Categories
Sports

[721] Of Jaap Stam’s in, Maxwell’s out

Oh my. What’s going on at Ajax ?

I think Jaap Stam is alright despite he was an P$V guy but letting Maxwell go is a sad story. I love how Maxwell plays. His style is elegant and effective. He’s the only Brazilian Ajacied that I know of.

But Maxwell said earlier that he wouldn’t renew his contract with Ajax and his contract would have ran out in summer. So, unless Ajax really wanted to let Maxwell go for free, Ajax had no choice but to sell him to anybody wiling enough to get Maxwell’s service. That anybody is – surprise, surprise, not – Inter Milan. Ajax reported received a million euro from Inter Milan for Maxwell. Ajax will play Inter in the next round of the Champions League.

Other than Maxwell, another Ajax veteran might leave. Talk for a contract renewal between Galasek and Ajax has not been smooth. De Jong will leave soon while Pienaar is heading for Dortmund.

Still, to Jaap Stam, welcome to the red and white. Maybe, you’re the new Chivu that we need. Lightbulb city club still suck though. That club across the Channel too.

Categories
Activism Environment

[720] Of save Gunung Jerai

Gunung Jerai is one of the more famous mountains in Malaysia. Yet, I’ve never been to Gunung Jerai which is located in Kedah, northern Malaysia. What brings the mountain to my attention is the “Save Gunung Jerai Campaign” . Given that Gunung Jerai is as popular as Gunung Ledang, I was quite surprised to find out that former needs any saving at all.

Interested, I scoured the internet from more information and I was not disappointed. It was in the mainstream media a couple of days ago and I must’ve missed it entirely. And it turned out, this thing started a couple of years back, way back to 2001.

The problem at hand is a quarry. There is a quarry operating within the boundary of a forest reserve located nearby the mountain. Just like what happened in Selangor eh? According to the Star:

The state executive council made a decision on Sept 12, 2001, to surrender Compartment 16 of the forest reserve to quarry operator Syarikat Kemelong & Sankojaya Construction as “private property”.

I’m not familiar with any related related regulation related to relabelling a section of a forest reserve as private property but it does sound fishy.

Apart from that, an activist even received a death threat from an unknown person. It won’t take a rocket scientist to suspect that the person that made the threat might be related to beneficiaries of the quarry. More at Utusan; Sorry, it’s in Malay:

Pegawai SAM terima ugutan bunuh

ALOR STAR 28 Jan. – Timbalan Setiausaha Kehormat Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), Mohd. Azmi Abdul Hamid mendakwa menerima ugutan bunuh daripada seseorang yang tidak dikenali yang dipercayai mempunyai kaitan dengan projek kuari batu di Gunung Jerai, Yan.

Menurut beliau, ugutan itu diterima melalui telefon oleh isterinya di rumah, Rabu lalu yang turut mengancam untuk menculik anak-anaknya.

According to the Star in the same report, the operator of the quarry is Syarikat Kemelong & Sankojaya Construction. There isn’t too much information about the company online. The only related stuff comes from the Malaysian Department of Environment’s website. According to the DOE’s site, Glisten Environmental Consultants is the quarry operator’s consultant. A search on “Glisten Environmental Consultants” on Google doesn’t give anything interesting either. Or maybe, I’m just too lazy to find out more.

Malaysia Today reports that 12 non-governmental organizations are appealing to the sultan of Kedah to intervene and stop the operation of the quarry. Sorry, this too is in Malay.

Sultan Kedah dirayu selamatkan Gunung Jerai

Oleh Zulkilfi Mohamed

KEDAH: 12 Badan Bukan Kerajaan (NGO) merayu Sultan Kedah DYMM Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah, supaya campurtangan berhubung cadangan projek kuari di Kompartmen 16 Hutan Simpan Gunung Jerai yang menyebabkan kemusnahan kawasan serta bencana yang dialami penduduk setempat, akibat aktiviti pembalakan dan kerja-kerja tanah di kawasan terbabit.

Frankly, I doubt the sultan will do anything.

Lastly, a site offers a short introduction on the Save Gunung Jerai Campaign. They call it a press release but, whatever. And yeah, still in Malay.

Categories
Sports

[719] Of Danny Blind has to go

Losing 4 – 1 to Utrecht is unacceptable . Blind has to go.

Period.

Categories
ASEAN Politics & government

[718] Of bridge of euphemism

So, in truest form of doublespeak, a crooked bridge has become a scenic bridge. Shakespeare would say, what’s in a name? Despite the doublespeak, I fully support the idea of a bridge, bent or otherwise.

In my opinion, the only reason Singapore is being impossible is because an opening of Tebrau Strait would enable Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) in Johor to seriously challenge Port of Singapore. The growth of PTP has already alarmed the Singaporean government. For the past few years, several of the world’s largest container ship operators like Maersk and Evergreen have migrated from Singapore to PTP. According to Wikipedia, Maersk’s migration alone represented a 10% drop in business at Singaporean ports.

PTP is growing because it’s a cheaper alternative to Singaporean ports. And it’s growing in spite of the Causeway. Imagine if there were no causeway to prevent sea travels. With clear lines connecting PTP with two other Johor ports in the east – namely Johor Port at Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat Port – PTP would become an even larger entrepot. That itself would encourage PTP to grow even further and faster.

I’m sure the Singaporean government know this and I suspect they’re trying to slow PTP’s growth down. Today in Utusan Malaysia, an article suggests that Singaporean reclamation projects at eastern and western reach of Tebrau Straits might be Singapore’s effort to prevent the strait from becoming a viable sea route. That article helped me sealed my suspicion. After all, narrowing the strait is the surest way to keep PTP and other Johor ports’ growth in check.

Singapore insists that construction of a bridge replacing the Causeway must bring benefit to both sides. However, opening up of the strait will hurt Singaporean trade. Given that, Singapore refusal to agree to a bridge is comprehensible, no matter how frustrating it is. So, when Singapore said it’s not benefiting from the construction of the bridge, Singapore is telling the truth. More importantly, a convoluted truth because Singapore is applying a false dilemma fallacy. The result of “no bridge” has already been guaranteed when they supplied the condition. And not to forget, this is done on top of other nonsense reasons such as traffic volume into Singapore, higher toll and how Goh Chok Tong is feeling nostalgic about the Causeway given by Singaporean government.

A false dilemma is the appearance that only two choices exist when in fact, there are other explorable options. For instance, if Singapore refuses to replace its half of the Causeway, Malaysia could demolish its half and then replace it with a crooked bridge, which is what Malaysia is doing.

A crooked bridge is an unfortunate political turn. Nonetheless, I believe it is important for Malaysia to take our economy into own hands instead of the Singaporeans’. We should never make ourselves as somebody else’s hostage. This bridge is us driving forward. This bridge is us giving the Tebrau Strait back its life.

Categories
Activism Environment Poetry

[717] Of haikus for whales!

Remember the Greenpeace’s ship that collided with Japanese whalers in the southern seas?

Well, they’re holding a haiku contest and the winner will win USD 20 worth of prizes of Greenpeace’s merchandises. Heh, and I say, why not?

Blue are the skies, seas,
Birds flying, whales swimming, safe,
Spring’s coming, rejoiced!

Haha. Lame.

p/s – a gem! Q & A: Our Omnipotent President by Fafblog. (via)