Archive for December, 2008
The Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negri Sembilan, Tuanku Ja’afar Ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, died at 11.45am today. He was 86.
State Secretary Datuk Norzam Mohd Nor announced Tuanku Ja’afar’s demise at the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital where he died.
Born in Klang on July 19, 1922, Tuanku Ja’afar was the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong, serving from April 26, 1994 to April 25, 1999. He was also the fourth Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negri Sembilan since 1968.
His death sets in motion a scramble to select a successor to the throne in a state where an election will now have to take place where four traditional territorial chiefs will choose the next Yang di-Pertuan Besar.
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Popularity: 6% [?]
There were no surprises today in the naming of Senator Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh as Barisan Nasional’s (BN) candidate for the crucial Kuala Terengganu by-election, but the controversies surrounding him and his close links with the prime minister will be campaign fodder for Pakatan Rakyat.
For Wan Farid, who is also Kuala Terengganu Umno division chief and the deputy home minister, his political career is riding on the election as he has been told that he will not be reappointed senator again if he loses the vote.
The Terengganu state assembly nominated the deputy home minister as senator recently as his first term ends in January.
The selection of Wan Ahmad Farid was announced by Deputy Prime Mnister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who said the decision had the consent of Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
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Popularity: 9% [?]
The recent Special Court order for Yang DiPertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan Tuanku Ja’afar ibni Al-Marhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman to pay US$1 million (RM3.5 million) to Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad (SCBMB) was over a banking transaction and not a loan, according to his private secretary.
Datuk Abdullah Abas, in a statement, said press reports of the court judgment on Oct 15 had caused the public to form a perception that Tuanku Ja’afar had obtained a loan from the bank and having refused to repay the loan.
The suit arose after Tuanku Ja’afar on Feb 12, 1999, established through SCBMB a standby letter of credit (LC) worth US$1 million made in favour of the Connecticut Bank of Commerce (CB) in the United States for credit facilities to be extended to a US Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 8% [?]
World number one shuttler, Datuk Lee Chong Wei and national swimmer Sow Yi Ting were selected as the Male Olympian and Female Olympian 2008 respectively at the Olympian Night held at Wisma OCM, here tonight.
Chong Wei, 26, was selected based on his achievement as the only Malaysian athlete to win a medal at the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
The Bukit Mertajam-born athlete won the silver medal in the men’s singles after losing to China’s Lin Dan in the badminton final at the 2008 Olympics.
The silver medal was the second won by Malaysian athletes at the Olympic Games with the first silver won by the badminton doubles pair of Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock at the Atlanta Olympic Games, United States in 1996.
This was the first Olympian award for Chong Wei who was the sole nominee in Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 7% [?]
Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world’s top killer by 2010, part of a trend that should more than double global cancer cases and deaths by 2030, international health experts said in a report released Tuesday. Rising tobacco use in developing countries is believed to be a huge reason for the shift, particularly in China and India, where 40 percent of the world’s smokers now live.
So is better diagnosing of cancer, along with the downward trend in infectious diseases that used to be the world’s leading killers.
Cancer diagnoses around the world have steadily been rising and are expected to hit 12 million this year. Global cancer deaths are expected to reach 7 million, according to the new report by the World Health Organization.
An annual rise of 1 percent in cases and deaths is expected, with even larger increases in China, Russia and India. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 8% [?]
The Government has released without publicity more than a dozen Muslim extremists linked to the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror organisation. They include Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, who is believed to have abetted the Sept 11 attacks in New York.
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Yazid emerged as a key figure in JI’s regional network because of his link to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent who was convicted of conspiracy charges in the Sept 11 attacks in New York.
A senior Malaysian government official told The Straits Times that the Indonesian, Malaysian and Filipino detainees were freed over the past month after a government advisory board at the Kamunting Detention Centre in Perak decided that they were no longer security threats.
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Popularity: 9% [?]
