Archive - 28 February 2004

PPP president M Kayveas is happy that his party has not been ignored by the BN. It is learnt that the party will get to contest one parliamentary seat in Perak under the BN quota.

DAP secretary-general Kerk Kim Hock says withdrawing candidates may cost their sponsoring parties large sums of forfeited deposits.

A rival faction deputy leader says the six incumbent members of Parliament of the de-registered PBDS are all likely to be re-nominated to stand on BN ticket in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

The Keadilan youth chief urges the King to consider DAP leader Lim Guan Eng's petition for royal pardon as the offence committed was not so serious.

With the death of volunteerism and ideals in politics, money has become the prime motivation for participation in election campaigns. SIM KWANG YANG predicts the BN will win this general election hands down because of their superiority in procuring election funds and running better campaign machinery.

As the US is still "encouraging" Malaysia to get tougher on enforcement of nuclear non-proliferation, many other countries have decided to support President Bush's call for " global cooperation " on the matter. It's not "one small incident" as trivialised by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

As the general election looms, rumours of politicians crossing over to rival parties are rife and Keadilan veep Saifuddin Nasution was also not spared. He denies meeting Pak Lah with the intention to cross over to Umno.

The Malaysian Democratic Party, a splinter party of the DAP, may pose a problem to the opposition as it could be involved in multi-cornered contests in several constituencies.

They were at Bukit Aman to protest against alleged police abuse of power and brutality. The police reacted by using chemical-laced water cannon to disperse the crowd and arrested 17 of them, including a few key opposition politicians.

Maxis Communications says its 2003 net profit grew 94 percent to RM1.84 billion due to internal restructuring. Operating profit for the year amounted to RM1.36 billion, as opposed to RM1.34 billion previously.

MTUC is troubled over the rising number of pickets by unions in various sectors, and blames the government's delayed reaction or inaction for the worsening state of industrial disputes. The Genting dispute is a case in point.