from a toilet. (AIDS was viewed then as a gay man's disease). Restrooms weren't required to be accessible to people with wheelchairs until the Americans with Disabilities act of 1990. And now, some cities and states are trying to keep transgender people out.
The only justification is bigotry and ignorance.
You might think that allowing a transgender person to use the restroom of their choice is a workable solution. It's a first step. But Sheffield and others who don't conform to gender norms face discrimination even when they're legally allowed to choose which restroom to use.
Seventy percent of transgender people surveyed in Washington, for example, a city with progressive laws allowing people to use either restroom, reported "verbal harassment, assault and being denied access to public restrooms" because of their identities, according to a report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Further, 54% reported medical problems "like dehydration, urinary tract infections, kidney infections and other kidney problems" because they avoided using restrooms entirely.

Sheffield told me he plans his days around where he can and can't pee.
"I almost never go to the restroom in a place I haven't been at least once before," he told me. He cuts appointments short and avoids going out simply to avoid peeing in public. Sometimes he'll find the one stall in a men's room is occupied, or out of order. Other times he sits on the toilet for longer than necessary because he worries it's suspicious a man would sit down to urinate.
"It's not a good feeling to be a grown-up and wondering, 'Am I going to make it to a restroom on time -- and how do you explain it if you don't,'" he said.
Such fears apply not only to transgender people but also those who don't meet our rigid gender norms. In 2013, I met a female middle school student in Mississippi, for example, who told me her teachers wouldn't let her use the girl's restroom because she had short hair and wore hoodies. She looked too boyish.

Gendered restrooms support these biases.
"We need a restroom revolution in this country," said Kathryn Anthony, an architecture professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
I agree. And there are simple places to start. Restaurants and small businesses with two single-unit restrooms simply can paint over the "M" and "W" on their doors and -- ba-da-bing! -- they're gender inclusive. No one's harmed as long as we men stop peeing on the toilet seat.
Philadelphia recently made that concept law for single-stall bathrooms. Other governments and businesses should follow. (And if you're a business that is considering this sort of move, please send me a tweet).
Then, bigger leaps: The International Building Code should suggest all-gender restrooms become the norm, or at least be included, in larger businesses and public establishments. (That idea comes from Terry Kogan, a law professor at the University of Utah.)
City, state and federal governments also could legislate these restrooms into existence, too.
It won't happen immediately, but new construction and renovations could be subject to our updated understanding of which types of bathrooms are safest for everyone. That's the precedent set by the Americans with Disabilities Act, Kogan said.
Harvey Molotch, a professor of sociology at New York University and co-editor of the book "Toilet: public restrooms and the politics of sharing," outlined for me what he considers to be the Holy Grail of restrooms. Walk in and you'd see a long line of private toilet stalls, with floor-to-ceiling doors. On the other side would be a row of communal sinks. Anyone is free to use any stall -- and there might be a row of urinals tucked away somewhere to the side.
The urinals could be left out of some restrooms, but they should be kept when possible, Molotch said, because they're much more water-efficient than sit-down toilets.
All this sounds wildly inoffensive to me.
And it's already happening.
The Cooper Union, a college in New York, announced on March 18 that it is removing gender identification from restrooms on campus and opening single-occupancy toilets up for anyone's use. "We have always been ahead of our time and we must continue being leaders on issues of social justice," Bill Mea, acting president, wrote in an email to the campus.
The Urban Justice Center, also in New York, made a similar move a decade ago.
"I'm delighted to be able to share that our experiences have been wholly positive," the center's executive director, Doug Lasdon, and a development associate, Hugh Ryan, wrote in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post. "To this day, we have not received a single complaint. Not one in a decade. Nor have any incidents of violence or harassment been reported."
There's little counterargument other that bias and squeamishness.
Sheffield, the transgender man in Georgia, doesn't expect the all-gender restroom revolution to occur anytime soon. "If we could go to sleep tonight and wake up and all the bathrooms were gender neutral -- great! But it's not practical," he said. "It's not going to happen that way."
In the meantime, he said, a little courteousness would help.
"We can't hold it," he said. "Trans people have to pee multiple times a day, just like everyone else."
Currently, there are only two places Sheffield feels comfortable peeing.
One's at home.
The other's at work.
And that's because it's labeled "all gender restroom."

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/09/opinions/sutter-gender-neutral-restrooms/

Right-Wing Media Monitor, Film Attendees Inside All-Gender Restroom At Democratic Convention
Research ››› July 26, 2016 2:38 PM EDT ››› RACHEL PERCELAY

Right-wing media monitored and filmed people using the designated all-gender restroom at the Democratic National Convention, looking for “obviously transgender” convention attendees in the bathroom. Conservative media have long peddled the bogus myth that nondiscrimination protections for transgender people will allow male sexual predators to sneak into women’s bathrooms by pretending to be transgender, leading to an increase in assault and misbehavior in restrooms.

BuzzFeed: People Were “Unfazed” By The All-Gender Restroom At The Democratic National Convention. BuzzFeed reported that the Democratic convention has one designated all-gender restroom and that attendees were “seemingly unfazed” by it, calling the shared bathroom “perfectly natural” and saying that using it was a “nonevent”:

    Hundreds of men and women shared a big, busy “all-gender restroom” at the Democratic National Convention on Monday — and were seemingly unfazed by the experience.

    “It doesn’t make me nervous at all,” Lula Dualeh, a delegate for Bernie Sanders, told BuzzFeed News. “I just need to use the restroom. I don’t care who’s next to me.”

    But restrooms have been a hot-button issue for many Republicans. State and federal politicians have politicized bathroom access, saying that allowing transgender women — whom they call “men” — to use the women’s restroom poses a safety threat.

    At the Wells Fargo Center, which also had single-sex restrooms, a sign at the entrance of the all-gender restroom featured a figurine in a dress and another figurine without a dress.

    Inside, everyone took turns using stalls; then women and men washed their hands side-by-side at a bank of sinks. Nobody who spoke to BuzzFeed News found the situation troubling.

    A co-ed pack of conventioneers were searching for a bathroom — one restroom for the guys and another for the women — when one of the guys saw the sign and said, “It’s an all-gender restroom. Let’s go.” The group emerged a couple minutes later. Did they have any qualms about sharing a bathroom with each other at the same time? “It was a nonevent,” one woman said. “It was perfectly natural.” [BuzzFeed News, 7/25/16]

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/07/26/right-wing-media-monitor-film-attendees-inside-all-gender-restroom-democratic-convention/211903