NEWS's BLOG

MIRI: Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will release another video clip showing certain corporate leaders trying to influence judicial appointments. 

PKR vice-president Azmin Mohd Ali, who disclosed this here yesterday, said the video clip would be released soon. 

“This video clip is going to be even more damaging than the first video clip,” he said. 

“Anwar wants to testify personally in the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (on the Lingam video tape controversy). If he is not allowed to do so, he will release this video clip most probably in Kuala Lumpur.” 

Azmin also said there were two other material witnesses who had important evidence to provide.  

SIBU: A woman and her six-year-old son were found dead in their double-storey house at Jalan Langsat here.

Police have identified her as Hung Yu Yuin, 34, and her son, David Ting Yu Soon.

Sibu OCPD Asst Comm Shafie Ismail said Hung was found hanging from the ceiling of the sitting room and Ting's body was found on the floor at about 7.50pm on Sunday.

He said the boy was believed to have died of strangulation as a piece of nylon string was found at the scene.

ACP Shafie said police were investigating the motive behind the deaths.

A police party rushed to the house after receiving a telephone call from Hung's neighbours as they heard someone screaming in the house.

Police had to break down the front door as it was locked from the inside.

Sources said Hung had earlier quarrelled with her husband over some matters, and that he was not around when the tragedy happened.

PENANG: More than 100 police personnel went flat to flat to look for a Vietnamese man who robbed and raped a 19-year-old Vietnamese woman at a hostel in Relau here. 

The personnel, who were separated into 10 teams, knocked on the doors of about 1,000 units of nine blocks of Majestic Heights flats in Paya Terubong. 

George Town OCPD Asst Comm Azam Abd Hamid said 146 Vietnamese men were documented and later released during the five-hour operation, which started at midnight on Sunday. 

He said seven Vietnamese men, armed with knives, had tied up and robbed seven Vietnamese women of their RM2,000 and handphones earlier at about 8pm. 

“One of them raped one of the woman,” he said. 

ACP Azam said that the group later robbed another seven Vietnamese men of RM3,600, handphones and jewellery at a flat in Jelutong at 11.30pm. 

“In both incidents, the group, which are believed to be remnants of a gang active on the mainland, had approached their victims on the pretext of asking for a glass of water. 

“We managed to obtain photofits of the two robbers in their 20s,” he said. 

KUALA LUMPUR: There is a future in this country for every Malaysian, said Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. 

The Umno president said the party does not engage in duplicity.  

“We are not makhluk dua alam (amphibian or semi-terrestrial creatures). 

“We do not change our tune to suit the occasion or the audience. 

“We are ready to seek intelligent resolutions and win-win solutions when dealing with sensitive issues relating to race and religion,” he said. 

However, for these issues to be addressed effectively, they should be discussed behind closed doors, Abdullah said in his presidential address at the Umno general assembly on Wednesday.  

The Prime Minister said the harmony among the various communities and religions in the country was not an “optional luxury” but a necessity.  

“We have no other choice. Fifty years ago, our independence movement was successful because of the wisdom of Tunku Abdul Rahman and his colleagues who introduced the concept of power sharing,” he said.  

He added that being independent for 50 years meant that those born and raised in Malaysia, know only Malaysia as their homeland.  

“The time for championing parochial interests is over. Issues must be addressed on the basis of the interests of the nation and the Malaysian people as a whole,” he added.  

Abdullah stressed that basic matters, such as that relating to the sanctity of religion, beliefs and practices, Malay interests and the social contract among the communities are sacred and should not be raised.  

“Similarly, the basic issues that were agreed upon at the time the Federal Constitution was drafted are non-negotiable,” he added.  

Abdullah said that the National Economic Policy (NEP) was never intended for anyone to rob another’s rights.  

“Although it has been 37 years since the introduction of the NEP, we......

PENANG: The police have come up with a photofit of the assailant who stabbed to death well-known civil lawyer Datuk S.P. Annamalai on Tuesday. 

George Town OCPD Asst Comm Azam Abd Hamid said the man is believed to be in his late 20s.  

"We are looking for him. We have also recorded statements from several witnesses,” he told reporters when met in his office on Thursday. 

Forensic pathologist Datuk Dr Bhupinder Singh, who conducted the post-mortem, said Annamalai was stabbed in the back and waist. 

He said Annamalai, a well-known civil lawyer, died from excessive blood loss from the liver. 

In the 6.35pm incident, a man stabbed Annamalai with a long knife while he was walking to his car with two other lawyers in Green Hall here. 

The assailant fled on a motorcycle with an accomplice, while a lawyer from the Bar Council Legal Aid Centre rushed Annamalai to the Gleneagles Medical Centre, where he died at 7.55pm.

GOMBAK: Police have arrested four foreigners in connection with the brutal murder and rape of nine-year-old Preeshena Varshiny. 

The suspects, all in their 20s and who worked with a provision shop in the gated community of Casa Mila Tower condominium in Bukit Indah, Selayang, were held last Friday. 

Selangor deputy police chief Senior Asst Comm I Mohmad Salleh said the men had been remanded until Nov 9 to assist police in the investigation. 

Last Thursday, Preeshena was found raped, sodomised and murdered. Police believed she had been pushed off from a balcony at the posh condominium. 

A security guard found her found sprawled on the ground clad in a blue T-shirt and shorts. The keys to her condominium unit were found near her body. 

It is learnt police also found a piece of paper with Preeshena’s home telephone number in a vacant unit on the second floor of the same block where she lived. 

She was believed to been was lured out of her home. The girl was said to have put up a struggle before she was pushed off the balcony. 

Initially, police thought Preeshena had slipped and fallen to her death but post mortem revealed the SRK St Mary’s pupil, who suffered a broken right arm and multiple bruises on her chest, back and private parts, was raped and sodomised. 

Police then reclassified the case as murder. 

When the incident took place, Preeshena’s parents were away at work. Her younger brother was attending a boarding school while her youngest sister was at the baby-sitter’s place.

PETALING JAYA: The final 10 teams of The Star Online's Drive for Food contest zoomed off to Penang to capture and edit moments of their trip into a video for the finals. 

Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd chief operating officer and executive director Datin Linda Ngiam flagged off the teams at Menara Star here yesterday. 

SIBU: The Chinese should make more babies to arrest the community's dwindling birth rate. 

State Urban Development and Tourism Minister Datuk Wong Soon Koh said the lower birth rate had resulted in the country's Chinese population plunging from 37% in 1957 to 25% in 2005. 

''This will slip further to 24% by 2010 and to 19% by 2030 or a drop of 1% in every five years,'' he said at the United Chinese Association's 30th anniversary dinner here. 

He also voiced concern on the high migration rate of the Chinese to other countries. 

To arrest the trend, he urged the community to boost the birth rate and to enrol their children for tertiary education in the country instead of sending them abroad. 

''There are good colleges and universities in the country to cater for the local population. There is no need to send our children abroad for further education,'' said Wong. 

Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia president Tan Sri Lim Yuk Tong said a committee has been set up to study the decline in the country's Chinese population. 

He said the committee was headed by the Federation of Sarawak Chinese Associations, which had raised the matter at the federation's recent delegates’ conference. 

Lim urged Chinese organisations to forge greater unity to safeguard and work for the community's interests.