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A letter to post-SPM students - The Malaysian Insider
We spent two years of our lives preparing for SPM with the hopes that we will get excellent result and scholarship. The immediate step following the SPM results, namely the scholarship application process or/and higher education enrolment, requires us to choose a path.
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My former schoolmate who never returned to Malaysia - The Malaysian Insider
Of course, he and I are the same age (37 years old this year, and proud of it!) and for the sake of context, I would like to let everyone know that he is a Chinese Malaysian. He left Malaysia right after the SPM examination to further his studies in the US. As we chatted over coffee, I asked him why he never came back to Malaysia to look for a job. His sister went to university in New Zealand and decided to head back to Malaysia as soon as she graduated to get a job in the IT industry.
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Man pays RM15,000 for 27kg empurau – BorneoPost Online | Borneo , Malaysia, Sarawak Daily New
KAPIT: A man in Song paid a whopping RM15,000 yesterday for the prized local freshwater fish known as empurau. After much bargaining at Song Bazaar, Chua Fun Tien became the proud owner of the massive 27kg fish caught by a lucky fisherman from Sungai Katibas. Empurau is the most expensive of Kapit’s freshwater fish due to its rarity and possibly because its name in Chinese sounds like eternal youth. In recent years empurau has been raised in ponds, but the price of these fish is much lower at between RM500 and RM600 per kg.
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'Extreme nudity' in Najib's administration
COMMENT Transparency and accountability like no other PM has practised.
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Jho Low denies allegations over state investment firm - The Malaysian Insider
– The Malaysian Insider file pic, March 7, 2015.A Malaysian businessman has strongly denied a report by a website that he benefited from alleged improprieties in a complex 2009 financial deal involving a government-owned investment company. Lawyers for Low Taek Jho, known popularly as Jho Low, who has been at the centre of growing calls for a full investigation of the controversy, said the allegation was "false, materially misleading and is categorically denied by our client". The accusations were contained in a report last weekend by Sarawak Report, a UK-based site run by a former BBC journalist that focuses on Malaysian corruption allegations. The report, parts of which also appeared in the UK's Sunday Times and on Friday in The Economist, published a series of alleged internal emails that it said showed US$700 million (RM2.5 billion) involved in the deal between the state-owned Malaysian firm, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), and Saudi energy company PetroSaudi was sent to a bank account belonging to a company controlled by Low.
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Three ways MH370’s disappearance changed Malaysia — Adam Minter
MARCH 7 — One year later, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is still Malaysia’s biggest story, dominating front pages when even the smallest new details emerge. The missing flight, and the Malaysian government’s controversial early responses to it, have had a staggering impact on the country. Politically, diplomatically, and economically, Malaysia is vastly different than it was a year ago. For more than 50 years, Malaysia has been ruled by the same governing coalition, one with a reputation for lacking transparency and scorning media scrutiny.
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Kota Baru PAS to name candidate to challenge Hadi - The Malaysian Insider
– The Malaysian Insider file pic, March 7, 2015.As PAS kicks off a series of division-level annual general meetings today, its Kota Baru division is expected to nominate a candidate to challenge Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, despite early prediction that the No. 1 post would not be contested. Sources told The Malaysian Insider that the division had picked the candidate “a long time ago”, which it considered as a person capable of solving the internal politicking currently plaguing the Islamist party. The meeting today will decide whether the candidate is accepted by all the representatives. PAS Kota Baru division chief Datuk Wan Abdul Rahim Wan Abdullah declined to elaborate but said that he was leaving it to the representatives to decide.
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Penang CM wants assemblymen to be in their constituencies tomorrow
— Picture by K.E. OoiGEORGE TOWN, March 6 — Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has warned DAP assemblymen in the state not to join the #Kita Lawan” rally, to be held at the square near the Sogo shopping complex, Kuala Lumpur, tomorrow. He asserted that they had to be present at their respective constituencies for the simultaneous launching of a senior citizens appreciation programme that day. “We are a responsible government and tomorrow is the launch of the Senior Citizens Appreciation Programme in all the constituencies, so the assemblymen must be present in their respective areas,” he told reporters.
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Don’t shoot the messenger over 1MDB mess, says DAP - The Malaysian Insider
- The Malaysian Insider pic, March 6, 2015The DAP today questioned why Umno minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was 'shooting the messenger' over controversies surrounding debt-laden 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) instead of blaming those who robbed Malaysia and its taxpayers of their money. The party's publicity chief Tony Pua said that the opposition, the media and financial analysts have been raising questions about the fund over the last five years, but Putrajaya and its ministers have not taken heed. The DAP lawmaker said the public cannot be blamed for raising concerns over the solvency of the fund after it failed to pay a relatively small debt of RM2 billion upon missing at least three deadlines and needing a last minute loan from local tycoon Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan. Ahmad Zahid had reportedly said that the attacks and unsubstantiated claims by certain parties on 1MDB would affect the country's image and is seen as a concerted attack on Malaysia.
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'Fifty Shades Of Grey' Booze Ban In Idaho? Say It Aint So!
The Idaho State Police’s Alcohol Beverage Control has contacted at least two theaters showing the popular R-rated flick, ordering them to comply with a law banning businesses from serving booze to people watching sexually explicit films. “I just found it odd that this movie was singled out,” moviegoer Michele Williams, 50, of Eagle, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise in a story published Friday. “Movies like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ the ladies come to our theater — responsible mothers, grandmothers, etc. — they watch a movie, they share wine,” said Dave Corkill, owner of theater operator Cinema West.
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Study: Eat rice with chopsticks to reduce blood sugar level - Regional | The Star Online
SINGAPORE: If you want to control your blood sugar levels, one effective way could be to eat rice with chopsticks, say local nutrition experts.
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What will it take to find our moral compass? - The Malaysian Insider
Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement that the "Cabinet expressed confidence that no wrongdoing has been committed within 1MDB” after a two-hour briefing by the Finance Ministry-owned investment company 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and its auditor Deloitte concerning recent developments involving the fund. That statement has zero value, to put it mildly, because it merely confirms that the internal check-and-balance function that the Cabinet should play in overseeing government affairs is conspicuously absent at this point in time. Without going into the details of the 1MDB fiasco, it is evident that the troubles at the investment fund have become the subject of international financial and media attention. Therefore any official scrutiny of the debt-laden government company must meet the minimum standards of accountability and transparency for it to carry weight, and especially to avoid any imputations that problems that should concern the public may be whitewashed by such an inquiry.
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Muhyiddin insists no bailout for 1MDB, wants thorough audit from 2009 accounts - The Malaysian Insider
– The Malaysian Insider filepic, March 6, 2015.Efforts to handle 1Malaysia Development Bhd's (1MDB) debts must not involve a bail-out of the government-owned strategic investment firm using public funds, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said tonight. He also said the 1MDB board of directors must explain some of the company's transactions that has appeared not to be profitable in the long run to the firm or government, in a departure from the Cabinet's statement on Wednesday that cleared 1MDB of any wrongdoing in its business transactions. "I am of the opinion that the Auditor-General must audit 1MDB's accounts in a transparent, independent and comprehensive manner since the company's inception, as the allegations of dereliction relates to transactions done since 2009 which were not included in the 2013 annual accounts audited by the Deloitte firm," Muhyiddin said in the statement when welcoming the prime minister's directive to the Auditor-General to verify 1MDB's accounts.
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Indians welcome Holi festival in riot of colour - The Malaysian Insider
– AFP pic, March 7, 2015.Millions across India welcomed spring with their annual "festival of colours" on Friday, celebrating by covering each other in water and dazzling paint. The ancient Hindu festival of Holi, which heralds the end of winter and the victory of good over evil, is marked with a national public holiday and sees revellers pour onto the streets. May this festival of colours fill your lives with lots of joy," tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, the start of the two-day festivities.
The Malaysian Insider q -
PKR veep downplays 'too busy to rally' issue
On the street, he says, there are no titles such as MPs or state assemblypersons.
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The ‘non-Bumis’ in our lives - The Malaysian Insider
Sometime in late 1998, Father Lawrence Andrew, the editor of Catholic weekly Herald, was called in to substitute the parish priest for the Sunday morning mass at the Church of Our Lady of Fatima in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. It was a period known for its "Reformasi" protests, not long after the sacking and subsequent arrest of former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Fr Lawrence said then that so many people were complaining about the government and those in authority but they did not realise that the "sick" state of the country was not due only to the actions of those in power. Fr Lawrence explained how the ills of society reflects back on ourselves, with such wrongdoings or bad behaviour being manifested on a larger scale with even greater abuses by those to whom we have entrusted the nation and all that it holds.
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Bank Negara’s International reserves at RM386 billion as of end February - The Malaysian Insider
Bank Negara Malaysia's (BNM) international reserves amounted to RM386.0 billion (US$110.5 billion) as at February 27, 2015. The central bank said the…
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Tan Sri's son feared dead in burnt car | theSundaily
KUALA LUMPUR: The son of an ex-political advisor to former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is feared dead following the recovery of a charred body of a man in a burnt car at Bukit Damansara today. Police traced the razed car, a silver Perodua Myvi three hours later to the 80-year-old political advisor who is a Tan Sri and was told by the man that his 40-year-old son had left the house in the vehicle at 9am. The Tan Sri's house was barely a kilometre from the site where the burnt car was found. At about 10.30am, members of the Pantai Fire and Rescue department received a call from a security guard who reported spotting thick smoke billowing from a jungle at Jalan Setia Bestari.
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Najib sues Tony Pua over 1MDB, says report - The Malaysian Insider
– The Malaysian Insider pic by Nazir Sufari, March 6, 2015.Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is suing DAP national publicity chief Tony Pua for defamation over comments on debt-laden strategic investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd. The suit is believed to be over a speech Pua made at a party fundraiser last November, where the lawmaker allegedly said Najib had robbed the people. The suit was filed at the Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday by law firm Hafarizam Wan Aisha and Mubarak. In an immediate response, Pua told The Malaysian Insider said that he had already responded to the letter of demand sent by the prime minister in November.
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Fatimah: Percentage of students failing English language ‘scary’ – BorneoPost Online | Borneo , Malaysia, Sarawak Daily New
KUCHING: The percentage of students failing the English language in their public exams has been called “scary” by Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Development Datuk Fatimah Abdullah. “For Sarawak, it is very scary indeed, since the percentage of failures in the English language in public exams like Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) increased from 19.4 per cent in 2013 to 23.16 percent in 2014. “Out of 30,000 students taking the subject in 2014, the percentage figure indicates that about one quarter failed in the subject.
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