Floods worsen in Terengganu, situation in Kelantan improving

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — The floods have worsened in Terengganu where more than 6,000 people have been forced out of their homes up to this morning, while the situation in flooded areas in Kelantan is improving.

A spokesman for the Terengganu National Security Council said 6,680 people had been evacuated to 65 relief centres in the state, with 3,345 of them in the Dungun district, 1,205 in Kuala Terenggganu, 1,496 in Marang, 379 in Hulu Terengganu, 217 in Kemaman and 38 in Setiu.

The situation in the Besut district has returned to normal after all evacuees were allowed to leave for their homes at 8pm yesterday, he said.

The spokesman said all major roads in the state were passable to traffic except Jalan Kuala Terengganu-Kota Baru which has been closed because Jalan Sungai-Kampung Pelong is flooded to a depth of 1.5 metres.

He advised people travelling by road to Kota Baru to use the coastal road which was passable to all traffic.

The spokesman said the water level of most of the major rivers in Terengganu had dropped to their normal point.

Nevertheless, the level of Sungai Nerus in Kampung Bukit was at 13.56 metres (danger level 12 metres) while the level of Sungai Marang at Pengkalan Berangan was steady at 12.94 metres (alert level 12.5 metres), he added. The weather was fine in Terengganu this morning.

In KELANTAN, the situation in flood-hit areas improved this morning, with the number of evacuees at relief centres in four districts having dropped to 2,984 from 3,512 last night.

A spokesman for the state flood operations room said the Pasir Mas district had the highest number of evacuees at 1,704, next Tumpat (917) and then Kuala Krai (310) and Machang (53).

He said 12 major roads in five districts remained closed to traffic, and they included Jalan Pantai Cahaya at Km4 in Kota Baru, Jalan Machang-Pangkal Meleret-Wakaf Bata in Machang, Jalan Rantau Panjang-Panglima Bayu in Pasir Mas, Jalan Tanah Merah-Kusial-Kampung Ipoh in Tanah Merah and Jalan Pohon Tanjung-Pasir Pekan in Tumpat.

The spokesman said the level of only one river, Sungai Golok in Rantau Panjang, was above the danger point.

In PAHANG, the number of evacuees has risen to 36.

A spokesman for the Pahang police headquarters said five families were moved out of Kampung Tasik Ria Sementah due to rising floodwaters.

"They are being accommodated at the community hall in Kampung Kundang Patah," he said.

Meanwhile, 31 people from Kampung Sungai Ular and Kampung Chendor remain at the relief centre at Sekolah Kebangsaan Cherating, Kuantan. — Bernama

Click this link to read more!

Is Doomsday coming? Perhaps, but not in 2012 — Dennis Overbye

NOV 17 — NASA said last week that the world was not ending — at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us that everything is fine?

On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one last blowout.

CERN’s pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.

The announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close.

The doomsday buzz reached a high point with the release of the new movie “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich, who previously inflicted misery on the Earth from aliens and glaciers in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on Dec 21, 2012, causes the Sun to go berserk with mighty storms on its surface that pour out huge numbers of the elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos.

Somehow the neutrinos transmute into other particles and heat up the Earth’s core. The Earth’s crust loses its moorings and begins to weaken and slide around. Los Angeles falls into the ocean; Yellowstone blows up, showering the continent with black ash.

Tidal waves wash over the Himalayas, where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select 400,000 people can ride out the storm.

But this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In other variations, a planet named Nibiru crashes into us or the Earth’s magnetic field flips.

There are hundreds of books devoted to 2012, and millions of Web sites, depending on what combination of “2012” and “doomsday” you type into Google.

All of it, astronomers say, is bunk.

“Most of what’s claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ “ Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, and an expert on ancient astronomy, wrote in an article in the November issue of Sky & Telescope.

Personally, I have been in love with end-of-the-world stories since I started consuming science fiction as a disaffected child.

Scaring the pants off the public has been pretty much the name of the game ever since Orson Welles broadcast “War of the Worlds,” a fake newscast about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, in 1938.

But the trend has gone too far, suggested David Morrison, an astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who made the YouTube video and is one of the agency’s point people on the issue of Mayan prophecies of doom.

“I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money,” Dr. Morrison said. “There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck.”

Morrison said he had been getting about 20 letters and e-mail messages a day from people as far away as India scared out of their wits. In an e-mail message, he enclosed a sample that included one from a woman wondering if she should kill herself, her daughter and her unborn baby.

Another came from a person pondering whether to put her dog to sleep to avoid suffering in 2012. All of this reminded me of the kinds of letters I received last year about the putative black hole at CERN. That too was more science fiction than science fact, but apparently there is nothing like death to bring home the abstract realms of physics and astronomy.

In such situations, when the Earth or the universe is trying to shrug you and your loved ones off this mortal plane, the cosmic does become personal.

Morrison said he did not blame the movie for all this, as much as the many other purveyors of the Mayan prediction, as well as the apparent failure of some people, reflected in so many arenas of our national life, to tell reality from fiction. But then, he said, “my doctorate is in astronomy, not psychology.”

In an e-mail exchange, Krupp said: “We are always uncertain about the future, and we always consume representations of it. We are always lured by the romance of the ancient past and by the exotic scale of the cosmos. When they combine, we are mesmerized.”

A NASA spokesman, Dwayne Brown, said the agency did not comment on movies, leaving that to movie critics. But when it comes to science, Brown said, “we felt it was prudent to provide a resource.”

If you want to worry, most scientists say, you should think about global climate change, rogue asteroids or nuclear war. But if speculation about ancient prophecies gets you going, here are some things Morrison and the others think you should know.

To begin with, astronomers agree, there is nothing special about the Sun and galactic center aligning in the sky. It happens every December with no physical consequences beyond the over-consumption of eggnog. And anyway, the Sun and the galactic center will not exactly coincide even in 2012.

If there were another planet out there heading our way, everybody could see it by now. As for those fierce solar storms, the next sunspot maximum will not happen until 2013, and will be on the mild side, astronomers now say.

Geological apocalypse is a better bet. There have been big earthquakes in California before and probably will be again. These quakes could destroy Los Angeles, as shown in the movie, and Yellowstone could erupt again with cataclysmic force sooner or later.

We and our works are indeed fragile and temporary riders on the Earth. But in this case, “sooner or later” means hundreds of millions of years, and there would be plenty of warning.

The Mayans, who were good-enough astronomers and timekeepers to predict Venus’s position 500 years in the future, deserve better than this.

Mayan time was cyclic, and experts like Krupp and Anthony Aveni, an astronomer and anthropologist at Colgate University, say there is no evidence that the Mayans thought anything special would happen when the odometer rolled over on this Long Count in 2012.

There are references in Mayan inscriptions to dates both before the beginning and the ending of the present Long Count, they say, just as your next birthday and April 15 loom beyond New Year’s Eve, on next year’s calendar.

So keep up those mortgage payments. — NYT

Click this link to read more!

More wives = less adultery and prostitution?

RAWANG, Nov 14 — Don’t marry young virgin girls; marry single mothers or widows instead. This was a suggestion made recently by a Kelantan state official to would-be polygamists.

But the idea drew flak from some critics, who said instead that more efforts should be made to reduce divorce rates and assist single mothers.

The issue of polygamy is being hotly debated now, with the controversial Kelantan official’s suggestion and the emergence of a Polygamy Club founded in August by the wife of a polygamist.

Hatijah Aam, 55, said she started the club with the aim of curbing social ills such as prostitution and adultery. It has 300 members.

“After sharing the same man for 30 years, we are like sisters,” Hatijah told The Straits Times. Sitting beside her, Noraziah Ibrahim, 52, the younger wife of Hatijah’s husband, smiled.

Noraziah met Hatijah’s husband after her own partner had died.

“She had children to feed. Can you imagine? She needed help,” said Hatijah.

The two are married to 72-year-old Ashaari Muhammad, patriarch of a clan spawned from five marriages — he has since divorced one wife, while another died in a car accident while on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in 2003.

Of his 38 children, 19 sons and four daughters are also polygamists. Ashaari has 200 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

“Some people think polygamy is bad, but it is actually a beautiful thing,” said Hatijah.

Most Malaysians remember Ashaari as having led a deviant Islamic sect that was banned in 1994 because of his claims that he was able to absolve sins, and that an Islamic messiah from the east would appear ahead of a prophesied doomsday.

Ashaari suffered a stroke in 2003, and is now unable to speak. His third wife was not present at the interview as she was tending to him.

The family’s story is just one example of polygamous marriages in Malaysia.

Muslim men are allowed up to four wives under Islamic law. Critics say the practice is cruel and has been distorted from its original purpose.

The practice was prevalent during Prophet Muhammad’s era to provide for the many widows and orphans, as a consequence of men dying in frequent wars.

Activists say most modern polygamists in Malaysia marry younger women and neglect their first wives.

While Hatijah’s family seems to be living harmoniously, rights groups argue that most polygamous families suffer abuse and jealousy.

Sisters in Islam (SIS), a non-governmental organisation which upholds the rights of Muslim women and campaigns against the practice, says polygamy is not a solution to prostitution.

“Marriage — whether polygamous or not — cannot be a cure-all for an issue as complex as sex work,” SIS programme manager Masjaliza Hamzah told The Straits Times.

“Society should stop seeing marriage as the one-stop answer to the issues and concerns faced not only by women sex workers, but also single mothers, widows and older women.”

She quoted verses from the Quran which discourage polygamy, and pointed out that although Prophet Muhammad practised it, he did not allow his son-in-law to marry another woman unless he divorced the Prophet’s daughter.

Only 2.8 per cent of Muslim marriages here are polygamous.

Different states also have varying criteria for would-be polygamists.

Kuala Lumpur requires a written consent or views from existing wives. In Perak, a man’s promise to treat wives fairly is sufficient.

Hanafiah Hamzah, a 53-year-old television cameraman, said strangers look down on him for having more than one wife. “Society looks down on polygamists. People always think it is for the sex,” he told The Straits Times.

Hanafiah married his first wife, who is now 47, two decades ago. Seven years later, he married his second wife, now 36.

While both wives are cordial to each other, he admits it is not easy.

“You cannot be fair to both of them. If a wife or a child is sick, who do you go to?

“If my friends say they want to be polygamous, I always tell them, you better not. My first wife never used to complain, but now she gets frustrated easily. It is my mistake,” he said.

Masjaliza said there is some stigma attached to the practice: “People don’t wear it like a badge of honour. There is a level of discomfort. Maybe people are ashamed.”

Indeed, while some top leaders in the ruling Umno and the opposition PAS have more than one wife, most of them attend official functions accompanied by only one wife.

But this is not deterring Hatijah, who is branching out Polygamy Club to Indonesia.

The government has warned that the club could be a ploy.

The family has been ‘trying very hard to deceive the public’ into reviving the banned religious cult through religious, business and social activities, Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, director-general of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia, told the New Straits Times. — Straits Times

Click this link to read more!

Nizar will win the appeal unless...

NOV 12 — “Show us any provision in the Perak Constitution empowering the Sultan of Perak to sack Nizar”. That was fundamentally the gist of the submission made by Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin’s legal team in the recently concluded appeal at the Federal Court.

Datuk Zambry Kadir’s lawyers as well as the Attorney-General, in asking the apex court to affirm the decision of the Court of Appeal, submitted that Zambry is the lawful mentri besar (MB) as he was appointed by the Sultan under Article 16 (2) of the Perak Constitution.

Not so soon, replied Nizar’s lawyers. Before Zambry may claim that he is the lawful MB he has to discharge the burden of proving that the office of the MB rightfully held by Nizar was indeed vacant. Alternatively, Zambry has to prove that Nizar was validly or constitutionally sacked by the Sultan.

As rightly pointed out by Harley CJ (Borneo) in Stephen Kalong Ningkan vs Tun Abang Haji Openg and Tawi Sli (1966) 2 MLJ 187, there are two situations where the Governor (or the Sultan as the case may be) may exercise his absolute discretion namely (a) on the issue of the appointment of MB or (b) withholding consent to dissolve the State Assembly.

Nevertheless, as Harley rightly cautioned “As regards to (a), nobody could be so foolish to suggest that a Governor could appoint a second Chief Minister while there was still one in office...”

What is plain and obvious in this case is that until the appeal was heard on Nov 5, 2009 Zambry has not been able to prove that the office of MB held by Nizar was vacant. Nor has he been able to prove that Nizar was legally or constitutionally removed by the Sultan.

Zambry’s lawyers, and of course the A-G, submitted further that since Nizar had, by a letter dated Feb 5, 2009, asked the Sultan to dissolve the State Assembly under Article 16 (6) of the Perak Constitution and since the Sultan had withheld his consent to dissolve the Assembly, Nizar and his exco members have no other options but to resign en bloc.

They further submitted that in his letter to the Sultan, Nizar had stated therein that there was a deadlock in that the numbers of the state assemblymen of BN and PR were equal, namely 28 each, as the seats of the three defected assemblymen were duly declared vacant by the Speaker. By conceding that the numbers were equal, they argued, Nizar would definitely be defeated if a vote of no-confidence was to be carried out. This is because the Speaker (Sivakumar) could not cast his vote under the Perak Constitution. Thus, they argued, Nizar would lose by one vote.

In reply, Nizar’s team submitted that before Article 16 (6) would apply, there must be cogent proof that Nizar had indeed lost the vote of no-confidence of his peers in the State Assembly. It was not disputed in this case that hitherto, Nizar has not lost any vote of no-confidence simply because no such a vote has been carried out at any time. Thus the condition precedent of Article 16 (6) was not met by Zambry.

Nizar’s team also relied on historical precedent. Historically speaking, as far as the issue of MB’s removal is concerned, the constitutional convention endorsed the practice of casting votes of no-confidence which was to be held in the State Assembly. Apart from Stephen Kalong Ningkan, the downfall of the PAS government in Terengganu in 1961 was also another case in point.

In 1959, PAS captured Terengganu and in turn formed a coalition government with the help of Parti Negara. One Daud Samad was duly appointed as the MB. However, the lifespan of such a government was too short. On Oct 26, 1961 the Information Chief of Umno declared that three assemblymen each from PAS and Parti Negara had defected to Perikatan’s team.

On Oct 30, 1961 a vote of no-confidence was duly passed by the Terengganu State Assembly evidencing the demise of Daud Samad as the MB of Terengganu. The attempt by Daud Samad thereafter to ask the Sultan for the dissolution of State Assembly was rejected by the latter. The Sultan instead appointed Ibrahim Fikri from Perikatan as a new MB.

The aforementioned historical precedent demonstrates that the Sultan only made a decision refusing to dissolve the State Assembly after a vote of no-confidence was duly passed by the State Assembly. If this precedent was duly observed, would we have to see what we have seen in Perak?

With regard to Zambry’s arguments that Nizar would lose a vote of no-confidence on the basis that Sivakumar could not vote, this was a reply by Nizar’s team: “Yes, constitutionally speaking Sivakumar, being the Speaker, could not vote. However, what shall bar him from stepping down as the speaker when voting really takes place? What shall bar him from becoming an ordinary member of (the) State Assembly and in turn exercising his right to vote if Umno is confident enough of bringing a motion of non confidence against Nizar?”

If Umno is too foolish, it may appoint another state assemblyman from its side to replace Sivakumar and if this really happens a vote of no-confidence against Nizar will remain wishful thinking.

When Nizar refused to resign, his team submitted, was the Sultan given the power to sack him? Zambry’s teams said yes, the Sultan has such a power. Nizar’s team replied “show us any provision in the Perak Constitution giving the Sultan of such an express power.” Zambry’s team submitted the Sultan was deemed to have such a power. Nizar’s team retorted “show us the said deeming provision enshrined in the Perak Constitution”. Of course, no such deeming provision exists.

Nizar’s team then submitted that there must a deeming provision in the Perak Constitution stating in no uncertain terms that when the MB refuses to resign, his office is deemed to be vacant by the operation of law.

Nizar’s team quoted a very clear example of such a deeming provision in the Perak Constitution. Article 19 (1) in Part 2 of the Perak Constitution is such a classic example. The said Article expressly provides that the Sultan is deemed to have vacated his Throne if he fails to attend the Senate meeting for a very long period without sufficient or reasonable grounds. You notice no such deeming provision exists as far as the removal of MB is concerned.

To add further, Nizar’s team submitted that Article 16 (7) of the Perak Constitution expressly provides that, unlike the State exco members who hold their positions at the pleasure of the Sultan, the MB’s office is not at the pleasure of the Sultan. Thus, any suggestion by Zambry’s lawyers that Nizar could be removed by the Sultan was, at best, fanciful and at worst, smacks of power hunger on Zambry’s part.

Being in Nizar’s teams, I believe that the Court of Appeal has erred in law when it dismissed Nizar’s appeal but the question remains, is our Federal Court willing to upset and overturn such a decision by the Court of Appeal? May the Federal court be reminded that cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare (anyone can err, but only the fool persists in his fault)

Nizar deserves to win the appeal unless of course… (please fill in the blanks).
Click this link to read more!

JAIS targets ex-Perlis mufti for unauthorised lecture

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 — Ex-Perlis mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin could face an Islamic court for ostensibly lecturing without a permit after he was briefly held at a religious lecture in Ampang last night but the maverick is claiming blatant persecution.

He has been ordered to turn up for further questioning at the Gombak district Islamic Affairs Department at 9am today after he was earlier freed at 1.10am on police bail.

He told reporters later the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (JAIS) claimed he was giving lectures without a permit.

"I take this as selective persecution as they have always targeted me. This is a planned arrest as I am sure there are other religious lectures or gatherings like this elsewhere in Selangor," said Asri, who recently returned from post-graduate studies in Britain.

Some 35 JAIS enforcement officials and 25 policemen detained him at the lecture in a businessman's house in the posh Taman Sri Ukay area at about 9.30pm. More than 300 people including PKR Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin and Hulu Klang assemblyman Saari Sungib were at the lecture that began at 8pm.

"The JAIS action doesn't make sense not because I want them to respect me but they should know that I am the former Perlis mufti," he added.

A mufti is the highest-ranking religious official appointed to advise a state Ruler on Islamic laws, which is under royal purview. A mufti has wide powers that even the Selangor palace recently ticked off its religious executive councillor Datuk Dr Hasan Ali for interfering in the execution of Islamic laws.

But Asri, who is being courted by PAS to join the Islamist party, questioned the need for a permit for those lecturing in Selangor.

"I want to explain that even when I was the Perlis mufti, JAIS said that all muftis can lecture in Selangor except me.

"So imagine if they ask me why I didn't apply for authorisation. They had already stopped me from speaking when I was holding the mufti post," he added.

Always a controversial figure while even a mufti, Asri had recently slammed critics against his appointment as head of national Islamic missionary movement YADIM sponsored by the federal government.

He had also courted bad publicity in the past for allegedly following the puritanical Wahabbi Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.

"They didn't arrest me for being a Wahabbi, just for not having a permit to lecture," Asri clarified. Most Malaysian Muslims follow the Shafie school of jurisprudence, one of the four recognised schools in Sunni Islam.

Ampang district police chief ACP Abdul Jalil Hassan told Bernama that police only helped in the raid and he had no knowledge it was related to the ex-Perlis mufti. (TMI)

Click this link to read more!