Dec 19, 2009

Malaysia Boleh!

I have no words to say when our national football team won the Sea Games gold medal in Laos recently. I hope the victory is a turning point for the future of our national football.

Our Tigers finally roared after 20 years of waiting, they triumphed over Vietnam in the football final of the 25th SEA Games in Laos, 1-0 score line giving Malaysia's first gold medal in the event in two decades. Malaysia were last crowned in 1989 defeating tough rivals Singapore in the 1989 edition of the games that was hosted in Kuala Lumpur.

Vietnam trounced Singapore 4-1 at their semi final while Malaysia had beaten hosts Laos 3-1 in the same stage. Malaysia overturned a lackluster first-half performance to beat it's opponent, it defeated Vietnam although lost an earlier encounter between the two teams at the group stage.

The win is all the more precious for Under-23 squad, which had arrived at the SEA Games with little to no hope of leaving with a medal. Now, they are coming home with the gold. Our side has fallen a long way since the heady days of the 1970s and 1980.

Failure to nurture talent, racism, poor management, cronyism, corruption and a lack of government support are the main problems that haunting Malaysia’s football. It seems like these problems are handled in the better manner now as our performance is recovering from day to day.

Congratulations to Malaysian Tigers for fulfilling 27 million Malaysian’s dream, definitely the main credit goes to the coach K Rajagopal 'Tiger King' for the hard works in building up the 25th Sea Games football squad and his superb guidance to his boys.

HEAD COACH K RAJAGOPAL WITH HIS BOYS

TEAM CAPTAIN AIDIL ZAQUAN (8) WITH GURUSAMY (16)

MALAYSIAN PLAYERS CELEBRATING THEIR VICTORY OVER VIETNAM


THE STAFF:

Team Manager
Datuk Redzuan Sheikh Ahmad

Assistant Manager
Datuk Subahan Kamal

Head Coach
K. Rajagopal

Assistant Coach
Tan Cheng Hoe

Goalkeeping Coach
Mohd. Faozi Mukhlas


THE SQUAD:

Goalkeepers
Mohd Farizal Marlias
Mohd Sharbini Mohd Alawee

Defenders
Mohd Sabre Mat Abu
Mohd Azmi Muslim
Mohd Asraruddin Putra Omar
Mohd Nasriq Baharom
Mohd Muslim Ahmad
Mohd Aidil Zafuan Abdul Radzak
Mahali Jasuli
Mazlizam Mohamad

Midfielders
Baddrol Bakhtiar
S. Kunanlan
K. Gurusamy
Mohd Safiq Rahim
Mohd Amirul Hadi Zainal
Amar Rohidan

Strikers
Abdul Manaf Mamat
Norshahrul Idlan Talaha
Ahmad Fakri Saarani
Mohd Zaquan Adha Abdul Radzak

Dec 17, 2009

Islamic or Secular?

Tunku Abdul Rahman upheld the independence social contract of a secular Malaysia with Islam as its official religion. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Abdul Rahman stated in the The Star newspaper of 9 February 1983 that the "country has a multi-racial population with various beliefs. Malaysia must continue as a secular State with Islam as the official religion."

In the same issue of The Star, Abdul Rahman was supported by the third Malaysian Prime Minister, Hussein Onn, who stated that the "nation can still be functional as a secular state with Islam as the official religion.
Just compare Malaysia with Indonesia and India. Indonesia with its 80 percent Muslim population is committed to secular, plural polity embracing its Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities. While India is not a Hindu Nation although has significant majority Hindus. 80.5% or 800 million of Hindus are currently in India. Some local politicians are calling Malaysia as “Islamic Nation” with only almost 60% of Muslim around. So is it logic and acceptable?

I have a question for our Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak! What's your stand on this? Malaysia is an Islamic or secular nation?

Dec 16, 2009

Anwar Ibrahim Listed Among Top 100 Global Thinkers

1. Ben Bernanke

2. Barack Obama


3. Zahra Rahnavard


4. Nouriel Roubini


5. Rajendra Pachauri

6. Bill Clinton

7. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

8. David Petraeus

9. Zhou Xiaochuan

10. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif

11. Fernando Henrique Cardoso


12. Bill Gates

13. Dick Cheney

14. Larry Summers


15. Martin Wolf


16. Mohamed El-Erian


17. Benedict


18. Richard Dawkins


19. Malcolm Gladwell


20. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart


21. Thomas Friedman


22. Robert Shiller

23. Vaclav Havel


24. Chris Anderson

25. Joseph Stiglitz


26. Aung San Suu Kyi


27. Robert Wright


28. Elinor Ostrom


29. Paul Krugman


30. Kofi Annan


31. Bernard-Henri Lévy


33. Robert Zoellick and Dominique Strauss-Kahn


34. John Holdren and Steven Chu


35. Nicholas Stern


36. Paul Collier


37. Fareed Zakaria


38. George Soros


39. Jeffrey D. Sachs


40. William Easterly


41. Esther Duflo


42. Jared Diamond


43. Richard Posner


44. David Kilcullen


45. Abdolkarim Soroush


46. Muhammad Yunus


47. Christopher Hitchens


48. Ayaan Hirsi Ali i Al


49. Tariq Ramadan

50. Nicholas Christakis


51. Ahmed Rashid


52. Helene Gayle


53. Linus Torvalds


54. Tim Berners-Lee


55. Henry Kissinger


56. Niall


57. Baltasar Garzón


58. Amartya Sen


59. Barbara Ehrenreich


60. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita


61. Salam Fayyad


62. Xu Zhiyong


63. Mario Vargas Llosa


64. Michael Ignatieff

65. Francis Fukuyama

66. The Kagan Family (Donald, Robert, Frederick, and Kimberly)


67. C. Raja Mohan


68. James Hansen


69. Freeman Dyson


70. Esther Dyson 1. Ray Kurzweil


72. Jamais Cascio


73. Nick Bostrom


74. Gordon Brown


75. Richard Haass


76. George Ayittey


77. Amory Lovins


78. Bill McKibben


79. Anne-Marie Slaughter


80. Samantha Power


81. John Arquilla


82. Peter W. Singer


83. Paul Farmer

84 . Hu Shuli

85. Jacqueline Novogratz


86. Jacques Attali


87. Karen Armstrong


88. Sunita Narain


89. Adam Michnik


90. Minxin Pei


91. Willem Buiter


92. Rizal Sukma


93. Martha Nussbaum


94. David Grossman


95. Enrique Krauze


96. Hans Rosling


97. Valerie Hudson


98. Andrew Mwenda

99. Emily Oster

100. Paul Kennedy

Read about the world thinkers here-
The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers

Read about Anwar Ibrahim here-
Anwar Ibrahim Listed Among Top 100 Global Thinkers

Dec 15, 2009

The Flying Doctor a.k.a Fastest Man in Asia

M JEGATHESAN (415) DURING 1960's

In his day, he was regarded as the fastest man in Asia. In 1966, he earned the accolade of being the fastest man in Asia by winning three gold medals at the Bangkok Asian Games in the 100 m, 200 m and 400 m events. Datuk Dr Mani Jegathesan, fondly called the Flying Doctor for blazing the tracks around Asia despite being a doctor, was an icon in the 1960s, regarded as the "Golden Era" of Malaysian athletics.

At the Kingston Commonwealth Games in 1966, Dr Jega became the first Malaysian to qualify for the final of the 220-yard (now the 200 m) race. Forty years later, Dr Jegathesan not only became an accomplished athlete, well-known doctor and researcher but did the country proud yet again through his appointment as Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) Medical Commission and honorary Medical Advisor for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Dr Jega has competed in three consecutive Olympics, namely Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964) and Mexico (1968). Dr Jega also has the distinction of appearing in two 200 m semi-finals in the Olympics and his time of 20.92 s, set in 1968 at the Mexico Olympics, still remains intact in the Malaysian athletics records book. His 200m national record in 1968 is the oldest in the records books but as much as he would love to see his record remain unbroken, he hopes Malaysian athletes would strive harder to not only smash his record but also reinstate the country's status as a leading power in athletics, just like in the 1960s.

His successors like Rabuan Pit, Watson Nyambek are always being highlighted by the media during major tournaments such as SEA Games and Asian Games, but why Dr Jega been forgotten? Because he is an ethnic Indian? Dear brothers and sisters, he represented Malaysia not India. I'm very disappointed with Malaysia for their racist mindset. The history shows that no one had achieved better in athletics than him until today, so do remember him for his contribution to Malaysia.


Dr Jegathesan: "It is my sincere hope to see Malaysia emerge as an athletics powerhouse in the region and appear in the final of a major event like the Asian, Commonwealth or Olympic Games."

Dec 13, 2009

1Malaysia: Membudayakan kencing dan pijak demi kepentingan politik

Satu lagi projek 1Malaysia! Perbuatan sesetengah pihak yang berkepentingan politik amat menjijikan. Malah aksi yang paling biadap dan tidak bertamadun ini tidak pernah berlaku dalam sejarah negara. Aksi kencing berdiri atas gambar pemimpin parti lawan juga melambangkan betapa matangnya mereka berpolitik.



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