Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

By WH Cheng When we starting asking, is it worth supporting the Palestinian course, we are very certain that most of you would be dumb for a moment and later on began asking on the motive of this question. Some of you would definitely retaliate by saying that such initiatives are humanitarian and no one should question nor against it. Some of you might also publicly condemn those who oppose or question the support for Palestine. And even the majority of our Bumiputra youths today are obsessed with the Palestinian course which can be traced back during the era of former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who believes Malaysia should express its views on the plight of the Palestinians “without fear or favour”. In fact, our government was very supportive of former Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat and his vision for a Palestinian state. Little known to many of us, despite decades of financial support and other monetary allocations to the Palestinian humanit...

By Cindi Loo - TheAntDaily.com Barisan Nasional has been claiming a moral victory for reducing the winning margin of PAS in the recent Sungai Limau state by-election in Kedah. More importantly, in the eyes of BN, it has regained the confidence of the Chinese voters. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak proclaimed there was an increase in support by the Chinese as indicated by two ballot boxes from Chinese-majority areas that went to BN. "Previously, we lost the contest for the seat by a 2,774-vote majority, but now we have reduced it to 1,084-vote majority. It shows that there is a trend of increased support for BN,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama. But PAS promptly disputed Najib’s reading, saying that the voter turnout was smaller than it was in the May 5 general election. Only 85.5 per cent of the voters cast their ballots during the Nov 3 by-election, compared with the 89.2 per cent turnout in the May 5 polls. PAS Sungai Limau by-election committe...

We guess, many of you would be wondering why are we asking such question, “What has MCA done to the Chinese community in Malaysia?” Obviously, none of us would ever realize the real and terrible impact that MCA has made onto the Malaysian Chinese and if they were to see this, the definite question too would be, “done what?”, “don’t know”, “not aware”, “none of our business”, or even, “we don't want to know at all”. The inception of MCA in 1949 can be traced back from the origins of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) and its chapter in the then Malaya, which was famously known as Kuomintang Malaya (KMT Malaya). In aftermath of the Second World War and the defeat of the KMT forces in China in 1949, the KMT Malaya has began to move towards transforming its Malayan chapter into a local Chinese based organization in order to preserve its existence and long term political opportunity in this county. And this is how MCA was born in February 1949, where the party later teamed up...

Well the Penang Barisan Nasional Chinese New Year open house is now over. However, most of us are still talking about this because of the refusal of Korean k-pop singer Psy to go up to the stage for the Chinese "yee sang" tossing ceremony. Are are people continuing to talk and argue about is the threat on Psy's life as claimed by Penang BN chairman and Gerakan secretary-general Teng Chang Yeow. After that, Teng came out with yet another claim saying that the crowd who shouted "No" down there were in fact sabotage carried out by some quarters from the opposition parties. Now, talking about the threat on Psy's life by Teng, how come Najib was allowed to be continue standing on the stage and yet he has the time to take some pictures of the crowd in front of him. He was standing up there quite long just to wait for Psy to come up for the BN's "yee sang". If there's really a threat on Psy, why didn't the police act on the claim? Why did...

To our very surprise, the Gerakan Youth had sprung up in public last week to voice their displeasure over the current Gerakan's branches and divisional leaderships which its party youth chief Lim Si Pin claimed that they are still being dominated by local party warlords and these local leaders had refused to make way for younger leaders within the party to take helm the branches and divisional leadership. Just like their larger BN colleagues, Umno, MCA and MIC, it seems Gerakan is also suffering from the same kind of situation from within its ranks. Yes, factionalism and warlordism in the party is very strong when the party has been in power for decades long. During Gerakan's years in Penang (as the state government and the party's power base) until 2008, factional feuds and warlords within the party's ranks in branches and divisions are widely known. It is believed that until today, there are about 6 factions still active in Penang Gerakan with each of these fac...